One day, the mountain told the earth he wanted to go see his friends, the forest. He wanted to apologize. In their last quarrel, he erupted and burnt the trees. The forest ran away scared of him. I have been to therapy, he told the earth. I can manage my anger issues, he said. The earth did not say a word. She saw that he was cold in the head and he had a cough. What if a coughing fit became another eruption? She wondered but she said nothing.
The mountain got a sled from the fairies living down in the village with old woman living in a shoe. The sled, the fairies had promised, will take him to the forest and back. He was so happy and he was also anxious. He had already had two blizzards and one avalanche. He needed to be careful. He looked at the sky at the mouth of his cave—will it rain? Will it snow? Will the sun shine?
The old woman in the shoe watched the mountain prepare to leave. She was happy he was leaving. He was a danger to the land. She had spoken to the earth about it several times but the woman never says anything. She just sits there and smiles. She is just too old, the old woman muttered. That juju needs new blood, someone old enough to know the secrets of the juju and one young enough to exercise its power to the fullest. The fairies came to sit with her. They all shone like small stars.
The fairies did not speak the language of the humans but the old woman could talk to them through incantation in the ancient language of written signs. She did not know why humans stopped writing words but she knew words had power, especially written words. It was her discovery of the written word that her juju grew strong. It is the only time she had ever seen the earth angry and rising up in fury. They had to sign an agreement in blood that the power is never to be used for evil. Before then though, she had bound the fairie folk to her for eternity.
Go tell the bush baby to follow the mountain on his journey. I want them to befriend the mountain. I want them to make sure the mountain never returns here. She wrote on the sole of her shoe house with a hot knife coated in the blood of a goat. The fairies shrieked that searing cry, rose as one horde and flew away. The old woman sometimes sensed her bond with them may not be as strong as she liked to think. Maybe the fairies humoured her. The beings were as old as the earth. They had been there at the beginning and tended the earth in her young days. She was but an old witch.
We humour her, the horde said.
The shackle wounds, the horde said.
We will break her if we leave, the horde said.
We need her to save the earth, the horde said.
Will mother ever rise from her dying, the horde asked.
The opélé says nothing of her rising again, the horde replied.
Since the darkening of the great moon, she has gone silent, the horde said.
If the moon returns, will she speak, the horde asked.
The opélé says nothing of the great moon's return, the horde replied.
Then the juju dies, the horde said.
And we with it, the horde replied.
The great moon. What is remembered of the big white moon that stood behind the small moon. She fed the waters not with tides but with strong juju and the first beings were filled with its power. She gave sentience to everything until the great cataclysm—the civil war that ended the old kingdom. The high king, a tree of legend, Iroko, was killed by his uncle, obeche. Obeche wanted the throne but he did not have the blessing of the priestesses of the moon. Their vicar, the lady osun, placed a curse on his line. Thus the progrom on the line of the forests began. Soon enough the rivers got involved and the sky and then the mountain erupted and the royal family fled. The great moon grew dark while the forest fires still burnt and lava ate the waters.
The mountain was ready. It tried to rise from his chair but could not. He groaned and struggled to no avail. He could not lift his bulk from the ground. He could not get on the sled. He looked at the sky and begged her to get him some antigravity from space. The sky asked for payment in ore. Mountain agreed eagerly. The sky left to space. When she returned the next day, she had a bag with her. She gave it to the mountain and in return the mountain handed her a sack filled with ore of all kinds. They parted ways.
The mountain went to his anvil deep down in his cave and there, he took the antigravity from the bag, melted some adamantine in the forge then began forging the great sword, Gravity. Gravity was made of precious ores that allowed juju to work fine with the antigravity the sky had given him. The blade of the sword did not shine. It took the colour of the surroundings, making it ultimately invincible.
After forging the sword, the mountain buried the sword in the rock of his body. Then he got up, climbed on the sled and began his journey towards the forest. As he passed the shoe where the old woman lived, he waved a farewell and just then a small girl appeared in front of him. He studied the girl, at once discerning who she was from her big black iris, the odd shape of her head and the lamp and raffia mat, she had with her.
Bush baby, what do you seek? The mountain asked.
I seek to journey with you, to experience the passing of our world. I wish to see what marvels are about to befall us, she replied.
She reeked of the bush, of the loneliest places on the earth. The mountain could taste the arid wastes to the north, the cold ice to the west, the constant rain to the south and the veldt to the east on her. She is an old one. He nodded his head,shaking loose some icicles from their perch. The bush baby dodged the plunging spears of ice, her big eyes shining with pleasure.
The old woman watched them leave. She smiled to herself as she stirred her stew pot. She now had the whole place to herself and now she must find the metals needed for the task at hand. She tasted the stew and it was sweet. She called the fairies to her and she felt the strain of reining the horde in. They were getting stronger or she was getting weaker. She needed to hurry up. She summoned them again and they appeared in the sky, roaring towards her. When they landed, she sent them an image of a block. The horde studied it but did not remember it. The old woman sighed.
In the ancient world, this was called a book, she said.
The horde flinched as one.
You play with powers beyond your ken, the horde said.
The readers are dead, the horde said.
The writers are dead, the horde said.
The written word is dead, the horde said.
For it is written, a time will come and one will test the waters and she shall fall prey to her own quest. She shall become the guardian of the waters and the trident shall be her curse, the horde said.
The old woman rocked back in fear and trembling. She had never heard the horde speak like this. Most times, their talk was gibberish to her. She placed the words on a table in her mind and studied the phrasing from different angles. She was in danger but she will succeed with her task nonetheless. She knew that she might fail in her quest but if she can make the trident, she would be able to prepare the path to saving the earth from herself. She nodded, gathered her hair about and stepped outside for the first time in a thousand years. She needed those metals. She beckoned to the fairies and the horde followed.