The Quest

his mind to it. His hands were numbed claws. He knew that one was bleeding from under the nails for droplets of blood fell into his upturned face. He forced his fingers to open and close on the rope.

Down he went and still down until, at last, he knew he could go no further. He hung motionless in the darkness, bathed in sweat, unable to attempt another change of grip on the swaying rope. The darkness suffocated him. He felt his hand, slippery with blood, slide as his fingers began to open.

'Mensaar!' He conjugated the words of power. 'Kydash! Ncube!' At once his legs steadied and his grip firmed. Still he could not force his worn-out body to reach downwards for the next knot.

'Taita! My darling Taita! Answer me!' Fe

'Fe

'Oh, thank the benevolent Mother Isis,' Fe

He felt his shaking legs still and harden. He lifted his feet off the knot and, hanging on his arms, reached down with his toes. The drop beneath sucked at him as he revolved on the rope.

'Be strong, Taita. I am with you,' Fe

His feet found the next knot, and he slid his hands down to take another grip. He had been counting, so he knew there were still twenty knots before he reached the end of the rope.

'Go on, Taita! For both our sakes, you must go on! Without you I am nothing. You must endure,' Fe

He felt her strength come to him in warm, astral waves. 'Nineteen .. .

Eighteen . ..' He counted the remaining knots as they passed through his bloody hands.

'You have the strength and the determination,' she whispered in his mind. 'I am beside you. I am part of you. Do this thing for us. For the love I have for you. You are my father and my friend. I came back for you and you alone. Don't leave me now.'

'Nine … Eight. .. Seven …' Taita counted.

'You are growing stronger,' she said softly, 'I can feel it. We will come through together.'

'Three . . . Two . .. One …“ He counted and stretched down with

one leg, groping with his toes for the rope. There was nothing under his foot but space. He had reached the end of the rope. He drew a deep breath, let go with both hands and fell with a rush that stopped1 his breath. Then, abruptly, he struck the bottom with both feet. His legs gave way and he sprawled, like a fledgling fallen from the nest. He lay on his belly, face down, sobbing with exhaustion and relief, too weak even to sit up.

'Are you safe, Taita? Are you still there? Do you hear me?'

'I hear you,' he answered, as he sat up. 'I am safe for the moment.

Without you it would have been different. Your strength has armed me.

I must go on now. Listen for my call. Surely I will need you again.'

'Remember, I love you,' she called, as her presence faded, and he was alone in the darkness once more. He fumbled in the basket and brought out the clay fire-pot. He blew the embers to life and lit a fresh torch. He held it high, and by its light examined his immediate surroundings.

He was on a narrow wooden catwalk, built against the sheer wall on his left and secured to it by rows of bronze bolts driven into holes drilled in the rock. On his other side yawned the dark void. The feeble light of the torch could not fathom the extent of it. He crept to the edge of the catwalk and looked over it. Under him stretched endless darkness and he knew that he was suspended above a chasm that reached into the very bowels of the earth, those nether regions from which Eos had sprung.

He rested a little longer. His thirst was raging, but there was nothing to drink. He quelled the longing with the force of his mind and drove the weariness from his limbs, then he took his sandals from the basket and fastened them on to his feet, which had been rubbed raw by the rope. At last he got to his feet and hobbled along the narrow catwalk.

The drop on his left-hand side was unprotected by any balustrade, and the darkness beneath drew him with a hypnotic attraction that was difficult to resist. He went slowly and cautiously, placing each step with care.

He saw in his mind's eye how Eos had run lightly along this same catwalk like a child through an open meadow, and how she had swarmed up the knotted rope on her return to her warren high above, holding the flaming torch in her strong white teeth. He knew that, by contrast, he had barely the strength to negotiate the level footing beneath him.

Beneath his feet the wooden planking gave way to rough-hewn rock.

He had reached a ledge in the rock face. It was barely wide enough to afford him a foothold, and slanted downwards so sharply that he had to cling to the wall to steady himself.

398 I

The ledge seemed endless. It took all his self-control to stop himself panicking. He had descended several hundred cubits down the ledge before he reached a deep fissure. He stepped through it into another tu

Now the torch was guttering and smoking as it burnt out. He lit the last from the dying flame and went on down the tu

He knew that the interior of the mountain was a honeycomb of ancient volcanic pipes and fissures. The rock was hot to the touch, heated by the bubbling lava at its heart. The air became as sulphurous and stifling as the fumes from a charcoal forge.

At last Taita reached the fork in the tu

The main chute went straight on downwards, while the lesser branch turned off at a sharp angle. Taita did not hesitate but turned into the narrower opening. The footing was rough but almost level. He followed the tu

From the surface high above the burning lava sucked in gales of wind.

They roared, howled and tugged at his clothing so that he staggered before he could brace himself to resist them. Before him a spur of rock stretched out across the bubbling cauldron. It sagged in the middle, like a suspended rope bridge, and was so narrow that two men could not have walked across it side by side. He tucked the skirts of his tunic under his girdle and stepped out on to it. The wind that roared through the cavern was not constant. It gusted, then dropped. It swirled viciously, at times reversing its direction without warning. It sucked him backwards, then all at once propelled him forward again. More than once it unbalanced him and made him totter at the brink, windmilling his arms to regain his balance. At last it forced him to his hands and knees. He crawled on,