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

'Why not, Kalulu?'

I

'It is the site of utmost evil. The force that has brought disaster upon all of us.'

'I respect your caution. These are deep matters and should not be undertaken lightly. Return with Meren. I will go alone to the temple.'

He turned to Meren. 'Spare no labours to make the camp secure. Fortify it well, and post a strong guard. When you have done that we will return to assay the hardness of the Red Stones.'

'I implore you to return to the camp before darkness falls, Magus.'

Meren looked jaundiced with worry. 'If you are not back at sunset, I will come to search for you.'

As the bodyguards hefted the litter and followed Meren, Taita turned to Fenn. 'Go with Meren. Hurry to catch up with him.'

She stood to her full height, arms behind her back, mouth set obstinately. He had come to know that expression well. 'There is no spell you can weave to make me leave you,' she declared.

'When you scowl you are no longer beautiful,' he warned her mildly.

'You cannot imagine how ugly I can be,' she said. 'Try to rid yourself of me and I will show you.'

'Your threats unman me.' He could scarce prevent himself smiling.

'But stay close to me, and be ready to form the circle at the first malevolent emanation we encounter.'

They found a path that climbed the bluff. When they reached the temple they saw that the stonework was beautifully executed. The entire building was roofed with hewn timber planking, over which had been laid a thatch of river reeds that was collapsing in places. They walked slowly round the walls. The temple was laid out on a circular foundation, about fifty paces across. At five equidistant points tall granite stele had been built into the walls. 'The five points of the black magicians' pentagram,'

Taita told Fenn softly. They came back to the entrance portals of the temple. The door jambs were carved with bas-reliefs of esoteric symbols.

'Can you read them?' Fenn asked.

'No,' Taita admitted. 'They are alien.' Then he looked into her eyes for any sign of fear. 'Will you enter with me?'

For answer she took his hand. 'Let us form the circle,' she suggested.

Together they stepped through the gateway into the circular outer portico. It was paved with flat grey stones, and shafts of light beamed down through the holes in the roof. There was no opening in the inner wall. Side by side they followed the curving portico. As they drew level with each stela, they found the points of the pentagram laid out in white marble under their feet. Within each point was enclosed another

mysterious symbol, a serpent, a crux ansata, a vulture in flight, another at roost and, last, a jackal. They stepped over a pile of loose thatching and heard a harsh hiss, then a violent rustle beneath their feet.'Taita slipped an arm round Fenn's waist and lifted her clear. Behind them the hooded head of a black Egyptian cobra rose out of the tumbled reeds.

It stared hard at them with tiny black marble eyes, the long tongue flickering and testing the air for their scent. Taita set Fenn down, raised his staff and pointed it at the serpent's head. 'Don't be alarmed,' he said.

'This is no apparition. It is a natural animal.' He began to move the tip of the staff rhythmically from side to side, and the cobra swayed to the motion. Gradually it was lulled, the hood deflated, and it sank back into the tangle of thatch. Taita led Fenn away down the gallery. They stopped at last in front of an ornate doorway.

'The opposed opening,' Taita told her. 'This is diametrically opposite the outer entrance. It limits the ingress and egress of alien influences to the inner sanctum.'

The doorway that faced them was shaped like a petalled flower. The jambs were covered with tiles of polished ivory, malachite and tiger's eye.

The closed doors were covered with lacquered crocodile skin. Taita used his staff to lean his full weight against one door. It swung open, bronze hinges whining. The interior was lit only by a shaft of sunlight cast from a single opening in the dome of the roof. It struck the floor of the sanctum in an eruption of colour.

The floor was decorated with an elaborately designed pentagram, the pattern worked in tiles of marble and semi-precious stones. Taita recognized rose quartz and rock crystal, beryllium and rubellite. The workmanship was masterly. The heart of the design was a circle of tiles so superbly fitted together and polished that the joints were invisible. It seemed to be a single shield of gleaming ivory.

'Let us go in, Magus.' Fenn's childish treble was thrown back and forth between the rounded walls.

'Wait!' he said. 'There is a presence within, the spirit of this place.

I think it is dangerous. It is what terrified Kalulu.' He pointed to the sunlight on the temple floor. 'It is almost noon. The beam is about to fall upon the heart of the pentagram. That will be the fateful moment.'

They watched the sunlight creep across the floor. It touched the lip of the ivory circle and was reflected on to the surrounding walls, its radiance enhanced tenfold. Now it seemed to advance more swiftly, until suddenly it filled the ivory disc. Immediately they heard sistrums hum and rattle.

They heard the wings of bats and vultures in the air around them. White light filled the sanctum with such brilliance that they lifted their hands to shield their eyes. Through the dazzle they saw the spirit sign of Eos appear at the centre of the disc, the cat's paw picked out in fire.

The odour of the witch filled their nostrils with the redolence of wild beasts. They reeled back from the doorway, but then the sunlight passed over the ivory disc and the fiery letters were expunged. The reek of the witch abated, leaving only the smell of musty thatch and bat droppings.

The sunlight faded, leaving the sanctum once more in gloom. In silence they retreated down the gallery and out into the sunlight.

'She was there,' whispered Fenn. She took a deep breath of the cool lake air, as if to cleanse her lungs.

'Her influence remains.' Taita pointed with his staff at the humped Red Stones. 'She still presides over her fiendish works.'

'Could we destroy her temple,' Fenn glanced back at the building, 'and in that way destroy her also?'

'No,' Taita told her firmly. 'Her influence is powerful within the inner sanctum of her stronghold. To challenge her there would be mortally dangerous. We will find another time and place to attack her.' He took Fenn's hand and led her away. 'We will return tomorrow to test the wall for weakness, and to learn more from Kalulu of how the Red Stones were placed across the gorge.'

Meren pointed out the central crack that divided the Red Stones.

'There is no doubt that this is the weakest point in the length of the wall. It may be a shear line.'

'Certainly that seems the best point at which to begin the experiment,'

Taita agreed. 'There is no dearth of firewood.' Most of the big trees that covered the slopes of the gorge had died when their water was dammed.

'Tell the men to begin.'

They watched them spread out through the forest. Soon the sound of their axes rang down the gorge and woke the echoes from the cliffs.

Once the trees were felled, they used the horses to drag them to the base of the red wall. There they cut them into lengths, which they stacked against the wall of stone so that they formed a flue through which air would be drawn to fuel the flames. It took several days to set the gigantic mound of combustibles in place. In the meantime Taita supervised the

building of four separate shadoof wheels to raise the water from the lake to the top of the wall and spill it on to the reverse face to drench the rock once it was red hot.> When all was in readiness, Meren set fire to the stack of wood. The flames took hold and leapt upwards. In minutes the entire pile of timber was a roaring conflagration. No man could stand within a hundred yards of it without having the skin flayed from his flesh.