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

'Yes.' He smiled up at her. 'I will always be with you.'i 'I am so glad.' She bent forward and buried her face in his silver beard.

'It is so soft,' she whispered, 'like a cloud.' Then the excitement of the day overwhelmed her and she fell asleep, sprawled across his chest.

Taita lay for a while, listening to her breathing. Such happiness cannot last, he thought. It is too intense.

They were up early the next morning. As soon as they had had breakfast, of dhurra porridge and mare's milk, they went out into the forest for herbs. When the foraging baskets were filled Taita led the way to their favourite pool in the river. They sat together on the high bank, their reflections mirrored on the surface of the pool below them.

'Look at yourself, Fenn,' he said. 'See how beautiful you have become.'

She glanced down without interest, and was immediately riveted by the face that looked back at her. She knelt up, leant far out over the water, then stared and stared. At last she whispered, 'Are not my ears too large?'

'Your ears are like the petals of a flower,' he replied.

'One of my teeth is crooked.'

'Only a very little, and it makes your smile all the more intriguing.'

'My nose?'

'Is the most perfect little nose I have ever seen.'

'Really?'

'Really!'

She turned to smile at him, and he told her, 'Your smile lights the forest.'

She hugged him and her body was warm, but suddenly he felt a cold wind on his cheek although the leaves of the tree that hung over them had not stirred. He shivered, and, softly, the pulse began to beat in his eardrums. They were no longer alone.

Protectively, he held her closer, and looked over her shoulder into the pool.

There was a disturbance beneath the surface, as though a giant catfish had stirred in the depths. But the pulse in his ears beat stronger and he knew it was no fish. He concentrated his gaze and made out a tenuous shadow that seemed to undulate like the leaves of a water-lily in some deep eddy of the river. Slowly the shadow coalesced into human form, an insubstantial image of a cloaked figure, its head swathed in a

voluminous cowl. He tried to see beneath the folds, but there was only shadow.

Fenn felt him stiffen and looked up into his face, then turned her head to follow the direction of his gaze. She stared down into the pool, and whispered fearfully, 'Something is there.' As she spoke the image faded, and the surface of the pool was unruffled and serene once more.

'What was it, Taita?' she asked.

'What did you see?'

'Someone was in the pool under the water.'

Taita was not surprised: he had known all along that she had the gift.

It was not the first time she had given him proof.

'Did you see it clearly?' He did not want to place a suggestion in her mind.

'I saw someone under the water, dressed all in black . .. but they had no face.' She had seen all of the vision, not just fragments. The psychic genius with which she had been endowed was powerful, perhaps as powerful as his own. He would be able to work with her as he had never been able to with Meren. He could help her develop her gift and harness its force to her will.

'How did it make you feel?'

'Cold,' she whispered.

'Did you smell anything?'

'The scent of a cat — no, that of a serpent. I am not sure. But I know that it was evil.' She clung to him. 'What was it?'

'What you smelt was the scent of the witch.' He would hide nothing from her. She had the body of a child, but it contained the mind and soul of a strong, resilient woman. He did not have to shield her. Besides her gift, she had reserves of strength and experience accumulated in the other life. He had only to help her find the key to the strongroom in her mind where those treasures were stored.

'What you saw was the shadow of the witch. What you smelt was her scent.'

'Who is the witch?'

'I will tell you one day soon, but now we must return to the camp.

We have pressing matters to attend to.'

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The witch had found them, and Taita realized he had been lulled into remaining too long in that lovely place. His life force had built up like a wave, and she had sensed it, then smelt him out.

They must move on, and swiftly.

Fortunately, the men were rested and fully recuperated. Their spirits were high. The horses were strong. The dhurra bags were filled. The swords were sharp and all the equipment had been repaired. If the witch had found them, Taita had also found her. He knew in which direction her lair lay.

Meren marshalled the men. The toll extracted by the swamps had been heavy. Almost a year and a half ago ninety-three officers and men had ridden out of the fort at Qebui. Thirty-six remained to answer the muster. The horses and mules had fared little better. Of the original three hundred, plus the gift of five pack mules, a hundred and eighty-six had survived.

No one looked back as the column pulled out of the encampment, wound down the escarpment into the plains and headed back towards the river. Fenn was no longer behind Taita on Windsmoke. After her display of her horse-handling skill she had demanded her own mount, and Taita had chosen for her a sturdy bay gelding of even disposition.

Fenn was delighted with him. 'I shall call him Goose,' she announced.

Taita looked at her enquiringly. 'Why Goose?'

'I like geese. He reminds me of a goose,' she explained loftily. He decided that the easiest course was to accept the name without further debate.

As soon as the track reached the foothills and became wide enough to allow it, she moved up and rode at Taita's side, their knees almost touching, so that they could talk. 'You promised to tell me about the witch in the water. This is a good time.'

'Yes, it is. The witch is a very old woman. She has lived since the beginning time. She is very powerful, and does wicked things.'

'What wicked things?'

'She devours newborn babes.' Fenn shuddered. 'And she lures wise men into her clutches and devours their souls. Then she casts out the husks of the bodies.'

'I would never have thought such things possible.'

'There is worse to tell, Fenn. With her powers she has stopped up the

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flow of the great river that is the mother of the earth, the river whose waters give life, food and drink to all peoples.'

Fenn thought about that. 'The Luo thought I had killed the river.

They drove me out of their village to die of hunger in the forest, or to be eaten by wild animals.'

'They are a cruel and ignorant people,' Taita agreed.

'I am glad that you and Meren slew them,' she said matter-of-factly, and was silent again for a while. 'Why would the witch want to kill the river?'

'She wanted to break the power of our pharaoh and enslave the peoples of his kingdom.'

'What is a pharaoh, and what does “enslave” mean?' He explained, and she looked grave. 'Then she is truly wicked. Where does she live?'

'On a mountain beside a great lake in a land far to the south.' He pointed ahead.

'Is that where we are going?'

'Yes. We will try to stop her, and make the waters flow again.'

'If she lives so far away, how did she get into the pool of the river where we saw her?'

'It was not her we saw. It was her shadow.'

Fenn frowned and wrinkled her pert little nose as she wrestled with the concept. 'I do not understand.'

Taita reached into the leather pouch on his girdle and brought out the bulb of a lily that he had brought with him for the purpose of demonstration. He handed it to her. 'You know this bulb.'

She examined it briefly. 'Of course. We have gathered many such.'

'Inside there are many layers, one within the other, and in the centre the tiny kernel' She nodded, and he went on, 'That is how our entire universe is shaped. We are the kernel at the centre. Around us there are layers of existence we cannot see or sense - unless we have the power to do so. Do you understand?'