On the tenth day after the seeding Meren seemed easier. Hannah rebandaged the eye, and declared herself pleased. 'As soon as the pain ceases completely I will be able to remove the stitches from the eyelid and review the progress he has made.'
Meren passed another peaceful night and woke with a fine appetite for his breakfast, and a resuscitated sense of humour. It was Taita rather than the patient who felt depleted and drained. Even though his eyes were still covered, Meren seemed to sense Taita's condition, his need to rest and be alone. Taita was often surprised by the flashes of intuition his usually bluff and uncomplicated companion displayed, and was moved when Meren said, 'You have played nursemaid to me long enough, Magus. Leave me alone to piddle the mattress if I need to. Go and rest. I am sure you must look dreadful.'
Taita took up his staff, and hitched the skirts of his tunic under his girdle and set off for the upper section of the gardens furthest from the sanatorium. He found this the most attractive area. He was not sure why, except that it was the wildest, most untended part of the crater. Huge boulders had broken off the rock wall and tumbled down to stand like ruined monuments to ancient kings and heroes. Over them, plants climbed and twisted in flowering profusion. He picked his way along a track he had thought he knew well, but at the point that it turned sharply between two of the great boulders he noticed for the first time that another well-defined path continued straight on towards the soaring cliff of the crater wall. He was sure that it had not been there on his last visit, but he had become accustomed to the gardens' illusory features and followed it without hesitation. Within a short distance he heard running water somewhere to his right. He followed the sound and at last pushed his way through a screen of greenery to discover another hidden nook.
He stepped into the little clearing and looked around curiously. A tiny stream issued from the mouth of a grotto, ran down over a series of lichen-covered ledges and into a pool.I It was all so charming and restful that Taita eased himself on to a patch of soft grass and, with a sigh, leant back against the trunk of a fallen tree. For a while he gazed down into the dark waters. Deep in the pool he picked out the shadow of a large fish, half concealed by a rock shelf and the ferns that overhung the water. Its tail waved hypnotically, like a flag in a lazy wind. Watching it, he realized how tired he was, and closed his eyes. He did not know how long he had slept before he was awakened by soft music.
The musician sat on a stone ledge at the far side of the pool, a boy of three or four, an imp with a mop of curls that bounced on his cheeks when he moved his head in time to the tune he was blowing on a reed flute. His skin was tanned to gold, and his features were angelic, while his little limbs were perfectly rounded and plump. He was beautiful, but when Taita gazed at him with the Inner Eye he saw no aura surrounding him.
'What is your name?' Taita asked.
The imp let the flute drop from his lips to dangle on the cord round his neck. 'I have many names,' he replied. His voice was childlike and lisping, lovelier even than the enchanted music he had played.
'If you cannot give me a name, then tell me who you are,' Taita insisted.
'I am many,' said the imp. 'I am legion.'
'Then I know who you are. You are not the cat, but the mark of her paw,' Taita said. He would not say her name aloud, but he guessed that this cherub was a manifestation of Eos.
'And I know who you are, Taita the Eunuch.'
Taita's expression remained inscrutable, but the gibe pierced the shell that protected his core like an arrow of ice. The child came to his feet with the grace of a fawn rising from its forest bed. He stood facing Taita and lifted the flute to his lips again. He played a softly lilting note, then took the reed from his lips. 'Some call you Taita the Magus, but half a man can never be more than half a Magus.' He played a silvery trill. The beauty of the music could not alleviate the agony his words had inflicted.
He dropped the pipe again and pointed down into the dark pool. 'What do you see there, Taita the Deformed? Do you recognize that image, Taita-who-is-neither-man-nor-woman?'
As he was bidden Taita stared down into the dark waters. He saw the
I
image of a young man appear from the depths, his hair thick and lustrous, his brow wide and deep, his eyes alive with wisdom and humour, understanding and compassion. It was the countenance of a scholar and an artist. He was tall with long, clean limbs. His torso was lightly muscled. His bearing was poised and graceful. His groin was clothed by a short skirt of bleached white linen. It was the body of an athlete and warrior.
'Do you recognize this man?' the imp insisted.
'Yes,' Taita whispered huskily, his voice almost failing.
'It is you,' said the imp. 'You as you once were, so many long years ago.'
'Yes,' Taita murmured.
'Now see yourself as you have become,' said the infernal child. The back of the young Taita bowed, and his limbs became thin and stick like. The fine muscle turned stringy, and his belly pouted. His hair faded to grey and became long, straight and sparse, the white teeth yellow and crooked. Deep lines appeared in his cheeks, and the skin beneath his chin sagged into folds. The eyes lost their sparkle. Although the image was a caricature, reality was only slightly exaggerated.
Then, suddenly, the loincloth was stripped away, as if by a gust of wind, and the groin exposed. A thin fringe of frizzy grey pubic hair surrounded the glaring pink, puckered cicatrice left by the cut of the castrating knife and the red-hot cauterizing rod. Taita moaned softly.
'Do you recognize yourself as you are now?' asked the imp. Strangely, his tone was filled with infinite compassion.
The pity wounded Taita more than the mockery. 'Why do you show me these things?' he asked.
'I come to warn you. If your life was lonely and barren before, it will soon become a thousand times worse. Once again you will know love and longing, but those passions can never be requited. You will burn in the hell of an impossible love.' Taita had no words to deny him, for already the agony the imp threatened had taken its grip. This, he knew, was just a foretaste of what must follow and he groaned.
'The time will come when you pray for death to release you from the agony,' the imp went on remorselessly, 'but think on this, Taita the Long Liver. How long is your suffering to last before death gives you surcease?'
In the pool the image of the ancient figure faded, and that of the beautiful, vigorous youth replaced it. He smiled up at Taita from the dark water, teeth shining, eyes sparkling.
'What has been taken away, I can give back to you,' said the child,
and his voice was the purring of a kitten. The silken cloth dropped from around the youth's waist to reveal perfectly formed genitalia, majestic and weighty.I 'I can give you back your manhood. I can make you as whole again as the image I set before you.' Taita could not tear his gaze away from it.
As he stared at it, the phallus of the phantom youth swelled and lengthened. Taita was filled with longings he had never entertained in all his life. They were so grossly prurient that he knew they could not have sprung from his own mind but had been placed there by the diabolical imp. He tried to tread them down, but they oozed back like the slime of a cesspool.
The beautiful child lifted one small hand and pointed at Taita's groin.