All sentient life is connected. The appendages may be different, we may eat different things, and live in different universes, but at the end of the day, we’re all one big family.
It’s time to explore the branches of the multiversal family tree, and today, we present:
Wielders of the Violet
– Issue 3 – The Birth of the Dark Witch Sorcerer
The Mire of Teal became the headquarters of the Death Witch Coven to the dismay of the Fonlanders who had used it frequently. The Decay Witch had been in the Mire long enough that the Fonlanders in the area had come to trust her and she had felt welcomed by them, and there was a part of her that regretted hosting the assembly of witches in the Mire. She’d been forging a new family in the Mire that saw her as more than just her power, but when Detritus told her that the Dark Witch Sorcerer was not dead, she ignored her new family and embraced the powerful one that might return the love of her life.
Decay was trying to remember her name. She wasn’t especially curious to actually know, but when she found herself waiting around, buying time, it was a useful exercise to distract her from the wait. She didn’t particularly want to know it, either. If she did happen to remember it despite the very powerful magics of the Death Witch Coven that stripped her of her Tinyalari life, she would lose everything that she had been since the Coven formed and that had been so much of her life that it was practically all of it. She had vague memories of her Tinyalari life, life on the surface of Ntinyari was quaint in the small community where she came into being. Soon after her emergence from the glassy surface of the star, she met older Tinyalari who showed her how to be. She learned to nourish and enrich herself from Ntinyari by laying facedown on the glass and channeling the innate light of all Tinyalari to melt into the glass surface that released the innards of Ntinyari into the recess created by the Tinyalari, fueling them with the raging light of the star. She learned to protect Ntinyari from other beings of Jo’s Disc who consumed stars in an aggressive manner that threatened to drain the star completely. She learned the movement of the twin stars through the space of Jo’s Disc; they revolved one another while they moved along one of the major currents of the Disc in a regular pattern. And when she felt confident in her knowledge of the ways of the Tinyalari, she helped others learn and she became quite good at teaching. But most of this life and the name that she possessed during it was lost to her, but Decay found that when she tried to remember her name, as she did when she was being made to wait for something, she would get glimpses of that life in her memory. She only remembered good things, nothing of the ravenous beasts that other Fonlanders describe when they speak of the Tinyalari who inhabited Ntinyari when it was still a star. The star Ntinyari was their mother and she nourished them all with her body, but it never seemed viscous or even capable of depleting a star enough to make it go black hole as Ntinyari is in the present.
“How much longer?” Decay asked. She was sitting on an earthen throne in the Deep, on the outskirts of Umuthi Omnyama in a humble castle that she constructed using hand magic. She rested her graceful face on her fist watching Mangwale sweating, hard at work at a complex construction of spells that was different shades of violet and streaked with glowing silver lines. Decay knew that what he was doing required time, but that didn’t make her any less bored as she watched him. At least it was an interesting light show, and the muthi known as Mangwale was very attractive to Decay who could have had her pick of any muthi in Umuthi Omnyama. She was the Decay witch, but she had a beautiful humanoid form, perpetually young because she had given and received her name from the Coven when she was still relatively young, and she likes to go about with flowing trains on her gowns that crumbled to dust in her wake but never shortened the length of the train. She liked to bare her skin and she only wore gowns that exposed her shoulders that were very gracefully rotting; there was structure to her upper body, but there were pieces of her missing that made her appear very delicate.
“I am ahead of schedule,” Mangwale said quickly, “it shouldn’t be that much longer.”
“You shouldn’t have invited me here until you were ready,” Decay said with a pout. “Don’t interrupt your spells, I know what you will say: ‘But your presence hastens the process for you are a glorious fountain of death magic and I can only be remade with a large amount of energy.’ I’m just bored, maybe a one sided conversation will make the time go easier. You have proven yourself worthy of my time and I am just eager for you to be more. Unfortunately, you cannot be made into a Death Witch, that can only be conferred by the Spirit Amulet and no one has seen that thing in ages, but you will be the next best thing.”
Mangwale reached a point in his spell where a very adept user of magic like himself could rely solely on his hand magic to continue building the magic required for the transformation.
“They never let me realize my potential at the violet apprentice compound. They were all afraid of me and what I could do, but you saw me for what I was.”
“A muthi with immense potential. You were born powerful,” Decay said with a smirk. “Your family line has studied Essence and death magic in Umuthi Omnyama for a long time and they have blessed you. It is a shame that they were threatened by it. Magic like yours should be cultivated, and I have done that. Soon Umuthi Omnyama will be yours, Dark Witch Sorcerer.”
Mangwale smiled proudly. He was handsome for a muthi, tall and statuesque, his pointed features brooding and intimidating. He’d had that brooding, intimidating face since he was a child, son of Mfaz, who was a respected leader of Umuthi Omnyama because of her unparalleled knowledge of plants, herbs and roots that grew at depths in the Deep. She was known by many monikers, including Poison Ivy and Poison Root, because many came to her for poisons to deal with rivals. Mfaz was an ally of the Death Witches that came to the Deep after their banishment from the Disc of Jo, but she was killed when Mangwale was still a brooding child. His father, Inyanga, was always skeptical of the magic that Mfaz had imbued in their son. Inyanga had recognized Mangwale’s potential as something dangerous because he and Mfaz had always been at odds about the uses of magical plants of the Deep to cause harm to others. Inyanga was a healer and he was happy to heal any muthi that came to him for help, it is even said that he healed one of the mmoatia, Raius, who had been poisoned in the womb by the Zomo Monarchy using one of Mfaz’s poisons. The Zomo didn’t want more mmoatia on the Disc of Age and they plotted to snuff Raius out in the lotus where he’d gestated before his birth. But rather than the lotus opening with a stillbirth, Rauis was born happy and healthy. Everyone who was aware of the plot was flabbergasted that Raius was alive because Mfaz’s poisons are deadly and nothing is known to be able to endure them. Many began to whisper that it had to be Inyanga who saved Raius, only his healing magic is powerful enough to counteract Mfaz’s poisons, and these rumors caused a rift in their relationship that would not be repaired before Mfaz’s shocking death.
Inyanga tried to raise Mangwale with a respect for life and for the healing properties of the plants that grew in Umuthi Omnyama and all around the Deep, but Mangwale’s inherent magic gave him the sense that plants were his plaything. He could easily identify any foliage and discern its properties when consumed, and he could make plants grow at an accelerated rate so that he could change the properties of the plants that produced different effects as they aged. As the son of the great Mfaz, many already feared and respected him and Inyanga was disheartened that he had no influence on his son’s reputation, it seemed that all of Umuthi Omnyama had told Mangwale what kind of muthi he would be and he would no doubt use his magic for dark purposes. So Inyanga enrolled Mangwale at the violet apprentice compound where the instructors were well versed in death magic and could keep Mangwale in line.
“It is done, mistress Decay,” Mangwale said with a reverent bow. There was a large collection of dark violet magic streaked through with silver and Decay stood from her earthen throne that disintegrated when she was no longer in contact with it. Decay seized the violet magic and shaped it around Mangwale, through and through him and he disappeared inside of the magic until it dissipated and the Dark Witch Sorcerer stood in black armor before Decay.
She was pleased with the Dark Witch Sorcerer and she watched him conquer the city of his forebears. In those days, Decay didn’t care about the death or suffering of things that were beneath her interest, and she delighted in the cruelty with which the Dark Witch Sorcerer ruled Umuthi Omnyama. Until one of the mmoatia, Ahdis, seemingly killed him and Decay realized that losing someone you care about was difficult. She retreated to the Mire of Teal eventually, not wanting to be the reason that others would feel a deep loss like the one she had experienced with the Dark Witch Sorcerer that she had fashioned herself.
Decay stands on the porch of her simple cabin with Havoc and Ruin as the mmoatia Tracia and Ahdis enter the Mire of Teal. Detritus sits on the low step and she is enjoying the taste of berries that grow at the edge of the bog. The berries have large pits and after putting one in her mouth and seemingly rolling it around her cheeks and chewing a bit, she spits the pit in a high arch and into the wet grass that surrounds the cabin.
“You should save those,” Tracia says as she and Ahdis stand before the low step. There are other members of the coven milling around inside the cabin and around the front yard, but they don’t seem to be paying much attention to the mmoatia. “We can have a game of mancala. I always have my seeds on me.”
“That game is inane,” Detritus says with a wave of her hand. “I always have a Smiting deck on me. What say we play a game?”
Tracia looked to Ahdis who lifted her left, the one closest to her Third Heart, and she quickly moved her fingers into formations to produce a green Smiting deck that hovered before Tracia, and then a table with a Smiting grid on top right next to the step.
“You don’t want to play?” Tracia asks as she grabs the deck out of the air and conjures benches around the table for players and spectators.
Ahdis returns the focused gaze of Decay who stares only at her from up on the porch, then she responds loud enough for Decay to hear, “I believe that Decay and I have words to exchange. Isn’t that right?”
Tracia and Detritus, who is standing and making her way over to the Smiting table, and everyone else who is paying attention, looks to Decay who only nods as she descends the stairs to stand before Ahdis. Ahdis takes flight on her large, red feathered wings and Decay follows in a cloud of violet.
“Don’t worry,” Detritus says to Tracia as she shuffles her deck, “we are all allies here, for now. It will only be words. Until all this mess is done of course. Then you can be worried for the life of your friend.”
“Whast business do they have?” Tracia asks cooly, never showing the very deep concern she feels for her sister.
“That is a question for your sister. The question now is, do you think you stand a chance against this all violet deck?”
“I guess we will see,” Tracia says.
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