by Tomi Adeyemi
“You are mistaken,” I blurt out. “We are not here to steal!”
“Exactly what they said before.” He wrinkles his nose at me. “You stink of their blood.”
I draw back, shrinking into Tzain’s shoulders. The man looks at me with a hatred I cannot deflect.
“She’s not lying,” Zélie rushes out, voice powered with conviction. “We’re different. The gods sent us. A Seer guided us here!”
Mama Agba … I think back to her parting words. We’re meant to do this, I want to cry out. But how can I argue that when right now all I wish was that I had never laid eyes on this scroll?
The sêntaro’s nostrils flare. He raises his arms and the air thrums with the threat of magic. He’s going to kill us.… My heart thrashes against my chest. This is where our journey ends.
Father’s old warnings ring in my head: Against magic, we don’t stand a chance. Against magic, we are defenseless.
Against magic, we die—
“I saw what this used to be,” Zélie chokes out. “I saw the towers and temples, the sêntaros who looked like you.”
The man brings his arms down slowly, and I know Zélie’s caught his attention. She swallows hard. I pray to the skies she finds the right words.
“I know they came to your home, destroyed everything you loved. They did the same thing to me. To thousands of people who look like me.” Her voice cracks and I close my eyes. Behind me, Tzain goes rigid. My throat dries with the realization of who Zélie’s talking about. I was right.
Father destroyed this place.
I think back to all the rubble, the cracked skulls, the hard look in Zélie’s gaze. The peaceful village of Ilorin up in flames. The tears streaming down Tzain’s face.
The cascade of light that escaped Binta’s palm fills my mind, more beautiful than the sun’s own rays. Where would I be now if Father had allowed Binta to live? What would all of Orïsha look like if he had just given these maji a chance?
Shame beats down on me, making me want to crawl into myself as the man raises his arms again.
I squeeze my eyes shut in preparation for pain—
The ropes vanish into thin air; our belongings reappear by our sides.
I’m still stunned by the magic when the mysterious man walks away, leaning on his staff. As we rise, he utters a simple command.
“Follow me.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ZÉLIE
WATER DRIPS DOWN the carved walls as we travel deep into the heart of the mountain, accompanied by the rhythmic thud of our guide’s staff. Golden candles line the jagged stone, illuminating the darkness with their soft blaze. As my feet pass over the cool rock, I stare at the man, still unable to believe a sêntaro stands before my very eyes. Before the Raid, only the leaders of the ten maji clans ever got to meet them in this life. Mama Agba’ll fall out of her seat when I tell her about this.
I nudge Amari aside to step closer to the sêntaro, inspecting the marks inked onto the man’s neck. They ripple along his skin with every step, dancing with the shadows of the flame.
“They are called sênbaría,” the man answers, somehow sensing my gaze. “The language of the gods, as old as time itself.”
So that’s what it looks like. I lean forward to study the symbols that would one day become the spoken language of Yoruba, giving us the tongue to cast our magic.
“They’re beautiful,” I respond.
The man nods. “The things Sky Mother creates always are.”
Amari opens her mouth but shuts it quickly, as if thinking better of it. Something bristles inside me as she walks, gaping at things that only the most powerful maji in history have a right to see.
She clears her throat and appears to dig deep, finding her voice once again. “Pardon me,” she asks. “But do you have a name?”
The sêntaro turns around and wrinkles his nose. “Everyone has a name, child.”
“Oh, I did not mean—”
“Lekan,” he cuts her off. “Olamilekan.”
The syllables tickle the furthest corners of my brain. “Olamilekan,” I repeat. “My wealth … is increased?”
Lekan turns to me with a gaze so steady I’m convinced he sees into my soul. “You remember our tongue?”
“Bits and pieces.” I nod. “My mother taught it to me when I was young.”
“Your mother was a Reaper?”
My mouth falls open in surprise. You can’t identify a maji’s powers on sight alone.
“How did you know?” I ask.
“I can sense it,” Lekan answers. “Reaper blood runs thick through your veins.”
“Can you sense magic in people who aren’t maji or divîners?” The question spills out of me, Inan coming to mind. “Is it possible for kosidán to have magic in their blood?”
“As sêntaros, we do not make that distinction. Everything is possible when it comes to the gods. All that matters is Sky Mother’s will.”
He turns, leaving me with more questions than answers. What part of Sky Mother’s will involves Inan’s hands wrapped around my throat?
I try to push thoughts of him away as we move. It feels like we’ve traveled a full kilometer through the tunnels before Lekan leads us into a dark and wide dome hollowed out in the mountain. He raises his hands with the same gravitas as before, making the air buzz with spiritual energy.
“Ìm3lè àwọn òrìshà,” he chants, the Yoruba incantation flowing from his lips like water. “Tàn sí mi ní kíá báàyí. Tan ìm3lè sí ìpàs1 awọn ọmọ rẹ!”
All at once the flames lining the walls go out, just like Tzain’s makeshift torch. But in an instant, they reignite with new life, blanketing every inch of stone with light.
“Oh…”
“My…”
“Gods…”
We marvel as we enter the dome decorated with a mural so magnificent I can hardly speak. Each meter of stone is covered in vibrant paints illustrating the ten gods, the maji clans, everything in between. It’s so much more than the crude pictures of the gods that used to exist before the Raid, the occasional hidden painting, the rare woven tapestry only brought out under the cover of darkness. Those were flickering rays of light. This mural is like staring at the face of the sun.
“What is this?” Amari breathes, spinning to take in the sights all at once.
Lekan motions us over and I pull Amari along, steadying her when she stumbles. He presses his hands into the stone before answering, “The origin of the gods.”
His golden eyes spark and bright energy escapes his palm, feeding into the wall. As the light travels along the paint, the art glows and the figures slowly come to life.
“Skies,” Amari curses, gripping my wrist. Magic and light bloom as each painting’s soul animates before our eyes.
“In the beginning, our Sky Mother created the heavens and the earth, bringing life to the vast darkness.” Bright lights swirl from the palms of the elderly woman I recognize as the statue on the first floor. Her purple robes glide like silk around her regal form as the new worlds spring to life. “On earth, Sky Mother created humans, her children of blood and bone. In the heavens she gave birth to the gods and goddesses. Each would come to embody a different fragment of her soul.”
Though I’ve heard Mama tell this story before, it’s never felt as real as it does now. It transcends the realm of fables and myths into actual history. We all stare with wide eyes and open mouths as humans and gods spring from Sky Mother at once. While the humans fall to the brown earth, the newborn deities float into the clouds above.
“Sky Mother loved all her children, each created in her image. To connect us all, she shared her gifts with the gods, and the first maji were born. Each deity took a part of her soul, a magic they were meant to gift to the humans below. Yemọja took the tears from Sky Mother’s eyes and became the Goddess of the Sea.”
A stunning dark-skinned goddess with vibrant blue eyes drops a single tear onto the world. As it lands, it explodes, creating oceans, la
kes, streams.
“Yemọja brought water to her human siblings, teaching those who worshipped her how to control its life. Her pupils studied their sister deity with unrelenting discipline, gaining mastery over the sea.”
Birth of the Tiders, I remember suddenly. Above us, the painted members of the Omi Clan twist the waters to their will, making them dance with masterful ease.
Lekan narrates the origin of god after god, explaining each deity and their maji clan as we pass. We learn of Sàngó, who took the fire from Sky Mother’s heart to create Burners; Ayao, who took the air from Sky Mother’s breath to make Winders. We study nine gods and goddesses until there’s only one left.
I wait for Lekan to start speaking, but he turns to me, expectation heavy in his gaze.
“Me?” I step forward, palms sweating as I take his place. This is the part of the story I know best, the tale Mama told me so often even Tzain could recite it. But when I was a child, it was only a myth, a fantasy adults could weave for our young eyes. For the first time the tale feels real, stitched into the very fabric of my life.
“Unlike her sisters and brothers, Oya chose to wait until the end,” I speak loudly. “She didn’t take from Sky Mother like her siblings. Instead, she asked Sky Mother to give.”
I watch as my sister deity moves with the grace of a hurricane, depicted in all her might and brilliance. The obsidian beauty kneels before her mother, red robes flowing like the wind. The sight takes my breath away. Her stance holds a power, a storm brewing beneath her black skin.
“For Oya’s patience and wisdom, Sky Mother rewarded her with mastery over life,” I continue. “But when Oya shared this gift with her worshippers, the ability transformed to power over death.”
My heartbeat quickens as the Reapers of the Ikú Clan display their lethal abilities, the maji I was born to become. Even as paintings, their shadows and spirits soar, commanding armies of the dead, destroying life in storms of ash.
The magical displays take me back to my days in Ibadan, watching the newly elected elders demonstrate their prowess for our Reaper clan. When Mama was elected, the black shadows of death that swirled around her were magnificent. Terrifying, yet stunning as they danced by her side.
In that moment I knew that as long as I lived, I would never see anything as beautiful as that. I only hoped one day I would join her. I wanted her to watch me and feel even half as proud.
“I’m sorry.” My throat closes up. Lekan seems to understand at once. With a nod, he steps forward, continuing the tale.
“Oya was the first to realize that not all her children could handle such great power. She became selective, like her mother, sharing her ability with only those who showed patience and wisdom. Her siblings followed suit, and soon the maji population dwindled. In this new era, all maji were graced with coiled white hair, an homage to Sky Mother’s image.”
I tuck back my straight locks, my cheeks growing hot. Even if I pass for wise, there can’t be a god above who thinks I’m patient.…
Lekan’s gaze turns to the last set of drawings on the heavenly mural, where men and women inked with white symbols kneel and worship.
“To protect the gods’ will on this earth, Sky Mother created my people, the sêntaros. Led by the mamaláwo, we act as spiritual guardians, tasked with connecting Sky Mother’s spirit to the maji below.”
He pauses as the painting of a woman rises above the sêntaros with an ivory dagger in one hand and a glowing stone in the other. Though she’s dressed in leather robes like her brothers and sisters, an ornate diadem rests on the mamaláwo’s head.
“What is she holding?” I ask.
“The bone dagger,” Lekan answers, removing it from his robes. “A sacred relic carved from the skeleton of the first sêntaro.” The dagger seems to bathe in a light blue glow, emitting an energy that chills like ice. The same sênbaría inked onto Lekan’s arms shine bright against its handle. “Whoever wields it draws strength from the life force of all those who have wielded it before.”
“In her right hand the mamaláwo holds the sunstone, a living fragment of Sky Mother’s soul. By holding Sky Mother’s spirit, the stone tethers her to this world, keeping magic alive. Every century, our mamaláwo carried the stone, the dagger, and the scroll to a sacred temple to perform the binding ritual. By drawing her blood with the dagger and using the power imbued into the stone, the mamaláwo sealed the spiritual connection of the gods into the sêntaros’ blood. As long as our bloodline survived, magic did, too.”
As the mamaláwo in the mural chants, her words dance across the wall in painted symbols. The ivory dagger drips with her blood. The glow of the sunstone encompasses the entire mural in its light.
“Then that’s what happened?” Tzain stares at the mural with dead eyes, rigid in his stance. “She didn’t perform the ritual? That’s why magic died?”
Though he says magic, I hear Mama in his voice. This is what left her defenseless.
This is how the king took her away.
The spark vanishes from Lekan’s eyes and the paintings lose their animated life. In an instant, the magic of the mural dies, no more than ordinary, dry paint.
“The massacre of the maji—‘the Raid,’ as your people call it—was not a chance event. Before I went away on pilgrimage, your king entered Chândomblé’s temples claiming false worship. In truth, Saran was searching for a weapon against the gods.” Lekan turns so we can’t see his face, only the symbols inked onto his arms. They seem to shrink as he slumps in the candlelight, withering with his heartache. “He learned of the ritual, of how magic in Orïsha was anchored to the sêntaros’ blood. By the time I returned, Saran had slaughtered my people, severing Sky Mother’s connection and ripping magic from our world.”
Amari clasps her hand to her mouth, silent tears streaking her rosy cheeks. I can’t fathom how one man could be so cruel. I don’t know what I’d do if that man was my father.
Lekan turns back to us, and in that moment I realize I’ll never understand his loneliness, his pain. After the Raid, I still had Tzain and Baba. All he had were skeletons; corpses and silent gods.
“Saran coordinated his massacres, one right after the other. As my people bled on this floor and magic disappeared, he instructed his guards to kill yours.”
I close my eyes, willing away the images of fire and blood the Raid calls forth.
Baba’s cries as a guard broke his arm.
Mama clawing at the black majacite chain around her neck.
My screams as they dragged her away.
“Why didn’t they do something?” Tzain shouts. “Why didn’t they stop him?”
I put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing to ease his rage. I know my brother. I know his yells mask the pain.
“My people are tasked with protecting human life. We are not allowed to take it away.”
We stand for a long moment with only Amari’s sniffles to break the silence. Staring at the painted walls, I begin to realize how far others will go to keep us down.
“But magic’s back now, right?” Amari asks, wiping her eyes. Tzain hands her a ripped swatch of his cloak, but his kindness only seems to cause more tears. “The scroll worked for Zélie and Mama Agba,” Amari continues. “It transformed my friend, too. If we can bring the scroll to all the divîners in Orïsha, won’t that be enough?”
“Saran broke the old connection between the maji and the gods above when he slaughtered the sêntaros. The scroll brings back magic because it has the ability to spark a new connection with the gods, but to make that connection permanent and bring magic back for good, we need to perform the sacred ritual.” Lekan pulls out the scroll with reverence. “I spent years searching for the three holy artifacts, almost all of it in vain. I managed to recover the bone dagger, but at times I worried Saran had managed to destroy the others.”
“I don’t think they can be destroyed,” Amari says. “My father ordered his admiral to get rid of the scroll and the sunstone, but he failed.”
&n
bsp; “Your father’s admiral failed because the artifacts cannot be destroyed by human hands. They were given life through magic. Only magic can bring about their death.”
“So we can do it?” I press. “We can still bring magic back?”
For the first time, Lekan smiles, hope shining behind his golden eyes. “The centennial solstice is upon us, the tenth centenary of Sky Mother’s gifts to mankind. It gives us one last chance to right our wrongs. One last chance to keep magic alive.”
“How?” Tzain asks. “What do we have to do?”
Lekan unrolls the scroll, interpreting its symbols and pictures. “On the centennial solstice, a sacred island appears off the northern coast of the Orinion Sea. It is home to the temple of our gods. We must take the scroll, the sunstone, and the bone dagger there and recite the ancient incantation on this scroll. If we complete the ritual, we can create new blood anchors and restore the connection, securing magic for another hundred years.”
“And every divîner will become a maji?” Amari asks.
“If you can complete the ritual before the solstice, every divîner who has reached the age of thirteen will transform.”
The centennial solstice, I repeat in my head, calculating how much time we have left. Mama Agba’s summer graduation always falls on the crescent moon, after the annual tigerfish harvest. If the solstice is upon us …
“Wait,” Tzain exclaims. “That’s less than one moon away!”
“What?” My heart seizes. “What happens if we miss it?”
“Miss it and Orïsha will never see magic again.”
My stomach drops like I’ve been pushed off the mountain. One moon? One moon or never again?
“But magic’s already coming back.” Tzain shakes his head. “It came with the scroll. If we can get it to all the divîners—”
“That will not work,” Lekan interrupts. “The scroll does not connect you to Sky Mother. It only ignites your connection to your sister deity. Without the ritual, the magic will not last beyond the solstice. Reestablishing the maji’s connection to Sky Mother is the only way.”
