Agbe watched her face. She appeared sincere, honestly afraid, honestly willing to give him the address if he did what she wanted. “Or I could just leave you and my uncle and make a life for myself.” Thanks to mamin, he could afford it.

She lurched forward and grabbed onto his hands. Instinctively, Agbe tried to pull his hands away, but she held fast. “Please,” she begged, “just help me settle in. I’m scared, Ivie, I’ve never been outside the Community, I’ve never lived on my own. I’ll give you the address, I swear, I’ll even take you there. Please.”

Agbe wanted to say no. If he was stuck with his biological family then he’d choose the side of the family that had welcomed him in with hugs over the side that had abandoned him and whipped him when he dared to confront them. He wanted the God-born’s side, not the ancestry bitch’s, and he didn’t owe the ancestry bitch’s sister anything. Not one damn thing. “You can come with me to my uncle’s.”

She shook her head, panicked. “My sister tormented your uncle’s wife. Uwa was so jealous of Itohan, jealous that Itohan got everything Uwa wanted, so jealous that every chance Uwa got Uwa belittled Itohan. Itohan might let me stay if your uncle forces her to, but she’ll hate it, and she’ll hate me. I can’t live like that. Please, Ivie, don’t make me.”

‘Please, don’t make me’? Was she serious? She was okay with making him do something he didn’t want to but she wasn’t willing to do the same. “You can live with us until you get settled, used to the unmarked world, then you can find somewhere else. It doesn’t have to be permanent.”

Agbe’s eyes widened when she dropped to her knees in front of him. The space between seats in the canoe was so narrow that her chest pushed into Agbe’s knee. “Please, I beg you, Ivie, it would be a nightmare. You don’t understand how mean my sister was, how terrible she could be to people. She treated Itohan like dirt and schemed to have her and her daughters killed. Itohan would hate having me under her roof.”

She was wrong about one thing, Agbe knew exactly how mean the ancestry bitch could be. He’d been eight years old, her own son, and she’d had him whipped. If she could do that to him, there was nothing she wouldn’t do to others. It didn’t even surprise him that she was capable of plotting murder.

“Fine,” Agbe gave in, “please get up now, it’s weird, you kneeling there like that.”

No one had ever looked at Agbe the way she did in that moment. Smiling, she gazed up at him, awe-stricken, as if he was larger than life. He imagined it was the way that he’d looked at Ehimen when Ehimen had saved him from the ancestry bitch. He’d never been a savior to anyone, it made his chest swell. He smiled back at her.

She placed her palms on the seat behind her and pushed herself back onto it. “You’ll stay with me for a year?” she asked hopefully.

“A month.” He said flatly.

“Nine months?”

“One.”

“Seven?”

“One.”

She pouted. “Three?”

“One month, Osaretin, take it or leave it.”

She nudged his knee with hers. “Fine. Thank you!” She darted out of her seat, kissed him on the cheek, and then fell back into her seat. “Thank you so much, Ivie.”

“You could have just asked, you know, you didn’t need to blackmail me into it.”

“I know that now,” she said, but she didn’t offer up the address now either. Agbe chuckled.

“Call me Titi, Osaretin is so long.”

He nodded. Then he looked at the canal, into the blue water, and exhaled. He’d waited sixteen years to find out he had cousins, he could wait another month to meet them. Besides, Titi was right, she was his family too, and unlike him, she’d been sent out of the Community with nothing. Titi, he was starting to think of her as her own person and not the ancestry bitch’s sister.

“Is Itohan really that petty?” Agbe asked. Did he want to live with someone like that?

“She’s a good person, really she is, but my sister went out of her way to be cruel to her. It’s only human nature to react to that.”

“What of my uncle, Ejehmen?”

She smiled, a warm open-mouth smile that showed off all her teeth.

“Wow,” Agbe teasingly whistled, “that good, huh?”

She giggled and he chuckled. “The very best. Omonoba Ejehmen is the best descendent of the Enikaro I know. He’s humble, where all the others are proud and arrogant. He’s kind, generous, goes out of his way to make you smile. Don’t get me wrong, the descendants of the Enikaro are not all bad, but Omonoba Ejehmen is a cut above the rest.”

For some insane reason the glowing testimonial made Agbe proud. He was proud of a man he’d never even met. “And Ovie Omoruyi?”

She took a deep breath, crossed her hands on her lap and then exhaled dramatically. Agbe rolled his eyes. “Let’s just say, he loved his family.” She said at last.

Agbe snorted. “That’s all you can say for him?”

She shrugged. “He was arrogant and entitled, but he wasn’t cruel. He liked fancy cars, beautiful women, expensive mansions, he was a descendant of the Enikaro. A prince in the clan of rulers, the world existed to serve him. But he did love his family, he was devoted to Ehizokhae blood.”

Had this whole conversation been leading to this one question? Was that why he brought it up in the first place? Did he still really care? Agbe thought that the ancestry bitch’s wielder had whipped it out of him the day he met her, but he was wrong, and now, with her sister sitting in front of him, he had to ask. “So, if Ovie Omoruyi was so dedicated to his family, then why did your sister give me up? Why didn’t she tell him about me?” He hated himself for asking, for needing to know why. He’d thought he didn’t care, but it was still there, the part of him that wondered why the ancestry bitch hated him so much. She could have given him to the God-born if she hadn’t wanted to raise him, why did she want him dead, why had she left him as Varmint chow?

“I didn’t even know you existed until about three months ago, when I heard her friends gossiping about you. And even then, they were so terrified of what my sister would do to them if she heard, that they spoke in whispers and didn’t even mention your name. But from what they said, it sounded as if Uwa really wanted you. Ovie Omoruyi was devoted to Ehizokhae blood, and she knew that he would do anything for his child. So, she went out of her way to make sure that she got pregnant for Ovie Omoruyi, that she bore the God-born’s first grandchild.”

Agbe frowned. “Then what went wrong?”

“She wanted to be the mother of the God-born’s great, powerful, grandchild.”

The answer hit Agbe like a boulder. Why was he surprised? It all came down to it in the end. “But I was unmarked.”

She nodded gravely. “Uwa didn’t want an unmarked child, and she didn’t want Ovie Omoruyi to ever know that he fathered an unmarked child through her. I’m sorry Ivie.”

It hurt. He didn’t want it to, he didn’t want it to matter at all. The ancestry bitch had already taken flesh and blood from him when she’d had her wielder whip him. She’d already caused him so much pain, how could he allow her to hurt him more? But he couldn’t help it, it fucking hurt. She’d left him to die because he was unmarked.

“I want to lie down,” he said, suddenly exhausted. He was about to ask Titi to move to the side so he could lay across one side of the wooden beams. Before he could voice his request, the seat he’d been perched on vanished, and he dropped to the ground. The surface he landed on was soft, like foam, though it looked like wood. Agbe looked up and saw that the canoe had been reshaped around him. It was much wider now, leaving enough room for him to sprawl out on.

“Ehizokhae blood. I’m so jealous of you right now.”

Agbe didn’t respond, he couldn’t. He just turned his back on her, rested his head against the foam and let out all the tears he’d been holding. He wasn’t sure exactly why it was hearing Titi’s words that broke the dam. He should have suspected that was why the ancestry bitch abandoned him. He should have known. Being unmarked had always been a sore spot for him, but today, it felt a million times worse. If he was a healing witch, he could have saved his mother. She’d been too weak to save herself, but he could have saved her, she would still be with him now if he had the power. Or if he was a commune, he could have attacked the InCoSeM reps before they could attack them, or he could have teleported them out of the room before the InCoSeM reps had a chance to attack. If he was an augur, he could have gotten into a bond with Ehimen and saved him from InCoSeM’s attack on that building. But he was nothing. Unmarked, useless, and so everyone he’d loved was dead. He felt like a failure.

Arms wrapped around his body. One arm went around his waist and the other tucked underneath his neck. Breasts pressed flush against his back and knees nudged at the back of his. “It’s okay, Ivie, let it out, let it all out,” she said. And he did.

He let himself fall apart in her arms. He wept for all the people that he would never see again. His mama, Ehimen, his friends, his grandma, his chest felt like it was tearing, and his eyes burnt, but he cried. His world, his life, it was all gone, and Agbe had no idea what came next. He wished he could go back in time and see his mama just once more. He would give anything to borrow his head into the crook of her neck just one last time. To tease her, laugh with her, to know that he was loved.

He cried until the tears stopped flowing, until there was no more salty water to bleed out through his eyes. Then face itching, eyes swollen, and hollowed out inside, Agbe fell asleep.

When he woke up, they were out of the tunnel. There were no stars in the sky that he could see, just a faint banana moon. Throughout his life, he’d never looked up into a moon that didn’t glow almost as bright as the sun, into a starless sky. The air smelled putrid, polluted, and it was so unbelievably dark. Where were the streetlights?

“Ivie?” Titi’s sleepy voice sounded behind him.

“We’re here,” he said and tried not to shudder. Now, seeing the unmarked world, Agbe could understand her fears of having to navigate it alone. He was afraid too, he wanted to return to the comfort of the Community. But he couldn’t, it wasn’t his home anymore.

Chapter Ten

She hadn’t just done that. She had not just done that. Agbe couldn’t stop staring at her. He thought his eyes might just pop out of his socket with how wide he’d pulled his eyelids apart. Although he’d seen her throw the paper into her mouth, chew it up and swallow it, he was still waiting for her to reach into her dress, pull the paper out and then say ‘gotcha!’ with a twinkle in her eyes. No such luck though. She just stared back at him, smiling. She really was crazy.

Then she turned her gaze to the side, as if the stratification on the clay tunnel walls had suddenly become fascinating. “Don’t look at me like that,” she said finally, darting her gaze back to him. “I read the paper before I swallowed it, I have your uncle’s address memorized.”

“And that’s supposed to be comforting?” She’d glanced at the paper for a second before swallowing it up. There was no way she could read an entire address in that time, let alone memorize it.

She rolled her eyes. “I’m an omem, I couldn’t forget it, even if I wanted to.”

Agbe grudgingly relaxed. He let his gaze trail over her slowly, an omem, he exhaled and felt the anxiety that had gripped him seep away. Own memory recalls, omems, remembered everything they saw, heard, felt, everything, forever. They only had to glance at a page full of words and even on their deathbed, they’d be able to remember every detail on the page, down to the texture of the sheet.

“So, you don’t think it’s safe to walk around with the address written on a sheet of paper?” That was the only reasonable explanation he could think of for why she’d done what she had.

She startled. Her eyebrows pulled together as if he’d spoken a different language.

“That’s why you swallowed the sheet?” Agbe prompted.

“Oh,” she giggled, and Agbe couldn’t stop himself from smiling. She had the most adorable little girl giggle he’d ever heard, which was really weird cause she had to be at least seventeen. That giggle alone would have had patrons knocking at her door if she’d been a LovePeddler. He thought of whores and remembered his brothel, his home, his mama. He swallowed down the urge to cry.

“You are so handsome,” she said, “it’s almost scary how good-looking you are. So unreal. People must stop on the street and just leer at you whenever you walk by.”

Agbe scoffed. He narrowed his eyes at her. What game was she playing? Yeah, he was handsome, but he wasn’t that handsome. He decided to play along. “I grew up in a brothel district,” he replied nonchalantly, “trust me, there were much better things to leer at.”

“Wow, you’re so bad,” she teased, and then she giggled again and turned to stare at the canal. She leaned over the side of the canoe and put her hand into the water. She beamed when her hand dipped beneath the blue surface.

Agbe looked away from the childlike delight on her face. The canal was wide, wide enough that two canoes could move together side by side without touching. The canoe they rode on was rather simple, and pretty cheap looking. He’d seen much more stellar speedboats outside ancestral grounds. Though none of those speedboats had propelled themselves forward on calm waters.

Drops of water splashed on Agbe’s face and his half-open chest. He jumped back and then frowned when he heard that little girl giggle. He turned to the ancestry bitch’s sister and found her staring at him, eyes twinkling.

He wiped the water off his face. “How old are you anyway?”

“Eighteen. How old are you?”

“Sixteen. I’ll be seventeen in a month.” Ehimen and his mum had planned a surprise party for his seventeenth birthday. He’d been blowing Larry when Prisca slipped up and spilled the secret. Agbe had laughed so hard that the vibration in his throat took Larry over the edge. He could almost taste Larry’s cum. But they were gone now, all of them. There was no one left alive who remembered his birthday. He felt empty inside. He had to remind himself that he still had family, he wasn’t all alone in the world. He had an uncle, Ejehmen, he had cousins. He knew this, but he yearned for the family he’d lost. “Tell me the address,” Agbe said, pulling himself from the gulf of grief threatening to devour him. He gave her the most convincing smile he could manage in his current frame of mind. “I’ll feel better knowing it.”

She ducked her head and dropped her gaze to the pleats on her dress. She played with them, twirling the dull brown leather garment around her fingers. Her toenails twitched in the simple black sandals she wore. Agbe focused on those little things, the straps of her black sandals, its silver buckle. Her long skinny legs, the darker patch of her slightly exposed knees. Her toenails weren’t manicured, but her fingernails were. He could make out the glossy shine of clear nail polish, but there was no varnish over it. Her nails were well tended, they looked neat. She had no bangles or necklaces, just simple pearls in her ears. Single piercing, no tats that he could see, her face was bare, no makeup, but she didn’t need it, she had her sister’s beauty, except on her it seemed more natural, more welcoming than it had on the ancestry bitch. The ancestry bitch’s beauty was loud, the kind that demanded attention, but her sister’s was more understated. Agbe ran out of ways to avoid the silence, and a feeling of dread crawled up his spine.

“You’re not going to give it to me.” He said, when her silence made that much clear. “You have no intention of taking me to my uncle.” His chest tightened. It shouldn’t hurt that he would never see them, but it did, it just felt like one more loss on a day already filled with them.

“I will,” she snapped her head up and stared at him. The despair he saw in her eyes startled him. “I will, I just need something from you first.”

Ah. Agbe stared down at the wallet that his grandmother had given him, then his gaze flicked to the sack full of bijous. The God-born had trusted this woman, she’d been wrong. Agbe had avoided thinking of his mamin so far and he hated that the ancestry bitch’s sister had forced him to stop avoiding. He’d just left her. She’d ordered it, but he’d obeyed, he’d left his grandmother to die. He blinked and swallowed, then forced himself to look at the extortionist. “How much do you want?”

She reared back as if insulted. “I don’t want your money.”

“Then what do you want?”

She bit into her bottom lip and looked away. The canoe kept moving, going at the same pace that it had from the start. It didn’t go too fast, or too slow, just alright, the perfect speed. He felt the wind, as if he was outdoors, rowing on a lake, except he wasn’t.

A deep rumbling sounded behind them. It started and it went on for a long time after. Agbe closed his eyes. ‘Goodbye mamin.’ He couldn’t hold back the tears anymore, they fell in warm, wet, streaks down his face. The rumbling continued, Agbe knew it was the leveling of ancestral grounds which the InCoSeM rep, Paul, had promised. The InCoSeM rep who’d killed his mother. He was responsible for so much loss in Agbe’s life. His mother, his friends, Ehimen, and now his grandmother. The rumbling grew louder, as if the tunnel they were in was crumbling behind them.

“Ivie!”

Agbe snapped his eyes open. The ancestry bitch’s sister looked terrified. She pointed behind him and he turned and saw the cause of her concern. The tunnel had closed up behind them. The curved tunnel walls moved together, swallowing up the water, leaving nothing but a single clay wall. A moving wall, which was probably the source of the ancestry bitch’s sister’s hysteria. The wall was coming right for them, as if it was going to swallow them up the same way it did to the water. He turned back around, nonplussed.

“We’re going to die!” She screamed. “Oh God,” she started shaking, her legs, her arms, like she was convulsing. Tears raced down her face. Agbe wiped away the remnants of his. “We’re going to die!”

She was blackmailing him. She wanted something from him in exchange for the address to the last remaining family he had, the last people he could turn to. Agbe should have been okay with letting her suffer in fear. He should have enjoyed watching her cry, but he didn’t, he couldn’t. For some reason he didn’t want the pretty devil to be afraid.

“The tunnel is not going to close up fully until we’re out. We’re fine, you don’t have to worry.”

She calmed, sniffling, and wiped the tears from her face. “How do you know that?” she asked, pouting.

Agbe shrugged. “The same way I knew that mamin wouldn’t hurt me. It’s just a feeling.”

“Enikaro blood,” she giggled and Agbe’s lips twitched. He felt lightened hearing her giggle again. “Do you ever wonder what your life should have been like?”

The question irritated him. “My life was what it should have been. Stop stalling and tell me what you want from me. I want to go to my family.”

She seemed so hurt by the words that Agbe almost wished he could take them back. “I’m your family too.”

He sighed. “What do you want from me?”

“You,” she replied.

He frowned. “What?”

She nibbled on her bottom lip, and glanced at the closing tunnel behind them, as if confirming that it hadn’t started moving faster. “I’m going to be all alone in the unmarked world Ivie, I’m scared. Just stay with me for a bit, help me settle into it, and I’ll tell you your uncle’s address, I promise.”

She sighed. “We’re wielders Ehimen, a horde fights, it’s what wielders do. I thought I trained you to be a soldier.”

“You know you did.”

“A soldier follows orders, regardless of his emotional state. When you came back and asked your family to help you search for them, did I deny your request?”

Ehimen shook his head.

“Did you running there accomplish anything?”

Ehimen clenched his fists. It was unfair, just plain unfair to hold him to such a standard. He was human. The woman he loved had just died.

‘And if one of your siblings falls in battle? Will you turn your attention from the fight to go and cry over their corpse?’

Ehimen’s jaw clenched. He’d never known his mother to be heartless, but now he felt as if he was seeing a whole new side to her and he didn’t like it. Iye was strong, she was strict, but she wasn’t cruel, and he felt that this conversation was cruel, and given the fact that he’d just found out Isoken and Agbe where dead, it was unbelievably insensitive.

“Come here, my love.”

He wanted to stand up, turn around and storm out of the room. He wanted to rail at her. But he couldn’t do any of those things. He was her scion, he couldn’t be such a bad example to his younger siblings. Since he couldn’t do any of the things he wanted, he decided he also wouldn’t do what she wanted. So, he ignored her.

‘I’m not above truly punishing you Ehimen. I don’t want to do it, especially not now, given all that you’ve lost, but I will if you force me to. Now come here.’

Ehimen stood up and walked towards her. He avoided her eyes. She was in his head, he knew that much already, but he didn’t want her to see the emotions in his eyes. She pointed to the ground and he knelt by her feet.

“You are my scion. When I die, I’ll be leaving my children in your hands. You will be their protector. You are an ancestry wielder, Ehimen, you need to be stronger than your emotions. I understand your grief, but you can never let emotions trump reasoning. You just ran there. What if burning the building down had been a trap to lure you in? Were you in any frame of mind to protect yourself?” Ehimen didn’t respond and luckily, she didn’t try to make him. “I wouldn’t have stopped you from going, my love, but I would have insisted that you take some of your siblings with you. Instead, you completely disregarded my orders. When you’re at your most vulnerable is when you have to be most alert. Do you understand me?”

Ehimen looked up into her eyes. He nodded, he did understand, and he saw all the ways that he had failed her. “Forgive me, please.” This time he really meant it.

She smiled at him. “I’ll give you your whip back when the horde truly needs you to have it. Till then, don’t ask. Understand?”

“Yes, Iye.” There was nothing like telling a wielder they couldn’t have their whip, to make them yearn for it. He’d watched Omon the year that he’d lost his whip. That had been the punishment Iye deemed fit for him misusing his whip on Agbe’s back. Ehimen didn’t think he could survive a year without Enforcer. But he’d been warned, and he knew Iye was being particularly forgiving with him, if he asked for his whip again, the repercussions would be much worse.

A soft knock sounded on the door.

‘Sit down, Ehimen.’

‘Thank you, Iye.’

Ehimen stood and sat beside her. She took her time staring searchingly into his eyes, then she nodded and whispered, “come in.” Two of the fourth litter came in with the two American InCoSeM reps trailing silently behind them.

“Please,” Iye’s voice was louder now. Their mother rarely spoke with her regular voice to them, so it always came as a shock when the loud, authoritative, horde matron voice came out. She gestured to the sofas and the InCoSeM reps sat. The fourth litter did not.

Ehimen looked over his siblings. There were no bloodstains on them, and apart from a slight tear on the collar of Omon’s leather shirt, there was no sign they’d been in a fight. Their whips were coiled and hung as glass from their holsters. “Report,” Ehimen ordered.

“We’ve rounded up the invasion. There were eight fatalities, five unmarked killed by stray bullets fired by the unmarked police, and three were unmarked policemen we killed in combat. The rest we’ve gathered together in the compound and the memoir witches are working on removing their memory of what they saw tonight.” Omon reported.

“And the cloak?” Ehimen asked.

“The quintise has repaired it. Still no word from the imps though. They were here before the lights went out, but they’re gone now.”

Ehimen frowned. He turned to his mother. She appeared to be just as confused as he was. Imps had been assigned to each of the Enikaro holdings outside the Community, they kept watch at the perimeter and they were supposed to report to any commune in residence if there was trouble, or return to ancestral grounds and report to a commune there. They couldn’t just leave without the Enikaro’s direct orders.

“What happened?” Ehimen asked.

The InCoSeM rep, Paul, cleared his throat. He sat forward on the white sofa and adjusted his blue necktie. “I’m afraid we’ve received some very distressing news from the InCoSeM headquarters.”

“What has happened?”

Paul’s gaze dropped to the ground. He steepled his hands and then slowly dragged his gaze back up. His lips pursed. He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know how else to say this, but the Enikaro has been destroyed.”

“What?” Ehimen struggled with processing this. The Enikaro couldn’t just be destroyed. The Enikaro wasn’t a thing that could be destroyed. They were strong, stronger than anything on this earth that could destroy them. Ehimen looked at his skin, then at his siblings’ and his mother’s. They all still had the silver oriakhi brand all around their bodies. If the Enikaro was destroyed, they wouldn’t. He reached into his fourth litter augur brother’s mind and saw his thoughts. He was standing with his quintise, they all still had the pentagon emblem on their foreheads, if the Enikaro was destroyed, the quintise would be no more. “The Enikaro isn’t destroyed.”

Paul leaned forward. He stared curiously at Ehimen, as if he was wondering how he knew. Ehimen wasn’t about to tell InCoSeM that the oriakhi and the quintise were tied to Enikaro blood. If InCoSeM found out that secret, there was no telling what they’d do. “You’re right,” Paul said, “not all of them, there are still a handful of descendants of the Enikaro alive who fled the Community before the attack was over, but the ancestral grounds have been destroyed. That’s why the lights went out, why the cloak did to, the quintise that did the cloaking died and so their magic died with them.”

Ehimen was stunned. He didn’t know how to react. He thought of all the wielder hordes who’d been at the meeting tonight. Dead? The God-born, Ovie Omoruyi, Omonoba Ejehmen and his family, all gone? What of the rest of the clan of rulers?

“How did it happen?” Iye asked.

“A traitor inside the ancestry. A bi-marked warlock named Isokun, that’s what the headquarters is reporting. This Isokun character wired up crimson inferno bombs around the ancestral grounds and just blew the whole place up.” Paul shook his head. “We’re all reeling from the news. We are so very sorry for your loss. What will you do now?”

Ehimen blinked, dazed. They were ancestry wielders, sworn to the Enikaro. What were they to do if the ancestry was gone?

“There’s only one thing we can do. Find the remaining descendants of the Enikaro, and serve them.” Iye spoke and they all nodded in agreement, even the InCoSeM reps. Ehimen was still reeling. It felt as if the entire world had changed in a single day. He remembered Isokun. He was a bi-marked warlock that the God-born had welcomed into the ancestry with open arms. Ehimen couldn’t believe that Isokun would betray the ancestry like that. He wanted to return to the Community now more than he’d wanted to before. Not just for his revenge, but for the ancestry’s. His mother was right though, there was something much more pressing than revenge. There were descendants of the Enikaro lost in the unmarked world, and they had to find them and protect them.

Chapter Nine

The InCoSeM reps turned their curious gazes on Ehimen when he appeared in the room in front of them. “Breach.” He told his siblings, the third litter. All three of them immediately jumped to their feet and brandished their whips. The snaps echoed through Ehimen making him ache to join them. “Take command. I’ll take over when I get back.”

“Yes brother,” they nodded, then they were gone in a blink.

Four of the InCoSeM reps jumped in their seats. “My god!” One exclaimed. “I daresay, I have never seen wielders in fighting form before. I’m quite excited.” Ehimen glared at him.

“Is there anything you’d like us to do, scion?” The question came from the only InCoSeM rep that hadn’t startled. It was the commune Paul, Ehimen appreciated how steady he was in the crisis.

“You can teleport back home.” Ehimen said, trying not to sound too hopeful.

“Nonsense, you’re an oriakhi wielder horde, we’re perfectly safe with you.” Another InCoSeM rep chimed in. “We’ll stay right here.” Of course, Ehimen scoffed, InCoSeM, always going out of their way to be a pain in the ass. If their horde didn’t have to stay to protect the Enikaro property and make sure word of this holding didn’t spread, they would have teleported out and left InCoSeM to fare for themselves. Well, not really, but Ehimen allowed himself to dream that they could.

He ignored the InCoSeM reps then and used his speed. While he ran to the East Wing where his mother’s rooms were, he reached into his augur bond with the fourth litter augur. ‘Odion is fighting at the perimeter, your litter should join him.’

‘Yes, brother.’

He was at Iye’s doorstep as soon as he pulled out of the bond. Ehimen took a deep breath. The thought of battle always made his heart race, it sent blood boiling through his veins, and had goosebumps standing allover his skin. This was a small battle, in fact, it was less than a battle, just an unmarked invasion that needed rounding up, but he’d heard his siblings’ whips snapping and that was all the encouragement his body needed to pump him full of adrenaline.

He knocked on the door when he felt calm enough to do that and then simmered his hearing ebvaire at a lower intensity so the sound of the generator didn’t tear at his eardrums. He’d turned on the hearing enhancement because Iye always whispered her ‘come in’, and if the person seeking entrance wasn’t listening for it, she was more than happy to leave them standing at the door for hours.

He heard the whispered, “come in,” and twisted the doorknob. The door opened silently.

Iye sat on a couch in the rectangular receiving room, with two of the second litter seated on either side of her and the last three, scattered on sofas around the room, fully sprawled out, as if their younger siblings weren’t fighting on the ground floor. Iye and the two littermates sitting with her, wove together the whiphairs for a new wielder’s whip. Iye’s gaze lifted to him the moment he walked in, her eyes climbed steadily over his body, from his feet to his head, moved down to his eyes, and then turned back to her weaving. His other siblings looked at him, with curious detachment, as if he was a specimen under a microscope. It made his skin crawl. The second litter were definitely not his favorite siblings. There was only one of them Ehimen liked, Aisosa, she sat at their mother’s right side, straightening out the strands of whiphair for their mother to weave. They could all weave their own whips, but only the horde matron could weave in the notches that made a wielder’s whip special.

Aisosa looked at him almost the same way as her littermates did, except in her case, her curious look held a touch of concern, belied by the slightly mocking twist of her lips. The woman was a study in contradictions.

“Iye,” Ehimen greeted, with a bow, “we’ve being breached.”

His mother answered without glancing up. “I’m not deaf Ehimen, I can hear them.”

She could? Ehimen scowled, he didn’t dare increase the intensity of his hearing with the loud generator powering the mansion, but apparently his mother didn’t share the same limitation. Ehimen wanted to ask for his whip back, but then he looked at the second litter and just couldn’t bring himself to voice the words with them staring at him. Instead, he reached into the bond that he shared with Iye, hoping to beg for his whip back in the privacy of their shared telepathic connection. She denied the bond. Ehimen tried again, trying to push into her mind through the doors she’d closed against him. He hoped the intensity of his push would show her how much he wanted to reach into their bond, but his mother kept him locked out. Ehimen tenaciously kept pushing even when it felt as if his brain was splitting, and warm trails of moisture streaked down his nose. A bit of it seeped between his closed lips and he tasted the metaling tang of blood.

“Stop it,” Iye snapped. She stopped her weaving altogether and gave him her full attention. “You’re only hurting yourself. The last time I checked you had a mouth, use it.”

Ehimen’s jaw clenched. He almost glared at her. “I should be leading my siblings.”

She eyed him. “You trained them well, they’re doing fine without you.” She flicked her gaze away from him, taking it back to the weaving. Silently, his siblings fed her more strands, and she continued her weaving. He’d been dismissed, but he stood his ground. He looked at his siblings trying to stare them out of countenance, but they just stared back at him. He couldn’t intimidate the second litter, they were only two years younger than him, and they were Iye’s guard, they didn’t answer to him.

He cleared his throat. “I can’t just sit back while my family fights, Iye.” He caught a warning glance from Aisosa, probably trying to tell him to control his tone. He gritted his teeth.

Iye didn’t say anything, she just kept on with her weaving. Ehimen felt like a fool standing there while she weaved.

“Give me back my whip mother, I need to fight.” He shouldn’t have said it, especially not in that tone, as if he was ordering her to, as if he had the right. The minute the words were out he wished he could take them back. His siblings froze, all five of them, and stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. Maybe he had, he’d never been forced to stand back while his younger siblings fought.

When Iye’s gaze lifted from her weaving, the look she gave him made his blood run cold. He knelt down and bowed his head. “That was rude Iye, I’m sorry, please forgive me.”

The room was silent and tense. The intensity of his hearing had been enough to pick up the swishes of his mother’s fingers while they ran across the strands of whiphair. He’d heard the slight shifts in his siblings positioning on the sofas. Now no one moved, there was no sound, just the gentle buzz of the electricity in the light bulbs.

“Leave us,” Iye ordered, “stand outside and don’t listen in.”

“Yes, Iye.” The five answered in unison. The second litter often moved as one, almost as connected as Omon and Odion, their hordes only womb twins. They left the room and closed the door behind them.

Ehimen gulped nervously. He wanted to lift his head, to gauge the depth of his mother’s rage, but he didn’t give in to the impulse. The silence dragged on until he couldn’t take it anymore. He lifted his head and stared into his mother’s chilling gaze.

“What would you do to any of your younger siblings who spoke to you the way you just did to me?” Her voice was soft, warm even, in stark contradiction with the hostility in her eyes.

Ehimen lowered his gaze. “If they were younger, I’d cane them, if they were older it would be the whip.”

She didn’t say anything for a long time after.

“Do you argue my right to seize your whip?”

Ehimen swallowed. “No, Iye, I disobeyed a direct order from you. Your punishment was kind.” Ehimen wasn’t sure he believed that, but he knew it was the right thing to say. If he was being honest, he would say it hadn’t been a fair order to give. He’d just found out that Madam Celia’s was burning. How was he supposed to wait simply because she ordered it? His wife and his son were dying and she’d ordered him not to go to them, and he was meant to have obeyed?

‘Yes, you were meant to have obeyed.’

Ehimen’s gaze snapped up. He couldn’t keep the accusatory look from his eyes. Now she chose to go into his head. If only he was a strong enough augur to push her out of his mind the way that she’d done to him.

‘You don’t mean that.’

Ehimen forced his mind into emptiness, no thoughts, no musings, nothing, it was a trick he’d learned when he was younger.

‘Now you’re just sulking.’

“That’s even worse,” Ehimen said, tipping his chin in the direction of the unmarked Nigerian policemen. “Have any extra speed and sight?”

Odion dug into the leather pocket of his trousers and tossed two at Ehimen. Ehimen grabbed them and then tossed them into his mouth. “What happened to the cloak?” he spoke while chewing down the evbaire.

“Same thing that happened to the imps who were supposed to be keeping watch, I suppose, they’re both gone.” The pentagon emblem on Odion’s forehead burned a deep shade of crimson to match the crimson growing in his eyes. He’d entered his mark. “I’ll try to hold them off as long as I can, brother,” he pulled his glass coiled whip out of its holster, flicked his wrist, and let it out, uncurled, and leather. It came loose with a snap. Ehimen heard that snap and longed to unleash Enforcer. He reached again for his holster and cursed again when he found it empty.

“I’ll send the rest of your litter to join you. Try not to kill, but don’t hesitate if it can’t be avoided.”

Odion jerked his head down in a sharp nod. “Yes, brother.”

Ehimen nodded back, and then he blazed the speed evbaire he’d just consumed and ran into the house.

The God-born looked pityingly at him. “Oh, precious Ivie,” she cupped his cheek, “you don’t have a mark.”

Agbe frowned. Couldn’t she see it? But she was supposed to be a strong augur. “I killed one of the InCoSeM reps with magic, mamin, I know I did. And the other one, Paul, he looked at me strangely after it was done and he asked, ‘what are you?’”

She shook her head. “If you had a mark Agbe, I would have seen it, you’re not marked.”

Agbe’s shoulders slumped. He’d thought…did it matter? He’d never been marked. Why had he thought that anything changed in that room? He had no idea what happened. For all he knew the InCoSeM rep had killed the other one. But Agbe’s eyes had turned red though, hadn’t they? Wasn’t that a commune thing? “Are you sure, mamin? Can you look again?”

She smiled, “okay, Ivie, I’ll look again.” She slipped her hands into his and held him tight. Agbe was surprised by the strength in those old hands. Her palm was so smooth. Agbe watched as her eyes changed. White covered her eyes fully, taking over the brown irises and black pupil. Agbe couldn’t keep his gaze from darting to the ancestry bitch’s sister while he waited for the God-born to do her thing. The woman still knelt there, her head bowed, her hands demurely in her lap. If not for the fact that she was breathing, Agbe would have thought she was a statue. The God-born’s hands clamped around his. When he turned back to her, she was out of her mark, the color of her eye had returned to normal.

She appeared confused.

“Mamin?” Agbe prompted. “Did you see my mark?”

She shook her head. “No dearest, I saw a vision.”

“A vision?”

“A secret untold.
A truth unknown.
A history unwritten.
A song unsung.”

Agbe frowned. “I don’t understand mamin.”

“You are a song unsung, Ivie, that would explain why I’ve never seen any visions of you.”

“But am I marked?”

The God-born smiled. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

She beamed at him. “Don’t you see, that’s what makes you so special. I am one of the most powerful augurs in Benin Community history and I don’t know.”

He would feel special if she knew. If she could just say, yes Agbe, you’re marked, you’re an augur, like me. Or, Agbe, be careful with your emotions because you’re a commune. That would be special. Having a mark would be special. Having an ‘I don’t know’, well that sure as hell didn’t make him feel very special.

“A song unsung,” she mused to herself, “Ivie, I think you’re what I’ve been waiting for.”

“I am?”

She nodded. “I’m going to give you something. When InCoSeM destroys the ancestral grounds, it’ll only be temporary, you and your cousins will rebuild when you come back and the key to rebuilding is the Bridge of Kohini.” She placed her hands on either side of his face and closed her eyes. Agbe had passed the point of confusion about two ‘song unsung’s ago. So he just sat there with his mouth closed wondering what he was supposed to do now. Then he felt something, like a light inside of him, a feeling of connectedness, as if he could sense his purpose as part of a great world. He was one piece in a large jigsaw puzzle and the full picture was coming together. Then the God-born’s soft hands fell off his face and the feeling went away. “It is in you now. You must guard it Ivie, it is the key to our family’s survival. The ancestral grounds hold the knowledge of millennia and what you carry inside you is the only key to securing it. Do not give it to anyone. Swear it to me Ivie.”

He trembled at the intensity of her stare. “I swear mamin, I will never let it go.”

She regarded him for some time after that. When she was satisfied by what she saw, she pulled her gaze away. She stood and extended her right hand to him. Agbe took it and stood when she pulled on his hand. “Rise Osaretin.”

The ancestry bitch’s sister stood, but she kept her head bowed.

“Come, both of you, we’re running out of time.” The God-born held onto him, leading him around the small hill, past a cluster of trees, to the end of the canal. The canal disappeared into a tunnel. Agbe couldn’t see where the tunnel led, but he had a feeling it was somewhere outside the Community.

“Canoe, please.” The God-born said.

Agbe looked around. He couldn’t see anyone. Was she talking to the ancestry bitch’s sister? The woman still had her head bowed. A canoe rose out of the water, like it just rose from the water, and the God-born stood there as if stuff like that happened every day.

“Thank you,” she said.

Agbe was this close to losing his shit. He felt like a frog with the way his tongue hung out of his gaping mouth. The God-born bent down, touched the empty canoe and came back up holding a black wallet and a black sack. Agbe blinked a few times. She was an augur. Augurs didn’t have magic. Augurs could see visions and identify other marked. Sometimes they could do telepath stuff with other augurs, but that was about it. So why was the God-born able to command canoes to come levitating out of water, and make wallets and sacks appear out of thin air. That was commune teleportation territory, but there hadn’t been any black fog. What was happening here?

“This is a sinehk, Agbe...you can think of it as a bijou.” The God-born placed the wallet in his hand. Bijou, he corrected himself, it looked like a black leather wallet, but apparently it was a bijou...or rather, something he could think of as a bijou. She opened up the wallet and showed Agbe that it was empty. Agbe nodded acknowledging this demonstration. Then she swiped her palm over the top corner and it tore a line into her palm.

“Are you okay, mamin?” Agbe rushed forward.

The God-born waived him off and showed him the wallet. Now it had money in it. He blinked again, dazed. The money wasn’t like any currency he’d ever seen, though he’d only seen comnai so it really could be any currency. “The wallet was made from pure ancestry elements, by Enikaro warlocks. This one is tied to Ehizokhae blood. The wallet is connected to a bank account that contains a million naira. Think about the amount of money you need to appear in the wallet, prick your palm or finger on the corner of the wallet, and the money will come. Do you understand?”

Agbe slowly nodded with his mouth hanging open.

“This should be more than enough to get you to your uncle, and take care of any emergencies that may pop up along the way.” She placed the now full wallet in his hand. Agbe couldn’t stop staring at it. Had money really just magically appeared in an empty wallet? He couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

She reached for the sack and began to take off every coral bead she had on.

“Mamin!” Agbe snapped out of his stupor. “What are you doing?”

“The coral beads are bijou, Agbe, you’ll have far more use for them here, than I will where I’m going.”

“But…but…” he sputtered, “those are your jewels, they’re worth a fortune.”

She spoke slowly as she took them off. “Never show the full extent of your wealth. If you need to sell any of these, take them a few beads at a time. Never a whole string of beads, except it’s a wrist bracelet, and only for emergencies. Any unmarked bank outside the Community will give you naira in exchange for bijou jewelry. They will cheat you, but it will still be a lot of money. I would prefer that you not sell these. These have been in our family for centuries and I would like them to go to your female cousins. But do not hesitate to sell them if you are in trouble.” She placed the sack into the canoe. Then she reached for her earrings.

“No,” Agbe stopped her, catching her hands and holding them gently in his, “no, mamin, that’s enough. You’ve given me more than I could spend in my lifetime.”

She shook his hold off. “These are for you, to remember me.” The earrings were studs. At first glance they looked like cheap glass, but on closer inspection, anyone who’d spent enough time around Marked jewelry could tell they were bijou. Agbe stood still, tears pooling in his eyes, while his mamin took the studs off her ears and put them in his. He had his mother’s engagement ring in his pocket and now his mamin’s earrings in his ears. “Besides,” she teased, “you shouldn’t have empty earholes.”

Agbe threw his arms around her and pressed himself flush against her. His cheek rubbed against hers and he soaked in her mint scent. She wrapped her arms around him. Then she moved her hands soothingly across his back.

“Come with us mamin, please, come with us.”

She shook her head against his. “My son and my grandchildren are my legacy now. I must make this sacrifice for you. Go to your uncle, Ivie. You will mourn the ones you loved, your mother, Ehimen, your friends. But don’t let mourning them blind you from the love and family that you have now. Let your cousins comfort you. Grieve, but never stop living.”

“Yes, mamin, I promise. I will make you proud.”

She chuckled. “You already have, dearest, you’ve made me so proud, and so unbelievably happy. But now it’s time to go.”

Agbe held on tighter. He didn’t want to let go, to lose her. But he had to. Eventually, he moved into the canoe and sat on the wooden board, staring up at her. She looked so different without her coral beads. She still looked dignified, regal, her back ramrod straight, but she also appeared more normal, like a grandma he could have baked bread with. This was the last time he was ever going to see her. Agbe teared up. He was so damn tired of loss.

“The canoe will let you out in the unmarked Benin City.” The God-born bent to touch the water and came back up with a piece of paper. “That is Ejehmen’s address,” she gave the paper to the ancestry bitch’s sister, “take him there.”

The ancestry bitch’s sister knelt and took the paper. “Yes, menoba.”

“Rise. Go.”

The ancestry bitch’s sister did as she was ordered and she walked into the canoe. She sat opposite him.

“Be safe my most precious Ivie. Be happy.” The God-born blew him a kiss. He waved back at her. The canoe began moving, it moved on its own, and Agbe watched his grandmother fade away as they entered into the tunnel.

“I love you,” he whispered.

Then they were fully in the tunnel, completely covered by red clay soil, their way lit by the same unnatural blue light.

Agbe needed a distraction. He turned his attention to the ancestry bitch’s sister and stretched out his hand. “Let me see the address.” It wasn’t like he knew anything about the unmarked world, but he needed to be distracted. He would go crazy if he was forced to think of everything he’d left behind. His grandmother, the Community. He had to think about where he was going and not what he was leaving. It was the only way to stay sane.

Agbe realized it was the first time that he was seeing the ancestry bitch’s sister’s face. She was much younger than he’d thought, she appeared to only be a few years older than him. She looked so much like her sister, Agbe recoiled, which of course meant that she looked a lot like him, just a few shades of skin lighter. Her eyes shimmered now, and for the life of him he couldn’t figure out why. He didn’t know if it was the weird light reflecting oddly, or something else. Then he wiggled his fingers reminding her he was waiting for the sheet. The shimmer in her eyes brightened. She looked at the paper and then she smiled. Agbe felt a sudden apprehension at the mischief in her twinkling eyes and grinning face. He reached forward, but before he could grab the paper from her, she’d thrown it in her mouth. She chewed it up swallowed it and then showed him her empty mouth. Then she smiled.

Agbe’s eyes widened. He couldn’t believe the crazy bitch had actually done that!

Chapter Seven

He laughed. He’d pretty much reacted that way when he’d learned what his name meant. Agberukeke meant riffraff, and Agbe, his nickname, wasn’t much better, it meant oppressed. Madam Celia had been the one to name him, but his mother had kept the name and she’d explained why. “My mama liked it. She said people look down at a riffraff, but a riffraff has to hustle, they’re not born with anything, everything they accomplish comes from hard work. They earn what they get. She wanted my name to serve as a legacy, a reminder to work hard and also to find the positives in the professions, ideals, and names that are inherently saddled with negative connotations.” Just thinking about it made him yearn for her. How was he supposed to go through life without her? Mama, he cried for her in his heart.

The God-born smiled. “She sounds like a unique and wonderful woman.”

“She was.”

The God-born cupped his cheek in her right hand. “I’m so sorry.” Agbe leaned into her touch and closed his eyes. “Her intentions were respectable, but no grandchild of mine will be called Agberukeke. Ivie, that is a much more fitting name.” The God-born’s voice while comforting, left absolutely no room for argument.

“Ivie,” Agbe repeated, “precious jewel.” He liked it, but he felt like an Agbe, a riffraff, a hustler. It was what he’d been all his life. This new connection to the most powerful woman in his world wasn’t suddenly going to change that. He didn’t argue with her though.

“Tell me about your life, Ivie, all of it.”

“Yes, menoba.” He prepared to start but she cut him off.

“No, you’re my grandson, you can’t call me menoba.”

He couldn’t? Menoba loosely translated to ‘my king’, it was a genderless ‘king’ just as Ovie was a genderless ‘prince’ title. Agbe supposed it was a bit formal for family. “What should I call you then?” He stared into the calabash of water, it was blue again, no longer stained with the dirt and blood she cleaned off him. It was as if the water healed itself the way it healed him.

“Your cousins call me mamin, do you like that?”

He smiled, he liked it a lot. He liked having cousins even more. “Yes, mamin.”

She smiled back. “Good.” Then she nodded, gesturing for him to proceed and so he did.

He told her his life story, not leaving off any details. There were parts that were hard for her to hear. Her hands clenched tight around the cloth whenever he hinted at being hurt in anyway. When he skimmed over the confrontation with the ancestry bitch her face had filled with so much ire that he’d started downplaying how bad the beating was, and putting far more emphasis on the good things, like Ehimen. She hated that he’d grown up in a brothel. She didn’t say it, but he could tell every time he brought the whores up, she cringed. By the time he was done he felt so much better. She’d wiped off every scrape on his body, from his face, to his chest, and his hands and shoulders. Everywhere that had been injured was healed now. She wasn’t a healing witch, so there had to be some sort of medicinal herbs in the water. Agbe heard a slight sniffle and was stunned to see tears rolling silently down the God-born’s face. She placed her hands on his upper arms and then slowly drew him towards her. Agbe went. She wrapped her arms around him and Agbe felt cocooned by her essence. She smelled of mint.

“I’m so sorry Ivie. You should not have lived like that. If Uwa wasn’t already dead, I would have her killed for not bringing you to me the moment you were born.”

The ancestry bitch was dead? Agbe didn’t know how to react to that. He hadn’t had any love for her, but it felt like he was losing a lot of people today.

“I’m happy it was your mother who found you. From everything Ehimen told me about her, she was a gem of the highest quality. I owe her so much for finding and caring for you, and now I’ll never be able to show my gratitude.”

Ehimen. Agbe’s chest hurt. “Ehimen told you about her?”

He felt her nodding against him. “He needed my permission to marry your mother.”

Agbe pulled back. “What of my fa…what of Ovie Omoruyi?” He couldn’t call Ovie Omoruyi his father any more than he would call the ancestry bitch his mother. There was only one man who’d been a father to Agbe, and he was dead.

She pulled back too and looked him in the eye. Then she shook her head. “He’s dead, Ivie.”

Agbe’s eyes widened. “Dead? How? I just saw him this evening in the brothel. That couldn’t have been two hours ago.”

She stroked over his cheek with her thumb. “A lot can happen in two hours, dearest.”

Agbe frowned at her. Why was she sitting here so calm after her son had just died? As a matter of fact, why was she sitting so calm after her entire wielder army had been massacred? Shouldn’t she be gearing to strike back at InCoSeM? “Mamin, InCoSeM isn’t done, they’re going to attack ancestral grounds, level it the same way that they did the wielder meeting. How did they even get in to plant a bomb in the wielder meeting anyway?” Only members of the ancestry and people with Enikaro blood could pass through the Tunnel of the Twins.

“A traitor,” she said, with a dismissive shrug, “a member of the ancestry turned against us.”

Agbe sat taller. “So, what are we going to do to strike back at InCoSeM?”

She smiled at him. “I’m so proud of you Ivie, so very proud.” He basked at the praise in her voice. “But we aren’t going to do anything. You are going to leave the Community.”

“What?” his gaze snapped to her face. He searched over her features, but she seemed at peace, completely unbothered by InCoSeM’s attacks. “I’m not leaving you, mamin.”

She smiled. “Yes, you are. I’m sending you to your uncle, Ejehmen, and his family. You’ll live with him, his wife, and their four children. They’ll take care of you Ivie, you’ll never have to worry about anything again.”

Leave the Community? Sure, he didn’t have much in the Community left for him. His family was gone, but still, he’d spent his entire life in the Community. He had no idea how to navigate the world of the unmarked. He eyed his grandmother. She’d said he would be joining his uncle and his family, but she hadn’t said she’ll be joining them. “And where will you be?”

“Here.”

Didn’t she understand? “InCoSeM is going to level this place, mamin.”

“I know.”

Agbe frowned. Suddenly, her calmness made sense. “You’re not even going to try to fight them? But you’re the God-born, head of the Enikaro, is InCoSeM really that much stronger than you?”

She snorted. “We could crush InCoSeM, easily.”

Agbe’s confusion deepened. “Then why don’t you?”

“Because this fight is bigger than InCoSeM. This fight is bigger than just our existence.”

Just our existence? Agbe felt as if he was losing his mind…or she was losing hers. The God-born had turned out to be more than Agbe could ever have dreamed. She was kind, warm, loving, and she called him ‘dearest’. Of course, that meant she also had to be crazy. “Mamin, you’re not making any sense.”

“The knowledge of the existences is not widely taught, certainly not in secondary school. There are other existences Ivie, other worlds with much more powerful creatures. Duraya lives in one of these existences, the supreme existence. The supreme existence is our birthright, as descendants of the Enikaro. When we die, we ascend to that existence and live with Duraya.” Agbe stared wide-eyed at her. Duraya was a god so it made sense that you had to die to live with her, wasn’t that how all gods worked? What did InCoSeM have to do with that? “I can’t teach you all of it in one night, Ivie, just trust me. We need to ascend to protect you, your uncle, your cousins, and the future generations of Enikaro descendants that you will bear. The war that is coming is going to echo throughout all the existences, and the only chance the Enikaro has is if some of us ascend to the supreme existence, now.”

She was right, Agbe didn’t understand and nothing she said was educating him. “You’re choosing to die, to leave me?”

Her smile turned wistful. “I’m more tempted now not to than I was when I had this conversation with Ejehmen. I feel robbed Ivie, robbed of a life with you. At least I got to know my other grandchildren, I got to spend time with them. You are my eldest grandchild and I’m only now finding out you exist, moments before I must leave you. I wish it didn’t have to be like this.”

“But it doesn’t! You can fight back, you can crush InCoSeM, for me. You don’t have to leave me, mamin. I don’t want you to.” Please! The cry caught in his throat. How many times did he have to lose people he cared about in the same fucking day?

“The choices I make now will save our family in the long run. I have to think beyond my desires, Ivie, I have to make the right choice for the Enikaro.”

Agbe slumped into his seat. He normally sat up straight, elegantly, it looked better, but right now, he didn’t have the strength for it. He wasn’t sure that he could survive another loss, but it was clear that nothing he said or did could change the God-born’s mind. She was convinced that her way was right. And really what did he know? He didn’t know anything about other existences, he didn’t even know that much about Duraya. Maybe the God-born really was making a great sacrifice for him and his cousins and his uncle. His choices were to fight and end things horribly with her, or end things well. For the first time that day, he was being given the chance to say goodbye. “Okay, mamin,” he sighed, “okay.”

“Thank you,” she leaned forward and placed a kiss on his forehead. Agbe breathed in her minty scent and held it in his airways. “Osaretin will take you to your uncle.” The wrist beads on the God-born’s left arm clanked against each other as she stretched her hand out to the side. Agbe turned and found a young woman kneeling on the ground. She knelt between the hill and a tall tree with orange leaves. The tree had sweeping branches which covered her a little, still it shocked Agbe that she’d been kneeling there and he hadn’t seen her. The woman had her head bowed, so he couldn’t really see much of her other than her skin, which was a dark honey brown, and her hair which had been plaited back in cornrows like his. She wore leather, a member of the ancestry then. “Osaretin is your mother…Uwa’s youngest sister.”

Agbe froze. He didn’t want to go anywhere with the ancestry bitch’s sister. He glanced at the God-born and decided, what with preparing for her ‘ascension’ and all, she didn’t need to be worrying about him too. Besides, he wasn’t the nine-year-old boy the ancestry bitch had whipped, he was a man now, he could take care of himself.

The God-born began to rise, but Agbe grabbed onto her palm before she could. She sat back down and stared curiously at him.

He cleared his throat, darted a glance at the ancestry bitch’s sister, and then turned back to his grandmother. “Mamin,” he whispered, “what am I?”

She looked concerned, “I don’t understand Ivie.”

“I mean my mark. You are the God-born, the strongest augur to ever live. If anyone can see my mark, it’s you.”

“Shut up,” the hulk growled. He gave Agbe a menacing look, before taking his gaze to the woman. “Thank you, I have him from here.”

The hold on his neck tightened for a second and then it was gone. She nodded curtly. “Hurry up, you have orders.”

“I know.” He pushed up on Agbe’s wrists and Agbe’s shoulders stung. “I’ll just take this one back with me. He still hasn’t told us how he managed to survive the Tunnel of the Twins.”

The woman’s gaze returned to Agbe with far more interest. “He survived the Tunnel of the Twins?” Her voice lifted at the end. “Impossible.”

“Well, that’s….”

The earth shook beneath them and then there was a loud explosion. One bang followed another, then another, and one last bang. A black smoke rose from a building far off in the distance.

“Is that…” A voice sounded behind him.

“The wielder meeting.” The woman turned her head in the direction of the building and then back to Agbe. Her eyes widened and then she frowned at him.

Agbe’s heart sunk. The last pieces of hope he’d held onto smothered and died in his chest. Ehimen. Tears filled his eyes. He couldn’t support himself anymore, his legs just gave out under him. The hulk’s vicious hold on him kept him up. It tore at his shoulders and burnt into his wrists, but the pain just didn’t mean much to Agbe anymore. He was alone. Everyone he loved was gone. He had no one. Mama, Prisca, Chika, Larry, Madam Celia, the whores, and now Ehimen. Every family he’d ever known and loved was gone. Taking from him by the InCoSeM rep. Agbe screamed. He howled, yelling obscenities at the ancestry men and woman. He’d told them! He’d warned them! They could have saved Ehimen, they could have saved his dad! Why hadn’t they just believed him? Agbe screamed through the hot tears. He howled at the ether, at the unfairness of life. He’d never even gotten to call Ehimen dad. That was all he’d wanted. From the moment the wielder marched into his life, all silver skinned and forbidding, challenging the ancestry bitch on Agbe’s behalf, all Agbe had wanted was to call him dad.

Now he never would. Just like he would never see his mother again. Never burrow into the crook of her neck, never have her fingers stroking through his hair, never hear her call him Bebe. He was all alone in the world. InCoSeM had taking everyone he loved from him, they’d taken away his family.

“Calm down, son, calm down.” The hulk’s voice was slightly soothing, but it enraged Agbe further.

“I’m not your son! You let my father die! You let him die!” He howled. “Why?” He looked up into the sky, at the twinkling stars, the luminous banana moon. “Why?” He didn’t even know who he was speaking to anymore. Duraya? Bleep Duraya! His chest burned. He wanted to be alone. He yanked at his arms, swaying around, throwing his full bodyweight on the other side to pry himself free of the grasp.

“Stop it, you’ll rip your arms off! Calm down, young man, calm down.” The gravelly voice tried to reason with Agbe, but Agbe was beyond the point of reason. He just wanted to grieve his dead in solitude, why wouldn’t they let him be?

“What is going on here?”

Agbe landed so hard and fast on his knees, that the shock of it, snapped him out of his grief. All the ancestry people were kneeling. Even the hulk. Agbe lifted his gaze and found himself staring into the lightest brown eyes he’d ever seen. The woman was alone, she wore a long-sleeved white velvet dress and had strings of orange coral beads on her wrists, her neck, her waist, and wrapped around her hair in a style that resembled a coronet. Her hair was thick and curly, left natural but styled so flawlessly, Agbe was jealous of her hairdresser’s skill. She had strands of grey hair. Rays of power just seemed to radiate off her. She appeared so calm and poised, regal in her bearing and completely in command of all that surrounded her.

Agbe had never met her in person, but he’d caught glimpses of her from a distance and seen pictures, paintings, and sculptures of her hanging in public places and sold at market stalls. This was the God-born, Uhonmon the first, head of the clan of rulers. As a commoner, Agbe knew that he should be prostrated, lying flat on the ground in greeting, but he could not pry his eyes away from her. She wasn’t just the God-born, she was his biological grandmother. Not that he had any intention of telling her that.

Agbe’s eyes widened when she bent forward, towards him. The corners of her eyes wrinkled. Deep furrows formed on her forehead, dipping in at the center where her eyebrows bent together. She stretched out her hand and ran the back of her fingers against his skin. In that moment, Agbe knew that he had to tell her. He could barely resist the urge to yell it at her. It was only the memory of the whipping he’d gotten the last time he’d tried that tactic which kept him from just spurting out, ‘I’m your grandson’. But this time was different. Agbe knew that this woman would never hurt him. He just knew that he could trust her. For the first time since his mother died, Agbe felt as if he was not alone. Every part of him warmed.

“You are Ehizokhae,” the God-born’s voice was a low murmur, “I can feel your blood calling out to me. But how can it be?” Her frown deepened. “Who are you?”

As soon as the God-born said he was an Ehizokhae, the hulk released him. The hulk knelt with both knees on the ground and his head bowed, but he shot Agbe a terrified, apologetic, look out of the corner of his eye. Agbe massaged his sore shoulders and wrists, all the while looking into the God-born’s eyes and enjoying the feel of her warm touch stroking his skin.

“Who are you?” she asked again. “Are you Ejehmen’s? You can’t be.”

Agbe cleared his throat. “Ovie Omoruyi is my biological father.”

Her eyes widened. “Omoruyi. And your mother?” She kept stroking him and he unconsciously leaned into her touch.

“The ancestry noble-woman Uwa.” Agbe surprised himself by not calling her the ancestry bitch.

The God-born closed her eyes as if she was in pain, then she straightened, pulling her touch away from him. Agbe was surprised by how much the loss of that touch bothered him.

Her gaze roved hungrily over him, her eyes flicking from his cornrows, over his face, down his body, as if she was just taking all of him in for the first time. Then she stopped looking him over and a frown marred her tranquil features. She cast a withering glare at the ancestry members around him, and asked “are you in pain, dearest?”

Agbe blinked. Dearest. Him? He blinked again. “What?”

The God-born’s lips twitched, but she still looked quite threatening. “You’re rubbing your shoulders. Are you in pain? Did anyone hurt you?”

No one had ever cared if Agbe was hurt before, in that way. His mother and Ehimen had cared, but they’d cared in the comforting, ‘it’s just part of life, Agbe, you have to endure it, now come let me kiss your injuries and make them better’ way, not in the ‘I’m going to destroy anyone who hurt you, because I’m the freaking queen and I can’ way. Agbe liked it.

The hulk tensed up beside him, but Agbe shook his head.

The God-born stared at him, as if she could see through his lie, but she didn’t call him out on it. Agbe was grateful for that, he didn’t want anyone getting punished because of him. Besides, he’d kneed the hulk in the groin for the slap he gave him. That pretty much made them even in his book.

“Okay,” the God-born said. She turned her gaze towards one of the ancestry members kneeling behind him. “Take us to Erimwin, then find Osaretin, she should still be here, and send her to me.”

“Yes, menoba.”

A dark fog enveloped him. It made him feel odd and it reminded him of the InCoSeM commune Paul. He’d traveled around using black smoke. Agbe was still thinking of that when the fog fell away and he was standing in a place that befitted the name the God-born had given it. Erimwin, meant spirit world, and this place sure as heck didn’t look like anything from the normal world Agbe was used to.

The place was soaked in blue light. The light was almost bright enough to be white but not quite there. The ground was rich, red, clay soil. It was the natural soil of the state, Edo soil in its purest form. All around, trees with varying colors of leaves and stems sprouted from the ground. There were numerous of them, far more than Agbe could count. A canal snaked through the ground, it bent around a small hill and disappeared from his sight. The water in the canal was blue blue, like real blue, pure beautiful blue, the kind of blue you see water painted as in drawings but rarely ever actually see in real life. This felt like some kind of garden, with all the trees and the pure blue water. He wanted to take off his clothes and go for a long swim in that water.

Agbe kept turning and looking around. It was completely enclosed. There were no holes, no windows, no openings, yet it felt as if he was outside, in fact, the air here felt purer than air outside. He kept whirling and taking it all in, and then his gaze fell on the God-born who appeared to be taking him in.

Agbe remembered himself then, and prostrated as he’d been taught to. He sprawled out flat on the ground in front of her.

She chuckled. “Get up dearest, come, sit by me.”

Agbe stood and stared down at himself. There were no red streaks on his clothes, no marks to show that he’d just been flat against soft soil. He walked over to the God-born and joined her on a rock bench. The bench was smooth, and silver. When he sat, it felt as if he was seated on cushions, not on stone.

The God-born placed her fingers underneath his chin and tipped his head towards her. Then she dipped a white cloth into a calabash filled with blue water – Agbe had no idea where those had come from – and began wiping at his face. The water she rung out of the cloth was streaked with dirt and blood. Agbe was grateful that he wasn’t able to see himself. The cloth actually seemed to be healing the cuts on his forehead from when he’d fallen, the bruise on his lip from when the hulk had thrown him outside ancestral grounds, all the minor scrapes he’d gotten from tripping.

“Tell me about your life…” she paused in the middle of wringing out the cloth and stared sadly at him. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Agbe,” he hurriedly provided, “Agberukeke.”

She reared back in disgust. “Agberukeke? Who would dare name my grandson Agberukeke?”

Chapter Six

Non-ancestry vehicles weren’t allowed within ten miles of ancestral grounds and so Agbe was back to running. He was kicking up dirt, but he didn’t care. Clouds of dust billowed up around him, he breathed in the dust particles, and coughed. He coughed until his chest was raw from it, but he never stopped running. Agbe ran faster than he’d ever run in his entire life. He kept tripping, first over a rock, then over the ledge of a pavement, and once over the root of a tree. Each time he caught himself on his hands, pushed back up, and dusted off the dirt against his trousers. His vision was blurred. He’d given up on trying to swallow the tears a long time ago. Now they just fell freely. He left a trail of teardrops in his wake.

“Mama,” he hiccupped and swiped at his eyes with his palm. He was panting.

“Watch where you’re going!”

“Be careful!”

Hands reached out to him and pushed him away, he swung to the right and was immediately shoved back to the left. He just kept going, kept running, because he had to save Ehimen. He could barely breathe he was so out of breath. He’d long since giving up on trying to get air in through his nose, his mouth was open as he ran, he drunk in air and kept pushing himself to run faster. Even when his legs screamed at him to stop, when his heart pounded so hard his chest hurt. He kept going. He knew that if he let himself stop, he’d never be able to go on. It was either move or fall and Ehimen’s life was too precious for him stop.

“Mama,” the tears watered his eyes so much that everything appeared fuzzy through them. He couldn’t get the picture of her out of his head. Lying there on the floor, bullet hole on her shirt, her clothes stained red with her blood. Who was going to call him Bebe now?

One moment Agbe’s feet were on solid ground, the next he found himself vaulted in the air, his arms and legs flapping uselessly, trying to gain purchase. Then he was dropping, and his body slammed against the concrete ground.

“Stay there, you tout! Don’t you dare get up!” A low, gravelly voice, barked at him.

Everything hurt. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth and his forehead throbbed. Tears sprang to his eyes, joining the bank that had already been there. Pain drummed through his entire body. His shoulders had slammed into the ground when he’d landed, and his exposed chest scraped against the rough road. Heavy footsteps approached him from behind, three pairs. They thudded determinedly towards him. Agbe knew that if they grabbed him, they would demand answers, and he didn’t have time to give it to them. But he was so tired. His heart still pounded in his chest and he heaved for air. He tried to push himself off the ground but his legs refused to budge.

“Come on,” he whispered. He spat the blood out of his mouth and tried again.

“I’m going to beat you bloody if you move. Stay down! Who do you think you are causing a raucous this close to ancestral grounds?” The same gravelly voice warned. It sounded much closer than before.

He lifted his head and for the first time since he started running, his chest swelled with hope. Standing only a few feet in front of him, was a curved archway, lined with clay bricks. There was a great darkness in the hollow space beneath the arch, and lush green grass and beautiful flowers on the wall around the clay bricks. He’d made it to the Tunnel of the Twins.

“There we are. Now we can pick you up, nice and easy,” the gravelly voice sounded above him.

Oh no! Agbe rolled out of reach of the hand that came down towards him, and kept rolling, till he’d knocked the bear of a man off his feet. Silver irises flashed at him. Agbe only had a second to process the fact that the man wore leather, before he placed his palms against the ground and pushed with all of his might. He threw himself forward and willed all of his strength into getting his legs to move.

They co-operated.

“I’m going to kill you!” the gravelly voice sounded behind him.

Agbe ignored him and kept running.

“Stop! Son, stop, you’re running into the Tunnel of the Twins! Are you out of your mind? You’ll get killed! Stop!” The voice sounded panicked now, no longer threatening. “Don’t you know anything! The Tunnel kills…”

The man’s words got cut off as soon as Agbe entered the Tunnel. He sunk to his knees from the weight of it. He felt as if he’d been hit with a boulder. The breath was knocked right out of him. He couldn’t see anything, it was dark, and aridly hot. Agbe opened his mouth but no air came in. It was like he was in a vacuum where air didn’t exist. The heat got worse, he just wanted to rip off his clothes, but he could barely make his limbs twitch. How long had it been since he’d last had air? Stupid! He was so stupid! He’d actually believed that his biological father was Ovie Omoruyi, it was the only reason he’d done something as foolish as running into the Tunnel of the Twins. Now he was going to die because of it, and Ehimen would die because of him.

Agbe wanted to cry but he couldn’t even do that much. He couldn’t believe that he’d escaped death by the InCoSeM rep, only to willingly run into his own execution. It wasn’t fair, he was supposed to have Enikaro blood. He was supposed to be immune to the Tunnel of the Twins. It hurt, actually physically hurt, not being able to breathe when he needed air so badly. It felt as if his brain was about to explode. He could hear singing, tiny angelic voices, deep rumbling baritones, shrill pleasant operatic whispers. He grew delirious, shivering. The singing voices got louder. He hated them, then he heard the snap of a whip and he wanted to borrow into the earth to avoid the bite of the lash. By the time death came, he was ready for it. Anything to escape the sounds.

He was on fire. Actually burning, he expected to open his eyes and see the flames of hell flickering around him at any moment. It took him a while to realize that the burning was coming from inside him. Like his blood was boiling. Then he gasped, and to his surprise, air rushed into his mouth. It flowed into his nose, his eyes, heck even his ears felt like they were breathing too.

Agbe blinked, and light seeped into his gaze. The visions swam in front of him. He saw lines and splotches of color and heard white noise, but nothing he saw or heard made any sense to him. His ears rung, his eyes burned, and his throat felt dry, but he felt the rush of air around him, letting him know that the worst was behind.

He blinked a few times before the scenery started making sense. Light, beautiful violet light bathed the surroundings. Agbe had never seen light like this. The ground he knelt on was marble, as smooth as silk, and nice and cooling after the heat of the tunnel. He looked up and saw large, magnificent glass houses looming in front of him. Some had tinted windows, others were left clear so he could see their plush furnishing and expensive décor. A pair of leather clad legs came in front of him, blocking his view. Hard hands clamped unyieldingly on his upper arms and yanked him to his feet. He blinked again still trying to get re-oriented after the Tunnel.

The man that had been chasing him on the other side of the Tunnel loomed in front of him now. He lifted his beefy hand and slapped Agbe across the face. Agbe’s head snapped to the right. He was certain he would have fallen if they weren’t holding him up. The left side of his face smarted from the strike and he heard bells ringing in his left ear for long seconds after.

“That was for the stunt you pulled outside ancestral grounds,” the gravelly voice informed him in a matter-of-fact tone. “Who are you?”

Agbe shook his head. It took him a while to remember why he was here, why he’d come running into ancestral grounds in the first place. Mama. Ehimen. He had to save Ehimen. “They’re going to blow up the wielder meeting.” He looked up at the hulk, trying hard not to feel puny by comparison. “Please,” he begged, “you have to save him.”

The large man snorted. “Blow up the wielder meeting? On ancestral grounds? And who exactly is going to do that?”

Agbe pulled at his arms, but the holds tightened. “Please!” he screamed. “You have to believe me! You have to help me!” When his eyes locked with the amused gaze of his questioner, he knew he wasn’t going to gain any ground with him. He turned to the men holding him. One was taller, the other about the same height as Agbe. Neither of them appeared inclined to believe him.

Agbe bit into the arm of the taller man, and slammed his head into the shorter. He took advantage of their shock and wrenched his arms free of their hold. Then he kneed the hulk in the groin and ducked around him when he doubled over in pain. “That was for slapping me!” he yelled at him as he ran away.

“I’m going to kill you!” The hulk growled.

Agbe kept running. The marbled path outside of the Tunnel led to a V road, both sides of it were eerily empty. Where were all the people? Agbe picked a road and continued running. He hadn’t thought this far ahead. The men chasing him thudded behind him. They were running faster than they had before, faster than a normal human could. They would catch up to him at any moment.

He started to despair. He was still looking back when he collided with a wall of flesh. Smooth fingers wrapped around his neck. He could see from the bottom fringes of her leather dress that it was a woman holding him. He tried to shake off her grasp, but she was surprisingly difficult to get away from.

The footsteps stopped behind him. His captors had returned.

Agbe glanced up at the woman. “Please help me,” he begged her, “I’m trying to save my father’s life. There’s a bomb at the wielder meeting, they’re going to blow it up.”

The woman was tall and slender. She glanced down at him, revealing golden irises. It dawned on Agbe that she was a werejackal. He writhed but she held him fast. She gave him an emotionless look then lifted her gaze. Large beefy hands wrapped around his much slenderer ones. They pinned his wrists together at his back, and tightened their hold until he could feel his bones grinding against each other. The hold twisted his arms back at a painful angle.

“Please…”

Their orders were to wait here for the InCoSeM reps to finish packing up their stuff and then join them. They would leave the Community together that evening.

Ehimen’s nostrils flared. He smelled smoke. There was a dark grit to this smoke, not regular fire, but a crimson inferno. Curious, he pulled on the evbaire he’d just drank and enhanced his hearing. He heard screams, people were talking, a building was on fire. He kept listening and then froze when he heard where it was.

His mouth grew dry.

No.

He lurched to his feet.

No.

“Ehimen!” Iye called out, “what are you doing?”

“My family,” he was already moving towards the sacks. He stopped in front of the sack containing speed and scooped up a handful of the powder, then he threw it into his mouth. “I have to go.”

“Ehimen!” His mother was standing in front of him when he turned around. “You’re not going anywhere like this.”

He ignored her. As soon as the evbaire entered his body he felt his synapses twitching. He used the evbaire and ran.

“Ehimen!” His mother yelled after him. “Come back here!”

He fired the evbaire, blazing the speed he’d just fed on. It took him less than a second to get there. But it was already too late. Madam Celia’s was no more. There was a heap of ashes where the building had once stood. A crowd was forming around the pile of ashes. They made way for him. He felt their stares, saw them bowing out of the corner of his eyes, but he ignored them and marched forward. Until he was standing in front of the ashes.

“Survivors?” He grabbed onto the man that stood beside him and shook him. The man’s eyes widened.

“No, sir, no, no survivors. It was a flash burn, crimson inferno. It only took a second.”

Ehimen kept shaking him. “Where are the survivors?”

The man shook his head. “Please sir, no be me burn am, no survivors. I just met it like this.”

“Survivors!” Ehimen yelled at him. He knew there had to be survivors. There couldn’t not be survivors. His wife and his son were in this building. They couldn’t be gone, just like that. He turned back to the pile of ashes. His wife. His son. Why would anyone want to blow up a brothel? Why would anyone take his family from him? Ehimen was crying, he didn’t realize it till he felt the wet streaks on his face. He felt suffocated, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. There were people around him, hands brushed on him, people spoke, but he heard nothing. Something pulled on his arms. “Who did this?” he roared, once he got his breath back, “who did this?”

“No be me, abeg, release me, sir, abeg.”

The pull on his arms continued. He realized he was still grabbing onto the bystander. He let him go and the man ran away from him. Everyone else gave him a wide berth. Ehimen dropped to his knees. Isoken, beautiful, vivacious, Isoken, gone. He scooped up the ashes in his hands and wept. Agbe. His son. How could anyone do this to them? Ehimen drew the ashes close to his chest, trying to hold them, to have a piece of them with him. With each shudder of grief that tore through him, the dust seeped from the gaps between his fingers until his hand was as empty and hollow as he felt inside.

Iye frowned. “It’s worry commune. Do you know how to mix it?”

Mischief nodded her head quickly, as surprised by the reprieve as he was. “Yes, Iye.”

“Then mix it and give it to your brother.”

“Yes, Iye.”

Everyone stared at Iye. She looked at them all and then her eyebrows lifted. “What is it?”

“Oh nothing,” they all mumbled and went back to their food. ‘Are you feeling well?’ Ehimen pulled on their augur bond and sent the thought to his mother.

She gave him a sardonic look. ‘I’m not that strict, am I?’

‘With Mischief, yes.’

‘She’s twelve and she’s nowhere near ready to be a matron. It’s only a matter of time before her periods start, then she’ll start branding, and her scion can come anytime after. If I’m hard on her that’s why.’

Ehimen’s lips twitched. ‘I know mother.’

‘Do you?’

He frowned at her. They were having this conversation telepathically and no one else appeared aware of it. ‘What does that mean?’

Hey everyone! For some reason my update is being banned by the antispam bot again, so my account has been locked, and the update deleted. I'm waiting for mods to restore this update and once it's restored I will update will the final part. It's a three part chapter.

Thanks for the patience

This is Obehid (btw)

I'm having posting issues, so I guess my update will have to wait for another time. I'll reach out to the mods to see what the issue is. Sorry about the inconvenience and I hope you all have a great day!

Part 5
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“Have you really never heard of the chasm master?” Musa asked, breaking the silence which had permeated the room, clinging to the air like a foul smell.

The moment we’d reached the relative safety of the dwelling, having escaped from the pious ones with our secrets and lives in tact, we had burst into laughter. The joy, arriving on the heel of the roller coaster of emotions which had washed through my body as I underwent the magistrate’s inquisition, burst out of me. It was uncontrollable, an insane reaction to the events of the day. But it was the only reaction my frazzled mind had deemed appropriate.

And so the laughter fizzled out of me. I laughed despite the lack of hilarity in the danger we had faced, and found that I could do nothing but laugh. As soon as the laughter ended though, I was made aware of just how close I had come to losing my life. The questions sprung up in my mind then, filling my head with their alarming implications. The laughter died, and the room was filled with silence. That silence, the one which followed the prolonged term of deranged laughter, became poignant. It stood out in stark contrast to the riot in my head, the clamor of unanswered questions clashing against themselves. What if the magistrate had had intimate knowledge of Murakute? What if any of the arbiters had demanded I take off my neckcloth? What if I had accidentally brushed against any of the pansophic metal in the weapons the arbiters brandished? What if it was my mind, not Musa’s, which the magistrate had insisted on checking?

I watched as Musa’s countenance changed, its mirth as dead as mine had become. Its brows furrowed as it stared aimlessly into the room. Then, it took down the sack bags it carried and began to prepare our meal. Its features calmed as it performed the mundane tasks. It brought out the wooden bowls we ate from and placed them on the table. Then it went outside, and moments later, I heard the sound of liquid falling. I knew then that it had gone to the faucet to fill the shallow okun pond. With each trivial act it performed, I saw it calm, and I envied that calm. I found myself watching the imp, for no other reason than that forcing my mind to follow the imp, kept it from bugging me with questions which I preferred not to consider.

And so Musa had made the preparations for the evening meal and I had watched it. When we sat to eat, I devoured the simple meal, never once thinking to complain about its austerity. Gone where the desires for fresh meat and aromatic pastries. I decided then that the inns where too dangerous to risk going into. We would not go back to those inns. No. We would go to the market to restock on the necessities, and we would go to the pond for cleaning, but not to the inns. Not anymore.

I had just made this decision, when Musa spoke up, its voice sounding loud and potent as it dispelled the heavy silence which had followed the raucous of our crazy laughter.

“Have you really never heard of the chasm master?”

I shook my head and then stared straight down at the imp. “I heard bits and pieces of it in the pits. Pious ones mentioned it offhand in conversations. Another fighter asked me that question.” I trailed off.

“Tiyoseriwosin?” Musa provided.

I nodded. “I do not understand what happened in the inn. I mean, was the uspec,” I searched my head for the name, “Tantan. Was it in on it? Had it planned to kill the other noble the whole time? Why did it choose that moment? And the things it said just before…” I shook my head, not sure that any of this was worth bringing up again.

“Why did you not tell the noble’s name?”

“What?” I asked.

“When the magistrate asked if you knew its name, or anything to help find it, you said you didn’t.”

“Did I?” I thought back on it. I had, hadn’t I? “I suppose I just did not want to give the magistrate any reason to stay longer.”

Musa nodded in understanding, as if it too had shared those same sentiments. “Maybe the noble was trying to protect you.”

“What?”

“You asked why the noble chose that moment, maybe it did not want you to have to answer the question. In the Rabu inn, the uspecs are already separated by factions and so it is pointless, but in a non-segregated inn, the question is valid. It is a question that demands an answer. Once it is asked master, everything stops until an answer is given.”

“Who would have cared how I answered?”

“You never know when the wrong answer to that question could come back to haunt you master.”

I sighed. Pushing the bowl aside, I steepled my hands together and stared at Musa, a clear sign that I was done with my meal and I meant to talk. “Well, tell me, what does all of this mean.”

“All of what master?”

“All of this. The question, the chasm. What is it? Why is it so important? Why does everyone care about the answer to that one question?” I demanded, suddenly angry about all the information that I did not have. I couldn’t help wondering why tales of this hadn’t reached the slums. The passing traders had told as many stories as they could. They talked and talked, sharing tales, and giving enlightenment. They told epics of bannerets, of adherents, of halcyons. They talked about what ports were fighting and which one was most likely to lose. They brought information of ports so far away, we cared nothing of them, but of the ghastly tales spread of death and the victories of war. When the traders talked about the forgotten kingdoms, ports which had been defeated in battle and had then been annexed into another, we devoured the story, gobbling it up as if it was life-sustaining. Why not talks of uspecs being slaughtered on the streets for giving the wrong answer to a question? Why not of a chasm which the entire world seemed to know of?

“To explain the chasm, master, we must go back to the creation, to the start. Everything began with the Kuwor. At a point, the Kuwor was the world, it was existence, it was life, intangible yet ubiquitous. It was all that was. Then, from itself, the Kuwor created the four Chu. At their inception they were close…”

“I know the creation story.” I said, cutting the imp off. Somehow, hearing the imp repeat the tale which the traders had told, grated on my nerves. I may not have been educated, but I was at least not that ignorant.

Musa nodded. “Of course master, I did not mean to imply that you did not. Well then, as you know, the four Chu eventually separated, and each created their own sphere of existence, separate from the others. Chuspecip founded the spectral existence. It took on the form of what it named ‘uspec’ pulling the name from its own. Then, using the language of the Kuwor, it created more uspecs. These uspecs eventually came to think of Chuspecip as a progenitor of sorts. They honored Chuspecip as their creator, and worshiped the Kuwor, as god, the driving force through which all things exist. As generations after generations of uspecs came to be, the distance between Chuspecip and the regular uspec grew, and the Kuwor morphed into an idea, and Chuspecip became god. These uspecs who worshipped Chuspecip as god, named themselves, ‘Uspecipytes’. But there were still others of the old faith, the ones that clung to the idea of Chuspecip as progenitor, and the Kuwor as god. Those uspecs named themselves ‘Kuworytes’. At the time though, the nomenclature did not matter, as all were united in the following of the founder, Chuspecip. It did not matter if it was ‘god’ or merely ‘progenitor’, all followed it, all bowed to its wisdom. And when the pious proclaimed that it was Chuspecip’s will that irira must die, all obeyed, all bowed to the wisdom of the founder.

Then the idea of the plenum began to grow.

I do not know how it started, how the idea of such a group came to be, but by the time the existence of the plenum became known, it was already an established group, a force plotting to wrest control of the spectral existence from the founder Chuspecip. You see, as time continued, and more and more generations of uspecs came to be, the distance between Chuspecip and the regular uspec heightened, transcending Chuspecip from ‘god’ to the higher status which the Kuwor had filled, the role of an idea, the being which no one had ever seen. To grow to the position they wanted, the plenum had to shatter that idea, they had to bring Chuspecip down to the level of uspec. They had to show that it was green just like every other uspec. That it had form, like every other, and that it could be killed, just like every other.

Somehow, the plenum found a way to shatter the ideal of Chuspecip. You see, what no one had ever known, was that Chuspecip, the founder, the Lord which had forbidden crossbreeding between spectrums, was itself a crossbreed. Chuspecip was irira.”

I gasped, my mind reeling with the implications. “But if Chuspecip is irira then…”

“Then by its own law, it was an abomination, it deserved to die. And somehow, little by little, the plenum began to chip away at it. Before it was known that Chuspecip was irira, the Uspecipyte faction dominated the Kuworyte. But as soon as the truth was revealed, Kuworytes began to dominate the Uspecipytes. The plenum pushed all their support behind the worship of the Kuwor, which according to them, had always been god. And Chuspecip, well, Chuspecip had always been an uspec, just an uspec. One with the same failings and shortcomings as any other. The only reason it had risen so high above its kind was because it was given the gift of immortality. According to the plenum, it was a gift which all uspecs could receive if Chuspecip were willing to share the language of the Kuwor.

And by their words, the plenum turned Chuspecip into a traitor, a lie, and an abomination. They made uspecs think of it as greedy, as selfish, as weak. Then, one day, the plenum revealed that they were close to killing Chuspecip. They claimed that the truth of their words would be revealed when immortality was granted to all uspecs. When uspecs tried to worship the plenum as the new gods, they refused, saying that unlike Chuspecip, they were aware of their status as uspec, and had no designs to raise themselves to god. They said the Kuwor was god.

Before this time, tales of wars between ports were few, and tales of victorious ports annexing the loser, even fewer. But then suddenly, ports begun to fight over what god they believed in. Being Uspecipyte became linked with being irira, and uspecs would fight to the death over insults of faith. Uspecipytes cried out for Chuspecip, and the plenum pointed out that if Chuspecip were really a god, it would come out and deliver its worshippers from death. The plenum said that Chuspecip was a coward, that it was hiding, and leaving its people to suffer. The more the plenum insulted Chuspecip, the more the fighting continued between the Uspecipytes and the Kuworytes, and the more the chasm grew.

Now ports fight over the faith. They orchestrate a ‘cleansing’ to make sure that every uspec in the port has the same answer to the question ‘Tiyoseriwosin’. If the Kaiser of a port declares itself as Kuworyte, it secretly accepts the authority of the plenum, and is able to keep its port. If a Kaiser declares itself as Uspecipyte, it becomes a target. The number of Uspecipyte ports are growing fewer by the day, as the chasm continues to spread.”

“The Kaiser of Lahooni was Uspecipyte wasn’t it?” I asked, suddenly feeling sick.

Musa nodded. “Master Calam was not deep into its faith. But its ancestors had always been firmly tied to Chuspecip. Lahooni was the strongest Uspecipyte port, and in the early days of the chasm, it was able to lend aid to other Uspecipyte ports under attack. My master was a thorn in the plenum’s side. They wanted Lahooni for its wealth and resources. And when master Calam claimed an irira as its heir…that was the last straw. The death of the Uspecipyte Kaiser of Lahooni marked a turning point in the war. That was when the rumors of Chuspecip’s death began to spread. When the chasm grew to astronomical heights. In the years that have followed, hundreds of Uspecipyte ports have become forgotten kingdoms.”

“Why?” I asked, spitting the question out through clenched teeth. “What does it matter what you answer when asked a question? Why do people not lie if it will save their lives?”

“It is not safe master. I have heard stories of uspecs who only whispered that they were Kuworyte in Kuworyte ports, but once they tried to claim something else in Uspecipyte ports, they were killed. No one knows how the Uspecipyte ports knew. Some say that there is a database, that somewhere names are being matched with answers, and that once an uspec gives an answer, that answer is forever linked to the uspec. Even though Kuworytes make up the majority, Uspecipyte ports still have some influence. Uspecipyte ports are now even more ruthless than Kuworyte ones. A hesitation in answering the question in an Uspecipyte port would get an uspec killed. Those ports are the ones being persecuted, they survive by being merciless and by keeping Kuworytes out.”

“And the Uspecipyte Kaisers will not bend?”

“Would you master? If your ancestry was Uspecipyte, if you had grown up on stories of how your ancestors dined with Chuspecip and swore unending fealty to it, would you so easily discard your heritage? Besides, it has grown to more than that. Kaisers can no longer just say that they are Kuworyte to survive, they must bow to the plenum, to Kaisers like them, and cleanse their ports, killing any of their own people who do not forsake Chuspecip. If you were an Uspecipyte Kaiser, what would you do? Would you give your port over to the plenum? Ports have been ruled independently since the inception of the spectral existence. The position of Kaiser was a gift bestowed by Chuspecip, and once given, the Kaiser was left in sole charge of that port. Would you, after generations of owning a port, hand the control of it over to another? Kaisers are used to being the final say in their port. There is no higher authority in a port than the Kaiser, but if the plenum succeeds, they will become the higher authority. All Kaisers would have to answer to them.”

My first thought, once the shock waned, was that they were all fools. Perhaps I had never truly been as religious as I thought, but I could not imagine a time when I would have killed over it. I would kill to save my life. I would kill to end an annoyance. But why would I kill because of an answer to a question? It still made no sense to me. None of it. Until I thought of the Kaisers. Until I thought of the plenum. The plenum I understood. I wished that I did not understand them, but my knowledge of Fajahromo ensured that I would always understand the depths that one would sink to in search of power. Fajarhomo had killed its own siblings for power, why then would the plenum not start a war which could wipe out numerous unknown uspecs for the same thing? And the Kaisers who killed to protect their ports? I understood them too, too well maybe. In fact, knowing now what I knew, I wanted to have the resources to kill the plenum. I wanted to end the life of every Kaiser in the plenum, for the sire that I had lost, and for the progenitor that had been poisoned in the hatch. Yet, I could not understand how the plenum had been able to manipulate events to get to this point. How did ordinary Kaisers go up against Chuspecip and win? “So, Chuspecip is dead?” I asked.

Musa shrugged, and then it shook its head slowly. “I don’t know master, no one does.”

It had to be dead, I decided then. If it wasn’t dead, then it wasn’t worthy of the faith which the Uspecipytes clung to. A god that couldn’t save its own people was no god worth fighting for. But then I thought back to the politics, the Kaisers clinging to the Uspecipyte name as a mark of their independence from the plenum. Was that all the faith they claimed was then, a mask behind which political games were played? One side using the faith to build power, the other side using the faith to keep it.

I sighed. “And, so, Tiyoseriwosin?”

“Translates directly to ‘who do you serve?’. And the answers Kuworyte, ‘I serve the Kuwor’, or Uspecipyte, ‘I serve Chuspecip’.”

Part 4
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I stared at Musa, and then I contemplated my options. They were simple, should I stop walking, or should I simply run away? Musa’s words rose in my head, reminding me of the consequences of shedding blood on the trail. Now that I knew the power of the pious, the power that pansophy gave them, how could I not fear them getting a hold of me? One look into my head and they would find out that I was irira, that I was an abomination they were sworn to kill.

Then I recalled my lessons on religion from the slums. The rules of the pious had been drilled into our heads. We had learned all the grave sins, we had learned that it was a grave sin to ignore a pious one’s command, especially when it was made in the name of an Order. My feet stopped, even as my head told them to move faster. I found that those lessons which had been drilled into me, made it impossible for me to ignore the call of the pious. I was suddenly starting to wish that I had listened to Musa and stayed away from the inn.

The pious ones caught up to us moments after we stopped walking. Five of them, with swords hanging from belts around their waists, surrounded us. As soon as my eyes glazed over the red fraises on their necks, I knew that they were arbiters, pious ones of the Order of Adjudication. A pious one with three outer eyes stood directly in front of me. The tip of the highest horn on its head was at the same level as my chin, and so I had to stare down at it. I glanced quickly over the other arbiters surrounding me, and found that they too were much shorter than I was. That brought comfort to me. It was a ludicrous reaction. I was outnumbered by uspecs with pansophy, and the few inches of extra height I had on them calmed me. Yet, though I knew my height would not be an advantage in a battle against them, I accepted the comfort, grateful that it held the fear at bay.

The arbiter standing in front of me inclined its head backwards, and then it stretched out its hand in the direction of the inn we had just left. It did not have to speak to pass on its message. I simply turned around and walked back towards the inn.

Uspecs now stood on the short trail leading to the inn. They stared at us as we walked by them, their eyebrows raised in question. I made out a few noble ones standing apart in the crowd, their golden armbands glittering in the orange-red light. Whispers drifted towards us from the crowd of onlookers. I tried to imagine what they would say. I guessed they would be wondering what crime we had committed, probably taking bets on what the punishment would be. If there was one thing the Order of Adjudication was known for, it was their swiftness in getting to the bottom of things and dispensing appropriate punishments.

We reached the inn then.

One of the arbiters walked through first and held the curtain back for me to walk through after it. There was something slightly puzzling about that gesture of respect. My shock only increased as the arbiter bowed its head slightly as I walked past it.

“Wait there banneret.” Another arbiter stated. The words were spoken in the kute tongue, but they had a foreign tang to them, making the words sound strange, and almost indecipherable.

I nodded to the pious one, and walked back towards the table it had gestured to. It was the table to the left of the one I had been sitting on, the one with the dead uspec, whose head still lay in a pool of its blood. The uspec had died with its eyes open, and so as I sat on the bench beside the table, I could not help peering into those lifeless orbs. As if spurred by the eyes I stared at, my mind went back to the events which had preceded its death. I thought of the uspec who had sat next to me, the noble one who’d come to my table because it had heard me speaking the soaru tongue. Where had that uspec gone? And how did a dagger kill an uspec? I had seen strange things, but I had never seen a blade move in the air without a hand to guide it. Was it some sort of pansophy? My mind reeled with questions.

Bits of soaru words floated into my mind, breaking my fixation on the dead uspec, and pulling my attention to the other side of the room.

I noticed then that there were at least twenty pious ones in the room, about fifteen of them appeared to be arbiters. I couldn’t help wondering where these pious ones had come from. Had they been there when we walked in? I noticed the group of yielders who’d been in the inn at the time of the murder. They were the ones speaking soaru in hushed tones. I tried to listen in on their conversation, but the only word I could pick up was ‘plenum’. Plenum? What did the plenum have to do with this?

Time passed in a haze as one after the other, the uspecs who had witnessed the murder were questioned. The arbiters asked the questions of the others who had been in the inn at the time. They were scattered all around the room, listening to depictions of the murder told in different tongues. I watched as the uspecs, after recounting all they could, were permitted to leave. The room thinned until the only people left were the yielders who had been sitting at the back of the room, the arbiters, and myself and Musa.

The yielders walked towards the front of the room then. They all had the tentacles of uspecs of the soaru spectrum. They were tentacles which the dead noble also had. Only a handful of the arbiters had those tentacles. I noted that the majority of the arbiters in the room had iron spikes jutting out of their chests and backs.

“The body?” a yielder asked in soaru.

“Will remain until all accounts are taken.” An arbiter replied.

I was suddenly grateful for the saoru tongue which I had spent the last two months learning. I was just beginning to praise what I believed to be an ‘expert’ knowledge of the tongue, when the yielders began arguing with the arbiters. Now, they spoke so quickly and with such a thick accent that I completely gave up on trying to keep up with the conversation.

I did not know how long the argument in soaru lasted, but it ended when a new pious one walked into the room. The first thing I noted about the pious one was the cyan ring on its finger. It took me back to the day in the pits when I had been sent to kill a member of the plenum for Fajahromo. I remembered the cyan rings which they’d worn, and I remembered the pious ones who’d worn the ring. This pious one did not look particularly familiar, but I had not gotten a good enough look at any of the pious ones that day to be able to tell if it had been among them. The pious one had all of its eyes filled. It walked with an air of command, and so I wasn’t surprised when the arguing uspecs stopped speaking, turning instead to bow at the newcomer.

“Magistrate.” One of the arbiters called out in greeting.

Magistrate, the word echoed in my head. I had never seen a magistrate before. The magistrate’s eyes scanned the room and stopped to stare at me. At that moment, I wished I knew more about etiquette. As a noble, did I outrank a magistrate, or did the magistrate outrank me? I decided that a magistrate had to outrank a banneret, so I stood and bowed to the magistrate. “Salutations most pious one.” I greeted in the soaru tongue, before straightening.

The magistrate nodded. “Salutations banneret.” It replied in the kute tongue. “Please, sit.” It said, gesturing back towards the bench.

I sat.

The magistrate’s gaze went to Musa, and I was suddenly very aware of its presence standing beside me.

“The imp?” the magistrate asked, its gaze now turned back to the arbiters.

“Belongs to the banneret sirga.”

“And it is here because?”

“It was here during the murder sirga.”

The magistrate made a sound which I could not quite decipher, before walking to stand by the table with the dead noble. “Reynard.” The magistrate said.

“Yes sirga.” One of the yielders replied. “We were to meet with it. It said it had business to discuss before meeting us.”

“It’s patron will not be pleased.” The magistrate turned to stare at me. “What was the purpose of your meeting?” it demanded.

I shook my head. “The meeting was not with me.”

“Who then?” it barked the question out.

I shrugged. “Another noble. My table was the least occupied and so it asked to share it.” So far I had managed to keep my voice calm. I was not shaking. I even tried to stare down at the magistrate a little, as I expected any other noble would.

“Did you know this other noble?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Then why did it choose your table?”

“It said it was drawn to the saoru tongue I spoke.”

“I see.” The magistrate’s eyes narrowed. It was a most memorable event, the sight of a magistrate staring down at me with all seven of its eyes narrowed. “And do you often make a point of speaking to yourself?”

“What?”

“You said it was drawn to the soaru tongue you spoke! But that is a lie, isn’t it? Weren’t you in fact in league with the noble? Were you not friends? Did you not plan this murder together?”

I stared straight into the magistrate’s narrowed eyes and said, “No. I was speaking the soaru tongue with my imp. The noble heard us and it came to sit at my table. I have never seen either of the nobles before today.”

The magistrate’s jaw clenched. It took a step towards me, then it stretched out its hand. Musa fidgeted beside me. I found that fidgeting strange. It had been standing still, trying desperately, I assumed, to make its presence forgotten. Now it fidgeted. The magistrate’s hand was almost on my shoulder before I realized what Musa was doing. I jumped to my feet immediately, and stared down at the magistrate.

“Please do not touch me.” I stated calmly.

The magistrate smirked. “You are innocent, are you not?”

“Yes I am.”

“Then you will not mind me seeing for myself, now would you?”

“I mind. I am a banneret, do not think that you can play me for a fool. You have no right to search through my mind.” I said the words with all the confidence I could muster, all the while hoping that they were true. I was alone, the only none pious in a room filled with pious ones. I had no idea what they could or could not do by law.

It happened in a flash.

For a moment after I’d spoken back to the magistrate, it simply stared at me. I’d taken advantage of my height then, and remained standing so that the magistrate would be forced to stare up at me. Seconds ticked away in which we did nothing but hold each other’s gaze. Then it lashed out with its hand.

And grabbed a hold of Musa’s shoulder.

Musa dropped to its knees.

I took one step towards my imp in the magistrate’s hand, and was suddenly stopped by swords crossed in front of me, halting my progress. I just barely remembered what Musa had said about the pious making weapons out of pansophic metals, before I made the foolish mistake of putting my hands on their blades. Luckily, I recalled the words in time and kept myself as far away from those swords as I could.

“That is my slave.” I spat the words out through clenched teeth.

“All imps are subject to the pious.” An arbiter replied. “If you have nothing to hide banneret, then the magistrate will find nothing wanting in your slave’s mind.”

I had to fight the urge to place my hand on the hilt of my cutlass. I knew that the moment I did that, the pious ones will become aware of my intentions to fight and they would prepare to fight back. I just had to be fast, I had to wait till the exact moment when the magistrate would give the order to kill me, and then I would strike out. I thought about Musa and all the secrets it held in its mind. My secrets, the truth of who I was. The secrets of my ancestors. Even the secret of itself as a formerly trained pious slave.

I sighed, resigning myself to the fight that was soon to come.

Looking around the room, I counted twenty-one of them, including the magistrate. I had never fought against that many uspecs. And they had spectra, I reminded myself. I had spectra too, but by the eyes on their faces, I knew that they had more magic than I did. I had emotions; the thought rose in my head. But I had to have anger to transfer to them. I needed anger and pain, and enough of it to make a difference.

The magistrate took its hand off Musa and then it turned to face me. I stared at Musa, wishing for the connection which we had felt in the past, the one which allowed us to read into each other’s heads at odd moments. Musa did not turn to stare at me, it just remained as it was, kneeling with the back of its head to me. Only the magistrate’s eyes were on me. I wondered what he was waiting for.

“What is your epic banneret?” the magistrate asked.

This was the question. The one that Musa and I had hammered over. I had learnt it first in kute and then memorized it in soaru. It was the soaru version I said then, as our conversation thus far had been in the saoru tongue. “I hale from the forgotten kingdom of Murekute. I was born a commoner and enlisted in the port guard at the age of twelve. When I was twenty the Kaiser held a competition for all its guards. It was a pugilistic bout, and the reward for winning was the honor of guarding the mighty one. I served the Kaiser for the next five years. Early this year, when the war between Murekute and Mugakute reached its peak, the Kaiser taxed me with coming here, to Hakute to ask for aid from the Kaiser of this port. It made me banneret as a reward for my service and sent me on my way. I learnt as soon as I reached Hakute that Mugakute won the war, and annexed my port, making it a forgotten kingdom.”

The magistrate remained silent long after I was done speaking. It searched me with its eyes as if by watching me, it could make me slip up in my tale and confess the truth of my crime. I stared back at it, unflinching.

“That is not quite how your imp recalls it.” The magistrate stated, each word coming out of its mouth in a slow drawl.

I remained silent, every bit of control I had directed towards keeping myself calm. My heart pounded, as the magistrate continued to stare at me. The other pious ones were beginning to sense that something was wrong too. I watched the arbiters, the ones with swords on their belts, grip the hilts of those swords firmly, as if preparing to pull them out at the magistrate’s say.

The magistrate cleared its throat.

Then it smiled.

“Your imp’s mind is filled with tales of heroic measures and many injuries sustained serving your Kaiser. It even has you beating giants double your size during your pugilistic bouts.” It bowed slightly to me then.

It took a while for me to hear the magistrate’s words through the pounding in my ears. Then, I spent even more time trying to decipher them. I did not know how it was possible, but according to the magistrate, Musa’s mind did not reveal anything incriminating. How?

I forced a smile onto my face and bowed back to the magistrate.

It turned around. I exhaled in relief as the magistrate walked towards the curtain. A smile formed on my face as I realized that the worst was now finally behind me.

Then the magistrate stopped with its hand on the curtain. “Oh,” it said, turning back around to face me.

I knew then that its words before had been part of a performance to make me drop my guard. How could I have been so stupid as to think that it hadn’t seen the truth in Musa’s head? It was obvious from the way the magistrate stared at me now, that it knew. It knew, and it was about to give the order to have me killed.

“Did you get any details from the noble who came to sit at your table? Did it tell you its name or where it haled from, or where it was going? Any information you give us could be very helpful in finding it.”

My heart was still pounding when I shook my head. “All it said to me was that it had business to conduct with the other noble.”

The magistrate nodded. “Gratitude.” It said, before walking out of the inn.

My vision blurred after the magistrate left. I had seen my death happen so many times, and in so many different ways, that I could not believe that the magistrate had not seen it too. I was so relieved, I almost collapsed against the table. The only thing that kept me standing straight, was the knowledge that the other pious ones in the room still watched.

“You are free to go banneret.” An arbiter said. “Gratitude banneret.”

Somehow, I managed to make my legs move. I walked out of the inn. The light was pure red now, a sign that the day had past, and it was night. I had never been more grateful to see the clouds’ light. Musa and I walked together in silence. We walked through the markets with the sellers still out hawking their wares. We walked out, back onto the inter-port trail, and still we remained silent.

Neither of us spoke in the hour that it took us to find the nearest resting place, and then put a form card into the sludge and have the dwelling erect around us. It wasn’t till the dwelling was built, that I exhaled loudly.

Musa turned to smile at me.

“How?” I asked it. “How did the magistrate not see the truth in your mind?”

“The first thing we learn in pansophy is to manipulate our internal lifeforces. It was easy to hide the thoughts and memories I did not want it to see, and fill my head with the ones I wanted. I have been doing this for a long-time master, too long for an uspec to best me at it.”

I laughed. Musa joined me, and we just laughed. We stood there, an imp and an uspec, bent over, laughing.