Crown of Thunder

by Tochi Onyebuchi

  Is it the same now? The same riot of emotions held behind a mask?

  Arzu walks with infinite slowness until she finally reaches Juba. Juba’s mask breaks. She begins to breathe heavily, like she’s waiting for something. Arzu cups Juba’s cheek in her hand, and Juba leans into it.

  “Stay with me,” I hear Juba say. “Help me repair my tribe.”

  “But you are tastahlik, and I am not,” Arzu replies. Her voice is like rock that has begun to crack. “It would be against the laws of the tribe for me to be with you. And if I cannot have you as my heart-mate, I will not stay.”

  Juba puts her hand to Arzu’s and closes her eyes. “I would abolish the law for you, Arzu. All the laws in the world.”

  Arzu’s mask cracks even more. “I cannot ask you to do that, Ayaba. Don’t destroy your world just to have me.”

  For a long time, they are both silent. Then Juba lets out a sigh so heavy it deflates her. She steps back and straightens. “You’re right. My people need me.”

  Juba tries to smile, but her bottom lip trembles. “And mine need me,” Arzu says.

  Juba reaches out and wraps her fingers around the back of Arzu’s neck. Their foreheads touch. “The sky is our ceiling, the earth our bed,” Juba whispers.

  “The sky is our ceiling, the earth our bed,” Arzu whispers back.

  Juba pulls Arzu to her in an embrace. “You will always have my heart.”

  Arzu says nothing but wraps her arms tighter around Juba.

  When Juba steps away this time, she turns her back to us. She looks to the Larada. “Bring the prisoner.” It’s all she says before she begins her march down the hill.

  We watch them go until they vanish into the distance.

  Then Arzu whirls around. “Should I fetch some pillows so you can all keep staring, or should we be going now? Kos isn’t saving itself.”

  I burst into laughter, and Arzu is smiling, and the rest of us are laughing and smiling too. It’s the first time I’ve seen her like this in so long. Free. Like she was with the lascars on the ship.

  “Now, how do we get back to Kos?” I ask, scratching my head.

  Before I get a response from anyone, Bo is on his knees, retching into the ground. Black bile spills from his mouth. His shoulders shudder with each convulsion. Then he finishes and wipes the remnants of sin from his mouth. Four pools of ink writhe in front of him, then sprout first wings, then a beak, then a head, until they turn into full-bodied griffins. Bo climbs to his feet. “I think this is the part where you do your thing, Taj.”

  I smirk.

  I’m still unsure of myself, of my ability to cleanse, so I’m slow to get to the first griffin, but when I touch its forehead, I feel that old warmth in my palm. Its shadows peel away, and when its colors are made plain, lightning pulses beneath its skin. There’s a moment of shock when I do it, and the large beast tilts its head at me. Like it’s trying to figure me out. Then, reassurance. I can do this. I cleanse the other three, then climb atop the one in the middle.

  The others hesitate, reaching out haltingly to touch the things.

  “Come now!” I snap. “Oya, let’s go!”

  They climb atop their griffins and grip the feathers behind the neck just like I do. Arzu ties her blond hair back, away from her face.

  My griffin darts into the sky. Then, after a moment, the rest follow.

  Below us, Zaki’s home sits, separated from the rest of the land by a giant knife scar cut into the earth. It grows smaller and smaller beneath us, then it disappears.

  We hover in the air above the clouds. The wind whips my puffy hair back. I look to the others. Each of them. Arzu. Bo. Aliya.

  Our griffins flap their wings, and we slice through the sky, charting a course for home.

  CHAPTER 31

  BO IS SILENT while he holds tight on to the feathers of the griffin’s back. He is looking down, and for a second, I wonder if he remembers walking this path. Maybe this is the route he traveled too. Then I wonder if there are any villages left down there. Any that he and his inisisa missed. He has a mournful look on his face. He sees something that we don’t. Maybe he’s looking for inyo, those uncleansed spirits of the people he murdered. Either way, we’re too high up to see them. I want to make a joke about it, try to get his mind off his past deeds, but it seems inappropriate, and I don’t know that it would work.

  “It’ll be good to have some proper jollof rice again,” I shout to him over the wind. Nobody smiles. Uhlah, what will it take to relieve the tension? We’re all a little afraid of what’s waiting for us in Kos. We don’t know if there will be help waiting for us or if we’re flying straight into the maws of arashi.

  Aliya can break the earth and pull fire and water from thin air. And I can cleanse sins. We just might be able to save our city.

  I have to admit, I do like this other feeling, though. It’s rumbling inside me, and it’s something I haven’t felt in a very long time. It reminds me of when I first saw Osimiri, and all of its newness hit me at once. It’s what I felt when Aliya and I were on that ship heading westward. It feels like adventure. I look over to Aliya again. “Hey! Aliya.”

  “What?”

  “Are you ever going to do that proof?”

  She blinks her surprise at me.

  “Proof of what?” she asks.

  “Me!” I crow. “I think there’s enough sand in that desert down there for you to do it.” I’m smiling so hard my cheeks hurt, and when she blushes, my heart leaps. “You better hurry up; we are going to hit water soon.”

  She grins. And it’s like we’re two kids stealing kiwis and running along the shoreline again.

  Bo, to my right, hasn’t said a word the entire flight. Occasionally, he glances at the place where his right hand used to be. He looks mutilated with his scar and his handless arm, and it’s like his outsides and his insides are the same. These broken things. But I know him. I know him down to his smallest pieces. I know him inside and out. We can make him into something new. The same Bo, but repaired. Rebuilt. Like the village. Like Kos.

  Iragide.

  He’s the Bo who fought off inisisa so that we could rescue Juba. He’s the Bo who will help us save Kos.

  He glances at me, and that carved-out-of-stone look on his face cracks a little, and I think I see a grin. Or, at least, a hint of it. If, by some miracle, Zoe’s is still standing, I already have plans for our celebration.

  Soon, water spreads beneath us.

  Our griffins glide downward and surf along the waves, cutting a path just above the sea so that clear, glistening walls rise on both sides of us. As though to say, We were here. Sea creatures leap through the water and arc in the air, welcoming us back. Bo’s knuckles are white. His face starts to get this green color to it, and I stifle a laugh. This is revenge for all the times he beat me at wrestling. I grin, but then I relent and bring the griffin back up into the sky.

  The first small boats dot the horizon. We soar toward them. Fishermen, hands over their brows, gaze up at us. Same with the lascars ferrying people and cargo back and forth to the larger ships we near. Osimiri looks subdued from this height. Maybe Karima’s rule has reached here as well. Shadows prowl the shoreline, and I can tell from all the way up here that they’re inisisa. Their armor glints in the sunlight. We’re almost there.

  We coast along the shore, rising higher and higher so that we’re only specks in the sky to the people underneath us. I angle us toward a deserted patch of shoreline. From here, I can see where the green field meets the forest. Part of me wonders what haunts the land in that tangle of trees. Are there still aki and Mages in hiding? What will they say when they see me again? If they see me again. My heart drops at the thought that maybe all that’s left of them is their inyo.

  When we land, I touch my griffin’s forehead. It flaps its wings into the air, heading straight up until it disappears in a bu
rst of light. I touch the others, and they follow. The forest looms before us.

  “I’m going to get Karima,” I say. “This ends with her.”

  Aliya comes forward on her staff. “Are you mad? How will you get there? The city is crawling with armored inisisa. We have to find the rebels first. We have Mages and aki on our side.”

  “We don’t know that,” I shoot back. I’m itching. Itching to move. Itching to get done what needs doing. “If you want, you can find your resistance.”

  Aliya starts. “Taj, what’s going on? This isn’t like you.”

  I feel a pull. I can’t explain it, but I feel drawn to Kos and everything inside it. What I need is right within the Wall. I need to get to it as quickly as possible. I can save Kos.

  I can save Kos.

  “I will go with him,” Bo volunteers.

  Arzu frowns at the both of us.

  Bo smirks. “It always was my job to keep him out of trouble.”

  I snort. “And you were always horrible at it.”

  But Bo puts a hand out to calm Aliya. “We will pretend he is my prisoner. I will have brought him back alive, according to Karima’s wishes. We will do our part, and while Karima is distracted, you should have time to find your group.” Bo looks to me. “She will be too focused on us. In fact, she doesn’t even know you’re all alive.”

  Aliya doesn’t like it. I can see it in her face. In the way she bounces from foot to foot and puts her knuckle to her chin. Then she raises her head. “Fine. Arzu and I will find the others.”

  “The tunnels,” Arzu says.

  “Right.” Confidence returns to Aliya’s voice. “The tunnels.”

  She and Arzu turn to head off into another part of the forest. Before they leave, Aliya looks over her shoulder. “Don’t die, you foolish boy.” She’s smiling. Tears well in her eyes. She blinks once, and they’re gone.

  “We’re going to need a guard if we want to make this believable,” I say to Bo.

  Bo nods and goes to press his hands to his chest to call forth an inisisa but stops, then he staggers back. He’s tired.

  “Let me,” I say, then put my hands to my chest. I shut my eyes. It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve called forth my own sins. I’ve almost forgotten the feeling, remembering only that it’s supposed to hurt. Bo wraps his fingers around the back of my neck and pulls our foreheads together. I feel his warmth. I seize in his grip. Then I vomit my sins into a puddle on the grassy forest floor.

  They grow into four wild boars, each as big as us. I’m dizzy from it all, but Bo holds me up. It is now even more difficult to imagine how Bo was able to survive having all those sins called out of his body. He’s gotten so strong. He could definitely beat me in a wrestling match now.

  When I regain enough strength to stand on my own, I organize the boars into a diamond around us.

  “Are you really ready to do this?” I ask Bo, as though I’m not the one who needs the most convincing.

  He nods, silent, and together we walk into the forest.

  I can’t help wondering about the underground tunnels. Maybe they’re empty. Maybe they’ve been discovered by Karima and destroyed. Maybe they’re filled with rebel Mages and refugee families. In my head, I see Zephi’s family underground during the arashi attack, with the adults entertaining the children and doing everything in their power to distract them from the horror happening above. I see everyone living their lives and continuing to be a family even as their homes are being destroyed. Maybe it’s the same here, with playgrounds being built alongside libraries, and maybe booksellers shop their wares underground next to jewelers selling smuggled gems. Maybe there’s this whole entire city underneath the city, just as vibrant and colorful.

  I’m lost in the daydream until I realize I can’t breathe. All of a sudden, the air becomes so thick that I wheeze whenever I exhale. Though Bo doesn’t show it, his body is tense with the effort of trying to breathe as well. Then it hits me. Inyo. The forest is so thick with uncleansed spirits that it pollutes the very air we inhale. It’s like what used to happen in the dahia right after a Baptism. Like what happened after the arashi destroyed the refugee camp outside of Juba’s village. How many died that it has become impossible to breathe in this stretch of forest?

  Then, with the same suddenness, the air clears. We’ve gotten to the edge of the forest.

  The Wall is so high I can’t see the top of it, and it is completely clear of any markings. No graffiti, no sin-beasts painted by the Scribes. Nothing. Just an unbroken sheet of gray. I feel so small this close to it. Even while training aki what seems like a lifetime ago, when we were all in the forest outside the Wall, it never seemed this huge and evil. I’ve never looked at it as something I wanted to knock down.

  Until now.

  Somebody’s galloping toward us. No. Many people. Coming around a bend in the wall are four people on horseback, all of them wearing Palace colors. Red and white, but with a new symbol emblazoned on the front of their robes. A flame.

  They slow as they get near. Palace guards with a prelate at their head. They’ve probably been patrolling the Wall.

  Bo breaks formation to stand at the head of our group. After a moment of hesitation, only the prelate comes forward. The guards are scared of him.

  Once the prelate dismounts, I catch her glancing at Bo’s severed wrist. There’s no expression on Bo’s face. He just stands aside and gestures to me.

  The prelate squints at me, then stands back in poorly disguised shock. Then she looks to Bo, then back at me. I guess she still can’t believe he did it. I don’t know what Karima’s been saying about me that has this prelate is so surprised and even fearful of me, but it takes quite a bit of effort to keep from smirking. My reputation precedes me.

  Once she recovers herself, the prelate takes spooled leather from where it hangs at her waist and walks slowly toward us. The guards have joined her by now. The prelate starts to bind my wrists.

  “Well, it looks like no one was able to collect the bounty,” one of the guards whispers to the other.

  “Which means you owe me the ramzi you put up,” one of the others replies. “A wager is a wager.”

  The first mutters beneath his breath.

  Bo doesn’t turn to face the prelate all the way but inclines his neck. “Nothing is to be done to him until our queen has seen him.”

  The prelate stops in mid-motion with my restraints.

  “That is her commandment.” His words come out as growls, as puliverized stones moving against themselves. “She will have the head of anyone who harms him before he has been brought before her. I will be holding that head.”

  The prelate’s hands shake, and she fumbles with my restraints.

  Bo has no expression on his face.

  It’s the last thing I see before someone slips a bag over my head and cracks me right in the back of my skull.

  I’m unconscious before I even hit the ground.

  * * *

  • • •

  They have my arms held high, wrists shackled together above my head. I’m dangling. The tips of my toes just barely touch the ground. And when they do, they meet a puddle.

  Water drips from the ceiling. My shoulders are on fire. That’s what woke me up. The pain is enough to snatch me right out of unconsciousness. I grunt and struggle feebly against my chains. They’ve shackled my ankles too. A larger chain loops through the rings on my wrists and connects to a pulley in the wall. They’re going to torture me.

  There’s got to be some way out of here. Then I hear footsteps. Not slow, not fast. Just stately, with purpose. Two aki stand outside my cell, glaring at me. They have cloth wrapped around their faces so that only their eyes are visible. That’s the only way I can tell they are aki—their white eyes. The skin of their arms is unblemished. Not a sin-spot to be seen. Their inisisa are probably all a part of Karima
’s army.

  I don’t know how I expected this last part of my plan to go. I can even hear Aliya in my head nagging me for not thinking it through all the way. But I’m close. My body feels electrified with anticipation. Purpose.

  I hear more footsteps, slower than the last pair. Like a methodical march. The corridor outside my cell fills with Palace guards and Mages. At first, they are all I see: guards with their weapons at the ready and Mages with their hands folded into the sleeves of their robes. Then the crowd parts, and out she steps.

  Queen Karima.

  She’s even more beautiful than I remember. Her emerald dress shimmers in the torchlight from the corridor. I don’t even know how it manages to sparkle like that. It must be magic. The skin of her face is smooth and dark. Touching it would probably be like touching the smoothest river-worn stone. It’s so black it glows blue. She’s the color of night, emerald gemstones beaded in threads through her dark hair. I forget to breathe.

  The look she gives me crushes my heart. She looks almost sad to see me here, like she truly wishes things were different. I try to shake away the haze filling my brain. With a single word to her guards, she could have me killed on the spot.

  “Leave us,” she says softly to the guards. The Mages hang around for a little bit until she turns to them and says, almost kindly, “I am protected.” What does she mean?

  They give her a reassured look, then one of them leans forward and tells her, “We shall remain near. If you should need us.”

  “Ngozi, it is much appreciated. Now.” She nods toward the end of the hall, and I see in that gesture the power she commands over them. It looks like a gentle nudging, but I can already tell it’s the gesture of someone who has complete and utter control.

  When we’re alone, she walks forward and pushes open the door to my cell. I sputter, letting out a ragged breath. She’s so close.