“What y’all want from me?” Coffey asked Lofet as they sat at a large table set for a feast. They were on one of the green surfaces that breached the swamp and it was decorated with vegetation to mark a celebration that was attended by many of the Umbatia. They all wore very formal clothing; both males and females wore tunics of various colors that were made of very fine fabrics with accomodations for wings at the back. Even though the tunics were all similar, they were customized by individuals or family groups to distinguish them. Coffey’s tunic was fairly standard and her arms and much of her legs were exposed like she wore a form fitting mini-dress. She refused the jewelry and accents that many others wore, including Lofet, who had a large silver necklace that radiated light against the darkness of his tunic.
“We want you to enjoy yourself, first off,” Lofet explained. “We want to welcome you, let you know that this can be your home if you choose it. It gotta be better than slaving for them white Earthers.”
Anything was better than that, even death she had decided when she had finally gathered the courage to run from the plantation. But as nice and welcoming as everyone one was, as opulent and beautiful as her new environment proved to be, as awe inspiring as it was to experience life in this new form she took that resembled the Umbatia complete with wings that were intuitive to use, she couldn’t exactly trust her new situation. It had all come so suddenly and she wondered why they had only come to her at that point in her life when she had already lived close to twenty years of nothing but sorrow.
“Y’all need something from me, right,” Coffey said. “‘Cause I’m Pultine’s daughter. The nice lady in the tree trunk told me all about Pultine, how she was born out a tree, came to Earth and made some secret babies with some Africans a long time ago, but why y’all just now showing up for me? If being Pultine’s daughter was so special, how I end up a slave, just like my mama, and all the rest of us got some of Pultine’s magical blood in us?”
Coffey wasn’t shouting, but by the time she finished, she was leaning on the table and close to Lofet, who looked like he was bracing for a wave of embarrassment that was sure to sweep the table once others realized what she was saying.
“You here as a honored guest because we finally found you,” he said gently, putting his strong, golden hands on hers in comfort and friendship, truly hoping to win her confidence. “Y’all don’t know how to work your magic, and when we find y’all too far away from our hive, our community, we can’t channel enough magic to help y’all. The Yumboes and the Mmoatia that made us, came to this place a long time ago and we got even more once the Unrest started, boosted the magic we was able to pull from the Fonlands and we made a doorway deep down in this swamp so we don’t ever run out of the Essence…”
“What’s the Essence?” Coffey asked. The woman who had dressed her had mentioned the Essence as well, though she hadn’t gone into detail about it. She had said that the Earther daughters of Pultine could generate the essence in their own being because of an organ that grew in their wombs, known as the Third Heart.
“The Divine Essence makes us all what we are, Fonlanders of the fabled Fonlands Discs that periodically enter this world. The Essence is magic, plain and simple.”
“So you need my Third Heart,” Coffey surmised from what she knew of her venerated status as an offspring of the magical woman. “To make more Essence? To fight off the white people trying to drain the swamp.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Lofet said begrudgingly. His handsome features were twisted with hesitation that wavered with an obvious desire to tell Coffey things that maybe someone else didn’t want her to know. “We don’t need to talk about this now, we supposed to be having a celebration. You will help us won’t you?”
Coffey sighed. It seemed that these Umbatia had the means all along to help her and her mother, even Sissy before she died, lost in what others believed to be fantasy. The Umbatia had magic and they were related, but they hadn’t tried any desperate rescues of her people trapped in servitude to cruel masters.
But to deny them, she knew, was to embrace something of her former captors, some base envy and spite that would only feed the engine of negativity that had fueled her life to that point. So she agreed to help him, the Umbatia of the magical swamp, and she would figure out if and how she could use her newly discovered abilities to end the suffering of her former life that was less than a day removed from her magical present.
– – –
from the Manual and Reference of the Fonlands
The Legend of Pultine continued
The Third Heart
Pultine was a combination of flora and fauna, the union of all the beings that inhabit the disc of Agê. She was known around the Discs for her benevolence and she seemed to monitor the forest and the jungle for disputes where she might intervene on the side of peace. She is an Idol of Old, meaning that the beings of the Agê disc have not encountered her firsthand in at least two hundred years Earther time. The Idols of the disc of Agê are vaulted inhabitants of the disc who wield the Divine Essence with a mastery that rivals the ruler of the disc. Not all Idols are benevolent to their fellow inhabitants of the disc, but they all hold court with Agê in defence of the disc against the possibility of conflict with other dics.
Pultine was widely regarded in her time and there is still a cult to her at the site of the dessicated corpse of Iuma that still looms large over the Eastern Forest even in its death. Very few Fonlanders remark about her fabled interactions with the Earther realm, especially those who venerate her most. While association with the Earther realm is not bad or harmful in any way, the realm is generally viewed as very boring and drab at best, completely beneath a vaulted Idol like Pultine.
She was the first and only mmoatia to be given a Third Heart in the history of the Fonlands. Because of the general perception of the Fonlanders with the features of the mmoatia, that they are mean and always looking for an opportunity to benefit from the despair of others, Agê had never granted a mmoatia the organ, the Third Heart, that can generate Divine Essence that exists in abundance on the disc and is generated by the soil and much of the flora. When Agê visited Pultine at her birth, she was so overcome with love and warmth for the baby with black skin, nestled on a flower as a bed and suckling from the vegetation of a great and mighty tree, that she bestowed the Third Heart upon the baby because she could see that Pultine would grow into a worthy Idol. Not every Earther descendent of Pultine is born with a Third Heart, only those identified as the daughters of Pultine
The Third Heart grows in the belly of its bearer and is round with three interconnect chambers that convert starlight into Divine Essence. Once generated, the Essence floods the body and diffuses through the skin as very small particles, similar to pollen that settles as dust or dirt. The Divine Essence can only be activated by a being with the Ecstatic organ that is similar to a gland like the pituitary that can exist anywhere in the body of an Fonlander.
It is believed by some who still sing her praises, that Pultine left her Third Heart deep in the forest so that it could always overflow with the blessings of the Divine Essence. If this legend is true, and it has never been confirmed, then it would seem that the Third Heart could function independent of its original owner.
– – –
“Mr. Lofet is a fine man,” Sene said to Coffey in the room of the tree that was more impressive than the bedrooms in the plantation house had been. The large opening of the tree that acted as entrance and window showcased a wondrous scene of the swamp in the peace of night. The water seemed to glow greenish blue, and orbs of light zipped and danced across the surface. She imagined the people, the Umbatia that were those glowing lights, radiating magic that circled around them at an intensity that depended on the concentration of Essence in their bodies.
Most of the day had been filled with food, speeches, organized dances, more speeches and then more food. Coffey was happy when the celebration was over and she longed to rest on the soft bed that had been prepared for her. She also liked Sene’s company, the woman was only the second Umbatia that she knew by name, and she seemed much older than her though it was impossible for her to tell how old any of the Umbatia were. They could all have been very mature looking young people, or young looking old people, and she was too overwhelmed by the magic of everything to ask about something so practical.
“He seem to like you a whole lot,” Sene continued. She sat on the bed where Coffey lay on her back, her feathery wings flat at her back, and wrapping her torso like a blanket; she was a bit startled at how intuitive it was to use and manipulate her wings.
“Who is Lofet,” she asked Sene who she assumed was some sort of personal maid for her the way she tended to her needs. “I mean, he the leader of everybody, or y’all just sent him to bring me here?”
“Lofet a scout,” Sene explained. “Him and the other scouts’ job is to watch around the swamp for what’s coming. He one of the best scouts ’cause he can store a lot of Essence and travel further away for longer than some of us. Lot of us respect him. Seem like he got a lot of respect for you.”
“He nice and been nice to me so far. It’s just hard to wrap my head around all of this. And even after everything y’all done showed me so far, I still don’t see how I’m gone be any help to save this here swamp.”
Sene put a hand on Coffey’s to calm her. It worked and Coffey stared at Sene with a weak smile.
“If you willing to help like you say,” Sene said sincerely, “then we’ll find a way. You special, Coffey, and we need that. We’ll figure out how to get what we need.”
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