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

Poto had warned them about the ferocity of the local tribes, so they built a secure camp with branches from the thorny acacia trees that burgeoned on the shores of the lake. During the days the horses and mules grazed on the fine grasses that grew on the littoral, or waded out to feast on the water-lilies and other aquatic plants in the shallows.

'When will we set out to find Kalulu, the shaman?' Fenn demanded.

'This very evening after you have had your dinner.'

As he had promised he took her to the beach, where they gathered driftwood and built a small fire. They squatted over it and Taita took her hands in his, forming the circle of protection. 'If Kalulu is an adept, as Poto suggested, we can cast for him across the ether,' Taita told her.

'Can you do that, Taita?' Fenn asked, in awe.

'According to Poto, he lives in the marshes very close to this place, perhaps only a few leagues distant from where we are now. He is within easy call.'

'Is distance important?' Fenn asked.

Taita nodded. 'We know his name. We know his physical appearance, his amputated legs. Of course, it would be easier if we knew his spirit name, or if we possessed something of his person - a hair, nail clippings, sweat, urine or dung. However, I will teach you to cast for a subject with what we have.' Taita took a pinch of herbs from his pouch and threw them on to the fire. They flared in a cloud of pungent smoke. 'This will drive off any evil influence that may be hovering nearby,' he explained.

'Look into the flames. If Kalulu comes you will see him there.'

Still holding hands they began to sway in time to a soft humming that

Taita made deep in his chest. When Fenn had cleared her mind as he had taught her, they conjured up the three symbols of power, and silently conjugated them.I 'Mensaar!'

'Kydash!'

'Ncube!'

The ether sang round them. Taita cast into it.

'Kalulu, hearken! O legless one, open thine ears!' He repeated the invitation at intervals as the moon rose and travelled half-way towards its zenith.

Suddenly they felt the strike. Fenn gasped at the thrill, like a discharge of static through her fingertips. She stared into the fire, and saw the outline of a face. It looked to her like that of an ancient but eternally wise ape.

'Who calls?' The fiery lips formed the question in the Tenmass. 'Who calls on Kalulu?'

'I am Taita of Gallala.'

'If you are of the Truth, show me your spirit name.' Taita allowed it to materialize as a symbol over his head: the sign of a falcon with a broken wing. It would be mortally dangerous for him to enunciate it into the ether where it might be pounced on by a malevolent entity.

'I acknowledge you, brother in Truth,' Kalulu said.

'Reveal your own spirit name,' Taita challenged him. Slowly the outline of a crouching African hare took shape above the face in the fire.

It was the mythological wise one, Kalulu the Hare, whose head and long ears were portrayed in the disc of the full moon.

'I acknowledge you, brother of the right hand. I call upon you for your help,' said Taita.

'I know where you are and I am close by. Within three days I will come to you,' Kalulu replied.

Fenn was enchanted by the art of casting for a person across the ether. 'Oh, Taita, I never dreamt it was possible. Please teach me to do it.'

'First you must learn your own spirit name.'

'I think I know it,' she replied. 'You called me by it once, did you not?

Or was it a dream, Taita?'

'Dreams and reality often blend and become one, Fenn. What is the name you remember?'

'Child of the Water,' she replied diffidently. 'Lostris.'

Taita stared at her in amazement. She was unconsciously demonstrating her psychic powers as seldom before. She had managed to reach back into the other life. Excitement and elation made his breathing quicken.

'Do you know the symbol of your spirit name, Fenn?'

'No, I have never seen it,' she whispered. 'Or have I, Taita?'

'Think of it,' he instructed. 'Hold it in the forefront of your mind!'

She closed her eyes, and reached instinctively for the talisman that hung at her throat. 'Do you have it in your mind?' he asked gently.

'I have it,' she whispered, and he opened his Inner Eye. Her aura was a dazzling brilliance that cloaked her from head to foot, and the symbol of her spirit name hung over her head, etched in the same celestial fire.

The shape of the nymphaea flower, the water-lily, he thought. It is complete. She has come into full bloom, like her spirit symbol. Even in childhood, she has become an adept of the first water. Aloud he said to her, 'Fenn, your mind and spirit are fully prepared. You are ready to learn everything I can teach you, and perhaps more than that.'

'Then teach me to cast upon the ether, and to reach you even when great distances separate us.'

'We will begin at once,' he said. 'I already have something of yours.'

'What is it? Where?' she asked eagerly. In reply he touched the Periapt that hung round his neck. 'Show me,' she demanded, and he opened the locket to reveal the coil of hair it contained.

'Hair,' she said, 'but not mine.' She touched it with her forefinger.

'This is the hair of an old lady. See? There are grey strands mixed with the gold.'

'You were old when I cut it from your head,' he agreed. 'You were already dead. You were lying upon the embalming table, cold and stark.'

She shuddered with delicious horror. 'Was that in the other life?' she asked. 'Tell me about it. Who was I?'

'It will take me a lifetime to tell it all,' he said, 'but let me start by saying that you were the woman I loved, even as I love you now.' She groped for his hand, blinded by tears.

'You have something of mine,' she whispered. 'Now 1 need something of yours.' She reached up into his beard and twisted a thick strand around her finger. 'Your beard struck me when you pursued me on the first day we met. It shines like purest silver.' She drew the small sharp

bronze dagger from the sheath on her girdle, and cut the strand close to the skin, then lifted it to her nose and smelt it, as though it were a fragrant blossom. 'It is your smell, Taita, your very essence.' I 'I will make you a locket to keep it in.'

She laughed with pleasure. 'Yes, I would like that. But you must have the hair of the living child to go with that of the dead woman.' She reached up, cut a lock from her head and offered it to him. He coiled it carefully and placed it in the compartment of the Periapt, on top of the lock that had lain there for more than seventy years.

'Will I always be able to summon you?' Fenn said.

'Yes, and I you,' Taita agreed, 'but first I must teach you how.'

Over the days that followed they practised the art. They started by sitting within sight of each other, but out of earshot. Within hours she was able to receive the images he placed in her mind, and respond with images of her own. When they had it perfected, they turned their backs upon each other so that they were out of eye contact. Finally Taita left her in the camp and rode several leagues west along the lakeshore in the company of Meren. From there he reached her with his first attempt.

Each time he cast, she struck more readily, and the images she presented to him were crisper and more complete. For him she wore her symbol on her forehead, and after many attempts she could change the colour of the lily to suit her fancy, from rose to lilac to scarlet.

At night, she lay close to him, for protection, on her sleeping mat, and before she fell asleep she whispered, 'Now we will never be parted again, for I can find you wherever you go.'

In the dawn, before the wind came up, they went to bathe in the lake. Before they entered the water Taita cast a spell of protection to repel crocodiles and any other monsters that might lurk in the deep. Then they plunged in. Fenn swam with the lithe grace of an otter. Her naked body flashed like polished ivory as she slipped away into the depths. He never grew accustomed to how long she could stay under water and grew alarmed as he lay on the surface staring down into the green world below. After what seemed like an eternity, he saw the pale flash of her body as she came up towards him, just as she had in his dreams. Then she burst out beside him, laughing and shaking water out of her hair. At other times he did not see her returning. The