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

'But see what they have done for you,' Taita pointed out.

Meren looked slightly abashed. 'I give most of the credit to you, Magus. It was you who brought me here, and saw me through this trial.'

That night, Meren stretched himself out on his mattress and, like a child, dropped into sleep. His snores were boisterous and carefree. Taita had grown so accustomed to them over the decades that to him they were a lullaby.

He closed his eyes, and the dreams that the hellish imp had placed in his mind returned. He tried to force himself back into consciousness, but they were too compelling. He could not break free. He could smell the perfume of warm, feminine flesh, feel silken swells and hollows rubbing against him, hear sweet voices heavy with desire whispering lascivious invitations. He felt wicked fingers touching and stroking, quick tongues licking, soft mouths sucking and hot, secret openings engulfing.

The impossible sensations in his missing parts rose up like a tempest.

They hovered at the brink, then faded away. He wanted them to return, his whole body craved release, but it stayed beyond his reach, racking and tormenting him.

'Let me be!' With a violent effort he tore himself free, and woke to find himself wet with sweat, his breath roaring harshly in his ears.

A shaft of moonlight slanted in through the high window in the opposite wall. He stood up shakily, went to the water jug and drank deeply. As he did so, his eyes fell upon his girdle and pouch where he had laid them as he prepared for sleep. The moonlight was falling directly upon the pouch. It was almost as though some outside influence was directing his attention to it. He picked it up and unfastened the drawstring, reached in and touched something so warm that it seemed to be alive. It moved beneath his fingertips. He jerked away his hand. By now he was fully awake. He held the mouth of the pouch open and turned it so that the moonbeam lit the interior. Something glowed in the bottom. He stared at it and watched the glow take an ethereal shape.

It was the sign of the five-padded cat's paw.

With care Taita reached once more into the pouch and brought out the tiny fragment of red rock that Hannah had removed from Meren's

eye socket. It still felt warm and glowed, but the cat's paw had disappeared.

He clasped it firmly in his hand. Immediately the disturbance of the dreams subsided.'

He went to the oil lamp in the corner of the room and turned up the wick. By its light he studied the tiny fragment of stone. The ruby sparkle of the crystals seemed to be alive. Gradually it dawned on him that the stone contained a tiny part of the essence of Eos. When she had driven the splinter into Meren's eye she must have endowed it with a trace of her magic.

I came so close to throwing it into the lake. Now I know for certain that something was waiting to receive it. He remembered the monstrous swirl he had seen beneath the surface of the water. Whether or not it was crocodile or fish, in reality that thing was another of her manifestations.

It seems that she places great importance on this insignificant fragment. I shall accord it the same respect.

Taita opened the locket lid of the Periapt and placed the little ruby stone in the nest of hair he had taken from Lostris in both her lives.

He felt stronger and more confident. Now I am better armed to go out against the witch.

In the morning his courage and resolve were undiminished.

No sooner had they broken their fast than Hannah arrived to inspect Meren's new eye. The colour of the iris had darkened and almost matched the original. When Meren focused on her finger as it moved from side to side or up and down both eyes tracked in unison.

After she had gone, Meren took up his bow and the embossed leather quiver of arrows, and went with Taita to the open field beside the lake.

Taita set up a target, a painted disc on a short pole, then stood to one side as Meren selected a new string for his bow, then rolled an arrow between his palms to test its symmetry and balance.

'Ready!' he called, and addressed the target. He drew and loosed. Even though the breeze coming across the lake moved it perceptibly in flight, the arrow struck less than a thumb's length from the centre.

'Allow for the wind,' Taita called. He had coached Meren in archery since the younger man had run the Red Road with Nefer Seti. Meren nodded in acknowledgement, then drew and loosed a second arrow. This one struck dead centre.

'Turn your back,' Taita ordered, and Meren obeyed. Taita brought the target twenty paces closer. 'Now turn and loose instantly.'

Moving lightly on his feet for such a big man, Meren obeyed. He had recovered the balance and poise he had lost when his eye was blinded.

The arrow swung slightly with the breeze, but he had allowed for that in his aim. His elevation was perfect. Again the arrow slammed into the bull's eye. They practised for the rest of the morning. Gradually Taita moved the target out to two hundred paces. Even at that range Meren placed three out of four arrows in an area the size of a man's chest.

When they stopped to eat the simple meal that an attendant brought them, Taita said, 'That is enough for one day. Let your arm and your eye rest. There is a matter I must attend to.'

He picked up his staff, made certain the Periapt of Lostris was hanging on its gold chain at his throat and set off briskly for the upper gates of the garden. He retraced his steps to the imp's grotto. The closer he came to it, the more intense his feelings of eager anticipation became. They were so unwarranted that he knew he was still being led by outside influences. He was mildly surprised to reach the grotto again so readily.

In this garden of surprises he had expected to find it hidden from him, but all was as he had last seen it.

He settled down on the grassy bank and waited for he knew not what.

All seemed peaceful and natural. He heard the chittering of a golden sunbird and looked up to see it hovering before a scarlet blossom and delicately probing its long, curved bill into the trumpet of petals to suck out the nectar. Then it darted away like a flash of sunlight. Taita waited, composing himself and marshalling his resources to meet whatever was coming his way.

He heard a regular tapping sound that was familiar, although he could not place it immediately. It came from the pathway behind him. He turned in that direction. The tapping ceased but after a short while it began again.

A tall, stooped figure came down the pathway carrying a long staff.

The sound of it on the stony path was what Taita had heard. The man had a long silver beard, but although he was stooped and ancient, he moved with the alacrity of a much younger man. He seemed not to notice Taita sitting quietly at the edge of the pool but followed the bank round in the opposite direction. When he reached the far side he sat down. Only then did he lift his head and look directly at Taita, who stared at him silently. He felt the blood drain from his face and grasped

the Periapt in his clenched fist, struck dumb with astonishment. The two looked deep into each other's eyes, and each saw his identical twin stare back at him.'

'Who are you?' Taita whispered at last.

'I am you,' said the stranger, in a voice Taita recognized as his own.

'No,' Taita burst out. 'I am one, and you are legion. You bear the black mark of the cat's paw. I am touched with the white mark of the Truth.

You are the fantasy created by Eos of the Dawn. I am the reality.'

'You confound us both with your obstinacy, for we are one and the same,' said the old man across the pool. 'What you deny me you deny yourself. I come to show you the treasure that could be ours.'

'I will not look,' Taita said, 'for I have already seen the poisonous images you create.'