The Quest

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘I will be ready,’ Taita assured her.

  When Taita arrived at Hannah’s room the next morning,’ her team of surgeons was assembled and ready to begin. Two nursing attendants, whom he recognized from his previous visit with Meren, helped him to undress. When he was naked they lifted him up on to the stone table and made him lie on his back. The stone was hard and cool under him, but the air was pleasantly warm, heated by the hot-water ducts beneath the floor. All four doctors were bare to the waist, and wore only white linen loincloths. Hannah’s and Rei’s breasts and upper bodies were firm and rounded as those of young women, and their skin was smooth and unwrinkled. He supposed that they had availed themselves of their arcane skills to keep themselves in that condition, and smiled faintly at the eternal vanity of the female. Then he considered himself: Lying here waiting for the knife, am I any less vain than they? He stopped smiling, and took one last look round the room. He saw that on another table close at hand a large selection of silver, copper and bronze surgical instruments had been laid out. Among them he was surprised to see at least fifty gleaming scalpels lying in neat lines on the white marble.

  Hannah saw his interest. ‘I like to work with sharp knives,’ she explained, ‘for your comfort as well as my own.’ She indicated two technicians sitting at another worktable in the far corner of the room.

  ‘Those men are skilled cutlers. They will resharpen each scalpel as soon as its edge becomes dull. You will be grateful to them before the day is done.’ She turned to her assistants. ‘If all is in readiness we can proceed.’

  The two male nurses swabbed Taita’s lower body with a pungent smelling liquid. At the same time the surgeons washed their hands and forearms in a bowl of the same fluid. Dr. Rei came to Taita’s side. The markings she had made the previous day had faded until they were barely visible. Now she renewed them, then stood back to make way for Hannah.

  ‘I am about to make the first incision. Lord Taita, will you please compose yourself to resist the pain?’ she said.

  Taita grasped the Periapt of Lostris, which lay upon his naked chest.

  He filled his mind with a soft mist, and let the circle of their faces above him recede until they were vague outlines.

  Hannah’s voice reverberated strangely in his ears, seeming to come from a distance: ‘Are you prepared?’ she asked.

  ‘I am. You may begin.’ He felt a tugging sensation as she made the first incision, and as she went deeper he felt the first pain, but it was not unbearable. He let himself drop a level until he was just aware of her touch and the bite of her scalpel. He could hear their voices. Time passed. Once or twice the pain flared brightly as Hannah worked in a sensitive area, but Taita dropped a little deeper. When the pain receded he let himself rise to just below the surface, and listened to their discussions, which enabled him to follow their progress.

  ‘Very well,’ said Hannah, with obvious satisfaction. ‘We have removed all the scar tissue, and we are ready to insert the catheter. Can you hear me, Lord Taita?’

  ‘Yes,’ Taita whispered, his voice echoing in his ears.

  ‘Everything is going even better than I had hoped. I am placing the tube now.’

  Taita felt it being worked into him, a mildly uncomfortable sensation that he did not need to suppress.

  Already fresh urine is flowing from your bladder,’ said Hannah. ‘All is in readiness. You may relax, while we wait for the seedings to be brought from the laboratory.’

  There followed a long silence. Taita let himself drift deeper until he was only just conscious of his surroundings. The silence continued, but he felt no sense of alarm or urgency. Then, gradually, he became aware of an alien presence in the room. He heard a voice that he knew was Hannah’s, but it was very different now: soft, trembling with fear or some other strong emotion. ‘This is the essence,’ she said.

  Taita brought himself to the level of bearable pain. He opened his eyes to slits so that he was looking through the screen of his own eyelashes. He saw Hannah’s hands above him. They were cupped round an alabaster pot similar to that which had held the seeding for Meren’s eye but much larger. Hannah lowered it from his line of vision and Taita heard the light scraping sound of a spoon against the alabaster as Hannah scooped out some of the contents. Moments later he felt a sensation of cold in the area of the open wound in his groin, and a light touch as the seeding was spread over it. This was followed by an acute stinging sensation in the same area. He masked it, then something else caught his half-open eyes.

  He realized, for the first time, that a strange figure stood against the far wall. It had appeared without a sound, a tall but statuesque shape, veiled from head to floor in filmy black silk. The only movement was a light undulation as the person’s chest rose and fell with each breath. The bosom beneath the veil was proudly feminine, perfect in size and shape.

  Taita was possessed by an overpowering sense of awe and fear. He opened his Inner Eye and saw that the veiled figure threw no aura.

  He was certain that it was Eos, not one of her shadowy manifestations but Eos, with whom he had come to do battle.

  He wanted to sit up and challenge her, but as soon as he tried to rise from his trance to full consciousness the pain soared and drove him back.

  He wanted to speak, but no words rose to his tongue. He could only stare at her. Then he felt the softest touch on his temples, like that of teasing fairy fingers. He knew it was not Hannah: Eos was trying to enter his mind and take out his thoughts. Swiftly he raised his mental barriers to frustrate her. The fairy touch withdrew: Eos had sensed his resistance and, like a skilled swordsman, had given ground. He imagined her poised for the riposte. She had made her first delicate test of his defences. He knew he should have felt threatened and intimidated by her presence, repelled by her wickedness, the great weight of her evil, but instead he felt a strong, unnatural attraction to her. Demeter had warned him of her beauty and the effect it had on all men who gazed upon it, and he tried to keep his guard high, but he found that he still longed to look upon her fateful beauty.

  At that moment Hannah moved to the foot of the table and blocked his view. He wanted to shout at her to stand aside, but now that Eos was not directly in his eye his self-control reasserted itself. It was a valuable discovery. He had learnt that if he looked upon her she was irresistible.

  If he turned away his eyes the attraction, although powerful, could be denied. He lay staring quietly at the ceiling, and allowed the pain to rise to the pitch at which it acted as a counter to the animal craving she aroused in him. Hannah was bandaging the open wound now and he concentrated on the touch of her hands and the feel of the linen strips being laid upon his body. When she had finished Hannah came back to his side. Taita looked at the far wall, but Eos was gone. Only the faintest psychic trace of her remained, a haunting sweetness that hung in the air like a precious perfume.

  Dr. Rei took Hannah’s place at the head of the table, opened his mouth and placed wooden wedges between his jaws. He felt her settle the forceps over the first of his teeth and masked the pain before she began the extraction. Rei was expert: she pulled out his teeth in rapid succession. Then Taita felt the sting of the seeding being placed in the open wounds, and the prick of the needle as she closed the wounds with sutures.

  Gently the two male nurses lifted Taita down from the stone table and laid him on a light litter. Hannah walked beside him as they carried him to his quarters. When they reached his room she saw him safely transferred from the litter to his sleeping mat. Then she made the arrangements for his comfort and care.

  At last she knelt on the floor beside him. ‘One of the nurses will remain at your side night and day. They will send for me the moment they detect any adverse change in your condition. If there is anything you need you have only to let them know. I will call upon you morning and evening to change the dressings on your wound and to observe your progress,’ she told him. ‘I do not have to warn you of what lies ahead. You were present during the grafting of
the seedings into the eye socket of your protégé. You will remember the pain and discomfort he endured. You know, too, of the usual sequence of events - three days relatively free of pain, six days of agony, and relief on the tenth. However, because your wound is so much larger than that of Colonel Cambyses, your pain will be more intense. You will need all your skills to keep it under control.’

  Once again Hannah’s predictions proved accurate. The first three days passed with only minor discomfort; a dull ache in the pit of his stomach and a burning sensation when he passed water. His mouth hurt more. It was difficult to prevent himself worrying with his tongue the stitches that Rei had placed in his gums. He could eat no solid food, and took only a light broth of mashed vegetables. He could walk only with the greatest difficulty. They had provided him with a pair of crutches, but he needed the help of a nurse to reach the washroom when he needed to use the nightsoil pot.

  When Hannah came to change his dressing he looked down as she worked, and he saw that a soft sticky scab covered the wound. It looked like the resin that oozes from a cut or blaze made in the bark of the gum arabic tree. Hannah was careful not to disturb it, and to prevent it from adhering to the linen bandages she coated it with a greasy ointment that Dr. Assem had provided.

  On the fourth morning he awoke in the grip of an agony so deep that he screamed involuntarily before he could exert his mental powers to check the pain. The nurses rushed to his side and sent immediately for Dr. Hannah. By the time she appeared he had rallied his forces and reduced it to the extent that he could speak intelligibly.

  ‘It is bad,’ Hannah said, ‘but you knew it would be.’

  ‘It is far beyond anything I have ever known. It feels as though a crucible of molten lead has been poured over my belly,’ he whispered.

  ‘I can call Dr. Assem to administer a potion.’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘I will come to terms with it alone.’

  ‘Six more days,’ she warned him. ‘Maybe longer.’

  ‘I shall survive.’ The agony was dread and constant. It filled his existence to the exclusion of all else. He did not think of Eos, or even of Fenn. The pain was all.

  He managed with great effort to hold it off during waking hours, but as soon as sleep overcame him his defences slipped and it returned in full force. He came awake, whimpering and moaning with its intensity. He lived with the temptation to yield and send for Assem with his narcotics, but resisted with all his mental and physical strength. The danger of letting himself be carried into a stupor outweighed the pain. His resolve was all the shield he had left against Eos and the Lie.

  On the sixth day the pain faded, only to be replaced at once by the itching, which was almost more difficult to resist than the pain. He wanted to rip off the dressings and tear at his flesh with his fingernails.

  The only relief he had was when Hannah came to change the dressings.

  Once she had removed the soiled bandages she bathed him with a warm herbal solution that was soothing and comforting.

  By this time the huge scab that covered his lower belly and crotch had turned as hard and black as the skin of a great crocodile of the azure lake. These periods of surcease were brief. No sooner had Hannah bound him up with fresh linen strips than the itching returned in full force. It drove him to the borders of sanity. There seemed no end to it.

  He lost track of the days.

  At one stage Rei came to him. While the nurses pried apart his jaws she removed the stitches from his gums. He had forgotten about them in the overwhelming anguish of the main wound. However, the faint relief afforded him by their removal was sufficient to stiffen his resolve.

  When he awoke one morning he felt such a rush of relief that he moaned. The pain and the itching were gone. The peace that followed was so blessed that he fell into a deep, healing sleep that lasted a day and a night. When he woke again he found Hannah kneeling beside his sleeping mat. While he was asleep she had unwrapped his bandages.

  He was so exhausted that he had not even been conscious of what she was doing. As he raised his head she smiled at him with proprietary pride.

  ‘Mortification is always the greatest danger, but there is no sign of it. Your body is not heated with fever. The seed graft has taken across the whole area. You have crossed the sea of pain and reached the far shore,’ she told him. ‘Considering the depth and extent of your wound, your courage and fortitude have been exemplary, although I expected no less of you. Now I can remove the catheter.’

  The copper tube slipped out easily, and again the relief was a delight.

  He was surprised by how weak and wasted the ordeal had left him.

  Hannah and the nurses had to help him to sit up. He looked down at his body. It had been lean before but now it was skeletally thin. The flesh had melted away until every rib showed.

  ‘The scab is beginning to come away,’ Hannah told him. ‘Look how it is lifting and sloughing off around its borders. See the healing beneath it.’ With a forefinger she traced the demarcating line along which the old and new skin met. The two blended together flawlessly. The old skin was crinkled with age like crepe cloth, the hair growing upon it wispy and grey. The narrow strip of exposed new skin was as smooth and firm as polished ivory. A fine down grew upon it, becoming denser in a line extending downwards from his navel. It was the first fluffy promise of the luxuriant bush of pubic hair it would become. In the middle of the scab crust was the aperture from which Hannah had removed the copper catheter. Hannah covered it with another thick layer of Dr. Assem’s herbal ointment.

  ‘The ointment will soften and help to lift away the dry scab without damaging the new tissue beneath it,’ she explained, as she bandaged him again.

  Before she had finished Dr. Rei came into the room and knelt beside Taita’s head. She slipped her finger into his mouth. ‘Is anything happening in here?’ she asked. Her manner was relaxed and friendly, in contrast to her formerly serious and professional mien.

  Taita’s voice was muffled by her finger. ‘I can feel something growing. There are hard lumps below the surface of my gums, which are tender when you touch them.’

  ‘Teething pains.’ Rei chuckled. ‘You are passing through your second infancy, my lord Taita.’ She ran her finger to the back of his mouth, and laughed again. ‘Yes, a full set, including your wisdom teeth. They will show themselves within days. Then you can eat more substantial fare than pap and broth.’

  Within a week Rei returned. She brought with her a mirror of burnished silver. Its surface was so true that the image it presented to Taita of the interior of his mouth was only slightly distorted. ‘Like a string of pearls from the Arabian Sea,’ she said, as Taita gazed for the first time at his new teeth. ‘Probably more regular and pleasingly shaped than the first crop you grew so long ago.’ Before she left, she said, ‘Please accept the mirror as my gift. I warrant you will have more to admire with it before too long.’

  The moon had waxed and waned once more before the last flakes of the scab at the base of Taita’s belly crumbled away. By now he was eating normally and regaining the flesh he had lost. He spent several hours each day exercising with his long staff in a series of movements that he had designed to build up his suppleness and strength. Dr. Assem had prescribed a diet that included large quantities of herbs and vegetables. All these measures were proving most beneficial. The hollows in his cheeks filled out, his colour was healthier, and it seemed to him that the muscles that replaced those he had lost were firmer and stronger. Soon he was able to discard his crutches and walk around the lakeshore without having to stop and rest. However, Hannah would not allow him to leave the sanatorium unaccompanied, and one of the male nurses went with him. As he regained his strength, the constant surveillance and restriction became more difficult to endure. He was increasingly bored and restless, demanding of Hannah, ‘When will you allow me to leave my cell and return to the world?’

  ‘The oligarchs have cautioned me to keep you here until you are fully recovered. However, y
our days need not be wasted. Let me show you something that will help you pass the time.’ She conducted him to the sanatorium’s library, which stood in the forest at some distance from the main complex. It was a large building that comprised a series of enormous interconnected rooms. On all four walls of each one stone shelves reached from floor to ceiling, stacked with papyrus scrolls and clay tablets.

  ‘On our shelves we have more than ten thousand works and as many scientific studies,’ Hannah told him, with pride. ‘Most are unique. No other copies exist. It would take a normal lifetime to read even half.’

  Taita walked slowly through the rooms, picking up a scroll or tablet at random and glancing at its contents. The entrance to the final room was closed with a heavy bronze grating. He looked askance at Hannah.

  ‘Unfortunately, my lord, entrance to that particular room, and to the editions kept in it, is restricted to members of the Guild,’ she said.

  ‘I understand,’ Taita assured her, then looked back at the rooms through which they had come. ‘This must be the greatest treasury of knowledge that civilized man has ever assembled.’

  ‘I agree with your estimation, my lord. You will find much to fascinate you and stimulate your mind, and perhaps even open for you new avenues of philosophical thought.’

  ‘I shall certainly avail myself of the opportunity.’ Over the following weeks Taita spent many hours each day in the library. Only when the light through the high windows grew too dim for easy reading did he make his way back to his quarters in the main building.

  One morning when he had finished his breakfast he was surprised and a little irritated to find a stranger waiting outside his door. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded impatiently. He was anxious to get to the library and finish reading the scroll on astral travel and communication, which had engaged his full attention over the preceding days. ‘Speak up, fellow.’