The Spear of Power

Legend told tales of the great Saai Waiwon Saput, who had lived and reigned for centuries. 

In his reign, mighty kingdoms in near and far lands would rise and fall. But his, only expanded and grew more powerful. 

His story travelled far and wide. Speculation over the source of his power had always burned and spread like wild bushfire. Some risking and even losing it all as they aimed to possess the truth about this well-guarded secret. None had succeeded. 

Until the dark sorcerer Usiz using his mirrors of sambu sand saw it in a haze! 

Throughout the Waiwon's reign, there were several constants. His grand hawk that always rested on his throne, the throne itself curved from the wood of the ancient flaming tree, his flamboyant headgear made of spotted ostrich feathers, his shoulder shukal made from the hard bark of a five-legged camel, his footstool covered with the skin of his first lion kill and his ivory spear the kuuki that had a pink diamond head that never left his presence.  

Only a few highly selected morni - the kingdom's warrior class - would handle these items. 

All held grand power. Together their magic completed the circle. 

The sorcerer Usiz had sent his warlbats on quests across time and space to bring specs of some of these items which he would stir in potions brewed to test their magic. So far, none of them had brought his slain dragon back to life. Not even a single breath. 

The warlbats - cursed winged fire-breathing creatures hatched from lizard eggs laid under a dragon - had however failed to obtain a piece of one item. The spear. 

They couldn't even get near it! Its magic seemed to repel them. It must have been well protected. And whenever Usiz sprinkled his sambu sand on his mirrors showing the Waiwon's court, the specs seemed to be pulled to the spear.

This was it. This was the item!

"But why the spear…?" he would wonder out loud to his dark shadows in the gloomy castle. "How could a mere spear contain the elixir of life?" 

It puzzled him. And it fueled his determination to possess it even more. 

"Our sorcery withers I fear," he would murmur to his shadows. His voice shaking in his wrinkled throat. "And soon we won't be strong enough… We need to strengthen our power, reign over all the other sorcerers and their magic. Through time and space. We need to live forever!" 

His voice would rise as he continued his speech. His shadows would hoover violently, their dusty cloaks floating in the darkness. 

"We need the spear!" he would roar repeatedly. "We need one of them," he would add. "And he will bring it to us!" 

One freezing night when the plan had been clear to him and the potions brewed to perfection, he gathered his shadows in the dungeons. 

"We need one of the young ones. Unharmed." Usiz roared. "Send the dragon. And let him never return if it is not with it! Or he will meet the same grim fate as his brother here." 

The mighty creature had been charmed to look more like a creature of the plains he was being sent to. This time around the potion had worked. Several such attempts had killed three before him. It was then released to roam the forests in search of a morni.

Years passed and the dragon had not come back. He had failed in his quest and so had resulted in living in the caves in the hills. Had he successfully passed across time? Had the sorcery worked? 

The sorcerer and his shadows lurked in the castle waiting and waiting… His gazes into the mirrors were clouded and hazy. For some reason, he couldn't see clearly. Was he being blinded by his flaming desires? 

" Our magic is weak... That's why the plan failed…" the sorcerer would constantly murmur under his breath. " Our magic is weak…" 

  The Saai morni accompanied by their young siblings usually grazed their cattle in the plains. When they moved or when heavy wind blew, you could hear the music of their iron cow bells as they swung from side to side. Every evening they would take the cows back to their nyatta. It was the rainy season. The grass was long and fresh in their lands removing the need for the pastoralists to move at present. 

Some afternoons when the cows were full, had drunk water from the streams and were resting, some of the boys would milk them, run deep into the forest and exchange the milk in a calabash for honey with the Roboo, the hunter-gatherers who did not have cattle of their own. The boys had learnt to whistle out loud while on top of the trees to attract the attention of their barter trade counterparts. Sometimes they would blow a horn and the tribe's young ones would come out to meet them for the exchange. The young morni would then return and share this sweet snack with their peers who had been left looking after the cattle. After all, if they didn't share it, they could be reported to their elders and this would come with dire consequences. Milking the cows while out grazing was strictly prohibited. It would mean less milk for the calves back in the nyatta and even less for the tribe. Their mischief would not go unpunished. 

Plus the honey was sweet. It was even sweeter when shared. 

The boys kept on with their mischief season after season. Sometimes they would receive less honey than they had anticipated. 

" We couldn't find more this time," the Roboo children would say. " It's like there are some creatures that have come to the forest and chased most of the bees away. We find some cobs rotting. Sometimes burnt. We will try to find more next time."  

"Then we will bring less milk!" the Saai children would answer back feeling cheated before taking the honey and running back to the plains. 

They did continue with their mischief though. Not knowing that deep in the forest, a dark sorcerer's plan was slowly cooking.  

"We cannot find totoo! We cannot find totoo!" the boys had run to the nyatta screaming one evening. 

Some were trying to wipe the honey off their lips. Others were rolling themselves and their hands in the grey dirt to mask its stickiness aiming to have it pass as river mud. They had gone into the forest to exchange their milk for honey and in their excitement on the way back, had forgotten to check on the little ones who usually trailed behind them in their adventures. 

They were not sure whether they had lost him on the way to the exchange or on the way back. They all couldn't agree on when they had seen him last. 

The morni and the tribe searched all night and day but couldn't find the boy. Only a piece of what seemed to have been his loin cloth had been found. Had he been consumed by the man-eating lions in the bushes? Or had the hyenas torn him apart? Could the enormous python have risen and stricken again? 

"My totoo is fighting in the belly of the python…" his mother wailed pulling her braided hair as she ran around like a mad woman. "My breasts are not even dry yet and my child is dying. I am going to hunt it, kill it and bring my child back." she threatened pulling a spear from a morni and running in the direction of the forest. 

The other women tried to stop her and held and consoled her. Sorrow gripped the tribe. The misery the woman displayed made it worse. 

Looking after young ones while out grazing was the responsibility of the older boys. And why were they milking the cows and conducting unauthorised trades? How could they leave the cattle poorly attended? An enemy could have attacked and rustled them. They even lost a child who worst-case scenario was already dead! 

As punishment, the herder boys' rights of passage were delayed. They would marry later than everyone else! How could they be men when they couldn't guarantee the safety of a child? Their parents were fined cows that were given as compensation to the lost child's parents. Some more cows were slaughtered at the altar to appease the spirits of the ancestors for the loss of the child and to ask for protection for the other children. 

Inside the dark castle, the sorcerer's shadows howled like werewolves on the full moon. 

The dragon now in its true form had finally flown back clutching a child in its claws. They had found their prey! It was younger than the sorcerer had intended, but this would do. It was better than nothing. 

" We will train him and send him back amongst his tribe. And he will bring the spear to us," the sorcerer whispered to his shadows before letting a loud shrill that shook the wasted castle. 

 Years had passed and the memory of little totoo had faded. Out in the wild, grave things do happen to little children. Their mother conceives and births another and another, nurses them, the sun rises and sets and the seasons come and go. 

"We saw Oole again today… We saw Oole again today!" the herders now young morni, some of the older ones already with wives would go back home telling the others. 

Their sightings would be dismissed as hallucinations. Or mirages under the scorching sun. The medicine man and seer would tell them that it was their conscience coming back to bite as punishment for them losing the poor child to his fate in the forest long time ago. 

"All evil is repaid under the same sun. What you see is your sins returning back to you," the muugo would caution them. "Tread carefully!" 

But it was true that they could see him. 

The boy would be sent by the sorcerer to watch the morni and to learn their ways riding the dragon Mb'e whose form almost resembled a cow now. His once rocky skin was smooth with his wings covered in gold plates. It was of utmost importance not to startle the tribe who would be repulsed by beasts in forms they hadn't encountered yet. 

Sometimes the boy would let the morni spot him. 

With time he began to talk to them telling them tales of the great castle he lived in and the many servants that tended to his needs as that is what the sorcerer had bewitched him to see of his prison, which he thought of as his home. 

In some visits, he would come adorned in warrior regalia. Displaying the huge riches he was bathing in sharing some of his bangles with the morni who even though startled at the beginning, had grown to trust him more as he didn't seem to want to harm them. He brought stories and gifts. And they enjoyed them. 

In the beginning, they would touch him to feel his flesh and ascertain that he was real and not a ghost. They would shake him and pinch him to see if he would flinch. 

"Shall we pierce him with a spear to see if he will bleed?" one had even suggested.

The morni had stopped sharing their encounters with the tribe as they knew they would not be believed. Until they started showing up with coveted items back in the nyatta. Then everyone was interested!

Even court members of the great Waiwon Saput. 

The boy's mother after several interactions had been sceptical though. 

"He feels cold," she had confided to her husband. "There is a place in him I cannot reach. He doesn't feel like the same boy. He doesn't feel like my totoo. He doesn't even want to stay. Only to come and go. " 

Her husband had dismissed her feelings. Time had passed and the boy had grown up with different experiences but was finally returning home were his thoughts.

"He will feel warm in time," he had told her. " You have birthed other children who took his place in your heart when you thought you had lost him. He will feel warm again. Give yourself time."

Plus the man had been receiving great gifts from his now found son. And his present good fortunes had elevated his position in the clan with many striving to enjoy his company. He would crack jokes and they would laugh. And he would tell them of the castles in the air he was building and they would all listen carefully sometimes even weighing in. You need to be near a mango tree to enjoy the ripe fruits fresh when they fall. His associates were resting in its shade. And the man was bathing in his newfound glory. And he wished for things to remain just the way they were. 

What had been taken from him was being repaid tenfold. Sometimes, bad things happen so that better things can happen was the sentiment in the nyatta. A cow has to die for you to get meat.

" I got kidnapped by an ancient tribe with strong magic and even greater wealth," Oole announced when he was finally summoned by the elders. " Their tribe was in decline and they needed children. I learnt their magic and now I share the wealth they have bestowed on me with you little by little. With all of you. They may have taken me out of the nyatta, but they did not take the nyatta out of me. Deep down my blood still burns Saai. And Saai I will always be! I come here to visit in my leisure time. And especially to see my mother whose milk gave me my first strength. Cattle over there can fly…Soon I will bring some of them to you. They have made me an emissary to other lands. And when they send me here officially, a new age will begin as this is the land I am from. The place I truly belong, " he would continue. 

The poor boy believed all he was saying. He was not aware that all this was the sorcerer's plan. 

The tribe would shake and jump in excitement at the thought of the immense wealth that would soon come their way. Maybe they would finally stop the occasional migration in search of pasture. Maybe even hire the Roboo to bring grass for their cattle. They could finally rest! 

They also had no reason to doubt. The boy had been coming for a few years now. And all seemed well with him. And they felt they could trust his intentions. 

His mother still had her doubts. But in time she had learnt not to share them. 

At one moment of weakness when the feeling had overwhelmed her, she had gone to the muugo for advice but had come back feeling even more defeated. The muugo who was boiling roots in strong metallic pots gifted by Oole, while adorning colourful bangles from him too had told her that he had already consulted with the spirits of the ancestors and they had welcomed the boy back to his tribe. That she had nothing to fear. 

"Even a cow might want to reject a calf suckled by another mother," he told her. 

In time, the skies had been changing. 

Some seasons, the rains had been failing. Drought and famine loomed in their land. Strange diseases were also afflicting them and their cattle. Many would die leaving empty skulls that painted their plains grim like landmarks of misery. All these combined were a grave threat to the tribe's power and prosperity. 

Weaker neighbours would attack and loot the little that remained. In such times Oole's help would come in handy. And in the future, sudden wealth from a distant land brought by one of their own would be the blessing many of them desperately needed. And an army of flying cattle would help protect them from their enemies. 

When the misery loomed greater, the elders sent by their tribesmen pressured the Waiwon to officially welcome the boy and crown him a grand morni in a ceremony to appease him and secure the future redemption that he would bring. 

Deeply embroiled in their troubles, they were all too blind to see the connection between the reappearance of the boy and the numerous calamities that were striking their lands. They needed to venerate the ancestors more so that they could be blessed with rain they thought. They needed to repent their sins. And the Waiwon determined to maintain the calm and maybe even seduced by the idea of greater power agreed. 

The Waiwon did not rule directly. The elders would convey their needs to the members of the court who would then convey them to the Waiwon. Some he would grant. Others he would deny. Especially those that would seem to threaten his power and prosperity. Otherwise, he didn't interfere in the day-to-day running of the Kingdom. 

The Waiwon however, had one constant demand. He commanded regular worship. At the beginning of every rainy season, the tribe held the Vua ceremony. They would gather in the circle, lay down flat and then later kneel head down and call out to him. 

"Waiwon, Waiwon, Waiwon!" 

The Waiwon would hold on to his spear the kuuki while sitting on his throne. His eyes would roll like those of one in a trance. Like one experiencing a huge surge of energy running through him. Those who had dared to look said he would also levitate. 

Before the boy would be crowned, the elders had consulted with the muugo. 

" What do the ancestors say oh great muugo? What do they tell you about the boy that has since returned?" 

"The spirits have blessed us," the muugo answered. "The spirits say ííí. I saw it in a vision. The boy is our future." 

All was set. Oole was going to be crowned. 

The wizard had been patient for years. 

" You have to sow… and sow… and sow… before you reap," he would mutter to his shadows. More as a reminder to himself when it seemed as though his patience was wanning. " Many don't triumph because they wait to reap after one sow." 

It was now time to strike!

Whenever the boy now almost a grown man would return from interactions with the tribe, the sorcerer would put him in a trance and have him stare at the mirrors, and the whole tale would be played out for him in his hazes. He would convey missions to him in the same manner. 

The sorcerer set his plans for the crowning ceremony. This is the day he would begin to live forever. He would be all-powerful and immortal! 

According to the Saai traditions, to complete the crowning, the grand morni would be required to place his knee on the Waiwon's lion-headed stool. While still kneeling, head down, he would be handed the kuuki and with his left hand was required to tap it to the ground once before passing it back to the Waiwon. Those in attendance would shout his name and he would be declared a mornikuu - a grand morni of all of the kingdom. 

The sorcerer had cursed and rubbed a potion on Oole's hand. It left the palm looking rough and sand-like. When he would hold the spear, it would transform him into a vuvu - a bat-like humanoid creature that would fly out through space and time and bring the spear to him. The sorcerer had tested the magic on other items and it had worked. The dragon Mb'e would stay behind and spit fire on any tribesmen that would revolt before finding his way back to the dungeons. 

" Perrrfect… perrrfect…" Usiz would crack out loud to his looming shadows as he retold the plan over and over again. " Our new age will soon begin. We will live forever!" 

The tribe had all gathered in the circle. It was a big day. The day that would mean that many of their troubles would soon be over. A new mornikuu was being crowned. And with him, grace would flow back to them. The ceremony would be high-spirited but short. They needed to complete it quickly so as to move on to the next stage. The stage of their renewed strength, and then properly plan how more of the wealth of this mighty kingdom would come to them. 

In the dark castle, the wizard was sharpening his knives. 

Oole was already kneeling. The kuuki was placed in his hand. 

Nothing happened. 

He lifted it and tapped once to the ground. 

"Ku!" 

They heard a huge thud. The great Waiwon had dropped down dead. Right in front of them! 

Oole then saw all the tribesmen suddenly lie flat on the ground as though in reverence to him. None lifted their heads. 

He could feel something. He felt different. Confused as though he had never felt it before.  

He looked at himself as he stood up. He almost toppled over the lion-headed stool. His legs and feet were smaller. And so were his hands. He tried to feel himself with his right hand. He was back to the form of the little boy he had been the day the dragon had snatched him. 

He seemed shocked as though he had just found himself. He could remember himself. In his mind, he saw images of him screaming and crying profusely above the skyline as he saw the other boys and their cattle growing smaller and smaller as the creature he couldn't figure out flew out higher and higher. He called and reached out his little hands to them but they could neither see nor hear him. 

It all seemed like a bad dream. 

He felt small. And yet big. He felt weak. And yet strong. Like a mighty warrior. He looked at himself once more. He was in the form of a little boy. But due to the reverence displayed by the tribesmen, it seemed they were seeing a different form. Or were they? 

What magic was this spear holding?

From where he stood, Oole could see the wizard's dragon resistingly flying away backwards as though being pushed by an invisible force. It would open its mouth attempting to spit out fire but would jerk like one being choked. A screeching scream in echoes raged in his ears. The wizard was in great pain, it felt like the pain of defeat. Oole's hand trembled. He could feel it. And yet could feel strength flowing through to him. 

He straightened up.

He then tapped the spear he was still holding to the ground once more. 

The tribesmen rose from their flat positions and knelt. 

 "Waiwon! Waiwon! Waiwon!" they worshiped, raising their hands out to Oole. 

Had the spear been a product of dark sorcery? And had Usiz messing with it turned it even darker?

And who was its true master? 

"Arise!" Oole commanded. 

He then took a few steps back and sat on the throne. 

To be continued…