The Quest (Novels of Ancient Egypt)

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘We must do so at once,’ he agreed. ‘Let us prepare ourselves.’ They sat together on the barren hillside above the thundering river, linked their hands and launched themselves in unison into the astral plane. They soared on high and glided towards the mighty cloud and the land spread beneath it.

  Looking down upon it they saw that it was ruined: the villages blazed and the fields were devastated by poisonous smoke and falling ash. They saw people running from it with their hair and clothing on fire. They heard women wailing and children screaming as they perished. They drew closer to the Mountains of the Moon, and saw that the peaks were blown away. From the craters that had split them asunder poured rivers of fiery lava. One spilled down on to the citadel of the oligarchs, submerging it with fire and ash until it seemed that it had never existed.

  In the midst of all this destruction only the valley of the Cloud Gardens seemed untouched. But then they saw the peaks that towered above them heave and sway. While they watched, another volcanic eruption blew away half of the mountain. Massive buttresses of black rock were hurled into the heavens. The Cloud Gardens were obliterated. Where once they had stood another yawning crater spewed forth fresh rivers of lava.

  ‘The witch! What of her?’

  Taita drew her with him into the very heart of the furnace. Their astral beings were impervious to the raging temperatures that would instantly have reduced their physical bodies to puffs of steam. Down they sank through the passages of Eos’s lair, which Taita remembered so well, until they reached the chamber in which her cocoon lay. Already the green malachite walls were glowing, the tiles popping and shattering with the heat.

  Wisps of smoke rose from the carapace. The glistening surface began to blacken and crack. Slowly it twisted and writhed, then suddenly it split open and from it poured a glutinous yellow fluid, which bubbled and boiled as it cooked. The stench was overpowering. Then the carapace burst into flames and burnt to a powdery ash. The last of the foul liquid boiled away, leaving a black stain on the glowing malachite tiles. The roof of the cavern burst open, and burning lava forced its way through the cracks to flood the witch’s chamber.

  Taita and Fenn drew back and rose above the mountains. Below, the destruction was complete. Jarri had disappeared beneath the ash and the lava. When at last they dropped back across the ether into their physical bodies they were at first too moved by all they had seen and experienced to speak or even move. Still holding hands, they stared at each other. Then Fenn’s eyes filled with tears and she began to weep silently.

  ‘It is over,’ Taita told her soothingly.

  ‘Eos is dead?’ Fenn begged. ‘Tell me it was not an illusion. Please, Taita, tell me that what I saw in the vision was the truth.’

  ‘It was the truth. She died in the only way that was possible for her, consumed in the flames of the volcano from which she had risen.’ Fenn crawled into his lap and he put his arms round her. Now that the danger had passed her strength had evaporated. She was a frightened child again. They sat for the rest of the day gazing down upon the green Nile. Then, as the sun set behind the towering smoke and dustclouds that still filled the western half of the heavens, Taita stood up and carried her back up the hill path to the village.

  The people saw them coming and rushed to meet them, the children squealing with excitement and the women ululating with joy. Meren raced ahead of the crowd to be the first to greet them. Taita set Fenn down and opened his arms to welcome him.

  ‘Magus! We feared for your lives,’ Meren bellowed, while he was still fifty paces away. ‘I should have had more faith in you. I should have known that your magic would prevail. The Nile flows again!’ He seized Taita in a fervent embrace. ‘You have restored life to it and to our motherland.’ He reached out with his other arm and pulled Fenn to him. ‘None of us will ever understand the extent of the miracle that the two of you have brought to pass, but a hundred generations of Egyptians will thank you for it.’ Then they were surrounded by the exultant throng and borne up to the hilltop. The singing and laughter, the dancing and rejoicing lasted all that night.

  It was many weeks before the Nile had dropped sufficiently to be contained once more between its banks. Even then it was wreathed in silver spray, and the roaring flood continued to grind great chunks of the red rock along the bottom. It sounded as though a giant was gnashing his teeth in rage. Nevertheless, Taita gave the order for the boats to be carried down the hill and reassembled on the bank.

  ‘If you had not made us bring them to the top, that wave would have smashed them to kindling,’ Meren admitted. ‘I argued with you then, and I ask your forgiveness and understanding for that, Magus.’

  ‘They are freely given.’ Taita smiled. ‘But the truth is that, over the years, I have become inured to you jibbing like an unbroken horse at any piece of good sense I offer you.’

  Once the boats were reassembled on the riverbank, they left Kalulu’s old village on the heights to set up a new encampment in a pleasant wooded site closer to where the boats lay. Here they waited for the Nile to drop to a level at which it could be safely navigated. The mood in the camp was still festive. The knowledge that they were safe from further pursuit by the Jarrian army and that they need no longer fear the malignant power of Eos was a constant source of joy to everyone. It was enhanced by the realization that they would soon be embarking upon the final leg of the long journey back to the motherland they loved so well and had missed so keenly.

  An enormous female hippopotamus, one of a herd that inhabited Lake Nalubaale, ventured too close to the newly opened mouth of the Nile and was caught in the current. Even her great strength was insufficient to save her from being swept down the rapids. Her body was ripped and torn as she was thrown against the rocks. Mortally wounded, she dragged herself ashore just below the encampment. Fifty men armed with spears, javelins and axes rushed down upon her and the dying beast was unable to flee. Once they had despatched her, they butchered her carcass where it lay.

  That night, pieces of her flesh wrapped in the luscious white belly fat were grilled upon the coals of fifty separate fires and, once again, the people feasted and danced the night through. Although they had all gorged themselves, there remained plenty to salt and smoke; it would feed them for several weeks. In addition to this, the river teemed with catfish that were stunned and disoriented by the raging waters and easily harpooned from the bank, some were heavier than a full-grown man. They still had several tons of the dhurra they had taken from the Jarrian granaries so Taita agreed that some might be fermented to make beer. By the time the river had dropped to a level that allowed them to take to their oars, they were all strong, rested and eager for the voyage to recommence. Even Hilto was almost recovered from his wound and able to take his place on a rowing bench.

  The Nile had changed from the sullen trickle they had known on the journey towards the land of Jarri. Every bend, every shoal and reef came as a surprise, so Taita could take no chances with a night run. In the evenings they moored to the bank and built a secure stockade of thorn bushes on the shore. After a long day confined between the narrow decks, the horses were turned loose to graze until nightfall. Meren led out a hunting party to bring in what game they could find. As soon as it was dark, men and animals were brought into the safety of the stockade: lions roared and leopards sawed around the thorn-bush walls, attracted by the scent of the horses and the fresh game meat.

  With so many humans and animals to provide shelter for, the stockade was crowded. However, because of the respect and affection in which they were held, there was always a small but private enclosure for Taita and Fenn. When they were alone in their haven their talk turned often to their homeland. Although in her other life Fenn had once worn the double crown of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms, all she knew of Egypt now she had gleaned from Taita. She was hungry for every detail of the land and its peoples, their religion, art and customs. In particular, she longed for descriptions of the children she had borne so long ago, and their descendants wh
o ruled now.

  ‘Tell me about Pharaoh Nefer Seti.’

  ‘You already know everything that there is to know,’ he protested.

  ‘Tell me again,’ she insisted. ‘I long for the day I meet him face to face. Do you think he will know that I was once his grandmother?’

  ‘I will be astonished if he does. You are much less than half his age, so young and beautiful that he might even fall in love with you,’ he teased her.

  ‘That would never do,’ she replied primly. ‘First, it would be incest, but far more important, I belong to you.’

  ‘Do you, Fenn? Do you truly belong to me?’

  She opened her eyes wide with surprise. ‘For a magus and a savant, sometimes you can be obtuse, Taita. Of course I belong to you. I promised you that in the other life. You told me so yourself.’

  ‘What do you know of incest?’ He changed the subject. ‘Who told you about it?’

  ‘Imbali,’ she replied. ‘She tells me the things that you don’t.’

  ‘And what did she have to say on the subject?’

  ‘Incest is when people who are related by blood gijima each other,’ she replied evenly.

  He caught his breath to hear the coarse word on her innocent lips. ‘Gijima?’ he asked cautiously. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘You know what it means, Taita,’ she said, with a long-suffering air. ‘You and I gijima each other all the time.’

  He caught his breath again, but this time held it. ‘How do we do that?’

  ‘You know very well. We hold hands and kiss each other. That is how people gijima.’ He exhaled in a sigh of relief, at which she realized he was holding something back. ‘Well, it is, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so, or at least part of it.’

  Now her suspicions were thoroughly aroused and she was unusually quiet for the rest of the evening. He knew that she would not easily be fobbed off.

  The next night they camped above a waterfall they remembered from their journey upstream. Then the river had been almost dry, but now its position was marked by the tall column of spray that rose high above the forest. While the shore party cut the thorn bushes to build the stockade and make camp, Taita and Fenn mounted Windsmoke and Whirlwind and followed a game trail along the riverbank that was deeply scored with the tracks of buffalo and elephant and littered with piles of their dung. They carried their bows at the ready and went forward cautiously, expecting at every turn of the trail to run into a herd of one species or the other. However, although they heard elephant trumpeting and breaking branches in the forest nearby, they reached the top of the falls without glimpsing them. They hobbled the horses and let them graze, while they went forward on foot.

  Taita thought of this section of the river when it had been a mere trickle in the depths of the narrow rocky gorge. Now the waters were white and foaming, leaping from rock to black rock as they flowed between the high banks. Ahead the unseen falls thundered and spray drizzled on their upturned faces.

  When they came out at last on the headland above the main falls, the Nile had been compressed from a width of two hundred paces to a mere twenty. Below, the torrent plunged through brilliant arches of rainbows hundreds of cubits down into the foaming gorge.

  ‘This is the last waterfall before we come to the cataracts of Egypt,’ he said. ‘The last barrier in our path.’ He lost himself in the splendour of the spectacle.

  Fenn seemed equally entranced by it, but in fact she was engrossed in other thoughts. With a half-smile on her lips and a dreamy look in her eyes, she leant against his shoulder. When at last she spoke, it was in a husky whisper that was almost, but not quite, lost in the thunder of the Nile waters. ‘Yesterday I spoke to Imbali again about how people gijima each other.’ She slanted those green eyes at him. ‘She told me all about it. Of course I had seen horses and dogs doing it, but I’d never thought that we would do the same thing.’

  Taita was at a loss for an adequate response. ‘We must go back now,’ he said. ‘The sun is setting and we should not be on the path after dark when there are lions abroad. We shall discuss this later.’

  They saddled the horses and started back along the riverbank. Usually the flow of their conversation was endless, each idea leading on to the next. But for once neither had anything to say and they followed the game trail in silence. Every time he glanced at her surreptitiously she was still smiling.

  When they rode into the stockade the women were busy at the cooking fires and the men were gathered in small groups, talking and drinking beer, resting aching muscles after their long day at the oars. Meren hurried to meet them as they dismounted. ‘I was about to send out a search party to find you.’

  ‘We were scouting the trail,’ Taita told him, as they dismounted and handed the horses to the grooms. ‘Tomorrow we will have to dismantle the boats to carry them round the falls. The track down is steep, so there is much hard work ahead.’

  ‘I have called all the captains and headmen into council to discuss that very matter. We were waiting for your return to camp.’

  ‘I will bring your dinner to you,’ Fenn told Taita, and slipped away to join the women at the cooking fires.

  Taita took his place at the head of the gathering. He had instituted these meetings not only to plan specific actions but also to give each an opportunity to raise any subject of interest or importance to the group. It was also a court of justice and discipline before which miscreants could be called to answer for their sins.

  Before the conference began, Fenn brought him a bowl of stew and a cup of beer. As she left him she whispered, ‘I will keep the lamp burning and wait up for you. We have much of importance to discuss, you and I.’

  Intrigued by this, Taita hurried the meeting along. As soon as they had agreed on how they would transport the boats, he left Meren and Tinat to deal with a few matters of lesser consequence. As he passed the women at the fires they called goodnight, then giggled among themselves as if at some delicious secret. Meren had placed their hut at the far end of the enclosure behind a screen of freshly cut thatching grass. When Taita stooped through the open doorway he found that Fenn had indeed left the oil lamp burning, and was already under the kaross on their sleeping mat. She was still wide awake. She sat up and let the fur fall to her waist. Her breasts shone softly in the lamplight. Since her first moon they had become fuller and more shapely. The nipples peeped out cheerily, and their areolas had taken on a deeper shade of pink.

  ‘You have come sooner than I expected,’ she said softly. ‘Throw your tunic into the corner. I will wash it tomorrow. Now come to bed.’ He bent over the lamp to blow out the flame, but she stopped him. ‘No, let it burn. I like to watch you.’ He came to where she lay and stretched out on the mat beside her. She remained sitting, and leant over him to study his face.

  ‘You wanted to tell me something,’ he prompted her.

  ‘You are so beautiful,’ she whispered, and brushed the hair off his forehead with her fingers. ‘Sometimes when I look at your face I am so happy I feel like crying.’ She traced the curves of his eyebrows and then his lips. ‘You are perfect.’

  ‘Is that the secret?’

  ‘Part of it,’ she said, and ran her fingers down his throat and the muscles of his chest. Then, suddenly, she took one of his nipples between her thumb and forefinger and pinched it. She purred with laughter when he gasped.

  ‘You have not too much there, my lord.’ She took one of her own breasts in her hand. ‘I, on the other hand, have enough for both of us.’ They made a serious assessment of the discrepancy in sizes, then Fenn went on, ‘This evening I watched Revi feeding her baby while we sat by the fire. He is a greedy little piglet. Revi says that it feels nice when he suckles.’ She leant closer to him and proffered her breast, touching his lips with the nipple. ‘Shall we pretend you are my baby? I want to know what it feels like.’

  Then it was her turn to gasp. ‘Ah! Ah! I never thought it would be like that. It makes something in my belly clench.’ She w
as silent for a while, then gave a throaty little chuckle. ‘Oh! Our mannikin has woken.’ She reached for him. Her fingers, with practice, were becoming more cunning and skilful. ‘I have been thinking about him ever since I spoke to Imbali this evening while you were in council. Do you know what she told me?’ His mouth was still busy, so his reply was muffled. She pushed his head away from her breast. ‘You will never believe what she told me.’

  ‘Is this the secret you were keeping for me?’ He smiled up at her.

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Tell me, then. I am all agog.’

  ‘It’s so rude, I have to whisper it.’ She cupped both hands round his ear, but her voice was breathless and broken with giggles. ‘It isn’t possible, is it?’ she asked. ‘Just look at how big our mannikin is. He could never fit. I am sure Imbali was teasing me.’

  Taita considered the question at length, then replied carefully, ‘There is only one way to be certain, and that is to put it to the test.’

  She stopped laughing and studied his face carefully. ‘Now you are teasing me too.’

  ‘No, I am serious. It would be unfair to accuse Imbali of making up stories if we don’t have any proof that she is.’ He reached down and ran his fingers over her belly and into the clump of soft curls at the base. She rolled on to her back and craned forward to give his hand her full attention. ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way. You are right, of course. Imbali is my dear friend. I don’t want to be unfair to her.’ She moved her legs slightly apart compliantly. Her eyes opened wider and she asked, ‘What are you doing down there?’

  ‘Trying to find out if your flower is large enough.’

  ‘My flower? Is that what you call it? Imbali calls it something else.’

  ‘I am sure she does,’ Taita said. ‘However, if we think about it, it is shaped just like a flower. Give me your finger and let me show you. These are the petals and at the top here is the stamen.’ As a botanist, she accepted this description without demur.