Текст книги "The Quest"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 41 страниц)

'Forgive me, I was weak, but now I am ready, Magus,' he whispered.

Samana led them out into the brilliant sunshine of the garden, to the ancient building. At one end of the marble table lay the surgeon's instruments, and at the opposite end stood a charcoal brazier above which the heated air shimmered. Spread on the ground below the table was a sheep's fleece rug. Taita did not need to be told: he knelt in the centre of the rug, facing the table. Samana nodded at Meren; clearly, she had instructed him in his duties. He knelt behind Taita, and folded him tenderly in his arms so that he could not move.

'Close your eyes, Meren,' Samana instructed him. 'Do not watch.' She stood over them and offered a strip of leather for Taita to grip in his jaws. He refused it with a shake of his head. She knelt in front of him with a silver spoon in her right hand; with two fingers of her other hand she parted the lids of Taita's right eye. 'Always through the right eye,'

she whispered, 'the side of the Truth.' She spread the lids wide. 'Hold hard, Meren!'

Meren grunted in acknowledgement and tightened his grip until it was as unyielding as a ring of bronze about his master. Samana slipped the point of the spoon under his upper eyelid and, with a firm, sure movement, eased it down behind the eyeball. Then, gently, she scooped the eye out of its socket. She let it dangle, like an egg, on to Taita's cheek, suspended on the rope of the optic nerve. The empty socket was a deep pink cave, glistening with tears. Samana handed the silver spoon to Tansid, who laid it aside and selected one of the bamboo needles. She held the point in the flame of the brazier until it scorched and hardened.

It was still smoking as she handed it to Samana. With the needle in her right hand Samana lowered her head until she was staring into Taita's empty eye socket. She judged the position and angle of the optic pathway as it entered the skull.

Taita's eyelids twitched and shuddered under her fingers, blinking uncontrollably. Samana ignored them. Slowly she introduced the needle into the eye cavity until the point touched the opening of the pathway.

She increased the pressure until suddenly the needle pierced the membrane and slid in alongside the nerve cord without damaging it.

There was almost no resistance to its passage. Deeper and deeper it glided. When it was almost a finger's length into the frontal lobe of the brain Samana sensed rather than felt the light check as the point touched the bundle of nerve fibres from both eyes where they crossed at the optic chiasm. The bamboo point was at the portal. The next move had to be precisely executed. Although her expression remained serene, a light film of perspiration shone on Samana's unblemished skin, and her eyes narrowed. She tensed and made the final thrust. There was no reaction from Taita. She knew she had missed the minute target. She drew back the needle a fraction, realigned it, then drove it in again to the same depth, but this time she aimed a little higher.

Taita shuddered and sighed softly. Then he relaxed as he fell into oblivion. Meren had been warned to expect this, and he cupped one strong hand under Taita's chin to prevent the beloved silver head from dropping forward. Samana withdrew the needle from the eye socket as carefully as she had driven it deep. She leaned forward to examine the puncture in the lining at the back of the eye. There was no weep of blood. Before her eyes the mouth of the tiny wound closed spontaneously. Samana made a humming sound of approbation. Then she used the spoon to ease the dangling eye back into the socket. Taita's eyelids blinked rapidly as it reseated itself. Samana reached for the linen bandage, which Tansid had soaked in a healing salve and laid ready on the marble table, then bound it around Taita's head, covering both of his eyes, and knotted it securely.

'As quickly as you are able, Meren, carry him back to his own chamber before he comes to his senses.'

Meren lifted him as though he were a sleeping infant and held his head against his sturdy shoulder. He ran with Taita back to the temple and carried him up to his room. Samana and Tansid followed them.

When the two women arrived, Tansid went to the hearth, where she had left a kettle warming. She poured a bowl of the herbal infusion and brought it to Samana.

'Lift his head!' Samana ordered, and held the bowl to Taita's lips, dribbling the liquid into his mouth and massaging his throat to induce him to swallow. She made him take the contents of the bowl.

They did not have to wait long. Taita stiffened and reached up to feel the bandage that blindfolded him. His hand began to shake as though pulsied. His teeth chattered, then he ground them together. The muscle in the point of his jaws bulged and Meren was terrified that he might hire off his tongue. With his thumbs he tried to prise the magus's jaws

apart, but suddenly Taita's mouth flew open of its own accord and he shrieked, every muscle in his body knotted hard as cured teak. Spasm after spasm racked him. He screamed in terror and moaned with despair, then burst into gales of maniacal laughter. Just as suddenly he began to weep as though his heart was breaking. Then he screamed again and his back arched until his head touched his heels. Even Meren could not hold the frail, ancient body, which was now endowed with demonic strength.

'What possesses him?' Meren pleaded with Samana. 'Make him stop before he kills himself.'

'His Inner Eye is wide open. He has not yet learnt to control it. Images so terrible as to drive any ordinary man insane are flooding through it and overwhelming his mind. He is enduring all the suffering of mankind.'

Samana, too, was panting as she tried to make Taita swallow another mouthful of the bitter drug. Taita spewed it at the ceiling of the chamber.

'This was the frenzy that killed Wotad, the northman,' Samana told Tansid. 'The images swelled his brain like an overfilled bladder of boiling oil until it could contain no more and burst asunder.' She held Taita's hands to stop him clawing at the bandage over his eyes. 'The magus is experiencing the grief of every widow and of every bereaved mother who has ever watched her firstborn die. He shares the suffering of every man or woman who was ever maimed, tortured or ravaged by disease. His soul is sickened by the cruelty of every tyrant, by the wickedness of the Lie.

He is burning in the flames of sacked cities, and dying on a thousand battlefields with the vanquished. He feels the despair of every lost soul who ever lived. He is looking into the depths of hell.'

'It will kill him!' Meren was in anguish almost as intense as Taita's.

'Unless he learns to control the Inner Eye, yes, it may indeed kill him.

Hold him, do not let him harm himself.' Taita's head was rolling so violently from side to side that his skull thumped against the stone wall beside his bed.

Samana began to chant an invocation, in a high quavering voice that was not her own, in a language that Meren had never heard before. But the chanting had little effect.

Meren cradled Taita's head in his arms. Samana and Tansid wedged themselves on each side of him, cushioning him with their bodies, to prevent him harming himself in his wild struggles. Tansid blew perfumed breath into his gaping mouth. 'Taita!' she called. 'Come back! Come back to us!'

'He cannot hear you,' Samana told her. She leant closer and cupped her hands round Taita's right ear: the ear of Truth. She whispered to him soothingly in the language of her chant. Meren recognized its inflections: although he could not understand the meaning, he had heard Taita use it when he conversed with other magi. It was their secret language, which they called the Tenmass.

Taita quietened and cocked his head to one side as though he was listening to Samana. Her voice sank lower but became more urgent.

Taita murmured a reply. Meren realized that she was giving him instructions, helping him to shutter the Inner Eye, to filter out the destructive images and sounds, to understand what he was experiencing and to ride the torrents of emotion that were battering him.

They all stayed with him for the rest of that day and through the long night that followed. By dawn Meren was exhausted, and collapsed into sleep. The women did not attempt to rouse him, but let him rest. His body had been tempered by combat and hard physical endeavour, but he could not match their spiritual stamina. Beside them, he was a child.

Samana and Tansid stayed close to Taita. Sometimes he seemed to sleep. At others he was restless, drifting in and out of delirium. Behind the blindfold he seemed unable to separate fantasy from reality. Once he sat up and hugged Tansid to him with savage strength. 'Lostris!' he cried.

'You have returned as you promised you would. Oh, Isis and Horus, I have waited for you. I have hungered and thirsted for you all these long years. Do not leave me again.'

Tansid showed no alarm at his outburst. She stroked his long silver hair. 'Taita, you must not trouble yourself. I will remain with you as long as you still need me.' She held him tenderly, a child at her breast, until he subsided once more into insensibility. Then she looked enquiringly at Samana. 'Lostris?'

'She was once queen of Egypt,' she explained. Using her Inner Eye and the knowledge of Kashyap she was able to scry deep in Taita's mind to his memories. His abiding love of Lostris was as clear to Samana as if it were her own.

'Taita raised her from childhood. She was beautiful. Their souls were intertwined, but they could never be joined. His mutilated body lacked I he manly force for him ever to be more to her than friend and protector.

Nevertheless, he loved her all her life and beyond. She loved him in return. Her last words to him before she died in his arms were 'I have loved only two men in this life, and you were one. In the next life perhaps the gods will treat our love more kindly.'

Samana's voice was choked, and the women's eyes were bright with tears.

Tansid broke the silence that followed: 'Tell me all of it, Samana.

There is nothing more beautiful on this earth than true love.'

'After Lostris died,' Samana said quietly, stroking the magus's head, 'Taita embalmed her. Before he laid her in her sarcophagus, he took from her head a lock of hair, which he sealed in a locket of gold.' She leaned forward and touched the Periapt of Lostris, which hung round Taita's neck on a golden chain. 'See? He wears it to this day. Still he waits for her to return to him.'

Tansid wept, and Samana shared her sorrow, but she was unable to wash it away with tears. She had travelled so much further along the Road of the Adepts that she had left such comforting human weakness behind her. Sorrow is the other face of joy. To grieve is to be human.

Tansid could still weep.

By the time the great rains had passed, Taita had recovered from his ordeal and learnt to control the Inner Eye. They were all aware of the new power within him: he radiated a spiritual calm. Meren and Tansid found it comforting to be near him, not speaking but revelling in his presence.

However, Taita passed most of his waking hours with Samana. They sat day after day at the temple gates. Through their Inner Eyes they watched everyone who passed through. In their vision each human body was bathed in its own aura, a cloud of changing light that displayed to them the emotions, thoughts and character of its owner. Samana instructed Taita in the art of interpreting these signals.

When night had fallen and the others had retired to their chambers, Samana and Taita sat together in the darkest recess of the temple, surrounded by effigies of the goddess Saraswati. They talked the night away, still using the arcane Tenmass of the higher adepts that neither Meren nor the apsaras, not even the learned Tansid, could understand.

It was as though they realized that the time of parting would soon be upon them, and that they must take full advantage of every hour that was left to them.

'You do not throw an aura?' Taita asked, during their final discussion.

'Neither do you,' Samana replied. 'No savant does. That is the certain way in which we are able to identify each other.'

'You are so much wiser than I.'

'Your hunger and capacity for wisdom far outstrip mine. Now that you have been granted the inner sight, you are entering the penultimate level of the adepts. There is only one above where you stand now, that of the Benevolent Immortal.'

'Each day I feel myself grow stronger. Each day I hear the call more clearly. It is not to be denied. I must leave you and go on.'

'Yes, your time with us here has come to an end,' Samana agreed.

'We will never meet again, Taita. Let boldness be your companion. Let the Inner Eye show you the way.'

Meren was with Astrata and Wu Lu in the pavilion beside the pool. They reached for their clothing and dressed hurriedly as Taita came towards them with a firm step, Tansid at his side.

Only now did they realize the extent of the change that had come over Taita. He no longer stooped under the burden of age, but stood taller, straighter. Though his hair and beard were silver still, they seemed thicker, more lustrous. His eyes were no longer rheumy and myopic, but clear and steady. Even Meren, who was the least perceptive, could recognize these changes. He ran to Taita and prostrated himself before him, hugging his knees wordlessly. Taita lifted him up and embraced him. Then he held him at arm's length, and considered him carefully.

Meren's aura was a robust orange glow like the desert dawn, the aura of an honest warrior, valiant and true. 'Fetch your weapons, good Meren, for we must go on.' For a moment Meren was rooted to the ground with dismay, but then he glanced at Astrata.

Taita studied her aura. It was as clear as the steady flame of an oil lamp, clean and uncomplicated. But suddenly he saw the flame waver, as though touched by an errant breeze. Then it steadied, as she suppressed (he sorrow of parting. Meren turned from her and went into the living quarters of the temple. Minutes later he came out again, his sword belt buckled round his waist, his bow and quiver slung over his shoulder. He carried Taita's tiger-skin cloak rolled upon his back.

Taita kissed each of the women. He was fascinated by the dancing nuras of the three apsaras. Wu Lu was enveloped in a nimbus of silver, nlu>t through with shimmering gold, more complex and with deeper toning than Astrata's. She was further along the Road of the Adepts.

Tansid's aura was mother-of-pearl, iridescent as a film of precious oil

floating on the surface of a bowl of wine, changing colours and tones incessantly, shooting out stars of light. She possessed a noble soul and a Good Mind. Taita wondered if she would ever be called to submit herself to Samana's probing bamboo needle. He kissed her, and her aura thrilled with a brighter lustre. In the short time they had known each other they had shared many things of the spirit. She had come to love him.

'May you attain your destiny,' he whispered, as their lips parted.

'I know in my heart that you will attain yours, Magus,' she replied softly. 'I will never forget you.' Impulsively she threw her arms round his neck. 'Oh, Magus, I wish . . . how I wish . ..'

'I know what you wish. It would have been beautiful,' he told her gently, 'but some things are not possible.'

He turned to Meren. 'Are you ready?'

'I am ready, Magus,' Meren said. 'Lead and I will follow.'

They retraced their footsteps. They climbed into the mountains where the eternal winds wailed around the peaks, then came to the start of the great mountainous pathway and followed it towards the west. Meren recalled every twist and turn, every high pass and dangerous ford, so they wasted no time in searching for the right road, and journeyed swiftly. They came again to the windswept plains of Ecbatana where the wild horses roamed in great herds.

Taita had had an affinity with those noble animals ever since the first of them had arrived in Egypt with the invading Hyksos hordes.

He had captured them from the enemy, and broken the first teams for the new chariots he had designed for the army of Pharaoh Mamose. For this service Pharaoh had awarded him the title 'Lord of Ten Thousand Chariots'. Taita's love of horses went back a long way.

They paused on their journey across the grassy plains to rest after the rigours of travel in the high mountains and to linger among the horses.

As they followed the herds they came upon a rift in the bleak, featureless landscape, a concealed valley along whose course bubbled a string of natural springs, with pools of sweet clear water. The perpetual winds that scourged the exposed plains did not reach this sheltered spot, and the grass grew green and lush. There were many horses here, and Taita set up camp beside a spring to enjoy them. Meren built a hut from grass sods, and they used dried dung as fuel. There were fish in the pools and colonies of water voles, which Meren trapped while Taita searched for

edible fungi and roots in the damp earth. Around their hut, close enough to discourage the horses from raiding them, Taita planted some seeds he had brought with him from the gardens at the temple of Saraswati, and raised a good crop. They ate well and rested, building up their strength for the next part of their long, hard journey.

The horses became accustomed to their presence at the springs, and soon they allowed Taita to come within a few paces of them before they tossed their manes and moved away. He assessed each animal's aura with his newly acquired Inner Eye.

Although the auras that surrounded the lower orders of animal were not as intense as those of humans, he could pick out those that were healthy and strong, and those with heart and sinew. He was also able to determine their temperament and disposition. He could distinguish between the headstrong and unruly, the mild and tractable. Over the weeks it took the plants in his garden to reach maturity, he developed a tentative relationship with five animals, all of superior intelligence, strength and amiable disposition. Three were mares with yearling foals at heel, and two were fillies, still flirting with the stallions but resisting their advances with kicks and gnashing teeth. Taita was especially attracted to one of the fillies.

This little herd was as drawn to him as he was to them. They took to sleeping close to the fence that Meren had built to protect the garden against them, which worried Meren: 'I know women, and I trust those conspiring females not at all. They are steeling their courage. One morning we will wake to find we have no garden left to us.' He spent much time strengthening his fence and patrolling it threateningly.

He was appalled when Taita picked a bag of sweet young beans, the first of the crop: instead of bringing them to the pot, he took them heyond the fence to where the little herd was watching him with interest.

The filly he had chosen for himself had a creamy hide dappled with smoky grey. She allowed him to approach more closely than he had liefore, scissoring her ears as she listened to his endearments. At last he I respassed on her forbearance: she tossed her head and galloped away. He stopped and called after her: 'I have a gift for you, my darling. Sweets for ii lovely girl.' She came up short at the sound of his voice. He held out I o her a handful of beans. She swung her head back to regard him over her shoulder. She rolled her eyes until she had exposed the pink rims of her eyelids, then flared her nostrils to suck in the scent of the beans.

'Yes, you lovely creature, just smell them. How can you refuse me?'

She blew through her nostrils and nodded with indecision.

'Very well. If you don't want them, Meren will welcome them for his pot.' He turned back to the fence, but with his hand still extended. They watched each other intently. The filly took a pace towards him, and stopped again. He lifted his hand to his mouth, put a bean between his lips and chewed it with his mouth open. 'I cannot describe to you how sweet it is,' he told her, and she gave in at last. She came to him, and daintily picked the beans out of his cupped hand. Her muzzle was velvet and her breath was scented with new grass. 'What shall we call you?'

Taita asked her. 'It must be a name that matches your beauty. Ah! I have one that suits you well. You shall be Windsmoke.'

Over the next weeks Taita and Meren scythed the plants. Then they winnowed the ripe beans and packed them into sacks made from the skins of water voles. They dried the plants in the sun and wind, then tied them into bundles. The horses stood in a row with their necks craned over the fence, munching the beanstalks that Taita fed them.

That evening Taita gave Windsmoke a last handful, then slipped an arm round her neck and brushed out her mane with his fingers while he spoke soothingly into her ear. Then, unhurriedly, he hoisted the skirts of his tunic, threw a skinny leg over her back and sat astride her. She stood frozen with astonishment, staring at him over her shoulder with huge, glistening eyes. He nudged her with his toes and she walked away, while Meren bellowed and clapped with delight.

When they left the camp by the pools, Taita rode Windsmoke and Meren had one of the older mares. Their baggage was loaded on to the backs of the string that followed them.

In that way they returned home more swiftly than they had departed.

But when they reached Gallala, they had been gone for seven years. As soon as it was known that they had reappeared, there was great rejoicing in the town. The citizens had long since given them up for dead. Every man brought his family to their home in the old ruined temple, bearing small gifts, to pay their respects. Most of the children had grown up in the time they had been away, and many had babies of their own. Taita dandled each little one and blessed them.

The news of their return was borne swiftly to the rest of Egypt by the caravan masters. Soon messengers arrived from the court at Thebes, from Pharaoh Nefer Seti and Queen Mintaka. There was little comfort in the news sent: it was the first that Taita had heard of the plagues that beset the kingdom. 'Come as soon as you are able, wise one,' Pharaoh ordered.

'We have need of you.'

'I will come to you in the new moon of Isis,' was Taita's reply. He was

not being wilfully disobedient: he knew that he was not yet spiritually prepared to give counsel to his pharaoh. He sensed that the plagues were a manifestation of the greater evil of which Samana, the reverend mother, had warned him. Although he possessed the power of the Inner Eye he was not yet able to face the force of the Lie. He must study and ponder the auguries, then gather his spiritual resources. He must wait, too, for the guidance that he knew instinctively would come to him at Gallala.

But there were many disruptions and diversions. Very soon strangers began to arrive, pilgrims and supplicants begging favours, cripples and the sick seeking cures. The emissaries of kings bore rich gifts and asked for oracular and divine guidance. Taita searched their auras eagerly, hoping that one was the messenger he was expecting. Time after time he was disappointed, and he turned them away with their gifts.

'May we not keep some small tithe, Magus?' Meren begged. 'Holy as you have become, you must still eat, and your tunic is a rag. I need a new bow.'

Occasionally a visitor gave him fleeting hope, when he recognized the complexity of their aura. They were seekers after wisdom and knowledge, drawn to him by his reputation among the brotherhood of the magi.

But they came to take from him: none could match his powers or offer him anything in return. Nevertheless he listened carefully to what they said, sifting and evaluating their words. Nothing was of significance, but at times a random remark, or an erroneous opinion, sent his own mind on an original tack. Through their errors he was guided to a contrary and valid conclusion. The warning that Samana and Kashyap had given him was always in his mind: a conflict ahead would require all his strength, wisdom and cunning to survive.

The caravans coming up from Egypt and going on down through the rocky wilderness to Sagafa on the Red Sea brought them regular news from Mother Egypt. When another arrived Taita sent Meren down to converse with the caravan master; they all treated Meren with deep respect for they knew he was the confidant of Taita, the renowned magus. That evening he returned from the town and reported, 'Obed Tindali, the caravan merchant, begs you to remember him in your prayers to the great god Horus. He has sent you a generous L'ift of the finest quality coffee beans from far-off Ethiopia, but I warn you

now to steel yourself, Magus, for he has no tidings of comfort from the delta for you.'

The old man lowered his eyes to hide the shadow of fear that passed behind them. What worse news could there be than they had already received? He looked up again and spoke sternly: 'Do not try to protect me, Meren. Hold nothing back. Has the flood of the Nile commenced?'

'Not yet,' Meren replied softly, regretfully. 'Seven years now without the inundation.'

Taita's stern expression wavered. Without the rise of the waters and the rich, fertile bounty of alluvial soils they brought from the south, Egypt was given over to famine, pestilence and death.

'Magus, it grieves me deeply but there is still worse to relate,' murmured Meren. 'What little water still remains in the Nile has turned to blood.'

Taita stared at him. 'Blood?' he echoed. 'I do not understand.'

'Magus, even the shrunken pools of the river have turned dark red and they stink like the congealed blood of cadavers,' Meren said. 'Neither man nor beast can drink from them. The horses and cattle, even the goats, are perishing from thirst. Their skeletal bodies line the riverbanks.'

'Plague and affliction! Such a thing has never been dreamed of in the history of the earth since the beginning time,' Taita whispered.

'And it is not a single plague, Magus,' Meren went on doggedly. 'From the bloody pools of the Nile have emerged great hordes of spiny toads, large and swift as dogs. Rank poison oozes from the warts that cover their hideous bodies. They eat the corpses of the dead animals. But that is not enough. The people say great Horus should forbid it, that these monsters will attack any child, or any person who is too old or feeble to defend himself. They will devour him while he still writhes and screams.' Meren paused and drew a deep breath. 'What is happening to our earth? What dreadful curse has been placed upon us, Magus?'

In all the decades they had been together, since the great battle against the usurpers, the false pharaohs, since the ascension of Nefer Seti to the double throne of Upper and Lower Egypt, Meren had been at Taita's side. He was the adopted son who could never have sprung naturally from Taita's gelded loins. Nay, Meren was more than a son: his love for the old man surpassed that of a blood tie. Now Taita was moved by his distress, although his own was as pervasive.

'Why is this happening to the land we love, to the people we love, to the king we love?' Meren pleaded.

Taita shook his head, and remained silent for a long while. Then he leant across to touch Meren's upper arm. 'The gods are angry,' he said.

'Why?' Meren insisted. The mighty warrior and stalwart companion was rendered almost childlike by his superstitious dread. 'What is the offence?'

'Since our return to Egypt I have sought the answer to that question.

I have made sacrifice and I have searched the breadth and depth of the skies for some sign. The cause of their divine anger eludes me still. It is almost as though it is cloaked by some baleful presence.'

'For Pharaoh and Egypt, for all of us, you must find the answer, Magus,'

Meren urged. 'But where can you still search for it?'

'It will come to me soon, Meren. This is presaged by the auguries. It will be carried by some unexpected messenger – perhaps a man or a demon, a beast or a god. Perhaps it will appear as a sign in the heavens, written in a star. But the answer will come to me here at Gallala.'

'When, Magus? Is it not already too late?'

'Perhaps this very night.'

Taita rose to his feet in a single lithe motion. Despite his great age he moved like a young man. His agility and resilience never ceased to amaze Meren, even after all the years he had spent at his side. Taita picked up his staff from the corner of the terrace and leant lightly on it as he paused at the bottom of the stairs to look up to the high tower. The villagers had built it for him. Every family in Gallala had taken part in the labour. It was a tangible sign of the love and reverence they felt for the old magus, who had opened the sweet-water spring that nourished the town, who protected them with the invisible but potent power of his magic.

Taita started up the circular staircase that wound up the outside of the tower; the treads were narrow and open to the drop, unprotected by a balustrade. He went up like an ibex, not watching his feet, the tip of his staff tapping lightly on the stones. When he reached the platform on the summit, he settled on the silken prayer rug, facing east. Meren placed a silver flask beside him, then took his place behind him, close enough to respond swiftly if Taita needed him, but not so close that he would intrude on the magus's concentration.

Taita removed the horn stopper from the flask and took a mouthful of

the sharply bitter fluid. He swallowed it slowly, feeling the warmth spreading from his belly through every muscle and nerve in his body, flooding his mind with a crystalline radiance. He sighed softly and allowed the Inner Eye of his soul to open under its balmy influence.

Two nights previously the old moon had been swallowed by the monster of night, and now the sky belonged only to the stars. Taita watched as they began to appear in order of their ranking, the brightest and most powerful leading the train. Soon they thronged the heavens in teeming multitudes, bathing the desert with a silvery luminance. Taita had studied them all his life. He had thought he knew all that there was to know and understand of them, but now, through his Inner Eye, he was developing a new understanding of the qualities and position of each in the eternal scheme of matter, and in the affairs of men and gods.