The Quest

'Oh, thank the benevolent Mother Isis,' Fenn called back. 'I thought I was too late. I sense you are in desperate straits. I am joining all my forces with yours, as you taught me.'

He felt his shaking legs still and harden. He lifted his feet off the knot and, hanging on his arms, reached down with his toes. The drop beneath sucked at him as he revolved on the rope.

'Be strong, Taita. I am with you,' Fenn exhorted.

His feet found the next knot, and he slid his hands down to take another grip. He had been counting, so he knew there were still twenty knots before he reached the end of the rope.

'Go on, Taita! For both our sakes, you must go on! Without you I am nothing. You must endure,' Fenn urged.

He felt her strength come to him in warm, astral waves. 'Nineteen .. .

Eighteen . ..' He counted the remaining knots as they passed through his bloody hands.

'You have the strength and the determination,' she whispered in his mind. 'I am beside you. I am part of you. Do this thing for us. For the love I have for you. You are my father and my friend. I came back for you and you alone. Don't leave me now.'

'Nine … Eight. .. Seven …' Taita counted.

'You are growing stronger,' she said softly, 'I can feel it. We will come through together.'

'Three . . . Two . .. One …“ He counted and stretched down with

one leg, groping with his toes for the rope. There was nothing under his foot but space. He had reached the end of the rope. He drew a deep breath, let go with both hands and fell with a rush that stopped1 his breath. Then, abruptly, he struck the bottom with both feet. His legs gave way and he sprawled, like a fledgling fallen from the nest. He lay on his belly, face down, sobbing with exhaustion and relief, too weak even to sit up.

'Are you safe, Taita? Are you still there? Do you hear me?'

'I hear you,' he answered, as he sat up. 'I am safe for the moment.

Without you it would have been different. Your strength has armed me.

I must go on now. Listen for my call. Surely I will need you again.'

'Remember, I love you,' she called, as her presence faded, and he was alone in the darkness once more. He fumbled in the basket and brought out the clay fire-pot. He blew the embers to life and lit a fresh torch. He held it high, and by its light examined his immediate surroundings.

He was on a narrow wooden catwalk, built against the sheer wall on his left and secured to it by rows of bronze bolts driven into holes drilled in the rock. On his other side yawned the dark void. The feeble light of the torch could not fathom the extent of it. He crept to the edge of the catwalk and looked over it. Under him stretched endless darkness and he knew that he was suspended above a chasm that reached into the very bowels of the earth, those nether regions from which Eos had sprung.

He rested a little longer. His thirst was raging, but there was nothing to drink. He quelled the longing with the force of his mind and drove the weariness from his limbs, then he took his sandals from the basket and fastened them on to his feet, which had been rubbed raw by the rope. At last he got to his feet and hobbled along the narrow catwalk.

The drop on his left-hand side was unprotected by any balustrade, and the darkness beneath drew him with a hypnotic attraction that was difficult to resist. He went slowly and cautiously, placing each step with care.

He saw in his mind's eye how Eos had run lightly along this same catwalk like a child through an open meadow, and how she had swarmed up the knotted rope on her return to her warren high above, holding the flaming torch in her strong white teeth. He knew that, by contrast, he had barely the strength to negotiate the level footing beneath him.

Beneath his feet the wooden planking gave way to rough-hewn rock.

He had reached a ledge in the rock face. It was barely wide enough to afford him a foothold, and slanted downwards so sharply that he had to cling to the wall to steady himself.

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The ledge seemed endless. It took all his self-control to stop himself panicking. He had descended several hundred cubits down the ledge before he reached a deep fissure. He stepped through it into another tunnel. Here he was forced to rest again. He placed the torch in a slot that had been carved into the rock, the wall above it blackened by the smoke of countless other flames. His face sank into his cupped hands and he closed his eyes, breathing deeply until the racing of his heart slowed.

Now the torch was guttering and smoking as it burnt out. He lit the last from the dying flame and went on down the tunnel. It was descending even more steeply than the open ledge he had just left. Finally it became a rocky staircase that spiralled on downwards. Over the centuries the steps had been worn by Eos's bare feet until they were smooth and concave.

He knew that the interior of the mountain was a honeycomb of ancient volcanic pipes and fissures. The rock was hot to the touch, heated by the bubbling lava at its heart. The air became as sulphurous and stifling as the fumes from a charcoal forge.

At last Taita reached the fork in the tunnel he had been expecting.

The main chute went straight on downwards, while the lesser branch turned off at a sharp angle. Taita did not hesitate but turned into the narrower opening. The footing was rough but almost level. He followed the tunnel through several twists and turns until finally he stepped out into another cavern, lit by a ruddy furnace-like glow. Even this fluctuating light could not penetrate to the furthest reaches of the immense space. He looked down, and saw that he stood on the brink of another deep crater. Far below him boiled a lake of fiery lava. Its surface bubbled and swirled, shooting up fountains of molten rock and sparks. The heat struck his face so fiercely that he raised his hands to ward it off.

From the surface high above the burning lava sucked in gales of wind.

They roared, howled and tugged at his clothing so that he staggered before he could brace himself to resist them. Before him a spur of rock stretched out across the bubbling cauldron. It sagged in the middle, like a suspended rope bridge, and was so narrow that two men could not have walked across it side by side. He tucked the skirts of his tunic under his girdle and stepped out on to it. The wind that roared through the cavern was not constant. It gusted, then dropped. It swirled viciously, at times reversing its direction without warning. It sucked him backwards, then all at once propelled him forward again. More than once it unbalanced him and made him totter at the brink, windmilling his arms to regain his balance. At last it forced him to his hands and knees. He crawled on,

and when the stronger squalls howled over him he flattened himself against the bridge and clung to it. All the time the lava bubbled and seethed below.'

At last he saw the far side of the cavern ahead, another precipitous rock wall. He crawled towards it, until he saw, to his horror, that the last section of the rocky spur had crumbled away and fallen into the fiery cauldron below. There was a gap between the end of the spur and the far wall of the cavern as wide as three strides of a tall man. He went to the edge and looked across this gap. There was a small opening in the facing wall.

From Eos's memory he knew that she had not passed this way for hundreds of years. On her last visit the spur had been entire. This last section must have crumbled away only relatively recently. Eos had been unaware of it, and that was why he had not expected to be confronted by this obstacle.

He crawled back a short way, knelt up and kicked off his sandals, then shrugged the handle of the basket off his shoulder and discarded it. The sandals and the basket fell over the edge and plummeted into the lava lake. He knew he did not have the strength to go back, so he must go forward. He closed his eyes and regulated his breathing, then gathered the last of his physical strength and bolstered it with all his mental and psychic powers. Then he came up into a crouch like a marathon runner at the start of a race. He waited for a lull in the furious winds that swept over the spur. Then, in the momentary stillness, he drove himself forward along the narrow path, leaning forward and stepping high. He leapt out into space, and knew in that instant he would fall short. The cauldron waited below to receive him.

Then the wind was shrieking again. It had changed direction and doubled its fury. It came from directly behind him. It swept under the skirts of his tunic, billowed them and flung him forward. But not quite far enough. His lower body slammed into the cliff and he just caught hold of the lip of the opening. He hung there, his legs dangling over the drop, all his weight hanging on his arms. He tried to pull himself up high enough to hook one elbow over the lip, but could raise himself only a little way before he fell back at full stretch of his arms. Frantically he kicked and groped with his bare feet for a foothold on the cliff, but the rock was smooth.

A fountain of burning lava erupted from the cauldron below him.

Before it fell back, particles of molten magma splattered his bare legs and feet. The pain was unbearable and he screeched in agony.

'Taita!' Fenn had sensed his pain and called to him across the ether.

'Help me,' he sobbed.

'I am with you,' she replied. 'With all our might - now!'

The pain was a goad. He strained upwards until he felt the sinews of his arms popping, and gradually, achingly slowly, he drew himself up until his eyes were level with the lip, but then he could rise no further.

He felt his arms giving way.

'Fenn, help me!' he cried again.

'Together! Now!' He felt the surge of her strength. He drew himself up slowly until at last he could throw one arm over the lip. He hung on it for a moment, then heard her cry again.

'Together again, Taita. Now!'

He heaved upwards and threw out his other arm. It found purchase.

With both arms holding his courage returned. He ignored the pain of his burnt legs, heaved upwards and the top half of his body flopped over the lip. Kicking and panting, he dragged himself into the mouth of the opening. He lay there for a long time until he had recovered the strength to sit up. Then he looked down at his legs and saw the burns. He pulled off the lumps of lava that were still adhering to the soles of his feet, and lumps of his flesh came away with them. Upon his calves, blisters filled with transparent fluid were ballooning. He was crippled by pain but, using the wall as support, he dragged himself to his feet. Then he staggered on down the tunnel. The soles of his feet were raw, and he left bloody footprints on the rock. The glow from the fiery cauldron behind him lit his way.

The tunnel ran straight for a short distance then began to descend and the ruddy light faded. In its last glimmer he made out a half consumed torch jammed into a crack in the rock. It had been there since Eos's last visit so long ago. He had no means of igniting it, he thought.

Then he remembered the power he had taken from the witch and stretched out his hand towards it, pointing his forefinger at the charred end and focusing on it his psychic force.

A glowing spot appeared at the head of the dead torch. A thin spiral of smoke rose from it, and then, abruptly, it burst into flame and burnt up brightly. He took it down from the crack and, holding it high, hobbled on as fast as his scalded feet would carry him. He came to the head of another inclined shaft. This was also stepped, but the rock was not worn, the marks of the masons' chisels still fresh. He started down it, but the steps seemed endless and he had to stop repeatedly to rest. In one such interval he became conscious of a low susurration, a trembling

in the air and in the rock upon which he sat. The sound was not constant but rose and fell intermittently, like the slow beating of a gigantic pulse.'

He knew what it was.

Eagerly now, he came to his feet and started downwards again. As he went, the sound became stronger and clearer. Down again and still down Taita went, and the sound swelled, his excitement, too, until it was strong enough to dull the pain in his legs. The sound of the mighty pulse reached the peak of its volume. The rock walls shook. He dragged himself forward, then stopped, astounded. He had acquired the memory of this place from Eos but the tunnel had come to a dead end. Slowly, painfully, he went forward and stood before the wall.

It seemed to be of natural rough stone. There were no cracks or openings in it, but in its centre, level with his eyes, three signs had been carved. The first was so old and eroded by the sulphurous gas of the lava cauldron that it was illegible, its antiquity unfathomable. The second was only slightly fresher, and when he studied it more closely he saw that it was the outline of a tiny pyramid, the soul sign of a priest or a holy man.

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

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

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

'Tashkalon! Ascartow! Silondela!'

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

Taita stepped through the portals. Two more torches were set into

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

Filled with trepidation, he went down the steps and found himself standing in what appeared to be the dry bed of a great subterranean river.

He knew that, soon, the sound and light would burst out of the dark tunnel. What would be the consequences if he were to allow the mystical waters of the river of life to pour over him?

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

His nerve failed and he turned to flee. But he had hesitated too long.

Austere blue light filled the tunnel. Even if he had wished to, he could no longer escape it. He turned to face the tunnel and braced himself to receive the approaching thunder. From the mouth of the subterranean river burst a radiance that had no apparent source. Only when it swirled round his bare feet did he realized that it was neither gaseous nor liquid.

It was as light as air but at the same time dense and weighty. It was icy cold on his skin, but it warmed the flesh beneath.

This was the elixir of life eternal.

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

He could still see the blue radiance through his closed eyelids, and the thunder filled his ears.

He felt the Blueness seeping into his lower body openings, filling him.

He opened his eyes and it washed over them. He exhaled the breath he was holding, then drew the next. He felt the blue elixir flow into his nostrils, down his throat and into his lungs. He opened his mouth and gulped in the Blueness. His heart pumped strongly as the Blueness filtered

from his lungs into his blood and was carried to every part of his body.

He felt it tingling in his fingertips and toes. His weariness fell away and he felt stronger than he could ever remember. His mind sparkled with a crystalline brilliance.

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

Then, softly, the Blueness began to recede. The thunder abated and he heard it race away down the tunnel. He stood alone in the silent riverbed and looked down at himself. He raised one foot at a time. The burns on his calves and the soles of his feet were healed. The skin was smooth and unflawed. The muscles of his legs stood out hard and proud.

His legs wanted to run. He turned and bounded up the staircase towards the rolling stone gate. He took the rough-hewn steps three or four at a time. His legs hurled him up effortlessly. His feet never stumbled. He paused briefly at the portal of the chamber. He snatched down the torches from their brackets, and turned back to shout the words of power.

The rock gate rumbled shut. He saw that another signature was now engraved in the stone beside the other three, the symbol of the wounded falcon: his own spirit sign. He turned away and went on up the steep staircase. He heard the eternal thunder of the Font behind him as he climbed, and the mighty heartbeat of the earth was echoed in his chest.

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

He launched himself along the narrow rock causeway, running lightly where previously he had been forced to crawl. Though the wind clawed

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404 I

at him and whipped the skirt of his tunic round his legs he never slowed his pace. He ducked his head under the stone roof of the tunnel at the end of the causeway and went on, following the twists and turns, not stopping until he reached the fork of the tunnel and stepped out into the main branch.

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

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

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

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

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

He had lost all sense of the passage of time. He did not know whether it was night or day, but he went on. At last he reached a point where

the tunnel descended another steep flight of steps. When he reached the bottom he found the way forward closed off by a heavy leather curtain, decorated with mystic symbols and characters. He doused the torches, then moved closer to it. A soft ray of light showed through a chink in the leather. He listened intently, his hearing immeasurably sharper and clearer than it had been before he had entered the Font. Now he heard nothing. Cautiously he opened the chink in the curtain a little wider and peered through. He was looking into a small but magnificently furnished room. He searched quickly for any sign of life but he found no aura. He opened the curtain wider and stepped through.

This was Eos's boudoir. The walls and roof were covered with tiles of ivory, each carved with beautifully executed designs that had been painted with jewel-like colours. The effect was gay and enchanting. Four oil lamps were suspended from the ceiling on bronze chains. The light they threw was mellowy. Against the far wall a silk-covered couch was piled with cushions and a low ebony table stood in the centre of the floor. On it were set bowls of fruit, honey cakes and other sweetmeats, with a small crystal jug of red wine, its stopper in the shape of a golden dolphin. On another table lay a pile of papyrus scrolls and an astrological model of the heavens, depicting the tracks of the sun, the moon and the planets, fashioned in fine gold. The floor was covered with multiple layers of silk carpets.

He went directly to the central table and selected a bunch of grapes from a bowl. He had eaten nothing since he had left the witch's warren, and now he had the appetite of a young man. Once he had devoured half of the bowl's contents, he crossed to a second door in the wall beside the couch. It was screened by another richly decorated leather curtain, the twin to the one through which he had entered. He listened beside it but heard nothing, then slipped through the division in the curtains into a smaller anteroom. Here, a stool was set beside the far wall in which a peep-hole had been drilled. Taita went to it and stooped to peer through.

He found that he was looking into the Supreme Council chamber of the oligarchs. This was the spy-hole Eos used whenever she came down from the high mountain to preside over and direct the Council's proceedings. The chamber was the one in which Taita had first met Aquer, Ek-Tang and Caithor. Now it was deserted and in semi-darkness.

The high window at the back framed a square of the night sky, which included part of the constellation of Centaurus. From its angle to the horizon he made a rough estimate of the time. It was past midnight, and the palace was quiet. He returned to Eos's boudoir and ate the rest of the

fruit. Then he stretched out upon the couch, spun a web of concealment to protect him while he slept, closed his eyes and was almost immediately asleep.

He was awoken by voices coming from the Supreme Council chamber. The intervening walls should have muffled them, but his hearing was so enhanced that he could recognize Lord Aquer's.

Taita rose quickly from the couch and went to Eos's spy-hole. He looked through it. Eight warriors in full battledress were kneeling before the dais in attitudes of subservience and respect. The two oligarchs faced them. Lord Aquer was on his feet haranguing the men who knelt before him.

'What do you mean, they have escaped? I ordered you to capture them and bring them to me. Now you say that they have eluded you. Explain yourself.'

'We have two thousand men in the field. They will not be at liberty much longer.' The speaker was Captain Onka. He was cringing on his knees before Aquer's wrath.

'Two thousand?' Aquer demanded. 'Where are the rest of our troops?

I commanded you to call up the entire army to deal with this insurrection.

I will take the field at the head of the force. I will find the traitor That Ankut and all his fellow conspirators. All of them, do you hear? Especially the newcomer Meren Cambyses and the strangers he has brought with him to Jarri. I will personally oversee their torture and execution. I will make an example of them that will never be forgotten!'

He glared at his officers but none dared speak or even look at him.

'When I have dealt with the ringleaders, I will unleash my vengeance on every incomer in Jarri,' Aquer ranted. 'They are traitors. By order of this Council their property is confiscated by the goddess and the state.

The men will be sent to the mines - we are short of slaves. I want older women, and children over the age of twelve years, placed in the slave pens. The younger children without exception are to be put to the sword.

Any desirable girls will go to the farms for the breeding programme. How long will it take you to muster the remainder of our regiments, Colonel Onka?'

Taita realized that Onka must have been promoted to command the regiment that had formerly been Tinat's.

'We will be ready to ride before noon today, great lord,' Onka replied.

Taita listened in consternation. Everything in Jarri had changed during his sojourn in the mountains. Now his first concern was for Fenri and Meren. Perhaps they were already in Onka's hands. He must make contact with Fenn immediately to reassure himself of her safety, but it was vitally important, too, that he make the most of this opportunity to eavesdrop on Aquer's plans.

He stayed at the peep-hole while Aquer continued to issue orders.

He was an experienced commander and it seemed that his tactics would be effective. However, Taita could make his own plans to counteract them. At last Aquer dismissed his colonels, and the two oligarchs were left alone in the hall. Aquer threw himself angrily on his stool.

'We are surrounded by fools and poltroons,' he complained. 'How was this insurrection allowed to flourish under our very noses?'

'I smell the odour of the putative magus, Taita of Gallala, in this,'

Ek-Tang answered. 'I have no doubt that he has instigated this outrage. He comes directly from Egypt and Nefer Seti. No sooner do we welcome him into Jarri than the country is plunged into the first rebellion in two hundred years.'

'Two hundred and twelve years,' Aquer corrected him.

'Two hundred and twelve,' Ek-Tang agreed, his voice crackling with irritation, 'but such pedantry serves no good purpose. What is to be done about the rabble-rouser?'

'You know that Taita was the special guest of the goddess and that he has gone to meet her on the mountains. Those who are summoned by Eos never return. We need spare no further thought for him. You will never see him again. Those he brought with him to Jarri will soon be arraigned—' Aquer broke off and his angry expression cleared. He smiled with anticipation. 'His ward, the girl he called Fenn, will receive my special concern.' Taita saw his aura throw off sparks of lust.

'Is she old enough?' Ek-Tang asked.

'For me, they are always old enough.' Aquer made an expressive gesture.

'Each of us has his own tastes,' Ek-Tang conceded. 'It is as well that we do not all enjoy the same amusements.' The two oligarchs rose and, arm in arm, left the hall. Taita returned to the witch's boudoir and barred the door before he made the first cast for Fenn. Almost immediately her sign appeared in his mind's eye, and he heard her sweet voice ring in his head: 'I am here.'

'I cast for you earlier. Are you in danger?'

I

THE QUEST

'We are all in danger,' she replied, 'but for the moment we are safe.

The land is in turmoil. Where are you, Taita?'

'I have escaped from the mountain and I am hidden near the Supreme Council chamber.'

Even over the ether her surprise was clear. 'Oh, Taita, you never fail to amaze and delight me.'

'When we meet I will have much more for your delight,' he promised.

'Are you or Meren able to come to me or must I find you?'

'We are hidden too, but only five or six leagues from where you are,'

Fenn replied. 'Tell us where we must meet you.'

'To the north of the citadel a narrow valley is carved into the foothills.

It is not far from the mountain road, about three leagues from the palace.

The entrance is marked by a distinctive grove of acacia trees on the hillside above it. Seen from far off, it is shaped like the head of a horse.

This is the place,' he told her, and transmitted an image of the grove to her across the ether.

'I see it clearly,' she replied. 'Sidudu will recognize it. If she does not I will cast for you again. Go to the valley quickly, Taita. We have but little time left to flee this wicked place and the wrath of the Jarrians.'

Swiftly Taita searched the boudoir for a weapon or some form of disguise, but found neither. He was still bare-footed and dressed in the simple tunic, which was filthy with dust and soot and scorched by drops of burning magma. He went quickly to the outer door and let himself through into the empty audience hall. He had a clear memory of the route he must follow to reach the entrance through which That had brought him on his first visit to the citadel. He stepped out into the corridor to find it deserted. When the oligarchs had left, they must have dismissed the guards. He made for the rear of the building and had almost reached the tall double doors to the rear courtyard when a loud voice halted him.

'You there! Stand and give account of yourself.'

In his haste Taita had neglected to spin about himself a spell of concealment. He turned back with a friendly smile. 'I am confused by the size of this place, and I would be glad of your assistance in finding my way out.'

The man who had accosted him was of one of the citadel guards, a burly middle-aged sergeant in full uniform. He had drawn his sword and was striding towards Taita with a belligerent scowl.

'Who are you?' he shouted again. 'You have the look of a dirty, thieving rascal to me.'

'Peace, friend.' Still smiling, Taita held up both hands in a placatory gesture. 'I carry an urgent message for Colonel Onka.'

'The Colonel has left already.' The sergeant held out his left hand.

'Give the message to me, if you are not lying and you truly have one. I will see it gets to him.'

Taita pretended to grope in his pouch, but as the man came closer, he seized his wrist and pulled him off balance. Instinctively the sergeant pulled back with all his weight. Instead of resisting Taita went with him and used the impetus to crash with both elbows into his chest. With a shout of surprise the man lost his balance and went over backwards.

Quick as a leopard, Taita landed on top of him and drove the ball of his right hand up under his chin. The vertebrae of the sergeant's neck parted with a loud crack, killing him instantly.

Taita knelt beside him and began to untie his helmet, intending to use his uniform as a disguise, but before he could get the helmet off his head there was another shout and two more guards rushed down the corridor towards him with drawn swords. Taita prised the blade out of the dead man's hand, and sprang to his feet to face his attackers.

He hefted the sword in his right hand. It was a heavy infantry model but it felt familiar and comfortable in his grip. Many years ago he had written the manual of arms for Pharaoh's regiments, and swordsmanship was one of his passionate interests. Since then age had taken from him the force of his right arm, but now it was restored to him, as was his agility and fleetness of foot. He parried the thrust of the first assailant and ducked under the cut of the second. Keeping low, he slashed at the back of the man's ankle, neatly severing his Achilles tendon. Then he jumped up and pirouetted unexpectedly between the two before either could recover. The unwounded man turned to follow him, but as he did so he opened his flank and Taita stabbed deep in his armpit, sliding the point of his blade between the ribs. With a twist of his wrist, he turned it in the wound, opening it wide and freeing it from the suction of wet flesh. His victim dropped to his knees coughing up gouts of blood from pierced lungs. Taita spun away to face the trooper he had crippled.

The man's eyes filled with terror and he tried to back away but his maimed foot flopped nervelessly, and he almost fell. Taita feinted for his face and, when he raised his guard to protect his eyes, sent a thrust into his belly, cleared his blade and jumped back. The man dropped his weapon and fell to his knees. Taita stepped forward again and stabbed down into the back of his neck, under the rim of his helmet. The trooper dropped face down and lay still.

Taita jumped over the two corpses and went to the first man he had killed. Unlike the others, his uniform was not bloodstained. Swiftly he stripped off the man's sandals and laced them on to his own bare feet.

They were a tolerable fit. He strapped the sword belt and scabbard round his waist, then took the helmet and cloak and pulled them on as he ran for the rear doors of the citadel. He slowed to a walk as he reached them and spread the scarlet cloak to cover his torn, soiled tunic. As he marched towards the doors he sent out an impulse to lull the minds of the sentries who guarded them. They glanced at him with little interest as he passed between them and went down the marble steps into the courtyard.

The parade-ground was bustling with the men and horses of Onka's regiment preparing for campaign. Taita saw Onka himself strutting about and shouting orders to his captains. He mingled with the throng and passed close to Onka as he made his way towards the stables. Although Onka glanced in his direction he showed no sign of recognition.

Taita reached the stableyard without being accosted. Here, there was the same furious activity. The farriers were reshoeing the horses, the armourers were busy at the grindstones sharpening arrowheads and blades, and the grooms were saddling the officers' mounts. Taita thought of attempting to steal a horse from the lines, but he realized there was almost no hope of that plan succeeding. Instead he made his way towards the back wall of the palace compound.

The stench guided him to the latrines tucked behind the buildings.

When he found them he looked around carefully to make sure he was unobserved. A sentry was patrolling the top of the walls above him, so he waited for the diversion he knew must come. It was not long before he heard angry shouts from the direction of the citadel. Whistles bleated and a dnimbeat signalled the call to arms. The three bodies he had left in the passage had been discovered, and the attention of the garrison was focused on the citadel. The sentry rushed to the far end of the parapet from where he stared out over the parade-ground to find the reason for the alarm. His back was turned.

Taita swung himself up on to the flat roof of the latrines. From there the top of the wall was within reach. He took a run and leapt for the lip of the parapet, then he pulled himself up with both arms until he could throw a leg over. He rolled across the top of the wall and dropped over the far side. It was a long fall, but he rode the shock of landing with braced legs and glanced round swiftly. The sentry was still gazing away from him. The edge of the forest was close by and he darted across the

open ground into the trees. Here he took a minute to orient himself, then began the steep climb into the foothills, using the cover of gullies, long grass and shrubs to hide himself from a chance watcher belbw.

When he reached the crest of the hill he peered over it cautiously. The road that led up to the Cloud Gardens was just beneath him. It was deserted. He ran down, crossed it quickly and took cover in a patch of scrub. From there he could see across to the horse's head grove of trees on the next promontory. He bounded down the scree slope into the valley, the loose stones rolling under his feet, and reached the bottom without losing his balance. He trotted along the base of the hill and came to an opening. The valley sides were steep and he went a short distance into it, then turned and climbed to a vantage-point from where he could watch the entrance and settled down to wait.

The sun reached its zenith, then began to drop towards the horizon.

He saw dust on the road across the valley. It looked as though a large troop of cavalry was riding hard towards the east. An hour or so passed, and then he heard the faint sound of hoofs coming closer. He sat up, alert. A small band of riders appeared below him and stopped.

Sidudu was at the front, mounted on a chestnut pony. She pointed up the valley towards where Taita was hiding. Meren spurred past her and took the lead. The party came on at a trot, Meren followed closely by a lovely young woman on a grey colt. Her long legs were bare and her blonde hair was tumbled by the wind on to her shoulders. She was slim, the set of her shoulders proud. Even from this distance Taita could see her breasts standing out under the bleached linen of her tunic. The wind flicked aside her golden curls to reveal her face, and Taita drew a sharp breath. It was Fenn, but a different Fenn from the girl he had known and loved. This was a confident, poised young woman in the first flower of her beauty.

Fenn was riding her grey colt and she had Windsmoke on a lead rein behind her. Hilto rode at her right hand. Nakonto and Imbali followed them closely, both mounted and sitting their horses well — they had learnt new skills in the many months he had been away. Taita left the ledge on which he squatted and scrambled down the cliff. He jumped out and dropped down the last steep pitch. The scarlet cloak opened round him like a pair of wings, but the visor of the leather helmet obscured the top half of his face. He landed in the path directly before Meren.

With the reflexes of a trained warrior, Meren saw the Jarrian uniform and rode at him with an intimidating yell, drawing his sword and

swinging it high. Taita had only just enough time to straighten and draw his own weapon. Meren leant from the saddle and hacked at his head.

Taita turned the blow with his blade and jumped aside. Meren pulled his horse down on its haunches and dragged its head round. Then he came back at the charge. Taita ripped the helmet off his head and threw it aside. 'Meren! It is Taita,' he yelled.

'You lie! You are nothing like the magus!' Meren did not check his charge. He leant out from the saddle and levelled his blade, sighting along it at the centre of Taita's chest. At the last moment Taita swayed aside and the point of the sword grazed his shoulder as Meren swept past.

Taita shouted at Fenn as she rode forward. 'Fenn! It is me. Taita.'

'No! No! You are not Taita! What have you done with him?' she screamed. Meren was gathering his mount under him, bringing its head round for his next attack. Nakonto had his throwing spear resting on his shoulder and was ready to hurl it as soon as he had a clear view past Meren. Imbali jumped down from her horse and hefted her battleaxe as she ran forward. Hilto followed her with drawn sword. Both Fenn and Sidudu were nocking arrows to their bows.

Fenn's eyes glittered like emeralds in her anger. 'You have done away with him, you villain!' she yelled. 'You shall have an arrow through your black heart.'

'Fenn! Behold my spirit sign!' Taita called urgently, in the Tenmass.

Her chin jerked up. Then she saw the sign of the wounded falcon floating above his head and blanched with shock. 'Nay! Nay! It is him! It is Taita! Put up your sword, I tell you! Put it up, Meren!' Meren swerved, then reined his mount back.

Fenn sprang down from Whirlwind and raced to Taita. She flung both her arms round his neck and sobbed brokenheartedly. 'Oh! Oh! Oh! I thought you were dead. I thought they had killed you.'

Taita held her tightly to his chest, her body lithe and hard against his.

The sweet smell of her filled his nostrils and made his senses swim. His heart swelled in his chest so that he was unable to speak. They held each other with a silent intensity, while the others stared at them in bewilderment.

Hilto tried to maintain his usual phlegmatic air, but he was unsuccessful. Nakonto and Imbali were mute with the fear of witchcraft, both spitting to left and right, making the sign against evil spirits.

'It's not him,' Meren was repeating. 'I know the magus better than any man alive. This young buck is not him.'

After a long while Fenn drew back and held Taita at arm's length.

She studied his face raptly, then stared into his eyes. 'My eyes tell me it

is not you, but my heart sings that it is. Yes, it is you. It is verily you.

But, my lord, how have you become so young and surpassingly beautiful?'

She stood on tiptoe to kiss his lips. At this the others burst out laughing.

Meren jumped down from the saddle and rushed to join them. He pulled Taita out of Fenn's embrace and wrapped him in a bear-hug of his own. 'I still cannot believe it! It is not possible!' He laughed. 'But I give testimony that you wield a pretty sword, Magus, else I would have run you through.' They crowded round him excitedly.

Sidudu came to kneel before him. 'I owe you so much, Magus. I am so glad to see you safe. Before you were beautiful of spirit, but now you are beautiful in the flesh too.'

Even Nakonto and Imbali at last conquered their superstitious dread and came to touch him in awe.

Hilto exclaimed loudly, 'I did not doubt for a second that you would come back to us. I knew it was you the instant I laid eyes on you.' No one took any notice of this blatant falsehood.

Meren demanded answers to twenty different questions and Fenn clung to his right arm and gazed into his face with shining eyes.

At last Taita recalled them to stark reality: 'There will be time for this later. All you need to know now is that Eos can harm neither us nor our very Egypt again.' He whistled for Windsmoke, who rolled her eyes at him coquettishly and came to nuzzle his neck. 'You at least recognize me, my darling.' He hugged her round the neck, then looked again to Meren.

'Where is That?'

'Magus, he is already on the march for the Kitangule river. The Jarrians have discovered our plans. We must ride at once.'

By the time they had left the valley and started towards the plain, the sun was setting. It was dark when they entered the forest and, once again, Sidudu was their guide. Taita checked her heading by the stars and found that her knowledge of the land and her sense of direction were infallible. He could devote all of his attention to Fenn and Meren.

The three rode side by side with Taita in the middle, their stirrups touching, while Fenn and Meren described to him all that had transpired while they were apart.

Then Taita told them, 'While I was in the palace I was able to eavesdrop on Aquer's battle council. He is taking command of the army himself. His scouts have reported the movement of the main body of our people along the road towards the east. He has deduced that That is trying to reach the shipyards at the head of the Kitangule river and seize the boats there, for he knows that our only escape from Jarri is down

that river. Tell me where exactly That is now and how many are with him.”

'He has about nine hundred people, but many of the men are sick and weak from the treatment to which they were subjected in the mines.

He has only a few more than three hundred who can fight. The rest are women and children.'

'Three hundred!' Taita exclaimed. 'Aquer has five thousand trained warriors. If he catches That it will go hard with him.'

'Worse, That is short of horses. Some of the children are very young.

With them and all the sick, he is moving slowly.'

'He must send a small band of fighting men ahead with all speed to seize the boats. In the meantime we must delay Aquer,' Taita said grimly.

'That hopes to give him pause at the Kitangule Gap. Fifty men can hold an army there, at least until the women and the sick are on the boats,' said Meren.

'Don't forget that Aquer has scouts who know the country as well as Sidudu does,' Taita reminded him. 'They will certainly know of the other route to bypass the gap and reach the boatyards. Instead of waiting for him to come at us, we should strike at him before he expects it.' Meren had glanced at Sidudu as Taita mentioned her name. Even in the moonlight his expression was doting. Poor Meren, the famous philanderer, is smitten, Taita thought, and smiled inwardly, but he said, 'We will need more men than we have now if we are to hold Aquer. I will stay to watch the road for him. Meren, you must take Fenn with you and ride as fast as you can to find Tinat—'

'I will not leave you!' Fenn cried. 'I have come so close to losing you that I will never leave you again.'

'I am not a messenger, Magus. You owe me more respect than to treat me as one. Like Fenn, I will stay with you. Send Hilto,' Meren declared.

Taita made a gesture of resignation. 'Will no one take an order from me without argument?' he demanded of the night sky.

'Probably not,' Fenn answered primly, 'but you might try speaking gently to Hilto.'

Taita capitulated and called Hilto forward. 'Ride ahead at first light as fast as your horse will carry you. Find Colonel That Ankut and say that I have sent you. Tell him that Aquer knows we are aiming for the Kitangule river, and is in hot pursuit. That must send a small detachment of fighting men ahead to seize the boats at the headwaters of the river before the Jarrians can destroy them. Tell him his plan to hold

the Kitangule Gap until all our people have been embarked is a good one, but he must send me twenty of his best men. This is desperately urgent. Hilto, you must lead the men he gives you back along the1 east road towards Mutangi until you find us. Go now! At once!' Hilto saluted and, without another word, cantered away.

'What we need is an ambuscade where we can wait for Aquer.' Taita turned back to Meren. 'You know precisely the kind of place we are looking for. Ask Sidudu if she knows of one.' Meren spurred forward to Sidudu, who listened intently to his request.

'I know just such a place,' she said, as soon as he had finished speaking.

'You are such a clever girl,' Meren told her proudly, and for a moment the two of them were lost in each other's eyes.

'Come, then, Sidudu,' Taita called. 'Show us if you are truly as clever as Meren declares you are.'

Sidudu led them off the track they had been following and turned towards the great starry cross in the southern sky. Within an hour's ride she had reined in at the top of a low, wooded hill and, in the moonlight, pointed down at the valley that opened before them.

'There is the ford of the Ishasa river. You can see the glint of the water. The road that Lord Aquer must follow to reach the Kitangule Gap crosses there. The water is deep so their horses will have to swim. From the top of the cliff we can shower arrows and rocks on them once they enter the water. They will have to ride forty leagues downstream to find another ford.'

Taita studied the crossing carefully, and nodded. 'I doubt that we will find a better place.'

'I told you,' said Meren. 'She has a warrior's eye for good ground.'

'You carry a bow, Sidudu.' Taita nodded at the weapon that hung over her shoulder. 'Can you use it?'

'Fenn taught me,' Sidudu replied simply.

'During your absence Sidudu has become an expert archer,' Meren confirmed.

'It seems there is no end to the virtues of this young paragon,' Taita said. 'We are fortunate to have her with us.'

They swam the horses through the ford, whose current was strong.

Once they reached the eastern bank they saw that the path followed a narrow, rocky defile between the cliffs. It was only wide enough for horses to pass in single file. Taita and Meren climbed it and from there surveyed the ground below.

'Yes,' Taita said. 'This will do.'

Before he allowed them to rest, he went over his plans for the ambush and made each in turn repeat the role he had assigned to them. Only then did he allow them to unsaddle and hobble the horses, fill their nosebags with crushed dhurra meal and turn them loose.

It was a cold camp because Taita would not allow a fire. They ate dhurra cakes and slices of cold roast goat's meat dipped in a fiery pepper sauce. As soon as they had finished Nakonta took his spears and went to stand sentry at the ford. Imbali followed him.

'She is now his woman,' Fenn whispered to Taita.

'That comes as no surprise, but I trust that Nakonto will keep at least one eye on the ford,' Taita remarked drily.

'They are in love,' said Fenn. 'Magus, you have no romance in your soul.' She went to untie her bedroll from the back of Whirlwind's saddle, selected a sleeping spot in the lee of a rocky outcrop well away from the others and spread her sleeping mat on the ground with a fur kaross.

Then she came back to Taita. 'Come.' She took his hand and led him to the mat, helped him out of his tunic, balled it up and held it to her nose. 'It smells very strong,' she remarked. 'I will wash it as soon as I have the chance.' She knelt beside him on the mat and covered him with the kaross, then took off her own tunic. Her body was very pale and slim in the light of the moon. She slipped under the kaross beside him and pressed her body to his.

'I am so glad that you have come back to me,' she whispered, and sighed. After a while she stirred and whispered again, 'Taita.'

'Yes?'

'There is a little stranger with us.'

'You must sleep now. It will soon be morning.'

'I will, in a moment.' She was silent again for a long while as she explored his altered body. Then she said softly, 'Taita, where did he come from? How did it happen?'

'Miraculously. In the same way as my appearance was changed. I will explain it all later. Now we must sleep. There will be many other opportunities for you and the little stranger to become better acquainted.'

'May I hold him, Taita?'

'You are already doing so,' he pointed out.

She was quiet again for a while. Then she whispered, 'He is not so little, and he is growing bigger and bigger.' A little later she added happily, 'It seems to me that he is already a friend, no longer a stranger.

So now there are three of us. You, me and him.' Still holding him, she fell fast asleep. It took Taita much longer to do the same.

It seemed only minutes later that Nakonto woke him. 'What is it?'

Taita sat up.'¦ 'Cavalry on the road from the west.“

'Have they crossed the river?'

'No. They are bivouacked on the far side. I think that they did not want to chance a crossing in the dark.'

'Rouse the others and saddle up, but do it quietly,' Taita ordered.

In the faintest glimmer of dawn Taita lay on his belly on the rim of the cliff overlooking the ford. The two girls were at either side of him.

On the far bank of the river the Jarrian bivouac was stirring, the troopers throwing wood on the watch fires. The smell of roasting meat drifted to where the three lay. Now the light was strong enough for Taita to count heads. There were about thirty men in the troop. Some were at the cooking fires, others at the horse lines tending their mounts. A few were squatting among the bushes at their private business. Soon it was light enough to make out the features of some.

'There is Onka,' Sidudu whispered fiercely. 'Oh, how I hate that face.'

'Truly I understand your feelings,' Fenn whispered back. 'We will seek the first chance to deal with him.'

'I pray for it.'

'There is Aquer, and that is Ek-Tang with him.' Taita pointed them out.

The two oligarchs were standing a little apart from the others. They were drinking from bowls that steamed in the cool morning air. 'They have not been able to contain themselves. They have rushed ahead of their regiments.

They will start to cross the ford soon, and when they do so they will give us an opportunity. If they don't, we will shadow them until Hilto brings up our reinforcements.'

'I could put an arrow through Aquer from here.' Fenn narrowed her eyes.

'The range is long and the dawn wind treacherous, my darling.' Taita laid a restraining hand on her arm. 'If we give them warning, the advantage passes to them.' They watched as Onka selected four of his men and gave them curt orders, at the same time gesticulating towards the ford. The men ran to their horses and mounted, then trotted to the river and plunged in. Taita signalled their movements to Meren.

The four horses were swimming before they were half-way across, struggling against the current and lunging forward again as they felt ground under their hoofs. They came out with water streaming from their coats and the equipment. The scouts looked around carefully before they started up the narrow defile. Meren and his men kept hidden and

let them through. On the far bank the rest of Onka's troops were drawn up in three ranks, standing at the heads of their mounts. They all waited.

At last there was a clatter of hoofs and one of the scouts galloped back down the defile to the riverbank. He stopped there and waved his arms over his head. 'All is clear this side!' he shouted. Onka called out an order to his men, who mounted and began to move down towards the ford in single file. Onka remained with the rearguard, where he could better control the crossing, but Taita was surprised to see that Aquer and Ek-Tang were in the forefront. He had not expected that. He had thought they would take position in the middle of the column where they were protected by the men around them.

'I think we have them.' His voice was tight with excitement. He signalled to Meren to be ready. At the head of the column the two oligarchs spurred their mounts into the river. Half-way across they began to swim, and the file lost its tight formation as the current pushed them downstream.

'Get ready!' Taita warned the two girls. 'Let the oligarchs and these three riders behind them reach the bank, then shoot any others who try to follow. At least for a short while, until Onka can regroup his men we will have the oligarchs cut off from the main body and at our mercy.'

The current was strong, and large spaces opened in the column.

'Nock your arrows!' Taita ordered quietly. The girls reached into the quivers on their backs. Aquer's horse found the bottom and scrambled up the bank. Ek-Tang followed, with three troopers bunched behind him. Then there was a gap in the line and the rest of the column was still scattered across the river.

'Now!' Taita shouted. 'Shoot the riders coming up behind the leaders.'

Fenn and Sidudu sprang to their feet and drew the long recurved bows. The range was short, almost point-blank. They loosed and the two arrows flew silently downwards. Both struck home. A trooper reeled in the saddle and screamed as Sidudu's flint arrowhead buried itself in his stomach. The man behind him took Fenn's in the throat. He threw up both hands and toppled backwards into the water with a splash. Their horses turned and collided with those that followed them, throwing the rest of the column into confusion. Aquer and Ek-Tang spurred forward into the defile.

'Oh, yes! Fine practice.' Taita applauded the girls. 'Have at them until I give the order to break and run.' He left them and ran down the pathway into the defile.

Meren let the oligarchs enter the mouth of the defile, then he and

the two Shilluk jumped out of the bushes behind them. Imbali ran at Ek-Tang and swung her axe. With that single stroke she severed the oligarch's left leg above the knee. Ek-Tang shouted and tried to urg'e his mount forward, but with one leg gone he lost his balance and fell sideways, clutching at the horse's mane to save himself. Bright arterial blood pumped from the stump of his leg. Imbali ran after him and swung again. Ek-Tang's head jumped off his shoulder and rolled on to the rocky pathway. His nerveless fingers clung to the horse's mane for a few moments longer, then fell open. He flopped sideways to the ground.

With a yell the trooper who was following Ek'Tang rode down on Imbali. Nakonto flung his spear. It struck the trooper in the middle of his back and transfixed him. The spearhead stood out an arm's length from his chest. He dropped his sword and tumbled out of the saddle.

Meren ran up beside the last trooper in the line. The man saw him coming and tried to free his sword from the scabbard, but before he could get the blade clear Meren had leapt up and thrust him through the ribs.

He hit the ground with his shoulders and the back of his head. Before he could rise Meren finished him off with another thrust in the throat, then turned in pursuit of Aquer. The oligarch saw him coming, dug his spurs into his mount and tore away up the defile, with Meren and Imbali running after him, but they could not gain on him.

From above Taita saw Aquer break away. He turned off the path and ran along the edge of the cliff above him, stopped and poised on the lip of the cliff. As Aquer's horse raced below him, he dropped on to the oligarch's back, so heavily that Aquer lost the reins and was almost thrown from the saddle. Taita whipped one arm around his neck and began to throttle him. Aquer fumbled his dagger from the sheath and tried to stab back over his shoulder into Taita's face. With his free hand, Taita seized his wrist and they wrestled for the advantage.

Thrown off balance by the shifting weight on its back, the horse crashed into the wall of the defile and reared on its hind legs. Locked together, Taita and Aquer were thrown back over its hindquarters. Aquer was on top as they hit the ground, and his full weight slammed into Taita. The shock broke his grip on Aquer's throat and dagger hand.

Before he could recover, Aquer had twisted round and thrust for Taita's throat with the dagger. Taita grabbed his wrist again and held him off. Aquer put his full weight behind the dagger but could make no impression. Taita now had the abundant strength of a young man and Aquer was long past his physical prime. Aquer's arm began to tremble

with the strain and his expression turned to dismay. Taita smiled up at him. 'Eos is no more,' he said. Aquer flinched. His arm gave way and Taita rolled over on top of him.

'You lie,' Aquer cried. 'She is the goddess, the only true goddess.'

'Then call upon your only true goddess now, Lord Aquer. Tell her that Taita of Gallala is about to kill you.'

Aquer's eyes flew wide with consternation. 'You lie again,' he gasped.

'You are not Taita. Taita was an old man, but by now he is dead.'

'You are mistaken. It is Eos who is dead, and you who will be soon.'

Still smiling, Taita tightened his grip on Aquer's wrists until he felt the bone begin to give. Aquer squealed and the dagger fell from his fingers.

Taita sat up and twisted him round, pinning him so that he was helpless.

At that moment Meren ran up. 'Shall I finish him?'

'No.' Taita stopped him. 'Where is Sidudu? She is the one he has most sinned against.' He saw the two girls racing down the pathway from the top of the cliff. They came up to where Taita was holding Aquer.

'Taita, we must fly! Onka has rallied his men and they are coming back across the ford in force!' Fenn cried. 'Finish this swine and let us ride.'

Taita looked past her at Sidudu. 'This is the man who gave you to Onka,' he told her. 'He is the one who sent your friends up the mountain.

Vengeance is yours.'

Sidudu hesitated.

'Take this dagger.' Meren picked up Aquer's fallen weapon and handed it to her.

Fenn ran forward and ripped Aquer's helmet from his head. She seized a double handful of his hair and dragged his head backwards, exposing his throat. 'For yourself and for all the other girls he sent to the mountain,'

she said. 'Cut his throat, Sidudu.'

Sidudu's expression hardened with determination.

Aquer saw death in her eyes and he struggled and whimpered, 'No!

Please, listen to me. You are only a child. Such a heinous deed will scar your mind for ever.' His voice was broken and almost incoherent. 'You don't understand, I am anointed by the goddess. I had to do what she commanded. You cannot do this to me.'

'I do understand,' Sidudu answered him, 'and I can do it.' She stepped up to him, and Aquer began to squeal. She laid the blade against the stretched skin of his neck just under his ear and drew it down in a long, deep stroke. The flesh opened and the great artery in the depths of the

wound erupted. The breath whistled from his severed windpipe. His legs kicked spasmodically. His eyes rolled back in their sockets. His tongue protruded and he blubbered strings of blood and spittle.I Taita pushed him away and he rolled over to lie, like a slaughtered pig, face down in the spreading puddle of his own blood. Sidudu dropped the dagger and jumped back, staring down at the dying oligarch.

Meren stepped up behind her and placed an arm round her shoulders.

'It is done, and it was well done,' he said softly. 'Waste no pity on him.

Now we must go.'

As they ran to their horses they heard the shouts of Onka's men at the ford behind them. They mounted and dashed up the defile, with Taita and Windsmoke in the lead. They came out on top of the hills and paused to look down on a wide level plain of grassland that stretched ahead. In the blue distance they made out another line of hills, the peaks rugged and sharp.

Sidudu pointed to a break in their silhouette. 'There is the Kitangule Gap where we are to meet Colonel That.'

'How far is it?' Meren asked.

'Twenty leagues, perhaps a little more,' Sidudu answered. They turned and looked back to the ford.

At the head of his squadron Onka flogged his horse up the riverbank and shouted with anger when he saw the corpses of the oligarchs but came on all the faster.

'Twenty leagues! Then we have a merry race ahead of us,' Meren said.

They put the horses to the slope and flew down towards the plain.

They reached it as Onka's men came boiling over the skyline of the hill behind them. With a chorus of savage yells they started down, the white ostrich plumes on Onka's helmet distinguishing him from his men.

'No need to linger here,' called Taita. 'Let us be gone.'

Within half a league it became apparent that the bay filly Sidudu rode could not keep up with the other horses. They had to moderate their pace to hers. Meren and Fenn dropped back beside her.

'Courage!' Fenn called. 'We will not leave you.'

'I can feel my horse weakening,' Sidudu cried.

'Have no fear,' Meren told her. 'When she is blown, I will take you up behind me.'

'No!' Fenn was emphatic. 'You are too heavy, Meren. The extra weight would kill your mount. Whirlwind can carry both of us with ease. I will take her.'

Taita rose in the stirrups and looked back. The pursuit was spreading

'¦ THE QUEST

out as the faster horses pulled ahead, the slower ones dropping back.

Onka's plumed helmet was conspicuous in the centre of the leading rank of three Jarrian horsemen. He was pushing hard, closing the gap steadily.

As he urged Windsmoke onwards, Taita looked at the mountains ahead.

He could now see the notch that marked the gap, but it was so distant that they could not hope to reach it before Onka was upon them.

Then something else caught his eye. There was a fine smear of pale dust on the plain ahead. His heartbeat quickened, but he tried to control it.

No time for false hope now. It is almost certainly a herd of gazelle or zebra. But as he thought it he saw under the dustcloud a bright flash of sunlight reflected off metal. 'Armed men!' he muttered. 'But are they Jarrian, or is it Hilto returning with the reinforcements?' Before he could decide, there was a faint shout from behind. He recognized Onka's voice.

“I see you, you traitorous bitch! When I catch you I will rip out your womb. Then I will roast it and force it down your throat.'

'Close your ears to his filth,' Fenn urged Sidudu, but tears ran down Sidudu's face and splattered the front of her tunic.

'I hate him!' she said. 'I hate him with all my soul.'

Behind them, Onka's voice was clearer and closer as he yelled, 'After you have dined, I will have you in the way you most hated. The last thing you will remember will be me inside your bowels. Even in hell you will never forget me.' Sidudu let out a racking sob.

'You must not hearken to him. Close your ears and your mind,' Meren urged.

“I wish I had died before you heard that,' she sobbed.

'It means nothing. I love you. I will not let the swine harm you again.'

At that moment Sidudu's filly stepped with its off fore into a mongoose burrow that was hidden in the long grass. The bone snapped like the breaking of a dry branch and her horse somersaulted. Sidudu was thrown headlong. At once Meren and Fenn wheeled back for her.

'Get ready, Sidudu. I will pick you up,' Fenn called, but Sidudu rolled to her feet and turned to look back at the pursuit. By now Onka was well ahead of the men who followed him. He was leaning forward eagerly, pushing his horse to its top speed, bearing down on Sidudu.

'Prepare to meet your constant lover! he shouted.

Sidudu unslung the bow from her shoulder and reached for an arrow.

Onka laughed with delight. 'I see you have a toy to amuse yourself. I have something better for you to play with before you die!'

He had never seen her shoot. She took her stance and brought up the

423 I i

bow. He was close enough now to see her face clearly. His mocking laughter died as he recognized the deadly anger in her eyes. She drew the fletching back to her lips. He sawed his horse's head round and tried to turn away. Sidudu loosed her arrow. It took him in the ribs and he dropped his sword to try with both hands to pluck it out, but the barbed head was buried deep. His horse pranced in a circle, righting against the curb. Sidudu shot again. He was turned away from her, and the arrow struck low in the centre of his back. It went deep and skewered his kidneys, inflicting a mortal, agonizing wound. He twisted to reach for the arrow. She shot again, hitting him in the chest, cutting through both lungs. He uttered a sound that was half groan and half sigh, then fell backwards as his horse lunged under him. One of Onka's feet caught in the stirrup and his horse broke into a gallop, towing him away, the back of his head bouncing over the earth as the frantic animal kicked back with both hind legs at his corpse.

Sidudu slung her bow over her shoulder and turned to meet Fenn as she galloped up. Fenn reached down, Sidudu jumped up and they linked arms. Fenn used Whirlwind's speed and impetus to swing her up over the hindquarters. Seated, Sidudu wrapped both arms round her friend's waist, and Fenn spun Whirlwind round.

The next three Jarrians were close upon them, howling with anger at the killing of Onka. Meren met them head on. He cut one man down, and the others broke away rather than risk a collision. They circled him, waiting for an opening, but his blade danced in a glittering arc they could not penetrate. By this time Taita and the two Shilluk had taken in his predicament and were coming at full tilt to support him.

'Nobly done!' Taita shouted to Fenn, as they passed each other. 'Now ride for the Gap. We will cover your retreat.'

'I cannot leave you, Taita,' Fenn protested.

'I will be close behind you!' he shouted over his shoulder, then plunged into the fray. He hacked one of the Jarrians from the saddle, and the other found himself heavily outnumbered, the rest of his squadron still far behind. He tried to defend himself, but Nakonto thrust his long spear into his side and Imbali swung her axe into his raised sword arm, severing it above the wrist. He broke away and galloped to meet his comrades, swaying in the saddle.

'Let him go!' Taita ordered. 'Follow Fenn.' With the rest of the Jarrian squadron coming up behind them, they raced away. Taita gazed ahead: the band of strange horsemen was much closer now. They were heading directly towards each other.

424 I

THE QUEST

'If they are Jarrians we will fort the horses and stand to meet them,'

Taita shouted. They would form the animals in a circle, dismounting behind them, and use their bodies as a defensive wall.

Taita watched the newcomers intently. His eyesight was so acute now that he recognized the leading rider even before Meren or Fenn could.

'Hilto!' he cried. 'It is Hilto.'

'By the sweet breath of Isis, you're right!' Meren shouted. 'By the look of it, he has brought half of Tinat's regiment with him.' They slowed to a trot as they waited for Hilto to come up. This confused the pursuing Jarrians, who had thought the interlopers were a detachment of their own forces. They halted uncertainly.

'By the wounded eye of Horus, you are welcome, Hilto, old friend,'

Meren greeted him. 'As you see, we have left a few of the rascals for you to test your blades upon.'

'Your kindness is overwhelming, my colonel.' Hilto laughed. 'We will make the most of it. We do not need your help. Ride on to where Colonel That Ankut awaits you at the Kitangule Gap. It will not be long before we are free to follow you.'

Hilto galloped on with Tinat's men in a tight group behind him.

He gave the order and they extended their line into battle formation. He led them in the charge straight at the milling Jarrians. They crashed into them and sundered their ranks. Then they chased them back in rout across the plain the way they had come, cutting them down as they overhauled the winded horses.

Taita led his own band on towards the blue hills. As they caught up with the two girls on Whirlwind, Meren reined in beside them. 'You shot like a demon,' he told Sidudu.

'Onka brought out the demon in me,' she told him.

'Methinks you have paid off all your debts in gold coinage. Now you and your demon can sleep peacefully at night.'

'Yes, Meren,' she answered demurely. 'But I never wanted to be a warrior - it was forced upon me. Now I would rather be a wife and mother.'

'A most laudable aspiration. I am certain you will find a good man to share it with you.'

'I hope so, Colonel Cambyses.' She looked at him from under lowered eyelashes. 'A short while ago you spoke to me of love .. .'

'Whirlwind is already tiring under the great weight Fenn is forcing him to carry,' Meren said seriously. 'I have room for you behind me. Will you not come across to me?'

'With the greatest pleasure, Colonel.' She held out her arms to him.

He swung her across effortlessly and placed her behind his saddle. She circled his waist with both arms, and laid her head between his shoulder blades. Meren could feel her trembling against him, and occasionally her body heaved with a sob before she could choke it back. His heart ached. He wanted to protect and look after her for as long as they should live. He rode on after Taita and Fenn, with Nakonto and Imbali bringing up the rear.

Before they reached the foothills, Hilto and his squadron caught up with them. Hilto came forward to report to Meren. 'We killed seven and took their horses,' he said. 'The rest would not stand to fight. I let them go rather than follow them. I could not be sure what enemy force might be coming behind them.'

'You did well, Hilto.'

'Shall 1 bring one of the captured horses for little Sidudu to ride?'

'No, thank you. You have done enough for the present. She is quite safe where she is. I am sure there will be need for more horses when we catch up with That. Keep them until then.'

As they climbed the track through the foothills towards the Gap they met the tail end of the long procession of refugees. Most were on foot, although those who were too sick or weak to walk were being pushed in two-wheeled handcarts or carried on litters by their families or comrades.

Fathers had small children on their shoulders and some of the women had infants strapped to their backs. Most recognized Meren and called to him as he passed, 'The blessings of all the gods upon you, Meren Cambyses. You have released us from bitter durance. Our children will be free.'

The young girls they had released from the breeding pens ran beside Fenn and Sidudu, trying to touch them. Some were weeping with the strength of their emotion. 'You have saved us from the mountain of no return. We love you for your compassion and your courage. Thank you, Sidudu. The blessings of all the gods on you, Fenn.'

None recognized Taita, although the women gazed with interest at the young man with the penetrating gaze and commanding presence as he rode by. Fenn was acutely aware of their interest and moved closer to him in a proprietary fashion. With these lets and delays their ascent of

I I

THE QUEST

the hills was slow and the sun was setting before they reached the crest and stood once again in the Kitangule Gap.

That had seen them coming, from the watch-tower of the border fort.

He clambered down the ladder and strode out through the gate to meet them. He saluted Meren embraced Fenn and Sidudu, then stared at Taita. 'Who is this?' he asked. 'I do not trust him, for he is too pretty by a long way.'

'You may trust him with your life,' Meren said. 'The truth is that you already know him well. I will explain later, though it is not likely you will believe me when I do.'

'You vouch for him, Colonel Meren?'

'With all my heart,' said Meren.

'And with all of mine,' said Fenn.

'And mine,' said Sidudu.

'Mine also,' said Hilto.

That shrugged and frowned. 'I find myself in the minority, yet still I reserve my final judgement.'

'Once again I am grateful to you, Colonel That,' Taita said quietly.

'As I was at Tamafupa when you rescued us from the Basmara.'

'You were not among those I found at Tamafupa,' said That.

'Ah, you have forgotten.' Taita shook his head. 'Then surely you recall escorting Meren and me down from the Cloud Gardens after his eye surgery. That was the first time you revealed your true loyalty and your longing to return to our very Egypt. Do you recall how we discussed Eos and her powers?'

That stared at Taita, and his stern expression crumbled. 'Lord Taita!

Magus! Did you not perish on the mountain in the Cloud Gardens?

Surely this cannot be you!'

'Most surely it can and is,' Taita smiled, 'although I admit to certain changes in my appearance.'

'You have become a young man! It is a miracle that defies belief, yet your voice and eyes convince me that it is true.' He ran forward and took Taita's hand in a powerful grip. 'What has become of Eos and her oligarchs?'

'The oligarchs are dead, and Eos no longer threatens us. That is enough for now. How stand your present circumstances?'

'We surprised the Jarrian garrison here. There were only twenty men and none escaped. We threw their corpses into the gorge. See? The vultures have already found them.' That pointed up at the carrion

birds circling in the sky above. 'I have sent a hundred men to seize the boatyard at the headwaters of the Kitangule river, and to secure the vessels lying there.”

'You have done good work,' Taita commended him. 'Now you must go down to the boatyard and take command there. Assemble the vessels, and as our people arrive embark them and send them down the river, with a good pilot to guide them. The whole flotilla will muster again on the shores of Lake Nalubaale, at the place where we disembarked to hunt the beast with the nose horn.'

'I remember it well.'

'On your way down the mountain, leave a gang of twenty good axemen at the bridge over the gorge. They will cut down the bridge and let it drop into the gorge after the last of our people have passed over.'

'What will you do?'

'Meren and I will wait here at the fort with some of the men you sent with Hilto. We will delay the Jarrian pursuit until the bridge is down.'

'As you command, Lord Taita.' That hurried away, shouting for his captains.

Taita turned back to Meren. 'Send Hilto, the two Shilluk and as many men as we can spare back down the path to give assistance to our refugees. They must hurry them. Look! The main Jarrian army is not far behind us.' He pointed back down the mountain the way they had come up. In the distance, far out on the plain, they could see the dustclouds, as red as spilt blood in the setting sun, that the Jarrian chariots and the marching legions had raised.

Taita took Fenn with him to make a rapid inspection of the small fort and the defences in the throat of the Gap and he found them rudimentary, the walls low and in poor repair. However, the arsenal and the quarter-master's store were well stocked, as were the kitchen and larder.

'We will not hold the enemy here very long,' he told Fenn. 'Speed is our best defence.' They gazed down at the straggling column of refugees.

'They will need food and drink to give them strength to carry on. Find willing younger women to help you and Sidudu hand out food to them as they pass, whatever you can find, especially those with young children.

Then send them on down the track to the boatyards. Keep them moving.

Don't let them rest or they will die here.'

Meren hurried back to join them. He and Taita climbed the ladder to the top of the watch-tower. From there, Taita pointed out a ledge higher up the scree slope that overlooked the head of the path. 'Assemble all the men you can spare and take them up there. Tell them to gather large

THE QUEST

rocks and pile them on the ledge. We will roll them down on the Jarrians as they come up the path.' Meren scrambled back down the ladder and went for his men, while Taita hastened to join Fenn beside the path.

While she selected women to prepare food, he picked out the able bodied men and sent them to work with Meren on the ledge.

Gradually they made order from the confusion. The pace of the retreat quickened. With food and drink in their bellies the people took new heart. As they passed him, Taita exchanged banter with the men and made weary women smile and hoist their infants higher on their shoulders. Everyone plodded on with renewed determination. As evening fell, the laughter of Fenn's helpers sweetened the night, and the light of the torches that Hike's rearguard carried marked the tail of the column.

'By the grace of Isis, it looks as though we shall get them all through,'

said Fenn, as they picked out the tall figure of Hilto in the torchlight, and heard his deep voice urging the column along.

Taita ran down to meet him. 'You have done well, good Hilto,' he greeted him. 'Have you seen the Jarrian vanguard?'

'Nothing since sunset when we made out their dust. But they cannot be far behind.' Hilto was carrying a young child on each shoulder and his men were similarly burdened.

'Go on with all speed,' Taita ordered, and ran on down the empty track until he was alone and the noise of the retreating column was muted by distance. He stopped to listen and heard a faint murmur below him. He fell to his knees and pressed his ear to the rock. The sound was sharper. 'Chariots and marching men.' He jumped to his feet. 'They are coming up fast.' He raced back to where Hilto was shepherding the tail of the column. Almost the last in the line was a woman with a child strapped to her back. She dragged two others behind her, snivelling and whining.

'I am tired. My feet are hurting.'

'Can we rest now? Can we go home?'

'You are going home,' Taita said, then picked up both children and settled them on his shoulders. 'Hold tight,' he told them and reached out his free hand to the mother. 'Come, now. We shall soon have you at the top.' He strode on upwards, pulling the woman after him.

'Here we are.' He set the children down as they reached the top of the pass. 'These two pretty girls will give you something good to eat.'

He pushed them towards Fenn and Sidudu, then smiled at the mother, who was worn out and wan with worry. 'You will be safe now.'

'I don't know who you are, but you are a good man.'

42«

He left them and went back to join Hilto. Together, they saw the last of the refugees over the top of the pass and started them down the far side. By now dawn was breaking. Taita looked up to where Meren st6od on the ledge at the top of the scree slope. Meren waved, his men crouched among the piles of loose rock they had gathered.

'Go to the top of the watch-tower,' Taita ordered Fenn and Sidudu. 'I will join you presently.' For a moment it seemed that Fenn might argue but she turned away without a word.

Soon Taita heard the chariot wheels grinding up towards the fort. He walked a short way down the track to meet them, intending to divert the attention of the Jarrians from Meren's men on the ledge above. Suddenly the first vehicle appeared round the bend of the narrow track not far below him. As it climbed towards him, others appeared behind it. A dozen foot soldiers ran beside each vehicle, clinging to the sides as they were towed up the steep pathway. There were eight chariots in all, and behind the last came a mass of infantry.

Taita made no attempt to conceal himself, and a shout rang out from the leading chariot. The driver cracked his whip and the chariot bounced over the rough surface as it speeded up. Taita did not move. A spearman hurled a javelin at him, but Taita did not flinch. He watched the weapon fall five or six paces short of where he stood and clatter on the rocks. He let them come on again. The next javelin might have hit him, but he dodged aside and it flew past his shoulder. He heard Fenn cry from the tower, 'Come back, Taita. You are placing yourself at hazard.' He ignored her warning and watched the chariots. At last they were all fully committed: there was no space for them to turn and flee. He waved up at Meren. 'Now!' he shouted, and the echoes flung his voice along the cliffs: 'Now! Now! Now!'

Meren's men bent to the task. The first rocks rolled over the ledge and bounced down the steep slope. They loosened others and set off a rumbling rockslide. The charioteers heard it coming and, with startled cries, abandoned their vehicles and ran for safety. But there was no shelter in the narrow pass from the tide of rock. It crashed into the stranded chariots, sweeping them and the men off the path and into the gorge below. When the rock stopped sliding, the track was blocked with piles of debris.

'No chariots will be able to use that road for a while, and even men on foot will have difficulty getting over these obstacles,' Taita said to himself, with satisfaction. 'It should hold them for the rest of the morning.' He signalled Meren to bring his men down to the fort. By

I THE QUEST

the time he had climbed to the top of the tower, the last of the refugees had long disappeared down the track on the reverse slope.

Fenn was so relieved to see him that she embraced him fiercely. 'You are very dear to me, my lord,' she whispered. 'My heart stops beating when I see javelins flying about your head.'

'If you have such high regard for me, then the least you should do is feed me before the rest of the Jarrian army arrives.'

'You have become so masterful since you returned from the mountain.

It pleases me, my lord.' She laughed and disappeared to the kitchens.

When she returned they leant on the parapet and ate eggs with dhurra cake. They watched the Jarrian commander send a detachment of fifty men up the slope to seize the ledge from which Meren and his men had hurled the rocks. He was standing in the middle of the track, just out of long bowshot, below them. He was tall and lean, and wore the ostrich plumes of a colonel on the crest of his helmet.

'I don't like the look of him in the least,' Taita remarked. The man had swarthy features, a hard, jutting chin and a large, hooked nose. 'Do you recognize him, Sidudu?'

'I do, Magus. He is a hard and merciless man, hated by us all.'

'His name?'

'Colonel Soklosh.'

'Colonel Snake,' Taita translated. 'He bears more than a passing resemblance to his namesake.'

As soon as he had control of the ledge, Soklosh sent his skirmishers forward to clear the rock-strewn path before the fort, and to test the mettle of the defenders.

'Send them a few arrows,' Taita told Fenn. Quickly the two girls unslung their bows. Sidudu's arrow passed so close over the head of one Jarrian that he ducked and ran. Fenn hit another in the calf. He hopped about on the uninjured leg howling like a wolf, until his comrades held him down and snapped off the arrow shaft short. Then they retreated down the track, two supporting the wounded man between them. After that there was a long pause before a dense phalanx of armoured men jogged around the bend, and came up the track towards the fort.

'I think it is time for me to go down,' said Meren, and slid from the ladder to the parapet. As the next wave of enemy infantry came into bowshot range, he called to Hilto: 'Stand by!'

'Massed volleys!' Hilto called. His men sheathed their swords, and unslung their bows. 'Level! Take aim! Let fly!'

The volley of arrows rose against the early-morning sky, dark as a

swarm of locusts. It fell upon the Jarrians, the arrowheads clattering on bronze armour. A few went down, but the others closed ranks, lifted their shields over their heads to form a canopy and came on at a trot. Again and again Hilto's men fired their volleys but under the canopy of shields the Jarrians were undeterred. They reached the foot of the wall. The front rank braced themselves against the stonework, and the second clambered on to their shoulders to form a pyramid. The third rank used them as a ladder to reach the top of the wall. Hilto's men hurled them back, hacking with swords and thrusting with spears. Others climbed up in their place, blades clanging and rasping against each other. Men shouted, cursed and screamed in pain. A small group of Jarrians forced their way on to the parapet, but before they could exploit their advantage, Meren, Nakonto and Imbali fell upon them. They cut down most and shoved the rest off the top.

On the tower, Fenn and Sidudu stood at each side of Taita, choosing their targets with care, picking off the Jarrian captains as they tried to regroup their men at the base of the wall. When the assault faltered and failed, their arrows hastened the Jarrians back down the track. The enemy left their dead at the base of the wall but dragged the wounded away with them.

Soklosh launched two more attacks before noon. Meren's men beat back the first as readily as they had the chariots. However, in the next, the Jarrions came in three separate detachments, carrying with them hastily constructed assault ladders.

Simultaneously they struck at both ends of the wall and in the centre.

The defenders were already thinly stretched, but now Meren was forced to split them into even smaller units to meet the triple-pronged attack.

It was desperate fighting, and Taita climbed down to join in. He left the girls in the tower with bundles of arrows they had found in the arsenal.

For the rest of the morning the battle raged at the top of the wall. When at last they had thrown back the Jarrians, Meren's men were in poor shape. They had lost twelve men killed, and another ten were too badly wounded to carry on the fight. Most of the others were at least lightly wounded and all were close to exhaustion. From down the track they heard Soklosh and his captains shouting commands as they mustered a fresh attack.

'I doubt we can hold them much longer.' Meren glanced along the parapet at his men, who sat in small groups, drinking from the waterskins that Fenn and Sidudu had brought them, sharpening their chipped and

blunted blades, binding their wounds or simply resting, their faces blank and eyes dull.

'Are you ready to set fire to the buildings?' Taita asked.

'The torches are already burning,' Meren affirmed. Only the foundations of the wall were of stone: everything else, including the main building and watch-tower, was built of timber. The wood was old and desiccated and would burn readily. The conflagration would seal off the head of the pass until the flames subsided sufficiently to allow the Jarrians through.

Taita left Meren and went to the far end of the parapet. He crouched in a corner and pulled his cloak over his head.

The men watched him curiously.

'What is he doing?' asked one.

'He is sleeping,' answered another.

'He is a religious man. He is praying.'

'We need his prayers,' remarked a fourth.

Fenn knew what he was attempting and stood close to him, screening him with her own body and adding her psychic force to his.

After such fierce fighting, it took much effort for Taita to compose himself, but at last he broke free of his body and his astral self soared above the mountain peaks. He overlooked the battlefield and saw the massed Jarrian army, three thousand men or more thronging the track from the plain. He saw the next assault forming just below the fort but still out of sight of the walls. Then he passed over the mountain tops and looked down to the Kitangule river, and the distant blue of the lake.

He saw Tinat's men in the boatyards at the head of the river. They had overpowered the garrison, and were assembling and launching the boats down the slipways into the swift flow of the river. Already the first refugees were embarking and the men were taking their places on the rowing benches. But hundreds more were still trudging down the mountain path. He sank closer to earth and hung above the deep gorge that split the flank of the mountain. The suspension bridge that crossed it seemed tiny and insubstantial against the massif of grey rock. The last of the refugees were venturing out on to its frail timbers to make the perilous transit of the gorge. Tinat's men were helping the weak and elderly, and his axemen stood ready to cut away the bridge pylons and let the timbers fall into the dark void beneath. Taita jerked back and swiftly regained full control of his body, then uncovered his head and sprang to his feet.

'What did you discover, Taita?' Fenn asked quietly.

'Most of our people have crossed the gorge,' he replied. 'If we leave the fort now the rest should be over the bridge by the time we get down to them. Fenn, you and Sidudu will make ready the horses.'

He left her to it, and strode down the parapet to Meren. 'Rally the men. Set fire to the walls and take to the path before the next Jarrian attack develops.'

The men's spirits rose when they understood that the fight was over.

Within a short time they were marching out of the rear gates of the fort in tight order, carrying their weapons and the wounded. Taita stayed back to supervise the lighting of the fires. The Jarrian garrison had used rushes as a floor covering and sleeping mats. Now they were stacked along the base of the walls. Meren's men had sprinkled them liberally with lamp oil from the quarter-master's stores. When the lighted torches were thrown on to them the flames shot up immediately. The wooden walls caught fire with such ferocity that Taita and the torchmen were forced to run for the gates.

Fenn was already mounted on Whirlwind, holding Windsmoke for him to mount. They trotted down the track together, following the last platoon, which was headed by Meren and Hilto.

When they reached the suspension bridge they were dismayed to find that at least a hundred refugees had still to make the crossing. Meren forced his way through the throng to find out the reason for the delay. Five old but vociferous women were refusing to venture out on to the narrow planks that crossed the deep gorge. They were lying flat in the middle of the path, screaming with terror and kicking anyone who came near them.

'You want us to die!' they howled.

'Leave us here. Let the Jarrians kill us, rather than throw us into the pit.' Their terror was contagious. Those coming up behind them were hanging back now, and holding up the rest of the column. Meren seized the ringleader round the waist and threw her over one shoulder. 'Come, now.' She tried to scratch his face and bite his ear, but her crooked black teeth made no impression on the bronze visor of his helmet. He ran with her on to the narrow way, the planking trembling beneath them, the drop on each side seeming bottomless. The old woman wailed with fresh voice and Meren realized suddently that his back was wet. He roared with laughter. 'It has been hot work. Thank you for cooling me.' He reached the far side and set her down. She made one last effort to claw out his eyes, then collapsed in a whimpering heap on the path. He left

her and ran back to pick up the others, but Hilto and three of his men were already coming across the gorge, each with an old woman struggling and screaming on his back. Behind them, the traffic was flowing once more over the bridge. However, the delay had cost them dear. Meren pushed his way back through the throng until he found Taita at the tail of the column.

'The flames at the fort will not hold Soklosh much longer. He will be on us again before we can get them all across. We dare not begin to cut away the supports until the very last of our people is over,' he told Taita.

'Three men could hold an army on this narrow path,' Taita said.

'Hilto and we two?' Meren stared at him. 'By the festering sores on Seth's buttocks, Magus, I had forgotten how things have changed. You now have the strongest and craftiest sword arm of any.'

'This day we shall have a chance to put that statement to the test,'

Taita assured him, 'but make certain that we have good stout fellows behind us to fill the gap if one of us should fall.'

There were still fifty or more refugees waiting their turn to cross the bridge when they heard Soklosh's men behind them: the tramp of their feet, the rattle of their weapons on shield and scabbard.

Taita, Meren and Hilto took up station, shoulder to shoulder, across the path. Taita was in the centre, with Hilto on his left and Meren on the outer verge with the cliff face dropping away below him. Nakonto and ten picked men waited behind them, ready to jump forward if they were needed. A little further down the track, Fenn and Sidudu sat their horses, holding Taita's and Meren's on lead reins. They had unslung their bows and had them at the ready. Sitting high in their saddles they had a clear view over the heads of Taita and the others.

The foremost rank of the Jarrian brigade came round the bend in the pathway and halted abruptly when they saw the three men confronting them. The ranks following bunched behind them, and there was momentary confusion until they had recovered their formation. Then they stared in silence at the three defenders. It lasted only as long as it took the Jarrians to realize the strength of the opposition. Then the burly sergeant in the leading rank pointed at them with his sword, threw back his head and bellowed with laughter.

'Three against three thousand! Ho! Ha!' He choked with laughter.

'Oh! I am dirtying myself with fright.' He began to thump the blade of his sword against his shield. The men around him took up the beat, a menacing staccato rhythm. The Jarrians came on, stamping and banging their shields. Fenn watched them over the fletching of the arrow

she held at full draw. Just before the Jarrians launched themselves into the attack she whispered from the side of her mouth, without taking her eye or aim from the face of the bearded sergeant that showed over1 the top of his shield, 'I have the one in the middle. You take the one on your side.'

“I have him in my eye,' Sidudu murmured.

'Shoot him!' Fenn snapped, and they let fly together. The two arrows fluted over Taita's head. One took the Jarrian sergeant cleanly in the eye: he went over backwards and his armoured weight crashed into the two men behind him, bringing them down. Sidudu's shot hit the man beside him in the mouth. Two of his teeth snapped off and the arrowhead buried itself in the back of his throat. The troopers behind them shouted with anger, jumped over the corpses and rushed upon Taita and his two companions. Both sides were now so closely engaged that the girls dared not fire another arrow for fear of hitting their own.

However, only three Jarrians at a time could reach the head of the line. Taita ducked under the blow of the man who came at him and, with a low sweep of the blade, cut his legs out from under him. As he dropped, Taita sent a thrust through the lacing of his breastplate into his heart. Hilto parried the blade of his man, then killed him with his riposte, which flew through the gap below the visor of his helmet. The three squared up and retreated two paces.

Three more Jarrians jumped over their dead comrades and rushed at them. One struck at Meren, who parried, seized his opponent's sword wrist and swung him out over the edge of the cliff to fall, shrieking, to the rocks far below. The man who came next at Taita lifted his sword with both hands and aimed at his head, as though he were cutting firewood. Taita caught the blow on his blade, then stepped up close and drove the dagger he held in his left hand into the fellow's belly, and pushed him staggering back into his own ranks. Meren maimed another and, as he was falling, kicked him in the head to send him reeling backwards over the cliff. Hilto split the helmet of the next Jarrian with a blow that cut through the bronze crest and went on deeply into his skull.

The force of the blow was more than the blade could withstand. It snapped off short and left Hilto with the hilt.

'A sword! Give me a fresh blade,' he shouted desperately, but before those behind him could pass it to him he was attacked again. Hilto hurled the hilt at the face of the Jarrian but he ducked and deflected it with the visor of his helmet as he thrust at Hilto. The blow went home but Hilto seized him round the waist in a bear-hug and dragged him back

I

THE QUEST

into his own lines. The men behind him killed the Jarrian as he struggled to free himself from Hilto's grip. But Hilto was hard hit and would fight no more that day. He leant heavily on the comrade who led him back to the bridge, and Nakonto stepped into his place in the line beside Taita.

He had a stabbing spear in each hand and wielded them with such speed and dexterity that the bronze heads merged into a blur of dancing light.

Leaving a trail of dead and dying Jarrians on the pathway, the three backed away towards the bridgehead, matching the pace of their retreat to that of the tail end of the refugee column.

At last Fenn shouted, 'They are all across!' Her ringing tones carried clearly above the din of the battle. Taita killed the man he was fighting with a parry and riposte to the throat before he glanced back. The bridge was clear.

'Order the axeman to lay on with a will. Bring down the bridge!' he called to Fenn, and heard her repeat the order as he turned back to meet the next enemy. Over their heads he could see the ostrich plumes in the crest of Soklosh's helmet and heard his harsh cries urging on his men.

But the Jarrians had seen the slaughter of their comrades, and the ground under their feet was red and muddy with blood. The track was cluttered with corpses, and their ardour was waning. Taita had time enough to look back again. He could hear the thudding of the axes on the guy lines and the bridge timbers. However, the two mounted girls had not yet crossed the gorge. With them, a small group of men stood ready to fill any gap in the line.

'Go back!' Taita shouted at them. 'All of you, go back!' They hesitated, reluctant to leave so few to face the foe. 'Go back, I tell you.

You can do no more here.'

'Back!' roared Meren, 'Give us space. When we come it will be fast.'

The girls swung the horses round and their hoofs clattered on the planks of the bridge. The other men followed them across the gorge (Iand reached the far side. Nakonto, Meren and Taita, still facing the Jarrian host, backed slowly out on to the bridge and took their stand in the centre, with the deep drop on either side. The cliffs resounded to the thudding of axes as men hacked away at the main supports.

Three of the enemy rushed out on to the bridge. The planking trembled under their tread. They clashed their shields against those of

Ithe three in the centre. Hacking and thrusting, both sides balanced on the swaying catwalk. When the first Jarrian rank was cut down, others ran out to take their places, slipping in the blood puddles and tripping over the corpses of their comrades. Others crowded on to the narrow

bridge behind them. Blades clanged on blades. Men fell, then slithered off the sides of the bridge and dropped wailing into the void. All the time the axe strokes boomed against the timbers, and shouts started the echoes anew.

Suddenly the bridge shuddered, like a dog trying to shake off its fleas.

One side dropped and hung askew. Twenty Jarrians were hurled, screaming, into the gorge. Taita and Meren fell to their knees to keep their balance on the swaying deck. Only Nakonto stayed upright.

'Come back, Taita!' Fenn cried, and all those round her took up the cry. 'Come back! The bridge goes down! Come back!'

'Back!' Taita roared at Meren, who jumped up and ran, balancing like an acrobat. 'Go back!' he ordered Nakonto, but the Shilluk's eyes were glazed red with battle lust. They were fixed upon the enemy and he did not seem to hear Taita's voice. Taita hit him a resounding blow across the back with the flat of his sword. 'Get back! The fighting is over!' He seized his arm and thrust him towards the far end.

Nakonto shook his head as though waking from a trance and ran after Meren. Taita followed a few yards behind him. Meren reached the end of the bridge and sprang on to the rocky path, but at that moment there was a crack like a whiplash as one of the main guy ropes that held the bridge parted. The catwalk heaved and sagged at a sharper angle, before it caught again. Those Jarrians who still had a footing could no longer maintain it. One after another they slid towards the edge and dropped off. Nakonto reached solid ground a moment before the bridge sagged again.

Taita was still on it when it tilted violently. He slid towards the edge and, to save himself, flung aside his sword and threw himself flat. There were narrow gaps between the lashings of the planking. Clawing with hooked fingers, he found a handhold. The bridge shuddered again and fell until it hung vertically down the cliff face. Taita's feet dangled over the gorge as he hung on by his fingertips. He groped for a foothold, but the toes of his sandals were too bulky to squeeze into the narrow gaps in the planking. He drew himself up by the main strength of his arms.

An arrow thumped into the plank closest to his head. The Jarrians on the opposite side of the gorge were shooting at him, and he could not defend himself. He drew himself up hand over hand. Each time he changed his grip he hung on one hand and groped with the other for the planking above. The bridge was twisted so that each successive gap between the planks was narrower than the preceding one. At last he reached a point where he could not force his fingers into the next

opening and hung there helplessly. The next arrow struck so close that it pegged the skirt of his tunic to the wood.

'Taita!' It was Fenn's voice and he craned his neck to look up. Her face was ten feet above him. She was lying on her stomach peering over the edge. 'Oh, sweet Isis, I thought you had fallen.' Her voice trembled.

'Hold hard for just a little longer.' She was gone. Another arrow thumped into the timbers close to his left ear.

'Here, take hold of this.' The looped end of a halter rope dropped beside him. He reached for it with one hand and slipped it over his head, then worked the bight of the loop under his armpit.

'Are you ready?' Fenn's eyes were huge with fear. 'The other end is knotted to Whirlwind's saddle. We'll pull you up.' Her head disappeared again. With a jerk the rope came up tight. As he went up, he fended himself off the dangling bridge with his feet and hands. More arrows slammed into the timbers but although he could hear the Jarrians clamouring for his blood, like a pack of dogs beneath a treed leopard, not one of their arrows touched him.

As he came level with the path the strong hands of Meren and Nakonto reached out to haul him to safety. He regained his feet, and Fenn dropped Whirlwind's reins to run back to him. She embraced him silently with tears of relief streaming down her cheeks.

A that night they kept the column of refugees moving down the track, and in the early light of dawn they shepherded the last on to the bank of the Kitangule river. That was waiting for them at the gates of the boatyard stockade, and came quickly to meet Taita. 'I am glad to see you safe, Magus, but I am sorry to have missed the fighting. I have reports that it was hot and heavy. What news of the Jarrian pursuit?'

'The bridge over the gorge is down, but that will not hold them for long. Sidudu says there is an easier road down the escarpment forty leagues further to the south. We can be sure that Soklosh knows about it, and that he will take his men that way. He will be moving a great deal faster than we were able to. We can expect him to join us again soon.'

'The southern road is the main entry port into Jarri. Of course Soklosh must know of it.'

'I have left pickets upon the road to watch for him and to warn us of

his approach,' Taita told him. 'We must get these people on to the boats at once.' First they loaded the horses, then the remaining refugees.

Before the last were aboard the pickets galloped into the boatyards.

'The Jarrians' leading cohorts will be upon us within the hour.'

Meren and his men chivvied the last group of refugees down the jetty and into the boats. As soon as each vessel was filled the rowers pulled out into the mainstream of the river and turned the bows down the current. Fenn and Sidudu carried Hilto's litter on to the last boat in the flotilla. Twenty remained empty on the slipways so Taita remained ashore with a few men to see to their destruction. They threw lighted torches into them and when the timbers were blazing fiercely they pushed them into the river where they burned swiftly to the waterline. The lookouts on the walls of the stockade that surrounded the boatyard sounded the alarm on kudu-horn trumpets. 'The enemy is in sight!'

There was a final scramble for the boats. Taita and Meren jumped on to the deck where the two girls were waiting anxiously for them. Meren took the helm and the rowers pulled away from the dock. They were still within bowshot of the bank when the leading squadron of the Jarrian vanguard galloped into the boatyard. They dismounted and crowded the bank to loose volleys of arrows, some of which pegged into the deck but nobody was hit.

Meren swung the bows to catch the current of the wide Kitangule, which was in spate and bore them away, sweeping them round the first bend. He leant on the long steering oar as they gazed back at the high cliffs of the Jarrian massif. Perhaps they should have been ecstatic as they took their leave of the kingdom of Eos but, rather, they were silent and sober.

Taita and Fenn stood apart from the others. Fenn broke the silence at last. She spoke low, for Taita's ears alone: 'So we have failed in our quest. We have escaped, but the witch survives and the Nile flows no longer.'

'The game is not yet played out. The pieces are still on the board,'

Taita told her.

'I do not take your meaning, my lord. We are flying from Jarri, deserting the battlefield and leaving the witch alive. You have nothing to take back to Egypt and Pharaoh but these miserable fugitives and our own poor selves. Egypt is still doomed.'

'Nay, that is not all I take back with me. I have all the wisdom and astral power of Eos.'

'How will that profit you or Pharaoh if Egypt dies of drought?'

'Perhaps I will be able to use the witch's memories to unravel her mysteries and designs.'

'Do you already hold the key to her magic?' she asked hopefully, watching his face.

'This I do not know. I have taken from her a mountain and an ocean of knowledge and experience. My inner mind and consciousness are awash with it. There is so much that, like a dog with too many bones, I have had to bury most of it. Perhaps some is so deeply buried that I will never retrieve it. At best it will take time and effort to assimilate it all.

I will need your assistance. Our minds have become so attuned that only you can help me with this task.'

'You do me honour, Magus,' she said simply.

The Jarrian cohorts pursued them for several leagues downstream, riding hard along the track that followed the riverbank, until swamps and thick jungle forced them to abandon the chase. The flotilla raced along on the current, which was swollen with the rain that had fallen on the Mountains of the Moon, leaving the enemy far behind.

Before nightfall that day the leading vessels of the squadron reached the first of the rapids that had so impeded their voyage upriver so many months before. Now the white water sent them hurtling down the chutes, the banks blurring past on each side. At the tail of the rapids when they stormed ashore below the stockade walls of the small Jarrian garrison, they discovered that the soldiers had fled as soon as they realized that the flotilla was hostile. The barracks was deserted, but the storerooms were well stocked with weapons, tools and stores. They loaded the pick of the supplies on to the barges and pressed on eastwards. A mere ten days after embarking, they sailed out through the mouth of the Kitangule into the vast blue expanses of the Lake Nalubaale and turned northwards, following the shore round towards the hills of Tamafupa.

By this time the voyage had settled into a routine. Taita had claimed a corner of the deck just forward of the rowing benches for himself and Fenn. He had spread a matting sail over it for shade and privacy. They spent most of their days sitting close together on a sleeping mat, holding hands and gazing into each other's eyes while he whispered to her in the Tenmass. It was the only language that was adequate to convey to her all the new information with which his mind brimmed.

As Taita murmured to her he became acutely aware of how her mind and her astral soul were expanding. She was giving back to him almost

as much as she was taking, and the experience strengthened and enriched them. Also, far from exhausting them, their intense, unremitting mental activity enlivened them.'

Each evening the flotilla anchored before sunset, and most of those aboard went ashore for the night, leaving only an anchor watch aboard.

Usually Taita and Fenn took advantage of the last hours of daylight to wander along the shore and the fringes of the forest, gathering roots, herbs and wild fruit. When they had sufficient for their dinner and for any medicines they required, they returned to their shelter, which was set apart from the rest of the encampment. On some evenings they invited Meren and Sidudu to share the meal they had concocted, but often they kept their own company and continued with their studies far into the night.

When at last they lay down on their sleeping mat and pulled the fur kaross over themselves Taita took her in his arms. She cuddled against him and, without the least sign of self-consciousness, reached down and took him in an affectionate but unskilled grip. Often her last drowsy words before she fell asleep were not to Taita himself but to the part of him that she held. 'Ho, my sweet mannikin, I like playing with you but you must lie down to sleep now, or you will keep us awake all night.'

Taita wanted her desperately. He longed for her with all his newfound manhood, but in many ways he was as innocent and untutored as she was. His only carnal experience had been the brutal warfare of the Cloud Gardens, in which he had been forced to use his body as a weapon of destruction, not as a vehicle of love. It had had not the remotest relationship to the bittersweet emotion he felt now, which grew more poignant each day.

When she fondled him he was consumed with an overpowering desire to express his love in the same intimate manner, but instinct warned him that although she stood at the very portals of womanhood, she was not yet ready to take the final step across the threshold.

We have a lifetime, perhaps many, ahead of us, he consoled himself, and determinedly composed himself to sleep.

442

I

The men on the rowing benches were bound for a lost motherland, so they pulled with a will. The familiar lakeshore streamed past, and the leagues dropped away behind the flotilla, until at last the hills of Tamafupa rose from the blue lake ahead. They crowded the rails of the boats and stared at them in awed silence. This place was fraught with evil, and even the bravest were filled with dread. As they rounded the headland of the bay and saw before them the Red Stones that dammed the mouth of the Nile, Fenn moved closer to Taita and took his hand for comfort. 'They are still there. I had hoped they had fallen with their mistress.'

Taita made no reply. Instead he called to Meren, at the helm, 'Steer for the top of the bay.'

They camped on the white beach. There was no celebration that night. Instead the mood was subdued and uncertain. There was no Nile on which to continue the voyage, or enough horses to carry them all back to Egypt.

In the morning Taita ordered the boats to be dragged up on to the beach and dismantled. No one had expected this, and even Meren looked at him askance, but none thought to question his orders. Once the baggage and equipment had been unloaded, the dowel pins were knocked out of their slots and the hulls were broken down into their separate sections.

'Transport everyone and everything, boats and baggage and people, up to the village where Kalulu, the legless shaman, lived on the crest of the headland.'

'But that is high above the river,' Meren reminded him, puzzled.

He shuffled his feet and stood awkwardly as Taita turned an enigmatic gaze upon him. 'It is also high above the great lake,' he said at last.

'Is that important, Magus?'

'It may be.'

'I shall see to it at once.'

It took six days of back-breaking effort to carry everything up into the hills. When at last they had stacked the sections of hull on the open ground in the centre of the blackened ruins of Kalulu's village, Taita let them rest. He and Fenn placed their own shelter on the forward slope of the hills, overlooking the dry bed of the Nile and the impervious rock barrage at its mouth. In the dawn, they sat under the plaited reed awning and looked out over the lake, a vast expanse of blue water that reflected

the images of the clouds in the sky above. They had an uninterrupted view of the dam and the tiny temple of Eos on the bluff above it.

On the third morning Taita said, 'Fenn, we are prepared. We have mustered our forces. Now we must wait for the full moon.'

'That is four days hence,' she said.

'There is one more sally we can make against the witch before then.'

'I am ready for whatever you decide, Magus.'

'Eos has thrown an astral barricade around herself.'

'That was why we could not contact each other while you were in her lair.'

'I intend to test her defences for the last time. It will be dangerous, of course, but you and I must combine our powers and make another attempt to pierce her shield and overlook her in her stronghold.' They went down to the lakeshore again. They washed their clothing, then bathed in the limpid waters. It was a ritual cleansing: evil flourishes in dirt and foul matter. While their naked bodies dried in the sunlight, Taita combed her hair and plaited the wet tresses. She attended to his crisp new beard. They scrubbed their teeth with green twigs, then picked bunches of aromatic leaves which they took back up the hills to the encampment. When they reached their shelter Fenn built up the smouldering embers of their fire and Taita sprinkled the leaves into the flames. Then they sat cross-legged, hand in hand, to inhale the cleansing, stimulating smoke.

It was the first time they had attempted astral travel together, but this transfer into the astral plane went smoothly. Linked in spirit, they rose high above the lake and glided westward over the forests.

They found the land of Jarri covered with thick cloud: only the peaks of the Mountains of the Moon rose out of it and the snows upon them shone with an austere radiance. The hidden crater of the Cloud Gardens nestled in their icy embrace. They sank down towards the witch's stronghold, but as they drew closer the ether became turbid and oppressive, as though they swam through a cesspit. Its weight and density resisted their passage. Linked as one they strove forward against its debilitating influence. At last, after immense spiritual exertion, they had forced their way down to the green chamber in the witch's lair.

Eos's massive cocoon lay where Taita had last seen it, but now the protective carapace was fully formed, green and lustrous, shining with an adamantine glitter. Taita had achieved his purpose: he had brought Fenn to look upon the veritable form of Eos, not merely one of her shadowy

manifestations. Now, when the time came, they would be able to combine all their force and concentrate it upon her.

They drew back from the Cloud Gardens, over the mountains, the forests and the lake, back into their physical bodies. Taita was still holding her hands. As she came alive again, he looked at her through his Inner Eye. Her aura smouldered like molten metal pouring from the furnace, heated by her fear and anger.

'That thing!' She clung to him. 'Oh, Taita, it was horrible beyond my wildest imagining. That carapace seems to contain all the evil and malice of the universe.' Her face was ashen and her skin cold.

'You have looked upon the enemy. Now you must steel yourself, my love,' he told her. 'You must call upon all your courage and strength.'

He held her to him. 'I need you with me. I cannot prevail against her without you.'

Fenn's face hardened with determination. 'I will not fail you, Taita.'

“I have never thought for a moment that you might.' Over the next few days he employed all of his esoteric art to bolster in her the spiritual powers that the sight of Eos had shaken.

'Tomorrow night the moon will be full, the most propitious phase of its cycle. We are ready and the time is ripe.' But Taita was awakened at dawn by Fenn's sobs and moans. He stroked her face and whispered in her ear, 'Wake up, my darling. It is only a dream. I am here beside you.'

'Hold me, Taita. I had such a terrible dream. I dreamt that Eos struck at me with her magic. She drove her dagger into my belly. The blade was glowing hot.' She groaned again. 'Oh, I can still feel the pain. It was not a dream. It is true. I am wounded and the pain is bitter.'

Taita's heart leapt with alarm. 'Let me feel your stomach.' He pushed her down gently, drew the kaross as far as her knees and laid his hand upon her flat white belly.

'The pain is not all, Taita,' she whispered. 'I am bleeding from the wound she has inflicted.'

'Bleeding? Where is the wound?'

'Here!' She spread her thighs and pushed his hand lower. 'The blood is pouring through the cleft between my legs.'

'Has this not happened to you before - at your age?'

'Never,' she replied. 'This is the very first time.'

'Oh, my sweetest heart.' He took her tenderly in his arms. 'It is not what you think. That comes not from Eos. It is a gift and blessing from the gods of the Truth. I wonder that Imbali did not mention it. You have become a full woman.'

'I do not understand, Taita.' She was still afraid.

'This is your moon blood, the proud emblem of your womanhood.'

Taita realized that the rigours of the journey, the deprivation and hardship she had suffered, must have delayed her natural development.

'But why the pain?'

'Pain is the lot of woman. In pain she is born and in pain she gives forth life. It was ever so.'

'Why now? Why am I struck down at the very time you need me so?'

she lamented.

'Fenn, you must rejoice in your womanhood. The gods have armed you. The first moon blood of a virgin is the most potent talisman in all nature. Neither the witch nor all the host of the Lie can prevail against you on this day when you have come of age.' They rose from the mat and Taita showed her how to fold a square of linen into a pad filled with dried herbs to soak up the discharge. They washed again and drank a little lake water, but took no food.

'The lion and his lioness hunt better on a hungry stomach,' he told her. They left their shelter, and walked through the main encampment.

In anxious silence the people watched them pass. Something in their manner and mien warned that some fateful business was afoot.

Only Meren came forward to meet them. 'Do you need my help, Magus?'

'Good Meren, you were ever faithful but we are bound whither you cannot follow.'

Meren went down on one knee in front of him. 'Then give me your blessing, I beseech you.'

Taita placed his hand on his head. 'You have it in full measure,' he said, then he and Fenn walked out of the encampment and down the hillside towards the lake. The air was sultry and still, all the earth hushed.

No animal moved or called. No bird flew. The sky was a bright, aching blue, with only one tiny cloud hanging far out over the lake. As Taita watched, it changed gradually into the shape of a cat's paw.

'Even in her cocoon the witch has sensed the threat we pose to her and she moves against us,' he told Fenn softly. She leant closer to him, and they went on until they stood at last on the heights of the bluff.

They gazed down on the Red Stones, the mighty barrier that choked the mouth of the infant Nile.

'Is there any force commanded by man or nature that can shift something of that magnitude?' Fenn wondered aloud.

'It was raised by the force of the Lie. Perchance it can be brought

down by the power of the Truth,' he answered her, and as one they turned their eyes towards the temple of Eos.

'Are you ready?' he asked and she nodded. 'Then we must go to confront Eos in her temple.'

'What will happen if we enter there, Magus?'

'That I do not know. We must expect the worst, and prepare for it.'

Taita took another moment to look down once more upon the surface of the lake. It was smooth and glassy. High above it sailed the little cloud, still in the shape of the cat's paw. Holding hands, they stepped on to the paved pathway that led up towards the domed roof of the temple.

Immediately a tiny wind stirred the sullen air. It was cold upon their cheeks, cold as the fingers of a dead man. It scuttled across the lake, scratching the polished surface, then dropped away again. They walked on upwards. Before they were half-way to the crest, the wind came again.

Whistling softly, it smeared the little cloud across the horizon and furrowed the lake with dark blue streaks.

The sound of the wind rose sharply. Then it hurled itself upon them.

It shrieked as it tore at their clothing and ripped at Taita's beard. They staggered before it, clutching each other for support. The surface of the lake was lashed into dancing white waves. The trees along the shore swayed, their branches whipping. Painfully they climbed on until at last they stood before the main doors of the temple, which were wide open, one sagging on its hinges, the other banging and flapping. Suddenly the howling wind seized both and slammed them shut with such force that the rendering round the jambs cracked and crumbled.

Taita reached up to his throat and closed his hand over the Periapt of Lostris, which hung there on its golden chain. Fenn grasped the gold nugget of the Talisman of Taita. Then, with his free hand, Taita reached into his pouch and brought from it the thick braid of Eos's hair. He held it high, and the earth moved beneath them, shuddering with such agitation that one of the closed doors was torn from its hinges and crashed down at their feet. They stepped over it and went through the opening into the circular portico of the temple. Here, the air was thick and viscious with evil. It was difficult to wade through it, as though they were struggling in the mud of a deep morass. Taita took Fenn's arm to steady her, and guided her along the passageway to the opposite side of the temple. At last they stood before the flower-shaped doorway, its jambs tiled with polished ivory, malachite and tiger's eye. The crocodile skin door was closed. Taita struck the centre with the rope of Eos's hair.

The door opened slowly, its hinges squealing.

The splendour of the interior was undiminished, the emblems in the great pentagram glowing with marble and semi-precious stones. But their eyes were drawn irresistibly to the ivory shield at the centre. The ray of sunlight that fell through the aperture in the roof moved slowly but inexorably towards the heart of the pentagram. It would soon be noon.

The wind moaned and wailed round the outer walls of the temple, shaking the thatching and the roof timbers. They stood transfixed and watched the beam of sunlight. When it entered the ivory circle the power of the Lie would reach its peak.

A draught of icy air blew in through the ceiling aperture. It hissed like a cobra and fluttered like the wings of bats and vultures in the air around them. The beam of sunlight touched the ivory circle. Blinding white light filled the sanctum but they did not shrink from it or shield their eyes. They concentrated on the fiery spirit sign of Eos that appeared in the centre of the ivory disc. As the stench of the witch filled the air Taita stepped forward and held aloft the braid of her hair.

'Tashkalon!' he shouted, and hurled the hair into the ivory circle.

'Ascartow! Silondela!' He had turned Eos's words of power back upon her. The wind dropped abruptly and a frozen silence gripped the temple.

Fenn stepped up beside Taita and lifted the hem of her tunic. She tore the linen pad from between her legs and threw it on top of Eos's hair in the ivory circle. 'Tashkalon! Ascartow! Silondela!' she repeated, in a sweet clear voice. The temple rocked on its foundations and a deep rumble rose from the earth. A section of the facing wall buckled outwards, then collapsed in a pile of rubble and plaster dust. Behind them one of the roof rafters cracked and fell into the outer portico, bringing down with it a mass of rotten thatch.

With a thunderous roar the floor of the temple was torn open. A deep crevice split the pentagram down the centre, ripping through the ivory circle, and running through the paving between them, isolating them from each other. There was no bottom to the crevice. It seemed to reach down into the bowels of the earth.

'Taita!' Fenn screamed. They were divided, and she could feel the strength she had drawn from him guttering and fading like the flame of a lamp running out of oil. She tottered on the lip of the crevice, which sucked at her voraciously.

'Taita, I am falling. Save me!' She tried to turn away from the lip, her arms flailing and her back arched as she was drawn towards it.

He had not realized the full strength of the astral forces they had built

between them and he sprang out across the fatal pit to land lightly at her side. He seized her before she toppled into the crevice, swept her up in his arms and ran with her to the flower-shaped doorway. He held her close to his heart, recharging the force that Eos had taken from her. He left the inner sanctum and raced along the portico towards the outer doors of the temple. A massive roof timber crashed to the ground in front of them, narrowly missing them. He jumped over it and ran on. It was like being on the deck of a small ship in a hurricane. All around him more deep fissures opened in the floor. He leapt over them. The earth heaved and quaked. Another section of the outer wall just ahead tumbled down into a pile of loose debris but he bounded over the rubble and burst out into the open air.

Still there was no respite from the primordial chaos of the elements.

Staggering to keep his balance on the heaving earth, Taita looked about in wild amazement. The lake was gone. Where the pale lucid blue waters had lain there was now a vast empty basin in which stranded shoals of fish flapped, crocodiles writhed and ponderous hippopotamus tried to find their footing on the mud. The red rock barrier was nakedly revealed, its magnitude defying the imagination.

Abruptly the upheaval ceased, replaced by an eerie stillness. All of creation seemed frozen. There was no sound or movement. Taita placed Fenn carefully on her feet, but she clung to him still as she stared out over the empty lake. 'What is happening to the world?' she breathed, through pale dry lips.

'It was an earthquake of cataclysmic proportions.'

'I give thanks to Hathor and Isis that it has passed.'

'It is not over. Those were merely the first shocks. Now there is a lull before the full force breaks.'

'What has happened to the waters of the lake?'

'They have been sucked away by the shifting crust of the earth,' he told her, then held up a hand. 'Listen!' There was a rushing sound like that of a mighty wind. 'The waters are returning!' He pointed across the empty basin.

On the horizon rose a blue mountain of water laced with creamy spume that advanced upon the land with ponderous, stately might. One after another it overwhelmed the outer islands and came on, rearing higher into the sky as it approached the shore. It was still several leagues distant, but already its crest seemed to tower above the height of the bluff on which they stood.

'It will sweep us away! We will be drowned! We must run!'

'There is nowhere for us to run to,' he told her. 'Stand firm beside me.”

She sensed him throwing a spell of protection round them, and immediately joined her own psychic forces to his.

Another gargantuan convulsion racked the earth, so violent that they were thrown to their knees, but they clung together and gazed at the approaching wave. There was a sound like all the thunder of the heavens, so loud that it dulled their hearing.

The red rock barrier was split through from its foundations to its summit. Its entire surface was crazed with a network of deep cracks. The huge wave rose high above it and crashed into it in a smother of foam and leaping wave crests. The mighty rock pier was submerged beneath it.

Then there was a roar as the fragments of red rock tumbled over each other and were carried on by the force of the tidal wave into the empty bed of the Nile. They were swept along the riverbed as though they were of no more consequence than beach pebbles. The waters of the lake continued to pour through the breach in a thunderous green spout. The riverbed was neither deep nor wide enough to contain such a volume so the waters burst from its banks and reached as high as the topmost branches of the trees on either side. They were uprooted and toppled into the flow, to be borne downstream like driftwood. Dense clouds of spray towered into the sky above the tumultuous cauldron, catching the sunlight and spinning it into marvellous rainbows that arched across the river.

The crest of the tidal wave surged up the bluff towards where they crouched beside the ruins of the temple. It seemed that it would engulf them also and carry them away in the torrent, but its strength dissipated before it reached them. The residue of its might swirled round the shattered walls of the temple, and reached as high as their knees before it faltered. They linked arms and braced themselves. Although the waters dragged at them, together they were able to resist being swept into the lake.

Slowly the elements regained their composure, the tremors of the earth subsided and the waters of the lake stilled. Only the Nile thundered on, green, wide and smoking with spray towards Egypt in the north.

'The river is reborn,' Fenn whispered, 'just as you are, Magus. The Nile is renewed and made young again.'

It seemed that they would never tire of the magnificent spectacle.

They stood for hour upon hour gazing down on it in wonder and awe.

Then, on an impulse, Fenn turned in the circle of his arms and looked

towards the west. She started so violently that Taita was alarmed. 'What is it, Fenn?'

'Look!' she cried, her voice shaking with excitement. 'The land of Jarri is burning!' Mighty clouds of smoke were rising over the horizon, boiling upwards into the heavens, grey and menacing, gradually blotting out the sun and plunging all the earth into sombre shadow. 'What is it, Taita? What is taking place in the kingdom of the witch?'

'I cannot hazard a guess,' Taita admitted. 'This thing is too vast to admit of reason or belief.'

'Might we not attempt to overlook the land of Jarri once again, and try to fathom the cause and consequences of this holocaust?'

'We must do so at once,' he agreed. 'Let us prepare ourselves.' They sat together on the barren hillside above the thundering river, linked their hands and launched themselves in unison into the astral plane.

They soared on high and glided towards the mighty cloud and the land spread beneath it.

Looking down upon it they saw that it was ruined: the villages blazed and the fields were devastated by poisonous smoke and falling ash. They saw people running from it with their hair and clothing on fire. They heard women wailing and children screaming as they perished. They drew closer to the Mountains of the Moon, and saw that the peaks were blown away.

From the craters that had split them asunder poured rivers of fiery lava.

One spilled down on to the citadel of the oligarchs, submerging it with fire and ash until it seemed that it had never existed.

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

Where once they had stood another yawning crater spewed forth fresh rivers of lava.

'The witch! What of her?'

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

Wisps of smoke rose from the carapace. The glistening surface began

to blacken and crack. Slowly it twisted and writhed, then suddenly it split open and from it poured a glutinous yellow fluid, which bubbled and boiled as it cooked. The stench was overpowering. Then the carap1 ace burst into flames and burnt to a powdery ash. The last of the foul liquid boiled away, leaving a black stain on the glowing malachite tiles. The roof of the cavern burst open, and burning lava forced its way through the cracks to flood the witch's chamber.

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

Then Fenn's eyes filled with tears and she began to weep silently.

'It is over,' Taita told her soothingly.

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

'It was the truth. She died in the only way that was possible for her, consumed in the flames of the volcano from which she had risen.'

Fenn crawled into his lap and he put his arms round her. Now that the danger had passed her strength had evaporated. She was a frightened child again. They sat for the rest of the day gazing down upon the green Nile. Then, as the sun set behind the towering smoke and dustclouds that still filled the western half of the heavens, Taita stood up and carried her back up the hill path to the village.

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

'Magus! We feared for your lives,' Meren bellowed, while he was still fifty paces away. 'I should have had more faith in you. I should have known that your magic would prevail. The Nile flows again!' He seized Taita in a fervent embrace. 'You have restored life to it and to our motherland.' He reached out with his other arm and pulled Fenn to him.

'None of us will ever understand the extent of the miracle that the two of you have brought to pass, but a hundred generations of Egyptians will thank you for it.' Then they were surrounded by the exultant throng and borne up to the hilltop. The singing and laughter, the dancing and rejoicing lasted all that night.

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

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

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

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

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

That night, pieces of her flesh wrapped in the luscious white belly fat were grilled upon the coals of fifty separate fires and, once again, the people feasted and danced the night through. Although they had all gorged themselves, there remained plenty to salt and smoke; it would feed them for several weeks. In addition to this, the river teemed with catfish that were stunned and disoriented by the raging waters and easily harpooned from the bank, some were heavier than a full-grown man.

They still had several tons of the dhurra they had taken from the Jarrian granaries so Taita agreed that some might be fermented to make beer.

By the time the river had dropped to a level that allowed them to take to their oars, they were all strong, rested and eager for the voyage to recommence. Even Hilto was almost recovered from his wound and able to take his place on a rowing bench.

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

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

'Tell me about Pharaoh Nefer Seti.'

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

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

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

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

'Do you, Fenn? Do you truly belong to me?'

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

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

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

'And what did she have to say on the subject?'

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

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

'You know what it means, Taita,' she said, with a long-suffering air.

'You and I gijima each other all the time.'

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

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

'I suppose so, or at least part of it.'

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

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

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

When they came out at last on the headland above the main falls, the Nile had been compressed from a width of two hundred paces to a mere

twenty. Below, the torrent plunged through brilliant arches of rainbows hundreds of cubits down into the foaming gorge.

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

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

Taita was at a loss for an adequate response. 'We must go back now,'

he said. 'The sun is setting and we should not be on the path after dark when there are lions abroad. We shall discuss this later.'

They saddled the horses and started back along the riverbank.

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

When they rode into the stockade the women were busy at the cooking fires and the men were gathered in small groups, talking and drinking beer, resting aching muscles after their long day at the oars.

Meren hurried to meet them as they dismounted. 'I was about to send out a search party to find you.'

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

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

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

Taita took his place at the head of the gathering. He had instituted these meetings not only to plan specific actions but also to give each an

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opportunity to raise any subject of interest or importance to the group. It was also a court of justice and discipline before which miscreants could be called to answer for their sins.

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

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

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

'You wanted to tell me something,' he prompted her.

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

'Is that the secret?'

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

'You have not too much there, my lord.' She took one of her own breasts in her hand. 'I, on the other hand, have enough for both of us.'

They made a serious assessment of the discrepancy in sizes, then Fenn went on, 'This evening I watched Revi feeding her baby while we sat by the fire. He is a greedy little piglet. Revi says that it feels nice when he

suckles.' She leant closer to him and proffered her breast, touching his lips with the nipple. 'Shall we pretend you are my baby? I want to know what it feels like.“

Then it was her turn to gasp. 'Ah! Ah! I never thought it would be like that. It makes something in my belly clench.' She was silent for a while, then gave a throaty little chuckle. 'Oh! Our mannikin has woken.'

She reached for him. Her fingers, with practice, were becoming more cunning and skilful. 'I have been thinking about him ever since I spoke to Imbali this evening while you were in council. Do you know what she told me?' His mouth was still busy, so his reply was muffled. She pushed his head away from her breast. 'You will never believe what she told me.'

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

'Yes, it is.'

'Tell me, then. I am all agog.'

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

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

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

'No, I am serious. It would be unfair to accuse Imbali of making up stories if we don't have any proof that she is.' He reached down and ran his fingers over her belly and into the clump of soft curls at the base.

She rolled on to her back and craned forward to give his hand her full attention. 'I hadn't thought of it that way. You are right, of course.

Imbali is my dear friend. I don't want to be unfair to her.' She moved her legs slightly apart compliantly. Her eyes opened wider and she asked, 'What are you doing down there?'

'Trying to find out if your flower is large enough.'

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

'I am sure she does,' Taita said. 'However, if we think about it, it is shaped just like a flower. Give me your finger and let me show you.

These are the petals and at the top here is the stamen.' As a botanist, she accepted this description without demur.

'And I thought it was just for making water,' she said, and then was silent a little longer. At last she lay back, closed her eyes and gave a gentle sigh. 'I feel wet all over. Am I bleeding again, Taita?'

'No, it is not blood.'

They lapsed back into silence until Fenn suggested timidly, 'Do you think we should try that with your mannikin rather than just your fingers?'

'Would you like to?'

'Yes, I think I would like that very much.' She sat up quickly and gazed at his manroot with fascination. 'It is impossible, but he seems to have doubled in size. I am a bit frightened of him. You may have to perform some of your magic to get him inside me.'

So close was the bond that they had built up between them that he could feel the sensations she was experiencing as though they were his own. By reading her aura as they went along, he could anticipate her needs before she became aware of them. He paced her perfectly, never too fast or too slow. When she realized he would not hurt her she relaxed and followed his lead in total trust. With all the skills he had perfected in the Cloud Gardens, he played her body as though it was a sensitive musical instrument. Time and again he brought her to the very brink, then held her back, until at last he knew the exact moment when she was ready. Together they soared higher and impossibly higher. In the end she screamed as they plummeted back to earth, 'Oh, save me, sweet Isis.

I am dying. Help me, Hathor. Help me!' Taita's own voice blended with hers, his cry as wild and unrestrained.

Meren heard their cries and sprang to his feet, dropping the beer pot he was holding. The contents splashed into the fire, sending up a cloud of steam and ash. He snatched his sword from its scabbard and, his features contorted in a warlike scowl, ran towards Taita's hut. Nakonto was almost as swift: he bounded after Meren with a stabbing spear in each fist. Before they were half-way across the enclosure, Sidudu and Imbali barred their way resolutely.

'Stand aside!' Meren shouted. 'They are in trouble. We must go to them.'

'Get back, Meren Cambyses!' Sidudu pounded on his broad chest with her small fists. 'They do not need your help. You will get no thanks from either of them.'

'Nakonto, you ignorant Shilluk!' Imbali yelled at her man. 'Put up your spears. Have you learnt nothing in all your stupid life? Leave them alone!'

The two warriors stopped in confusion and stared at the women

¦who confronted them. Then they glanced at each other shamefacedly.

'Surely not.. . ?' Meren started. 'Not the Magus and Fenn—' He broke off lamely.

1 t

'Surely yes,' Sidudu answered him. 'That is exactly what they are at.'

She took his arm firmly and led him back to his stool beside the fire. 'I will refill your beer pot for you.”

'Taita and Fenn?' Bemused, he shook his head. 'Who would have thought it?'

'Everybody except you,' she said. 'It seems that you know nothing of women and what they need.' She felt him bridle, and laid a hand on his arm to placate him. 'Oh, you know very well what a man needs. I am sure you are the greatest expert in all of Egypt on that subject.'

He subsided slowly and thought about what she had said. 'I expect you are right, Sidudu,' he admitted at last. 'Certainly I do not know what you need. If only I did I would give it to you with all my heart.'

'I know you would, dear Meren. You have been kind and gentle with me. I understand how dearly your restraint has cost you.'

'I love you, Sidudu. Since the first instant that you ran out of the forest pursued by the trogs, I have loved you.'

'I know that.' She moved closer to him. 'I explained to you. I told you much of what happened to me in Jarri, but there were other things that I could not bring myself to tell you. That monster Onka .. .' She trailed off, then said quietly, 'He left wounds.'

'Will those wounds ever heal?' he asked. 'I will wait for that all my life.'

'It will not be necessary. With your help, they have healed cleanly, without so much as a scar.' She hung her head shyly. 'Perhaps you will allow me to bring my sleeping mat to your hut tonight. ..'

'We do not need two mats.' His face in the firelight was adorned with a wide grin. 'The one I have is large enough. Certainly there is space for a little thing like you.' He stood up and lifted her to her feet. As they left the circle of firelight, Imbali and Nakonto watched them go.

'These children!' Imbali said, in an indulgent and motherly tone. 'It has not been easy to make them see what lies before their eyes, but now my work is done. Both in a single night! I am well pleased with myself.'

'Do not concern yourself with those others so that you neglect what lies closer to hand, woman,' Nakonto told her sternly.

'Ah, I was mistaken. My work is not yet done.' She laughed. 'Come with me, great chief of the Shilluk. I will sharpen your spear for you. You will sleep all the better for it.' She stood up, and laughed again. 'And so will I.'

A road beaten by countless generations of elephant wound down the escarpment of the rift valley, but it was narrow and they were forced to spend much time and labour widening it before they could carry the boats to the lower reaches of the river below the Kabalega falls. At last they relaunched the flotilla and rowed into the centre of the flow. The current was swift and sped them northwards, but it was also treacherous. In as many days they lost five boats on the fangs of the submerged rocks. Three men were drowned and six of the horses with them. Almost all of the other boats were battered and scarred by the time they came out into the open waters of Semliki Nianzu lake. Even in the short time since the Nile had begun to flow again, its waters had been replenished dramatically. They were no longer shallow and muddy and sparkled blue in the sunlight. Across the wide waters to the north the vague blue outline of the far shore was just visible, but to the west there was no glimpse of land.

There were many new villages along the near shore that had not been there when last they passed this way. It was obvious that they had recently been inhabited, for freshly caught catfish were laid out on the smoking racks and hot embers glowed in the fireplaces, but the people had fled at the approach of the flotilla.

'I know this tribe. They are timid fishermen and will not threaten us,'

Imbali told Taita. 'These are dangerous times and they are surrounded by warlike tribes, which is why they have run away.'

Taita ordered that the boats be dragged ashore for repairs to their hulls. He left That and Meren in charge of the encampment. He and Fenn took Nakonto and Imbali with them to act as interpreters and set off in one of the undamaged boats towards the western end of the lake and the mouth of the Semliki river. Taita was determined to find out if this other large tributary of the Nile was flowing again, or if it was still dammed by the malevolent influence of Eos. When they reached Karnak he must be able to inform Pharaoh of all these matters, which were essential to the welfare of Egypt.

The wind stood fair from the east and they were able to hoist the lateen sail to aid the efforts of the crew on the rowing benches. With a bow wave curling under the prow they bore away along a shoreline of white beaches and rocky headlands, with a rampart of blue mountains on the horizon. On the fifth day they reached the mouth of a broad, swift river discharging into the lake from the south.

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'Is this the Semliki?' Taita demanded of Imbali.

'I have never ventured so far east before. I cannot tell,' she answered.

'I must be certain of it. We must find some of the people who live here.' The inhabitants of the villages along the banks had also fled as soon as they saw the boat, but at last they spotted a decrepit dugout canoe far out in the lake. The two old men on board were so busy that they did not see the boat until it was upon them. Then they abandoned their net and tried to make a dash for the beach, but they had no chance of outrunning the galley. They gave up in despair and resigned themselves to the cooking pot.

Once the two greybeards had realized they were not to be eaten, they became garrulous with relief. When Imbali questioned them, they confirmed readily that this river was indeed the Semliki and that until very recently it had been dry. They described the miraculous manner of its resuscitation. At a time when the earth and the mountains shivered and rocked and the lake waters were tossed by waves as high as the skies, the river had come down in full spate and was now running as high as it had done many years ago. Taita rewarded them with a gift of beads and copper spearheads, then sent the two old fishermen on their way, astonished by the extent of their good fortune.

'Our work here is done,' Taita told Fenn. 'Now we can return to Egypt.'

When they arrived back at the encampment at the mouth of the Nile, they found that Meren and That had completed the repairs to the damaged hulls and the flotilla was seaworthy once more. Taita waited for the rise of the noon wind before he gave the order to weigh anchor.

Hoisting the lateen sails and running out the oars, they bore away across the open waters of the lake. With the wind on their best point of sailing they reached the northern shore before sunset and sailed into the branch of the Nile that was augmented with the waters of the two mighty lakes, Nalubaale and Semliki Nianzu. It took them northwards through the territory they had traversed on their journey south.

The next impediment to their voyage was the deadly belt of tsetse fly.

They had long ago used up the last of the Tolas cakes, that sovereign cure for the horse sickness, so as soon as the first fly flitted from the near bank to land on the deck of the leading boat, Taita ordered a change of course and took the flotilla into the centre of the river. They ran down in line astern, and it soon became clear that his instinct had been accurate. The fly would not cross open water to reach the boats in the middle, so they sailed on unmolested. At nightfall Taita would not allow

any of the boats to approach the bank, let alone land upon it, and they sailed on in darkness, lit by a gibbous moon.

For two more days and three nights they kept strictly to the middle of the current. At last they made out in the distance the hills shaped like a virgin's breasts, which marked the northern boundary of the fly belt. Still Taita would not place the horses at risk, and they sailed on for many more leagues before he ordered the first tentative approach to the bank.

To his relief they found no sign of the fly, and the run to Fort Adari was clear.

Colonel That was particularly anxious to discover what had become of the garrison he had left at the fort almost eleven years previously. It was his duty, he felt, to rescue the exiles and take them back to their homeland. When the flotilla was level with the hills on which the fort stood, they moored the boats to the bank and offloaded the horses.

It was good to be released for a while from the tedium of river travel and to have good horses under them again, so Taita, Fenn and That were in high spirits as they rode with a group of mounted men through the pass and were able to look down on the grassy plateau that surrounded the fort.

'Do you remember Tolas, the horse surgeon?' Fenn asked. 'I look forward to seeing him again. He taught me so much.'

'He was a wonder with horses,' Taita agreed. 'He coveted Windsmoke, and could certainly recognize a good mount when he saw one.' He patted the mare's neck and she twitched her ears back to listen to his voice. 'He wanted to steal you from me, didn't he?' She blew through her nose, and nodded. 'You would probably have gone with him willingly, too, you unfaithful old strumpet.'

They rode on towards the fort, but before they had gone much further they had the first inkling that something was seriously wrong. There were no horses or cattle in the pastures, no smoke rose from within the walls and no banners flew above the parapets.

'Where are all my people?' That fretted. 'Rabat is a reliable man.

I expected him to have spotted us by now … if he is still here.' They trotted on anxiously, until Taita exclaimed, 'The walls are in a sad state of repair. The whole place seems deserted.'

'The watch-tower has been damaged by fire,' That observed, and they urged the horses into a canter.

When they reached the gates of the fort they found them standing open. They paused at the entrance and looked through into the interior.

The walls were blackened by fire. That rose in the stirrups and hailed

the deserted parapet in a stentorian bellow. He received no reply and they drew their weapons, but they were many months too late to be of assistance to the garrison. When they rode through the gates, they found their pathetic remains scattered around the cooking fires in the central courtyard.

'Chima!' Taita said, as they looked down at the evidence of the cannibal banquet. To get at the marrow, the Chima had roasted the long bones of the arms and legs on the open fires, then cracked them open between large stones. The shattered fragments were scattered all about.

They had treated the severed heads of their victims in the same way, throwing them into the flames until they were scorched and blackened, then chopping them open as though they were boiled ostrich eggs. Taita imagined them sitting in a ring, passing round the open skulls, scooping out the half-cooked brains with their fingers and cramming them into their mouths.

Taita made an approximate count of the skulls. 'It seems that none of the garrison escaped. The Chima had them all, men, women and children.'

There were no words to express their horror and revulsion.

'Look!' Fenn whispered. 'That must have been a tiny baby. The skull is not much larger than a ripe pomegranate.' Her eyes were bright with tears.

'Gather up the remains,' Taita ordered. 'We must bury them before we go back to the boats.'

They dug a small communal grave outside the walls, for there was little to lay to rest.

'We have still to pass through the land of the Chima.' Tinat's face was cold and set. 'If the gods are kind they will allow me a chance to settle the score with those murderous dogs.'

Before they left they searched the fort and the forest around it, hoping for some sign of survivors, but there was none. 'They must have been taken unawares,' That said. 'There is no evidence of any fighting.'

They rode back to the river in sombre silence, and on the following day resumed the journey. When they reached the territory of the Chima, Taita ordered two small detachments of mounted scouts to be landed, one on either bank.

'Ride ahead and keep a sharp eye open. We will stay well behind you so that we do not alarm the Chima. If you find any sign of them you must ride back at once to give us warning.'

464 1

On the fourth day That was granted his wish. They rounded another wide bend of the river and saw Hilto, with his scouts, waving to them from the bank. Hilto jumped aboard as the leading boat grounded and hurried to salute Taita. 'Magus, there is a large village of Chima on the riverbank not far ahead. Two or three hundred of the savages are gathered there.'

'Did any spot you?' Taita demanded.

'No. They suspect nothing amiss,' Hilto replied.

'Good.' Taita summoned That and Meren from the other boats and quickly explained his plan of attack. 'It was the men under Colonel Tinat's command who were massacred, so he has the right and obligation to vengeance. Colonel, this evening you will take a strong force ashore to avoid being seen by the Chima you must make a night march. Under cover of darkness, take up a position between the village and the edge of the forest. At first light we will bring the boats to the village, then flush the Chima from their huts with a blast on the trumpets and a volley or two of arrows. They will almost certainly bolt for the trees and will be looking over their shoulders when they run into your men. Have you any questions?'

'It is a good, simple plan,' Meren said, and That nodded agreement.

Taita went on, 'As soon as the Chima run, Meren and I will land the rest of our men and go after them. We should be able to catch them between us in a pincer movement. Now, remember what we found inside the walls of Fort Adari. We will take no slaves or captives. Kill every last one.'

At dusk Hilto, who had studied the location and layout of the village, led Tinat's column down the riverbank. The boats remained moored to the bank for the night. Taita and Fenn spread their sleeping mat on the foredeck and lay gazing up at the night sky. Fenn loved to listen to his discourse on the heavenly bodies, the legend and myths of the constellations.

But in the end she always came back to the same subject: 'Tell me again about my own star, Magus, the Star of Lostris that I became after my death in the other life. But start at the beginning. Tell me how I died and how you embalmed me and decorated my tomb.' She allowed him to omit not a single detail. As she always did, she wept quietly when he reached the part of the story where he cut the lock of her hair, then made the Periapt of Lostris. She reached across and cupped the talisman in her palm. 'Did you always believe that I would come back to you?' she asked.

'Always. Every night I watched for the rise of your star and waited for the time when it would disappear from the firmament. I knew that that would be the sign that you were returning to me.“

'You must have been very sad and lonely.'

'Without you my life was an empty desert,' he said, and she wept again.

'Oh, my Taita, that is the most sad and beautiful story ever told.

Please make love to me now. I ache for you with all my body and all my soul. I want to feel you inside me, touching my core. We must never be parted from each other again.'

With the dawn light and the river mist drifting across the water, the flotilla pulled downstream in line ahead. The oars were muffled and the silence was eerie. The archers lined the gunwales with their arrows nocked. Thatched roofs appeared out of the mist, and Taita signalled to Meren at the helm to steer in closer to the bank.

From the shore a dog whined and barked, but apart from that the silence was complete. The mist stirred with the morning breeze, then drew aside like a veil to reveal the crowded squalor of the Chima village.

Taita lifted his sword high, then brought it down sharply. It was the signal, and the trumpeters blew a ringing blast on their curling kudu horns. At the sound, hundreds of naked Chima came out of the huts to gape at the oncoming boats. A wail of despair went up, and in wild panic they scattered and ran. Few had armed themselves and most were still more than half asleep, stumbling and falling about like drunkards as they ran for the shelter of the trees. Taita raised his sword arm again and as he dropped it the archers let a cloud of arrows fly into them. Taita saw an arrow transfix an infant strapped to the back of a running woman, then kill the mother cleanly.

'Take us to the bank!' As the prow touched the shoreline he led the rush.

Spearmen and axemen raced after the routed Chima. From ahead there rose another wail of terror and despair as they ran into Hilto's ambush. The swords of Tinat's men thumped into living flesh, and made a wet sucking sound as they were pulled free. A naked Chima ran back towards Taita with one of his arms lopped off at the elbow. He was squealing shrilly as the blood from the stump sprayed over his own body, painting him a glistening scarlet. Taita cut him down with a stroke that

took away the top half of his skull. Then he killed the naked woman who followed him with a single thrust between her dangling dugs. In the rage of battle he felt no pity or remorse. The next man held up his bare hands in a despairing attempt to divert the blade. Taita cut him down with as little compunction as he would have crushed a tsetse fly crawling on his skin.

Trapped between the two lines of armed men, the Chima darted about like a shoal of fish in a net. Retribution was cold and ruthless, the slaughter furious and sanguinary. A few of the Chima managed to break through the closing ring of bronze and reach the river. But the archers were waiting for those who did, and so were the crocodiles.

'Did any escape?' Taita demanded of That, when they met in the middle of the field strewn with the dead and dying.

'I saw some run back into the huts. Shall we go after them?'

'No. By now they will have armed themselves, and will be as dangerous as cornered leopards. I will not risk any more of our people. Put fire into the thatch of the huts and smoke them out.'

By the time the sun had risen above the trees it was all over. Two of Tinat's men had been lightly wounded, but the Chima were annihilated.

They left the corpses lying where they had fallen for the hyenas to deal with, and were back on board, sailing northwards again, before the sun had made its noon.

'Now only the swamps of the Great Sud stand in our way,' Taita told Fenn, as they sat together on the foredeck, 'the swamps in which I found you. You were a little wild savage, running with a tribe of them.'

'It all seems so long ago,' she murmured. 'The memory is pale and faded. I remember my other life more clearly than that one. I hope we do not encounter any of the bestial Luo. I would like to forget it all completely.' She tossed her head to throw the dancing golden tresses back over her shoulder. 'Let us talk of more pleasant things,' she suggested. 'Did you know that Imbali has a baby growing inside her?'

'Ah! So that is it. I have seen Nakonto looking at her in a peculiar way. But how do you know that this is so?'

'Imbali told me. She is very proud. She says the babe will be a great warrior, like Nakonto.'

'What if it should be a girl?'

'No doubt it will be a great warrior like Imbali.' She laughed.

'It is good tidings for them, but sad for us.'

'Why sad?' she demanded.

'I fear we shall soon lose them. Now that he is to be a father,

Nakonto's days as a roving warrior are numbered. He will want to take Imbali and his child back to his own village. That will be soon, for we are nearing the land of the Shilluk.”

The terrain along the banks changed its nature as they left behind the forests and the elephant country to enter a wide savannah dotted with flat-topped acacia trees. Towering giraffe, with reticulated white markings on their coffee-coloured bodies, fed on the high branches and below them, grazing on the sweet savannah grasses, herds of antelope, kob, topi, eland, mingled with herds of fat striped zebra. The resuscitated Nile had brought them flocking back to partake of her bounty.

Two days' further sailing, and they sighted a herd of several hundred humped cattle, with long swept-back horns, grazing close to the edge of the reed banks. Young boys were herding them. 'I doubt not that they are Shilluk,' Taita told Fenn. 'Nakonto has come home.'

'How can you be sure of it?'

'See how tall and slender they are, and the manner in which they stand, like roosting storks, balanced on one long leg with the other foot resting on the calf. They can be none other than Shilluk.'

Nakonto had seen them too, and his usually aloof, disdainful manner evaporated. He broke into a stamping, prancing war-dance that shook the deck, and hallooed in a high-pitched tone that carried clearly over the reeds. Imbali laughed at his antics, clapped her hands and ululated to encourage him to greater efforts.

The herders heard someone calling to them in their own language from the boat, and ran to the bank to stare at the visitors in amazement.

Nakonto recognized two and hailed them across the water: 'Sikunela!

Timbai!'

The lads responded with astonishment: 'Stranger, who are you?'

'I am no stranger. I am your uncle Nakonto, the famous spearman!' he shouted back.

The boys whooped with excitement, and raced away to the village to call their elders. Before long several hundred Shilluk were gathered on the riverbank, gabbling at Nakonto in amazement. Then came Nontu the Short, all four and a half cubits of him, followed by his wives and their multitudinous offspring.

Nakonto and Nontu embraced rapturously. Then Nontu shouted instructions at the women, who trooped away to the village. They returned presently balancing on their heads enormous pots of bubbling beer.

The celebration on the riverbank lasted several days, but at last

Nakonto came to Taita. 'I have travelled far with you, great one who is no longer ancient,' he said. 'It has been good, especially the fighting, but this is the end of our road together. You are returning to your own people, and I must go back to mine.'

'This I understand. You have found a good woman who can put up with your ways, and you wish to see your sons grow as tall as you.

Perchance you can teach them to handle a stabbing spear with the same skill as their father.'

'This is true, old father who is younger than me. But how will you find your way back through the great swamps without me to guide you?'

'You will choose two young men of your tribe who are now as you were when I met you, hungry for fighting and adventure. You will send them with me to show me the way.' Nakonto chose two of his nephews to guide them through the Great Sud.

'They are very young.' Taita looked them over. 'Will they know the channels?'

'Does a baby know how to find its mother's teat?' Nakonto laughed.

'Go now. I shall think of you often as I grow older, and always it will be with pleasure.'

'Take as many beads from the ship's stores as will buy you five hundred head of fine cattle.' A Shilluk measured his wealth in terms of the cattle he owned and the sons he had fathered. 'Take also a hundred bronze spearheads so that your sons will always be well armed.'

'I praise you and Fenn, your woman with hair like sunlight dancing on the waters of the Nile.'

Imbali and Fenn embraced and both women wept. Nakonto and Imbali followed the flotilla for half of the morning, running along the riverbank, keeping pace with the leading boat, waving, dancing and shouting farewell. At last they halted, and Fenn and Taita stood together in the stern to watch their tall figures grow small with distance.

A the first dreary vista of the papyrus banks appeared ahead, stretching away to a boundless horizon, Nakonto's nephews took their .place in the bows, and as they entered the watery wilderness they signalled the turns and twists of the narrow channel to Meren on the steering oar.

With the Nile running high, the great swamp was water and more water, with no dry landings, so they were bound to the boats day after

day. But the wind that had driven them northwards remained constant and true, filling the lateen sails and driving down the swarms of stinging insects that rose from the reeds. Fenn thought often about the unnatural compliancy of that wind. At last she decided that Taita was exerting the extraordinary powers he had inherited from Eos to make even the elements sway to his will.

In these conditions, the journey through the watery wastes was not unendurable. There were few demands on Taita and he was able to leave the navigation to Meren and Nakonto's nephews, and all other matters to That. He and Fenn passed most of the days and nights in their own private space on the foredeck. The subjects that dominated most of their conversations were, first, Taita's confrontation with Eos and, second, his discovery of the Font and its miraculous properties. Fenn never tired of his descriptions of Eos.

'Was she the most beautiful woman you have ever seen?'

'No, Fenn. You are the most beautiful.'

'Do you say so to still my busy tongue or do you truly mean it?'

'You are my little fish, and your beauty is that of the golden dorado, the loveliest creature in all the oceans.'

'And Eos? What of her? Was she not beautiful, also?'

'She was very beautiful, but in the same way that a great killer shark is beautiful. She possessed a sinister and terrifying beauty.'

'When she joined her body to yours, was it the same with her as it is with me?'

'It was as different as death is from life. With her it was cold and brutal. With you it is warm, filled with love and compassion. With her I was locked into savage warfare. With you it is a meeting and blending of our separate spirits into some mystic whole that is infinitely greater than its parts.'

'Oh, Taita, I want so much to believe you. I know and understand why you had to go to Eos and join with her, but still I am consumed with jealousy. Imbali told me that men can take pleasure with many women. Did she not pleasure you?'

'There are no words to express how I loathed her infernal embrace.

I was frightened and repelled by every word she uttered, every touch of her hands and body. She soiled and corrupted me so that I believed I would never be clean again.'

'When I listen to you speak so, I am no longer jealous. I am left only with a feeling of great compassion for what you suffered. Will you ever find surcease?'

I THE QUEST

'I was washed clean in the Blueness of the Font. The burdens of age, guilt and sin were lifted from me.'

'Tell me about the Font again. What did you feel as you were enveloped in the Blue?' Once again he described the miracle of his transmutation. When he had finished she was silent for a space, and then she said, 'The Font has been destroyed in the eruptions of the volcanoes, in the same way that Eos herself was.'

'It is the pulsing artery of the earth. It is the divine power of nature, which quickens and controls all life. It can never be destroyed, for if that ever happened, all creation would perish too.'

'If it still exists, then what has become of it? Where has it gone?'

'It was sucked back into the core of the earth, just as the seas are sucked away by the tides and the moon.'

'Has it been placed for ever beyond the reach of mankind?'

'I believe not. I believe that in time it must surface again. Perhaps it has already done so in some remote part of the earth.'

'Where, Taita? Where will it reappear?'

'I know only what Eos knew. It will be closely associated with a large volcano and within proximity of a vast body of water. Fire, earth, air and water, the four elements.'

'Will any man rediscover the Font?'

'It was driven deep into the earth when the volcano of Etna in the far north erupted. At that time, it was where Eos had her lair. She was driven out by the fires. She wandered for over a hundred years in search of the place where the Blue River had come to the surface again. She found it in the Mountains of the Moon. Now it has been driven under again.'

'How long will you remain young, Taita?'

'This I cannot tell with any certainty. Eos remained young for over a thousand years. I know it from her boasts, and from the certain knowledge I took from her.'

'And now that you have bathed in the Font, you will do the same,'

she said. 'You will live for a thousand years.'

That night she woke him, whimpering and crying with nightmares.

Then she called his name: 'Taita, wait for me! Come back! Don't leave me.' Taita stroked her cheeks and kissed her eyelids to wake her gently.

When she realized it had been a dream she clung to him. 'Is it you, Taita? Is it truly you? You have not left me?'

'I will never leave you,' he reassured her.

'You will.' Her voice was still blurred with tears.

'Never,' he repeated. 'It took me so long to find you again. Tell me about your silly dream, Fenn. Were you being chased by trogs or Chima?'

She did not reply at once, still struggling to regain control of herself.

At last she whispered, 'It was not a silly dream.'

'Tell me about it.'

'In the dream I had grown old. My hair was thin and white - I could see it hanging in front of my eyes. My skin was wrinkled and my hands were bony claws. My back was bowed and my feet were swollen and painful. I hobbled behind you, but you were walking so fast that I could not keep up. I was falling back and you were going to some place where I could not follow.' She was becoming agitated again. 'I called your name, but you did not hear me.' She began to sob.

'It was only a dream.' He held her tightly in the circle of his arms, but she shook her head vehemently.

'It was a vision of the future. You strode ahead without looking back. You were tall and straight, your legs strong. Your hair was thick and lustrous.' She reached up, took a handful and twisted it between her fingers. 'Just as it is now.'

'My sweet, you must not distress yourself. You, too, are young and beautiful.'

'Perhaps now. But you will stay so, and I will grow old and die. I will lose you again. I don't want to turn into some cold star. I want to stay with you.'

With all the wisdom of the ages at his command, he could find no words with which to comfort her. At last he made love to her again. She gave herself into his embrace with a kind of desperate fervour, as though she were trying to become one with him, to unite their physical bodies as well as their spirits so that they could never be torn apart, not even by death. At last, just before dawn, exhausted by love and despair, she slept.

From time to time they sailed past long-deserted Luo villages. The huts sagged miserably on their pole foundations, on the point of toppling into the rising waters. 'When the waters rise they are driven to seek drier land at the peripheries of the Great Sud,' Fenn explained. 'They will only return to their fishing when the waters fall again.'

'It is as well,' Taita said. 'If we were to meet them we would surely be

472 I

forced to fight them, and we have been delayed long enough on this voyage. Our people are eager to see their homes.'

'As I am,' Fenn agreed, 'although for me it will be the first time in this life.'

That night Fenn was haunted again by her nightmares. He woke her, rescuing her from the dark terrors of her mind, stroking and kissing her until she lay quietly in his arms. But still she trembled as though in fever and her heart drummed against his chest like the hoofbeats of a running horse.

'Was it the same dream?' he asked softly.

'Yes, but worse,' she whispered back. 'This time my eyesight was misty with age and you were so far ahead that I could only just make out your dark shape disappearing into the haze.' They were both quiet, until Fenn spoke again. 'I don't want to lose you, but I know I must not squander the loving years that the gods have granted us in futile longing and regret. I must be strong and happy. I must savour every minute of our time together. I must share my happiness with you. We must never talk about this terrible parting again, not until it happens.' She was quiet for a minute longer. Then she said, so low that he could barely make out the words: 'Not until it happens, as it surely must.'

'No, my beloved Fenn,' he answered. 'It is not inevitable. We will not be parted again, ever.' She became still in his arms, barely breathing as she listened. 'I know what we must do to avert it.'

'Tell me!' she demanded. He explained. She listened quietly, but as soon as he had finished she asked a hundred questions. When he had answered them, she said, 'It might take a lifetime.' She was daunted by the scope of the vision he had laid out before her.

'Or it might take just a few short years,' he said.

'Oh, Taita, I can hardly contain myself. When can we begin?'

'There remains much to do before we can repair the terrible damage that Eos inflicted on our very Egypt. As soon as we have done that, we can begin.'

'I shall count the days until that time.'

47}

Day after day, the wind held fair and the rowers pulled with a will, singing over the oars, their high spirits abounding, their arms and backs indefatigable as Nakonto's nephews guided them unerringly through the channels. Each day at noon Taita climbed to the top of the mast to scan the country ahead. Long before he expected it, he picked out, far ahead, the shapes of the first trees above the interminable papyrus. Under the keels of the galleys the Nile grew deeper, and the reed beds on either side opened out. At last they burst out of the Great Sud, and ahead lay the prodigious plains through which the Nile ran like a long green python until it disappeared into the dusty haze of distance.

They moored the galleys under the steep-cut bank. While That and his men were setting up the first camp on dry land for many a long day, they unloaded the horses. A league away across the dusty plain a herd of eight giraffes was browsing in a clump of flat-topped acacia trees.

'We have had no fresh meat since we left the Shilluk,' Taita told That. 'Everyone will be pleased to eat something other than catfish. I purpose to take out a hunting party. Once they have finished building the zareeba, let the people rest and disport themselves,'

Taita, Meren and the two girls strung their bows, mounted and set off in pursuit of the long-necked dappled beasts. The horses were as glad as their riders to be ashore: they stretched out their necks and whisked their tails as they tore across the open ground. The giraffes saw them coming from far off, forsook the protection of the acacia trees and broke into a ponderous rocking gallop across the plain. Their long tails with tufted black tips curled back over their haunches, and their legs on each side swung forward together so that they appeared to be moving away only slowly. However, the hunters had to push the horses to their top speed to overhaul them. As they came up behind them they rode into the dustcloud thrown up by the giraffes' hoofs and were forced to slit their eyes to prevent them being blinded. Taita picked out a half grown bull calf lagging near the rear of the herd whose flesh would be sufficient to feed the entire party and, just as important, tender and succulent.

'That's the one we want!' he shouted, as he pointed it out to the others. As they closed with the animal Taita drew and shot his first arrow into the back of its leg, aiming to sever the great tendon and cripple it. The giraffe staggered and almost fell, but regained its balance

and ploughed on, but at a hampered pace, heavily favouring the wounded limb. Taita signalled to the others. They split into two pairs and pressed in on each side of the animal. From a range of only a few yards they shot arrow after arrow into its heaving chest. They were trying to drive through into its heart and lungs, but the skin was as tough as a war shield and the vital organs lay deep inside. Bleeding heavily, the beast ran on, swishing its tail and uttering a soft grunt of pain as each arrowhead thumped into it.

The riders edged their mounts closer and closer to shorten the range and make their arrows tell more effectively. Sidudu was slightly behind Meren and he had not noticed how recklessly she was riding in on the quarry until he glanced over his shoulder.

'Too close!' he yelled at her. 'Sheer away, Sidudu!' But the warning came too late: the giraffe bucked and lashed out at her with its back leg, a mighty kick that made her mount shy. Sidudu lost her seat and was thrown over its head. She fell heavily and rolled in a cloud of dust almost under the giraffe's hoofs. It loosed a second kick at her that would have shattered her skull had it landed square, but instead it flew over her head. When at last she stopped rolling and sliding she lay deathly still on the ground. Meren turned his own horse back immediately, and jumped down.