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

Taita did his best to console her. He could see that her health was deteriorating, and her proud spirit was on the point of breaking under the weight of her despair. He cursed Eos and her works while he did all in his power to calm Mintaka, and give her hope. 'Meren and I are setting out on an expedition beyond the southern borders. I will make it my first duty to search for and make enquiry for Soe at every point along our way. In the meantime I divine that he is alive and unharmed.

Unexpected circumstances and events forced him to depart hurriedly, without taking leave of Your Majesty. However, he intends to return to Thebes at the first opportunity to continue his mission in the name of the new nameless goddess.' All of which were reasonable assumptions, Taita told himself. 'Now I must bid you farewell. I shall hold you always in my thoughts and my dutiful love.'

The Nile was no longer navigable so they took the wagon road south along the bank of the dying river. Pharaoh rode the first mile at Taita's side, belabouring him with commands and instructions. Before he turned back, he addressed the troopers of the column in an exhortation and rallying call: 'I expect each of you to do his duty,' he ended, and embraced Taita in front of them. As he rode away, they cheered him out of sight.

Taita had planned the stages of the journey to bring them each evening to one of the many temples situated along the banks of the Nile in the Upper Kingdom. At each his reputation had preceded him. The high priest came out to offer him and his men shelter. Their welcome was sincere because Meren carried the king's Hawk Seal, which allowed him to draw additional food from the quarter-masters of the military forts that guarded each town. The priests expected their own meagre rations to be augmented by this windfall.

Each evening, after a frugal meal in the refectory, Taita retired to the inner sanctuary of the temple. Devotions and prayers had been said in these precincts for hundreds or even thousands of years. The passion of the worshippers had built spiritual fortifications that even Eos would have the greatest difficulty in penetrating. For a while he would be protected from her overlooking. He could appeal to his own gods without fear of intervention by evil wraiths sent by the witch to deceive him. He

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prayed to the god to whom each temple was dedicated for strength and guidance in his looming conflict with the witch. In the calm and serenity of such surroundings he could meditate and marshal his physical and spiritual strength.

The temples were the centre of each community and the repositories of learning. Although many of the priests were dull creatures, some were erudite and educated, aware of all that was happening in their nomes and in tune with the mood of their flock. They were a reliable source of information and intelligence. Taita spent hours conferring with them, interrogating them keenly. One question he put to them all: 'Have you heard of strangers moving covertly among your people, preaching a new religion?'

Each one replied that they had. 'They preach that the old gods are failing, that they are no longer able to protect this very Egypt. They preach of a new goddess who will descend among us and lift the curse from the river and the land. When she comes she will bid the plagues cease and Mother Nile once more to flood and deliver to Egypt her bounty. They tell the people that Pharaoh and his family are secret adherents of the new goddess, that soon Nefer Seti will renounce the old gods, and declare his allegiance to her.' Then, worried, they demanded, 'Tell us, great Magus, is this true? Will Pharaoh declare for the alien goddess?'

'Before that happens the stars will fall from the sky like raindrops.

Pharaoh is devoted to Horus, heart and soul,' he assured them. 'But tell me, do the people hearken to these charlatans?'

'They are only human. Their children are starving and they are in the depths of despair. They will follow anyone who offers them surcease from their misery.'

'Have you met any of these preachers?'

None had. 'They are secretive and elusive,' said one. 'Although I have sent messengers to them, inviting them to explain their beliefs to me, none has come forward.'

'Have you learnt the names of any?'

'It seems they all use the same name.'

'Is it Soe?' Taita asked.

'Yes, Magus, that is the name they use. Perhaps it is a title rather than a name.'

'Are they Egyptians or foreigners? Do they speak our language as though born to it?'

'I have heard that they do and that they claim to be of our blood.'

The man he was conversing with on this occasion was Sanepi; the high priest of the temple of Khum at Iunyt, in the third nome of Upper Egypt. When Taita had heard all he had to offer on this matter, he moved on to more mundane topics: 'As an adept of the natural laws, have you tried to find some way in which to render the red waters of the river fit for human use?'

The urbane and devout man was appalled at the suggestion. 'The river is cursed. No one dare bathe in it, let alone drink it. The kine that do so waste away and die within days. The river has become the abode of gigantic carrion-eating toads, such as have never been seen before in Egypt or any other land. They defend the stinking pools ferociously, and attack anyone who approaches. I would rather die of thirst than drink that poison,' Sanepi replied, his features twisted in an expression of disgust. 'Even the temple novices believe, as 1 do, that the river has been desecrated by some malevolent god.'

So it was that Taita took it upon himself to conduct a series of experiments to ascertain the true nature of the red tide, and to find some method of purifying the Nile waters. Meren was pushing the column southwards at a punishing pace and he knew that, unless he could find some means of augmenting their water supply, the horses would soon die of thirst. Pharaoh's newly dug wells were situated at long intervals, and their yield was not nearly sufficient for the needs of three hundred hard-driven horses. This was the easiest stage of the journey. Above the white water of the first cataract, the river road ran thousands of leagues through hard, forbidding deserts where there were no wells. It rained there once in a hundred years and was the haunt of scorpions and wild animals such as the oryx, which could survive without surface water in the domain of the tyrannical sun. Unless he could find some reliable source of water, the expedition would perish in those scorching wastes, never to reach the confluence of the Nile, let alone its source.

At every overnight camp, Taita spent hours on his experiments, aided by four of Meren's youngest troopers who had volunteered to assist him.

They were honoured to work side by side with the mighty magus: it was a tale they would tell their grandchildren. When he presided over them they had no fear of demons and curses, for all had a blind faith in Taita's ability to protect them. They laboured night after night without complaint, but even the magus's genius could find no way to sweeten the stinking waters.

Seventeen days after they had set out from Karnak they reached the large temple complex dedicated to the goddess Hathor on the riverbank

at Kom Ombo. The high priestess extended the usual warm welcome to the celebrated magus. As soon as Taita had seen his helpers put copper pots upon the fires to boil the Nile water, he left them to it and went to the inner sanctuary of the temple.

No sooner had he entered it than he became aware of a benevolent influence. He went to the image of the cow goddess, and sat cross-legged before it. Since Demeter had warned him that the images of Lostris he was receiving were almost certainly untrustworthy, conjured by the witch to deceive and confuse him, he had not dared to invoke her presence.