The Quest (Novels of Ancient Egypt)

by Wilbur Smith

  To avoid the confused ruck of herds and horsemen, and to discover open ground where they could hunt the pachyderm selectively, Meren crossed the little estuary and rode along the bank. The others followed him until they were out of sight of the vessels, and had the field to themselves. Ahead, they could see a number of quarry scattered across the grassland in small family groups of females and calves. However, Meren was determined to procure the horn of a patriarch, a trophy fit to present to Pharaoh.

  As he led them further from the anchored ships, Taita noticed a gradual change coming over Colonel Tinat. His reserve was softening, and he even smiled at some of Fenn’s chatter. ‘Your ward is a bright young girl,’ he remarked, ‘but is she discreet?’

  ‘She is a young girl, as you said, and is free of spite or malice.’ Tinat relaxed a little more, so Taita opened his Inner Eye and assessed the man’s state of mind. He is under restraint, he thought. He does not want to be seen by his officers to converse freely with me. He is afraid of somebody among his men. I have no doubt it is Captain Onka, who has probably been placed here to watch and report on his superior officer. Tinat has something to tell me, but he is fearful.

  Taita reached out with his mind to Fenn, and saw her become receptive. He sent her a message in the Tenmass: ‘Join Meren. Leave me alone with Tinat.’

  Immediately she turned towards him and smiled. ‘Please excuse me, Magus,’ she said sweetly. ‘I would ride with Meren a space. He has promised to build me a bow of my own.’ With her knees she pushed Whirlwind into a canter, leaving Taita alone with Tinat.

  The two men rode in silence until Taita said, ‘From my conversation with Pharaoh Nefer Seti, I understood that his orders to you when you left Egypt all those years ago were to journey to the source of Mother Nile, then return to Karnak to report your findings.’

  Tinat glanced at him sharply, but did not reply.

  Taita paused delicately, then went on: ‘It seems strange that you have not returned to tell him of your success and to claim from him the reward you so handsomely deserve. It puzzles me to discover that we are journeying in the diametrically opposite direction to Egypt.’

  Tinat remained silent for a short while longer, then said softly, ‘Pharaoh Nefer Seti is no longer my ruler. Egypt is no longer my homeland. My men and I have adopted a more beautiful, bountiful and blessed country as our own. Egypt is under a curse.’

  ‘I would never have believed that any officer of your status could turn away from his patriotic duty,’ Taita said.

  ‘I am not the first Egyptian officer to do so. There was another, ninety years ago, who discovered this new country and never returned to Egypt. He was sent by Queen Lostris on a similar mission, to discover the headwaters of the Nile. His name was General Lord Aquer.’

  ‘I knew him well,’ Taita interjected. ‘He was a good soldier, but unpredictable.’

  Although Tinat looked at him askance, he did not query Taita’s assertion. Instead he continued, ‘Lord Aquer pioneered the settlement of Jarri, the Land of the Mountains of the Moon. His direct descendants have built it into a powerful and advanced state. I am honoured to serve them.’

  Taita regarded him with the Inner Eye and saw that this statement was untrue: far from being honoured by his service to this foreign government, Tinat was a man in turmoil. ‘That is where you are taking us now, is it? To this state of Jarri?’

  ‘Those are my orders, Magus,’ Tinat agreed.

  ‘Who is the king of this country?’ Taita asked.

  ‘We do not have one. An oligarchy of noble and wise men rules us.’

  ‘Who chooses them?’

  ‘They are selected for their apparent virtues.’

  Again, Taita saw that Tinat did not truly believe this. ‘Are you one of the oligarchs?’

  ‘Nay, Magus, I could never warrant that honour as I am not of noble birth. I am a recent arrival in Jarri, an incomer.’

  ‘So Jarrian society is stratified?’ Taita asked. ‘Divided into nobility, commoners and slaves?’

  ‘In broad outline, that is so. Although we are known as migrants, not commoners.’

  ‘Do you Jarrians still worship the panoply of Egyptian gods?’

  ‘Nay, Magus, we have but one god.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘I do not know. Only the initiates to the religion know his name. I pray that one day I am granted that boon.’ Taita saw many conflicting currents running below this assertion: there was something that Tinat could not bring himself to say, even though he had escaped the surveillance of Onka to voice it.

  ‘Tell me more of this land, so wondrous that it could pre-empt the loyalty of a man of your worth.’ Taita was encouraging him to speak out.

  ‘No words are adequate to the task,’ Tinat replied, ‘but we will be there soon enough, and you shall judge for yourself.’ He was letting the opportunity to speak openly slip away.

  ‘Colonel Tinat, when you rescued us from the Basmara you said something that made me believe you had been sent for that express purpose. Was I correct?’

  ‘I have already said too much…because I hold you in such high respect and esteem. But I must ask you not to press me. I know that you have a superior and enquiring mind, but you are entering a land that has a different code of customs and laws. At this stage you are a guest, so it will be expedient to us all if you respect the mores of your hosts.’ Now Tinat was in full retreat.

  ‘One of which is not to pry into matters that don’t concern me?’

  ‘Precisely,’ Tinat said. It was a sober warning, and that was as much as he could bring himself to say.

  ‘I have always held the view that expediency is a justification for tyranny, and the sop of serfs.’

  ‘A dangerous view, Magus, which you should keep to yourself while you are in Jarri.’ Tinat closed his mouth as if it were the visor of his bronze helmet, and Taita knew that he would learn no more now, but he was not disappointed. Indeed, he was surprised to have learnt so much.

  They were interrupted by the faint cries of the hunters. Far ahead, Meren had run down a quarry worthy of his arrows.

  The antediluvian monster stood at bay, snorting like a fire-breathing dragon, making short but furious rushes towards its tormentors, kicking up the dust with its great hoofs, swinging its horned nose from side to side, piggy eyes bright, ears pricked forward. Its nose-horn stood tall as a man, polished by constant honing on tree trunks and termite mounds until it gleamed like a sword.

  Then Taita saw Fenn, and felt acid rise in his throat. She was flirting with the beast. Serenely confident of her own horsemanship and Whirlwind’s speed, she was crossing at an oblique angle in front of the beast’s nose, inviting his charge. Taita kicked his heels into Windsmoke’s flanks and raced to restrain her. At the same time he sent an urgent astral impulse directly to her. He felt her parry it, with the skill of an expert swordsman, then close her mind to him. His anger and concern flared hotly. ‘The little she-devil!’ he muttered.

  At that moment the creature’s eye was drawn by Whirlwind’s shining grey coat, and it accepted Fenn’s challenge. It hurled itself at them, grunting, snorting and pounding the earth with its great hoofs. Fenn touched the colt’s neck and they jumped into full gallop. She was twisted in the saddle to judge the distance between the point of the horn and Whirlwind’s flying tail. When they drew a little too far ahead, she held Whirlwind back to let the gap close and to urge the beast on.

  Despite his fear for her safety Taita could not help but admire her skill and nerve, as she led the animal in front of Meren at close range. He loosed three arrows in rapid succession, and all flew in behind the shoulder to bury their full length up to the fletching in the thick grey hide. The animal stumbled and Taita saw bloody froth spray from its mouth. At least one of Meren’s arrows had pierced a lung. Fenn led the beast on, skilfully bringing it round in a circle under Meren’s poised bow and forcing it to expose its other flank to him. He shot and shot again, and his arrowheads went deep, raking th
rough the heart and both lungs.

  The beast slowed as its lungs filled with blood. The lethargy of death transmuted its mighty limbs to stone. At last it stood, head hanging, blood pouring in rivulets from its open mouth and its nose. Nakonto raced in from the side and drove in the point of his spear behind its ear, slanting the blade forward to find the brain. The body dropped with such weight that it jarred the earth and raised a cloud of dust.

  By the time Taita reached them they had all dismounted and were gathered around the carcass. Fenn was dancing with excitement and the others were laughing and clapping. Taita was determined to punish her defiance by sending her back to the galley in disgrace, but as he dismounted, stony-featured, she rushed to him and jumped up to throw her arms round his neck.

  ‘Taita, did you see it all? Was it not splendid? Were you not proud of Whirlwind and me?’ Then, before he could deliver himself of the harsh rebuke that scalded his lips, she pressed her lips to his ear and whispered, ‘You are so kind and good to me. I do love you, darling Taita.’

  He felt his anger deflate and he asked himself ruefully, who is training whom? These are the arts she perfected in the other life. I still find myself defenceless against them.

  The hunters had killed more than forty large animals, so it was a few days before all the carcasses could be butchered, the meat smoked and packed aboard the barges. Only then could they board the galleys and continue the voyage southward. When Tinat was back with his officers he became aloof and unapproachable once more. Watching him with the Inner Eye, Taita saw that he was regretting their conversation and the disclosures he had made. He was fearful of the consequences of his indiscretion.

  The wind veered into the north and freshened. The galleys shipped their oars and hoisted large lateen sails. White water curled under their prows and the shore flew by on the starboard side. On the fifth morning after the hunt they reached the mouth of another tributary. Coming down from the high ground to the west, it poured an enormous volume of water into the lake. Taita heard the crew talking among themselves, and the name ‘Kitangule’ bandied about. Clearly that was the name of the river before them. He was not surprised when the captain ordered the sail to be lowered and the oars run out once more. Their galley led the flotilla into the Kitangule and pushed against the mighty flow.

  Within a few leagues they had come to a large settlement built along the riverbank. Here, there were shipyards with the unfinished hulls of two large vessels lying on the slipways. Workmen swarmed over them, and Taita pointed out the overseers to Meren. ‘That accounts for the foreign design of the ships in this squadron. All must have been built in these yards, and those who built them are unmistakably from the lands beyond the Indus.’

  ‘How came they to this place, so far from their own land?’ Meren wondered.

  ‘There is something here that attracts worthy men from afar, like bees to a garden of flowers.’

  ‘Are we bees also, Magus? Does the same attraction entice us?’

  Taita looked at him with surprise. This was an unusually perceptive idea from Meren. ‘We have come here to fulfil a sacred oath made to Pharaoh,’ he reminded him. ‘However, now that we have arrived we must be on our guard. We must never allow ourselves to be turned into dreamers and lotus-eaters, as it seems so many of these Jarrians are.’

  The flotilla sailed on up the river. Within days they had encountered the first cataracts of white water that blocked the river from bank to bank. This did not daunt Tinat and his captains, for at the foot of the torrent there was another small village, and beyond that extensive cattle stockades, which held herds of humped oxen.

  Passengers, horses and slaves disembarked on to the bank. With only the crews still on board, the vessels were hitched with heavy ropes of twisted liana to teams of oxen and dragged up the chutes of fast water. Ashore, the men and horses climbed the track that ran beside the cascade until they reached higher ground. Above the cataracts the river was deep and placid, and the galleys rode lightly at anchor. All embarked again, to voyage on until they reached the next waterfall where the procedure was repeated.

  Three times they came to falls too steep and furious to permit the vessels to be dragged up them. Egyptian engineering genius was evident in the extensive works that circumvented the obstacles: a zigzag series of channels had been dug alongside the falls, with locks at each end and wooden gates to lift the vessels to the next level. It took many days and much labour to bring the flotilla up the water ladders, but eventually they were in the deep, gentle flow of the main stream once more.

  Since leaving the lake, the terrain they had passed through was fascinating in its magnificent diversity. For a hundred leagues or so after they had entered the Kitangule, the river ran through dense jungle. Branches almost met overhead and it seemed that no two trees were of the same species. They were festooned with lianas, other vines and flowering creepers. High in the canopy, troops of monkeys squabbled noisily in gardens of flowering orchids and fruit. Glistening monitor lizards sunned themselves on branches that overhung the river. At the approach of the boats they launched themselves into the air and fell to hit the water with a splash that showered the men at the oars.

  At night when they moored along the bank, tied to the trunks of the great trees, the darkness was loud with the cries and scuffling of unseen animals, and the roars of the predators that hunted them. Some of the crew set fishing lines in the black water, the bronze hooks baited with offal. Three men on one line struggled to pull out the huge catfish that seized the bait.

  Slowly the vegetation along the banks changed as they climbed up through the cataracts. The sweltering heat cooled and the air became more salubrious. Once they had negotiated the final water ladder, they found themselves in an undulating landscape of grassy glades and open forests dominated by many species of acacia – leafless and thorny; covered with soft, feathery foliage; with vast black trunks and dark boughs. The tallest were decorated with bunches of lavender fruit hanging like grapes from the high branches.

  This was a fertile, well-watered land with lush sweet grass filling the glades, and dozens of streams joining the main flow of the Kitangule. The plains swarmed with herds of grazing animals, and not a day passed when they did not see prides of lions hunting or resting in the open. At night their thunderous roars were terrifying. No matter how often they heard them, the listeners’ nerves jangled and their hearts raced.

  At last a tall escarpment rose across the horizon, and they were aware of a murmur that grew louder as they drew closer. They came round another bend in the river, and saw before them a mighty waterfall that fell in thundering gouts of white foam from the top of a cliff into a swirling green pool at the foot.

  On the beaches that surrounded it teams of oxen were standing ready to draw the boats ashore. Once again they disembarked, but this was for the last time. No device of man could lift the vessels to the top of those cliffs. In the settlement on the riverbank there were guesthouses to accommodate the officers and Taita’s party while the rest of the men, horses and baggage were brought ashore. The Basmara slaves were locked into barracoons.

  It was three days before Colonel Tinat was ready to continue the journey. Now all of the baggage was loaded on to pack oxen. The slaves were led out of the barracoons and roped together in long lines. The troopers and Taita’s band mounted, and rode out along the base of the cliff in a long caravan. Within a league the road was climbing sharply up the escarpment in a series of hairpin bends and narrowed to a path. The gradient became so steep that they were forced to dismount and lead the horses, the heavily laden oxen and the slaves toiling behind them.

  Half-way up the cliff they reached a place where a narrow rope suspension bridge crossed a deep gorge. Captain Onka took control of the crossing, allowing only a small number of pack animals and men to venture out on to the precarious structure at a time. Even with a limited load the bridge swayed and sagged alarmingly, and it was the middle of the afternoon before the caravan was across the gorge
.

  ‘Is this the only route to the top of the cliffs?’ Meren asked Onka.

  ‘There is an easier road that scales the escarpment forty leagues to the south, but it adds several days’ travel to the journey.’

  Once they were across the void they looked down and their view seemed to encompass the earth. From on high they surveyed golden savannahs over which the rivers crawled like dark serpents, distant blue hills and green jungles. Finally, on the misty horizon, the waters of the great lake Nalubaale along which they had sailed gleamed like molten metal.

  At last they reached the border fort perched on the ridge to guard the pass, the Kitangule Gap, and the entrance to Jarri. It was dark by the time they bivouacked outside it. It rained during the night, but by morning the sun was shining benevolently. When they looked out of their shelter Taita and Fenn were presented with a sight that made all the splendours they had seen up to then seem commonplace. Below them lay a wide plateau that stretched to a distant horizon. Along it rose a range of rugged mountains so tall they must have been the abode of the gods. Three central peaks shone with the ethereal luminance of the full moon. Taita and Meren had travelled through the peaks along the Khorasan highway, but Fenn had never seen snow before. She was struck dumb by the glorious sight. At last she found her voice: ‘Look! The mountains are on fire,’ she cried.

  From the summit of each shining mountain billowed silver clouds of smoke.

  ‘You were seeking a single volcano, Magus,’ Meren said softly, ‘but you have found three.’ He turned and pointed back at the distant shimmer of Lake Nalubaale on the far side of the pass. ‘Fire, air, water and earth…’

  ‘…but the lord of these is fire,’ Taita finished the incantation of Eos. ‘Surely that must be the stronghold of the witch.’ His legs were trembling and he was overcome with emotion. They had come so far and endured such hardship to reach this place. He had to find somewhere to sit for his legs could hardly bear his weight. He found a vantage-point from which he could gaze upon the sight. Fenn sat on the rock beside him to share his emotions.