Текст книги "The Quest"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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'Despite all you have told me, my knowledge and understanding of Eos is pitifully inadequate. You must recall every detail about her that you discovered during your ordeal, no matter how trivial or seemingly insignificant,' Taita told him, 'or 1 am blind, while she holds every advantage.'

'You are the stronger of we two,' Demeter said, 'but you are right.

Remember how swift her reaction was when you and 1 came together and she descried our combined forces. Within hours of our first meeting she could overlook us. From now on her attacks upon me will become more relentless and vicious. We must not rest until I have passed on to you all that I have learnt about her. We do not know how long we will

be together before she kills me or drives a wedge between us. Every hour is precious.'

Taita nodded. 'Then let us begin with the most important matters.

I know who she is, and where she came from. Next, I must know her whereabouts. Where is she, Demeter? Where can we find her?'

'She has hidden in numerous lairs since she escaped from the temple of Apollo, when Agamemnon and his brother, Menelaus, sacked Ilion so long ago.'

'Where did you have your fateful encounter with her?'

'On an island in the Middle Sea, which has since become the stronghold of the sea people, that nation of corsairs and pirates. At that time she lived on the slopes of a great burning mountain she named Etna, a volcano that spewed forth fire and brimstone and sent clouds of poisoned smoke to the very heavens.'

'That was long ago?'

'Centuries before either you or I was born.'

Taita chuckled drily. 'Yes, indeed, it was long ago.' His expression hardened again. 'Is it possible that Eos may still be at Etna?'

'She is no longer there,' Demeter replied, without hesitation.

'How can you be certain?'

'By the time I broke free of her, my body was shattered in health and vitality, my mind unhinged, and my psychic forces were almost dispersed by the ordeal through which she had put me. I was her prisoner for little more than a decade, but I aged a lifetime for each of those years.

Nevertheless I was able to take advantage of a mighty eruption of the volcano to conceal my flight, and I had help from the priests of a small, insignificant god, whose temple lay in the valley below Etna's eastern slopes. They spirited me across the narrow straits to the mainland in a tiny boat, and led me to sanctuary in another temple of their sect, hidden in the mountains, where they placed me in the care of their brothers.

Those good priests helped me to reassemble what remained of my powers, which I needed to intercept a singularly virulent spell that Eos sent after me.'

'Could you turn it back upon her?' Taita demanded. 'Were you able to wound her with her own magic?'

'She may have become complacent, because she underestimated my remaining strength and did not protect herself adequately. I aimed my return strike at her essence, which I could still see with my Inner Eye.

She was close at hand. Only the narrow strait of water stood between us.

1

WILBUR SMITH

My riposte flew true and hit her hard. I heard her cry of agony echo across the ether. Then she disappeared, and I believed for a while that I had destroyed her. My hosts made discreet enquiries from their brothers in the temple below the mountain of Etna. We heard from them that she had vanished, and that her former abode was deserted. I wasted no time in taking advantage of my victory. As soon as I was strong enough I left my sanctuary and travelled to the furthest ends of the earth, to the continent of ice, as far from Eos as I could go. At last I found a place where I could lie quiescent, as still as a frightened frog beneath a stone.

It was as well that I did so. After a very short time, fifty years or less, I felt the resurgence of Eos, my enemy. Her powers seemed to have been mightily enhanced. The ether around me hummed with the vicious darts she hurled at random after me. She could not place me precisely, and although many of her barbs came close to where I lay, none struck home.

Each day after that was one of survival while I found the one who had been ordained to succeed me. I did not make the error of responding to her attacks. Each time I sensed her closing in I moved on quietly to another hiding-place. At last I realized that there was only one place on this earth where she would never look for me again. I returned secretly to Etna, and concealed myself in the caverns that had once been her abode, and my dungeon. The echoes of her evil presence must have been so strong still that they disguised my own feeble presence. I remained hidden on the mountain, and in time I felt her interest in me fade. Her search became desultory, and at last ceased. Perhaps she believed that I had perished or that she had obliterated my powers so I no longer posed a threat. I waited in secret until the joyous day that I felt your presence stirring. When the priestess of Saraswati opened your Inner Eye, I felt the disturbance it created on the ether. Then the star you call Lostris appeared to me. I rallied my scattered resolve and followed it to you.'

After Demeter had finished Taita was silent for a time. He sat hunched on Windsmoke, swaying to her easy motion, his cloak wrapped about his head, only his eyes showing through a slit. 'So if she is not at Etna,' he said eventually, 'where is she, Demeter?'

'I have told you that I do not know.'

'You must know, even though you think you do not,' Taita contradicted him. 'How long did you abide with her? Ten years, you said?'

'Ten years,' Demeter agreed. 'Each year was an eternity.'

'Then you know her as no other living being. You have absorbed part of her: she has left traces of herself on and in you.'

'She took from me. She gave nothing,' Demeter replied.

'You took from her also, perhaps not in the same measure, but no coupling of man and woman is completely barren. You have knowledge of her still. Maybe it is so painful to you that you have hidden it even from yourself. Let me help you to retrieve it.'

Taita took on the role of inquisitor. He was ruthless, making no allowances for his victim's great age, his weaknesses and afflictions of both body and spirit. He strove to draw from him every memory he still possessed of the great witch, no matter how faint or deeply suppressed it was. Day after day he ransacked the old man's mind, and they did not break their journey. They travelled at night, to escape the savage desert sun, and camped before dawn broke. As soon as Demeter's tent had been raised, they took shelter from the sunrise and Taita resumed his questioning.

Gradually he conceived strong affection and admiration for Demeter as he came to understand the full extent of the old man's suffering, the courage and fortitude he had required to survive Eos's persecutions over such a vast span. But he did not allow pity to deter him from his task.

At last it seemed there remained nothing more for Taita to learn, but he was not satisfied. Demeter's revelations seemed superficial and mundane.

'There is a spell practised by the priests of Ahura Maasda in Babylon,'

he told Demeter at last. 'They can send a man into a deep trance that is close to death itself. Then they are able to direct his mind back great distances in time and space, to the very day of his birth. Every detail of his life, every word he ever spoke or heard, every voice and every face becomes clear to him.'

'Yes,' Demeter agreed. 'I have heard these matters spoken of. Are you privy to this art, Taita?'

'Do you trust me? Will you submit yourself to me?'

Demeter closed his eyes in weary resignation. 'There is nothing left within me. I am a dried-out husk from which you have sucked every drop as ravenously as the witch herself.' He wiped a clawlike hand across his face and massaged his closed eyes. Then he opened them. 'I submit myself to you. Work this spell over me, if you are able.'

Taita held up the golden Periapt before his eyes and let it swing gently on its chain. 'Concentrate on this golden star. Drive every other thought from your mind. See nothing but the star, hear nothing but my voice.

You are weary to the depths of your soul, Demeter. You must sleep. Let yourself fall into sleep. Let sleep close over your head, like a soft fur blanket. Sleep, Demeter, sleep . ..'

Slowly the old man relaxed. His eyelids quivered, and were still. He

lay like a corpse upon a bier, snoring softly. One of his eyelids drooped open, and behind it the eye was rolled back so that only the white showed, blind and opaque. He seemed to have sunk into a deep trance, but when Taita asked him a question he answered. His voice was blurred and weak, the tone reedy.

'Go back, Demeter, go back along the river of time.'

'Yes,' Demeter responded. 'I am rolling back the years . .. back, back, back …' His voice grew stronger, more vigorous.

'Where are you now?'

'I stand at the E-temen-an-ki, the Foundation of Heaven and Earth,'

he replied, in a vital young voice.

Taita knew the building well: an immense structure in the centre of Babylon. The walls were of glazed bricks, in all the colours of earth and sky, shaped into a mighty pyramid. 'What do you see, Demeter?' “I see a great open space, the very centre of the world, the axis of earth and heaven.'

'Do you see walls and high terraces?'

'There are no walls, but I see the workmen and slaves. They are as many as the ants of the earth and locusts of the sky. I hear their voices.'

Then Demeter spoke in many tongues, a mighty babble of humanity.

Taita recognized some of the languages he spoke, but others were obscure.

Suddenly Demeter cried out in Ancient Sumerian: 'Let us build a tower whose height may reach unto heaven.'

With astonishment Taita realized that he was witnessing the laying of the foundations of the Tower of Babel. He had travelled back to the beginning time.

'Now you are journeying through the centuries. You see the E-temen an-ki reach to its full height, and kings worshipping the gods Bel and Marduk on its summit. Come forward in time!' Taita directed him, and through Demeter's eyes, he witnessed the rise of great empires and the fall of mighty kings as Demeter described events that had been lost and forgotten in antiquity. He heard the voices of men and women who had returned to dust centuries before.

At last Demeter faltered, and his voice tost its strength. Taita laid a hand on his brow, which was as cool as a gravestone. 'Peace, Demeter,'

he whispered. 'Sleep now. Leave your memories to the ages. Return to the present.'

Demeter shuddered and relaxed. He slept until sunset, then woke as naturally and calmly as though nothing unusual had occurred. He seemed refreshed and fortified. He ate the fruit Taita brought to him with good

appetite and drank the soured goat's milk, while the retainers struck camp, then loaded the tents and baggage on to the camels. When the caravan started out he was strong enough to walk a short way beside Taita.

'What memories did you extort from me while I slept?' he asked, with a smile. 'I remember nothing, so nothing it must have been.'

'You were present when the foundations of E-temen-an-ki were dug and laid,' Taita told him.

Demeter stopped short and turned to him with amazement. 'I told you that?'

In reply Taita mimicked some of the voices and languages Demeter had used in his trance. At once Demeter identified each utterance.

His legs soon tired, but his enthusiasm was unaffected. He mounted his palanquin and stretched out on the mattress. Taita rode beside him, and they continued their conversation throughout the long night. At last Demeter asked a question that was central in both their minds: 'Did I speak of Eos? Were you able to uncover some hidden memory?'

Taita shook his head. 'I was careful not to alarm you. I did not broach the matter directly but allowed your memories to range freely.'

'Like a hunter with a pack of hounds,' Demeter suggested, with a sudden surprising cackle. 'Take care, Taita, that while casting for a stag you do not startle a man-devouring lioness.'

'Your memories reach so far that trying to trace Eos is like voyaging across the widest ocean in search of a particular shark among a great multitude. We might spend another lifetime before we stumble by chance upon your memories of her.'

'You must direct me to her,' Demeter said, without hesitation.

'I am fearful for your safety, perhaps even your life,' Taita demurred.

'Shall we send out the hounds again on the morrow? This time you must give them the scent of the lioness.'

They were quiet for the rest of the night, lost in their own thoughts and memories. At the first light of dawn they reached a tiny oasis and Taita called a halt among the date palms. The animals were fed and watered while the tents were erected. As soon as they were alone in the main tent, Taita asked, 'Would you like to rest a while, Demeter, before we make the next attempt? Or are you ready to begin at once?'

'I have rested all night. I am ready now.'

Taita studied the other's face. He seemed calm and his pale eyes were serene. Taita held up the Periapt of Lostris. 'Your eyes grow heavy. Let them close. You feel quiet and secure. Your limbs are heavy. You are very

comfortable. You listen to my voice, and you feel sleep coming over you … blessed sleep . .. deep, healing sleep . . .'

Demeter dropped away more swiftly than he had on their first attempt: he was becoming increasingly susceptible to Taita's quiet suggestion.

'There is a mountain that breathes fire and smoke. Do you see it?'

For a moment Demeter was deathly still. His lips paled and quivered.

Then he shook his head in wild denial. 'There is no mountain! I see no mountain!' His voice rose and cracked.

'There is a woman on the mountain,' Taita persisted, 'a beautiful woman. The most beautiful woman on earth. Do you see her, Demeter?'

Demeter began to pant like a dog, his chest pumping like the bellows of a coppersmith. Taita felt that he was losing him: Demeter was fighting the trance, trying to break out of it. He knew that this must be their last attempt for the old man was unlikely to survive another.

'Can you hear her voice, Demeter? Listen to the sweet music of her words. What is she saying to you?'

Now Demeter was wrestling with an invisible opponent, rolling about on his mattress. He drew his knees and elbows up to his chest and curled his body into a ball. Then his limbs shot out straight and his back arched. He babbled with the voices of madmen, he gibbered and giggled.

He gnashed his teeth until one shattered at the back of his jaw, then spat out the shards in a mixture of blood and saliva.

'Peace, Demeter!' Panic rose in Taita, like a pot coming to the boil.

'Be still! You are safe again.'

Demeter's breathing eased, and then he spoke unexpectedly in the arcane Tenmass of the adepts. His words were strange but his tone was even more so. His voice was no longer that of an old man, but of a young woman, sweet and melodious, as musical as Taita had ever heard.

'Fire, air, water and earth, but the lord of these is fire.' Every languid inflection engraved itself into Taita's mind. He knew he would never erase the sound.

Demeter collapsed back upon the mattress. The rigidity left his body.

His eyes fluttered closed. His breathing stilled, and his chest ceased heaving. Taita feared that his heart must have burst, but when he placed his ear to his ribs he heard it beating to a muted but regular rhythm.

With a surge of relief he realized that Demeter had survived.

Taita let him sleep for the rest of the day. When Demeter awoke he seemed unaffected by his ordeal. Indeed, he made no reference to what had passed, and seemed to have no memory of it.

While they shared a bowl of stewed suckling goat, the two men

THE QUEST

discussed the day-to-day affairs of the caravan. They tried to estimate how far they had come from Gallala, and how soon they would reach the splendid palace of Pharaoh Nefer Seti. Taita had sent a messenger ahead to alert the king to their arrival, and they wondered how he would receive them.

'Pray to Ahura Maasda, the one true light, that no more plagues have been sent to torment that poor afflicted land,' Demeter said, then fell silent.

'Fire, air, water and earth …' said Taita, in a conversational tone.

. '… but the lord of these is fire,' Demeter responded, like a schoolboy reciting a lesson by rote. His hand flew up to cover his mouth, and he stared at Taita with astonishment in his old eyes. At last he asked, shaken, 'Fire, air, water and earth, the four essential elements of creation.

Why did you name them, Taita?'

'First tell me, Demeter, why you named fire as the lord of all.'

'The prayer,' Demeter whispered. 'The incantation.'

'Whose prayer? What incantation?'

Demeter turned pale as he tried to remember. 'I know not.' His voice trembled as he tried to unearth painful memories. 'I have never heard it before.'

'You have.' Now Taita spoke with the voice of the inquisitor.

'Think, Demeter! Where? Who?' Then, suddenly, Taita changed his tone again. He could mimic perfectly the voices of others. He spoke now in the heartbreakingly lovely feminine voice that Demeter had used in his trance. 'But the lord of these is fire.'

Demeter gasped and clapped his hands over his ears. 'No!' he screamed. 'When you use that voice you blaspheme. You commit loathsome sacrilege. That is the voice of the Lie, the voice of Eos, the witch!'

He sank back and sobbed brokenly.

Taita waited silently for him to recover.

At last he raised his head and said, 'May Ahura Maasda have mercy on me, and forgive me my weakness. How could I have forgotten that awful utterance?'

'Demeter, you did not forget. The memory was denied to you,' Taita said gently. 'Now you must recall all of it – swiftly, before Eos intrudes once more and stifles it.'

' “But the lord of these is fire.” That was the incantation with which she opened her most unholy rituals,' Demeter whispered.

'This was at Etna?'

'I knew her at no other place.'

'She exalted fire in the place of fire.' Taita was thoughtful. 'She mustered her powers in the heart of the volcano. The fire is part of her strength, but she has gone from the source of her power. Yet we know that it has been resuscitated. Do you see that you have answered our question? We know now where we must search for her.'

Demeter was evidently bewildered.

'We must look for her in the fire, in the volcano,' Taita explained.

Demeter seemed to rally his thoughts. 'Yes, I see it,' he said.

'Let us ride this horse further!' Taita exclaimed. 'The volcano possesses three of the elements: fire, earth and air. It lacks only water. Etna was beside the sea. If she has found another volcano as her lair, there must be a large body of water close at hand.'

'The sea?' asked Demeter.

'Or a great river,' Taita suggested. 'A volcano beside the sea, on an island perhaps, or near a great lake. That is where we must seek her.' He placed an arm round Demeter's shoulders and smiled at him fondly.

'So, Demeter, despite your denials, you knew all along where she is hiding.'

'I give myself little credit. It took your genius to draw it from my failing memory,' Demeter said. 'But tell me, Taita, by how little have we narrowed the area of our search? How many volcanoes are there that fit the description?' He paused, then answered his own question. 'They must be legion, and certainly they will be separated by vast tracts of land and sea. It might take years to journey to them all, and I fear I lack the strength now for such endeavour.'

'Over the centuries the brotherhood of priests in the temple of Hathor at Thebes has made an intimate study of the earth's surface. They possess detailed maps of the seas and oceans, the mountains and rivers. In my travels I gathered information that I passed on to them, so they and I are well acquainted with each other. They will provide us with a list of all the known volcanoes situated close to water. I do not believe we will have to travel to each one. You and I can combine our powers to sound each mountain from afar for the emanations of evil.'

'We will have to contain our patience and husband our resources until we reach the temple of Hathor, then. This conflict with Eos is draining to the dregs even the deep cup of your strength and fortitude. You, too, must rest, Taita,' Demeter counselled. 'You have not slept for two days, and we have barely taken the first steps on the long hard road to ferret her out.'

At this point Meren carried a bundle of perfumed desert grass into

I THE QUEST

their living tent and arranged it to form a mattress. Over it he spread the tiger-skin. He knelt to remove his master's sandals and loosen the belt of his tunic, but Taita snapped at him, 'I am not a puling infant, Meren. I can undress myself.'

Meren smiled indulgently as he eased him back upon the mattress.

'We know that you are not, Magus. Strange, is it not, how often you behave like one?' Taita opened his mouth to protest, but instead gave a soft snore and, in an instant, dropped into a deep sleep.

'He has watched over me while I slept. Now I will attend him, good Meren,' Demeter said.

'That is my duty,' Meren said, still watching Taita.

'You can protect him from man and beast – no one could do that better,' Demeter said, ' – but if he is attacked through the occult, you will be helpless. Good Meren, take your bow and bring us a fat gazelle for our dinner.'

Meren hovered a little longer beside Taita, then sighed and stooped out through the flap of the tent. Demeter settled beside Taita's mattress.

Taita walked beside the seashore, along a beach bright as a snowfield against which rolled shining waters. Breezes perfumed with jasmine and lilac brushed his face and ruffled his beard. He stopped at the water's edge and the wavelets lapped his feet. He looked out across the sea, and saw the dark void beyond. He knew that he was at the very end of the earth, looking on to the chaos of eternity. He stood in the sunlight, but he gazed upon darkness, the stars floating on it like clouds of fireflies.

He searched for the Star of Lostris, but it was not there. Not even the faintest glow remained. It had come from the void, and to the void it had returned. He was assailed by a terrible sorrow, and felt himself drowning in his own loneliness. He began to turn away when, faintly, he heard singing. It was a young voice he recognized at once, although he had last heard it so long ago. His heart bounded against his ribs, a wild creature struggling to be free, as the sound drew nearer.

'My heart flutters up like a wounded quail when I see my beloved's face and my cheeks bloom like the dawn sky to the sunshine of his smile …'

It was the first song he had taught her, and it had always been her favourite. Eagerly he turned back to find her, for he knew that the singer could be none other than Lostris. She had been his ward, and he had been charged with her care and education soon after her natural mother had died of the river fever. He had come to love her, as he knew no man had ever loved a woman.

He shaded his eyes against the dazzle of the sunlit sea, and made out a shape upon its surface. The shape drew closer, and its outline became clearer. He saw that it was a giant golden dolphin, which swam with such speed and grace that the water curled open ahead of its snout in a creaming bow wave. A girl stood upon its back. She balanced like a skilled charioteer, leaning back against the reins of seaweed with which she controlled the elegant creature, and she smiled across at him as she sang.

Taita fell to his knees on the sand. 'Mistress!' he cried. 'Sweet Lostris!'

She was twelve again, the age at which he had first met her. She wore only a skirt of bleached linen, crisp and shining, white as the wing of an egret. The skin of her slim body was lustrous as oiled cedarwood from the mountains beyond Byblos. Her breasts were the shape of new-laid eggs, tipped with rose garnets.

'Lostris, you have returned to me. Oh, sweet Horus! Oh, merciful Isis!

You have given her back to me,' he sobbed.

'I never left you, beloved Taita,' Lostris broke off from her song to say. Her expression sparkled with mischief and a childlike sense of fun.

Though laughter curled her lovely lips, her eyes were soft with compassion.

She glowed with womanly wisdom and understanding. 'I have never forgotten my promise to you.'

The golden dolphin slid up on to the beach, and Lostris sprang from its back to the sand in a single graceful movement. She stood with both arms extended towards him. The thick sidelock of her hair swung forward over one shoulder and dangled between her girlish breasts. Every plane and silken contour of her lovely face was graven into his mind. Her teeth sparkled like a mother-of-pearl necklace as she called, 'Come to me, Taita. Come back to me, my true love!'

Taita started towards her. He hobbled the first few steps, his legs stiff and clumsy with age. Then new strength surged through them. He raised himself on his toes and flew effortlessly over the soft white sand. He could feel his sinews taut as bowstrings, his muscles supple and resilient.

'Oh, Taita, how beautiful you are!' Lostris called. 'How swift and

strong, how young, my darling.' His heart and his spirit were exalted as he knew that her words were true. He was young again, and in love.

He reached out both hands to her and she seized them in a death grip.

Her fingers were cold and bony, twisted with arthritis, the skin was dry and rough.

'Help me, Taita,' she screamed, but it was no longer her voice. It was the voice of a very old man in agony. 'She has me in her coils!'

Lostris was shaking his hands with the desperation of mortal terror.

Her strength was unnatural – she was crushing his fingers and he could feel the pain of bones buckling, sinews cracking. He tried to tear himself free. 'Let me go!' he shouted. 'You are not Lostris.' He was no longer young, the strength that had filled him only a moment before had evaporated. Age and dismay overwhelmed him as he felt the wondrous tapestry of his dream unravelling, ripped to tatters by the chilling gales of dreadful reality.

He found himself pinned down on the floor of the tent by an enormous weight. His chest was caving in under it. He could not breathe. His hands were still crushed. The shrill screams were close to his ear, so close he thought his eardrums might burst.

He forced his eyes open, and the last images of his dream vanished.

Demeter's face was only inches above his. It was almost unrecognizable, distorted with agony, swollen and empurpled. The mouth hung open and the yellow tongue lolled out. His cries were fading into gasps and desperate wheezes.

Taita was shocked fully awake. The tent was filled with a heavy reptilian stench, and Demeter was enveloped in massive scaly coils.

Only his head and one arm were free. He was still clinging with his free hand to Taita, like a drowning man. The coils were laid in perfectly symmetrical loops around him and tightened with regular muscular spasms.

The scales rasped against each other as the coils clenched, crushed and constricted Demeter's frail body. The ophidian skin was patterned with a marvellous design of gold, chocolate and russet, but it was only when Taita saw the head that he knew what creature had attacked them.

'Python,' he grunted aloud. The snake's head was twice the size of his fists clenched together. Its jaws gaped wide and its fangs were fastened into Demeter's bony shoulder. Thick ropes of glistening saliva drooled from the corners of the grinning mouth – the lubricant with which it covered its prey before swallowing it whole. The small round eyes that stared at Taita were black and implacable. The coils tightened upon

themselves in another contraction. Taita found himself helpless beneath the weight of man and serpent. He looked up into Demeter's face as the man's final scream was choked into silence. Demeter was no longer able to draw breath, and his pale eyes bulged sightlessly from their sockets.

Taita heard one of his ribs snap under the remorseless pressure.

Taita found enough breath to bellow, 'Meren!' He knew that Demeter was almost gone. The death grip on his hand had slackened and he was able to wrench himself free, but he was still trapped. To save Demeter he needed some weapon. He had the image of Lostris still in his mind, and his hand flew to his throat. It fastened on the gold star that hung there on its chain: the Periapt of Lostris.

'Arm me, my darling,' he whispered. The heavy metal ornament fitted snugly into his palm. He slashed at the head of the python with it. He aimed for one of its beaded eyes and the sharp metal point scored the transparent scale that covered it. The snake let out a vicious, explosive hiss. Its coiled body convulsed and twisted, but its fangs were still buried in the flesh of Demeter's shoulder. They were set back at an angle so that it could maintain a grip on its prey while it swallowed, designed by nature not to release readily. The python made a series of violent regurgitating movements as it tried to work its jaws free.

Taita struck again. He drove the sharp point of the metal star into the corner of the snake's eye, and screwed it in. The giant coils of the serpentine body sprang loose as the python released Demeter, thrashing its head from side to side until its sharp fangs were free of his flesh. Its eye was ripped open, and splattered cold oleaginous blood over both men as it reared back. With the weight off his chest Taita gasped in a shallow breath, then shoved aside Demeter's slack body as the enraged python struck at his face. He threw up his arm and the python locked its fangs into his wrist, but the hand that held the star was still free. He felt the sharp teeth grind against his wrist bone, but the pain gave him a wild new strength. He stabbed the point into the wounded eye again, and worked it deeper. The snake exploded into further paroxysms of agony as Taita tore the eye out of its skull. It freed its jaws to strike again and again, the heavy blows of its snout like those of a mailed fist. Taita rolled about on the floor of the tent, twisting and wriggling to avoid them, as he screamed for Meren. The heaving coils of the serpent, thicker than his chest, seemed to fill the entire tent.