Neither of them were dead. Both Lêgba and Owuo had stabbed one another, both viciously enough to demonstrate their anger–Owuo’s in response to Lêgba’s who had questioned his creation of Deads’ Town–but not lethally enough to put the other down. And yet they had both fallen on their faces, and Lêgba was unable to move as Owuo opened a black oval beneath them, and they fell for a short time onto a hill of lush grasses of Deads’ Town that were cool with condensation.
Lêgba was on his face in the grass and he could still feel Owuo’s cutlass in his back.
“You can get up now,” Owuo said with irritation.
Lêgba stood up in the blink of an eye and his angry expression quickly dissipated to wondrous curiosity as he stared out at the town.
“I am not making anything here. The deads make plenty and I observe. If you would like to learn about their ways, about Death Magic, you are welcome to observe. But this is not the evil place you think it to be.”
“Death Magic?” Lêgba asked. “You mean to unleash it upon the living?”
“I am Death Magic and I already exist among the living. You would even find beings of the other realm wielding it. It is ubiquitous brother, ask Agê, who only sows doubts against me because she thinks that Death Magic belongs to her. She has been here before. She knows that the deads here exist in peace and that I have mastered their magic not because I rule over them or demand things from them, but because I observe and respect and work with them. The dead named me Vodun, I didn’t take that title for myself.”
“Despite how breathtaking the horizon is here, I am not so easily convinced,” Lêgba said. “Owuo, everyone is sure that you are cooking up something horrible here.”
“Then tell them that I am not,” Owuo said. “I am full up of atrocities, the Fonlands are vast and the other realm is crammed full of things for me to satisfy my urges. This is not that. I cannot torture these deads, and they are already dead, I cannot kill them. These deads are free from the powers of the Vodun. I have only trained my eye on them to understand them better. I have no desire to slaughter Vodun, though if you all keep pushing me, if Agê keeps instigating, who knows what I will do. Go, see the Town, talk to the deads, you will understand. And try the food, you will thank me. I will wait for you here, I make scheduled visits and I do not want to disturb that for them.”
Lêgba said more in protest, but eventually, Owuo pushed him off the hill and toward the misty road that wound its way into the city center. Lêgba moved through Deads’ Town easily, introducing himself to deads as they tended their gardens and livestock, or cooked food and painted murals. He stood and watched one dead sculpt a statue of Owuo using the clay at the edge of a pond.
Lêgba sat to watch two deads perform music in an audience of deads and he had never heard music played and sang so beautifully. Experiencing the music was a full body experience, it was as though the music, the sound of it, formed into something tangible that washed over the crowd, and Lêgba soaked it in.
And the entire time that he wandered around Deads’ Town, meeting and speaking with deads who had lived on worlds he had never encountered, he was eating. The food was so varied, but always delicious. By the time he wandered the misty road back to the hill, he was still eating, and a lot of time had passed. Owuo was relaxing on his back looking up at the cosmos. He had spent the time waiting for Lêgba creating a cosmos over Deads’ Town.
“To be clear,” Lêgba said after he swallowed his mouthful, “I never really believed you were plotting against us. This is very unbelievable though, I cannot tell the Vodun the truth to deescalate this. We need a dramatic show to make them think whatever threat they are convinced exists here has been contained. I was talking with some of the deads about it and I think they came up with something great.”
Owuo was happy to go along, if it meant that Deads’ Town would persevere.
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