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

'In the holy names of Horus, the son, and Osiris, the divine father!'

Meren exclaimed. 'What fortress is this? Is it the citadel of some African emperor?'

'What you see are the Red Stones,' said Kalulu, quietly.

'Who placed them there?' Taita asked, as perplexed as any of his companions. 'What man or demon has done this?'

'No man,' Kalulu replied. 'This is not the work of human hands.'

'What, then?'

'Come, let me show it to you first. Then we can discuss it.'

Cautiously they approached the Red Stones. When at last they stood under the great wall of rock that blocked the course of the Nile from one bank to the other, Taita dismounted and walked slowly along the base.

Fenn and Meren followed him. They paused at intervals to inspect. It was flow-shaped, like the wax of a candle.; 'This rock was once molten,' Taita observed. 'It has cooled into these fantastic shapes.'

'You are correct,' Kalulu agreed. 'That is precisely how it was formed.'

'It seems impossible, but this is a single mass of solid stone. There are no joints between individual blocks.'

'There is at least one crack, Magus.' Fenn pointed ahead. Her keen eyes had spotted a narrow fissure that ran through the centre of the wall, from top to bottom. When they reached it, Taita drew his dagger and tried to work the blade into it, but it was too narrow. The blade went in only as deep as the first joint of his little finger.

'That is why my people call it the Red Stones, rather than the Red Stone,' Kalulu told them, 'for it is divided into two sections.'

Taita went down on one knee to examine the base of the wall. 'It is not built upon the old riverbed. It emerges from it as though it has grown up from the centre of the earth like some monstrous mushroom. The stone of this wall seems to differ from any other around it.'

'Again, you are right,' Kalulu told him. 'It cannot be chiselled or chipped like the rock that surrounds it. If you look closely you will see the red crystals in it that give it the name.'

Taita leant forward until the minute crystals of which the wall was composed caught the sunlight and sparkled like tiny rubies. 'There is nothing obscene or unnatural about it,' he said softly. He came back to where Kalulu sat on his litter. 'How did this thing come to be here?'

'I cannot say with any certainty, Magus, even though I was here when it happened.'

'If you witnessed it, how do you not know what happened?'

'I will explain it to you later,' said Kalulu. 'Suffice to say that many others witnessed it, as I did, yet they have fifty different legends to describe it.'

'This entire wall of stone is chimerical,' Taita pointed out. 'Perhaps seeds of the truth may be buried in the legends and fantasies.'

'That may be so.' Kalulu inclined his head in agreement. 'But let us first ascend to the summit of the wall. There is much still that you must see.' They had to retreat along the riverbed to find a place to climb out and to the top of the bank. Then they picked their way back to the base of the red-stone wall.

'I will wait for you here,' Kalulu said. 'The way up is too difficult.' He indicated the daunting climb over glassy and almost vertical rock to the

 I THE QUEST

summit. They left him, and cautiously climbed upwards. In some places they were forced to crawl on hands and knees, but at last they stood on the rounded top of the Red Stones. From there they looked out across the lake. Taita shaded his eyes against the sun-dazzle that danced on the surface of the water. Close by there were a number of small islets, but he could see not the faintest trace of land beyond them. He looked back the way they had come. The foreshortened figure of the dwarf was far below. Kalulu was gazing up at him.

'Has anyone ever tried to cross to the far side of the lake?' Taita called down.

'There is no far side,' Kalulu shouted back. 'There is only the void.'

The surface of the water lapped the wall only four or five cubits below their feet. Taita looked back into the riverbed and made an approximate calculation of the discrepancy in the heights on each side of the wall.

'It is holding back forty or fifty cubits' depth of water.' He made a sweeping gesture, which took in the limitless extent of the lake's surface.

'Without this wall, all that water would have spilled over the cataract into the Nile and been carried down into Egypt. Little wonder that our land has been reduced to such straits.'

'We could sweep through the surrounding country, capture a host of slaves and set them to work on it,' Meren suggested.

'What would they do?' Taita asked.

'We will tear down this barrier, and let the Nile waters flow into our very Egypt once more.'

Taita smiled and stamped one sandalled foot on the wall beneath him. 'Kalulu has told us how hard and adamantine this stone is. Look at the size of it, Meren. It is many times bigger than all three of the great pyramids of Giza placed on top of each other. If you captured every man in Africa and set them to work for the next hundred years, I doubt they could move even a small part of it.'

'We should not take that strange man's word for how hard it is. I will get my men to test the rock with fire and bronze. Remember also, Magus, the engineering skills that raised those pyramids might be used to cast them down again. I see no reason why we should not be able to carry out the same feat, for we are also Egyptians, the most advanced culture on this earth.'

'I see some small merit in your arguments, Meren,' Taita agreed. Then something beyond the far end of the wall caught his attention. He frowned. 'Is that a building on the bluff overlooking us? I will put the question to Kalulu.'

They scrambled down the slippery rockface to where the dwarf sat on his litter surrounded by his bodyguards. When Taita pointed out the ruins he nodded brightly. 'You are right, Magus. That is a temple built by men.'

'Your tribe do not build in stone, do they?'

'No, that place was built by strangers.'

'Who were these strangers, and when did they build it?' Taita demanded.

'It is almost exactly fifteen years ago that they laid the first stones.'

'What manner of men were they.' Taita asked.

Kalulu hesitated before he answered. 'They were not southern men.

Their features were like yours and those men with you. They wore the same dress and carried the same weapons.'

Taita stared at him, stunned into silence. At last he said, 'You suggest that they were Egyptians. It does not seem possible. Are you sure they came from Egypt?'

'I know nothing about the land from which you have come. I have never been down the Nile even as far as the great swamps. I cannot say with any certainty, but to me they appeared to be men of your race.'

'Did you speak to them?'

'No,' Kalulu said, with feeling. 'They were secretive and spoke to no one.'

'How many were here, and where are they now?' Taita asked keenly.

He seemed to be watching the little man's eyes intently, but Fenn knew he was reading his aura.

'There were more than thirty, and less than fifty. They disappeared as mysteriously as they came.'

'They disappeared after the damming of the river with the Red Stones?'

'At the same time, Magus.'

'Surpassing strange,' Taita said. 'Who inhabits the temple now?'

'It is deserted, Magus,' Kalulu replied, 'as all the land for a hundred leagues around is deserted. My tribe and all the others fled in terror at these and other strange events. Even I took shelter in the marshes. This is the first time I have returned, and I admit that I would never have done so without your protection.'

'We should visit the temple,' Taita said. 'Will you show it to us?'

'I have never been inside that building,' Kalulu said softly. 'I never will. You must not ask me to go with you.'