Wizard of the Crow

12

“True! Haki ya Mungu! Sitting there, outside the chamber, alone, without anybody with whom I could share my feelings, I posed similar questions to myself, but it was hard. Imagine what it means for a person to wrestle with his own thoughts without a soul to help him deal with the numerous whys and hows in his mind or help him sort out fact from fiction? Imagine brooding like this day in, day out, in light and darkness!”

What A.G. kept on reviewing in his mind was the two-line letter that the Wizard of the Crow had written to Machokali. He grew obsessed with one phrase: Take care. A.G. recalled what the Wizard of the Crow had spluttered in a drunken haze that day at the bar: My note was addressed to one person and one person only, Machokali, the Minister for Foreigners, I mean, Affairs. And I just wanted to tell him… Take care of yourself.

“True! Haki ya Mungu, the Wizard of the Crow had foreseen all this!” A.G. would shout when later he told the story of those times.

But what exactly had the wizard foreseen? The more he turned the matter over in his head, the more A.G. became inclined to dismiss the thought that the Wizard of the Crow was the author of the minister’s disappearance. The unthinkable began to force itself on him, tentatively implicating the Ruler. Before the disappearance, A.G. did not see the contradiction between his belief in the Ruler, God, and the Wizard of the Crow, seeing the three entities as embodying ideals somehow beneficial to humans. But now for the first time he had serious doubts. So although he would have liked to have company, he stopped wishing for any, for how could he share these thoughts? I would rather struggle with my doubts, he said to himself, and keep any answers to myself. Perhaps, after all, this was the work of Ma-chokali’s archrival, Sikiokuu, the Minister of State.

“The strange thing was that while my brain was muddled with numerous questions, I always recalled with clarity Machokali’s raising his hand and waving to me as if to say good-bye. Who would be disappeared next? Only the Wizard of the Crow knew for sure, and he was saying nothing but the word if.”

A.G.’s hope of finding out lay in the restoration of the voice of the Wizard of the Crow.

13

Sikiokuu, who did not know that the sorcerer had been stricken with the malady of words, anxiously awaited what he would say. Instead of joy at the disappearance of his nemesis, Sikiokuu was shaken when he learned that the minister was missing. He recalled their last time together at the State House. After the three policemen had departed, Sikiokuu was first to leave; the Ruler, Machokali, Tajirika, and Kaniuru staying behind. What happened after he left? he now wondered. Were Tajirika and Kaniuru connected somehow to the disappearance of the minister?

However much he wanted to inquire of them, he thought the better of it. If Machokali was murdered, had Tajirika or Kaniuru been entrusted with the deed? Sikiokuu started worrying about himself. What if the Wizard of the Crow had told the Ruler of Sikiokuu’s ambition, which he had divined? The more Sikiokuu thought about it, the more he too appeared to be in danger. Should he flee to another country? Or walk into a Western embassy in Eldares and apply for political asylum? But how would he explain the danger facing him?

And so he grew desperate to know what the Wizard of the Crow had said. He tried to consult with his former subordinates, Njoya and Kahiga, to buy information from them, but they were always in the State House.

He was wallowing in these anxieties when he received a summons to the State House, his first invitation since the reported disappearance. Expecting the worst, he was relieved to learn that he was only being asked to abridge the original Report on Acts of Treason and amend it to link Machokali with forming queues, part of his alleged plan to overthrow the legitimate government of the Ruler.

When later his summary became the basis of the government statement implicating Machokali in plans for a coup d’etat, Sikiokuu said to himself: So it was the report on treason that had led Machokali into trouble? He felt a little guilty because he knew that a lot of the evidence and citations in the report were pure fabrications extracted from Tajirika through torture. But the relief and guilt gave way to outrage when he realized that the report might have contributed not only to Tajirika’s governorship of the Central Bank but also to his even more enviable position of always being next to the ears of the Ruler. Tajirika could say anything he wanted to the Ruler. What was to prevent him from whispering words against Sikiokuu, who had tortured him? If Kaniuru, his ex-protege, could turn against him, why not Tajirika, his ex-prisoner? Best to brace himself for the wrath to come! If the Ruler could do what he did to Rachael, his own wife, confine her to a golden prison for years and years without mercy, no amount of loyal service would restrain him.

So in those days Sikiokuu went through emotional highs and lows, but mostly lows because of the closeness of the Wizard of the Crow, Tajirika, and Kaniuru to the Ruler. Of the three, the one who terrified him most was the wizard, for he alone knew of Sikiokuu’s secret ambition.

14

Kaniuru, too, waited on the Wizard of the Crow. As he looked back to the night the sorcerer was brought to the State House, he found many things unclear. What a coincidence that Machokali should vanish on the very day the Wizard of the Crow was found? What, if any, was the connection between the two events? He recalled being excused to leave after Sikiokuu, which he did reluctantly, for it meant Machokali and Tajirika remaining behind to bask in the glory of greatness. What happened after his departure? he now wondered. Did Tajirika have a hand in Machokali’s disappearance? Had the new governor been tasked with dispatching the minister? At the thought Kaniuru felt a mixture of fear and envy. If Tajirika had been so entrusted, he was very close indeed to the Ruler, which meant that he would have even greater clout in the future. Kaniuru feared retaliation for the misery he had caused Tajirika and his family; he was angry with himself for not having foreseen that the chairperson of Marching to Heaven might well turn out to be a trusted keeper of the gate.

He tried to figure out how to make amends with Tajirika, but in vain. What consoled him in the weeks that followed was to know that the findings of his commission on the queuing mania were being used by the government to explain away the minister’s disappearance. But when he thought that the false confessions attributed to Tajirika may have contributed to the man’s rise to the top of those controlling the circulation of money in Aburlria, Kaniuru ‘s heart sank. He could outsmart Tajirika and seize more power for himself only by crushing all the queues old and new by apprehending Nyawlra before his other rival Sikiokuu did. The Ruler had already congratulated Kaniuru for teaching those racist, meddlesome foreign journalists a lesson or two, but this had been done privately. Were he to bring in Nyawlra, the Ruler would no doubt congratulate him in public to greater acclaim.

But only the Wizard of the Crow could lead him to Nyawlra, and that is why he was eager to hear what the wizard had proclaimed. For him, information had literally been power. That was why he was restless for not having the slightest clue as to what had transpired in the State House. He tried to make contact with his erstwhile assistant, Kahiga, but pointlessly. Kahiga was always at the State House, and there was no way of getting in without an invitation or a permit.

And then one day, while bathing, he jumped out of the bath and ran around the room, naked, shouting Eureka! at the top of his voice. He would crush a certain number of queues every week and then request to visit the State House to report his weekly progress. He would have a weekly audience with the Ruler and while there would try to see Kahiga and buy from him the information he so desperately needed. He was certain that he would find out what the Wizard of the Crow had disclosed about Nyawlra. Eureka! he shouted again.