16

The name Wizard of the Crow kept cropping up during Tajirika’s ordeal in captivity: his torturers kept on asking the same question over and over again, which irritated Tajirika so much that once, despite the pain and the fear of more lashes, he shouted back at his then nameless and invisible torturers.

“What more do you want to know about the Wizard of the Crow that I have not already told you? Should I tell you that he is maker of Heaven and Earth?”

“Just tell us everything. When, where, and how you first met; what he wore that day; the exact words he uttered on the day you met, and most important, whether you ever met with him again …”

“Who? Machokali or the Wizard of the Crow?” Tajirika asked, now confused, for he had met the Wizard of the Crow only once.

Their interrogation regarding the Wizard of the Crow and even Machokali was just pretext. The torturers were after bigger fish: they wanted a word, a gesture, that would lead them to Nyawlra, the woman who had awakened women’s daemons, which in turn had awakened Rachael’s daemon, now prowling her prison plantation at night, an illumination for all who lived around to see.

Nyawlra, a woman who could raise female and male daemons at once, was dangerous, a menace to Aburlria. It was necessary to hunt her down by any means so as to comply with orders repeated by the Ruler with ever-increasing urgency and desperation and last uttered just a few minutes before he boarded the plane for the USA, a large entourage, including his official biographer with his giant pen and book, and his security team, now including Arigaigai Gathere, accompanying him: Give me Nyawlra; look for her here on earth or in the land of the spirits.

“True! Haki ya Mungu!” A.G. would pause in his narrative to swear. “I was one of the security specially chosen to accompany the Ruler to America, and I was standing close by, at the airport, and I heard him tell Sikiokuu: By the time I come back from America, I want that woman, Nyawlra, in my arms …”