“Ah but that is where we differ, Interloper. I could care less about protocol and order. After all, my job is after all to tear down such structures. By the way, please call me Alakharu, since I have not quite destroyed anything so that name does not yet qualify.”
“Why have you come here then Alakharu, if not to destroy me? You are after all a product of the Orishas, my sworn enemies?”
” I am most certainly not. I am something else as you yourself know for the very same reason that you knelt before Esu.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“I know a great many things now. But please elaborate on that; your future or lack of one depends on it.”
“Is that a threat?” “No, it is a simple statement of fact. If I find that you had anything to do with the events that culminated in Sunshine’s death I will show you just exactly why they named me the Destroyer and there is nothing you or any of your minions could do about it. And by the way, any attempt to harm my companions would be unwise; you would be surprised at just how much they have grown in their proximity to me. Now tell me why did you kneel to Esu, Interloper?”
“I knelt to Esu, because Esu is not really Esu.”
“Then what is Esu?”
“Esu one aspect of the One God.” “Ahh, I thought as much. Things are not at all what they seem, or what we have been led to believe. Come Interloper let us talk you and I. I need to hear your perspective of things for even now I feel powers growing within you much as they have within me, and you need to hear my story.”
“Alakharu, my orders to the fallen Goddess were simply to prevent you becoming the weapon, to keep you in Georgia Avenue, or to bring you here once you matured so we could talk. Killing Sunshine was not in my best interests nor was it my orders, I assure you. I am sorry for your loss, but you must lay that firmly at the feet of Yemoja and of course the Quandisa. You see, I understand her motivation, she hoped to free herself from bondage to me by unleashing you.”
“Yes, I can see it now.”
“What will you do with her?”
“I will kill two birds with one stone; she is after all a Goddess.”
“And how will you do this?”
“You will see my friend, you will see. I can call you my friend now correct?” The Interloper turned and smiled at me the connection between the two of us growing and his power blazed out from him as he fiercely embraced me. “Can you call me friend Alakharu?” he said, “oh yes, you most certainly can.”
23 I was getting bored and for a creature as powerful and destructive as me that was not necessarily a good thing. I started to ponder what it would be like to sink the eastern seaboard of the United States into the Atlantic just because I was feeling whimsical. But I knew I couldn’t do it or at least I knew I wouldn’t do something like that out my own boredom and petulance so while I prepared myself to deal with the Quandisa, I let my thoughts drift back to better times, times when Sunshine was still at my side. The two of us did not just slaughter things together, no we also laughed and loved and had mind blowing sex every day of the week and looking at the Goddess of lust I could only shake my head in confusion. Why would a Goddess of lust kill or at the least arrange for the death of one of the lustiest creatures ever to grace the Earth? I closed my eyes and sat back, letting my thoughts run down memory lane for a moment and laughed inwardly when I recalled the time when Sunshine and I chose to experiment with Tiger balm, that wonderful Asian ointment which doubles as a cure for all. Some genius had told us that if we smeared it all over our respective genitalia before I penetrated her, then we would experience mind blowing sex. And it was mind blowing and not in a good way, that painful sensation of liquid fire and habanero pepper sauce shooting down my urethra and to this day I can picture Sunshine and I fighting each other for possession of the retractable shower head so we could quickly clean it off our nether regions. The real enjoyment came later when we tracked down the silly mortal who had given us the advice in the first place and together devoured him slowly both physically and spiritually. Afterwards, we had lain side by side on the plush carpet of our victim’s home facing each other and staring into each other’s eyes. No words were spoken and the only sounds we could hear were the beating of our hearts and the gentle sighs of our matched breathing. It was at that moment when we had realized that there was no turning back, that we loved each other deeply and could deny it no more. I had met my match, I had found my equal and now just when I needed her most she had been brutally ripped from my arms never to be held by me again. As I lay back mourning my beloved hyena, the aspect of my power which I had been preparing for the treacherous Goddess of lust blossomed and I opened my eyes and rose from my seat. It was time to destroy a Goddess so that another could be remade in her place.
“What is the nature of a God or a Goddess?” I said as I walked towards her. “What defines celestial nature? Is it power, is it celestial origins or is it the worship garnered by the ministrations of their human followers? Deities are supposed to be immortal and not susceptible to destruction, yet here I stand before you about to not only destroy a Goddess but to also do something even further beyond that, something that is beyond the mandate of what I have become. I will destroy this Goddess, but not in the way that is perhaps expected, for just as my own energies and consciousness were shattered, merged and remade in the Cosmic Egg, so will I use my own power to take her energy and transform it to give birth to something new.” I turned and looked at Lulu and the others who along with the Interloper were watching me carefully. I approached to where the Quandisa lay constrained and confined and grabbed her by her chin. I had bound her voice, both the mental and physical ones, for I had no time for her pleas for mercy and as I held her face in my hands I looked deeply into her terrified eyes and simply said, “Goodbye.” Power arced out from me and penetrated her form and she began to convulse and pulse as her form began to liquefy and drain out onto the Interloper’s throne room floor, where it took on a life of its own and flowed back towards me. All the liquefied essence of the Goddess flowed towards me and as soon as it touched my form, my body drew it into me, every last drop. And just like that the Quandisa was no more. My companions watched with fascination but with little surprise for they had seen me exercise my power before and were no longer surprised by what I could accomplish, but the Interloper surprisingly enough, rather than being horrified or afraid had watched the whole process with curiosity and not a small amount of calculation. He himself had put down his share of Gods and Goddesses and his lack of surprise or even concern echoed this fact. But this was only a tiny portion of what I intended; there was a reason why I had needed time to meditate and gather my power. Not for the destruction I had just wrought, that part was easy I was after all named the Destroyer. But to succeed at what I wished to accomplish I would have to do something that was the antithesis of my very nature; I would have to create. But first, I needed to make a few changes. “Interloper,” I said, “I must ask of you a boon. There is something that I must accomplish and to do it I must free old adversaries of yours. I ask that you leave them be at least for now until I accomplish my goal and I have spoken to them. If you wish to resume your enmity at that point that is up to you, though I think you will find you will have a change of heart when the time comes.”
Immediately after these words had left my mouth, Lulu looked up at me in horror and ran across the room to me with a wild look in her eyes. “Alakharu, what the fuck do you think you are doing? If you free them here he will destroy them. How can you betray me like this? I will not let you destroy my Gods too; I don’t care how powerful you are!”
“What is she talking about? What other Gods?” the Interloper asked, as already he was beginning to craft new defenses in anticipation of a fight. “Calm down everyone! Lulu I have not betrayed you, I am trying to help you and your Gods. You must trust me please. As for your question Interloper, it seems that your enemies the Kongo Gods did not fall into stasis nor were they destroyed. All these
centuries, they have been sequestered within Mbilia over there, who is the daughter of the Bakongo king you had the Quandisa seduce and betray. As you can imagine she doesn’t have a very high opinion of you. I intend on freeing them from Mbilia and restoring them to power, but that is not all. Mbilia has been a vessel for a powerful pantheon of Gods and Goddesses for so long that she has acquired certain attributes that make her more than mortal. And with the energy I have collected from the destroyed Goddess I aim to make it permanent. In short, Lulu, my dear Mbilia, you too will achieve apotheosis, you too will transcend and become a Goddess.” The look on her face was priceless as she stood there frozen her eyes unblinking, and Shawn, already the recipient of a gift of my power began to quietly laugh, while Samantha continued to study the many pieces of artwork which graced the throne room, oblivious to the drama being enacted around it, its powers being Godlike as it is, it had no desire for more.
“No more need for the constant libation Lulu,” I said, “No more being forced to constantly swallow bourbon and no longer will you shoulder this burden that you have shouldered alone for three centuries. If you allow me to do this then you will be free and you will be a great power in your own right. A Bokor of the Makaya sect serves both sides of the balance. You will be beholden to none.”
She considered this before asking, “And what of my Gods? What will happen to them?” “I will see to it that they find their place in this world. After all there are many today who worship the Orishas falsely thinking that they are worshipping the Kongo Gods. We will restore them to their rightful place and I will gain new allies against my enemies.” The Interloper was silent and very still for a moment before coming to my side and saying, “You will allow me to watch how you do this?”
“Of course, my friend, I know you hunger for knowledge, and the energy you have taken from defeated Gods must be burning a hole in your pocket eh? Didn’t Esu teach you any tricks?”
“No, he did not. He chooses to reveal what he will when he chooses, though I feel different already by your presence here. Will your actions here not change what we believe of the concept of divinity?”
“It most certainly will. After all, that is the point I am trying to make. What we have been led to believe about the nature of creation and the Gods themselves is a lie and my actions will force open a new debate on theology in the Heavens and on Earth. Shawn over there can attest to the malleability of the term God, just try to test his new power, as does my own existence and of course yours oh mighty interloper. You are not one of the Irunmoles, yet you are a God nonetheless, one who stands so far above them, yet was self-manifested. You do not realize it now but you are as powerful as I am. Esu is simple playing his chaotic games with you, your metamorphosis is imminent I can sense it. But we will discuss that later. Lulu as known as Princess Mbilia, prepare yourself and prepare your Gods, the time for a metamorphosis is upon us now.”
Religion has always consisted of a several different complex layers bound together by philosophy, theology and faith. The basis and foundation of a belief system can be found at the center of any faith existing in quiet sadness while waiting for its adherents to finally get it right. It was much the same with the various Gods and Goddesses of the Earth. They all existed on the fringes so far removed front the central core of the truth that even if it were revealed to them they would be unable to accept its revelation. In the Adobe of Creation, deep within Olorun, Nana Buukun contemplated the state of Creation and the steps which her and her counterparts had taken to correct its rapid descent into the void from whence it had been brought forth so many eons ago. When there had only been Ashe, she had penetrated its energy as men penetrate their wives with herself, she who is Thought and in doing so she had transformed it into Oludumare/Esu, though in the penetrating something greater than all three had emerged. The theologists had it all wrong, just as the scientists also had it wrong she thought, as she watched what was transpiring on the Earth. Why on should there only be two expressions of form, one male and one female, when even in the simplest of creatures three forms can be reflected? But she was never one for the spotlight so she never corrected this oversight and look where the world was today. For like a sacred triangle her actions in Ashe had caused a reaction; she was female, just as Oludumare was without sex, and so Esu was male. They were three, the Creators. The reality was that there was a Triple Being bound in equilibrium and that was the great truth at the core of all faiths. As she watched Alakharu begin his preparations to transform Mbilia and free the Kongo Gods, she wondered just how much he remembered of his initiation into her mysteries and if when the time came for him to reveal it to the world would he be prepared for the war that would come. For males do not like to acknowledge the feminine within them and the idea that the feminine can penetrate just as deeply as the male would not sit well with most. She was the Grandmother of all Divinities who gave birth to both the Cosmic Egg and to the Cosmic Seed which fertilized the Cosmic Egg though it was the energies of chaotic Esu which had given it the spark, the Big Bang so to speak, while Oludumare was both the womb and the testes which kept the cycle of life constant. They had all played their parts in this celestial drama and soon it would be time for all her and Esu to retire and rejoin Oludumare who represented a completely different facet of Creation one that the beings of this cosmos chose to ignore. In this way, they would be able to turn their powerful consciousness to another direction for Creation. In this world there was male, female and other, but soon they knew they must challenge their very powers to create a new cosmos without divisions. But there must be forces remaining in this one to ensure its proper functioning. As soon as she was certain all the important players had been put into action she too would turn her back on this corner of Creation. She smiled as she thought of her counterparts, sleepy Oludumare and chaotic Esu and looked forward to merging once again with them and returning to stasis and cosmic contemplation. These times were for younger Gods and even Creators such as themselves understood when a cycle was over and theirs was rapidly coming to an end. If all that her and Esu had put into play came to pass than there would soon be others to play their roles. But for now, she would watch her instrument carefully just as Esu would watch his, for soon she realized sleepy Oludumare would put its own piece into play and for good or for bad the Triple Being would have to accept the consequences of its actions and leave this cosmos.
24 I had no idea what I was doing though I knew what I wanted to happen. And though I was possessed of nearly omnipotent strength, I was still young in my powers and was still learning just what I was capable of and how to go about doing it. I knew that I wanted to free the Kongo Gods from the singularity locked deep within Mbilia and to somehow do it without damaging them or Mbilia. Quite frankly it would have been so much easier if Mbilia was more like her alter ego Lulu because if that was the case I could have just destroyed all the Kongo Gods where they lay hidden and collected their energy as I had done with the Quandisa. That way I could simply reroute their energy into Mbilia and use it to fuel her transformation safely by harnessing the properties of the singularity within her. Instead, now I had to come up with a means to release her Gods and the energy they had been hoarding for centuries safely while leaving Mbilia intact and prepared to receive my communion. I had to do all this while the Interloper and his court watched carefully and could not allow them to think for one second that I was not in complete control of the forces at my beck and call. I thought back to my own time in the Egg and tried to grasp the concepts that the lessons of Nana Buukun had drilled into me while I gestated, but that consciousness was long gone and I stood here as something else. Yet I remembered enough from my time in her temple to realize that there was a simple way to accomplish this though it would mean revealing my mastery over another aspect of space/time. I would need to create a second singularity within Mbilia one in counterpoint to the one which already existed there to form a bridge from that world into this one. I would use the ancient alchemical techniques of th
e Kongo people themselves to enact the spiritual bridge called Nganga, the dark mirror of celestial thaumaturgy which magically speaking would allow me to yank the Kongo Gods out through this bridge and to manifest them in this world once again, leaving Mbilia perfectly balanced between the mountain of Life and the sea of Death in equilibrium with the reflection of the truth of the One God. For a time, she would become a living portal until I could complete her alchemical transformation and ignite a subtle fire within that portal, a lightning which would connect her with the worlds of both the living and the dead and cement her communion with the power which I would feed into her. She would become a risen reflection of the pact she would share with the dead and her ancestors, yet through it she would have direct access to the powers of creation just as I have access to those of destruction. Through my workings the vision of Nana Buukun would begin to come to pass and in Mbilia I would have a powerful ally. For make no mistake, as powerful as I was, I was under no illusion that my abilities had not come without a price tag, and as such in exchange for the means to exact my revenge I would serve that most mysterious part of Creation in any way she saw fit. If changing Lulu into a Goddess was part of her will then so be it. I was ready to begin.
Alade (Irunmole Saga) Page 24