The Quest - Smith Wilbur (читать лучшие читаемые книги TXT) 📗

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Be still! You are safe again.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE QUEST

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

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

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

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

Why did you name them, Taita?'

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

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

'Whose prayer? What incantation?'

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

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

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

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

He sank back and sobbed brokenly.

Taita waited silently for him to recover.

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

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

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

'This was at Etna?'

'I knew her at no other place.'

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

Demeter was evidently bewildered.

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

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

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

'The sea?' asked Demeter.

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

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

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