Raybearer

by Jordan Ifueko

  Ribs cracking. Limbs bruising, bones shattering beneath Sanjeet’s bare hands as betting crowds egged him on to fight. His father’s voice was always the loudest of them all. “Is this hell? I’ll teach you hell. I’ll teach you what I taught your mother if you don’t get back in the pit, boy.”

  With practice, I could make Sanjeet’s memories disappear for an hour, sometimes a day. But the violent images always returned by nightfall, seeping into Sanjeet’s sunless thoughts.

  Sometimes, brighter memories stole through. I saw visions of a young, happier Sanjeet: dancing in time with the bells on his amah’s feet. Balancing with his amah on the back of an elephant as it lumbered through the dusty Dhyrmish streets. His amah taking him to visit the lame in the slums, bandaging sores and resetting bones, encouraging Sanjeet to use his Hallow to diagnose their ailments. His amah letting Sanjeet use his hands to heal . . . until his father forced them to kill again.

  One night, Sanjeet had asked me a different question. “Can you give someone memories?”

  I had crossed my arms, unnerved. “You mean make things up? Create memories that never happened? I wouldn’t do that.”

  “No.” He rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncharacteristically shy. “It’s just . . . you see my story all the time. And I’ve never seen yours.”

  I stared, taken aback. “No one’s ever asked me for mine before.” I fidgeted. “Demons aren’t supposed to have nice stories.”

  Sanjeet’s thick eyebrows crinkled with laughter. “Trust me, sunshine girl. You’re no demon. I’ve seen too many real monsters to be mistaken.”

  I swallowed hard, suppressing The Lady’s voice in my head. I command you to kill . . . kill—No. That story isn’t mine anymore, I thought fiercely. It’s unwritten.

  I took Sanjeet’s broad, russet hand and held it to my cheek. Carefully, I showed him the orchard at Bhekina House, boughs red with sun-kissed mangoes. I showed him my overbearing tutors, hovering as I solved puzzles. I showed him the elephants outside my Bhekina House window, bush sprites teasing their large, silly ears. I showed him Woo In and Kathleen, bickering over my head as we crossed the deserts and mountains into Oluwan.

  I did not show him ehrus, or mothers, or wishes.

  The more I shared my story, the longer Sanjeet’s unhappy memories stayed away. Some days, he didn’t ask me to erase his stories. He just asked for more of mine.

  “I’ll run out of memories to show you,” I warned him, and he shrugged.

  “Then I guess we’ll have to make more, sunshine girl.”

  After weapons training was over, a palace courier sprinted into the courtyard and bowed curtly, handing a message to one of the drill masters. The master glanced over it, then gestured, stone-faced, at Sanjeet. “It’s for you.” The master hesitated. “Maybe read it in private, son.”

  When we returned to the Children’s Palace for our next barrage of lessons and testing, Sanjeet was nowhere to be found. His face remained on my mind as I solved the day’s allotted riddles and logic puzzles. Thanks to Bhekina House, the tasks had never been difficult, and rarely required my full attention.

  “What do you think happened to Sanjeet?” I whispered to Kirah as drums pounded through the Children’s Palace. We were returning to the Hall of Dreams, lining up for the afternoon catechism.

  She shook her head, looking worried. “He wasn’t at lunch. Jeet would never leave Dayo unattended this long—not unless something bad happened.”

  Before we could speculate more, a pair of griot priests with oiled beards entered the Hall. They took their usual place on the dais, and we candidates stood on our mats, Kirah leaving me to take her place by Dayo’s side. Drums beat out the introduction for the day’s catechism: T-dak-a, t-dak-a. Gun, bow-bow-bow. Hear the sacred story of creation. I struggled to keep my thoughts off Sanjeet as the griots performed, pausing for the traditional call-and-response.

  “Queen Earth and King Water are lovers,” sang one priest as the other kept time on an hourglass-shaped talking drum. “Their children are many. Trees. Rivers. Creatures that creep, ke-du, ke-du, and swim, shwe, shwe. They are weak and dumb of speech. But are Earth and Water lonely? Tell me.” No, we chorused around the room, they have a friend. “Aheh!” the priest continued. “The Pelican glides from star to star, shaking stories from its wings—whoom, whoom—to fill a thousand worlds. The Pelican is older than Earth and Water, older even than the sun. It does not always have wings and a bill. Sometimes it has hooves and a tail, or paws and a mane, or no body at all. Who is the Pelican?” Am the Storyteller. “Yes, Am, called Was, called Will Be. Watch, now: The Pelican moves through time like wind, with as many names as it has feathers. What name shall you call it? Choose wisely, for names have power.

  “High above Earth and Water floats Empress Sky. She gazes below and teems—gnatche, gnatche, with jealousy. Before Earth gave her heart to Water, she was Sky’s beloved sister. Now Sky is lonely in her airy realm, and bitter. What does she do? Tell me.” She challenges King Water. “Yes, to a duel. The heavens howl—hawawa, hawawa, and oceans churn, bushe, bushe. The war of Empress Sky and King Water rages for seven thousand years. Earth feels neglected by both husband and sister. See her take on a new lover: the handsome Warlord Fire.

  “The children of Earth and Fire multiply throughout the realm, fierce and strong. Volcanoes! Dragons! Rubies and mountains of coal. Water realizes the children are not his own. He abandons Earth in anger, and her lakes dry up, hasse, hasse. Her fields turn to desert. See Earth begin to die. Who shall come to aid her?” The Pelican. “Yes, the Pelican hovers over Earth. See it pierce its own breast to nourish her! Shaa, shaa—watch the Pelican’s blood fall, filling the parched places. And what now? New children are born. Fashioned from the clay of Earth, and brought to life by the blood of the Pelican.” Humankind. “Yes, the first living people. Water reconciles with Earth, promising to raise her new children as his own. Are the children strong?” Yes, and clever. “Aheh. But Fire is jealous. He is angered by Earth’s union with Water and her friendship with the Pelican. So he curses humankind with thirteen ways to die. Once gods, they are mortals now, weak as beasts. What shall they do? Who will lead them? Tell me.” The Raybearer! “Aheh! See the Pelican steal Rays from the sun, blessing the first emperor with wisdom and compassion. ‘You must choose eleven brothers and sisters,’ it tells the emperor, shaking oil from its wings. ‘For every brow you anoint, you will gain immunity to one of the thirteen deaths. Choose well, Emperor—for to the world, you will be as a god, but to your council, you will yet be a mortal man.’ Aheh, aheh.” It is done.

  The myth was ancient—except for the Raybearer part, which had been added only five hundred years ago, when the Kunleos formed the empire. After finishing the story, the priests made us recite the thirteen causes of mortal death. Poison, contagion, gluttony, we chanted. Burning, drowning, suffocation. Bleeding, beast mauling, disaster. Organ-death, witches’ hexes. Battery, old age. Raybearers were blessed with only one immunity at birth. But after anointing a full council of eleven, only old age could kill them—unless, of course, one of their council members turned traitor.

  “Hear the duties of the future emperor’s sacred council,” intoned the male priest after the lesson. My fingers drummed the side of my thigh: I had been made to hear these words hundreds of times before. “The Eleven must wield their titles of power fairly and without bias. The Eleven must serve the emperor first, then the empire, and then their realms of origin. Outside the council, they must form no attachments. Inside the council, no attachment may outweigh their loyalty to the future emperor. Carnal relations are prohibited, except with the future emperor.” Titters rippled across the room. Involuntarily, I remembered the hollow of a russet back, glistening with sweat and clay. I shook my head to clear it, grateful, for the first time that afternoon, that Sanjeet was absent.

  “Hear the duties of the future emperor,” the priest continued, bowing to Dayo. “His Highness is not permitted to marry. Instead, His Highn
ess must anoint and protect a trusted council, through which he shall serve the empire. His Highness must select his council sisters with special care”—the priest leered over the female candidates—“for they will birth all future Raybearers.”

  I grimaced. The priest made us sound more like a harem than a sacred council. I raised my hand and blurted, “What happens when there’s an empress?”

  Several lines wrinkled the priest’s protruding brow. “As I have said: Arit emperors do not marry. Such a union would interfere with the balance of council power—”

  “No,” I cut in. “I meant, what about when the Raybearer’s a girl?”

  The priest inhaled, summoning patience, then smiled. “There are no female Raybearers, child. Am has always chosen a man. That does not mean, of course, that female council members have no value. After all, you might bear a Raybearer.” He winked at me. “The empire would be forever in your debt.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Before I could respond, my chest began to burn.

  Someone had heaped coals over my heart. The heat came from inside, a dragon, a demon throbbing to get out. I gasped, clutching at my heart and sweating, glancing around and hoping no one noticed.

  The moment the priest looked away, I ran from the Hall of Dreams, sandals pounding the stone until I reached the banquet chamber. Pitchers of water and cordial from our last meal still rested on the long, low tables. I seized one and poured out the water, careful to keep the ice in the pitcher. Then I lay on the floor and dumped the cubes onto my chest. The cold stung viciously; I gritted my teeth to keep from howling.

  This had happened before. The surges of heat had tripled in frequency once I moved to the Children’s Palace. They had first begun at Bhekina House, when I was prone to tantrums. Now the burning in my chest was unpredictable, though it often flared during catechism. Sometimes I woke from dreams I didn’t understand, from memories that seeped from the Children’s Palace floor, with the ghosts of girls who had features eerily similar to my own.

  I shivered, willing away tears as I stared at the muraled ceiling. Did these attacks have something to do with The Lady? With the ugly truth of who—of what—I was?

  Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside, and I sat up, cubes spilling into my lap. A face appeared in the banquet chamber doorway.

  “Am’s Story, Tar,” exclaimed Kirah. “Did it happen again?“

  I nodded sheepishly. She came to help me up, brushing ice chips from my tunic. “You should talk to the healers. Maybe they can—”

  “There’s nothing they can do,” I said shortly, avoiding her gaze. The last thing I needed were palace physicians, poking around in my half-ehru insides.

  Kirah pressed her lips together. “Well, you can’t keep missing catechism,” she warned. “The testmakers will start to talk. Next time, try to wait until sunset. I could sing to you then.”

  It was our ritual: Every dusk, we stole away from the tests and prying eyes of the Children’s Palace, away to the An-Ileyoba rooftops, where we watched the sky turn shades of fire.

  I only shrugged, and Kirah sighed as we left the banquet chamber. Before we could escape, one more trial awaited us: the daily Prince’s Court.

  No place made me feel more distant from Dayo than the Children’s Palace throne room. I stood, invisible among the other candidates in the chamber of mirrored ceiling tiles and wax-dyed tapestry. A platform of twelve wooden thrones rose before the candidates. As Dayo, Kirah, and the other Anointed Ones took their elevated seats, I scanned the room for Sanjeet, but the towering pillar of his head and shoulders did not appear.

  “By the power of Ray within me,” Dayo began, tapping a plain wooden scepter on the ground, “I declare this court in session. Approach the throne.” He smiled over the crowd, pulling uncertainly at the rings on his fingers. The Children’s Palace acted as a microcosm of An-Ileyoba’s true court, preparing Dayo to make decisions as emperor.

  After a murmuring pause, a Djbanti candidate named Zyong’o stepped forward. “I have a complaint, Your Imperial Highness.” Dayo nodded, and Zyong’o bowed, then crossed his arms. “When Djbanti are paired with candidates from Dhyrma, we always lose the timed logic puzzles. They slow us down. I think”—he continued over enraged objections from the Dhyrmish candidates—“I think every member on a team should be from the same realm. Why mix figs with mangoes? Why should we Djbanti, hunters and scholars, be dragged down by empty-headed merchants?”

  Dayo winced at the now-unruly crowd. Djbanti and Dhyrmish candidates stood at opposite sides of the throne room, yelling and cursing each other, while Swanian candidates jeered at them both. “Silence?” Dayo said. “Order?” He sounded like a nervous farm boy, tossing seed to quell chickens. Surprisingly, the crowd quieted, though venomous looks still volleyed across the room.

  “I am grieved by your complaint, Zyong’o,” Dayo said, choosing each word with care. “I am sure it’s hard to feel that your strengths are compromised. But I doubt your problems are the other candidates’ fault. I’m sure Dhyrmish people are just as smart as anyone.”

  I shook my head in admiration of Dayo’s patience. I would have snapped at Zyong’o to either work with his Dhyrmish teammates, or take his haughty rear end all the way back to Djbanti.

  Imperial testmakers, the passive men and women who administered most of the candidate trials, stood in crimson robes along the wall. Brightening with an idea, Dayo gestured for a testmaker to approach.

  “Lady Adesanya,” he addressed her, “you help keep track of test results, don’t you? Please share how Dhyrmish candidates perform compared to others.”

  The testmaker nodded, producing a thick tome from beneath her arm and opening it to the middle. “According to my records,” she droned, “on average, candidates from Dhyrma consistently underperform behind their peers in logic, weapons, and science. They show equal capabilities, however, in god-studies, griotcraft, and statecraft.”

  Dayo’s face went slack, and Zyong’o smirked and shrugged as though to say, What did I tell you?

  The room erupted again. Djbanti candidates crowed with triumph as Dhyrmish candidates seethed, some barking that the records were rigged, while others left the room in anger and shame. Despite his good intentions, Dayo had made the problem infinitely worse.

  Heat fluttered in my chest again, though this time it was invigorating, coursing through my limbs as the wheels in my head began to turn. Like the mortars and pestles of village women pounding cassava into fufu, the levers in my mind began to beat, binding sounds and facts and images.

  People from Dhyrma were not stupid. Zyong’o was wrong. But Lady Adesanya had no reason to lie.

  Pound, pound.

  The Dhyrmish candidates failed at logic, but excelled in statecraft. That made no sense. Something was off: a rent in the pattern.

  Pound, pound.

  I closed my eyes. The Bhekina House tutors had shaped my brain to see puzzles everywhere. Every person, every place was a series of riddles, stories within stories, a system so plainly connected that to see the entire mural, I need only step back . . . and look. My eyes flew open.

  “Silence,” Dayo was saying again, yelling over the crowd in desperation. “The Council of Eleven reflects all realms and social classes. When the Eleven fall, so does the Arit empire. We aren’t just being tested on our skills. We’re supposed to learn how to work together.”

  It was the sleeping mats. It had to be.

  Candidates from Swana and Djbanti were likely to have names later in the Arit alphabet, while Dhyrmish names occurred earlier. The sleeping mats were arranged by name. Candidates with names that came earlier slept farthest from the doors in the Hall of Dreams, making them last to reach the banquet hall. Running on virtually no food, those candidates would be exhausted for every trial administered before lunch: logic, weapons, and science. God-studies, griotcraft, and statecraft occurred after lunch and dinner—so in those trials, they performed well. The solution was so simple, it almost felt silly. I felt guilt
y for not noticing earlier.

  Dayo always invited me to eat with his Anointed Ones, and so I had never been affected. Dayo cleared his throat, squirming beneath the unsatisfied glowers of the crowd. “I will not grant the request for unmixed teams.”

  I smiled, and my shoulders relaxed. Good. Dayo knew better than to humor the Djbanti candidate’s prejudices.

  “However,” he continued, “I decree that from this day forward, Dhyrmish candidates will receive additional tutoring in their failing subjects. The special treatment will continue until performance rises.”

  Wrong. My pulse quickened. Dayo’s ruling would only make the Dhyrmish candidates more exhausted than they already were. It wouldn’t solve the problem at all. But as I opened my mouth to challenge his ruling . . . heat slammed my chest again.

  It was worse than during the griots’ lesson. A poker seared beneath my ribs, burning for release. I struggled for breath with dawning horror.

  Of course. The pounding, the puzzle-solving . . . it wasn’t a gift.

  It was a trick. My intelligence was just another part of my ehru curse: a ploy to make me doubt Dayo’s right to rule. A way to bring me closer to betraying him. To hurting him.

  I shuddered and brushed my thumb across my chin, the sacred sign of the Pelican. Then I banished any idea of sleeping mats from my thoughts. The throne room roiled with discontent, but I smiled up at the platform, making sure Dayo saw my support for his ruling. I had beat the evil inside me. I had submitted, and remained silent.

  In the allotted free time before supper, Kirah and I slipped away to the back corridors of the Children’s Palace, as we had every evening since we were small. Using a curtain cord as rope, we wriggled through a window and climbed to An-Ileyoba’s gilded battlements. The wind whipped Kirah’s red prayer scarf as we held hands for balance, then we sat and dangled our feet over the edge, watching the sun melt beneath the Oluwan horizon. Usually we tossed figs to peacocks in the courtyard below, laughing when haughty courtiers peered up in confusion. But today, we were quiet.