At last he doused the oil lamp and the room was plunged into darkness. Within a short time the aura of the man behind the peep-hole faded as he left his station for the night. Taita waited a little longer, then relit the lamp, but turned down the wick until it was only a soft glow.
He held the Periapt in his cupped hands and concentrated on the mental image of Lostris, who had become Fenn. He opened the locket and took out the locks of her hair, the old and the new. His love for her was the central redoubt upon which his defences against Eos hinged. Holding the curls to his lips he affirmed that love.
'Shield me, my love,' he prayed. 'Give me strength.' He felt the power that flowed from the soft hair warm his soul, then laid it back in the locket, and took out the fragment of red stone they had removed from Meren's eye. He placed it in the palm of his hand and concentrated upon it.
'It is cold and hard,' he whispered, 'as is my hatred of Eos.' Love was the shield, hatred the sword. He affirmed both. Then he placed the stone in the locket with the hair and hung the Periapt round his neck. He blew out the lamp and lay down, but sleep would not come.
Disjointed memories of Fenn haunted him. He remembered her laughing and crying. He remembered her smiling and teasing. He remembered her serious expression as she studied some problem he had set for her. He remembered her body lying warm and soft beside him in the night, the gentle sigh of her breathing and the beat of her heart against his.
I must see her once more. It may be the last time. He sat up on his mat. I dare not cast for her, but I can overlook her. These two astral manoeuvres were similar but in essence very different. To cast was to shout to her across the ether, when an unwelcome listener might detect the disturbance. To overlook was to spy upon her secretly, like the watcher at the peep-hole. Only a savant and seer, like Eos, might be able
to detect it, as he had detected the watcher. However, he had refrained from any astral activity for so long now that the witch might no longer be on the alert.'
I must see Fenn. I must take the chance.
He held the Periapt in his right hand. The locks of hair were part of Fenn and would guide him to her. He pressed the Periapt to his forehead and closed his eyes. He began to rock from side to side. The locket in his right hand seemed to take on some strange life of its own. Taita felt it pulsing softly in rhythm to his own heartbeat. He opened his mind and let the currents of existence enter freely, swirling round him like a great river. His spirit broke free of his body and he soared aloft as though he were borne on the wings of a gigantic bird. Far below, he saw fleeting, confused images of the forests and plains. He saw what looked like an army on the march, but as he drew closer he saw it was a slow-moving column of refugees, hundreds of men, women and children trudging along a dusty road, or packed into cumbersome ox-carts. There were soldiers with them, and men on horseback. But Fenn was not among the multitude.
He moved on, his spirit soul ranging wide, holding the amulet as his lodestone, searching until the tiny cluster of buildings at Mutangi appeared in the distance ahead. As he drew closer, he realized with mounting alarm that the village was in ruins, blackened and charred.
The astral memory of a massacre hung like fog over the village. He sifted through the traces but, with surging relief, found that neither Fenn nor any others of his band were among the dead. They must have escaped from Mutangi before it had been destroyed.
He let his spirit soul range wider until he detected a pale glimmer of her presence in the foothills of the Mountains of the Moon, far to the west of the village. He followed the gleam and at last hovered above a narrow valley, hidden in the forests that covered the lower slopes of the mountains.
She is down there. He searched closer until he discovered a picket of horses. Windsmoke was among them, and so was Whirlwind. Just beyond the horses, firelight glowed from the narrow entrance to a cave. Nakonto sat above the entrance with Imbali beside him. Taita allowed his spirit soul to drift inside.
There she is. He picked out the form of Fenn stretched on a sleeping mat beside the small fire. Sidudu lay on one side of her, Meren beside Sidudu, then Hilto. Taita was so close to Fenn that he could hear her breathing. He saw that she had laid out her weapons close at hand. All
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the other members of the small party were also fully armed. Fenn was lying on her back. She wore only a linen loincloth and was bare to the waist. He gazed upon her tenderly. Since last he had seen her, her body had become even more womanly. Her breasts were larger and rounder, the nipples still tiny, but alert and darker pink now. The last vestiges of puppy fat had melted from her belly. The hollows and swells of her flesh were shadowed and highlighted by the low flames of the fire. In repose her countenance was lovely beyond his fondest memories. Taita realized with astonishment that she must now be at least sixteen. The years he had spent with her had passed so quickly.
The pattern of her breathing changed and slowly she opened her eyes.
They were green in the glow from the hearth fire but darkened as she sensed his presence. She raised herself on one elbow, and he could feel her making ready to cast for him. They were close to the Cloud Gardens.
He must stop her before she betrayed her position to the hostile thing up there on the mountain. He let his spirit sign appear in the air before her eyes. She started up as she realized he was watching her. She stared directly at the sign and he commanded her to remain silent. She smiled and nodded.
She formed her own spirit sign in reply to his, the delicate tracing of the water-lily bloom entwined with his falcon in a lover's embrace. He stayed with her a moment more. The contact had been fleeting, but to tarry longer might be deadly. He placed a single last message in her mind: 'I will return to you soon, very soon.' Then he began to withdraw.
She felt him going and the smile died on her lips. She held out a hand as if to hold him back, but he dared not stay.
With a start he jerked back into his own body, and found himself sitting cross-legged on the sleeping mat in his room at the Cloud Gardens. The sorrow of parting from her, after so brief a contact, was a heavy weight on him.
Over the months that followed he wrestled with his new flesh.
Because he had always been a horseman, he treated it as if it were an unbroken colt, bending it to his will by force and persuasion. Since his youth he had made many more arduous demands upon his body than the one he was making now. He schooled and disciplined himself mercilessly. First he practised breathing techniques, which gave him extraordinary stamina and powers of concentration.
Then he was ready to master his newly grown parts. Within a short time he was able, without manual stimulation, to remain fully tumescent from dusk to dawn. He schooled himself until he was able to withhold his seed indefinitely or to spend it at the precise moment of his choosing.
Demeter had described what he had experienced when Eos had had him in her power and their 'infernal coupling'. Taita knew that he would soon be the victim of her carnal invasion, and if he were to survive he must learn to resist. All his preparations for the struggle seemed futile.
He was matching himself against one of the most voracious predators of the ages, yet he was a virgin.
I need a woman to help me arm myself, he decided. Preferably one who is vastly experienced.
Since their first meeting, he had seen Dr Lusulu on more than one occasion in the library. Like him, she seemed to spend much of her spare time in study. They had exchanged brief salutations, but although she seemed ready to take their friendship further, he had not encouraged it.