The Quest

The Quest

Wilbur Smith

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Two lonely figures came down from the high mountains. They were dressed in travel-worn furs and leather helmets with ear-flaps strapped beneath their chins against the cold. Their beards were untrimmed and their faces weatherbeaten. They carried all their meagre possessions upon their backs. It had taken a hard and daunting journey to reach this spot. Although he led, Meren had no inkling where they were, neither was he sure why they had come so far. Only the old man who followed close behind him knew that, and he had not yet chosen to enlighten Meren.

Since leaving Egypt they had crossed seas and lakes and many mighty rivers; they had traversed vast plains and forests. They had encountered strange and dangerous animals and even stranger and more dangerous men.

Then they had entered the mountains, a prodigious chaos of snowy peaks and gaping gorges, where the thin air was hard to breathe. Their horses had died in the cold and Meren had lost the tip of one finger, burned black and rotting by the crackling frosts. Fortunately it was not the finger of his sword hand, nor one of those that released the arrow from his great bow.

Meren stopped on the brink of the last sheer cliff. The old man came up beside him. His fur coat was made from the skin of a snow tiger that Meren had slain with a single arrow as it sprang upon him. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they looked down on a foreign land of rivers and dense green jungles.

'Five years,' Meren said. 'Five years we have been upon the road. Is this the end of the journey, Magus?'

'Ha, good Meren, surely it has not been that long?' Taita asked, and his eyes sparkled teasingly under frost-white brows.

In reply Meren unslung his sword scabbard from his back and displayed the lines of notches scratched in the leather. 'I have recorded every day, should you wish to count them,' he assured him. He had followed Taita and protected him for more than half his own lifetime, but he was still never entirely certain whether the other was serious or merely jesting with him. 'But you have not answered my question, revered Magus. Have we reached the end of our journey?'

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'Nay, we have not.' Taita shook his head. 'But take comfort, for at least we have made a good beginning.' Now he took the lead and set out along a narrow ledge that angled down across the face of the cliff.

Meren gazed after him for a few moments, then his bluff, handsome features creased into a grin of rueful resignation. 'Will the old devil never stop?' he asked the mountains, slung his scabbard on his back and followed him.

At the bottom of the cliff they came round a buttress of white quartz rock and a voice piped out of the sky, 'Welcome, travellers! I have waited a long time for your coming.'

They stopped in surprise and looked up at the ledge above them. On it sat a childlike figure, a boy who seemed no older than eleven years. It was odd that they had not noticed him before for he was in full view: the high bright sunlight picked him out and reflected off the shining quartz that surrounded him with a radiant nimbus, which pained the eyes.

'I have been sent to guide you to the temple of Saraswati, the goddess of wisdom and regeneration,' said the child, and his voice was mellifluous.

'You speak the Egyptian language!' Meren blurted in astonishment.

The boy turned the fatuous remark with a smile. He had the brown face of a mischievous monkey, but his smile was so winsome that Meren could not help but return it.

'My name is Ganga. I am the messenger. Come! There is still some way to go.' He stood, and his thick braid of black hair dangled over one bare shoulder. Even in the cold he wore only a loincloth. His smooth bare torso was a dark chestnut colour, yet he carried on his back a hump like that of a camel, grotesque and shocking. He saw their expressions and smiled again. 'You will grow accustomed to it, as I have,' he said. He jumped down from the shelf and reached up to take Taita's hand. 'This way.'

For the next two days Ganga led them through thick bamboo forest.

The track took many twists and turns and without him they would have lost it a hundred times. As they descended, the air grew warmer and they were able at last to shed their furs and go on bareheaded. Taita's locks were thin, straight and silvery. Meren's were dense, dark and curling.

On the second day they came to the end of the bamboo forests and followed the path into thick jungle with galleries that met overhead and blotted out the sunlight. The air was warm and heavy with the scent of damp earth and rotting plants. Birds of bright plumage flashed over their heads, small monkeys chattered and gibbered on the top branches and brilliantly coloured butterflies hovered over the flowering vines.

With dramatic suddenness the jungle ended and they came out into an open plain that extended about a league to the opposite wall of the jungle. In the centre of this clearing stood a mighty edifice. The towers, turrets and terraces were built from butter-yellow stone blocks, and the entire complex was surrounded by a high wall of the same stone. The decorative statues and panels that covered the exterior depicted a riot of naked men and voluptuous women.

'What those statues are playing at would startle the horses,' Meren said, in a censorious tone, although his eyes glittered.

'Methinks you would have made a fine model for the sculptors,' Taita suggested. Every conceivable conjunction of human bodies was carved into the yellow stone. 'Surely there is nothing shown on those walls that is new to you?'

'On the contrary, I could learn much,' Meren admitted. 'I had not even dreamed the half of it.'

'The Temple of Knowledge and Regeneration,' Ganga reminded them. 'Here, the act of procreation is regarded as both sacred and beautiful.'

'Meren has long held the same view,' Taita remarked drily.

Now the path beneath their feet was paved and they followed it to the gateway in the outer wall of the temple. The massive teak gates stood open.

'Go through!' Ganga urged. 'You are expected by the apsaras.'

'ApsarasV Meren asked.

'The temple maidens,' Ganga explained.

They went through the gateway, and then even Taita blinked with surprise, for they found themselves in a marvellous garden. The smooth green lawns were studded with clumps of flowering shrubs and fruit trees, many of which were already in full bearing, the plump fruits ripening lusciously. Even Taita, who was a learned herbalist and horticulturist, did not recognize some of the exotic species. The flower-beds were a splendour of dazzling colours. Near the gateway three young women were seated on the lawn. When they saw the travellers they sprang up and ran lightly to meet them. Laughing and dancing with excitement, they kissed and embraced both Taita and Meren. The first apsara was slim, golden haired and lovely. She, too, appeared girlish, for her creamy skin was unblemished. 'Hail and well met! I am Astrata,' she said.

The second apsara had dark hair and slanted eyes. Her skin was as translucent as beeswax and polished, like ivory carved by a master craftsman. She was magnificent in the full bloom of womanhood. 'I am

Wu Lu,' she said, stroking Meren's muscled arm admiringly, 'and you are beautiful.'

'I am Tansid,' said the third apsara, who was tall and statuesque. Her eyes were a startling turquoise green, her hair was flaming auburn, and her teeth were white and perfect. When she kissed Taita her breath was as perfumed as any of the flowers in the garden. 'You are welcome,' Tansid told him. 'We were waiting for you. Kashyap and Samana told us you were coming. They sent us to meet you. You bring us joy.'

With one arm round Wu Lu, Meren looked back at the gateway.

'Where has Ganga gone?' he asked.

'Ganga never was,' Taita told him. 'He is a forest sprite, and now that his task has been completed he has gone back into the other world.' Meren accepted this. Having lived so long with the Magus, he was no longer surprised by even the most bizarre and magical phenomena.

The apsaras took them into the temple. After the bright hot sunlight of the garden the high halls were cool and dim, the air scented by the incense-burners that stood before golden images of the goddess Saraswati.

Priests and priestesses in flowing saffron robes worshipped before them, while more apsaras flitted through the shadows like butterflies. Some came to kiss and hug the strangers. They stroked Meren's arms and chest, and fondled Taita's silver beard.

At last Wu Lu, Tansid and Astrata took the two by the hand and led them down a long gallery, into the living quarters of the temple. In the refectory the women served them bowls of stewed vegetables and cups of sweet red wine. They had been on meagre rations for so long that even Taita ate hungrily. When they were replete, Tansid took Taita to the chamber that had been set aside for him. She helped him undress and made him stand in a copper basin of warm water while she sponged his weary body. She was like a mother tending a child, so natural and gentle that Taita felt no embarrassment even when she ran the sponge over the ugly scar of his castration. After she had dried him, she led him to the sleeping mat and sat beside him, singing softly, until he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Wu Lu and Astrata led Meren to another chamber. As Tansid had done for Taita, they bathed him, then settled him to sleep on his mat.

Meren tried to keep them with him, but he was exhausted and his efforts half-hearted. They giggled and slipped away. Within moments he, too, had fallen asleep.

He slept until the light of day filtered into the chamber and woke, feeling rested and rejuvenated. His worn, soiled clothing had disappeared,

replaced with a fresh, loose-fitting tunic. No sooner had he dressed than he heard sweet feminine laughter and voices approaching down the gallery outside his door. The two girls burst in upon him, carrying porcelain dishes and jugs of fruit juice. While they ate with him the apsaras talked to Meren in Egyptian, but between themselves they spoke a medley of languages, all of which seemed natural to them. However, each favoured what was clearly her mother tongue. Astrata's was Ionian, which explained her fine gold hair, and Wu Lu spoke with the chiming, bell-like tones of far Cathay.

When the meal was finished they took Meren out into the sunlight to where a fountain played over the waters of a deep pool. Both dropped the light garments they wore and plunged naked into the pool. When she saw that Meren was hanging back, Astrata came out of the pool to fetch him, her hair and body streaming with water. She seized him, laughing, stripped him of his tunic and dragged him to the pool. Wu Lu came to help her, and once they had him in the pool, they frolicked and splashed. Soon Meren abandoned his modesty, and became as frank and unashamed as they were. Astrata washed his hair, and marvelled at the combat scars that scored his knotted muscles.

Meren was astonished by the perfection of the two apsaras' bodies as they rubbed themselves against him. All the time their hands were busy beneath the surface of the water. When, between them, they had aroused him, they shrieked with delight and pulled him from the pool to a small pavilion under the trees. Piles of carpets and silken cushions lay on the stone floor, and they stretched him out on them still wet from the pool.

'Now we will worship the goddess,' Wu Lu told him.

'How do we do that?' Meren demanded.

'Have no fear. We will show you,' Astrata assured him. She pressed rhe full silken length of her body to his back, kissing his ears and neck From behind, her belly warmly moulded to his buttocks. Her hands reached round to caress Wu Lu, who was kissing his mouth and encircling him with her arms and legs. The two girls were consummately skilled in I he arts of love. After a while it was as though the three had flowed together and been transformed into a single organism, a creature possessed of six arms, six legs and three mouths.

Like Meren, Taita woke early. Although he had been wearied by the long journey, a few hours of sleep had restored his body and spirits.

The dawn light filled his chamber as he sat up on the sleeping mat, and became aware that he was not alone.

Tansid knelt beside his mat and smiled at him. 'Good morrow, Magus.

I have food and drink for you. When you have fortified yourself, Kashyap and Samana are eager to meet.'

'Who are they?'

'Kashyap is our revered abbot, Samana our reverend mother. As you are, so are they both eminent magi.'

Samana was waiting for him in an arbour in the temple gardens. She was a handsome woman of indeterminate age, wearing a saffron robe.

There were wings of silver in the dense hair above her ears, and her eyes were infinitely wise. After she had embraced him, she bade Taita sit beside her on the marble bench. She asked him about the journey he had made to reach the temple, and they talked for a while before she said, 'We are so glad that you have arrived in time to meet the Abbot Kashyap. He will not be with us for much longer. It was he who sent for you.'

'I knew I had been summoned to this place, but I did not know by whom.' Taita nodded. 'Why did he bring me here?'

'He will tell you himself,' Samana said. 'We will go to him now.' She stood and took his hand. They left Tansid, and Samana led him through many passages and cloisters, then up a spiral staircase that seemed endless.

At last they came out in a small circular room at the top of the highest temple minaret. It was open all round with a view over the green jungles to the far parapets of snow-topped mountain ranges in the north. In the middle of the floor a soft mattress was piled with cushions, on which sat a man.

'Place yourself in front of him,' Samana whispered. 'He is almost completely deaf, and must be able to see your lips when you speak.' Taita did as she had said, then Kashyap and he regarded each other in silence for a while.

Kashyap was ancient. His eyes were pale and faded, his gums toothless.

His skin was as dry and foxed as old parchment, his hair, beard and eyebrows were as pale and transparent as glass. His hands and head shook with uncontrollable tremors.

'Why have you sent for me, Magus?' Taita asked.

'Because you are of good mind.' Kashyap's voice was a whisper.

'How do you know of me?' Taita asked.

'With your esoteric power and presence, you leave a disturbance on the ether that is discernible from afar,' Kashyap explained.

'What do you want of me?'

'Nothing and everything, perhaps even your life.'

'Explain.'

'Alas! I have left it too late. The dark tiger of death is stalking me. I will be gone before the setting of the sun.'

'Is the task you have set me of moment?'

'Of the direst moment.'

'What must I do?' Taita asked.

'I had purposed to arm you for the struggle that lies ahead of you, but now I have learned from the apsaras that you are a eunuch. This I did not know before you came here. I cannot pass on my knowledge to you in the manner I had in mind.'

'What manner was that?' Taita asked.

'By carnal exchange.'

'Again I do not understand.'

'It would have involved sexual congress between us. Because of your injuries, that is not possible.' Taita was silent. Kashyap reached out to lay a withered, clawlike hand upon his arm. His voice was gentle when he said, 'I see by your aura that in speaking of your injuries I have offended you. For this I am sorry, but I have little time left and I must be blunt.'

Taita remained silent, so Kashyap went on: 'I have resolved to make the exchange with Samana. She is also of good mind. Once I am gone she will impart to you that which she has garnered from me. I am sorry I have upset you.'

'The truth may be painful, but you have not been. I will do whatever you need of me.'

'Then stay with us while I pass everything I possess, the learning and wisdom of all my long life, to Samana. Later she will share it with you, and you will be armed for the sacred endeavour that is your destiny.'

Taita bowed his head in acquiescence.

Samana clapped her hands sharply and two strange apsaras came up the stairs, both young and lovely, one brunette, the other honey blonde.

They followed Samana to the small brazier against the far wall and assisted her in brewing a bowl of sharply scented herbs over the coals.

When the potion was prepared, they brought it to Kashyap. While one

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steadied his shaking head, the other held the bowl to his lips. He drank the potion noisily, a little dribbling down his chin, then sagged back wearily upon the mattress.

The two apsaras undressed him tenderly and respectfully, then poured aromatic balm from an alabaster bottle over his groin. They massaged his withered manroot gently but persistently. Kashyap groaned, muttered and rolled his head from side to side, but in the skilful hands of the apsaras, and under the influence of the drug, his sex swelled and engorged.

When it was fully tumescent Samana came to his mattress. She lifted the skirt of her saffron robe as high as her waist, to reveal finely sculpted legs and buttocks that were round and strong. She straddled Kashyap, then reached down to take his manroot in her hand and guide it into herself. Once they were joined in congress she let the saffron skirts drop to screen them and began to rock gently over him, whispering softly to him: 'Master, 1 am prepared to receive all you have to give me.'

'Willingly do 1 entrust it to you.' Kashyap's voice was thin and reedy.

'Use it wisely and well.' Again he rolled his head from side to side, his ancient features puckered in a dreadful rictus. Then he stiffened and groaned, his body locked in a convulsion. Neither moved again for almost an hour. Then the breath rattled out of Kashyap's throat and he collapsed on to the mattress.

Samana stifled a scream. 'He is dead,' she said, with the greatest sorrow and compassion. Gently she uncoupled from Kashyap's corpse. Kneeling beside him, she closed the lids over his pale staring eyes. Then she looked across at Taita.

'At sunset this evening we will cremate his husk. Kashyap was my patron and guide throughout my life. He was more than any father to me. Now his essence lives on within me. It has become one with my spirit soul. Forgive me, Magus, but it may be some time before I am recovered sufficiently from this harrowing experience to be of any use to you. Then I will come to you.'

That evening Taita stood, with Tansid at his side, on the small darkened balcony outside his chamber and watched the funeral pyre of the Abbot Kashyap burning in the garden of the temple below. He felt a deep sense of loss that he had not come to know the man sooner. Even during their brief acquaintance he had been aware of the affinity that had existed between them.

A soft voice spoke in the darkness, startling him out of his reverie. He turned and saw that Samana had come up to them quietly.

'Kashyap was also aware of the bond between you.' She stood at Taita's other hand. 'You, too, are a servant of the Truth. That is why he summoned you so urgently. He would have come to you if his body had been able to carry him that far. During the carnal exchange you witnessed, the last great sacrifice he made to the Truth, Kashyap passed a message to me to deliver to you. Before I do so he required me to test your faith. Tell me, Taita of Gallala, what is your creed?'

Taita thought for a while, and then he replied: 'I believe that the universe is the battleground of two mighty hosts. The first of these is the host of the gods of the Truth. The second is the host of the demons of the Lie.'

'What role can we feeble mortals play in this cataclysmic struggle?'

Samana asked.

'We can devote ourselves to the Truth, or allow ourselves to be swallowed by the Lie.'

'If we choose the right-hand path of the Truth, how may we resist the dark power of the Lie?'

'By climbing the Eternal Mountain until we can see clearly the face of the Truth. Once we have achieved that we will be assimilated into the ranks of the Benevolent Immortals, who are the warriors for the Truth.'

'Is this the destiny of all men?'

'Nay! Only very few, the most worthy, will achieve that rank.'

'At the end of time will the Truth triumph over the Lie?'

'Nay! The Lie will persist, but so will the Truth. The battle rages back and forth but it is eternal.'

'Is the Truth not God?'

'Call him Ra or Ahura Maasda, Vishnu or Zeus, Woden or whatever name rings holiest in your ears, God is God, the one and alone.' Taita had made his confession of faith.

'I see from your aura that there is no vestige of the Lie in what you

affirm,' Samana said quietly, and she knelt before him. 'The spirit soul of Kashyap within me is satisfied that you are indeed of the Truth. There is no check and impediment to our enterprise. Now we may proceed.'

'Explain to me what is our “enterprise”, Samana.'

'In these dire times, the Lie is once more in the ascendancy. A new and menacing force has arisen that threatens all of mankind, but especially your very Egypt. The reason you have been summoned here is to be armed for your struggle against this terrible thing. I will open your Inner Eye so that you may see clearly the path you must follow.'

Samana stood up and embraced him. Then she went on, 'There is little time to spare. We will begin on the morrow. But before that I must select a helper.'

'Who is there to choose from?' Taita asked.

'Your apsara, Tansid, has assisted me before. She knows what is required.'

'Then choose her,' Taita agreed. Samana nodded and held out a hand to Tansid. The two women embraced, then looked again to Taita.

'You must choose your own helper,' Samana said.

'Tell me what is required of him.'

'He must have the strength to stand firm, and compassion for you.

You must have trust in him.'

Taita did not hesitate. 'Meren!'

'Of course,' Samana acceded.

A dawn the four ascended the foothills of the mountains, taking the path through the jungle and climbing until they reached the bamboo forest. Samana examined many of the swaying yellow bamboos before she selected a mature branch, then had Meren cut out a supple segment. He carried it back to the temple.

From the branch Samana and Tansid carefully fashioned a selection of long bamboo needles. They polished them until they were not much thicker than a human hair, but sharper and more resilient than the finest bronze.

An air of tension and expectation pervaded the serenity of the temple community. The laughter and high spirits of the apsaras were muted.

Whenever Tansid looked at Taita it was with awe tinged with something close to pity. Samana spent most of the waiting days with him, fortifying

him for the ordeal that lay ahead. They discussed many things, and Samana spoke with the voice and the wisdom of Kashyap.

At one point Taita broached a subject that had long occupied him: 'I perceive that you are a Long Liver, Samana.'

'As are you, Taita.'

'How is it that so few of us survive to an age far in excess of the rest of humanity?' he asked. 'It is beyond nature.'

'For myself, and others such as the Abbot Kashyap, it may be the manner of our existence, what we eat and drink, what we think and believe. Or perhaps that we have a purpose, a reason to continue, a spur to goad us on.'

'What of me? Although I feel I am a stripling, compared to you and the abbot, I have far surpassed the lifespah of most other men,' Taita said.

Samana smiled. 'You are of good mind. Until this time the power of your intellect has been able to triumph over the frailty of your body, but in the end we must all die, as Kashyap has.'

'You have answered my first question, but I have another. Who has chosen me?' Taita asked, but he knew that the question was doomed to remain unanswered.

m, Samana flashed a sweet, enigmatic smile and leant forward to place a nger on his lips. 'You have been selected,' she whispered. 'Let that suffice.' He knew that he had pushed her to the limit of her knowledge: that was as far as she could go.

They sat together and meditated, for the rest of that day and half of the night that followed, on all that had passed so far between them.

Then she took him to her bed-chamber and they slept entwined, like a mother and child, until dawn filled the chamber with light. They rose imd bathed together, then Samana took him to an ancient stone building in a hidden corner of the gardens that Taita had not visited before.

Fansid was already there. She was busy at a marble table that stood in the centre of the large central room. When they entered she looked up at them. 'I was preparing the last of the needles,' she explained, 'but I will leave if you wish to be alone.'

'Stay, beloved Tansid,' Samana told her. 'Your presence will not disturb us.' She took Taita's hand and led him about the room. 'This building was designed by the first abbots in the beginning time. They needed good light in which to operate.' She pointed to the large open windows set high in the walls above them. 'On this marble table more than fifty generations of abbots have performed the opening of the Inner

Eye. Each one was a savant, the term by which we describe the initiates, those who are able to see the aura of other humans and animals.'

She pointed out to him the writing carved into the walls. 'Those are the records of all who have gone before us throughout the centuries and the millennium. Between ourselves there must stand no reservation. I will give you no false assurances - you would see through any attempt I made to deceive you before I could speak the first word. So I tell you truly that, under the tutelage of Kashyap, I attempted to open the Inner Eye four times before I was successful.'

She pointed to the most recent set of inscriptions. 'Here you can see my attempts recorded. Perhaps at first I lacked skill and dexterity.

Perhaps my patients were not far enough along the right-hand path. In one instance the result was disastrous. I warn you, Taita, the risks are great.' Samana was silent for a while, ruminating. Then she went on, 'There were others before me who failed. See here!' She led him to a set of time-worn, lichen-coated inscriptions at the furthest end of the wall.

'These are so old that they are extremely difficult to decipher, but I can tell you what they record. Almost two thousand years ago a woman came to this temple. She was a survivor of an ancient people who once lived in a great city named Ilion beside the Aegean Sea. She had been the High Priestess of Apollo. She was a Long Liver, as you are. Over the centuries, since the sack and destruction of her city, she had wandered the earth, garnering wisdom and learning. The abbot at that time was named Kurma. The strange woman convinced him that she was a paragon of the Truth. In that way she induced him to open her Inner Eye. It was a success that astonished and elated him. It was only long after she had left the temple that Kurma was overtaken by doubts and misgivings. A series of terrible events occurred that made him realize she might have been an impostor, a thief, an adept of the left-hand path, a minion of the Lie. At length he discovered that she had used witchcraft to kill the one who had been originally chosen. She had assumed the murdered woman's identity and been able to cloak her true nature sufficiently to dupe him.'

'What became of this creature?'

'Generation after generation of the abbots of the goddess Saraswati have tried to trace her. But she has cloaked herself and disappeared.

Perhaps by this time she is dead. That is the best we can hope for.'

'What was her name?' Taita asked.

'Here! It is inscribed.' Samana touched the writing with her fingertips, 'She called herself Eos, after the sister of the sun god. I know now that it

was not her true name. But her spirit sign was the mark of a cat's paw.

Here it is.'

'How many others failed?' Taita sought to divert himself from his dark forebodings.

'There were many.'

'Tell me about some from your own experience.'

Samana thought for a moment, then said, 'One in particular I remember, from when I was still a novice. His name was Wotad, a priest of the god Woden. His skin was covered with sacred blue tattoos. He was brought to this temple from the northlands across the Cold Sea. He was a man of mighty physique, but he died under the bamboo needle.

Even his great strength was insufficient to survive the power that was unleashed within him by the opening. His brain burst asunder, and blood spurted from his nose and ears.' Samana sighed. 'It was a terrible death, but swift. Perhaps Wotad was luckier than some of those who preceded him. The Inner Eye can turn itself back on its owner, like a venomous serpent held by the tail. Some of the horrors it reveals are too vivid and terrible to survive.'

For the remainder of that day they were silent while Tansid busied herself at the stone table, polishing the last of the bamboo needles and arranging the surgical instruments.

At last Samana looked up at Taita and spoke softly: 'Now you know the risks that you will run. You do not have to make the attempt. The choice is yours alone.'

Taita shook his head. 'I have no choice. I know now that the choice was made for me on the day of my birth.'

That night Tansid and Meren slept in Taita's chamber. Before she blew out the lamp Tansid brought Taita a small porcelain bowl filled with a warm infusion of herbs. As soon as he had drunk it he stretched out on his mat and fell into a deep sleep. Meren rose twice in the night to listen to his breathing and to cover him when the cold air of the dawn seeped into the chamber.

When Taita awoke he found the three, Samana, Tansid and Meren, kneeling round his sleeping mat.

'Magus, are you ready?' Samana asked inscrutably.

Taita nodded, but Meren blurted out, 'Do not do this thing, Magus. ) not let them do it to you. It is evil.'

Taita took his muscular forearm and shook it sternly. 'I have chosen you for this task. I need you. Do not fail me, Meren. If I must do this alone who can say what the consequences might be? Together we can win through, as we have so often before.' Meren took a series of ragged deep breaths. 'Are you ready, Meren? Are you at my side as ever you were?'

'Forgive me, I was weak, but now I am ready, Magus,' he whispered.

Samana led them out into the brilliant sunshine of the garden, to the ancient building. At one end of the marble table lay the surgeon's instruments, and at the opposite end stood a charcoal brazier above which the heated air shimmered. Spread on the ground below the table was a sheep's fleece rug. Taita did not need to be told: he knelt in the centre of the rug, facing the table. Samana nodded at Meren; clearly, she had instructed him in his duties. He knelt behind Taita, and folded him tenderly in his arms so that he could not move.

'Close your eyes, Meren,' Samana instructed him. 'Do not watch.' She stood over them and offered a strip of leather for Taita to grip in his jaws. He refused it with a shake of his head. She knelt in front of him with a silver spoon in her right hand; with two fingers of her other hand she parted the lids of Taita's right eye. 'Always through the right eye,'

she whispered, 'the side of the Truth.' She spread the lids wide. 'Hold hard, Meren!'

Meren grunted in acknowledgement and tightened his grip until it was as unyielding as a ring of bronze about his master. Samana slipped the point of the spoon under his upper eyelid and, with a firm, sure movement, eased it down behind the eyeball. Then, gently, she scooped the eye out of its socket. She let it dangle, like an egg, on to Taita's cheek, suspended on the rope of the optic nerve. The empty socket was a deep pink cave, glistening with tears. Samana handed the silver spoon to Tansid, who laid it aside and selected one of the bamboo needles. She held the point in the flame of the brazier until it scorched and hardened.

It was still smoking as she handed it to Samana. With the needle in her right hand Samana lowered her head until she was staring into Taita's empty eye socket. She judged the position and angle of the optic pathway as it entered the skull.

Taita's eyelids twitched and shuddered under her fingers, blinking uncontrollably. Samana ignored them. Slowly she introduced the needle into the eye cavity until the point touched the opening of the pathway.

She increased the pressure until suddenly the needle pierced the membrane and slid in alongside the nerve cord without damaging it.

There was almost no resistance to its passage. Deeper and deeper it glided. When it was almost a finger's length into the frontal lobe of the brain Samana sensed rather than felt the light check as the point touched the bundle of nerve fibres from both eyes where they crossed at the optic chiasm. The bamboo point was at the portal. The next move had to be precisely executed. Although her expression remained serene, a light film of perspiration shone on Samana's unblemished skin, and her eyes narrowed. She tensed and made the final thrust. There was no reaction from Taita. She knew she had missed the minute target. She drew back the needle a fraction, realigned it, then drove it in again to the same depth, but this time she aimed a little higher.

Taita shuddered and sighed softly. Then he relaxed as he fell into oblivion. Meren had been warned to expect this, and he cupped one strong hand under Taita's chin to prevent the beloved silver head from dropping forward. Samana withdrew the needle from the eye socket as carefully as she had driven it deep. She leaned forward to examine the puncture in the lining at the back of the eye. There was no weep of blood. Before her eyes the mouth of the tiny wound closed spontaneously. Samana made a humming sound of approbation. Then she used the spoon to ease the dangling eye back into the socket. Taita's eyelids blinked rapidly as it reseated itself. Samana reached for the linen bandage, which Tansid had soaked in a healing salve and laid ready on the marble table, then bound it around Taita's head, covering both of his eyes, and knotted it securely.

'As quickly as you are able, Meren, carry him back to his own chamber before he comes to his senses.'

Meren lifted him as though he were a sleeping infant and held his head against his sturdy shoulder. He ran with Taita back to the temple and carried him up to his room. Samana and Tansid followed them.

When the two women arrived, Tansid went to the hearth, where she had left a kettle warming. She poured a bowl of the herbal infusion and brought it to Samana.

'Lift his head!' Samana ordered, and held the bowl to Taita's lips, dribbling the liquid into his mouth and massaging his throat to induce him to swallow. She made him take the contents of the bowl.

They did not have to wait long. Taita stiffened and reached up to feel the bandage that blindfolded him. His hand began to shake as though pulsied. His teeth chattered, then he ground them together. The muscle in the point of his jaws bulged and Meren was terrified that he might hire off his tongue. With his thumbs he tried to prise the magus's jaws

apart, but suddenly Taita's mouth flew open of its own accord and he shrieked, every muscle in his body knotted hard as cured teak. Spasm after spasm racked him. He screamed in terror and moaned with despair, then burst into gales of maniacal laughter. Just as suddenly he began to weep as though his heart was breaking. Then he screamed again and his back arched until his head touched his heels. Even Meren could not hold the frail, ancient body, which was now endowed with demonic strength.

'What possesses him?' Meren pleaded with Samana. 'Make him stop before he kills himself.'

'His Inner Eye is wide open. He has not yet learnt to control it. Images so terrible as to drive any ordinary man insane are flooding through it and overwhelming his mind. He is enduring all the suffering of mankind.'

Samana, too, was panting as she tried to make Taita swallow another mouthful of the bitter drug. Taita spewed it at the ceiling of the chamber.

'This was the frenzy that killed Wotad, the northman,' Samana told Tansid. 'The images swelled his brain like an overfilled bladder of boiling oil until it could contain no more and burst asunder.' She held Taita's hands to stop him clawing at the bandage over his eyes. 'The magus is experiencing the grief of every widow and of every bereaved mother who has ever watched her firstborn die. He shares the suffering of every man or woman who was ever maimed, tortured or ravaged by disease. His soul is sickened by the cruelty of every tyrant, by the wickedness of the Lie.

He is burning in the flames of sacked cities, and dying on a thousand battlefields with the vanquished. He feels the despair of every lost soul who ever lived. He is looking into the depths of hell.'

'It will kill him!' Meren was in anguish almost as intense as Taita's.

'Unless he learns to control the Inner Eye, yes, it may indeed kill him.

Hold him, do not let him harm himself.' Taita's head was rolling so violently from side to side that his skull thumped against the stone wall beside his bed.

Samana began to chant an invocation, in a high quavering voice that was not her own, in a language that Meren had never heard before. But the chanting had little effect.

Meren cradled Taita's head in his arms. Samana and Tansid wedged themselves on each side of him, cushioning him with their bodies, to prevent him harming himself in his wild struggles. Tansid blew perfumed breath into his gaping mouth. 'Taita!' she called. 'Come back! Come back to us!'

'He cannot hear you,' Samana told her. She leant closer and cupped her hands round Taita's right ear: the ear of Truth. She whispered to him soothingly in the language of her chant. Meren recognized its inflections: although he could not understand the meaning, he had heard Taita use it when he conversed with other magi. It was their secret language, which they called the Tenmass.

Taita quietened and cocked his head to one side as though he was listening to Samana. Her voice sank lower but became more urgent.

Taita murmured a reply. Meren realized that she was giving him instructions, helping him to shutter the Inner Eye, to filter out the destructive images and sounds, to understand what he was experiencing and to ride the torrents of emotion that were battering him.

They all stayed with him for the rest of that day and through the long night that followed. By dawn Meren was exhausted, and collapsed into sleep. The women did not attempt to rouse him, but let him rest. His body had been tempered by combat and hard physical endeavour, but he could not match their spiritual stamina. Beside them, he was a child.

Samana and Tansid stayed close to Taita. Sometimes he seemed to sleep. At others he was restless, drifting in and out of delirium. Behind the blindfold he seemed unable to separate fantasy from reality. Once he sat up and hugged Tansid to him with savage strength. 'Lostris!' he cried.

'You have returned as you promised you would. Oh, Isis and Horus, I have waited for you. I have hungered and thirsted for you all these long years. Do not leave me again.'

Tansid showed no alarm at his outburst. She stroked his long silver hair. 'Taita, you must not trouble yourself. I will remain with you as long as you still need me.' She held him tenderly, a child at her breast, until he subsided once more into insensibility. Then she looked enquiringly at Samana. 'Lostris?'

'She was once queen of Egypt,' she explained. Using her Inner Eye and the knowledge of Kashyap she was able to scry deep in Taita's mind to his memories. His abiding love of Lostris was as clear to Samana as if it were her own.

'Taita raised her from childhood. She was beautiful. Their souls were intertwined, but they could never be joined. His mutilated body lacked I he manly force for him ever to be more to her than friend and protector.

Nevertheless, he loved her all her life and beyond. She loved him in return. Her last words to him before she died in his arms were 'I have loved only two men in this life, and you were one. In the next life perhaps the gods will treat our love more kindly.'

Samana's voice was choked, and the women's eyes were bright with tears.

Tansid broke the silence that followed: 'Tell me all of it, Samana.

There is nothing more beautiful on this earth than true love.'

'After Lostris died,' Samana said quietly, stroking the magus's head, 'Taita embalmed her. Before he laid her in her sarcophagus, he took from her head a lock of hair, which he sealed in a locket of gold.' She leaned forward and touched the Periapt of Lostris, which hung round Taita's neck on a golden chain. 'See? He wears it to this day. Still he waits for her to return to him.'

Tansid wept, and Samana shared her sorrow, but she was unable to wash it away with tears. She had travelled so much further along the Road of the Adepts that she had left such comforting human weakness behind her. Sorrow is the other face of joy. To grieve is to be human.

Tansid could still weep.

By the time the great rains had passed, Taita had recovered from his ordeal and learnt to control the Inner Eye. They were all aware of the new power within him: he radiated a spiritual calm. Meren and Tansid found it comforting to be near him, not speaking but revelling in his presence.

However, Taita passed most of his waking hours with Samana. They sat day after day at the temple gates. Through their Inner Eyes they watched everyone who passed through. In their vision each human body was bathed in its own aura, a cloud of changing light that displayed to them the emotions, thoughts and character of its owner. Samana instructed Taita in the art of interpreting these signals.

When night had fallen and the others had retired to their chambers, Samana and Taita sat together in the darkest recess of the temple, surrounded by effigies of the goddess Saraswati. They talked the night away, still using the arcane Tenmass of the higher adepts that neither Meren nor the apsaras, not even the learned Tansid, could understand.

It was as though they realized that the time of parting would soon be upon them, and that they must take full advantage of every hour that was left to them.

'You do not throw an aura?' Taita asked, during their final discussion.

'Neither do you,' Samana replied. 'No savant does. That is the certain way in which we are able to identify each other.'

'You are so much wiser than I.'

'Your hunger and capacity for wisdom far outstrip mine. Now that you have been granted the inner sight, you are entering the penultimate level of the adepts. There is only one above where you stand now, that of the Benevolent Immortal.'

'Each day I feel myself grow stronger. Each day I hear the call more clearly. It is not to be denied. I must leave you and go on.'

'Yes, your time with us here has come to an end,' Samana agreed.

'We will never meet again, Taita. Let boldness be your companion. Let the Inner Eye show you the way.'

Meren was with Astrata and Wu Lu in the pavilion beside the pool. They reached for their clothing and dressed hurriedly as Taita came towards them with a firm step, Tansid at his side.

Only now did they realize the extent of the change that had come over Taita. He no longer stooped under the burden of age, but stood taller, straighter. Though his hair and beard were silver still, they seemed thicker, more lustrous. His eyes were no longer rheumy and myopic, but clear and steady. Even Meren, who was the least perceptive, could recognize these changes. He ran to Taita and prostrated himself before him, hugging his knees wordlessly. Taita lifted him up and embraced him. Then he held him at arm's length, and considered him carefully.

Meren's aura was a robust orange glow like the desert dawn, the aura of an honest warrior, valiant and true. 'Fetch your weapons, good Meren, for we must go on.' For a moment Meren was rooted to the ground with dismay, but then he glanced at Astrata.

Taita studied her aura. It was as clear as the steady flame of an oil lamp, clean and uncomplicated. But suddenly he saw the flame waver, as though touched by an errant breeze. Then it steadied, as she suppressed (he sorrow of parting. Meren turned from her and went into the living quarters of the temple. Minutes later he came out again, his sword belt buckled round his waist, his bow and quiver slung over his shoulder. He carried Taita's tiger-skin cloak rolled upon his back.

Taita kissed each of the women. He was fascinated by the dancing nuras of the three apsaras. Wu Lu was enveloped in a nimbus of silver, nlu>t through with shimmering gold, more complex and with deeper toning than Astrata's. She was further along the Road of the Adepts.

Tansid's aura was mother-of-pearl, iridescent as a film of precious oil

floating on the surface of a bowl of wine, changing colours and tones incessantly, shooting out stars of light. She possessed a noble soul and a Good Mind. Taita wondered if she would ever be called to submit herself to Samana's probing bamboo needle. He kissed her, and her aura thrilled with a brighter lustre. In the short time they had known each other they had shared many things of the spirit. She had come to love him.

'May you attain your destiny,' he whispered, as their lips parted.

'I know in my heart that you will attain yours, Magus,' she replied softly. 'I will never forget you.' Impulsively she threw her arms round his neck. 'Oh, Magus, I wish . . . how I wish . ..'

'I know what you wish. It would have been beautiful,' he told her gently, 'but some things are not possible.'

He turned to Meren. 'Are you ready?'

'I am ready, Magus,' Meren said. 'Lead and I will follow.'

They retraced their footsteps. They climbed into the mountains where the eternal winds wailed around the peaks, then came to the start of the great mountainous pathway and followed it towards the west. Meren recalled every twist and turn, every high pass and dangerous ford, so they wasted no time in searching for the right road, and journeyed swiftly. They came again to the windswept plains of Ecbatana where the wild horses roamed in great herds.

Taita had had an affinity with those noble animals ever since the first of them had arrived in Egypt with the invading Hyksos hordes.

He had captured them from the enemy, and broken the first teams for the new chariots he had designed for the army of Pharaoh Mamose. For this service Pharaoh had awarded him the title 'Lord of Ten Thousand Chariots'. Taita's love of horses went back a long way.

They paused on their journey across the grassy plains to rest after the rigours of travel in the high mountains and to linger among the horses.

As they followed the herds they came upon a rift in the bleak, featureless landscape, a concealed valley along whose course bubbled a string of natural springs, with pools of sweet clear water. The perpetual winds that scourged the exposed plains did not reach this sheltered spot, and the grass grew green and lush. There were many horses here, and Taita set up camp beside a spring to enjoy them. Meren built a hut from grass sods, and they used dried dung as fuel. There were fish in the pools and colonies of water voles, which Meren trapped while Taita searched for

edible fungi and roots in the damp earth. Around their hut, close enough to discourage the horses from raiding them, Taita planted some seeds he had brought with him from the gardens at the temple of Saraswati, and raised a good crop. They ate well and rested, building up their strength for the next part of their long, hard journey.

The horses became accustomed to their presence at the springs, and soon they allowed Taita to come within a few paces of them before they tossed their manes and moved away. He assessed each animal's aura with his newly acquired Inner Eye.

Although the auras that surrounded the lower orders of animal were not as intense as those of humans, he could pick out those that were healthy and strong, and those with heart and sinew. He was also able to determine their temperament and disposition. He could distinguish between the headstrong and unruly, the mild and tractable. Over the weeks it took the plants in his garden to reach maturity, he developed a tentative relationship with five animals, all of superior intelligence, strength and amiable disposition. Three were mares with yearling foals at heel, and two were fillies, still flirting with the stallions but resisting their advances with kicks and gnashing teeth. Taita was especially attracted to one of the fillies.

This little herd was as drawn to him as he was to them. They took to sleeping close to the fence that Meren had built to protect the garden against them, which worried Meren: 'I know women, and I trust those conspiring females not at all. They are steeling their courage. One morning we will wake to find we have no garden left to us.' He spent much time strengthening his fence and patrolling it threateningly.

He was appalled when Taita picked a bag of sweet young beans, the first of the crop: instead of bringing them to the pot, he took them heyond the fence to where the little herd was watching him with interest.

The filly he had chosen for himself had a creamy hide dappled with smoky grey. She allowed him to approach more closely than he had liefore, scissoring her ears as she listened to his endearments. At last he I respassed on her forbearance: she tossed her head and galloped away. He stopped and called after her: 'I have a gift for you, my darling. Sweets for ii lovely girl.' She came up short at the sound of his voice. He held out I o her a handful of beans. She swung her head back to regard him over her shoulder. She rolled her eyes until she had exposed the pink rims of her eyelids, then flared her nostrils to suck in the scent of the beans.

'Yes, you lovely creature, just smell them. How can you refuse me?'

She blew through her nostrils and nodded with indecision.

'Very well. If you don't want them, Meren will welcome them for his pot.' He turned back to the fence, but with his hand still extended. They watched each other intently. The filly took a pace towards him, and stopped again. He lifted his hand to his mouth, put a bean between his lips and chewed it with his mouth open. 'I cannot describe to you how sweet it is,' he told her, and she gave in at last. She came to him, and daintily picked the beans out of his cupped hand. Her muzzle was velvet and her breath was scented with new grass. 'What shall we call you?'

Taita asked her. 'It must be a name that matches your beauty. Ah! I have one that suits you well. You shall be Windsmoke.'

Over the next weeks Taita and Meren scythed the plants. Then they winnowed the ripe beans and packed them into sacks made from the skins of water voles. They dried the plants in the sun and wind, then tied them into bundles. The horses stood in a row with their necks craned over the fence, munching the beanstalks that Taita fed them.

That evening Taita gave Windsmoke a last handful, then slipped an arm round her neck and brushed out her mane with his fingers while he spoke soothingly into her ear. Then, unhurriedly, he hoisted the skirts of his tunic, threw a skinny leg over her back and sat astride her. She stood frozen with astonishment, staring at him over her shoulder with huge, glistening eyes. He nudged her with his toes and she walked away, while Meren bellowed and clapped with delight.

When they left the camp by the pools, Taita rode Windsmoke and Meren had one of the older mares. Their baggage was loaded on to the backs of the string that followed them.

In that way they returned home more swiftly than they had departed.

But when they reached Gallala, they had been gone for seven years. As soon as it was known that they had reappeared, there was great rejoicing in the town. The citizens had long since given them up for dead. Every man brought his family to their home in the old ruined temple, bearing small gifts, to pay their respects. Most of the children had grown up in the time they had been away, and many had babies of their own. Taita dandled each little one and blessed them.

The news of their return was borne swiftly to the rest of Egypt by the caravan masters. Soon messengers arrived from the court at Thebes, from Pharaoh Nefer Seti and Queen Mintaka. There was little comfort in the news sent: it was the first that Taita had heard of the plagues that beset the kingdom. 'Come as soon as you are able, wise one,' Pharaoh ordered.

'We have need of you.'

'I will come to you in the new moon of Isis,' was Taita's reply. He was

not being wilfully disobedient: he knew that he was not yet spiritually prepared to give counsel to his pharaoh. He sensed that the plagues were a manifestation of the greater evil of which Samana, the reverend mother, had warned him. Although he possessed the power of the Inner Eye he was not yet able to face the force of the Lie. He must study and ponder the auguries, then gather his spiritual resources. He must wait, too, for the guidance that he knew instinctively would come to him at Gallala.

But there were many disruptions and diversions. Very soon strangers began to arrive, pilgrims and supplicants begging favours, cripples and the sick seeking cures. The emissaries of kings bore rich gifts and asked for oracular and divine guidance. Taita searched their auras eagerly, hoping that one was the messenger he was expecting. Time after time he was disappointed, and he turned them away with their gifts.

'May we not keep some small tithe, Magus?' Meren begged. 'Holy as you have become, you must still eat, and your tunic is a rag. I need a new bow.'

Occasionally a visitor gave him fleeting hope, when he recognized the complexity of their aura. They were seekers after wisdom and knowledge, drawn to him by his reputation among the brotherhood of the magi.

But they came to take from him: none could match his powers or offer him anything in return. Nevertheless he listened carefully to what they said, sifting and evaluating their words. Nothing was of significance, but at times a random remark, or an erroneous opinion, sent his own mind on an original tack. Through their errors he was guided to a contrary and valid conclusion. The warning that Samana and Kashyap had given him was always in his mind: a conflict ahead would require all his strength, wisdom and cunning to survive.

The caravans coming up from Egypt and going on down through the rocky wilderness to Sagafa on the Red Sea brought them regular news from Mother Egypt. When another arrived Taita sent Meren down to converse with the caravan master; they all treated Meren with deep respect for they knew he was the confidant of Taita, the renowned magus. That evening he returned from the town and reported, 'Obed Tindali, the caravan merchant, begs you to remember him in your prayers to the great god Horus. He has sent you a generous L'ift of the finest quality coffee beans from far-off Ethiopia, but I warn you

now to steel yourself, Magus, for he has no tidings of comfort from the delta for you.'

The old man lowered his eyes to hide the shadow of fear that passed behind them. What worse news could there be than they had already received? He looked up again and spoke sternly: 'Do not try to protect me, Meren. Hold nothing back. Has the flood of the Nile commenced?'

'Not yet,' Meren replied softly, regretfully. 'Seven years now without the inundation.'

Taita's stern expression wavered. Without the rise of the waters and the rich, fertile bounty of alluvial soils they brought from the south, Egypt was given over to famine, pestilence and death.

'Magus, it grieves me deeply but there is still worse to relate,' murmured Meren. 'What little water still remains in the Nile has turned to blood.'

Taita stared at him. 'Blood?' he echoed. 'I do not understand.'

'Magus, even the shrunken pools of the river have turned dark red and they stink like the congealed blood of cadavers,' Meren said. 'Neither man nor beast can drink from them. The horses and cattle, even the goats, are perishing from thirst. Their skeletal bodies line the riverbanks.'

'Plague and affliction! Such a thing has never been dreamed of in the history of the earth since the beginning time,' Taita whispered.

'And it is not a single plague, Magus,' Meren went on doggedly. 'From the bloody pools of the Nile have emerged great hordes of spiny toads, large and swift as dogs. Rank poison oozes from the warts that cover their hideous bodies. They eat the corpses of the dead animals. But that is not enough. The people say great Horus should forbid it, that these monsters will attack any child, or any person who is too old or feeble to defend himself. They will devour him while he still writhes and screams.' Meren paused and drew a deep breath. 'What is happening to our earth? What dreadful curse has been placed upon us, Magus?'

In all the decades they had been together, since the great battle against the usurpers, the false pharaohs, since the ascension of Nefer Seti to the double throne of Upper and Lower Egypt, Meren had been at Taita's side. He was the adopted son who could never have sprung naturally from Taita's gelded loins. Nay, Meren was more than a son: his love for the old man surpassed that of a blood tie. Now Taita was moved by his distress, although his own was as pervasive.

'Why is this happening to the land we love, to the people we love, to the king we love?' Meren pleaded.

Taita shook his head, and remained silent for a long while. Then he leant across to touch Meren's upper arm. 'The gods are angry,' he said.

'Why?' Meren insisted. The mighty warrior and stalwart companion was rendered almost childlike by his superstitious dread. 'What is the offence?'

'Since our return to Egypt I have sought the answer to that question.

I have made sacrifice and I have searched the breadth and depth of the skies for some sign. The cause of their divine anger eludes me still. It is almost as though it is cloaked by some baleful presence.'

'For Pharaoh and Egypt, for all of us, you must find the answer, Magus,'

Meren urged. 'But where can you still search for it?'

'It will come to me soon, Meren. This is presaged by the auguries. It will be carried by some unexpected messenger - perhaps a man or a demon, a beast or a god. Perhaps it will appear as a sign in the heavens, written in a star. But the answer will come to me here at Gallala.'

'When, Magus? Is it not already too late?'

'Perhaps this very night.'

Taita rose to his feet in a single lithe motion. Despite his great age he moved like a young man. His agility and resilience never ceased to amaze Meren, even after all the years he had spent at his side. Taita picked up his staff from the corner of the terrace and leant lightly on it as he paused at the bottom of the stairs to look up to the high tower. The villagers had built it for him. Every family in Gallala had taken part in the labour. It was a tangible sign of the love and reverence they felt for the old magus, who had opened the sweet-water spring that nourished the town, who protected them with the invisible but potent power of his magic.

Taita started up the circular staircase that wound up the outside of the tower; the treads were narrow and open to the drop, unprotected by a balustrade. He went up like an ibex, not watching his feet, the tip of his staff tapping lightly on the stones. When he reached the platform on the summit, he settled on the silken prayer rug, facing east. Meren placed a silver flask beside him, then took his place behind him, close enough to respond swiftly if Taita needed him, but not so close that he would intrude on the magus's concentration.

Taita removed the horn stopper from the flask and took a mouthful of

the sharply bitter fluid. He swallowed it slowly, feeling the warmth spreading from his belly through every muscle and nerve in his body, flooding his mind with a crystalline radiance. He sighed softly and allowed the Inner Eye of his soul to open under its balmy influence.

Two nights previously the old moon had been swallowed by the monster of night, and now the sky belonged only to the stars. Taita watched as they began to appear in order of their ranking, the brightest and most powerful leading the train. Soon they thronged the heavens in teeming multitudes, bathing the desert with a silvery luminance. Taita had studied them all his life. He had thought he knew all that there was to know and understand of them, but now, through his Inner Eye, he was developing a new understanding of the qualities and position of each in the eternal scheme of matter, and in the affairs of men and gods.

There was one bright, particular star that he sought out eagerly. He knew it was nearest of all to where he sat. As soon as he saw it all his senses were exalted: that evening it seemed to hang directly above the tower.

The star had first appeared in the sky exactly ninety days after the mummification of Queen Lostris, on the night he had sealed her into her tomb. Its appearance had been miraculous. Before she died she had promised him that she would return to him, and he felt a deep conviction that the star was the fulfilment of her oath. She had never left him. For all these years her nova had been his lodestar. When he looked up at it, the desolation that had dominated his soul since her death was alleviated.

Now when he gazed at it with his Inner Eye he saw that Lostris's star was surrounded by her aura. Although it was diminutive when compared to some of the astral colossi, no other body in the heavens could match its splendour. Taita felt his love for Lostris burn steadily, undiminished, warming his soul. Suddenly his whole body stiffened with alarm and a coldness spread through his veins towards his heart.

'Magus!' Mefen had sensed his change of mood. 'What ails you?'

He clasped Taita's shoulder, his other hand on the hilt of his sword.

Unable to speak in his distress, Taita shrugged him away, and continued to stare upwards.

In the interval since he had last laid eyes upon it, Lostris's star had swollen to several times its normal size. Its once bright and constant aura had become intermittent, the emanations fluttering as disconsolately as the torn pennant of a defeated army. Its body was distorted, bulging at each end and narrowing in the centre.

Even Meren noticed the change: 'Your star! Something has happened to it. What does this mean?' He knew how important it was to Taita.

'I cannot yet say,' Taita whispered. 'Leave me here, Meren. Go to your sleeping mat. I must have no distraction. Come for me at dawn.'

Taita kept watch until the star faded with the approach of the sun, but by the time Meren returned to lead him down from the tower, he knew that Lostris's star was moribund.

Though he was exhausted from his long night's vigil, he could not sleep. The image of the dying star filled his mind, and he was harried by dark, formless forebodings. This was the last and most awful manifestation of evil. First there had been the plagues that killed man and beast, and now this terrible malignancy, which destroyed the stars. The following night Taita did not return to the tower but went alone into the desert, seeking solace. Although Meren had been instructed not to follow his master, he did so at a distance. Of course, Taita sensed his presence and confounded him by cloaking himself in a spell of concealment. Angry, and worried for his master's safety, Meren searched for him all night. At sunrise when he hurried back to Gallala to raise a search party, he found Taita sitting alone on the terrace of the old temple.

'You disappoint me, Meren. It is unlike you to wander away and neglect your duties,' Taita chided him. 'Now do you propose to starve me? Summon the new maidservant you have employed, and let us hope her cooking is not eclipsed by her pretty face.'

He did not sleep during that day, but sat alone in the shade at the far end of the terrace. As soon as they had eaten the evening meal he climbed to the top of the tower once more. The sun was only a finger below the horizon, but he was determined not to waste a moment of the hours of darkness when the star would be revealed to him. Night came, as swiftly and stealthily as a thief. Taita strained his eyes into the east.

The stars pricked through the darkling arch of the night sky, and grew brighter. Then, abruptly, the Star of Lostris appeared above his head.

He was amazed that it had left its constant position in the train of the planets. Now it hung like a guttering lantern flame above the tower of Gallala.

It was no longer a star. In the few short hours since he had last laid eyes upon it, it had erupted into a fiery cloud and was blowing itself apart. Dark, ominous vapours billowed around it, lit by internal fires that were consuming it in a mighty blaze that lit the heavens above his head.

Taita waited and watched through the long hours of darkness. The maimed star did not move from its position high above his head. It was still there at sunrise, and the following night it appeared again in the same heavenly station. Night after night the star remained fixed in the sky

like a mighty beacon, whose eerie light must reach to the ends of the heavens. The clouds of destruction that enveloped it swirled and eddied.

The fires flared up in its centre, then died away, only to flare again in a different place.

At dawn the townsfolk came up to the ancient temple and waited for an audience with the magus in the shade of the tall columns of the hypostyle hall. When Taita descended from his tower they crowded around him, begging for an explanation of the mighty eruption of flames that hung over their city: 'O mighty Magus, does this herald another plague? Has Egypt not suffered enough? Please explain these terrible omens to us.' But he could tell them nothing for their comfort. None of his studies had prepared him for anything like the unnatural behaviour of the Star of Lostris.

The new moon waxed full and its light softened the fearful image of the burning star. When it waned, the Star of Lostris dominated the heavens once more, burning so brightly that all other stars paled into insignificance beside it. As if summoned by this beacon, a dark cloud of locusts came out of the south and descended on Gallala. They stayed for two days and devastated the irrigated fields, leaving not a single ear of dhurra corn or a leaf on the olive trees. The branches of the pomegranates bent under the weight of the swarms, then broke off. On the morning of the third day the insects rose in a vast, murmurous cloud and flew westward towards the Nile, to wreak more devastation on lands already dying from the failure of the Nile flood.

The land of Egypt quailed, and the population gave in to despair.

Then another visitor came to Gallala. He appeared during the night, but the flames of the Star of Lostris burned so brightly, like the last flare of an oil lamp before it expires, that Meren could point out the caravan to Taita when it was still a great distance away.

'Those beasts of burden are from a far-off land,' Meren remarked. The camel was not indigenous to Egypt and was still rare enough to excite his interest. 'They do not follow the caravan route but come out of the desert. All this is strange. We must be wary of them.' The foreign travellers did not waver but came directly to the temple, almost as though they were guided there. The camel drivers couched their animals, and there was the usual hubbub of a caravan setting up camp.

'Go down to them,' Taita ordered. 'Find out what you can about them.'

Meren did not return until the sun was well clear of the horizon.

'There are twenty men, all servants and retainers. They say they have travelled for many months to reach us.'

'Who is their leader? What did you learn of him?'

'I did not lay eyes on him. He has retired to rest. That is his tent in the centre of the encampment. It is of the finest wool. All his men speak of him with the greatest awe and respect.'

'What is his name?'

'I do not know. They speak of him only as the Hitama, which in their language means “exalted in learning”.'

'What does he seek here?'

'You, Magus. He comes for you. The caravan master asked for you by name.'

Taita was only mildly surprised. 'What food have we? We must offer hospitality to this Hitama.'

'The locusts and drought have left us with little. I have some smoked fish and enough corn for a few salt cakes.'

'What of the mushrooms we collected yesterday?'

'They have turned rotten and stinking. Perhaps I can find something in the village.'

'No, do not trouble our friends. Life for them is hard enough already.

We will make do with what we have.' In the end they were saved by the generosity of their visitor. The Hitama accepted their invitation to share the evening meal, but he sent Meren back with a gift of a fine fat camel.

It was plain that he knew how sorely the populace was suffering from the (amine. Meren slaughtered the beast and prepared a roasted shoulder.

The remainder of the carcass would be enough to feed the servants of the Hitama, and most of the village population.

Taita waited for his guest on the roof of the temple. He was intrigued 10 discover whom he might be. His title suggested that he was one of the magi, or perhaps the abbot of some other learned sect. He had a premonition that something of great import was to be revealed to him.

Is this the messenger who was presaged by the auguries? The one for whom I have waited so long? he wondered, then stirred as he heard Meren ushering the visitor up the wide stone staircase.

'Take care with your master. The treads of the staircase are crumbling mid can be dangerous,' Meren told the bearers, who at last arrived on

the roof terrace. He helped them settle the curtained litter close to Taita's mat, then placed a silver bowl of pomegranate-flavoured sherbet and two drinking bowls on the low table between them. He glanced enquiringly at his own master. 'What else do you wish, Magus?'

'You may leave us now, Meren. I will call you when we are ready to eat.' Taita poured a bowl of the sherbet and placed it close to the opening in the curtains, which were still tightly drawn. 'Greetings and welcome. You bring honour to my abode,' he murmured, speaking to his unseen guest. There was no reply and he concentrated all the power of the Inner Eye on the palanquin. He was astonished not to distinguish any aura of a living person beyond the silk curtains. Though he scanned the covered space carefully he found no sign of life. It appeared blank and sterile. 'Is anybody there?' He stood quickly and crossed to the litter.

'Speak!' He demanded. 'What devilry is this?'

He jerked aside the curtain, then stepped back in surprise. A man sat cross-legged on the padded bed, facing him. He wore only a saffron loincloth. His body was skeletal, his bald head skull-like, his skin as dry and wrinkled as that shed by a serpent. His countenance was as weathered as an ancient fossil, but his expression was serene, even beautiful.

'You have no aura!' Taita exclaimed, before he could prevent the words reaching his lips.

The Hitama inclined his head slightly. 'Neither have you, Taita. None of those who have returned from the temple of Saraswati give out a detectable aura. We have left part of our humanity with Kashyap, the lamp-bearer. This deficiency enables us to recognize one another.'

Taita took a while to consider these words. The Hitama had echoed what he had been told by Samana.

'Kashyap is dead and a woman has taken his seat before the goddess.

Her name is Samana. She told me there had been others. You are the first I have met.'

'Few of us are granted the gift of the Inner Eye. Even fewer of us remain. Our numbers have been reduced. There is a sinister reason for this, which I will explain to you in due time.' He made space on the mattress beside him. 'Come, sit close to me, Taita. My hearing begins to fail me, and there is much to discuss, but little time is left to us.' The visitor switched from laboured Egyptian into the arcane Tenmass of the adepts, which he spoke flawlessly. 'We must remain discreet.'

'How did you find me?' Taita asked, in the same language, as he settled beside him.

'The star led me.' The ancient seer raised his face to the eastern sky.

In the time that they had been speaking together, night had fallen and the panoply of the heavens shone forth in majesty. The Star of Lostris still hung directly overhead, but it was further altered in shape and substance. It no longer had a solid centre. It had become merely a cloud of glowing gases, blowing away in a long feather on the solar winds.

'I have always been aware of my intimate connection to that star,'

Taita murmured.

'With good reason,' the old man assured him mysteriously. 'Your destiny is linked to it.'

'But it is dying before our eyes.'

The old man looked at him in a way that made Taita's fingertips tingle. 'Nothing dies. What we call death is merely a change of state.

She will remain with you always.'

Taita opened his mouth to say her name, 'Lostris', but the old man stopped him with a gesture.

'Do not speak her name aloud. In doing so you may betray her to those who wish you ill.'

'Is a name, then, so powerful?'

'Without one a being does not exist. Even the gods need a name.

Only the Truth is nameless.'

'And the Lie,' Taita said, but the old man shook his head.

'The Lie is named Ahriman.'

'You know my name,' said Taita, 'but I am ignorant of yours.'

'I am Demeter.'

'Demeter is one of the demigods.' Taita had recognized the name at once. 'Are you that one?'

'As you can see, I am mortal.' He held up his hands and they trembled with palsy. 'I am a Long Liver, as you are, Taita. I have lived an inordinately long time. But soon I will die. Already I am dying. In time you will follow me. Neither of us is a demigod. We are not Benevolent Immortals.'

'Demeter, you cannot leave me so soon. We have just come together,' Faita protested. 'I have searched so long to find you. There is so much I must learn from you. Surely this is why you have come to me. You did not come here to die?'

Demeter inclined his head in acquiescence. 'I shall stay as long as

I am able, but I am wearied by years and sickened by the forces of the Lie.'

'We must waste not an hour of the time we have. Instruct me.' Taita spoke humbly. 'I am as a little child beside you.'

'We have already begun,' Demeter said.

Ti

ime is a river like the one above us.' Demeter lifted his head and pointed with his chin to Oceanus, the endless river of stars that flowed from horizon to horizon across the sky above them. 'It has no beginning and no ending. There was another who came before me, as countless others came before him. He passed on this duty to me. It is a divine baton handed on from one runner to the next. Some carry it further than others. My race is almost run, for I have been shorn of much of my power. I must pass the baton to you.'

'Why to me?'

'It has been ordained. It is not for us to query or contest the decision.

You must open your mind to me, Taita, to receive what I have to give you. I must caution you that it is a poisoned gift. Once you receive it you may never again know lasting peace, for you are about to shoulder all the suffering and pain of the world.'

They fell silent while Taita considered this bleak proposition. At last he sighed. 'I would refuse it if I could. Continue, Demeter, for I cannot stand against the inevitable.'

Demeter nodded. 'I have faith that you will succeed where I have failed so woefully. You are to become gatekeeper of the fortress of the Truth against the onslaughts of the minions of the Lie.'

Demeter's whispers grew bolder and took on a new urgency: 'We have spoken of gods and demigods, of adepts and Benevolent Immortals.

From this I see that you already have a deep understanding of these things. But I can tell you more. Since the beginning time of the Great Chaos, the gods have been lifted up and cast down in succession. They have struggled against each other, and against the minions of the Lie.

The Titans, who were the elder gods, were cast down by the Olympian gods. They, in their turn, will become enfeebled. None will trust and worship them. They will be defeated and replaced by younger deities or, if we fail, they may be superseded by the malign agents of the Lie.' He was silent for a while, but when he continued his voice was firmer: 'This rise and fall of divine dynasties is part of the natural and immutable body

n

of laws that emerged to bring order to the Great Chaos. Those laws govern the cosmos. They order the ebb and flood of the tides. They command the succession of day and night. They order and control the wind and the storm, the volcanoes and the tidal waves, the rise and fall of empires, and the progression of days and nights. The gods are only the servants of the Truth. In the end there remain only the Truth and the Lie.' Demeter turned suddenly and glanced behind him, his expression melancholy, but resigned. 'Do you feel it, Taita? Do you hear it?'

Taita exerted all his powers, and at last he heard a faint rustling in the air around them, like the wings of vultures settling to a carrion feast.

He nodded. He was too moved to speak. The sense of great evil almost overwhelmed him. He had to exert all his strength to fight it back.

'She is here with us already.' Demeter's voice sank lower, became laboured and breathless, as though his lungs were crushed by the weight of a baleful presence. 'Can you smell her?' he asked.

Taita flared his nostrils, and caught the faint reek of corruption and decay, disease and rotting flesh, the effluvium of plague and the contents of ruptured bowels. 'I sense it and smell it,' he answered.

'We are in danger,' said Demeter. He reached towards Taita. 'Join hands!' he ordered. 'We must unite our power to resist her.'

As their fingers touched an intense blue spark flashed between them.

Taita resist the impulse to jerk away his hand and break the contact.

Instead he seized Demeter's hands and held them firmly. Strength flowed back and forth between them. Gradually the malign presence receded, and they could breathe freely again.

'It was inevitable,' said Demeter, with resignation. 'She has been searching for me these past centuries, ever since I escaped from her web of spells and charms. But now that you and I have come together we have created such an upheaval of psychic energy that she has been able to detect it, even at immense distance, just as a great shark can detect a shoal of sardines long before it has sight of them.' He looked sorrowfully at Taita, still holding his hands. 'She knows of you now, Taita, through me, and if not through me, she would have discovered you by some other means. The scent you leave on the wind of the cosmos is strong, and she is the ultimate predator.'

'You say “she”? Who is this female?'

'She calls herself Eos.'

'I have heard that name. A woman named Eos visited the temple of Saraswati more than fifty generations ago.'

'It is the same woman.'

'Eos is the ancient goddess of the dawn, sister of Helius, the sun,'

Taita said. 'She was an insatiable nymphomaniac, but she was destroyed in the war between the Titans and the Olympians.' He shook his head.

'This cannot be the same Eos.'

'You are right, Taita. They are not the same. This Eos is the minion of the Lie. She is the consummate impostor, the usurper, the deceiver, the thief, the devourer of infants. She has stolen the identity of the old goddess. At the same time, she adopted her vices but none of her virtues.'

'Do I understand you to say that Eos has lived for fifty generations?

That means she is two thousand years old,' Taita exclaimed, incredulous.

'What is she? Mortal or immortal, human or goddess?'

'In the beginning she was human. Many ages ago she was the high priestess at the temple of Apollo in Ilion. When the city was sacked by the Spartans, she escaped the pillage and assumed the name Eos, still human, but I have no words to describe what she has become.'

'Samana showed me the ancient temple inscription that recorded the visit of the woman from Ilion,' Taita said.

'She is the same. Kurma gave her the gift of the Inner Eye. He believed that she was chosen. Her powers of concealment and deceit are so powerful and persuasive that even Kurma, that great sage and savant, could not see through them.'

'If she is the embodiment of evil, surely it is our duty to seek her out and destroy her.'

Demeter smiled ruefully. 'I have devoted all my long life to that purpose, but she is as cunning as she is evil. She is as elusive as the wind.

She emits no aura. She is able to protect herself with spells and wiles that far surpass my own knowledge of the occult. She lays snares to catch those who search for her. She can move with ease from one continent to another. Kurma merely enhanced her powers. Nonetheless I once succeeded in finding her.' He corrected himself: 'That is not entirely true, I did not find her. She sought me out.'

Taita leant forward eagerly. 'You know this creature? You have met her face to face? Tell me, Demeter, what is her appearance?'

'If she is threatened she can change her appearance as a chameleon does. Yet vanity is among her multitudinous vices. You cannot imagine the beauty she is able to assume. It stuns the senses, and negates reason.

When she takes on this aspect no man can resist her. The sight of her reduces even the most noble soul to the level of a beast.' He fell silent, his eyes dulled with sorrow. 'Despite all my training as an adept I was not able to restrain my basest instincts. I lost the ability and the

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inclination to reckon consequences. For me, in that moment, nothing but her existed. I was consumed by lust. She toyed with me, like the winds of autumn with a dead leaf. To me it seemed she gave me everything, every delight contained in this earth. She gave me her body.'

He groaned softly. 'Even now the memory drives me to the brink of madness. Each rise and swell, enchanted opening and fragrant cleft … I did not try to resist her, for no mortal man could do so.' A faint, agitated colour had risen to his wan features.

'Taita, you remarked that the original Eos was an insatiable nymphomaniac, and that is so, but this other Eos outstrips her in appetite. When she kisses, she sucks out the vital juices of her lover, as you or I might suck out the juices from a ripe orange. When she takes a man between her thighs in that exquisite but infernal coupling she draws out of him his very substance. She takes from him his soul. His substance is the ambrosia that nourishes her. She is as some monstrous vampire that feeds on human blood. She chooses only superior beings as her victims, men and women of Good Mind, servants of the Truth, a magus of illustrious reputation or a gifted seer. Once she detects her victim, she runs him down as relentlessly as a wolf harries a deer. She is omnivorous. No matter age or appearance, physical frailty or imperfection. It is not their flesh that feeds her appetites, but their souls. She devours young and old, men and women. Once she has them in her thrall, wrapped in her silken web, she draws from them their accumulated store of learning, wisdom and experience. She sucks it out through their mouths with her accursed kisses. She draws it from their loins in her loathsome embrace. She leaves only a desiccated husk.'

'I have witnessed this carnal exchange,' Taita said. 'When Kashyap reached the end of his life he passed on his wisdom and learning to Samana, whom he had chosen as his successor.'

'What you witnessed was a willing exchange. The obscene act Eos practises is a carnal invasion and conquest. She is a ravager and devourer of souls.'

For a while Taita was dumbstruck. Then he asked, 'Ancient and infirm? Whole or maimed? Man and woman? How does she couple with those who are no longer capable of union?'

'She has powers that you and I, adepts though we may be, cannot emulate or even fathom. She has developed the art of regenerating the frail flesh of her victims for a day, only to destroy them by wiping away their minds and their very substance.'

'Nevertheless, you have not answered my question, Demeter. What is

she? Mortal or immortal, human or goddess? Does this rare beauty she possesses know no term? Is she not as vulnerable to the ravages of time and age as you and I?'

'My answer to your question, Taita, is that I know not. She may well be the oldest woman on earth,' Demeter spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness, 'but she seems to have discovered some power previously known only to the gods. Does that make her a goddess? I do not know.

She may not be immortal, but she is certainly ageless.'

'What do you propose, Demeter? How will we trace her to her lair?'

'She has already found you. You have excited her monstrous appetites.

You do not have to seek her out. She is already stalking you. She will draw you to her.'

'Demeter, I am long past any temptations and snares that even this creature can place in my path.'

'She wants you, she must have you. However, you and I together pose a threat to her.' He thought for a while about his own statement, then went on, 'She has already taken from me almost everything I can give her. She will want to rid herself of me, and isolate you, but at the same time she must see to it that no harm comes to you. Alone, you will find it almost impossible to resist her. With our combined forces we may be able to repel her, and even find a way to put her apparent immortality to the test.'

'I am glad to have you at my side,' said Taita.

Demeter did not respond at once. He studied Taita with a strange new expression. At last he asked quietly, 'You feel no sense of dread, no premonition of disaster?'

'No. I believe that you and I can succeed,' Taita told him.

'You have considered my solemn warnings. You understand the powers against which we will pit ourselves. Yet you do not hesitate. You entertain no doubts — you, who are the wisest of men. How can you explain this?'

'I know it is inevitable. I must face her with boldness and good heart.'

'Taita, search the innermost recesses of your soul. Do you detect in yourself a sense of elation? When last did you feel so vigorous, so vital?'

Taita looked thoughtful, but did not answer.

'Taita, you must be entirely truthful with yourself. Do you feel like a warrior marching to a battle you may not survive? Or do you find in your breast another unwarranted emotion? Do you feel reckless of all consequences, like a young swain hurrying to a lovers' tryst?'

Taita remained silent but his mien changed: the light flush of his

cheeks subsided and his eyes became sober. 'I am not afraid,' he said at last.

'Tell me truly. Your mind swarms with prurient images, and unconscionable yearnings, does it not?' Taita covered his eyes and clenched his jaw. Demeter went on remorselessly: 'She has already infected you with her evil. She has begun to bind you with her spells and temptations. She will twist your judgement. Soon you will begin to doubt that she is evil.

She will seem to you fine, noble and as virtuous as any woman who ever lived. Soon it will seem that I am the evil one, who has poisoned your mind against her. When that happens she will have divided us and I will be destroyed. You will surrender yourself to her freely and willingly. She will have triumphed over both of us.'

Taita shook his whole body, as though to rid himself of a swarm of poisonous insects. 'Forgive me, Demeter!' he cried. 'Now that you warn me of what she is doing, I can feel the enervating weakness welling within me. I was losing control of judgement and reason. What you say is true. I find myself haunted by strange longings. Great Horus, shield me.' Taita groaned. 'I never thought to know such agony again. I thought myself long past the torments of desire.'

'The contrary emotions that assail you spring not from your wisdom and reason. They are an infection of the spirit, a poisoned arrow shot from the bow of the great witch. I was once harassed by her in the same manner. You can see the state to which I have been reduced. However, I have learnt how to survive.'

'Teach me. Help me to withstand her, Demeter.'

'I have unwittingly led Eos to you. I believed I had eluded her, but she has used me as a hunting hound to lead her to you, her next victim.

But now we must stand together, as one. That is the only way we can hope to withstand her onslaughts. However, before all else, we must leave Gallala. We cannot rest long in one place. If she is uncertain of our exact whereabouts, it will be more difficult for her to focus her powers upon us. Between us we must weave a perpetual screen of concealment to cover our movements.'

'Meren!' Taita called urgently. He was swiftly at his master's side.

'How soon can we be ready to leave Gallala?'

'I will bring the horses with all haste. But where are we going, Master?'

'Thebes and Karnak,' Taita replied, and glanced at Demeter.

He nodded agreement. 'We must muster all support from every source, temporal as well as spiritual.'

'Pharaoh is the chosen of the gods, and the most powerful of men,1 Taita agreed.

'And you are the chief of his favourites,' said Demeter. 'We must leave this very night, to go to him.'

Taita rode Windsmoke, and Meren followed closely on one of the other horses they had brought from the plains of Ecbatana. Demeter lay in his swaying litter, high on the back of his camel, Taita alongside him.

The litter curtains were open and they could converse easily over the other soft sounds of the caravan: the creak and jingle of tack, the fall of horses' hoofs and camels' pads on the yellow sand, the low voices of the servants and guards. During the night they stopped twice to rest and water the animals. At each halt Taita and Demeter performed the spell of concealment. Their combined powers were formidable and the screen they wove seemed impervious: although they scried the silences of the night around them before they mounted and moved on, neither could detect any further sign of Eos's baleful presence.

'She has lost us for the moment, but we will always be at risk, and most vulnerable when we sleep. We should never do so at the same time,' Demeter advised.

'We will never again relax our vigilance,' Taita asserted. “I will keep up my guard against careless mistakes. I had underestimated our enemy, allowed Eos to take me by surprise. 1 am ashamed of my weakness and stupidity.'

'I am a hundred times deeper in guilt than you are,' Demeter admitted.

'I fear my powers are waning fast, Taita. I should have guided you, but I behaved like a novice. We can afford no further lapses. We must seek out the weaknesses in our enemy, and attack her there, but without exposing ourselves.'

'Despite all you have told me, my knowledge and understanding of Eos is pitifully inadequate. You must recall every detail about her that you discovered during your ordeal, no matter how trivial or seemingly insignificant,' Taita told him, 'or 1 am blind, while she holds every advantage.'

'You are the stronger of we two,' Demeter said, 'but you are right.

Remember how swift her reaction was when you and 1 came together and she descried our combined forces. Within hours of our first meeting she could overlook us. From now on her attacks upon me will become more relentless and vicious. We must not rest until I have passed on to you all that I have learnt about her. We do not know how long we will

be together before she kills me or drives a wedge between us. Every hour is precious.'

Taita nodded. 'Then let us begin with the most important matters.

I know who she is, and where she came from. Next, I must know her whereabouts. Where is she, Demeter? Where can we find her?'

'She has hidden in numerous lairs since she escaped from the temple of Apollo, when Agamemnon and his brother, Menelaus, sacked Ilion so long ago.'

'Where did you have your fateful encounter with her?'

'On an island in the Middle Sea, which has since become the stronghold of the sea people, that nation of corsairs and pirates. At that time she lived on the slopes of a great burning mountain she named Etna, a volcano that spewed forth fire and brimstone and sent clouds of poisoned smoke to the very heavens.'

'That was long ago?'

'Centuries before either you or I was born.'

Taita chuckled drily. 'Yes, indeed, it was long ago.' His expression hardened again. 'Is it possible that Eos may still be at Etna?'

'She is no longer there,' Demeter replied, without hesitation.

'How can you be certain?'

'By the time I broke free of her, my body was shattered in health and vitality, my mind unhinged, and my psychic forces were almost dispersed by the ordeal through which she had put me. I was her prisoner for little more than a decade, but I aged a lifetime for each of those years.

Nevertheless I was able to take advantage of a mighty eruption of the volcano to conceal my flight, and I had help from the priests of a small, insignificant god, whose temple lay in the valley below Etna's eastern slopes. They spirited me across the narrow straits to the mainland in a tiny boat, and led me to sanctuary in another temple of their sect, hidden in the mountains, where they placed me in the care of their brothers.

Those good priests helped me to reassemble what remained of my powers, which I needed to intercept a singularly virulent spell that Eos sent after me.'

'Could you turn it back upon her?' Taita demanded. 'Were you able to wound her with her own magic?'

'She may have become complacent, because she underestimated my remaining strength and did not protect herself adequately. I aimed my return strike at her essence, which I could still see with my Inner Eye.

She was close at hand. Only the narrow strait of water stood between us.

1

WILBUR SMITH

My riposte flew true and hit her hard. I heard her cry of agony echo across the ether. Then she disappeared, and I believed for a while that I had destroyed her. My hosts made discreet enquiries from their brothers in the temple below the mountain of Etna. We heard from them that she had vanished, and that her former abode was deserted. I wasted no time in taking advantage of my victory. As soon as I was strong enough I left my sanctuary and travelled to the furthest ends of the earth, to the continent of ice, as far from Eos as I could go. At last I found a place where I could lie quiescent, as still as a frightened frog beneath a stone.

It was as well that I did so. After a very short time, fifty years or less, I felt the resurgence of Eos, my enemy. Her powers seemed to have been mightily enhanced. The ether around me hummed with the vicious darts she hurled at random after me. She could not place me precisely, and although many of her barbs came close to where I lay, none struck home.

Each day after that was one of survival while I found the one who had been ordained to succeed me. I did not make the error of responding to her attacks. Each time I sensed her closing in I moved on quietly to another hiding-place. At last I realized that there was only one place on this earth where she would never look for me again. I returned secretly to Etna, and concealed myself in the caverns that had once been her abode, and my dungeon. The echoes of her evil presence must have been so strong still that they disguised my own feeble presence. I remained hidden on the mountain, and in time I felt her interest in me fade. Her search became desultory, and at last ceased. Perhaps she believed that I had perished or that she had obliterated my powers so I no longer posed a threat. I waited in secret until the joyous day that I felt your presence stirring. When the priestess of Saraswati opened your Inner Eye, I felt the disturbance it created on the ether. Then the star you call Lostris appeared to me. I rallied my scattered resolve and followed it to you.'

After Demeter had finished Taita was silent for a time. He sat hunched on Windsmoke, swaying to her easy motion, his cloak wrapped about his head, only his eyes showing through a slit. 'So if she is not at Etna,' he said eventually, 'where is she, Demeter?'

'I have told you that I do not know.'

'You must know, even though you think you do not,' Taita contradicted him. 'How long did you abide with her? Ten years, you said?'

'Ten years,' Demeter agreed. 'Each year was an eternity.'

'Then you know her as no other living being. You have absorbed part of her: she has left traces of herself on and in you.'

'She took from me. She gave nothing,' Demeter replied.

'You took from her also, perhaps not in the same measure, but no coupling of man and woman is completely barren. You have knowledge of her still. Maybe it is so painful to you that you have hidden it even from yourself. Let me help you to retrieve it.'

Taita took on the role of inquisitor. He was ruthless, making no allowances for his victim's great age, his weaknesses and afflictions of both body and spirit. He strove to draw from him every memory he still possessed of the great witch, no matter how faint or deeply suppressed it was. Day after day he ransacked the old man's mind, and they did not break their journey. They travelled at night, to escape the savage desert sun, and camped before dawn broke. As soon as Demeter's tent had been raised, they took shelter from the sunrise and Taita resumed his questioning.

Gradually he conceived strong affection and admiration for Demeter as he came to understand the full extent of the old man's suffering, the courage and fortitude he had required to survive Eos's persecutions over such a vast span. But he did not allow pity to deter him from his task.

At last it seemed there remained nothing more for Taita to learn, but he was not satisfied. Demeter's revelations seemed superficial and mundane.

'There is a spell practised by the priests of Ahura Maasda in Babylon,'

he told Demeter at last. 'They can send a man into a deep trance that is close to death itself. Then they are able to direct his mind back great distances in time and space, to the very day of his birth. Every detail of his life, every word he ever spoke or heard, every voice and every face becomes clear to him.'

'Yes,' Demeter agreed. 'I have heard these matters spoken of. Are you privy to this art, Taita?'

'Do you trust me? Will you submit yourself to me?'

Demeter closed his eyes in weary resignation. 'There is nothing left within me. I am a dried-out husk from which you have sucked every drop as ravenously as the witch herself.' He wiped a clawlike hand across his face and massaged his closed eyes. Then he opened them. 'I submit myself to you. Work this spell over me, if you are able.'

Taita held up the golden Periapt before his eyes and let it swing gently on its chain. 'Concentrate on this golden star. Drive every other thought from your mind. See nothing but the star, hear nothing but my voice.

You are weary to the depths of your soul, Demeter. You must sleep. Let yourself fall into sleep. Let sleep close over your head, like a soft fur blanket. Sleep, Demeter, sleep . ..'

Slowly the old man relaxed. His eyelids quivered, and were still. He

lay like a corpse upon a bier, snoring softly. One of his eyelids drooped open, and behind it the eye was rolled back so that only the white showed, blind and opaque. He seemed to have sunk into a deep trance, but when Taita asked him a question he answered. His voice was blurred and weak, the tone reedy.

'Go back, Demeter, go back along the river of time.'

'Yes,' Demeter responded. 'I am rolling back the years . .. back, back, back …' His voice grew stronger, more vigorous.

'Where are you now?'

'I stand at the E-temen-an-ki, the Foundation of Heaven and Earth,'

he replied, in a vital young voice.

Taita knew the building well: an immense structure in the centre of Babylon. The walls were of glazed bricks, in all the colours of earth and sky, shaped into a mighty pyramid. 'What do you see, Demeter?' “I see a great open space, the very centre of the world, the axis of earth and heaven.'

'Do you see walls and high terraces?'

'There are no walls, but I see the workmen and slaves. They are as many as the ants of the earth and locusts of the sky. I hear their voices.'

Then Demeter spoke in many tongues, a mighty babble of humanity.

Taita recognized some of the languages he spoke, but others were obscure.

Suddenly Demeter cried out in Ancient Sumerian: 'Let us build a tower whose height may reach unto heaven.'

With astonishment Taita realized that he was witnessing the laying of the foundations of the Tower of Babel. He had travelled back to the beginning time.

'Now you are journeying through the centuries. You see the E-temen an-ki reach to its full height, and kings worshipping the gods Bel and Marduk on its summit. Come forward in time!' Taita directed him, and through Demeter's eyes, he witnessed the rise of great empires and the fall of mighty kings as Demeter described events that had been lost and forgotten in antiquity. He heard the voices of men and women who had returned to dust centuries before.

At last Demeter faltered, and his voice tost its strength. Taita laid a hand on his brow, which was as cool as a gravestone. 'Peace, Demeter,'

he whispered. 'Sleep now. Leave your memories to the ages. Return to the present.'

Demeter shuddered and relaxed. He slept until sunset, then woke as naturally and calmly as though nothing unusual had occurred. He seemed refreshed and fortified. He ate the fruit Taita brought to him with good

appetite and drank the soured goat's milk, while the retainers struck camp, then loaded the tents and baggage on to the camels. When the caravan started out he was strong enough to walk a short way beside Taita.

'What memories did you extort from me while I slept?' he asked, with a smile. 'I remember nothing, so nothing it must have been.'

'You were present when the foundations of E-temen-an-ki were dug and laid,' Taita told him.

Demeter stopped short and turned to him with amazement. 'I told you that?'

In reply Taita mimicked some of the voices and languages Demeter had used in his trance. At once Demeter identified each utterance.

His legs soon tired, but his enthusiasm was unaffected. He mounted his palanquin and stretched out on the mattress. Taita rode beside him, and they continued their conversation throughout the long night. At last Demeter asked a question that was central in both their minds: 'Did I speak of Eos? Were you able to uncover some hidden memory?'

Taita shook his head. 'I was careful not to alarm you. I did not broach the matter directly but allowed your memories to range freely.'

'Like a hunter with a pack of hounds,' Demeter suggested, with a sudden surprising cackle. 'Take care, Taita, that while casting for a stag you do not startle a man-devouring lioness.'

'Your memories reach so far that trying to trace Eos is like voyaging across the widest ocean in search of a particular shark among a great multitude. We might spend another lifetime before we stumble by chance upon your memories of her.'

'You must direct me to her,' Demeter said, without hesitation.

'I am fearful for your safety, perhaps even your life,' Taita demurred.

'Shall we send out the hounds again on the morrow? This time you must give them the scent of the lioness.'

They were quiet for the rest of the night, lost in their own thoughts and memories. At the first light of dawn they reached a tiny oasis and Taita called a halt among the date palms. The animals were fed and watered while the tents were erected. As soon as they were alone in the main tent, Taita asked, 'Would you like to rest a while, Demeter, before we make the next attempt? Or are you ready to begin at once?'

'I have rested all night. I am ready now.'

Taita studied the other's face. He seemed calm and his pale eyes were serene. Taita held up the Periapt of Lostris. 'Your eyes grow heavy. Let them close. You feel quiet and secure. Your limbs are heavy. You are very

comfortable. You listen to my voice, and you feel sleep coming over you … blessed sleep . .. deep, healing sleep . . .'

Demeter dropped away more swiftly than he had on their first attempt: he was becoming increasingly susceptible to Taita's quiet suggestion.

'There is a mountain that breathes fire and smoke. Do you see it?'

For a moment Demeter was deathly still. His lips paled and quivered.

Then he shook his head in wild denial. 'There is no mountain! I see no mountain!' His voice rose and cracked.

'There is a woman on the mountain,' Taita persisted, 'a beautiful woman. The most beautiful woman on earth. Do you see her, Demeter?'

Demeter began to pant like a dog, his chest pumping like the bellows of a coppersmith. Taita felt that he was losing him: Demeter was fighting the trance, trying to break out of it. He knew that this must be their last attempt for the old man was unlikely to survive another.

'Can you hear her voice, Demeter? Listen to the sweet music of her words. What is she saying to you?'

Now Demeter was wrestling with an invisible opponent, rolling about on his mattress. He drew his knees and elbows up to his chest and curled his body into a ball. Then his limbs shot out straight and his back arched. He babbled with the voices of madmen, he gibbered and giggled.

He gnashed his teeth until one shattered at the back of his jaw, then spat out the shards in a mixture of blood and saliva.

'Peace, Demeter!' Panic rose in Taita, like a pot coming to the boil.

'Be still! You are safe again.'

Demeter's breathing eased, and then he spoke unexpectedly in the arcane Tenmass of the adepts. His words were strange but his tone was even more so. His voice was no longer that of an old man, but of a young woman, sweet and melodious, as musical as Taita had ever heard.

'Fire, air, water and earth, but the lord of these is fire.' Every languid inflection engraved itself into Taita's mind. He knew he would never erase the sound.

Demeter collapsed back upon the mattress. The rigidity left his body.

His eyes fluttered closed. His breathing stilled, and his chest ceased heaving. Taita feared that his heart must have burst, but when he placed his ear to his ribs he heard it beating to a muted but regular rhythm.

With a surge of relief he realized that Demeter had survived.

Taita let him sleep for the rest of the day. When Demeter awoke he seemed unaffected by his ordeal. Indeed, he made no reference to what had passed, and seemed to have no memory of it.

While they shared a bowl of stewed suckling goat, the two men

THE QUEST

discussed the day-to-day affairs of the caravan. They tried to estimate how far they had come from Gallala, and how soon they would reach the splendid palace of Pharaoh Nefer Seti. Taita had sent a messenger ahead to alert the king to their arrival, and they wondered how he would receive them.

'Pray to Ahura Maasda, the one true light, that no more plagues have been sent to torment that poor afflicted land,' Demeter said, then fell silent.

'Fire, air, water and earth …' said Taita, in a conversational tone.

. '… but the lord of these is fire,' Demeter responded, like a schoolboy reciting a lesson by rote. His hand flew up to cover his mouth, and he stared at Taita with astonishment in his old eyes. At last he asked, shaken, 'Fire, air, water and earth, the four essential elements of creation.

Why did you name them, Taita?'

'First tell me, Demeter, why you named fire as the lord of all.'

'The prayer,' Demeter whispered. 'The incantation.'

'Whose prayer? What incantation?'

Demeter turned pale as he tried to remember. 'I know not.' His voice trembled as he tried to unearth painful memories. 'I have never heard it before.'

'You have.' Now Taita spoke with the voice of the inquisitor.

'Think, Demeter! Where? Who?' Then, suddenly, Taita changed his tone again. He could mimic perfectly the voices of others. He spoke now in the heartbreakingly lovely feminine voice that Demeter had used in his trance. 'But the lord of these is fire.'

Demeter gasped and clapped his hands over his ears. 'No!' he screamed. 'When you use that voice you blaspheme. You commit loathsome sacrilege. That is the voice of the Lie, the voice of Eos, the witch!'

He sank back and sobbed brokenly.

Taita waited silently for him to recover.

At last he raised his head and said, 'May Ahura Maasda have mercy on me, and forgive me my weakness. How could I have forgotten that awful utterance?'

'Demeter, you did not forget. The memory was denied to you,' Taita said gently. 'Now you must recall all of it - swiftly, before Eos intrudes once more and stifles it.'

' “But the lord of these is fire.” That was the incantation with which she opened her most unholy rituals,' Demeter whispered.

'This was at Etna?'

'I knew her at no other place.'

'She exalted fire in the place of fire.' Taita was thoughtful. 'She mustered her powers in the heart of the volcano. The fire is part of her strength, but she has gone from the source of her power. Yet we know that it has been resuscitated. Do you see that you have answered our question? We know now where we must search for her.'

Demeter was evidently bewildered.

'We must look for her in the fire, in the volcano,' Taita explained.

Demeter seemed to rally his thoughts. 'Yes, I see it,' he said.

'Let us ride this horse further!' Taita exclaimed. 'The volcano possesses three of the elements: fire, earth and air. It lacks only water. Etna was beside the sea. If she has found another volcano as her lair, there must be a large body of water close at hand.'

'The sea?' asked Demeter.

'Or a great river,' Taita suggested. 'A volcano beside the sea, on an island perhaps, or near a great lake. That is where we must seek her.' He placed an arm round Demeter's shoulders and smiled at him fondly.

'So, Demeter, despite your denials, you knew all along where she is hiding.'

'I give myself little credit. It took your genius to draw it from my failing memory,' Demeter said. 'But tell me, Taita, by how little have we narrowed the area of our search? How many volcanoes are there that fit the description?' He paused, then answered his own question. 'They must be legion, and certainly they will be separated by vast tracts of land and sea. It might take years to journey to them all, and I fear I lack the strength now for such endeavour.'

'Over the centuries the brotherhood of priests in the temple of Hathor at Thebes has made an intimate study of the earth's surface. They possess detailed maps of the seas and oceans, the mountains and rivers. In my travels I gathered information that I passed on to them, so they and I are well acquainted with each other. They will provide us with a list of all the known volcanoes situated close to water. I do not believe we will have to travel to each one. You and I can combine our powers to sound each mountain from afar for the emanations of evil.'

'We will have to contain our patience and husband our resources until we reach the temple of Hathor, then. This conflict with Eos is draining to the dregs even the deep cup of your strength and fortitude. You, too, must rest, Taita,' Demeter counselled. 'You have not slept for two days, and we have barely taken the first steps on the long hard road to ferret her out.'

At this point Meren carried a bundle of perfumed desert grass into

I THE QUEST

their living tent and arranged it to form a mattress. Over it he spread the tiger-skin. He knelt to remove his master's sandals and loosen the belt of his tunic, but Taita snapped at him, 'I am not a puling infant, Meren. I can undress myself.'

Meren smiled indulgently as he eased him back upon the mattress.

'We know that you are not, Magus. Strange, is it not, how often you behave like one?' Taita opened his mouth to protest, but instead gave a soft snore and, in an instant, dropped into a deep sleep.

'He has watched over me while I slept. Now I will attend him, good Meren,' Demeter said.

'That is my duty,' Meren said, still watching Taita.

'You can protect him from man and beast - no one could do that better,' Demeter said, ' - but if he is attacked through the occult, you will be helpless. Good Meren, take your bow and bring us a fat gazelle for our dinner.'

Meren hovered a little longer beside Taita, then sighed and stooped out through the flap of the tent. Demeter settled beside Taita's mattress.

Taita walked beside the seashore, along a beach bright as a snowfield against which rolled shining waters. Breezes perfumed with jasmine and lilac brushed his face and ruffled his beard. He stopped at the water's edge and the wavelets lapped his feet. He looked out across the sea, and saw the dark void beyond. He knew that he was at the very end of the earth, looking on to the chaos of eternity. He stood in the sunlight, but he gazed upon darkness, the stars floating on it like clouds of fireflies.

He searched for the Star of Lostris, but it was not there. Not even the faintest glow remained. It had come from the void, and to the void it had returned. He was assailed by a terrible sorrow, and felt himself drowning in his own loneliness. He began to turn away when, faintly, he heard singing. It was a young voice he recognized at once, although he had last heard it so long ago. His heart bounded against his ribs, a wild creature struggling to be free, as the sound drew nearer.

'My heart flutters up like a wounded quail when I see my beloved's face and my cheeks bloom like the dawn sky to the sunshine of his smile …'

It was the first song he had taught her, and it had always been her favourite. Eagerly he turned back to find her, for he knew that the singer could be none other than Lostris. She had been his ward, and he had been charged with her care and education soon after her natural mother had died of the river fever. He had come to love her, as he knew no man had ever loved a woman.

He shaded his eyes against the dazzle of the sunlit sea, and made out a shape upon its surface. The shape drew closer, and its outline became clearer. He saw that it was a giant golden dolphin, which swam with such speed and grace that the water curled open ahead of its snout in a creaming bow wave. A girl stood upon its back. She balanced like a skilled charioteer, leaning back against the reins of seaweed with which she controlled the elegant creature, and she smiled across at him as she sang.

Taita fell to his knees on the sand. 'Mistress!' he cried. 'Sweet Lostris!'

She was twelve again, the age at which he had first met her. She wore only a skirt of bleached linen, crisp and shining, white as the wing of an egret. The skin of her slim body was lustrous as oiled cedarwood from the mountains beyond Byblos. Her breasts were the shape of new-laid eggs, tipped with rose garnets.

'Lostris, you have returned to me. Oh, sweet Horus! Oh, merciful Isis!

You have given her back to me,' he sobbed.

'I never left you, beloved Taita,' Lostris broke off from her song to say. Her expression sparkled with mischief and a childlike sense of fun.

Though laughter curled her lovely lips, her eyes were soft with compassion.

She glowed with womanly wisdom and understanding. 'I have never forgotten my promise to you.'

The golden dolphin slid up on to the beach, and Lostris sprang from its back to the sand in a single graceful movement. She stood with both arms extended towards him. The thick sidelock of her hair swung forward over one shoulder and dangled between her girlish breasts. Every plane and silken contour of her lovely face was graven into his mind. Her teeth sparkled like a mother-of-pearl necklace as she called, 'Come to me, Taita. Come back to me, my true love!'

Taita started towards her. He hobbled the first few steps, his legs stiff and clumsy with age. Then new strength surged through them. He raised himself on his toes and flew effortlessly over the soft white sand. He could feel his sinews taut as bowstrings, his muscles supple and resilient.

'Oh, Taita, how beautiful you are!' Lostris called. 'How swift and

strong, how young, my darling.' His heart and his spirit were exalted as he knew that her words were true. He was young again, and in love.

He reached out both hands to her and she seized them in a death grip.

Her fingers were cold and bony, twisted with arthritis, the skin was dry and rough.

'Help me, Taita,' she screamed, but it was no longer her voice. It was the voice of a very old man in agony. 'She has me in her coils!'

Lostris was shaking his hands with the desperation of mortal terror.

Her strength was unnatural - she was crushing his fingers and he could feel the pain of bones buckling, sinews cracking. He tried to tear himself free. 'Let me go!' he shouted. 'You are not Lostris.' He was no longer young, the strength that had filled him only a moment before had evaporated. Age and dismay overwhelmed him as he felt the wondrous tapestry of his dream unravelling, ripped to tatters by the chilling gales of dreadful reality.

He found himself pinned down on the floor of the tent by an enormous weight. His chest was caving in under it. He could not breathe. His hands were still crushed. The shrill screams were close to his ear, so close he thought his eardrums might burst.

He forced his eyes open, and the last images of his dream vanished.

Demeter's face was only inches above his. It was almost unrecognizable, distorted with agony, swollen and empurpled. The mouth hung open and the yellow tongue lolled out. His cries were fading into gasps and desperate wheezes.

Taita was shocked fully awake. The tent was filled with a heavy reptilian stench, and Demeter was enveloped in massive scaly coils.

Only his head and one arm were free. He was still clinging with his free hand to Taita, like a drowning man. The coils were laid in perfectly symmetrical loops around him and tightened with regular muscular spasms.

The scales rasped against each other as the coils clenched, crushed and constricted Demeter's frail body. The ophidian skin was patterned with a marvellous design of gold, chocolate and russet, but it was only when Taita saw the head that he knew what creature had attacked them.

'Python,' he grunted aloud. The snake's head was twice the size of his fists clenched together. Its jaws gaped wide and its fangs were fastened into Demeter's bony shoulder. Thick ropes of glistening saliva drooled from the corners of the grinning mouth - the lubricant with which it covered its prey before swallowing it whole. The small round eyes that stared at Taita were black and implacable. The coils tightened upon

themselves in another contraction. Taita found himself helpless beneath the weight of man and serpent. He looked up into Demeter's face as the man's final scream was choked into silence. Demeter was no longer able to draw breath, and his pale eyes bulged sightlessly from their sockets.

Taita heard one of his ribs snap under the remorseless pressure.

Taita found enough breath to bellow, 'Meren!' He knew that Demeter was almost gone. The death grip on his hand had slackened and he was able to wrench himself free, but he was still trapped. To save Demeter he needed some weapon. He had the image of Lostris still in his mind, and his hand flew to his throat. It fastened on the gold star that hung there on its chain: the Periapt of Lostris.

'Arm me, my darling,' he whispered. The heavy metal ornament fitted snugly into his palm. He slashed at the head of the python with it. He aimed for one of its beaded eyes and the sharp metal point scored the transparent scale that covered it. The snake let out a vicious, explosive hiss. Its coiled body convulsed and twisted, but its fangs were still buried in the flesh of Demeter's shoulder. They were set back at an angle so that it could maintain a grip on its prey while it swallowed, designed by nature not to release readily. The python made a series of violent regurgitating movements as it tried to work its jaws free.

Taita struck again. He drove the sharp point of the metal star into the corner of the snake's eye, and screwed it in. The giant coils of the serpentine body sprang loose as the python released Demeter, thrashing its head from side to side until its sharp fangs were free of his flesh. Its eye was ripped open, and splattered cold oleaginous blood over both men as it reared back. With the weight off his chest Taita gasped in a shallow breath, then shoved aside Demeter's slack body as the enraged python struck at his face. He threw up his arm and the python locked its fangs into his wrist, but the hand that held the star was still free. He felt the sharp teeth grind against his wrist bone, but the pain gave him a wild new strength. He stabbed the point into the wounded eye again, and worked it deeper. The snake exploded into further paroxysms of agony as Taita tore the eye out of its skull. It freed its jaws to strike again and again, the heavy blows of its snout like those of a mailed fist. Taita rolled about on the floor of the tent, twisting and wriggling to avoid them, as he screamed for Meren. The heaving coils of the serpent, thicker than his chest, seemed to fill the entire tent.

Then Taita felt a bony spike drive deep into his thigh, and shouted again with pain. He knew what had wounded him: on each side of its genital vent, on the underside of its stubby tail, the python carried a pair

of viciously hooked claws. They were used to hold the body of its mate while it plunged its long corkscrew penis into her vent and spurted into her womb. With those hooks it also gripped its prey. They acted as a fulcrum for the coils, magnifying their strength. Desperately Taita tried to tear his leg free. But the hooks were buried in his flesh, and the first slippery coil whipped round his body.

'Meren!' Taita cried again. But his voice was weaker, and the next coil enfolded him, crushing his chest. He tried to call again but the air was forced from his lungs in a rush and his ribs buckled.

Suddenly Meren appeared at the opening of the tent. For a moment he paused to take in the full import of the monstrous heaving of the serpent's dappled body. Then he leapt forward, reaching over his shoulder to draw his sword from the sheath that hung down his back. He dared not strike at the python's head for he risked injuring Taita, so he took two dancing steps to one side to alter the angle of his attack. The python's darting head was still hammering at the bodies of its victims, but its stubby tail was held erect as it drove its hooks deeper into Taita's leg. With a flick of the blade Meren hacked off the exposed portion of the snake's tail above the hooks, a section as long as Taita's leg and as thick as his thigh.

The python lashed the top half of its body as high as the tent roof.

Its mouth gaped wide and its wolfish fangs gleamed as it towered above Meren. Its head wove from side to side as it watched him with its remaining eye. But the blow had severed its spinal column, and anchored it. Meren faced it with his sword lifted high. The snake swung forward and struck at his face, but Meren was ready for it. His blade whispered through the air, and the bright edge snicked cleanly through the snake's neck. The head fell clear, and the jaws snapped spasmodically as the headless carcass continued to twist. Meren kicked his way through the undulating coils and seized Taita's arm, blood spurting from the fang punctures in his wrist. He lifted Taita high above his head and carried him out of the tent.

'Demeter! You must rescue Demeter!' Taita panted. Meren ran back and hacked at the headless beast, trying to cut his way through to where Demeter lay. The other servants were at last aroused by the uproar and came running. The bravest followed Meren into the tent where they dragged the snake aside and freed Demeter. He was unconscious and bleeding copiously from the wounds in his shoulder.

Ignoring his own injuries, Taita went to work on him immediately.

The old man's chest was bruised, and covered with contusions. When

Taita palpated his ribs he found that at least two were cracked but his first concern was to staunch the bleeding of the shoulder wound. The pain brought Demeter round, and Taita sought to distract him as he cauterized the bites with the point of Meren's dagger heated in the flames of the brazier that burnt in a corner of the tent.

'The bite of the serpent is not venomous. That, at least, is fortunate,'

he told Demeter.

'Perhaps the only thing that is.' Demeter's voice was tight with pain.

'That was no natural creature, Taita. It was sent from out of the void.'

Taita was unable to find a convincing argument to the contrary, but he did not wish to encourage the old man's gloom. 'Come, old friend,' he said. 'Nothing is so bad that brooding cannot make it worse.

We are both alive. The snake might have been natural, rather than a device of Eos.'

'Have you ever heard of such a creature in Egypt before now?' Demeter asked.

'I have seen them in the lands to the south.' Taita sidestepped the question.

'Far to the south?'

'Yes, indeed,' Taita admitted. 'Beyond the Indus river in Asia, and south of where the Nile divides into two streams.'

'Always in the deep forests?' Demeter persisted. 'Never in these arid deserts? Never so massive in size?'

'As you say.' Taita capitulated.

'It was sent to kill me, not you. She does not want you dead — not yet,' Demeter said, with finality.

Taita continued his examination in silence. He was relieved to find that none of the major bones in Demeter's body were broken. He bathed the shoulder with a distillation of wine, covered the bites with a healing salve and bandaged them with strips of linen. Only then could he attend to his own injuries.

Once he had bound up his wrist, he helped Demeter to his feet and supported him as they limped out of the tent to where Meren had laid out the carcass of the gigantic python. They measured its length at fifteen full paces, without the head and the tail section; and even Meren's muscular arms were unable to encompass its girth at the thickest point.

The muscles beneath the magnificently patterned skin were still twitching and trembling, although it had been dead for some time.

Taita prodded the severed head with the tip of his staff, then prised

open the mouth. 'It is able to unhook the hinges of its jaws so that its mouth can open wide enough to swallow a large man with ease.'

Meren's handsome features reflected disgust. 'A foul and unholy creature. Demeter speaks truly. This is a monster from the void. I will burn the carcass to ashes.'

'You will do no such thing,' Taita told him firmly. 'The fat of such a supernatural creature has potent magical properties. If, as seems most likely, it has been conjured up by the witch, we might be able it to turn it back on her.'

'If you do not know where to find her,' Meren pointed out, 'how can you send it back to her?'

'It is her creation, a part of her. As if it were a homing pigeon, we can send it to seek her out,' Demeter explained.

Meren fidgeted uncomfortably. Even though he had been companion to the magus all these years, mysteries such as this puzzled and dismayed him.

Taita took pity on him and clasped his upper arm in a friendly grip.

'Once again I am in your debt. Without you, Demeter and I might, at this very moment, be within the gut of this creature.'

Meren's anxious expression changed to one of gratification. 'Tell me, then, what you wish me to do with it.' He kicked the twitching carcass, '

which was rolling itself slowly into a great ball.

'We are injured. It may be some days before we can gather our powers to work the magic. Take this offal to a place where it will not be eaten by vultures or jackals,' Taita told him. 'Later we will skin it and boil down its fat.'

Although he tried, Meren was unable to load the python on to the back of one of the camels. The animal was terrified by the stench of the carcass, and bucked, bawled and jibbed. In the end Meren and five strong men dragged it down to the horse lines and piled rocks over it to protect it from the hyenas and other scavengers.

When Meren returned he found the magi sitting on the floor of the tent, facing each other. They had linked hands to combine their powers and cast a spell of protection and concealment round the encampment.

When they had completed the intricate ceremony, Taita gave Demeter a draught of red sheppen, and soon the old man sagged into a drugged sleep.

'Leave us now, good Meren. Take your rest but stay within call,'

Taita said, as he sat down beside Demeter to watch over him. But his

own body betrayed him and dropped into the dark oblivion of sleep. He woke again to find Meren shaking his injured arm insistently. He sat up, groggy with sleep, and snarled. 'What ails you? Have you lost all sense and reason?'

'Come, Magus! Quickly!'

His urgent tone and stricken expression alarmed Taita and he turned anxiously to Demeter. With relief he saw that the old man was still sleeping. He scrambled to his feet. 'What is it?' he asked, but Meren was gone. Taita followed him out into the cooler air of dawn and saw him running towards the horse lines. When he caught up with him, Meren pointed wordlessly at the pile of rocks that had covered the serpent's carcass. For a moment Taita was puzzled, until he saw that the rocks had been moved aside.

'The snake has gone,' Meren blurted. 'It vanished during the night.'

He pointed to a depression in the sand left by the python's heavy body.

A few globules of blood had dried into black balls, but that was all that remained. Taita felt the hair at the back of his neck lift, as if touched by a cold wind. 'You have searched thoroughly?'

Meren nodded. 'We have scoured the ground for half a league around the camp. We found no sign of it.'

'Devoured by dogs or wild animals,' Taita said, but Meren shook his head.

'None of the dogs would go near it. They whined and growled and slunk away when they smelt it.'

'Hyena, vultures?'

'No bird could have moved those rocks, and a carcass that size would have fed a hundred hyenas. They would have made the night hideous with their shrieks and wails. There was no sound and there are no tracks, no spoor or drag marks.' He ran his fingers through his dense curls, then lowered his voice: 'There is no question but that Demeter was right. It has taken its head and flown away, without touching ground. It was a creature from the void.'

'An opinion not to be shared with the servants and camel drivers,'

Taita warned him. 'If they suspect this, they will desert us. You must tell them that Demeter and I disposed of the body with a spell that we worked during the night.'

It was several days before Taita judged that Demeter could resume the journey, but the awkward gait of the camel that carried his palanquin aggravated the pain of his cracked ribs, and Taita had to keep him sedated with regular draughts of the red sheppen. At the same time he reduced the pace of the caravan and shortened the marching hours to avoid causing him further distress and injury.

Taita himself had recovered swiftly from the worst effects of the serpent's attack. Soon he was at ease on Windsmoke's back. Occasionally during the night marches he left Meren to attend to Demeter, while he rode ahead of the caravan. He had to be alone to study the skies. He was certain the momentous psychic events in which they were caught up must be reflected by new omens and portents among the heavenly bodies.

He soon discovered that they were in evidence everywhere. The heavens blazed with the vivid trails of fire left by flocks of shooting stars and comets, more in a single night than he had seen in the previous five years. This plethora of omens was confusing and contradictory: they spelled out no clear message that he could discern. Instead there were dire warnings, promises of hope, dread threats and signs of reassurance all at the same time.

On the tenth night after the serpent's disappearance, the moon was full, an enormous luminous orb that paled the fiery tails of shooting stars, and reduced even the major planets to insignificant pricks of light.

Long after midnight Taita rode out on to a barren plain he recognized.

They were less than fifty leagues from the rim of the escarpment that led down to the once fertile lands of the Nile delta. He would have to turn back soon, so he reined in Windsmoke. He dismounted and found a seat on a flat rock beside the path. The mare nudged him with her muzzle so he opened the pouch that hung at his hip and absently fed her a handful of crushed dhurra meal, while he turned his full attention to the skies.

He could barely distinguish the faint cloud that was all that remained of the Star of Lostris, and felt a pang of bereavement when he realized it would soon disappear for ever. Sadly he looked back at the moon. It heralded the beginning of the planting season, a time of rejuvenation and regrowth, but without the inundation of the river no crops would be planted in the delta.

Suddenly Taita sat up straighter. He felt the chill that always preceded some dire occult event: gooseflesh prickled his arms and the hair stood up on the back of his neck. The outline of the moon was changing

before his eyes. At first he thought it an illusion, a trick of the light, but within minutes a thick slice had been swallowed as though by the jaws of some dark monster. With startling rapidity the remainder of the great orb shared the same fate, and only a dark hole remained in its place. The stars reappeared but they were wan and sickly, compared to the light that had been blotted out.

All nature seemed confounded. No night bird called. The breeze dropped and was stilled. The outlines of the surrounding hills merged into the darkness. Even the grey mare was distressed: she tossed her mane and whinnied with fear. Then she reared, jerking the reins from Taita's grip, and bolted down the track along which they had come. He let her go- Although Taita knew that no invocation or prayer would have any force with cosmic events in train, he called aloud on Ahura Maasda and all the gods of Egypt to save the moon from obliteration. Then he saw that the remains of the Star of Lostris showed more clearly. It was just a pale smear, but he lifted the Periapt on its chain and held it towards the star. He concentrated his mind, his trained senses and the power of the Inner Eye upon it.

'Lostris!' he cried in despair. 'You who have always been the light in my heart! Use your powers to intercede with the gods who are your peers.

Rekindle the moon and light the heavens again.'

Almost at once a thin sliver of light appeared where the rim of the moon had vanished. It grew in size, became curved and bright as the blade of a sword, then assumed the shape of a battleaxe. While he called upon Lostris and held aloft her Periapt, the moon returned in all its splendour and shining glory. Relief and joy flooded through him. Nevertheless, he knew that even if the moon had been restored, the warning conveyed by its eclipse remained, an omen that cancelled these more auspicious auguries.

It took him half of the remaining hours of darkness to rally after the harrowing sight of the dying moon, but at last he hoisted himself to his feet, took up his staff and struck out in search of the mare. Within a league he came up with her. She was browsing the leaves of a scrubby desert bush beside the track, and whickered a greeting when she saw him, then trotted to meet him in a show of contrition for her unconscionable behaviour. Taita mounted her and they rode back to rejoin the caravan.

The men had witnessed the swallowing of the moon, and even Meren was having difficulty controlling them. He hurried to Taita as soon as he

saw him returning. 'Did you see what happened to the moon, Magus?

Such a terrible omen! I feared for your very existence,' he cried. 'I give thanks to Horus that you are safe. Demeter is awake and awaits your arrival, but first will you speak to these craven dogs? They want to slink back to their kennels.'

Taita took time to reassure the men. He told them that the regeneration of the moon signalled no disaster, but instead heralded the return of the Nile inundation. His reputation was such that they were readily satisfied, and at last, quite cheerfully, they agreed to continue the journey. Taita left them and went to Demeter's tent. Over the past ten days the old man had made a heartening recovery from the mauling that the python had inflicted on him, and he was much stronger. However, he greeted Taita with a solemn mien. They sat together quietly for the rest of that night and discussed the significance of the moon's darkening.

'I have lived long enough to witness many similar occurrences,'

Demeter said softly, 'but seldom have I seen such a complete obliteration.'

Taita nodded. 'Indeed, I have seen only two such disappearances before. Always they have foreshadowed some calamity - the death of great kings, the fall of beautiful and prosperous cities, famine or pestilence.'

'It was another manifestation of the dark powers of the Lie,' Demeter muttered. 'I believe that Eos flaunts her invincibility. She is trying to cow us, to drive us to despair.'

'We must linger no longer on the road, but hurry to Thebes,' Taita said.

'Above all, we must never relax our vigilance. We can expect her to unleash her next onslaught upon us at any time of day or night.' Demeter studied Taita's face seriously. 'You must forgive me if I repeat myself, but until you come to know the witch's wiles and artifices as I do, it is difficult to understand how devious they are. She is able to plant in your mind the most convincing images. She can return your earliest infant memories to you, even the images of your father and mother so vividly that you cannot doubt them.'

'In my case that will present her with some difficulty.' Taita smiled wryly. 'For I never knew either parent.'

A lthough the camel drivers had stepped up the pace, Taita was yuA still consumed with impatience. The following night he left the JL JL caravan again and rode ahead, hoping to reach the escarpment of the delta and look down into his beloved Egypt after all his years of absence. His eagerness seemed infectious for Windsmoke kept up an easy canter, her flying hoofs eating the leagues until at last Taita reined her in on the rim of the escarpment. Below, the moon lit the cultivated lands with silvery radiance, and highlighted the palm groves that outlined the course of the Nile. He searched for the faintest gleam of silver waters but at this distance the riverbed was dark and sombre.

Taita dismounted and stood at the mare's head, stroking her neck and staring raptly down upon the city, the moon-white walls of the temples and palaces of Karnak. He picked out the towering walls of the Palace of Memnon on the far bank but resisted the temptation to continue down the slope, across the alluvial plain and through one of the hundred gates of Thebes.

His duty was to stay close to Demeter, not leave him to race ahead.

He squatted on his haunches at the mare's head, and allowed himself to anticipate his homecoming and reunion with those he held so dear.

Pharaoh and his queen, Mintaka, held Taita in the deep affection usually reserved for a senior family member. In return he cherished an abiding love for both of them, undiminished since their childhood.

Nefer's father, Pharaoh Tamose, had been murdered when Nefer was but a child, too young to succeed to the throne of Upper and Lower Egypt so a regent had been appointed. Taita had been tutor to Tamose, so it followed that his son would be placed in Taita's care until he reached manhood. Taita had seen to his formal education, had trained him as a warrior and horseman, then instructed him in the conduct of war and the direction of armies. He had taught him the duties of royalty, the lore of statecraft and diplomacy. He had made him a man. During those years a bond was forged between them, and remained unbroken.

A draught wafted up the escarpment, cool enough to make him shiver.

In these hot months it was unseasonable. Instantly he was on his guard.

A sudden drop in temperature often presaged an occult manifestation.

Demeter's warnings still echoed in his mind.

He sat still and searched the ether. He could discern nothing sinister.

Then he turned his attention to Windsmoke, who was almost as sensitive to the supernatural as he was, but she seemed relaxed and quiet. Satisfied,

he rose to his feet and gathered her reins to mount her and ride back to the caravan. By now Meren would probably be calling a halt to the night march and setting up camp. Taita wanted to spend a little time in conversation with Demeter before sleep overcame him. He had not yet fully tapped the old man's treasury of wisdom and experience.

Just then Windsmoke whickered softly and pricked her ears, but she was not seriously alarmed. Taita saw that she was gazing down the slope and turned. At first he saw nothing, but he trusted the mare and he listened to the silence of the night. At last, he glimpsed a shadowy movement near the bottom of the slope. It vanished and he thought he might have been mistaken, but the mare was still alert. He waited and watched. Then he saw movement again, closer at hand and more distinct.

The dim shape of another horse and rider emerged from the darkness, following the path up the escarpment towards where he stood. The strange horse was also grey, but even paler than Windsmoke. His memory stirred: he never forgot a good horse. Even in the starlight, this one seemed familiar. He tried to think when and where he had last seen it, but the memory was so remote that he realized it must have been long ago, yet the grey paced like a four-year-old. Sharply he switched his attention to the rider upon its back - a slight figure, not a man but a boy, perhaps. Whoever he might be, he sat the grey with elan. There was something familiar about him, too, but, like his mount, the boy seemed too young for Taita's memory of him to be so faded. Could it be that this was the child of somebody he knew well? One of the princes of Egypt?

he puzzled.

Queen Mintaka had presented Pharaoh Nefer Seti with many fine boys. All bore a strong resemblance to either their father or their mother.

There was nothing ordinary about this child, and Taita could not doubt that he was of royal blood. Horse and rider drew nearer. Taita was struck by several other features. He saw that the rider wore a short chiton that left the legs bare, and they were slim, unmistakably feminine. This was a girl. Her head was covered, but as she drew closer he could make out the outline of her features beneath her head shawl.

'I know her. I know her well!' he whispered to himself. A pulse in his ears beat faster. The girl lifted a hand towards him in salutation, then thrust forward with her hips to urge the grey on. It swung into a canter, but its hoofs struck no sound from the stony path. It came up the slope towards him in eerie silence.

Too late, Taita realized that he had been lulled by a familiar appearance.

He blinked rapidly to open his Inner Eye.

'They throw no aura!' he gasped, and had to place his hand on the mare's shoulder to steady himself. Neither the grey horse nor its rider was a natural creature: they came from a different dimension. Despite Demeter's warnings, he had been caught off-guard again. Swiftly he reached for the Periapt that hung at his throat, and held it in front of his face. The rider reined in and regarded him from the shadow of the shawl that covered her face. She was so close now that he could make out the glint of eyes, the soft curve of a young cheek. His memories rushed back.

Small wonder that he remembered the grey horse so well. It had been his own gift to her, chosen with care and love. He had paid for it fifty talents of silver and considered he had the best of the bargain. She had named it Gull, and it had ever been her favourite. She rode it with the grace and style Taita remembered from all those decades ago. So profound was his shock that he was unable to think clearly. He stood like a pillar of granite, holding the Periapt as a shield.

Slowly the horsewoman lifted a shapely white hand and threw back the fringe of the shawl. Taita felt the fabric of his soul ripped through as he looked upon that lovely face, each detail perfectly rendered.

It is not her. He tried to steel himself. This is another apparition from out of the void, like the giant serpent, and perhaps as deadly.

When he had discussed with Demeter his dream of the girl on the golden dolphin, the other man had been in no doubt whatsoever: 'Your dream was one of the ruses of the witch,' he had warned. 'You must not trust any image that feeds upon your hopes and longing. When you cast back your mind to a joyous memory, such as an old love, you open the door to Eos. She will find a way through it to reach you.'

Taita had shaken his head. 'No, Demeter, how could even Eos have conjured up such intimate detail from so long ago? Lostris's voice, the set of her eyes, the quirk of her lips when she smiled. How could Eos have copied them? Lostris has been in her sarcophagus these seventy years past. There can be no living traces of her for Eos to draw upon.'

'Eos stole from your own memories of Lostris, and gave them back to you in their most convincing, compelling form.'

'But even I had forgotten most of those details.'

'It was you who averred that we forget nothing. Every detail remains.

It requires only occult skills, such as Eos possesses, to retrieve it from the vaults of your mind, as you retrieved from me my memories of Eos, her voice as she uttered the incantation to fire.'

'I cannot accept that it was not Lostris,' Taita moaned softly.

'That is because you do not want to accept it. Eos seeks to close your

1

mind to reason. Think a moment how cunningly the image of the girl on the dolphin was woven into her evil schemes. While she lured and distracted you with false visions of a lost love, she sent her spectral serpent to destroy me. She used your dream as a distraction.'

Now, upon the escarpment of the delta, Taita was confronted with the vision again: the image of Lostris, once queen of Egypt, whose memory still ruled his heart. This time she seemed even more perfect.

He felt his resolve and reason wavering, and tried desperately to check himself. But he could not prevent himself looking into Lostris's eyes.

They were filled with enchanted lights, all the tears and smiles of her lifetime in their depths.

'I reject you!' he told her, in a voice as cold and stern as he could muster. 'You are not Lostris. You are not the woman I loved. You are the Great Lie. Get you hence into the darkness from which you sprang.'

At his words the sparkle in Lostris's lovely eyes was replaced by a vast sorrow. 'Darling Taita,' she called to him softly. 'I have existed without you through all the sterile and lonely years that we have been parted.

Now, when you are in such mortal and spiritual danger, I have come far to be with you again. Together we can resist the evil that hovers over you.'

'You blaspheme,' he said. 'You are Eos, the Lie, and I reject you. I am protected by the Truth. You cannot reach me. You cannot harm me.'

'Oh, Taita.' Lostris's voice fell to a whisper. 'You will destroy us both.

I am in peril too.' She seemed burdened by all the sorrows that had afflicted mankind since the beginning time. 'Trust me, my darling. For both our sakes you must trust me. 1 am none other than the Lostris you loved and who loved you. You called to me across the ether. I heeded your call and I have come to you.'

Taita felt the foundations of the earth tremble beneath his feet but he steeled himself. 'Out, cursed witch!' he cried. 'Begone, foul minion of the Lie. I reject you and all your works. Plague me no more.'

'No, Taita! You cannot do this,' she pleaded. 'We have been given this chance, this one chance. You must not refuse it.'

'You are evil,' he told her harshly. 'You are an abomination from the void. Go back to your foul abode.'

Lostris moaned and her image receded. She faded in the same way that her star had often been eclipsed by the light of coming day. The last whisper of her voice came back to him from out of the night: 'I have tasted death once, and now I must drink the bitter cup to the dregs.

Farewell, Taita, whom I loved. If only you could have loved me more.'

J

Then she was gone and he sank on to his knees to let the waves of remorse and loss break over his head. When he had the strength to lift his head again, the sun had risen. Already it had climbed a hand's span above the horizon. Windsmoke stood quietly beside him. She was dozing, but as soon as he stirred she threw up her head and turned her eyes on him. He was so reduced that he had to use a rock as a mounting platform to reach her back. He swayed there, almost losing his seat, as she started along the path towards the encampment.

Taita tried to order the jumble of emotions that filled his head. One salient fact emerged from his confusion: it was the manner in which Windsmoke had stood calmly, without the least sign of perturbation, during his encounter with the phantom Lostris. On every other occasion she had detected a manifestation of evil long before he had become aware of it himself. She had bolted when the moon was devoured, yet she had shown only mild interest in the wraith of Lostris and her phantom steed.

'There could not have been evil in them,' he began to convince himself. 'Did Lostris speak the truth? Did she come as my ally and friend to protect me? Have I destroyed both of us?' The pain was too much to bear. He pulled Windsmoke's head round and drove her into a full gallop back towards the delta. He checked her only when they burst out on to the rim of the escarpment, and swung down from her back on the exact spot at which Lostris had vanished.

'Lostris!' he shouted to the sky. 'Forgive me! I was mistaken! I know now that you spoke the truth. Verily and indeed you are Lostris. Come back to me, my love! Come back!' But she was gone and the echoes mocked him: 'Come back … back . . . back .. .'

They were so close to the holy city of Thebes that Taita ordered Meren to continue the night march even after the sun had risen. Lit by its slanting early rays the little caravan descended the escarpment and struck out across the flat alluvial plain towards the walls of the city. The plain was desolate. No green thing grew upon it.

The black earth was baked hard as brick and split with deep cracks by the furnace heat of the sun. The peasant farmers had abandoned their stricken fields and their huts stood derelict, the palm-leaf thatching falling in clumps from the rafters, the unplastered walls crumbling. The bones of the kine that had died of famine littered the fields like patches

of white daisies. A whirlwind swayed and wove an erratic dance across the empty lands, spinning a column of dust and dry dhurra leaves high into the cloudless sky. The sun smote down upon the parched land like the blows of a battleaxe upon a brazen shield.

The men and animals of the caravan were as insignificant in this sullen landscape as a child's toys. They reached the river and halted involuntarily upon the bank, caught up in horrified fascination. Even Demeter dismounted from his palanquin, and hobbled down to join Taita and Meren. At this point the riverbed was four hundred yards wide.

In a normal season of low Nile the mighty stream filled it from side to side, a torrent of grey, silt-laden waters, so deep and powerful that the surface was riven by shining eddies and dimpled with spinning vortices.

At the season of high water the Nile could not be contained. She burst over her banks and flooded the fields. The mud and sediment dropped by her waters was so rich that they sustained three successive crops during a single growing season.

But there had been no inundation for seven years and the river was a grotesque travesty of its former mighty self. It had been reduced to a string of shallow stinking pools strung out along its bed. Their surface was stirred only by the struggles of dying fish, and the languid movements of the few surviving crocodiles. A frothy red scum covered the water, like congealing blood.

'What causes the river to bleed?' Meren asked. 'Is it a curse?'

'It seems to me that it is caused by a bloom of poisonous algae,' Taita said, and Demeter agreed.

'It is indeed algae, but I have no doubt that it is unnatural, inflicted on Egypt by the same baleful influence as stopped the flow of the waters.'

The blood-coloured pools were separated from each other by the exposed banks of black mud, which were littered with stranded rubbish and sewage from the city, roots and driftwood, the wreckage of abandoned rivercraft and the bloated carcasses of birds and animals. The only living things that frequented the open sandbanks were strange squat creatures that hopped and crawled clumsily on grotesque webbed feet over the mud. They struggled ferociously among themselves for possession of the carcasses, ripping them apart, then gulping the chunks of rotting flesh. Taita was uncertain of the creatures' nature until Meren muttered, in deep disgust, 'They are as the caravan master described them to me.

Giant toads!' He hawked, then spat out the taste and stench that clogged his throat. 'Is there no end to the abominations that have descended upon Egypt?'

Taita realized then that it was the sheer size of the amphibians that had puzzled him. They were enormous. Across the back they were as wide as bush pigs, and they stood almost as tall as jackals when they raised themselves on their long back legs to their full height.

'There are human cadavers lying on the mud,' Meren exclaimed. He pointed to a tiny body that lay below them. 'There's a dead infant.'

'It seems that the citizens of Thebes are so far gone in apathy that they no longer bury their dead but cast them into the river.' Demeter shook his head sorrowfully.

As they watched, one of the toads seized the child's arm and, with a dozen shakes of its head, tore it loose from the shoulder joint. Then it threw the tiny limb high. As it dropped the toad gaped, caught and swallowed it.

All of them were sickened by the spectacle. They mounted and went on along the bank until they reached the outer walls of the city. The area outside was crowded with makeshift shelters, erected by the dispossessed peasant farmers, by the widows and orphans, by the sick and dying, and by all the other victims of the catastrophe. They huddled together under the roughly thatched roofs of the open-sided hovels. All were emaciated and apathetic. Taita saw one young mother holding her infant to shrivelled empty dugs, but the child was too weak anyway to suck, and flies crawled into its eyes and nostrils. The mother stared back at them hopelessly.

'Let me give her food for her baby.' Meren began to dismount, but Demeter stopped him.

'If you show these miserable creatures food, they will riot.'

When they rode on, Meren looked back sadly and guiltily.

'Demeter is right,' Taita told him softly. 'We cannot save a few starvelings among such multitudes. We must save the kingdom of Egypt, not a handful of her people.'

Taita and Meren picked out a camp site well away from the unfortunates.

Taita called Demeter's foreman aside and pointed it out to him.

'Make certain that your master is comfortable and guard him well. Then build a fence of dried thornbush to protect the camp and keep out thieves and scavengers. Find water and fodder for the animals. Remain here until I have arranged more suitable quarters for us.'

He turned to Meren. 'I am going into the city to the palace of Pharaoh. Stay with Demeter.' He kicked his heels into the mare's flanks and headed for the main gates. The guards looked down on him from

the tower as he rode through, but did not challenge him. The streets were almost deserted. The few people he saw were as pale and starving as the beggars outside the walls. They scurried away at his approach.

A sickly stench hung over the city: the odour of death and suffering.

The captain of the palace guards recognized Taita, and ran to open the side gate for him, saluting respectfully as he entered the precincts.

'One of my men will take your horse to the stables, Magus. The royal grooms will care for it.'

'Is Pharaoh in residence?' Taita asked, as he dismounted.

'He is here.'

'Take me to him,' Taita ordered. The captain hurried to obey, and led him into the labyrinth of passages and halls. They passed through courtyards that had once been lovely with lawns, banks of flowers and tinkling fountains of limpid water, then on through halls and cloisters that in former times had sounded merrily to the laughter and singing of noble ladies and lords, of tumblers, troubadours and dancing slave girls.

Now the rooms were deserted, the gardens were brown and dead and the fountains had run dry. The heavy silence was disturbed only by the sound of their footsteps on the stone paving.

At last they reached the antechamber of the royal audience hall.

In the opposite wall there was a closed door. The captain knocked upon it with the butt of his spear, and it was opened almost immediately by a slave. Taita looked beyond him. On the floor of rose-coloured marble slabs a corpulent eunuch in a short linen skirt sat cross'legged at a low desk stacked with papyrus scrolls and writing tablets. Taita recognized him at once. He was Pharaoh's senior chamberlain. It had been on Taita's recommendation that he was selected for such an illustrious position.

'Ramram, my old friend,' Taita greeted him. Ramram jumped to his feet with surprising alacrity for such a large person, and hurried to embrace Taita. All the eunuchs in Pharaoh's service were bound by strong fraternal ties.

'Taita, you have been gone from Thebes for far too long.' He drew Taita into his private bureau. 'Pharaoh is in council with his generals so I cannot disturb him, but I will take you to him the moment he is free. He would want me to do that. However, this gives us a chance to talk. How long have you been gone? It must be many years.'

'It is seven. Since last we met I have journeyed to strange lands.'

'Then there is much that I must tell you about what has befallen us in your absence. Sadly, very little is good.'

They settled down on cushions facing each other, and at the chamberlain's bidding a slave served them bowls of sherbet that had been cooled in earthenware jugs.

'Tell me first, how fares His Majesty?' Taita demanded anxiously.

“I fear you will be saddened when you see him. His cares weigh heavily upon him. Most of his days are spent in council with his ministers, the commanders of his army and the governors of all the nomes. He sends his envoys to every foreign country to buy grain and food to feed the starving population. He orders the digging of new wells to find sweet water to replace the foul red effluent of the river.' Ramram sighed and took a deep swig from his sherbet bowl.

'The Medes and Sumerians, the sea people, the Libyans and all our other enemies are aware of our plight,' he continued. 'They believe our fortunes are waning, and that we can no longer defend ourselves, so they muster their armies. As you know, our vassal states and satraps have always grudged the tribute they have been forced to pay Pharaoh.

Many see in our misfortunes an opportunity to break away from us, so they enter into treasonable alliances. A multitude of foes gathers at our borders. With our resources so grievously depleted, Pharaoh must still find men and stores to build up and reinforce his regiments. He stretches himself and his empire to breaking point.'

'Any lesser monarch could not have survived these tribulations,' Taita said.

'Nefer Seti is a great monarch. But he, like the rest of us lesser beings, is aware in his heart that the gods no longer smile upon Egypt. None of his efforts will succeed until he can regain their divine favour. He has ordered the priesthood in every temple throughout the land to render ceaseless prayer. He himself makes sacrifice three times a day. Although he has tried his own strength to its limit he spends half of each night, when he should be resting, in devout prayer and communion with his fellow deities.'

Tears filled the chamberlain's eyes. He wiped them away with a square of linen. 'This has been his life for the last seven years, during the failure of the mother river and the plagues that have beset us. It would have destroyed any lesser ruler. Nefer Seti is a god, but he has the heart and compassion of a man. It has changed and aged him.'

'I am indeed cast down by this news. But, tell me, how fares the queen and her children?'

'Here, too, the news is gloomy. The plagues have treated them unkindly. Queen Mintaka was struck down and lay for many weeks on

the verge of death. She has now recovered, but is still much weakened.

Not all of the royal children were so fortunate. Prince Khaba and his little sister Unas lie side by side in the royal mausoleum. The plague carried them away. The other children have survived, but—'

Ramram broke off as a slave entered, bowing respectfully, and whispered in the chamberlain's ear. Ramram nodded and waved him away, then turned back to Taita. 'The conclave has ended. I will go to Pharaoh and tell him of your arrival.' He hoisted himself to his feet and waddled to the back of the room. There, he touched a carved figure on the panel, which turned under his fingers. A section of the wall slid aside, and Ramram disappeared into the opening. He was not gone long before a shout of surprise and pleasure echoed from the corridor beyond the secret door. Immediately it was followed by rapid footsteps and there was another shout: 'Tata, where are you?' It was Pharaoh's nickname for him.

'Majesty, I am here.'

'You have neglected me too long,' Pharaoh accused him, as he burst through the doorway and paused to stare at Taita. 'Yes, it is truly you. I thought you might continue to flout my many summonings.'

Nefer Seti wore only open sandals below a linen skirt that covered his knees. His upper body was bare. His chest was broad and deep, his belly flat and rippling with muscle. His arms were sculpted by long practice with bow and sword. His torso was that of a warrior trained to perfection.

'Pharaoh. I salute you. I am your humble slave, as I have always been.'

Nefer Seti stepped forward and took him in a powerful embrace. 'No talk of slaves or slavery when teacher and pupil come together,' he declared. 'My heart overflows with joy to see you again.' He held him at arm's length and studied his face. 'By the grace of Horus, you have not aged a single day.'

'Nor have you, Majesty.' His tone was sincere, and Nefer Seti laughed.

'Although it is a lie, I accept your flattery as kindness to an old friend.'

Nefer had set aside his formal horsehair wig, and his skin was devoid of paint, so Taita was able to study his features. Nefer's close-cropped hair was grizzled, and the crown of his skull was bald. His face was etched with the passage of time: there were deep lines at the corners of his mouth, and a cobweb of wrinkles surrounded his dark eyes, which were weary. His cheeks were hollow, and his skin had an unhealthy pallor.

Taita blinked once and opened the Inner Eye; with relief he saw that Pharaoh's aura burned strongly, which betokened a brave heart and an undiminished spirit.

How old is he? Taita tried to remember. He was twelve when his father was killed, so now he must be forty-nine. The realization jolted him. An ordinary man was considered old at forty-five, and was usually dead before fifty. Ramram had told him the truth: Pharaoh was much changed.

'Has Ramram arranged lodgings for you?' Nefer Seti demanded, and looked at his chamberlain sternly over Taita's shoulder.

'I thought to allocate him one of the suites for the foreign ambassadors,'

Ramram suggested.

'By no means. Taita is not a foreigner,' Nefer Seti snapped, and Taita sensed that his formerly even temper had quickened and was now more readily aroused. 'He must be lodged in the guard room at the door to my bedchamber. I want to be able to call upon him for counsel and discussion at any hour of the night.' He turned back to face Taita squarely. 'Now I must leave you. I am meeting with the Babylonian ambassador. His countrymen have tripled the price of the grain they sell us. Ramram will apprise you of all the most important matters of state.

I expect to be free by midnight, and I will send for you then. You must share my dinner, though I fear you might not find it to your taste. On my orders the court enjoys the same rations as the rest of the populace.'

Nefer Seti turned back to the secret doorway.

'Majesty.' Taita's tone was urgent. Nefer Seti looked back over one broad shoulder, and Taita hurried on, 'I am in company with a great and learned magus.'

'Not as powerful as you.' Nefer Seti smiled affectionately.

'Indeed, I am a child beside him. He comes to Karnak to offer aid and succour to you and your kingdom.'

'Where is this paragon now?'

'He is encamped without the city gates. Despite his learning, he is immensely aged, and feeble in body. I need to be near him.'

'Ramram, find comfortable quarters for the foreign magus in this wing of the palace.'

'Meren Cambyses is still with me as my companion and protector. 1 would be grateful to have him close at hand.'

'Sweet Horus, it seems I must share you with half the earth.' Nefer Seti laughed. 'But I am delighted to hear that Meren is well, and that I am to have the pleasure of his company. Ramram will find him a place.

Now 1 must leave you.'

'Pharaoh, one more instant of your gracious presence,' Taita cut in, before he could disappear.

'You have been here but a moment, and already you have wrung fifty favours from me. Your powers of persuasion are undimmed. What is it you still need?'

'Your permission to cross the river and pay my respects to Queen Mintaka.'

'If I refused, I would place myself in an invidious position. My queen has not lost her fire. She would treat me mercilessly.' He laughed with real affection for his wife. 'Go to her, by all means, but return here before midnight.'

A soon as Demeter was safely ensconced in the palace Taita summoned two of the royal physicians to attend him, then called Meren aside. 'I expect to return before nightfall,' he told him.

'Guard him well.'

'I should go with you, Magus. In this time of want and starvation even honest men turn in despair to brigandry to feed their families.'

'Ramram has given me an escort of guardsmen.'

It seemed strange to mount a horse, rather than a boat, to cross a river like the Nile. From the back of Windsmoke, Taita gazed towards the Palace of Memnon on the west bank and saw that many well-trodden paths led through the mudbanks between the turbid pools. They rode out along one. A monstrous toad hopped across the path in front of Taita's mare.

'Kill it!' the sergeant of the escorts snapped. A soldier couched his spear and rode down on the toad. Like a wild boar at bay, it turned ferociously to defend itself. The soldier leant forward and drove the point of his spear deep into its pulsating yellow throat. In its death throes the hideous creature clamped its jaws on the spear's shaft so the soldier had to drag it along behind his horse until it released its grip and he could pull his weapon free. He fell in beside Taita and showed him the shaft: the toad's fangs had scored the hard wood deeply.

'They are savage as wolves,' said Habari, the sergeant of the guard, a lean and scarred old warrior. 'When they first appeared, Pharaoh ordered two regiments to scour the riverbed and wipe them out. We slew them in their hundreds and then in their thousands. We piled their carcasses into windrows, but for every one we killed it seemed that another two rose from the mud to replace them. Even great Pharaoh realized that he had set us a hopeless task and now he orders that we must keep them

confined to the riverbed. At times they swarm out and we must attack them again,' Habari went on. 'In their own foul manner they serve some useful purpose. They devour all the filth and carrion that is thrown into the river. The people lack the strength and energy to dig decent graves for the victims of the plague and the toads have assumed the role of undertakers.'

The horses plunged through the red slime and mud of one of the shallow pools and rode up the west bank. As soon as they came in sight of the palace the doors swung open and the gatekeeper came out to meet them.

'Hail, mighty Magus!' He saluted Taita. 'Her Majesty has word of your arrival in Thebes, and sends joyous greeting to you. She waits eagerly to welcome you.' He pointed to the palace gates. Taita looked up and saw tiny figures on top of the wall. They were women and children and Taita was uncertain which was the queen, until she waved to him. He pushed the mare, and she jumped forward and carried him through the open gates.

As he dismounted in the courtyard, Mintaka raced down the stone staircase with the grace of a girl. She had always been an athlete, a skilled charioteer and an intrepid huntress. He was delighted to see her still so lithe, until she reached up to embrace him and he saw how thin she had become. Her arms were like sticks, her features drawn and pale.

Although she smiled, her dark eyes were haunted by sorrow.

'Oh, Taita, I do not know how we have done without you,' she told him, and buried her face in his beard. He stroked her head, and at his touch her gaiety evaporated. Her whole body shook with sobs. 'I thought you would never return and that Nefer and 1 had lost you also, as we have lost Khaba and little Unas.'

“I have been told of your bereavement. 1 grieve with you,' Taita murmured.

'I try to be brave. So many mothers have suffered as I have. But it is bitter to have my babies taken from me so soon.' She stood back and tried to smile again, but her eyes were welling and her lips quivered.

'Come, 1 want you to meet the other children. Most of them you know.

Only the two youngest have never met you. They are waiting for you.'

They were lined up in two ranks. The boys in front, the princesses behind them. All were stiff with awe and respect. The smallest girl was so overcome by the stories of the great magus her siblings had told her that she dissolved into tears as soon as he looked at her. Taita picked her up and held her head against his shoulder while he whispered to her.

She relaxed at once, sniffed back the tears and wrapped both arms round his neck.

'I would never have believed it if I did not remember the winning ways you have with children and animals.' Mintaka smiled at him, then called the others forward one at a time.

'I have never laid eyes on such beautiful children,' Taita told her, 'but, then, I am not surprised. They have you as their mother.'

At last Mintaka sent them away and took Taita's hand. She led him to her private apartments, where they sat beside the open window to catch the faint breeze and look out over the western hills. While she poured sherbet for him she said, 'I used to love to gaze out over the river, but no longer. The sight breaks my heart. Soon the waters will return, though. It has been prophesied.'

'By whom?' Taita asked idly, but his interest quickened when for answer she gave him a knowing, enigmatic smile, then turned the conversation to the happy times, not long past, when she was a beautiful young bride and the land was green and fruitful. Her mood lightened and she spoke animatedly. He waited for her to finish, knowing that she could not long resist returning to the mysterious prophecy.

Suddenly she dropped the reminiscences. 'Taita, do you know that our old gods have become feeble? They will soon be replaced by a new goddess with absolute power. She will restore the Nile, and rid us of the plagues that the old, effete gods have been unable to prevent.'

Taita listened respectfully. 'No, Majesty, this I did not know.'

'Oh, yes, it is certain.' Her pale features glowed with fresh colour and the years seemed to drop away. She was a girl again, suffused with joy and hope. 'But more, Taita, so much more.' She paused portentously, then went on in a rush of words, 'This goddess has the power to restore all that has been lost or taken cruelly from us, but only if we dedicate ourselves to her. If we render to her our hearts and souls, she can give back to us our youth. She can bring happiness to those who suffer and mourn. But, think on this, Taita - she even has the power to resurrect the dead.' Tears started in her eyes again, and she was so breathless with excitement that her voice shook as though she had run a long race: 'She can give me back my babies! I will be able to hold the warm, living bodies of Khaba and Unas in my arms and kiss their little faces.'

Taita could not bear to deprive her of the solace that this new hope gave her. 'These are matters almost too marvellous for us to comprehend,'

he said solemnlv.

'Yes, yes! It has to be explained to you by the prophet. Only then does it become clear as the brightest crystal. You cannot doubt it.'

'Who is this prophet?”

'His name is Soe.'

'Where is he to be found, Mintaka?' Taita asked.

She clapped her hands with excitement. 'Oh, Taita, this is the very best part of it,' she cried. 'He is here in my palace! I have given him sanctuary from the priests of the old gods, Osiris, Horus and Isis. They hate him for the truth he speaks. They have tried repeatedly to assassinate him. Every day he instructs me and those he chooses in the new religion.

It is such a beautiful faith, Taita, that even you will be unable to resist it, but it has to be learnt in secret. Egypt is still too steeped in the worthless old superstitions. They must be eradicated before the new religion can flourish. The common people are not yet ready to accept the goddess.'

Taita nodded thoughtfully. He was filled with deep pity for her. He understood how those driven to the extremes of suffering will clutch vainly at the air as they fall. 'What is the name of this wonderful new goddess?'

'Her name is too holy to be spoken aloud by unbelievers. Only those who have taken her into their hearts and souls may utter it. Even I must complete my instruction with Soe before it is told to me.'

'When does Soe come to instruct you? I long to hear him expound these wondrous theories.'

'No, Taita,' she cried. 'You must understand that they are not theories.

They are the manifest truth. Soe comes to me each morning and evening.

He is the wisest and most holy man 1 have ever met.' Despite her bright expression, tears began to stream down her face again. She seized his hand and squeezed it. 'You will come to listen to him, promise me.'

'I am grateful to you for the trust you place in me, my beloved queen.

When will it be?'

'This evening, after we have had supper,' she told him.

Taita thought for a moment. 'You say he only preaches to those he selects. What if he refuses me? I would be distraught if he did so.'

'He would never turn away anyone as wise and renowned as you, Great Magus.'

'I would not want to take that chance, my dearest Mintaka. Would it not be possible for me to listen to him without disclosing my identity just yet?'

Mintaka looked at him dubiously. 'I would not wish to deceive him,'

she said at last.

'I plan no deception, Mintaka. Where do you meet him?'

'In this apartment. He sits where you now sit. On that self-same cushion.'

'Are there just the two of you?'

'No, three of my favourite ladies are with us. They have become as devoted to the goddess as I am.'

Taita was studying the layout of the room carefully, but he kept asking his questions to distract her. 'Will the goddess ever announce herself to all the peoples of Egypt, or will her religion be revealed to only those few she chooses?'

'When Nefer and I have taken her deeply into our hearts, renounced the false gods, torn down their temples and dispersed the priesthood, the goddess will come forth in glory. She will put an end to the plagues and heal all the suffering they have caused. She will order the Nile waters to flow . ..' she hesitated, then ended in a rush '… and give my babies back to me.'

'My precious queen. How I wish with all my heart that this will come to pass. But, tell me, has Nefer been made aware of these events?'

She sighed. 'Nefer is a wise and excellent ruler. He is a mighty warrior, a loving husband and father, but he is not a spiritual man. Soe agrees with me that we should reveal all to him only at the appropriate time, which is not yet.'

Taita nodded gravely. Pharaoh will be moved to learn, from his own beloved wife, that his grandfather and grandmother, his father and mother, not to mention the holy trinity of Osiris, Isis and Horus, are to be summarily renounced, he thought. Even he is to be stripped of his divinity. I think I know him well enough to predict that it will not happen while he lives.

That idea loosed in Taita's mind a swarm of terrifying possibilities. If Nefer Seti and his closest councillors and advisers were no longer alive to keep her in check, the prophet Soe would be left in control of a queen who would carry out his commands without question or resistance.

Would she accede to the assassination of her king, her husband and the father of her children? he asked himself. The answer was clear: yes, she would, if she knew that he would be restored to her almost immediately by the nameless new goddess, along with her dead babies. Desperate people resort to desperate expedients. Aloud he asked, 'Is Soe the only prophet of this supreme goddess?'

'Soe is the chief of them all, but many of her lesser disciples are moving among the populace throughout the two kingdoms to spread the joyous tidings and prepare the way for her coming.'

'Your words have lit a blaze in my heart. I shall always be grateful to you if you allow me to listen to his testament without him being aware of me. I will have with me another magus, older and wiser than I will ever be.' He raised a finger to silence her protest. 'It is true, Mintaka. His name is Demeter. He will sit with me behind that zenana window.'

He pointed to the intricately carved screen from behind which, in former times, a pharaoh's wives and concubines had given audience to foreign dignitaries without exposing their faces.

Mintaka still hesitated so Taita went on persuasively, 'You will be able to convert two influential magi to the new faith. You will please both Soe and the new goddess. She will look upon you with favour. You will be able to ask any boon of her, including the return of your children.'

'Very well, Tata. I will do your bidding. However, in return, you will not reveal to Nefer any of what I have told you today until the time is right for him to accept the goddess and renounce the old gods …'

'As you order, so shall it be, my queen.'

'You and your colleague Demeter must return early tomorrow morning.

Come not to the main gates but to the postern. One of my hand-maidens will meet you there and lead you to this room where you can take your place behind the screen.'

'We will be here in the hour after sunrise,' Taita assured her.

A they rode out through the gates of the Palace of Memnon Taita checked the height of the afternoon sun. There remained several .hours of daylight. On an impulse he ordered the sergeant of his escort not to take the direct road to Thebes, but instead to make a detour along the funereal way towards the western hills and the great royal necropolis, which was hidden in one of the rugged rock valleys. They rode past the temple in which Taita had supervised the embalming of the earthly body of his beloved Lostris. It had taken place seventy years before, but time had not dimmed the memory of that harrowing ceremony. He touched the Periapt, which contained the lock of her hair that he had snipped from her head. They climbed up through the foothills past the temple of Hathor, an impressive edifice that sat atop a pyramid of stone terraces. Taita recognized a priestess who was strolling along the bottom terrace accompanied by two of her novices, and turned aside to speak to her.

'May the divine Hathor protect you, Mother,' he greeted her, as he

I

dismounted. Hathor was the patroness of all women, so the high priest was female.

'I had heard that you had returned from your travels, Magus.' She hurried to embrace him. 'We all hoped that you would visit us, and tell us of your adventures.'

'Indeed, I have much to relate that I hope will interest you. I have brought papyrus maps of Mesopotamia and Ecbatana, and the mountainous lands crossed by the Khorasan highway beyond Babylon.'

'Much will be new to us.' The high priestess smiled eagerly. 'Have you brought them with you?'

'Alas, no! I am on another errand and did not expect to meet you here. I left the scrolls in Thebes. However, I will bring them to you at the first opportunity.'

'That cannot be too soon,' the high priestess assured him. 'You are welcome here at any time. We are grateful for the information you have already provided. I am certain that what you have now is even more fascinating.'

'Then I will trespass upon your kindness. May I ask a favour?'

'Any favour that is mine to bestow is already yours. You have only to name it.'

'I have conceived a pressing interest in volcanoes.'

'Which ones? They are legion, and situated in many lands.'

'All those that arise close to the sea, perhaps on an island, or on the banks of a lake or a great river. I need a list, Mother.'

'That is not a burdensome request,' she assured him. 'Brother Nubank, our most senior cartographer, has always had a consuming interest in volcanoes and other subterranean sources of heat, such as thermal springs and geysers. He will be delighted to compile your list, but expect it to be over-detailed and exhaustive. Nubank is meticulous to a fault. 1 will set him to work on it at once.'

'How long will it take him?'

'Will you visit us in ten days' time, revered Magus?' she suggested.

Taita took his leave and rode on another league to the gates of the necropolis.

A extensive military fort guarded the entrance to the necropolis that housed the royal tombs. Each one comprised a subterranean complex of chambers that had been excavated from the solid rock. At the centre was the burial chamber in which stood the magnificent royal sarcophagus containing the mummified body of a pharaoh.

Laid out around this chamber were the storerooms and depositories crammed with the greatest mass of treasure the world had ever known. It aroused the greed of every thief and grave robber in the two kingdoms, and in countries beyond their borders. They were persistent and cunning in their efforts to break into the sacred enclosure. Keeping them out required the perpetual vigilance of a small army.

Taita left his escort beside the well in the central courtyard of the fort to water the horses and refresh themselves, while he continued into the burial ground on foot. He knew the way to the tomb of Queen Lostris, as well he might: he had designed its layout and supervised its excavation.

Lostris was the only one of all the queens of Egypt to be interred in this section of the cemetery, which was usually reserved for reigning pharaohs.

Taita had inveigled her eldest son into granting this dispensation when he had succeeded to the throne.

He passed the site where the tomb of Pharaoh Nefer Seti was being excavated in anticipation of his departure from this world and his ascension to the next. It was thronged with stonemasons driving the main entrance passage into the rock. The rubble was carried out by chains of workers in baskets balanced on their heads. They were coated thickly with the floury white dust that hung in the air. A small group of architects and slave masters stood on the heights above, looking down on the furious activity below. The valley echoed to the ring of chisels, adzes and picks on the rock.

Unobtrusively Taita made his way up the funereal path until the valley narrowed and branched into two separate gullies. He took the left hand fork. Within fifty paces he had turned a corner and the entrance to Lostris's tomb lay directly ahead, set into the cliff face. The entrance was surrounded by impressive granite pillars, and sealed with a wall of stone blocks, which had been plastered over, then decorated with a beautifully painted mural. Scenes from the queen's life were arranged round her cartouche: Lostris in domestic bliss with her husband and children, driving her chariot, fishing in the waters of the Nile, hunting the gazelle

and the waterbirds, commanding her armies against the hordes of Hyksos invaders, leading her people in a flotilla of ships down the cataracts of the Nile and bringing them home out of exile after the final defeat of the Hyksos. It was seventy years since Taita had painted these scenes with his own hand, but the colours were still fresh.

Another mourner stood at the entrance to the tomb, swathed from head to ankles in the black robes of a priestess of the goddess Isis. She knelt quietly in an attitude of adoration facing the mural. Taita resigned himself to the delay. He turned aside and settled down to wait in the shade at the foot of the cliff. The face of Lostris in the paintings set in train a series of happy memories. It was quiet in this part of the valley: the rock walls muffled the din made by the workmen lower down. For a while he forgot the presence of the priestess at the tomb, but then she came to her feet and his attention switched back to her.

Her back was still towards him when she reached into the sleeve of her robe and brought out a small metal tool, perhaps a chisel or a knife.

Then she stood on tiptoe and, to Taita's horror, tore deliberately at the mural with the point of the tool. 'What are you doing, you mad woman?'

he shouted. 'That is a royal tomb you are defacing! Stop at once!'

It was as if he had not spoken. She ignored him and hacked at the face of Lostris with quick slashes of the knife. The underlying white plaster showed through the deep scoring.

Taita sprang to his feet, still yelling, 'Stop! Hear me! Your reverend mother will learn of this. I shall see that you are punished as harshly as you deserve for this sacrilege. You are calling down on yourself the wrath of the goddess …'

Still disdaining to glance in his direction the priestess left the entrance and, with a deliberate unhurried gait, started up the valley away from him. Beside himself with fury, Taita ran after her. He was no longer shouting but he hefted his heavy staff in his right hand. He was determined to prevent her escaping the consequences of her actions, and violence clouded his mind. At that moment he would have struck her across the back of the head, crushing her skull.

The priestess reached the point where the valley turned sharply.

She stopped and looked back at him over her shoulder. Her face and hair were almost completely shrouded in a red shawl and only her eyes showed.

Taita's fury and frustration fell away, replaced by awe and wonder.

The woman's gaze was level and serene, her eyes those in the portrait of

the queen on the gateway to her tomb. For a moment he could neither move nor speak. When he found his voice again it was a husky croak: 'It is you!'

Her eyes glowed with a radiance that lit his heart, and although her mouth was covered by the scarf he knew she was smiling at him. She made no reply to his exclamation but nodded, then turned away and walked unhurriedly round the corner of the rock wall.

'No!' he cried wildly. 'You cannot leave me like this. Wait! Wait for me!' He dashed after her and reached the corner only seconds after she had disappeared, still reaching out to her. Then he stopped and his hand dropped to his side as the upper end of the valley opened to him. Fifty yards from where he stood, it came to a dead end, blocked by a sheer wall of grey rock too steep for even a wild goat to scale. She had vanished.

'Lostris, forgive me for rejecting you. Come back to me, my darling.'

The silence of the mountains settled over him. With an effort he gathered himself and, wasting no more time in vain appeals, began to search for a crevice in the walls in which she might be hidden, or a concealed exit from the valley. He found none. He, looked back the way he had come, and saw that the floor of the valley was covered with a thin layer of white sand that had been eroded from the rock. His own footprints were clearly defined, but there were no others. She had left no mark. Wearily, he turned back towards her tomb. He stood in front of the entrance and looked up at the inscription she had cut into the plaster in hieratic script: 'Six fingers point the way,' he read aloud. It made no sense. What did she mean by “the way”? Was it a road, or was it a manner or method?

Six fingers? Were they pointing in a number of different directions or in one? Were there six separate signposts to follow? He was baffled.

Again he read aloud the inscription: 'Six fingers point the way.' As he spoke the letters she had cut into the plaster began to heal, and faded before his eyes. The portrait of Lostris was undamaged. Each detail was perfectly restored. In wonderment he reached up to run his hands over it. The surface was smooth and unblemished.

He stood back and studied it. Was the smile still exactly as he had painted it or had it changed subtly? Was it tender or mocking? Was it candid or had it become enigmatic? Was it benign or was it now touched with malice? He could not be certain.

'Are you Lostris, or some wicked wraith sent to torment me?' he asked

78 J

it. 'Would Lostris be so cruel? Are you offering help and guidance - or laying snares and pitfalls in my path?'

At last he turned away and went down to the fort where the escort waited for him. They mounted and set out on the return journey to Thebes.

It was dark by the time they reached the palace of Pharaoh Nefer Seti.

Taita went first to Ramram.

'Pharaoh is still in conclave. He will not be able to meet you tonight as he planned. You are not to wait up for his summons. He orders you to sup with him tomorrow evening. I press you most earnestly to resort to your sleeping mat. You appear exhausted.'

He left Ramram and hurried to Demeter's chamber, where he found the old man and Meren facing each other over the boo board. Meren jumped to his feet with a theatrical show of relief as Taita entered. The complexities of the game were often beyond him. 'Welcome, Magus. You are just in time to save me from humiliation.'

Taita sat beside Demeter and quickly appraised his state of health and mind. 'You seem to have recovered from the rigours of the journey. Are you being well cared for?'

'I thank you for your concern, and indeed I am,' Demeter told him.

'I am delighted to hear it, for we must be up betimes on the morrow. I am taking you to the Palace of Memnon, where we will listen to one who preaches a new religion. He prophesies the coming of a new goddess who will hold dominion over all the nations of the earth.'

Demeter smiled. 'Do we not already have a plethora of gods? Enough, indeed, to last us to the end of days?'

'Ah, my friend, to us it might seem so. But according to this prophet, the old gods are to be destroyed, their temples cast down and their priests scattered to the ends of the earth.'

'I wonder if he speaks of Ahura Maasda, the one and only? If so, this is not a new religion.'

'It is not Ahura Maasda but another, more dreadful and powerful than him. She will assume human form and descend to live among us. The people will have direct access to her gracious mercy. She has the power to resurrect the dead, and to bestow immortality and perpetual happiness upon those who merit such rewards.'

'Why must we concern ourselves with such manifest nonsense, Taita?'

He sounded irritable. 'We have graver matters to deal with.'¦ 'This prophet is one of many who are moving covertly among the people and, it seems, converting great numbers of them, including Mintaka, the Queen of Egypt and wife of Pharaoh Nefer Seti.'