As Ishe deliberated the choice before him, he seemed to float around the white place. He was still puffy and he felt the vibration of his surroundings.
You will make the right decision no matter what. Whatever happens will happen because it should.
Ishe startled – his form exploded out in many directions for a split second – and then he said, “That is difficult to get used to.”
“You will eventually!” Pomp yelled from below Ishe. While Ishe had floated the white place in his contemplation, Pomp had stayed in place. “I won’t take it personally that you changed your mind and decided to journey with the Voice alone. Be well human!”
“Am I already going?” Ishe yelled. He was confused as he noticed the form of Pomp getting smaller.
Calm yourself or this will be unpleasant. It does not have to be.
“Where am I going?” Ishe asked.
Where do you want to go, what makes the most sense?
“I should go to the Angel with both genders. Because I won’t be too much man or not enough, or so foreign as I might be to the one with no sex. And the one capable of changing could be anything in the moment, too unpredictable.”
Ishe floated in the direction of the Ajres for as long as it took, though Ishe had a poor concept of how much time was actually passing. As he neared it, the spot of yellow that had been a faint dot, like a fading ember, grew bigger and bigger, until he was at it like he floated before a massive ball of chaotic yellow energy that was mostly a ball, with flares of energy that shot off like waves. It was a beautiful sight to behold and he heard the Voice say to him,
Go and announce yourself. Call eris name, Ajres-yel!
Ishe called the name and the energies of the giant yellow ball ceased in their action and then seemed to focus on Ishe.
“Who uses that name?” a voice that seemed to emanate from the ball asked.
“It is I, Isheanesu, of the clan Chimutengwende. I humbly beseech your vast power and ask that you please hear my pleas for help.”
The giant yellow ball went back to its chaos, but a flurry of faint yellow sparks began to materialize in front of Ishe. They took the form of a being with horns, with a face like a person.
“I was always told to make time for a being who said my name. You are from the physical realm? A spirit?”
Ishe told the story of how he ended up where he was, and while he was lost in the story, the Voice materialized a body. The Voice had materialized a body very rarely in its history, but at the moment of its creation, the Voice had a body that had no gender. The Voice presented with this body that Ajres-yel recognized and it took eris attentions away from Ishe.
“Vox Sine Corpore, one of my first creations. I am sad to say that I had mostly forgotten your existence…” Ajres-yel said before e was interrupted.
“I am aware. No matter, I will take a little of your magic for my own and I will be off.” The body absorbed some of the yellow sparks and this seemed to weaken Ajres-yel as the new body of the Voice grew more powerful and was surrounded by the faint yellow sparks. “You can go back to your work, creator, I will disturb you no longer.”
The body grabbed Ishe and they took off in a nearly invisible flash of yellow sparks.
Ajres-yel was confused. The soul knew eris name, but it had not done anything of consequence.
Everything has consequence, Ajres-yel thought and then returned to eris work.
The Voice hoped to use Isheanesu in her scheme that involved the powers she had stolen from Ajres-yel. But the Voice underestimated the soul of Isheanesu and when they arrived safely in the physical realm, in the vicinity of the last place that Isheanesu remembered before he was pulled away by the suck, Isheanesu was able to draw on the power of the Chimutengwende vadzimu.
“Because I saved you from the bore of the light realm, you owe me Isheanesu,” the Voice said.
“I am happy to return your kindness,” he said cautiously. He was grateful to be back to the land of the living, and did not think he could have found his way back on his own, but he distrusted the yellow sparks that now formed the body of a woman that stood before him. She had seemed to steal the power from the Angel in the light realm, and he had no idea of her intentions with the new body she had formed.
“You say and think two very different sentiments,” the Voice said. “If you do not trust me, how will you return my kindness?”
“What do you want?” Ishe asked frankly.
“I need a soul, one that has traveled the spectra of matter, for my plans. The details will only complicate things. Will you help me willingly, or do I need to waste time breaking you?”
“You intend to hurt people?”
“Why do you care? You are long dead!” the Voice laughed.
“I protect the living because they deserve an existence free from the meddling of the likes of you. It is what I wanted in my life and my ancestors worked hard to give me that. I will always dedicate myself to that goal.”
The Voice seemed to hiss at him and then said, “Very well.” She charged Ishe like a woman made of glitter, or the form of a woman bursting with the yellow sparks that glittered as she moved. She tackled him, and Ishe fought to wrestle her away, but she was strong. He said an incantation that flung the form of the woman away, and then he said another that was like a tracking spell that should have taken him directly to Brave, and it caused him to fly away in a flash.
PRL Serials 