Crown of Thunder

by Tochi Onyebuchi

  She closes the door behind her, and I hear the latch click. What is she doing?

  Without a word, she slips a daga out of a sheath strapped around her calf and steps toward me. Out of instinct, I twist and turn. But she puts a hand to my chest, and it’s enough to still me completely. My body chills at her touch.

  “Please hold still,” she breathes. I’m powerless to resist her.

  She brings the daga to my chest, then, in halting, downward strokes, slices my shirt open so that it hangs from my upraised arms. Light glistens in her wide eyes when she sees my skin.

  Drawing closer, she stares with even greater intensity, then her face softens. Slowly, she brings a finger to my chest and traces the outline of a sin-beast. Her fingers move to my neck, running along the spines of sin-snakes that circle the base of my neck. She’s still holding her daga.

  “Oh, Taj,” she whispers. “How many nights have I dreamed about this?” Her eyes rove over me, taking in every sin-spot. Her hands move to my stomach, my waist. She feels the new scars beneath my sin-spots. “There are so many now,” she murmurs. “You’ve Eaten so, so many sins.” There’s sorrow in her voice. “Oh, the places you’ve been to.” She pushes away but keeps a hand at the small of my back, her arm wrapped around my waist, her other hand—her daga hand—still at my throat. “When this is all over, you must tell me about it.”

  “When it’s all over?”

  “Why, yes, Taj. Not only has Bo, my most loyal lieutenant, brought you back to me, but he has presented to me the most gifted Mage in the entire kingdom. Oh, I’ve known for quite some time that Aliya was special, like yourself. That you two were capable of untold wonders. We will study her closely. The way she sees the world, the markings on her body . . . Oh, Taj, her body is covered in them. Equations like we’ve never seen before. I’m sure they explain so much of the mysteries of this land. I can only imagine what insights they’ll unlock.” Excitement makes her face glow. “It’s like poetry, Taj. Oh, you should see it!” Her face hardens for a moment. “Did you think they would be able to just sneak into my city? Crawl like worms through the shadows?” Then serenity washes over her again.

  She moves her daga so that the blade presses against my throat. “While I am overjoyed at our reunion, you took some very valuable things from me. It has cost me quite a lot to bring you back. And no one escapes punishment for their sins.” Her gaze hardens. “You had a chance once to join me, and you betrayed me. For her.” She blinks, and her eyes change, soften. She removes the daga from my throat and runs her hand along my cheek.

  Then she turns. My door clicks open, then shut again, and she’s gone.

  When she leaves, I shake. It takes me a moment to realize it’s rage.

  Bo betrayed us.

  CHAPTER 32

  AT FIRST, I try to count the seconds in my head, then I lose track. Thoughts intrude. Questions, like where has Karima taken Aliya? And where’s Bo?

  So I can wrap my fingers around his throat.

  I hear sounds in the distance. Moaning or someone weeping quietly. The dank air makes everything sound louder, like every time a drop of water falls from the ceiling and plops into the puddle at my feet. When I hear the sound of sharp, terrified screams, they reach me as clearly as if the torture were happening right in front of me. It takes all my effort not to twist and try to fight my way out of these restraints. I know any movement will just exhaust me further. I’ll have nothing left for when they eventually come for me. I need to be alert, on the hunt for any opportunity, no matter how small. I need to rescue Aliya.

  The screaming stops. Almost immediately, footsteps splash my way. Louder. Louder. Then I hear the jangle of keys on a ring. My time is coming. I’m trying to stay loose. I know I need to in order to be ready for whatever comes, but my body tenses up. Terror wraps itself tight around me.

  The person standing in front of the door to my cell has on baggy clothes that cover thick limbs with a leather apron over the front of their outfit. Their face is obscured by a metal mask with a shield of glass for their eyes to see through. So, Karima uses gear-heads for torture now too. Instead of making auto-mail for half limbs or tinkering with machines, they pull screams out of the queen’s prisoners.

  I steel myself as my torturer takes the key ring from their waist and, with hands covered in thick leather gloves the same color as their apron, fiddles with the keys. Their steps are nonchalant, like this is business as usual. They try one key, but it sticks in the lock, so they twist and shake it, then give up and try another. This goes on a few times until I hear that click. I get ready to kick out. My masked torturer pulls a tool out from their beltloop and flicks something along the handle. Out of its curved snout comes a jet of flames, and I cry out.

  Karima’s torturer is on me in an instant and has their hand over my mouth. I gag against the smell and the taste of it.

  “Be still.” A woman’s voice. Deep and commanding. I don’t recognize it. “I’m helping you,” she whispers into my ear. I can see a blond ponytail spilling out the back of her helmet. “Make a sound, and you will die. Painfully.”

  She holds me so tightly that my back cracks. Before I can even think to struggle, the flame meets the metal over my hands, warming my fingers until they’re on the verge of burning. I grit my teeth against the growing heat until I hear a snap and fall forward, right onto her broad shoulder. She’s built like two pillars joined together, side by side, and she carries me with ease as she slips the broken remains of my wall chain through my wrist and ankle shackles, then slides through the door and closes it shut behind her.

  I bounce on her shoulder, half of me dangling against her back, while she bounds down the prison corridor and around a corner into a small nook. She sets me on the ground like I’m a bag of farina. Then she gets to one knee. Her tool is uncomfortably close to my face.

  “Can you walk?”

  “Yes,” I tell her.

  “Good.” And before I can protest or scramble away, she pins me against the wall and puts the torch to my ankles. My teeth chatter, trying to hold back the scream, but then the shackles split apart. I feel a little bit more courage, or at least enough to stick my wrist out for her to break those restraints too. I have to look away, though, because I can’t bear to see her slip and burn my hands clean off. “All right,” she says when she finishes. “Let’s go.”

  I stand. “Aliya.”

  “What?”

  “My friend. Aliya. They’re keeping her somewhere around here.”

  She balls her fists at her sides, and I can tell she’s more annoyed with me than angry.

  “Wherever you’re taking me, I’m not going without her.”

  “If you get captured again . . .” she says, then lets out a sigh. “Here, follow me,” and she sets off ahead of me, back the way we’d come but down the other end of the corridor. For a while, the only sound I hear is the splash of our feet in the puddles dotting the prison floor. I try not to imagine the people rotting here with no shoes or flats on their feet, forced to stand or lie in this water for however long they’ve been down here.

  This part of the prison is empty, but I can still hear the sounds of torture from earlier—the moaning and the shrieking and the weeping—all in my head again. I’m running so hard that I overtake the gear-head who freed me and round a corner straight into the flank of a sin-lion. I fall back with a loud splash and reach for my daga only to realize that it’s gone. I scramble back to my feet, and the lion crouches, then leaps at me, fangs bared. At the last second, the gear-head’s hand clamps down on its throat, and she hurls it into the wall with such force that I half expect the prison to collapse on us. I take a step toward the beast and glare at it, forcing it to lie on the ground. Then, slowly, I put my hand to its forehead and watch light replace its shadow-flesh. It grows so bright that I have to shield my eyes, then it bursts apart into a thousand sparks that hiss when they hit the puddl
es of water at our feet.

  When I turn, the gear-head is staring in shock at where the sin-lion had been moments earlier. She’s got her helmet over her head, but I can tell her mouth is probably hanging open.

  “Should make the whole escaping thing a little easier,” I say, and wink at her before hurrying around that corner and down another hall.

  I don’t know who this person is or why she’s helping me. I don’t know if she’s part of any resistance, if she even knows about the resistance, or if this is all part of some really complicated plan Karima has put together. Make me think I’m going free and that I’m escaping, then flip me just like Wale would and snap the cage shut around me once again. Makes me feel like a rat that has been let out of one cell only to run straight into another. But if this gear-head’s helping me for now, I better use her while I can.

  Light starts to spread at the end of the corridor. I can hear bootsteps hurrying toward us. The gear-head grabs me by the arm and pulls me into a groove in the wall just as a troop of Palace guards runs by.

  They know I’ve gotten free.

  When the hall is clear, we step back out and continue running. This place is like a maze. People used to tell stories of Kosians being locked in here as punishment back when Kolade was king. They’d vanish, and you’d never hear from them again. It was as though they’d never existed.

  This next hall ends ahead of us, but to our right is a small, brightly lit cavern. I run toward it and crouch at the base of the wall just by its entrance. Whispered conversation trickles out, something about prisoners and aki and a Mage. I peek over the wall and see guards milling about. Four of them, helmeted and wearing armor plating on their shoulders and legs. They look so different from what I remember. Heavier. More powerful. They each hold pikes. One of them stretches his neck. In the middle of the cavern is a metal table. It looks like it was fashioned out of the armor welded to the inisisa we fought in the forest. There’s a shape of a body on top of it. It’s covered by a blanket, but I can see tendrils of curly black hair peeking out.

  Aliya.

  The blanket doesn’t move. She’s not breathing.

  I make a move to leap, but the gear-head grips me by the back of the neck so hard I almost yelp. “Move,” she hisses, “make any sound, and I will crush your skull with my bare hand.”

  More footsteps.

  Seeing Aliya like that drains all the energy out of me. All the hope. Stunned, I realize I’ve started crying.

  The look on the gear-head’s face changes, turns softer.

  I’m too weak to resist, so I just lie limp as the gear-head hoists me over her shoulder again, and I watch as Aliya’s covered body grows smaller and smaller. We round a corner, and she’s gone.

  By the time we stop, the tears are flowing freely. They darken the back of the gear-head’s shirt. I’m as limp as a washrag when she sets me down on the floor of the cave. For a long while, I stare at the ceiling, struggling to pull myself together.

  Aliya.

  Gone.

  Even to think those words makes my heart seize up all over again. I don’t know how long I lie on the ground like that, but the tears stop, and I wipe the moisture from my eyes and nose and try to gather my wits. I notice the cave we’re in is full of people. I can feel them around me, all quiet and staring.

  Slowly, I rise and face the people in the cave. Aki, Mages, a few gear-heads.

  The gear-head who carried me joins them.

  This is it. The resistance.

  Noor. Nneoma. Miri. Dinma. And so many others I thought I’d never see again. Aliya never stopped believing they were alive. She was so close.

  Torchlight illuminates their faces. Someone steps through the crowd and comes toward me, his face solemn but happy. He looks tired, but there’s joy in his expression.

  Ras slides his hand out, palm up. “To you and yours, Taj.”

  I slide my palm over his. “To you and yours, Ras.”

  He grips my forearm and pulls me into an embrace.

  I wrap my arms around him and hold him tight. I don’t want to let him go. Ever. I won’t let anyone go ever again. All the people here in this cave, the people who have come together to fight for their city—for our city—I will never let them go.

  Karima will pay for what she’s done.

  CHAPTER 33

  THE OTHERS PAT me on the back and the shoulder and feed me egusi soup and welcome me home. It feels hollow to have made it here without Aliya. We were almost there.

  When this is all over, I will make sure she has a proper burial and that people all over Kos know and remember her sacrifice.

  A few of the aki and Mages guide the tall gear-head who led me here into a side tunnel. Her gloves are torn. Inside the ripped leather are metal fingers.

  Ras is bandaging my wrists and wrapping my hands. We sit on wooden boxes in what looks like some sort of war-planning room. Tables made out of stones and boxes, maps everywhere, things scrawled on walls, then half wiped away, then scrawled again elsewhere.

  “Who’s that?” I ask him, inclining my head to where they hauled off the gear-head.

  He looks to where I mean, then back at my hands. “Name’s Chiamaka. Older gear-head from the north. Came after Karima’s forces pushed past the mines. Some of us work in the shadows, but others up above, they protest, and they speak out against the royal decrees. And they’re punished for it, but many of them are as stubborn as you. There’s even the occasional Ijenlemanya.” He chuckles. “The parade usually goes a half dozen streets before prelates stomp it out. Anyway, Chiamaka brought a bunch of gear-heads with her too. They want to help.” When he says that last part, there’s a bit of amazement in his voice, almost like he still can’t believe it. “They’ve helped fortify these tunnels. Before, they were just wet stone, but now they have metal supports, and there’s less risk of collapse. And we can make new tunnels now too.”

  “What? How?”

  He fishes what looks like a thin cylinder almost as long as his forearm out from his belt. “This. They call it dynamite. The towns up north make it, and it gets shipped to the mines in the northern dahia just below to help with the digging.”

  I take the thing from him.

  “How does it work again?” I ask.

  “You put fire to the string,” Ras tells me, pointing to the line of thin rope poking out from one end, “then you throw it where you want the explosion. It is like an arashi is trapped in this stick, and when you light it, it comes out.”

  Then it comes back to me. In the forest, after our escape, we heard explosions coming from the other side of the Wall. From inside Kos. My face blanches. “OK, you take it.” I shove the arashi-stick back in his hands as quickly as possible.

  Ras fits it back into his belt. “Some people come for the adventure that comes with the fight,” he says, and I know he is once again talking about the rebellion. “Some people come because they are bored with their lives. Others want revenge.” He looks back to where they took Chiamaka. “That’s what it seems like with her. She wants Karima personally. She has never said why, but whenever the queen comes up in conversation, she shuts down and there’s a look of hatred on her face like I’ve never seen before.”

  I understand. We have all lost something precious. Defeating Karima might not bring it back, but it’s something.

  I push myself to my feet. My shoulders still burn but less now than before I got here. Maybe Chiamaka knew someone in the resistance whom Karima dragged out onto the Palace steps for a public execution. Whatever her reasons, I’m glad she’s with us and not against us.

  Ras rises with me. “Come, let’s join the others.”

  The next room is much more organized. A table has been fashioned out of wood and metal supports, and Miri leans over a map of Kos with the dahia spiraling out from the Forum. The others are crowded around her. Everyone looks up when Ras and
I enter. Then they bow their heads. Even after all of that time spent in Juba’s village, where my sin-spots made people nod their heads at me and clear paths through crowds for me, I’m still not used to this respect.

  “Welcome,” says Miri.

  I nod my head in thanks. “So, what’s the plan?”

  She grins at my eagerness, as do many of the others. Then she points to one of the dahia. “We begin by liberating the dahia closest to our current location. If we can secure it, we can spread out to the others. We’re powerful and skilled, but there aren’t nearly enough of us to accomplish a frontal assault on Karima’s forces. Each aki here is as strong as five soldiers, especially against the inisisa. The rebellion has hardened us. Which is to say that we can’t afford to lose too many of us. Everyone here is necessary.”

  Not too many moons ago, it would have knocked me senseless to hear a Mage talk about aki this way. About our being powerful and necessary. Now, after everything that’s happened, it seems as normal as the way plantains ripen.

  “So, we free the dahia from the inisisa guarding them.” She frowns. “And that is where you will make your entrance. We need the inisisa on our side.”

  I shrug. “Done. Easy.”

  “Taj.” There’s a warning in her voice. “There are many of them.”

  “That won’t be a problem. I’ve stopped a whole city of inisisa before.” Now that we’re actually discussing plans, I’m itching to do something. Anything.

  “Taj, that was once, and in the chaos of everything that happened that night, we don’t know that we can replicate that situation. There are too many variables. And if it doesn’t work, the inisisa will turn on the people of the dahia. They will consume the whole city. All those people will have been Eaten for nothing.”

  The gravity of it hits me. This isn’t just about revenge. This is about saving the city. Protecting people. Keeping them alive. “And this is how she’s able to keep the arashi over the dahia,” I say, realizing just as I say it. “By making sure there are enough inisisa to keep them near.”