Taita was unable to find a convincing argument to the contrary, but he did not wish to encourage the old man's gloom. 'Come, old friend,' he said. 'Nothing is so bad that brooding cannot make it worse.
We are both alive. The snake might have been natural, rather than a device of Eos.'
'Have you ever heard of such a creature in Egypt before now?' Demeter asked.
'I have seen them in the lands to the south.' Taita sidestepped the question.
'Far to the south?'
'Yes, indeed,' Taita admitted. 'Beyond the Indus river in Asia, and south of where the Nile divides into two streams.'
'Always in the deep forests?' Demeter persisted. 'Never in these arid deserts? Never so massive in size?'
'As you say.' Taita capitulated.
'It was sent to kill me, not you. She does not want you dead — not yet,' Demeter said, with finality.
Taita continued his examination in silence. He was relieved to find that none of the major bones in Demeter's body were broken. He bathed the shoulder with a distillation of wine, covered the bites with a healing salve and bandaged them with strips of linen. Only then could he attend to his own injuries.
Once he had bound up his wrist, he helped Demeter to his feet and supported him as they limped out of the tent to where Meren had laid out the carcass of the gigantic python. They measured its length at fifteen full paces, without the head and the tail section; and even Meren's muscular arms were unable to encompass its girth at the thickest point.
The muscles beneath the magnificently patterned skin were still twitching and trembling, although it had been dead for some time.
Taita prodded the severed head with the tip of his staff, then prised
open the mouth. 'It is able to unhook the hinges of its jaws so that its mouth can open wide enough to swallow a large man with ease.'
Meren's handsome features reflected disgust. 'A foul and unholy creature. Demeter speaks truly. This is a monster from the void. I will burn the carcass to ashes.'
'You will do no such thing,' Taita told him firmly. 'The fat of such a supernatural creature has potent magical properties. If, as seems most likely, it has been conjured up by the witch, we might be able it to turn it back on her.'
'If you do not know where to find her,' Meren pointed out, 'how can you send it back to her?'
'It is her creation, a part of her. As if it were a homing pigeon, we can send it to seek her out,' Demeter explained.
Meren fidgeted uncomfortably. Even though he had been companion to the magus all these years, mysteries such as this puzzled and dismayed him.
Taita took pity on him and clasped his upper arm in a friendly grip.
'Once again I am in your debt. Without you, Demeter and I might, at this very moment, be within the gut of this creature.'
Meren's anxious expression changed to one of gratification. 'Tell me, then, what you wish me to do with it.' He kicked the twitching carcass, '
which was rolling itself slowly into a great ball.
'We are injured. It may be some days before we can gather our powers to work the magic. Take this offal to a place where it will not be eaten by vultures or jackals,' Taita told him. 'Later we will skin it and boil down its fat.'
Although he tried, Meren was unable to load the python on to the back of one of the camels. The animal was terrified by the stench of the carcass, and bucked, bawled and jibbed. In the end Meren and five strong men dragged it down to the horse lines and piled rocks over it to protect it from the hyenas and other scavengers.
When Meren returned he found the magi sitting on the floor of the tent, facing each other. They had linked hands to combine their powers and cast a spell of protection and concealment round the encampment.
When they had completed the intricate ceremony, Taita gave Demeter a draught of red sheppen, and soon the old man sagged into a drugged sleep.
'Leave us now, good Meren. Take your rest but stay within call,'
Taita said, as he sat down beside Demeter to watch over him. But his
own body betrayed him and dropped into the dark oblivion of sleep. He woke again to find Meren shaking his injured arm insistently. He sat up, groggy with sleep, and snarled. 'What ails you? Have you lost all sense and reason?'
'Come, Magus! Quickly!'
His urgent tone and stricken expression alarmed Taita and he turned anxiously to Demeter. With relief he saw that the old man was still sleeping. He scrambled to his feet. 'What is it?' he asked, but Meren was gone. Taita followed him out into the cooler air of dawn and saw him running towards the horse lines. When he caught up with him, Meren pointed wordlessly at the pile of rocks that had covered the serpent's carcass. For a moment Taita was puzzled, until he saw that the rocks had been moved aside.
'The snake has gone,' Meren blurted. 'It vanished during the night.'
He pointed to a depression in the sand left by the python's heavy body.
A few globules of blood had dried into black balls, but that was all that remained. Taita felt the hair at the back of his neck lift, as if touched by a cold wind. 'You have searched thoroughly?'
