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

Ten horses were roped behind each canoe. Fenn sat in the stern, where she could call encouragement to Windsmoke and Whirlwind as they swam behind. The ranks of rowers plied their oars and the long, narrow hulls knifed silently through the dark waters.

Taita sat beside the litter on which Kalulu lay and they conversed quietly for a while. 'What is the name of this lake?'

'Semliki Nianzu. It is one of many.'

'How is it fed?'

'Previously two great rivers ran into it, one at the western end called Semliki, the other our Nile. Both come from the south, the Semliki from the mountains, the Nile from the great waters. That is where I am taking you.'

'Is it another lake?'

'No man knows if it is truly a lake or if it is the beginning of the great void.'

'This is where our Mother Nile is born?'

'Even so,' Kalulu agreed.

'What do you call this great water?'

'We call it Nalubaale.'

'Explain our route to me, Kalulu.'

'When we reach the far shore of Semliki Nianzu we will find the southerly limb of the Nile.'

'The picture I have in my mind is that the southerly limb of the Nile is where it flows into Semliki Nianzu. The northerly limb leaves this lake and flows north towards the great swamps. This is the branch of the Nile that has brought us thus far.'

'Yes, Taita. That is the wide picture. Of course, there are other minor rivers, tributaries and lesser lakes, for this is the land of many waters, but they all flow into the Nile and run to the north.'

'But the Nile is dying,' Taita said softly.

Kalulu was silent for a while, and when he nodded a single tear ran

down his wizened cheek, sparkling in the moonlight. 'Yes,' he agreed.

'The rivers that feed her have all been stoppered. Our mother is dying.'

'Kalulu, explain to me how this has happened.'

'There are no words to explain it. When we reach the Red Stones you will see for yourself. I cannot describe these events to you. Mere words fall short of such a task.'

'I will contain my impatience.'

'Impatience is a young man's vice.' The dwarf smiled, his teeth gleaming in the gloom. 'And sleep is an old man's solace.' The plash of the waters under the canoe lulled them, and after a while they slept.

Taita woke to a soft cry from the leading canoe. He roused himself and leant over the side of the vessel to splash a double handful of water into his face. Then he blinked the drops from his eyes and looked ahead.

He made out the dark loom of land ahead.

At last they felt the drag of the beach under the hull as they ran aground. The rowers dropped their oars and leapt ashore to pull the canoes higher. The horses found their footing and lunged ashore, streaming water.

The women lifted Kalulu in his litter and carried him up the beach.

'Your men must have breakfast now,' Kalulu told Taita, 'so that we can march at first light. We have a long road to travel before we reach the Stones.'

They watched the rowers embark in the canoes and push off into the lake. The silhouettes of the swift craft merged into the darkness, until the white splash of oars was all that marked their position. Soon those, too, had vanished.

By firelight they ate smoked lake fish and dhurra cakes, then in the . dawn they set off along the lakeshore. Within half a league they came to a dry white riverbed.

'What river was this?' Taita asked Kalulu, although he knew what the answer would be.

'This was and is the Nile,' Kalulu replied simply.

'It is completely dried up!' Taita exclaimed, as he looked across the riverbed. It was four hundred paces from bank to bank, but no water flowed between them. Instead, elephant grass, like miniature bamboo that stood twice the height of a tall man, had filled it. 'We have followed the river two thousand leagues from Egypt to this place. All the way we

have found at least some water, standing pools, even trickles and rivulets, but here it is as dry as the desert.'¦ 'The water you encountered further north was the overflow from the lake Semliki Nianzu, which ran in from its tributaries,' Kalulu explained. 'This was the Nile, the mightiest river on all the earth. Now it is nothing.'

'What has happened to it?' Taita demanded. 'What infernal power could have stopped such a vast flow?'

'It is something that defies even an imagination as all-encompassing as your own, Magus. When we reach the Red Stones you will see it all before you.'

Fenn had been translating what was said for the benefit of Meren, and now he could no longer contain himself. 'If we are to follow a dry river,'

he demanded, 'where will I find water for my men and horses?'

'You will find it even as the elephants do, by digging for it,' Taita told him.

'How long will this journey take?' Meren asked.

When this had been translated, Kalulu gave him an impish smile and replied, 'Much depends on the stamina of your horses and the strength of your own legs.'

They moved fast, passing the stagnant pools of once brimming lagoons and climbing through dry, rocky gorges where waterfalls had thundered.

Sixteen days later they came upon a low ridge that ran parallel to the course of the Nile. It was the first feature that had relieved the monotony of the forest for many leagues.

'On that high ground stands the town of Tamafupa, the home of my people,' Kalulu told them. 'From the heights you can see the great waters of Nalubaale.'

'Let us go there,' Taita said. They rode up through a grove of fever trees with bright yellow trunks, which covered the slope above the dry riverbed. For lack of water the trees had died back, and their branches were leafless and twisted like rheumatic limbs. They came out on top of the ridge, where Windsmoke flared her nostrils and tossed her head.

Whirlwind was equally excited: he gave a series of bucks and jumps.

'You bad horse!' Fenn struck him lightly on the neck with the switch of papyrus she carried. 'Behave!' Then she called to Taita, 'What is exciting them, Magus?'

'Smell it for yourself,' he called. 'Cool and sweet as the perfume of Kigelia flowers.'

'I smell it now,' she said, 'but what is it?'

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'Water!' he answered, and pointed ahead. To the south stood a silver cloud, and beneath it lay a curve of ethereal blue that stretched across the breadth of the horizon. 'Nalubaale, at last!'

A sturdy palisade of hardwood poles dominated the crest of the ridge.

The gates stood open and they rode through into the abandoned village of Tamafupa. Evidently it had once been the centre of a prosperous, thriving community - the abandoned huts were palatial and magnifi'

cently thatched - but the brooding silence that hung over them was eerie. They turned back to the gates and called up the rest of the party.

In response to their halloo, Kalulu was borne up to them on his litter by the panting and perspiring bodyguards. They were all solemn and contemplative as they gathered before the gates of Tamafupa and stared at the distant blue waters.

Taita broke the silence. 'The source of our very Mother Nile.'

'The end of the earth,' Kalulu said. 'There is nothing beyond those waters but the void and the Lie.'

Taita looked back at the fortifications of Tamafupa. 'We are in dangerous country, surrounded by hostile tribes. We will use it as our stronghold until we move on,' he told Meren. 'We will leave Hilto and Shabako here with their men to make the walls secure against attack.

While they attend to this, Kalulu will take us to see the mysterious Red Stones.'

In the morning they went on: the last short stage of the journey that had taken them more than two years to complete. They followed the riverbed, often riding in the middle of the wide dry dip. They came round another gentle bend and ahead of them sloped a glacis of water worn rocks. Surmounting it, like the fortification of a great city, rose a wall of solid red granite.