'I do not know. They speak of him only as the Hitama, which in their language means “exalted in learning”.'
'What does he seek here?'
'You, Magus. He comes for you. The caravan master asked for you by name.'
Taita was only mildly surprised. 'What food have we? We must offer hospitality to this Hitama.'
'The locusts and drought have left us with little. I have some smoked fish and enough corn for a few salt cakes.'
'What of the mushrooms we collected yesterday?'
'They have turned rotten and stinking. Perhaps I can find something in the village.'
'No, do not trouble our friends. Life for them is hard enough already.
We will make do with what we have.' In the end they were saved by the generosity of their visitor. The Hitama accepted their invitation to share the evening meal, but he sent Meren back with a gift of a fine fat camel.
It was plain that he knew how sorely the populace was suffering from the (amine. Meren slaughtered the beast and prepared a roasted shoulder.
The remainder of the carcass would be enough to feed the servants of the Hitama, and most of the village population.
Taita waited for his guest on the roof of the temple. He was intrigued 10 discover whom he might be. His title suggested that he was one of the magi, or perhaps the abbot of some other learned sect. He had a premonition that something of great import was to be revealed to him.
Is this the messenger who was presaged by the auguries? The one for whom I have waited so long? he wondered, then stirred as he heard Meren ushering the visitor up the wide stone staircase.
'Take care with your master. The treads of the staircase are crumbling mid can be dangerous,' Meren told the bearers, who at last arrived on
the roof terrace. He helped them settle the curtained litter close to Taita's mat, then placed a silver bowl of pomegranate-flavoured sherbet and two drinking bowls on the low table between them. He glanced enquiringly at his own master. 'What else do you wish, Magus?'
'You may leave us now, Meren. I will call you when we are ready to eat.' Taita poured a bowl of the sherbet and placed it close to the opening in the curtains, which were still tightly drawn. 'Greetings and welcome. You bring honour to my abode,' he murmured, speaking to his unseen guest. There was no reply and he concentrated all the power of the Inner Eye on the palanquin. He was astonished not to distinguish any aura of a living person beyond the silk curtains. Though he scanned the covered space carefully he found no sign of life. It appeared blank and sterile. 'Is anybody there?' He stood quickly and crossed to the litter.
'Speak!' He demanded. 'What devilry is this?'
He jerked aside the curtain, then stepped back in surprise. A man sat cross-legged on the padded bed, facing him. He wore only a saffron loincloth. His body was skeletal, his bald head skull-like, his skin as dry and wrinkled as that shed by a serpent. His countenance was as weathered as an ancient fossil, but his expression was serene, even beautiful.
'You have no aura!' Taita exclaimed, before he could prevent the words reaching his lips.
The Hitama inclined his head slightly. 'Neither have you, Taita. None of those who have returned from the temple of Saraswati give out a detectable aura. We have left part of our humanity with Kashyap, the lamp-bearer. This deficiency enables us to recognize one another.'
Taita took a while to consider these words. The Hitama had echoed what he had been told by Samana.
'Kashyap is dead and a woman has taken his seat before the goddess.
Her name is Samana. She told me there had been others. You are the first I have met.'
'Few of us are granted the gift of the Inner Eye. Even fewer of us remain. Our numbers have been reduced. There is a sinister reason for this, which I will explain to you in due time.' He made space on the mattress beside him. 'Come, sit close to me, Taita. My hearing begins to fail me, and there is much to discuss, but little time is left to us.' The visitor switched from laboured Egyptian into the arcane Tenmass of the adepts, which he spoke flawlessly. 'We must remain discreet.'
'How did you find me?' Taita asked, in the same language, as he settled beside him.
'The star led me.' The ancient seer raised his face to the eastern sky.
In the time that they had been speaking together, night had fallen and the panoply of the heavens shone forth in majesty. The Star of Lostris still hung directly overhead, but it was further altered in shape and substance. It no longer had a solid centre. It had become merely a cloud of glowing gases, blowing away in a long feather on the solar winds.
'I have always been aware of my intimate connection to that star,'
Taita murmured.
'With good reason,' the old man assured him mysteriously. 'Your destiny is linked to it.'
'But it is dying before our eyes.'
The old man looked at him in a way that made Taita's fingertips tingle. 'Nothing dies. What we call death is merely a change of state.
She will remain with you always.'
Taita opened his mouth to say her name, 'Lostris', but the old man stopped him with a gesture.
'Do not speak her name aloud. In doing so you may betray her to those who wish you ill.'
