Shadow Speaker

Desert Magician Smoke

You again.

Why do you keep coming back? You are seeking something within these pages. But you’re only going to dig up more questions, and they will make you itchy. And prickly. Like mental heat rash. A distant discomfort. An inflammation of the imagination. You’ll have to choose your own way.

I built this bonfire for you. Sit there, warm your nyash and soul. You’ve come a long way just to see the Desert Magician, no? Well worth the trip. This is important. I can make water spring from where there is none. Watch and see. Be amazed.

Sit up straight. I don’t enjoy looking at you all slumped over like that. You look like one of those nonsense vultures roaming the sky out there. When they land they stand all slumpy slump, like so. The damn things can barely walk, though they glide in the sky more perfectly than machinery. Beautiful beasts. Make good stew, too. Their meat is sweet; melts in your mouth. They’re easy to catch on nights like this, when the desert is still hot and dry after the sun has set.

You smell that dry air? It clears the sinuses. Prepares the ears. Opens the brain. You need water? Well, watch the magician at work. Watch closely. Give me that cup behind you while you let me answer the question in your mind: yes, it’s made of bone. Now, watch my hand. I dig it in the sand like this, fingers first. See how the hole fills up and all I have to do is dunk the cup in and scoop out as much as you want. Here, take. Drink. It’s cool. It’s fresh.

You are smart, but more importantly, you are lucky. That’s the plight of your kind. Human beings. You all stumble about each world, kicking and stomping and breaking and somehow, hearty and resilient, you live. And get comfortable. You relax. You get rested. Clarity comes. You invent. You enjoy. Then you kill. And then you kill again.

See my feet? Do you have any idea where these feet have been? The bottoms of them are as thick as the borders between here and there are thin. I have walked the tops of the Air Mountains, strolled down the streets of Kwàmfà, danced in a parade in Agadez, left dirty footprints in the halls of the Ooni Palace, marched behind masquerades in Arondizuogu, and of course, I have sauntered across the hot sands of many deserts.

I have heard firsthand about the beginning. Small small groups of you called it Original Sin. But that’s some bullshit. You didn’t come from any clay. Your ancestors never ate a magic apple. If they did, the man would eat first. If woman found the Apple of Knowledge, she wouldn’t share it. And she’d eat it in the sunshine. All the way to the core. And then look for more.

Mmm mmm, smoke oily sweet. Watch how it creeps over the fire. See how it does not dissipate. See? It forms a small billowing cloud, like a giant ball of gray cotton. Now look into it and see. More killing here, more killing there. Heh heh, it’s amusing. You may be my people, but not really. I don’t care much for you. All I care about is a good story.

Once in a while I’ll jump in there, stir up the detritus, move things along, kick up some water. Is that not the Desert Magician’s job? Make water appear where there is none? Without water, do things not grow dry and cracked, immobile?

Let it begin in the way many things begin, with an egg. Sit back and make sure you’re comfortable because you aren’t going anywhere for a while. I will give you what you’ve come for. See my duology unfolding in the smoke. The change will be great, like thunder. Ah, you will think you’ve landed on another planet, maybe another dimension. Or a place that will never exist, right? How else can you explain the fact that you’ve arrived in an African future? One that is so specific, so real. You can see it on the map, right there. How do you even pronounce its name?

Cough if the unfamiliar concept irritates your throat. Cough some more. And now relax because it is here. The water where there once was none. Smooth, clean, refreshing, cool, and maybe just a tiny bit bitter. You’ve been warned.

Welcome to Book One.

Prologue

Ejii was on her bed typing into her e-pal when the ground began to shake. From the kitchen, Ejii heard the clank-bang of a pot falling and then her mother’s shout of surprise.

“Mama!” she shouted, dropping her e-pal and rolling off the bed to a crouching position on the floor. She listened, sweat forming on her forehead, her eyes darting around her room. Two books on her desk were shaken to the floor. The model globe on her dresser bounced onto its side and bumped against the wall. The clothes in her closet danced on their hangers. Outside her bedroom window, the red-flowered tree growing there softly quivered to the rhythm of the Earth.

“Come on!” her mother shouted, now standing at the door. “Out . . . outside! I don’t know what this is!”

Ejii was too afraid to move. The ground joggled her about, even as she crouched. She heard the crash of things falling and, outside, people screaming and crying things like:

“Oh Allah, save us!”

“Please, not again!”

“Take us into your arms, o!”

“Come on,” her mother said again, this time more softly as she held out her hand.

Ejii fought her surety that this time the world really was ending; that the Sahara Desert was finally finishing what it started, swallowing up the rest of what was there. Then the room darkened. She felt them press against her, almost pushing her up. The shadows. Ejii grabbed her e-pal and ran with her mother to the front of the house. She tripped over a fallen chair, her mother stumbled over a framed family painting, they both leapt over a toppled houseplant and a large beaded ebony mask, the groans and shakes of the Earth slamming them against the walls.

When her mother threw the door open, Ejii saw that outside was chaos, too. Everyone had run out, sure that this was finally the end of days. A young child stumbled about crying, his father chasing after him. People dropped to and hugged the ground, praying to whichever gods they prayed to. A woman tried to stop her roaring camel from running off. Other camels lumbered in large circles, confused and horrified. A brown goat stood defecating and several chickens huddled against a child’s legs.

Two men, even as the Earth shook, tried to salvage the round stacks of flatbread that had fallen from their cart. Another man laughed wildly, as he stared at the sky where many birds and bats circled. Ejii also spotted a windseeker woman flying with the birds. She could see that the windseeker’s face was wet with tears. The windseeker wailed and flew even higher, several bats and birds following her like babies following their mother.

Others just stood, as Ejii and her mother now did, looking south, past the houses and buildings and palm and monkey-bread trees, into the Sahara Desert. Something was coming. Ejii could see it far better than everyone around her.

Something green.

A green egg on the horizon.

As it grew, the earthquake subsided. Soon everyone was looking. The greenness spread over the sky, quickly approaching them. Ejii grasped her mother’s hand and touched the amulet that hung from her neck with her other hand. “Inshallah,” her mother whispered. Then the green wave came with a WHOOOOSH! Its wind pushed everyone a few steps north, only the toddlers and the very old fell to the ground. Palm trees bent northward and monkey-bread trees lost all their fruits.

The strength of the wave forced Ejii to inhale deeply as it passed. It smelled of a thousand roses blooming at the same time in the same place for the same reason. She sneezed and looked at her mother and they both pressed closer to each other. It wasn’t the end. It was another beginning. But of what?