The Quest (Novels of Ancient Egypt)

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘Peace!’ Taita laid a hand on his head, and slowly the dwarf calmed and relaxed, but the tears still poured down his face. ‘You need not continue if this is too painful.’

  ‘I must tell you. Only you will understand.’ He took a gulp of air, then gabbled on: ‘The waters opened and dark masses pushed through the waves. At first I thought they were living monsters from the depths.’ He pointed at the nearest island. ‘There was no island. The lake waters were open and empty. Then that mass of rock pushed through the surface. The island you look upon now was born like an infant squeezed from the womb of the lake.’ His hand trembled wildly as he pointed at it. ‘But that was not the end. Once again the waters were riven asunder. Another great mass of rock rose up from the bottom of the lake. That is it! The Red Stones! They were glowing like metal from the flames of the forge. The waters hissed and turned to steam as they were pushed aside. The stones were half molten, hardening as they emerged from the depths into the air. The clouds of steam they generated were so dense as to obscure almost everything, but when they parted I saw that the temple was untouched. Every stone of the walls was in place, the roof firm. But the black-robed figure had disappeared. The priests also had gone. I never saw any of them again. The Red Stones kept swelling, like a gigantic pregnant belly, until they were the size and shape they are now, sealing off the mouth of the Nile. The river shrivelled to nothing, while the rocks and sandbanks in its bed appeared from beneath the waters.’

  Kalulu gesticulated to his bodyguards. One ran forward to support his head while another held a gourd to his lips. He swallowed noisily. The liquid had a pungent smell and seemed to calm him at once. He pushed aside the gourd and went on talking to Taita.

  ‘I was so overcome by these cataclysmic events that I ran from this hut down the slope of the bluff.’ He pointed out the route he had taken. ‘I was level with that clump of trees when the ground split and I was hurled into the deep trench that opened in front of me. I tried to claw my way out, but one of my legs was broken. I had almost reached the top when, like the jaws of a man-eating monster, the earth closed on me as swiftly as it had opened. Both my legs were caught, the bones crushed to fragments. I lay there for two days before survivors from Tamafupa found me. They tried to free me but my legs were trapped between two slabs of rock. I asked them to bring me a knife and an axe. While they held me, I cut off my legs, and bound up the stumps with bark cloth. When my tribe fled from this accursed place into the marshes of Kioga they carried me with them.’

  ‘You have lived again through all the terrible events of those days,’ Taita told him. ‘It has tried your strength to the limit. I have been deeply moved by all you have told me. Call your women. Let them carry you back to the safety of Tamafupa, where you must rest.’

  ‘What will you do, Magus?’

  ‘Colonel Meren is ready to quench the heated rockface to find out if it will shatter. I will assist him.’

  The mountain of wood stacked against the rock wall had burnt down to a pile of glowing ash. The red rock was so hot that the air around it shimmered and wavered like a desert mirage. Four gangs of men gathered around the shadoof wheels on top of the Red Stones. None had any experience of rock-breaking. However, Taita had explained it to them.

  ‘Are you ready, Magus?’ Meren’s voice echoed up from the gorge.

  ‘Ready!’ Taita shouted back.

  ‘Start pumping!’ Meren cried.

  The men seized the handles of the shadoofs and put their full weight behind them. Their heads bobbed up and down to the rhythm Habari beat on a native drum. The line of empty buckets dipped into the lake surface, filled, then rose to the top of the wall. There, they spilled over into the wooden trough that channelled the water over the hump of the wall to cascade down the heated rockface on the opposite side. Immediately the air was filled with dense white clouds of hissing steam that enveloped the wall and the men on top of it. Those on the handles never faltered, and water streamed over the lip. The steam billowed, and the contracting rock groaned and growled.

  ‘Is it breaking?’ Taita shouted.

  At the base of the wall Meren was lost in the dense steam. His reply came back, almost drowned in the rush of water and the hiss of steam. ‘I cannot see anything. Keep them pumping, Magus!’

  The men on the shadoofs were tiring, and Taita replaced them with fresh teams. They kept the water pouring down the face, and gradually the hissing clouds of steam began to subside and disperse.

  ‘Pump!’ Meren roared. Taita changed the teams again, then gingerly approached the lip and peered over, but the curvature of the cliff hid the base of the wall. ‘I am going down,’ he called to the men on the pumps. ‘Don’t stop until I give the order.’ He hurried to the path that led into the gorge and made his way down at his best speed. The steam had cleared sufficiently for him to make out the shapes of Meren and Fenn below. They had moved much closer to the wall, and were discussing the result of the experiment.

  ‘Don’t get too close to the rockface,’ Taita called, but they did not seem to hear him. Water was still pouring down it and had washed the ashes into the dry riverbed.

  ‘Ho, Meren! What success?’ Taita called, as he hurried down the path. Meren looked up at him, his expression so comically mournful that Taita laughed. ‘Why so glum?’

  ‘Nothing!’ Meren lamented. ‘All that effort in vain.’ He moved into the eddies of steam and stretched out his hand towards the rock.

  ‘Take care!’ Taita shouted. ‘It is still hot.’ Meren pulled his hand back, then drew his sword. He reached out with the point of the bronze blade.

  Fenn had moved close to his side. ‘The rock is still intact,’ she cried. ‘No cracks.’ She and Meren were only an arm’s length from the steaming face when Taita came up behind them. He saw that Fenn was correct: the red rock wall was blackened by the flames but unscathed.

  Meren tapped it with the point of his sword. It sounded solid. Angrily, he raised the sword to deliver a harder blow and relieve his frustration. The steam clouds in which they were enveloped were moist and warm, but Taita felt a sudden intense contrast, an icy chill on his arms and face. Immediately he opened his Inner Eye. Through it he saw a tiny spot appear on the soot-blackened stone where Meren had struck it. It glowed red, then took on the shape of the cat’s paw, symbol of Eos of the Dawn.

  ‘Get back!’ Taita ordered, and used the voice of power to reinforce the command. At the same time he lunged forward, seized Fenn’s arm and flung her away. But his warning to Meren had come too late. Although Meren tried to check his stroke, the point of his sword touched the glowing spot again. With a sound like shattering glass the small area of rock directly beneath the symbol of Eos exploded outwards and a blast of splinters struck him full in the face. Although most were small fragments, they were as sharp as needles. His head snapped back, he dropped the sword and clutched at his face with both hands. Blood poured between his fingers and ran down on to his chest.

  Taita ran to him and caught his arm to steady him. Fenn had been thrown to the ground, but now she scrambled up and ran to help. Between them they led Meren back from the steaming rock, found a patch of shade and sat him down.

  ‘Stand back!’ Taita ordered the men, who had followed and were now crowding forward. ‘Give us room to work.’ To Fenn, he said, ‘Bring water.’

  She ran to a gourd and brought it to him. Taita lifted Meren’s hands away from his ruined face. She exclaimed with horror, but Taita cautioned her to silence with a frown.

  ‘Am I still as beautiful?’ Meren tried to grin, but his eyes were tightly closed, the lids swollen and clotted with blood.

  ‘It’s a great improvement,’ Taita assured him, and began to wash away the blood. Some of the cuts were superficial, but three were deep. One ran through the bridge of his nose, the second through his upper lip, but the third and worst had pierced his right eyelid. Taita could make out a shard of stone embedded in the eye cavity.

  ‘Fetch my medicine bag,’ he ordered Fenn
, who ran to where their equipment had been placed and brought back the leather satchel.

  Taita opened the roll of surgical instruments and selected a pair of ivory forceps with a probe. ‘Can you open your eyes?’ he asked gently.

  Meren made an attempt and the left lid opened a little, but although the damaged lid quivered, the right eye remained closed.

  ‘No, Magus.’ His voice was subdued.

  ‘Is it sore?’ Fenn asked timorously. ‘Oh, poor Meren.’ She took his hand.

  ‘Sore? Not in the least. Your touch has made it better.’

  Taita placed a square of leather between Meren’s teeth. ‘Bite down on that.’ He closed the jaws of the forceps over the fragment of stone and, with a single firm movement, drew it out. Meren grunted and his face contorted. Taita laid aside the forceps and, with a finger on each eyelid, gently drew them apart. Behind him he heard Fenn gasp.

  ‘Is it bad?’ Meren asked.

  Taita remained silent. The eyeball had burst and the bloody jelly dribbled down his cheek. Taita knew at once that Meren would never see with that eye again. Gently he prised open the lid of the other and stared into it. He saw the pupil dilate and focus normally. He held up his other hand. ‘How many fingers?’ he asked.

  ‘Three,’ Meren answered.

  ‘You aren’t completely blind, then,’ Taita told him. Meren was a tough warrior. It was neither necessary nor advisable to shield him from the truth.

  ‘Only half-way there?’ Meren asked, his smile lopsided

  ‘That was why the gods gave you two eyes,’ Taita said, and began to bind up the ruined one with a white linen bandage.

  ‘I hate the witch. This is her doing,’ said Fenn, and began to weep softly. ‘I hate her. I hate her.’

  ‘Make a litter for the colonel,’ Taita ordered the men, who waited close at hand.

  ‘I don’t need one,’ Meren protested. ‘I can walk.’

  ‘The first law of the cavalry,’ Taita reminded him. ‘Never walk when you can ride.’

  As soon as the litter was ready they helped Meren on to it and started back to Tamafupa. They had been moving for a short time when Fenn called to Taita: ‘There are strange men up there, watching us.’ She pointed across the dried-up river course. On the skyline stood a small group of men. Fenn counted them swiftly. ‘Five.’

  They were dressed in loincloths, but their torsos were bare. They all carried spears and clubs. Two were armed with bows. The tallest among them stood at their head. He wore a headdress of red flamingo feathers. Their bearing was arrogant and hostile. Two of the men behind the chief seemed wounded or injured: they were being supported by their comrades.

  ‘Magus, they have been in a fight,’ Shofar, one of the litter-bearers, pointed out.

  ‘Hail them!’ Taita ordered. Shofar shouted and waved. None of the warriors showed any reaction. Shofar shouted again. The chief in the flamingo headdress lifted his spear in a gesture of command and immediately his men disappeared from the skyline, leaving the hillside deserted. A distant chorus of shouts broke the silence that followed their departure.

  ‘That comes from the town.’ Fenn turned quickly in that direction. ‘There has been trouble.’

  When they had left Taita at the Red Stones, Kalulu’s bodyguards carried him down the river valley towards Tamafupa. He was in such distress that they went slowly and carefully. They halted every few hundred yards to let him drink from his gourd of medicine, to wet his face and wipe it with a damp cloth. Measured against the arc of the sun, it was almost two hours before they started the climb from the valley towards the gates of Tamafupa.

  As they entered a thicket of dense kittar thorn a tall figure stepped onto the pathway. Kalulu and his women recognized him, not only by his headdress of flamingo feathers. The women lowered the litter to the ground and prostrated themselves.

  ‘We see you, great chief,’ they chorused. Kalulu struggled up on one elbow, and stared at the newcomer with trepidation. Basma was paramount chief of all the Basmara tribes that inhabited the land between Tamafupa and Kioga. Before the coming of the strangers who had built the temple and raised the Red Stones from the depths of the lake, he had been a mighty ruler. Now his tribes were scattered and his rule disrupted.

  ‘Hail, mighty Basma,’ Kalulu said respectfully. ‘I am your dog.’

  Basma was his bitter rival and enemy. Until this time Kalulu had been protected by his reputation and status. Even the chief of the Basmara had not dared to harm a shaman of his power and influence. However, Kalulu knew that ever since the damming of the Nile, Basma had been waiting for his opportunity.

  ‘I have been watching you, wizard,’ Basma said coldly.

  ‘I am honoured that such a mighty chief would even notice my humble existence,’ Kalulu murmured. Ten Basmara warriors stepped out of the thicket and formed up behind their chief.

  ‘You have led these enemies of the tribe to Tamafupa. They have taken over my town.’

  ‘They are not enemies,’ Kalulu replied. ‘They are our friends and allies. Their leader is a great shaman, much more learned and powerful than I am. He has been sent here to destroy the Red Stones and to make the Nile flow again.’

  ‘What feeble lies are these, you pathetic legless thing? Those men are the same sorcerers who built the temple at the mouth of the river, the same wizards who called up the wrath of the dark spirits, who caused the lake waters to boil and the earth to burst open. They are the ones who conjured up the rocks from the depths, and blocked off the great river, which is our mother and our father.’

  ‘That is not so.’ Kalulu hopped off his litter and balanced on his stumps to confront Basma. ‘Those people are our friends.’

  Slowly Basma raised his spear and pointed it at the dwarf. This was a gesture of condemnation. Kalulu looked at his bodyguards. They were not members of a tribe subservient to Basma, one of the many reasons he had selected them. They came from a warrior tribe far to the north. However, when it came to a choice between himself and Basma he could not be certain in which direction their loyalty would sway. As if in answer to his unspoken question, the eight women tightened their ranks around him. Imbali, the flower, was their leader. Her body might have been carved from anthracite. Her jet skin was anointed with oil so that it glowed in the sunlight. Her arms and legs were sleek with fine flat muscle. Her breasts were high and hard, decorated with an intricate pattern of ritual scarification. Her neck was long and proud. Her eyes were fierce. She loosened the battleaxe from the loop at her waist. The others followed her example.

  ‘Your whores will not save you now, Kalulu,’ Basma sneered disdainfully. ‘Kill the wizard,’ he shouted at his warriors, and hurled his spear at Kalulu.

  Imbali anticipated the throw. She jumped forward, swung the battleaxe in her right hand and hit the spear in mid-air, knocking it straight upwards. As it fell back she caught it neatly in her left hand and raised the point to meet the rush of warriors. The first man ran on to it, transfixing himself just below the sternum. He reeled backwards into the man coming up behind him, knocking him off balance. Then he dropped on to his back and lay kicking with the shaft of the spear standing out of his belly. Imbali leapt gracefully over his corpse, and caught the man behind him before he could recover. She swung the axe in a rising stroke that lopped off his spear-arm neatly at the elbow. She pirouetted and used the momentum to decapitate a third man as he rushed forward. The headless corpse dropped into a sitting position, the open arteries sending up a tall fountain of bright red, then flopped over and bled into the earth.

  Shielding Kalulu, Imbali and the other women fell back quickly and picked up the litter by its rawhide carrying straps. Then using it as a battering ram, they charged into the Basmara. Their war-cry was a shrill ululation as the axe blades whistled and fluted, then thudded into flesh and bone.

  Basma’s men rallied swiftly. They met the women with a wall of locked shields and threw their long spears at their heads. One went down, killed outright with a flint point thr
ough her throat. The others raised the litter and hammered it into the line of shields. Both sides heaved against each other. One of the Basmara dropped to his knees and stabbed up under the bottom edge of the litter into the belly of the girl at the centre of the line. She released her grip and reeled backwards. She tried to turn away but her assailant jerked his spear free and stabbed again, aiming for her kidneys. The blow went in deep and the girl screamed as the blade slipped alongside her spine crippling her instantly.

  Kalulu’s bodyguards retreated a few steps, filled the gap left by the wounded girl and held the litter steady. The Basmara raised their shields and, once more, charged shoulder to shoulder. As they crashed into the litter they stabbed up under the bottom edge of the shields, aiming for groins and bellies. The line of shields swayed back and forth. Two more girls went down, one hit in the upper thigh so that the femoral artery erupted. She fell back and tried to stem the bleeding by pushing her fingers into the wound to pinch the artery closed. While she was bowed over her back was exposed and a Basmara stabbed her in the spine. The spearhead found the joint between her vertebrae, and her paralysed legs gave way. The man stabbed her again, but while he was concentrating on killing her, Imbali ducked under the litter and chopped deep into his skull.

  The uneven pressure on the litter slewed it round. Kalulu was left unprotected on one flank. Chief Basma seized the moment: he darted out of the wall of shields, dodged around the litter and ran at him. Kalulu saw him coming and swung himself into a handstand. With amazing agility he shot towards the shelter of the nearby thicket of kittar thorns. He had almost reached it when Basma overhauled him and stabbed him twice. ‘Traitor!’ the chief screamed, and the spearhead hit Kalulu in the centre of the back. With a huge effort he managed to stay balanced on his hands. He bounced along, but Basma caught up with him again. ‘Witchmonger!’ he yelled and thrust again, deeply through the little man’s inverted crotch and into his belly. Kalulu howled and tumbled into the thicket. Basma tried to follow up his attack, but from the corner of his eye he saw Imbali rushing at him with her axe above her head. He ducked and when her blade hissed past his ear, he swerved away from her return stroke and ran. His men saw him go and followed, pelting away down the slope.