by Tim Powers
Richard knew he meant the sextant; Wilbur could never understand that it was not called the sex-tent, and so he’d always assumed the chief was looking at dirty pictures when he peered through it. “And he stopped a lot of times to look through it—to keep his blood flowing quick, I judge. So I watched him from behind a tree as he started out across that field, looking at his tit pictures and then stinging himself, like maybe he was sorry. Then one time he touched the pot and his hand didn’t jump back. He looked at it and shook it and touched it again, and he didn’t jerk, so I knew it was broken. Right after that he ran back to the trees quick, no stops this time, and I flattened out, afraid he’d see me. He didn’t, though, and when I peeked up he was behind a tree maybe fifty yards away from me, staring hard at the empty field. So I did too, more than a little scared, because whatever he was up to had even him acting jumpy.”
As Wilbur paused for breath, Richard had reached into his shirt and held his finger and thumb over the ears of his little wooden monkey, for he always suspected scary talk would upset it. “Well,” Wilbur had gone on, “we stayed there for a few minutes, and I didn’t dare leave for fear he’d hear me. And, all of a sudden there was a loud thump sound, and a quick gust of wind in the treetops, and I looked out just in time to see a big black tent collapsing in the middle of the field.” He had squeezed Damnable Richard’s shoulder at this point. “And it wasn’t there when I peeked out a few seconds before! It just appeared there, you see? I made warding signs and said ‘Garlic!’ about a dozen times, for anybody could see this was the Beng’s work. Then a couple of fancy-dressed chals come crawling out from under the tent and pull it away, and what do you think? There were two coaches inside, with their lamps burning and all! And people in both of them, and horses harnessed up all ready to go. And one of these bengo chals says, real loud, ‘What a jump! Is everybody all right? How about the horses?’ Another one shushed him. Then a couple of them folded up their tent and buried it, and the two coaches headed for the road. That’s when the chief ran back to camp, me right behind, and got us into this wagon to follow them.”
Wilbur had now retired to the back of the wagon and was, to judge by his loud, slow breathing, seizing the opportunity to take a short nap. Damnable Richard envied him the ability simply to stop thinking about upsetting things. The old gypsy shifted uneasily on the driver’s bench and stared at the back door of the Crown and Anchor. Even being in the city made him nervous, what with all the gorgios staring at him, and the prastamengros always eager to clap a Romany chal into prison, but to learn that there was sorcery afoot that made his head ache with the danger of it all. Richard had an ungypsylike ability to compare past and present situations, and he wished forlornly that old Amenophis Fikee hadn’t disappeared, eight years ago; the picking had been rich enough when he was their chief, and life had been a lot less stressful. He put his hand into his shirt again and petted the monkey’s head reassuringly with his thumb.
The tavern’s back door squeaked open and Doctor Romany, carrying a limp body over his shoulder, bobbed across the alley toward the wagon. “Up, Wilbur,” Richard hissed, a moment before their chief appeared at the back opening.
“Help me get this fellow in, Wilbur,” said Romany softly.
“Avo, rya,” said the instantly alert Wilbur.
“Carefully, you idiot. Don’t bang his head—I need what’s in it. Avo, on the blankets, that’s kushto. Now bind and gag him.” The old chief drew the back opening shut, laced it up, and then, surprisingly agile in his spring-soled shoes, hurried around and climbed up on the driver’s bench beside Richard. “They’re evidently about to leave here,” he said. “I netted one, but let’s follow the rest.”
“Avo, rya,” acknowledged Richard. He clicked his tongue at the horses and the wagon surged forward, the canvas cover flapping as the high iron hoops rocked back and forth. They turned onto the Strand two blocks east of the Crown and Anchor, and then drew in to the curb.
They waited nearly half an hour, during which time a number of pedestrians wandered up, attracted by the ornately painted letters that spelled out DOCTOR ROMANY’S TRAVELLING EGYPCIAN FAIR across the canvas sides of the wagon. Then Romany’s eyes narrowed. “Richard! There they go at last—after them.”
The reins snapped and the wagon swung out into traffic. The street was crowded with carriages and hansoms, the two coaches were receding quickly, and the old gypsy had to stand up on the foot board and use every bit of his horse-handling skill even to keep their quarry in sight.
Doctor Romany pulled a watch from his pocket as they careened to the right into St. Martin’s Lane, amid angry and scared yells from other drivers, and he eyed it and then thrust it away. “They must intend to get back to the gate before it closes,” Richard heard him say to himself.
The three hastening vehicles, two together and one trailing, retraced the course they’d followed earlier in the evening, and by the time they were clattering west on Oxford Street Richard was sure that the lone man perched at the rear of the second coach had noticed that there was a wagon behind them matching their speed. And as soon as Hyde Park had swung past on the left and they were surrounded by dark fields, there was a muzzle flash and a hollow knocking sound from the second coach, and a pistol ball spanged off the iron hoop over Richard’s head.
“Pre my mullo dados!” the old gypsy exclaimed, instinctively reining in a little. “The bugger’s shooting at us!”
“Damn your dead father and speed up!” shouted Romany. “I’ve got a bullet-deflecting spell working.”
Richard gritted his teeth and, shielding his poor wooden monkey with one arm, whipped the horses up to their former speed again. The air was damp and chilly, and he wished unhappily that he was back in his tent, laboring over the hot molds and melting pots.
“They’re definitely going back to that field on the road side of the trees,” Romany told him. “Pull off on this next path and we’ll loop around to our camp.”
“Is that why you had us set up where we did, rya?” asked Richard as he gratefully reined in and let the two speeding coaches recede along the road. “Did you know these people would be coming?”
“I knew somebody might come,” Romany muttered. The wagon lurched and rocked along the rutted track that led away from the Bayswater Road and around to the south of the belt of trees. There was no one standing by the tents and smoldering campfires, but the wagon was met by several dogs, who stared at the new arrivals and then trotted to the tents to let their masters know, by tail-wagging and prancing, that the arrivals were fellow gypsies. A moment later a couple of men appeared and approached the halted wagon.
Romany jumped to the ground, wincing as the springs on the bottoms of his shoes clacked shut and the ground jarred him. “Take our prisoner to your tent, Richard,” he said, “and make sure he’s neither hurt nor allowed any opportunity to escape.”
“Avo, rya,” the old gypsy called as their chief sprinted away, springing and bobbing crazily, toward the trees that divided this field from the one where, according to Wilbur, the murderous strangers had materialized.
Recalling Wilbur’s bold spying, Richard suddenly resolved not to be outdone. “Take him to my tent, Wilbur,” he said, “and bind him up like an old shoe—I’ll be back.” He gave the gratifyingly goggle-eyed gypsy a big wink, and then set off in pursuit of the chief.
He slanted a bit to the left, so as to reach the trees a few hundred feet west of where Romany had—he could hear the old man picking his way quietly, though not as quietly as a gypsy, between the trees off to his right, and by the time Romany had positioned himself behind a wide trunk at the edge of the field Richard was already prone behind a hummock, having made no noise at all.
The coaches were huddled next to each other in the middle of the field, and everyone had got out of them and gathered in a group a few yards away. Richard counted seventeen of them, and several were women.
“Will you listen to me?” one old man said loudly, clearly upset. “We could
n’t have looked for him any longer. As it is we cut our safety margin dangerously slim. Hell, we’ve only just got here, and there are only a few seconds left until the gap closes. Doyle evidently decided—”
There was a muted thump, and they all fell limply to the ground. Then Richard noticed that the huddled piles were just clothes—the people who’d worn them were gone. The horses and coaches stood unattended in the empty moonlit field.
“They were mullo chals,” Richard whispered, horrified. “Ghosts! Garlic garlic garlic.” He could see Doctor Romany hurrying out across the field, so he got to his feet and pulled the monkey out of his shirt. “You don’t even have to tell me,” he whispered to it. “We’re going.” He hurried back through the trees to the camp.
Though Doyle couldn’t work up the strength to open his eyes at first, the awful antiseptic taste and smell that filled his head let him know he was back at the dental surgeon’s office, in the recovery room. He felt around the inside of his mouth with his tongue, trying to figure out which teeth they’d pulled this time. It occurred to him that it was a damn lumpy couch they’d laid him on—and where, he wondered petulantly, is the nurse with my hot chocolate?
He opened his eyes and was annoyed to see that he wasn’t in the dental office at all, and therefore probably wouldn’t be getting any hot chocolate. He was in a tent, and by the light of a lantern on a nearby table he could see two dark men with moustaches and earrings staring at him, for some reason, fearfully. One of them, the one with a good deal of gray in his curly hair, was panting as if he’d just run a distance.
Doyle couldn’t seem to work his arms and legs, but he suddenly remembered that he was in England, to give a lecture on Coleridge for mad old J. Cochran Darrow. And he told me there was a hotel room for me, he thought angrily. Is that what he calls this goddamn tent? And who are these clowns?
“Where is he?” he croaked. “Where’s Darrow?” The two men just stepped back a pace, still staring rudely. Conceivably they didn’t work for Darrow. “The old man I was with,” he said impatiently. “Where is he?”
“Gone,” said the one who’d been panting.
“Well call him up,” Doyle said. “The number’s probably in the book.”
The men gasped, and one yanked a little wooden monkey out of a pocket and apparently squeezed its head between thumb and forefinger. “We’ll be calling up no gorgio ghosts for you, you chal of the Beng!” he hissed. “Aye, though the number of the beast is indeed in the gorgio Bible!”
At that moment a dog came into the tent, walked in a quick circle with its tail between its legs, and scuttled out.
“The rya is back,” said the one with the monkey. “Go out through the back, Wilbur.”
“Avo,” said Wilbur heartily, and crawled out under a flap of the tent.
Doyle was staring at the tent flap. When the dog had knocked it aside coming in, he’d glimpsed open night outside, and there had been a breath of cold air scented with trees and grass. His memory had at last shaken off the ether fumes and clicked into gear, and he was anxiously replaying the evening in his head. Yes, the jump had worked, and then the city, and that slum area, and yes, Coleridge! And Mrs. Thibodeau kissed him… suddenly Doyle’s abdomen went hollow and cold, and he could feel cold sweat pop out on his forehead, for he remembered the bald man seizing him. Oh my God, he thought in horror, I missed the return jump, I was outside the field when the gap ended!
The flap was pulled open, and the bald man who’d abducted him from the Crown and Anchor entered the tent, bouncing wildly as he moved. He took a cigar out of a pocket and crossed to the table, bent down over the lantern and puffed it alight. Moving to the cot, he grabbed Doyle’s head in one powerful hand and held the lit end of the cigar toward Doyle’s left eye. In panic Doyle arched his body and thumped his bound heels up and down, but in spite of the most strenuous struggling his head was held motionless. He could feel the heat on his eye through his clenched shut eyelid; the coal couldn’t have been more than a half inch away. “Oh my God, stop it!” he burst out. “Help, stop it, get him away from me!”
After a moment the heat went away and his head was released. He rolled his head from side to side, blinking tears out of his left eye. When he could look at things again he saw the bald man standing over the cot, puffing thoughtfully on the cigar.
“I will know it all,” the bald man remarked. “You will tell me where you people came from, how you use the gates for travel, how you discovered the gates—I will know all of it. Do I make myself plain?”
“Yes,” wailed Doyle. God damn J. Cochran Darrow, he thought furiously, and may his cancer eat him alive. It wasn’t my job to go fetch the coaches! “Yes, I’ll tell you everything. In fact, I’ll make you a wealthy man if you’ll do me a favor.”
“A favor,” repeated the old man wonderingly.
“Yes.” Doyle’s cheek itched where tears had run across it, and it was driving him mad that he couldn’t scratch it. “And I’m not kidding about making you wealthy. I can tell you property to buy, things to invest in… I can probably even tell you where to find hidden treasure if I can have time to think about it… gold in California… the tomb of Tutankhamen… “
Doctor Romany clutched a couple of the loops of rope over Doyle’s chest and lifted him half off the cot, bending down so that his face was only inches from Doyle’s. “You people know that?” he whispered. “Where it is?”
Doyle’s half dangling position was making the rope bite into his sides and shoulders so painfully that he felt near losing consciousness again, but he could see that he had somehow displeased this murderous old man. “What,” he choked, “where King Tut’s tomb is? Yes—put me down, I can’t breathe!” Romany opened his hand and Doyle slammed back onto the cot, his already dizzy head rebounding from the canvas. “Where is it, then?” asked Romany in a dangerously quiet voice. Doyle looked around wildly. The only other person in the tent was the old gypsy with the monkey, and he was staring at Doyle fearfully and muttering some word over and over again. “Well,” Doyle said uncertainly, “I’ll make a bargain with—”
A few moments later he realized that the reason his ear was ringing and his cheek felt both hot and numb was that the old man had given him a hard open-handed blow to the side of the head.
“Where is it, then?” Romany repeated gently.
“Jesus, man, take it easy!” Suddenly he was certain that his tormentor somehow already knew where it was, and was in effect calling his bluff. He saw Romany’s hand draw back again. “In the Valley of Kings!” he blurted, “under the huts of the workmen who built some other pharaoh’s tomb! Ramses or somebody.”
The old man scowled, and for several long seconds did nothing but puff on his cigar. Then, “You will tell me everything,” he said. He dragged a chair over and sat down, but at that moment the dog trotted in again and, turning around toward the tent opening, growled softly.
“Gorgios,” whispered the old gypsy. He peered through the tent flap. “Duvel save us, rya, it’s prastamengros!”
Doyle took a deep breath, feeling like someone about to jump from a dangerous height, and shouted, “He-e-e-elp!” with all the volume he could wring out of his lungs and throat.
Instantly the old gypsy whirled and launched a flying kick at the lantern, which shattered and sprayed burning oil across one wall of the tent; Romany had simultaneously clapped a hand over Doyle’s mouth and wrenched his head around so that he was staring at the dirt floor; and Doyle heard the old gypsy yell, “Help! Fire!” a moment before Doctor Romany’s fist landed just behind his left ear, propelling him once again into unconsciousness.
* * *
A couple of tents were burning, and it annoyed Doyle that he couldn’t get his eyes to focus; he wanted to postpone worrying about the wooly-tasting gag stuffed in his mouth and the ropes that pressed his wrists against his hips, and these fires seemed like they’d be a first-rate distraction if he could just manage to see them. He vaguely remembered being propped in a sitti
ng position at the base of this tree by the alarming bald man, who had paused to take Doyle’s pulse and thumb open his eyelids to peer intently into each eye before hurrying back to where all the fire and shouting were. That was what had really awakened him—the pain of the man’s callused thumb on his burned eyelid.
Tilting his head back, he was startled to see two moons in the sky. His brain was working like a car that badly needs a tune-up, but he quickly deduced that this meant he was seeing double, and that therefore there was only one tent burning. With a physical effort he made the two moons coalesce into one. He brought his head back down, and saw one fire. A wave of cool air seemed to sluice through the hot murkiness of his mind, and he was suddenly aware of things—the grass and pebbles under him, the rough tree-trunk against his back and the painful constriction of the ropes.
With no warning, a surge of nausea brought Darrow’s elegant snacks up to the back of his throat, and he rigidly overrode the reflex and swallowed them back down. The night breeze was chilly on the sweat that had suddenly misted his face and hands, and he forced himself not to think about what would have happened if he’d thrown up while still unconscious with the gag in his mouth. He set to work on getting rid of it, tonguing it forward and then holding it between his teeth so that his tongue could move back and push again. At last he had forced it out of his mouth, under the leather loop that had held it in place, and he shook his head until it spun away onto the grass. He breathed deeply through his open mouth and tried to collect his thoughts. He couldn’t remember what had led up to him being dumped out here to watch the fire, but he did remember the old man’s cigar, and one good belt across the face. Almost without conscious decision he hiked himself away from the tree, flopped flat on the ground, and began rolling away. He was getting dizzy and losing his new-won clarity of thought, but he kept it up across the dark grass, pressing himself up with one heel, rocking himself over with a heave of his shoulder, and then letting the momentum of the roll help set him up for the next one. He had to stop twice to be violently sick, and he was profoundly thankful that he’d managed to get rid of the gag. After a while he’d completely forgotten why he was engaging in this peculiar form of locomotion, and he imagined he was a pencil rolling toward the edge of a desk, or a lit cigar rolling off the arm of a chair—but he didn’t want to think about cigars.