Long ago, the Luminary Nyame was angrier than she’d ever been, and Obatala watched her stomping across the golden grasses to the Golden Basilica on the Disc of Xêvioso where he served as a High Justice presiding over cases brought before him. Obatala had a large office space where he relaxed or reviewed case law between hearings, and he stood at the large window overlooking the area around the Golden Basilica, specifically at the field of grass below his window where Nyame was stomping. He watched her levitate as she approached the Basilica and he sighed with his shoulders as she ascended to the window where he stood looking out. She crossed her arms when he didn’t open the window right away, and when he did, she shoved her way in and glared at him as the two stared at one another, Obatala was annoyed but not nearly as angry as Nyame.
“Iku has agitated the Tinyalari on Ntinyari. They are beyond reason. The star will be consumed to death and that is not the natural state of the star eaters. No star eater has ever consumed their parent whole against their wishes, it is not necessary for a star eater to feed so much, but Iku has taught them death and now they hunger for it. Even at the expense of the one that gave them life. Why is he allowed to persist in the Fonlands? Why is this depravity allowed, Obatala? You yourself, in that very robe, in this very basilica, declared what was happening a crime against the Mother-Father and yet nothing has been done to rectify it. Ntinyari will be dead soon and all we can do is watch it, or destroy it ourselves, which no one can bring themselves to do because if it dies by consumption it can persist as a black hole.”
“I think you have answered your own question,” Obatala said firmly and he stood erect as his voice conveyed his authority. “What is happening is not usual, but it is not without precedent, stars have been consumed to black holes before, that is how you know Ntinyari’s fate. As for my ruling, it was recently nullified as incompatible with the will of the Mother…”
“Why did you even come here to be a judge?” Nyame interjected and she stood closer to him, looking up into his face as she berated him. “If you want to apply your aptitude for the pattern in a more productive way than unsuccessfully guessing the will of the Mother-Father, you can come to the Disc of your birth and analyze the situation to figure out how to extricate Iku from it so that the hunger of the star eaters doesn’t doom Ntinyari before her time.”
Obatala agreed with Nyame, it was the point of his ruling that wasn’t the result of a trial, but an official plea from the High Court that would eventually be reviewed by the Mother-Father when it reached the Lofted Disc. If the Mother-Father agreed with the ruling, appropriate actions would be taken, and if nothing happened after seven risings of the daysources of the Fonlands, then no action would be taken and the ruling was considered denied. The involvement of the Ajogun is what made Obatala issue the ruling, and he had issued many others to be sure that the Mother-Father was aware of the conduct of the Ajogun across the Fonlands. Iku was causing the death of stars prematurely on the Disc of Jo, Epe used his curses to stunt to the growth of the inkanyamba that swim of the rainbow around the Disc of Xêvioso and the miniatures were being sold as delicacies in the castles on the Disc, Arun was causing the Crimson Savannah to waste away because of a personal vendetta against the onini pythons on the Disc of Gu, Ofo raided the precious jewels of Grootslang’s horde deep in the mountains of the Disc of Sakpata and she was selling them at a premium to enemies of Yana who was battling for leadership of the caves, Ewon had caused a mountain deep in the seas of the Disc of Agbe to collapse and trap a school of Nommo Warriors inside and prompting an ongoing emergency to see if any had survived, Ese caused blisters to appear on the legs of the Golden Orb Weavers of the Disc of Lêgba and this led to an entire section of the Celestial Lirbary being consumed by the insect kin that the weavers normally keep in check, Oran caused riots at the Arena on the Disc of Gu where riots were not uncommon but because of Oran’s influence the riots have continued at the Arena for many cycles of the daysources, and Egba had stopped the winds of the Disc of Jo to the frustration of Jo who was hunting him across the Essence blue cosmos of her Disc when Nyame went to Obatala.
“I don’t understand why the Mother-Father hasn’t acted against the Ajogun,” Nyame continues as Obatala broods, “but someone needs to. Gleti will help us.”
“We aren’t enough,” Obatala said, “there are eight of them and together they are more than enough for a Vodun, or Jo would have done something long ago. She can’t even stop Egba from disturbing the winds. If she worked with Lêgba I think she could handle them but your relationship with him has soured relations between them.”
“That drama is behind us,” Nyame said dismissively. “Jo assumed that I had been duped into some larger scheme that Lêgba had against her, but we just liked spending time together. We all see that for what it was, the precursor to Anansi, and he is a boon for both Discs, White and Black. Jo is stubborn to ask for help because she thinks it will make her weak to her siblings, but they are all harboring similar resentments that if they were brave enough to admit they could come together to solve.”
“Maybe that explains the Mother-Father’s absence,” Obatala offered, “to teach the Vodun to work together..”
“How do we get them to do that?”
“Like I said, we only need Jo and Lêgba to do what needs to be done. They are enough to kill the Ajogun.”
“I’ll talk to Lêgba and you talk to Jo, meet me on the surface of Mosu.”
When Obatala found Jo, she was on the surface of a star analyzing the space around her for the presence of Egba.
“Did you come all the way from your high court to assist me?” Jo asked without looking at him.
“I came because you know there is a solution to the current predicament but you will not seek it out because you are uncomfortable with the relationship between Lêgba and Nyame.”
Jo looked at him and laughed in his face.
“To be so wise, you are kind of oblivious,” Jo said. “I will repeat what I’m sure Nyame said when you said this to her, Anansi is the reason for that union, he is the combination of White and Black that pleases both me and Lêgba, he shows how we can work together.”
“So why don’t you?” Obatala asked with confusion.
“Who says that we are not?” Jo turns her attention back to the Essence blue cosmos. “I have always liked you, Obatala, you and the other Luminaries have been my trusted advisors since the beginning. But for matters like the Ajogun, that touch every Disc of the Fonlands, I can’t depend on the counsel of the Luminaries, even if it seems to you all that the Vodun are doing nothing. There is a plan afoot, Justice of the High Court, the Ajogun will not terrorize the Fonlands forever. I only speak of it now because the time is close at hand when Lêgba, Owuo, and I will make our move.”
“You are working with Owuo?” Obatala asked and he seemed to be disgusted at the notion. “Are you sure that he isn’t working with them?”
“You do not know Owuo,” Jo said, still amused by the things that Obatala doesn’t know. “He is eager to be rid of them because they have always challenged him, and apparently Iku has been sniffing around Deads’ Town, which Owuo will not stand for. Did Nyame go to talk to Lêgba?” Jo asked.
Owuo nodded, “I assume they are having the same conversation that we are having?”
“She drew the short end of the stick, I’m afraid,” Jo said and Owuo was confused. “Lêgba was in charge of engaging them all and bringing them all here, so if she went to talk to him, she is in a very brutal battle against seven of the Ajogun while they followed Lêgba here.”
“Look alive, Vodun of the winds,” Owuo called to Jo as he approached the star where she was talking to Obatala. Owuo smiled at him and half bowed and he seemed sincere enough, but Obatala turned up his nose and crossed his arms at his chest. “Though, it seems you have lost your moniker, this space is oddly still.”
“Very funny,” Jo said. “Hopefully it won’t be this way for much longer.”
“Lêgba approaches and, apparently, he recruited help,” he glanced at Obatala as he spoke to Jo. “One of the Luminaries battles at his side, the grumpy one who likes me even less than the Justice over there.”
“You are everything that I live to jail and isolate from Fonlanders who do productive things with their lives,” Obatala said in his authoritative voice.
“Well we can both look past that long enough to fight what is coming,” Owuo said. “And judging by the stench of Death magic, we should brace ourselves for the arrival of Egba before Lêgba and Nyame arrive with the others.”
Egba looked a lot like the Vodun Lêgba, he was a tall and lanky man, but instead of the vibrant glow of brown skin that characterized Lêgba, Egba was gaunt and ashen. He arrived to the star where Jo, Obatala and Owuo were talking. He wasn’t quite skeletal, but he was thinner than Lêgba and dressed in a dark flowing garment that gave the impression of a gown for sleeping. He moved oddly, always floating just off of any surface and always vertical, as though he longed to lie down but was cursed to always be vertical. Egba had the power to stop anything for as long as he held it with his magic. He could paralyze living things, or stop the mighty wind currents of the Disc of Jo, and he loved to torment things by trapping them inside of themselves, unable to move. He loved to agitate Jo and he viewed himself as her nemesis.
“It is good to see you up close, my love,” Egba said in a voice that sounded scraggly like he had just woken up. “What do you think? This is my mangum opus for I have stopped the winds of Jo. I know that you can start them back when I retreat, so I will do what I must to preserve my most awesome work, and sadly, my love, that means the end of you. But your Essence will be forever inside of me, Jo, we will walk the Fonlands as one until the Mother-Father expires. Now come, do not delay us our destiny.”
Egba cannot talk and afflict something with paralysis and he made the mistake that Jo knew he would if he chose to engage her this closely, he spoke first with the intention of paralyzing her second. So as soon as she was sure that his introductory speech was done, Jo flicked the fingers of her left hand into a strong gale formation that quickly caught Egba in the winds and tossed him around and around so that he was unable to focus his paralysis on anyone. Before the Vodun and her compatriots could celebrate, both Lêgba and Nyame landed hard on the surface of the star. Nyame had a white stick in each hand and she glared up in the direction she and Lêgba had come from as Lêgba turned to the assembled group.
“Iku formed them all into the Ajogun collective,” Lêgba said, speaking quickly. “Nyame and I really agitated them and Iku couldn’t lay a hand on her. That made them agitated enough to merge and they are hungry for Egba to be complete. But we really should protect Nyame, Iku wants her head.”
The Ajogun collective was a form that the Ajogun took when they formed into a single powerful being of which Iku is the head. This form can devastate a large swath of a Disc of the Fonlands and no Vodun has ever defeated this form on their own, though Gu had come close, but the battle was interrupted when the ground under the Arena where they fought cracked open and the Ajogun collective was transported to the Disc of Lêgba.
The collective lands on the star as a giant figure of what appears to be molten rock, but it doesn’t glow red hot, it glows black and purple. Though the collective is large, its hands are adroit enough that it can pluck Egba from the gale that Jo had cast, and when the collective is complete, it roars loudly enough to shake the surface of the star.
Nyame and Owuo were both surprised when Jo, Lêgba and Owuo disappeared from positions on the star, and the three appeared simultaneously at center mass of the collective, each punching the collective at the same time. As they did this, Owuo chanted loudly, and the collective reared back in a posture of fear that no Fonlander had ever seen before, and the energy of the Vodun and Owuo spread quickly around its body like fissure that eventually exploded, leaving nothing of the collective in its wake.
Jo, Lêgba and Owuo collapsed on the surface of the star and Nyame and Obatala stood over them in amazement.
“I still wonder what took them so long,” Nyame said grumpily.
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