Taita said. 'She was an insatiable nymphomaniac, but she was destroyed in the war between the Titans and the Olympians.' He shook his head.
'This cannot be the same Eos.'
'You are right, Taita. They are not the same. This Eos is the minion of the Lie. She is the consummate impostor, the usurper, the deceiver, the thief, the devourer of infants. She has stolen the identity of the old goddess. At the same time, she adopted her vices but none of her virtues.'
'Do I understand you to say that Eos has lived for fifty generations?
That means she is two thousand years old,' Taita exclaimed, incredulous.
'What is she? Mortal or immortal, human or goddess?'
'In the beginning she was human. Many ages ago she was the high priestess at the temple of Apollo in Ilion. When the city was sacked by the Spartans, she escaped the pillage and assumed the name Eos, still human, but I have no words to describe what she has become.'
'Samana showed me the ancient temple inscription that recorded the visit of the woman from Ilion,' Taita said.
'She is the same. Kurma gave her the gift of the Inner Eye. He believed that she was chosen. Her powers of concealment and deceit are so powerful and persuasive that even Kurma, that great sage and savant, could not see through them.'
'If she is the embodiment of evil, surely it is our duty to seek her out and destroy her.'
Demeter smiled ruefully. 'I have devoted all my long life to that purpose, but she is as cunning as she is evil. She is as elusive as the wind.
She emits no aura. She is able to protect herself with spells and wiles that far surpass my own knowledge of the occult. She lays snares to catch those who search for her. She can move with ease from one continent to another. Kurma merely enhanced her powers. Nonetheless I once succeeded in finding her.' He corrected himself: 'That is not entirely true, I did not find her. She sought me out.'
Taita leant forward eagerly. 'You know this creature? You have met her face to face? Tell me, Demeter, what is her appearance?'
'If she is threatened she can change her appearance as a chameleon does. Yet vanity is among her multitudinous vices. You cannot imagine the beauty she is able to assume. It stuns the senses, and negates reason.
When she takes on this aspect no man can resist her. The sight of her reduces even the most noble soul to the level of a beast.' He fell silent, his eyes dulled with sorrow. 'Despite all my training as an adept I was not able to restrain my basest instincts. I lost the ability and the
M
inclination to reckon consequences. For me, in that moment, nothing but her existed. I was consumed by lust. She toyed with me, like the winds of autumn with a dead leaf. To me it seemed she gave me everything, every delight contained in this earth. She gave me her body.'
He groaned softly. 'Even now the memory drives me to the brink of madness. Each rise and swell, enchanted opening and fragrant cleft … I did not try to resist her, for no mortal man could do so.' A faint, agitated colour had risen to his wan features.
'Taita, you remarked that the original Eos was an insatiable nymphomaniac, and that is so, but this other Eos outstrips her in appetite. When she kisses, she sucks out the vital juices of her lover, as you or I might suck out the juices from a ripe orange. When she takes a man between her thighs in that exquisite but infernal coupling she draws out of him his very substance. She takes from him his soul. His substance is the ambrosia that nourishes her. She is as some monstrous vampire that feeds on human blood. She chooses only superior beings as her victims, men and women of Good Mind, servants of the Truth, a magus of illustrious reputation or a gifted seer. Once she detects her victim, she runs him down as relentlessly as a wolf harries a deer. She is omnivorous. No matter age or appearance, physical frailty or imperfection. It is not their flesh that feeds her appetites, but their souls. She devours young and old, men and women. Once she has them in her thrall, wrapped in her silken web, she draws from them their accumulated store of learning, wisdom and experience. She sucks it out through their mouths with her accursed kisses. She draws it from their loins in her loathsome embrace. She leaves only a desiccated husk.'
'I have witnessed this carnal exchange,' Taita said. 'When Kashyap reached the end of his life he passed on his wisdom and learning to Samana, whom he had chosen as his successor.'
'What you witnessed was a willing exchange. The obscene act Eos practises is a carnal invasion and conquest. She is a ravager and devourer of souls.'
For a while Taita was dumbstruck. Then he asked, 'Ancient and infirm? Whole or maimed? Man and woman? How does she couple with those who are no longer capable of union?'
'She has powers that you and I, adepts though we may be, cannot emulate or even fathom. She has developed the art of regenerating the frail flesh of her victims for a day, only to destroy them by wiping away their minds and their very substance.'
'Nevertheless, you have not answered my question, Demeter. What is
she? Mortal or immortal, human or goddess? Does this rare beauty she possesses know no term? Is she not as vulnerable to the ravages of time and age as you and I?'
'My answer to your question, Taita, is that I know not. She may well be the oldest woman on earth,' Demeter spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness, 'but she seems to have discovered some power previously known only to the gods. Does that make her a goddess? I do not know.
She may not be immortal, but she is certainly ageless.'
'What do you propose, Demeter? How will we trace her to her lair?'
'She has already found you. You have excited her monstrous appetites.
You do not have to seek her out. She is already stalking you. She will draw you to her.'
'Demeter, I am long past any temptations and snares that even this creature can place in my path.'
'She wants you, she must have you. However, you and I together pose a threat to her.' He thought for a while about his own statement, then went on, 'She has already taken from me almost everything I can give her. She will want to rid herself of me, and isolate you, but at the same time she must see to it that no harm comes to you. Alone, you will find it almost impossible to resist her. With our combined forces we may be able to repel her, and even find a way to put her apparent immortality to the test.'
'I am glad to have you at my side,' said Taita.
Demeter did not respond at once. He studied Taita with a strange new expression. At last he asked quietly, 'You feel no sense of dread, no premonition of disaster?'
'No. I believe that you and I can succeed,' Taita told him.
'You have considered my solemn warnings. You understand the powers against which we will pit ourselves. Yet you do not hesitate. You entertain no doubts — you, who are the wisest of men. How can you explain this?'
'I know it is inevitable. I must face her with boldness and good heart.'
'Taita, search the innermost recesses of your soul. Do you detect in yourself a sense of elation? When last did you feel so vigorous, so vital?'
Taita looked thoughtful, but did not answer.
'Taita, you must be entirely truthful with yourself. Do you feel like a warrior marching to a battle you may not survive? Or do you find in your breast another unwarranted emotion? Do you feel reckless of all consequences, like a young swain hurrying to a lovers' tryst?'
Taita remained silent but his mien changed: the light flush of his
cheeks subsided and his eyes became sober. 'I am not afraid,' he said at last.
'Tell me truly. Your mind swarms with prurient images, and unconscionable yearnings, does it not?' Taita covered his eyes and clenched his jaw. Demeter went on remorselessly: '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 woman who ever lived. Soon it will seem that I 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.'
Taita shook his whole body, as though to rid himself of a swarm of poisonous insects. 'Forgive me, Demeter!' he cried. 'Now that you warn me of what she is doing, I can feel the enervating weakness welling within me. I was losing control of judgement and reason. What you say is true. I find myself haunted by strange longings. Great Horus, shield me.' Taita groaned. 'I never thought to know such agony again. I thought myself long past the torments of desire.'
'The contrary emotions that assail you spring not from your wisdom and reason. They are an infection of the spirit, a poisoned arrow shot from the bow of the great witch. I was once harassed by her in the same manner. You can see the state to which I have been reduced. However, I have learnt how to survive.'
'Teach me. Help me to withstand her, Demeter.'
'I have unwittingly led Eos to you. I believed I had eluded her, but she has used me as a hunting hound to lead her to you, her next victim.
But now we must stand together, as one. That is the only way we can hope to withstand her onslaughts. However, before all else, we must leave Gallala. We cannot rest long in one place. If she is uncertain of our exact whereabouts, it will be more difficult for her to focus her powers upon us. Between us we must weave a perpetual screen of concealment to cover our movements.'
'Meren!' Taita called urgently. He was swiftly at his master's side.
'How soon can we be ready to leave Gallala?'
'I will bring the horses with all haste. But where are we going, Master?'
'Thebes and Karnak,' Taita replied, and glanced at Demeter.
He nodded agreement. 'We must muster all support from every source, temporal as well as spiritual.'
'Pharaoh is the chosen of the gods, and the most powerful of men,1 Taita agreed.
'And you are the chief of his favourites,' said Demeter. 'We must leave this very night, to go to him.'
Taita rode Windsmoke, and Meren followed closely on one of the other horses they had brought from the plains of Ecbatana. Demeter lay in his swaying litter, high on the back of his camel, Taita alongside him.
The litter curtains were open and they could converse easily over the other soft sounds of the caravan: the creak and jingle of tack, the fall of horses' hoofs and camels' pads on the yellow sand, the low voices of the servants and guards. During the night they stopped twice to rest and water the animals. At each halt Taita and Demeter performed the spell of concealment. Their combined powers were formidable and the screen they wove seemed impervious: although they scried the silences of the night around them before they mounted and moved on, neither could detect any further sign of Eos's baleful presence.
'She has lost us for the moment, but we will always be at risk, and most vulnerable when we sleep. We should never do so at the same time,' Demeter advised.
'We will never again relax our vigilance,' Taita asserted. “I will keep up my guard against careless mistakes. I had underestimated our enemy, allowed Eos to take me by surprise. 1 am ashamed of my weakness and stupidity.'
'I am a hundred times deeper in guilt than you are,' Demeter admitted.
'I fear my powers are waning fast, Taita. I should have guided you, but I behaved like a novice. We can afford no further lapses. We must seek out the weaknesses in our enemy, and attack her there, but without exposing ourselves.'
'Despite all you have told me, my knowledge and understanding of Eos is pitifully inadequate. You must recall every detail about her that you discovered during your ordeal, no matter how trivial or seemingly insignificant,' Taita told him, 'or 1 am blind, while she holds every advantage.'
'You are the stronger of we two,' Demeter said, 'but you are right.
Remember how swift her reaction was when you and 1 came together and she descried our combined forces. Within hours of our first meeting she could overlook us. From now on her attacks upon me will become more relentless and vicious. We must not rest until I have passed on to you all that I have learnt about her. We do not know how long we will
be together before she kills me or drives a wedge between us. Every hour is precious.'
Taita nodded. 'Then let us begin with the most important matters.
I know who she is, and where she came from. Next, I must know her whereabouts. Where is she, Demeter? Where can we find her?'
'She has hidden in numerous lairs since she escaped from the temple of Apollo, when Agamemnon and his brother, Menelaus, sacked Ilion so long ago.'
'Where did you have your fateful encounter with her?'
'On an island in the Middle Sea, which has since become the stronghold of the sea people, that nation of corsairs and pirates. At that time she lived on the slopes of a great burning mountain she named Etna, a volcano that spewed forth fire and brimstone and sent clouds of poisoned smoke to the very heavens.'
'That was long ago?'
'Centuries before either you or I was born.'
Taita chuckled drily. 'Yes, indeed, it was long ago.' His expression hardened again. 'Is it possible that Eos may still be at Etna?'
'She is no longer there,' Demeter replied, without hesitation.
'How can you be certain?'
'By the time I broke free of her, my body was shattered in health and vitality, my mind unhinged, and my psychic forces were almost dispersed by the ordeal through which she had put me. I was her prisoner for little more than a decade, but I aged a lifetime for each of those years.
Nevertheless I was able to take advantage of a mighty eruption of the volcano to conceal my flight, and I had help from the priests of a small, insignificant god, whose temple lay in the valley below Etna's eastern slopes. They spirited me across the narrow straits to the mainland in a tiny boat, and led me to sanctuary in another temple of their sect, hidden in the mountains, where they placed me in the care of their brothers.
Those good priests helped me to reassemble what remained of my powers, which I needed to intercept a singularly virulent spell that Eos sent after me.'
'Could you turn it back upon her?' Taita demanded. 'Were you able to wound her with her own magic?'
'She may have become complacent, because she underestimated my remaining strength and did not protect herself adequately. I aimed my return strike at her essence, which I could still see with my Inner Eye.
She was close at hand. Only the narrow strait of water stood between us.
1
WILBUR SMITH
My riposte flew true and hit her hard. I heard her cry of agony echo across the ether. Then she disappeared, and I believed for a while that I had destroyed her. My hosts made discreet enquiries from their brothers in the temple below the mountain of Etna. We heard from them that she had vanished, and that her former abode was deserted. I wasted no time in taking advantage of my victory. As soon as I was strong enough I left my sanctuary and travelled to the furthest ends of the earth, to the continent of ice, as far from Eos as I could go. At last I found a place where I could lie quiescent, as still as a frightened frog beneath a stone.
It was as well that I did so. After a very short time, fifty years or less, I felt the resurgence of Eos, my enemy. Her powers seemed to have been mightily enhanced. The ether around me hummed with the vicious darts she hurled at random after me. She could not place me precisely, and although many of her barbs came close to where I lay, none struck home.