was endless and the conditions arduous. There was no reason for their optimism and light-heartedness.
I
In the fading light of day he was sitting beside a river pool with Fenn.
She was studying the trio of the elemental symbols of the Tenmass that he had drawn on her clay tablet. Each denoted a word of power. When they were conjugated they became so portentous and charged that they could be safely absorbed only into a mind that had been prepared carefully to receive them. Taita sat close to her, ready to protect her if the shock of the conjugation produced a backlash. Across the pool a giant black and white kingfisher, with a russet chest, was hovering over the water. It dived, but Fenn's concentration on the symbols was so intense that she did not glance up at the splash as the bird struck the surface, then rose with a flutter of wings and a small silver fish clamped in its long black bill.
Taita tried to analyse his own feelings more closely. There was only one good reason he could think of for his own euphoric state of mind: his love for and delight in the child at his side. On the other hand there were compelling reasons why he should be afraid for both their sakes. He was charged with a sacred duty to protect his pharaoh and his homeland.
He was travelling to a confrontation with a powerful evil force without any clear plan, a lone hare setting out to scotch a marauding leopard. All the chances were against him. Almost certainly the consequences would be dire. Why, then, was he doing so seemingly without any reckoning of the consequences?
Then he became aware that he was having difficulty in following even this simple line of reasoning. It was as though impediments were being placed deliberately in his way. He kept feeling a strong impulse to let it go and to lapse back into a complacent sense of well-being and trust in his own ability to overcome obstacles as he encountered them, without having any coherent plan. It is a dangerous and reckless state of mind, he thought, then laughed aloud as though it were a joke.
He had disrupted Fenn's concentration: she looked up and frowned.
'What is it, Taita?' she demanded. 'You warned me that it was dangerous to become distracted when I was attempting to conjugate the rational coefficients of the symbols.'
Her words brought him up sharply, and Taita realized how grievously he had erred. 'You are right. Forgive me.' She looked down again at the clay tablet in her lap. Taita tried to focus on the problem, but it remained hazy and unimportant. He bit hard into his lip, and tasted blood. The sharp pain sobered him. With an effort, he was able to concentrate.
There was something he must remember. He tried to grasp it, but it remained a shadow. He reached for it again, but it dissolved before he
could catch it. Beside him Fenn stirred again and sighed. Then she looked up and set aside the clay tablet. 'I cannot concentrate. I can feel your distress. Something is blocking you.' She stared at him with those candid green eyes, then whispered, 'I can see it now. It is the witch in the pool.'
Quickly she removed the nugget from round her neck and placed it in her palm. She held out both of her hands. Taita placed the Periapt of Lostris in his own palm. Then they linked hands and formed the circle of protection. Almost imperceptibly he felt the alien influence recede.
The words that had troubled him jumped into his mind. He had been trying to remember the warning of Demeter: She has already infected you with her evil. She has begun to bind you with her spells and temptations. She will twist your judgement. Soon you will begin to doubt that she is evil. She will seem to you fine, noble and as virtuous as any person who ever lived. Soon it will seem that 1 am the evil one who has poisoned your mind against her. When that happens she will have divided us and I will be destroyed. You will surrender yourself to her freely and willingly. She will have triumphed over both of us.
They sat together in the protective circle until Taita had thrown off the enervating influence of Eos. He was amazed by the support Fenn rendered him. He could feel the strength flowing from her soft little hands into his own gnarled and knotted ones. They had shared more than one life span, and together they had built a fortress of the spirit within walls of marble and granite.
Darkness fell swiftly and bats flitted over the pool, wheeling and swooping on the insects that rose from the surface of the water. On the opposite bank of the river a hyena whooped mournfully. Still holding Fenn's hand, Taita raised her to her feet and led her up the bank to the zareeba.
Meren greeted them. 'I was about to send out a search party to find you,' he called cheerfully.
Later Taita sat with him and his officers at the campfire. They, too, were cheerful, and he could hear the laughter and the banter from the men at the far end of the enclosure. Once in a while Taita thought to sober them with a warning, but he let them be: They also are marching to the siren song of Eos, but I will let them go happily where they must go anyway. As long as I can hold firm, there will be time anon to recall them to their senses.
Each day they pushed deeper into the south, and the determination of Meren and his men never wavered. One evening as they built the zareeba Taita led Meren aside and asked, 'What make you of the mood of the men? It seems to me that they are near the end of their endurance, eager to turn northwards for Assoun and their homes. We may soon be faced with a mutiny.' He had said it to test the other man, but Meren was outraged.
'They are my men and I have come to know them well. It seems you have not, Magus. There is not a mutinous hair on their heads or breath in their lungs. They are as hot for the enterprise as I am.'
'Forgive me, Meren. How could I doubt you?' Taita murmured, but he had heard echoes of the witch's voice rise from Meren's throat. It is good that I need not deal with sullen faces and surly moods on top of all else.
In that Eos is making my lot easier, he consoled himself.
At that Fenn came running from the camp calling, 'Magus! Taita!
Come swiftly! The baby of Li-To-Liti is bursting out of her and I cannot get it back inside!'
'Then I shall come and save the poor mite from your ministrations.'
Taita scrambled to his feet and hurried with her to the encampment.
With Taita kneeling beside the Shilluk girl, soothing her, the birth went swiftly. Fenn watched the process with horror. Each time Li-To-Liti squealed she started. In a pause between contractions, while the girl lay panting and drenched with sweat, Fenn said, 'It does not seem such rich sport after all. I don't think you and I should bother ourselves with it.'
Before midnight Li-To-Liti was delivered of an amber-coloured son with a cap of black curls. To Taita, the arrival of the child was some compensation for the profligate expenditure of other young lives along this bitter road. They
