Since their return to Eldares and despite the occasional policeman who came for magic, they had felt as if an invisible wall protected Nyawlra from the gaze of the enemy. But since Kaniuru’s visit, she felt as if the wall had suddenly collapsed.
“If they ever come for me,” Nyawlra said, breaking their silence about those fears, “assure me that you will never give up the shrine.
Promise me that you will keep faith with the way of the Seven Herbs of Grace.”
“Please stop talking like that. As long as you are hiding among the people, no enemy shall spot you.”
“There is no escape from a spy camped in your courtyard,” Nyawlra said, in a resigned mood. “I don’t know how long I can keep up playing different characters and changing costumes. A cautionary measure is not a measure of cowardice. I would feel more at ease if I could extract that promise from you,” Nyawlra said.
“What kind of a healer would I be were I to abandon those who seek promises of life amid the threats of death? As for the Seven Herbs of Grace, they are a way and that way belongs to us all. I will also extract a promise from you. If ever they took me away, make sure that the work of the Wizard of the Crow goes on.”
“Don’t say that,” she said.
“Okay let’s stop talking as if we are saying farewell,” Kamro said. “You are not going anywhere, Nyawlra. And neither am I. We are secure in our shrine.”
They hugged and clung to each other even longer, as if they wanted to seal that sense of eternal security with an eternal embrace.
“It’s back to work,” Nyawlra said, finally pushing him away.
“Let me appeal,” said Kamltl, still clinging to her hands.
“Against going back to work?”
“The recent ban on checking each other’s scars in daytime.”
“Not in daytime, in the evening,” she said.
They always looked forward to their mutual explorations, but now the lingering feeling that she could be captured intensified the hunger.
But in the evening, when all the clients and workers had gone and she thought the exploration would soon begin, Nyawlra spied Kahiga and Njoya in the yard.
“Let me talk to them,” Kamltl said, trying to calm her with a confidence he did not feel. “Stay hidden here, ready to flee. You know our agreed signal and the path to take.”
10
“Listen,” Njoya told the Wizard of the Crow, “the Minister of State wants to see you tonight.”
“What does he want?”
“We are only messengers.”
“Go back to the one who sent you and tell him that he is very welcome to visit me in my shrine,” the wizard told them. “If I am to administer to his needs…”
“He has no need of healing,” explained Kahiga.
“So why does he seek me out?”
“He is simply issuing an invitation,” said Njoya.
“You will be his personal guest. A guest of honor,” Kahiga added.
“Tell him that though I am honored by his invitation, he needs to propose a date and time that are good for him and me.”
Njoya and Kahiga looked at each other, wondering how they were going to make the sorcerer nicely understand that he had no choice in the matter.
Njoya cleared his throat and said, “Mr. Wizard of the Crow, we know that you may not be too
Hardly had Njoya and Kahiga recovered from their amazement at this witch doctor who spoke not only good English but also the latest lingo in town when they saw the Wizard of the Crow start walking back to the house as though his business with them was finished.
“Hey, wait a minute,” they shouted in unison, and the Wizard of the Crow stopped.
“Is it your intention to arouse my wrath?”
“Oh, no, no, nothing of the sort,” Kahiga quickly explained, made uneasy by the menace in the wizard’s voice. “But you know how it is in our country. A citizen cannot refuse an invitation from the government without good reason.”
Why this odd mixture of fear and authority on the part of the police officers? wondered Kamltl. Had they really come to arrest him, or was the whole thing a cruel sport, their intention all along being to pounce on Nyawlra? Kamltl pondered his options. Play the angry Wizard of the Crow, threatening fire and brimstone? But suppose they called his bluff? Befuse to go? They could still drag him away by force. Besides, resistance might make them suspicious and lead them to probe more deeply into the affairs of the shrine. Suppose they raided the shrine and captured Nyawlra? He would never forgive himself. Far better for them to take him away from her hiding place.
“Is that so?” the Wizard of the Crow asked innocently. “Wait just where you are; I shall be ready in no time,” he told them, aware that if they had come to arrest him they would not let him out of their sight.
And sure enough one of them did make a move to follow him, but the Wizard of the Crow turned around and glared at him.
“Are you sure you want to follow me? Cross my magic lines?”
“Oh, no! No!” both police officers said in unison. “Take all the time you want, Mr. Wizard of the Crow.”
He went straight to Nyawlra and apprised her of the situation, instructing her to stay under cover until he and his newfound acquaintances left the compound.
“It is better this way,” the Wizard of the Crow told her. “It takes their noses away from the shrine and you.”
As the Wizard of the Crow and the police officers were about to leave, Nyawlra suddenly emerged from the shadows and ran toward them, an open gourd in her left hand and a fly whisk in her right. The threesome stopped in their tracks. The play of light and shadow on Nyawlra made her look otherworldly. She stood in front of them without saying a word, and for a moment Kamltl thought she had lost her mind. Where was the Nyawlra he left cowering speechlessly? Why was she doing this? Nyawlra then dipped the fly whisk into the gourd and shook it over their heads while chanting incantations.
“If he comes back with even one strand of his hair missing, I will hold you two accountable, accountable, accountable.”
She circled them and repeated her ritual time and again and with different variations on the same warning.
At the end of the seventh round, she stopped abruptly and stood a few inches from their stupefied faces. Then, slowly and firmly, as if she did not want them to miss any of her words, she said:
“And should he become a missing person, you who took him away shall be swallowed by this earth thus!”
And, saying so, she raised high the bowl and poured the remaining water onto the earth.
“Or break into pieces like this calabash!” And she crushed the calabash to the ground.
She then ran back into the house.
Njoya and Kahiga stood motionless; when they tried to lift their feet, it was as if their legs were chained to the ground.
“Don’t worry,” the Wizard of the Crow told them. “She is my guardian spirit. My eye of life. As gentle as a lamb.
