The situation changed quickly. I went to the Shifting Planes where I had sent our forces from Talj and we were all worried about what would happen next. I was stunned thinking that Zacchaeus had been lost to the Pito and I never imagined that he, or Maria for that matter, would face a danger that outclassed them and actually threatened their lives. And if they did, I knew that they could handle themselves and be able to survive a dangerous encounter. It just never occurred to me to be worried for either of them. I had seen Maria swallowed into a dimension unknown to me, I had witnessed Zacchaeus possessed by this very enemy before though we didn’t fully comprehend it, but it waged war inside of him. And both Maria and Zacchaues had emerged on the other side. But when I was in the Shifting Planes, and I cast the large screen view into Talj and found Zacchaeus, I could see that he was lost. There was no battle raging deep within him. We had lost him to our cause and for the first time, despite his bond with the Needy, he was a servant of a power much darker than him. I panicked, Zacchaeus is bonded to the Needy who at the time was in the caves of Sakpata’s Disc on the Fonlands and I wondered if it was now infected like Zacchaeus.
But there was Maxx, the Superguardian of Bludon, eager to get back to the fight in Talj, and I was eager to see if Maxx was actually capable of freeing Zacchaeus with his ominous weapon. Imagine my relief when so soon after I had sent him back into Talj, he had cured Ali and others of our forces who had been wielding black magic. I was ecstatic to transport them back to the Shifting Planes and I exhaled with relief when Maxx found Zacchaeus and he was recovered.
Then I sent Alia, newly bathed in the golden yellow magic of Xêvioso himself, into Talj and apparently the three of them, Alia, Maxx and Pultine who I managed to find and project on another screen as she was obliterating the black wall with her light, that trio enhanced by the magics of other beings funneled to them using hand magic constructs, was enough to rid Talj of the Pito and its reality-warping wall. Alia and Pultine together cast a light so bright that it seemed to swallow the darkness completely, while Maxx completely cured all of our infected forces who were still alive, and then many of the Pito who were completely disoriented in the Shifting Planes. I brought everyone from the battlefield to the Shifting Planes for confirmation that they had been cured.
We won. Everyone was so happy that no one noticed the reality of Talj on the screens ripping apart down the middle. The darkness of space was suddenly split and it looked like each side curled back like the pages of a book being consumed in fire. Soon the screens were completely blank, Talj was no more.
Before I could say anything, the Vodun Agê arrived at the Shifting Planes and her normally elegant wraps were ragged and torn. She seemed very disoriented and the Vodun rushed to her and as I approached, I saw her indicate to the black screens.
“I guess it was the shock,” Agê was saying in disbelief. “One moment Talj was fine. Weary of course, but it seemed that I had helped it through the worst of it, but suddenly there was a flash of lights across its surface that I could see and then it ripped in two, folded back into nothing. Talj is no more.”
We will never know all that was lost in the Splitting of Talj, but the memory of the existence will live on forever in the Fonlands and every other existence with a representative in the Shifting Planes at the time when it happened.
I like to think that we saved Talj, even if it no longer exists. Before it reached its breaking point under the unimaginable strain that the Pito caused for it, we showed the enemy that there is a force capable of stopping it. A force more resolved than before to end the enemy forever.
The Vodun went back to the Meta Chamber and I transported many of the beings who had been integral to the conflict in Talj along with me to join the Vodun. Owuo oversaw the beings still in the Shifting Planes after coordinating with Lêgba to determine where the beings who no longer had home universes could live permanently.
“But, we won,” Whadgaf Jiris of the Talj universe, with big feathered wings and avian features, said. She stood next to Ali in the Meta Chamber. We all stood in a large circle with the Vodun. “We saw those two use that light to wipe it all out. How was Talj destroyed?”
“It was under so much stress,” Agê explained, still shaking her head in disbelief. “And I was helping, I thought, but it experienced pain in ways that I didn’t fully comprehend. I am truly sorry for this loss, it is unimaginable.
“We all did what we could,” Xêvioso said reassuringly. “We can only forge a way forward to make sure this never happens again. And as soon as we get word from Ogi about the source of all this, we will evaluate and go after it to end it for good.”
“We saw it,” Alia said and Pultine nodded. “We were on the surface of a planet, I guess where it all comes from and there was a woman there called Une…”
“No!” Xêvioso said firmly and it startled everyone in the Meta Chamber. “We can’t say that name. She will find us, she will come to the Fonlands. We must hasten all of our plans. You two,” he says to Alia and Pultine, “should speak with Ogi. I will do what I can to facilitate that without actually going there, but if you have been to the source of this darkness, Ogi should be able to help us find it. We all need to work fast. Everyone else, plan for an attack on the motherlode of that darkness and for an attack here in the Fonlands.”
Then it was chaos again. I would have worked to prepare for the coming battle, or helped connect to the Paradise universe, or even assisted with the welcoming of the refugees of the Talj Rip, but something else demanded my attention.
“Can you help me with something?” Maria came to me when we were leaving the Meta Chamber. Of course I agreed.
“What y’all talking about?” Zacchaeus asked as he put arms around both our shoulders and we both hugged him.
“What was it like?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “I was me but I wanted to do everything for the mother, whoever that is. I guess it’s the name Alia said that made the Vodun mad. But I don’t wanna talk about that. What y’all up to?”
“I have to go back to Outer Spacetime,” Maria said. She looked at Zacchaeus. “If you’re up for it, I could use as many hands as possible. I understand if you just want to rest for a while. This is a magical, spellcasting issue, anyway.”
“Then I’m definitely going,” he said. “I need to know more about magic shit.”
“Might not be the best learning mission, but I won’t turn it down. Death is in Outer-Spacetime,” Maria said gravely. “Theron, Arada, and Aifyn are currently controlled by death dealers and they need help ridding their existence of them before all of Outer-Spacetime is destroyed.”
“Death dealers?” I asked, more than intrigued.
“The Barons Samedi, Criminel, and Cemetere. They have taken the centers, Samedi on Arada, Criminel on Theron, and Cemetere on Aifyn. They’re difficult to combat because they are spellcasting and that is unfamiliar to the powers there. This has stopped a coming War of Arcana that was brewing between the biggest powers, and the societies that haven’t been seized by a Baron have closed themselves off until the threat is done.”
I nodded thoughtfully. I had never been to Outer Spacetime by that point, but it was as good a time as any to experience it for the first time. And the Outsiders had been reunited and we could all use the distraction, and hopefully a clean win.
The Master of Multiversal Arcana, Wazad the Transverse, and Zacchaeus will return in the PRL Fèt Gede Special!
PRL Serials 