The Quest

Demeter leant forward and his expression became grave. 'Surely Queen Mintaka has better sense than to be taken in by such nonsense?'

'When the new goddess comes, her first act will be to rid Egypt of the plagues that afflict her and heal all the suffering they have caused.

Mintaka sees in her the chance to bring back from the tomb her children who died from the plague.'

'I see,' Demeter mused. 'To any mother that would be an irresistible lure. But what are the other reasons you spoke of?'

'The prophet's name is Soe.' Demeter looked mystified. 'Invert the letters of his name. Use the alphabet of the Tenmass,' Taita suggested, and Demeter's perplexity vanished.

'Eos,' he whispered. 'Your hounds have picked up the scent of the witch, Taita.'

'And we must follow it hotly to her lair.' Taita stood up. 'Compose yourself to sleep. I will send Meren to fetch you before sunrise.'

While the dawn was still a faint grey promise in the east, Habari had the horses and Demeter's camel waiting for them in the courtyard. Demeter stretched himself out in his palanquin, with Taita and Meren riding on each side of him. The escort led them down to ford the river, where they saw only one of the monstrous toads.

It avoided them and they crossed to the west bank without hindrance.

They circled the Palace of Memnon and came to the postern gate, where Taita and Demeter left their mounts in the care of Meren and Habari.

As Mintaka had promised, one of her hand-maidens was waiting inside the gate to greet them. She led the magi though a maze of passages and tunnels until at last they stepped into a lavishly appointed room, which smelt strongly of incense and perfume. The floor was covered with silk rugs and piles of fat cushions. Richly embroidered tapestries hung on the walls. The hand-maiden crossed to the far wall and drew back the hanging that concealed a screened zenana window. Taita hurried to it and looked through the ornate tracery into the audience chamber where he had met Mintaka the previous day. It was empty. Satisfied, he went

to take Demeter's arm and lead him to the window. The two settled down on the cushions. They did not have long to wait before a strange man entered the room beyond the screen.

He was of middle age, tall and spare. The heavy locks that hung to his shoulders were streaked with grey, as was his short, pointed beard. He wore the long black robes of priesthood, the skirts embroidered with occult symbols, and at his throat hung a necklace of charms. He began to circle the room, pausing to draw aside the hangings and search behind them. He stopped in front of the zenana window and brought his face close to the screen. His features were handsome and intelligent, but his most striking attribute was his eyes: they were those of a zealot and burned with a fanatical glare.

This is Soe, Taita thought. He was in no doubt. He took Demeter's hand and held it firmly to combine and augment their powers of concealment and protection, for they could not be certain what occult gifts the other man possessed. They stared back at him through the screen, exerting all their powers to hold the cloak of concealment around them. After a while Soe grunted, satisfied, and turned away. He went to wait by the far window, gazing out to the distant hills, which glowed like coals in the orange light of the early sun.

While he was thus distracted, Taita opened his Inner Eye. Soe was not a savant for at once his aura sprang up round him, but it was as none that he had seen before: it was inconstant, at one moment flaring strongly and at the next fading to a faint glow. Its colour shimmered brilliantly in tones of purple and vermilion, then sank away to a dull, leaden hue. Taita recognized a sharp intellect, corrupted with ruthlessness and cruelty. Soe's thoughts were confused and contradictory, but there was no doubt that he had developed considerable psychic powers.

As a group of laughing women burst into the room Soe turned quickly away from the window. They were led by Mintaka, who ran excitedly to him and embraced him with affection. Taita was taken aback: it was extraordinary behaviour for a queen. She embraced Taita only when they were alone, not in front of her maids. He had not realized how deeply she had come under Soe's influence. While she stood with one of his arms round her shoulders, her maids came to kneel before him.

'Bless us, Holy Father,' they pleaded. 'Intercede on our behalf with the one and only goddess.'

He made a gesture of benediction over them, and they wriggled with ecstasy.

Mintaka led Soe to a pile of cushions that raised his head to a level

above her own, then sat down, folding her legs sideways under her in the attitude of a young girl. She turned deliberately towards the zeinana window and smiled prettily at where she knew Taita was watching. She was displaying her latest acquisition for his approval, as though Soe was an exotic bird brought from a distant country, or a precious jewel given to her by a foreign potentate. Taita was alarmed by her indiscretion, but Soe was speaking condescendingly to the maids and had not noticed this exchange. Now he turned back to Mintaka.

'Exalted Majesty, I have given much thought to the concerns you expressed when last we met. I have prayed earnestly to the goddess, and she has responded most graciously.'

Again Taita was surprised. This is no foreigner, he thought. He is an Egyptian. His use of our language is perfect. He has the accents of one who hails from Assoun in the Upper Kingdom.

Soe went on, 'These matters are of such weight and moment that they must be kept for your ears only. Dismiss your maids.' Mintaka clapped her hands. The girls jumped to their feet and scampered from the chamber like frightened mice.

'First, the matter of your husband, the Pharaoh Nefer Seti,' Soe resumed when they were alone. 'She commands me to reply to you thus.'

He paused, then leant towards Mintaka and spoke in a voice that was not his own, a mellifluous feminine voice: 'In the time of my coming I shall welcome Nefer Seti into my loving embrace, and he shall come to me joyously.'

Taita was startled, but beside him Demeter started wildly. Taite reached out to calm him, although he himself was almost as agitated.

Demeter was trembling. He tugged at Taita's hand. Taita turned to him, and the old man mouthed a silent message that Taita read as clearly as if it had been had shouted aloud: 'The witch! It is the voice of Eos!' It was the voice that Taita had drawn from him while he was in his trance.

'But the lord of these is fire,' he mouthed back, and spread his palms upward in full accord.

Soe was still speaking, and they turned back to listen: 'I shall raise him up to be the sovereign of all my corporeal kingdom. All the kings of all nations of earth will become his loyal satraps. In my name he will reign in eternal glory. You, my beloved Mintaka, will sit at his side.'

Mintaka burst into sobs of relief and joy. Soe smiled at her with avuncular indulgence and waited for her to recover her poise. At last she sniffed back the tears and smiled up at him. 'What of my children, my dead babies?'

'We have spoken of them already,' Soe reminded her kindly.

'Yes! But I cannot hear it too often. Please, Holy Prophet, I humbly beg you …'

'The goddess has commanded that they be restored to you, and that they will live out the full span of their natural lives.'

'What else has she commanded? Please tell me again.'

'When they have proved worthy of her love, she will extend to all your children the gift of eternal youth. They will never leave you.'

'I am content, Mighty Prophet of the Almighty Goddess,' Mintaka whispered. 'I submit my body and my soul completely to her will.' On her knees, she crawled to Soe. She let her tears fall on to his feet, then wiped them away with the tresses of her hair.

It was the most repugnant spectacle Taita had ever witnessed. He made a determined effort to stop himself shouting through the screen, 'He is a lackey of the Lie! Do not let him soil you with his filth.'

Mintaka called her hand-maidens, and they sat with Soe for the rest of the morning. Their conversation descended into banality for none of the girls was quick to follow his teachings. He was obliged to repeat himself in simplified language. They soon tired of this and pestered him with chatter.

'Will the goddess find me a good husband?'

'Will she give me pretty things?'

Soe treated them with remarkable forbearance and patience.

Taita realized that although it seemed he and Demeter had learnt all they could, they had no choice but to remain sitting quietly behind the zenana window. If they tried to leave their movements might alert the prophet. A little before noon Soe brought the meeting to a close with a long prayer to the goddess. Then he blessed the women again and turned back to Mintaka. 'Do you wish me to return later, Your Majesty?'

'I need to meditate on these revelations of the goddess. Please return on the morrow when we may discuss them further.' Soe bowed and withdrew.

As soon as he had gone Mintaka dismissed her hand-maidens. 'Taita, are you still there?'

'I am, Your Majesty.'

She threw open the screen and demanded, 'Did I not tell you how learned and wise he is, what wonderful tidings he brings?'

'Extraordinary tidings indeed,' Taita replied.

'Is he not handsome? I trust him with all my heart. I know that what he prophesies is the divine truth, that the goddess will reveal herself

to us and heal all our woes. Oh, Taita, do you believe what he tells us?

Surely you must!','

Mintaka was in a religious ferment, and Taita knew that any warning he gave now would have a contrary effect. He wanted to take Demeter to a place where they might discuss what they had heard, and decide how to proceed, but he had to listen first to Mintaka's eulogy to Soe.

When at last she ran out of superlatives he told her gently, 'Both Demeter and I are worn out with all this excitement. I have promised to attend Pharaoh as soon as he is free from his more pressing duties, so we must return now to Thebes to be within call. However, I will return to you as soon as 1 can, and we will discuss this further, my queen.'

Reluctantly she let them go.

A soon as they had remounted and were on the road to the river, Taita and Meren took up their usual stations beside the palan.quin.

Then Taita and Demeter switched from Egyptian into the Tenmass so that the men of the escort could not follow their conversation.

'We have learnt much of paramount importance from Soe,' Taita began.

'Most significantly, we know that he has been in the presence of the witch,' Demeter exclaimed. 'He has heard her speak. He had her voice perfectly.'

'You know the timbre of her speech better than I do, and I do not doubt that you are right,' Taita agreed. 'There is something else that I deem important. Soe is Egyptian. His accent is from the Upper Kingdom.'

'This I did not fathom. My grasp of your tongue is not so perfect that I am able to pick up such nuances. It may indeed be a clue to the location of her present hiding-place. If we postulate that Soe has not travelled far to reach Thebes, then we should begin our search within the borders of the Two Kingdoms or, at least, in those lands immediately adjacent to them.'

'What volcanoes fall into that area?'

'There are no volcanoes or large lakes within the borders of this very Egypt. The Nile runs into the Middle Sea. That is the nearest water to the north. Etna is no more than ten days' sail. Are you certain still that Eos is not there?'

'I am.' Demeter nodded.

'Very well. What of the other great volcano in that direction, Vesuvius, on the mainland across the channel from Etna?' Taita suggested.

Demeter sucked his lower lip dubiously. 'That dog will not hunt either,' he said, with conviction. 'After I escaped from her clutches, I hid for many years with the priests in the temple that lies fewer than thirty leagues to the north of Vesuvius. I am sure that I would have sensed her presence if she had been so close at hand, or she would have sensed mine. No, Taita, we must look elsewhere.'

'For the time being let us be guided by your instinct,' Taita said. 'On our eastern border is the Red Sea. I do not know of volcanoes in Arabia or any other land close to its shores. Do you?'

'No, I have travelled there, but I never saw or heard of any.'

'I saw two volcanoes in the land beyond the Zagreb mountains, but they are surrounded by vast plains and mountain ranges. They do not fit the description of the one we seek.'

'To the south and west of Egypt there are more vast expanses of land,' Demeter said, 'but let us consider another possibility. Might there be great rivers and lakes in the interior of Africa, and a volcano close to one?'

'I have not heard of any — but, then, no man has ventured further south than Ethiopia.'

'I have heard it told, Taita, that during the exodus from Egypt you guided Queen Lostris as far south as Qebui, the Place of the North Wind, where the Nile divides into two mighty streams.'

'That is true. From Qebui we followed the left fork of the river into the mountains of Ethiopia. The right-hand stream emerges from an endless swamp that bars further progress. No man has ever reached its southern extremity. Or if any has he has not returned to tell of it. Some say there is no limit to the swamp but that it continues, vast and forbidding, to the end of the earth.'

'Then we must rely on the priests in the temple of Hathor to supply us with further possibilities to ponder. When will they have information for us of their findings?'

'The priestess told me to return in ten days' time,' Taita reminded him.

Demeter drew aside the curtain of his palanquin and looked back towards the hills. 'We are close to the temple now. We should go there, ask the priestess for hospitality and a sleeping mat for the night. We can spend time on the morrow with her cartographers and geographers.'

'If Pharaoh summons me to his presence, his minions will not be able to find me,' Taita demurred. 'Let me see him before we leave the palace again.'i 'Stop the column here,' Demeter called to Habari. 'Stop at once, I tell you.' Then he turned back to Taita. 'I do not wish to alarm you but I know now that my time with you is drawing to a close. I am haunted by dreams and dark presentiments. Despite the protection that you and Meren have given me, the witch will soon succeed in her efforts to destroy me. My remaining days are dwindling.'

Taita stared at him. Since that morning, when he had been made aware of Soe's menacing aura, he had been harried by the same premonition.

He drew close to the palanquin and studied the worn old face.

With a pang he saw that Demeter was right: death was close upon him.

His eyes had become almost colourless and transparent, but in their depths he made out moving shadows, like the shapes of feeding sharks.

'You see it also,' Demeter said, in a flat, dull tone.

No reply was necessary. Instead Taita turned away and called to Habari, 'Turn the column. We will go to the temple of Hathor.' It was only a little more than a league distant.

They rode in silence for a while, until Demeter spoke again: 'You will travel faster without my ancient, enfeebled body to impede you.'

'You are too harsh with yourself,' Taita chided him. 'Without your help and counsel I would never have come this far.'

'I wish I could have stayed with you to the end of the hunt and been present at the kill. But it is not to be.' He was silent for a while.

Then he went on, 'How to deal with Soe? One course is open to you. If Pharaoh was made aware that Soe is bewitching Mintaka, and of the traitorous thoughts he is planting in her mind, he would send his guards to seize him and you would have the chance to interrogate him under duress. I hear that the gaolers in Thebes are highly skilled in their trade.

You do not shrink from the idea of torture?'

'I would not hesitate if I thought there was the smallest chance of Soe yielding to mere bodily pain. But you have seen him. The man would die willingly to protect the witch. He is so much in tune with her that she would sense his agony and its cause. She would understand that Pharaoh and Mintaka had become aware of the web she is spinning round them, which would be mortally dangerous for the royal couple.'

'That is so.' Demeter nodded.

'Furthermore, Mintaka would rush to Soe's defence and Nefer Seti

would realize that she was indeed guilty of plotting against him. It would destroy their love and trust in each other. I could not do this to them.'

'Then we must hope to find the answer at the temple.'

The priests saw them from afar and sent two novices to welcome them and lead them up the ramp to the main entrance of the temple while the high priestess waited on the steps.

'I am so pleased to see you, Magus. I was about to send a messenger to Thebes to find you and tell you that Brother Nubank has worked on your request with great industry. He is ready to deliver his findings to you. But you have anticipated me.' She beamed in a motherly fashion at Taita.

'You are a thousand times welcome. The temple maidens are preparing a chamber for you in the men's quarters. You must stay with us as long as you wish. I look forward to your learned discourses.'

'You are kind and gracious, Mother. I am in company with another magus of great learning and reputation.'

'He, too, is welcome. Your retainers will be given shelter and sustenance in the grooms' quarters.'

They dismounted and, Meren supporting Demeter, entered the temple.

They paused before the image of Hathor, the goddess of joy, motherhood and love, in the main hall. She was depicted in the form of an enormous piebald cow, its horns bedecked with a golden moon. The priestess offered a prayer, then summoned a novice to lead Taita and Demeter along a cloister into the priests' area of the temple. He took them to a small stone-walled cell, where rolled sleeping mats lay against the far wall with bowls of water for them to refresh themselves.

'I will return to take you to the refectory at the dinner hour. Brother Nubank will meet you there.'

A round fifty priests were already eating when they entered the J—- refectory, but one man leapt to his feet and hurried to meet ¦A- JLthem. 'I am Nubank. You are welcome.' He was tall and lean, with cadaverous features. In these hard times there were few corpulent figures in Egypt. The meal was frugal: a bowl of pottage and a small jug of beer. The company was subdued and ate mostly in silence, with the exception of Nubank, who never stopped talking. His voice was grating and his manner pompous.

'I do not know how we will survive the morrow,' Taita said to

Demeter, when they were back in their cell and settling to sleep. 'It will be a long day, listening to good Brother Nubank.'

'But his knowledge of geography is exhaustive,' Demeter pointed Out.

'You employ the correct adjective, Magus.' Taita turned on his side.

The sun had not risen when a novice came to summon them to breakfast. Demeter seemed weaker, so Meren and Taita helped him gently to rise from his mat.

'Forgive me, Taita. I slept poorly.'

'The dreams?' Taita asked, in Tenmass.

'Yes. The witch is closing in on me. I cannot find strength much longer to resist her.'

Taita had also been plagued by dreams. In his, the python had returned. Now its feral stench lingered in his nostrils and at the back of his throat. But he concealed his misgivings, and showed Demeter a confident mien. 'We still have far to travel together, you and I.'

Breakfast was a small hard dhurra loaf and another jug of weak beer.

Brother Nubank resumed his monologue where it had been interrupted the night before. Fortunately the meal was soon consumed and, with some relief, they followed Nubank through the cavernous halls and cloisters to the temple library. It was a large, cool room, devoid of decoration or ornament other than the towering banks of stone shelves that covered every wall from the floor to the high ceiling; they were loaded with papyrus scrolls, of which there were several thousand.

Three novices and two senior initiates were waiting for Brother Nubank. They stood in a row, their hands clasped in front of them, a submissive attitude. They were Nubank's assistants. There was good reason for their trepidation: Nubank treated them in a hectoring manner and did not hesitate to voice his displeasure or contempt in the harshest, most insulting terms.

When Taita and Demeter were seated at the long, low central table, piled with papyrus scrolls, Nubank began his lecture. He proceeded to enumerate every volcano and every thermal phenomenon in the known world, whether or not it was situated near a large body of water. As he named each site, he sent a terrorized assistant to fetch the appropriate scroll from the shelves. In many cases this involved the ascent of a rickety ladder, while Nubank goaded them on with a string of abuse.

When Taita tried tactfully to truncate this tedious procedure by referring the man to his original request, Nubank nodded blandly and continued remorselessly with his prepared recitation.

One unfortunate novice was Nubank's preferred victim. He was a misshapen creature: no part of his body seemed without fault or deformation.

His shaven scalp was elongated, covered with flaking skin and a vivid rash. His brow bulged over small, close-set, pale crossed eyes. Large teeth protruded through the gap in his harelip and he dribbled when he spoke, which was not often. His chin receded so sharply that it barely existed, a large mulberry birthmark adorned his left cheek, his chest was sunken and his back mountainously hunched. His legs were thin as sticks, bowed and carried him in a sideways scuttle.

In the middle of the day a novice arrived to summon them to the refectory for the midday repast. Half starved as they were, Nubank and his assistants responded with alacrity. During the meal Taita became aware that the hunchbacked novice was making furtive attempts to catch his eye. As soon as he saw that he had Taita's attention, he stood up and hurried to the door. There, he glanced back and jerked his head to indicate that he wanted Taita to follow him.

Taita found the little fellow waiting for him on the terrace. Again the man beckoned, then vanished into the opening of a narrow passage.

Taita followed, and soon found himself in one of the small temple courtyards. The walls were covered with bas-reliefs of Hathor and there was a statue of the Pharaoh Mamose. The man cowered behind it.

'Great Magus! I have something to tell you that might be of interest to you.' He prostrated himself as Taita went to him.

'Stand up,' Taita told him kindly. 'I am not the king. What is your name?' Brother Nubank had referred to the little priest only as 'you thing'.

'They call me Tiptip, for the way I walk. My grandfather was a junior physician in the court of Queen Lostris at the time of the exodus from Egypt to the land of Ethiopia. He spoke of you often. Perhaps you remember him, Magus. His name was Siton.'

'Siton?' Taita thought for a moment. 'Yes! He was a likely lad, very k'ood at removing barbed arrowheads with the spoons. He saved the lives of inany soldiers.' Tiptip grinned widely, and his harelip gaped. 'What became of your grandfather?'

'He died peacefully in his dotage, but before he went, he told many fascinating stories of your adventures in those strange southern lands.

He described its peoples and wild animals. He told of the forests and mountains, and of a great swamp that stretched away for ever, to the ends of the earth.'i 'They were stirring times, Tiptip.' Taita nodded encouragement. 'Go on.'

'He told how, while the main body of our people followed the left fork of the Nile into the mountains of Ethiopia, Queen Lostris despatched a legion to the right fork to discover its full extent. They set off into the great swamp under General Lord Aquer and were never seen again, but for one man of the legion. Is this true, Magus?'

'Yes, Tiptip. 1 remember how the queen sent out a legion.' Taita himself had recommended Aquer for the doomed command. He had been a troublemaker, stirring discontent among the people. He did not mention this now. 'It is true also that only one man returned. But he was so riddled with disease and broken by the hardship of the journey that he succumbed to fever only days after returning to us.'

'Yes! Yes!' Tiptip was so excited that he seized Taita's sleeve. 'My grandfather treated the unfortunate man. He said that during his delirium the soldier ranted about a land with mountains and enormous lakes so wide in places that the eye could not reach from one shore to the next.'

Taita's interest quickened. 'Lakes! I have not heard this before. 1 never laid eyes on the survivor. I was in the Ethiopian mountains, two hundred leagues distant, when he reached Qebui where he died. The report I received said that the patient was out of his mind and unable to give any coherent or reliable intelligence.' He stared at Tiptip, and opened the Inner Eye. From the other man's aura, Taita could tell that he was sincere and telling the truth as he remembered it. 'You have more to tell me, Tiptip? I think so.'

'Yes, Magus. There was a volcano,' Tiptip blurted. 'That is why I have come to you. The dying soldier rambled about a burning mountain such as none had ever seen before. After they had passed beyond the great swamps they saw it only at a great distance. He said that the smoke from its funnel stood like a perpetual cloud against the sky. Some of the legionaries took it as a warning from the dark African gods to proceed no further, but Lord Aquer declared it was a welcoming beacon and that he was determined to reach it. He ordered the march to continue.

However, it was at this point, within sight of the volcano, that the soldier fell ill with the fever. He was abandoned and left for dead while his companions marched southwards. But he managed to reach a village of giant naked black people who lived on the lakeshore. They took him

I THE QUEST

in. One of their shamans gave him medicine and nursed him until he had recovered sufficiently to continue his homeward journey.' In his agitation Tiptip gripped Taita's arm. 'I wanted to tell you before but Brother Nubank would not allow it. He forbade me to pester you with hearsay from seventy years ago. He said that we geographers deal only with fact. You will not tell Brother Nubank I disobeyed him? He is a good and holy man, but he can be strict.'

'You did right,' Taita reassured him, and gently dislodged the clutching fingers. Then, suddenly, he lifted Tiptip's hand to examine it more closely. 'You have six fingers!' he exclaimed.

Clearly Tiptip was mortified: he tried to hide the deformity by clenching his hand into a fist. 'The gods built my entire body awry. My head and eyes, my back and my limbs — everything about me is twisted and misformed.' His eyes filled with tears.

'But you have a good heart,' Taita consoled him. Gently, he opened the fist and spread the fingers. An additional rudimentary finger grew out of the man's palm beside the normal little finger.

' “Six fingers point the way,”' Taita whispered.

'I did not mean to point at you, Magus. I would never deliberately give offence to you in that way,' Tiptip whimpered.

'No, Tiptip, you have done me great service. Be certain of my gratitude and my friendship.'

'You will not tell Brother Nubank?'

'No. You have my oath on it.'

'The blessings of Hathor upon you, Magus. Now I must go or Brother Nubank will come to find me.' Tiptip scampered away like a crab. Taita gave him a few moments' start then made his way back to the library.

He found that Demeter and Meren had preceded him, and Nubank was berating Tiptip: 'Where have you been?'

'I was in the latrine, Brother. Forgive me. I have eaten something that has upset my stomach.'

'And you have upset mine, you loathsome piece of excrement.

While you were there you should have left all of yourself in the bucket.'

He clouted Tiptip's birthmark. 'Now bring me the scrolls in which the islands of the eastern ocean are described.'

Taita took his place beside Demeter and said to him in Tenmass, 'Look to the little fellow's right hand.'

'He has six fingers.' Demeter exclaimed. '“Six fingers point the way!”

You have learnt something from him, have you not?'

'We must follow the right branch of Mother Nile to her source. There

we will find a volcano set beside a wide lake. I am certain in my heart that that is where Eos lurks.';

They left the temple of Hathor long before sunrise the next morning. Nubank bade them farewell reluctantly - he had fifty volcanoes yet to describe. It was still half dark when they reached the ford of the Nile below Thebes. Habari and Meren led the way down into the riverbed, Taita and Demeter following, but a gap had opened between the two groups. The leaders rode through the tail of one of the stinking red pools and were half-way to the far bank as Demeter's camel started across the mud. At that moment Taita became aware that a malevolent influence was focusing on them. He felt a chill in the air, the pulse in his ears pounded and his breathing was hampered. He turned quickly and looked back over his mare's rump.

A solitary figure stood on the bank they had just left. Although his dark robes merged into the shadows, Taita recognized him immediately.

He opened his Inner Eye and Soe's distinctive aura appeared enveloping the man, like the flames of a bonfire. It was an angry scarlet, shot with purple and green. Taita had never seen an aura so menacing.

'Soe is here!' he called, in urgent warning to Demeter, as he lay in his palanquin, but it was too late: Soe raised an arm and pointed at the surface of the pool through which the camel was wading. Almost as though it was responding to his command, a monstrous toad launched itself from the water and, with a snap of its jaws, ripped a deep gash in the camel's back leg above the knee. The animal bawled with shock and, breaking free of its lead rein, bolted out of the pool. Instead of heading for the far bank it turned and galloped wildly along the riverbed, with Demeter's palanquin swaying and bouncing from side to side.

'Meren! Habari!' Taita shouted, as he kicked his mare into a full gallop in pursuit of the runaway camel. Meren and Habari swung their mounts round and urged them back into the riverbed to join the pursuit.

'Hold fast, Demeter!' Taita shouted. 'We are coming!' Windsmoke was flying under him, but before he caught up with Demeter the camel reached another pool and dashed into it, throwing up sheets of spray.

Then the surface of the water directly in its path opened as another toad shot out. It sprang high at the head of the panic-stricken beast and clamped its jaws on the bulbous nose in a bulldog grip. It must have struck a nerve, for the front legs of the camel collapsed. Then it rolled

on to its back as it thrashed its head from side to side in an attempt to break the grip of the toad's fangs. The palanquin was trapped beneath it, and its light bamboo framework was crushed into the mud under its weight.

'Demeter! We must rescue him!' Taita shouted to Meren, and urged on his mare. But before he reached the edge of the pool Demeter's head broke the surface. Somehow he had escaped from the palanquin, but he was half drowned in the mud that plastered his head, coughing and vomiting, his movements feeble and erratic.

'I am coming!' Taita shouted. 'Do not despair!' Then, suddenly, the pool was boiling with toads. They came swarming up from the bottom and fell upon Demeter, like a pack of wild dogs pulling down a gazelle.

The old man's mouth was wide open as he tried to scream, but the mud choked him. The toads pulled him below the surface, and when he emerged again briefly his struggles had almost ceased. His only movements were caused by the toads below the surface, tearing off lumps of his flesh.

'I am here, Demeter!' Taita yelled despairingly. He could not take the mare among the frenzied toads for he knew they would rip into her. He reined in and slipped off her back with his staff in his hands. He started to wade into the pool, then gasped with agony as a toad sank its fangs into his leg below the surface. He thrust down at it with his staff, exerting all his physical and spiritual strength to bolster the blow. He felt the jolt as the tip struck squarely, and the creature released him. It came to the surface on its back, stunned and kicking convulsively.

'Demeter!' He could not tell the man from the toads that were devouring him alive. Man and beasts were thickly coated with shining black mud.

Suddenly two thin arms were lifted high above the teeming pack and he heard Demeter's voice. 'I am done. You must go on alone, Taita.' His voice was almost inaudible, choked by mud and the poisonous red water.

And then it was snuffed out as a toad, larger than all the others, clamped its jaws into the side of his head, and pulled him under for the last time.

Taita started forward again, but Meren rode up behind him seized him with one strong arm round his waist, lifted him out of the mud and carried him back to the bank.

'Put me down!' Taita struggled to free himself. 'We cannot leave him to those foul creatures.' But Meren would not release him.

'Magus, you are hurt. Look to your leg.' Meren tried to calm him. The blood gushed from the bite to mingle with the mud. 'Demeter is finished.

I will not lose you also.' Meren held him firmly, while they watched the death struggles in the pool diminish until the surface was still once; more.

'Demeter is gone,' Meren said quietly, and lowered Taita to his feet.

He went to catch the grey mare and brought her to him. As he helped Taita to mount, he said softly, 'We must go, Magus. There is nothing more for us here. You must tend your injury. No doubt the toad's fangs are poisonous, and the mud is so foul that it will contaminate your flesh.'

However, Taita lingered a little longer, looking for some last sign from his ally, seeking some final contact from the ether, but there was none.

When Meren leant from the back of his own mount, took hold of the mare's reins and led her away, Taita made no further protest. His leg was paining him, and he felt shocked and bereft. The old savant had gone and Taita realized how much he had come to rely on him. Now he confronted the witch alone, and the prospect filled him with dismay.

Once they were safely returned to their quarters in the palace at Thebes, Ramram sent slave girls with urns of hot water and bottles of perfumed unguents to bathe Taita and wash away the mud. When he was thoroughly cleansed two royal physicians arrived, followed by a train of assistants bearing chests filled with medicine and magical amulets. On Taita's instruction Meren met them at the door and sent them away: 'As the most skilled and learned surgeon in all of Egypt, the magus is attending to his own injury. He presents his compliments and thanks for your concern.'

Taita washed his wound with a distillate of wine. Then he numbed his leg with a self-induced trance, while Meren cauterized the deep gash with a bronze spoon heated in the flame of an oil lamp. It was one of the few medical skills that Taita had been able to teach him. When he had finished, Taita roused himself and, using long hairs from Windsmoke's tail as thread, stitched together the lips of his wound. He dressed them with ointments of his own concoction and bound them with linen bandages. By the time he had finished he was exhausted by pain and filled with sorrow at the loss of Demeter. He sank on to his mattress and closed his eyes.

He opened them when he heard a commotion at the doorway, and a familiar, authoritative voice bellowed, 'Taita, where are you? Cannot I trust you out of my sight, but that you commit some rash folly? Shame on you! You are no longer a child.' At that the Divine God on Earth,

Pharaoh Nefer Seti, burst into the sickroom. His suite of lords and attendants crowded in after him.

Taita felt his spirits rise and the well of his strength begin to refill. He was not entirely alone. He smiled at Nefer Seti, and struggled up on an elbow.

'Taita, are you not ashamed of yourself? I expected to find you breathing your last. Instead you are lying at your ease, with a foolish grin on your face.'

'Majesty, it is a smile of welcome, for I am truly delighted to see you.'

Nefer Seti pushed him back gently on to the pillows, then turned to his retinue. 'My lords, you may leave me here with the magus, who is my old friend and tutor. I shall summon you when I need you.' They backed out of the chamber and Pharaoh bent to hug Taita. 'By the sweet milk from the breast of Isis, I am glad to see you safe, though I hear that your companion magus was lost. I want to hear all about it, but first let me greet Meren Cambyses.' He turned to Meren, who stood guard at the door. Meren went down on one knee before him, but Pharaoh lifted him to his feet. 'Do not abase yourself to me, companion of the Red Road.'

Nefer Seti seized him in a hearty embrace. As young men they had embarked together on the ultimate test of warriorhood, the Red Road, a trial of skill in handling chariot, sword and bow. The two had been matched as a team against proven and tried veterans, who were free to employ any means, even killing, to prevent them reaching the end of the road. Together they had won through. Companions of the Red Road were brothers of the warrior blood, united for life. Until her death Meren had been betrothed to Nefer Seti's sister, the Princess Merykara, so he and Pharaoh had nearly become brothers-in-law. This reinforced the bond between them. Meren might have held high office in Thebes, but he had chosen instead to enrol himself as an apprentice to Taita.

'Has Taita been able to school you in the Mysteries? Have you become a magus as well as a mighty warrior?' Pharaoh demanded.

'Nay, Majesty. Despite the best efforts of Taita, I lacked the skills.

I have never woven the simplest of spells that succeeded. A few even rebounded on my own head.' Meren made a rueful face.

'A good warrior is better than an inept sorcerer any day, old friend.

Come, sit in conference with us, as was our wont in those long-ago days when we were fighting to free this very Egypt from the tyrant.'

As soon as they were seated at either side of Taita's sleeping mat, Nefer Seti became serious. 'Now, tell me of your encounter with the toads.'

Between them Taita and Meren described the death of Demeter.

When they ended Nefer Seti was silent. Then he growled, 'Those animals grow bolder and more voracious every day. I am certain that it is they who have made impure and sullied what remains of the water in the river pools. I have tried every means I can think of to be rid of them, but for every one we slay two more spring up to take its place.'

'Majesty.' Taita paused for a moment before he went on. 'You must seek out the witch whose creatures they are, and destroy her. The toads and all the other plagues she heaps upon you and your kingdom will disappear with her, for she is their mistress. Then the Nile will flow again, and prosperity will return to this very Egypt.'

Nefer Seti stared at him in alarm. 'Must I infer that the plagues are not of nature?' he demanded. 'That they are created by the sorcery and witchcraft of one woman?'

'That is what I believe,' Taita assured him.

Nefer Seti sprang to his feet and strode up and down, lost in thought.

At last he stopped and stared hard at Taita. 'Who is this witch? Where is she? Can she be destroyed, or is she immortal?'

'I believe she is human, Pharaoh, but her powers are formidable. She protects herself well.'

'What is her name?'

'It is Eos.'

'The goddess of the dawn?' He had been well schooled by the priests in the hierarchy of the gods, for he was a god himself. 'Did you not tell me she was human?'

'She is a human being who has usurped the goddess's name to conceal her true identity.'

'If that is so then she must have an earthly abode. Where is it, Taita?'

'Demeter and I were seeking her out, but she became aware of our intentions. First she sent a giant python to attack him but Meren and I saved him, although he came close to death. Now she has succeeded with the toads where she failed with the serpent.'

'So you do not know where I can find the witch?' Nefer Seti persisted.

'We do not know for certain, but the occult indications suggest that she lives in a volcano.'

'A volcano? Is that possible, even for a witch?' Then he laughed. 'I learnt long ago never to doubt you, Taita. But tell me, which volcano?

There are many.'

'I believe that to find her we must travel to the headwater of the Nile,

beyond the mighty swamps that block the river above Qebui. Her lair is near a volcano beside a great lake. Somewhere at the very end of our earth.'

'I remember you told me when I was a boy how my grandmother, Queen Lostris, sent a legion south under Lord Aquer to find the source of the river. They disappeared into those dread swamps beyond Qebui and never came back. Has that expedition aught to do with Eos?'

'It has indeed, majesty,' Taita agreed. 'Did I not tell you that there was a lone survivor of the legionaries who returned to Qebui?'

'I do not remember that part of the tale.'

'At the time it seemed insignificant, but one man came back. He was raving and demented. The physicians thought he had been driven mad by the hardships he had endured. He died before I could speak to him.

But recently I have learnt that before he died he told strange tales that were disbelieved by all who heard them so they were not reported to me.

He raved about vast lakes and mountains at the end of the earth … and a volcano set beside the greatest of the lakes. It is from this legend that Demeter and I divined the whereabouts of the witch.' He went on to describe his meeting with the hunchback Tiptip.

Nefer Seti listened, fascinated. When Taita had finished, he thought for a while, then asked, 'Why is the volcano so important?'

In reply Taita described Demeter's captivity in the witch's lair on Etna and his escape.

'She needs the subterranean fires as a forge in which to fashion her spells. The power emitted by the immense heat and sulphurous gases enhances her powers to godlike proportions,' Taita explained.

'Why have you selected this particular volcano to examine first of all the many hundreds?' Nefer asked.

'Because it is closest to this very Egypt, and it sits upon the source of the Nile.'

'I see now that your reasoning is solid. It all fits together neatly,' Nefer Seti said. 'Seven years ago, when the Nile dried up, I remembered all that you had told me of my grandmother's expedition so I ordered another legion to march south on the same mission to reach the source and discover the cause of the river's failure. The officer I placed in command was Colonel Ah-Akhton.'

'This I did not know,' Taita said.

'Because you were not here for me to discuss it with you. You and Meren were wandering in foreign lands.' Nefer Seti's tone was a rebuke.

'You should have stayed with me.'

Taita adopted a repentant attitude. 'I did not know you had need of me, Majesty.'> 'I will always have need of you.' He was readily appeasedI 'What news of this second expedition?' Quickly Taita seized his advantage. 'Has it returned?'

'No, it has not. Not a single man of eight hundred who marched away came back. They have vanished more completely than my grandmother's army did. Has the witch destroyed them also?'

'It is more than possible, Majesty.' He saw that Nefer Seti had already accepted the existence of the witch and did not have to be convinced or encouraged to pursue her.

'You never fail me, Tata, except when you are on a jaunt to the gods alone know where.' Nefer Seti grinned at him. 'Now I know who is mine enemy and I can move against her. Before, I was helpless to lift these terrible afflictions from my people. I was reduced to digging wells, begging food from my enemies and killing toads. Now you have made clear the solution to my problems. I must destroy the witch!'

He jumped up and continued to pace as restlessly as a caged lion. He was a man of action, eager to take to the sword. The very thought of war had lifted his spirits. Taita and Meren watched his face as the ideas came to him in floods. Every once in a while he would slap the scabbard at his side and exclaim, 'Yes! By Horus and Osiris, that is it!' At last he turned back to Taita. 'I shall lead another campaign against this Eos.'

'Pharaoh, she has already gobbled up two Egyptian armies,' Taita reminded him.

Nefer Seti sobered a little. He resumed pacing, then stopped again.

'Very well. As Demeter did at Etna, you will work a spell of such power against her that she will fall from her mountain and burst like an overripe fruit as she hits the ground. What think you, Tata?'

'Your Majesty, do not underestimate Eos. Demeter was a mightier magus than I am. He struggled against the witch with all his powers, but in the end she destroyed him, seemingly without effort, as you might crush a tick between your fingernails.' Taita shook his head regretfully.

'My spells are like javelins. Thrown at extreme range, they are feeble and easily deflected with a flick of her shield. If I come close enough to her, and am able to discern her whereabouts exactly, then my aim will improve. If I have her in my eye, my dart may be good enough to fly past her shield. I cannot touch her at this great distance.'

'If she is so all-powerful as to destroy Demeter, why has she not done

the same to you?' He answered his own question immediately. 'Because she fears that you are stronger than she is.'

'I wish it were that simple. No, Pharaoh, it is because she has not yet struck at me with all her strength.'

Nefer Seti looked puzzled. 'But she killed Demeter, and she grinds my kingdom between the millstones of her malice. Why does she spare you?'

'She had no further use for Demeter. I told you how when he was in her clutches she sucked from him, like a great vampire, all his learning and skills. When at last he escaped she did not trouble to pursue him vigorously. He was no longer a threat to her, and had nothing more to offer. That is, until he and I united. Then her interest quickened again.

Together we had become such a significant force that she was able to detect me. She does not wish to destroy me until she has sucked me dry, as she did Demeter, but she could not lure me into her snares unless she isolated me. So she struck down my ally.'

'If she wants to preserve you for her foul purposes, I will take you with my army. You will be my stalking horse. I will use you to come within striking distance, and while you distract her, both of us will attack her,'

Nefer Seti proposed.

'Desperate measures, Pharaoh. Why should she allow you close enough to her when she can kill you from a distance, as she did with Demeter?'

'From what you tell me, she seeks dominion over Egypt. Very well. I will tell her that I have come to surrender myself and my land to her.

I will ask to be allowed to kiss her feet in submission.'

Taita kept a grave expression, although he wanted to chuckle at this naive suggestion. 'Sire, the witch is a savant.'

'What is that?' Nefer Seti demanded.

'With her Inner Eye she is able to scry a man's soul as readily as you read a battle plan. You would never come close to her with such anger displayed in your aura.'

'Then how do you propose to draw within range without being scried by her mysterious eye?'

'As she is, so am I a savant. I throw no aura for her to read.'

Nefer Seti was becoming angry. He had been a god long enough to resent any check or restraint. His voice rose: 'I am no longer a child for you to baffle with your esoteric cant. You are too quick to point out the flaws in my plans,' he said. 'Learned Magus, be kind and gracious enough to propose an alternative so that I may have the pleasure of treating it as you have treated mine.'

'You are the pharaoh, you are Egypt. You must not walk into the web she weaves. Your duty is here with your people, with Mintaka and your children, to protect them if I should fail.'I 'You are a devious and crafty rogue, Tata. I know where this is moving.

You would leave me here in Thebes, killing toads, while you and Meren set out on another adventure. Am I to be left cowering in my own harem like a woman?' he asked bitterly.

'Nay, Majesty, like a proud pharaoh on the throne, ready to defend the Two Kingdoms with your life.'

Nefer Seti placed his clenched fists on his hips and glared. 'I should not listen to your siren song. You spin a web with as strong a thread as any witch.' Then he spread his hands in a gesture of resignation. 'Sing on, Tata, and I perforce will listen.'

'You might consider giving Meren a small force to command, not more than a hundred picked warriors. They will travel fast, living off the land without recourse to a lumbering supply train. Numbers alone are no threat to the witch. She will not be concerned by a contingent of this size. As Meren projects no complex psychic aura to arouse her suspicions, she will scry him as a bluff, simple soldier. I will go with him. She will recognize me from afar, but by coming to her I am playing into her hands. In order to take from me the knowledge and power she desires, she must let me come close to her.'

Nefer Seti growled and muttered under his breath as he stamped up and down. Finally he confronted Taita again: 'It is hard for me to accept that I should not lead the expedition. However, your arguments, convoluted though they are, have swayed me from my good sense.' His glowering features cleared a little. 'Above all men in Egypt, I trust you and Meren Cambyses.' He turned to Meren. 'You shall have the rank of colonel. Choose your hundred, and I will give you my royal Hawk Seal so that you can equip them from the state armouries and remount stations anywhere in my dominions.' The Hawk Seal delegated Pharaoh's royal power to the bearer. 'I want you ready to ride with the new moon at the latest. Be guided in all things by Taita. Return safely and bring me the witch's head.'

When word got out that he was recruiting a flying column of elite cavalry, Meren was besieged by volunteers. He chose as his captains three hardy veterans, Hilto-bar-Hilto, Shabako and Tonka. None had ridden and fought with him during the civil war they were too young for that - but their fathers had, and their grandfathers had all been companions of the Red Road.

'The warrior blood breeds true,' Meren explained to Taita. His fourth choice was Habari, whom he had come to like and trust. He offered him the command of one of his four platoons.

He mustered all four captains, confirmed their selection and questioned them closely: 'Have you a wife or woman? We travel light. There will be no place with us for camp-followers.' Traditionally Egyptian armies travelled with their women.

'I have a wife,' Habari said, 'but I will be pleased to escape from her scolding for five years, or ten, even longer if you require it, Colonel.' The other three agreed with this sensible view.

'Colonel, if we are to live off the land, then we will take our women where we find them,' said Hilto-bar-Hilto, the son of old Hilto, now long dead. He had been the Best of Ten Thousand and had worn the Gold of Praise at his throat, awarded to him by Pharaoh after the battle at Ismalia when they had overthrown the false pharaoh.

'Spoken like a true legionary.' Meren laughed. He delegated to the chosen four the selection of the troopers to fill their platoons. Within less than ten days they had assembled a hundred of the finest warriors in the entire Egyptian army. Each man was equipped, armed and sent to the remount station to pick out two chargers and a pack mule. As Pharaoh had commanded, they were ready to march from Thebes on the night of the new moon.

Two days before the departure, Taita crossed the river and rode to the Palace of Memnon to take his leave of Queen Mintaka. He found her thinner, wan and cast down. The reason for this she confided to him within the first few minutes of their meeting.

'Oh, Tata, dear Tata. The most dreadful thing has transpired. Soe has vanished. He has gone without taking leave of me. He disappeared three days after you saw him in my audience chamber.'

Taita was not surprised. That had been the day of Demeter's gruesome death.

'I have sent messengers to find him in every possible place. Taita, I

know you will be as distressed as I am. You knew and admired him We both saw in him the salvation of Egypt. Can you not use your special powers to find him for me, and bring him back to me? Now that he has gone I will never see my dead babies again. Egypt and Nefer will remain in perpetual agony. The Nile will never flow.'

Taita did his best to console her. He could see that her health was deteriorating, and her proud spirit was on the point of breaking under the weight of her despair. He cursed Eos and her works while he did all in his power to calm Mintaka, and give her hope. 'Meren and I are setting out on an expedition beyond the southern borders. I will make it my first duty to search for and make enquiry for Soe at every point along our way. In the meantime I divine that he is alive and unharmed.

Unexpected circumstances and events forced him to depart hurriedly, without taking leave of Your Majesty. However, he intends to return to Thebes at the first opportunity to continue his mission in the name of the new nameless goddess.' All of which were reasonable assumptions, Taita told himself. 'Now I must bid you farewell. I shall hold you always in my thoughts and my dutiful love.'

The Nile was no longer navigable so they took the wagon road south along the bank of the dying river. Pharaoh rode the first mile at Taita's side, belabouring him with commands and instructions. Before he turned back, he addressed the troopers of the column in an exhortation and rallying call: 'I expect each of you to do his duty,' he ended, and embraced Taita in front of them. As he rode away, they cheered him out of sight.

Taita had planned the stages of the journey to bring them each evening to one of the many temples situated along the banks of the Nile in the Upper Kingdom. At each his reputation had preceded him. The high priest came out to offer him and his men shelter. Their welcome was sincere because Meren carried the king's Hawk Seal, which allowed him to draw additional food from the quarter-masters of the military forts that guarded each town. The priests expected their own meagre rations to be augmented by this windfall.

Each evening, after a frugal meal in the refectory, Taita retired to the inner sanctuary of the temple. Devotions and prayers had been said in these precincts for hundreds or even thousands of years. The passion of the worshippers had built spiritual fortifications that even Eos would have the greatest difficulty in penetrating. For a while he would be protected from her overlooking. He could appeal to his own gods without fear of intervention by evil wraiths sent by the witch to deceive him. He

I I

prayed to the god to whom each temple was dedicated for strength and guidance in his looming conflict with the witch. In the calm and serenity of such surroundings he could meditate and marshal his physical and spiritual strength.

The temples were the centre of each community and the repositories of learning. Although many of the priests were dull creatures, some were erudite and educated, aware of all that was happening in their nomes and in tune with the mood of their flock. They were a reliable source of information and intelligence. Taita spent hours conferring with them, interrogating them keenly. One question he put to them all: 'Have you heard of strangers moving covertly among your people, preaching a new religion?'

Each one replied that they had. 'They preach that the old gods are failing, that they are no longer able to protect this very Egypt. They preach of a new goddess who will descend among us and lift the curse from the river and the land. When she comes she will bid the plagues cease and Mother Nile once more to flood and deliver to Egypt her bounty. They tell the people that Pharaoh and his family are secret adherents of the new goddess, that soon Nefer Seti will renounce the old gods, and declare his allegiance to her.' Then, worried, they demanded, 'Tell us, great Magus, is this true? Will Pharaoh declare for the alien goddess?'

'Before that happens the stars will fall from the sky like raindrops.

Pharaoh is devoted to Horus, heart and soul,' he assured them. 'But tell me, do the people hearken to these charlatans?'

'They are only human. Their children are starving and they are in the depths of despair. They will follow anyone who offers them surcease from their misery.'

'Have you met any of these preachers?'

None had. 'They are secretive and elusive,' said one. 'Although I have sent messengers to them, inviting them to explain their beliefs to me, none has come forward.'

'Have you learnt the names of any?'

'It seems they all use the same name.'

'Is it Soe?' Taita asked.

'Yes, Magus, that is the name they use. Perhaps it is a title rather than a name.'

'Are they Egyptians or foreigners? Do they speak our language as though born to it?'

'I have heard that they do and that they claim to be of our blood.'

The man he was conversing with on this occasion was Sanepi; the high priest of the temple of Khum at Iunyt, in the third nome of Upper Egypt. When Taita had heard all he had to offer on this matter, he moved on to more mundane topics: 'As an adept of the natural laws, have you tried to find some way in which to render the red waters of the river fit for human use?'

The urbane and devout man was appalled at the suggestion. 'The river is cursed. No one dare bathe in it, let alone drink it. The kine that do so waste away and die within days. The river has become the abode of gigantic carrion-eating toads, such as have never been seen before in Egypt or any other land. They defend the stinking pools ferociously, and attack anyone who approaches. I would rather die of thirst than drink that poison,' Sanepi replied, his features twisted in an expression of disgust. 'Even the temple novices believe, as 1 do, that the river has been desecrated by some malevolent god.'

So it was that Taita took it upon himself to conduct a series of experiments to ascertain the true nature of the red tide, and to find some method of purifying the Nile waters. Meren was pushing the column southwards at a punishing pace and he knew that, unless he could find some means of augmenting their water supply, the horses would soon die of thirst. Pharaoh's newly dug wells were situated at long intervals, and their yield was not nearly sufficient for the needs of three hundred hard-driven horses. This was the easiest stage of the journey. Above the white water of the first cataract, the river road ran thousands of leagues through hard, forbidding deserts where there were no wells. It rained there once in a hundred years and was the haunt of scorpions and wild animals such as the oryx, which could survive without surface water in the domain of the tyrannical sun. Unless he could find some reliable source of water, the expedition would perish in those scorching wastes, never to reach the confluence of the Nile, let alone its source.

At every overnight camp, Taita spent hours on his experiments, aided by four of Meren's youngest troopers who had volunteered to assist him.

They were honoured to work side by side with the mighty magus: it was a tale they would tell their grandchildren. When he presided over them they had no fear of demons and curses, for all had a blind faith in Taita's ability to protect them. They laboured night after night without complaint, but even the magus's genius could find no way to sweeten the stinking waters.

Seventeen days after they had set out from Karnak they reached the large temple complex dedicated to the goddess Hathor on the riverbank

at Kom Ombo. The high priestess extended the usual warm welcome to the celebrated magus. As soon as Taita had seen his helpers put copper pots upon the fires to boil the Nile water, he left them to it and went to the inner sanctuary of the temple.

No sooner had he entered it than he became aware of a benevolent influence. He went to the image of the cow goddess, and sat cross-legged before it. Since Demeter had warned him that the images of Lostris he was receiving were almost certainly untrustworthy, conjured by the witch to deceive and confuse him, he had not dared to invoke her presence.

However, in this place he felt he had the protection of Hathor, one of the most powerful goddesses in the pantheon. As patroness of all women, surely she would shield Lostris in her sanctuary.

He prepared himself mentally by reciting aloud three times the rites of approach to a deity, then opened his Inner Eye and waited quietly in the shadowy silences. Gradually the silence was broken by his own pulse beating in his ears, the harbinger of a spiritual presence drawing near to him. It grew stronger and he waited for the sensation of cold to envelop him, prepared to break off the contact at the first touch of frost in the air. The sanctuary remained quiet and pleasantly warm. His sense of security and peace increased and he drifted towards sleep. He closed his eyes and beheld a vision of limpid water, then heard a sweet, childlike voice call his name: 'Taita, I am coming to you!' He saw something flash in the depths of the water, and thought a silver fish was rising to the surface. Then he saw that he had been mistaken: it was the slim white body of a child swimming towards him. A head broke the surface, and he saw that she was a girl of about twelve. Her long sodden hair streamed down over her face and tiny breasts in a golden veil.

'I heard you call.' The laughter was a happy sound, and he laughed in sympathy. The child swam towards him, reached a white sandbank just below the surface and stood up. She was a girl: although her hips had not yet taken on feminine curves, and the outline of her ribs was all that adorned her torso, there was a tiny hairless crease between her thighs.

'Who are you?' he asked. With a toss of her head she threw back her hair to reveal her face. His heart swelled until it hampered his breathing.

It was Lostris.

'Fie on you that you do not know me, for I am Fenn,' she said. The name meant Moon Fish.

'I knew you all along,' Taita told her. 'You are exactly as you were when first I met you. I could never forget your eyes. They were then and still are the greenest and prettiest in all Egypt.'

'You lie, Taita. You did not recognize me.' She stuck out a pointed pink tongue.

'I taught you not to do that.'

'Then you did not teach me very well.'

'Fenn was your baby name,' he reminded her. 'When you showed your first red moon, the priests changed it to your woman's name.'

'Daughter of the Waters.' She grimaced at him. “I never liked it.

“Lostris” sounds so silly and stuffy. I much prefer “Fenn”.'

'Then Fenn you shall be,' he told her.

“I will be waiting for you,' she promised. 'I came with a gift for you, but now I must go back. They are calling me.' She dived gracefully, deep under the surface, her arms along her flanks, kicking with her slim legs to drive herself deeper. Her hair billowed behind her like a golden flag.

'Come back!' he called after her. 'You must tell me where you will wait for me.' But she was gone, and only a faint echo of laughter floated back to him.

When he woke he knew it was late for the temple lamps were guttering. He felt refreshed and exhilarated. He became aware that he was clutching something in his right hand. He opened his fist carefully and saw that he held a handful of white powder. He wondered if this was Fenn's gift. He lifted it to his nose and sniffed it cautiously.

'Lime!' he exclaimed. Every village along the river had a primitive kiln in which the peasants burned lumps of limestone to this powder.

They painted the walls of their huts and granaries with it: the white coating reflected the sun's rays, and kept the interiors cooler. He was about to throw it away, but restrained himself. 'The gift of a goddess should be treated with respect.' He smiled at his folly. He folded and knotted the handful of lime into the hem of his tunic and went out.

Meren was waiting for him at the doors to the sanctuary. 'Your men have prepared the river water for you, but they have waited long for you to come to them. They are tired from the journey and need to sleep.'

There was a gentle rebuke in Meren's tone. He took care of his own men. 'I hope that you do not plan to stay up all night over your stinking water-pots. I will come to fetch you before midnight, for I will not allow it.'

Taita ignored the threat and asked, 'Does Shofar have to hand the potions 1 prepared to treat the waters?'

Meren laughed. 'As he remarked, they stink worse than the red waters.' He led Taita to where the four pots bubbled and steamed. His helpers, who had been squatting around the fires, scrambled to their feet,

thrust long poles through the handles of the pots and lifted them off the flames. Taita waited for the water to cool sufficiently, then went along the row of pots adding his potions to them. Shofar stirred each one with a wooden paddle. As he was about to treat the final pot Taita paused.

'The gift of Fenn,' he murmured, and untied the knot in the hem of his tunic. He poured the lime into the last pot. For good measure he made a pass with the golden Periapt of Lostris over the mixture, and intoned a word of power: 'Ncube!'

The four helpers exchanged an awed glance.

'Leave the pots to cool until morning,' Taita ordered, 'and go to your rest. You have done well. I thank you.'

The minute Taita stretched out on his sleeping mat he fell into a deathlike slumber, untroubled by dreams or even Meren's snores. At dawn when they awoke Shofar was at the door with a huge grin on his face. 'Come swiftly, mighty Magus. We have something for your comfort.'

They hurried to the pots beside the cold ashes of last night's fires.

Habari and the other captains stood to attention at the head of their troopers, all drawn up in review order. They beat their sword scabbards against their shields and cheered as though Taita were a victorious general taking possession of the battleground. 'Quiet!' Taita groused.

'You will split my skull.' But they cheered him all the louder.

The first three pots were filled with a nauseating black stew, but the water in the fourth was clear. He scooped out a handful and tasted it gingerly. It was not sweet, but redolent with the earthy flavour that had sustained them all since childhood: the familiar taste of Nile mud.

From then on, at each overnight camp, they boiled and limed the pots of river water, and in the mornings, before they set out, they filled the waterskins. No longer weakened by thirst, the horses recovered and the pace of the march quickened. Nine days later they reached Assoun.

Ahead lay the first of the six great cataracts. They were formidable obstacles for boats, but horses could take the caravan road round them.

In the town of Assoun, Meren rested the horses and men for three days, and replenished their grain bags at the royal granary. He allowed the troopers to fortify themselves against the rigours of the next long leg of the journey by recourse to the joy-houses along the waterfront.

Conscious of his new rank and responsibility, he himself greeted the blandishments and bold-eyed invitations of the local beauties with feigned indifference.

The pool below the first cataract had shrivelled to a puddle so Taita had no need of a boatman to row him to the tiny rock island on which

stood the great temple of Isis. Its walls were chiselled with gigantic images of the goddess, her husband, Osiris, and Horus, her son. Wind smoke carried Taita across to it, her hoofs ringing on the rocky riverbed.

All of the priests were assembled to greet him, and he spent the next three days with them.

They had little news for him of conditions in Nubia to the south. In the good times when the flood of the Nile had been reliable, strong and true there had been a large fleet of trading vessels plying the river up to Qebui, at the confluence of the two Niles. They returned with ivory, the dried meat and skins of wild animals, baulks of timber, bars of copper, and gold nuggets from the mines along the Atbara river, the principal tributary of the Nile. Now that the flood had failed and the waters that remained in the pools along the way had turned to blood, few travellers braved the dangerous road through the deserts on foot or horseback.

The priests warned that the southern road and the hills along its way had become the home of criminals and outcasts.

Once again he enquired after the preachers of the false goddess. They told him that it was rumoured Soe prophets had appeared from the wastes and made their way northwards towards Karnak and the delta, but none had had contact with them.

When night fell Taita retired to the inner sanctuary of the mother goddess Isis and, under her protection, felt at ease to meditate and pray.

Although he invoked his patron goddess, he received no direct response from her during the first two nights of his vigil. Nevertheless he felt stronger and better prepared to face the challenges that lay ahead on the road to Qebui and in the uncharted lands and swamps beyond. His inevitable confrontation with Eos seemed less daunting. His strengthened body and resolve might have been the result of hard riding in the company of young troopers and officers, and the spiritual disciplines he had observed since leaving Thebes, but it gave him pleasure to think that the close proximity of the goddess Lostris, or Fenn, as she now chose to be known, had armed him for the struggle.

On the last morning, as the first light of dawn roused him, he asked again for Isis's blessing and protection, and for those of any other gods who might be near. As he was about to leave the sanctuary he cast a last glance at the statue of Isis, which was hewn from a monolith of red granite. It towered to the roof and the head was shrouded in shadow, the stone eyes staring ahead implacably. He stooped to pick up his staff from beside the rug of plaited papyrus on which he had passed the night. Before he could straighten, the pulse started to beat softly in his

ears, but he experienced no chill on his naked upper body. He looked up to see that the statue was gazing down at him. The eyes had come alive and glowed a luminous green. They were Fenn's eyes and their expression was as gentle as that of a mother watching an infant asleep at her breast.

'Fenn,' he whispered. 'Lostris, are you here?' The echo of her laughter came from the stone vaulting high above his head, but he could see only the dark shape of bats flitting back to their roosts.

His eyes switched back to the statue. The stone head was alive now, and it was Fenn's. 'Remember, I am waiting for you,' she whispered.

'Where will I find you? Tell me where to look,' he begged.

'Where else would you search for a moon fish?' she teased him. 'You will find me hiding among the other fishes.'

'But where are the fishes?' he pleaded. Already her living features were hardening into stone, and the brilliant eyes dulling.

'Where?' he cried. 'When?'

'Beware the prophet of darkness. He carries a knife. He also waits for you,' she whispered sadly. 'Now I must go. She will not let me stay longer.'

'Who will not let you stay? Isis or another?' To utter the name of the witch in this holy place would be sacrilege. But the statue's lips had frozen.

Hands tugged at his upper arm. He started and looked around, expecting another apparition to materialize, but he saw only the anxious face of the high priest, who said, 'Magus, what ails you? Why do you cry out?'

'It was a dream, just a foolish dream.'

'Dreams are never foolish. You of all people should know that. They are warnings and messages from the gods.'

He took his leave of the holy men, and went out to the stables.

Windsmoke ran to meet him, kicking up her heels playfully, a bunch of hay stalks dangling from the corner of her mouth.

'They have been spoiling you, you fat old strumpet. Look at you now, cavorting like a foal, you with your big belly,' Taita scolded her lovingly.

During their sojourn in Karnak a careless groom had let one of Pharaoh's favourite stallions reach her. Now she quietened and stood still to let him mount, then carried him to where Meren's troopers were breaking camp. When the column was ready, the men standing by their horses'

heads, with the spare mounts and the pack mules on lead reins, Meren went down the ranks checking weapons and equipment, making certain

that each man had his copper water-pot and a bag of lime strapped to the back of the mule.

'Mount!' he roared from the head of the column. 'Move out! Walk!

Trot!' A train of weeping women followed them to the foot of the hills, where they fell back, unable to keep up with the pace that Meren set.

'Bitter the parting, but sweet the memories,' Hilto-bar-Hilto remarked, and his platoon chuckled.

'Nay, Hilto,' Meren called from the head of the column. 'The sweeter the flesh, the sweeter the memories!'

They roared with laughter and drummed on the shields with their scabbards.

'They laugh now,' Taita said drily, 'but let us see if they still laugh in the furnace of the desert.'

They looked down into the gorge of the cataract. There was no rush of angry waters. The vicious rocks, which were usually a hazard to shipping, were now exposed and dry, black as the backs of a herd of wild buffalo. At the top end, on a bluff overlooking the gorge, stood a tall granite obelisk. While the men watered their steeds and the mules, Taita and Meren climbed the cliff to the monument and stood at its foot. Taita read aloud the inscription:

'I, Queen Lostris, regent of Egypt and widow of Pharaoh Mamose, eighth of that name, mother of the crown prince Memnon, who shall rule the Two Kingdoms after me, have ordained the raising of this monument.

This is the mark and covenant of my vow to the people of this very Egypt, that I shall return to them from the wilderness whence I have been driven by the barbarian.

This stone was placed here in the first year of my rule, the nine-hundredth after the building of the great pyramid of Pharaoh Cheops.

Let this stone stand immovable as the pyramid until I make good my promise to return.'

As the memories flooded back, Taita's eyes filled with tears. He remembered her on the day they had raised the obelisk: Lostris had been twenty, proud in her royalty and womanly glory.

'It was on this spot that Queen Lostris placed the Gold of Praise upon my shoulders,' he told Meren. 'It was heavy, but less precious to me than her favour.' They went down to the horses and rode on.

The desert enveloped them like the flames of a mighty bonfire. They could not ride during the day, so they boiled and limed the river water, then lay in any shade they could find, panting like hard-run hounds.

When the sun touched the western horizon, they rode on through the night. In places the gaunt cliffs crowded the riverbank so closely that they could only ride in single file along the narrow track. They passed tumbledown huts that had once given shelter to travellers who had gone before them, but they were deserted. They found no fresh sign of any human presence until the tenth day after they had left Assoun when they came across another cluster of abandoned huts beside what had been a deep pool. One had been recently occupied: the ashes on the hearth were still fresh and crisp. As soon as Taita entered it, he sensed the faint but unmistakable taint of the witch. As his eyes adjusted to the shadows, he made out writing in hieratic script that had been scratched on the wall with a stick of charcoal.

'Eos is great. Eos cometh.' Not long ago, one of the witch's adherents had passed this way. His footprints were still in the dust of the floor at the bottom of the wall where he had stood to write the exhortation.

It was almost sunrise, and the heat of the day was coming swiftly upon them. Meren ordered the column to make camp. Even the ruined huts would afford some shelter from the cruel sun. While this was happening and before the heat became unbearable, Taita cast around for other traces of the Eos worshipper. In a patch of loose earth on the stony track that led south he found hoofprints. By their set he could tell that the horse must have carried a heavy load. The tracks were heading south, towards Qebui. Taita called Meren, and asked, 'How old are these tracks?'

Meren was an expert scout and tracker.

'Impossible to be certain, Magus. More than three days, less than ten.'

'Then already the Eos worshipper is far ahead of us.'

A they turned back for the shelter of the huts a pair of dark eyes watched their every move from the hills above the camp. The dark brooding gaze was that of Soe, the prophet of Eos who had bewitched Queen Mintaka. It was he who had written the inscription on the wall of the hut. Now he regretted having announced his presence.

He lay in a patch of shade thrown by the crags above him. Three days previously his horse had stepped into a cleft in the rocks on the path and broken its foreleg. Within an hour a pack of hyenas had arrived to pull

down the crippled animal. While it still screamed and kicked they ripped chunks of flesh from it and devoured them. Soe had drunk the last of his water during the previous night. Stranded in this terrible place he had resigned himself to death, which could not be long delayed.

Then unexpectedly, and to his great joy, he had heard hoofs coming up the valley. Rather than rush down to greet the newcomers and beg to accompany them, he had spied upon them warily from his hiding place.

He recognized the troop immediately it came into sight as a detachment of the royal cavalry. They were well equipped and superbly mounted. It was plain that they were on a special assignment, possibly on the orders of the pharaoh himself. It was even possible that they had been sent to apprehend him and drag him back to Karnak. He knew that he had been noticed at the ford of the Nile below Thebes by the magus Taita, and that the magus was a confidant of Queen Mintaka. It did not need a stretch of the imagination to realize that she had probably confided in him, and that he knew of Soe's involvement with the queen. Soe was patently guilty of sedition and treason and would stand no chance before a tribunal of Pharaoh. Those were the reasons why he had fled Karnak.

Now he recognized Taita among the troopers camped below where he lay.

Soe studied the horses that were tethered among the huts on the riverbank. It was not clear which he needed most to ensure his survival: a horse or the bulging waterskins that a trooper was offloading from his pack mule. When it came to his choice of a mount, the mare that Taita had tethered outside his hut was indubitably the strongest and finest of them all. Even though she was with foal, she would be Soe's first choice, if he could reach her.

There was a great deal of activity in the camp. Horses were being fed and watered, copper pots were being carried up from the river pool and placed on the fires at which men were busy preparing food. When the meal was ready, the troopers divided into four platoons and squatted in separate circles around the communal pots. The sun was well above the horizon before they found a little shade in which to settle down. A somnolent silence fell over the camp. Soe marked the position of the sentries carefully. There were four at intervals round the periphery. He saw that his best approach would be along the dry riverbed, so he gave the sentry on that side his full attention. When he had not moved for some considerable time, Soe decided that he was dozing. He slipped down the flank of the hill, screened from the eyes of the more alert sentry on the near-side boundary. He reached the dry river course half a league

below the camp and made his way quietly upstream. When he was opposite it he raised his head slowly above the top of the bank.

A sentry was sitting cross-legged only twenty paces away. His chin was on his chest and his eyes were closed. Soe ducked below the bank again, stripped off his black robe and bundled it under his arm. He tucked his sheathed dagger into his loincloth and climbed to the top of the bank.

Boldly he headed for the hut behind which the grey mare was tethered.

In nothing more than a loincloth and sandals he could try to pass himself off as a legionary. If he was challenged he could reply, in fluent, colloquial Egyptian, that he had gone to the riverbed to attend to his private business. However, no one challenged him. He reached the corner of the hut and ducked round it.

The mare was tethered just beyond the open doorway, and a full water skin lay in the shade of the wall. It would be the work of a few seconds to swing it over the mare's withers. He always rode bareback and needed no saddle blanket or rope stirrups. He crept up to the mare and stroked her neck. She turned her head and sniffed his hand, then shifted restlessly, but quieted again as he murmured to her soothingly and patted her shoulder. Then he went to the waterskin. It was heavy but he lifted it and threw it over her back. He slipped the knot of her halter rope and was on the point of mounting when a voice called to him from the open doorway of the hut, 'Beware the false prophet. I was warned about you, Soe.'

Startled, he glanced over his shoulder. The magus stood in the doorway.

He was naked. His body was lean and muscled like that of a much younger man, but the terrible scar of the old gelding wound showed silver in his crotch. His hair and beard were in disarray, but his eyes were bright. He raised his voice in a loud cry of alarm: 'On me, the guards!

Hilto, Habari! Meren! Here, Shabako!' At once the cry was taken up and shouted across the camp.

Soe hesitated no longer. He swung up on to Windsmoke's back and urged her away. Taita threw himself into her path and seized her halter rope. The mare came to such a sudden halt that Soe was thrown on to her neck. 'Stand aside, you old fool!' he shouted angrily.

He carries a knife. Fenn's warning echoed in Taita's head, and he saw the flash of a dagger in Soe's right hand as he leant down from Windsmoke's back to slash. If he had not been forewarned Taita would have received the thrust full in the throat, where it was aimed, but he had just enough time to duck to one side. The point of the dagger caught him high in the shoulder. He stumbled backwards, blood streaming down

his shoulder and flank. Soe urged the mare forward to run him down.

Clutching the wound, Taita whistled sharply and Windsmoke shied again, then bucked furiously and hurled Soe headlong into the fire, knocking over the water-pot in a hissing cloud of steam. Soe crawled off the hot coals, but before he could regain his feet two burly troopers pounced on him and pinned him to the dust.

“Tis a little trick I taught the mare,' Taita told Soe quietly, and picked the dagger out of the dust where he had dropped it. He placed the point against the soft skin of Soe's temple just in front of the ear.

'Lie still or I will skewer your head like a ripe pomegranate.'

Meren rushed from the hut naked, sword in hand. He took in the situation instantly, and pressed the bronze point into the back of Soe'sI neck, then looked up at Taita. 'The swine has wounded you. Shall I kill him, Magus?'

'No!' Taita told him. 'This is Soe, the false prophet of the false¦ goddess.'

'By Seth's sweaty testicles, I recognize him now. It was he who set the_ toads on Demeter at the ford.”¦ 'One and the same,' Taita agreed. 'Bind him well. As soon as I have seen to this cut I desire to converse with him.'¦ When Taita emerged from the hut a short while later, Soe was trussed up like a pig for market and laid in the full glare of the sun.

They had stripped him naked, to ensure he had no other blade concealed, and already his skin was reddening under the caress of the sun.

Hilto and Shabako were standing over him with drawn swords. Meren placed a stool with a seat of leather thongs in the shade thrown by the wall of the hut, and Taita took his ease upon it. He took time to survey Soe with the vision of the Inner Eye: the man's aura was unchanged from the last time he had scried it, angry and confused.

At length Taita began to ask a series of simple questions to which he already knew the answers so that he could watch how Soe's aura reacted to either the truth or a lie.

'You are known as Soe?'

Soe glared at him in silent defiance. 'Prick him,' Taita ordered Shabako, 'in the leg and not too deeply.' Shabako delivered a finely judged stab. Soe jumped, shrieked and twisted against his bonds. There was a thin trickle of blood on his thigh.

'I shall begin again,' Taita told him. 'You are Soe?'

'Yes,' he grated, through clenched teeth. His aura burned steadily.

Truth, Taita confirmed silently.

'You are an Egyptian?'

Soe kept his mouth closed and stared at him sullenly.

Taita nodded at Shabako. 'The other leg.'

'I am,' Soe answered quickly. His aura remained unchanged. Truth.

'You preached to Queen Mintaka?'

'Yes.' The truth again.

'You have promised her that you will bring her dead children back to life?'

'No.' Soe's aura was suddenly shot through with greenish light.

The sign of a lie, Taita thought. He had the yardstick against which to measure Soe's next replies.

'Forgive my lack of hospitality, Soe. Are you thirsty?'

Soe licked his dry, cracked lips. 'Yes!' he whispered. Clearly the truth.

'Where are your manners, Colonel Meren? Bring our honoured guest some water.'

Meren grinned and went to the waterskin. He filled a wooden drinking bowl, and came back to kneel beside Soe. He held the brimming bowl to the parched lips, and Soe gulped huge mouthfuls. Coughing, gasping and panting in his eagerness, he drained the bowl. Taita gave him a few moments to regain his breath.

'So, are you scurrying back to your mistress?'

'No,' mumbled Soe. The green tinge to his aura marked the lie.

'Is her name Eos?'

'Yes.' Truth.

'Do you believe she is a goddess?'

'The only goddess. The one supreme deity.' The truth again, very much so.

'Have you come face to face with her?'

'No!' Lie.

'Has she allowed you to gqima her yet?' Deliberately Taita used the coarse soldier's word to provoke the man. The original meaning had been 'to run', which was what a soldier in a victorious army had to do to catch the womenfolk of the defeated enemy.

'No!' It was shouted with fury. Truth.

'Has she promised to gijima you when you have obeyed all her commands, and secured Egypt for her?'

'No.' It was said softly. Lie. Eos had offered him a reward for his loyalty.

'Do you know where she has her lair?'

'No.' Lie.

'Does she live near a volcano?'I 'No.' Lie.,!

'Does she live beside a great lake in the south beyond the swamps?'

'No.' Lie.

'Is she a cannibal?'

'I do not know.' Lie.

'Does she devour human infants?'

“I do not know.' Lie again.

'Does she lure wise and powerful men into her lair, then strip them of all their knowledge and powers before she destroys them?'

'I know nothing of this.' A great and veritable lie.

'How many men has she copulated with, this whore of all the worlds?

A thousand? Ten thousand?'

'Your questions are blasphemous. You will be punished for them.'

'As she punished Demeter, the magus and savant? On her behalf, did you send the toads to attack him?'

'Yes! He was an apostate, a traitor. It was a judgement he richly deserved. I will listen no longer to your filth. Kill me, if you like, but I will say no more.' Soe struggled against the ropes that held him. His breathing was hoarse and his eyes were wild. The eyes of a fanatic.

'Meren, our guest is overwrought. Let him rest awhile. Then peg him out where the morning sun can warm him. Take him outside the camp, but not so far that we cannot hear him sing when he is ready to converse once more, or when the hyenas find him.'

Meren strung the rope round his shoulders and began to drag him away. Then he paused and looked back at Taita. 'Are you certain that you have no further use for him, Magus? He has told us nothing.'

'He has told us everything,' said Taita. 'He has bared his soul.'

'Take his legs,' Meren ordered Shabako and Tonka, and between them they carried Soe away. Taita heard them hammering the pegs to hold him on the baked earth. In the middle of the afternoon Meren went out speak to him again. The sun had raised fat white blisters across his belly and loins; his face was swollen and inflamed.

'The mighty magus invites you to continue your discussions with him,'

Meren told him. Soe tried to spit at him but could gather no saliva. His purple tongue filled his mouth, and the tip protruded between his front teeth. Meren let him lie.

The hyena pack found him a little before sunset. Even Meren, the hardened old veteran, was uneasy as their demented howling and giggling drew nearer.

'Shall I bring him in, Magus?' he asked.

Taita shook his head. 'Leave him. He has told us where to find the witch.'

'The hyenas will make it a cruel death, Magus.'

Taita sighed, and said quietly, 'The toads made Demeter's death as cruel. He is a minion of the witch. He spreads sedition through the kingdom. It is fitting that he should die, but not like this. Such cruelty will sit heavily on our consciences. It reduces us to his level of evil. Go out there and cut his throat.'

Meren came to his feet and drew his sword, then paused and cocked his head. 'Something is amiss. The hyenas are silent.'

'Quickly, Meren. Go and find out what is happening,' Taita ordered sharply.

Meren ran out into the gathering darkness. Moments later his voice echoed from the hills in a wild shout. Taita jumped up and ran after him. 'Meren, where are you?'

'Here, Magus.'

Taita found him standing on the spot where they had pegged Soe down, but he was gone. 'What happened, Meren? What did you see?'

'Witchcraft!' Meren stuttered. 'I saw—' He broke off, at a loss to describe what he had seen.

'What was it?' Taita urged. 'Tell me quickly.'

'A monstrous hyena as large as a horse, with Soe upon its back. It must have been his familiar. It galloped off into the hills, bearing him away. Shall I follow them?'

'You will not catch them,' Taita said. 'Instead you will place yourself in mortal peril. Eos possesses even greater powers than I had thought possible to have rescued Soe at such a great distance. Let him go now.

We will reckon with him at some other time and place.'

They went on, night after stifling night, week after wearying week, and month after gruelling month. The knife wound in Taita's shoulder healed cleanly in the hot dry air, but the horses sickened and faltered, and the men were flagging long before they reached the second cataract. This was where Taita and Queen Lostris had rested for a season to await the renewed flood of the Nile, which would ensure sufficient depth for the galleys to surmount the cataract. Taita looked down upon the settlement they had built: the stone walls were

still standing - the ruins of the crude royal palace he had built to shelter Lostris. Those were the lands where they had planted the dhurra crop, still demarcated by the furrows of the wooden ploughshare. Those were the stands of tall trees from which they had cut the timber to build chariots and repair the battered hulls of the galleys. The trees were still alive, sustained by the deep roots that reached down to the underground pools and streams. Over there was the forge that the coppersmiths had built.

'Magus, look to the pool below the cataract!' Meren had ridden up beside him and his excited cry interrupted Taita's memories. He looked in the direction Meren was pointing. Was it a trick of the early light? he wondered.

'Look at the colour of the water! It is no longer blood red. The pool is green - as green as a sweet melon.'

'It might be another ruse of the witch.' Taita doubted his eyes, but already Meren was racing down the slope, standing high in his stirrups and yelling, his men following him. Taita and Windsmoke maintained a more sedate and dignified pace to the edge of the pool, which was lined now with men, horses and mules. The animals' heads were down and they were sucking up the green water like shadoofs, the waterwheels of the peasant farmers, as the men scooped handfuls to pour it over their own faces and down their throats.

Windsmoke sniffed the water suspiciously, then began to drink. Taita loosened her girth rope to allow her belly to expand. Like a pig's bladder, she blew up before his eyes. He left her to it, and waded out into the pool, then sat down. The tepid water reached his chin and he closed his eyes, an ecstatic smile on his face.

'Magus!' Meren called from the bank. 'This is your doing, I am sure.

You have cured the river of her foul disease. Is it not so?'

Meren's faith in him was limitless and touching. It would not do to disappoint him. Taita opened his eyes to see that a hundred men were waiting attentively for his reply. It was also prudent to build their trust in him. He smiled at Meren, then dropped his right eyelid in an enigmatic wink. Meren looked smug and the men cheered. They waded into the pool, still in sandals and shirts, and splashed sheets of water at each other, then wrestled each other's heads beneath the surface. Taita left them to their revelry and waded to the bank. By this time Windsmoke was so bloated with both water and foal that she waddled rather than walked. He took her to roll in the crisp white river sand and sat

I

down. While he watched her he pondered the change in their fortunes and the miracle of the clear water that Meren had ascribed to him.

This is as far as the contamination has spread, he decided. From here southwards the river will be clear. Wasted and shrivelled, but clear.

They camped that morning in the shade of the grove.

'Magus, I plan to stay at this place until the horses are recovered. If we go on immediately we will begin to lose them,' Meren said.

Taita nodded. 'You are wise,' he said. 'I know this place well. I lived here for a full season during the great exodus. There are plants in the forest whose leaves the horses will eat. They are rich in nutrients and will put fat and condition on them within days.' And Windsmoke will soon drop her foal. It will have a better chance of survival here than out in the desert, Taita thought but did not say.

Meren was speaking animatedly: 'I saw the tracks of oryx near the pool. The men will enjoy hunting them, and be grateful for the fine meat. We can dry and smoke the rest to take with us when we ride again.'

Taita stood up. 'I will go to search out fodder for the animals.'

'I will come with you. I want to see more of this little paradise.' They wandered together among the trees and Taita pointed out edible shrubs and vines. They were desert adapted and hardened to the drought conditions. Sheltered from direct sunlight by the tall trees, they were thriving. They gathered armfuls, and took them back to camp.

Taita offered samples of the wild harvest to Windsmoke. After due consideration she nibbled one of his offerings, then nuzzled him for more.

Taita assembled a large foraging party and took the men into the forest to show them the edible plants and to harvest them. Meren took a second party, and they scouted at the edge of the forest for game. Two large antelopes were disturbed by the sound of axes and ran within easy arrow shot of the hunters.

When the warm carcasses were brought into camp to be butchered, Taita examined them carefully. The male carried stout horns, and had a dark, beautifully patterned hide. The female was hornless and more delicately built, her coat red brown and soft. 'I recognize these beasts,' he said. 'The males are aggressive when brought to bay. During the exodus one of our hunters was gored by a big buck. It severed the blood vessel in his groin and he bled to death before his companions could summon me. However, the flesh is delicious, the kidneys and liver in particular.'

While they were encamped at the pools Meren allowed his men to

return to the diurnal pattern of activity. After they had fed the horses, he set them to build a sturdy and readily defensible stockade of logs cut in the forest to accommodate the horses and themselves. They feasted that evening on antelope meat grilled on the fire, wild spinach and herbs that Taita had selected, with rounds of dhurra bread hot off the coals.

Before he retired to his mattress, Taita wandered down to the pool to study the night sky. The last vestige of the Star of Lostris had disappeared, but there were no other celestial phenomena of import. He meditated for a while, but sensed no psychic presence. Since the escape of Soe, the witch seemed to have lost contact with him.

He returned to the camp and found only the sentries still awake. In a whisper, so that he did not disturb the sleepers, he wished them a safe watch then went to his sleeping mat.

Windsmoke woke him by nuzzling his face. Sleepily he pushed away her head, but she was insistent. He sat up. 'What is it, my sweet? What ails you?' She kicked at her belly with a back foot, and gave a soft groan that alarmed him. He stood up and ran his hands over her head and neck, then down her flank. Deep in her swollen belly he felt the strong contractions of her womb. She groaned again, spread her back legs apart, raised her tail high and urinated. Then she nuzzled her flank. Taita placed one arm round her neck and led her to the far end of the stockade.

He knew how important it was to keep her quiet. If she was disturbed or alarmed the contractions might stop and delay the birth. He squatted to watch over her in the moonlight. She fretted and shifted restlessly, then lay down and rolled on to her back.

'What a clever girl,' he encouraged her. She was instinctively positioning the foal correctly for birth. She came to her feet and stood with her head down. Then her belly heaved and the waters broke. She turned and licked the grass on which the fluid had spilled. Now her tail was towards him and he saw the pale opaque bulge of the birth sac appear beneath it.

She heaved again, contracting strongly and regularly. Through the thin membrane he discerned the outline of a pair of tiny hoofs then, with each contraction, the fetlocks appeared. At last, to his relief, a little black muzzle peeped out between them. He would not be called on to perform a breech delivery.

'Bak-her.1' he applauded her. 'Well done, my darling.' He restrained the urge to go to her assistance. She was doing perfectly well on her own, the contractions regular and strong.

The foal's head popped out. 'Grey like its mother,' he whispered, with pleasure. Then, abruptly, the entire sac and the foal within it were

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ejected. As it hit the ground the placenta parted and the sac was free.

Taita was amazed. It had been the swiftest of thousands of equine births he had witnessed. Already the foal was struggling to break out of the membrane.

'Fast as a whirlwind.' Taita smiled. 'That shall be its name.' Wind smoke watched her newborn's struggles with interest. At last the membrane tore and the colt, for a colt he was, heaved himself upright and stood swaying drunkenly. He was breathing deeply from his efforts, his silvery flanks heaving.

'Good!' Taita said softly. 'Good brave boy.' Windsmoke gave her foal a hearty maternal lick of welcome that almost knocked him down again.

He staggered but recovered his balance. Then she started the process in earnest: with long firm strokes of her tongue, she scrubbed off the amniotic fluid. Then she moved to place her swollen udder within easy reach. Already the milk was dripping from her waxed teats. The colt sniffed at them, then latched on to one like a limpet. He gave furious suck, and Taita stole away. His presence was no longer needed or desirable.

At daybreak the troopers came to admire mother and baby. Horsemen all, they knew better than to crowd them. At a discreet distance they pointed out to each other the new foal's shapely head and long back.

'Good deep chest,' said Shabako. 'He will be a stayer. He will run all day.'

'Front legs not splayed or pigeon-toed. He will be fast,' said Hilto.

'Hindquarters finely balanced, neither sickle-hocked nor hip-shot. Yes, fast as the wind,' said Tonka.

'What will you call him, Magus?' Meren asked.

'Whirlwind.'

'Yes,' they agreed at once. 'A good name for him.'

Within ten days Whirlwind was frolicking around his dam, butting her udder fiercely when she did not let down her milk fast enough for his appetite.

'Greedy little fellow,' Taita observed. 'Already he is strong enough to follow when we go on.'

Meren waited another few days for the rise of the full1 moon before he took once more to the south road. As Taita rode down the column Meren saw him looking at the water-pots and lime bags strapped to the back of each pack mule. Hurriedly he explained, 'I am certain we will have no further need of them, but…'

He groped for an explanation.

Taita supplied it. 'They are too valuable to discard. We can sell them in Qebui.'

'Exactly what I had in mind.' Meren looked relieved. 'Not for an instant did I doubt the efficacy of your magic. I am sure that from now on we will find only good water ahead.'

So it proved. The next pool they came to was green and filled with huge catfish that had long barbels round their mouths. The shrinking pools had concentrated them in dense shoals so they were readily speared.

Their flesh was bright orange and rich with fat. They made delicious eating. Among the men Taita's reputation was now carved in marble and embossed in pure gold. The four captains and their troopers were ready to follow him to the ends of the earth, which was exactly what Pharaoh had ordered them to do.

Fodder for the horses was always in short supply, but Taita had passed that way before and hunted in the surrounding country. He led them on detours from the river to hidden valleys in which grew stands of a low, leathery desert shrub that seemed dead and desiccated, but buried beneath each plant an enormous tuber was filled with water and nutrients.

They were the staple diet of the oryx herds in hard times - they pawed them up with their hoofs. The troopers chopped them into chunks. At first the horses refused to touch them, but hunger soon overcame their reluctance. The men cached the water-pots and lime bags and replaced them with tubers.

They sustained the pace of the march over the ensuing months, but the weaker horses started to falter. When they broke down, the troopers despatched them with a sword blow between the ears that went deep into the skull. They left their bones to bleach in the sun. In all twenty two died before they faced the final obstacle: the Shabluka gorge, a narrow cutting through which the Nile forced its way.

Above the gorge the Nile, in spate, was almost a mile wide. However, through the gorge it was compressed to a hundred yards from one steep rocky bank to the other. When they camped below it they saw running

water for the first time since they had left Karnak. A thin stream emerged through the rocky chute and spilled into the pool below. However, it had not run more than a mile before it was sucked into the sands and vanished below them.

They ascended the Shabluka Ridge up a wild-goat track along the lip of the gorge. From the summit they looked southwards across the plains to a distant line of low blue hills. 'The Kerreri hills,' said Taita. 'They stand guard over the two Niles. Qebui is only some fifty leagues ahead.'

The course of the river was marked by groves of palm trees along each bank, and they followed the western bank towards the hills. The river flowed stronger as they drew nearer to Qebui and their spirits rose. They covered the last leg of the journey in a single day and at last stood at the confluence of the Nile.

Qebui was the outpost at the furthest limit of the Egyptian domain.

The small fort housed the governor of the nome and a detachment of border guards. The town spread out along the southern bank. It was a trading post, but even at this distance they could see that many buildings were run-down and abandoned. All trade with Mother Egypt in the north had been strangled by the failure of the Nile. Few were prepared to take a caravan along the perilous road that Taita, Meren and their men had negotiated.

'This flow of water comes down from the highlands of Ethiopia.' Taita pointed to the wide, eastern river course. The water was running and they could see shadoof wheels turning along the far bank as they lifted the water into the irrigation channels. Wide fields of green dhurra surrounded the town.

'I expect to find good supplies of grain here to fatten the horses.'

Meren smiled with pleasure.

'Yes,' Taita agreed. 'We shall have to rest now until they are fully recovered.' He patted Windsmoke's neck. She was sadly out of condition: her ribs were showing and her coat was dull. Even though Taita had shared his ration of dhurra with her, feeding her foal and the rigours of the journey had taken their toll on her.

Taita turned his attention to the eastern fork of the river. 'That is the way Queen Lostris led the exodus,' he said. 'We sailed the galleys as far as the mouth of another steep gorge which they could not surmount, anchored them there and went on with chariots and wagons. In the mountains the queen and I chose the site of Pharaoh Mamose's tomb.

I designed it and concealed it most cunningly. I have no doubt it has never been discovered and desecrated. Nor will it be.' For a short while

he reflected on his achievement with satisfaction, then went on, 'The Ethiopians have fine horses, but they are warriors and fiercely defend their mountain fastnesses. They have driven back two of our armies sent to subdue them and bring them into the empire. I fear that there will never be a third attempt.' He turned and pointed directly down the southern branch of the river. It was wider than the eastern fork, but it was dry, not even a trickle moving in its bed. 'That is the direction we must follow. After a few short leagues the river enters the swamp that has already swallowed two armies without trace. However, if we are fortunate we will find it much reduced. Perhaps we might find an easier way through it than the others did. With judicious use of the royal Hawk Seal we will be able to procure from the governor native guides to lead us. Come, let us cross to Qebui.'

The governor had been stranded at this outpost for the seven years of the drought. His name was Nara, and he was bent and yellowed after constant attacks of swamp-fever, but his garrison was in much better case. They were well fed with dhurra, and their horses were fat. Once Meren had shown him the royal seal and informed him of Taita's identity, Nara's hospitality was unbounded. He ushered Taita and Meren to the guesthouse in the fort and placed the best rooms at their disposal.

He sent slaves to attend them and his own cooks to prepare their meals, then threw open his armoury for them to re-equip their men.

'Choose the horses you need from the remount depot. Tell my quartermaster how much dhurra and hay you require. There is no need to stint.

We are well provisioned.'

When Meren inspected the men in their new quarters he found them well content. 'The rations are excellent. There are not many women in the town but those few are friendly. The horses and mules are filling their bellies with dhurra and green grass. No one has any complaint,'

Hilto reported.

After his long exile Governor Nara was eager for news of the civilized world, and hungry for the company of sophisticated men. In particular Taita's learned dissertations fascinated him. Most evenings he invited him and Meren to dine with him. When Taita revealed to him their intention to ride south through the swamps, Nara looked grave.

'Nobody returns from the lands beyond the swamps. I believe implicitly that they lead to the end of the earth and those who go there are swept over the edge into the abyss.' Then, hastily, he adopted a more optimistic tone: these men bore the royal Hawk Seal and he should encourage them in their duty. 'Of course, there is no reason why you should not be the

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first to reach the end of the earth and return safely. Your men are tough and you have the magus with you.' He bowed to Taita. 'What more can I do to assist you? You know you have only to ask.'

'Do you have native scouts to guide us?' Taita asked.

'Oh, yes,' Nara assured him. 'I have men who come from somewhere out there.'

'Do you know what tribe they belong to?'

'No, but they are tall, very black and tattooed with strange designs.'

'Then they are probably Shilluk,' Taita said, pleased. 'During the exodus General Lord Tanus recruited several regiments of the Shilluk.

They are intelligent men and readily instructed. Although they are of cheerful disposition, they are fearsome fighters.'

'That would describe them well enough,' Governor Nara agreed.

'Whatever their tribe, they seem to know the country well. The two men I have in mind have worked with the army for some years, and have learnt a little of the Egyptian language. I will send them to you in the morning.'

In the dawn when Taita and Meren left their quarters they found two Nubians squatting against the wall of the courtyard. When they rose to their feet they towered even over Meren. Their lean frames were sheathed in flat, hard muscle, decorated with intricate patterns of ritual scarring, and their skin shone with oil or fat. They wore short skirts of animal skin, and carried long spears with barbed heads carved from bone.

'I see you. Men!' Taita greeted them in Shilluk. Men was a term of approbation, used only between warriors, and their handsome Nilotic faces lit with delight.

'I see you, ancient and wise one,' the taller man replied. Those also were terms of reverence and respect. Taita's silver beard had made a deep impression on them. 'But how is it that you speak our tongue so well?'

'Have you heard of Lion Liver?' Taita asked. The Shilluk considered the liver to be the seat of a man's courage.

'Hau! Haul' They were astonished. It was the name that their tribe had given Lord Tanus when they served under him. 'Our grandfather spoke of Lion Liver, for we are cousins. He fought for that man in the cold mountains of the east. He told us that Lion Liver was the father of all warriors.'

'Lion Liver was my brother and my friend,' Taita told them.

'Then you are truly old, older even than our grandfather.' They were even more impressed.

'Come, let us sit in the shade and converse.' Taita led them to the enormous fig tree in the centre of the courtyard.; They squatted in the council circle, facing each other, arid Taita questioned them closely. The elder cousin was their spokesman. His name was Nakonto, the Shilluk word for the short stabbing spear. 'For in battle I have slain many.' He was not boasting, but stating a fact.

'My cousin is Nontu for he is short.'

'All things are relative.' Taita smiled to himself: Nontu stood a full head taller than Meren.

'Where do you come from, Nakonto?'

'From beyond the swamps.' He indicated the south with his chin.

'Then you know the southern lands well?'

'They are our home.' For a moment he seemed wistful and nostalgic.

'Will you lead me to your home?'

'I dream every night of standing by the graves of my father and grandfather,' Nakonto said softly.

'Their spirits are calling you,' said Taita.

'You understand, old one.' Nakonto looked at him with deepening respect. 'When you leave Qebui, Nontu and I will go with you to show you the way.'

Two more full moons had shone down upon the pools of the Nile before the horses and their riders were fit to travel. On the night before their departure Taita dreamed of fishes in vast shoals, of every colour, shape and size.

You will find me hiding among the other fishes. Fenn's sweet, childish voice echoed through the dream. I will be waiting for you.

He woke in the dawn with feelings of happiness and soaring expectations.

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When they called on him to take their leave, Governor Nara told Taita, 'I am sad to see you go, Magus. Your company has done much to lighten the monotony of my duties here at Qebui. I hope it is not long before I have the pleasure of welcoming you back. I have a parting gift for you that I think you will find most useful.'

He took Taita's arm and led him out into the bright sunlight of the courtyard. There he presented him with five pack mules. Each carried two heavy sacks filled with glass beads. 'These baubles are much sought after by the primitive tribes of the interior. The men will sell their favourite wives for a handful.' He smiled. 'Although I cannot think of any reason why you would want to waste good beads on such unappealing goods as those women.'

When the column rode out from Qebui, the two Shilluk loped ahead, easily matching their speed to that of the trotting horses. They were tireless, keeping up the same pace for hour after hour. During the first two nights the men rode over wide scorched plains on the east bank of the wide dry riverbed. In the early morning of the third day when the column halted to make camp, Meren stood in his stirrups and gazed ahead. In the slanting sunlight he made out a low green wall that stretched unbroken across their horizon.

When Taita called Nakonto, he came to stand beside Windsmoke's head.

'What you see, old one, are the first papyrus beds.'

'They are green,' Taita said.

'The swamps of the Great Sud never dry. The pools are too deep and screened from the sun by the reeds.'

'Will they block our way?'

Nakonto shrugged. 'We will reach the reed banks after one more night's march. Then we shall see if the waters have shrunk enough to let the horses pass, or if we must make a wide circle out towards the eastern hills.' He shook his head. 'That will make the way to the south much longer.'

As Nakonto had predicted, they reached the papyrus the next night.

From the reed beds the men cut bundles of dried stalks and built low thatched shelters to protect themselves from the sun. Nakonto and Nontu vanished into the papyrus, and were gone for the next two days.

'Will we see them again,' Meren fretted, 'or have they run off to their village, like the wild animals they are?'

'They will return,' Taita assured him. “I know these people well. They are loyal and trustworthy.'

In the middle of the second night Taita was roused by the challenge of the sentries, and heard Nakonto reply from the papyrus stands. Then the two Shilluk materialized out of the darkness into which they had blended so perfectly.

'The way through the swamps is open,' Nakonto reported.

In the dawn the two guides led them into the papyrus. From there onwards it was no longer possible for even Nakonto to find the way in darkness, so they were forced to travel by day. The swamps were an alien, forbidding world. Even from horseback they could not see over the tops of the fluffy seedheads of the papyrus. They had to stand in the stirrups to view the undulating green ocean that stretched away before them to the infinite horizon. Over it hovered flocks of water-fowl, and the air was filled with the sound of their wings and their plaintive calls. Occasionally large beasts crashed away unseen, rippling the tops of the reeds. They could not guess at their species. The Shilluk glanced at the tracks they left in the mud, and Taita translated their descriptions. 'That was a herd of buffalo, great black wild cattle,' or 'That was a water goat. A strange brown creature with spiral horns that lives in the water. It has long hoofs to help it swim like a water rat.'

The ground under the papyrus was mostly wet, sometimes merely damp but often the water covered the horses' fetlocks. Nevertheless the little colt, Whirlwind, was well able to keep up with his dam. Pools were hidden in the reeds: some of these were small but others were extensive lagoons. The Shilluk, even though they were unable to see over the reeds, unerringly steered around or between them. The column was never forced to turn back to find an alternative route. When it was time to make camp each evening Nakonto was able to lead them to openings in the papyrus where the ground was dry. They built their cooking fires from bundles of dried stalks, and were careful not to allow the flames to escape into the standing reeds. The horses and mules wandered through the stagnant pools to eat the grasses and plants that grew in them.

Each evening Nakonto took his spear, waded out into one of the pools and stood poised like a hunting heron. When one of the big catfish swam close enough he would skewer it cleanly and lift it struggling, tail whipping, out of the water. In the meantime Nontu plaited a loose basket of reeds and placed it over his head, his eyes visible through the gaps in the weave. Then he left the bank and submerged his entire body until only his head, disguised by the reed basket, showed above the

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surface. He moved with infinite patience and caution to a flock of wild duck. When he was within range he reached out beneath the surface, grabbed a bird's legs and plucked it under. It did not have a chance to squawk before he had wrung its neck. In this way he could take five or six birds from a flock before the others became suspicious and took off with loud honks and clattering wings. Most evenings the company dined on fresh fish and roasted wild duck.

Stinging insects plagued men and animals. As soon as the sun set they rose in buzzing clouds from the surface of the pools, and the troopers huddled miserably in the smoke of the campfires to avoid their onslaught.

In the morning their faces were swollen and spotted with bites.

They had been travelling for twelve days before the first man showed symptoms of swamp-sickness. Soon, one after another, his comrades succumbed to it. They suffered from blinding headaches and uncontrollable shivering, even in the humid heat, and their skin was hot to the touch. But Meren would not break the march to let them recover. Each morning the stronger troopers helped the invalids to mount, then rode alongside them to hold them in their saddles. At night many babbled deliriously. In the morning dead bodies lay round the fires. On the twentieth day Captain Tonka died. They scraped a shallow grave for him in the mud, and rode on.

Some of those struck down threw off the disease, although their faces were left yellowed and they were weak and exhausted. A few, including Taita and Meren, were unaffected by the sickness.

Meren urged the fever-racked men on: 'The sooner we escape from these terrible swamps and their poisonous mists, the sooner you will recover your health.' Then he confided to Taita, 'I worry ceaselessly that should we lose the Shilluk to the swamp-sickness or they desert us, we will be helpless. We will never escape from this dreary wilderness and shall all perish here.'

'These swamps are their home. They are shielded from the diseases that abound here,' Taita assured him. 'They will stay with us to the end.'

As they travelled on southwards, vast new expanses of papyrus opened before them, then closed behind them. They seemed trapped like insects in honey, never able to break free despite their violent struggles. The papyrus imprisoned them, ingested them and suffocated them. Its bland monotony wearied and dulled their minds. Then, on the thirty-sixth day of the march, there appeared at the limit of their forward vision a cluster of dark dots.

'Are those trees?' Taita called to the Shilluk. Nakonto sprang on to

Nontu's shoulders and stood to his full height, balancing easily. It was a position he often adopted when he needed to see over the reeds. ¦ 'Nay, ancient one,' he replied. 'Those are huts of the Luo.' i 'Who are the Luo?'

'They are hardly men. They are animals who live in these swamps, eating fish, snakes and crocodiles. They build their hovels on poles, such as those you see. They plaster their bodies with mud, ash and other filth to keep off the insects. They are savage and wild. We kill them when we find them for they steal our cattle. They drive the beasts they have stolen from us into this fastness of theirs and eat them. They are not true men but hyenas and jackals.' He spat in contempt.

Taita knew that the Shilluk were nomadic herders. They had a deep love for their cattle, and would never kill them. Instead they carefully punctured a vein in a beast's throat, caught the blood that flowed in a calabash, and when they had sufficient they sealed the tiny wound with a handful of clay. They mixed it with cow's milk and drank it. 'That is why we are so tall and strong, such mighty warriors. That is why the swamp-sickness never affects us,' the Shilluk would explain.

They reached the Luo encampment to find that the huts sitting high on their stilts were deserted. However, there were signs of recent occupation. Some of the fish heads and scales beside the rack on which they smoked their catch were quite fresh, and had not yet been eaten by fresh-water crabs or the buzzards that perched on the roofs, and live coals still glowed in the fluffy white ash of the fires. The area beyond the encampment that the Luo had used as a latrine was littered with fresh excrement. Nakonto stood by it. 'They were here this very morning.

They are still close by. Probably they are watching us from the reeds.'

They left the village and rode on for another seemingly interminable distance. Late in the afternoon Nakonto led them to an opening that was slightly higher than the surrounding mudbanks, a dry island in the wastes. They tethered the horses to wooden pegs driven into the earth, and fed them crushed dhurra meal in leather nosebags. Meanwhile Taita tended the sick troopers, and the men prepared their dinner. Soon after nightfall they were asleep around the fires. Only the sentries remained awake.

The fires had long burned out, and the troopers were deep in slumber when suddenly they were shocked awake. Pandemonium swept through the camp. There were shouts and screams, the thunder of galloping hoofs, and splashing from the pools around the island. Taita sprang up from his mat and ran to Windsmoke. She was rearing and plunging,

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trying to pull the peg that held her out of the ground, as most of the other horses had. Taita grabbed her halter rope and held her down. With relief he saw that the foal, shivering with terror, was still at her side.

Strange dark shapes flitted around them, prancing, screaming and ululating shrilly, poking at the horses with spears, goading them to break away. The frenzied animals plunged and fought their ropes. One of the figures charged at Taita and thrust at him with his spear. Taita knocked it aside with his staff and drove the point into his assailant's throat. The man dropped and lay still.

Meren and his captains rallied their troops and rushed in with bared swords. They managed to cut down a few attackers before the others vanished into the night.

'Follow them! Don't let them get away with the horses!' Meren bellowed.

'Do not let your men go after them in the dark,' Nakonto called urgently to Taita. 'The Luo are treacherous. They will lead them into the pools and ambush them. We must wait for the light of day before we follow.'

Taita hurried to restrain Meren, who accepted the warning reluctantly for his fighting blood was up. He called his men back.

They assessed their losses. All four sentries' throats had been cut, and another legionary had received a spear wound in the thigh. Three Luo had been killed, and another was badly wounded. He lay groaning in his blood and the vile matter that dribbled from the stab wound through his guts.

'Finish him!' Meren ordered, and one of his men decapitated the man with a swing of his battleaxe. Eighteen horses were missing.

'We cannot afford to lose so many,' Taita said.

'We won't,' Meren promised grimly. 'We will retrieve them - on Isis's teats, I swear it.'

Taita examined one of the Luo corpses in the firelight. It was the body of a short, stocky man, with a brutal ape-like face. He had a sloping forehead, thick lips and small close-set eyes. He was naked, except for a leather belt round his waist from which hung a pouch. It contained a collection of magical charms, knuckle bones and teeth, some of which were human. Around his neck, on a lanyard of plaited bark, hung a flint knife caked with the blood of one of the sentries. It was crudely fashioned, but when Taita tested the edge on the dead man's shoulder it split the skin with little pressure. The Luo's body was coated with a thick plaster of ash and river clay. On his chest and face were traced primitive

designs in white clay and red ochre, spots, circles and wavy lines. He stank of woodsmoke, rotten fish and his own feral odour.j 'A repulsive creature,' Meren spat.I Taita moved to attend to the wounded trooper. The spear thrust was deep and he knew it would mortify. The man would be dead within hours, but Taita showed him a reassuring face.

In the meantime Meren was picking his strongest and fittest troopers for the punitive column to follow the thieves. The rest of the party would be left to guard the baggage, the remaining horses and the sick.

Before it was fully light the two Shilluk went out into the reedbeds to find the outward spoor of the raiders. They returned before sunrise.

'The Luo dogs rounded up the runaway horses and drove them in a herd towards the south,' Nakonto reported to Taita. 'We found the bodies of two more and another who was wounded but still living. He is dead now.' Nakonto touched the hilt of the heavy bronze knife that hung from his belt. 'If your men are ready, ancient and exalted one, we will follow immediately.'

Taita would not take the grey mare on the raid: Whirlwind was still too young for hard riding, and Windsmoke had been wounded in her hindquarters by a Luo spear, fortunately not gravely. Instead he mounted his spare horse. When they rode out, Windsmoke whinnied after him, as though expressing indignation at having been passed over.

The hoofs of the eighteen stolen horses had beaten a wide road through the reedbeds. The bare footprints of the Luo overlay the tracks of the horses they were driving. The Shilluk ran easily after them, and the horsemen followed at a trot. The trail led them south all that day.

When the sun set, they rested to allow the horses to recover, but when the moon rose it shed sufficient light for them to go on. They rode all night with only short breaks to rest. At dawn they made out another feature in the distance ahead. After so long in the monotonous seas of papyrus their eyes rejoiced to behold even this low dark line.

Nakonto sprang on to his cousin's shoulders and stared ahead. Then he grinned at Taita, his teeth shining like pearls in the early light of day.

'Old man, what you see is the end of the swamps. Those are trees, and they stand on dry land.'

Taita passed on this news to Meren and the troopers, who shouted, laughed and thumped each other's backs. Meren let them rest again for they had ridden hard.

From their tracks Nakonto judged that the Luo were not far ahead.

As they rode forward the line of trees loomed larger and darker, but they

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could not make out any sign of human habitation. At last they dismounted and went forward leading their mounts, so that the riders' heads would not show above the tops of the papyrus. It was long after midday before they stopped again. Only a thin strip of papyrus screened them now, then even that ended abruptly against a low bank of pale earth. It was no more than two cubits high, and beyond it lay pastures of short green grass, and groves of tall trees. Taita recognized Kigelia sausage trees, with their massive hanging seedpods, and sycamore figs, with the yellow fruit growing directly on the fat grey trunks. Most of the other species were foreign to him.

From the cover of the groves they could clearly make out the tracks that the stolen horses' hoofs had left as they climbed the soft earth bank.

However, there was no sign of the animals in the open pasture beyond.

They scrutinized the tree line.

'What are those?' Meren pointed out distant movement among the trees and a fine haze of dust.

Nakonto shook his head. 'Buffalo, a small herd. No horses. Nontu and I will scout ahead. You must remain hidden here.' The two Shilluk moved forward into the papyrus and disappeared. Although Taita and Meren watched carefully they did not see them again, not even a glimpse of them crossing the open pasture.

They moved back from the edge of the papyrus, found a small patch of open, drier ground, filled the nosebags and let the horses feed while they stretched out to rest. Taita wrapped his shawl round his head, placed his staff at hand and lay back. He was very tired and his legs ached from trudging through the mud. He drifted over the edge of sleep.

'Be of good heart, Taita, I am close.' Her voice, a faint whisper, was so clear and the tone so unmistakably Fenn's that he jerked awake and sat up. He looked around quickly, expectantly, but saw only the horses, mules, the resting men and the eternal papyrus. He sank back again.

It was some time before sleep returned, but he was weary and at last he was dreaming of fishes that leapt from the waters around him and sparkled in the sunlight. Although they were myriad, none was the fish he knew was there. Then the shoals opened and he saw it. Its scales sparkled like precious stones, its butterfly tail was long and lithe, the aura that surrounded it ethereal and sublime. As he watched, it transmuted into human shape, the body of a young girl. She glided through the water, her long naked legs held together, pumping from her hips with the grace of a dolphin. The sunlight from above dappled her pale body and her long bright hair streamed out behind her. She rolled on to her

back and smiled up at him through the water. Tiny silver bubbles streamed from her nostrils. 'I am close, darling Taita. Soon we will be together. Very soon.'I Before he could reply a voice and a rough touch shattered the vision.

He tried to cling to the rapture, but it was torn from him. He opened his eyes and sat up.

Beside him squatted Nakonto. 'We have found the horses and the Luo jackals,' he said. 'Now comes the killing time.'

They waited until nightfall before they left the concealment of the papyrus and climbed the low earth bank on to the open pasture.

The horses' hoofs made almost no sound on the soft sand.

Through the darkness Nakonto led them to the trees that were silhouetted against the stars. Once they were under the spreading, protecting branches, he turned parallel to the edge of the swamp. They rode in silence for only a short while before he turned into the forest, where they had to bend low on the backs of the horses to avoid the overhanging foliage. They had not gone far when, above the treetops ahead, the night sky was suffused with a rosy glow. Nakonto led them towards it. Now they could hear drums beating a frenetic rhythm. As they moved towards it, the sound grew louder, until the night throbbed like the heart of the earth. Closer still, a chorus of discordant chanting joined the pounding of the drums.

Nakonto stopped them at the edge of the forest. Taita rode up beside Meren and they looked across an expanse of cleared ground to a large village of primitive thatch and mud-daub huts lit by the flames of four huge bonfires, sparks streaming up in torrents. Rows of smoking racks stood beyond the last huts, covered with the split carcasses of fish, whose scales glittered like a sheet of silver in the firelight. Around the bonfires dozens of human bodies twisted, leapt and spun. They were painted from scalp to heels in glaring white, decorated with weird designs in black, ochre and red mud. Taita realized they were of both sexes, all naked under their coating of white clay and ash. As they danced, they chanted in a barbaric cadence, a sound like the baying of a pack of wild animals.

Suddenly, from out of the shadows, another band of prancing and cavorting Luo dragged one of the stolen horses. All of the horsemen recognized her, a bay mare named Starling. The Luo had knotted a bark rope round her neck, and five of them were heaving on it as a dozen

more shoved at her flanks and hindquarters or goaded her cruelly with pointed sticks, blood glistening from the wounds they inflicted. One of the Luo lifted a heavy wooden club in both hands, and rushed at her. He aimed a heavy blow at her head and the club cracked against her skull.

She dropped instantly to kick spasmodically; her bowels voided in a liquid green rush. The painted Luo swarmed over her carcass, brandishing their flint knives. They hacked off lumps of her still twitching flesh and crammed it into their mouths. Blood dribbled down their chins to run across their painted torsos. They were a pack of wild dogs, fighting and howling over a kill. The watching troopers growled with outrage.

Meren glanced sideways at Taita, who nodded. 'Left and right wheel into extended order.' Meren gave the command, low but clear. On each flank the two columns opened like wings into an extended line. As soon as they were in position Meren called again: 'Detachment will charge!

Present arms!' They cleared their swords from the sheaths. 'Forward march! Trot! Gallop! Charge!'

They swept forward in close formation, the horses running shoulder to shoulder. The Luo were in such frenzy that they did not see the troopers coming until they burst into the village. Then they tried to scatter and run, but it was too late. The horses swept over them, crushing them beneath their hoofs. The swords rose and fell, the blades thumping through bone and flesh. The two Shilluk were at the front of the charge, howling, stabbing, leaping and stabbing again.

Taita saw Nakonto send a spear clean through the body of one, so that the point stood out between the Luo's shoulder-blades. When Nakonto cleared it, it seemed to suck out with it every drop of blood from the man's body, a black spray in the firelight.

A painted woman with pendulous dugs that hung to her navel raised both arms to cover her head. Meren stood in his stirrups and hacked off one of her arms at the elbow, then swung the blade again and split her unprotected head like a ripe melon. Her mouth was still crammed with raw meat, which spewed out with her death wail. The troopers kept their tight formation, riding down the Luo, their sword arms rising and falling in a deadly rhythm. The Shilluk caught those who tried to break away.

The drummers, seated before the long, hollowed-out trunks of the Kigelia tree, were in such a transport that they did not even look up. They continued beating out their frenzied rhythm with their wooden clubs until the horsemen rode over to cut them down where they sat. They fell, writhing and bleeding, on to their drums.

At the far side of the village Meren checked the charge. He looked

back and saw no one still standing. The ground around Starling's carcass was covered with the painted naked bodies. A few of the wounded were trying to crawl away. Others were groaning and thrashing in the idust.

The two Shilluk were running among them, stabbing and howling in murderous ecstasy.

'Help the Shilluk finish them!' Meren ordered. His men dismounted and went swiftly over the killing ground, despatching any who showed signs of life.

Taita reined in alongside Meren. He had not been in the first rank of the charge, but had followed close behind. 'I saw a few run into the huts,'

he said. 'Root them out, but don't kill them all. Nakonto might glean good information from them about the country ahead.'

Meren shouted the order to his captains, who went from hut to hut, ransacking them. Two or three Luo women ran out, wailing, with young children. They were hustled into the centre of the village where the Shilluk guides shouted orders to them in their own language. They forced them to squat in rows with their hands clasped on top of their heads.

The children clung to their mothers, tears gleaming on their terrified faces.

'Now we must find the surviving horses,' Meren shouted. 'They cannot have slaughtered and eaten them all. Search there first.' He pointed into the dark forest from which they seen the butchers drag Starling to the slaughter. Hilto took his troop with him and rode into the dark. Suddenly a horse whinnied.

'They are here!' Hilto shouted happily. 'Bring torches!'

The men tore thatch from the roofs of the huts and made crude torches with it, lit them and followed Hilto into the forest. Leaving five men to guard the captured women and children, Meren and Taita followed the torch-bearers. Ahead, Hilto and his men called directions, until in the thickening light they made out the herd of stolen animals.

Taita and Meren dismounted and ran to them. 'How many are left?'

Meren asked urgently.

'Eleven only. We have lost six to the jackals,' Hilto replied. The Luo had tied them all to the same tree on cruelly short ropes. They could not even stretch their necks to the ground.

'They have not been allowed to graze or drink,' Hilto shouted indignantly. 'What kind of beasts are these people?'

'Free them,' Meren ordered. Three troopers dismounted and ran to obey. But the horses were so crowded together that they had to push between them.

Suddenly a man bellowed with outrage and pain. 'Beware! One of the Luo is hiding here. He has a spear and has wounded me.'

Suddenly there were the sounds of a scuffle, followed by a high-pitched childish scream from among the horses' legs.

'Catch him! Don't let him get away.'

'What is happening there?' Meren demanded.

'A little savage is hiding here. He is the one who speared me.'

At that a child darted out from among the horses, carrying a light assegai. A trooper tried to grab him but the child stabbed at him, and vanished into the darkness in the direction of the village. Taita had only a brief glimpse of him before he was gone, but he sensed something different about him. The Luo, even the children, were stocky and bowlegged, but this one was as slender as a papyrus stem, and his legs were elegantly straight. He ran with the grace of a frightened gazelle. Abruptly Taita realized that beneath the white clay and tribal designs, the child was female, and he was struck by an intense sensation of deja vu: 'I swear to all the gods I have seen her before,' he murmured to himself.

'When I catch the little swine, I'll kill him slowly!' the wounded trooper shouted, as he came out from among the horses whence he had flushed the child. There was a spear wound in his forearm, and blood dripped from his fingertips.

'No!' Taita shouted urgently. 'It is a girl. I want her taken alive. She has run back towards the village. Surround the area and search the huts again. She will have gone to ground in one.'

Leaving a few men to deal with the recovered horses, they galloped back to the village. Meren threw a cordon round the huts, and Taita questioned Nakonto and Nontu, who were guarding the women and their children. 'Did you see a child run this way? About this height and covered, like the rest of them, with white clay?'

They shook their heads.

'Apart from these,' Nakonto indicated the wailing captives, 'we have seen no one.'

'She can't have gone far,' Meren assured Taita. 'We have the village surrounded. She cannot escape. We will find her.' He sent Habari's platoon in to carry out a hut-by-hut search. When he came back to Taita he asked, 'Why is the murderous brat important to you, Magus?'

'I am not certain, but I think she is not one of the Luo. She is different. She might even be Egyptian.'

'I doubt that, Magus. She is a savage. Naked and covered with paint.'

'Catch her,' Taita snapped.

Meren knew that tone, and hurried to take command of the search.

The men went slowly and cautiously, none wanting to risk a spear thrust in his belly. By the time they were half-way through the village!dawn was breaking over the forest. Taita was troubled and restless. Something gnawed at him, like a rat in the granary of his memory. There was something he must remember.

The dawn breeze veered into the south, wafting to him the stench of half-rotten fish from the smoking racks. He moved away to avoid it and the memory he was seeking rushed in.

Where else would you search for a moon fish? You will find me hiding among the other fishes. It was the voice of Fenn, speaking through the mouth of the stone image of the goddess. Was the child they were pursuing a soul caught up in the wheel of creation? The reincarnation of someone who had lived long ago?

'She promised to return,' he said aloud. 'Is it possible - or does my own longing delude me?' And then he answered himself: 'There are things that surpass the wildest imagining of mankind. Nothing is impossible.'

Taita glanced around swiftly to make certain that nobody was watching him, then moved casually to the edge of the village and walked to the smoking racks. As soon as he was out of sight his attitude changed.

He stood like a dog testing the air for the scent of its quarry. His nerves jumped. She was very close, her presence almost palpable. Holding his staff at the ready to fend off a stroke from her assegai he moved forward. Every few paces he went down on one knee to try to see under or between the racks on which the layers of fish were packed densely together. At intervals bundles of firewood and drifting clouds of smoke obstructed his view. He had to circle each wood-pile as he came to it to make certain she was not hiding behind one, which slowed his progress.

By now the rays of the early sun were flooding the village. Then as he crept round another wood-pile he heard a stealthy movement ahead. He peered round the corner. Nobody was there. He glanced at the ground and saw the prints of her small bare feet in the grey ash. She was aware that she was being stalked, moving just ahead of him, darting from one wood-pile to the next.

'There is no sign of the brat. She is not here,' he called, to an imaginary companion, and started back towards the village. He went noisily, tapping the racks with his staff, then doubled back in a wide circle, moving swiftly and silently.

He reached a position close to where he had last seen her footprints, and squatted behind a wood-pile to wait for her. He was alert for any

movement or the faintest sound. Now that she had lost sight of him, she would become nervous and change her position again. He threw a spell of concealment round himself. Then, from behind the screen, he reached out for her, searching the ether.

'Ah!' he murmured, as he descried her. She was very close, but not moving. He sensed her fear and uncertainty: she did not know where he was. He saw that she was cowering under one of the wood-piles. Now he focused all his power on her, sending out impulses to lure her towards him.

'Magus! Where are you?' Meren called, from the direction of the village. When he received no answer, his voice rose urgently. 'Magus, do you hear me?' Then he was coming towards where Taita waited.

That's right, Taita encouraged him silently. Keep coming. You will force her to move. Ah! There she goes.

The girl was moving again. She had crawled out from under the wood and was scurrying in his direction, running ahead of Meren.

Come, little one. He tightened the tentacles of the spell round her.

Come to me.

'Magus!' Meren called again, much closer. The girl appeared in front of Taita, at the corner of the wood-pile. She paused to glance back towards where Meren's voice had come from and he saw that she was quivering with terror. She looked in his direction. Her face was a hideous mask of clay, her hair built up in a mass on top of her head with a mixture of what looked like clay and acacia gum. Her eyes were so bloodshot from the smoke of the fires and the dye that had run from her hair that he could not make out the colour of the irises. Her teeth had been deliberately blackened. All of the Luo women they had captured had blackened their teeth and wore the same ugly hairstyle. Clearly, it was their primitive idea of beauty.

As she stood there, terrified, her head cocked, Taita opened his Inner Eye. Her aura sprang up around her, enveloping her in a sublimely magnificent cloak of living light, just as he had seen it in his dreams. Beneath the grotesque coating of clay and filth, this sorry, bedraggled creature was Fenn. She had returned to him, as she had promised. The emotion that swept over him was more powerful than any he had experienced in his long life. It surpassed in intensity the grief that had overwhelmed him at her death, which had ended her other life, when he had removed her viscera and wrapped her corpse in the linen bandages and laid her in the stone sarcophagus.

Now she was restored to him at the same age she had been when she

had first been placed in his care all those bleak, lonely years ago. All that grief and sorrow was paid off with this single coin of joy, to which every cord, muscle and nerve in his body resonated.I The cloak of concealment he had spun round himself was disturbed by it. The child picked it up at once. She turned and stared in his direction, her bloodshot eyes enormous in the grotesque mask. She sensed his presence, but could not see him. He realized that she possessed the power. As yet her psychic gift was undeveloped and untutored, but he knew that, under his loving instruction, it would in time match his own. The rising sun shot a beam into her eyes, and their true lustre glowed in the deepest shade of green. Fenn green.

Meren was running in their direction, his footsteps pounding on the hard earth. There was only one escape route open to Fenn: down the narrow passage between the wood-pile and the smoking racks. She ran straight into Taita's arms. As they closed round her she shrieked in shock and renewed terror and dropped the assegai. Although she struggled and clawed at his eyes, Taita held her close to his chest. Her fingernails were long and ragged, black dirt was caked under them and they raised bloody welts across his forehead and cheeks. Still holding her with one arm circled round her waist, he took her arms one at a time and trapped them between their bodies. Now that she was helpless he leant close to her face and stared into her eyes, taking control of her. Instinctively she knew what he was doing and pushed forward to meet him, but just in time he divined her intention and jerked his head back sharply. Her sharp black teeth snapped shut a finger's breadth from the tip of his nose.

'Light of my eyes, I still have need of this old nose of mine. If you are hungry I will provide tastier fare.' He smiled.

At that moment Meren burst into sight, his expression of consternation and alarm. 'Magus!' he shouted. 'Do not let that filthy vixen near you. She has already tried to murder one man and now she will do you some grave injury.' He rushed towards them. 'Let me get my hands on her. I will take her to the swamp and drown her in the nearest pool.'

'Back, Meren!' Taita did not raise his voice. 'Don't touch her.'

Meren checked. 'But, Magus, she will—'

'She will do no such thing. Go, Meren. Leave us alone. We love each other. I just have to convince her of it.'

Still Meren hesitated.

'Go, I say. At once.'

Meren went.

Taita looked into Fenn's eyes and smiled reassuringly. 'Fenn, I have waited so long for you.' He was using the voice of power, but she resisted him fiercely. She spat, and bubbles of her saliva ran down his face to drip off his chin.

'You were not so strong when we first met. You were sullen and rebellious, oh, yes, indeed you were, but not as strong as you are now.'

He chuckled and she blinked. No Luo had ever emitted such a sound.

A spark of interest flashed for an instant in the green depths of her eyes, then she glared at him.

'You were so beautiful then, but look at you now.' His voice still carried the hypnotic inflection. 'You are a vision from the void.' He made it sound like an endearment. 'Your hair is filthy.' He stroked it but she tried to duck. It was not possible to guess the true colour of her hair under the thick clay and acacia gum, but he kept his voice calm and his smile reassuring as a stream of red lice crawled out of the clotted mass and climbed up his arm.

'By Ahura Maasda and the Truth, you stink worse than any polecat,'

he told her. 'It will take a month of scrubbing to get down to your skin.'

She wriggled and squirmed to be free. 'Now you are rubbing your filth on to me. I shall be in no better case than you by the time I have quietened you. We shall have to camp away from Meren and his troopers. Even rough soldiers will not withstand our combined odour.' He kept speaking: the sense of the words was unimportant, but the tone and inflection gradually lulled her. He felt her begin to relax, and the hostile light in her green eyes faded. She blinked almost sleepily, and he relaxed his grip.

At that she shook herself awake, and the malevolence flared again. He had to hold her hard as she renewed her struggles.

'You are indomitable.' He let the admiration and approval sound in his voice. 'You have the heart of a warrior, and the determination of the goddess you once were.' This time she quietened more readily. The migrating lice nipped Taita under his tunic, but he ignored them and continued to talk.

'Let me tell you about yourself, Fenn. You were once my ward, as you have become again. You were the daughter of an evil man who cared little for you. To this day I cannot fathom how he sired a lovely tiling like you. You were beautiful, Fenn, beyond the telling of it. Under the fleas, lice and dirt I know you are still.' Slowly her resistance faded as he related her childhood to her in loving detail, and recounted some of the funny things she had done or said. When he laughed now she looked at him with interest rather than anger. She began to blink again.

This time when he relaxed his grip she did not attempt to escape but sat quietly in his lap. The sun had reached its zenith when at last he stood up. She looked up at him solemnly and he reached down to take her hand. She did not pull away.

'Come along, now. If you are not hungry, I certainly am.' He set off towards the village and she trotted at his side.

Meren had set up a temporary camp well away from the village: in the sun the Luo corpses would soon begin to rot and the area become uninhabitable. As they approached the camp, he hurried to meet them.

'I am glad to see you, Magus. I thought the vixen had done away with you,' he shouted. Fenn hid behind Taita and clung to one of his legs as Meren came up to them. 'By the wounded eye of Horus, she stinks. I can smell her from here.'

'Lower your voice,' Taita ordered. 'Ignore her. Do not look at her like that or you will undo my hard work in an instant. Go ahead of us to the camp and warn your men not to stare at her or alarm her. Have food ready for her.'

'So now we have a wild filly to break?' Meren shook his head ruefully.

'Oh, no! You underestimate the task ahead of us,' Taita assured him.

Taita and Fenn sat in the shade under the great sausage tree in the centre of the camp, and one of the men brought food. Fenn tasted the dhurra cake gingerly, but after the first mouthfuls she ate ravenously. Then she turned her attention to the cold slices of wild duck breast. She stuffed them into her mouth so rapidly that she choked and coughed.

'I can see you need instruction in manners before you are fit to dine with Pharaoh,' Taita observed, as she gnawed the duck bones with her black teeth. When she had stuffed her skinny belly to bursting point, he called for Nakonto. Like most of the men, he had been watching from a discreet distance, but he came to squat in front of them. Fenn huddled closer to Taita and stared at the huge black man with renewed suspicion.

'Ask the child her name. I am sure she speaks and understands Luo,'

Taita instructed, and Nakonto spoke a few words to her. It was clear that she understood him, but her face set and her mouth closed in a hard, stubborn line. He tried for a while longer to induce her to answer him, but Fenn would not budge.

'Fetch one of the captured Luo women,' Taita told Nakonto. He left

them briefly, and when he returned he was dragging with him a wailing old woman from the village.

'Ask her if she knows this girl,' Taita said.

Nakonto had to speak sharply to the woman before she would cease whining and weeping, but at last she made a lengthy statement. 'She knows her,' Nakonto translated. 'She says she is a devil. They drove her out of the village, but she lived close by in the forest, and she has brought bad witchcraft on the tribe. They believe it was she who sent you to kill their men.'

'So the child is not of her tribe?' Taita asked.

The old woman's reply was a vehement denial. 'No, she is a stranger.

One of the women found her floating in the swamps in a tiny boat made of reeds.' Nakonto described a papyrus cradle such as Egyptian peasant women wove for their infants. 'She brought the devil to the village and named her Khona Manzi, which means “the one from the waters”.

The woman was childless and for that reason had been rejected by her husband. She took this strange creature as her own. She dressed her ugly hair in the decent fashion, and covered her fish-white body with clay and ash to protect her from the sun and the insects, as is fitting and customary. She fed her and cared for her.' The old woman looked at Fenn with evident distaste.

'Where is this woman?' Taita asked.

'She has died of some strange disease that the devil child brought down upon her with witchcraft.'

'Is that why you drove her out of the village?'

'Not for that reason alone. She brought many other afflictions upon us. In the same season that she came into the village the waters failed and the swamp, which is our home, began to shrivel and die. It was the devil child's work.' The old woman gobbled with outrage. 'She brought sickness upon us that blinded our children, made many of our young women barren and our men impotent.'

'AH this from one child?' Taita asked.

Nakonto translated the woman's reply. 'She is no ordinary child.

She is a devil and a sorcerer. She led our enemies to our secret places, and caused them to triumph over us, just as she has now brought you to attack us.'

Then Fenn spoke for the first time. Her voice was filled with bitter anger.

'What does she say?' Taita asked.

'She says that the woman lies. She has done none of those things. She

does not know how to make witchcraft. She loved the woman who was her mother, and she did not kill her.' The old woman replied to this with equal venom, and then the two were screeching at each othef.

For a while Taita listened to them with mild amusement, then told Nakonto, 'Take the woman back to the village. She is no match for the child.'

Nakonto laughed. 'You have found a lion cub as your new pet, old one. We will all learn to fear her.'

As soon as they were gone Fenn quietened.

'Come,' Taita invited her. She recognized his meaning, if not the word, and stood up at once. As he walked away she ran after him and took his hand again. The gesture was so unaffected that Taita was deeply moved. She began to chatter naturally, so he answered her although he did not understand a word she said. He went to his saddle-bag and found the leather roll of his surgical instruments. He paused only to speak to Meren: 'Send Nontu back to fetch the rest of the men and horses out of the swamps and bring them here. Keep Nakonto with us for he is our eyes and our tongue.'

Then, with Fenn still in tow, he went down to the edge of the swamp“

and found a clear opening among the reeds. He waded out knee deep, then sat down in the lukewarm water. Fenn watched him from the bank with interest. When he splashed handfuls of water over his head she burst out laughing for the first time.

'Come,' he called, and she jumped into the pool without hesitation.

He sat her between his knees with her back to him and poured water over her head. The mask of filth began to dissolve and run down her neck and over her shoulders. Gradually patches of pale skin started to show through, speckled with louse bites. When he tried to wash the filth out of her hair, the congealed gum defied his best efforts to dislodge it.

Fenn wriggled and protested as he pulled at her scalp. 'Very well. We will deal with that later.' He stood her up and began to scrub her with handfuls of sand from the bottom of the pool. She giggled when he tickled her ribs, and tried half-heartedly to escape, but she was still giggling when he pulled her back. She was enjoying his attention. When at last he had cleaned away the superficial layers of dirt he fetched a bronze razor from the surgical roll and started on her scalp. With the utmost care he began to scrape away the matted hair.

She bore it stoically, even when the razor nicked her and drew blood.

He had to keep stropping the edge for her matted hair blunted it after only a few strokes. It fell away in clumps, and gradually he exposed her

pale scalp. When at last he had finished he laid aside the razor and studied her. 'What big ears you have!' he exclaimed. Her bald head seemed too large for the thin neck it was balanced upon. In contrast her eyes were even bigger, and her ears stuck out at each side of her head like those of a baby elephant. 'Looked at from every angle and in any light, and giving you the benefit in any area of doubt, you are still an ugly little thing.' She recognized the affection in his tone and smiled at him trustingly with the blackened teeth. He felt tears sting his eyelids, and wondered at himself. 'When did you last find a tear to shed, you old fool?' He turned away from her and reached for the flask that contained his special salve, a blend of oils and herbs, his sovereign cure for all minor cuts, bruises, sores and other ailments. He massaged it into her scalp and she leant her head against him, closing her eyes like a kitten being petted. He kept talking to her softly, and every now and then she opened her eyes, looked up at his face, then closed them again. When he had finished they climbed out of the pool, and sat together. While the sun and the hot breeze dried their bodies, Taita selected a pair of bronze forceps and went over every inch of her. The herbal salve had killed most of the lice and other vermin, but he found many still stuck to her skin. He plucked them off her, and crushed the life out of them. To Fenn's delight, they made a satisfying pop as they exploded in a spot of blood. When he had removed the last one, she took the forceps from him, and set about the insects that had changed their abode from her to him. Her eye was sharper and her fingers were more nimble than his as she ruffled through his silver beard and inspected his armpits for signs of life. Then she searched lower down. She was a savage and showed no inhibition as she ran light fingers over the silver scar at the base of his belly where he had been castrated. Taita had always tried to conceal this mark of shame from other eyes, except those of Lostris when she was alive. Now she was alive again and he felt no embarrassment. Yet although her actions were innocent and natural, he removed her hand.

'I think we can say that, once again, we know each other well.' Taita gave his considered opinion when she had picked him clean.

'Taita!' He touched his chest. She stared at him solemnly. 'Taita.' He repeated the gesture.

She had understood. 'Taita!' She prodded his chest with a finger, then bubbled with laughter. 'Taita!'

'Fenn!' He touched the tip of her nose. 'Fenn!'

She thought that an even better joke. She shook her head vigorously, and slapped her own skinny chest. 'Khona Manzi!' she said.

'No!' Taita argued. 'Fenn!'i 'Fenn?' she repeated uncertainly. 'Fenn?' Her accent was perfect, as though she had been born to speak the Egyptian language. She thought about it for a moment, then smiled and agreed, 'Fenn!'

'Bak-her! Clever girl, Fenn!'

'Bak-her,' she repeated faithfully, and slapped her chest again. 'Clever girl, Fenn.' Her precocity amazed and delighted him anew.

When they returned to the camp Meren and all the men stared at Fenn in wonder, although they had been warned not to do so.

'Sweet Isis, she is one of us,' Meren cried. 'She is not a savage at all, though she behaves like one. She is an Egyptian.' He hurried to search his saddle-bags and found a spare tunic, which he brought to Taita.

'It is almost clean,' he explained, 'and it will serve to cover her decently.'

Fenn regarded the garment as though it were a venomous serpent.

She was accustomed to nakedness and tried to escape as Taita lifted it over her head. It took perseverance but at last he dressed her. The tunic was far too large, and the hem hung almost to her ankles, but the men gathered round her and loudly expressed their admiration and approval.

She perked up a little.

'Woman to the core.' Taita smiled.

'Woman indeed,' Meren agreed, and went back to his saddle-bag. He found a pretty coloured ribbon and brought it to her. Meren, the lover of women, always carried a few such trifles. They facilitated his transient friendships with members of the opposite sex whom he encountered on their travels. He tied the ribbon in a bow round her waist to prevent the hem of the tunic dragging in the dirt. Fenn craned her neck to study the effect.

'Look at her preen.' They smiled. ' 'Tis a great pity she is so ugly.'I 'That will change,' Taita promised, and thought of how beautiful she had been in the other life.

&

By the middle of the next morning the bodies of the dead Luo had rotted and bloated. Even at a distance the stench was so overpowering that they were forced to shift their own encampment.

Before they broke camp Taita sent Nontu back into the papyrus to bring out the men and horses they had left there. Then he and Meren went to inspect the Luo women they had captured. They were still under guard at the centre of the village, roped in strings, huddled together naked and abject.

'We cannot take them with us,' Meren pointed out. 'They can be of no further use. They are such animals that they will not even serve to pleasure the men. We shall have to get rid of them. Shall I fetch some of the men to help me? It will not take long.' He loosened his sword in its scabbard.

'Let them go,' Taita ordered.

Meren looked shocked. 'That is not wise, Magus. We cannot be sure that they will not call more of their brethren out of the swamps to steal our horses and annoy us further.'

'Let them go,' Taita repeated.

When the bonds were cut from their wrists and ankles, the women did not attempt to escape. Nakonto had to make a ferocious speech, filled with dire threats, then rush at them shaking his spear and yelling war-cries before they snatched up their infants and fled wailing into the forest.

They loaded the horses and moved two leagues further along the edge of the swamp, then camped again in a grove of shady trees. The insects that rose as soon as darkness fell tormented them mercilessly.

A day later Nontu led the remaining horses and the survivors out of the swamps. Shabako, who was in charge, came to report to Taita and Meren. His news was not good: five more troopers had died since they had parted company, and all the others, including Shabako, were so sick and weak that they could hardly mount their horses unaided. The animals were hardly in better condition. The swamp grass and water plants provided little nourishment, and some had picked up stomach parasites from the stagnant pools. They were passing balls of writhing white worms and botfly larvae.

'I fear we will lose many more men and horses if we stay in this pestilential place,' Taita worried. 'The grazing is sour and rank and the horses will not recover their condition on it. Our store of dhurra is

almost exhausted, hardly enough for the men, let alone the beastsi We must find more salubrious surroundings in which to recuperate.' He called Nakonto to him, and asked, 'Is there higher ground near here?' I Nakonto consulted his cousin before he replied. 'There is a range of hills many days' travel to the east. There, the grass is sweet, and in the evenings cool winds come down from the mountains. We were wont to graze our cattle there in the hot season,' he said.

'Show us the way,' Taita said.

They left early the next morning. When Taita was mounted on Windsmoke, he reached down, took Fenn's arm and swung her up behind him. From her expression he could tell that the experience had terrified her, but she wrapped both arms round his waist, pressed her face to his back and clung to him like a tick. Taita talked soothingly to her and before they had ridden a league she had begun to relax her death-grip and, from her elevated position, to look at her surroundings. Another league and she was chirruping with pleasure and interest. If he did not respond at once she drummed her little fist on his back and cried his name, 'Taita! Taita,' then pointed out whatever had caught her attention.

'What?'

'Tree,' he replied, or 'Horses,' or 'Bird. Big bird.'

'Big bird,' she repeated. She was quick, and her ear was true. It needed only one or two repetitions for her to reproduce the sound and inflection perfectly, and once she had it she did not lose it. By the third day she was stringing words into simple sentences, 'Big bird fly. Big bird fly fast.'

'Yes, yes. You're so clever, Fenn,' he told her. 'It's almost as if you are starting to remember something you once knew well but had forgotten.

Now it's fast coming back to you, isn't it?'

She listened attentively, then picked out the words she had already learnt, and repeated them with a flourish: 'Yes, yes. Clever Fenn. Fast, coming fast.' Then she looked back at the foal, Whirlwind, who followed the mare: 'Little horse coming fast!'

The foal fascinated her. She found the name 'Whirlwind' difficult, so she called him Little Horse. As soon as they dismounted to make camp, she shouted, 'Come, Little Horse.' The foal seemed to enjoy her company as much as she did his. He came to her and allowed her to drape an arm round his neck and attach herself to him as though they were twins joined in the womb. She saw the men feeding dhurra to the other horses, so she stole some, tried to feed it to him and was angry when he refused.

'Bad horse,' she scolded. 'Bad Little Horse.'

She had soon learnt the names of all the men, beginning with Meren

who had given her the ribbon and stood high in her favour. The others competed for her attention. They saved her titbits from their frugal rations and taught her the words of their marching songs. Taita put a stop to this when she repeated some of the more salacious choruses. They found small gifts for her, bright feathers, porcupine quills and pretty stones they picked out of the sands of the dry riverbeds they crossed.

But the progress of the column was slow. Neither the men nor the horses could make a full day's march. They began late and halted early, with frequent stops. Another three troopers died of the swamp-sickness, and the others had hardly the strength to dig their graves. Among the horses Windsmoke and her foal fared best. The spear wound in the mare's hindquarters had healed cleanly and, despite the rigours of the march, she had kept her milk and was still able to feed Whirlwind.

They camped one afternoon when the horizon was turbid with dust and heat haze, but in the dawn the cool of the night had cleared the air and they could make out in the distance ahead a low blue line of hills. As they rode towards them the hills grew taller and the details more inviting. On the eighth day after they had left the swamps, they reached the foothills of a great massif. The slopes were lightly forested and scored with ravines down which tumbled streams and bounding waterfalls. Following a stream, they climbed laboriously upwards and came out at last on to a vast plateau.

There, the air was fresher and cooler. They filled their lungs with relief and pleasure, and looked about them. They saw groves of fine trees standing on grass savannahs. Herds of antelope and striped wild ponies grazed in multitudes upon the pastures. There was no sign of human presence. It was an enchanted and inviting wilderness.

Taita selected a campsite with meticulous consideration of every aspect; prevailing winds and the direction of the sun, the proximity of running water and pasture for the horses. They cut poles and thatching grass, then built comfortable living huts. They erected a zareeba, a stockade of stout poles with sharpened points, around the settlement, and divided off one end into a separate pen for the horses and mules.

Each evening they brought them in from the pasture and confined them for the night, to keep them safe from marauding lions and savage humans.

On the bank of the stream, where the earth was rich and fertile, they cleared land and turned the earth. They built another sturdy fence of thornbushes and poles to keep out the grazing animals. Grain by grain, Taita sifted through the bags of dhurra seeds, picking out by their aura those that were healthy and discarding any that were diseased or damaged.

They planted them in the prepared earth, and Taita built a shadoof to lift the water from the river to irrigate the seed beds. Within days, the first green shoots had unfurled from the soil and in a few months the grain would ripen. Meren placed a perpetual guard over the fields, troopers armed with drums to drive off the horses and any wild apes. They built guard fires around the zareeba and kept them burning night and day.

Each morning the horses and mules were hobbled and turned loose upon the rich grazing. They gorged on it and swiftly regained condition.

Game was plentiful upon the plateau. Every few days Meren rode out with a party of his hunters and returned with a large bag of antelope and wild fowl. They wove fish traps from reeds, and placed them at the head of the river pools. The catch was abundant, and the men feasted each night on venison and fresh catfish. Fenn astonished them all with her appetite for meat.

Taita was familiar with most of the trees, shrubs and plants that grew on the plateau. He had encountered them during his years in the highlands of Ethiopia. He pointed out to the foraging parties those that were nutritious, and under his guidance they collected wild spinach along the banks of the river. They also dug up the roots of a euphorbiaceous plant that grew in profusion, and boiled them into a rich porridge that replaced dhurra as their staple.

In the cool, sweet airs of early morning, Taita and Fenn went into the forest to gather baskets of leaves and berries, roots and slabs of fresh wet bark that had medicinal properties. When the heat became unpleasant they returned to the camp, and boiled some of their harvest, or dried it in the sun, and pounded other items into paste or powder. With the potions they produced Taita treated the ailments of men and horses.

In particular, there was the boiled extract of the bark of a thorny shrub that was so bitter and astringent on the tongue it made the eyes smart and took the breath away. Taita administered copious draughts to those who were still suffering the symptoms of swamp-sickness. Fenn stood by and encouraged them when they gagged and gasped. 'Good Shabako. Clever Shabako.' None could resist her blandishments. They swallowed the bitter draught and kept it down. The cure was quick and complete.

From powdered bark and the seeds of a small nondescript shrub Taita compounded a laxative of such extraordinary power that Nakonto, who seemed to have rock-hard bowels, was delighted with the results. He came daily to Taita to demand his dose, and in the end Taita limited him to one every third day.

Despite her appetite Fenn remained skinny and her stomach was tight and distended. Taita prepared another potion of boiled roots, with which she assisted him. When he invited her to drink it she took a single sip, then took to her heels. She was quick, but he was ready for her. The ensuing battle of wills lasted almost two days. The men laid wagers on the outcome. In the end Taita won the day, and she drank a full dose without him having to resort to psychic persuasion, to which he was reluctant to subject her. Her sulks continued until the following day when, to her astonishment, she passed a ball of writhing white intestinal worms almost the size of her head. She was immensely proud of this achievement and took first Taita, then everybody else to admire it. They were all suitably impressed and everyone agreed loudly that Fenn was, indeed, a clever, brave girl. Within days her stomach took on more pleasing contours and her limbs filled out. Her physical development was startling: in months she had made progress that would have taken normal girls years to accomplish. To Taita, it seemed that she was growing and blossoming before his eyes, 'She is not a normal child,' he explained to himself. 'She is the reincarnation of a queen and a goddess.' If he ever felt the slightest twinge of doubt about it, he had only to open the Inner Eye and gaze upon her aura. Its splendour was divine.

'Your lovely smile would startle the horses now,' Taita told her, and she showed her once-black teeth in a wide grin. The dye had faded until her teeth were salt-white and perfect. Taita showed her how to select a green twig and chew the fibrous end into a brush to polish her new teeth and sweeten her breath. She liked the taste and never shirked the daily ritual.

Her command of the language passed from abysmal to poor, to good and, finally, to perfect. Her vocabulary burgeoned: she could choose the exact word to express her feelings or describe an object accurately. Soon she could play word games with Taita, and delighted him with her rhyming, riddling and punning.

Fenn was ravenous for learning. If her mind was not fully occupied she became bored and difficult. When it was grappling with a task he had set her, she was sweet and pliable. Almost daily Taita had to seek new challenges for her.

He made writing tablets from the clay of the riverbank and started her on a study of hieroglyphics. He laid out a boo board in the hard clay outside the doorway of their hut and selected coloured stones as counters.

After a few days she had picked up the elementary principles, and as she

advanced he taught her the Rule of Seven, then the Massing of Castles.

One memorable day she vanquished Meren in three out of four straight games, to his mortification and the delight of the onlookers.I With the ashes of the saltwort bush, Taita converted into soap the fat of the game that the hunters brought in. Liberal applications removed from Fenn's body the last stubborn stains of the dyes and other nameless substances with which her adopted Luo mother had beautified her.

With further applications of Taita's sovereign salve and unrelenting persecution, the last of her vermin were rooted out. Their bites faded and finally disappeared. Her skin took on a creamy unblemished texture, shaded to lucent amber where the sun touched it. Her hair grew and at last covered her ears, becoming a shining aureate crown. Her eyes, though still green and enormous, no longer dominated her other, more delicate features but complemented and enhanced them. Before Taita's doting eyes she became as beautiful as she had been in the other life.

When he gazed upon her, or listened to her soft breathing at night on the sleeping mat beside his, his pleasure was soured by dread of what the future must bring. He was acutely aware that, in a few brief years, she would become a woman and her instincts would demand something he was unable to give her. She would be driven to look elsewhere for a man who could meet those overpowering female needs. For the second time in his life he would be forced to watch her go into the arms of another, and experience the bitter sorrow of lost love.

'The future will take care of itself. I have her for this day. I must make that suffice,' he told himself, and thrust aside his fears.

Although all about her were fascinated by her burgeoning beauty, Fenn seemed unaware of it. She repaid their adulation with unstilted grace and friendliness, but remained an unfettered spirit. She reserved her affection for Taita.

Windsmoke was just one of those who came under Fenn's spell.

When Taita was preoccupied with chemistry or meditation, Fenn would go out into the pasture to find her. The mare allowed Fenn to use her mane to clamber on to her back, and then gave the child riding lessons. At first she would move no faster than a sedate walk. Despite all Fenn's urging she would not break into a trot until she felt that her rider's balance was right and her seat secure. Within weeks she had introduced Fenn to an easy canter. She ignored the hammering

of small heels into her flanks, the loud exhortations and pleas to 'Hi up!'

Then, one afternoon, when Taita was napping in the shade by the door of their hut, Fenn went down to the horse zareeba and swung herself on to the grey mare's back. Windsmoke walked away with her. At the gate of the zareeba Fenn poked her with a toe behind the shoulder and Windsmoke opened into a smooth, high-stepping trot. When they were in the golden fields of savannah grass Fenn asked the mare again, and she extended into a canter. Fenn was seated close up behind her withers, weight well forward, knees clamped firmly so that she was perfectly in h tune with Windsmoke's every stride. Then, more in hope than expectation of the animal's co-operation, Fenn seized a handful of mane and cried, 'Come, my darling, let us away.' Under her, Windsmoke smoothly released all her speed and power, Whirlwind following closely. They swept away joyfully across the basin of open grassland.

Taita was woken by the shouts of the men: 'Run, Windsmoke, run!'

And 'Ride, Fenn, ride!'

He ran to the gate just in time to see the distant trio disappear over the skyline. He was uncertain on whom he should first vent his fury.

Meren chose that moment to cry, 'By the thunderous peals of Seth's farts, she rides like a trooper!' so nominating himself the target.

Taita was still haranguing him when Windsmoke tore back across the basin with Fenn shrieking with excitement upon her back and Whirlwind at her heels. She stopped in front of Taita, and Fenn slid down and ran to him. 'Oh, Taita, did you see us? Wasn't it wonderful? Were you not proud of me?'

He glared at her. 'You are never to do something as dangerous and foolish as that again, not in all your life.' She was crestfallen. Her shoulders drooped and her eyes swam with tears. He relented stiffly: 'But you rode well enough. I am proud of you.'

'The magus means that you rode like a trooper, but we were all afraid for your safety,' Meren explained, 'but there was no cause for us to worry.'

Fenn brightened immediately, and dashed away the tears with the back of her hand.

'Is that what you really meant, Taita?' she demanded.

'I suppose it was,' he admitted gruffly.

That evening Fenn sat cross-legged upon her sleeping mat and, by the light of the oil lamp, regarded Taita solemnly as he lay on his back with his beard brushed out and his hands folded on his chest, composing himself for sleep. 'You will never go away and leave me, but will always be with me, won't you, Taita?'

'Yes.' He smiled up at her. 'I will always be with you.'i 'I am so glad.' She bent forward and buried her face in his silver beard.

'It is so soft,' she whispered, 'like a cloud.' Then the excitement of the day overwhelmed her and she fell asleep, sprawled across his chest.

Taita lay for a while, listening to her breathing. Such happiness cannot last, he thought. It is too intense.

They were up early the next morning. As soon as they had had breakfast, of dhurra porridge and mare's milk, they went out into the forest for herbs. When the foraging baskets were filled Taita led the way to their favourite pool in the river. They sat together on the high bank, their reflections mirrored on the surface of the pool below them.

'Look at yourself, Fenn,' he said. 'See how beautiful you have become.'

She glanced down without interest, and was immediately riveted by the face that looked back at her. She knelt up, leant far out over the water, then stared and stared. At last she whispered, 'Are not my ears too large?'

'Your ears are like the petals of a flower,' he replied.

'One of my teeth is crooked.'

'Only a very little, and it makes your smile all the more intriguing.'

'My nose?'

'Is the most perfect little nose I have ever seen.'

'Really?'

'Really!'

She turned to smile at him, and he told her, 'Your smile lights the forest.'

She hugged him and her body was warm, but suddenly he felt a cold wind on his cheek although the leaves of the tree that hung over them had not stirred. He shivered, and, softly, the pulse began to beat in his eardrums. They were no longer alone.

Protectively, he held her closer, and looked over her shoulder into the pool.

There was a disturbance beneath the surface, as though a giant catfish had stirred in the depths. But the pulse in his ears beat stronger and he knew it was no fish. He concentrated his gaze and made out a tenuous shadow that seemed to undulate like the leaves of a water-lily in some deep eddy of the river. Slowly the shadow coalesced into human form, an insubstantial image of a cloaked figure, its head swathed in a

voluminous cowl. He tried to see beneath the folds, but there was only shadow.

Fenn felt him stiffen and looked up into his face, then turned her head to follow the direction of his gaze. She stared down into the pool, and whispered fearfully, 'Something is there.' As she spoke the image faded, and the surface of the pool was unruffled and serene once more.

'What was it, Taita?' she asked.

'What did you see?'

'Someone was in the pool under the water.'

Taita was not surprised: he had known all along that she had the gift.

It was not the first time she had given him proof.

'Did you see it clearly?' He did not want to place a suggestion in her mind.

'I saw someone under the water, dressed all in black . .. but they had no face.' She had seen all of the vision, not just fragments. The psychic genius with which she had been endowed was powerful, perhaps as powerful as his own. He would be able to work with her as he had never been able to with Meren. He could help her develop her gift and harness its force to her will.

'How did it make you feel?'

'Cold,' she whispered.

'Did you smell anything?'

'The scent of a cat — no, that of a serpent. I am not sure. But I know that it was evil.' She clung to him. 'What was it?'

'What you smelt was the scent of the witch.' He would hide nothing from her. She had the body of a child, but it contained the mind and soul of a strong, resilient woman. He did not have to shield her. Besides her gift, she had reserves of strength and experience accumulated in the other life. He had only to help her find the key to the strongroom in her mind where those treasures were stored.

'What you saw was the shadow of the witch. What you smelt was her scent.'

'Who is the witch?'

'I will tell you one day soon, but now we must return to the camp.

We have pressing matters to attend to.'

I

The witch had found them, and Taita realized he had been lulled into remaining too long in that lovely place. His life force had built up like a wave, and she had sensed it, then smelt him out.

They must move on, and swiftly.

Fortunately, the men were rested and fully recuperated. Their spirits were high. The horses were strong. The dhurra bags were filled. The swords were sharp and all the equipment had been repaired. If the witch had found them, Taita had also found her. He knew in which direction her lair lay.

Meren marshalled the men. The toll extracted by the swamps had been heavy. Almost a year and a half ago ninety-three officers and men had ridden out of the fort at Qebui. Thirty-six remained to answer the muster. The horses and mules had fared little better. Of the original three hundred, plus the gift of five pack mules, a hundred and eighty-six had survived.

No one looked back as the column pulled out of the encampment, wound down the escarpment into the plains and headed back towards the river. Fenn was no longer behind Taita on Windsmoke. After her display of her horse-handling skill she had demanded her own mount, and Taita had chosen for her a sturdy bay gelding of even disposition.

Fenn was delighted with him. 'I shall call him Goose,' she announced.

Taita looked at her enquiringly. 'Why Goose?'

'I like geese. He reminds me of a goose,' she explained loftily. He decided that the easiest course was to accept the name without further debate.

As soon as the track reached the foothills and became wide enough to allow it, she moved up and rode at Taita's side, their knees almost touching, so that they could talk. 'You promised to tell me about the witch in the water. This is a good time.'

'Yes, it is. The witch is a very old woman. She has lived since the beginning time. She is very powerful, and does wicked things.'

'What wicked things?'

'She devours newborn babes.' Fenn shuddered. 'And she lures wise men into her clutches and devours their souls. Then she casts out the husks of the bodies.'

'I would never have thought such things possible.'

'There is worse to tell, Fenn. With her powers she has stopped up the

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flow of the great river that is the mother of the earth, the river whose waters give life, food and drink to all peoples.'

Fenn thought about that. 'The Luo thought I had killed the river.

They drove me out of their village to die of hunger in the forest, or to be eaten by wild animals.'

'They are a cruel and ignorant people,' Taita agreed.

'I am glad that you and Meren slew them,' she said matter-of-factly, and was silent again for a while. 'Why would the witch want to kill the river?'

'She wanted to break the power of our pharaoh and enslave the peoples of his kingdom.'

'What is a pharaoh, and what does “enslave” mean?' He explained, and she looked grave. 'Then she is truly wicked. Where does she live?'

'On a mountain beside a great lake in a land far to the south.' He pointed ahead.

'Is that where we are going?'

'Yes. We will try to stop her, and make the waters flow again.'

'If she lives so far away, how did she get into the pool of the river where we saw her?'

'It was not her we saw. It was her shadow.'

Fenn frowned and wrinkled her pert little nose as she wrestled with the concept. 'I do not understand.'

Taita reached into the leather pouch on his girdle and brought out the bulb of a lily that he had brought with him for the purpose of demonstration. He handed it to her. 'You know this bulb.'

She examined it briefly. 'Of course. We have gathered many such.'

'Inside there are many layers, one within the other, and in the centre the tiny kernel' She nodded, and he went on, 'That is how our entire universe is shaped. We are the kernel at the centre. Around us there are layers of existence we cannot see or sense - unless we have the power to do so. Do you understand?'

She nodded again, cautiously, then admitted candidly, 'No, I don't, Taita.'

'Do you dream when you are asleep, Fenn?'

'Oh, yes!' she enthused. 'Wonderful dreams! They make me laugh and feel happy. Sometimes in my dreams I can fly like a bird. I visit strange and beautiful places.' Then a haunted expression replaced the smile. 'But sometimes I have dreams that frighten me or make me feel sad.'

Taita had listened to her nightmares as she lay beside him in the

night. He had never shaken her or startled her out of them but had extended his own power to calm her and bring her back gently from the dark places. 'Yes, Fenn, I know. In your sleep you leave this layer of existence and move into the next.' She smiled with comprehension, and Taita continued, 'Although most people have dreams they cannot control, some have the special gift to see beyond the tiny kernel of existence in which we are encapsulated. Some, the savants and the magi, may even have the power to travel in spirit form to wherever they choose. To see things from afar.'

'Can you do that, Taita?' He smiled enigmatically, and she burst out, 'It must be strange and wonderful. I should love to be able to do that.'

'One day perhaps you shall. You see, Fenn, you saw the shade of the witch in the pool, which means you have the power. We need only train you to use and control it.'

'So the witch had come to spy on us? She was really there?'

'Her spirit was. She was overlooking us.'

'I am frightened of her.'

'It is wise to be so. But we must not surrender to her. We must counter her with our own powers, you and I. We must oppose her and break her wicked spells. If we can, we will destroy her and this world will be a better place for it.'

'I will help you,' she declared stoutly, 'but, first, you must teach me how.'

'Your progress so far has been miraculous.' He looked upon her with unfeigned admiration. She was already developing the mind and spirit of the queen she had been in the other life. 'You are ready to learn more,'

he told her. 'We will start at once.'

Her instruction began each day as they mounted and rode out side by side. It continued through the long days of travel. His first concern was to instil in her the duty of a magus, which was to employ with care and responsibility the powers with which he or she had been endowed. They must never be used lightly or frivolously, or to achieve petty or selfish ends.

Once she had understood this sacred duty, and acknowledged it with a formal vow that he made her repeat, they moved on to study the simplest forms of the magical arts. At first he was careful not to tax her

I I

powers of concentration and to set a pace that she could maintain. But he need not have worried: she was indefatigable, and her determination unbending.

First he taught her how to protect herself: to weave spells of concealment that would shield her from the eyes of others. She practised this at the end of each day, when they were secure within the makeshift stockade. She would sit quietly beside Taita and, with his assistance, attempt to work a spell of concealment. It took many nights of diligent application but at last she succeeded. Once she had cloaked herself, Taita shouted for Meren. 'Have you seen Fenn? I wish to speak to her.'

Meren looked about, and his gaze passed over the child without pause.

'She was here but a short time ago. She must have gone out to the bushes. Shall I search for her?'

'No matter. It was not important.' Meren walked away, and Fenn giggled triumphantly.

Meren whirled round and started with surprise. 'There she is! Sitting beside you!' Then he grinned. 'Clever girl, Fenn! I was never able to do that, no matter how hard I tried.'

'Now you see how, if you lose concentration, the spell shatters like glass,' Taita chided her.

Once she had learnt to shield her physical body, he could teach her to mask her mind and aura. This was more difficult. First, he had to be certain that the witch did not have them under scrutiny: until she had fully mastered the magical techniques she would be most vulnerable to interference from any malign influence while she was attempting to do it. He had to search the ether around them before they could begin the instruction, and keep his guard high.

Her first task was to understand the aura of life that surrounded every living thing. She could not see it, and would never be able to until her Inner Eye was opened. Taita was determined to take her at the first opportunity on the arduous journey to the temple of Saraswati. In the meantime he had to describe it to her. Once she had grasped the concept of the aura, he could go on to explain the Inner Eye, and the power of savants to employ it.