The Quest

Meren said with authority.

In the end they looked at Taita for the truth.

'Spiders,' said Taita, which threw them into further passionate argument.

'Spiders do not fly. He means flies - dragon flies.'

'He toys with our credibility,' said Meren. 'I know him well. He loves his little jokes.'

Two days later the wind veered and one of the cloudy up-wellings drifted over the camp. Then as it reached land it began to descend. Fenn leapt high in the air and snatched something out of it.

'Spiders!' she squealed. 'Taita is never wrong.' The cloud was formed by countless newly hatched spiders, so immature as to be almost transparent.

Each had woven a gossamer sail, which it used to catch the dawn breeze and sail aloft to be transported to some new quarter of the lake.

As soon as the sun struck the surface the wind picked up, until by noon it was whipping the water to foaming frenzy. During the afternoon it subsided until, at sunset, all was calm and serene. Flights of flamingoes strung out along the horizon in wavy pink lines. Hippopotamuses wallowed like granite boulders, grunting and bellowing in the shallows, cavernous pink jaws gaping to threaten rivals with their long incisors. Mighty crocodiles stretched out on the sandbars, sunning themselves, holding their mouths wide open so that water birds could pick the scraps of flesh from between their stubby yellow fangs. The nights were still, with the stars reflected on the velvety black waters.

To the west the lake was so extensive that there was no sight of land, other than a few small islands that seemed to sail like dhows on the wind-torn surface. To the south, they could just make out the far shore of the lake. There were no high mountain peaks or volcanoes, just a blue tracing of low hills.

Poto had warned them about the ferocity of the local tribes, so they built a secure camp with branches from the thorny acacia trees that burgeoned on the shores of the lake. During the days the horses and mules grazed on the fine grasses that grew on the littoral, or waded out to feast on the water-lilies and other aquatic plants in the shallows.

'When will we set out to find Kalulu, the shaman?' Fenn demanded.

'This very evening after you have had your dinner.'

As he had promised he took her to the beach, where they gathered driftwood and built a small fire. They squatted over it and Taita took her hands in his, forming the circle of protection. 'If Kalulu is an adept, as Poto suggested, we can cast for him across the ether,' Taita told her.

'Can you do that, Taita?' Fenn asked, in awe.

'According to Poto, he lives in the marshes very close to this place, perhaps only a few leagues distant from where we are now. He is within easy call.'

'Is distance important?' Fenn asked.

Taita nodded. 'We know his name. We know his physical appearance, his amputated legs. Of course, it would be easier if we knew his spirit name, or if we possessed something of his person - a hair, nail clippings, sweat, urine or dung. However, I will teach you to cast for a subject with what we have.' Taita took a pinch of herbs from his pouch and threw them on to the fire. They flared in a cloud of pungent smoke. 'This will drive off any evil influence that may be hovering nearby,' he explained.

'Look into the flames. If Kalulu comes you will see him there.'

Still holding hands they began to sway in time to a soft humming that

Taita made deep in his chest. When Fenn had cleared her mind as he had taught her, they conjured up the three symbols of power, and silently conjugated them.I 'Mensaar!'

'Kydash!'

'Ncube!'

The ether sang round them. Taita cast into it.

'Kalulu, hearken! O legless one, open thine ears!' He repeated the invitation at intervals as the moon rose and travelled half-way towards its zenith.

Suddenly they felt the strike. Fenn gasped at the thrill, like a discharge of static through her fingertips. She stared into the fire, and saw the outline of a face. It looked to her like that of an ancient but eternally wise ape.

'Who calls?' The fiery lips formed the question in the Tenmass. 'Who calls on Kalulu?'

'I am Taita of Gallala.'

'If you are of the Truth, show me your spirit name.' Taita allowed it to materialize as a symbol over his head: the sign of a falcon with a broken wing. It would be mortally dangerous for him to enunciate it into the ether where it might be pounced on by a malevolent entity.

'I acknowledge you, brother in Truth,' Kalulu said.

'Reveal your own spirit name,' Taita challenged him. Slowly the outline of a crouching African hare took shape above the face in the fire.

It was the mythological wise one, Kalulu the Hare, whose head and long ears were portrayed in the disc of the full moon.

'I acknowledge you, brother of the right hand. I call upon you for your help,' said Taita.

'I know where you are and I am close by. Within three days I will come to you,' Kalulu replied.

Fenn was enchanted by the art of casting for a person across the ether. 'Oh, Taita, I never dreamt it was possible. Please teach me to do it.'

'First you must learn your own spirit name.'

'I think I know it,' she replied. 'You called me by it once, did you not?

Or was it a dream, Taita?'

'Dreams and reality often blend and become one, Fenn. What is the name you remember?'

'Child of the Water,' she replied diffidently. 'Lostris.'

Taita stared at her in amazement. She was unconsciously demonstrating her psychic powers as seldom before. She had managed to reach back into the other life. Excitement and elation made his breathing quicken.

'Do you know the symbol of your spirit name, Fenn?'

'No, I have never seen it,' she whispered. 'Or have I, Taita?'

'Think of it,' he instructed. 'Hold it in the forefront of your mind!'

She closed her eyes, and reached instinctively for the talisman that hung at her throat. 'Do you have it in your mind?' he asked gently.

'I have it,' she whispered, and he opened his Inner Eye. Her aura was a dazzling brilliance that cloaked her from head to foot, and the symbol of her spirit name hung over her head, etched in the same celestial fire.

The shape of the nymphaea flower, the water-lily, he thought. It is complete. She has come into full bloom, like her spirit symbol. Even in childhood, she has become an adept of the first water. Aloud he said to her, 'Fenn, your mind and spirit are fully prepared. You are ready to learn everything I can teach you, and perhaps more than that.'

'Then teach me to cast upon the ether, and to reach you even when great distances separate us.'

'We will begin at once,' he said. 'I already have something of yours.'

'What is it? Where?' she asked eagerly. In reply he touched the Periapt that hung round his neck. 'Show me,' she demanded, and he opened the locket to reveal the coil of hair it contained.

'Hair,' she said, 'but not mine.' She touched it with her forefinger.

'This is the hair of an old lady. See? There are grey strands mixed with the gold.'

'You were old when I cut it from your head,' he agreed. 'You were already dead. You were lying upon the embalming table, cold and stark.'

She shuddered with delicious horror. 'Was that in the other life?' she asked. 'Tell me about it. Who was I?'

'It will take me a lifetime to tell it all,' he said, 'but let me start by saying that you were the woman I loved, even as I love you now.' She groped for his hand, blinded by tears.

'You have something of mine,' she whispered. 'Now 1 need something of yours.' She reached up into his beard and twisted a thick strand around her finger. 'Your beard struck me when you pursued me on the first day we met. It shines like purest silver.' She drew the small sharp

bronze dagger from the sheath on her girdle, and cut the strand close to the skin, then lifted it to her nose and smelt it, as though it were a fragrant blossom. 'It is your smell, Taita, your very essence.' I 'I will make you a locket to keep it in.'