Zacchaeus is lost again. He was in a fierce battle with Wazad the Wonderful and her compatriots against the razews that had infiltrated his Earth, and they had triumphed over the razews. But the real enemies were the witches who managed to seize the moon, empowering the witch Miriro to the point that Wazad insisted they retreat. Wazad created a portal of escape from the chaotic woods where the witch Miriro had achieved her greatest success, to the garden of the Museum of Aphro-Arcana in Louisiana. Even though Wazad and her compatriots arrived safely in the garden to regroup and make a plan to oppose the fearsome threat that Miriro now posed, Zacchaeus did not.
As the group ran through the portal, Zaccaheus lined up to be the last one through and one of the witches gathered in the chaotic woods reached out to grab him before he was able to escape. By complete chance, the sublime device that Zacceheus wore strapped to his forearm when he did not intend to use it, was triggered, and Zacchaeus immediately disappeared from the chaotic woods, from the planet completely. As his being became one with the stuff of existence and began to permeate the universe to join the current of the multiversal organism, Zaccaehus realized what was happening and he wondered if he would arrive in the same place that he had arrived to last time the device was triggered without a programmed destination. When his body reconstituted and he fell to the ground of soft grasses, he thought for a moment that he was in the same umbatia swamp where he had met the runaway slave named Coffey among the winged umbatia who could change their size. But as he stood and inspected the exotic woods around him, he realized that he was in the last place that he had seen Coffey. It was a magical place that they arrived at because the Vodun Xêvioso opened a portal there so they could escape Legba’s captivity.
“Zacchaeus?” he heard a familiar voice say his name and then he saw her like an angel with black wings. Her wings beat casually at her back to allow her to float off the ground and she slowly came to land in front of him.
“Coffey!” Zacchaeus said, thankful to see a familiar face after such a disorienting experience.
“What you doing here?” Coffey asked with wonder in her voice. It had been a long time since the two last saw one another.
“I was somewhere else. Where we at now?”
“The Fonlands,” Coffee said with a large smile on her face. She hugged him tightly, then held him at arm’s length, smiling up into his face. “Thank you for bringing me here. Lord knows where I would be now if not for you, probably dead. You got magic in you too, or time move different where you from?”
“How long has it been since I left you here?” Zacchaeus asked. “It was like a year ago to me.”
“Oh,” Coffey said curiously. “You probably won’t believe it cause I look bout the same as I did last time, but I been in these Fonlands for two hundred years if I been counting right.”
“You two hundred?” Zacchaeus asked incredulously and then his eyes grew big as a large, red cougar with sabertooth fangs and a large rabbit with a single horn protruding from its forehead sat in the grass behind Coffey.
Coffey noticed and tried to reassure Zacchaeus.
“Don’t let them scare you, they friendly. And yeah, I guess I am two hundred and something now. I’m a aboatia, and you brought me home. I’m glad I got the chance to thank you for that.”
“I’m glad you doing alright. It’s good to see you like you are. You look like you running things around here. I guess I should head back home, I didn’t really mean to come here…” Zacchaeus stopped talking as the voice of the Needy began to growl inside of his mind.
When you use that device, it scrambles my sentience, you should warn me before it happens.
“It was an accident,” Zacchaeus said aloud and it was clear he was not talking to Coffey, who looked back at her companions and shrugged her shoulders.
Then you should be more careful with the device. Why wear it all the time? Get a safe! But your blunder may have a fortuitous consequence.We have returned to the universe of Xêvioso. Take me to him at once. I would converse with one as powerful as myself, the only peer I have ever known.
“We are not in that place where we fought Xêvioso,” Zacchaeus said.
Not in the same land, but the same universe. We can seek him out from here.
Zacchaeus rolled his eyes and then turned his attention to Coffey.
“You saw me use that black cloak before right?” he started by way of explanation. “It’s a being thats inside of me, sometimes it talks. The last time we were here, Xêvioso let us travel here to escape that man that took us from the swamp. Do you know how we can find Xêvioso?”
“The Vodun Xêvioso?” the red cougar asked. Coffey introduced the cougar as Santer. Zacchaeus’s eyes went wide at the sight of the large talking cat. “You have met the Vodun Xêvioso?”
Zacchaeus nodded slowly.
“You would have to cross the Discs of Sakpata and then Gû to arrive at the Disc of Xêvioso,” Santer explained. “But even if you make it there, you would have to find Xêvioso. He is a Vodun, a god of the Fonlands. How did you come to meet him?”
“Me and Coffey got in some mess and he happened to save us. We had a fight, I think I might be strong enough to take him now. The Needy wants a rematch.”
“Is this man delusional?” Santer asked Coffey. “If he fought Xêvioso he would be dead.”
“Zacchaeus ain’t delusional,” Coffey said. “He impressive, for sure. And if he want to find this Xêvioso, I bet he can. You ain’t seen what that Needy can do. Tell him how to get there. You want some company?”
No! the Needy said loudly in Zacchaeus’s mind.
“I think we’ll manage alright.”
Zacchaeus sat with Coffey and Santer while Santer gave him details directions to the Disc of Xêvioso.
“When you done there, come back and say bye before you leave,” Coffey insisted.
“Will do, Ms. Coffey. I want to hear more about what you been up to in this magic forest.”
The Needy grumbled in Zacchaeus’s mind and then he was on his way, mostly ignorant of the dangers that awaited him.
Zacchaeus will return in the Limited Series Finding Xêvioso!
PRL Serials 