The Quest

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘And you are the chief of his favourites,’ said Demeter. ‘We must leave this very night, to go to him.’

  Taita rode Windsmoke, and Meren followed closely on one of the other horses they had brought from the plains of Ecbatana. Demeter lay in his swaying litter, high on the back of his camel, Taita alongside him.

  The litter curtains were open and they could converse easily over the other soft sounds of the caravan: the creak and jingle of tack, the fall of horses’ hoofs and camels’ pads on the yellow sand, the low voices of the servants and guards. During the night they stopped twice to rest and water the animals. At each halt Taita and Demeter performed the spell of concealment. Their combined powers were formidable and the screen they wove seemed impervious: although they surveyed the silences of the night around them before they mounted and moved on, neither could detect any further sign of Eos’s baleful presence.

  ‘She has lost us for the moment, but we will always be at risk, and most vulnerable when we sleep. We should never do so at the same time,’ Demeter advised.

  ‘We will never again relax our vigilance,’ Taita asserted. “I will keep up my guard against careless mistakes. I had underestimated our enemy, allowed Eos to take me by surprise. I am ashamed of my weakness and stupidity.’

  ‘I am a hundred times deeper in guilt than you are,’ Demeter admitted.

  ‘I fear my powers are waning fast, Taita. I should have guided you, but I behaved like a novice. We can afford no further lapses. We must seek out the weaknesses in our enemy, and attack her there, but without exposing ourselves.’

  ‘Despite all you have told me, my knowledge and understanding of Eos is pitifully inadequate. You must recall every detail about her that you discovered during your ordeal, no matter how trivial or seemingly insignificant,’ Taita told him, ‘or I am blind, while she holds every advantage.’

  ‘You are the stronger of we two,’ Demeter said, ‘but you are right. Remember how swift her reaction was when you and I came together and she descried our combined forces. Within hours of our first meeting she could overlook us. From now on her attacks upon me will become more relentless and vicious. We must not rest until I have passed on to you all that I have learnt about her. We do not know how long we will be together before she kills me or drives a wedge between us. Every hour is precious.’

  Taita nodded. ‘Then let us begin with the most important matters. I know who she is, and where she came from. Next, I must know her whereabouts. Where is she, Demeter? Where can we find her?’

  ‘She has hidden in numerous lairs since she escaped from the temple of Apollo, when Agamemnon and his brother, Menelaus, sacked Ilion so long ago.’

  ‘Where did you have your fateful encounter with her?’

  ‘On an island in the Middle Sea, which has since become the stronghold of the sea people, that nation of corsairs and pirates. At that time she lived on the slopes of a great burning mountain she named Etna, a volcano that spewed forth fire and brimstone and sent clouds of poisoned smoke to the very heavens.’

  ‘That was long ago?’

  ‘Centuries before either you or I was born.’

  Taita chuckled drily. ‘Yes, indeed, it was long ago.’ His expression hardened again. ‘Is it possible that Eos may still be at Etna?’

  ‘She is no longer there,’ Demeter replied, without hesitation.

  ‘How can you be certain?’

  ‘By the time I broke free of her, my body was shattered in health and vitality, my mind unhinged, and my psychic forces were almost dispersed by the ordeal through which she had put me. I was her prisoner for little more than a decade, but I aged a lifetime for each of those years. Nevertheless I was able to take advantage of a mighty eruption of the volcano to conceal my flight, and I had help from the priests of a small, insignificant god, whose temple lay in the valley below Etna’s eastern slopes. They spirited me across the narrow straits to the mainland in a tiny boat, and led me to sanctuary in another temple of their sect, hidden in the mountains, where they placed me in the care of their brothers. Those good priests helped me to reassemble what remained of my powers, which I needed to intercept a singularly virulent spell that Eos sent after me.’

  ‘Could you turn it back upon her?’ Taita demanded. ‘Were you able to wound her with her own magic?’

  ‘She may have become complacent, because she underestimated my remaining strength and did not protect herself adequately. I aimed my return strike at her essence, which I could still see with my Inner Eye. She was close at hand. Only the narrow strait of water stood between us. My riposte flew true and hit her hard. I heard her cry of agony echo across the ether. Then she disappeared, and I believed for a while that I had destroyed her. My hosts made discreet enquiries from their brothers in the temple below the mountain of Etna. We heard from them that she had vanished, and that her former abode was deserted. I wasted no time in taking advantage of my victory. As soon as I was strong enough I left my sanctuary and travelled to the furthest ends of the earth, to the continent of ice, as far from Eos as I could go. At last I found a place where I could lie quiescent, as still as a frightened frog beneath a stone. It was as well that I did so. After a very short time, fifty years or less, I felt the resurgence of Eos, my enemy. Her powers seemed to have been mightily enhanced. The ether around me hummed with the vicious darts she hurled at random after me. She could not place me precisely, and although many of her barbs came close to where I lay, none struck home. Each day after that was one of survival while I found the one who had been ordained to succeed me. I did not make the error of responding to her attacks. Each time I sensed her closing in I moved on quietly to another hiding-place. At last I realized that there was only one place on this earth where she would never look for me again. I returned secretly to Etna, and concealed myself in the caverns that had once been her abode, and my dungeon. The echoes of her evil presence must have been so strong still that they disguised my own feeble presence. I remained hidden on the mountain, and in time I felt her interest in me fade. Her search became desultory, and at last ceased. Perhaps she believed that I had perished or that she had obliterated my powers so I no longer posed a threat. I waited in secret until the joyous day that I felt your presence stirring. When the priestess of Saraswati opened your Inner Eye, I felt the disturbance it created on the ether. Then the star you call Lostris appeared to me. I rallied my scattered resolve and followed it to you.’

  After Demeter had finished Taita was silent for a time. He sat hunched on Windsmoke, swaying to her easy motion, his cloak wrapped about his head, only his eyes showing through a slit. ‘So if she is not at Etna,’ he said eventually, ‘where is she, Demeter?’

  ‘I have told you that I do not know.’

  ‘You must know, even though you think you do not,’ Taita contradicted him. ‘How long did you abide with her? Ten years, you said?’

  ‘Ten years,’ Demeter agreed. ‘Each year was an eternity.’

  ‘Then you know her as no other living being. You have absorbed part of her: she has left traces of herself on and in you.’

  ‘She took from me. She gave nothing,’ Demeter replied.

  ‘You took from her also, perhaps not in the same measure, but no coupling of man and woman is completely barren. You have knowledge of her still. Maybe it is so painful to you that you have hidden it even from yourself. Let me help you to retrieve it.’

  Taita took on the role of inquisitor. He was ruthless, making no allowances for his victim’s great age, his weaknesses and afflictions of both body and spirit. He strove to draw from him every memory he still possessed of the great witch, no matter how faint or deeply suppressed it was. Day after day he ransacked the old man’s mind, and they did not break their journey. They travelled at night, to escape the savage desert sun, and camped before dawn broke. As soon as Demeter’s tent had been raised, they took shelter from the sunrise and Taita resumed his questioning.

  Gradually he conceived strong affection and admiration for Demeter
as he came to understand the full extent of the old man’s suffering, the courage and fortitude he had required to survive Eos’s persecutions over such a vast span. But he did not allow pity to deter him from his task.

  At last it seemed there remained nothing more for Taita to learn, but he was not satisfied. Demeter’s revelations seemed superficial and mundane.

  ‘There is a spell practiced by the priests of Ahura Maasda in Babylon,’ he told Demeter at last. ‘They can send a man into a deep trance that is close to death itself. Then they are able to direct his mind back great distances in time and space, to the very day of his birth. Every detail of his life, every word he ever spoke or heard, every voice and every face becomes clear to him.’

  ‘Yes,’ Demeter agreed. ‘I have heard these matters spoken of. Are you privy to this art, Taita?’

  ‘Do you trust me? Will you submit yourself to me?’

  Demeter closed his eyes in weary resignation. ‘There is nothing left within me. I am a dried-out husk from which you have sucked every drop as ravenously as the witch herself.’ He wiped a clawlike hand across his face and massaged his closed eyes. Then he opened them. ‘I submit myself to you. Work this spell over me, if you are able.’

  Taita held up the golden Periapt before his eyes and let it swing gently on its chain. ‘Concentrate on this golden star. Drive every other thought from your mind. See nothing but the star, hear nothing but my voice. You are weary to the depths of your soul, Demeter. You must sleep. Let yourself fall into sleep. Let sleep close over your head, like a soft fur blanket. Sleep, Demeter, sleep…’

  Slowly the old man relaxed. His eyelids quivered, and were still. He lay like a corpse upon a bier, snoring softly. One of his eyelids drooped open, and behind it the eye was rolled back so that only the white showed, blind and opaque. He seemed to have sunk into a deep trance, but when Taita asked him a question he answered. His voice was blurred and weak, the tone reedy.

  ‘Go back, Demeter, go back along the river of time.’

  ‘Yes,’ Demeter responded. ‘I am rolling back the years … back, back, back…’ His voice grew stronger, more vigorous.

  ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘I stand at the E-temen-an-ki, the Foundation of Heaven and Earth,’ he replied, in a vital young voice.

  Taita knew the building well: an immense structure in the centre of Babylon. The walls were of glazed bricks, in all the colours of earth and sky, shaped into a mighty pyramid. ‘What do you see, Demeter?’ “I see a great open space, the very centre of the world, the axis of earth and heaven.’

  ‘Do you see walls and high terraces?’

  ‘There are no walls, but I see the workmen and slaves. They are as many as the ants of the earth and locusts of the sky. I hear their voices.’

  Then Demeter spoke in many tongues, a mighty babble of humanity.

  Taita recognized some of the languages he spoke, but others were obscure.

  Suddenly Demeter cried out in Ancient Sumerian: ‘Let us build a tower whose height may reach unto heaven.’

  With astonishment Taita realized that he was witnessing the laying of the foundations of the Tower of Babel. He had travelled back to the beginning time.

  ‘Now you are journeying through the centuries. You see the E-temen an-ki reach to its full height, and kings worshipping the gods Bel and Marduk on its summit. Come forward in time!’ Taita directed him, and through Demeter’s eyes, he witnessed the rise of great empires and the fall of mighty kings as Demeter described events that had been lost and forgotten in antiquity. He heard the voices of men and women who had returned to dust centuries before.

  At last Demeter faltered, and his voice lost its strength. Taita laid a hand on his brow, which was as cool as a gravestone. ‘Peace, Demeter,’ he whispered. ‘Sleep now. Leave your memories to the ages. Return to the present.’

  Demeter shuddered and relaxed. He slept until sunset, then woke as naturally and calmly as though nothing unusual had occurred. He seemed refreshed and fortified. He ate the fruit Taita brought to him with good appetite and drank the soured goat’s milk, while the retainers struck camp, then loaded the tents and baggage on to the camels. When the caravan started out he was strong enough to walk a short way beside Taita.

  ‘What memories did you extort from me while I slept?’ he asked, with a smile. ‘I remember nothing, so nothing it must have been.’

  ‘You were present when the foundations of E-temen-an-ki were dug and laid,’ Taita told him.

  Demeter stopped short and turned to him with amazement. ‘I told you that?’

  In reply Taita mimicked some of the voices and languages Demeter had used in his trance. At once Demeter identified each utterance.

  His legs soon tired, but his enthusiasm was unaffected. He mounted his palanquin and stretched out on the mattress. Taita rode beside him, and they continued their conversation throughout the long night. At last Demeter asked a question that was central in both their minds: ‘Did I speak of Eos? Were you able to uncover some hidden memory?’

  Taita shook his head. ‘I was careful not to alarm you. I did not broach the matter directly but allowed your memories to range freely.’

  ‘Like a hunter with a pack of hounds,’ Demeter suggested, with a sudden surprising cackle. ‘Take care, Taita, that while casting for a stag you do not startle a man-devouring lioness.’

  ‘Your memories reach so far that trying to trace Eos is like voyaging across the widest ocean in search of a particular shark among a great multitude. We might spend another lifetime before we stumble by chance upon your memories of her.’

  ‘You must direct me to her,’ Demeter said, without hesitation.

  ‘I am fearful for your safety, perhaps even your life,’ Taita demurred.

  ‘Shall we send out the hounds again on the morrow? This time you must give them the scent of the lioness.’

  They were quiet for the rest of the night, lost in their own thoughts and memories. At the first light of dawn they reached a tiny oasis and Taita called a halt among the date palms. The animals were fed and watered while the tents were erected. As soon as they were alone in the main tent, Taita asked, ‘Would you like to rest a while, Demeter, before we make the next attempt? Or are you ready to begin at once?’

  ‘I have rested all night. I am ready now.’

  Taita studied the other’s face. He seemed calm and his pale eyes were serene. Taita held up the Periapt of Lostris. ‘Your eyes grow heavy. Let them close. You feel quiet and secure. Your limbs are heavy. You are very comfortable. You listen to my voice, and you feel sleep coming over you … blessed sleep … deep, healing sleep…’

  Demeter dropped away more swiftly than he had on their first attempt: he was becoming increasingly susceptible to Taita’s quiet suggestion.

  ‘There is a mountain that breathes fire and smoke. Do you see it?’

  For a moment Demeter was deathly still. His lips paled and quivered.

  Then he shook his head in wild denial. ‘There is no mountain! I see no mountain!’ His voice rose and cracked.

  ‘There is a woman on the mountain,’ Taita persisted, ‘a beautiful woman. The most beautiful woman on earth. Do you see her, Demeter?’

  Demeter began to pant like a dog, his chest pumping like the bellows of a coppersmith. Taita felt that he was losing him: Demeter was fighting the trance, trying to break out of it. He knew that this must be their last attempt for the old man was unlikely to survive another.

  ‘Can you hear her voice, Demeter? Listen to the sweet music of her words. What is she saying to you?’

  Now Demeter was wrestling with an invisible opponent, rolling about on his mattress. He drew his knees and elbows up to his chest and curled his body into a ball. Then his limbs shot out straight and his back arched. He babbled with the voices of madmen, he gibbered and giggled.

  He gnashed his teeth until one shattered at the back of his jaw, then spat out the shards in a mixture of blood and saliva.

  ‘Peace, Demet
er!’ Panic rose in Taita, like a pot coming to the boil.

  ‘Be still! You are safe again.’

  Demeter’s breathing eased, and then he spoke unexpectedly in the arcane Tenmass of the adepts. His words were strange but his tone was even more so. His voice was no longer that of an old man, but of a young woman, sweet and melodious, as musical as Taita had ever heard.

  ‘Fire, air, water and earth, but the lord of these is fire.’ Every languid inflection engraved itself into Taita’s mind. He knew he would never erase the sound.

  Demeter collapsed back upon the mattress. The rigidity left his body.

  His eyes fluttered closed. His breathing stilled, and his chest ceased heaving. Taita feared that his heart must have burst, but when he placed his ear to his ribs he heard it beating to a muted but regular rhythm.

  With a surge of relief he realized that Demeter had survived.

  Taita let him sleep for the rest of the day. When Demeter awoke he seemed unaffected by his ordeal. Indeed, he made no reference to what had passed, and seemed to have no memory of it.

  While they shared a bowl of stewed suckling goat, the two men discussed the day-to-day affairs of the caravan. They tried to estimate how far they had come from Gallala, and how soon they would reach the splendid palace of Pharaoh Nefer Seti. Taita had sent a messenger ahead to alert the king to their arrival, and they wondered how he would receive them.

  ‘Pray to Ahura Maasda, the one true light, that no more plagues have been sent to torment that poor afflicted land,’ Demeter said, then fell silent.

  ‘Fire, air, water and earth …’ said Taita, in a conversational tone.

  ‘… but the lord of these is fire,’ Demeter responded, like a schoolboy reciting a lesson by rote. His hand flew up to cover his mouth, and he stared at Taita with astonishment in his old eyes. At last he asked, shaken, ‘Fire, air, water and earth, the four essential elements of creation. Why did you name them, Taita?’

  ‘First tell me, Demeter, why you named fire as the lord of all.’

  ‘The prayer,’ Demeter whispered. ‘The incantation.’