The Quest tes-4

by Wilbur Smith

  The Nile flowed a little more strongly as they moved south along its bank, but they could tell from the high-water line that the level was much lower than it had been in former times.

  'It has shrunk twenty-fold,' Meren calculated, and Taita agreed, even though he did not say so. Sometimes Meren had to be reminded that he was not an adept, and that some matters were better left to those qualified to deal with them.

  As they journeyed along the west bank, horses and men grew stronger with each day that passed. They were all fully recovered from the effects of the fly by the time they reached the lake, which was as Poto had described it to them. It was vast.

  'It must be a sea, not merely a lake,' Meren declared, and Taita sent him to fetch a pitcher of water from it.

  'Now taste it, my good Meren,' he ordered. Gingerly Meren took a sip, and let it run round his mouth. Then he drank the rest of the pitcher.

  'Salt sea?' Taita smiled kindly.

  'Nay, Magus, sweet as honey. I was mistaken, and you were right.'

  The lake was so large that it seemed to create its own wind system.

  In the dawn the air was still and cool. What looked like smoke rose high into the air from the surface. The men discussed this animatedly.

  'The water is heated by a volcano,' said one.

  'No,' said another. 'The water rises like mist. It will fall again elsewhere as rain.'

  'Nay, it is the fiery breath of a sea monster that lives in the waters,'

  Meren said with authority.

  In the end they looked at Taita for the truth.

  'Spiders,' said Taita, which threw them into further passionate argument.

  'Spiders do not fly. He means flies - dragon flies.'

  'He toys with our credibility,' said Meren. 'I know him well. He loves his little jokes.'

  Two days later the wind veered and one of the cloudy up-wellings drifted over the camp. Then as it reached land it began to descend. Fenn leapt high in the air and snatched something out of it.

  'Spiders!' she squealed. 'Taita is never wrong.' The cloud was formed by countless newly hatched spiders, so immature as to be almost transparent.

  Each had woven a gossamer sail, which it used to catch the dawn breeze and sail aloft to be transported to some new quarter of the lake.

  As soon as the sun struck the surface the wind picked up, until by noon it was whipping the water to foaming frenzy. During the afternoon it subsided until, at sunset, all was calm and serene. Flights of flamingoes strung out along the horizon in wavy pink lines. Hippopotamuses wallowed like granite boulders, grunting and bellowing in the shallows, cavernous pink jaws gaping to threaten rivals with their long incisors. Mighty crocodiles stretched out on the sandbars, sunning themselves, holding their mouths wide open so that water birds could pick the scraps of flesh from between their stubby yellow fangs. The nights were still, with the stars reflected on the velvety black waters.

  To the west the lake was so extensive that there was no sight of land, other than a few small islands that seemed to sail like dhows on the wind-torn surface. To the south, they could just make out the far shore of the lake. There were no high mountain peaks or volcanoes, just a blue tracing of low hills.

  Poto had warned them about the ferocity of the local tribes, so they built a secure camp with branches from the thorny acacia trees that burgeoned on the shores of the lake. During the days the horses and mules grazed on the fine grasses that grew on the littoral, or waded out to feast on the water-lilies and other aquatic plants in the shallows.

  'When will we set out to find Kalulu, the shaman?' Fenn demanded.

  'This very evening after you have had your dinner.'

  As he had promised he took her to the beach, where they gathered driftwood and built a small fire. They squatted over it and Taita took her hands in his, forming the circle of protection. 'If Kalulu is an adept, as Poto suggested, we can cast for him across the ether,' Taita told her.

  'Can you do that, Taita?' Fenn asked, in awe.

  'According to Poto, he lives in the marshes very close to this place, perhaps only a few leagues distant from where we are now. He is within easy call.'

  'Is distance important?' Fenn asked.

  Taita nodded. 'We know his name. We know his physical appearance, his amputated legs. Of course, it would be easier if we knew his spirit name, or if we possessed something of his person - a hair, nail clippings, sweat, urine or dung. However, I will teach you to cast for a subject with what we have.' Taita took a pinch of herbs from his pouch and threw them on to the fire. They flared in a cloud of pungent smoke. 'This will drive off any evil influence that may be hovering nearby,' he explained.

  'Look into the flames. If Kalulu comes you will see him there.'

  Still holding hands they began to sway in time to a soft humming that

  Taita made deep in his chest. When Fenn had cleared her mind as he had taught her, they conjured up the three symbols of power, and silently conjugated them.I 'Mensaar!'

  'Kydash!'

  'Ncube!'

  The ether sang round them. Taita cast into it.

  'Kalulu, hearken! O legless one, open thine ears!' He repeated the invitation at intervals as the moon rose and travelled half-way towards its zenith.

  Suddenly they felt the strike. Fenn gasped at the thrill, like a discharge of static through her fingertips. She stared into the fire, and saw the outline of a face. It looked to her like that of an ancient but eternally wise ape.

  'Who calls?' The fiery lips formed the question in the Tenmass. 'Who calls on Kalulu?'

  'I am Taita of Gallala.'

  'If you are of the Truth, show me your spirit name.' Taita allowed it to materialize as a symbol over his head: the sign of a falcon with a broken wing. It would be mortally dangerous for him to enunciate it into the ether where it might be pounced on by a malevolent entity.

  'I acknowledge you, brother in Truth,' Kalulu said.

  'Reveal your own spirit name,' Taita challenged him. Slowly the outline of a crouching African hare took shape above the face in the fire.

  It was the mythological wise one, Kalulu the Hare, whose head and long ears were portrayed in the disc of the full moon.

  'I acknowledge you, brother of the right hand. I call upon you for your help,' said Taita.

  'I know where you are and I am close by. Within three days I will come to you,' Kalulu replied.

  Fenn was enchanted by the art of casting for a person across the ether. 'Oh, Taita, I never dreamt it was possible. Please teach me to do it.'

  'First you must learn your own spirit name.'

  'I think I know it,' she replied. 'You called me by it once, did you not?

  Or was it a dream, Taita?'

  'Dreams and reality often blend and become one, Fenn. What is the name you remember?'

  'Child of the Water,' she replied diffidently. 'Lostris.'

  Taita stared at her in amazement. She was unconsciously demonstrating her psychic powers as seldom before. She had managed to reach back into the other life. Excitement and elation made his breathing quicken.

  'Do you know the symbol of your spirit name, Fenn?'

  'No, I have never seen it,' she whispered. 'Or have I, Taita?'

  'Think of it,' he instructed. 'Hold it in the forefront of your mind!'

  She closed her eyes, and reached instinctively for the talisman that hung at her throat. 'Do you have it in your mind?' he asked gently.

  'I have it,' she whispered, and he opened his Inner Eye. Her aura was a dazzling brilliance that cloaked her from head to foot, and the symbol of her spirit name hung over her head, etched in the same celestial fire.

  The shape of the nymphaea flower, the water-lily, he thought. It is complete. She has come into full bloom, like her spirit symbol. Even in childhood, she has become an adept of the first water. Aloud he said to her, 'Fenn, your mind and spirit are fully prepared. You are ready to learn everything I can teach you, and perhaps more than that.'

  'Then te
ach me to cast upon the ether, and to reach you even when great distances separate us.'

  'We will begin at once,' he said. 'I already have something of yours.'

  'What is it? Where?' she asked eagerly. In reply he touched the Periapt that hung round his neck. 'Show me,' she demanded, and he opened the locket to reveal the coil of hair it contained.

  'Hair,' she said, 'but not mine.' She touched it with her forefinger.

  'This is the hair of an old lady. See? There are grey strands mixed with the gold.'

  'You were old when I cut it from your head,' he agreed. 'You were already dead. You were lying upon the embalming table, cold and stark.'

  She shuddered with delicious horror. 'Was that in the other life?' she asked. 'Tell me about it. Who was I?'

  'It will take me a lifetime to tell it all,' he said, 'but let me start by saying that you were the woman I loved, even as I love you now.' She groped for his hand, blinded by tears.

  'You have something of mine,' she whispered. 'Now 1 need something of yours.' She reached up into his beard and twisted a thick strand around her finger. 'Your beard struck me when you pursued me on the first day we met. It shines like purest silver.' She drew the small sharp

  bronze dagger from the sheath on her girdle, and cut the strand close to the skin, then lifted it to her nose and smelt it, as though it were a fragrant blossom. 'It is your smell, Taita, your very essence.' I 'I will make you a locket to keep it in.'

  She laughed with pleasure. 'Yes, I would like that. But you must have the hair of the living child to go with that of the dead woman.' She reached up, cut a lock from her head and offered it to him. He coiled it carefully and placed it in the compartment of the Periapt, on top of the lock that had lain there for more than seventy years.

  'Will I always be able to summon you?' Fenn said.

  'Yes, and I you,' Taita agreed, 'but first I must teach you how.'

  Over the days that followed they practised the art. They started by sitting within sight of each other, but out of earshot. Within hours she was able to receive the images he placed in her mind, and respond with images of her own. When they had it perfected, they turned their backs upon each other so that they were out of eye contact. Finally Taita left her in the camp and rode several leagues west along the lakeshore in the company of Meren. From there he reached her with his first attempt.

  Each time he cast, she struck more readily, and the images she presented to him were crisper and more complete. For him she wore her symbol on her forehead, and after many attempts she could change the colour of the lily to suit her fancy, from rose to lilac to scarlet.

  At night, she lay close to him, for protection, on her sleeping mat, and before she fell asleep she whispered, 'Now we will never be parted again, for I can find you wherever you go.'

  In the dawn, before the wind came up, they went to bathe in the lake. Before they entered the water Taita cast a spell of protection to repel crocodiles and any other monsters that might lurk in the deep. Then they plunged in. Fenn swam with the lithe grace of an otter. Her naked body flashed like polished ivory as she slipped away into the depths. He never grew accustomed to how long she could stay under water and grew alarmed as he lay on the surface staring down into the green world below. After what seemed like an eternity, he saw the pale flash of her body as she came up towards him, just as she had in his dreams. Then she burst out beside him, laughing and shaking water out of her hair. At other times he did not see her returning. The

  ¦

  I THE QUEST

  first he knew of it was when she seized his ankle and tried to pull him under.

  'How did you learn to swim as you do?' he demanded.

  'I am the child of the water.' She laughed at him. 'Don't you remember? I was born to swim.' When they emerged from the lake they found a place in the early sunlight to dry themselves. He sat behind her and braided her hair, weaving water-lily blossoms into the tresses.

  While he worked he told her about the life she had lived as Queen of Egypt, the others who had loved her and the children to whom she had given birth. Often she would exclaim, 'Oh, yes! I remember that now. I remember that I had a son, but I cannot see his face.'

  'Open your mind, and I will place his image in it from my own memory of him.'

  She closed her eyes and he placed his cupped hands on each side of her head, covering her ears. They were silent for a while. At last she whispered, 'Oh, what a beautiful child. His hair is golden. I see his cartouche above him. His name is Memnon.'

  'That was his childhood name,' he murmured. 'When he ascended to the throne and took the double crown of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms, he became Pharaoh Tamose, the first of that name. There! Look upon him in all his power and majesty.' Taita placed the image in her mind.

  She was silent for a long time. Then she said, 'So handsome and noble. Oh, Taita, I wish I could have seen my son.'

  'You did, Fenn. You suckled him at your breast, and with your own hands you placed the crown upon his head.'

  Again she was silent, and then she said, 'Show me yourself on the day we first met in the other life. Can you do that, Taita? Can you conjure up your own image for me?'

  'I would not dare to make the attempt,' he answered quickly.

  'Why not?' she asked.

  'It would be dangerous,' he replied. 'You must believe me. It would be too dangerous by far.'

  He knew that if he showed her that image, it would haunt her in time with unattainable dreams. He would have sown the seeds of her discontent.

  For when they had first met in her other life, Taita had been a slave and the most beautiful young man in Egypt. That had been his downfall. His master, Lord Intef, had been the Nomarch of Karnak and the governor of all twenty-two nomes of Upper Egypt. He had also been

  a pederast and insanely jealous of his slave boy. Taita fell in love with a slave girl in his master's household named Alyda. When this was reported to Lord Intef, he ordered Rasfer, his executioner, to crush Alyda's skull slowly. Taita had been forced to watch her die. Even after the deed was done Lord Intef was still not satisfied. He had ordered Rasfer to castrate the virgin Taita.

  There was a further aspect to this terrible situation. Lord Intef was the father of the little girl who, years later, became Queen Lostris. He was uninterested in his daughter and had made Taita, the eunuch, her tutor and mentor. That child was now reincarnated as Fenn.

  It was so complex that Taita had difficulty finding the words to explain all this to Fenn, and for the moment he was relieved of the obligation to do so by a loud hail from the direction of the camp: 'Boats coming from the east! Stand to arms.' It was Meren's voice, clearly recognizable even at this distance. They sprang up, pulled on their tunics over bodies that were still damp and hurried back towards the camp.

  'There!' Fenn pointed across the green waters. It took Taita a few moments to make out the dark specks against the white horses that were already being driven up by the rising wind.

  'Native war canoes! Can you count the number of rowers, Fenn?'

  She shaded her eyes, stared hard, then said, 'The leading canoe has twelve on each side. The others look to be as large. Wait! The second boat is the largest by far, with twenty rowers on the nearest side.'

  Meren had drawn up his men in double ranks before the gate to the stockade. They were fully armed and alert to meet any sudden exigency.

  They watched as the canoes beached below them. The crews disembarked and gathered round the largest vessel. A band of musicians jumped ashore and began to dance on the beach. The drummers pounded out a feral rhythm, while the trumpeters brayed on the long spiral horns of some wild antelope.

  'Mask your aura,' Taita whispered to Fenn. 'We know nothing of this fellow.' He watched it fade. 'Good. Enough.' If Kalulu was a savant, to mask her aura completely would raise even deeper suspicion.

  Eight bearers lifted a litter from the boat and carried it up the beach.

  They were sturdy young women, with muscular arms
and legs, wearing loincloths that were richly embroidered with glass beads. Their breasts were anointed with clarified fat and gleamed in the sunlight. They came directly to where Taita stood, and deposited the litter before him. Then they knelt beside it, in an attitude of deep reverence.

  In the middle of the litter sat a dwarf. Fenn recognized him from the

  image in the flames, the face of the ancient ape with protruding ears and shining bald pate. 'I am Kalulu,' he said in the Tenmass, 'and I see you, TaitaofGallala.'

  'I welcome you,' Taita responded. He saw at once that Kalulu was not a savant, but he threw a powerful, intense aura. From it, Taita could tell that he was an adept and a follower of the Truth. 'Let us go where we can speak in comfort and privacy.'

  Kalulu swung himself into a handstand, the stubs of his severed legs pointing to the sky, and hopped down from the litter. He walked on his hands as though they were feet, twisting his head to one side so that he could talk up into Taita's face. 'I have been expecting you, Magus. Your approach has created a sharp disturbance on the ether. I have felt your presence grow stronger as you made your way up the river.' The women came after him, carrying the empty litter.

  'This way, Kalulu,' Taita invited. When they reached his quarters, the women set down the litter, then backed away until they were out of earshot. Kalulu hopped back on to it and resumed his normal head-high position, squatting on his stumps. He looked around brightly at the camp, but when Fenn knelt before him to offer him a bowl of honey mead, he concentrated his attention on her.

  'Who are you, child? I saw you in the firelight,' he said in the Tenmass.

  She pretended not to understand and glanced at Taita.

  'You may reply,' he told her. 'He is of the Truth.'

  'I am Fenn, a novice to the magus.'

  He looked at Taita. 'Do you vouch for her?'

  'I do,' Taita replied, and the little man nodded.

  'Sit beside me, Fenn, for you are beautiful.' She sat on the litter trustingly. Kalulu looked at Taita with piercing black eyes. 'Why did you call for me, Magus? What is the service you require from me?'