The Quest

by Wilbur Smith

  He left the pavilion again, and went back into the rock tunnel that led to Eos’s green chamber. Immediately the stench of corruption filled his nostrils. If anything, it had become even stronger and more noisome. He covered his nose and mouth with the hem of his tunic, and choked back waves of nausea. Eos’s body almost entirely filled the cavern now, bloated with its own putrid gas. Taita saw that she was in the midst of a metamorphosis from human to insect. The green fluid that oozed from her pores and coated her body was hardening into a glistening shell. She was sealing herself into a cocoon. Only her head was still exposed. The ruined tresses of her hair had fallen out and littered the green tiles. Her eyes were closed. Her hoarse breathing made the foul air tremble. She had thrown herself into a profound hibernation, a suspended form of life that he knew could last indefinitely.

  Is there some way in which I can destroy her as she lies helpless? he wondered, and searched his newly acquired knowledge for the means to do so. There is none, he concluded. She is not immortal, but she was created in the flames of the volcano and she can perish only in those flames. Aloud he said, ‘Hail and farewell, Eos! May you slumber for ten thousand years that the earth will be, for a little space, rid of you.’ He stooped and picked up one of the coils of her hair. He twisted it into a thick braid, then placed it carefully in the pouch on his belt.

  There was just sufficient room to allow him to pass between her and the glittering malachite wall, then reach the far end of the chamber.

  There he found, as he had already known he would, the hidden doorway.

  It was so cunningly carved into the mirror-like wall that its reflection tricked the eye. Only when he reached out his hand to touch what had seemed solid green rock did the opening become apparent. It was only just wide enough to allow him to enter.

  Beyond, he found himself in a narrow passage. As he moved down it, the light faded into darkness. He went on confidently, holding one hand out in front of him until he touched the wall where the passage turned at right angles. Here he reached up into the darkness and found the stone shelf. He felt the warmth of the clay fire-pot on the back of his hand. This guided him to the rope handle of the pot, and he brought it down. There was a faint glow in the bottom, which he blew gently into flame. By its light he found a stack of rush torches. He lit one, placed the fire-pot with two extra torches in the basket that stood ready on the stone shelf, then went on along the narrow tunnel.

  It was descending at a steep angle so he used the rope that was strung along the right-hand wall to steady himself and maintain his balance.

  At last the passage opened into a small bare chamber. The roof was so low that he had to bend almost double under it. In the centre of the floor he saw a dark opening that looked like the mouth of a well. He held the torch over it and peered down. The feeble light was swallowed by the darkness.

  Taita picked up a shard of broken pottery from the floor, and dropped it into the shaft. He counted while he waited for it to strike the bottom.

  After fifty, there had been no sound of it hitting the rock below. The pit was bottomless. Directly in front of him a sturdy bronze hook had been driven into the roof of the cave. From this a rope of plaited leather strips dangled into the pit. The roof above him was blackened by the smoke of the torches that Eos had held aloft as she had passed this way on her innumerable visits to the cave. She had possessed the strength and agility to descend the rope with her torch between her teeth.

  Taita removed his sandals and dropped them into the basket. Then he wedged his torch into a crack in the side wall, so that it would afford him a little light during his descent. He slung the handle of the basket over his shoulder, reached for the rope and swung himself out over the pit. At intervals the rope was knotted, which provided a precarious hold for his hands and bare feet. He began to clamber downwards, moving his feet first, then his hands. He knew how long and arduous the descent would be and he paced himself carefully, pausing regularly to rest and breathe deeply.

  Before long his muscles were quivering and his limbs weakening. He forced himself to go on. The light of the torch he had left in the chamber above was now a mere glimmer. He climbed down and down into utter darkness but, from Eos’s memory, he knew the way. The muscles in his right calf spasmed with cramp and the pain was crippling, but he closed his mind to it. His hands were numbed claws. He knew that one was bleeding from under the nails for droplets of blood fell into his upturned face. He forced his fingers to open and close on the rope.

  Down he went and still down until, at last, he knew he could go no further. He hung motionless in the darkness, bathed in sweat, unable to attempt another change of grip on the swaying rope. The darkness suffocated him. He felt his hand, slippery with blood, slide as his fingers began to open.

  ‘Mensaar!’ He conjugated the words of power. ‘Kydash! Ncube!’ At once his legs steadied and his grip firmed. Still he could not force his worn-out body to reach downwards for the next knot.

  ‘Taita! My darling Taita! Answer me!’ Fenn’s voice was as clear and sweet in his ears as if she hung beside him in the darkness. Her soul sign, the delicate outline of the water-lily bloom, glowed before his eyes. She was with him again. He had passed beyond the point where the enfeebled witch could block their astral contact.

  ‘Fenn!’ He sent a desperate cry across the ether.

  ‘Oh, thank the benevolent Mother Isis,’ Fenn called back. ‘I thought I was too late. I sense you are in desperate straits. I am joining all my forces with yours, as you taught me.’

  He felt his shaking legs still and harden. He lifted his feet off the knot and, hanging on his arms, reached down with his toes. The drop beneath sucked at him as he revolved on the rope.

  ‘Be strong, Taita. I am with you,’ Fenn exhorted.

  His feet found the next knot, and he slid his hands down to take another grip. He had been counting, so he knew there were still twenty knots before he reached the end of the rope.

  ‘Go on, Taita! For both our sakes, you must go on! Without you I am nothing. You must endure,’ Fenn urged.

  He felt her strength come to him in warm, astral waves. ‘Nineteen… Eighteen…’ He counted the remaining knots as they passed through his bloody hands.

  ‘You have the strength and the determination,’ she whispered in his mind. ‘I am beside you. I am part of you. Do this thing for us. For the love I have for you. You are my father and my friend. I came back for you and you alone. Don’t leave me now.’

  ‘Nine … Eight… Seven …’ Taita counted.

  ‘You are growing stronger,’ she said softly, ‘I can feel it. We will come through together.’

  ‘Three … Two … One …’ He counted and stretched down with one leg, groping with his toes for the rope. There was nothing under his foot but space. He had reached the end of the rope. He drew a deep breath, let go with both hands and fell with a rush that stopped his breath. Then, abruptly, he struck the bottom with both feet. His legs gave way and he sprawled, like a fledgling fallen from the nest. He lay on his belly, face down, sobbing with exhaustion and relief, too weak even to sit up.

  ‘Are you safe, Taita? Are you still there? Do you hear me?’

  ‘I hear you,’ he answered, as he sat up. ‘I am safe for the moment.

  Without you it would have been different. Your strength has armed me.

  I must go on now. Listen for my call. Surely I will need you again.’

  ‘Remember, I love you,’ she called, as her presence faded, and he was alone in the darkness once more. He fumbled in the basket and brought out the clay fire-pot. He blew the embers to life and lit a fresh torch. He held it high, and by its light examined his immediate surroundings.

  He was on a narrow wooden catwalk, built against the sheer wall on his left and secured to it by rows of bronze bolts driven into holes drilled in the rock. On his other side yawned the dark void. The feeble light of the torch could not fathom the extent of it. He crept to the edge of the catwalk and looked over it. Unde
r him stretched endless darkness and he knew that he was suspended above a chasm that reached into the very bowels of the earth, those nether regions from which Eos had sprung.

  He rested a little longer. His thirst was raging, but there was nothing to drink. He quelled the longing with the force of his mind and drove the weariness from his limbs, then he took his sandals from the basket and fastened them on to his feet, which had been rubbed raw by the rope. At last he got to his feet and hobbled along the narrow catwalk.

  The drop on his left-hand side was unprotected by any balustrade, and the darkness beneath drew him with a hypnotic attraction that was difficult to resist. He went slowly and cautiously, placing each step with care.

  He saw in his mind’s eye how Eos had run lightly along this same catwalk like a child through an open meadow, and how she had swarmed up the knotted rope on her return to her warren high above, holding the flaming torch in her strong white teeth. He knew that, by contrast, he had barely the strength to negotiate the level footing beneath him.

  Beneath his feet the wooden planking gave way to rough-hewn rock.

  He had reached a ledge in the rock face. It was barely wide enough to afford him a foothold, and slanted downwards so sharply that he had to cling to the wall to steady himself.

  The ledge seemed endless. It took all his self-control to stop himself panicking. He had descended several hundred cubits down the ledge before he reached a deep fissure. He stepped through it into another tunnel. Here he was forced to rest again. He placed the torch in a slot that had been carved into the rock, the wall above it blackened by the smoke of countless other flames. His face sank into his cupped hands and he closed his eyes, breathing deeply until the racing of his heart slowed.

  Now the torch was guttering and smoking as it burnt out. He lit the last from the dying flame and went on down the tunnel. It was descending even more steeply than the open ledge he had just left. Finally it became a rocky staircase that spiralled on downwards. Over the centuries the steps had been worn by Eos’s bare feet until they were smooth and concave.

  He knew that the interior of the mountain was a honeycomb of ancient volcanic pipes and fissures. The rock was hot to the touch, heated by the bubbling lava at its heart. The air became as sulphurous and stifling as the fumes from a charcoal forge.

  At last Taita reached the fork in the tunnel he had been expecting.

  The main chute went straight on downwards, while the lesser branch turned off at a sharp angle. Taita did not hesitate but turned into the narrower opening. The footing was rough but almost level. He followed the tunnel through several twists and turns until finally he stepped out into another cavern, lit by a ruddy furnace-like glow. Even this fluctuating light could not penetrate to the furthest reaches of the immense space. He looked down, and saw that he stood on the brink of another deep crater. Far below him boiled a lake of fiery lava. Its surface bubbled and swirled, shooting up fountains of molten rock and sparks. The heat struck his face so fiercely that he raised his hands to ward it off.

  From the surface high above the burning lava sucked in gales of wind.

  They roared, howled and tugged at his clothing so that he staggered before he could brace himself to resist them. Before him a spur of rock stretched out across the bubbling cauldron. It sagged in the middle, like a suspended rope bridge, and was so narrow that two men could not have walked across it side by side. He tucked the skirts of his tunic under his girdle and stepped out on to it. The wind that roared through the cavern was not constant. It gusted, then dropped. It swirled viciously, at times reversing its direction without warning. It sucked him backwards, then all at once propelled him forward again. More than once it unbalanced him and made him totter at the brink, windmilling his arms to regain his balance. At last it forced him to his hands and knees. He crawled on, and when the stronger squalls howled over him he flattened himself against the bridge and clung to it. All the time the lava bubbled and seethed below.’

  At last he saw the far side of the cavern ahead, another precipitous rock wall. He crawled towards it, until he saw, to his horror, that the last section of the rocky spur had crumbled away and fallen into the fiery cauldron below. There was a gap between the end of the spur and the far wall of the cavern as wide as three strides of a tall man. He went to the edge and looked across this gap. There was a small opening in the facing wall.

  From Eos’s memory he knew that she had not passed this way for hundreds of years. On her last visit the spur had been entire. This last section must have crumbled away only relatively recently. Eos had been unaware of it, and that was why he had not expected to be confronted by this obstacle.

  He crawled back a short way, knelt up and kicked off his sandals, then shrugged the handle of the basket off his shoulder and discarded it. The sandals and the basket fell over the edge and plummeted into the lava lake. He knew he did not have the strength to go back, so he must go forward. He closed his eyes and regulated his breathing, then gathered the last of his physical strength and bolstered it with all his mental and psychic powers. Then he came up into a crouch like a marathon runner at the start of a race. He waited for a lull in the furious winds that swept over the spur. Then, in the momentary stillness, he drove himself forward along the narrow path, leaning forward and stepping high. He leapt out into space, and knew in that instant he would fall short. The cauldron waited below to receive him.

  Then the wind was shrieking again. It had changed direction and doubled its fury. It came from directly behind him. It swept under the skirts of his tunic, billowed them and flung him forward. But not quite far enough. His lower body slammed into the cliff and he just caught hold of the lip of the opening. He hung there, his legs dangling over the drop, all his weight hanging on his arms. He tried to pull himself up high enough to hook one elbow over the lip, but could raise himself only a little way before he fell back at full stretch of his arms. Frantically he kicked and groped with his bare feet for a foothold on the cliff, but the rock was smooth.

  A fountain of burning lava erupted from the cauldron below him.

  Before it fell back, particles of molten magma splattered his bare legs and feet. The pain was unbearable and he screeched in agony.

  ‘Taita!’ Fenn had sensed his pain and called to him across the ether.

  ‘Help me,’ he sobbed.

  ‘I am with you,’ she replied. ‘With all our might - now!’

  The pain was a goad. He strained upwards until he felt the sinews of his arms popping, and gradually, achingly slowly, he drew himself up until his eyes were level with the lip, but then he could rise no further.

  He felt his arms giving way.

  ‘Fenn, help me!’ he cried again.

  ‘Together! Now!’ He felt the surge of her strength. He drew himself up slowly until at last he could throw one arm over the lip. He hung on it for a moment, then heard her cry again.

  ‘Together again, Taita. Now!’

  He heaved upwards and threw out his other arm. It found purchase.

  With both arms holding his courage returned. He ignored the pain of his burnt legs, heaved upwards and the top half of his body flopped over the lip. Kicking and panting, he dragged himself into the mouth of the opening. He lay there for a long time until he had recovered the strength to sit up. Then he looked down at his legs and saw the burns. He pulled off the lumps of lava that were still adhering to the soles of his feet, and lumps of his flesh came away with them. Upon his calves, blisters filled with transparent fluid were ballooning. He was crippled by pain but, using the wall as support, he dragged himself to his feet. Then he staggered on down the tunnel. The soles of his feet were raw, and he left bloody footprints on the rock. The glow from the fiery cauldron behind him lit his way.

  The tunnel ran straight for a short distance then began to descend and the ruddy light faded. In its last glimmer he made out a half consumed torch jammed into a crack in the rock. It had been there since Eos’s last visit so long ago. He had no means of ign
iting it, he thought.

  Then he remembered the power he had taken from the witch and stretched out his hand towards it, pointing his forefinger at the charred end and focusing on it his psychic force.

  A glowing spot appeared at the head of the dead torch. A thin spiral of smoke rose from it, and then, abruptly, it burst into flame and burnt up brightly. He took it down from the crack and, holding it high, hobbled on as fast as his scalded feet would carry him. He came to the head of another inclined shaft. This was also stepped, but the rock was not worn, the marks of the masons’ chisels still fresh. He started down it, but the steps seemed endless and he had to stop repeatedly to rest. In one such interval he became conscious of a low susurration, a trembling in the air and in the rock upon which he sat. The sound was not constant but rose and fell intermittently, like the slow beating of a gigantic pulse.’

  He knew what it was.

  Eagerly now, he came to his feet and started downwards again. As he went, the sound became stronger and clearer. Down again and still down Taita went, and the sound swelled, his excitement, too, until it was strong enough to dull the pain in his legs. The sound of the mighty pulse reached the peak of its volume. The rock walls shook. He dragged himself forward, then stopped, astounded. He had acquired the memory of this place from Eos but the tunnel had come to a dead end. Slowly, painfully, he went forward and stood before the wall.

  It seemed to be of natural rough stone. There were no cracks or openings in it, but in its centre, level with his eyes, three signs had been carved. The first was so old and eroded by the sulphurous gas of the lava cauldron that it was illegible, its antiquity unfathomable. The second was only slightly fresher, and when he studied it more closely he saw that it was the outline of a tiny pyramid, the soul sign of a priest or a holy man.