Arrival of the Ancestors
It was said that the soils of Purgatorio were fashioned by the ashes of the gates of Heaven after the Second Light War. The unquenchable fires continue to burn through the seven firmaments of creation to this day. The ancients who could look to the Heavens saw the flames encased the secrets of the Demiurge in water provided by the tears of angels who wept. The ashes turned to clay, and after the ancients learned the magic of death, they took the clay and fashioned bricks to build the wall dividing the living from the divine.
As Darkness scratches against the wall of the Light, and the Light steadily encroaches in the Void. Chaos binds that which is opposed, and lower realms have become the roots of a burning tree. Truth has been lost to the ages, as those who remembered have ascended to the realms of the Immortals. It was a great and dreadful day, one which Baron Samedi meditated tirelessly to remember, but to no avail, the memories evaded him.
Scars from old battles, and callouses formed by the work of a master builder, pained him after Heaven rejected him. He hid his crippled hands beneath a pair of white gloves bearing his Fleur-de-lis, a symbol of secrecy for all who take the journey of the Builder. Beauty was to him, a vice, but also a necessity to cover the things which reminded him of darker times. He sat upon the Throne of Perdition, fashioned from the iron chains of the 65 ancestors who were the first to serve as slaves in the Americas, and he honored them, his dutiful Boko-Emortus.
Dressed in the suits and dresses that they were buried in, they danced and sang praises to the Baron who in return, blessed them with their hearts’ desires. The low rumbling drums began to sound outside of Castle Guédé, and the Baron stood up and danced. The old slave hymns and praises sent to Heaven weren’t heard by the angels, they went to the Barons who granted them freedom. It was a grave and terrible secret that the Baron kept, empowering their realm nonetheless.
After the First and Second Light Wars, the firmaments of Earth were divided, making it difficult for those in the Heavens to reach Earth, and those on Earth to reach the Heavens. Myriads of low gods and immortal spirits became stuck between realms; constantly preying on humans for release. While they resorted to parasitic possession to live, those like Baron Samedi created their own realms where they ruled with unchallenged power.
The once beautiful Guinee fell by the hand of the Thrones and Cherubim, forcing the Baron to a lower realm which he called Purgatorio. The Black Sun blazed gray light across a violet sky, and the moon glistened like gold silk upon a black sea. Victorian-styled mansions lined streets of white marble, where black steeds carried the Barons and elevated ancestors around the realm. There was not a man or woman that wasn’t dressed like the princely class of Victoria’s London, as required by the Baron. The vile spirits of pedophiles, rapists, and child killers would serve them eternally or until Samedi no longer had use for them.
The Baron was the protector of Malkuth, ensuring the angels had no way to Earth. Scouring every corner of the Earth with his Ofanim, hundreds of floating orbs used as eyes to watch the happenings of Malkuth. The songs of the ancestors rang from beyond his castle walls at the 3rd hour as the dead ones danced to the blessing of mercy.
Ain’t no god on the river
But the devil sure let me by,
Take my hand little nigger
Cuz’ we on our way to die.
They clapped their hands and stomped their feet, stirring the other spirits to join them.
“My Lady, now is the Hour of Entry. Open our gates and welcome our family home,” he ordered.
Baroness La Porte, whom everyone had come to call Lady Gate, walked towards the towering gate at the edge of Purgatorio with an oversized black umbrella. The height of the gate spanned as high as the sky—the top of it impossible to see as it went up into the clouds. The hard iron bars went deep into the ground, touching the edge of the Earth realm, Malkuth. She hummed the same song that the ancestors sang, tapping her long black nails on the umbrella handle.
Her long black skirt made of tulle and silk swept the ground she walked upon. The long split on the right side showed the straps of her garter belt where she always kept a blade. A tight, open button-suit jacket covered a corset bearing her seal. Her long mess hair was fitted with a short top hat with the gate symbol around the base, and a black veil covering her face.
She closed the umbrella, which was slightly shorter than her own height, and placed the tip into the ground. A snake broke through the soil, coiling its way to the top of her staff and she knocked it on the ground three times. The 72 locks of the gate began to unlock one by one. The sounds of curious voices on the other side made her smile.
“Come one, come all my lovelies. Guédé season is upon us, the gates are open, find your place amongst the Boko.”
As it opened, there was a deafening silence. The chatter of the people beyond the gate ceased. Lady Gate began to hum again, and a short old woman came creeping through the clouds. Wearing her Sunday best, she held onto a small pocketbook with a pair of white gloves.
“I knowed that voice. My you are beautiful Lady Baron,” she said, as Lady Gate opened her arms for an embrace.
“I was making you some sugar snaps. But then my heart got ta’ tugging. Here they are,” she said, fumbling in her purse for a small cloth.
She handed it to Lady Gate who carefully unfolded it. She took a bite of the sugar snaps and smiled.
“Marvelous my lady.”
Mary Mae laughed and clapped her hands.
“Go on now Mary. There are a few people who have been waiting on you,” she pointed, to a tall lanky man who took off his top hat.
Jean-Baptiste?”
Lady Gate nodded.
Mary Mae quickly forgot about the Baroness and ran toward her love.
Lady Gate turned her attention to the opened gate and there stood several hundred people, dressed in their finest wears, awaiting entry. She motioned for them to walk through, and they took their place upon the Baron’s grounds one by one. A young woman dressed in bloody, tattered clothes stepped through the gate, frightened and shaking uncontrollably. The Baroness stepped in front of her, raising her hand to keep her from entering.
“Wait little one, you cannot come before the Lord Baron in such a manner.”
She looked up at the Baroness with a look of despair. The Baroness caressed her face and kissed her forehead to calm her spirit.
“I understand that your life was taken, and as your body lays rotting in the swamp. Without the proper Ritus Réquiem, you cannot enter.”
“What shall I do to honor Him?”
“Your living relatives must perform the rite.”
“But they are Christian. They know nothing of me, and yet they pray for my return. My mother always told me Jesus would be standing at the gate of Heaven, waiting to welcome us in. I don’t see him,” the young woman said.
The Baroness held out her arms and embraced the lost young woman.
“Jesus cannot save you. You see, he died too. Go back to Malkuth and ask the Keepers for their help. With Mama Gee’s blessing, only then can you live amongst the Barons.”
She slowly pushed the young woman back into the darkness and motioned for the gate to close by opening her umbrella and twirling it. As she walked away, she counted in her head the number of locks that sealed the gate shut and turned when she only heard 71. Her eyes looked towards the left at the seemingly never-ending gate that spanned for miles upon miles, dark clouds surrounding it. She looked to the right and could see a glimmer of light. She raised herself off the ground and floated towards the 13th lock where a silvery feather was jammed into the lock. She grabbed the feather, and its shine left a silvery residue on her hands.
“Come to the gate,” she whispered into the air.
A thick white smoke began to gather at her feet. The smoke traveled under her dress, wrapping itself around her torso and breasts. Baron La Croix, dressed in all white, took form, and embraced her like a man in ecstasy.
“You called for me, ma chérie?”
“No,” she replied, giving him a slight attitude.
“You look beautiful today my love, mon diamant noir.”
Lady Gate quickly shifted her mood, laughing as he continued to sweet-talk her. He kissed her neck, running his hands across the corset keeping her together. The soft hooting of an owl, however, broke up his wooing. A short, dark-skinned man wearing a derby hat with an owl fixed upon it, appeared about a yard from them. The owl flapped its wings but took a sitting position when he approached.
“Is this one bothering you again?” he asked jokingly.
“Always,” she replied, handing him the feather between her fingers.
He took it and stuck it in his mouth, quickly spitting the taste of it out.
“My lady, it is rude of you to hand me pigeon shit,” Piquant fussed.
“Is it?”
“There is nothing in this plane and the next that tastes like that. Where did you find this?”
Lady Gate pointed to the unsealed lock. Piquant pulled out a magnifying glass from his inner coat pocket and noticed a light shimmer, like fairy dust around the lock.
“Hmm. Does he know?”
“Of course not. And I’m not telling him shit until it’s confirmed. Otherwise, we’ll have to hear his mouth for the next hundred years,” she replied.
The gentlemen laughed and nodded, knowing it was true.
“Can’t you just change the locks?”
“Yes, but...”
The sound of thunder hammered in the dark violet colored sky. A small streak of light would illuminate the black clouds, but no rain fell. The Ancestors began humming, and while this song had no words, it told the tale of rape, murder, and abuse they endured living as slaves in the Americas. It brought a tear to the Baron’s eye as their song was one too close to his own.
“They beat us down didn’t they?” he said, when the distant thunder could be heard in the background of the humming.
Flashes of lightning lit up his castle through the high windows of the throne room, but hellish flames flashed as the memories of his past resurfaced. He fell back to his throne, rubbing his head. He lifted his hand the ancestors went silent but remained standing around the castle. Scorned by the scars of war, the flaming sword which left its mark upon the Baron haunted him, and he hated the lightning because of it. He reached his fingers between the buttons of his collared shirt, and there was blood seeping from an old scar.
I’m bleeding...
“You Bitch!”
His voice echoed through the long, silent halls of Castle Guédé, shaking the chandeliers made of the long bones of his victims, and the moaning spirits outside cowered to silence.
“War. We all want war. Is that right!? The Earth is filled with beauty and mystery. From the towering mountains of the Himalayas to the crystal blue waters of Bimini, the Earth was fashioned to the liking of a God who would never call this home. And they call me a prick. But I dwell with my creation. That makes me better than you,” he stormed, reaching for a glass of bourbon.
He ran a cigar past his nose, lighting it with the slow-burning spirit fire from his altar. The cigar was gifted by the Keepers, and he loved them for their sincere and thoughtful offerings. Each Baron had their favorites or those they could con for blessings in order to enforce their will, but they all had a particular fancy for the Black Knights, whose power had no bounds. There was no place on the Earth, or in the Earth for that matter, that the Barons where they were not permitted. The forces of the spirit and the forces of the flesh had been at war since their separation, all for what Achilles, the great Magia Primus, called the hilarity of the Demiurge.
The silence of his throne room was broken with a hard knock at the Baron’s door. He sat as the red cinders from his cigar turned to sprinkles of ashes as they floated like fairy dust toward the floor.
“Is there a whore at my door?!” he shouted.
La Croix, Piquant, and Lady Gate looked towards his castle and headed that way. There was no answer at the door.
“Who stands at the Lord’s door?!!” he yelled again, and there was still silence to his request.
He stood up and stared angrily as an unsettling feeling overcame him. He marched towards the door and flung them open with the sheer waving of his hands and there sat a small box. His eyes shifted back and forth, looking out at the fields of black grass which stood still as he stepped closer. The wind ceased to blow and nothing stirred.
“Guédé! Who knocks on the Lord’s door?!”
The spirits of the field stopped their plowing and pointed toward a well at the top of the hill. He kicked the box and it tumbled across the field, but then stopped when he heard the cries of a newborn baby. He floated over to the box and the spirits lifted it. He slowly removed the top and there it was, a baby, crying and kicking with a large feather laying across its abdomen. Samedi’s eyes widened with malcontent. He looked all over for the signs of something that shouldn’t be there but to no avail.
“What is this shit!?” he yelled.
The other Barons met him and they surrounded the child.
“This was left in the gate,” Piquant said, giving the feather to Samedi.
“Lady Gate! What did you do? You let them in?”
“Have I ever let them in? No. Why would I start today?”
He grunted, deciding not to retort, grabbed the crying child, blowing smoke in its face and it ceased to cry.
“It’s a hideous thing,” Lady Gate said.
“It’s not a child. It’s a message,” Samedi replied.
“From who?” La Croix asked.
Samedi didn’t answer, rather tipped his top hat and disappeared.
“I wonder where he’s going,” Lady Gate said, looking up at the thundering sky.
La Croix grunted, holding his hand out, summoning his cross shaped staff.
“And where are you going?”
“To get some answers. I hate secret shit.”
“Mhm. Don’t be late for dinner pa-pa.”
“I’d never be late for you cher,” he said, grabbing her chin and placing a kiss upon her lips before disappearing in a wisp of smoke.
Piquant looked at Lady Gate, tipping his hat respectfully, and took his leave. She rolled her eyes and began walking up the hill where she came upon a pile of chains. As the Boko-Emertus were raised, their chains were broken, and the great Iron Mountain is what became of them. Lady Gate grabbed a heap of iron to begin crafting a new lock and key.
