Page 9 of The Merciless Ones
What if there are more like it – arcane objects with power enough to mimic a god?
I whirl to the others, frightened and excited all at the same time. “The mothers were asleep for thousands of years. Much of their power was lost during that time. What if it wasn’t lost but stolen? The Hemairan emperors always knew where the mothers slept, and they had all kinds of arcane objects back then.”
“Like that symbol,” Britta says, nodding at the breastplate wrapped carefully in my pack for later inspection.
“Like that symbol,” I confirm. “Who’s to say there isn’t one that can steal divine power?”
It would explain so many things. The last time Oyomo was supposedly in his Idugu aspect, the true jatu trapped the mothers in a prison of their own blood, then created the Death Mandate, to hunt down and kill alaki. But how did they do it? How did they acquire enough power to subdue the mothers long enough to imprison them?
It’s something I’ve always wondered, and now, I fear I may know the answer.
To think, all we had to worry about a year ago was killing deathshrieks and trying to regain our purity. Now, there are arcane objects and jatu who come back from the dead. I can’t decide whether to cry or scream. Either seems appropriate, given the circumstances.
I turn back to the others: “Well, if there’s one thing I know, it’s that it’s better to get the answers straight from the horse’s mouth than to waste our time on useless suppositions. The mothers will know. Let’s ask them.”
Which reminds me… I turn to Melanis, who’s still at the front of the group, so intent on reaching Abeya, she hasn’t heard any of our conversation. “Melanis?” I call out to her. “I have a question for you.”
“Yes, honoured Nuru?” The Firstborn whirls Praxis around to meet me.
Once she’s near, I lean in. “Have you ever been able to allow others to see your memories?”
“Allow others to see my memories?” Melanis cocks her head, confused. “You mean by using a divine gift? There is no such thing, honoured Nuru. Only gods can see into the minds of others.” She pulls closer, that perfect brow furrowed. “Why do you ask?”
“When we were in the temple, I—” I stop there, guilt flooding me: I can’t burden Melanis with my worries. She was only just freed.
Even now, I can see the lingering dark circles under that golden-brown skin. She may be physically well, but she’s been through an ordeal. A thousand years burning in that temple. Her mind is damaged – fractured, just like mine. I can’t add to its weight. Not now, when there’s so much joy on her horizon.
“Nothing,” I finish. “Just an errant thought.”
I can see she’s still confused, but I just smile and motion for her to continue on. I’ll wait and speak to either White Hands or the mothers – people who truly understand what is happening. That waking dream may be yet another example of my own mind’s splintered state, but it also may be more. Either way, I have to know.
“You should go,” I continue, nodding towards the distance, where a string of mountains is appearing across the horizon. The N’Oyos. Our home. “We’re almost there.”
“Finally!” Melanis urges Praxis forward, years seeming to fall from her shoulders.
Only now, they’re pressing down onto mine. So much to do, so many questions to ask.
I glance down at Ixa, who’s been flying this entire time. Hurry, I say. I have to speak to the mothers.
Deka, Ixa says, flapping his wings faster.
In the distance, the barest hint of sunlight filters over the peaks.
Six months ago, the Temple of the Gilded Ones was a ruin, a forbidding edifice on a freezing mountaintop surrounded by a lake of salt so blindingly white, it was painful to look at in the daylight. To reach it from Hemaira, you had to cross deserts for weeks on end, skin sweltering under the blistering-hot sun, throat seizing as winds swirled the sands into massive storms. Then I woke the Gilded Ones, and they began to regain their power. With that power, the entire N’Oyo mountain range and the area around it came to life – massive trees with branches large enough to rival those in the jungles of the deepest Southern provinces, a shimmering lake filled with all sorts of fish and other aquatic life. The Bloom, we call this new profusion of life. Visible evidence of the mothers’ returning power. Even the temperature has changed, from the unending chill of the high mountaintops to the balmy warmth I remember from my days in the Warthu Bera. Where once there was only desolation and salt, there’s now life, and it lifts my tension just a little when we near those familiar peaks, the crags outlined by softly glowing balls of light that bob and dance like giant fireflies.
“Mother Beda’s lights,” Melanis says, a smile wreathing her face. The first true one I’ve seen since she was freed.
Suddenly, I’m grateful for my decision not to burden her with my concerns. She deserves this much, this tiny portion of joy after so many years of misery.
She darts over to a cluster of lights, her long fingers grazing their edges.
They emerged from the bosom of one of the mothers – Beda – a few days after she woke and haven’t stopped appearing since. Everywhere an alaki or deathshriek passes on this mountain, there’s always a ball of light to show the way. You can even see them in the foothills, where a contingent of alaki is currently patrolling the base of the mountain. The Bloom is so thick there, it’s difficult to pick the girls out, but those lights are a dead giveaway. I squint when I notice a few more balls of light near a group on the hill, who seem to be pulling something out of the mountain’s base. Whatever it is, it’s large, but I’m too far away to truly see.
It must be one of the mothers’ marvels. New creatures are always emerging in the mountains. The sight reassures me: we’re almost home.
The sun has begun to rise by the time we come into view of the central mountaintop, where the Temple of the Gilded Ones rises from the middle of the lake. Gold-veined buildings surround it, their waterfall-misted gardens and red stone statues gleaming in the early morning light. Abeya, the city of the goddesses. My heart warms at the sight…and at the sound of cheerful drumbeats – an audible welcome, alerting the lines of splendidly armoured deathshrieks and alaki waiting at the edge of the temple’s lake that we’ve arrived.
As I expected, White Hands is at the front of the welcome party. Beside her are the equus twins Braima and Masaima, their manes formally braided, iron-tipped talons impatiently pawing the ground. Melanis is a legend among not only the alaki but also the equus, who have been our allies for as long as there has been written history.