by Dilman Dila
“No,” the mayor said. “But we need his cooperation to find the boy.”
The priest now ignored the mayor. His authority surpassed that of the elected official. He had all along led the hunt for Benge, and now that Benge was in his sight, he could not let the chance go. He turned to the men.
“Kill him,” he said.
Several men squeezed the trigger buttons. The guns made low popping sounds as finger-length arrows shot out. Benge muttered a protection spell. He did not flinch as the arrows whizzed past his ears. The men glanced at their weapons in confusion, unable to believe how such a sophisticated technology could miss the target. Each gun had a miniature screen at the top. The men tapped Benge’s image on the screen, identifying him as the target, and fired again. This time, the arrows gathered an inch in front of Benge’s face. He suspended them in the air for several moments, and then let them drop.
Another bolt of lightning struck the burning tree. The men pressed their fingers into their ears, but when the thunder came, the sound knocked them all off their horses. Benge remained standing. He glared at the parrot. Acii wriggled her tail again.
The Cuku scrambled to their feet, and staggered about in a daze, clutching their ears in agony. The priest touched his tongi and broke into loud prayers, asking Oks to strike the witch dead, but Oks did not exist.
Thousands of years ago, a king, wary of the power of magicians, had created this god and banished magic from his kingdom. He decreed that everyone should worship only Oks. Over the years his religion had become popular. The book he wrote became holy, and was believed to contain the absolute truths of life.
As the priest prayed, the mayor staggered to Benge.
“We need your help,” his voice croaked as though he had not tasted water in a year. “But I have to make you a prisoner. Please, understand. It’s the only way we can work together.”
Benge nodded in agreement.
#
Benge rode in a prisoner’s cage attached to the mayor’s horse. The twenty gunmen and the priest rode behind him. The landscape changed drastically from a lush green to a desolate wasteland as they neared Chokon town. Oksism philosophy told the Cuku that this world was a temporal home, that it was the kingdom of the evil Wiir and that their real home was a paradise somewhere beyond the stars. Having abandoned magic, they adopted destructive technologies to run their lives; cutting down trees, building factories that spewed poison into the air, making machines that filled the water with filth. The river just outside the town had become a sewage canal. They burrowed into the earth looking for mineral fuel for their robot horses and flying ships, leaving a wake of destruction. They did not care that the amount of rainfall was dropping, the droughts lengthening, the crop yields getting poorer, or that the desert was creeping upon them. After all, Oks would soon take them to paradise.
Benge and his captors entered the town. The brightly colored box shaped buildings gave Chokon a rainbow façade. A bright green temple stood in the middle, towering over all the other buildings. It had twelve spires, each with a clock ticking an incessant hymn. A pillar soared in front of the temple. It held up high a giant tongi, making it visible for miles all around. The courthouse, with a scale of justice on the roof, stood opposite the temple.
It might have been a beautiful town, but piles of cables ran over the streets, snaking off poles and into buildings in messy crisscrosses. The excrement of marabou storks smeared the walls. Hundreds of the birds, attracted by the garbage, graced the rooftops, along with a multitude of tall disc-shaped aerials that tapped communication signals from the city five hundred miles away.
Faces peered out of the round windows, people crowded the oval doors, small groups stood on the dusty pavements, watching the mayor drag in the witch. Nobody dared go into the road, where the ghost carriage had left tracks on the stones. The mayor stopped on reaching the tracks. He climbed down from his horse and opened the cage, letting Benge out. The priest and the twenty men stopped too, their guns drawn.
Benge knelt beside the tracks. Someone threw a stone at him. It bounced off his shield without harming him.
“Stop it!” the mayor said.
“He’s a witch!” someone screamed. “Why do you bring him into our holy town?”
Benge did not pay any attention to the shouting. He touched the track. A psychic flash of light hit him.
He saw a green carriage, a noosed rope taking a boy, a different boy who was a little younger than Raluf. Benge knew him too. Acii’s mother was a slave in the boy’s house. The carriage vanished into a plume of dust, and materialized in a diary farm. He recognized it from the aerogenerator with blue blades.
“Nurda’s farm,” he said to the mayor. “Take me there.”
“What?” the mayor said, barely audible for his voice had dropped to a shocked whisper. “Nurda’s farm?”
“We have to search it,” Benge said.
He had not had a vision of the past, but of the future. The carriage would come again to take another boy. But why?
“Are you sure?” the mayor said, still whispering in disbelief. “Nurda is –” he broke off. Benge knew what he wanted to say. Nurda was a cousin to the priest. Their family had founded the town over a hundred years back. It had become a tradition for their clan to fill the most important positions in the temple.
All along, Benge had assumed a fellow Twa ajwaka had taken the boy. There were about a dozen scattered all over the Cuku Empire. They did not practice evil magic. They used their powers only for good, with utmost restraint and secrecy. But one of them might have turned rogue and kidnapped the boy. It had been a viable theory until now.
A Cuku practicing magic was unheard of. They were all Oksians. A few, like the mayor, consulted Twa ajwakas in secret, but they were incapable of practicing magic. Now, Benge had to entertain the idea of a Cuku sorcerer, however farfetched it seemed. There was no way a Twa could practice magic in a place so close to Benge’s home without Benge knowing about it.
“Okay,” the mayor said. “Let’s go.”
Benge took a step toward the cage, but the priest’s horse blocked his way.
“Where are you going?” the priest asked.
He had let the mayor bring Benge into town because he thought they were going to torture Benge into revealing the location of his house and the boy, and then lynch him.
“He knows where the boy is,” the mayor said.
“Is he confessing?” the priest said.
The mayor turned to Benge. “Are you confessing?” he asked.
Benge did not answer. He did not have to subject himself to humiliation. He could teleport himself out of the town if he wanted to, but he had a plan. It was time to shake the people’s faith in Oks, and begin the campaign to win the minds of the Twa.
“Put me in jail,” he said to the mayor. “You go search that place.”
“Not jail,” the priest said. “The pillar.”
A grate sat at the base of the pillar that towered in front of the temple. On this grate they burnt offerings to Oks, and they destroyed with fire all things they believed to be evil.
“Don’t worry about me,” Benge said to the mayor. “You go find that boy.”
They strapped Benge to the pillar. The grate was cold and wet. He squinted as the sun shone into his face. He searched the crowd for Acii, but did not see her. When a cloud quickly swept across the sun, throwing a shade upon the town, he knew she was nearby, watching him. She had to be one of the marabou storks on the rooftops, still a child, still his apprentice, but for the moment his protector.
He could not do anything about the dust. It rose every time a breeze blew, clogging his nose and mouth. Sweat stuck to his back. He felt as though a sticky porridge had drenched him. He hated the odor, which wafted from the overflowing garbage bins and from the river turned sewage canal.
He recognized some of faces gathered on the temple steps, the Twa slaves and Cuku liberals who sought his help in secret. Uncertainty wavered in their eyes.
They wondered if he had kidnapped the boy, if indeed he was evil.
The mayor jumped on his horse, and took ten men with him. He did not tell the priest where he was going, but the priest did not seem eager to find out. They went off in a cloud of dust. The sound of metal hooves echoed long after they had vanished.
Then a silence fell, broken only by the chorus of the twelve ticking clocks. The priest walked into the temple. The spangles on his boots jingled. He returned with a jar of holy oil. The crowd burst into a lynch hymn. They sang for several minutes, and then the priest raised a hand. The singing stopped.
“In the pillar of Oks,” he said, “the power of evil shall not prevail.”
“Emona!” the crowd roared.
He poured some of the oil into the grate, and the rest of it onto Benge. It was cold and greasy. Lightning flashed, thunder blasted into the town. Acii was warming up to protect Benge. A stork spread its wings towards the sky, standing still, its eyes fixed on him. He gave a slight shake of his head. Don’t do it. He could not read the expression on its face. The priest looked up at the sky, a frown of worry knitted on his brows. The memory of the freak thunder showed on his face, interwoven with the knowledge that Oks would not come to his aid.
The crowd degenerated into delirious singing and prayers, calling upon Oks to destroy evil and return Raluf safely home. But some people, his secret visitors, were silent, watching with confusion on their faces.
“I am not evil,” Benge whispered. He used magic to ensure everybody heard him. A sudden hush fell upon the town. “If Oks stands for good, then I am a servant of Oks. I heal the sick. I help the bereaved to find peace. I nurse wounded minds back to sanity. I never kidnap little boys.”
“He’s charming us!” the priest shouted.
He pressed a button on the igniter in his palm. Fire leapt out of the grate and licked Benge’s feet. Flames ran all over his body, but they died out almost at once. He was unhurt. His clothes unburnt. The fire sizzled in the grate, weak and harmless.
The crowd let out a collective gasp of shock and stepped away from the pillar. The priest continuously pressed the igniter button, but the fire stayed in the grate. Shouting the name of Oks, the priest fled into the temple.
“If I were evil,” Benge continued in a soft voice, “then surely Oks would have destroyed me. But look, he saved me.”
He had to play on their beliefs. It was too early to tell them that Oks was a fallacy. He had to make them believe he was a servant of Oks. Gradually, he would win the minds of the Twa. They would come to see him, and other ajwakas, as the true servants of Oks, and that Cuku priests merely used Oksism to ensure their subjugation to slavery.
“This pillar bears the power of Oks,” he said. “I should be roasted by now, but Oks protected me. He asks me to deliver to you a simple message. You’ve been deceived for long. The book has been misinterpreted. Today, you’ll see the true servant of Oks.”
The priest ran out of the temple, this time with a bigger jar of oil, which he poured on Benge. But not a drop fell on the prisoner. The oil splashed onto the stones, and ran into the grate, fanning the flames, which did not harm Benge.
“The book says that Oks forbade making symbols of him,” Benge continued. He pointed at the tongi on top of the pillar. “Why then do you worship that?”
Acii understood the cue. A bolt of lightning struck the tongi. It exploded, showering the crowd with concrete and dust. People fled from the temple, screaming.
“The book says your body is the temple of Oks,” Benge said, again projecting his voice above the clamor. “Why then do you treat this building as the temple?”
A second bolt of lightning struck the temple, setting its roof on fire. Sirens blared. The priest ran into the building to save his valuables. The crowd fled from the street. Within a few seconds, the street was empty. Benge broke the chains binding him to the pillar and stepped off the grate. The pillar disintegrated into a pile of rubble.
He jumped on the priest’s horse, and galloped fast out of the town. A marabou stork flew beside him until they were out of sight. Then it jumped onto the seat behind him, and materialized into Acii.
“Where are you going?” she said.
“To Nurda’s farm,” he said.
“Why do you use this?” she said. “Teleporting is quicker.”
“I don’t know what lies there,” he said.
They used juju to travel faster than the actual speed of the robot and covered ten miles in about eight minutes. The mayor and his men were waiting at the gate, a giant red metal structure with tongi painted on it.
“I’ll stay out of sight,” Acii said. She leapt into the air, turning into a parrot. Benge thought it was her favorite bird. She flew ahead of him. He reached the gate just as an old slave swung it open. The mayor was not surprised to see Benge, but his men seemed terrified.
“How did you convince the priest to let you go?” the mayor said.
“I burnt his temple,” Benge said.
“You what?”
“The boy is not here,” Benge said.
“What?”
Benge galloped to the farm houses, scanning the air for spirits and juju. He found nothing out of the ordinary. Why then had he seen this farm in the vision? There were no horses or carriages in the barn. Hundreds of cows ate factory prepared food in the kraals. Scores of slaves milled about, cleaning the stalls, refilling bowls, milking cows. No sign of Raluf. He went through the slave quarters, the master’s cottage, and the visitor’s lodge. Nothing. He met the mayor and Nurda in front of the cottage. Nurda’s face was tense with anger. He had a gun in each hand.
“The culprit built a vision of this place to make me think the boy is here,” Benge said. “It’s an old trick and I fell for it.”
“So where is the boy?” the mayor asked.
“I don’t know,” Benge said. “I need fresh clues.”
#
Benge and the mayor waited until midnight, when the town was asleep and the streets empty, before continuing their investigations. The full moon sat just above the burnt temple roof, bathing one half of the street with light while the other sat in a shadow. The spangles in the mayor’s boots jingled as they walked down the road. Other than this, the night was silent. All the twelve clocks were damaged. For once their incessant song did not grace the town.
Benge could not find another clue.
“It will return,” he said. “It will take another boy. Chalina’s son.”
“When?” the mayor asked.
“I think tomorrow.”
“Should we send him out of town?” the mayor said.
“No,” Benge said. “Keep all the children indoors. Let’s prepare for a fight.”
#
Overnight, the division in the town surfaced. After Benge’s public demonstration, the liberals not only marginally grew in number but became bold enough to openly question Oksism. The conservatives interpreted what had happened to be a test of their faith. Wiir has powers, they argued. He rules this world. Sometimes Oks allowed him to prevail to test his followers.
The next morning, the priest accused the mayor of siding with evil. A mob formed in the ruined temple to lynch the mayor. The liberals, however, learnt of the plans to attack the courthouse, and gathered to support the mayor. When the mob started to march from the temple across the street to the courthouse, a barrage of arrows fell at their feet. No one was hurt. These were only warning shots. The conservatives retreated into the temple, and took position on the burnt rooftop, and in the windows. War erupted. Arrows flew across the street.
Benge and Acii were on a rooftop at the far end of the street, waiting for the carriage. They watched the events unfolding in the town with great dismay. The only advantage of the fight was that it left the streets empty, and it stayed that way until the carriage returned at noon.
The black substance appeared in the sky. Within a few seconds, darkness fell upon the town. Benge and Acii could still see the sun behind the clouds,
but it was just a pale disc. Screams rang all over. Windows slammed shut as people ducked into hiding. The priest broke into loud prayers.
Acii turned into a stork and soared. Her lightning blazed in the sky, but it could not penetrate the black substance. She summoned a mighty gale. It blew through the town, sweeping away storks and aerials, ripping off a few roofs, but the black substance did not move. As she huffed and puffed, a dust devil formed at the edge of town. It moved fast into the main street, growing larger and taller with each spin. Six horses jumped out, one pair after the other, and last came the carriage. It thumped into the street.
Benge jumped down and stood in the middle of the road. He held out his palms, chanting a spell to freeze the demon. The horses kept charging. A noosed rope darted out of the carriage and crashed into a window. Glass shattered. It vanished into a room, lengthening as it flew out of the carriage. The horses kept running at top speed. Their eyes, fixed on Benge, shone like pearls in the darkness. He conjured an invisible brick wall, but the beasts broke through with ease.
They knocked him aside. The contact sparked a bright flash of light. He fell, every inch of his body on fire as a psychic current unveiled the sorcerer in the carriage. Just as Benge had suspected the previous day, it was a Cuku. Still, the identity of the man behind it all shocked him. Kasito. One of the most holy Oksians he knew.
The horses raced through the town. Benge leapt to his feet, ignoring the pain, and pursued them. The rope came out of the room, a screaming boy tethered to it. His parents leaned out of the window in a desperate attempt to grab their son, but the rope was sucking him into the carriage, far out of their reach.
Acii turned into an eagle. She grabbed the rope with her talons and worried it with her beak. The rope tried to suck them both into the carriage. Benge spat a huge lump of mucus. It landed on the roof, sizzling, smoke spewed as wood burnt. The rope broke. The boy started to fall. Acii swooped down and grabbed him a moment before he smashed his head on the stone road.
Benge spat out another glob of mucus, thicker than before, to trap the carriage and prevent it from leaving, but he was a few seconds too late. The dust devil appeared. A portal opened, and Benge saw a tall red house with round green windows in the middle of a cotton field. The horses jumped in. The portal closed. The dust vanished.