“When I first became Wazad the Wonderful, I was thirty-six years old and I had been away from my life on Earth for longer than I realized. I did the portal spell to far locations…”
“That one requires a lot of confidence,” Sao-Reyne says with a chuckle. “Had you ever left your planet before?”
“No,” Maria laughs as well. “A lot of strange things happened on our Earth, but most of it seemed magical, not alien. I just hadn’t really thought about life on other planets as a real possibility, certainly not a possibility that I would go to another planet. I was afraid to do that spell and it took me a long time to build up to it. Did you know about Eel before you went there?”
Sao-Reyne nodded. “Back when the Fhetat was more stable there were talks that we would enter into treaties with other worlds, but everything fell apart before the formal talks even began. Eel is not the most active planet in universal affairs, but the Eeling and the Fhetatians have a shared history, a common ancestry..”
“I was terrified when I first saw them swarming out of the Dojo. I hate mice and they’re so much smaller on Earth, even the big ones aren’t Eeling tall and capable of walking on two legs. They’re vermin on Earth. After my initial shock, I realized that the first Wazad was right, the Eeling are the kindest beings in the universe, or mine anyway.”
“It seems it is true for many realities,” Sao-Reyne agrees. “Are you Kazi? Or did you just focus on completing the Set with them?”
“I am Mazaki,” Maria brags. “I am a master transmuter. You?”
“Impressed,” Sao-Reyne says. “They helped me finish the Set and I have yet to return to attain Kazi. Maybe one day.”
“Like I said, I left Earth for a lot longer than I intended to and its because the Eeling are so kind and because I just became engrossed in learning spells. I wouldn’t say it came naturally to me, I worked very hard to understand and it took a long time, but I like hard work. It was physical and mental and I couldn’t get enough. I eventually left Eel to tell my mother that I was moving to Eel permanently, and when I got back to the planet it was like everything had shifted. The entire Dojo was so serious and waiting for something terrible to happen. A sun had recently collapsed in on itself very unexpectedly and an entire system of planets were either wiped out or soon to be. I found out that Omega had destroyed the sun after some of its followers completed some invocation across five planets and the results were disastrous. The Kazi were trying to save who they could, coordinating with other worlds to mount a rescue mission to the solar system, but before they could do that, they had to deal with the fact that Omega was there. Apparently the Omega from our universe exists just outside of reality, in an existence that overlaps ours but is sealed off from interacting with it directly. One of the early Masters of Universal Arcana managed to seal Omega away, but it still exerts influence and can appear in our reality.”
“It sounds like how the Daemon haunt Bludon,” Sao-Reyne interjects.
Maria nods. “When Maxx described them, I had the same thought. We went to he edge of the solar system where Omega had breached reality and it was like staring into a black hole. It was such an abstract experience that my eyes failed me, and I have only ever experienced that when I looked at black holes. Have you ever looked at a black hole?”
“I know what you mean. Your eye can’t seem to fix into place what it is seeing.”
“Right,” Maria says, “like trying to decide if something really far away from you is moving or not. I can’t describe what I saw exactly, but I know it felt like very large feelings of destruction, or a need, a want to destroy. There was no mind. I’m not a mind reader like the Queen Rowen or anything, but I’m sure you know the feeling that a being with a consciousness gives off. It didn’t feel like that exactly, or it was so concentrated on just one thing. It only wanted destruction.”
“So the Omega wants to destroy” Sao-Reyne says. “We tell stories of the destruction Omega brings, but it is the ravings of soothsayers and precognitives, rantings about the end times. No one has ever actually seen this Omega or encountered it before. I guess you all are here to help us deal with this inconceivable destruction. Owuo was not lying about the reason he brought you all here. He usually has very bad intentions, but it isn’t far fetched that he was filling a bet to something more benevolent. He is a notorious gambler and often plays high stakes Smiting. It is not mere chance that brought you all here.”
Maria nods thoughtfully, even as they leave the common room to find the others. They are strategizing in the gymnasium, which Issac likes because it reminds him of his base of operations, the Museum of Aphro-Arcana. Maria finds him sitting at a desk arranged at the head of the large open space on the gymnasium floor where other stations with desks had been arranged in front of him.
“How is everything going?” she asks an exhausted looking Issac. He is a tall, athletic man, but he slumps and it gives the appearance of a pile of limbs.
“We should have evacuated Bludon. I haven’t dealt with something like this in our own universe. Usually I’m able to isolate threats this big, but there’s no time for that. Maxx and the Queen Rowen are on their way back from the sun.”
“Swarm neutralized, I hope,” Maria says optimistically, but she can read the position of Isaac’s limbs in their devastated formation.
“Complete afterthought,” Issac says. “Omega showed up, they are both sure of it, and it only has eyes on them. It’s pursuing them through space. Thankfully there hasn’t been much damage. Maxx and the Queen don’t want to lead it back to us, but this is the best place to make a stand. All of us can neutralize it here before this goes completely south.”
“Why do the powers bring you here, Issac?” Maria asks. “We were dealing with an alien invasion of Earth, grotesque shape shifters, and you were on their planet investigating something worth your time and considerable power. And you were concerned about Paul Young, now he is left to his own devices. Why would the powers allow us to be here in the middle of all of that?”
“That is a good question for later, but I am very angry to say that the answer to that is obvious. What threatened Bludon, and what currently chases Zacchaeus, threatens our home existence in some way.”
“I was hoping that sent true too,” Maria admits. “It must be the reason my powers are allowing this, leaving our universe without its Wazad.”
Issac nods. “So much makes sense if this is true. So many questioned me as the choice for Master of Arcana, but I am one of very few with experience with the Multiverse.”
“Sao…the Wazad of this universe thinks that Owuo told us the truth. That something powerful made sure that we were here to face this Omega.”
“We have to find Owuo and figure out what all this is,” Issac says. “In the meantime, we have to prepare everyone to face Omega.”
“I’ll get Wazad and find Maxx,” Maria says and leaves the gymnasium.
PRL Serials 