Ndiogou Gueye, having achieved his revenge, returned to the village where his parents had been born, near the center of Senegal. Although he had feared the worst, he found that his younger brother Ibrahim, his three wives, and their children had survived the arrival of the System. Together with several neighbors, they had built a large compound that allowed them to meet many of their needs without having to venture outside. Ibrahim had welcomed his brother with open arms, especially since meat had become scarce. The children, noticing that their powerful uncle was surprisingly kind-hearted, flocked to him.
Their presence was a balm to his aching heart, and, as the months slowly passed, Ndiogou found that he was almost as well suited for peace as he was for war. Especially when his nieces and nephews demanded stories.
“And then, the entire sky lit up as Charlemagne blasted the asteroid into a million pieces using nothing but pure magic,” Ndiogou Gueye stage-whispered to a group of children as he put his hands together and the quickly pulled them apart to signify an explosion, wiggling his long, slender fingers to simulate the debris. “In fact, I still have a piece of the asteroid…”
“Uncle Ndiogou, it’s not an asteroid once it lands on Earth. It becomes a meteorite. You have a meteorite that came from the asteroid,” one of the older girls, Mariama, interrupted.
“All right, all right, Mariama the Knowledge Accumulator,” the Blind Hunter agreed as he did every time he told the story. “I watched the sky anxiously, worried that my Party members had made the ultimate sacrifice to save the lives of billions, if not trillions of beings.”
“There aren’t trillions of humans,” one of the other children objected.
“He said ‘beings’, not ‘humans’”, Mariama corrected, while Ndiogou continued. If he stopped a story every time the children squabbled, he would never finish even a single one.
“A few chunks of the asteroid fell as meteors first. I was sure that the others were dead at that point. But then, I felt them, descending slowly. Charlemagne had protected Sirius and Phatagin, bringing them all down safely using his magic.”
“But only Charlemagne was okay, right uncle Ndiogou?” asked one of the little boys, who had heard the story at least 10 times before.
“Yes, the other two were hurt, but can anyone guess why?”
“SPWOSIVE RECOMPESSION!” shouted a little girl, jumping up and down.
“That’s right, ‘explosive decompression’, the large man confirmed. “But before he healed Sirius and Phatagin, our heroic rooster did one other thing. Can you guess what it was?”
“He healed your shoulder!!!” the same boy burst out.
“That’s right, he healed my shoulder. But, not only that, he made it stronger. Over time, the muscles, bones, and sinews have started to absorb more and more mana,” the Blind Hunter said with a nod before adding, “That’s not so bad, because it means I get to eat more often without getting fat.” At this point in the story, he pushed out his stomach as far as it could go and patted it. The children all raced to be the first to slap him in the stomach, their low Strength scores making the blows tickle a bit. The Blind Hunter chuckled for a moment before finally waving the kids away from him.
“This next part is very important, so sit down and listen. Because of that crazy bird Brett, Canius, who rules canines, and Grimfalk, the Patron of Charlemagne, are now under a truce. We cannot attack any rooster or hen that does not attack us first, although we can keep hens for eggs. The same goes for canines and felines.”
“But Canius is not the deity of felines,” Mariama sniffed. “Why are they included in the truce?”
“The answer would probably come to you if you devoted more of your energy to uncovering relationship between facts rather than the facts themselves,” Ndiogou answered, not unkindly. “You are a very bright child, and I see great things in your future.”
“Was that a dad joke?” demanded the eldest child present. “I’m going to leave if you make more dad jokes.”
“Uncle Ndiogou, Moussa is sitting on me,” one of the little ones hollered.
“No I’m not!”
“Yes you are!”
Before the situation could deteriorate further, Ndiogou stood up and started to walk away.
“WAIT!” came the collective cry from a dozen mouths.
“Only if you behave yourselves,” he answered calmly before taking his seat. There was a short round of shushing and hissing from various members of the crowd, then attentive silence.
“As I was saying, we must abide by the rules of the truce or face the consequences. Even I, I who am stronger than anyone in this village, must obey. Do you understand?”
The children all nodded. Some of the younger ones looked scared, but the older ones had heard this talk too many times for mere words to frighten them anymore.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
“Good,” Ndiogou continued. “Now, it’s almost time for dinner. What do you say we head back?”
While the rest of the children whooped and ran from the shade of the baobab tree, Mariama stayed behind. Her bright, intelligent eyes sought Ndiogou’s.
“Uncle Ndiogou, I thought about what you said just now about the truce,” she said, her usual self-confidence giving way to sudden hesitancy.
“Oh?” the man chuckled. “That was quite fast. If you’ve already divined the reason that felines are included, I will have to amend my words.”
“Well, I thought about it before actually, based on other stories you’ve told us. I think that cats are included because they are often found living with humans as pets. If you attack a person, his pet dog or pet cat will attack back. Or, if you attack someone’s pet, they will get angry and might attack you.”
“That’s right,” the Blind Hunter nodded. “You really are something else. I wish that…”
There was a short pause before Mariama pressed the issue.
“What, uncle?”
“I wish that you could have grown up in the old days, before all of this. You would have made a great businesswoman, or even a scientist.”
“But I am here now, and my Class demands that I learn new things. How can I, when I am stuck here?”
Ndiogou sighed.
“If you want freedom in this new world, you must be strong enough take it,” he answered simply before leaving the cool shade of the baobab tree.
Mariama let him walk away for a few moments before turning her eyes to heavens.
Oh Charlemagne, how can I be more like you? Her question echoing inside her with all the fervency of a prayer. After a long moment of longing, she turned and followed her uncle back to their compound, as she always did.
Unbeknownst to the young woman, two streams of power wafted up from where she had been standing under the tree. The first headed west, to the land called America where Charlemagne now lived, but the other ascended far above the Earth before disappearing, nourishing the System itself.
The happy din that always accompanied family dinners reached her ears just a bit sooner than the smell of warm food reached her nose. The family had recently slaughtered a lamb, and she had convinced her father that it had been too long since she had eaten Dibi: bite-sized pieces of meat slathered with a mustardy-onion sauce and served with French fries or fried plantains. The sweet and starchy smell wafting from the compound made it clear that the side dish would be the latter.
“Did you ever get to eat Dibi?” she asked Ndiogou as her short legs struggled to match her uncle’s long, rapid strides. “I mean when you moved away from us.”
The Blind Hunter smiled and stopped short, sniffing the air loudly.
“Not like…wait, NO! I do not agree!”
And then he was gone. Mariama sank to her knees as her uncle’s shouts engendered a rapid response among the family. Ibrahim himself vaulted the high wall that surrounded the compound with a club in his hand and a fire in his eyes. He scanned the area for threats and then looked to Mariama, confusion written plainly on his face.
“He…he just vanished,” she said quietly, falling back into an awkward sitting position on the hard earth. Her father said something, but the young woman was dead to the world. She had eyes only for the System messages that had just appeared.
Liang Xing tapped the armrest of her throne as she waited for her call to go through. After a few moments, the way too large compound eyes of Culicoida, the deity of midges and mosquitos, appeared on the screen.
“Ah, Liang Xing, thank you so much for returning my call,” the other deity said, her decidedly feminine voice charged with the faintest undertones of vibrato. “It’s been far too long since we’ve had an opportunity to speak with one another.”
The deity of pangolins had to shut her eyes for a moment as the background blurred and spun as her interlocutor flew around in seemingly random patterns.
“I appreciate you taking the time to contact me, Culicoida, but the way that you’re flying is a little…distracting. Do you mind landing?”
“For you, of course, my dear! We are such close friends, are we not?” Culicoida buzzed as she zipped to a wall and landed facing the floor. Liang Xing wished that she had been a bit more specific about where she would have liked the mosquito deity to land.
“We are indeed business associates and friends,” the deity of pangolins answered, choosing to emphasis the true nature of their relationship without being overly pushy. “Well, I suppose we are no longer in business together for the time being. But perhaps you have a new proposition for me?”
“Oh, I have a proposition for you, but I don’t believe that it’s a new one. I want you to honor our original agreement.”
“That agreement was amended several times, as you are no doubt aware,” the deity of pangolins noted, her face betraying no emotion. “For a price, it could possibly be amended again.”
Culicoida’s wings buzzed for a moment, a rare occurrence that meant the mosquito deity was angry. The undertones when she answered sounded less like a harmless buzzing and more like boulders being crushed together.
“For a price, you say. Was the life of my Champion worth nothing, then?”
The other deity sighed. She had anticipated this argument, but it was still bothersome to have to deal with it nonetheless.
“We risked equally. It is not my fault, nor your fault, nor any other deity’s fault that Bridget was crushed. You ask me to cover your losses, but did you offer to indemnify me when we discussed this very issue? You did not. Therefore, it would be unfair to all parties involved to do anything but follow the contract.”
Whatever rebuttal that Culicoida was about to make was forestalled as both deities received an urgent communication from Formua Integralis to return to GOD headquarters for an emergency session of the council.
“What is it this time?” Liang Xing wondered aloud.
“I don’t know,” the deity of mosquitos answered, “but I do not consider this matter resolved. I will take it to arbitration if need be.”
“Do as you must,” the pangolin deity responded with a shrug.
The screen went dark as the call ended, prompting Liang Xing to heave herself to her feet and move out. As she hurried along, she wondered if Culicoida had been serious about forcing her to attend arbitration. On one hand, it would probably be a waste of both of their time. But, maybe, just maybe, she should pay the mosquito deity to leave her alone.
