'Anything is possible, Taita, if only you believe in me.'
Suddenly Taita felt a powerful sensation in his crotch. He had no idea what was happening to him - until he realized that the sensations experienced by the phantom youth were being mirrored in his own body.
He felt the weight of that magnificent phallus tugging at his guts. When he watched it stiffen and arc like a drawn war bow, he felt the tension stretch his own nerves to breaking point. When he saw the youth's glans engorge with blood, turning a dark, angry red, it resonated in every fibre of his own body. A copious ejaculation gushed from the gaping cleft and he felt the exquisite agony of each scalding jet. His back arched involuntarily and his lips drew back in rictus as he clenched his teeth.
A hoarse cry burst from his throat. His whole body jerked and trembled like that of a man seized by the palsy, then he sagged back on the grass, panting as though he had run a league, his strength spent.
'Had you forgotten? Had you suppressed the memory of the ultimate pinnacle of physical delight? What you have just experienced is only a grain of sand compared to the mountain that I can give to you,' said the child, and ran to the edge of the stone step. He poised there and looked across at Taita for the last time. 'Think on it, Taita. It is yours if you dare stretch out your hand to me.' He dived cleanly into the pool.
Taita saw his pale body flash as he shot down into the depths and disappeared. He could not summon the strength to rise to his feet again until the sun had made half its transit of the sky.
It was late in the afternoon when he reached the sanatorium. He found Meren sitting in his darkened cell with his nurse. His pleasure when he heard Taita's voice was pathetic to witness, and Taita felt guilty to have left him so long alone in the cell with the darkness and doubts that must be consuming him.
'The woman came again while you were away,' Meren cried. 'She says that tomorrow she will remove the bandages completely. I can hardly contain myself that long.'
Taita was still so overwrought by memories of the afternoon's events that he knew he would not be able to sleep that night. After they had eaten the evening meal he asked the male nurse if he could find a lute he might borrow.
'Dr Gibba is a lute player,' the fellow replied. 'Shall I refer your request to him?'
He went off and returned some little time later with the instrument.
There had been a time when Taita's voice had been the joy of all who heard him sing, and it was still tuneful and true. He sang until Meren's chin dropped on to his chest and he began to snore. Even then Taita went on strumming softly, until he found his fingers picking out the haunting melody that the imp had played on his flute. He stopped playing and put away the lute.
He lay down on the mattress on the opposite side of the cell from Meren and composed himself, but sleep eluded him. In the darkness his mind ran on, then took flight like a wild horse he could not control. The images and sensations that the imp had grafted into his mind crowded back so vividly that he had to escape them. He took his cloak, slipped from the cell and went out on to the lawns, which were bathed in brilliant moonlight, to walk along the edge of the lake. He felt the ice on his cheeks, but this time it was his own tears and not some alien presence that had chilled him.
'Taita who is neither man nor woman.' He repeated the imp's gibe and wiped his eyes on the fold of his woollen cloak. 'Am I to be imprisoned in this ancient maimed body for all eternity?' he wondered.
'Eos's temptations are as great a torment as any physical torture. Horus, Isis and Osiris, give me the strength to resist them.'
— —
We do not need your nurses today,' Hannah said, as she knelt beside Meren and trimmed the wick of the one small oil lamp that was the cell's only illumination. 'We will not inflict more pain on you. Instead we hope to compensate you for that which you have already suffered.' She set aside the lamp. It threw a soft light on to Meren's bandaged head. 'Are you ready, Dr Gibba?' While Gibba supported Meren's head she unpicked the knot in the bandage and peeled it away. Then she handed the lamp to Taita. 'Please direct the light on to his eye.'
Taita held a polished silver disc behind the flame to reflect a beam on to Meren's face. Hannah leant closer to examine the stitches that closed his eyelids. 'Good,' she said comfortably. 'I can see no vice in the way it has healed. I believe it is now safe to remove the stitches. Please hold the light steady.'
She snipped the stitches and, with forceps, drew the gut threads from the needle punctures. The lids were glued together with dried mucus and blood. Gently she washed it away with a cloth dipped in warm aromatic water.
'Please try to open your eye now, Colonel Cambyses,' she instructed.
The eyelid quivered, then flickered open. Taita felt his heart thump louder and more rapidly as he looked into the eye socket, which was no longer an empty pit.
'In the name of the holy triumvirate, Osiris, Isis and Horus,' Taita whispered, 'you have regrown a perfect new eye!'
'Not yet perfect,' Hannah demurred. 'It is but half-way grown and is still much smaller than the other. The pupil is cloudy.' She took the silver disc from Gibba and deflected the beam directly into the immature eye. 'On the other hand, see how the pupil contracts. It has already started to function correctly.' She covered Meren's good eye with the cotton pad. 'Tell us what you can see, Colonel,' she ordered.
'A bright light,' he replied.
Hannah passed her hand in front of his face with her fingers splayed open. 'Tell us what you see now.'
'Shadows,' he said doubtfully, but then he went on, firmly now, 'No, wait! I see fingers. The outline of five fingers.'
It was the first time Taita had seen Hannah smile and, in the yellow
lamplight, she looked younger and gentler. 'Nay, good Meren,' he said.
'This day you have seen more than fingers. You have seen a miracle.'
'I must bandage the eye again.' Hannah was brisk and businesslike once more. 'It will be many more days before it is able to withstand the light of day.'
The image of the imp in the grotto haunted Taita. He experienced a compulsion that grew more powerful each day to return to the gardens and wait for him beside the hidden pool. In the forefront of his mind he knew that this urge was not his own: it came directly from Eos.
Once I enter her territory I am powerless. She possesses every advantage.
She is the great black cat and I am her mouse, he thought.
Then his inner voice answered: What then, Taita? Did you not come to Jarri to struggle against her? What became of your grand design? Now that you have found her, will you slink away cravenly?
He sought another excuse for his cowardice: If only I could find a shield to deflect her malicious darts.
He tried to find distraction from these haunting fears and temptations by helping Meren to gain full use of his immature eye. At first Hannah removed the bandages for only a few hours, and even then she did not allow him to experience daylight but kept him indoors.
The lens of the eye was still cloudy and the colour of the iris was also pale and milky. It did not work in unison with the good eye but wandered at random. Taita helped him focus it: he held the Periapt of Lostris in front of Meren and moved it from side to side, up and down, nearer and further away.
At first the new eye tired quickly. It watered and the lid blinked involuntarily. It grew bloodshot and itchy. Meren complained that images remained blurred and distorted.
Taita discussed this with Hannah: 'The eye is of a different colour from the original. It does not match in size or motion. You said once that you were a gardener of men. Perhaps the eye you have grafted is of another strain.'