“What do you mean my lord? What being will claim your place? How is that possible?” “The universe is changing and so the must the Witness of Fate change. My time away has not been idle; I spent it in deep communion with the One. I have been informed that my counterparts are already awake now and abroad in the world. Now it is my turn to merge and awaken.”
“Your counterparts? What do you mean by merge and awaken? You are speaking in riddles, my lord. I still do not understand.” “You will Laiye. Very soon you will understand everything. Go now and strengthen Niño for his metamorphosis. Break his body and then remake it so that he will able survive the stresses of this journey, for where we will go no human has gone before. When he is ready he must drink the remaining blood of Alade for it contains the final key to this transformation. At that time, I shall come for him. Fear not my faithful servant; all things must come to end so that there may be a new beginning. It is time now, go and prepare Nino.” Laiye bowed his head in acknowledgement and left to carry out his master’s instructions. As Orunmila stood in his temple watching his servant leave, for the first time in his existence the Witness of Fate felt impatient, for he could feel his counterparts already moving in the world and time was running out. This shift must happen soon so that equilibrium could be restored and the new order could take hold. This was the way of the cosmos, that all things have a beginning and an end. Soon Orunmila would be no more and the third part of the Triple Being would be reborn.
Princess Mbilia Nsimba Kimpanzu, known to the world as Lulu, looked at the faces of the Kongo Gods which she had so diligently served in her youth for the first time in three centuries, with eyes that were no longer mortal. I stood with Shawn to my left and the Interloper to my right watching her as her consciousness began to fully fuse with her new form. The apotheosis was successful and I had transformed Lulu into a greater being, but judging from the way her and the Kongo Gods were watching each other, things had changed in a manner that I would not be prepared for. I had expected Mbilia to embrace her power and take her place at my side with Shawn and Samantha, what I did not expect was her to have plans of her own. Because Lulu never obeyed anyone but herself, how could I possibly have believed that she would meekly take her place at my side and serve me in what I believed was my quest for revenge? Mbilia was a princess and as a mortal she had been a Bokor, the highest initiate of the Makaya sect, a sect that serves both sides of the balance and while serving neither. She could no more bind herself to my cause than the Orishas could; it just was not in her nature. I floated towards her and the now freed Kongo Gods and they fell silent as I approached. Lubaniba bowed deeply to me and I returned the courtesy as I looked over the assemblage of now robust and restored Gods, many of whom were eying the Interloper with open hostility. The Interloper, for his part merely shrugged; he was not concerned. He was in his bastion of power and besides he had given his word and would not re-start any hostilities, at least not now. I looked at the Kongo Gods and let a small trickle of my power flow out, a subtle warning to those among them whose tempers were perhaps running too hot, to cool down. Mbilia for her part was deep in communion with Mariguanda, the Gatekeeper between Life and Death and so I turned to face Lubaniba, while I waited for her to finish her meditation. “Great Spirit,” I said to Lubaniba, “I welcome you back into this world. It’s been sometime eh? I trust that you are satisfied with my work?”
“Very much so Alakharu,” he replied, “we are all grateful for your efforts on our behalf. And what of your other promise to restore us to our rightful place in the world? When will this happen?”
“I will keep my word Lubaniba, but that will take some time, for I have a war to prosecute first. For now, I will take the singularity in which you had hidden and use the bridge I created to free you to open a rift to another place. It will be from there that we will begin to restore your place in the world. It will be your place of power and in it you will be secure from, the more zealous Gods out there, until we have reestablished your proper place.”
“And what of the Interloper? Will he keep his word?” “Yes,” said the Interloper as he too floated over to join me, “I will keep my word until the situation with the Orishas is resolved. I am no threat to you now and perhaps I never again will be. Things have changed since you were last abroad.”
“They have.” “Yes, Lubaniba, they have indeed. I noticed a subtle shift in atmosphere and realized that the Interloper had begun his own change. I had assumed that it would be in some sort of dramatic grand way such as my own, but instead his was a subtle and sly transformation that it was only now that I realized that he had become my equal and it was in that moment that I solved the riddle of Nana Buukun and recognized my counterpart. Lubaniba turned to its siblings and nodded, and they immediately all strode forward, including Mariguanda, who had finished communing with Mbilia and stood with the rest waiting, and expectant. “We are ready to leave now,” said Lubaniba.
“And what of your side of the bargain, “I asked, putting aside my new revelations for the moment, “when the time comes will you stand with me?”
“We will.” “Then I bid you farewell. I will call upon you soon.” I triggered the bridge and handed the threads of power to Lubaniba, watching as he recalibrated it to somewhere other than the place I had chosen for them. Well he was the Spirit that maintained the veil between realms, so it was within his purview to do this. And with enemies all around, unknown powerful new Gods in evidence, and having just been released from a three-hundred-year imprisonment within a human, I too, wouldn’t want anyone one to know where I was going I either. I began to turn away from them, already thinking of my own imminent departure when I felt a hand on my arm, and I turned to look at its source and found myself looking at the beautiful new form of Mbilia reborn as a Goddess, rejuvenated and revealing the true beauty of the princess who had been buried in Lulu for three centuries. Her eyes were completely white, though not the whites of eyes rolled up into the head but the white blazing hot power of Mbilia unleashed. Her physical form had not been altered drastically as my own had, perhaps because she had not been born to darkness, rage and despair as I had. She was a beautiful young woman now with an aura of power and blazing white eyes and as I marveled in what I had wrought she spoke to me and her words pierced me to the core. “Alakharu,” she began while cupping face mace in both her hands, “I am sorry old friend, but I am going to go with them.”
“What do you mean you’re not coming with me?” I demanded, “where else would you be going Mbilia?”
“Oh, chill out, you black tar baby, I don’t mean it like it sounds,” she said amused by my tone.
“Then how is it Mbilia? I need you with me so we can finish what we started.”
“That’s exactly the point, Alakharu. We haven’t finished what we started or more accurately what you started.”
“What are you going on about?” “Don’t you feel it my friend?” she while moving closer to me and taking my face in her hands, “you have been so blinded by your rage and your need to avenge Sunshine’s death that you have not fully understood the extent of your powers. You are Trimurti now and you became this for a reason because your own past actions have now set off a chain of events that only the Trimurti can fix.”
“What the fuck are you talking about Mbilia? I know what I am and what I have done to become what I am thank you very much, so let’s end the chit chat and get to Ile-Ife and commit some well-earned atrocities. The word genocide comes to mind.”
But just as Mbilia and I were going back and forth Samantha had silently shifted closer to me so that now it stood side by side with Mbilia looking at me, studying me for an eerie moment before finally speaking. “Alakharu,” she said in soft tones, “what exactly did you do to the Nephilim? And where is his body?”
Alade’s story continues in Book Two of the Irunmole Saga, “Into the Maze.”
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Alade (Irunmole Saga) Page 26