Page 44 of The Merciless Ones
“Deka,” White Hands murmurs, her face slack. “Did I tell you? I just spoke with Melanis.”
Alarm tenses every muscle in my body. I exchange a look with Keita before forcing myself to turn back to her. “I know,” I say. Then I lick my lips, forcing myself to ask the question I’m almost afraid to ask. “White Hands,” I say tentatively, “were you ever—”
White Hands shakes her head, suddenly seeming exhausted. “My strength is flagging,” she abruptly says. “I will return tomorrow, when I’ve recovered. You and I must speak.”
Just like that, she’s gone, and both Keita and Britta are staring at me, unease written across their faces.
“I’ve seen that look before,” Britta says.
“Me too,” I whisper. It was the same look that Melanis had. The same one all those who allow the mothers to erase their memories wear.
I stare towards where White Hands vanished, unnerved. One thing is now starkly clear: her memories of Idugu have been erased – from birth, apparently – which means the mothers have not only known about Idugu since the beginning, they distinctly don’t want us to know. But why? Why erase both White Hands’s and Melanis’s memories to keep us from knowing? Why not just swear them to secrecy?
Why go through all these diversions just to lie to us?
Lie…
The word is terrifying in its implications. The mothers are lying to us. But they always told us gods don’t lie. That their kind are infallible. Suddenly, my chest is so tight, it feels as if a boulder’s sitting across it. The ground is shifting under my feet and the only thing I can do now is ask myself one last question: if the mothers can lie – if they’ve already been lying to us all this while – what else are they lying to us about?
“I thought gods couldn’t lie?” I repeat these words to Belcalis in a low voice as we scurry along the river market’s corners later that evening.
It’s the pre-dinner rush, so all the boats are crammed together now, connected by little bridges to allow customers free flow from one to the next. Tusked river cows splash idly in front of the larger boats, massive iridescent-scaled purple creatures that are much stronger than their plump, vaguely bovine bodies would suggest. They’re always a peculiar sight, something of a homely cross between fish – what with their scaled bodies and flippers – and the cows they’re named after, only they also have gigantic tusks jutting from their fleshy lower lips, and rolling humps of fat on their backs. They’re the ones that pull the largest boats from port to port, ensuring that the market is constantly moving from one end of the river to the other so as not to damage any one part of it. This portion of the Agbeni River may be smaller than most of Hemaira’s other waterways, but it still coils through the middle of the city, where a thousand elegantly terraced and gardened houses press cheek by jowl with each other. If any part of it is spoiled, much more than just the market would be affected.
I glance around, trying to get my bearings. As before, not a single woman is present. This river market used to be filled with female traders and customers in the most incredible masks, but now, there’s not a hint of a mask to be seen, not a single brightly trimmed robe – although I do notice a few shadowy faces in the windows of the houses overlooking the river.
Where have all the women gone?
Looking up at those windows, I have a terrible suspicion about the answer.
Belcalis moves closer to me, tugging her cloak tighter around her face. “Well,” she finally replies to my question, “lying isn’t the only inconsistency we’ve uncovered. The mothers were also supposed to be infallible, and only alaki were supposed to resurrect or turn to deathshrieks, but I suppose neither of those were true either.”
Of everyone, she seems the least surprised by the revelations of the past hour. But then, she always expects the worst of everyone. It’s a survival strategy that’s stood her in good stead thus far.
“At this point, we have to accept that certain things are true,” she says. “The mothers are lying to us about Idugu, which means, one” – she ticks off the number with her finger – “they can lie. Two, they have history with Idugu. And three, he or it must be quite powerful, for them to go to such lengths to deny its existence.”
“And,” I add, shivering, “they ensured that White Hands and Melanis don’t know about Idugu – or rather, can’t remember what they know.”
“Which means that the other Firstborn likely don’t know, or remember either,” Keita whispers. He’s here with us, a silent shadow at our backs. The others are spread out all across the boats in little groups to avoid attention. “Likelihood is,” he continues, “we’re the only ones from Abeya who do.”
“But then why would they tell us that story about the angoro and its wielder and send us on the mission?” I ask, my brows furrowing. Any which way I think about it, it doesn’t make sense.
“Because it must exist – the angoro, that is,” Keita says.
He stops, pulling us into the shadows of a busy delectables boat filled with tiny stalls selling skewers of roasted meat, spiced moi moi, and the like. Evening has fully descended now, so the darkness of the shadows creates a strange intimacy, like we’re the only ones here.
“I mean, why would they be so insistent we find it and its wielder? The only answer is, the angoro exists, and it has something to do with Idugu – just not what we think it does.”
“Perhaps it’s a weapon,” Belcalis whispers. “That could be why it’s so important. The generals are always looking for better, stronger weapons. But it’s an arcane object, so it would have to be something truly unique. A destroyer of armies, perhaps, or—” Her eyes widen, as if something momentous has occurred to her.
She turn to us. “What if it kills gods?”
“What?” I stop mid-step. “You think the mothers want to kill Idugu?”
“Perhaps. I don’t know.” Belcalis shakes her head. “All this is just supposition and theorizing. We don’t know if any of the things we just said are true. We know nothing—”
“Yet,” I say firmly. “We know nothing yet. But right now, we can at least try to puzzle everything out. Prepare ourselves for any eventuality.” As we failed miserably to do in Zhúshan.
Keita nods, already moving towards the next boat, but as he does so, Belcalis pauses, cocking her head. “Do you hear that?”