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

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 me, 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.

'The snake has gone,' Meren blurted. 'It vanished during the night.'

He pointed to a depression in the sand left by the python's heavy body.

A few globules of blood had dried into black balls, but that was all that remained. Taita felt the hair at the back of his neck lift, as if touched by a cold wind. 'You have searched thoroughly?'

Meren nodded. 'We have scoured the ground for half a league around the camp. We found no sign of it.'

'Devoured by dogs or wild animals,' Taita said, but Meren shook his head.

'None of the dogs would go near it. They whined and growled and slunk away when they smelt it.'

'Hyena, vultures?'

'No bird could have moved those rocks, and a carcass that size would have fed a hundred hyenas. They would have made the night hideous with their shrieks and wails. There was no sound and there are no tracks, no spoor or drag marks.' He ran his fingers through his dense curls, then lowered his voice: 'There is no question but that Demeter was right. It has taken its head and flown away, without touching ground. It was a creature from the void.'

'An opinion not to be shared with the servants and camel drivers,'

Taita warned him. 'If they suspect this, they will desert us. You must tell them that Demeter and I disposed of the body with a spell that we worked during the night.'

It was several days before Taita judged that Demeter could resume the journey, but the awkward gait of the camel that carried his palanquin aggravated the pain of his cracked ribs, and Taita had to keep him sedated with regular draughts of the red sheppen. At the same time he reduced the pace of the caravan and shortened the marching hours to avoid causing him further distress and injury.

Taita himself had recovered swiftly from the worst effects of the serpent's attack. Soon he was at ease on Windsmoke's back. Occasionally during the night marches he left Meren to attend to Demeter, while he rode ahead of the caravan. He had to be alone to study the skies. He was certain the momentous psychic events in which they were caught up must be reflected by new omens and portents among the heavenly bodies.

He soon discovered that they were in evidence everywhere. The heavens blazed with the vivid trails of fire left by flocks of shooting stars and comets, more in a single night than he had seen in the previous five years. This plethora of omens was confusing and contradictory: they spelled out no clear message that he could discern. Instead there were dire warnings, promises of hope, dread threats and signs of reassurance all at the same time.

On the tenth night after the serpent's disappearance, the moon was full, an enormous luminous orb that paled the fiery tails of shooting stars, and reduced even the major planets to insignificant pricks of light.

Long after midnight Taita rode out on to a barren plain he recognized.

They were less than fifty leagues from the rim of the escarpment that led down to the once fertile lands of the Nile delta. He would have to turn back soon, so he reined in Windsmoke. He dismounted and found a seat on a flat rock beside the path. The mare nudged him with her muzzle so he opened the pouch that hung at his hip and absently fed her a handful of crushed dhurra meal, while he turned his full attention to the skies.

He could barely distinguish the faint cloud that was all that remained of the Star of Lostris, and felt a pang of bereavement when he realized it would soon disappear for ever. Sadly he looked back at the moon. It heralded the beginning of the planting season, a time of rejuvenation and regrowth, but without the inundation of the river no crops would be planted in the delta.

Suddenly Taita sat up straighter. He felt the chill that always preceded some dire occult event: gooseflesh prickled his arms and the hair stood up on the back of his neck. The outline of the moon was changing

before his eyes. At first he thought it an illusion, a trick of the light, but within minutes a thick slice had been swallowed as though by the jaws of some dark monster. With startling rapidity the remainder of the great orb shared the same fate, and only a dark hole remained in its place. The stars reappeared but they were wan and sickly, compared to the light that had been blotted out.

All nature seemed confounded. No night bird called. The breeze dropped and was stilled. The outlines of the surrounding hills merged into the darkness. Even the grey mare was distressed: she tossed her mane and whinnied with fear. Then she reared, jerking the reins from Taita's grip, and bolted down the track along which they had come. He let her go- Although Taita knew that no invocation or prayer would have any force with cosmic events in train, he called aloud on Ahura Maasda and all the gods of Egypt to save the moon from obliteration. Then he saw that the remains of the Star of Lostris showed more clearly. It was just a pale smear, but he lifted the Periapt on its chain and held it towards the star. He concentrated his mind, his trained senses and the power of the Inner Eye upon it.