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

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I THE QUEST

first he knew of it was when she seized his ankle and tried to pull him under.

'How did you learn to swim as you do?' he demanded.

'I am the child of the water.' She laughed at him. 'Don't you remember? I was born to swim.' When they emerged from the lake they found a place in the early sunlight to dry themselves. He sat behind her and braided her hair, weaving water-lily blossoms into the tresses.

While he worked he told her about the life she had lived as Queen of Egypt, the others who had loved her and the children to whom she had given birth. Often she would exclaim, 'Oh, yes! I remember that now. I remember that I had a son, but I cannot see his face.'

'Open your mind, and I will place his image in it from my own memory of him.'

She closed her eyes and he placed his cupped hands on each side of her head, covering her ears. They were silent for a while. At last she whispered, 'Oh, what a beautiful child. His hair is golden. I see his cartouche above him. His name is Memnon.'

'That was his childhood name,' he murmured. 'When he ascended to the throne and took the double crown of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms, he became Pharaoh Tamose, the first of that name. There! Look upon him in all his power and majesty.' Taita placed the image in her mind.

She was silent for a long time. Then she said, 'So handsome and noble. Oh, Taita, I wish I could have seen my son.'

'You did, Fenn. You suckled him at your breast, and with your own hands you placed the crown upon his head.'

Again she was silent, and then she said, 'Show me yourself on the day we first met in the other life. Can you do that, Taita? Can you conjure up your own image for me?'

'I would not dare to make the attempt,' he answered quickly.

'Why not?' she asked.

'It would be dangerous,' he replied. 'You must believe me. It would be too dangerous by far.'

He knew that if he showed her that image, it would haunt her in time with unattainable dreams. He would have sown the seeds of her discontent.

For when they had first met in her other life, Taita had been a slave and the most beautiful young man in Egypt. That had been his downfall. His master, Lord Intef, had been the Nomarch of Karnak and the governor of all twenty-two nomes of Upper Egypt. He had also been

a pederast and insanely jealous of his slave boy. Taita fell in love with a slave girl in his master's household named Alyda. When this was reported to Lord Intef, he ordered Rasfer, his executioner, to crush Alyda's skull slowly. Taita had been forced to watch her die. Even after the deed was done Lord Intef was still not satisfied. He had ordered Rasfer to castrate the virgin Taita.

There was a further aspect to this terrible situation. Lord Intef was the father of the little girl who, years later, became Queen Lostris. He was uninterested in his daughter and had made Taita, the eunuch, her tutor and mentor. That child was now reincarnated as Fenn.

It was so complex that Taita had difficulty finding the words to explain all this to Fenn, and for the moment he was relieved of the obligation to do so by a loud hail from the direction of the camp: 'Boats coming from the east! Stand to arms.' It was Meren's voice, clearly recognizable even at this distance. They sprang up, pulled on their tunics over bodies that were still damp and hurried back towards the camp.

'There!' Fenn pointed across the green waters. It took Taita a few moments to make out the dark specks against the white horses that were already being driven up by the rising wind.

'Native war canoes! Can you count the number of rowers, Fenn?'

She shaded her eyes, stared hard, then said, 'The leading canoe has twelve on each side. The others look to be as large. Wait! The second boat is the largest by far, with twenty rowers on the nearest side.'

Meren had drawn up his men in double ranks before the gate to the stockade. They were fully armed and alert to meet any sudden exigency.

They watched as the canoes beached below them. The crews disembarked and gathered round the largest vessel. A band of musicians jumped ashore and began to dance on the beach. The drummers pounded out a feral rhythm, while the trumpeters brayed on the long spiral horns of some wild antelope.

'Mask your aura,' Taita whispered to Fenn. 'We know nothing of this fellow.' He watched it fade. 'Good. Enough.' If Kalulu was a savant, to mask her aura completely would raise even deeper suspicion.

Eight bearers lifted a litter from the boat and carried it up the beach.

They were sturdy young women, with muscular arms and legs, wearing loincloths that were richly embroidered with glass beads. Their breasts were anointed with clarified fat and gleamed in the sunlight. They came directly to where Taita stood, and deposited the litter before him. Then they knelt beside it, in an attitude of deep reverence.

In the middle of the litter sat a dwarf. Fenn recognized him from the

image in the flames, the face of the ancient ape with protruding ears and shining bald pate. 'I am Kalulu,' he said in the Tenmass, 'and I see you, TaitaofGallala.'

'I welcome you,' Taita responded. He saw at once that Kalulu was not a savant, but he threw a powerful, intense aura. From it, Taita could tell that he was an adept and a follower of the Truth. 'Let us go where we can speak in comfort and privacy.'

Kalulu swung himself into a handstand, the stubs of his severed legs pointing to the sky, and hopped down from the litter. He walked on his hands as though they were feet, twisting his head to one side so that he could talk up into Taita's face. 'I have been expecting you, Magus. Your approach has created a sharp disturbance on the ether. I have felt your presence grow stronger as you made your way up the river.' The women came after him, carrying the empty litter.

'This way, Kalulu,' Taita invited. When they reached his quarters, the women set down the litter, then backed away until they were out of earshot. Kalulu hopped back on to it and resumed his normal head-high position, squatting on his stumps. He looked around brightly at the camp, but when Fenn knelt before him to offer him a bowl of honey mead, he concentrated his attention on her.

'Who are you, child? I saw you in the firelight,' he said in the Tenmass.

She pretended not to understand and glanced at Taita.

'You may reply,' he told her. 'He is of the Truth.'

'I am Fenn, a novice to the magus.'

He looked at Taita. 'Do you vouch for her?'

'I do,' Taita replied, and the little man nodded.

'Sit beside me, Fenn, for you are beautiful.' She sat on the litter trustingly. Kalulu looked at Taita with piercing black eyes. 'Why did you call for me, Magus? What is the service you require from me?'

'I need you to take me to the place where the Nile is born.'

Kalulu showed no surprise. 'You are the one who I saw in my dreams.

You are the one I have waited for. I will take you to the Red Stones.

We will leave tonight when the wind drops and the waters are still. How many are in your party?'

'Thirty-eight, with Fenn and me, but we have much baggage.'

'Five more large canoes will follow me. They will be here before nightfall.'

'I have many horses,' Taita added.

'Yes.' The little dwarf nodded. 'They will swim behind the canoes. I have brought bladders of animal stomachs to support them.'

In the brief African twilight, as the last gusts of the wind died away, some of the troopers led the horses down to the shore and> in the shallow water, strapped an inflated bladder to each side of their girth ropes. While this was going on, the others loaded their equipment into the canoes. Kalulu's female bodyguards carried him on his litter to the largest canoe and placed him aboard. As the waters of the lake settled into a slick calm, they pushed out from the shore and headed into the darkness towards the great cross of stars that hung in the southern skies.