The Quest tes-4

by Wilbur Smith

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

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

  I THE QUEST

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  he told Demeter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  'Far to the south?'

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

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

  'As you say.' Taita capitulated.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  which was rolling itself slowly into a great ball.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  'Come, Magus! Quickly!'

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