Текст книги "The Quest"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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'Call Shofar and his troops. Tell them to hurry. Then run and ask them to fill their largest pot with hot water and bring it to me.' Taita's main concern was to get Whirlwind back on his feet and keep Windsmoke on hers. Once a horse was down it had lost the will to fight and surrendered to the disease.

Shofar and his men lifted Whirlwind and placed him on his feet, then Taita sponged him with warm water. Fenn stood at his head blowing softly into his nostrils, whispering encouragement and endearments while she persuaded him to eat one Tolas cake after another.

As soon as he had bathed the colt, Taita turned to Windsmoke.

'Be brave, my darling,' he murmured, as he wiped her down with a wet linen rag. Meren helped him to dry her vigorously with fresh cloths, and then they spread Taita's tiger-skin over her back. 'You and I will defeat this thing together.' He kept talking quietly to her, and used the

voice of power whenever he spoke her name. She cocked her ears to listen to him, splayed her legs and braced herself to keep her balance.

'Bak-her, Windsmoke. Do not give in.”

He hand-fed her the Tolas cakes, which he had dipped in honey. Even in her distress she could not resist this delicacy. Then he persuaded her to swallow a bowl of his special remedy for fever, yellow-strangler and equine distemper. He and Fenn joined hands to invoke the protection of Horus, in his form as the god of horses. Meren and his men joined in the prayers, and continued to chant them for the rest of the night. By morning, Windsmoke and her colt were still standing, but their heads were hanging and they would no longer take the cakes. They were, however, consumed by thirst, and drank eagerly from the pots of clean water that Fenn and Taita held for them. Just before noon Windsmoke raised her head and whickered to her colt, then staggered across to him and nuzzled his shoulder. He raised his head to look at her.

'He has lifted his head,' one man said excitedly.

'She stands more firmly,' another observed. 'She is fighting for herself and for her foal.'

'She has stopped sweating. The fever is breaking.'

That evening Windsmoke ate five more Tolas cakes with honey. The next morning she followed Taita down into the riverbed and rolled in the white sand. She had always favoured a particular variety of soft grass with fluffy pink seed heads that grew on the banks of the Nile, so Taita and Fenn scythed bundles of it and sorted from it the choicest stalks.

On the fourth day both Windsmoke and Whirlwind filled their empty bellies with it.

'They are out of danger,' Taita pronounced, and Fenn hugged Whirlwind, then wept as though her heart had broken and would never mend.

Despite the Tolas cakes, many other horses showed symptoms of the disease. Twelve died, but Meren replaced them from the small herd of salted animals. Some men were also suffering from the effects of the fly venom: they were racked with enervating headaches, and every joint in their bodies was so stiff that they could hardly walk. It was many more days before animals and men had recovered enough to resume the march.

Even then Taita and Fenn would not burden Windsmoke and Whirlwind with their weight, but rode spare horses and led them on their halter ropes. Meren reduced the length and pace of his daily marches to allow them all to recover completely. Then, over the days that followed, he increased the speed until they were moving briskly once more.

For two hundred leagues beyond the flies the land was devoid of human habitation. Then they encountered a small village of itinerant fishermen. The inhabitants fled as soon as the column of horsemen appeared. The shock of meeting these pale-skinned men with their strange bronze weapons, riding on strange hornless cattle, was too much for them. Taita examined their fish-smoking racks, and found them almost empty. The Nile no longer provided the village with her bounty.

Clearly the fishermen were starving.

On the floodplains along the riverbank herds of large, robust antelope, with scimitar horns and white patches around their eyes, were feeding.

The males were black, the females dark red. Meren sent out five of his mounted archers. The antelope seemed curious about the horses, and came to meet them. The first volley of arrows brought down four, and the next as many again. They laid out the carcasses on the outskirts of the village as a peace-offering, then settled down to wait. The starving villagers could not long resist and crept forward cautiously, ready to flee again at the first sign of aggression from the strangers. Once they had butchered the carcasses and had the meat grilling on a dozen smoky fires, Nakonto went forward to hail them. Their spokesman was a venerable greybeard, who replied in a squeaky treble.

Nakonto came back to report to Taita. 'These people are related to the Ootasa. Their languages are so similar that we understand each other well.'

By now the villagers were so emboldened that they came trooping back to examine the men, their weapons and horses. The unmarried girls wore only a string of beads round their waists, and almost immediately established friendships with the troopers who had no Shilluk camp followers.

The married women brought calabashes of sour native beer to Taita, Meren and the captains, while the elder, whose name was Poto, sat proudly beside Taita and readily answered the questions Nakonto put to him.

'I know the southlands well,' he boasted. 'My father and his father before him lived on the great lakes, which were full of fish, some so large it needed four men to lift them. Their girth was thus .. .' he made a circle with his skinny old arms '. .. and their length was thus…“ he jumped up and drew a line with his big toe in the dust, then took four full paces and drew a second line '. .. from there to there!'

'Fishermen are the same everywhere,' Taita remarked, but he made

appropriate sounds of amazement. Poto seemed neglected by his tribe and, for once, had the attention of all. He was enjoying the company of his new friends.I 'Why did your tribe leave such good fishing grounds?' Taita asked.

'Another stronger and more numerous people came from the east and we could not resist them. They drove us northwards along the river to this place.' He looked downcast for a moment, then brightened again.

'When I was initiated and circumcised, my father took me to the great waterfall that is the birthplace of this, our river.' He indicated the Nile on whose banks they sat. 'The waterfall is called Tungula Madzi, the Waters that Thunder.'

'Why such an unusual name?'j 'The roar of the falling waters and the mighty rocks they bring crashing down can be heard from a distance of two days' march. The spray stands above the falls like a silver cloud in the sky.'

'You have looked upon such a sight as this?' Taita asked, and turned his Inner Eye upon the ancient.

'With these very eyes!' Poto cried. His aura burnt brightly, like the flame of an oil lamp before it dies from lack of fuel. He was telling the truth.

'You believe that this is the birthplace of the river?' Taita's pulse raced with excitement.

'On the ghost of my father, the falls are where the river rises.'

'What lies above and beyond them?'

'Water,' said Poto flatly. 'Nothing but water. Water to the ends of the world.'¦ 'You saw no land beyond the falls?'™ 'Nothing but water.'

'You did not see a burning mountain that sends a cloud of smoke into the sky?'I 'Nothing,' said Poto. 'Nothing but water.'

'Will you lead us to this waterfall?' Taita asked.

When Nakonto translated the question to him, Poto looked alarmed.

'I can never return. The people thereabouts are my enemies, and they will kill me and eat me. I cannot follow the river because, as you can see, the river is cursed and dying.'

'I will make you a gift of a full bag of glass beads if you come with us,'

Taita promised. 'You will be the richest man in all your tribe.'

Poto did not hesitate. He had turned the colour of ashes and was trembling with terror. 'No! Never! Not for a hundred bags of beads. If

they eat me, my soul will never pass through the flames. It will become a hyena and wander for all time in the night, eating rotting carcasses and offal.' He made as if to jump up and run, but Taita restrained him with a gentle touch, then exerted his influence to calm and reassure him. He let him drink two large swallows of beer before he spoke to him again.

'Is there another who will guide us?'

Poto shook his head vigorously. 'They are all afraid, even more than I am.'

They sat in silence for a while, then Poto began to fidget and shuffle his feet. Taita waited patiently for him to reach some difficult decision.

At last he coughed, and spat a large clot of yellow mucus into the dust.

'Perhaps there is somebody,' he ventured. 'But, no, he must be dead. He was an old man when last I saw him, and that was long ago. Even then he was older than you, revered elder.' He bobbed his head respectfully at Taita. 'He is among the last of our people who remain from the time that we were a tribe of consequence.'

'Who is he? Where will I find him?' Taita asked.

'His name is Kalulu. I will show you where to find him.' Again Poto began to draw with his toe in the dust. 'If you follow the great river, which is dying, you will come at last to where it meets one of the many lakes. This is a mighty stretch of water. We call it Semliki Nianzu.' He drew it as an elliptical flattened circle.

'Is it here that we will find the waterfall that is the birthplace of the river?' Taita demanded.

'No. The river cuts through the lake like the head of a spear through the body of a fish.' He slashed his toe through the circle. 'Our river is the outlet, the inlet is on the far south bank of the lake.'

'How will I find it?'

'You will not, unless somebody like Kalulu leads you to it. He lives in the marshes, on a floating island of reeds on the lake. Near the outlet of the river.'

'How will I find him?'

'By searching diligently and by good fortune.' Poto shrugged. 'Or perhaps he will find you.' Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, 'Kalulu is a shaman of great mystical powers, but he has no legs.'

When they left the village Taita gave Poto a double handful of glass beads and the old man wept. 'You have made me rich, and my old age happy. Now I can buy two young wives to look after me.'

The Nile flowed a little more strongly as they moved south along its bank, but they could tell from the high-water line that the level was much lower than it had been in former times.

'It has shrunk twenty-fold,' Meren calculated, and Taita agreed, even though he did not say so. Sometimes Meren had to be reminded that he was not an adept, and that some matters were better left to those qualified to deal with them.

As they journeyed along the west bank, horses and men grew stronger with each day that passed. They were all fully recovered from the effects of the fly by the time they reached the lake, which was as Poto had described it to them. It was vast.

'It must be a sea, not merely a lake,' Meren declared, and Taita sent him to fetch a pitcher of water from it.

'Now taste it, my good Meren,' he ordered. Gingerly Meren took a sip, and let it run round his mouth. Then he drank the rest of the pitcher.

'Salt sea?' Taita smiled kindly.

'Nay, Magus, sweet as honey. I was mistaken, and you were right.'

The lake was so large that it seemed to create its own wind system.

In the dawn the air was still and cool. What looked like smoke rose high into the air from the surface. The men discussed this animatedly.

'The water is heated by a volcano,' said one.

'No,' said another. 'The water rises like mist. It will fall again elsewhere as rain.'

'Nay, it is the fiery breath of a sea monster that lives in the waters,'

Meren said with authority.

In the end they looked at Taita for the truth.

'Spiders,' said Taita, which threw them into further passionate argument.

'Spiders do not fly. He means flies – dragon flies.'

'He toys with our credibility,' said Meren. 'I know him well. He loves his little jokes.'

Two days later the wind veered and one of the cloudy up-wellings drifted over the camp. Then as it reached land it began to descend. Fenn leapt high in the air and snatched something out of it.

'Spiders!' she squealed. 'Taita is never wrong.' The cloud was formed by countless newly hatched spiders, so immature as to be almost transparent.

Each had woven a gossamer sail, which it used to catch the dawn breeze and sail aloft to be transported to some new quarter of the lake.

As soon as the sun struck the surface the wind picked up, until by noon it was whipping the water to foaming frenzy. During the afternoon it subsided until, at sunset, all was calm and serene. Flights of flamingoes strung out along the horizon in wavy pink lines. Hippopotamuses wallowed like granite boulders, grunting and bellowing in the shallows, cavernous pink jaws gaping to threaten rivals with their long incisors. Mighty crocodiles stretched out on the sandbars, sunning themselves, holding their mouths wide open so that water birds could pick the scraps of flesh from between their stubby yellow fangs. The nights were still, with the stars reflected on the velvety black waters.

To the west the lake was so extensive that there was no sight of land, other than a few small islands that seemed to sail like dhows on the wind-torn surface. To the south, they could just make out the far shore of the lake. There were no high mountain peaks or volcanoes, just a blue tracing of low hills.

Poto had warned them about the ferocity of the local tribes, so they built a secure camp with branches from the thorny acacia trees that burgeoned on the shores of the lake. During the days the horses and mules grazed on the fine grasses that grew on the littoral, or waded out to feast on the water-lilies and other aquatic plants in the shallows.

'When will we set out to find Kalulu, the shaman?' Fenn demanded.

'This very evening after you have had your dinner.'

As he had promised he took her to the beach, where they gathered driftwood and built a small fire. They squatted over it and Taita took her hands in his, forming the circle of protection. 'If Kalulu is an adept, as Poto suggested, we can cast for him across the ether,' Taita told her.

'Can you do that, Taita?' Fenn asked, in awe.

'According to Poto, he lives in the marshes very close to this place, perhaps only a few leagues distant from where we are now. He is within easy call.'

'Is distance important?' Fenn asked.

Taita nodded. 'We know his name. We know his physical appearance, his amputated legs. Of course, it would be easier if we knew his spirit name, or if we possessed something of his person – a hair, nail clippings, sweat, urine or dung. However, I will teach you to cast for a subject with what we have.' Taita took a pinch of herbs from his pouch and threw them on to the fire. They flared in a cloud of pungent smoke. 'This will drive off any evil influence that may be hovering nearby,' he explained.

'Look into the flames. If Kalulu comes you will see him there.'

Still holding hands they began to sway in time to a soft humming that

Taita made deep in his chest. When Fenn had cleared her mind as he had taught her, they conjured up the three symbols of power, and silently conjugated them.I 'Mensaar!'

'Kydash!'

'Ncube!'

The ether sang round them. Taita cast into it.

'Kalulu, hearken! O legless one, open thine ears!' He repeated the invitation at intervals as the moon rose and travelled half-way towards its zenith.

Suddenly they felt the strike. Fenn gasped at the thrill, like a discharge of static through her fingertips. She stared into the fire, and saw the outline of a face. It looked to her like that of an ancient but eternally wise ape.

'Who calls?' The fiery lips formed the question in the Tenmass. 'Who calls on Kalulu?'

'I am Taita of Gallala.'

'If you are of the Truth, show me your spirit name.' Taita allowed it to materialize as a symbol over his head: the sign of a falcon with a broken wing. It would be mortally dangerous for him to enunciate it into the ether where it might be pounced on by a malevolent entity.

'I acknowledge you, brother in Truth,' Kalulu said.

'Reveal your own spirit name,' Taita challenged him. Slowly the outline of a crouching African hare took shape above the face in the fire.

It was the mythological wise one, Kalulu the Hare, whose head and long ears were portrayed in the disc of the full moon.

'I acknowledge you, brother of the right hand. I call upon you for your help,' said Taita.

'I know where you are and I am close by. Within three days I will come to you,' Kalulu replied.

Fenn was enchanted by the art of casting for a person across the ether. 'Oh, Taita, I never dreamt it was possible. Please teach me to do it.'

'First you must learn your own spirit name.'

'I think I know it,' she replied. 'You called me by it once, did you not?

Or was it a dream, Taita?'

'Dreams and reality often blend and become one, Fenn. What is the name you remember?'

'Child of the Water,' she replied diffidently. 'Lostris.'

Taita stared at her in amazement. She was unconsciously demonstrating her psychic powers as seldom before. She had managed to reach back into the other life. Excitement and elation made his breathing quicken.

'Do you know the symbol of your spirit name, Fenn?'

'No, I have never seen it,' she whispered. 'Or have I, Taita?'

'Think of it,' he instructed. 'Hold it in the forefront of your mind!'

She closed her eyes, and reached instinctively for the talisman that hung at her throat. 'Do you have it in your mind?' he asked gently.

'I have it,' she whispered, and he opened his Inner Eye. Her aura was a dazzling brilliance that cloaked her from head to foot, and the symbol of her spirit name hung over her head, etched in the same celestial fire.

The shape of the nymphaea flower, the water-lily, he thought. It is complete. She has come into full bloom, like her spirit symbol. Even in childhood, she has become an adept of the first water. Aloud he said to her, 'Fenn, your mind and spirit are fully prepared. You are ready to learn everything I can teach you, and perhaps more than that.'

'Then teach me to cast upon the ether, and to reach you even when great distances separate us.'

'We will begin at once,' he said. 'I already have something of yours.'

'What is it? Where?' she asked eagerly. In reply he touched the Periapt that hung round his neck. 'Show me,' she demanded, and he opened the locket to reveal the coil of hair it contained.

'Hair,' she said, 'but not mine.' She touched it with her forefinger.

'This is the hair of an old lady. See? There are grey strands mixed with the gold.'

'You were old when I cut it from your head,' he agreed. 'You were already dead. You were lying upon the embalming table, cold and stark.'

She shuddered with delicious horror. 'Was that in the other life?' she asked. 'Tell me about it. Who was I?'

'It will take me a lifetime to tell it all,' he said, 'but let me start by saying that you were the woman I loved, even as I love you now.' She groped for his hand, blinded by tears.

'You have something of mine,' she whispered. 'Now 1 need something of yours.' She reached up into his beard and twisted a thick strand around her finger. 'Your beard struck me when you pursued me on the first day we met. It shines like purest silver.' She drew the small sharp

bronze dagger from the sheath on her girdle, and cut the strand close to the skin, then lifted it to her nose and smelt it, as though it were a fragrant blossom. 'It is your smell, Taita, your very essence.' I 'I will make you a locket to keep it in.'

She laughed with pleasure. 'Yes, I would like that. But you must have the hair of the living child to go with that of the dead woman.' She reached up, cut a lock from her head and offered it to him. He coiled it carefully and placed it in the compartment of the Periapt, on top of the lock that had lain there for more than seventy years.

'Will I always be able to summon you?' Fenn said.

'Yes, and I you,' Taita agreed, 'but first I must teach you how.'

Over the days that followed they practised the art. They started by sitting within sight of each other, but out of earshot. Within hours she was able to receive the images he placed in her mind, and respond with images of her own. When they had it perfected, they turned their backs upon each other so that they were out of eye contact. Finally Taita left her in the camp and rode several leagues west along the lakeshore in the company of Meren. From there he reached her with his first attempt.

Each time he cast, she struck more readily, and the images she presented to him were crisper and more complete. For him she wore her symbol on her forehead, and after many attempts she could change the colour of the lily to suit her fancy, from rose to lilac to scarlet.

At night, she lay close to him, for protection, on her sleeping mat, and before she fell asleep she whispered, 'Now we will never be parted again, for I can find you wherever you go.'

In the dawn, before the wind came up, they went to bathe in the lake. Before they entered the water Taita cast a spell of protection to repel crocodiles and any other monsters that might lurk in the deep. Then they plunged in. Fenn swam with the lithe grace of an otter. Her naked body flashed like polished ivory as she slipped away into the depths. He never grew accustomed to how long she could stay under water and grew alarmed as he lay on the surface staring down into the green world below. After what seemed like an eternity, he saw the pale flash of her body as she came up towards him, just as she had in his dreams. Then she burst out beside him, laughing and shaking water out of her hair. At other times he did not see her returning. The

 ¦

I THE QUEST

first he knew of it was when she seized his ankle and tried to pull him under.

'How did you learn to swim as you do?' he demanded.

'I am the child of the water.' She laughed at him. 'Don't you remember? I was born to swim.' When they emerged from the lake they found a place in the early sunlight to dry themselves. He sat behind her and braided her hair, weaving water-lily blossoms into the tresses.

While he worked he told her about the life she had lived as Queen of Egypt, the others who had loved her and the children to whom she had given birth. Often she would exclaim, 'Oh, yes! I remember that now. I remember that I had a son, but I cannot see his face.'

'Open your mind, and I will place his image in it from my own memory of him.'

She closed her eyes and he placed his cupped hands on each side of her head, covering her ears. They were silent for a while. At last she whispered, 'Oh, what a beautiful child. His hair is golden. I see his cartouche above him. His name is Memnon.'

'That was his childhood name,' he murmured. 'When he ascended to the throne and took the double crown of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms, he became Pharaoh Tamose, the first of that name. There! Look upon him in all his power and majesty.' Taita placed the image in her mind.

She was silent for a long time. Then she said, 'So handsome and noble. Oh, Taita, I wish I could have seen my son.'

'You did, Fenn. You suckled him at your breast, and with your own hands you placed the crown upon his head.'

Again she was silent, and then she said, 'Show me yourself on the day we first met in the other life. Can you do that, Taita? Can you conjure up your own image for me?'

'I would not dare to make the attempt,' he answered quickly.

'Why not?' she asked.

'It would be dangerous,' he replied. 'You must believe me. It would be too dangerous by far.'

He knew that if he showed her that image, it would haunt her in time with unattainable dreams. He would have sown the seeds of her discontent.

For when they had first met in her other life, Taita had been a slave and the most beautiful young man in Egypt. That had been his downfall. His master, Lord Intef, had been the Nomarch of Karnak and the governor of all twenty-two nomes of Upper Egypt. He had also been

a pederast and insanely jealous of his slave boy. Taita fell in love with a slave girl in his master's household named Alyda. When this was reported to Lord Intef, he ordered Rasfer, his executioner, to crush Alyda's skull slowly. Taita had been forced to watch her die. Even after the deed was done Lord Intef was still not satisfied. He had ordered Rasfer to castrate the virgin Taita.

There was a further aspect to this terrible situation. Lord Intef was the father of the little girl who, years later, became Queen Lostris. He was uninterested in his daughter and had made Taita, the eunuch, her tutor and mentor. That child was now reincarnated as Fenn.

It was so complex that Taita had difficulty finding the words to explain all this to Fenn, and for the moment he was relieved of the obligation to do so by a loud hail from the direction of the camp: 'Boats coming from the east! Stand to arms.' It was Meren's voice, clearly recognizable even at this distance. They sprang up, pulled on their tunics over bodies that were still damp and hurried back towards the camp.

'There!' Fenn pointed across the green waters. It took Taita a few moments to make out the dark specks against the white horses that were already being driven up by the rising wind.

'Native war canoes! Can you count the number of rowers, Fenn?'

She shaded her eyes, stared hard, then said, 'The leading canoe has twelve on each side. The others look to be as large. Wait! The second boat is the largest by far, with twenty rowers on the nearest side.'

Meren had drawn up his men in double ranks before the gate to the stockade. They were fully armed and alert to meet any sudden exigency.

They watched as the canoes beached below them. The crews disembarked and gathered round the largest vessel. A band of musicians jumped ashore and began to dance on the beach. The drummers pounded out a feral rhythm, while the trumpeters brayed on the long spiral horns of some wild antelope.

'Mask your aura,' Taita whispered to Fenn. 'We know nothing of this fellow.' He watched it fade. 'Good. Enough.' If Kalulu was a savant, to mask her aura completely would raise even deeper suspicion.

Eight bearers lifted a litter from the boat and carried it up the beach.

They were sturdy young women, with muscular arms and legs, wearing loincloths that were richly embroidered with glass beads. Their breasts were anointed with clarified fat and gleamed in the sunlight. They came directly to where Taita stood, and deposited the litter before him. Then they knelt beside it, in an attitude of deep reverence.

In the middle of the litter sat a dwarf. Fenn recognized him from the

image in the flames, the face of the ancient ape with protruding ears and shining bald pate. 'I am Kalulu,' he said in the Tenmass, 'and I see you, TaitaofGallala.'

'I welcome you,' Taita responded. He saw at once that Kalulu was not a savant, but he threw a powerful, intense aura. From it, Taita could tell that he was an adept and a follower of the Truth. 'Let us go where we can speak in comfort and privacy.'

Kalulu swung himself into a handstand, the stubs of his severed legs pointing to the sky, and hopped down from the litter. He walked on his hands as though they were feet, twisting his head to one side so that he could talk up into Taita's face. 'I have been expecting you, Magus. Your approach has created a sharp disturbance on the ether. I have felt your presence grow stronger as you made your way up the river.' The women came after him, carrying the empty litter.

'This way, Kalulu,' Taita invited. When they reached his quarters, the women set down the litter, then backed away until they were out of earshot. Kalulu hopped back on to it and resumed his normal head-high position, squatting on his stumps. He looked around brightly at the camp, but when Fenn knelt before him to offer him a bowl of honey mead, he concentrated his attention on her.

'Who are you, child? I saw you in the firelight,' he said in the Tenmass.

She pretended not to understand and glanced at Taita.

'You may reply,' he told her. 'He is of the Truth.'

'I am Fenn, a novice to the magus.'

He looked at Taita. 'Do you vouch for her?'

'I do,' Taita replied, and the little man nodded.

'Sit beside me, Fenn, for you are beautiful.' She sat on the litter trustingly. Kalulu looked at Taita with piercing black eyes. 'Why did you call for me, Magus? What is the service you require from me?'

'I need you to take me to the place where the Nile is born.'

Kalulu showed no surprise. 'You are the one who I saw in my dreams.

You are the one I have waited for. I will take you to the Red Stones.

We will leave tonight when the wind drops and the waters are still. How many are in your party?'

'Thirty-eight, with Fenn and me, but we have much baggage.'

'Five more large canoes will follow me. They will be here before nightfall.'

'I have many horses,' Taita added.

'Yes.' The little dwarf nodded. 'They will swim behind the canoes. I have brought bladders of animal stomachs to support them.'

In the brief African twilight, as the last gusts of the wind died away, some of the troopers led the horses down to the shore and> in the shallow water, strapped an inflated bladder to each side of their girth ropes. While this was going on, the others loaded their equipment into the canoes. Kalulu's female bodyguards carried him on his litter to the largest canoe and placed him aboard. As the waters of the lake settled into a slick calm, they pushed out from the shore and headed into the darkness towards the great cross of stars that hung in the southern skies.

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?'