The Quest

'Taita who is neither man nor woman.' He repeated the imp's gibe and wiped his eyes on the fold of his woollen cloak. 'Am I to be imprisoned in this ancient maimed body for all eternity?' he wondered.

'Eos's temptations are as great a torment as any physical torture. Horus, Isis and Osiris, give me the strength to resist them.'

— —

We do not need your nurses today,' Ha

Taita held a polished silver disc behind the flame to reflect a beam on to Meren's face. Ha

She snipped the stitches and, with forceps, drew the gut threads from the needle punctures. The lids were glued together with dried mucus and blood. Gently she washed it away with a cloth dipped in warm aromatic water.

'Please try to open your eye now, Colonel Cambyses,' she instructed.

The eyelid quivered, then flickered open. Taita felt his heart thump louder and more rapidly as he looked into the eye socket, which was no longer an empty pit.

'In the name of the holy triumvirate, Osiris, Isis and Horus,' Taita whispered, 'you have regrown a perfect new eye!'

'Not yet perfect,' Ha

'A bright light,' he replied.

Ha

'Shadows,' he said doubtfully, but then he went on, firmly now, 'No, wait! I see fingers. The outline of five fingers.'

It was the first time Taita had seen Ha

lamplight, she looked younger and gentler. 'Nay, good Meren,' he said.

'This day you have seen more than fingers. You have seen a miracle.'

'I must bandage the eye again.' Ha

The image of the imp in the grotto haunted Taita. He experienced a compulsion that grew more powerful each day to return to the gardens and wait for him beside the hidden pool. In the forefront of his mind he knew that this urge was not his own: it came directly from Eos.

Once I enter her territory I am powerless. She possesses every advantage.

She is the great black cat and I am her mouse, he thought.

Then his i

He sought another excuse for his cowardice: If only I could find a shield to deflect her malicious darts.

He tried to find distraction from these haunting fears and temptations by helping Meren to gain full use of his immature eye. At first Ha

The lens of the eye was still cloudy and the colour of the iris was also pale and milky. It did not work in unison with the good eye but wandered at random. Taita helped him focus it: he held the Periapt of Lostris in front of Meren and moved it from side to side, up and down, nearer and further away.

At first the new eye tired quickly. It watered and the lid blinked involuntarily. It grew bloodshot and itchy. Meren complained that images remained blurred and distorted.

Taita discussed this with Ha

'Nay, Magus. The new eye is grown from the same root stock as the original. We have replaced limbs that have been cut away in battle.

They do not appear fully fledged. Like your protege's eye, they begin like

seedlings and gradually attain their mature form. The human body has the ability to shape and develop itself over time to match the original.

A blue eye is not replaced with a brown one. A hand is not replaced with a foot. There exists in each of us some life force that is able to replicate itself. Have you not wondered at how a child may resemble its parents?' She paused and looked into his eyes intently. 'In the same way an amputated arm is replaced with a perfect copy of the missing limb. A castrated penis would regrow in identical shape and size to the one that was destroyed.' Taita stared at her, aghast. She had turned the discussion back upon him in a cruel and wounding fashion.

She is speaking of my own imperfection, he thought. She knows about the mutilation I have suffered. He sprang to his feet and hurried from the room. Blindly he stumbled to the lakeside and knelt on the beach.

He felt helpless and defeated. At last, when the tears no longer stung and his vision cleared, he looked up at the cliffs that towered above the gardens. He felt Eos nearby. He was too weary and sick at heart to fight on.

You have won, he thought. The battle is over before it was joined. I will submit to you. Then he felt her influence changing. It seemed no longer completely evil and malign, but kindly and benevolent. He felt as though she was offering him release from pain and emotional strife. He wanted to go up into the gardens and surrender to her, cast himself upon her mercy. He struggled to his feet and was struck by the incongruity of his thoughts and actions. He straightened his back and lifted his chin.

'Nay!' he whispered aloud. 'This is not surrender. You have not yet won the battle. You have taken only the first skirmish.' He reached for the Periapt of Lostris and felt strength flow into him. 'She has taken Meren's eye. She has taken my manly parts. She has all the advantage over us. If only I had something of hers to use against her, a weapon with which to counterattack. When I have found one I will go against her again.' He glanced at the tops of the tall flowering trees of her gardens below the painted cliffs, and before he could stop himself he had taken a step in that direction. With an effort he turned away. 'Not yet. I am not ready.'

His tread was firmer as he returned to the sanatorium. He found that Ha

will astonish you with how the colour has come to match the other, and how nimbly it moves. By the sweet breath of Isis, I declare I will soon be able to judge the flight of my arrows as accurately as I ever did.' His loquacity was a sure sign of his excitement. 'Then we shall escape this infernal place. I hate it here. There is something foul and detestable about it, and the people in it.'