“No. Not old Maloki.”
“Taka?” Rafiki looks around. “Where is your brother?”
“My brother is dead. So is Simba. There was a stampede in the gorge.”
“Oh my gods! ” The shock made him weak in the knees. “Aiheu, I have lived one day too long! ” The old mandrill could barely stumble out of the cave. He saw Sarabi, her head hung low and her ears fallen flat. “Sassie, is it true? Tell me it isn’t true! ”
She turned to look at him, her jaw trembling. “Rafiki, how good of you to come.”
He fell to his knees, put his arms around her neck and wept on her shoulder. “My precious little girl. Oh, my heart breaks—it breaks, yet I do not die! ”
Sarabi turned and touched his cheek with her tongue. “You are an ape, and yet you are also a lion. You must say prayers for me, old friend. My heart lies in the gorge, yet the sun goes on rising and setting. I wish I had been there to greet Aiheu with them.”
“You are needed here, so you remain. I do not understand, I only acknowledge.”
“Pray for me.”
“Indeed I will, Sassie.” He kissed her. “Morning and evening, and night.” He placed his hand on her brow. “Oh gods, let your hearts be moved. Take pity on her in her time of loss. Open your arms of love and feed her with the blood of mercy....”
“Rafiki, ” said a hyena. “The King wants a word with you—right now.”
The mandrill looked up in shock. He tried to pull himself together. “Did you say the King?” He took up his staff and tried to stand as straight as he could, but it was a little harder just then. He was escorted into what was now Scar’s cave and faced Taka and his guards.
“It is a sad duty I ask you to perform, ” Taka said. “You once said my road would be long and hard. Now I am King, but I cannot enjoy it. It is an obligation I must fulfill, and I seek divine guidance to carry out the job wisely and well. Give me your blessing.”
Rafiki stood closer to Taka. He did not know, of course, that his brother’s blood was on his paws. But when he looked into Taka’s eyes, he saw no sadness. He saw only the glint of triumph there, and it made him feel ill. “This blessing I bestow. May the gods in the heavens give you what you richly deserve. May you find as much inner peace as you are entitled to. May you receive mercy in the measure you bestow it, no less and no more.”
“I’ll choose to take that as a compliment, ” Taka said, patting Rafiki’s cheek gently, then giving him a blow that sent him into the wall. “You twisted little ape. It was your words that brought us to this. I hate you. Your painted face sickens me.” Taka nodded, and the two hyena guards stood on either side of Rafiki. “You are corban. For the rest of your life you will remain within two hundred strides of your tree except with an escort of hyenas to take you to the watering hole, and only when I am not there. For the next time we meet, you will surely die. Krull, take charge.”
Taka shoved the staff back at Rafiki. Then the mandrill took his staff and picked himself up. As he left Pride Rock for what seemed to be the last time, he cast a longing glance at Sarabi. “Perhaps you will say a prayer for me too?”
The lionesses watched his exit. It was the final injury on top of all griefs. Only Elanna who could see no evil in Taka thought there must be a good reason for his confinement. She went into his cave humbling herself, laying on her back and reaching out. “I touch your mane.”
“I feel it. Rise up, my dear.”
“Your heart is dear to me, even when it is broken.”
“And you have come to comfort me?” Taka was genuinely moved. He saw in her trusting eyes the love that once Sarabi had born for her. Risking all, he reached out and touched her shoulder. She purred deeply. “Tonight my brother lies dead by his son. The day we first make love must be a happy memory. Return in three days, and I will pledge myself to you.”
“Incosi aka Incosi, ” she said. “Great King.” Then she mouthed the word, “Beloved.”
Coming from a lioness, the phrase was liquid light, a thing of beauty. The hyenas that surrounded him were too full of flattery and manners. All fear and ambition, no real substance. Even those who were genuinely grateful could only excite the smallest fleeting pleasure. Only one hyena did he actually love, though he did love her enough to tolerate the rest.
Back in his baobab tree, Rafiki was thrust none too gently and warned by the overly enthusiastic guards that his life hung in the balance. He was too sad to be frightened of death, but he clung to life from some impulse Aiheu had breathed into his forefathers.
Rafiki looked at the picture of Simba. “Poor child. Innocent and now dead because of me.” Sadly, he took his hand and wiped over the painting, smearing the mark of his anointing. “Somehow, some way, I will undo this evil. I swear I will never stop trying till death takes me.”
SCENE: GOOD HELP IS HARD TO FIND
"In the third year of King Ramalah, there was a certain lioness named Alba the faithful. She was a servant of Queen Chakula from the time of her coming of age, and often times the Queen entrusted her with her two sons N'ga and Sufa. Once, when Chakula was aprowl, the earth shook, and the cave where Alba dwelled was closed with the twins inside. Five days it took to dig them out, and Chakula had no hope to find them alive. But when the cave was opened, N'ga and Sufa came out alive. Only Alba was dead. Because she was a dry lioness, she opened the deep veins of her arm to nurse them, that they might survive. It was from the spot she lay that the first flower grew that bears her name, red as the blood of mercy."
Rafiki sulked in his confinement. His home that had always seemed so large was now cramped--almost claustrophobic. He could still heal wounds and fevers under the close supervision of his guards. Casual visitors were rudely turned away.