He searched for the Star of Lostris, but it was not there. Not even the faintest glow remained. It had come from the void, and to the void it had returned. He was assailed by a terrible sorrow, and felt himself drowning in his own loneliness. He began to turn away when, faintly, he heard singing. It was a young voice he recognized at once, although he had last heard it so long ago. His heart bounded against his ribs, a wild creature struggling to be free, as the sound drew nearer.
'My heart flutters up like a wounded quail when I see my beloved's face and my cheeks bloom like the dawn sky to the sunshine of his smile …'
It was the first song he had taught her, and it had always been her favourite. Eagerly he turned back to find her, for he knew that the singer could be none other than Lostris. She had been his ward, and he had been charged with her care and education soon after her natural mother had died of the river fever. He had come to love her, as he knew no man had ever loved a woman.
He shaded his eyes against the dazzle of the sunlit sea, and made out a shape upon its surface. The shape drew closer, and its outline became clearer. He saw that it was a giant golden dolphin, which swam with such speed and grace that the water curled open ahead of its snout in a creaming bow wave. A girl stood upon its back. She balanced like a skilled charioteer, leaning back against the reins of seaweed with which she controlled the elegant creature, and she smiled across at him as she sang.
Taita fell to his knees on the sand. 'Mistress!' he cried. 'Sweet Lostris!'
She was twelve again, the age at which he had first met her. She wore only a skirt of bleached linen, crisp and shining, white as the wing of an egret. The skin of her slim body was lustrous as oiled cedarwood from the mountains beyond Byblos. Her breasts were the shape of new-laid eggs, tipped with rose garnets.
'Lostris, you have returned to me. Oh, sweet Horus! Oh, merciful Isis!
You have given her back to me,' he sobbed.
'I never left you, beloved Taita,' Lostris broke off from her song to say. Her expression sparkled with mischief and a childlike sense of fun.
Though laughter curled her lovely lips, her eyes were soft with compassion.
She glowed with womanly wisdom and understanding. 'I have never forgotten my promise to you.'
The golden dolphin slid up on to the beach, and Lostris sprang from its back to the sand in a single graceful movement. She stood with both arms extended towards him. The thick sidelock of her hair swung forward over one shoulder and dangled between her girlish breasts. Every plane and silken contour of her lovely face was graven into his mind. Her teeth sparkled like a mother-of-pearl necklace as she called, 'Come to me, Taita. Come back to me, my true love!'
Taita started towards her. He hobbled the first few steps, his legs stiff and clumsy with age. Then new strength surged through them. He raised himself on his toes and flew effortlessly over the soft white sand. He could feel his sinews taut as bowstrings, his muscles supple and resilient.
'Oh, Taita, how beautiful you are!' Lostris called. 'How swift and
strong, how young, my darling.' His heart and his spirit were exalted as he knew that her words were true. He was young again, and in love.
He reached out both hands to her and she seized them in a death grip.
Her fingers were cold and bony, twisted with arthritis, the skin was dry and rough.
'Help me, Taita,' she screamed, but it was no longer her voice. It was the voice of a very old man in agony. 'She has me in her coils!'
Lostris was shaking his hands with the desperation of mortal terror.
Her strength was unnatural - she was crushing his fingers and he could feel the pain of bones buckling, sinews cracking. He tried to tear himself free. 'Let me go!' he shouted. 'You are not Lostris.' He was no longer young, the strength that had filled him only a moment before had evaporated. Age and dismay overwhelmed him as he felt the wondrous tapestry of his dream unravelling, ripped to tatters by the chilling gales of dreadful reality.
He found himself pinned down on the floor of the tent by an enormous weight. His chest was caving in under it. He could not breathe. His hands were still crushed. The shrill screams were close to his ear, so close he thought his eardrums might burst.
He forced his eyes open, and the last images of his dream vanished.
Demeter's face was only inches above his. It was almost unrecognizable, distorted with agony, swollen and empurpled. The mouth hung open and the yellow tongue lolled out. His cries were fading into gasps and desperate wheezes.
Taita was shocked fully awake. The tent was filled with a heavy reptilian stench, and Demeter was enveloped in massive scaly coils.
Only his head and one arm were free. He was still clinging with his free hand to Taita, like a drowning man. The coils were laid in perfectly symmetrical loops around him and tightened with regular muscular spasms.
The scales rasped against each other as the coils clenched, crushed and constricted Demeter's frail body. The ophidian skin was patterned with a marvellous design of gold, chocolate and russet, but it was only when Taita saw the head that he knew what creature had attacked them.
'Python,' he grunted aloud. The snake's head was twice the size of his fists clenched together. Its jaws gaped wide and its fangs were fastened into Demeter's bony shoulder. Thick ropes of glistening saliva drooled from the corners of the grinning mouth - the lubricant with which it covered its prey before swallowing it whole. The small round eyes that stared at Taita were black and implacable. The coils tightened upon
themselves in another contraction. Taita found himself helpless beneath the weight of man and serpent. He looked up into Demeter's face as the man's final scream was choked into silence. Demeter was no longer able to draw breath, and his pale eyes bulged sightlessly from their sockets.
Taita heard one of his ribs snap under the remorseless pressure.
Taita found enough breath to bellow, 'Meren!' He knew that Demeter was almost gone. The death grip on his hand had slackened and he was able to wrench himself free, but he was still trapped. To save Demeter he needed some weapon. He had the image of Lostris still in his mind, and his hand flew to his throat. It fastened on the gold star that hung there on its chain: the Periapt of Lostris.
'Arm me, my darling,' he whispered. The heavy metal ornament fitted snugly into his palm. He slashed at the head of the python with it. He aimed for one of its beaded eyes and the sharp metal point scored the transparent scale that covered it. The snake let out a vicious, explosive hiss. Its coiled body convulsed and twisted, but its fangs were still buried in the flesh of Demeter's shoulder. They were set back at an angle so that it could maintain a grip on its prey while it swallowed, designed by nature not to release readily. The python made a series of violent regurgitating movements as it tried to work its jaws free.
Taita struck again. He drove the sharp point of the metal star into the corner of the snake's eye, and screwed it in. The giant coils of the serpentine body sprang loose as the python released Demeter, thrashing its head from side to side until its sharp fangs were free of his flesh. Its eye was ripped open, and splattered cold oleaginous blood over both men as it reared back. With the weight off his chest Taita gasped in a shallow breath, then shoved aside Demeter's slack body as the enraged python struck at his face. He threw up his arm and the python locked its fangs into his wrist, but the hand that held the star was still free. He felt the sharp teeth grind against his wrist bone, but the pain gave him a wild new strength. He stabbed the point into the wounded eye again, and worked it deeper. The snake exploded into further paroxysms of agony as Taita tore the eye out of its skull. It freed its jaws to strike again and again, the heavy blows of its snout like those of a mailed fist. Taita rolled about on the floor of the tent, twisting and wriggling to avoid them, as he screamed for Meren. The heaving coils of the serpent, thicker than his chest, seemed to fill the entire tent.