Kingdom of Souls. Rena Barron
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‘I’m only saying that the fiend must be wearing craven bone. That much I know from my vision.’ She casts a sidelong glance in the Vizier’s general direction. ‘No one would question the Omaris’ good name … but have we forgotten the incident in the market so soon?’
As Arti lets her words settle, everyone in the coliseum holds their breath. She means after the Rite of Passage. Re’Mec mandated the Rite to remind us of the orishas’ sacrifice to save mortal kind. A hundred and twenty of them fell in their struggle to stop the Demon King and his insatiable thirst for souls. There’s script on the Temple walls with instructions for the Rite, but there’s no telling when Re’Mec will demand another one. Until the last Rite of Passage, there hadn’t been one in twenty years.
For the Rite, the seers designed deadly obstacles for volunteers to undergo to test their mental and physical fortitude. Last time, they faced a hostile desert with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Looking to make their mark, the Vizier’s older sons, Uran and Jemi, volunteered together. In the end, the Rite broke their minds just as it had done to so many before them.
The last Rite was five years ago – the only one in my lifetime. Fewer than a third of those who attempted it came back. Very few returned whole.
I wasn’t in the market the day Jemi killed a merchant. Witnesses say he became enraged over a perceived slight. He was haggling with an Estherian over the price of a gossamer veil he wanted to buy for his mother. The argument went too far, and he cut the merchant’s throat. After that, the Vizier sent him and his squadron on an assignment far from the Kingdom. He’s been there ever since. The Vizier made his other son, Uran, an ambassador to the North. Rudjek says that he spends most of his time locked away in his rooms, refusing to see anyone, even his wife. He flies into sudden rages, and his attendants must restrain him.
A chill crawls down my back at how blank Rudjek’s face has gone. I ache to go to him, but I know that would only make matters worse. We’ve come this far without our parents guessing how close we are.
‘Where are your sons, Vizier?’ Arti says, her voice bright. ‘I’m sure they’d want to clear their names.’
My mother has wielded the news of the kidnappings at the assembly to strike at the Vizier, and doesn’t care who else she’ll hurt. She never does. Even so, the question of the missing children hits a nerve. From the whispers in the coliseum, I’m not alone in wondering who would do something so vile. My gaze finds Rudjek again, and my stomach sinks when he refuses to look at me.
According to my father, everyone has a little magic in them – only our family has more than most. He says that to the patrons who come to his shop to make them feel special. He knows it’s not true, but people need something to believe. The crowd filing out of the coliseum certainly has no magic, and it would seem, no heart or conscience either.
They talk about the missing children like they’re the latest scandal, and it annoys me no end. To attend the assembly you must have property and standing. No one here will worry about their children, for none are without attendants day or night. I push through the throng of people, losing a few beads from my sheath along the way. There are so many of us that the grey-washed West Market feels alive for once. Alive and teeming with petty gossip.
‘She’d better watch herself, lest she ends up like the former Ka-Priest,’ a man leans towards his friend to say. He’s loud enough that some people mumble their soft agreements. Others rally to my mother’s defence.
I only glare at him. It isn’t the first time someone has flung that particular threat at my mother. It still stings. I don’t like that Arti and the Vizier are always bickering. Sometimes it turns nasty. That said, she’s done good for the Kingdom. When the Vizier joked about raising tithes again, he left out why the Temple asks for money. My mother and the seers run all public services in the Kingdom. Free education for those who can’t afford private scribes, meals, shelter for orphans. Programmes that my mother created when she became Ka-Priestess.
The former Ka-Priest, Ren Eké was before my time, but people still sing his praises. He was beloved for his wise and quiet nature, and he and the Vizier got along well. People say there was better collaboration between the Guild and Temple back then. As an Eké, he bore the honoured position in Tribe Litho that marked him as the head of his extended family. Yet, one foggy morning, a fisherman found the Ka-Priest impaled on a hook in the bay. Naked, his body mutilated.
So even if my mother and I don’t always see eye to eye, I worry about her. It’s no small feat to kill any public figure, but to attack a witchdoctor would be even harder. Still, his death remains as mysterious as this child snatcher on the loose, one who can hide from magic.
Witchdoctors, real witchdoctors, can mend a broken bone with a word or ward off a storm with a ritual. Powerful ones like Grandmother can see across time. Arti can too, even if she doesn’t bear the title witchdoctor since leaving the tribal lands. My father can reverse ageing and extend a person’s life beyond their natural years. I’ve always thought my family safe because of their magic, but now I’m not so sure.
A shiver creeps across my shoulders as I duck down alleyways chock-full of bins of rotting food to avoid the crowd. Grandmother had seen a green-eyed serpent while reading the bones and believed it to be a demon. Now Arti had only got a glimpse of the child snatcher. She and the seers think it’s the work of anti-magic. What if it’s something else?
A demon and missing children. It doesn’t seem to make sense, but the timing is too close, the circumstances too strange. Why would a demon be in a vision about me? I’m nothing special. Yet, as impossible as it sounds, even I could feel the wrongness of the magic in Grandmother’s tent. It was nothing like the feather touch of tribal magic. The magic had been invasive and curious, hostile. The situation with the children is far worse. The biggest question is why; what reason would anyone have to take children?
I slip out of the alley and into a different crowd in the East Market – my nerves on edge. I keep remembering the way Rudjek refused to look at me after my mother all but accused one of his brothers of being the child snatcher. If he doesn’t want to see me, I can’t blame him. Not after this morning. As I brace myself for the possibility that he won’t come, dread sinks in my chest. I miss our routine – I miss him.
I pass people haggling over day-old bread, overripened fruits, cured meat, and charms. Donkeys laden with sacks of grain kick up a fury of red sand. The market writhes like the Serpent River after a rainstorm, and reeks of sweaty feet and dung.
As everyone goes about their business, hard faces stare at me. Soft faces. Kind faces. Faces of all colours. Faces leathered from too much sun. Faces so structured they look carved from stone. Jovial, round faces. The people in Tamar come from everywhere – across deserts, across seas, across mountains. The city is home to all who embrace it. Most noticeably so in the East Market, which is why I love coming here.
There’s comfort in knowing that, like me, no one in this crowd quite fits. It always fascinates me how a person can at once blend in and stand out here. That would be the greatest advantage for the child snatcher, becoming invisible. My pulse throbs in my ears as I glance around again – seeing the market with new eyes.
Barefoot boys in tattered trousers and girls in dirty shifts duck through the crowds. Their small hands are quick as they slide them into pockets, lifting a money pouch here, a bracelet there. When a woman catches a little boy trying to steal her armlet, an unseen child on a rooftop strikes her with a pebble. Distracted and rubbing her head, the woman lets the little thief slip away with his prize. I don’t condone what the orphans do in the market, but I don’t judge them for it either. City life is hard for those who don’t come from a family of status. Unlike in the tribal lands, where magic is all that matters, money and influence rule here.
The sun beats down on my back as I cross a street dense with food merchants. A plume of smoke from their firepits chokes the air and waters my eyes,