The Quest

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘Taita who is neither man nor woman.’ He repeated the imp’s gibe and wiped his eyes on the fold of his woolen cloak. ‘Am I to be imprisoned in this ancient maimed body for all eternity?’ he wondered.

  ‘Eos’s temptations are as great a torment as any physical torture. Horus, Isis and Osiris, give me the strength to resist them.’

  ‘We do not need your nurses today,’ Hannah said, as she knelt beside Meren and trimmed the wick of the one small oil lamp that was the cell’s only illumination. ‘We will not inflict more pain on you. Instead we hope to compensate you for that which you have already suffered.’ She set aside the lamp. It threw a soft light on to Meren’s bandaged head. ‘Are you ready, Dr. Gibba?’ While Gibba supported Meren’s head she unpicked the knot in the bandage and peeled it away. Then she handed the lamp to Taita. ‘Please direct the light on to his eye.’

  Taita held a polished silver disc behind the flame to reflect a beam on to Meren’s face. Hannah leant closer to examine the stitches that closed his eyelids. ‘Good,’ she said comfortably. ‘I can see no vice in the way it has healed. I believe it is now safe to remove the stitches. Please hold the light steady.’

  She snipped the stitches and, with forceps, drew the gut threads from the needle punctures. The lids were glued together with dried mucus and blood. Gently she washed it away with a cloth dipped in warm aromatic water.

  ‘Please try to open your eye now, Colonel Cambyses,’ she instructed.

  The eyelid quivered, then flickered open. Taita felt his heart thump louder and more rapidly as he looked into the eye socket, which was no longer an empty pit.

  ‘In the name of the holy triumvirate, Osiris, Isis and Horus,’ Taita whispered, ‘you have regrown a perfect new eye!’

  ‘Not yet perfect,’ Hannah demurred. ‘It is but half-way grown and is still much smaller than the other. The pupil is cloudy.’ She took the silver disc from Gibba and deflected the beam directly into the immature eye. ‘On the other hand, see how the pupil contracts. It has already started to function correctly.’ She covered Meren’s good eye with the cotton pad. ‘Tell us what you can see, Colonel,’ she ordered.

  ‘A bright light,’ he replied.

  Hannah passed her hand in front of his face with her fingers splayed open. ‘Tell us what you see now.’

  ‘Shadows,’ he said doubtfully, but then he went on, firmly now, ‘No, wait! I see fingers. The outline of five fingers.’

  It was the first time Taita had seen Hannah smile and, in the yellow lamplight, she looked younger and gentler. ‘Nay, good Meren,’ he said.

  ‘This day you have seen more than fingers. You have seen a miracle.’

  ‘I must bandage the eye again.’ Hannah was brisk and businesslike once more. ‘It will be many more days before it is able to withstand the light of day.’

  The image of the imp in the grotto haunted Taita. He experienced a compulsion that grew more powerful each day to return to the gardens and wait for him beside the hidden pool. In the forefront of his mind he knew that this urge was not his own: it came directly from Eos.

  Once I enter her territory I am powerless. She possesses every advantage.

  She is the great black cat and I am her mouse, he thought.

  Then his inner voice answered: What then, Taita? Did you not come to Jarri to struggle against her? What became of your grand design? Now that you have found her, will you slink away cravenly?

  He sought another excuse for his cowardice: If only I could find a shield to deflect her malicious darts.

  He tried to find distraction from these haunting fears and temptations by helping Meren to gain full use of his immature eye. At first Hannah removed the bandages for only a few hours, and even then she did not allow him to experience daylight but kept him indoors.

  The lens of the eye was still cloudy and the colour of the iris was also pale and milky. It did not work in unison with the good eye but wandered at random. Taita helped him focus it: he held the Periapt of Lostris in front of Meren and moved it from side to side, up and down, nearer and further away.

  At first the new eye tired quickly. It watered and the lid blinked involuntarily. It grew bloodshot and itchy. Meren complained that images remained blurred and distorted.

  Taita discussed this with Hannah: ‘The eye is of a different colour from the original. It does not match in size or motion. You said once that you were a gardener of men. Perhaps the eye you have grafted is of another strain.’

  ‘Nay, Magus. The new eye is grown from the same root stock as the original. We have replaced limbs that have been cut away in battle. They do not appear fully fledged. Like your protégé‘s eye, they begin like seedlings and gradually attain their mature form. The human body has the ability to shape and develop itself over time to match the original. A blue eye is not replaced with a brown one. A hand is not replaced with a foot. There exists in each of us some life force that is able to replicate itself. Have you not wondered at how a child may resemble its parents?’ She paused and looked into his eyes intently. ‘In the same way an amputated arm is replaced with a perfect copy of the missing limb. A castrated penis would regrow in identical shape and size to the one that was destroyed.’ Taita stared at her, aghast. She had turned the discussion back upon him in a cruel and wounding fashion.

  She is speaking of my own imperfection, he thought. She knows about the mutilation I have suffered. He sprang to his feet and hurried from the room. Blindly he stumbled to the lakeside and knelt on the beach.

  He felt helpless and defeated. At last, when the tears no longer stung and his vision cleared, he looked up at the cliffs that towered above the gardens. He felt Eos nearby. He was too weary and sick at heart to fight on.

  You have won, he thought. The battle is over before it was joined. I will submit to you. Then he felt her influence changing. It seemed no longer completely evil and malign, but kindly and benevolent. He felt as though she was offering him release from pain and emotional strife. He wanted to go up into the gardens and surrender to her, cast himself upon her mercy. He struggled to his feet and was struck by the incongruity of his thoughts and actions. He straightened his back and lifted his chin.

  ‘Nay!’ he whispered aloud. ‘This is not surrender. You have not yet won the battle. You have taken only the first skirmish.’ He reached for the Periapt of Lostris and felt strength flow into him. ‘She has taken Meren’s eye. She has taken my manly parts. She has all the advantage over us. If only I had something of hers to use against her, a weapon with which to counterattack. When I have found one I will go against her again.’ He glanced at the tops of the tall flowering trees of her gardens below the painted cliffs, and before he could stop himself he had taken a step in that direction. With an effort he turned away. ‘Not yet. I am not ready.’

  His tread was firmer as he returned to the sanatorium. He found that Hannah had moved Meren from the darkened cell to their more spacious and comfortable former quarters. Meren sprang up as soon as he entered and seized the sleeve of his tunic. ‘I read a full scroll of hieroglyphics that the woman set for me,’ he exclaimed, bursting with pride at his latest achievement. Even now he could not bring himself to use Hannah’s name or title. ‘Tomorrow she will remove the bandage for ever. Then I will astonish you with how the colour has come to match the other, and how nimbly it moves. By the sweet breath of Isis, I declare I will soon be able to judge the flight of my arrows as accurately as I ever did.’ His loquacity was a sure sign of his excitement. ‘Then we shall escape this infernal place. I hate it here. There is something foul and detestable about it, and the people in it.’

  ‘But see what they have done for you,’ Taita pointed out.

  Meren looked slightly abashed. ‘I give most of the credit to you, Magus. It was you who brought me here, and saw me through this trial.’

  That night, Meren stretched himself out on his mattress and, like a child, dropped into sleep. His snores were boisterous and carefree. Taita had grown so accustomed to them o
ver the decades that to him they were a lullaby.

  He closed his eyes, and the dreams that the hellish imp had placed in his mind returned. He tried to force himself back into consciousness, but they were too compelling. He could not break free. He could smell the perfume of warm, feminine flesh, feel silken swells and hollows rubbing against him, hear sweet voices heavy with desire whispering lascivious invitations. He felt wicked fingers touching and stroking, quick tongues licking, soft mouths sucking and hot, secret openings engulfing.

  The impossible sensations in his missing parts rose up like a tempest.

  They hovered at the brink, then faded away. He wanted them to return, his whole body craved release, but it stayed beyond his reach, racking and tormenting him.

  ‘Let me be!’ With a violent effort he tore himself free, and woke to find himself wet with sweat, his breath roaring harshly in his ears.

  A shaft of moonlight slanted in through the high window in the opposite wall. He stood up shakily, went to the water jug and drank deeply. As he did so, his eyes fell upon his girdle and pouch where he had laid them as he prepared for sleep. The moonlight was falling directly upon the pouch. It was almost as though some outside influence was directing his attention to it. He picked it up and unfastened the drawstring, reached in and touched something so warm that it seemed to be alive. It moved beneath his fingertips. He jerked away his hand. By now he was fully awake. He held the mouth of the pouch open and turned it so that the moonbeam lit the interior. Something glowed in the bottom. He stared at it and watched the glow take an ethereal shape.

  It was the sign of the five-padded cat’s paw.

  With care Taita reached once more into the pouch and brought out the tiny fragment of red rock that Hannah had removed from Meren’s eye socket. It still felt warm and glowed, but the cat’s paw had disappeared.

  He clasped it firmly in his hand. Immediately the disturbance of the dreams subsided.

  He went to the oil lamp in the corner of the room and turned up the wick. By its light he studied the tiny fragment of stone. The ruby sparkle of the crystals seemed to be alive. Gradually it dawned on him that the stone contained a tiny part of the essence of Eos. When she had driven the splinter into Meren’s eye she must have endowed it with a trace of her magic.

  I came so close to throwing it into the lake. Now I know for certain that something was waiting to receive it. He remembered the monstrous swirl he had seen beneath the surface of the water. Whether or not it was crocodile or fish, in reality that thing was another of her manifestations.

  It seems that she places great importance on this insignificant fragment. I shall accord it the same respect.

  Taita opened the locket lid of the Periapt and placed the little ruby stone in the nest of hair he had taken from Lostris in both her lives.

  He felt stronger and more confident. Now I am better armed to go out against the witch.

  In the morning his courage and resolve were undiminished.

  No sooner had they broken their fast than Hannah arrived to inspect Meren’s new eye. The colour of the iris had darkened and almost matched the original. When Meren focused on her finger as it moved from side to side or up and down both eyes tracked in unison.

  After she had gone, Meren took up his bow and the embossed leather quiver of arrows, and went with Taita to the open field beside the lake.

  Taita set up a target, a painted disc on a short pole, then stood to one side as Meren selected a new string for his bow, then rolled an arrow between his palms to test its symmetry and balance.

  ‘Ready!’ he called, and addressed the target. He drew and loosed. Even though the breeze coming across the lake moved it perceptibly in flight, the arrow struck less than a thumb’s length from the centre.

  ‘Allow for the wind,’ Taita called. He had coached Meren in archery since the younger man had run the Red Road with Nefer Seti. Meren nodded in acknowledgement, then drew and loosed a second arrow. This one struck dead centre.

  ‘Turn your back,’ Taita ordered, and Meren obeyed. Taita brought the target twenty paces closer. ‘Now turn and loose instantly.’

  Moving lightly on his feet for such a big man, Meren obeyed. He had recovered the balance and poise he had lost when his eye was blinded.

  The arrow swung slightly with the breeze, but he had allowed for that in his aim. His elevation was perfect. Again the arrow slammed into the bull’s eye. They practised for the rest of the morning. Gradually Taita moved the target out to two hundred paces. Even at that range Meren placed three out of four arrows in an area the size of a man’s chest.

  When they stopped to eat the simple meal that an attendant brought them, Taita said, ‘That is enough for one day. Let your arm and your eye rest. There is a matter I must attend to.’

  He picked up his staff, made certain the Periapt of Lostris was hanging on its gold chain at his throat and set off briskly for the upper gates of the garden. He retraced his steps to the imp’s grotto. The closer he came to it, the more intense his feelings of eager anticipation became. They were so unwarranted that he knew he was still being led by outside influences. He was mildly surprised to reach the grotto again so readily.

  In this garden of surprises he had expected to find it hidden from him, but all was as he had last seen it.

  He settled down on the grassy bank and waited for he knew not what.

  All seemed peaceful and natural. He heard the chittering of a golden sunbird and looked up to see it hovering before a scarlet blossom and delicately probing its long, curved bill into the trumpet of petals to suck out the nectar. Then it darted away like a flash of sunlight. Taita waited, composing himself and marshalling his resources to meet whatever was coming his way.

  He heard a regular tapping sound that was familiar, although he could not place it immediately. It came from the pathway behind him. He turned in that direction. The tapping ceased but after a short while it began again.

  A tall, stooped figure came down the pathway carrying a long staff.

  The sound of it on the stony path was what Taita had heard. The man had a long silver beard, but although he was stooped and ancient, he moved with the alacrity of a much younger man. He seemed not to notice Taita sitting quietly at the edge of the pool but followed the bank round in the opposite direction. When he reached the far side he sat down. Only then did he lift his head and look directly at Taita, who stared at him silently. He felt the blood drain from his face and grasped the Periapt in his clenched fist, struck dumb with astonishment. The two looked deep into each other’s eyes, and each saw his identical twin stare back at him.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Taita whispered at last.

  ‘I am you,’ said the stranger, in a voice Taita recognized as his own.

  ‘No,’ Taita burst out. ‘I am one, and you are legion. You bear the black mark of the cat’s paw. I am touched with the white mark of the Truth. You are the fantasy created by Eos of the Dawn. I am the reality.’

  ‘You confound us both with your obstinacy, for we are one and the same,’ said the old man across the pool. ‘What you deny me you deny yourself. I come to show you the treasure that could be ours.’

  ‘I will not look,’ Taita said, ‘for I have already seen the poisonous images you create.’

  ‘You dare not say no, for in doing so you deny your very self,’ said his reflection. ‘What I will show you has never before been looked upon by mortal man. Gaze into the pool, you who are myself.’

  Taita stared down into the dark water. ‘There is nothing there,’ he said.

  ‘Everything is there,’ said the other Taita. ‘Everything we have ever truly wanted, you and I. Open our Inner Eye and let us gaze upon it together.’ Taita did so, and a shadowy vista appeared before him. It was as though he looked across a wide desert of barren dunes.

  ‘That desert is our existence without knowledge of the Truth,’ said the other Taita. ‘Without the Truth all is sterile and monotonous. But look beyond the desert, my hungry soul.’r />
  Taita obeyed. On the horizon he saw a mighty beacon, a divine light, a mountain cut from a single pure diamond.

  ‘That is the mountain that all the seers and magi strive towards. They do so in vain. No mortal man can attain the divine light. It is the mountain of all knowledge and wisdom.’

  ‘It is beautiful,’ whispered Taita.

  ‘We look upon it at a great distance. Mortal mind cannot imagine the beauty when you stand upon the summit.’ Taita saw that the old man was weeping with joy and reverence. ‘We can stand upon that pinnacle together, my other self. We can have what no man has ever had before. There is no greater prize.’

  Taita stood up and walked slowly to the edge of the pool. He gazed down upon the vision and felt a longing that surpassed any he had ever known. It was no shameful craving, no base physical desire. It was something as clean, noble and pure as the diamond mountain.

  ‘I know your feelings,’ said his double, ‘for they are mine exactly.’

  He stood up. ‘Look upon the frail and ancient body that encases and imprisons us. Compare it to the perfect form that was once ours, and can be ours again. Look down into the water and behold what none has seen before us, nor will see again. All this is being offered to us. Is it not sacrilege to refuse such gifts?’ He pointed at the vision of the diamond mountain. ‘See how it fades. Will we ever look upon it again? The choice is ours, yours and mine.’ The vision of the shining mountain dissolved into the dark water, leaving Taita bereft and empty.

  His mirror image stood up and came round the pool towards him. He opened his arms to embrace Taita, who felt a shiver of revulsion. Despite himself he lifted his arms to return the fraternal gesture. Before they touched a blue spark crackled between them, and Taita felt a shock, like a discharge of static electricity, as his other self vanished into him, and they became one.