While I waited for Sakpata to be available for a game of Smiting against the enchanted Gray deck, I was in the Smiting Chamber, mostly assisting with preparations for the expedition to the Talj Junction. The 4Warriors had arrived and it was heartening to meet them; they were excellent proxies for their Vodun and seemed fully capable of doing what needed to be done. The one called Nwa Wa had a chilling presence made much worse by the pale skull mask she wore and never removed in all the time that I was in the Chamber. I didn’t really have a chance to speak with any of the 4Warriors personally, but I did observe the way Nwa Wa interacted with Owuo and it was gratifying to see someone agitate him as much as he agitated others.
“That woman is relentless,” Owuo responded when I asked him about his relationship with Nwa Wa. “She has the power to keep Deads from death, which is obviously very annoying for me.”
“This feels like karma…” I started.
“What is that? It sounds stupid,” Owuo asked with his normal derision.
“I mean that you have been meddling with Ivan and now someone has arrived to meddle with you.”
“I think you’re using the word meddle incorrectly,” Owuo said flippantly.
“What is going on with you and Ivan, by the way?”
Owuo dead-smiled me, which is how I have come to describe his smiles that do not spread beyond his lips.
“Don’t worry Earther. I am no threat to Ivan and his husband, but Ivan is very angry that his man might be shacking up with a Vodun. He told me it’s about more than just the time he spends on the Disc of Gu. Ivan fears that Clay has replaced him as the object of his eternal love.”
“But that’s ridiculous, right?” I asked Owuo. “Even if it is true that Clay has feelings for Gu, the Vodun wouldn’t entertain something like that with an Earther, right?”
“Vodun can do whatever they like. This Clay must be truly extraordinary if he is able to catch the eye of a Vodun, but it is not impossible.”
I was shocked to hear this.
“And Gu would be interested in intimacy with males?”
“Males, females, Earther words are so bad at describing anything clearly, it’s a wonder you all even know what you’re talking about. Vodun can impregnate anything they wish and that is the only thing that gender refers to, correct? Vodun can also change the gender that they present to others.”
I nodded silently, genuinely grateful to know these things.
“Ivan is powerful enough to know that Clay is not stepping out on him, to use the Earther phrase, not physically anyway, but Clay is an idiot who cannot hide his thoughts from his lover. Ivan told me that Clay’s dreams about intimacy with Gu are so vivid that they have both experienced release from them…”
“Ok,” I said, waving a hand. “I don’t need to know all of that. Is Gu interested in Clay though, or is it just a subliminal crush?”
“If you know Gu, it is highly unlike him to allow a being of any realm to dwell in his workshop. Clay sleeps there. That’s all I will say about that.”
I nodded, content to change the subject.
“When are we gonna sit down for the purple deck exhibition?” I asked him.
“When you find a Vodun to make a purple deck,” Owuo responded.
“That’s you, the Vodun of Death and Evil.”
“I wonder what the other Vodun say when you say ridiculous things like?” Owuo asked.
“Jo told me that I should do a Smiting Exhibition with you, with an enchanted Purple deck assembled by the Chamber. Do you have a first deck like them?”
“Of course not, I am not a Vodun. I’m still shocked that I have veve, but that is the Chamber’s machinations. Yama said that if we left it up to the Chamber, she would be a Vodun, probably Ayao, and Anansi as well. But it is not up to the Smiting Chamber.”
“But you do have a veve, and there are purple cards in Smiting that are played by everyone except the Vodun.”
“Smiting can be a fiction outside of the scope of the Vodun themselves. Who cares what word other Fonlanders use to identify me? They can call me a God, they can call me death itself, but it only matters what the Vodun say because they can only speak the truth in the language of the Mother-Father and Owuo the Vodun doesn’t exist in that vocabulary. And I will not insult the Vodun by agreeing to sit with you for this Smiting exhibition.”
Owuo walked away before I could continue to press him, and I let him go because there were other pressing things that required my attention. As I watched Owuo return to the heptagon where Yana was inside the blue mists, Maria approached me.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said with a hard smile. I could tell that she was happy to see me but it was just as obvious that she wasn’t in the best mood. “Ali is here. We are calling him Lee so we don’t get him mixed up with Alia. You know, they are multiversal counterparts? In his universe, the Alia is the Alius. We have an Alia in our universe, right?”
I nodded. “But she is more of a cosmic entity. She hasn’t been a real person for a long time. Who is Ali, or Lee?”
“He’s from the Talj Junction,” she said somberly and I remembered it was the location of the mission that we would be embarking on soon. “He has been here for a while. He came with a friend, I guess you can call them that. She is jeris, come, you should meet them. I know you are waiting for Sakpata, but Goldie told me that he hasn’t arrived in the Meta Chamber for your game yet. He will come here first, though. He is curious to see Yana in action in the mists.”
Ali is the Hyperion of the universe known as Talj, the Living. The entirety of the existence is a living being and it is referred to as a junction universe because it was formed as a result of two universes colliding into one. Inside of Talj, the Living Universe, the planet Earth existed in isolation relative to the other sentient beings of the universe before it was attacked by the hostile Bludonians and Flexx, their Superguardian who ruled the planet Earth for a short time before the Masters of the Universe arrived to help. The battle for Earth was fierce and the Master of the Universe only succeeded thanks to the emergence of the Alius, an Earthling named Ali Funderburk who wielded the power of an exploding star.
Ali is an impressive man, and when Maria brought me to him I was surprised that I had to look up at him. He was taller than Clay, but I’m sure their arm wrestling match would be entertaining, and he looked more grave than Owuo, but he was talking to Alia when I approached and she seemed to be lifting his spirits.
“Issac,” Alia said to me, “have you spent any time on the planet Eel?”
I did some study on Eel before I became the Master of Universal Arcana, but in my home universe, the Eeling are like monks and the location of their planet is arcane to most inhabitants of the universe. It was definitely eye opening to learn that in Ali’s existence, the magical race of sentient rodents organize the defence of sentient beings all over. It made me wonder if things could have been different for my Earth that was tormented by an ancient weed for years before we were released from it if we had ties to other planets that wasn’t just the hostile Razew of the planet Druont. That is a whole thing waiting for us when we go back. The things I was uncovering before we left were shocking, that Dr. Thomas Eakran was an unethical geneticist that did unspeakable things to the creatures of his planet, and the unfortunate Detective Paul Young, but that is realities away. So much time away from where we were then.
“Lee and I met on Eel, in the Cavern of Tranquility,” Alia explained. “It was a strange experience but I’m glad to be here to help you.”
“You don’t know how much of a relief it is to know that I have help,” Ali said. “Its been bleak. I’ve seen terrible things.”
“As much as we appreciate the gathering and well wishes,” the jeris female that had come to the Smiting Chamber with Ali said, “I think that we waste valuable time just standing around here. Every second we leave them unchecked in our existence is so much lost to the enemy. They are eating us alive.”
“We understand your urgency, Whadgad, we truly do,” Maria says. “But we have the benefit of time dilation. Your universe is like mine and Isaac’s, when we are here, time moves extremely slowly in our home relative to here and when we return we will have only missed a very short period. It’s how Issac and I look the same as the day we arrived here over a hundred years ago. What is important now is that when we return to your existence, we are ready and able to give the Pito everything we’ve got.”
Whadgaf nodded and smiled with her beak at Maria. “It has been so bleak that it is difficult to be hopeful. Thank you all so much for even a glimmer of hope.What we face will be amazing even to all of you.”
“Even to me,” a voice boomed as it approached the circle, “the Vodun of the Mountains?” He reduced his size so that by the time he was standing next to me, he was only a foot taller than me, but everyone still felt the urge to bow to him. It is hard not to be overly formal with a Vodun, their presence alone moves the hearts of mere mortals.
“I can tell that you are a God here,” Whadgaf says with her head bowed, but her voice firm, “and I do not mean disrespect when I say that I have seen the Pito devour Gods. The appetite is not discerning and it will consume everything.”
“No disrespect taken, feathered one. I am Sakpata, to all of you who do not know, and I have agreed to join this effort because I have felt the threat through the Smiting Chamber. These Pito will not consume the Endlands, and I make the same commitment to all of the brave souls here now; the realms that you call home will not fall to this blight either. We have come together for a most important effort and we will be blessed by the Mother-Father in our efforts because we are righteous, as my brother Xevioso would say.”
He was inspiring and it was the most memorable introduction to a Vodun that I experienced. It was clear that he was the eldest of the Vodun, the most wise, the most measured.
“You are the Arcana Master who will challenge me in Smiting?” Sakpata said when he turned his attention to me. “I think that we should get to it so that we don’t delay our plans any longer than they have to be.”
PRL Serials 