“I just wanted you to know how the mirror works so that you can make an informed decision whether we should go forward with the search or not. It’s all up to you.”
“Let’s get on with it,” Sikiokuu replied, a trifle impatiently.
“Kneel down, close your eyes, put your hands together as if you were praying, a supplicant at an imaginary shrine. Focus on the image of Nyawlra in your head. On no account must you take your mind’s eye away from the image or let thoughts of another intrude.”
Sikiokuu tried to do as he was told but his mind kept wandering from subject to subject. He was glad that he had asked his two lieutenants to stay in the waiting room. What would they say if they were to come in and find him kneeling before a sorcerer, the lights dimmed? He jumped up and hurried to lock the doors to the other rooms from the inside. He even took the telephone off the hook to ensure that no calls, not even from the Ruler, would interrupt the proceedings. He resumed the posture of a supplicant. Even now no clear image of the woman would form in his mind, only vague intermittent silhouettes, but he kept trying. Sometimes he would peek at the Wizard of the Crow, and he felt better about what was transpiring when he saw the sorcerer’s eyes fixed on the mirror. The voice of the Wizard of the Crow now pierced the silence of the room, as if responding to what appeared in the mirror. Sikiokuu would have liked to look at the mirror himself but did not dare, awed as he was by the solemnity of the occasion.
“Here comes a shadow. There. It stopped. It walks. It walks. Now it’s gone; it’s back. It is the shape of a woman, not very clear, but, oh, yes, it is a woman. A young woman. She is running like an antelope in the woods. Her shadow merges with the trees. There, there, she’s crossing a river. She enters a hole as in
“Stop her. Please stop her,” cried Sikiokuu. “Or follow her. Follow her and find out where she is going or who she will be meeting or talking to, anything, but don’t let her out of your sight…”
“Ssshh. Another shadow has appeared, superimposing itself on the scene. It is huge, blurry. Good. It’s clear again. It is the shadow of a man of power and confidence. He looks like a minister, a government minister. He is dressed in clothes that look like those of… Let me stop there. I don’t want to see more,” said the Wizard of the Crow, taking his eyes away from the mirror.
“Why did you take your eyes off the mirror?” Sikiokuu asked, also opening his own.
“Are you sure that you want me to go on?”
“What did you see? Whose shadow was it? Was it Machokali? Was he following the female? Did they talk, greet each other, look at each other? Tell me. Tell me everything that you just saw…”
“It was yours.”
“Leave my shadow out of this,” Sikiokuu said in frustration. “Go back to the mirror and see if you can bring back the shadow of that woman. Try hard. Concentrate on her.”
No matter how many times or how hard he tried, the Wizard of the Crow reported the same scene: the shadow of the woman would always appear running in the woods, crossing a river, only to disappear in a crowd, and precisely at that point, Sikiokuu’s shadow would cover up the crowd.
“Wow! Your shadow has a lot of power…” said the wizard, as if complimenting Sikiokuu.
“Power? Did you say
“Yes. It’s as if all the other shadows fear it.”
“Fear? Forget Nyawlra for a moment and find out more about my shadow. What does it look like? How is it dressed?”
“It’s your spitting image. It is dressed like the Ruler… and it walks with a similar gait…”
“Wait a minute. Stop. Look for, no, no, let me think clearly… let me think this through…” said Sikiokuu, panic in his voice.
Sikiokuu was trembling. What was the meaning of all this? Had something bad happened to His Mighty… Or was this simply a sign of things to come? Was it Sikiokuu’s destiny to become…?
He was dying to know. But how to ask the Wizard of the Crow to look into that particular aspect of his future without compromising himself by uttering a word of what was in his mind? He closed his eyes and tried to imagine a different future, but no matter how hard he tried his thoughts always went back to the image of himself in a suit that looked like that of His Mighty Excellency. The same gait? He saw himself walking, inspecting the military standing at attention in salute… The Wizard of the Crow had said the mirror could capture… Suddenly things came to a standstill. Had this mirror captured one of his most secret performances of power?
These days, with the Ruler in America, Sikiokuu would lock himself inside his office or apartment, dress exactly like the Ruler and even sit in an elevated seat very much like that of the Mighty Excellency. As his role playing was known only to himself, how had the Wizard of the Crow managed to uncover it?
Even to his skeptical and cynical mind, this served only to confirm that the Wizard of the Crow had preternatural powers. His desire to know the destiny of his own shadow became an irresistible hunger for more signs. But he could not or would not clothe his thoughts in words. Suddenly he said, “If.” Every time he tried to say something, he would simply mutter, “If.” Soon he was barking a series of ifs, the Wizard of the Crow looking on in astonishment. Sikiokuu fell to the floor and started crawling, his ears drooping on either side, his snout and eyes raised toward the Wizard of the Crow as if seeking help. It was then that the Wizard of the Crow gave him the mirror and told him to look hard at himself and focus his mind on one and only one concern.
“Listen. I can help you to express your thoughts with words. But, again, you must answer all my questions truthfully; otherwise the mirror will simply reveal your lies.”
“If, if, if,” Sikiokuu barked as if saying yes, yes, yes, nodding his head for emphasis.
“Give me back the mirror. Let’s start. Do you ever dream of occupying the seat now occupied by the Ruler?” he asked, looking at the mirror, glancing now and then at the face of the minister.
Sikiokuu could hear very clearly what he was being asked but found it difficult to answer. Finally he nodded his head.
“No, tell me in words,” the Wizard of the Crow insisted. “Do you ever dream of occupying the highest office in the land?”
“Yes. I have,” he said through clenched teeth.
And with that Sikiokuu gathered steam and started talking, words all of a sudden flooding from his mouth like a rushing river.
“There is no minister who does not dream of one day becoming the Ruler. We lust for power, and what power is greater than that of a supreme ruler? You raise a fly whisk or a club and men kneel before you. You sneeze and you silence a multitude. You hold the key to all the wealth in the land. One word, just one word, and the doors of the Central Bank are open to you. And if the national chest is empty, no problem. One word from you and thousands more notes are made. Oh, imagine it: when you say, Wipe your noses, a million handkerchiefs are raised to a million noses. You say to your ministers, Put a comma, and they do it. Put a full stop, and they do it, without question. Imagine your ministers and ambitious members of Parliament feeling honored that you have taken an interest in their wives, ecstatic when they know you have made love to them? Power. I dream of that power every hour of the day, whether awake or asleep. And why not? The fact is that today I am the de facto head of the State, the power behind the throne, so to speak, and were the Ruler to fall ill and die today…”
Before he had finished the thought he remembered that to mention, imagine, dream, think, or talk about the death of the Ruler was high treason, punishable by death. His face twitched at the horror of what he had just said and its implications for his future.
The Wizard of the Crow noted all that and pretended to be in a trance, completely unaware of what had been spoken. Sikiokuu stole a glance at the Wizard of the Crow to see if he had heard his last words, and he was not sure what to think when he found the wizard still bent over the mirror. He waited for the sorcerer himself to say a word or turn his head, but the wizard remained in his trance, transfixed by the mirror. Now Sikiokuu got off his knees and sat back in his chair.
“Mr. Wizard of the Crow! Mr. Wizard of the Crow!” Sikiokuu called out, as if trying to wake up somebody who was deep in slumber.
The Wizard of the Crow woke up with a start.
“Sshh. Don’t talk. The shadow of the woman came back, and I am trying to follow it. There she is. In a
