'How many others failed?' Taita sought to divert himself from his dark forebodings.
'There were many.'
'Tell me about some from your own experience.'
Samana thought for a moment, then said, 'One in particular I remember, from when I was still a novice. His name was Wotad, a priest of the god Woden. His skin was covered with sacred blue tattoos. He was brought to this temple from the northlands across the Cold Sea. He was a man of mighty physique, but he died under the bamboo needle.
Even his great strength was insufficient to survive the power that was unleashed within him by the opening. His brain burst asunder, and blood spurted from his nose and ears.' Samana sighed. 'It was a terrible death, but swift. Perhaps Wotad was luckier than some of those who preceded him. The Inner Eye can turn itself back on its owner, like a venomous serpent held by the tail. Some of the horrors it reveals are too vivid and terrible to survive.'
For the remainder of that day they were silent while Tansid busied herself at the stone table, polishing the last of the bamboo needles and arranging the surgical instruments.
At last Samana looked up at Taita and spoke softly: 'Now you know the risks that you will run. You do not have to make the attempt. The choice is yours alone.'
Taita shook his head. 'I have no choice. I know now that the choice was made for me on the day of my birth.'
That night Tansid and Meren slept in Taita's chamber. Before she blew out the lamp Tansid brought Taita a small porcelain bowl filled with a warm infusion of herbs. As soon as he had drunk it he stretched out on his mat and fell into a deep sleep. Meren rose twice in the night to listen to his breathing and to cover him when the cold air of the dawn seeped into the chamber.
When Taita awoke he found the three, Samana, Tansid and Meren, kneeling round his sleeping mat.
'Magus, are you ready?' Samana asked inscrutably.
Taita nodded, but Meren blurted out, 'Do not do this thing, Magus. ) not let them do it to you. It is evil.'
Taita took his muscular forearm and shook it sternly. 'I have chosen you for this task. I need you. Do not fail me, Meren. If I must do this alone who can say what the consequences might be? Together we can win through, as we have so often before.' Meren took a series of ragged deep breaths. 'Are you ready, Meren? Are you at my side as ever you were?'
'Forgive me, I was weak, but now I am ready, Magus,' he whispered.
Samana led them out into the brilliant sunshine of the garden, to the ancient building. At one end of the marble table lay the surgeon's instruments, and at the opposite end stood a charcoal brazier above which the heated air shimmered. Spread on the ground below the table was a sheep's fleece rug. Taita did not need to be told: he knelt in the centre of the rug, facing the table. Samana nodded at Meren; clearly, she had instructed him in his duties. He knelt behind Taita, and folded him tenderly in his arms so that he could not move.
'Close your eyes, Meren,' Samana instructed him. 'Do not watch.' She stood over them and offered a strip of leather for Taita to grip in his jaws. He refused it with a shake of his head. She knelt in front of him with a silver spoon in her right hand; with two fingers of her other hand she parted the lids of Taita's right eye. 'Always through the right eye,'
she whispered, 'the side of the Truth.' She spread the lids wide. 'Hold hard, Meren!'
Meren grunted in acknowledgement and tightened his grip until it was as unyielding as a ring of bronze about his master. Samana slipped the point of the spoon under his upper eyelid and, with a firm, sure movement, eased it down behind the eyeball. Then, gently, she scooped the eye out of its socket. She let it dangle, like an egg, on to Taita's cheek, suspended on the rope of the optic nerve. The empty socket was a deep pink cave, glistening with tears. Samana handed the silver spoon to Tansid, who laid it aside and selected one of the bamboo needles. She held the point in the flame of the brazier until it scorched and hardened.
It was still smoking as she handed it to Samana. With the needle in her right hand Samana lowered her head until she was staring into Taita's empty eye socket. She judged the position and angle of the optic pathway as it entered the skull.
Taita's eyelids twitched and shuddered under her fingers, blinking uncontrollably. Samana ignored them. Slowly she introduced the needle into the eye cavity until the point touched the opening of the pathway.
She increased the pressure until suddenly the needle pierced the membrane and slid in alongside the nerve cord without damaging it.
There was almost no resistance to its passage. Deeper and deeper it glided. When it was almost a finger's length into the frontal lobe of the brain Samana sensed rather than felt the light check as the point touched the bundle of nerve fibres from both eyes where they crossed at the optic chiasm. The bamboo point was at the portal. The next move had to be precisely executed. Although her expression remained serene, a light film of perspiration shone on Samana's unblemished skin, and her eyes narrowed. She tensed and made the final thrust. There was no reaction from Taita. She knew she had missed the minute target. She drew back the needle a fraction, realigned it, then drove it in again to the same depth, but this time she aimed a little higher.
Taita shuddered and sighed softly. Then he relaxed as he fell into oblivion. Meren had been warned to expect this, and he cupped one strong hand under Taita's chin to prevent the beloved silver head from dropping forward. Samana withdrew the needle from the eye socket as carefully as she had driven it deep. She leaned forward to examine the puncture in the lining at the back of the eye. There was no weep of blood. Before her eyes the mouth of the tiny wound closed spontaneously. Samana made a humming sound of approbation. Then she used the spoon to ease the dangling eye back into the socket. Taita's eyelids blinked rapidly as it reseated itself. Samana reached for the linen bandage, which Tansid had soaked in a healing salve and laid ready on the marble table, then bound it around Taita's head, covering both of his eyes, and knotted it securely.
'As quickly as you are able, Meren, carry him back to his own chamber before he comes to his senses.'
Meren lifted him as though he were a sleeping infant and held his head against his sturdy shoulder. He ran with Taita back to the temple and carried him up to his room. Samana and Tansid followed them.
When the two women arrived, Tansid went to the hearth, where she had left a kettle warming. She poured a bowl of the herbal infusion and brought it to Samana.
'Lift his head!' Samana ordered, and held the bowl to Taita's lips, dribbling the liquid into his mouth and massaging his throat to induce him to swallow. She made him take the contents of the bowl.
