Crown of Thunder

by Tochi Onyebuchi

  My thoughts go to that afternoon I spent with the Onija. Sitting in a loose, unbalanced circle, eating melon slices and chin-chin. Young and powerful and laughing. The sun shining through the beaded curtain of that room, splashing bars of light over our sin-spotted arms and legs. There’s a part of me that still sees myself there. Joking with Folami and Abeo and the others about foolish, dirty merchants from faraway lands who eat with soiled metal forks instead of with their hands. Play-fighting with the younger sin-eaters, defending the village with the older ones. I thought I could be one of them.

  I shake away the vision. They’re the enemy now. And Abeo leads them.

  Aliya pores over the books, and when Zaki has finished handing out bowls of soup to the Healers, he joins her. It’s like the rest of us have vanished, and all the two of them have eyes for is their work. Unrolled books are scattered across the floor, and I have to step over them in order to join their inner circle. They have their books unrolled side by side, and I see that the ones before Aliya are nothing but shapes. Shapes next to shapes inside of more shapes. But it’s a jumble. And Zaki holds down unrolled books that show disjointed equations, like the writing on Aliya’s body.

  “This is it,” Aliya whispers, pointing. She points first at the shapes, then jabs a finger at an equation. “Quick! Parchment!” she shouts to no one in particular.

  I scoop up some half-rolled books and spread one out on the table. Aliya pulls the stylus from behind her ear and begins scribbling. On one end of the parchment, she starts an equation, then she peers at the geometric shapes, then on the other end of her parchment, she begins writing script, right to left. Then she goes back and beneath the first equation, she writers another, then a matching line of script. One side looks like lines from poetry, the other side her usual lahala algorithms.

  “What’s she doing?” I ask Zaki.

  But he’s just staring at her in wonder. When the others notice Zaki’s stillness, they too crowd around.

  Aliya’s writing grows more feverish. Sweat beads her forehead. And she doesn’t make a sound. Now even Arzu has come to see. Aliya pushes the stylus down so hard it snaps, and we all jump back in one loud shout.

  “I need another!”

  Arzu and I scramble into the study, pulling open drawers and knocking books down from shelves.

  “EH-EH!” Zaki shouts from the living room. “THERE IS NO NEED TO BE BANGING MY CUPBOARDS AND MAKING MY HOUSE ALL JAGGA-JAGGA!”

  “Got it!” Arzu holds up a stylus, and we get it to Aliya as quickly as possible.

  She resumes and scribbles some more. Then some more, until she’s filled the entire page. Before she slides that one away, I hand her another, unrolling the book and spreading it out on its empty side. She keeps going, writing faster than I’ve ever seen anyone write.

  She’s writing a proof, I realize. But a proof of what?

  I catch movement out of the corner of my eye, and a shape darts past the window. I rush to it and see nothing until something else, fast and black, rushes past. Then, cresting the hill, a line of black shapes. Inisisa.

  “We have to get out of here,” I say, backing away. I rush to the opposite window over the washing area in the kitchen and see more. “We don’t have much time. He’s here!”

  “Olodo!” a voice sings from outside.

  Abeo.

  Darkness covers the windows, blocking out the light.

  Uhlah! Everyone stops moving. Even the sound of Aliya’s stylus moving against the parchment has died.

  “Come, come!” the voice shouts. “Come and let me collect my bounty, na! I went through all this trouble leading your friend here to kill my enemies and make my job easier; now let me come collect my money.”

  Someone in the room gasps.

  I turn to Bo.

  “I did not wander here,” Bo says as the realization dawns on him. “I followed a trail. A trail I believed was made by aki. I was chasing a man covered in sins.” He pauses. I can feel the air change with his frown. “I thought he was you.”

  Abeo led Bo to us. To the village. Knowing what Bo would do. So that was his plan: lead Bo to the village so that, once the killing was finished, Abeo could overthrow Juba. Then, when the dust settled, have Bo killed and take my corpse to Karima.

  Except that we escaped.

  “Foolish olodo! You had the chance to run, and instead, like a rat escaping a flood, you trap yourself.”

  Nobody speaks.

  “Fine, then. If you do not come out, I will execute Juba right here.”

  We hear the scraping sound of chains. Then silence.

  We wait. Maybe he is prompting Juba to speak and let us know she is really there with him. I imagine Juba refusing to make a sound. I imagine her being willing to sacrifice herself to save us.

  “We don’t know that she’s out there,” I hiss. “It could be a trap.”

  “We are already trapped,” one of the Healers whispers back.

  “I’m not leaving her out there to die,” Arzu says. Before any of us can stop her, she rushes for the door and swings it open, charging outside. Light blasts into the room, and a moment later, screams mingle in the air. We all dart out at once into the day.

  CHAPTER 29

  INISISA SURROUND US. At least a dozen. Boars and bears and wolves and lynxes and snakes as long as I am tall. Folami has Arzu on her knees, the bladed end of her jointed staff pointed at the back of her neck. Juba stands upright, but Abeo is behind her, her chains firmly in his grasp.

  “Ah, you have finally met my stable.” He waves his free arm at the legion of inisisa.

  My hands long for a weapon.

  “They have been itching for some air. You see, keeping inisisa in captivity, it only makes them angrier. One would say, less easy to control. They are just like the refugee children I call them from. Unruly, unpredictable. Then your arashi had to come and cut off my supply.” One of the Healers starts to get into a fighting stance, and Abeo makes a show of tightening Juba’s chains. She grunts against them. “Do you value the life of your Ayaba? Your queen?” The Healer relents. “Now come to me, Taj.” He spits out my name like it’s venom or the remnants of a sin he has just Eaten.

  Lanre pulls his sabers out from the scabbards crossing his back and comes forward.

  I look around and realize I have no choice. Bo has one hand, and neither of us has any weapons. Arzu can’t move. Just as I take a step, Aliya trips and stumbles, landing on the steps in front of me, between me and Lanre. She crawls on her hands and knees, searching.

  “My spectacles!” she shouts. “My spectacles! Oh no!” She crawls in a wide circle. I stoop to help her, and she pauses only for a moment to murmur, “Back away, Taj. Just step back.”

  When I do, I see that everywhere she puts her hand, she leaves a trail of something dark. Blood. Just like Zaki during the arashi attack.

  She stops. A circle of dried blood surrounds her where she kneels. She touches her head to the ground, pretending to cry, like she has finally given up looking for her lost spectacles.

  “What is this lahala?” Abeo shouts, and the others snicker. “Is everyone from your city this clumsy?”

  Aliya is still, but just below Abeo’s laughter, I can hear her murmur. Then the ground begins to shake. A small rumble at first, which gets everyone to stop moving. Then stronger. So strong that everyone stumbles back. Lanre falls down. Abeo staggers back, tightening his grip on Juba. Then a gash opens up in the earth. The land Aliya and I stand on breaks away from the land the Onija stand on. Some of the sin-beasts nervously step from side to side. One of the inisisa doesn’t notice how near it is to the crack and falls in. So does another.

  The cut in the earth widens. Suddenly, Bo leaps from behind me and barrels into Lanre. When he flips away, he has one of Lanre’s sabers in his good hand, and he charges straight for one of the inisisa—a wolf—jumping and spinn
ing in the air to slice open the nape of its neck. The wolf collapses and instantly turns into a pool of sin that jets into Bo’s waiting mouth.

  With Folami distracted, Arzu kicks out, tripping her and tearing free of her ropes. The gap in the ground is still widening, but Arzu jumps across and barely makes it. I rush to pull her up just as a wall of water rises from the broken earth. I turn, and Zaki too stands in a ring of blood. Arzu and I catch each other’s eye, and she hands me one of the dagas tucked into her belt.

  Together, we run and burst through the wall of water to see chaos around us.

  Bo swings his new saber at the inisisa that surround him, wounding one but having to dodge another’s attack from behind. He slips and just barely avoids the bear that towers over him and slams its paws down where his head had been.

  Daga in hand, Arzu turns and just barely catches Folami’s strike with her block. She kicks Folami away, then gets into her fighting stance.

  I see Abeo backing away. His remaining inisisa gather around him. They advance toward me as one. I try to return to that place I was in when Juba and the Healers and I rid the village of the sins Bo carried within him.

  Just as the first snake leaps for me, I sidestep it and try to catch its forehead. It twists in my grasp and wraps around my arm. It rears back to bite my neck when a hand grips its neck, and it bursts apart in a shower of fireflies. One of the Larada smiles at me, then rushes at where Bo keeps three inisisa at bay.

  Another Larada rushes past me and easily fends off the rest of the inisisa Abeo sent at me.

  Next to me, Bo slices and sweeps and swings, and the inisisa trying to consume him fall apart. He Eats them with ease.

  Lanre charges him from behind, but Bo flips the saber in his hand and swings behind him, knocking away Lanre’s saber just in time. Then Bo spins and catches Lanre in his side. Lanre falls to his knees. Then his head hits the ground.

  Arzu has Folami’s arm twisted high up her back with her daga at the Onija’s throat.

  “Abeo!” I call out to him. “You’re defeated. Let Juba go.”

  “Far from it,” Abeo says. “Far from it. Your Ayaba is just one wrong breath away from my opening her throat. I would be careful were I you.”

  He’s right. We’ve finished the rest of his army, but Juba still can’t move, and she still has a daga to her throat. Before I can figure out how to get to her, a loud boom rings out behind me.

  An explosion. Screaming. Fire.

  Abeo screams out, clutching his face. “My eyes!” he shrieks. He scrambles away on his hands and knees, smoke rising from his clothes. I smell charred flesh.

  Behind me, the wall made of water has fallen. Zaki stands at the edge of the broken earth. His shoulders slumping, he leans forward.

  Teeth bared in an animal snarl, Abeo turns and prepares to rush me when Zaki waves his arm and Abeo bursts into flames again. Aliya does the same with her other arm, and more fire swallows up the enemy tastahlik. He screams. Again and again, he lights up until he falls to his knees, unable to move.

  All of us watch Aliya and Zaki in shock and wonder. Aliya’s eyes are wide and bright, shining with a rage I’ve never seen from her. Even Folami twists in Arzu’s grip to watch my friend, the Mage. The Seventh Prophet.

  Aliya can turn the very air around us into fire.

  Abeo twitches on the ground. Aliya prepares to swipe more fire at him when Zaki grabs her wrist.

  “Enough,” he says.

  After a moment, her eyes return to normal. Wherever she went when she pulled fire from the air, she is back. She blinks as though she is just now figuring out where she is.

  Arzu pushes Folami into the circle formed by me, Bo, and her.

  “Your chief is gone,” Arzu spits. “Do you surrender?”

  Folami looks at all of us, her face blank. And I can tell she’s hiding a riot of emotions. Just like how the rest of the village does. They wear the mask to shield their most extreme feelings from the world. They save those only for themselves. Even as they walk about, seeming calm and peaceful, emotions war inside them.

  Folami bows her head. “I surrender,” she says at last.

  Smoke hisses from Abeo’s body. Arzu is far from delicate as she rifles through his pockets for a key, then she unlocks Juba’s chains.

  We did it.

  Zaki holds Aliya upright. I wait for them bring the earth back together, but Aliya sags in his arms. She stands outside her circle of blood, and Zaki stands outside his. He kneels, then puts his hand to the earth. A thin, unsteady bridge of dirt and stone arcs into the air to link them to us. Slowly, Zaki carries Aliya across, trying to maintain balance. The bridge behind him begins to crumble, and he slips. He drops Aliya on the bridge, and she rolls toward us, but stops. Zaki runs on what remains of the bridge as it collapses around him, scoops Aliya in his arms, then, just as he clears the bridge’s apex, tosses Aliya with both hands into the air.

  I cushion her fall with my body, but when I get up, Zaki is nowhere to be found.

  “No!” Arzu screams. She lies at the ground’s edge, her arm outstretched. “Hold on!” She’s slipping, being pulled forward. She has Zaki in her grasp. She holds on with both hands, but she’s about to go over.

  I dash forward and slide to a stop, grabbing onto Arzu’s boots just as she’s about to slip over.

  “Hold on!” Arzu shouts. “Hold on.” Her voice grows softer and softer. “Please, Baba, hold on. Baba, please. Please, hold on. Please.” I can hear her weeping. “Baba, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Baba, please come back.”

  I can feel him pulling us over.

  “Arzu, let me go.” When Zaki speaks, it’s in a voice so weak that I think only Arzu and I can hear it. “Let me go.” A smile crosses his face. “I’m too weak. But I am happy.”

  “Happy?” Arzu asks through her sobs.

  “Yes. The Unnamed returned my daughter to me, if only for a brief time. I will die Balanced. Al-Jabr, my child. The reunification of broken things.” With one last burst of energy, he snaps his wrist toward himself, breaking out of Arzu’s grasp and falling.

  “BABA! BABA, NO!” She reaches for him, scrabbling, dragging me down. But I feel hands behind me, pulling me back.

  “Arzu,” I say, but the rest of it chokes in my throat.

  “No,” she whispers.

  When we pull her up, she lies on the ground, weeping into her soiled hands.

  Aliya’s eyes drift open. As soon as I see her move, I’m at her side. I have her head in my lap when she speaks to me.

  “I know it,” she says. “I know the Ratio. I figured it out.” Then she notices Arzu weeping. “What happened?”

  “We lost Zaki.”

  Aliya’s bottom lip trembles. Then the tears begin to fall.

  CHAPTER 30

  ALIYA SLOWLY PUSHES herself off me. One of the Healers arrives at her side with her staff, and Aliya nods in thanks, propping herself up. I rise with her. At the place where the ground has broken, Juba kneels beside Arzu. Arzu has stopped crying and now has that stonelike expression on her face. Juba holds out a hand to Arzu, who sits in the dirt, her cheeks stained with mud. The bangles on Juba’s wrists are bent. Some of them barely hang on.

  Arzu stares at the hand in a daze, like she cannot understand where it has come from. Then it is like someone snaps their fingers inside her mind, and she comes to her feet, brushes the dust from her leathers, tightens her belt. She walks over to where I sit and where Aliya stands, and she stoops and scoops up the daga I had dropped. Without a word, she slides it into a sheath on her belt.

  Folami collapses on the ground in our midst, her head bowed to the dirt. Her hands and head face Juba. The smoke from Abeo’s ashen corpse wafts through the air between them.

  The Healers amass around her, and together, they march as one until there is only the width of a finger between Folami’s head and Jub
a’s boot. Juba is silent for so long that Folami eventually raises her head.

  “Ayaba,” she mumbles. “Forgive me.”

  Juba clenches her fists at her sides. As blank as the expression on her face is, she trembles with rage. Her wrists, where they show through her bangles, are rimmed with red. But the moment passes.

  “It is not my choice to make,” Juba says at last. “The village will hold court and decide your fate. First, you will tell your people to stand down. You have lost.”

  “Ayaba, please do not cast us out. I will volunteer myself in place of the others.”

  Juba’s hand moves as swift as lightning. Her fingers wrap around Folami’s throat. And there’s that anger again. It looks so familiar. People you care about, people you love, have been hurt. And here is the person who did it, or at least someone involved. And here is the chance to hurt them back. Deeply. Dearly. But that’s not Balance—not the right kind of Balance.

  My hand rests on Juba’s shoulder.

  She turns her head only halfway. A snarl twists her lips. “This is not your affair, Taj of Kos. Stay out of it.”

  My grip on her shoulder tightens. “Juba, you know this is wrong.”

  Her fingers squeeze Folami’s neck, raising her off the ground.

  “Juba.”

  I could stand aside. I could watch this tribe’s conflicts play themselves out. I could let Juba restore order as she sees fit. This is not my affair. But I am tired of death. I can’t bear any more guilt. “Juba, let her go.”

  “Juba!” The call comes from Arzu.

  At this, Juba drops Folami to the ground. The Onija coughs violently. Larada gather around her. I back away from Juba so that nothing and no one stands between her and Arzu.

  When I see them like that, I’m reminded of the very first time I saw them together, the very first time they’d seen each other since they were children. Juba had just slain half a dozen sin-wolves with ease. And she had just Eaten Arzu’s massive sin, the sin that threatened to kill her. And when she finished, she saw Arzu across the distance, and I can only imagine what images ran through their minds in that moment. What questions, what prayers, what whispers, what shouting.