Page 92 of Firstborn of the Sun
‘Tomorrow. At dawn. I’ll be ready.’
Alawani appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Just catching up on the news from outside,’ L’?r? said, surprised at how convincingly she lied.
Márùn nodded to L’?r? and Alawani and walked into the dark hallway. Voices drifted from somewhere deeper in the house.
L’?r? watched her go and decided to follow. She wanted to see where the voices were coming from.
‘Come on,’ said Alawani, following her eyes with a smile.
L’?r? and Alawani trailed Márùn down the corridor, into a part of the house they hadn’t seen before. The narrow passage grew darker with each step but soon there was light. L’?r? noticed how the same flowers that bloomed in her room were growing along the ceiling. They shone brightly, lighting up the way until they entered a large airy room.
Here, ten girls sat behind tables dressed in what looked like a uniform, but each with a different colour. Their tableswere arranged in a circle around the centre of the room, where Ìyá-Idán stood, surveying their work.
L’?r? wasn’t sure what she expected to see in the mother of magic’s inner chambers, but it was so far from anything she could’ve imagined. To her right, one girl moved her hands in the air and stared at the flowerpot before her. The girl spoke in a dialect of Yoruba that L’?r? didn’t understand even though she recognized its rhythm; the dialect her father had taught her to light up her blades.
‘Old magic,’ Alawani said quietly. He held out his arm, blocking L’?r? from moving further into the room.
Soon, a green-coloured mist danced along the girl’s fingertips, and the plant sprouted from the pot. Its colour was identical to her uniform’s shade of green. Although no one was taught old magic in Oru, everyone knew the names of the old gods. Listening to the incantations, L’?r? realized the girl was channelling the old god of the earth, Erinl. She pushed a surge of green smoke into her plant, and it died. Her face fell as she looked at Ìyá-Idán. The woman’s face remained blank but stern. ‘Again,’ she said in a flat, dismissive tone. The girl picked up another pot with a different plant to repeat the spell.
Across the room, L’?r? noticed another girl channelling the old god of resurrection, ?bàtálá. She was trying and failing to make the dead frog on her table move to the rhythm of her hands. Another girl summoned Ògún for metal manipulation, and L’?r? recognized the name of the old god ?àngó as another burned objects to ash then tried and failed to return them to their original state. One girl at the far end of the room, challenging ?ya for air manipulation, had successfully turned her clay pot into red sand and was trying to form a small cyclone. L’?r? took another step back, in awe of the impossible things being conjured in her presence. Shehad only ever summoned ?àngó to ignite her blades and activate her time beads, but this was nothing like that. These girls were manipulating nature like it was agbára.
L’?r? stared wide-eyed at the twist of sand growing between the girl’s hands and recalled the sandstorm Ìyá-Idán started in the town to escape the guards. Just as L’?r? was about to speak, the girl lost control of the storm she’d conjured, and it exploded with a loud bang, filling the room with sand. But with a single snap of her fingers, Ìyá-Idán reversed the girl’s spell, and a wind picked up in the room, gathering all the sand and tossing it in a single heap on the girl’s head as punishment for failing whatever test this was. The other girls snickered and laughed among themselves. What shocked L’?r? more than the display of old magic was that when Ìyá-Idán used the magic of the old gods, she didn’t hear her say spells or incantations.
How could she be teaching these girls old magic? It was one thing to practise it knowing the risk to one’s own life, but to teach children the thing that would have their heads severed from their bodies?
‘Aren’t you afraid they’ll get caught?’ L’?r? asked Ìyá-Idán before facing the girls. ‘I thought only a few sacred institutions in Ìlú-Idán could research the magic honed for the priests of the Holy Order?’
‘Look at you. Spewing back to me the words of the people trying to kill you,’ Ìyá-Idán said, and L’?r? felt her cheeks flush with shame and glanced away.
‘L’?r? thinks she is better than you,’ Ìyá-Idán told her girls. ‘She thinks practising the old gods’ magic is wrong.’
L’?r? noticed the girls glaring at her from behind their tables. Alawani grabbed her hand as though ready to pull her out of the room at a moment’s notice and run.
‘What L’?r? here doesn’t know is that we, the people ofÌlú-Idán, are the life source of this great kingdom. Without us, there would be no food, no life, or sustenance. This forbidden magic from our land – from our ancestors – feeds into Ìlú-p? and, in turn, feeds the entire kingdom. So before you come in here all high and mighty, know your history and show respect where it is due!’
L’?r? bowed her head and continued to listen, sensing Ìyá-Idán was only just getting into her stride.
‘Tell me what your Baba-Ìtàn told you before he sent you here for refuge?’ she asked, a scowl on her face. Ìyá-Idán didn’t wait for L’?r? to reply. ‘Did he tell you that the Holy Order turned our homeland into a power source for this kingdom and repaid us for our blood with chains around our necks? Forcing us to work tirelessly to find ways to substitute the agbára they so willingly gave up for the crown? We are descendants of the first High Priest of Oru – the man who, by order of the old gods, blessed this kingdom with agbára. How does the Holy Order repay us? How does this kingdom repay us? By stealing our children, draining them of their blood and using it to wield magic they have no right to.’
‘What?’ L’?r?’s voice was weak. She couldn’t understand what she was hearing – she glanced at Alawani but his expression was equally confused.Draining them of their blood?
Ìyá-Idán continued. ‘Old magic needs two things to work. The blood of a scion of the old gods and the words of the old tongue spoken by the gods themselves. So do you know what happens when someone who is not a descendant of the old gods calls upon them? They die. A slow painful death. So to avoid that, the priests cut open our children and drink their blood to be able to call upon our gods.’
L’?r? felt sick, remembering the bloody chamber she had stumbled across when they’d broken into the temple. Could this explain its purpose?
‘They kill us for using old magic, but they would be nothing without us.’ Ìyá-Idán was raging now. Every word was like thunder striking against the earth. ‘Without the incantations they force out from our lips, and the blood from our veins, they would be nothing. Nothing! Agbára oru was supposed to be the great equalizer. Putting everyone on the same level. But the old gods did not abandon their descendants. So in addition to agbára oru, we the children of Ìlú-Idán have the magic of our gods on our tongues. They fear what we might become if we are free to use the magic of our ancestors. The magic that built this kingdom. Every day, someone’s head is separated from their body, reminding us that without their permission, we are forbidden to use what is as much a part of us as the agbára in our blood. Every girl here has felt the agony of watching someone they loved being punished with death for not following the rules of the Holy Order. We hide because they have their foot on our necks, and we cannot breathe.’
L’?r? noticed that the stern glares on the girls’ faces had now fallen into solemn looks as their gazes fell to the floor, and her heart broke for them. She remembered the woman at the execution in the capital who defiantly died with her à?írí unspoken and wondered if any of them knew her. Ìyá-Idán was right. L’?r? hated the Holy Order. But even now, on the run from them for being different, she hadn’t realized how much their ideas were ingrained in her mind.
‘I’m sorry,’ L’?r? said in a soft voice.
Old magic, forbidden or not, had saved her more times than she could count. Old magic was the only reason she was alive. And that meant somehow, she was one of them. A scion of the old gods.
L’?r? turned to the girls. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘We don’t need your apology. We need only for you to understand the consequences of your prejudice,’ Ìyá-Idánsaid. ‘You come here with the oath-breaker’s son, and you think it is easy for them to see you together? Knowing his spineless father is why we are still bound in chains today.’
