by Rena Barron
The room smells damp and musty as my nails dig into the stone wall. She hasn’t stopped me from doing that. My nails break and my warm blood mixes with the grime. I need the pain to keep from collapsing to my knees. I need it to keep from dying inside. I need it to give me strength.
I struggle to speak, but my words jumble like a babe trying her tongue for the first time. There won’t be peace for you in this life or the next. I’ll make sure of it. I scream the promise in my head, but I mean every single word. I will find a way to end my mother.
Arti stares at the children for a long time and whispers something under her breath. A single tear slips down her cheek. It’s a slap in the face to me, to their families, to the people who mourn them. Anguish and sadness brim in her bloodshot eyes, but the emotions flit away as she turns to the altar. Any illusion of regret is just that—an illusion.
Instead of prayers to the orishas, spells written in blood cover the walls here. The words have odd edges and curves, and unabashed boldness in their strokes. A coiled serpent threads through the script like a great sea monster. Inside the snake’s body, she’s drawn two interlinked spheres, the symbol for binding. There are other symbols too: vines, eyes, and beasts with teeth sharp enough to cut stone. Symbols I’ve never seen before.
Oshhe waits in a corner for her next command. I look at his shaved head, the gold rings that line his ears, and I can’t see my father. So much of what makes a person is in their ka, and his is imprisoned somewhere deep inside him. He doesn’t deserve this. He’s always been so kind to Arti, even in the face of her indifference.
“Why do you hate us so much?” I spit.
“Hate you?” Arti frowns. “Don’t be foolish. I don’t hate you.”
I’m left speechless at her perplexed expression after all her crimes.
“I’m disappointed in you, yes.” She wrinkles her nose. “You should be stronger.”
“Disappointed?” The word tastes bitter as I stare at my friend. The horror of what my mother’s done outweighs my relief in finding him. He’s in a deep sleep, and there’s a crooked smile on his lips. Kofi, my friend. The boy who goes out of his way to annoy Rudjek and make me laugh. The boy with a thousand and one fishing tales. I hope he’s dreaming about a wild adventure on the Great Sea—anything but this nightmare. I have to convince Arti to let him go. There must be some good beneath the black ice covering her heart. I want to save them all, but if I can save only one . . . I swallow the bile burning up my throat. I’m awful for thinking it, but if I can only save Kofi, I will.
“He’s at peace,” Arti comments, peering at him too. “They all are. I made sure of it.”
“He’s my friend,” I whisper.
“I know.” Darkness stirs behind her eyes. “You will lose many friends before the end.”
“Please let him go.” I hold her cold gaze.
“I will not have you beg!” Arti snaps, and her magic stills my tongue. “This world is a cruel place, and only the most brutal thrive,” she hisses, glancing to Oshhe. “Between the both of us you should’ve inherited an exceptional talent for magic, but instead . . . you’re weak. You need to be strong to survive what’s to come.”
My mother’s words cut me so deep that the wounds seethe and I know they will never heal. There’s no getting through to her, no changing her mind. She lays a dagger across the top of the altar. It isn’t a stretch to believe that she’ll kill the children with that very knife. I imagine plunging it into her belly instead. My body feels heavy at the thought of killing my mother, but if she won’t see reason, there’s no other way.
“Before,” Arti says, voice as sweet as honeyed wine, “you asked me why children.”
She busies herself at the altar, as if it’s a routine night at the Temple. Now that I know her secret, it stands to reason that this is normal for her. From the looks of the chamber and the way she moves around it, she’s spent much time here. All these years my father and I thought she’d been with the other seers, she’s been in this gods-awful place instead.
She puts a straw doll next to the knife and a bowl of dried herbs and oil—all things used in traditional Mulani rituals. “Do you still want to know why?”
I struggle to speak, but the curse keeps my tongue still. She glances up when I don’t answer, and her magic loosens. I try to make sense of the spells on the walls again and the great serpent. I wipe sweat from my forehead so hard that it leaves a trail of heat across my face. But I can’t wipe away the truth as the pieces fall into place and my mother’s plans become clear. The interlinked spheres, the symbol for binding. Not so different from symbols on the trinkets the charlatans peddle in the market. Powerful Zu symbols, coupled with my mother’s magic and her ironclad will. The serpent, the same as the one carved into my chest. No more guessing. “You’re trying to summon a demon,” I blurt out, hardly able to believe it. “You’re summoning her—the green-eyed serpent from Grandmother’s vision. But why?”
“When Ka-Priest Ren invaded my mind, he saw the entirety of my life.” Arti uses a quill dipped in blood to draw symbols on the doll. “Except my most private memories. At first he found it to be a welcome challenge, but by the end, it frustrated him that he couldn’t see that part of my mind.” She looks up at me again, her eyes absent. “Those memories are the only ones I know to be real. Every other memory before my encounter with Ren reeks of his twisted perversions.
“Do you know what he would’ve learned, had he been able to steal those memories too?” She marks the doll’s forehead in blood. When I don’t answer, she offers, “He would’ve found out that my first memory is of the Demon King whispering in my ear. That when I was a young child, he showed me what the orishas did to him and why. You won’t find that history within these Temple walls.” Arti glances at the ceiling, her voice brittle. “Even so, I was too young to understand. When I left the tribal lands for the Kingdom, I left him behind too. I wanted to experience everything . . . see the entirety of the world. Not only through magic—through my other senses too.
“After Suran’s accusation, Ren brought me to a chamber like this one.” Arti’s eyes hollow out, her words barely audible. “That’s when I truly understood the Demon King’s warning about the orishas. While the Ka-Priest was in the middle of stealing my memories, Re’Mec appeared to demand another Rite of Passage. I begged the sun god for help. I offered him my eternal servitude. But no, he didn’t even spare me a glance.
“Do you think I don’t feel Heka’s presence every blood moon, that I do not hear his call? I choose not to answer. When I needed help, it wasn’t Heka or the orishas who answered me. The Demon King did. Still in his prison, he poured a part of himself into my mind—and that is the only reason I survived Ren.
“Why did I take the children?” Arti stares at them. “I took them out of necessity . . . to give back what the orishas stole from my master and to punish them.” She jerks her face away and turns to Oshhe. “Come, husband. It’s time.”
I glare at my mother so long that my eyes ache. Her words crash against my mind, shattering the fragment of hope that I can somehow get through to her. No, it’s too late for that, too late for reason, too late for pleading. All these years, my mother’s had a connection with the Demon King. I can only guess it’s because of her extraordinary gifts . . . she talks to him, she serves him. He’s in her mind.
My mother’s accomplice . . . is . . . the greatest threat to mortal kind. Could she be wrong about Ka-Priest Ren Eké? Did he plant this fantastical story in her mind? How can she be so sure? It would be better if she is delusional, easier to stomach, but no, my mother is anything but . . . Her ideas of right and wrong are as twisted as her memories.
My father climbs onto the altar and lies flat on his back. Tears slip from the corners of his eyes and hope flares in my chest. He’s still fighting her curse. If he breaks free, he can put an end to Arti—but he doesn’t move a muscle. His tears keep coming as she raises the bowl above his chest and it erupts into flames. His ka ma
y be locked deep inside him, but he hasn’t given up.
“I give these innocents to the Devourer of Souls, Executioner of Orishas,” Arti recites. “Demon King, accept these offerings.”
My mother has turned her back on the orishas and Heka, on her tribe, on the Kingdom. Children’s souls are pure, which makes them powerful. That’s why she needed their kas—to feed them to the worst demon of all. But if the Demon King is still trapped in Koré’s box, then how?
Once the fire dies in the bowl, Arti lifts Oshhe’s chin and pours the thick black remnants down his throat. “I await your grace,” she bows her head. “Send me your servant.”
A strong wind blows my braids across my face. As a foul odor overwhelms the air, I slide to the floor and wrap my arms around my knees. My head swims as a sensation of prying eyes overcomes me. The hot breath of the unseen demon touches my lips. I recoil against the stone wall until it digs into my flesh.
Oshhe’s back arches, almost as if it’ll crack in two. Then he collapses and moves in fits and jerks. Tar foams from his lips; his face twists in pain. When he screams, two voices come from his mouth. One that is my father’s and one that is primordial and dark like the belly of a murky well. He struggles to sit up, his breathing labored. His spine curves so much that his head hangs limp between his shoulders. “The souls . . .”
His voice splits again, both tones grating against my ears. “Give them to me.”
“Take them yourself, Shezmu,” Arti spits. “I don’t answer to you.”
Shezmu lifts his face, my father’s face. “A tribal witch . . . how interesting.”
His eyes glow sickly green. The demon from my vision—her eyes were the same.
Sweat drips down Shezmu’s forehead as he turns to the children and their kas. He reaches his hand to them and the tops of the jars fall away. I scream as their kas drift to the demon’s open mouth—a mouth wider than should be possible.
Like a great serpent, Shezmu eats the children’s souls. I want to look away, but I can’t. I can’t stop staring, tears lapping down my cheeks. Kofi still has that crooked grin on his lips as his ka flows up from the jar. He doesn’t feel it. He’s at peace. The thought stabs me in my heart. His ka funnels to Shezmu, and Kofi’s smile fades. The lines of his forehead smooth until all the muscles in his face fall completely still. I beat my fists against the stone, wishing it was the demon instead. Kofi’s chest rises and falls and . . . stops.
I can’t breathe. The room tilts. He’s gone. My pretend-brother is gone. I couldn’t save him.
Sweat glistens upon Arti’s brow, her face blanched. She is a blur of shadows through my tears. “You will grant me a favor in return for this small gift.”
Shezmu’s spine cracks as he straightens up. “Unless you’ve found a way to give me a permanent body, I have no use for you.” He scowls at her, then with a look of indignation, he adds, “I’m not strong enough to expel the soul from this one.”
I release the air aching in my lungs. My father will be okay; he’ll come back to me.
Arti clucks her tongue. “I can set the Demon King free.”
“Tell us how,” Shezmu commands, his voices both a high-pitched screech and my father’s deep tenor.
“If it were as easy as that, I wouldn’t need you.” Arti grimaces and looks down her nose at him. “We need magic that is more powerful than you or I have. Only demon magic and Heka’s combined is strong enough. I’m in a position to collect a debt on behalf of the tribes who share their souls with Heka in return for the gift of his magic. I am the true Mulani chieftain. Heka will answer my call.”
A sharp pain cuts across my head. Each year at the Blood Moon Festival, the Mulani chieftain calls Heka down from the sky to the tribal lands. No other person, not even the other edam, can call upon him. For Heka first bestowed his gift upon a Mulani woman a millennium ago—and the Mulani became his emissary. Why would he answer Arti now when she begged him for help before and he didn’t come? She’s been gone from the tribal lands a long time, but could it be that when she left, she never stopped being the Mulani’s true chieftain?
Heka can’t answer her now—a traitor to his name, to her people, a servant of the Demon King. But Heka isn’t an orisha, and he doesn’t have a reason to despise the demons. He came to our world and gave us magic four thousand years after the war. He can’t help her if he knows what she intends and the consequences of releasing the Demon King’s ka. I don’t understand why she wants to do this. As a seer at the Almighty Temple—the orishas’ temple—she knows the history of the war better than anyone. She knows the devastation the Demon King will wreak upon the world. But if the Demon King has been her confidant all these years, she doesn’t believe it.
“I’m listening, tribal witch.” Shezmu narrows his eyes at her. “What do you propose?”
“While you inhabit my husband’s body, you will give me a daughter.”
I cover my mouth to cut off another scream, and my pulse thunders in my ears. Arti can’t be asking something so vile, something impossible. She shouldn’t be able to conjure a demon if the orishas killed the entire race. But the scripts in the Hall of Orishas got it very wrong. That much is obvious now. I shake my head, but denying the truth won’t make it go away.
“You know that I can’t.” Shezmu grumbles between gritted teeth. “None of us are strong enough in this state.”
Arti steps closer to him. “With the full glory of Heka’s magic you can.”
Shezmu breaks into a cold, unfeeling smile.
Conjuring the demon has stretched Arti’s magic too thin, and there’s slack in the rope that tethers me to her. Freedom taunts me like a mirage shifting in desert haze. “Don’t do it. She’ll find a way to cross you too.” I spit out the words against an unwilling tongue.
“She’s a curious one,” Shezmu says. “She hides her secrets. I want her soul too.”
“Out of the question!” Arti snaps, her magic sparking in flashes of lightning.
Shezmu laughs. “Touchy, touchy, tribal witch.”
What he says doesn’t make sense—but I think of my own gifts, the ones that I’ve brushed off as weak and unhelpful. My mind resists the influence of magic, and for once I’m relieved that it does.
I don’t know why my mother cares about my soul, when I’m so much of a disappointment, so much that she wants another daughter. Shame simmers in my belly as I push back more tears.
“I’ve been told you haven’t the sense to honor a deal unless you’re bound,” Arti tells the demon.
Shezmu’s green eyes brighten with amusement. “You have spoken to my master.”
Arti snaps her fingers, and another flutter of her magic brushes against my skin. “Then I bind you to Arrah. Trick me and be forever trapped in her shadow.”
“I have terms,” Shezmu counters. “Should you fail, I will consume your ka and hers too.”
“I agree to your terms,” Arti answers without hesitation. “I will not fail.”
The demon smiles again, knowing that either way he has won. Arti smiles too. She’ll have no intention of honoring her promise should she fail; she would’ve planned for that contingency, too. But I don’t care about my ka right now . . . Let the demon have it if it means stopping my mother.
Arti raises her arms to the ceiling and speaks in a terrible voice that quakes through my body. “I call upon the son of he who gave birth to the stars. He who was born before his mother yet existed. He who belonged to the universe before orishas had yet come into being. Descend upon us, Heka. Come so you might pay your debt to the tribal people, who share their souls with you so that you may reveal your magic. I compel you on the pact you made. Create for me your prestige. I am the rightful Mulani chieftain; you must heed my words.”
The entire chamber shakes until the ceiling cracks and peels back like flesh skinned from bones. Clumps of wet soil rain down, and a warm breeze sweeps through the tomb. We’re beneath one of the gardens. The moon fills the sky with a soft glow, and the stars mov
e together. A blinding white light descends.
Heka’s presence sucks up all the space in the tomb.
I sit very still for fear that his ka will crush every bone in my body. Heka sees inside my mind. He knows me and I know him. I yearn for his comfort, his closeness. His magic hums in my blood, and invisible tentacles allow me to taste the world for the second time. It’s only in his presence that a sliver of true magic stirs deep inside me, like it did at the Blood Moon Festival. My mind stretches beyond my body, this tomb, this world, time and space. The magic is that of possibilities, of seeking, of knowing the unknowable. I am one with the universe. It’s nothing like my mother’s curse, which aches to strike at the smallest provocation. But I know this feeling won’t last. Heka has already denied me his gift once—deemed me unworthy—and even if I am, I hope that he’ll listen to my plea. He mustn’t help my mother.
Heka, please. Stop her now before it’s too late.
He floats above our heads. His physical form is ever-shifting ribbons of light. My body pulses like a drum, and my ka speaks to Heka. It speaks of suffering, it speaks of endurance. It speaks of hope, it speaks of rebirth.
Stop her, please.
“As the rightful heir to your temple in the tribal lands, I’m the only one who can ask that your debt be repaid in full.” Arti humbles her voice. “In return for sharing our souls, you promised us the full glory of your magic. I, Arti, of Tribe Mulani, hold you to your pact bound by your magic. It’s time for you to keep your promise.”
He must say no. He can’t do anything that she asks. If he sees inside me, then he sees inside her too and knows that her heart is rotten and twisted.
Heka answers in images: a bull-headed man with blood running down his bare chest, his hands bound in chains, his feet aflame. What you want is against the natural order of this world. The consequences will be unimaginable.
