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

'Pump!' Meren roared. Taita changed the teams again, then gingerly approached the lip and peered over, but the curvature of the cliff hid the base of the wall. 'I am going down,' he called to the men on the pumps.

'Don't stop until I give the order.' He hurried to the path that led into the gorge and made his way down at his best speed. The steam had cleared sufficiently for him to make out the shapes of Meren and Fenn below. They had moved much closer to the wall, and were discussing the result of the experiment.

'Don't get too close to the rockface,' Taita called, but they did not seem to hear him. Water was still pouring down it and had washed the ashes into the dry riverbed.

'Ho, Meren! What success?' Taita called, as he hurried down the path.

Meren looked up at him, his expression so comically mournful that Taita laughed. 'Why so glum?'

'Nothing!' Meren lamented. 'All that effort in vain.' He moved into

Ithe eddies of steam and stretched out his hand towards the rock.

'Take care!' Taita shouted. 'It is still hot.' Meren pulled his hand back, then drew his sword. He reached out with the point of the bronze blade.

Fenn had moved close to his side. 'The rock is still intact,' she cried.

'No cracks.' She and Meren were only an arm's length from the steaming face when Taita came up behind them. He saw that Fenn was correct: the red rock wall was blackened by the flames but unscathed.

Meren tapped it with the point of his sword. It sounded solid. Angrily, Ihe raised the sword to deliver a harder blow and relieve his frustration.

The steam clouds in which they were enveloped were moist and warm, but Taita felt a sudden intense contrast, an icy chill on his arms and face. Immediately he opened his Inner Eye. Through it he saw a tiny spot appear on the soot-blackened stone where Meren had struck it. It glowed red, then took on the shape of the cat's paw, symbol of Eos of the Dawn.

'Get back!' Taita ordered, and used the voice of power to reinforce the command. At the same time he lunged forward, seized Fenn's arm and flung her away. But his warning to Meren had come too late.

Although Meren tried to check his stroke, the point of his sword touched the glowing spot again. With a sound like shattering glass the small area of rock directly beneath the symbol of Eos exploded outwards and a blast of splinters struck him full in the face. Although most were small fragments, they were as sharp as needles. His head snapped back, he dropped the sword and clutched at his face with both hands. Blood poured between his fingers and ran down on to his chest.

Taita ran to him and caught his arm to steady him. Fenn had been thrown to the ground, but now she scrambled up and ran to help.

Between them they led Meren back from the steaming rock, found a patch of shade and sat him down.

'Stand back!' Taita ordered the men, who had followed and were now crowding forward. 'Give us room to work.' To Fenn, he said, 'Bring water.'

She ran to a gourd and brought it to him. Taita lifted Meren's hands away from his ruined face. She exclaimed with horror, but Taita cautioned her to silence with a frown.

'Am I still as beautiful?' Meren tried to grin, but his eyes were tightly closed, the lids swollen and clotted with blood.

'It's a great improvement,' Taita assured him, and began to wash away the blood. Some of the cuts were superficial, but three were deep. One ran through the bridge of his nose, the second through his upper lip, but the third and worst had pierced his right eyelid. Taita could make out a shard of stone embedded in the eye cavity.

'Fetch my medicine bag,' he ordered Fenn, who ran to where their equipment had been placed and brought back the leather satchel.

Taita opened the roll of surgical instruments and selected a pair of ivory forceps with a probe. 'Can you open your eyes?' he asked gently.

Meren made an attempt and the left lid opened a little, but although the damaged lid quivered, the right eye remained closed.

'No, Magus.' His voice was subdued.

'Is it sore?' Fenn asked timorously. 'Oh, poor Meren.' She took his hand.

'Sore? Not in the least. Your touch has made it better.'

Taita placed a square of leather between Meren's teeth. 'Bite down on that.' He closed the jaws of the forceps over the fragment of stone and, with a single firm movement, drew it out. Meren grunted and his face contorted. Taita laid aside the forceps and, with a finger on each eyelid, gently drew them apart. Behind him he heard Fenn gasp.

'Is it bad?' Meren asked.

Taita remained silent. The eyeball had burst and the bloody jelly dribbled down his cheek. Taita knew at once that Meren would never see with that eye again. Gently he prised open the lid of the other and stared into it. He saw the pupil dilate and focus normally. He held up his other hand. 'How many fingers?' he asked.

'Three,' Meren answered.

'You aren't completely blind, then,' Taita told him. Meren was a tough warrior. It was neither necessary nor advisable to shield him from the truth.

'Only half-way there?' Meren asked, his smile lopsided 'That was why the gods gave you two eyes,' Taita said, and began to bind up the ruined one with a white linen bandage.

'I hate the witch. This is her doing,' said Fenn, and began to weep softly. 'I hate her. I hate her.'

'Make a litter for the colonel,' Taita ordered the men, who waited close at hand.

'I don't need one,' Meren protested. 'I can walk.'

'The first law of the cavalry,' Taita reminded him. 'Never walk when you can ride.'

I

As soon as the litter was ready they helped Meren on to it and started back to Tamafupa. They had been moving for a short time when Fenn called to Taita: 'There are strange men up there, watching us.' She pointed across the dried-up river course. On the skyline stood a small group of men. Fenn counted them swiftly. 'Five.'

They were dressed in loincloths, but their torsos were bare. They all carried spears and clubs. Two were armed with bows. The tallest among them stood at their head. He wore a headdress of red flamingo feathers.

Their bearing was arrogant and hostile. Two of the men behind the chief seemed wounded or injured: they were being supported by their comrades.

'Magus, they have been in a fight,' Shofar, one of the litter-bearers, pointed out.

'Hail them!' Taita ordered. Shofar shouted and waved. None of the warriors showed any reaction. Shofar shouted again. The chief in the flamingo headdress lifted his spear in a gesture of command and immediately his men disappeared from the skyline, leaving the hillside deserted.

A distant chorus of shouts broke the silence that followed their departure.

'That comes from the town.' Fenn turned quickly in that direction.

'There has been trouble.'

When they had left Taita at the Red Stones, Kalulu's bodyguards carried him down the river valley towards Tamafupa. He was in such distress that they went slowly and carefully. They halted every few hundred yards to let him drink from his gourd of medicine, to wet his face and wipe it with a damp cloth. Measured against the arc of the sun, it was almost two hours before they started the climb from the valley towards the gates of Tamafupa.

As they entered a thicket of dense kittar thorn a tall figure stepped onto the pathway. Kalulu and his women recognized him, not only by his headdress of flamingo feathers. The women lowered the litter to the ground and prostrated themselves.

'We see you, great chief,' they chorused. Kalulu struggled up on one elbow, and stared at the newcomer with trepidation. Basma was paramount chief of all the Basmara tribes that inhabited the land between Tamafupa and Kioga. Before the coming of the strangers who had built the temple and raised the Red Stones from the depths of the lake, he had been a mighty ruler. Now his tribes were scattered and his rule disrupted.