A new epicfantasybegins this spring with Suyi Davies Okungbowa ’s Son of the Storm , the first leger in the Nigerien author ’s Nameless Republic trilogy , which take breathing in from pre - compound West Africa . Today , io9 has a first look at the stunningly beautiful cover , and a first peek inside this exciting raw title .
Here ’s a brief summary of thebookto determine the scene , follow by the full cover ( illustration byDan Dos Santos , design by Lauren Panepinto ) , and in conclusion the prologue to Son of the Storm .
In the boom city of Bassa , Danso is a cagy but disillusioned scholar who longs for a life beyond the rigid family and political obligations expect of the city ’s elite . A way out presents itself when Lilong , a skin - changing warrior , show up offend in his barn . She comes from the Nameless Islands- which , according to Bassa traditional knowledge , do n’t exist- and neither should the mythic magic of ibor she wields .
Image: Orbit
Now traverse into a cabal far beyond his understanding , Danso and Lilong will set out on a journey that reveals histories violently suppress and magic only found in traditional knowledge .
Prologue
Oke
Image: Orbit
The Weary Sojourner Caravansary stand at the corner of three earth .
For a multitude of seasons before Oke was expect , the travelhouse had offer food , vino , board and music — and for those who had been on the road too long , companionship — to many a traveller across the Savanna Belt . Its condescension consisted solely of those who block loads of gold , bronze , ballock , produce , textile and craftwork from Bassa into the Savanna Belt or , for the even more daring , to the Idjama desert across the Lake Vezha . On their way back , they would turn back at the caravansary again , the banana tree and yam and Elmer Rice loads on their camels gone and now replaced with tablets of salt , wool and beaded ornamentation .
But there was another solidifying of people for whom the caravanserai put up , those whose sights were set on discovering the celebrated isthmus that link the Savanna Belt to the yet - to - be - sighted seven islands of the archipelago . For people like these , the Weary Sojourner resist as something else : a vantage decimal point . And for people like Oke who had a stage in all three worlds , walking into the Weary Sojourner call for an intensified level of alertness .
peculiarly when the fate of the three worlds could be regulate by the very meeting she was going to have .
She swing start the drapery . She did not labour back her cloak .
Like many public houses in the Savanna Belt , the Weary Sojourner operate in darkness , despite it being late morning . During her time in the desertlands , Oke had learned this was a practice carry over from the time of the Leopard Emperor when liquor was banned in its desert protectorates , and secret star sign were operated under the covering fire of iniquity . Even though that menstruum of despotism was thankfully over , customary practices were difficult to shake off . People still preferred to drink and smoke and roll in the hay in the dark .
Which made this the perfect place for Oke ’s meeting .
She take a buttocks at the back and survey the room . It was at once obvious that her contact lens was n’t around . There were exactly three people here , all men who had understandably just arrived from the same wagon train . Their clothes gave them away : decidedly Bassai , in brilliantly - color cotton wrapper , bronze jewellery — no sensible person locomote with gold jewellery — over some velvet , wool and leatherksin boots for the desert ’s cold . Senior members of the merchantry guild , looking at that velvet . Definitely members of the Idu , the mainland ’s stately caste . Guild aside , their complexions also gave that off — in high spirits - black skin , as dark as the darkest of humuses , just the way Bassa liked it . It was the kind of skin colour she had n’t attend in a foresightful time .
Oke swept aside a nearby curtain and looked outside . for sure enough , there was their van , park behind the establishment , guarded by a few secret Bassai hunthands . Beside them , travelhands — charter desert immigrant to the mainland judging by their complexions , what the Bassai would denote to as low - brown for how light and lowly it was — unpack busily for an all-night arrest and unsaddle the camels so they could drink . There were no stratum of junk on anyone yet , so intelligibly they were north - bound .
“ A drinkable , maa ? ”
Oke looked up at the housekeep , who had number over , wringing his hands in a rag . She could see little of his face , but she had been here doubly before , and knew enough of what he looked like .
“ Palm vino and jackalberry with ginger , ” she said , hiding her handwriting .
The housekeep stopped light “ Interesting drink choice . ” He peer closer . “ Have you been here before ? ” He articulate the tidings in Savanna Common in a way that betrayed his mete origins .
Oke ’s middle scanned him and decided he was ask this innocently . “ Why do you ask ? ”
“ You remember thing , as a housekeep , ” he said , lean back on a nearby counter . “ Especially toast combinations that join land that have no place get together . ”
“ Consider it acquired taste , ” Oke said , and looked away , signaling the end of the treatment . But to her surprisal , the humanity nod at the mathematical group far aside and asked , in clear Mainland Common :
“ You with them ? ”
Oke froze . He had see her skin colour , then , and knew enough to know she had mainland origins . What had always been a curse for Oke back when she was a mainlander — Too scant , is she punished by Menai ? people would ask her daa — had become a talent in ego - exile over the borderline . But there were a few people with keen eyes and ears who would , every now and then , recognize a swing in her Savanna Common or note how her hair curl a bit too tightly for a desertlander or how she carried herself with a smidgin of mainlander confidence . There was only one way to react to that , as she always did whenever this came up .
“ What ? ’ She glower . “ Sorry , I do n’t read that spoken communication . ”
The housekeep eyed her for another instant , then went forth .
Oke breathed a sigh of relief . It was of the utmost importance that no one recognize who she was and what she was doing here , live in the Savanna Belt . Because the history of the Savanna Belt was what it was , there was a tiny enough number of people who originated from this side of the Soke border that look just a petite bit like she did . Passing as one was easier once she hone the languages . give thanks moons she had studied them a bit as a scholar in Bassa .
She drank slowly once the housekeep brought in her order and she put frontwards some cowries , see to summate a few pieces to clearly signalise she want to be get out alone .
Halfway through her drink , she realize her striking was running late . She looked outside again . The sky had gone murky , and the sun was neglect for a while . She went back to her drink and nursed it some more .
The men in the elbow room resurrect and went up to be shown to their rooms . Oke peeked out of the curtain again . The travelhands were gone . One hunthand stood and hold the caravan . One endure at the back door to the caravansary . The camels still stand there , lapping water .
Oke ordered another drink and wait . The sunshine came back out . It was past an time of day now . She looked out again . The camels had stopped drinking and now lay in the dust , snoozing .
Something was wrong .
Oke got up without bear upon her new drink , put down some more cowries on the counter in front of the housekeep , and walked to the front door of the caravansary . On second thought process , she sprain and went back to the housekeep .
“ Your alternate exit . Show me . ”
The man pointed without looking at her . Oke took it and went around the construction , hedge both the humans and the animals . She finally showed up to where she had left her own animal — a kwaga , a striped peach with tiny horns . She untied and pat it . It snorted in return . Then she slapped its hindquarters and set it off on a runnel , barking as it went .
She waited for a moment or two , then dashed away herself .
extend through a secret route on foot , while trying to stay as nondescript as possible , took a prospicient prison term . Oke had to take double the usual safeguard , as banditry had increased so much on the trade path that one was more likely to get rob and mutilate than not . Back when Bassa was Bassa — not now with its heavily dilute universe and generally subvert influence — no one would dare attack a Bassai caravan anywhere on the continent , for fear of revenge . These days , every wagon train had to travel with private security . The Bassai Upper Council was well known for being toothless and only concerned with enrich themselves .
The cloud from earlier had disappeared , and the sun beat mercilessly on her , cause her to sweat river beneath her cloak , but Oke know she had done the right matter . It was as they had agreed : if either of them got even a whiff of something off , they were to make a getaway as swiftly as possible . She was then to head directly for the place nicknamed the Forest of the Mist , the thick , uncharted woodland with often big fog that was storied to domiciliate secret passage to an band that connected the Savanna Belt to the seven islands of the eastern archipelago .
It did n’t matter any longer if that bit of mainland myth was on-key or not . Whether the archipelago even still subsist was moot at this point . The yet undiscovered cognition she had reap from her underground effort in the depository library at the University of Bassa , pair off with the artifacts her contact was fetch her — if either made it into the wrong hands , the whole continent of Oon would compensate for it . Oke was n’t ready to drop the portion of the continent in the junk just yet .
Two hours later on , Oke look back and saw in the sky , the gray tip of what she knew come from fatheaded , black smoke . Not the variety of gage that came from a nearby kitchen , but the kind that said something far off had been destruct . Something big .
She took a roundabout way in her journeying and headed for the closest eminent degree she acknowledge . She chose one that overlooked a enough serving of the savanna but also kept her on the way of life to the Forest of the Mist . It took her a while to ascend to the top , but she soon got to a good enough vantage point to look across and see the caravansary .
The Weary Sojourner stuck out like an formicary , the one establishment for a distance where the road from the edge branched into the Savanna Belt . The caravan inn was up in flames . It was too far for her to see the hoi polloi and animals , but she eff what those thing scattering from the raging inferno were . The physical structure language of disaster was the same everywhere .
Oke began to come tight , her chest of drawers weightless . The Forest of the Mist was only place on this continent that she would be secure now , and she needed to get there immediately . Whoever set that fire to the Weary Traveler knew who she and her contact were . Her touch may or may not have made it out alive . It was up to her now to ensure that the continent ’s biggest mystery was kept that elbow room .
The choice was just too life-threatening to think .
Excerpt from Suyi Davies Okungbowa ’s Son of the Storm reprinted by license . Copyright Orbit .
Suyi Davies Okungbowa ’s Son of the Storm is out May 11 , 2021 ; you’re able to pre - order a copyhere .
https://gizmodo.com/terrifying-water-monsters-test-a-young-mystics-powers-i-1841472109
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