The Quest (Novels of Ancient Egypt)

by Wilbur Smith

  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 igniting 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 beati
ng 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. The third was the most recent but, nevertheless, many centuries old. It was the cat’s-paw outline of Eos’s spirit sign.

  The engravings were the signatures of those who had visited this place before him. Since the beginning time, only three others had found their way here. He touched the stone and found it cold, a marked contrast to the hellish craters and flaming lava that he had passed along the way.

  ‘This is the gateway to the Font for which men have searched down the ages,’ he whispered, in deep reverence. He laid his hand upon the cat’s-paw symbol, which grew warm to his touch. He waited for a lull in the great pulse of the earth, then uttered the three words of power he had taken from the witch: her secret conjugation known to no other.

  ‘Tashkalon! Ascartow! Silondela!’

  The rock groaned and began to move under his hand. He pressed harder, and there was a harsh, grinding noise as the entire wall rolled ponderously aside, like a turning millstone. Behind it lay another short flight of stairs, then a bend in the tunnel from which came a roar like that of a wounded lion. No longer muffled by the stone door the full thunder of the earth pulse burst round him. Before he could brace himself, he was driven back a pace by its power. The tunnel ahead was lit by a weird blue light, which grew stronger in harmony with the great pulse, then faded as the sound receded.

  Taita stepped through the portals. Two more torches were set into slots in the walls on each side. He lit them, and when they were burning brightly, he limped on slowly down the passage towards the source. He was filled with a sense of awe far greater than he had ever known, even in the holy sanctums at the temples of the great deities of Egypt. He turned the corner at the end of the passage and stood at the top of another short stone staircase. At the bottom he could make out a smooth floor of white sand.

  Filled with trepidation, he went down the steps and found himself standing in what appeared to be the dry bed of a great subterranean river. He knew that, soon, the sound and light would burst out of the dark tunnel. What would be the consequences if he were to allow the mystical waters of the river of life to pour over him?

  To live for ever might be a curse rather than a blessing. After the first aeons of time had passed, they might be followed by paralysing boredom and staleness from which there would be no escape. Would conscience and morality become eroded by time? Would high principles and decency fade until they were replaced by the perverse evil and wickedness in which Eos had indulged?

  His nerve failed and he turned to flee. But he had hesitated too long. Austere blue light filled the tunnel. Even if he had wished to, he could no longer escape it. He turned to face the tunnel and braced himself to receive the approaching thunder. From the mouth of the subterranean river burst a radiance that had no apparent source. Only when it swirled round his bare feet did he realized that it was neither gaseous nor liquid. It was as light as air but at the same time dense and weighty. It was icy cold on his skin, but it warmed the flesh beneath.

  This was the elixir of life eternal.

  Swiftly it grew to a flood that rose to his waist. Had it been water its weight would have swept him off his feet and carried him down the river course into the depths of the earth. Instead it buoyed him up in its soft embrace. The thunder filled his head and the blue tide rose to his shoulders. He felt weightless and free, light as thistledown. He drew a last deep breath and shut his eyes as the tide rushed over his head. He could still see the blue radiance through his closed eyelids, and the thunder filled his ears.

  He felt the Blueness seeping into his lower body openings, filling him. He opened his eyes and it washed over them. He exhaled the breath he was holding, then drew the next. He felt the blue elixir flow into his nostrils, down his throat and into his lungs. He opened his mouth and gulped in the Blueness. His heart pumped strongly as the Blueness filtered from his lungs into his blood and was carried to every part of his body. He felt it tingling in his fingertips and toes. His weariness fell away and he felt stronger than he could ever remember. His mind sparkled with a crystalline brilliance.

  The Blueness warmed his tired and aged flesh, soothing and renewing it. The pain in his legs and feet was gone. The raw, burned skin was healing. He felt his sinews stiffen and his bones harden. His spine straightened and his muscles firmed. His mind was recharged with the wonder and optimism of the youth he had lost so long ago, but the innocence was tempered by the infinite store of wisdom and experience he now possessed.

  Then, softly, the Blueness began to recede. The thunder abated and he heard it race away down the tunnel. He stood alone in the silent riverbed and looked down at himself. He raised one foot at a time. The burns on his calves and the soles of his feet were healed. The skin was smooth and unflawed. The muscles of his legs stood out hard and proud. His legs wanted to run. He turned and bounded up the staircase towards the rolling stone gate. He took the rough-hewn steps three or four at a time. His legs hurled him up effortlessly. His feet never stumbled. He paused briefly at the portal of the chamber. He snatched down the torches from their brackets, and turned back to shout the words of power. The rock gate rumbled shut. He saw that another signature was now engraved in the stone beside the other three, the symbol of the wounded falcon: his own spirit sign. He turned away and went on up the steep staircase. He heard the eternal thunder of the Font behind him as he climbed, and the mighty heartbeat of the earth was echoed in his chest.

  He felt no need to pause for rest: his breathing was quick and light, his bare feet flew over the stone. Up he went, and the sound of the Font diminished until soon he heard it no more. The ascent seemed shorter than the descent had been. Before he expected it, he saw the furnace glow of the cauldron ahead. Once again he looked down into the seething lava lake. He paused only long enough to measure with his eye the broken gap in the rock spur. Once so deadly and intimidating, now it seemed insignificant. He backed off half a dozen paces, then sped forward. Holding the flaming torch high he jumped out from the mouth of the tunnel and flew across the gap. He landed in perfect balance three full paces beyond the fracture. Even though at the moment another furious gust struck him his balance was true: he did not waver.

  He launched himself along the narrow rock causeway, running lightly where previously he had been forced to crawl. Though the wind clawed at him and whipped the skirt of his tunic round his legs he never slowed his pace. He ducked his head under the stone roof of the tunnel at the end of the causeway and went on, following the twists and turns, not stopping until he reached the fork of the tunnel and stepped out into the main branch.

  Even here he did not feel any need to linger. His breathing was deep but even, his legs as strong as cedarwood baulks. Nevertheless he jammed the torches upright into natural cracks in the wall, hiked up his tunic and sat on a stone step. He lifted his skirt as high as his waist and admired his legs. He ran his hands over the smooth skin: the muscles beneath it were full, each clearly defined. He touched them, and they were hard and resilient. Then he noticed his hands. The skin on the back was that of a man in his prime. The dark f
oxing blotches of age had disappeared. His arms were like his legs, hard and shapely. He raised his hands to his face and explored it with his fingertips. His beard felt thicker, the skin on his throat and under his eyes taut and devoid of wrinkles. He ran his fingers through his hair, which was dense and springing again.

  He laughed aloud with pleasure at the thought of how his features must have altered. He wished he had brought with him the mirror that he had given him. He had not felt the satisfaction of justified vanity for a century at least.

  ‘I am young again!’ he shouted, as he jumped to his feet and took up the torches.

  Before he had gone much further, he came to a seep where sweet water ran from a crack and dripped down the wall of the tunnel into a natural stone basin. He drank, then went on. Even as he ran, his mind was filled with Fenn. It was so many months now since he had last seen her and he wondered how much more her appearance had altered since he had overlooked her. During the two brief contacts he had made with her earlier that day he had sensed a sea-change in her.

  Of course she has changed, but not as much as I have. We will astonish each other when next we meet. She is a young woman now. What will she make of me? He felt heady in anticipation of their meeting.

  He had lost all sense of the passage of time. He did not know whether it was night or day, but he went on. At last he reached a point where the tunnel descended another steep flight of steps. When he reached the bottom he found the way forward closed off by a heavy leather curtain, decorated with mystic symbols and characters. He doused the torches, then moved closer to it. A soft ray of light showed through a chink in the leather. He listened intently, his hearing immeasurably sharper and clearer than it had been before he had entered the Font. Now he heard nothing. Cautiously he opened the chink in the curtain a little wider and peered through. He was looking into a small but magnificently furnished room. He searched quickly for any sign of life but he found no aura. He opened the curtain wider and stepped through.