Hassan's Emporium Of Wonders
Mombasa’s Old Port. On the island’s northern coast.
Dhows with billowing sails ply the shallow channel. Pilots in oar-driven longboats shout at errant steamers. Sacks of rice, coffee, cotton, salt, frankincense, dates. Bales of sisal. Piled animal hides. Live goats on rope leashes. Ivory smugglers conceal tusks from prowling customs officials.
The labyrinthine Old Town. Gleaming coral-stone houses with elaborately carved wooden balconies and ornate inset doors. Peeling white and yellow paint. Shopfronts built into houses. Dried fish. Coconuts. Curry. Pan-fried sesame bread.
Traffic from Kilindili Harbour. Baobabs festooned with lanterns. Minarets. White beaches. Dugouts fishing turquoise lagoons at edge of coral reefs. Shady mango trees. Wall-climbing purple bougainvillea. Turbaned Arab sailors with hooked khanjar daggers in their belts disappearing into mosques.
Women in black abayas balancing clay pots of water on their heads. Gujarati grocers. Goan flute players. Omanis and Hadhramis in shisha bars smoking molasses tobacco. Swahili stevedores on low stone benches smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. Calls to prayer. Sailors’ shouts. Ships’ horns. Arabic poetry recitals. Clattering shop bells.
Deep shadows. Brilliant sunlight. Airy courtyards. Dim red lamps at the Mombasa Club. Tennis-playing Europeans on vacation in tropic white. The guns of Fort Jesus - built by the Portuguese to guard the harbour in 1596. Now repurposed by the British as a prison. A crumbling hive of stone.
Juma Hassan’s Emporium of Wonders.
Towering Swahili man in long white kanzu robe. Round white kofi hat embroidered with abstract symbols, punctured with pinholes so the air can pass through. Bald. Prominent nose. Fringe of salt-and-pepper beard.
Sits in rattan chair on porch outside rickety office-warehouse complex. Waves away flies with ostrich-feather fan. Smokes his pipe. Browses his Koran. Watches world go by.
Jovial. Known and liked by everyone. Hailed by passing acquaintances - replies with a smile.
Approached as judge for petty disputes.
Kid with stolen pet lizard. Butcher haggling over goats with livestock trader. Ship’s chandler with disobedient apprentice. Sweets vendor with firm grip on sticky-handed teenage thief. Locked-room mysteries - giraffe found in courtyard, pearls vanished from safe. Only British authorities question his decisions.
Trades in wonders, as per the sign. Warehouse full of them. Lying around everywhere. Some packed in straw - others sitting in half-open crates. Open windows. Rumours of Hassan’s supernatural vengeance deter thieves.
Himyarite idols. Persian swords. Azanian pearls. Turkana wrist knives. Coins from Kilwa Kisiwani. Celadon from Gedi ruins. Blocky, scarred Makonde masks. Crystals of scarlet dragon’s-blood tree sap. Tanzanite crystals. Porcupine quills. Cowrie shells. Calabash rattles. Maasai shields. Zulu assegais.
Swazi king’s leopard-skin mantle. Stuffed dodo. Portuguese compass. Malinese griot’s lute. Congolese nail fetish. Golden rhinoceros of Mapungubwe. Three-metre catfish found by sardine fishermen in Lake Nyasa. Stuffed leopard found near summit of Kilimanjaro. Australopithecus skull from Olduvai Gorge.
Tasselled Abyssinian slipper made for the Queen of Sheba. Unicorn horn from Ngorongoro Crater with terrifyingly potent aphrodisiac properties. Centuries-old roc egg from a nest on Mount Karthala, packed in straw, its shell deep midnight blue.
Madness-inducing Somalian incense in soapstone censer. Dancing scimitar inscribed with names of God that beheads any man who blasphemes in its presence. Green wine in crystal vases liberated by rogues from a palace at the bottom of the sea.
Glittering purple crystalline djinn’s heart plucked from the depths of a Witwatersrand mine. Revolving brass Andalusian horseman in armillary sphere who always faces a fixed spot in the deep Sahara. Orange-breasted dove from Ceylon in a gilded cage who can when released lead you infallibly to your heart’s desire.
Heir to an Indian throne transfigured by a witch into a gelada bleeding-heart baboon - needs true love’s kiss to free him. Gold-and-ivory chess set made for Nyatsimba Mutota, king of Great Zimbabwe - pieces move by themselves. Thousand minor demons trapped in humble bronze oil lamp who promise to grant wishes if you let them go.
Three sleeping immortal children stung by unknown fly on Bugala Island in Lake Victoria. Martini-Henry rifle used in the last stand of the Shangani Patrol - haunted by Major Allan Wilson’s ghost. Knobkerrie used by King Lobengula of the Ndebele to execute his sister Mncengence for witchcraft - still matted with blood and brains.
Mummified alien reptile from Queen Amanitore’s Meroe pyramid tomb. Porter petrified by chameleon basilisk near Gondokoro on Teddy Roosevelt’s 1909 expedition - sometimes shows signs of life. Holy bread from rock-hewn Lalibela churches, baked in Kingdom of Axum - never gets stale or old.
Mascarene Islands ghoul-seeds - grow into hungry white flowers when planted in rotting corpses. Sullen omnilingual cannibal dwarf found haunting Bombay Parsi tower of silence. Segment of gravity-resistant black stone obelisk looted from Martian highlands in famous military raid by Emperor Tewodros I.
The Shams al-Ma’arif of the Maghrebi sorcerer Ahmad al-Buni. The Book of the Zanj, stolen by Enrico Cerulli from the qadi of Kismayo. Ge’ez hymnal composed by Giyorgis of Segla for Zara Yaqob. The Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity. Jabir ibn Hayyan’s Great Book of Mercy. Al-Masudi’s Meadows of Gold. Ibh Khordadbeh’s Book of Roads And Kingdoms. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.
Three loyal assistants.
Amna. Sudanese master thief. Round head. Spider fingers. Curious expression. Born into a poor religious family on the banks of the Blue Nile. Stole priceless turquoise amulet from travelling Sufi mystic. Suffered his curse. Ran away from home.
Picked pockets in Khartoum. Caught by Winston Churchill looting bodies at the Battle of Omdurman. Recruited as a spy. Operated in Cairo and Mecca, keeping tabs on anti-British organisations. Betrayed her paymasters to the Saudis for enormous pile of gold. Had to leave most of it behind when she fled.
Can never stay in one place for more than three years. Has tried. Accumulates money - loses it, starts again. Amulet the only thing she keeps.
Zodwa. Strongwoman. Friend to animals. Distant cousin of the Zulu king. Terror of her wealthy father’s kraal. Outwrestled all his warriors. Declined their marriage offers. Once famously threw a policeman across a river. Eats half a cow a day.
Goes everywhere with Hubert - full-grown pet hippopotamus from Lake St. Lucia. Promises he won’t bite. Keeps menagerie in courtyard - Aldabra giant tortoise, colobus monkeys, bateleur eagle, hand-fed Thomson’s gazelle. Struggles to earn enough money to feed them. Worked double shifts as stevedore before getting recruited by Hassan as security chief.
Fends suitors off with a stick. Standing offers of marriage from Dutch sea captain, Saudi prince, Rhodesian millionaire, Jaisalmer maharaja.
Makoma. Weather witch. Former handmaiden to Khesethwane Modjadji III, Rain Queen of the Balobedu. Tasked with tending the sacred cycad garden of Duiwelskloof, near Tzaneen in the northern Drakensberg of Limpopo province.
Caught breaking into the queen’s quarters in search of rainmaking secrets. Exiled. Stripped of her titles. Studied for a time with the sages of Njelele Shrine in the Matobo hills, south of Bulawayo. Met undines in cavern springs. Learnt the unreliable knack of conjuring storms. Discovered to her chagrin that she can’t do it for money.
Consulted by dhow captains for her dubious blessing. Claims to be able to grant favourable winds. Sometimes actually can. Depends how the spirits feel that day.
Cabal of villains plot to steal his treasures.
Zikali. “Opener-Of-Roads.” Shrunken misanthropic Zulu wizard. Controls international taduki trade - drug that enables you to relive past lives, which inevitably prove superior to monotony of present day. Addict Lady Luna Ragnall feigns death in Egypt, sails for Durban to devote her immense wealth to his service and become his grovelling slave.
Lives in kraal in the Black Kloof - secluded Drakensberg valley. Terrified servants. Hoard of gold stashed behind whirlpool in deep river caves. Sends oily miscarriage spirits - waddling hunks of flesh - to smother his enemies in their sleep. Familiar is buffalo with twisted lip. Immune to bullets. Mysteriously vanishes. Kill it and he dies.
Faisal bin Harub. Grand vizier and half-brother to Khalifa bin Harub, Sultan of Zanzibar, who now lives with his ageing harem in peaceful semi-retirement on a fat British pension. Dreams of restoring the Sultanate’s glory. Wants to be caliph instead of the caliph. Master occultist. Turban. Small pointy beard. Tendency to cackle madly. Pet vulture.
Office in the House of Wonders in Stone Town. Wide verandahs. Clock tower. Doors wide enough to ride an elephant through. Marble floors. Huge central courtyard. Doors inscribed with Koranic verses. Tame lions. Banquets with samosas, pepper steak, huge platters of pilaf. Secret passages to neighbouring palaces where women can pass unseen.
“Breaker” Nelson. Australian big-game hunter. Fifteen years as a roustabout and drover between north Queensland and the Flinders Ranges. Alcoholic. Balladeer. Womaniser. Liar. Never pays back debts. Boer war despatch rider. Fought with Bushveldt Carbineers. Controversionally acquitted of executing prisoners in cold blood.
Getting old. Planning for retirement. Still deadly with a rifle or his fists. Safari business run from trophy-filled Mombasa office. Sidekick Cecil Goodyear, shellshocked Mafeking Cadet. 30-year-old boy scout. Idolises Nelson. Unable to grow up. Believes he’ll outrun bullets forever as long as he stays young.
Harut and Marut. Twin Egyptian sorcerors. Bald. Identical. Think everything is funny. Eternally reborn in same bodies, to new mothers, with all memories of past lives. Keep snakes. Talk in private baby language. Pop up where least expected. Advise influential people on path leading to world’s ultimate consumption by Azathoth.
Playing a long game. Hassan member of ancient conspiracy to oppose their influence, founded in Atlantis by alien greys.
Hassan supplies wonders to wealthy collectors, occultists, governments all across the world. Leads humble lifestyle. Gives freely but in small quantities to the poor. Vaguely alludes to “overhead” if directly asked what he does with the money.
Secretly enslaved to powerful djinn who rescued him from shipwreck. Not allowed to die until he buys his freedom. Pours heaps of gold at midnight into moon pool in Portuguese pirate tunnels under warehouse. Has been doing this for at least three hundred years.
Sideline in esoteric mysteries. Known as the man to see. Doesn’t handle them himself. Always on the lookout for investigators to recruit.
