He felt it tingling in his fingertips and toes. His weariness fell away and he felt stronger than he could ever remember. His mind sparkled with a crystalline brilliance.
The Blueness warmed his tired and aged flesh, soothing and renewing it. The pain in his legs and feet was gone. The raw, burned skin was healing. He felt his sinews stiffen and his bones harden. His spine straightened and his muscles firmed. His mind was recharged with the wonder and optimism of the youth he had lost so long ago, but the innocence was tempered by the infinite store of wisdom and experience he now possessed.
Then, softly, the Blueness began to recede. The thunder abated and he heard it race away down the tunnel. He stood alone in the silent riverbed and looked down at himself. He raised one foot at a time. The burns on his calves and the soles of his feet were healed. The skin was smooth and unflawed. The muscles of his legs stood out hard and proud.
His legs wanted to run. He turned and bounded up the staircase towards the rolling stone gate. He took the rough-hewn steps three or four at a time. His legs hurled him up effortlessly. His feet never stumbled. He paused briefly at the portal of the chamber. He snatched down the torches from their brackets, and turned back to shout the words of power.
The rock gate rumbled shut. He saw that another signature was now engraved in the stone beside the other three, the symbol of the wounded falcon: his own spirit sign. He turned away and went on up the steep staircase. He heard the eternal thunder of the Font behind him as he climbed, and the mighty heartbeat of the earth was echoed in his chest.
He felt no need to pause for rest: his breathing was quick and light, his bare feet flew over the stone. Up he went, and the sound of the Font diminished until soon he heard it no more. The ascent seemed shorter than the descent had been. Before he expected it, he saw the furnace glow of the cauldron ahead. Once again he looked down into the seething lava lake. He paused only long enough to measure with his eye the broken gap in the rock spur. Once so deadly and intimidating, now it seemed insignificant. He backed off half a dozen paces, then sped forward. Holding the flaming torch high he jumped out from the mouth of the tunnel and flew across the gap. He landed in perfect balance three full paces beyond the fracture. Even though at the moment another furious gust struck him his balance was true: he did not waver.
He launched himself along the narrow rock causeway, running lightly where previously he had been forced to crawl. Though the wind clawed
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at him and whipped the skirt of his tunic round his legs he never slowed his pace. He ducked his head under the stone roof of the tunnel at the end of the causeway and went on, following the twists and turns, not stopping until he reached the fork of the tunnel and stepped out into the main branch.
Even here he did not feel any need to linger. His breathing was deep but even, his legs as strong as cedarwood baulks. Nevertheless he jammed the torches upright into natural cracks in the wall, hiked up his tunic and sat on a stone step. He lifted his skirt as high as his waist and admired his legs. He ran his hands over the smooth skin: the muscles beneath it were full, each clearly defined. He touched them, and they were hard and resilient. Then he noticed his hands. The skin on the back was that of a man in his prime. The dark foxing blotches of age had disappeared. His arms were like his legs, hard and shapely. He raised his hands to his face and explored it with his fingertips. His beard felt thicker, the skin on his throat and under his eyes taut and devoid of wrinkles. He ran his fingers through his hair, which was dense and springing again.
He laughed aloud with pleasure at the thought of how his features must have altered. He wished he had brought with him the mirror that he had given him. He had not felt the satisfaction of justified vanity for a century at least.
'I am young again!' he shouted, as he jumped to his feet and took up the torches.
Before he had gone much further, he came to a seep where sweet water ran from a crack and dripped down the wall of the tunnel into a natural stone basin. He drank, then went on. Even as he ran, his mind was filled with Fenn. It was so many months now since he had last seen her and he wondered how much more her appearance had altered since he had overlooked her. During the two brief contacts he had made with her earlier that day he had sensed a sea change in her.
Of course she has changed, but not as much as I have. We will astonish each other when next we meet. She is a young woman now. What will she make of me? He felt heady in anticipation of their meeting.
He had lost all sense of the passage of time. He did not know whether it was night or day, but he went on. At last he reached a point where
the tunnel descended another steep flight of steps. When he reached the bottom he found the way forward closed off by a heavy leather curtain, decorated with mystic symbols and characters. He doused the torches, then moved closer to it. A soft ray of light showed through a chink in the leather. He listened intently, his hearing immeasurably sharper and clearer than it had been before he had entered the Font. Now he heard nothing. Cautiously he opened the chink in the curtain a little wider and peered through. He was looking into a small but magnificently furnished room. He searched quickly for any sign of life but he found no aura. He opened the curtain wider and stepped through.
This was Eos's boudoir. The walls and roof were covered with tiles of ivory, each carved with beautifully executed designs that had been painted with jewel-like colours. The effect was gay and enchanting. Four oil lamps were suspended from the ceiling on bronze chains. The light they threw was mellowy. Against the far wall a silk-covered couch was piled with cushions and a low ebony table stood in the centre of the floor. On it were set bowls of fruit, honey cakes and other sweetmeats, with a small crystal jug of red wine, its stopper in the shape of a golden dolphin. On another table lay a pile of papyrus scrolls and an astrological model of the heavens, depicting the tracks of the sun, the moon and the planets, fashioned in fine gold. The floor was covered with multiple layers of silk carpets.
He went directly to the central table and selected a bunch of grapes from a bowl. He had eaten nothing since he had left the witch's warren, and now he had the appetite of a young man. Once he had devoured half of the bowl's contents, he crossed to a second door in the wall beside the couch. It was screened by another richly decorated leather curtain, the twin to the one through which he had entered. He listened beside it but heard nothing, then slipped through the division in the curtains into a smaller anteroom. Here, a stool was set beside the far wall in which a peep-hole had been drilled. Taita went to it and stooped to peer through.
He found that he was looking into the Supreme Council chamber of the oligarchs. This was the spy-hole Eos used whenever she came down from the high mountain to preside over and direct the Council's proceedings. The chamber was the one in which Taita had first met Aquer, Ek-Tang and Caithor. Now it was deserted and in semi-darkness.
The high window at the back framed a square of the night sky, which included part of the constellation of Centaurus. From its angle to the horizon he made a rough estimate of the time. It was past midnight, and the palace was quiet. He returned to Eos's boudoir and ate the rest of the
fruit. Then he stretched out upon the couch, spun a web of concealment to protect him while he slept, closed his eyes and was almost immediately asleep.
He was awoken by voices coming from the Supreme Council chamber. The intervening walls should have muffled them, but his hearing was so enhanced that he could recognize Lord Aquer's.
Taita rose quickly from the couch and went to Eos's spy-hole. He looked through it. Eight warriors in full battledress were kneeling before the dais in attitudes of subservience and respect. The two oligarchs faced them. Lord Aquer was on his feet haranguing the men who knelt before him.