Wizard of the Crow

“Where did you find this sorcerer?” the Ruler asked, his eyes still closed.

“Right here. In Eldares, Aburlria.”

“When?” the Ruler asked, straightening up, opening his eyes and fixing them on Sikiokuu.

“Before he went to America,” said Sikiokuu. “I first heard of the sorcerer’s gifts from people who claimed that he could read mirrors like books.”

“Let me remind you that actually I am the one who apprised you of the matter,” Kaniuru said to take credit, but Sikiokuu ignored him.

“All my preparations to capture the woman were going smoothly until news of your illness in America reached us. When I was told that the Wizard of the Crow was needed there, I said that the apprehension of Nyawlra would have to wait until the return of the Wizard of the Crow. Now here is my problem: the mirrors will arrive shortly, but their interpreter is nowhere to be found.”

The story prompted the Ruler to worry that if the sorcerer could really read what was hidden from the common eye, what did he know about the country, no, the Ruler being pregnant? And why had he chosen to impart his wisdom to Machokali instead of… he did not even want to complete the thought, for he suddenly felt horrified yet again at being compared to a woman. This sorcerer must be silenced.

“Where is he? Where is the Wizard of the Crow?” the Ruler asked angrily.

“I don’t know where he is. Since he went to America… perhaps Machokali might care to…” Sikiokuu said, trying to shift the burden of the sorcerer’s disappearance on Machokali.

“He is not in America,” said Machokali curtly, signaling that he did not want to get involved in this issue.

“He is not in Aburlria. And he is not in America. Where is the sorcerer?” the Ruler demanded. “Surely he must be somewhere on this earth?”

The Ruler suddenly was exhausted by the topic, as it was taking his mind away from more momentous matters. He was now staring straight ahead, entirely preoccupied with what Tajirika might bring him and what he would do to him if he came back empty-handed.

Machokali, who all along had surmised that there was a connection between Sikiokuu and the Wizard of the Crow, now felt malicious joy at the fact that the Ruler had sent a police squad to unearth the dollars. The angrier the Ruler became with the Wizard of the

Crow, the angrier he would be with Sikiokuu once the plot between the minister and the sorcerer was exposed.

“As to where the sorcerer is,” said Machokali, “it does not really matter. For what you have done, Your Mighty Excellency, in sending the three policemen to unearth the buried treasure, is an act of unfathomable wisdom and foresight, for even if no dollars are found, the act will serve to expose the lies of this man and his associates,” Machokali said.

“Which man? Which lies? The lies told by your friend Tajirika, or the Wizard of the Crow’s?” Kaniuru asked mischievously.

“Since when did you become a champion of truth?” asked Sikiokuu.

Childish one-upmanship ensued, each trying to have the last word. It is said that they continued thus for seven days and nights and by then they had lost their voices and spoke in whispers so low that they did not hear one another at all. They made out what the others were speaking only through the motion of the veins on their necks and foreheads and the automatic opening and closing of the lips.

The Ruler, however, remained as he was, oblivious to their duel with words, his head resting in his right hand, even as he looked now and then at his watch, waiting for a voice from the prairie to tell him the outcome of the hunt for the buried dollars.

8

“True, Haki ya Mungu, we also longed for a voice from the prairie,” A.C. would tell his listeners, trying anything to win them over so that they could tell him what he then sought among them.

Encouraged by their surrender to his words, A.C. would tell how the foursome of he, Kahiga, Njoya, and Tajirika drove to the Santa-maria police station, where they took an unmarked vehicle. They told the police chief, Wonderful Tumbo, that they were going to the prairie to trap Nyawlra, and that if reports reached the station that there were strangers wandering in the wilderness, Tumbo and his men were to ignore them.

A.G. was excited by the prospect of the adventure as one of the Ruler’s messengers, but he thought that his companions were a bit fearful. Tajirika especially: his face was crestfallen, and he did not speak much to Njoya and Kahiga. In fact the three talked through A.G., and he suspected that this was not the first time that the three had met.

They drove some distance into the prairie, stopped the car by an acacia bush, and walked toward the interior, Tajirika leading the way and the others following in a file carrying hoes, spades, and pickaxes.

“We looked like a procession of gold prospectors,” A.G. would whisper to his ardent listeners as if imparting a great secret, “with Tajirika as the leader of the party.”

Although they were going to dig for dollars, their thoughts were mostly on the Wizard of the Crow, who never ceased to amaze A.G. How many people in Aburlria would bury money gained from the practice of one’s profession, and then disclose the fact and its location to another? A.G., however, was a trifle concerned about the whereabouts of the Wizard of the Crow. Was he in America or Aburlria?

Njoya and Kahiga were troubled by the whole business and would rather have had nothing to do with it. Since learning that the Wizard of the Crow had not returned from America, they brooded on the threats made by his other; she would no doubt hold them accountable for his disappearance. Not a day went by without their worrying about retribution. Was the mission a setup on her part?

Tajirika saw a trap. Why would anybody bury money anyway? What if someone had already unearthed and taken it away? What if the whole thing was a sorcerer’s joke? How could he go back to the Ruler empty-handed? It was clear to him, no matter how he looked at it, that the Wizard of the Crow had put him in a terrible fix.

He had no particular destination. What they were looking for, according to Tajirika, was a bush among countless bushes. The Wizard of the Crow had not described the particulars; he had just talked about a bush in the prairie not too far from Santalucia. Where exactly should their search begin?

“True, Haki ya Mungu, we stayed in the prairie for I don’t know how long, digging holes in the ground like ants,” A.G. said. “Nobody from Santalucia or anywhere came to question or trouble us in any way. We were fatigued by the routine, searching and digging day and night, endlessly. I took it upon myself to tell the others, Listen to me: even God when he created Heaven and Earth rested on the seventh day, but we have already worked for more than seven days. What are we trying to prove? Only Tajirika demurred; we accused him of opposing rest because he did no work except move from bush to bush, and hearing this he took a pickax and started digging furiously to show us how a man should apply himself. We stood by and watched him dig nonstop like a crazy person, till he collapsed in one hole and we had to drag him out, and I tell you, by then we were so exhausted that we too collapsed beside the body of our leader, falling asleep.”

They slept for several days. What met their eyes when eventually they woke up were endless anthills, like mounds of earth, scattered all over the prairie. Kahiga and Njoya suggested that Tajirika should call the State House to let the Ruler know that they had been unable to find the bags of dollars. Tajirika fiercely objected and adamantly insisted: “We must continue with digging until we find the money.” Njoya and Kahiga were just as adamant that the digging of holes should be left to archaeologists, prospectors, and miners of precious metals. All visible terrain had been dug up to no avail. They would sooner rob a bank than lift another pickax.

Tajirika begged them to persist one more day, but really they were weak and had lost all hope. A.G., who had not taken sides in the dispute, now intervened and told them all that he was tired of their endless wrangling, that while he would abide by whatever decision they arrived at, for now he simply wanted some space to himself: he stood up and started walking deeper into the bush.

Kahiga and Njoya followed him so as not to break the law that bound them to keep an eye on one another. Tajirika ran after them, imploring them not to shun their duty or leave him in the prairie alone. Not that he himself had much energy left.

When he came to this point in his narrative, A.G. would pause and ask his audience dramatically: Why do you