The Quest - Smith Wilbur (читаем книги онлайн бесплатно TXT) 📗

Taita walked slowly through the rooms, picking up a scroll or tablet at random and glancing at its contents. The entrance to the final room was closed with a heavy bronze grating. He looked askance at Hannah.

'Unfortunately, my lord, entrance to that particular room, and to the editions kept in it, is restricted to members of the Guild,' she said.

'I understand,' Taita assured her, then looked back at the rooms

 I THE QUEST

through which they had come. 'This must be the greatest treasury of knowledge that civilized man has ever assembled.'

'I agree with your estimation, my lord. You will find much to fascinate you and stimulate your mind, and perhaps even open for you new avenues of philosophical thought.'

'I shall certainly avail myself of the opportunity.' Over the following weeks Taita spent many hours each day in the library. Only when the light through the high windows grew too dim for easy reading did he make his way back to his quarters in the main building.

One morning when he had finished his breakfast he was surprised and a little irritated to find a stranger waiting outside his door. 'Who are you?' he demanded impatiently. He was anxious to get to the library and finish reading the scroll on astral travel and communication, which had engaged his full attention over the preceding days. 'Speak up, fellow.'

'I am here on the orders of Dr Hannah.' The little man kept bowing and smirking. 'I am your barber.'

'I have no need of your doubtless excellent services,' said Taita, brusquely, and tried to push past him.

The barber stepped in front of him. 'Please, my lord. Dr Hannah was most insistent. It will go hard for me if you refuse.'

Taita hesitated. For longer than he cared to remember he had taken no particular interest in his appearance. Now he ran his fingers through the long hair and silver beard that hung almost as far as his waist. He kept them washed and combed, but apart from that he allowed them to grow in wild but comfortable disarray. In truth, until he had received the recent gift from Dr Rei he had not even possessed a mirror. He looked at the barber dubiously. 'I fear that, unless you are an alchemist, there is little you can do to transmute this dross into gold.'

'Please, my lord, at least let me try. If I do not, Dr Hannah will be displeased.'

The little barber's agitation was comical. He must be terrified of the formidable Hannah. Taita sighed and acquiesced with as good grace as he could muster. 'Oh, very well, but be sharp about it.'

The barber led him out on to the terrace where he had already placed a stool in the sunshine. His instruments were at hand. After the first few minutes Taita found his ministrations quite soothing and he relaxed.

While the barber snipped and combed, Taita turned his mind to the scroll that waited for him in the library and reviewed the sections that he had read the previous day. He decided that the author's grasp of his

subject was fragmentary and that he should provide the missing material himself, as soon as he had the opportunity. Then his thoughts turned to Fenn. He missed her sorely. He wondered how she was faring and What had become of Sidudu. He took no notice of the abundant clippings of grey hair that fell like autumn leaves on to the paving stones.

At last the little barber interrupted his thoughts by holding up a large bronze mirror in front of his eyes. 'I hope my work pleases you.'

Taita blinked. His image was wavering and distorted by the uneven surface of the metal, then suddenly it came into focus, and he was startled by what he saw. He hardly recognized the face that stared back at him haughtily. It appeared far younger than he knew it was. The barber had trimmed his hair to shoulder length and tied it back behind his head with a leather thong. He had clipped his beard short and square.

'Your skull has a fine shape,' said the barber. 'You have a wide, deep brow. Yours is the head of a philosopher. The fashion in which I have swept your hair back shows off its nobility to best advantage. Before, your beard masked the strength of your jaw. Cropping it shorter, as I have done, enhances and emphasizes it.'

In his youth Taita had been pleased with his appearance — perhaps too pleased. At the time it had compensated a little for the loss of his manhood. Now he saw that, even after all this time, he had not entirely lost his looks.

Fenn will be surprised, he thought, and smiled with pleasure. In the mirror his new teeth gleamed and the expression in his eyes quickened.

'You have done well,' he conceded. 'I would not have thought it possible to make so much of such unpromising material.'

When Hannah called upon him that evening, she studied his features thoughtfully. 'Long ago I decided that dalliance consumed time that might otherwise have been applied to more rewarding and productive business,' she told him. 'However, I can see why some women might consider you handsome, my lord. With your permission, and in the interest of scientific knowledge, I should like to invite some carefully selected members of the Guild to meet you and to be apprised of what you have been able to achieve.'

'What you and your colleagues have been able to achieve,' Taita corrected her. 'I owe you that courtesy at the very least.'

Some days later he was conducted back to Hannah's operating room to find that it had been rearranged as an impromptu lecture theatre.

A semicircle of stools was set out in front of the stone table. Eight men and women were already seated, including Gibba, Rei and Assem.

Hannah led Taita back to the table and asked him to sit facing the small audience. Apart from the surgeons who had attended him from the beginning, Taita had met none of the others. This was strange when he considered how long he had been at the Cloud Gardens. The sanatorium must cover a greater area than he had realized, or perhaps other departments were detached from the main buildings and tucked away, like the library, in the forest. However, the most likely possibility was that much of the Cloud Gardens was still concealed from him by the dark arts of Eos. Like a child's puzzle, boxes were hidden within boxes.

One of the new faces was a woman's. The others were men, but all appeared to be distinguished and dignified scientists. Their attitude was attentive and serious. After she had introduced Taita, in the most flattering terms, Hannah went on to outline the treatment he had undergone. Rei described how she had removed Taita's worn or rotten teeth, and seeded the cavities in his gums. After that she invited each guest in turn to come forward and examine the new ones. Taita sat stoically through the examinations and answered the questions they levelled at him. When they had returned to their stools Hannah came to stand beside him again.

She described Taita's castration and the extent of the injuries inflicted upon him. Her listeners were horrified. The woman surgeon was particu'

larly moved and expressed her sympathy eloquently.

'Thank you for your concern,' Taita replied, 'but it happened a long time ago. Over the years the memory has faded. The human mind has a trick of burying what is most painful to recall.' They nodded and murmured agreement.

Hannah went on to describe the preliminary tests she had carried out, and the preparations she had made for the surgery.

Taita expected that at this stage of her lecture she might describe the harvesting and preparation of the seedings for grafting. He had been kept ignorant of this and was most anxious to have it explained. He was disappointed that she made no effort to do so. He presumed that her audience were fully informed, and had probably employed the same techniques in their own work. In any event Hannah went on to an account of the surgery, describing how she had dissected out the scar tissue to form a foundation on which the graft could be set. Her audience asked many searching, erudite questions, which she answered at length. Finally she told them, 'As you are all well aware, Lord Taita is a magus of the highest level, and is also an eminent surgeon and scientific observer in his own right. The reconstruction of his organs of