“Your mother was a Reaper?”
My mouth falls open in surprise. You can’t identify a maji’s powers on sight alone.
“How did you know?” I ask.
“I can sense it,” Lekan answers. “Reaper blood runs thick through your veins.”
“Can you sense magic in people who aren’t maji or divîners?” The question spills out of me, Inan coming to mind. “Is it possible for kosidán to have magic in their blood?”
“As sêntaros, we do not make that distinction. Everything is possible when it comes to the gods. All that matters is Sky Mother’s will.”
He turns, leaving me with more questions than answers. What part of Sky Mother’s will involves Inan’s hands wrapped around my throat?
I try to push thoughts of him away as we move. It feels like we’ve traveled a full kilometer through the tunnels before Lekan leads us into a dark and wide dome hollowed out in the mountain. He raises his hands with the same gravitas as before, making the air buzz with spiritual energy.
“Ìm3lè àwọn òrìshà,” he chants, the Yoruba incantation flowing from his lips like water. “Tàn sí mi ní kíá báàyí. Tan ìm3lè sí ìpàs1 awọn ọmọ rẹ!”
All at once the flames lining the walls go out, just like Tzain’s makeshift torch. But in an instant, they reignite with new life, blanketing every inch of stone with light.
“Oh…”
“My…”
“Gods…”
We marvel as we enter the dome decorated with a mural so magnificent I can hardly speak. Each meter of stone is covered in vibrant paints illustrating the ten gods, the maji clans, everything in between. It’s so much more than the crude pictures of the gods that used to exist before the Raid, the occasional hidden painting, the rare woven tapestry only brought out under the cover of darkness. Those were flickering rays of light. This mural is like staring at the face of the sun.
“What is this?” Amari breathes, spinning to take in the sights all at once.
Lekan motions us over and I pull Amari along, steadying her when she stumbles. He presses his hands into the stone before answering, “The origin of the gods.”
His golden eyes spark and bright energy escapes his palm, feeding into the wall. As the light travels along the paint, the art glows and the figures slowly come to life.
“Skies,” Amari curses, gripping my wrist. Magic and light bloom as each painting’s soul animates before our eyes.
“In the beginning, our Sky Mother created the heavens and the earth, bringing life to the vast darkness.” Bright lights swirl from the palms of the elderly woman I recognize as the statue on the first floor. Her purple robes glide like silk around her regal form as the new worlds spring to life. “On earth, Sky Mother created humans, her children of blood and bone. In the heavens she gave birth to the gods and goddesses. Each would come to embody a different fragment of her soul.”
Though I’ve heard Mama tell this story before, it’s never felt as real as it does now. It transcends the realm of fables and myths into actual history. We all stare with wide eyes and open mouths as humans and gods spring from Sky Mother at once. While the humans fall to the brown earth, the newborn deities float into the clouds above.
“Sky Mother loved all her children, each created in her image. To connect us all, she shared her gifts with the gods, and the first maji were born. Each deity took a part of her soul, a magic they were meant to gift to the humans below. Yemọja took the tears from Sky Mother’s eyes and became the Goddess of the Sea.”
A stunning dark-skinned goddess with vibrant blue eyes drops a single tear onto the world. As it lands, it explodes, creating oceans, lakes, streams.
“Yemọja brought water to her human siblings, teaching those who worshipped her how to control its life. Her pupils studied their sister deity with unrelenting discipline, gaining mastery over the sea.”
Birth of the Tiders, I remember suddenly. Above us, the painted members of the Omi Clan twist the waters to their will, making them dance with masterful ease.
Lekan narrates the origin of god after god, explaining each deity and their maji clan as we pass. We learn of Sàngó, who took the fire from Sky Mother’s heart to create Burners; Ayao, who took the air from Sky Mother’s breath to make Winders. We study nine gods and goddesses until there’s only one left.
I wait for Lekan to start speaking, but he turns to me, expectation heavy in his gaze.
“Me?” I step forward, palms sweating as I take his place. This is the part of the story I know best, the tale Mama told me so often even Tzain could recite it. But when I was a child, it was only a myth, a fantasy adults could weave for our young eyes. For the first time the tale feels real, stitched into the very fabric of my life.
“Unlike her sisters and brothers, Oya chose to wait until the end,” I speak loudly. “She didn’t take from Sky Mother like her siblings. Instead, she asked Sky Mother to give.”
I watch as my sister deity moves with the grace of a hurricane, depicted in all her might and brilliance. The obsidian beauty kneels before her mother, red robes flowing like the wind. The sight takes my breath away. Her stance holds a power, a storm brewing beneath her black skin.
“For Oya’s patience and wisdom, Sky Mother rewarded her with mastery over life,” I continue. “But when Oya shared this gift with her worshippers, the ability transformed to power over death.”
My heartbeat quickens as the Reapers of the Ikú Clan display their lethal abilities, the maji I was born to become. Even as paintings, their shadows and spirits soar, commanding armies of the dead, destroying life in storms of ash.
The magical displays take me back to my days in Ibadan, watching the newly elected elders demonstrate their prowess for our Reaper clan. When Mama was elected, the black shadows of death that swirled around her were magnificent. Terrifying, yet stunning as they danced by her side.
In that moment I knew that as long as I lived, I would never see anything as beautiful as that. I only hoped one day I would join her. I wanted her to watch me and feel even half as proud.
“I’m sorry.” My throat closes up. Lekan seems to understand at once. With a nod, he steps forward, continuing the tale.
“Oya was the first to realize that not all her children could handle such great power. She became selective, like her mother, sharing her ability with only those who showed patience and wisdom. Her siblings followed suit, and soon the maji population dwindled. In this new era, all maji were graced with coiled white hair, an homage to Sky Mother’s image.”
I tuck back my straight locks, my cheeks growing hot. Even if I pass for wise, there can’t be a god above who thinks I’m patient.…
Lekan’s gaze turns to the last set of drawings on the heavenly mural, where men and women inked with white symbols kneel and worship.
“To protect the gods’ will on this earth, Sky Mother created my people, the sêntaros. Led by the mamaláwo, we act as spiritual guardians, tasked with connecting Sky Mother’s spirit to the maji below.”
He pauses as the painting of a woman rises above the sêntaros with an ivory dagger in one hand and a glowing stone in the other. Though she’s dressed in leather robes like her brothers and sisters, an ornate diadem rests on the mamaláwo’s head.