The undersides of the Discs of the Fonlands rest on the back of the slumbering snake, but it is possible to dwell on the underside of the Fonlands Discs. The undersides, like the topsides, are marvels of arcana that defy expectation and this allowed for the creation of the newly christened Disc of Deads and Wraiths on the underside of the Disc of Lêgba. The underside of Lêgba’s Disc had been empty, white nothing, but the Baron Samedi used the Death Magic of Deads’ Town, that had been on the Disc of Lêgba, to seize the entire realm known as Outer Spacetime, or what had been the veil existence of esoteric magic that existed invisibly on top of universe Prime 5 where the Fonlands had encroached long ago, to form the new underside that was a Disc all is own.
“I smell green magic here,” Agbe said as she descended the grassy hill along the dirt road that was carved into the grass. She walked with Gu and the lower the hill descended, the thicker the mist of Divine Essence that settled in the lowland of the hilltops, and the less the grass was visible.
“You don’t smell magic,” Gu said, clutching his long spear with the razor sharp tip. It matched the metal chain mail vest and skirt he wore.
“But I can feel it. The Essence here is so thick,” Agbe said, moving her hands through the mist that she could collect and shape. “It’s made of blue and green magic, I’d assumed it was just Essence.”
“It is Essence,” Gu said.
“It’s not exactly the Essence that we get topside from the Lofted Disc. It’s like green magic settles here, maybe attracted to all of the death magic, and that green goes blue to make the Essence. This is fascinating.”
“Is it?” Gu asked.
“You’re just mad because you wanted a battle,” Agbe chuckled.
“Sorry, Gu, the Deads and Wraiths are not interested in engaging in fights.”
“You laugh all you want, but I am prepared to defend you from these rabid death magic users when they spring their traps.” Gu was peering into the mist of Divine Essence and occasionally he waved his free hand in the air to clear it. Eventually they were walking up another hill and out of the mists. “We’ve been walking hills for quite some time and the horizon hasn’t changed. They are planning an ambush.”
Agbe smiled. The horizon was a deep purple sky that was almost completely black in some spots. The only light was the glow of the mists that was dotted with the tops of grassy hills. They descended into the mists again, but instead of emerging onto another hilltop in the seemingly infinite horizon, they saw a different view emerge as the mists dissipated. They were in a forest village where the mist was low on the ground and light enough that the dirt road and the grassy lawns where wooden houses sat were apparent. The village was busy with deads and wraiths going about their business. The forms of the deads were shrouded in a haze of deep violet and they walked backwards. The forms of the wraiths had a yellow-white glow. Both wraiths and deads exist in as many shapes and sizes as exist in the Fonlands and universe Prime 5 and they were all on display for the Vodun.
“There’s no fight here.” Agbe said and pointed to the spear. “Holster that weapon. We are here to see the Disc that Death has wrought, not to destroy it. Besides, we don’t want to scare off recruits for Fonlands defense. We must treat this as a diplomatic mission and I don’t anticipate that being difficult given the hospitality.” As she said this, the deads that they passed in their homes or manning their booths with various wares or corralling livestock stood along the side of the dirt road and bowed in awe and respect at the Vodun. Some of the wraiths seemed confused, so recently introduced to the culture of the Fonlands, but all went along with the deads.
“Alright,” Gu growled and the weapon dematerialized in his hand.
As they walked, a figure with the yellow white glow of a wraith approached them.
“Welcome, Vodun of the topside,” the man who was old but not ancient said as he bowed in the robes he wore. He had a full head of curly golden hair and his round face was a darker shade of gold or brown. “I was told to greet the two of you. I am the High Patternist of the Ayfyn Line that is accessible from this village through the mists.”
“Who sent you?” Agbe asked as Gu stared at the wraith and exuded skepticism that did intimidate the wraith.
“The Grand Brigette and the Barons,” the High Patternist said. “They hold court on the rings in the mists many hills from here with the other Vodun who traveled with you. I have taken residence in Deads’ Town, it is a pleasant place to exist among the Death Magic.”
“It is not disruptive for a being like you?” Agbe asked curiously and knelt to get a closer look at the wraith. The glow around him was like the steam off a heat source in extreme cold and it dissipated about an inch off of him. “I sense the pattern in you, but Death Magic is an undoing of the very thing the pattern produces.”
“The pattern produces everything in its way,” the High Patternist explained. “Death magic is not the opposite of the pattern, death magic is an extension of Transmogrification, but more finite in the change. The opposite of the pattern is chaos. The living can dwell in Deads’ Town, though I have heard that in a previous iteration that was not the case. Us wraiths are cozy next to the deads, we are the same only made of different arcana apparently. I have witnessed wraiths embrace death, the Baron La Croix is a dead now and he is as I knew him, though admittedly my interactions with him have increased exponentially in this new paradigm in which we find ourselves, I had never met him before. But those who did say he is the same and now he has brothers who share a wife in the Grand Brigette. But no, the Barons aren’t brothers are they?”
“I hope not,” Gu said with disgust. “Why would all three share the same companion?”
“They all love Brigette. When you meet her, you will understand. She visited every location that was transported from Outer Spacetime to the mists between the hills and explained what the Barons had done and our lives went back to the way they were after a period of transition. The Barons seized Outer Spacetime with hostility, they gave me and my home planet a hunger for flesh infused with magic, but that was all reversed by the Grand Brigette. The most difficult thing about all this is mapping this new place. It is difficult to navigate the mists, the locations within seem to shift. It is said that the Vodun Legba has been charting the movements using his compass that has allowed him to create the most reliable map available, but he hasn’t had enough time on the Disc to produce a comprehensive map.”
“Things here are much more functional than some of us anticipated,” Agbe said, shooting a look up at Gu. “It would seem that this Brigette has risen to a place of leadership. Is that the general consensus?”
“I would say so,” the High Patternist said. “But the powers of this new place are summoned regularly to the rings to ensure concord. All that said, there are powers in the mists that answer to nothing. I have stumbled upon horrors that have shocked my system, some of them from Outer Spacetime and I had never encountered them before. This place is truly a wonder.”
Agbe stood and turned to Gu.
“So this Brigette is their Vodun?” he asked.
“Does there have to be a Vodun?” Agbe asked. “There wasn’t one before.”
“There wasn’t a concentration of death magic before either,” Gu said. “A Vodun of Death should face Une, we all know that. Agê and Xêvioso are formidable, and the tortoise with the Blight Maker is impressive, but the Fonlands allowed for this place just as we are on the cusp of real confrontation. The Disc is offering help by anointing another Vodun. We would be wise to identify them as soon as possible as we finalize our plans. Is there anything else that you know of that has the influence of Brigette?” Gu asked the High Patternist. “Any one she answers to, like the Barons?”
“The Barons are in the mists. They aren’t interested in presiding over anything. They are curious how all of this impacts the magic they wield. Brigette doesn’t rule every location like a monarch, but she has unified every location interested in community.”
“Thank you for your time, High Patternist,” Agbe said. “Can you take us to other locations in the mists of this area? If you have Lêgba’s map I would like to see it.”
The Patternist eagerly escorted the Vodun through Deads’ Town, showing them the routes through the dense forest that led to hills that crested the mists or to other locations in the mists.
“You are the Vodun,” Agê said to Brigette.
The Rings of Arada were not exactly as they had been in Outer Spacetime. In the mists among the hills, the Rings were large stone platforms upon which structures were built, and the structures were inhabited by the Loa of Arada. It was like a large stone city in perpetual darkness under a deep violet sky that was obscured by thin clouds of Divine Essence. Agê and Xêvioso were on the center ring of Arada that has large circular walls and houses the Grand Brigette. She spoke with the Vodun in a large hall of the center structure. She was dressed similarly to Agê, the dark skin of their slender limbs visible and they wore form fitting body suits on their torsoes. Xêvioso was shirtless with a skirt and he wore a headdress with two sets of horns.
Brigette smiled what seemed to be a strained smile.
“You sound like Lêgba,” Brigette said to Agê. “But Outer Spacetime was not home to Vodun. I am not a Vodun, and in all honesty, before all of this happened, I only wanted to intimidate the other powers of Outer Spacetime into admitting that the Loa of Arada were the greatest powers of our existence. Conflict wasn’t real in Outer Spacetime, consequences weren’t lasting or permanent. We were ensconced in fantasy, in the fantasy from lower spacetime and that which we made for ourselves. When the Baron Samedi reached into Outer Spacetime from Deads’ Town, I was giddy, the possibilities seemed so great and the authority of the Aradnans would no longer be denied. But this place is not Outer Spacetime and I do not wish to fight anything for petty reasons anymore. I’ve done what I can to foster peace amongst the Wraiths and the Deads, and it has held. But the mists hold many undiscovered secrets. If you are looking for a Vodun, maybe you will find it there. There is not one here on the rings of Arada.”
“The Baron Samedi made this place,” Xêvioso said and he waved a hand to disappear the headdress he’d worn to welcome Brigette to the Vodun family, but it was clear that she would not be taking the title. “My understanding is, he did this for you to rule. We know that he is not interested, he is lost in the mists. This was all meant to be an extension of your Kingdom, but you refuse it?”
Brigette shook her head. “It is not mine to refuse. I have traveled this Disc, given succor to every wraith and dead I have encountered, but I am not the ruler of this Disc. I will accept that I am the mother of civilized Deads and Wraiths, but that is not a Vodun is it?”
Agê and Xêvioso looked at one another and he shrugged, Agê shook her head at him with disappointment.
“We Vodun are the personification of our Discs,” Agê explained to Brigette. “After we earned our names, we grew as the Discs grew. Our connection to the Discs is as intimate as our connection to the bodies we wear. If you were the Vodun, it would be apparent to you and to everyone you encounter. I agree that you are not the Vodun, but that doesn’t mean that you are not important to the function of this Disc, and maybe in some ways more important than everything else that dwells here. But none of that is important. We only seek the Vodun because some of us believe that the appearance of this place is the Disc offering assistance, the Vodun of Death who can join us in the fight that looms larger with each passing second. If there is a Vodun of Death, we hope to find them as soon as possible.”
“Maybe Lêgba would know,” Brigette offered. She seemed relieved of a burden that she was capable of shouldering, but was content to continue the role she had fallen into easing the wraiths into their new existence and introducing the deads to their new neighbors and explaining to all of them the way things operated in this new place. “I have traveled to many locations because of Lêgba’s map. He might be in the mists now, unless you know he is occupied somewhere else. When he comes to the rings, I summon the leaders of the locations I have friendly rapport with and he tells us of the new places he has found.”
“I’m glad to hear he’s making himself useful,” Xêvioso said. “This has his fingerprints all over it. The Barons are powerful, no doubt, but Lêgba was gone for so long, exploring the multiversal structure and I know he was itching to make something just like this. When is he due back here?”
“There’s no cause to wait,” Agê said and her eyes began to glow as she lifted a hand that was consumed in green magic. “He is in the mists, and he is on his way,” she said as she powered down. “I have summoned the others as well. If Lêgba hasn’t found the Vodun, we will combine our powers to try to find them as soon as possible.”
“What is that thing?” Jo asked. She and Sakpata had just descended a hill into the mists and as it was dissipating, a dark scene emerged. They were in what appeared to be a large field of thick grass under a sky of dark Essence clouds. In the distance, there was a large, pulsating orb of deep purple with veins of yellow-white snaking its surface that seemed to grow up from the dirt of the field. With each pulse, the orb grew larger and it was a disruption of the otherwise natural environment.
“It can’t be,” Sakpata said absently, almost dreamily, and he walked toward the orb, moving deliberately and never taking his eyes from the thing.
“What do you think it is?” Jo said, staring at him with annoyance and impatient curiosity.
“Isn’t it obvious, sister? We were born from the Lofted Disc, the Vodun who preside over the Discs of the Fonlands. The underside of Lêgba’s Disc has been activated and seems to be giving birth to its Vodun. Reach out to it as you do when you desire to know where one of us is, you will feel the familiar arcana of the Vodun.”
Jo stopped walking as Sakpata continued. She lifted both her hands and a gentle wind rose with them, rushing past her and moving her skirt of light fabric, then colliding into the orb in the distance. Jo felt what the winds felt and she guided them all around the orb, tried to probe it but it wasn’t penetrable. When she stilled the winds and just listened, opened herself up to it as Sakpata said the Vodun could do to find one another, she felt something familiar. Not the large Third Heart nor the Ecstatic Gland, not the spark of their magic that made them masters of their colors…
“Wait!” Jo yelled. Her eyes had been closed and they shot open with surprise as she felt the spark of the magic that was pervasive in this place. She’d spent time with Owuo, she’d begged him to travel with the Vodun to the underside but he’d refused because of Gu’s hostility, but she’d felt the death magic inside him and the spark inside the orb was familiar.
Jo ran to catch up to Sakpata.
“The Disc is giving birth to the Vodun?” Jo asked Sakpata when she was close to him. He was distracted and she followed his eyes to Lêgba who was walking around the orb. “When did you get here?”
Lêgba startled when he heard her and then smiled as he walked over to them.
“You all felt it too?” Lêgba asked with excitement. “I’ve been trying to find the source of this feeling that I couldn’t describe since all of this happened. And recently, I guess it got big enough that I could follow it here. It is the Vodun of Death, isn’t it?”
Sakpata nodded, “It has to be.”
“Agê just summoned me,” Lêgba said. “I’ll go get her and bring her here.”
“Us too,” Jo said. “Should we all go, or can they find us quicker if we summon them?”
“I’ll go,” Sakpata said, “I’m used to navigating terrain that is easy for others to get lost in. I’m sure Lêgba wants to continue to marvel. Jo, you can come or stay if you like.”
“Can we just portal them?” Jo asked.
“I’ve spent the most time here and I don’t feel confident that I could pull it off. Maybe Brigette could if she knows portals, but I think the possibility of making a mistake with portals will only prolong their arrival here.”
Sakpata had already disappeared into the mists he’d emerged from with Jo by the time Lêgba finished talking.
When the Vodun had assembled at the location of the mysterious orb, Jo and Lêgba stood before a large palm nut tree that had taken the place of the violet orb with yellow-white veins. The tree was deep violet with glowing leaves that sprouted from the top into pointed tips. A single palm nut hung down from the bunch of leaves at the top and it pulsed like the orb had, getting bigger with each pulse that reduced the size of the tree.
“I know her,” Lêgba said to his siblings. “She has been there all along, I just assumed it was the Disc. But since the Baron did what he did…” “What you and he did together,” Xêvioso said. “You made all of this happen, didn’t you? This isn’t a gift from the Fonlands in our time of need, this is classic Lêgba playing at the powers of the Mother-Father.”
“Of course this is a gift from the Fonlands, brother,” Lêgba said sincerely to Xêvioso and to all of his siblings who looked at him skeptically, except for Jo who had been with Lêgba waiting for the others to arrive. “I will admit that I spent time with the Baron and mentioned the anomaly known as Outer Spacetime, and maybe I lent him some power to seize it after I planted some dreams in that space’s Baron La Croix, but the idea to do that was planted by the Disc, by our sister, Fâ, the Vodun of Death who heard our worries and our fears and is here to stand with us against the threat that approaches. I have made myself useful brother, I have done my part. I am happy to introduce you all to our sister.”
The palm nut was large by that point and resting on the ground, and the palm tree was so small that it was just a twig at the top of the nut. Then the nut stood on two feet to look upon the Vodun. It was a woman, a lithe body like a skeleton that was suddenly cloaked in a purple robe. Her face was bony, but handsome and she smiled with eyes that seemed hollow.
“It is nice to finally put faces to all of the voices,” she said. “I am Fâ, Death Vodun who prefers to exist undisturbed. But I have been wrenched from my comfort to finally be what I would rather not be, one of you. No offense.”
“Offense!” Agê yelled. “You have been here the whole time, not bothering to serve the Mother-Father as we have been tasked! You are not one of us, you couldn’t be on your best day.”
“Things happen as they must,” Sakpata said.
“Is this real?” Gu asked skeptically. “How do we know she’s always been here?”
“I know she’s always been here,” Lêgba said. “My Disc can attest to it.”
“I am here now because the Mother-Father wants me to be here,” Fâ said. “I guess I can’t go back, either, because of the whole palm tree show. But the Mother-Father was happy with my decision to stay in the Disc, otherwise it wouldn’t have been allowed to happen, but now, the Mother-Father is scared of something and I am meant to help. So fill me in quickly and direct me toward something to unleash all of my frustrations before I take them out on all of you.”
“I’m inclined to take this all at face value,” Xêvioso said and he approached Fâ with Sakpata close behind to get her up to speed.
“This is all very strange,” Agbe said to her sisters, “but this feels real. I know that is our sister and that she is this Disc, even if she doesn’t seem to want it.”
“She is disrespectful,” Agê said, glaring at Fâ in the distance. “All that we’ve been through and she was supposed to be cultivating the Death Magic of the Fonlands, but what was she doing while the Death Witches were bouncing from Disc to Disc and sewing discord, and the Blight Maker was causing trouble? If she had been here, we wouldn’t have been scrambling in response to Une.”
“So you agree that she is the Vodun of Death?” Agbe asked.
“It feels right,” Agê admitted.
“Jo? What about you?” Agbe asked.
Jo shook her head slowly.
“It’s hard to deny it. She is our sister. But Owuo, don’t you feel the similarity?”
“I’ve felt the same thing with Gu and Ogun,” Agbe said. “The Vodun aren’t the most powerful, we are the Disc. The respect we receive as Vodun is the respect Fonlanders have for the land. She is the Disc, even if there are others more powerful. I doubt that she could kill us like Owuo can, but Owuo didn’t emerge when the Disc was inundated with Death Magic.”
“I know. I just, I’ve spent a lot of time with Owuo,” Jo said reluctantly. She wanted to accept what was happening but it hadn’t been what she expected from this trip to the new Disc of Deads and Wraiths. She was sure that the trip would make it apparent to them all that Owuo, who had grown up with them since they received their names, was one of them. “Owuo always wanted what we had. We were siblings and we excluded him.”
“He’s a strange one,” Agê said. “If he wanted friends or siblings, he had to know that he was unpleasant to be around. Besides, this isn’t about feelings. If it was, then Fâ would not be Vodun either.”
“This all feels right to me,” Agbe admitted. “For the first time since you told us about all this, Jo, I feel like we have an upper hand. Une thinks she knows us, right? She took a Fonlands in the multiversal structure. I wonder if their Fâ had emerged.”
Both Jo and Agê nodded at the realization.
PRL Serials 