“I have finally returned to this plane,” the giant said, inspecting his body and surroundings. “I require food to sustain this form and you will do nicely.”
He lifted one of his giant hands that from Issac’s perspective moved in slow motion and tried to pluck the man out of the sky, but Issac was swift and easily dodged the giant’s attempts.
“I’m sending you back to the Museum,” he yelled to Gregory as the woven, blue portal reappeared and the man disappeared before he could respond. Then Issac rose higher than the reach of the giant, almost to the edge of space where the air was thin, and stopped to move his hands in a circle with his arms extended as he screamed an incantation aloud.
“By the strings that vibrate below reality’s facade, I summon the powerful, the wonderful Wazad!”
The strings of blue energy exploded from his hands as he finished and a woven portal appeared with a much more intricate pattern that Issac directed from a distance by manipulating his hands and fingers. The incantation required impeccable concentration and practice of the hand movements to summon the powerful magic user known as Wazad the Wonderful. If done improperly, the incater risked pulling someone or something other than the intended target across space and maybe even time. It was also possible to botch the incantation and create a portal that sucked the incater through to an unknown location. And even if the spell is properly cast, it is ultimately Wazad’s decision to present herself before the Incanter.
When the woven, blue portal was completed, Issac heard the voice of Wazad.
“Who summons me?”
“The Master of Universal Arcana, Issac Washington.”
“Oh, how can I be of service to the Master?” the voice said as a woman emerged through the gate. She was tall and solid, and her clothes reminded Issac of a karate master. She wore a deep green gi and the tan brown skin of her shoulders, arms and ankles were exposed. Her hair was the color of gold in thick curls past her shoulders. She wore a gold band around her forehead and there was a large sword sheathed at her back that was visible as she approached Issac high up in the sky. One of her eyes had a light brown iris and the other was a solid gold ball in her eye socket. There were visible scars at the edge of the eye and along her temple.
“The Lightning God found a host,” Issac explained. “He appeared below us. I know Wazad tamed him before…”
“I won’t tame him,” Wazad said and unsheathed her sword that was forged of what looked like solid gold. It was about as tall as her and looked to be extremely heavy, but she wielded it with no strain. “I will end that abomination once and for all.”
Wazad the Wonderful is one of many magical masteries that magic users can achieve on the planet Earth, like the Alia, the Living Nehanda, the Seer Extraordinaire. In order to claim the title of Wazad the Wonderful, one must master the skill set of the first Wazad who wrote a book about instantaneous movement across the universe and through time. Obtaining a copy of the Spell Set of Wazad is an extremely difficult task, but if one can get their hands on it, they can become Wazad the Wonderful by demonstrating every spell in the book with complete mastery. Upon rigorous study of the text and demonstration of mastery of the spells, the spirit of the first Wazad appears to the magic user and after a positive assessment of their intentions with the powers, he bestows the title upon them.
Maria Moreno found the Wazad Set while her mother worked at the old university library in the town where they lived in the mountains of North Carolina. She was almost eighteen and growing up with her librarian mother made her bookish. Spending time in the university stacks was the highlight of her free time and she enjoyed discovering the types of information that was stored there and hardly ever accessed.
The book seemed to appear to her. She had pulled three books from the metal shelves and placed them on a small desk that was tucked into the rows. She turned to put her bookbag underneath the desk, and when she looked back at the desktop, a fourth book had appeared. She knew that she hadn’t grabbed this particular book. It looked ancient and seemed to have been put together by hand, but the lettering on the cover was clear and bold. It seemed handwritten, but the cursive was so neat and deliberate that it could have been printed.
“The Wazad Set,” she read the title aloud.
When she opened the cover that was heavier than the other pages and brown where the others were white, there were hundreds of ancient looking pages with clear black writing in a language she did not recognize, but she realized that if she looked at the pages for a few seconds, the words became English that she could understand and written in the same neat cursive of the cover. There were hundreds of pages, and as Maria read through it, she realized that she was reading a book of spells. Most of the spells had diagrams showing the proper position of the body, hands and even fingers as spells are performed.
Maria read the book for hours. She assumed that it was fiction, like a work of Bolanos or Borges that was a fictional text presented and styled as nonfiction, in this case a magic manual for performing spells. When her mother found her in the stacks, Maria startled and closed the book.
“Time to head home,” she said. “Give me whatever you want to take home, I’ll check them out.”
“I don’t have anything,” Maria said. “I’ll put these back and meet you at the door.”
When her mother was gone, Maria inspected the Set for the typical library barcode stickers, and when she saw none, she slipped it into her backpack.
Maria went to the same college where her mother was a librarian and by the time she graduated undergrad and was almost done with her master’s in Library Sciences, she had been practicing the spells of the Wazad Set in the mountain woods behind the home she shared with her mother for five years. She was able to use the portals of Wazad to travel all over the globe and she could find objects and bring them to her location. She learned to separate from her physical form and she became powerful enough to summon portals in her spirit form. Eventually she performed the spell that created portals to destinations deep in the universe. Maria understood that completing the spell meant that she would travel to a distant planet in the universe that the first Wazad described as a mountainous place inhabited by some of the kindest beings in the universe. She was curious about this other planet, and when she mastered the spell, she arrived on a flat plateau of deep red mountain and she was awed by the mountainous view around her. A large dojo, all white with black accents, occupied the plateau where she stood and as she approached it, large rats in robes issued from the double doors. Maria was so scared that she cowered and almost ran away from them, but she saw how close she was to the edge of the plateau and stopped. When she turned back around to the large rats, there were about ten of them standing on two legs and staring at her curiously.
“Welcome to the Kazi Master Dojo,” one of them said through a translator that had a robotic voice. “You look human, you must be working toward Wazad.”
Maria spent many years on the planet known as Eel and the Kazi there helped her to become Wazad the Wonderful.
When Issac caught up to Wazad, she had grown to the height of the Lightning God, and the two were punching each other across the desert. Issac said an incantation of invisibility around the area to avoid spectators and he said another to dampen the impact of the brawl on the environment. Then he focused his mental awareness on the giant Lightning God and forced himself into its mind. Once inside, he sang the song of sleep to instantly put the giant to sleep. He dropped like a rock in the sand.
Before he severed his mental connection to the giant, Issac also planted a mental suggestion to assume average human size that he was unsure would be effective because he had used so much energy to penetrate the giant’s mind. But the giant did shrink to become a large, naked man and Wazad reduced her size as well, but she kept her sword ready in her hand.
“I think you both can help me with something,” Issac said as he approached Wazad and the sleeping giant. He moved very slowly and seemed to be in pain. It was the strain of all the power he was expending, borrowing and manipulating to wield the magics he used to control the situation in the desert. He stopped the incantations to hide the fight, but he needed time to replenish himself before he was back to his normal self.
“This thing consumes humans!” Wazad said. “Taming it has only ever been temporary. Whatever you need, Universal Master, I will help you.”
“I need your help controlling the giant,” Issac explained. “There is a hostile alien loose on Earth and it is large, the giant could safely consume it. After we find it of course. This alien is a shapeshifter, a highly intelligent predator that can easily assimilate and stealthily eat humans without notice. I need your expertise in locating it.”
Issac showed Wazad Gregory’s memory of seeing the alien.
“That is concerning, but surely there is a safer way to destroy that thing than relying on this monster.”
“The Lightning God is one of the first magical masteries to appear on Earth, and it is admittedly very primitive, but in my reading, a past Wazad was able to split the God into its constituent beings for long enough to help them control the giant form and the lightning powers. Historically, the God is so impulsive because he chooses child hosts who are young and impulsive and lack the discipline to master the powers bestowed upon them. If the God has appeared, then two kids are in there. You should want to help them.”
Wazad quietly agreed with Issac and he transported them all to the Museum where Gregory was pacing back and forth in the lobby.
“Is that the giant?” Gregory asked Issac. “It’s much smaller than I remember. And is this Wazad?”
Issac introduced them and then Wazad went to work performing the spell to separate the Lightning God into the two boys that had combined into his form. She kept the two unconscious, they would instantly begin the fusion process if they were conscious.
“Is that Leo Franklin’s son?” Issac asked with disbelief. “He went missing in Mexico years ago, everyone assumed he was dead.”
“Who is the other boy?” Gregory asked.
Issac didn’t know, but he thought that the boy must have a family too and maybe they too assumed their son was dead.
Wazad linked their minds and she conversed with them on the mental plane while Issac and Gregory planned their next move.
“Wazad was able to identify some of the energy signatures from Oweynagat in Tennessee,” Issac explained. “We’ll head there while Wazad works.”
When they arrived at their destination, they were at a home in Knoxville, TN. It was dark and the lights were out. There didn’t seem to be anyone at home in any of the houses and the street was quiet. Issac walked the stairs to the front door, Gregory on his heels and the door opened. A man emerged. He had the appearance of an older white man with a thick gray beard and no hair on his head, but he wore clothing that seemed unlike any clothing made on Earth. It was more of a uniform than clothing.
“Can I help you?” the man asked.
“This might sound strange…” Issac started.
The man chuckled and cut him off, “Strange ain’t nothing. Hit me.”
“Have you noticed any strange animals around? Something weird that you’ve never seen before?”
“Are y’all looking for the Razews too?” the man asked. “The thing from Druont?”
“I didn’t know what it was called,” Issac admitted, “but how do you know what it is?”
“Come in, we’ll talk,” the man said. “You can call me Paul and I know about them because I went to their planet. We got an invasion on our hands, my new friend.”
PRL Serials 