Before it fell back, particles of molten magma splattered his bare legs and feet. The pain was unbearable and he screeched in agony.
'Taita!' Fenn had sensed his pain and called to him across the ether.
'Help me,' he sobbed.
'I am with you,' she replied. 'With all our might - now!'
The pain was a goad. He strained upwards until he felt the sinews of his arms popping, and gradually, achingly slowly, he drew himself up until his eyes were level with the lip, but then he could rise no further.
He felt his arms giving way.
'Fenn, help me!' he cried again.
'Together! Now!' He felt the surge of her strength. He drew himself up slowly until at last he could throw one arm over the lip. He hung on it for a moment, then heard her cry again.
'Together again, Taita. Now!'
He heaved upwards and threw out his other arm. It found purchase.
With both arms holding his courage returned. He ignored the pain of his burnt legs, heaved upwards and the top half of his body flopped over the lip. Kicking and panting, he dragged himself into the mouth of the opening. He lay there for a long time until he had recovered the strength to sit up. Then he looked down at his legs and saw the burns. He pulled off the lumps of lava that were still adhering to the soles of his feet, and lumps of his flesh came away with them. Upon his calves, blisters filled with transparent fluid were ballooning. He was crippled by pain but, using the wall as support, he dragged himself to his feet. Then he staggered on down the tunnel. The soles of his feet were raw, and he left bloody footprints on the rock. The glow from the fiery cauldron behind him lit his way.
The tunnel ran straight for a short distance then began to descend and the ruddy light faded. In its last glimmer he made out a half consumed torch jammed into a crack in the rock. It had been there since Eos's last visit so long ago. He had no means of igniting it, he thought.
Then he remembered the power he had taken from the witch and stretched out his hand towards it, pointing his forefinger at the charred end and focusing on it his psychic force.
A glowing spot appeared at the head of the dead torch. A thin spiral of smoke rose from it, and then, abruptly, it burst into flame and burnt up brightly. He took it down from the crack and, holding it high, hobbled on as fast as his scalded feet would carry him. He came to the head of another inclined shaft. This was also stepped, but the rock was not worn, the marks of the masons' chisels still fresh. He started down it, but the steps seemed endless and he had to stop repeatedly to rest. In one such interval he became conscious of a low susurration, a trembling
in the air and in the rock upon which he sat. The sound was not constant but rose and fell intermittently, like the slow beating of a gigantic pulse.'
He knew what it was.
Eagerly now, he came to his feet and started downwards again. As he went, the sound became stronger and clearer. Down again and still down Taita went, and the sound swelled, his excitement, too, until it was strong enough to dull the pain in his legs. The sound of the mighty pulse reached the peak of its volume. The rock walls shook. He dragged himself forward, then stopped, astounded. He had acquired the memory of this place from Eos but the tunnel had come to a dead end. Slowly, painfully, he went forward and stood before the wall.
It seemed to be of natural rough stone. There were no cracks or openings in it, but in its centre, level with his eyes, three signs had been carved. The first was so old and eroded by the sulphurous gas of the lava cauldron that it was illegible, its antiquity unfathomable. The second was only slightly fresher, and when he studied it more closely he saw that it was the outline of a tiny pyramid, the soul sign of a priest or a holy man.
The third was the most recent but, nevertheless, many centuries old. It was the cat's-paw outline of Eos's spirit sign.
The engravings were the signatures of those who had visited this place before him. Since the beginning time, only three others had found their way here. He touched the stone and found it cold, a marked contrast to the hellish craters and flaming lava that he had passed along the way.
'This is the gateway to the Font for which men have searched down the ages,' he whispered, in deep reverence. He laid his hand upon the cat's-paw symbol, which grew warm to his touch. He waited for a lull in the great pulse of the earth, then uttered the three words of power he had taken from the witch: her secret conjugation known to no other.
'Tashkalon! Ascartow! Silondela!'
The rock groaned and began to move under his hand. He pressed harder, and there was a harsh, grinding noise as the entire wall rolled ponderously aside, like a turning millstone. Behind it lay another short flight of stairs, then a bend in the tunnel from which came a roar like that of a wounded lion. No longer muffled by the stone door the full thunder of the earth pulse burst round him. Before he could brace himself, he was driven back a pace by its power. The tunnel ahead was lit by a weird blue light, which grew stronger in harmony with the great pulse, then faded as the sound receded.
Taita stepped through the portals. Two more torches were set into
slots in the walls on each side. He lit them, and when they were burning brightly, he limped on slowly down the passage towards the source. He was filled with a sense of awe far greater than he had ever known, even in the holy sanctums at the temples of the great deities of Egypt. He turned the corner at the end of the passage and stood at the top of another short stone staircase. At the bottom he could make out a smooth floor of white sand.
Filled with trepidation, he went down the steps and found himself standing in what appeared to be the dry bed of a great subterranean river.
He knew that, soon, the sound and light would burst out of the dark tunnel. What would be the consequences if he were to allow the mystical waters of the river of life to pour over him?
To live for ever might be a curse rather than a blessing. After the first aeons of time had passed, they might be followed by paralysing boredom and staleness from which there would be no escape. Would conscience and morality become eroded by time? Would high principles and decency fade until they were replaced by the perverse evil and wickedness in which Eos had indulged?
His nerve failed and he turned to flee. But he had hesitated too long.
Austere blue light filled the tunnel. Even if he had wished to, he could no longer escape it. He turned to face the tunnel and braced himself to receive the approaching thunder. From the mouth of the subterranean river burst a radiance that had no apparent source. Only when it swirled round his bare feet did he realized that it was neither gaseous nor liquid.
It was as light as air but at the same time dense and weighty. It was icy cold on his skin, but it warmed the flesh beneath.
This was the elixir of life eternal.
Swiftly it grew to a flood that rose to his waist. Had it been water its weight would have swept him off his feet and carried him down the river course into the depths of the earth. Instead it buoyed him up in its soft embrace. The thunder filled his head and the blue tide rose to his shoulders. He felt weightless and free, light as thistledown. He drew a last deep breath and shut his eyes as the tide rushed over his head.
He could still see the blue radiance through his closed eyelids, and the thunder filled his ears.
He felt the Blueness seeping into his lower body openings, filling him.
He opened his eyes and it washed over them. He exhaled the breath he was holding, then drew the next. He felt the blue elixir flow into his nostrils, down his throat and into his lungs. He opened his mouth and gulped in the Blueness. His heart pumped strongly as the Blueness filtered
from his lungs into his blood and was carried to every part of his body.