stride. If Ishtar was trying to get close to Nefer again to work some mischief, Taita must intercept him. However, the pursuit led him to one of the chariots Trok had abandoned on his march up from the coast. From the wreck Ishtar had salvaged something, and Taita closed his eyes and worked out what it was.
'A waterskin,' he murmured, and Taita saw where he had scraped away the earth to drag the skin out from under the side of the capsized chariot. Another dry and empty skin was still hanging there. Ishtar had left it, probably because he knew he could carry the weight of only one full skin. Taita picked up the empty skin and slung it over his shoulder. He left the chariot, with the dead horses in the traces already beginning to stink, and followed Ishtar onwards.
Carrying the waterskin with him, Ishtar had gone back towards Gallala. When he topped the ridge above the city he had crept down to the bank of the closest irrigation canal. The imprint of his knees was clear in the wet clay where he had knelt to drink and then to fill the skin he carried. Taita drank himself. After that he filled his own waterskin. Then he rose and followed the traces Ishtar had left as he started back eastwards along the road towards Safaga and the coast. Taita strode after him.
Night fell and Taita kept on. Sometimes the aura of the Mede faded away completely, but Taita followed the road. At other times it grew stronger, until Taita smelt it, a faint, musty, unpleasant odour. When it was this strong he could fathom the essence of the Mede. He could detect his vindictive and vengeful nature. He divined that Ishtar was frightened and demoralized by the turn that the fates had taken against him, but his powers were still formidable. He constituted a great and real danger, not only to Nefer and Mintaka but to Taita himself. If he were allowed to escape and regenerate his scattered powers, he might threaten the future of the House of Tamose and Apepi. Ishtar was one of the higher adepts, an evil one, which made him all the more dangerous. He could certainly overlook his selected victims, and conjure up all manner of profanities to bring down disaster on Nefer and Mintaka. He could sicken and sour their love for each other, bring down suffering, miscarriage and plague, pains and disease with no focus or reason, mental aberrations, madness and eventually death.
Even Taita was not immune to his baleful spirit. If he were allowed to escape, Ishtar might gradually erode Taita's powers and frustrate his work. Unless Taita acted now, while he had the opportunity, to destroy him utterly.
The gibbous moon rose over the stark hills and lit Taita's way. He was in that long swinging stride with which he could cover the ground as swiftly as a mounted man. He could sense that ahead of him Ishtar was unaware that he was being followed and his pace was much slower. Every hour that passed Taita felt his aura stronger and nearer. I will be up to him before sunrise, he thought, and at that moment he doubled over and vomited in a projectile stream on to the stony track. Overwhelmed with a sudden, terrible nausea, Taita almost collapsed but regained his balance, and staggered back, wiping the bitter taste of bile from his mouth.
'Careless!' he rebuked himself angrily. 'So close to the quarry I should have taken greater care. The Mede has detected me.'
He drank a little water from the skin, then went forward cautiously. He pointed his staff ahead and swung it slowly from side to side. Suddenly it grew heavy in his hand. He followed that direction and saw ahead of him, glinting in the moonlight, the circle of pale pebbles laid out on the side of the track.
'A gift from the Mede,' he said aloud.
Nausea seized him once more, but he choked it back, struck the earth with the staff and spoke one of the words of power.
'Ncube!' His nausea receded, and he could approach the circle closer.
It is not enough that I should break his spell, he thought grimly. I must turn it back upon the Mede.
He used the tip of his staff to move one of the pebbles out of the circle, disrupting its power. Now he could squat beside the pattern without experiencing any harm. Without touching any of the pebbles he leaned close and sniffed at them. The smell of the Mede was strong upon them and he smiled with cold satisfaction.
'He touched them with his bare hands,' Taita whispered. Ishtar had left traces of his sweat on them. Taita could use that faint effluent. Careful not to make the same mistake, he moved the pebbles with the tip of his staff, forming them into a different pattern, an arrowhead pointing in the direction that Ishtar had taken. He took a mouthful of water from the skin and spat it on the pebbles, which shone wetly in the moonlight. Then he pointed his staff like a javelin along the same line as the arrowhead of pebbles.
'Kydash!' he shouted, and felt pressure build up in his eardrums as though he had plunged deeply below the surface of the ocean. Before it became unbearable, it began slowly to abate, and he felt a sense of well-being and pleasure. It was done. He had turned it back upon the Mede.
--
A league ahead Ishtar the Mede was hurrying along the track. He was by now fully aware of the pursuit. He was confident that the barrier he had placed across the track would stop most men, but he knew it would not long deter the one he feared most.
Suddenly he staggered in mid-stride and clutched his ears with both hands. The pain was blinding, as though a red hot dagger had been thrust deep into each of his eardrums. He groaned and dropped to his knees. 'It is the Warlock.' He sobbed. The pain was so intense that he could not think clearly. 'He has turned it back on me.'
With shaking hands he reached into the pouch on his belt and brought out his most potent talisman, the dry embalmed hand of one of Pharaoh Tamose's infants who had died soon after birth during the plague of the Yellow Flowers. Ishtar had robbed the little prince's tomb to obtain it. The hand was dark and clawed like a monkey's paw.
He held it to his pounding head, and felt the pain start to abate. He came unsteadily to his feet, and broke into a shuffling dance, chanting and wailing. The pain in his ears cleared. He gave one final leap in the air and stood facing back along the way he had come. He could feel the presence of the Warlock close, like the threat of thunder on a close summer's day.
He thought of laying another snare, but knew that Taita would send it back to him. I must turn aside and conceal my path, he decided. He ran on along the road seeking the place where he could turn. He found where the track crossed an intrusion of grey schist, so hard that even the passing of Trok's legions had left no mark upon it.
With his left forefinger he traced out lightly the sacred symbol of Marduk on the rock, spat on it and uttered the three hidden names of the god that would summon him.
'Hide me from my enemies, mighty Marduk. Bring me safely back to your temple in Babylon, and I will make for you the sacrifice you love so well,' he promised. Best of all Marduk loved little girls sent into his furnace.
