“I still think benching all the Black magic users was a short-sighted move,” Lêgba says as he lounges in the large web of Aku. The daysource of the Disc has set and the only light is the glow of Aku’s web that is an eerie mix of black and gold. The web casts a significant glow over the Changing Desert nearest to the exterior of the Celestial Library where the web was spun.
“You saw what happened in Talj,” Owuo says as he finishes the snack that Aku had offered him from her web, a worm-like Fonlander that she had spun up and paralyzed. Owuo had ripped a seam in the webbing and dug his hand in to grab fistfuls of the worm’s flesh that he shoves into his mouth. It is messy and slimy juices drip from his hands still, but Aku provides a bunch of her webbing that isn’t sticky for him to clean himself as they all talk together.
“I agree with Lêgba,” Aku says. “It’s true there was a vulnerability, but I doubt Lêgba would have been so easily turned.”
“Why was Une able to turn any of the Black magic users who went to Talj?” Owuo asks. “I don’t think I fully understand the vulnerability.”
“Black magic represents change,” Lêgba tries to explain, and he is thoughtful in his response so he speaks deliberately. “Une is powerful with all that she has consumed, so maybe the ease that she was able to take us over comes from that fact, she could simply overpower the Black magic users in Talj and take control of the magic, causing it to change to her will.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Owuo says thoughtfully, “but we really aren’t sure of the exact reason? Nwa Wa, the Zombie General, couldn’t explain it and she was maybe the most powerful wielder of the Black in Talj. She said that at no point did she feel the switch and from her point of view, nothing had changed but the target of her aggression. The takeover was so subtle that we were terrified to even risk it happening again, and we didn’t take the time to really probe the issue to hammer it down.”
“Zacchaeus said something similar,” Lêgba adds. “He was very hard on himself and believed that he was only taken over so easily and seamlessly because of his own weakness and unfamiliarity with arcana, which he has worked very hard to rectify since then. But it wasn’t a defect in Zacchaeus, it was a weakness of Black magic itself.”
“Or,” Aku interjects, “it is as you said before, that everyone who went to Talj was just overwhelmed by Une’s power. So a user of the Black with more power than Une would be fine.”
Owuo shakes his head slowly. “Is there a Fonlander, or any being in the multiverse for that matter, with more arcana than a being like Une who has gathered incredible amounts of power from entire realms that she consumes or draws power from? She even has stores of energy that Sakpata and his team are discovering. They are managing to clean these existences, but that just means that Une will be storing all of her power in her own existence, which is great if the three Vodun and their forces there can kill Une, but it will make that harder to do.”
“We get it,” Aku says, “Une is very powerful. But even if Lêgba, the Vodun of Black magic, isn’t as strong as Une, that doesn’t mean he can’t add to his power. The Vodun in the Une-verse are doing just that with the forces they took there. They are all sharing their arcana with the legions that went with them and their superior understanding of their arcana is what gives them the edge over the immense power of Une.”
“You think that we should be gathering black magic to face Une ourselves?” Lêgba asks.
“It’s better than hiding out in my web,” Aku says. “The incredible powers of the Fonlands, coupled with the refugees from the Talj Rip and the recruits from the multiversal structure still in the Fonlands helping us, there is an immense amount of the types of energies that comprise Une still here in the Fonlands, not to mention the Divine Essence itself. Of course I don’t know for sure, but I believe that there is enough power in the Fonlands to face and defeat at least the being that has arrived to the aether outside of Aido Hwedo. Lêgba’s shouldn’t be cowering, he should be powering up so that if he does face that part of Une that is here, he will be more powerful and quickly overwhelm it before he can be compelled to become the weapon to slay the Mother-Father.”
Owuo and Legba look from Aku to one another and then back to Aku.
“You’re right,” Lêgba says.
“An interesting power returned to the Fonlands recently,” Owuo says. “The Ajogun.”
“How is that possible?” Aku asks and she laughs. “The two of you and Jo went to great lengths to kill them, and angered the Mother-Father in the process.”
“It is impossible to defy the will of the Mother-Father,” Owuo says. “The Ajogun were a nuisance to the Fonlands, but rather than let us end them permanently, the Mother-Father sent them to the other realm, to a planet called Rycoia where a group of mystics known as the eight trapped the Ajogun in the flowers they call Mysticisms. The Wazad of the other realm brought these Mysticisms to the Fonlands because they called to a being we recruited from the multiverse. But that being rightly refused the power that was far too much for them to wield. And the Vodun who went to the Une-verse didn’t want to risk unleashing such unstable magic in the Une-verse, even though it is a great store of Violet magic, after all of the Black magic decayed over time, I assumed. The Ajogun are more powerful than they ever were. It is hard to gauge the full extent of their power because the binding of the Mysticisms is top notch.”
“Why haven’t you told me about this before?” Lêgba asks.
“Because he was trying to figure out if they would benefit him and he must be intimidated by the prospect of the Ajogan escaping their mystical prison and harming him,” Aku says without judgement.
“You know me all too well,” Owuo says.
“So you only offer them to me to avoid any negative consequences to yourself?” Lêgba says with a laugh. “You really are a great friend.”
“Aren’t I?” Owuo says.
“Is it possible to drain these flowers of the powers they contain without releasing the Ajogun?” Aku asks.
“I can’t say,” Owuo admits. “When I probed the Mysticisms, I couldn’t learn too much for fear that the Ajogun would use me as a way to escape their binding. On Rycoia in the other realm, there was a mystic, Ogeran, who managed to harness the powers of the Mysticisms to the benefit of everyone, he was known as the most powerful mystic in the history of the realm. He was able to wield this power without releasing the Ajogun or consuming or destroying the Mysticisms.”
“How do you know so much of this history?” Lêgba asks. “Did you learn it while probing the flowers?”
“The mmoatia, Lorv,” Owuo says. “She was an explorer of the other realm for your experiment there, I believe they call it Endla.”
“Oh,” Lêgba says with delight. “I always forget about Endla because it was a creation of one of my more sophisticated iterations who carried out experiments in creating life. I absorbed that iteration so long ago that those memories are buried deep under all of the memories of the iterations I have reabsorbed since then. But I remember Lorv and the mmoatia. Agê sent them to keep an eye on me and my creations. I never minded, that is why we ended up working together, to learn more about the other realm. I’m glad that the collaboration proved fruitful. Where is Lorv now? If she is the expert on these flowers, I would like to speak with her before I attempt to absorb the powers of the Ajogun.”
“I believe she is on the Disc of Agê,” Owuo says. “Will you travel to see her? The enemy would never think to look for you there.”
“Let’s go, we can make a trip of it,” Legba says enthusiastically.
“No thank you, friend,” Owuo says, shaking his head. “I am comfortable and full and I am enjoying it here with Aku. Besides, if the enemy manages to find one of us, it’s better that we are not in the same place. We’ll be here when you’re done to let us know what you think about absorbing the power of the Mysticisms.”
Lêgba doesn’t protest but says goodbye to Owuo and Aku to travel to the house of Agê on her Disc. When he arrives, he is impressed to see the ranks of Green magic users training in mystical combat. The power off of them is significant and Lêgba smiles at the mmoatia who lead the training. When they notice him, the mmoatia fly to greet the Vodun with reverence.
“It is good to see that you all are prepared here,” Lêgba smiles down at them. “Lorv, I came seeking your counsel if you can spare a moment.”
“I will allow you two to speak and return to the training,” Raius, the other mmoatia with Lorv, says and returns to the other Fonlanders.
“What counsel can I give to the Vodun Lêgba’s?” Lorv asks.
“It seems you are an expert on these Mysticism that I have only learned of recently from Owuo.”
“What did Owuo do with them?” Lorv asks. They both sit in the grass as they speak and Lov’s large wings are relaxed at her back. She is comfortable conversing with the Vodun despite her respect for his title, she had spent enough time with Agê to know that the Vodun are generally affable.
“He is trying to give them to me. He thinks that they might make me more powerful than the enemy we face and that I will be able to defeat the enemy in the aether. Do you think that is possible?”
“The powers of the Mystic of Fytor on Rycoia surprised me,” Lorv admits. “I had never been so impressed by the mastery of arcana of any being in the other realm as I was by the Mystics. Not even Metatron and the aerphim are as powerful as the mystics. I never told the other mmoatia or the aerphim this because of vows that I have taken as a Mystic of Fytor myself, but there are Rycoians born with ecstatic glands and Third Hearts.”
Lêgba is baffled by this. He, or a sophisticated iteration of him, had explored the cosmos of universe Prime 5 and had discovered the sentient beings of Earth, and those in the Soulaxar Galaxy that was very far from Earth. The rest of the realm seemed empty, but apparently, since Lêgba had reabsorbed the iteration who created Endla, Lorv had discovered Rycoia that was ancient compared to all of the known civilizations of Prime 5.
“The Rycoians had never left their planet before my ship arrived and established trade routes,” Lorv continues. “Not that they couldn’t, the Rycoians have sophisticated enough technology that their race has spread to other habitable planets in their solar system, and they have much more sophisticated arcana that allows for travel across vast distances but they only use that to travel between worlds occupied by Rycoians. They were this way because they felt that they guarded a secret, a doorway, portal, into paradise and the mystics of Fytor guarded that doorway with their lives. I became a Mystic when I learned that the doorway to paradise led to the Fonlands. They have revered the Fonlands as their heaven, the destination of their souls in death, since the doorway opened. It wasn’t opened naturally during the First Unrest, either. It happened after a great duel of mystics that seemingly ripped open existence itself and the Fonlands was on the other side. I joined them to learn more about the culture and overall, they are honorable and venerate the Vodun even if they do not realize it and I assume it is the reason the Mother-Father has seen fit to bless them with ecstatic glands and Third Hearts. Did Owuo tell you of the Mystic Ogeran?”
“That he wielded the power of the Ajogun trapped in the Mysticisms without freeing them and preserving the Mysticisms. I assume that was possible because he was one of these other realm descendents of the Fonlands?”
Lorv nods. “Indeed he was. I think that the appearance of these descendants of the Fonlands as you call them appeared spontaneously because Divine Essence exists on Rycoia, but I was never able to confirm that. And I didn’t know the Mystic Ogeran personally so know that I am only relying on historical accounts that could have been embellished or completely made up, but Ogeran used the powers of the Mysticisms to become the most powerful mystic of Fytor and he prevented evil among the Rycoians from festering. He tamed the new worlds that Rycoians settled on. By all accounts, Ogeran wielded the power of a Vodun, maybe even at a level that far surpasses it, but again, it’s hard to know if this is true without knowing Ogeran personally. I have been in the presence of the Mysticisms, though, and the power that I experienced is on par with the power I have witnessed from you and your siblings. The Purple Mysticisms are truly a wonder. I didn’t know the Ajogun, they existed in the Fonlands before my time, but from what I have learned about them from the Scroll in the Time Chamber, they are not the same beings of immense Black magic that you tried to kill. Their time on Rycoia, their time trapped inside the Mysticism turned them into beacons of the dark Violet that they exude. And they only get more powerful with time. When I realized they had been brought to the Fonlands, I heard them singing, and previously only the Mystic Ogeron could hear them sing, but I imagine that the increase in their powers since that time has strengthened the volume of their song. I can’t imagine how it would impact my powers to try to wield the arcana of the Mysticisms, but I can say that just their close proximity in the Fonlands has made my death flame more potent. It is very possible that wielding the Mysticisms will greatly increase your powers if they allow you to wield their powers. If they don’t then you will have to force it and I imagine that would weaken the binding of the Ajogun. The Mysticisms are Rycoian and they guard the powers they bind with arcana that exceeds the Mystics. One does not demand the power of the Mysticisms, it is bestowed.”
“So I must gain the favor of these Mysticisms to extract their power safely?” Lêgba asks.
“That is the only way that I know.”
“Will you come with me to the Shifting Planes?” Lêgba asks. “I would like you to be there when I encounter them. Maybe they will be more open with a familiar face. But only if the dwellers of this Disc can spare you, of course, I wouldn’t want to weaken any defenses.”
“Raius has it all well in hand,” Lorv says, “and I wouldn’t miss a Vodun’s interaction with the Mysticisms for anything.”
Lêgba and Lorv travel to the Shifting Planes where Owuo had left the Mysticisms on a platform that he sealed off from others. But when they arrive at it, they see that Havoc, Catastrophe, and Grief of the Death Witch Coven have beaten them to it.
PRL Serials 