The Quest Read online

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

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

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

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

  They did not have to wait long. Taita stiffened and reached up to feel the bandage that blindfolded him. His hand began to shake as though pulsied. His teeth chattered, then he ground them together. The muscle in the point of his jaws bulged and Meren was terrified that he might hire off his tongue. With his thumbs he tried to surprise the magus’s jaws apart, but suddenly Taita’s mouth flew open of its own accord and he shrieked, every muscle in his body knotted hard as cured teak. Spasm after spasm racked him. He screamed in terror and moaned with despair, then burst into gales of maniacal laughter. Just as suddenly he began to weep as though his heart was breaking. Then he screamed again and his back arched until his head touched his heels. Even Meren could not hold the frail, ancient body, which was now endowed with demonic strength.

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

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

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

  ‘This was the frenzy that killed Wotad, the northman,’ Samana told Tansid. ‘The images swelled his brain like an overfilled bladder of boiling oil until it could contain no more and burst asunder.’ She held Taita’s hands to stop him clawing at the bandage over his eyes. ‘The magus is experiencing the grief of every widow and of every bereaved mother who has ever watched her firstborn die. He shares the suffering of every man or woman who was ever maimed, tortured or ravaged by disease. His soul is sickened by the cruelty of every tyrant, by the wickedness of the Lie He is burning in the flames of sacked cities, and dying on a thousand battlefields with the vanquished. He feels the despair of every lost soul who ever lived. He is looking into the depths of hell.’

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

  ‘Unless he learns to control the Inner Eye, yes, it may indeed kill him. Hold him, do not let him harm himself.’ Taita’s head was rolling so violently from side to side that his skull thumped against the stone wall beside his bed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘Taita raised her from childhood. She was beautiful. Their souls were intertwined, but they could never be joined. His mutilated body lacked The manly force for him ever to be more to her than friend and protector. Nevertheless, he loved her all her life and beyond. She loved him in return. Her last words to him before she died in his arms were ‘I have loved only two men in this life, and you were one. In the next life perhaps the gods will treat our love more kindly.’

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

  Tansid broke the silence that followed: ‘Tell me all of it, Samana. There is nothing more beautiful on this earth than true love.’

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

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

  Tansid could still weep.

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘Neit
her do you,’ Samana replied. ‘No savant does. That is the certain way in which we are able to identify each other.’

  ‘You are so much wiser than I.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Taita kissed each of the women. He was fascinated by the dancing auras of the three apsaras. Wu Lu was enveloped in a nimbus of silver, through with shimmering gold, more complex and with deeper toning than Astrata’s. She was further along the Road of the Adepts.

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

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

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

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

  He turned to Meren. ‘Are you ready?’

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

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

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

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

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

  As they followed the herds they came upon a rift in the bleak, featureless landscape, a concealed valley along whose course bubbled a string of natural springs, with pools of sweet clear water. The perpetual winds that scourged the exposed plains did not reach this sheltered spot, and the grass grew green and lush. There were many horses here, and Taita set up camp beside a spring to enjoy them. Meren built a hut from grass sods, and they used dried dung as fuel. There were fish in the pools and colonies of water voles, which Meren trapped while Taita searched for edible fungi and roots in the damp earth. Around their hut, close enough to discourage the horses from raiding them, Taita planted some seeds he had brought with him from the gardens at the temple of Saraswati, and raised a good crop. They ate well and rested, building up their strength for the next part of their long, hard journey.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  She blew through her nostrils and nodded with indecision.

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

  Taita asked her. ‘It must be a name that matches your beauty. Ah! I have one that suits you well. You shal
l be Windsmoke.’

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

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

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

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

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

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