The Quest

by Wilbur Smith

  While he worked he told her about the life she had lived as Queen of Egypt, the others who had loved her and the children to whom she had given birth. Often she would exclaim, ‘Oh, yes! I remember that now. I remember that I had a son, but I cannot see his face.’

  ‘Open your mind, and I will place his image in it from my own memory of him.’

  She closed her eyes and he placed his cupped hands on each side of her head, covering her ears. They were silent for a while. At last she whispered, ‘Oh, what a beautiful child. His hair is golden. I see his cartouche above him. His name is Memnon.’

  ‘That was his childhood name,’ he murmured. ‘When he ascended to the throne and took the double crown of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms, he became Pharaoh Tamose, the first of that name. There! Look upon him in all his power and majesty.’ Taita placed the image in her mind.

  She was silent for a long time. Then she said, ‘So handsome and noble. Oh, Taita, I wish I could have seen my son.’

  ‘You did, Fenn. You suckled him at your breast, and with your own hands you placed the crown upon his head.’

  Again she was silent, and then she said, ‘Show me yourself on the day we first met in the other life. Can you do that, Taita? Can you conjure up your own image for me?’

  ‘I would not dare to make the attempt,’ he answered quickly.

  ‘Why not?’ she asked.

  ‘It would be dangerous,’ he replied. ‘You must believe me. It would be too dangerous by far.’

  He knew that if he showed her that image, it would haunt her in time with unattainable dreams. He would have sown the seeds of her discontent.

  For when they had first met in her other life, Taita had been a slave and the most beautiful young man in Egypt. That had been his downfall. His master, Lord Intef, had been the Nomarch of Karnak and the governor of all twenty-two nomes of Upper Egypt. He had also been a pederast and insanely jealous of his slave boy. Taita fell in love with a slave girl in his master’s household named Alyda. When this was reported to Lord Intef, he ordered Rasfer, his executioner, to crush Alyda’s skull slowly. Taita had been forced to watch her die. Even after the deed was done Lord Intef was still not satisfied. He had ordered Rasfer to castrate the virgin Taita.

  There was a further aspect to this terrible situation. Lord Intef was the father of the little girl who, years later, became Queen Lostris. He was uninterested in his daughter and had made Taita, the eunuch, her tutor and mentor. That child was now reincarnated as Fenn.

  It was so complex that Taita had difficulty finding the words to explain all this to Fenn, and for the moment he was relieved of the obligation to do so by a loud hail from the direction of the camp: ‘Boats coming from the east! Stand to arms.’ It was Meren’s voice, clearly recognizable even at this distance. They sprang up, pulled on their tunics over bodies that were still damp and hurried back towards the camp.

  ‘There!’ Fenn pointed across the green waters. It took Taita a few moments to make out the dark specks against the white horses that were already being driven up by the rising wind.

  ‘Native war canoes! Can you count the number of rowers, Fenn?’

  She shaded her eyes, stared hard, then said, ‘The leading canoe has twelve on each side. The others look to be as large. Wait! The second boat is the largest by far, with twenty rowers on the nearest side.’

  Meren had drawn up his men in double ranks before the gate to the stockade. They were fully armed and alert to meet any sudden exigency.

  They watched as the canoes beached below them. The crews disembarked and gathered round the largest vessel. A band of musicians jumped ashore and began to dance on the beach. The drummers pounded out a feral rhythm, while the trumpeters brayed on the long spiral horns of some wild antelope.

  ‘Mask your aura,’ Taita whispered to Fenn. ‘We know nothing of this fellow.’ He watched it fade. ‘Good. Enough.’ If Kalulu was a savant, to mask her aura completely would raise even deeper suspicion.

  Eight bearers lifted a litter from the boat and carried it up the beach.

  They were sturdy young women, with muscular arms and legs, wearing loincloths that were richly embroidered with glass beads. Their breasts were anointed with clarified fat and gleamed in the sunlight. They came directly to where Taita stood, and deposited the litter before him. Then they knelt beside it, in an attitude of deep reverence.

  In the middle of the litter sat a dwarf. Fenn recognized him from the image in the flames, the face of the ancient ape with protruding ears and shining bald pate. ‘I am Kalulu,’ he said in the Tenmass, ‘and I see you, Taita of Gallala.’

  ‘I welcome you,’ Taita responded. He saw at once that Kalulu was not a savant, but he threw a powerful, intense aura. From it, Taita could tell that he was an adept and a follower of the Truth. ‘Let us go where we can speak in comfort and privacy.’

  Kalulu swung himself into a handstand, the stubs of his severed legs pointing to the sky, and hopped down from the litter. He walked on his hands as though they were feet, twisting his head to one side so that he could talk up into Taita’s face. ‘I have been expecting you, Magus. Your approach has created a sharp disturbance on the ether. I have felt your presence grow stronger as you made your way up the river.’ The women came after him, carrying the empty litter.

  ‘This way, Kalulu,’ Taita invited. When they reached his quarters, the women set down the litter, then backed away until they were out of earshot. Kalulu hopped back on to it and resumed his normal head-high position, squatting on his stumps. He looked around brightly at the camp, but when Fenn knelt before him to offer him a bowl of honey mead, he concentrated his attention on her.

  ‘Who are you, child? I saw you in the firelight,’ he said in the Tenmass.

  She pretended not to understand and glanced at Taita.

  ‘You may reply,’ he told her. ‘He is of the Truth.’

  ‘I am Fenn, a novice to the magus.’

  He looked at Taita. ‘Do you vouch for her?’

  ‘I do,’ Taita replied, and the little man nodded.

  ‘Sit beside me, Fenn, for you are beautiful.’ She sat on the litter trustingly. Kalulu looked at Taita with piercing black eyes. ‘Why did you call for me, Magus? What is the service you require from me?’

  ‘I need you to take me to the place where the Nile is born.’

  Kalulu showed no surprise. ‘You are the one who I saw in my dreams. You are the one I have waited for. I will take you to the Red Stones. We will leave tonight when the wind drops and the waters are still. How many are in your party?’

  ‘Thirty-eight, with Fenn and me, but we have much baggage.’

  ‘Five more large canoes will follow me. They will be here before nightfall.’

  ‘I have many horses,’ Taita added.

  ‘Yes.’ The little dwarf nodded. ‘They will swim behind the canoes. I have brought bladders of animal stomachs to support them.’

  In the brief African twilight, as the last gusts of the wind died away, some of the troopers led the horses down to the shore and in the shallow water, strapped an inflated bladder to each side of their girth ropes. While this was going on, the others loaded their equipment into the canoes. Kalulu’s female bodyguards carried him on his litter to the largest canoe and placed him aboard. As the waters of the lake settled into a slick calm, they pushed out from the shore and headed into the darkness towards the great cross of stars that hung in the southern skies.

  Ten horses were roped behind each canoe. Fenn sat in the stern, where she could call encouragement to Windsmoke and Whirlwind as they swam behind. The ranks of rowers plied their oars and the long, narrow hulls knifed silently through the dark waters.

  Taita sat beside the litter on which Kalulu lay and they conversed quietly for a while. ‘What is the name of this lake?’

  ‘Semliki Nianzu. It is one of many.’

  ‘How is it fed?’

  ‘Previously two great rivers ran into it, one at the western end called Semliki, the other ou
r Nile. Both come from the south, the Semliki from the mountains, the Nile from the great waters. That is where I am taking you.’

  ‘Is it another lake?’

  ‘No man knows if it is truly a lake or if it is the beginning of the great void.’

  ‘This is where our Mother Nile is born?’

  ‘Even so,’ Kalulu agreed.

  ‘What do you call this great water?’

  ‘We call it Nalubaale.’

  ‘Explain our route to me, Kalulu.’

  ‘When we reach the far shore of Semliki Nianzu we will find the southerly limb of the Nile.’

  ‘The picture I have in my mind is that the southerly limb of the Nile is where it flows into Semliki Nianzu. The northerly limb leaves this lake and flows north towards the great swamps. This is the branch of the Nile that has brought us thus far.’

  ‘Yes, Taita. That is the wide picture. Of course, there are other minor rivers, tributaries and lesser lakes, for this is the land of many waters, but they all flow into the Nile and run to the north.’

  ‘But the Nile is dying,’ Taita said softly.

  Kalulu was silent for a while, and when he nodded a single tear ran down his wizened cheek, sparkling in the moonlight. ‘Yes,’ he agreed.

  ‘The rivers that feed her have all been stoppered. Our mother is dying.’

  ‘Kalulu, explain to me how this has happened.’

  ‘There are no words to explain it. When we reach the Red Stones you will see for yourself. I cannot describe these events to you. Mere words fall short of such a task.’

  ‘I will contain my impatience.’

  ‘Impatience is a young man’s vice.’ The dwarf smiled, his teeth gleaming in the gloom. ‘And sleep is an old man’s solace.’ The plash of the waters under the canoe lulled them, and after a while they slept.

  Taita woke to a soft cry from the leading canoe. He roused himself and leant over the side of the vessel to splash a double handful of water into his face. Then he blinked the drops from his eyes and looked ahead.

  He made out the dark loom of land ahead.

  At last they felt the drag of the beach under the hull as they ran aground. The rowers dropped their oars and leapt ashore to pull the canoes higher. The horses found their footing and lunged ashore, streaming water.

  The women lifted Kalulu in his litter and carried him up the beach.

  ‘Your men must have breakfast now,’ Kalulu told Taita, ‘so that we can march at first light. We have a long road to travel before we reach the Stones.’

  They watched the rowers embark in the canoes and push off into the lake. The silhouettes of the swift craft merged into the darkness, until the white splash of oars was all that marked their position. Soon those, too, had vanished.

  By firelight they ate smoked lake fish and dhurra cakes, then in the dawn they set off along the lakeshore. Within half a league they came to a dry white riverbed.

  ‘What river was this?’ Taita asked Kalulu, although he knew what the answer would be.

  ‘This was and is the Nile,’ Kalulu replied simply.

  ‘It is completely dried up!’ Taita exclaimed, as he looked across the riverbed. It was four hundred paces from bank to bank, but no water flowed between them. Instead, elephant grass, like miniature bamboo that stood twice the height of a tall man, had filled it. ‘We have followed the river two thousand leagues from Egypt to this place. All the way we have found at least some water, standing pools, even trickles and rivulets, but here it is as dry as the desert.’

  ‘The water you encountered further north was the overflow from the lake Semliki Nianzu, which ran in from its tributaries,’ Kalulu explained. ‘This was the Nile, the mightiest river on all the earth. Now it is nothing.’

  ‘What has happened to it?’ Taita demanded. ‘What infernal power could have stopped such a vast flow?’

  ‘It is something that defies even an imagination as all-encompassing as your own, Magus. When we reach the Red Stones you will see it all before you.’

  Fenn had been translating what was said for the benefit of Meren, and now he could no longer contain himself. ‘If we are to follow a dry river,’ he demanded, ‘where will I find water for my men and horses?’

  ‘You will find it even as the elephants do, by digging for it,’ Taita told him.

  ‘How long will this journey take?’ Meren asked.

  When this had been translated, Kalulu gave him an impish smile and replied, ‘Much depends on the stamina of your horses and the strength of your own legs.’

  They moved fast, passing the stagnant pools of once brimming lagoons and climbing through dry, rocky gorges where waterfalls had thundered.

  Sixteen days later they came upon a low ridge that ran parallel to the course of the Nile. It was the first feature that had relieved the monotony of the forest for many leagues.

  ‘On that high ground stands the town of Tamafupa, the home of my people,’ Kalulu told them. ‘From the heights you can see the great waters of Nalubaale.’

  ‘Let us go there,’ Taita said. They rode up through a grove of fever trees with bright yellow trunks, which covered the slope above the dry riverbed. For lack of water the trees had died back, and their branches were leafless and twisted like rheumatic limbs. They came out on top of the ridge, where Windsmoke flared her nostrils and tossed her head.

  Whirlwind was equally excited: he gave a series of bucks and jumps.

  ‘You bad horse!’ Fenn struck him lightly on the neck with the switch of papyrus she carried. ‘Behave!’ Then she called to Taita, ‘What is exciting them, Magus?’

  ‘Smell it for yourself,’ he called. ‘Cool and sweet as the perfume of Kigelia flowers.’

  ‘I smell it now,’ she said, ‘but what is it?’

  ‘Water!’ he answered, and pointed ahead. To the south stood a silver cloud, and beneath it lay a curve of ethereal blue that stretched across the breadth of the horizon. ‘Nalubaale, at last!’

  A sturdy palisade of hardwood poles dominated the crest of the ridge.

  The gates stood open and they rode through into the abandoned village of Tamafupa. Evidently it had once been the centre of a prosperous, thriving community - the abandoned huts were palatial and magnificently thatched - but the brooding silence that hung over them was eerie. They turned back to the gates and called up the rest of the party.

  In response to their halloo, Kalulu was borne up to them on his litter by the panting and perspiring bodyguards. They were all solemn and contemplative as they gathered before the gates of Tamafupa and stared at the distant blue waters.

  Taita broke the silence. ‘The source of our very Mother Nile.’

  ‘The end of the earth,’ Kalulu said. ‘There is nothing beyond those waters but the void and the Lie.’

  Taita looked back at the fortifications of Tamafupa. ‘We are in dangerous country, surrounded by hostile tribes. We will use it as our stronghold until we move on,’ he told Meren. ‘We will leave Hilto and Shabako here with their men to make the walls secure against attack. While they attend to this, Kalulu will take us to see the mysterious Red Stones.’

  In the morning they went on: the last short stage of the journey that had taken them more than two years to complete. They followed the riverbed, often riding in the middle of the wide dry dip. They came round another gentle bend and ahead of them sloped a glacis of water worn rocks. Surmounting it, like the fortification of a great city, rose a wall of solid red granite.

  ‘In the holy names of Horus, the son, and Osiris, the divine father!’

  Meren exclaimed. ‘What fortress is this? Is it the citadel of some African emperor?’

  ‘What you see are the Red Stones,’ said Kalulu, quietly.

  ‘Who placed them there?’ Taita asked, as perplexed as any of his companions. ‘What man or demon has done this?’

  ‘No man,’ Kalulu replied. ‘This is not the work of human hands.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘Come, let me show it to you first.
Then we can discuss it.’

  Cautiously they approached the Red Stones. When at last they stood under the great wall of rock that blocked the course of the Nile from one bank to the other, Taita dismounted and walked slowly along the base.

  Fenn and Meren followed him. They paused at intervals to inspect. It was flow-shaped, like the wax of a candle. ‘This rock was once molten,’ Taita observed. ‘It has cooled into these fantastic shapes.’

  ‘You are correct,’ Kalulu agreed. ‘That is precisely how it was formed.’

  ‘It seems impossible, but this is a single mass of solid stone. There are no joints between individual blocks.’

  ‘There is at least one crack, Magus.’ Fenn pointed ahead. Her keen eyes had spotted a narrow fissure that ran through the centre of the wall, from top to bottom. When they reached it, Taita drew his dagger and tried to work the blade into it, but it was too narrow. The blade went in only as deep as the first joint of his little finger.

  ‘That is why my people call it the Red Stones, rather than the Red Stone,’ Kalulu told them, ‘for it is divided into two sections.’

  Taita went down on one knee to examine the base of the wall. ‘It is not built upon the old riverbed. It emerges from it as though it has grown up from the centre of the earth like some monstrous mushroom. The stone of this wall seems to differ from any other around it.’

  ‘Again, you are right,’ Kalulu told him. ‘It cannot be chiselled or chipped like the rock that surrounds it. If you look closely you will see the red crystals in it that give it the name.’

  Taita leant forward until the minute crystals of which the wall was composed caught the sunlight and sparkled like tiny rubies. ‘There is nothing obscene or unnatural about it,’ he said softly. He came back to where Kalulu sat on his litter. ‘How did this thing come to be here?’

  ‘I cannot say with any certainty, Magus, even though I was here when it happened.’

  ‘If you witnessed it, how do you not know what happened?’

  ‘I will explain it to you later,’ said Kalulu. ‘Suffice to say that many others witnessed it, as I did, yet they have fifty different legends to describe it.’