Redemptor: Part IV

There in his skin, encased in festering, veiny flesh, were two hunks of stone.

Live beetles are fun for rice, though that sometimes can go awry.

“You want to depose...yourself? From being king?”

“I am. An ability to resist the inherent gifts of others.”

The last time I’d seen the Redemptor prince of Songland, he’d been languishing with fever on the steppes of Mount Sagimsan.

“Tarisai...there’s something you need to know about the Underworld. Death is not a concept there. In the Underworld, the Deaths are living things—prowling monsters. And when I saw them as a boy, there were more than thirteen. Way more. Some of them were expected: Burning, Drowning, Heart-Death, the like. But others were strange...like Despair. Avarice. Yearning. I think, perhaps, there’s a way humans can die while their hearts are still beating.”

I had thought that with a council of thirteen siblings, I would be inoculated against death—unless I stayed in the Underworld, dying eventually of old age.

His voice was quiet, gossamer—the same reverent tone he had once used around my mother.

Unlike normal water, this liquid was sentient, made of Hwanghu’s soul and Ye Eun’s will. Until she commanded otherwise, the water would remain on my skin: a frigid, lethal mantle.

“You have a fetish for vague answers,” I muttered, brandishing Sanjeet’s gift: the finely balanced spear, engraved with golden letters.

“Congrats on anointing Kwasi, by the way,” he said, feinting and launching a blow I barely blocked.

“Never once have you commanded a blueblood, and had them bend to your influence, without question?"
I began to say no...and then Adebimpe’s eager, pliant face appeared in my mind.

That moment at my Rising—when I had ordered her to be kinder. To change her demeanor at court and protect the weak.

He flashed a rakish grin. “Dance with me at another banquet, and I’ll answer more.”

For anonymity I wore a linen cowl draped over my satin-wrapped hair. But my other clothing choices had been less prudent. My plain red wrapper, borrowed from a palace servant, was still much too fine, edged in gold thread that glistened in the dock torchlight.

“Come on,” he goaded, upright again. “You hate me. So why not show it?”

When I commanded him, a fleeting thought had overcome me: Okanoba is more trouble than it’s worth.

A cerulean sky stretched over neat, bustling towns and villages surrounded by lush brush forests—purposely untamed to preserve the Djbanti’s expert pastime: the hunting of beasts, providing the exquisite pelts that Djbanti exported throughout the empire.

My jewelry I kept simple: a gold cuff choker and my rising sun crown, a complement to the stark glyphs on my adinkra and the blue patterns covering my skin.

All around us, the court of nobles murmured, alarmed and discomfited.

But Adukeh grinned and pressed on, declaiming in a strident sing-chant:
“There was no death in Human-town. Watch my eyes, I am not a liar! There was no death in Human-town; we walked the earth as gods. Our children lived forever until Warlord Fire cursed us. Hear the sounds of beasts baying: gorrun-go, gorrun-go! The Warlord has sent his thirteen monsters; they prey on Human-town!"

He would go mad, I think, if not for the love of Aja, and the boon of his drum.

From behind me I heard fervent applause—Zuri, standing and clapping.

Armored warriors, faces painted with the colors of their liege warlords, swarmed the peasants like ants.

Still, Idajo...if you don't deliver justice to Gakuru and his fellow cretins, the blood of innocents will be on your hands.

It was beautiful, Zuri’s cause—of that I had no doubt. It was selfless, unambiguously right.

Craven, hissed the ojiji. Deserter. Justice—justice! Pay the price. Don’t you care?

Drumbeats and string music floated out from the gloom, interspersed with distant chanting.

“Djbanti’s nobility—cronies of the former warlords—have taken sanctuary in Oluwan, and they’re demanding support from the crown.”

Since when did Sanjeet start conducting subterfuge missions on behalf of commoners?

As you are aware, tracking alagbatos is no easy task. Paying charlatan shamans, camping in wait for spirits.

Despite his dissolute appearance, he's clean-shaven.

I trail off, taking in his clothes—a disheveled soldier’s tunic, cobra sigils emblazoned on each breast.

So l doffed my uniform and hid my seal ring. Some of my warriors, also in plain clothes, volunteered to go with me.

Part of me also knew that if we kept this up much longer, my qualms about risks and heirs would fade quickly to white noise, no matter how imminent those risks were.

Woo In and Kirah had only just returned to Oluwan, their peace campaign in Songland a tentative success.

I sighed, remembering the hermit’s opaque words: Guilt is self-centered, and leads only to destructive obsession.

Ae Ri made an insistent grunt toward the orchard pen, where my birthday present from last year—the pale pink baby elephant—placidly rolled a log in the grass.

I laughed, and then joined the court in clapping to the beat as veiled dancers took to the clearing, fluttering fans as musicians played a mélange of strings.

I will come back, I thought, speaking not to my siblings but to the world fathoms below, where spirits vied to keep me forever.