“Y’all are so dumb,” Agbe said with frustration from her seat in Xêvisoso ‘s arbitration room. All of her siblings were there and she was angry that she had been summoned. “You’re preoccupied with Lêgba while Fonlanders are organizing to overthrow their Vodun.”
“She’s not wrong,” Jo said and she looked at Agê. “Tell them, you’re the only one of us that they really respect.”
“Jo?” Gu said, sounding pained. “We are best friends. I listen to you and respect your council.”
“We are friends,” Jo said as she nodded. “But what did you say when I first brought news of what I had witnessed on Agbe’s disc?”
“I was honest that I didn’t believe that anything an Fonlander concocts could ever challenge the Vodun.”
“And because of your apathy, there is growing sentiment against the Vodun in the Fonlands and if we don’t address it soon, we will have to go to war with the inhabitants of our discs. If its not already to late.”
“Jo does not exaggerate,” Agbe said. “There are factions on every disc who are doing what they can to sway enough Fonlanders against us so that they can challenge us and confront Mawu-Lisa on the lofted disc. I have been steadily working to weed out the naysayers who would challenge me in my oceans while you all are ignoring a festering wound that will get much worse very soon.”
“You are speaking in vagaries, woman,” Sakpata said and waved his hand dismissively. “This cannot be important.”
“You only speak so confidently because Yana has been running your disc and everyone on top of and inside of your mountains respect her, they could care less about you. But you don’t have to worry about Yana respects the Fonlands and the mother-father and even if she occasionally doubts, she backs you because you were chosen. It is influence from the other realm, Fonlanders have explored the worlds of that place and they view us as mere stewards of government who are not properly considering their autonomy or are absent and ignoring their needs. An open dialogue with the inhabitants of my oceans have helped. I think that if you all go to your discs and speak openly and honestly about what a Vodun is, we can stop this before we have to absorb the essence of armies of Fonlanders to shrink would be godkillers out of existence.”
“I’m not taking this lightly,” Xêvisoso said and he gestured to Gu and Sakpata, “and neither will they. We will investigate our discs, go among the inhabitants and report back to you what we find. That is my promise to you.”
“I appreciate it,” Agbe said and she looked to Age. “I guess you can keep up your mute act.”
“They don’t respect me anymore than they do either of you,” Age said. “I have only ever been worried about Lêgba and what he was doing to the innocent beings of that other realm. We have more power than they can conceive of and we were indirectly ruining countless lives. But that has largely been addressed and I have done everything I can to show you that I am taking your warning seriously, including finding the root of Vodun opposition in my forests and jungles. The Zomo Monarchy has been thoroughly routed and they are not corrupting anyone else. I’m sorry that I viewed you as an enemy for so long and all I can do is apologize until you decide to listen to me and talk to me.”
“She sees you, sister,” Jo said. “As do I and I am sorry for my disrespectful remark before.”
“I am glad to see that we are making amends,” Xêvisoso said. “But you are all here today because Lêgba has been found. He is recalling his iterations. I know where he is, but I wonder if we should wait for him to fully reconstitute.”
“You all always think the worst of our brother,” Agbe said. The tension in her voice had subsided a bit from the heated exchange and the validation from her siblings. “He didn’t make Endla, none of what happened in the other universe is directly his fault. The iterations he put there were acting without his direct intervention and as Age said, that problem has been dealt with. Endla has never been an extension of Fonlands despite the Essence there. It is a world of that realm that is being checked by the powers of that realm with an assist from Age’s very competent Mmoatia.” She flashed a smile at Age who nodded at her.
“I never cared about what he was doing in the other realm,” Sakpata said. “I’m sure the same is true for Xêvisoso and Gu even if they won’t admit it. We only care because the mother-father asked us to find him.”
“He’s right,” Xêvisoso admitted. “If we all go to him together, we have the best chance of delivering him to the mother-father together and then we can put this stupid search behind us.”
“You know where he is?” Jo asked.
Xevioso nodded.
“He is calling back all of his iterations?” Agbe asked.
Xevioso nodded again.
“Then we don’t need to do anything but wait for him to show up,” Agbe continued. “Why else would he be calling them back? He is about to return.”
When Lêgba entered the reality, his very Essence was stricken with grief at what he saw. There were strings of white that seemed to drape the cosmos, like gigantic spiders had spun white silk across existence. It made everything look ancient and long abandoned. But Lêgba knew that it was not abandoned. He followed signs of life to a planet of humanoid beings at war with hostile beings who were all black and wielded weapons of destruction that overpowered the native humanoids. Lêgba fled the devastation and he knew that similar battles were raging all over this reality. He could see it in his mind and struggled to eject himself from the reality before he was overcome with visions of death.
He tumbled outside of everything and he took an unknowable amount of time to steady himself.
“Why is this happening?” he asked himself as he flew toward Node 5 of the universal structure.
PRL Serials 