Zaka’s eyes glittered in the light of the flames as he held up the softly glowing green jewel. ‘Torches!’ he commanded.
Some of the baboon guards shuffled towards the fire. Each lit one end of a long stick and then moved over towards the edge of the water. Zaka stood up and followed.
‘Go on!’ he growled. The first two guards lowered their flaming torches, swinging them close to the surface of the water. Several sets of crocodile eyes disappeared as the reptiles submerged and swirled away. Then, hopping clumsily over the stepping stones, the guards moved out towards the centre of the pool in a dark procession, waving their torches, their shadows looming huge on the roof of the cavern. Zaka followed, stepping carefully and using his carved walking stick till he reached the middle where a shelf below the rock platform gave the group room to stand.
Kubuka, held captive on the bank, could only watch miserably as the magician reached up with a flourish and fitted the missing stone into the V-shaped space on the edge of the soapstone platter. The magical glow faded. The calabash that lay in the centre of the dish seemed to become small and ordinary.
‘Naa haa ha!’ The man’s gloating laugh floated back over the water. Zaka raised his skinny arm and cried, ‘Behold! The dish is whole again! Now let us prepare for the ceremony of the Calling of Shirichena!’
He turned to face his troops on the bank. ‘Guards! Bring pots of beer and a nice fat buffalo calf! Today the power of Zaka will become greater than any other!’And he threw his head back to laugh once again.
Kubuka scowled. He wished Zaka’s stupid horned hat would fall off.
Then, just as Zaka and the guards had turned to leave the island, a gentle drum-beat started thrumming in the air. Kubuka pricked up his ears — the rhythm sounded familiar. Where had he heard it before?
Zaka stopped short, darting his eyes around. ‘Who sounds the drums?’ he shouted, ‘What for?’
The guards all stood still, looking about nervously as the sound grew louder, the pattern of the beat faster and more complex. The drumming seemed to be coming from all around.
Kubuka stared over at the rock where Zaka was standing with his two large baboon guards. A cloudy white glow was starting to form above the rock, right over the stone dish. The light grew stronger, flooding the cavern with pale radiance. Zaka turned slowly round to face it, his head back and his mouth open in surprise. As Kubuka watched, the light swirled, forming patterns, then slowly became a tall, slim shape covered in glittering feathers.
‘The Lady Shirichena!’ he gasped. And there she was, the figure from Kubuka’s dream in the ancient ruined city. But now he was wide awake and she seemed perfectly real, towering above the dish, hovering in the air, majestic, beautiful, pulsing with light.
The apparition lowered a harsh golden gaze upon Zaka, who stood transfixed on the step below. The guards cowered as the sound of drums hammered the air, then stopped.
Zaka broke the silence that followed the last rumbling echoes with a shout of triumph.
‘Aha! The Bird of Bright Plumage comes! The Lady comes to my bidding!’ And gleefully he shook his stick in the air.
Shirichena seemed to swell. Her shining golden robes swirled about her body and the creamy white crest around her neck and head flared out around her lovely face. Dark wings suddenly spread out on either side, enormous and threatening, then she lunged forward and screamed at Zaka, a wordless, ancient sound that froze the blood in Kubuka’s veins. The Lady was enraged!
Zaka leaped backwards, speared like a fish on the vicious glare of the Eagle Goddess. His foot missed the edge of the step and he slipped. Wailing loudly, his skinny arms whirling round and round, Zaka teetered on the edge of the step, then — splash! Into the dark water he fell.
His two baboon guards suddenly found their legs and, casting aside torches and spears, they bounded away on all fours with their tails in the air, across the stepping stones, up the bank and off towards the entrance tunnel as fast as they could move.
Rather than face the rage of a magical being more powerful than their master, the rest of the guards wasted no time in following, their hoarse shouts echoing round the walls of the cave and fading away as they disappeared into the darkness.
Kubuka found himself standing alone among a jagged pile of dropped weapons. Zaka was thrashing about wildly in the water, gurgling and gasping, his eyes popping in fear as he struggled to get to the nearest stepping stone. He hauled himself up just as the first of the crocodiles surfaced and glided forward, its eyes glinting red. Zaka had lost his horned headdress, his fearsome necklace of bones and teeth, and his walking stick. The top of his head showed bare and bald, shining wetly as he shrank away from the raging vision on top of the rock. Kubuka was delighted. Zaka looked very ordinary now, he thought – just like a wrinkly old human from any of the villages he’d seen. It certainly didn’t look like Zaka was in charge of anything now, least of all this magical creature.
Shirichena’s massive wings curved out and forward as she mantled over the stone dish on the rock.
‘Zaka!’ she cried in a high, ringing voice, ‘You dare to misuse the Feast Dish of Shirichena! Is this a gathering of the elders to hear the message of Mwari? It is NOT! I see no priests. I see only an empty calabash in this dish. Is this your offering, Zaka?’
With a contemptuous sweep of one powerful wing, the Eagle Goddess sent the calabash flying in Kubuka’s direction.
Zaka trembled, ‘Oh, no, of course not, not at all, great Lady,’ he snivelled, darting looks behind him as he retreated backwards, stone by stone, towards the bank.
‘Zaka! Beware the curse of Shirichena!’ she screamed, her golden eyes blazing. Zaka reached the shore but, not daring to turn his back on the winged fury, he scooted up the bank on his bony buttocks and slid behind the nearest large rock, like a cockroach trying to hide from the light.
But Kubuka had kept his eyes on the calabash as it went spinning up into the air and across the water towards him. Oh no! Was it going to smash to pieces on the rocks? It didn’t. Instead, it landed with a small splish in the water near the edge of the pool.
Quietly, Kubuka scuttled down to where he had seen it drop. He briefly scanned the surface of the water for signs of crocodile, then, taking a deep breath, he quickly fished out the half-floating calabash. At last! The magic calabash was his! But had Zaka seen him?
Apparently not. The goddess had folded her great wings and was standing tall, shedding light all round the cave, the beat of her sacred drums once more booming off the walls of the cavern. She raised one hand, two slim brown fingers pointing at the place where Zaka was hiding.
‘Evil man! Hear this! Never again call on The Bright One for your own purposes! As you value your miserable life, I say again, beware my curse!’
And with that, both the drums and the shining vision faded away. The stone platter lay empty on the rock, and the light from the fire turned the shadows once more to leaping black shapes.
Kubuka crept away from the water’s edge to hide, clutching his prize. The calabash’s short handle had a leather thong attached, so he slipped this over his head, to leave his hands free. The cave had become quiet once again, with just the sizzle and shift of burning logs. But Kubuka was very aware of the presence of Zaka somewhere over on the other side of the cave. He wished that Shirichena had thrown the evil magician to the crocs. How magnificent she was! Zaka had made a bad mistake, thinking the Lady would obey him. Kubuka grinned in the dark, remembering how foolish Zaka had looked after his dunking in the pool.
But now — what to do? How on earth was he, the bravest of all warrior monkeys, going to get out of this cave? Perhaps, thought Kubuka, it would be possible to sneak back to where the secret tunnel was before the guards returned to find out what had happened to their master.
Post published in: Arts