Echoes

by Ellen Datlow

  This may well have been rare humour from the archaeologist, and James Preston laughed in appreciation.

  But Leah was still concerned. “But the case has been opened? There is a mummy in there?”

  Lovejoy spared the archaeologist the need for further reassurances. “There is, Leah. Morgenstern checked it out. And Tesla opened it—or had it opened. Had it sealed again. Kept it in a long wooden box at Wardencliffe to protect it so well.”

  Latimer was frowning. “After doing what, I wonder?”

  Lovejoy shrugged. “There’d be riotous urban myths aplenty for that in the right circles if word were to get out. Many would concern whether Tesla actually owned it. Many why he did, given his ongoing experiments with electricity.”

  Preston turned his attention to the device again. “But you say he did. With that device attached? Or at least there to be attached?”

  All eyes turned to the cylinder on the table in front of Lovejoy. It looked so innocuous, even comical in a clichéd mad-scientist fashion, and yet definitely sinister as well. The metal glowed dully in the storm light from over the ocean.

  “When Morgenstern’s grandson sold the mummy on last month, he told me that’s how it was set up when his own father bought it from Tesla, originally as a donation to our very own Nicholson Museum. As you can see, it never got there.”

  John Coe looked up from the device. “So, Alan, why do it this way? Why not a proper museum opening with respected archaeologists, scans—what’s the term—?”

  “CT scans,” Jessup said. “Computer tomography.”

  “—all properly documented?”

  Lovejoy spread his hands. “My mummy now. My rules.”

  Latimer looked equally dismayed. “But the archaeological significance!”

  Lovejoy chuckled. “Here’s where we recall the mantra: Private collections tend to protect artefacts better. Private collectors are the true conservators. Repeat as needed.”

  Dr. Jessup gave a thin smile and tried to reassure Latimer, though was more likely reassuring himself. “Like I say, nothing too fine. A cartonnage mummy case.”

  “Which is what?” Leah Preston asked.

  Jessup was back in his element. “Cartonnage coffins and funerary masks were originally made from overlaid strips of linen layered for strength with plaster, then sealed and painted. Over time it came to be more your waste papyrus soaked in plaster, rather like papier mâché covered in stucco. By Ptolemaic times they were using old papyrus scrolls from the Roman period. You can still buy cartonnage fragments showing the old texts easily enough online.”

  As if indeed prompted by a script, Preston seized on this. “Spells?”

  “They didn’t have to hide their spells, Mr. Preston,” Jessup said. “Those were painted in plain sight inside and outside the coffin. Sometimes on the mummy as well.”

  “But others could’ve been on the papyrus used.”

  David Latimer rolled his eyes. “Here we go, 1918 again! The mystical Egypt!”

  Why are you doing this, James Preston?, I kept wondering. Are you reciting lines you were told to say? Or is there more to all this, a cabal at work here, some retro cultist gathering? It wasn’t such a crazy idea. They had all been here before me.

  Fortunately, Dr. Jessup was focused on the scientific aspects of what was to come. “As you say. But they will likely be something like spells twenty-seven, twenty-eight, and twenty-nine from the Book of the Dead—the ones for protecting the heart. And there will likely be amulets included in the wrappings. Spells and amulets all the way.”

  “And the heart is in there?” Leah Preston asked.

  “It will be if the mummy hasn’t been violated by looters at some point, though I’ve been told by Mr. Lovejoy that it will be intact.”

  At this, our host checked his watch. “And Dr. Jessup and his team have the hands-on experience to do the honours for us. His colleagues will be assisting and recording everything. Please, let’s adjourn to where our silent friend awaits so we can begin.”

  With this, we headed for the cleared space in the middle of the room and arranged ourselves in armchairs and on sofas. Jessup and Janine Differ began setting up makeshift dust screens in case they were needed—sheets of plastic fixed between rented lighting stanchions—while the young Indian, Fayer Das, set the camcorder going, moved a side table closer to the shrouded figure, then wheeled over a smaller steel instrument table on castors. The team then began putting on plastic aprons, gloves, and dust masks. Jessup handed Ronny dust masks to pass to the spectators.

  We watched these preparations in relative silence, listening to their quiet comments to one another, hearing the waves heaving against the cliffs below the windows. The towers of cloud over the ocean were still shot through with lightning but were fast losing their golden edges. Any remaining glories were burnt orange and old rose now, with the barest hints of aqua.

  I was seated near Lovejoy, a little apart from the others, and it gave me my chance.

  “Alan, there were only ten at table tonight, not fourteen. None of the usual garden variety superstitions I tend to find. You didn’t really need me as quatorzième.”

  “Not in the usual sense, Carmel. But there’s no knowing what Tesla was up to. Maybe I’m hedging my bets.”

  “Was thirteen ever a factor?”

  “That came from Tesla. Two words printed on a card fixed to the inside of the shipping crate. ‘Avoid thirteen?’ Followed by the question mark. It may have been a power setting or an overload warning rather than anything to do with people, possibly a point of query for further consideration later. So I’m counting everyone in the house tonight, our chef Rosanna, our wait staff Ronny and Sarah, everyone. We’ll all be observing.”

  “So the mummy does make fourteen?”

  “Exactly. Also observing in a sense. We have to count him. It’s like remembering to count Christ at the Last Supper.”

  “Who made it thirteen, you realise.”

  “I do. And I like the answer you gave David Latimer about the soul.”

  “He blindsided me. Asked a ten-dollar question to see if I could deliver. I gave him a fifty-dollar answer. Too much, you think? There’s a nerd factor I like to avoid.”

  “It worked splendidly. David and John Coe are fascinated.”

  It was then that Rosanna Carfi emerged from the kitchen, accepted the hearty applause and called-out compliments with a broad smile. She took the glass of red Ronny handed her and joined rest of us around the shrouded form.

  “Dr. Jessup,” Lovejoy said. “Since we’re all here, we can begin.”

  There was no further ceremony, though the pulling away of the dust cloth was like the prelude to a stage magician’s act, revealing the cartonnage coffin in all its ancient splendour. It was strikingly lit from above by the recessed spots and the occasional flash of lightning from over the sea: an off-white mummiform case of heavy cartonnage sealed with plaster and painted over, covered in hieroglyphs, pieces of hieratic script in the most vibrant colours. It was a glorious thing, almost too much for the eye to easily take in. Fayer Das took shots of the artefact with his digital camera, adding his own quick flashes to those from the storm.

  Jessup finally said something to the young Indian, who immediately set down his camera, crossed to the dining table and hoisted the metal cylinder. He brought it carefully back to the operations area and set it at a precise spot on the table close by the coffin. Then he took up his camera and continued taking photographs.

  “Exactly how it was placed when Morgenstern first saw it,” Lovejoy told us.

  Callum Jessup turned and pulled aside his dust-mask for a moment.

  “Unwrappings, if and when they occur these days, usually take weeks, months, depending on the state of preservation, the amount of anointing liquids or other residues coating the mummy that have to be scraped away, things like that.’ ”

  Lovejoy spared him the rest. “We’re taking more of a slash and burn approach, cutting in to find the heart scara
b or Wadjet eye, whatever has been placed over the heart. We’ll remove that amulet, then fit the plate of Tesla’s device at that spot.”

  “And turn it on?” Preston asked, clearly puzzled as to why any of Tesla’s arrangements were being followed at all.

  “One thing at a time, James. We’ll plug it in, switch on the current as intended, but leave our options open as to whether we activate the machine or not. Ladies and gentlemen, fit your dust masks if inclined. We’re going in small and focused, so there shouldn’t be much of a mess to concern us, though there will be the smell to consider. Ronny has a container of Vicks VapoRub. May I suggest you smear some around your nostrils before fitting your dust mask?”

  Removing the coffin lid posed no great problem. It had been removed several times in the last two centuries, and resealed each time with a light application of an industrial glue, just enough to provide an airtight seal. The edge of a knife was enough to free it again, and Jessup and Fayer Das soon lifted it away and set it gently on the side table.

  We were all on our feet at this point, craning in to see the momentous reveal: our first glimpse of the tightly swathed, ochre-coloured form within.

  There were instant gasps from everyone.

  “My God! What’s this?” Preston said.

  For the funerary mask wasn’t mere cartonnage at all. It glowed with the unmistakable lustre of gold. Though a far more modest affair than Tutankhamen’s famous funeral mask, it featured the traditional striped nemes headdress, though without the sacred cobra and vulture adornment above the beautifully stylised face, and no royal beard below. The lappets of the headdress barely extended past the shoulder line, and there was no broad usekh collar across the upper chest.

  “Who would have thought?” Paula Lovejoy marvelled, even as Fayer Das moved in to take more photographs. “A royal mummy!”

  “Not necessarily,” Jessup said, as Das finally moved aside. “It’s electrum. Something the Egyptians used from Old Kingdom times.”

  “Is it gold?” Alan Lovejoy asked.

  “It’s what’s called pale gold, white gold, even green gold, depending on how much gold is alloyed with the silver. They’re supposed to have used it to coat the pyramidions at the top of pyramids and obelisks. This will be mostly silver, possibly even the lightest electrum coating over a base metal.”

  “Original?”

  “Can’t be, Mr. Lovejoy. This isn’t a royal mummy. The texts on both coffin and mummy tell us as much. It has to have been added later. Probably much later.”

  Preston had moved in as close as he dared. “By Tesla?”

  Callum Jessup shrugged. In forensic terms, this was already a contaminated specimen, another factor making further acts of sacrilege and professional misconduct easier. The golden mask may have given him momentary doubts, but Nemkheperef’s name on the tightly bandaged form had reassured him.

  “It’s possible, James,” I said. “Man-made electrum is an alloy of silver and gold, sometimes with copper added. But it occurs naturally, too. You get wires of it on Tertiary quartz formations like you find in Colorado.”

  David Latimer was watching me closely, as much because I knew something like this as for what I said. “Tesla spent time there?”

  “He did. Colorado Springs, 1899. Working on wireless power transmission.”

  “You know a lot about this.”

  “Thank you. And, yes, in case you were wondering, silver, copper, and gold do top the list for electrical conductivity.”

  Though there’s no brain, I kept thinking as I said the words. Nothing for electricity to reanimate! The heart alone can’t be enough.

  Lovejoy chuckled again. “The old devil. He couldn’t leave it alone, could he? Put his damn electricity everywhere. So what’s this for, reviving the mummy? Raising—what did you call it?—its Ba or Ka? Its ghost?”

  At last it had been said!

  “We’ll never know,” I admitted. “There’s a lot we don’t know about the Colorado Springs period. But it is tempting to think of Tesla staging an electrical Opening of the Mouth ceremony at some point. Bringing the mummy’s Ba—its spirit—back to life.”

  John Coe laughed. “I can’t believe that for a moment! Tesla trying to revive— What’s his name again?”

  “Nemkheperef,” Jessup said.

  “Nemkheperef.”

  The Ren part of the soul, I thought, looking at the figure partly hidden by its faux-Egyptian mask. At least his name isn’t being forgotten. It’s being said often, like an incantation, part of a ritual. Like we’re calling him up.

  “As Carmel says, we can never know,” Lovejoy reminded them.

  Flash after silent flash lit the clouds over the ocean. The endless swells heaved against the cliffs.

  Preston was staring at the coffin. “Well, better to raise the ghost of a minor noble than the elementals Conan Doyle said were guarding young Tutankhamen’s tomb. Did he say what they were like? Phantoms? Parasites? Disease vectors of some kind?”

  I marvelled at these turns of phrase. Parasites? Disease vectors? These were intended provocations. There had to be a script. Lovejoy wanted the theatrics, the melodrama. Either had Preston on board to assist, using him to provoke Latimer and Coe, or wanted to keep setting him off for some reason. If you were going to have a theme-party unwrapping, why not pump it up, take every opportunity to wind up the audience?

  No one said anything for a moment.

  Then Jessup answered, firmly in business mode now. “Unexplained disinterment deaths used to be blamed on mould spores from confined spaces getting in the lungs or any open wounds, or noxious gases created by oxidising metals among the funerary artefacts, that sort of thing.” He had taken up a small circular saw, tested it once, twice.

  I, too, worked to lighten the tone. “Let the tomb breathe a while has been a Tomb Robbing 101 maxim ever since. That’s how I play it. Wait forty-eight hours at least.”

  There were welcome chuckles from Paula Lovejoy, Leah Preston, and the Sharks.

  But James Preston kept at it. “Unless they’re like Lazarus. Once created, never dying. Always at their task in some way. Working through others.”

  I stared at the balding businessman in fascination. He’d been deliberately provoking all evening, and was now firm contender for Prime Cabalist—if Lovejoy hadn’t already taken that role.

  “Do we try to remove the mask?” Jessup asked our host.

  “Leave it for now,” Lovejoy said.

  Jessup nodded once, positioned the saw on the chest below where the mask ended, then suddenly stopped, set the saw down and bent in close over the mummy.

  “What is it?” Lovejoy demanded.

  “There’s something here. Tucked in beside the mummy. I just noticed it.”

  Fayer Das moved in to take a half dozen quick photographs of this latest discovery in situ, then moved away again.

  “Is it attached?” Lovejoy continued. “Can you bring it out?”

  Dr. Jessup reached in and lifted out a small wooden box, but didn’t need to bring it over for Lovejoy to examine. We had all crowded in, just as in old-time depictions of private unwrapping parties. When Jessup pried it open, he angled it to show that the interior had been painted black and that it contained a small wooden human painted completely black too.

  “The Sheut,” I said, as Das’s camera flashed. “The Shadow.”

  “Should it be included here?” John Coe asked, close by my right shoulder. “What usually happened to them?”

  Jessup shrugged. “We don’t have enough surviving examples to know. They were usually kept hidden well away from the person represented. We know about them mainly from wall paintings and funerary texts. This alone makes the mummy very special.”

  “Tesla left it with the mummy?” John Coe noted.

  “He did, Mr. Coe,” Jessup said. “The thing is that he had it in the first place. Well, Mr. Lovejoy?”

  Lovejoy didn’t hesitate. “Set it by Tesla’s machine and proceed.”

 
Jessup didn’t ask us to move back. He simply turned to the mummy in its coffin, took up the saw again and began. The saw’s high-pitched whine filled the room, and the dry, slightly gamey smell from the wrappings made us grateful for the Vicks smeared under our masks.

  The dust that sprayed up was mummy powder, alarming to think about, and the combined smells of decay, old ointments and funerary libations grew stronger, but still we stayed, wanting to see it all.

  The ragged chest opening became larger. It truly was a “slash and burn” entry, as Lovejoy had promised, but Lovejoy’s instructions to the archaeologist would have been clear: Do this one thing for me and you get to process the rest of the mummy your way afterwards.

  Jessup knew when to go more slowly. The steady whine fell away, became short quick stabs as he neared the actual chest wall beneath the bandages.

  Fayer Das photographed every step of the process, while Janine stayed by the camcorder till Jessup needed her assistance.

  Finally Jessup set down the saw. “Here it is,” he said so we could all hear. “A heart scarab. Glazed steatite most likely.”

  “Bring it out,” Lovejoy told him, and Jessup did so, placing the dark-green object in the small specimen dish Janine held ready.

  “What now?” the archaeologist asked.

  Lovejoy didn’t hesitate. “Just for now, fit the plate of Tesla’s machine over the heart.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Do it, Callum. It won’t be for long. I want to see it as Tesla had it.”

  Jessup lifted the lead with the metal plate, set the plate into the cavity where the heart scarab had been. Fayer Das took more photographs, then stepped back.

  There was silence in the room, just the rush of the ocean, the first rolls of thunder from out where the storm was moving in.

  “What happens now?” Leah Preston asked.

  I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but suddenly found myself leaning in past Jessup’s shoulder, reaching down to the machine alongside the coffin. I surprised myself by throwing the switch.

  Everyone watched my boldness in astonishment, staring dumbfounded and listening to the low hum that followed that solid click. No one had tried to stop me. They kept watching as I turned the vernier dial to exactly thirteen and the humming grew louder.