The Quest

by Wilbur Smith

This time he could be certain that it was physical reality he was witnessing. He saw the scaly backs of a pack of crocodiles breaking the surface, their tails slashing in the air. They seemed to be feeding on carrion, fighting over it in a frenzy of greed. He stopped to watch them, and saw a bull crocodile breach clear out of the water. With a shake of its head, it tossed a chunk of raw meat high into the air. As it fell back, the beast seized it once more and, with a swirl, disappeared below the surface.

  Taita watched until it was almost dark then, deeply troubled, walked back across the lawns.

  Meren woke as soon as he entered the room. He seemed refreshed and unaffected by Taita’s sombre mood. As they shared the evening meal, he joked with morbid humour about the operation Hannah was planning for the following day. He referred to himself as ‘the cyclops, about to be given an eye of glass’.

  Hannah and Gibba came to their room early the next morning with their team of assistants. After they had examined Meren’s eye socket, they pronounced him ready to take the next step.

  Gibba prepared a draught of the herbal opiate while Hannah laid out her tray of instruments, then came to sit on the mat beside Meren. From time to time she drew up the lid of his good eye and studied the dilation of the pupil. At last she was satisfied that the drug had taken effect and he was resting peacefully. She nodded to Gibba.

  He rose and left the room, to return a short while later with a tiny alabaster pot. He carried it as though it were the holiest of relics. He waited until the four attendants had restrained Meren by his ankles and wrists, then set down the pot close to Hannah’s right hand. Once again he took Meren’s head between his knees, opened the lids of his missing eye and set the silver dilators in place.

  ‘Thank you, Dr. Gibba,’ Hannah said, and began to rock lightly and rhythmically on her haunches. In time to her movements, she and Gibba began a chanted incantation. Taita recognized a few words, which seemed to have the same root as some verbs in the Tenmass. He guessed that it might be a higher, more evolved form of the language.

  When they reached the end, Hannah took up a scalpel from her tray, passed the blade through the flame of the oil lamp, then made a quick hatching of shallow parallel incisions in the inner lining of the eye cavity. Taita was reminded of a plasterer preparing the surface of a wall to receive an application of wet clay. There was a weeping of blood from the light cuts but she sprinkled on a few drops, from a phial, which stopped it at once. Gibba swabbed away the clotted blood.

  ‘Not only does this salve staunch the bleeding, but it provides a bonding glue for the seeding,’ Hannah explained.

  With the same deferential care as Gibba had shown earlier, Hannah lifted the lid off the alabaster pot. Craning for a better view, Taita saw that the pot contained a minute amount of pale yellow translucent jelly, hardly enough to cover his little fingernail. With a small silver spoon Hannah scooped it up and, with infinite care, applied it to the incisions in Meren’s eye socket.

  ‘We are ready to close the eye, Dr. Gibba,’ she said softly. Gibba withdrew the dilators, then pinched the lids shut between thumb and forefinger. Hannah took up a thin silver needle threaded with a fine strand prepared from a sheep’s intestine. With deft fingers she placed three stitches in the lids. While Gibba held Meren’s head she bandaged it with the same intricate pattern of intertwined linen strips that was used by the embalmers at the Egyptian funereal temples. She left openings for Meren’s nostrils and mouth. Then she sat back on her haunches with an air of satisfaction. ‘Thank you, Dr. Gibba. As usual your assistance has been invaluable.’

  ‘Is that all?’ Taita asked. ‘Is the operation complete?’

  ‘If there is no mortification or other complication, I will remove the stitches in twelve days’ time,’ Hannah replied. ‘Our main concern until then will be to protect the eye from light and interference by the patient. He will experience a great deal of discomfort during this period. There will be sensations of burning and itching so intense that they cannot be readily alleviated by sedatives. Although he might control himself while he is awake, in his sleep he will try to rub the eye. He must be watched day and night by trained attendants, and his hands will be bound. He must be moved to a windowless, dark cell to avoid light aggravating the pain and preventing the seeding from germinating. It will be a difficult time for your protégé and he will need your help to come through it.’

  ‘Why is it necessary to close both his eyes, even the one that is unharmed?’

  ‘If he moves the healthy eye to focus on objects it perceives, the new one will respond in sympathy. We must keep it as quiescent as possible.’

  Despite Hannah’s warning, Meren experienced little discomfort for the first three days after the seeding of his eye. His greatest hardship was being deprived of sight, and the subsequent boredom.

  Taita tried to entertain him with reminiscences of the many adventures they had shared over the years, the places they had visited and the men and women they had known. They discussed what effect the drought of the Nile was having on their homeland, the suffering inflicted on the people and how Nefer Seti and the queen were dealing with the calamity. They spoke about their home at Gallala and what they might find there when they returned from their odyssey. These were all subjects they had covered many times before, but the sound of Taita’s voice soothed Meren.

  He was woken on the fourth day by sharp pains lancing through the socket. They were as regular as the beat of his heart and so painful that he gasped with each stab and reached instinctively to his eye with both hands. Taita sent the attendant to find Hannah. She came at once and unwound the bandage, ‘No mortification,’ she said immediately, and began to replace the old bandage with a fresh one. ‘This is the result we hoped for. The seeding has grafted and is beginning to take root.’

  ‘You use the same terms as a gardener,’ Taita said.

  ‘That is what we are: gardeners of men,’ she replied.

  Meren did not sleep for the next three days. As the pain intensified he moaned and tossed on his mattress. He would not eat, and was able to drink only a few bowlfuls of water each day. When at last sleep overcame him he lay on his back, arms strapped to his sides with strips of leather, and snored through the mouth hole in his bandages. He slept for a night and a day.

  When he awoke the itching began. ‘It feels as though fire ants are crawling in my eye.’ He groaned and tried to rub his face against the rough stone wall of the cell. The attendant had to call two of his colleagues to restrain him, for Meren was a powerful man. With lack of food and sleep, though, the flesh seemed to melt from his body. His ribs showed clearly through the skin of his chest, and his belly shrank until it seemed to rest against his backbone.

  Over the years he and Taita had become so close that Taita suffered with him. The only time he could escape from the cell was when Meren fell into short and restless bouts of sleep. Then he could leave him in the care of an attendant and wander in the botanical gardens.

  Taita found a peculiar quality of peace in these gardens that drew him back time after time. They were not laid out in any particular order: rather, they were a maze of avenues and pathways, some of which were heavily overgrown. Each twist or turning led to fresh vistas of delight. In the warm sweet airs, the mingled scents of the blooms were heady and intoxicating. The grounds were so extensive that he encountered only a few of the gardeners who tended this paradise. At his appearance they slipped away, more like wraiths than humans. On each visit he discovered delightful new arbours and shaded walks that he had overlooked before, but when he tried to find his way back to them on his next visit they had disappeared and been replaced with others no less lovely and enticing. It was a garden of exquisite surprises.

  On the tenth day after the seeding Meren seemed easier. Hannah rebandaged the eye, and declared herself pleased. ‘As soon as the pain ceases completely I will be able to remove the stitches from the eyelid and review the progress he has made.’

  Meren passed another peaceful night
and woke with a fine appetite for his breakfast, and a resuscitated sense of humour. It was Taita rather than the patient who felt depleted and drained. Even though his eyes were still covered, Meren seemed to sense Taita’s condition, his need to rest and be alone. Taita was often surprised by the flashes of intuition his usually bluff and uncomplicated companion displayed, and was moved when Meren said, ‘You have played nursemaid to me long enough, Magus. Leave me alone to piddle the mattress if I need to. Go and rest. I am sure you must look dreadful.’

  Taita took up his staff, and hitched the skirts of his tunic under his girdle and set off for the upper section of the gardens furthest from the sanatorium. He found this the most attractive area. He was not sure why, except that it was the wildest, most untended part of the crater. Huge boulders had broken off the rock wall and tumbled down to stand like ruined monuments to ancient kings and heroes. Over them, plants climbed and twisted in flowering profusion. He picked his way along a track he had thought he knew well, but at the point that it turned sharply between two of the great boulders he noticed for the first time that another well-defined path continued straight on towards the soaring cliff of the crater wall. He was sure that it had not been there on his last visit, but he had become accustomed to the gardens’ illusory features and followed it without hesitation. Within a short distance he heard running water somewhere to his right. He followed the sound and at last pushed his way through a screen of greenery to discover another hidden nook.

  He stepped into the little clearing and looked around curiously. A tiny stream issued from the mouth of a grotto, ran down over a series of lichen-covered ledges and into a pool. It was all so charming and restful that Taita eased himself on to a patch of soft grass and, with a sigh, leant back against the trunk of a fallen tree. For a while he gazed down into the dark waters. Deep in the pool he picked out the shadow of a large fish, half concealed by a rock shelf and the ferns that overhung the water. Its tail waved hypnotically, like a flag in a lazy wind. Watching it, he realized how tired he was, and closed his eyes. He did not know how long he had slept before he was awakened by soft music.

  The musician sat on a stone ledge at the far side of the pool, a boy of three or four, an imp with a mop of curls that bounced on his cheeks when he moved his head in time to the tune he was blowing on a reed flute. His skin was tanned to gold, and his features were angelic, while his little limbs were perfectly rounded and plump. He was beautiful, but when Taita gazed at him with the Inner Eye he saw no aura surrounding him.

  ‘What is your name?’ Taita asked.

  The imp let the flute drop from his lips to dangle on the cord round his neck. ‘I have many names,’ he replied. His voice was childlike and lisping, lovelier even than the enchanted music he had played.

  ‘If you cannot give me a name, then tell me who you are,’ Taita insisted.

  ‘I am many,’ said the imp. ‘I am legion.’

  ‘Then I know who you are. You are not the cat, but the mark of her paw,’ Taita said. He would not say her name aloud, but he guessed that this cherub was a manifestation of Eos.

  ‘And I know who you are, Taita the Eunuch.’

  Taita’s expression remained inscrutable, but the gibe pierced the shell that protected his core like an arrow of ice. The child came to his feet with the grace of a fawn rising from its forest bed. He stood facing Taita and lifted the flute to his lips again. He played a softly lilting note, then took the reed from his lips. ‘Some call you Taita the Magus, but half a man can never be more than half a Magus.’ He played a silvery trill. The beauty of the music could not alleviate the agony his words had inflicted.

  He dropped the pipe again and pointed down into the dark pool. ‘What do you see there, Taita the Deformed? Do you recognize that image, Taita-who-is-neither-man-nor-woman?’

  As he was bidden Taita stared down into the dark waters. He saw the image of a young man appear from the depths, his hair thick and lustrous, his brow wide and deep, his eyes alive with wisdom and humour, understanding and compassion. It was the countenance of a scholar and an artist. He was tall with long, clean limbs. His torso was lightly muscled. His bearing was poised and graceful. His groin was clothed by a short skirt of bleached white linen. It was the body of an athlete and warrior.

  ‘Do you recognize this man?’ the imp insisted.

  ‘Yes,’ Taita whispered huskily, his voice almost failing.

  ‘It is you,’ said the imp. ‘You as you once were, so many long years ago.’

  ‘Yes,’ Taita murmured.

  ‘Now see yourself as you have become,’ said the infernal child. The back of the young Taita bowed, and his limbs became thin and stick like. The fine muscle turned stringy, and his belly pouted. His hair faded to grey and became long, straight and sparse, the white teeth yellow and crooked. Deep lines appeared in his cheeks, and the skin beneath his chin sagged into folds. The eyes lost their sparkle. Although the image was a caricature, reality was only slightly exaggerated.

  Then, suddenly, the loincloth was stripped away, as if by a gust of wind, and the groin exposed. A thin fringe of frizzy grey pubic hair surrounded the glaring pink, puckered cicatrice left by the cut of the castrating knife and the red-hot cauterizing rod. Taita moaned softly.

  ‘Do you recognize yourself as you are now?’ asked the imp. Strangely, his tone was filled with infinite compassion.

  The pity wounded Taita more than the mockery. ‘Why do you show me these things?’ he asked.

  ‘I come to warn you. If your life was lonely and barren before, it will soon become a thousand times worse. Once again you will know love and longing, but those passions can never be requited. You will burn in the hell of an impossible love.’ Taita had no words to deny him, for already the agony the imp threatened had taken its grip. This, he knew, was just a foretaste of what must follow and he groaned.

  ‘The time will come when you pray for death to release you from the agony,’ the imp went on remorselessly, ‘but think on this, Taita the Long Liver. How long is your suffering to last before death gives you surcease?’

  In the pool the image of the ancient figure faded, and that of the beautiful, vigorous youth replaced it. He smiled up at Taita from the dark water, teeth shining, eyes sparkling.

  ‘What has been taken away, I can give back to you,’ said the child, and his voice was the purring of a kitten. The silken cloth dropped from around the youth’s waist to reveal perfectly formed genitalia, majestic and weighty. ‘I can give you back your manhood. I can make you as whole again as the image I set before you.’ Taita could not tear his gaze away from it.

  As he stared at it, the phallus of the phantom youth swelled and lengthened. Taita was filled with longings he had never entertained in all his life. They were so grossly prurient that he knew they could not have sprung from his own mind but had been placed there by the diabolical imp. He tried to tread them down, but they oozed back like the slime of a cesspool.

  The beautiful child lifted one small hand and pointed at Taita’s groin.

  ‘Anything is possible, Taita, if only you believe in me.’

  Suddenly Taita felt a powerful sensation in his crotch. He had no idea what was happening to him - until he realized that the sensations experienced by the phantom youth were being mirrored in his own body.

  He felt the weight of that magnificent phallus tugging at his guts. When he watched it stiffen and arc like a drawn war bow, he felt the tension stretch his own nerves to breaking point. When he saw the youth’s glans engorge with blood, turning a dark, angry red, it resonated in every fibre of his own body. A copious ejaculation gushed from the gaping cleft and he felt the exquisite agony of each scalding jet. His back arched involuntarily and his lips drew back in rictus as he clenched his teeth.

  A hoarse cry burst from his throat. His whole body jerked and trembled like that of a man seized by the palsy, then he sagged back on the grass, panting as though he had run a league, his strength spent.

  ‘Had you forgotten?
Had you suppressed the memory of the ultimate pinnacle of physical delight? What you have just experienced is only a grain of sand compared to the mountain that I can give to you,’ said the child, and ran to the edge of the stone step. He poised there and looked across at Taita for the last time. ‘Think on it, Taita. It is yours if you dare stretch out your hand to me.’ He dived cleanly into the pool.

  Taita saw his pale body flash as he shot down into the depths and disappeared. He could not summon the strength to rise to his feet again until the sun had made half its transit of the sky.

  It was late in the afternoon when he reached the sanatorium. He found Meren sitting in his darkened cell with his nurse. His pleasure when he heard Taita’s voice was pathetic to witness, and Taita felt guilty to have left him so long alone in the cell with the darkness and doubts that must be consuming him.

  ‘The woman came again while you were away,’ Meren cried. ‘She says that tomorrow she will remove the bandages completely. I can hardly contain myself that long.’

  Taita was still so overwrought by memories of the afternoon’s events that he knew he would not be able to sleep that night. After they had eaten the evening meal he asked the male nurse if he could find a lute he might borrow.

  ‘Dr. Gibba is a lute player,’ the fellow replied. ‘Shall I refer your request to him?’

  He went off and returned some little time later with the instrument.

  There had been a time when Taita’s voice had been the joy of all who heard him sing, and it was still tuneful and true. He sang until Meren’s chin dropped on to his chest and he began to snore. Even then Taita went on strumming softly, until he found his fingers picking out the haunting melody that the imp had played on his flute. He stopped playing and put away the lute.

  He lay down on the mattress on the opposite side of the cell from Meren and composed himself, but sleep eluded him. In the darkness his mind ran on, then took flight like a wild horse he could not control. The images and sensations that the imp had grafted into his mind crowded back so vividly that he had to escape them. He took his cloak, slipped from the cell and went out on to the lawns, which were bathed in brilliant moonlight, to walk along the edge of the lake. He felt the ice on his cheeks, but this time it was his own tears and not some alien presence that had chilled him.