Crown of Thunder

by Tochi Onyebuchi

  I turn to Aliya, and joy glows on her face. Then I turn back to the man whose frame fills the entire doorway. A small smile curls on his lips.

  “So, you are the one everyone’s been making such a fuss over.” His voice is soft, barely audible. He sticks his hand out, palm up. When was the last time anyone greeted me that way? “My name is Zaki.”

  I slide my palm over his. “Taj,” I say slowly.

  “To you and yours, Taj.”

  “To you and yours, Mage.”

  He takes his hand away and lets out a sigh. Then his eyebrows crease in a frown. “Now, clean this mess before I pafuka your heads!”

  * * *

  • • •

  After Zaki makes sure every inch of his home is spotless, he bangs around in the kitchen, splashing spices and fresh herbs from his garden into a boiling pot. Aliya and I wait in the living room. We each have rugs to sit on, and I know a good meal awaits us. I can smell it. In fact, the house is so small that I’m sure half the village can smell it.

  Zaki returns with bowls of steaming egusi soup and a plate piled high with fufu. “I am not used to cooking for more than myself, so please forgive me if I’ve misjudged the portions. I fear I may have cooked too much.”

  The entire time, Aliya cannot take her eyes off him. Like she’s still not sure he’s really there. I half expect her to reach out and try to touch the hem of his robe.

  Zaki closes his eyes and murmurs a quick blessing over the food before scooping out his first ball of fufu. I follow suit, minus the prayer.

  “There’s no such thing as too much fufu and egusi,” I say, testing the waters. I’m not sure where I stand with this man. His face remains stoic, and it’s unclear what he thinks of me. I have no idea what he thinks of Kos or how much he knows of what’s been happening. So, of course, I have to joke.

  There’s an uncomfortable beat of silence before Zaki bellows with laughter. Aliya smiles while she tries to wipe bits of fufu from her mouth with her wrist.

  I make a ball of fufu in my palm, scoop up some soup, then stuff the ball in my mouth. It’s delicious. “So,” I say after the slick ball of fufu slides down my throat, “are you Arzu’s father?”

  Aliya elbows me so hard I almost choke on my food. I look at her as though to say, Why waste time? She’ll thank me later.

  Half a minute passes before Zaki smiles. “Yes, I am.” He takes another long pause, looking down at his staff. “I met her mother one day in the Forum. She had found work as a merchant, and I do not know why or how, but the very first time I saw her, I was struck by her. No, not struck. I was decapitated.” He smiles. “She was the most beautiful person I’d seen in my entire life. And so different from me. She came from outside of Kos. It was like the world I’d spent my life studying in the Ulo Amamihe, the Great House of Ideas, had come to life before me. To be nearer to her, I arranged for her to work in the Palace. A servant’s position was the best I could get her without arousing too much suspicion. Arzu was born just under a year later.”

  I frown at him. “She doesn’t know you’re here, does she?”

  He shakes his head. “I’d been in communication with Mages in Kos after my expulsion, and I’d heard of a young, gifted Mage who could solve proofs far beyond her years.” He looks at Aliya, who beams. “We’d been plotting rebellion for years, but our intention was to overthrow King Kolade and his chief Mage, Izu. Then I learned of what Karima had done, and that threw our plans into ruin.”

  “So, what is all this, then?” I ask, gesturing at the books and the parchment now neatly arranged on desks and shelves around his house. I know I sound like an interrogator, but a part of me can’t quite square with the fact that this man hasn’t yet greeted his daughter, who believes him dead. I try to imagine what it would be like if I saw Mama and Baba again. If I knew for certain that they had survived Queen Karima’s reign, that they were still alive in the prison she has made of Kos, I would want to know.

  “Iragide,” Zaki says at last. “The secret to control. It is how you control the inisisa. It is how you can mold them into new weapons.” He looks to Aliya. “And it is how Karima controls the arashi.”

  “What?” I drop the ball of fufu I’d just scooped onto the floor.

  Zaki nods. “That’s right. She can control the arashi. They hover over the dahia, shrouding the entire city in permanent darkness. She has not yet learned how to send them far. She cannot reach us here. But the algebraists and Mages are hard at work trying to figure out how.”

  “How do you know all of this?”

  “The rebels have informed me of these things.”

  “And is that what you’ve been doing all this time?” I turn to Aliya. “What you’ve been trying to figure out? With all that scribbling?”

  This time, it’s Aliya’s turn to speak. “Solving for the Ratio is the key. It is what connects the living to Infinity. It is also what binds us together. So far, our understanding has been incomplete, but the Ratio unlocks the ability to control.”

  “It’s just a number,” I scoff.

  Zaki points at me. “It is written in the world around us. In fact, it is written on your very skin.”

  Startled, I scan my arms and the backs of my hands, feel my neck. “My sin-spots?”

  Zaki squints. “Did you think they appeared at random? There is order to how they are written onto your body.”

  I remember what Aliya said to me that first time we’d met at Zoe’s. She’d been the first person to look at me not as something to step over but as something to gaze at in wonder. She said she’d seen poems on my arms. Equations.

  “Like these?” Aliya says, her voice small. She rolls up the sleeves of her robes. The bruises on her arms have faded, revealing what I realize are letters and numbers. I almost choke. Aliya has the look in her eyes of someone who’s grown used to carrying pain in silence.

  “Who did that to you?” I ask. My voice is faint.

  “The Unnamed,” she says with a smile, letting her sleeves fall back down over her arms.

  Hurt grips my heart. I can’t bear to watch this happen to her. Whatever it is, it’s surely killing her. All this talk of the Ratio and saving Kos and the rebellion and Iragide. I can’t take it anymore.

  I jump to my feet.

  Aliya scrambles up. “Taj, where are you going?”

  “Out,” I say. And before she can say another word, I hurry outside. It’s dark. We’ve been at Zaki’s for hours. But in the distance, on the other side of the village, I see lights. Torchlight. And I hear the hazy hum of music. Someone is drumming. Others are cheering. There’s a fight going on.

  As fast as my legs will carry me, I run in that direction.

  CHAPTER 20

  SPECTATORS RING THE open-air pit on the outskirts of the village. The refugee camp lies in the distance, starting to turn into its own little town. People here shout out numbers, and pouches of coins trade hands. So much noise in the crowd. And everywhere I walk, the smell of stagga-juice makes me want to retch. Aliya finds me here, over the lip of the ridge surrounding the village. I worry Aliya’s going to bring up Zaki or the Ratio or Kos, but she remains silent and simply stands close to me and watches the pit. She doesn’t even look like she’s casting judgment on the Onija who must be getting ready to fight. But she doesn’t look like she’s all right with all of this either. Even I feel uneasy. Eating is not supposed to be like this, I know, but still, I can’t shake the sense of excitement in my belly.

  Standing not far from us, surrounded by a group of tastahlik, is Abeo. He doesn’t look my way, but I know he sees me. And it looks like it makes him happy. He has this intensity in his eyes, even when he’s laughing or smiling, like he is the type of man whose brain is always turned on.

  I recognize one of the girls—Folami—from that day with the Onija. She breaks away from the group, holding her jointed staff in one fist.
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br />   “Eh-heh!” Abeo cries out. “A true champion steps forward.” He lounges on a small boulder. “How many for you tonight?”

  She raises four fingers, and several in the crowd gasp.

  I catch her smile over her shoulder before she jumps into the pit, landing softly on her feet.

  There’s no expression on her face. When she comes to her full height in the pit, she doesn’t even glance up at the crowd. I can tell from the way she stands that her body is loose. There’s no tension in her. Maybe her mind is already empty.

  No emotion registers on her face, even as three inisisa—a sin-bear, a lynx, and a wolf—leap over the edge of the pit and land with a thud, raising a massive cloud of dust. As they spread out to circle her, she jumps into her fighting stance, feet spread apart, both hands gripping her staff. A griffin hovers overhead, flapping its wings, preparing to make its descent.

  We all wait. No one claps any rhythm. We’re all too rapt. How can anyone fight four inisisa at once?

  The sin-bear in front of her charges first. She flips her staff so that one end digs into the dirt. Using it as leverage, she leaps into the air, sailing right over the bear. She lands on her feet and swings her staff around so that the blades whistle through the air. She catches the handle with her free hand and glides to a stop. We all let out a gasp. Now all the beasts are in front of her.

  The griffin swoops down at the same time that the sin-wolf to her left runs forward, and she steps to the side like she’s dancing, swinging one blade to catch the wolf in the nape of its neck, then swinging up with the other arm and cutting straight through the griffin’s jaw. It flaps furiously, trying to fly to safety, but collapses. As it writhes at her feet, she brings her blade down on its neck, killing it.

  The lynx leaps at her back, and she spins, the free end of her jointed staff slicing straight through the thing’s flank mid-flight. It falls in two halves far away from her. It didn’t stand a chance.

  Then, standing tall, she turns to face the bear. They stand at opposite ends of the pit and eye each other in silence. Then the bear sets off, and Folami runs straight toward it. She flips her blade over her so that it sticks in the ground again, and that’s when I notice the hook on the front of her blade, like half a hilt. She hops onto it, then springs forward, the blade flipping over her again. With her hand to the blade’s back, she meets the bear, the blade digging into its shoulder. Using her momentum, she pushes the blade even farther with her hand. It tears the sin-beast apart, and the beast separates into two wispy shadows of blackness. Folami walks to it slowly and stands over the larger half of the bear, which squirms in the dirt. With one swipe, she severs its head from its body, and a cheer goes up from the crowd, louder than anything I think I’ve ever heard. I can feel it in my bones.

  I stare at Folami in shock and awe and wonderment. She’s barely broken a sweat. She doesn’t even breathe heavily. And she just killed four inisisa in less than fifteen minutes.

  The inisisa dissolve and gather in a single pool at her feet, then the ink springs into the air, and she opens her mouth. The thick combination of sins jumps down her throat, and I watch, waiting for pain to flicker across her face at having to consume so many sins at once. But . . . nothing.

  I turn and see Abeo on his boulder. He’s holding his dagas and smiling. He leans back and begins tying them to his feet so that the blades stick out past his toes. Then he hops off the boulder.

  “Wale!” Abeo calls out.

  Wale scurries forward with his staff behind him.

  “Wale, tie my hands behind my back.” He grins at the crowd, chest puffed up. Then he sees me and winks. “That’s right. I’m going to fight these inisisa with my hands tied behind my back.”

  He backflips over the edge of the pit and lands in a crouch. Several sin-hyenas break away from the group of Onija and jump down to join him.

  At first, they charge, and he bats them away with his bladed feet. Kicks one across the mouth, then another. All the while, his arms remain behind his back.

  One rushes forward, he kicks up, and while it hangs in the air, he spins and slices it once, twice, three times before landing on the ground. The hyena falls apart in the air and dissolves before it even touches the dirt.

  People start throwing their stagga-juice flasks in the air and clapping. Abeo grins for the crowd and does a little dance on the ground, spraying dust everywhere. Some of the girls in the tribe giggle at him, and he winks back.

  One of the hyenas tries to take Abeo from behind, but he flicks one foot out, hooks the hyena by the jaw, and flings it into the remaining hyena. Then, he runs forward, leaps into the air, and smashes his feet onto the tangle of sin-hyenas, twisting so that the blades cut into their necks.

  The hyenas begin to dissolve, then one of them rears, knocking Abeo back. It growls at him, then turns back and scrabbles up the wall.

  The crowd parts in a rush, and the sin-beast makes a straight line for me. I reach for my daga out of instinct, but there’s nothing there. This thing is fast enough that if I ran, it would chase me down almost instantly.

  “Aliya,” I hiss. “Get ready to run into the crowd. I’ll distract it.”

  I square up, ready to fight, when suddenly something dashes in front of me, kicking up dust.

  When the dust clears, Juba stands with her back to me, in a fighting stance, her staff piercing the hyena’s jaw.

  They’re frozen like that for a moment, Juba and the hyena, before Juba flicks her staff back and forth, and the sin-hyena’s head comes apart. She Eats the sin, no problem. By the time it’s done, Abeo has climbed back up the edge of the pit.

  “You smell too good for the inisisa to pass up,” Abeo bellows, but I hear the nervousness in it. “If you can stink a little more, then maybe they won’t be drawn to you.” The others join him in laughter, but I keep my eyes on him.

  He goes to stand with the crowd of Onija, and the air around them has shifted. They hold their weapons more tightly. Their stances have widened.

  Juba now stands at her full height next to me. I look back over my shoulder, and I see the Larada arrayed behind me. Stern faces, arms bared. Tensed.

  I find myself leaning onto the balls of my feet, fists ready. Just tell me who to hit. Someone puts a hand to my arm. It’s Aliya. Even now, she’s strong enough to hold me back with just a touch.

  “This ends tonight,” Juba growls.

  “Ayaba,” Abeo croons, smiling, “my queen, what law have we broken?”

  “This practice cannot be permitted to continue!” Juba shouts, and it comes out as a roar. Out of nowhere, cleansed inisisa appear before her. A row of hyenas and forest cats and lizards as large as some of the children and spiders as tall as she is. I realize with a start that these are some of the animals I’ve seen roaming the camp. The cleansed sins. They stand in a menacing row, protecting her. When the beasts crowd her, her sin-spots begin to glow. Soon, all the other Larada shine too, so that it looks like a wall of light has risen at Juba’s back. Arzu stands at Juba’s side, her knives at the ready.

  Abeo falters.

  “It shall be hereby decreed that all tastahlik must submit themselves as Larada and must train to become such. Eating sin is not a game. Sin-beasts are not playthings.” Her voice carries over the entire land. I’m sure even those in the faraway refugee camp can hear it. As she speaks, the clouds swirl above her head.

  “Taj.” Aliya’s voice is weak at my ear. “Taj.”

  I turn to face her, and all color has drained from her face. She leans on me, and I struggle under her weight. “Aliya, what’s wrong?”

  “Taj,” she murmurs. Her eyes droop closed, then shoot open again, like she is trying to keep from falling asleep. She gulps. “Taj, it’s . . .”

  Thunder crackles overhead.

  The crowd stirs. All is silent. The villagers feel it too. Something in the air has changed. Sudd
enly, Aliya seizes. Her neck snaps itself straight, her gaze fixed on the sky, arms bent stiff at her sides. She convulses and collapses to the ground, limbs thrashing, hurling sand everywhere.

  Before I know what I’m doing, I’m on my knees, holding Aliya in my arms. Her eyes are fixed on the stars in the sky like she’s trying to see straight through them. Suddenly, she goes still.

  “Aliya.” I shake her. “Aliya, say something.” My heart’s like a lizard in my chest, bouncing all over the place. Her eyes glaze over. She looks like she’s Crossing. “Somebody! Somebody, help! Please!”

  She says something in a language I don’t understand. It comes out with the rest of a massive breath she’s been holding in her chest.

  “Aliya, what are you saying?”

  More babbling, like what Mages say when they call forth a sin.

  Older tastahlik run at us from the desert expanse. The Sentinels.

  Behind us, in the distance, the village stirs awake. People leave their homes to see what is going on. They crane their necks toward the rim of the bowl. The streets are full. All eyes on the sky.

  I’m shaking Aliya so hard I worry I’ll break something precious in her, but I want it all to stop. More words spill out of her mouth. Thunder booms nearby. What is happening?

  Clouds form and swirl in the sky above the village. They grow thicker, rumbling with thunder and lightning, and I hear it. Faint whispers. Like inyo in a Baptized dahia. I feel them swimming around me. The left-behind sin-heavy souls of the dead. Lightning forks down onto the refugee camp, striking a roof, setting it on fire. A hole opens up in the sky.

  Aliya stares straight at it.

  Another BOOM. Then a sound that brings back all my memories of the Fall of Kos. A shriek so loud and piercing that I fall forward into the sand, still holding Aliya.

  Slowly, the arashi descends from the sky.

  The Sentinels shout at us. Their voices are faint at first, then louder as they near. “Run!” they shout.