The Quest

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘This entire wall of stone is chimerical,’ Taita pointed out. ‘Perhaps seeds of the truth may be buried in the legends and fantasies.’

  ‘That may be so.’ Kalulu inclined his head in agreement. ‘But let us first ascend to the summit of the wall. There is much still that you must see.’ They had to retreat along the riverbed to find a place to climb out and to the top of the bank. Then they picked their way back to the base of the red-stone wall.

  ‘I will wait for you here,’ Kalulu said. ‘The way up is too difficult.’ He indicated the daunting climb over glassy and almost vertical rock to the summit. They left him, and cautiously climbed upwards. In some places they were forced to crawl on hands and knees, but at last they stood on the rounded top of the Red Stones. From there they looked out across the lake. Taita shaded his eyes against the sun-dazzle that danced on the surface of the water. Close by there were a number of small islets, but he could see not the faintest trace of land beyond them. He looked back the way they had come. The foreshortened figure of the dwarf was far below. Kalulu was gazing up at him.

  ‘Has anyone ever tried to cross to the far side of the lake?’ Taita called down.

  ‘There is no far side,’ Kalulu shouted back. ‘There is only the void.’

  The surface of the water lapped the wall only four or five cubits below their feet. Taita looked back into the riverbed and made an approximate calculation of the discrepancy in the heights on each side of the wall.

  ‘It is holding back forty or fifty cubits’ depth of water.’ He made a sweeping gesture, which took in the limitless extent of the lake’s surface.

  ‘Without this wall, all that water would have spilled over the cataract into the Nile and been carried down into Egypt. Little wonder that our land has been reduced to such straits.’

  ‘We could sweep through the surrounding country, capture a host of slaves and set them to work on it,’ Meren suggested.

  ‘What would they do?’ Taita asked.

  ‘We will tear down this barrier, and let the Nile waters flow into our very Egypt once more.’

  Taita smiled and stamped one sandalled foot on the wall beneath him. ‘Kalulu has told us how hard and adamantine this stone is. Look at the size of it, Meren. It is many times bigger than all three of the great pyramids of Giza placed on top of each other. If you captured every man in Africa and set them to work for the next hundred years, I doubt they could move even a small part of it.’

  ‘We should not take that strange man’s word for how hard it is. I will get my men to test the rock with fire and bronze. Remember also, Magus, the engineering skills that raised those pyramids might be used to cast them down again. I see no reason why we should not be able to carry out the same feat, for we are also Egyptians, the most advanced culture on this earth.’

  ‘I see some small merit in your arguments, Meren,’ Taita agreed. Then something beyond the far end of the wall caught his attention. He frowned. ‘Is that a building on the bluff overlooking us? I will put the question to Kalulu.’

  They scrambled down the slippery rockface to where the dwarf sat on his litter surrounded by his bodyguards. When Taita pointed out the ruins he nodded brightly. ‘You are right, Magus. That is a temple built by men.’

  ‘Your tribe do not build in stone, do they?’

  ‘No, that place was built by strangers.’

  ‘Who were these strangers, and when did they build it?’ Taita demanded.

  ‘It is almost exactly fifteen years ago that they laid the first stones.’

  ‘What manner of men were they.’ Taita asked.

  Kalulu hesitated before he answered. ‘They were not southern men. Their features were like yours and those men with you. They wore the same dress and carried the same weapons.’

  Taita stared at him, stunned into silence. At last he said, ‘You suggest that they were Egyptians. It does not seem possible. Are you sure they came from Egypt?’

  ‘I know nothing about the land from which you have come. I have never been down the Nile even as far as the great swamps. I cannot say with any certainty, but to me they appeared to be men of your race.’

  ‘Did you speak to them?’

  ‘No,’ Kalulu said, with feeling. ‘They were secretive and spoke to no one.’

  ‘How many were here, and where are they now?’ Taita asked keenly.

  He seemed to be watching the little man’s eyes intently, but Fenn knew he was reading his aura.

  ‘There were more than thirty, and less than fifty. They disappeared as mysteriously as they came.’

  ‘They disappeared after the damming of the river with the Red Stones?’

  ‘At the same time, Magus.’

  ‘Surpassing strange,’ Taita said. ‘Who inhabits the temple now?’

  ‘It is deserted, Magus,’ Kalulu replied, ‘as all the land for a hundred leagues around is deserted. My tribe and all the others fled in terror at these and other strange events. Even I took shelter in the marshes. This is the first time I have returned, and I admit that I would never have done so without your protection.’

  ‘We should visit the temple,’ Taita said. ‘Will you show it to us?’

  ‘I have never been inside that building,’ Kalulu said softly. ‘I never will. You must not ask me to go with you.’

  ‘Why not, Kalulu?’

  ‘It is the site of utmost evil. The force that has brought disaster upon all of us.’

  ‘I respect your caution. These are deep matters and should not be undertaken lightly. Return with Meren. I will go alone to the temple.’

  He turned to Meren. ‘Spare no labours to make the camp secure. Fortify it well, and post a strong guard. When you have done that we will return to assay the hardness of the Red Stones.’

  ‘I implore you to return to the camp before darkness falls, Magus.’

  Meren looked jaundiced with worry. ‘If you are not back at sunset, I will come to search for you.’

  As the bodyguards hefted the litter and followed Meren, Taita turned to Fenn. ‘Go with Meren. Hurry to catch up with him.’

  She stood to her full height, arms behind her back, mouth set obstinately. He had come to know that expression well. ‘There is no spell you can weave to make me leave you,’ she declared.

  ‘When you scowl you are no longer beautiful,’ he warned her mildly.

  ‘You cannot imagine how ugly I can be,’ she said. ‘Try to rid yourself of me and I will show you.’

  ‘Your threats unman me.’ He could scarce prevent himself smiling.

  ‘But stay close to me, and be ready to form the circle at the first malevolent emanation we encounter.’

  They found a path that climbed the bluff. When they reached the temple they saw that the stonework was beautifully executed. The entire building was roofed with hewn timber planking, over which had been laid a thatch of river reeds that was collapsing in places. They walked slowly round the walls. The temple was laid out on a circular foundation, about fifty paces across. At five equidistant points tall granite stele had been built into the walls. ‘The five points of the black magicians’ pentagram,’

  Taita told Fenn softly. They came back to the entrance portals of the temple. The door jambs were carved with bas-reliefs of esoteric symbols.

  ‘Can you read them?’ Fenn asked.

  ‘No,’ Taita admitted. ‘They are alien.’ Then he looked into her eyes for any sign of fear. ‘Will you enter with me?’

  For answer she took his hand. ‘Let us form the circle,’ she suggested.

  Together they stepped through the gateway into the circular outer portico. It was paved with flat grey stones, and shafts of light beamed down through the holes in the roof. There was no opening in the inner wall. Side by side they followed the curving portico. As they drew level with each stela, they found the points of the pentagram laid out in white marble under their feet. Within each point was enclosed another mysterious symbol, a serpent, a crux ansata, a vulture in flight, another at roost and, last
, a jackal. They stepped over a pile of loose thatching and heard a harsh hiss, then a violent rustle beneath their feet. Taita slipped an arm round Fenn’s waist and lifted her clear. Behind them the hooded head of a black Egyptian cobra rose out of the tumbled reeds.

  It stared hard at them with tiny black marble eyes, the long tongue flickering and testing the air for their scent. Taita set Fenn down, raised his staff and pointed it at the serpent’s head. ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he said.

  ‘This is no apparition. It is a natural animal.’ He began to move the tip of the staff rhythmically from side to side, and the cobra swayed to the motion. Gradually it was lulled, the hood deflated, and it sank back into the tangle of thatch. Taita led Fenn away down the gallery. They stopped at last in front of an ornate doorway.

  ‘The opposed opening,’ Taita told her. ‘This is diametrically opposite the outer entrance. It limits the ingress and egress of alien influences to the inner sanctum.’

  The doorway that faced them was shaped like a petalled flower. The jambs were covered with tiles of polished ivory, malachite and tiger’s eye.

  The closed doors were covered with lacquered crocodile skin. Taita used his staff to lean his full weight against one door. It swung open, bronze hinges whining. The interior was lit only by a shaft of sunlight cast from a single opening in the dome of the roof. It struck the floor of the sanctum in an eruption of colour.

  The floor was decorated with an elaborately designed pentagram, the pattern worked in tiles of marble and semi-precious stones. Taita recognized rose quartz and rock crystal, beryllium and rubellite. The workmanship was masterly. The heart of the design was a circle of tiles so superbly fitted together and polished that the joints were invisible. It seemed to be a single shield of gleaming ivory.

  ‘Let us go in, Magus.’ Fenn’s childish treble was thrown back and forth between the rounded walls.

  ‘Wait!’ he said. ‘There is a presence within, the spirit of this place. I think it is dangerous. It is what terrified Kalulu.’ He pointed to the sunlight on the temple floor. ‘It is almost noon. The beam is about to fall upon the heart of the pentagram. That will be the fateful moment.’

  They watched the sunlight creep across the floor. It touched the lip of the ivory circle and was reflected on to the surrounding walls, its radiance enhanced tenfold. Now it seemed to advance more swiftly, until suddenly it filled the ivory disc. Immediately they heard sistrums hum and rattle.

  They heard the wings of bats and vultures in the air around them. White light filled the sanctum with such brilliance that they lifted their hands to shield their eyes. Through the dazzle they saw the spirit sign of Eos appear at the centre of the disc, the cat’s paw picked out in fire.

  The odour of the witch filled their nostrils with the redolence of wild beasts. They reeled back from the doorway, but then the sunlight passed over the ivory disc and the fiery letters were expunged. The reek of the witch abated, leaving only the smell of musty thatch and bat droppings.

  The sunlight faded, leaving the sanctum once more in gloom. In silence they retreated down the gallery and out into the sunlight.

  ‘She was there,’ whispered Fenn. She took a deep breath of the cool lake air, as if to cleanse her lungs.

  ‘Her influence remains.’ Taita pointed with his staff at the humped Red Stones. ‘She still presides over her fiendish works.’

  ‘Could we destroy her temple,’ Fenn glanced back at the building, ‘and in that way destroy her also?’

  ‘No,’ Taita told her firmly. ‘Her influence is powerful within the inner sanctum of her stronghold. To challenge her there would be mortally dangerous. We will find another time and place to attack her.’ He took Fenn’s hand and led her away. ‘We will return tomorrow to test the wall for weakness, and to learn more from Kalulu of how the Red Stones were placed across the gorge.’

  Meren pointed out the central crack that divided the Red Stones.

  ‘There is no doubt that this is the weakest point in the length of the wall. It may be a shear line.’

  ‘Certainly that seems the best point at which to begin the experiment,’

  Taita agreed. ‘There is no dearth of firewood.’ Most of the big trees that covered the slopes of the gorge had died when their water was dammed.

  ‘Tell the men to begin.’

  They watched them spread out through the forest. Soon the sound of their axes rang down the gorge and woke the echoes from the cliffs.

  Once the trees were felled, they used the horses to drag them to the base of the red wall. There they cut them into lengths, which they stacked against the wall of stone so that they formed a flue through which air would be drawn to fuel the flames. It took several days to set the gigantic mound of combustibles in place. In the meantime Taita supervised the building of four separate shadoof wheels to raise the water from the lake to the top of the wall and spill it on to the reverse face to drench the rock once it was red hot. When all was in readiness, Meren set fire to the stack of wood. The flames took hold and leapt upwards. In minutes the entire pile of timber was a roaring conflagration. No man could stand within a hundred yards of it without having the skin flayed from his flesh.

  While they waited for the fire to subside, Taita and Fenn sat with Kalulu on the bluff above the gorge, looking across at the temple of Eos on the far side. They sheltered from the sun under a small ruined pavilion that stood on the spot. The bodyguards had repaired the roof thatch.

  ‘While the river still ran and my tribe lived here, I was in the habit of coming to this place during the hot season of the year, when all the earth groans under the lash of the sun,’ Kalulu explained. ‘You can feel how the breeze comes off the lake. Furthermore, I was fascinated by the activity of the strangers in the temple across the river. I used this as a lookout from where I could spy upon them.’ He pointed at the temple sitting high on the opposite bluff. ‘You must visualize the scene at that time. Where the wall of red stone now stands there was a deep gorge with a series of rapids, and cascades down which descended such a volume of water that the senses were numbed by the thunder of their fall. A tall cloud of spray towered above them.’ He lifted his arms high and described the hovering cloud with an eloquent, graceful gesture.

  ‘When the wind shifted, the spray blew over us here, as cool and blessed as rain.’ He smiled with pleasure at the thought. ‘Thus, from here, I had the view of a vulture over all the momentous occurrences of that time.’

  ‘You watched the temple being constructed?’ Fenn asked. ‘Did you know that there is much ivory and many precious stones within its precincts?’

  ‘Indeed, my pretty child. I watched the strangers bring them in. They used hundreds of slaves as beasts of burden.’

  ‘From which direction did they arrive?’ Taita asked.

  ‘They came from the west.’ Kalulu pointed into the hazy blue distance.

  ‘What country lies out there?’ Tait asked.

  The dwarf did not answer immediately. He was silent for a while, and then he responded hesitantly: ‘When I was a young man and my legs were whole and strong, I travelled there. I went in search of wisdom and learning, for I had heard of a wondrous sage who lived in that far country to the west.’

  ‘What did you discover?’

  ‘I beheld mountains, mighty mountains, hidden for most of the year by masses of dense cloud. When it parted, it revealed peaks that climbed to the very skies, peaks whose bald heads were shining white.’

  ‘Did you climb to the summits?’

  ‘No. I saw them only from a great distance.’

  ‘Do these mountains have a name?’

  ‘The people who live within sight of them call them the Mountains of the Moon for their tops are as bright as the full moon.’

  ‘Tell me, my learned and revered friend, did you see any other wonders on these travels?’

  ‘The wonders were many and legion,’ Kalulu replied. ‘I saw rivers that burst from the earth and boiled with steam as though from a
seething cauldron. I heard the hills groan and felt them shake beneath my feet, as though some monster stirred in his deep cavern.’ The memories illuminated his dark eyes. ‘There was such power in this range of mountains that one of the peaks burned and smoked like a gigantic furnace.’

  ‘A burning mountain!’ Taita exclaimed. ‘You saw a peak that belched fire and smoke! You discovered a volcano?’

  ‘If that is what you call such a miracle,’ the little man acceded. ‘The tribes that lived within sight of it called it the Tower of Light. It was a sight that filled me with awe.’

  ‘Did you ever find the famous sage for whom you went in search?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The men who built this temple came from the Mountains of the Moon? Is that what you believe?’ Taita brought him back to the original question.

  ‘Who knows? Not I. But they came from that direction. They laboured for twenty months. First they carried in the building materials with their slaves. Then they erected the walls and covered them with timbers and thatch. My tribe provided food for them, in exchange for beads, cloth and metal tools. We did not understand the purpose of that building, but it seemed harmless and posed no threat to us.’ Kalulu shook his head at the memory of their naivety. ‘I was interested in the work. I tried to ingratiate myself with the builders and learn more about what they were doing, but they turned me away in a most hostile manner. They placed guards around their camp and I could not get close. I was forced to watch their works from this vantage-point.’ Kalulu lapsed into silence.

  Taita encouraged him with another question. ‘What happened after the temple was completed?’; ‘The builders and slaves departed. They marched back into the west, the way they had come. They left nine priests to serve in the temple.’

  ‘Only nine?’ Taita asked.

  ‘Yes. I became familiar with the appearance of every one of them, at this distance, of course.’

  ‘What makes you believe they were priests?’

  ‘They wore religious habits, red in colour. They conducted rituals of devotion. They made sacrifices and burnt offerings.’