The Anubis Gates

by Tim Powers

  “But it will take me at least a month to get to England,” Romanelli protested, “and by then—”

  “No,” the Master interrupted. “Don’t travel—go there instantly. Be there tonight.”

  The last glowing sliver of the sun winked out behind the Patras hills, and there were no more boats out on the gulf. After a pause, “Tonight?” Romanelli echoed in a hoarse whisper. “I… I can’t afford that kind of thing. Magic like that… if I’m to be expected to function at my best when I get there… “

  “Will it kill you?” grated the Master’s voice out of the flame.

  Sweat stood out on Romanelli’s forehead. “You know it won’t,” he said, “quite.”

  “Then stop wasting time.”

  * * *

  The little man walking along Leadenhall Street moved with a brash confidence that didn’t suit his appearance, for in the light from occasional windows and doorways that he passed, his clothes looked slept in, and his face, though bright-eyed and tightly grinning, was haggardly lined, and one ear was completely gone.

  Many shops had closed for the night, but the new Depilatory Parlor was still spilling light across the cobblestones from its open doors, and the grinning little man entered and strode up to the long counter. There was a bell to ring for service, and he rang it as rapidly as if someone had promised him a shilling for each ping he could produce before being forcibly stopped.

  A clerk hurried up on the other side of the counter, eyeing the little man carefully. “You want to stop playing with that?” he said loudly.

  The ringing ceased. “I wishes to speak with yer employer,” the little man announced. “Take me to him.”

  “If you’ve come to have some hair removed, you don’t need to talk to the boss. I can—”

  “The boss I asked for, sonny, and the boss I’ll speak to. It’s to do with a friend of mine, you see—he sent me here, as it were. He can’t travel about because he—” and the man paused to give the clerk a massive wink, “—grows hair, terrible thick, all over himself. Eh? You understand? And don’t, sonny, try to go for yer tranky gun. Take me to the boss.”

  The clerk blinked and licked his lips. “Uh… damn … okay, yes. Will you wait while I—no. Uh, will you come this way, please, sir?” He lifted away a hinged section of the counter so the little man could come inside. “Right through here. Now you won’t… do anything crazy back here, will you?”

  “Not me, sonny,” the man said, evidently surprised and hurt by the very thought.

  The two of them walked through a rear door and down a dim corridor, and were halted at the end of it by a man who stood up from a stool when they approached. “What’s this?” he asked, his hand going quickly to a bellpull rope. “Clients aren’t allowed back here, Pete, you know that.”

  “This guy just now walked in,” said Pete hastily, “and he says—”

  “A friend of mine grows fur all over his body,” the little man broke in impatiently. “Now take me to your bloody boss, will you?”

  The hall guard gave Pete an accusing look.

  Pete shrugged helplessly. “He… knew about it somehow. Told me not to go for it.”

  After a moment of thought the guard let go of the bell rope. “Very well,” he said. “Wait here while I tell him.” He opened the door behind him and stepped through, shutting it carefully behind him, but the rope hadn’t even stopped swinging when he opened it again. “Pete,” he said, “back to the shop. You, sir, may follow me.”

  “Aye aye, skipper.” The disheveled little man grinned and stepped smartly forward.

  Beyond the door was a narrow carpeted stairway, and at the top was a hallway with several doors visible along it. The next to nearest one was open, and the guard waved toward it. “There’s his office,” he said, and stepped back. The little man brushed his joke wig hair back with ridiculous daintiness, then walked into the room.

  An old man with hard, bright eyes stood up from behind a cluttered desk and pointed to a chair. “Sit down, sir,” he said in an impressively deep voice, “and let’s take it as given that I am thoroughly armed, shall we? Now I understand you—”

  He paused, and looked more closely at his visitor’s face. “D-Doyle?” he said wonderingly. His hand darted out and turned up the wick of the lamp on the desk. “My God,” he breathed. “It is you! But… I see—I must have somehow overestimated Benner’s ruthless self-interest. He lied when he said he killed you.” His confidence was coming back, but there had been real fear in his face for a moment.

  The other man was sitting back, grinning delightedly. “Oh, aye, he lied, right enough. But you might say I am dead.” He stuck out his tongue and crossed his eyes. “Poisoned.”

  A bit of the fear was again visible in the old man’s eyes, and to cover it he spoke harshly. “Let’s not indulge in riddles. What do you mean?”

  The grin left the little man’s face. “I mean if I throws away me razor I won’t be bald much longer.” He held up one lumpy hand. “Can ye see the whiskers between me fingers? They’ve started already.” His cheeks accordioned back as he bared all his teeth in a savage smile. “And let’s… take it as given, sir, that I can leave here any time. If I have to flee, this body will stay here, but there’ll suddenly be a very scared and confused soul in it—and I’ll be miles away.”

  Darrow went pale. “Jesus, it’s you. Very well, no, don’t flee, I don’t want to do you any harm.” He stared hard into the eyes that had been Doyle’s. “What did you do with Doyle?”

  “I was in yer Steerforth Benner’s body, and I’d been in it long enough so’s it was furry as a bear; I ate a whole lot o’ strychnine and also a drug that makes you see things and act crazy, and then I chewed my tongue up real good—so he’d not have a chance to talk to nobody—and then just switched places with him.”

  “Good God,” Darrow whispered in an awed tone. “That… poor son of a bitch… “

  He shook his head. “Well, let the dead bury the dead. I’ve come a long way to find you—to strike a bargain with you. Damn it, I’ve rehearsed this conversation in my mind a hundred times, but now I can’t think where to begin. Let’s see—for one thing, I can cure your hyperpilosity, the all-over fur, any time, and as many times as you please, so from now on you’ll be free to take a new body only when you choose to—you won’t have to anymore. But that’s not the main item I want to bargain with.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a sheet of paper. “Listen to this extract from a book I own. ‘It seems,’” he read aloud, “‘a man at another table took exception to some—as I heard the tale later—heathen sentiments the stranger had voiced, and seized the front of the offender’s shirt in order the more forcefully to convey his displeasure; the shirt tore, and the man’s breast being exposed, it was remarked that the hitherto concealed skin was covered with new whiskers, such as would show on a man’s face after not shaving for a couple of days. Mr.—” Darrow looked up and smiled. “I can’t let you know his real name yet. Let’s call him Mr. Anonymous. ‘Mr. Anonymous,’” he resumed, “‘exclaimed to the company, “I believe it’s Dog-Face Joe; Seize him and take off those gloves.” The gloves were promptly pulled off of the struggling man’s hands, which proved to be likewise bewhiskered. Mr. Anonymous silenced the uproar and declared that if justice was to be visited on this notorious murderer it would have to be done at once, without involving the slow wheels of the law, and so the man was dragged out into the yard behind the pub, and hanged from a rope which was tied to one of the warehouse cranes.’” Darrow put the paper down and smiled at the other man.

  “An entertaining fiction,” pronounced the man in Doyle’s body.

  “Yes,” agreed Darrow, “it’s fiction now. But in a few months it will be fact—history.” He smiled. “This is going to be a long story, Joe. Would you like some brandy?”

  Again Doyle’s face grinned. “Don’t mind if I do,” Amenophis Fikee said.

  * * *

  In the sudden silence Horrabin, his sling still swinging from
his violent gesticulations of a few moments before, stared at the shattered corpse on the flagstones beside the table and realized that the fallen beggar lord had put control of the situation back within his reach. He grinned merrily, clapped his painted hands and cried, “He didn’t quite make it to the table, did he?” The clown knew he had his audience’s attention again, so he reached unhurriedly for a joint of meat on his plate, gnawed it thoughtfully, and then tossed it all the way to the back of the hall, where the shambling derelicts fell upon it with a satisfactory noise of growling and scuffling. “None of you,” said the clown quietly, “will ever take anything from me but what I let you have.”

  He looked up at the remaining beggar lords. Their spider web hammocks were still swaying back and forth across the abyss, though they’d stopped yelling and waving and now just peered cautiously down, their eyes glittering in the smoky red glow from the oil lamps. Horrabin’s gaze dropped to the corpse, and then swung to the thief lords sitting at the long table. Miller, the one who had been loudest in the mutinous uproar, avoided meeting his eyes.

  “Carrington,” Horrabin said softly.

  “Aye,” said his lieutenant, stepping forward. He still limped from the beating he’d taken in one of the Haymarket brothels, but the bandages were gone, and his look of frustrated anger was tonight especially intense.

  “Kill Miller for me.” As the suddenly pale and gasping thief lord kicked his chair back and scrambled to his feet, Carrington drew a pistol from his belt, poked it casually in Miller’s direction and fired. The ball struck Miller in the back of the throat through his open mouth, punching out a hole over his collar.

  Horrabin spread his hands as the body hit the stones. “You see,” he said loudly before the tumult could start up again—then went on more quietly, “I’ll feed all of you… one way or the other.”

  The clown smiled. It had been good theater. But where was Doctor Romany? Had all his promises, as Miller had insisted, been lies to manipulate the London thieves into furthering some privately profitable scheme of his own? Horrabin, who knew more than the rest about what was supposed to have happened, was concealing a disquiet greater than Miller’s had been. Was the king assassinated yet? If so, why hadn’t any of the clown’s surface runners reported it? Or was the news being suppressed? Where was Romany?

  In the silence the unsteady, jarring footsteps from the corridor sounded loud. Horrabin looked up, though without much interest, since it wasn’t Romany’s twanging step, and his eyes widened in surprise when the newcomer stepped into the hall, for it was Romany after all, but he was wearing high platform boots instead of his spring-shoes.

  The clown cast a triumphant glance around the company, then bowed grotesquely to the newcomer. “Ah, your Worship,” he piped, “we’ve been awaiting your arrival with, in a couple of cases,” he waved at the two corpses, “terminal suspense.” Then Horrabin’s smile faltered and he looked more closely, for the visitor was pale and reeling, and blood was running sluggishly from his nose and ears. “You’re… Horrabin?” the man croaked. “Take me … to Doctor Romany’s camp… now.” As the clown blinked uncomprehendingly, a voice screeched from the derelict’s corner. “No use going there, Pierre! That whole plan’s as dead as Ramses! But I can lead you to the man that wrecked it—and if you can take him and wring him dry, you’ll have a better thing than just England dead, Fred!” A few of the penny toss crowd had sufficiently recovered their aplomb to cheer and whistle at this pronouncement.

  “Carrington,” whispered Horrabin, furious and embarrassed, “get that creature out of here. In fact, kill it.” He smiled nervously at Romanelli. “I do apologize, uh, sir. Our… democratic policies are sometimes too—”

  But Romanelli was staring with almost horrified astonishment at the weightless derelict. “Silence!” he rasped.

  “Yes, do shut him up, Carrington,” said Horrabin.

  “I mean you, clown,” said Romanelli. “Get out of here if you can’t shut up. You,” he added to Carrington, “stay where you are.” Then almost reluctantly he turned to the ruin-faced derelict again. “Come here,” he said.

  The thing flapped and jiggled across the floor and tapdanced to a stop in front of him.

  “You’re him,” Romanelli said wonderingly, “the ka the Master drew eight years ago. But… that face wound was taken … decades ago, by the look of it. And your weight—you’re nearly at the disintegration point. How can this have happened in just eight years? Or no, since I last spoke with you?”

  “It’s them gates Fikee opened,” the thing chittered. “I went through one, and was a long time making my way back. But let’s discuss it on the ride, Clyde—the man that knows it all is staying at The Swan With Two Necks in Lad Lane, and if you can take him to Cairo for a thorough sifting, then nothing since 1802 will have been a waste of time.” The thing turned its eye on Horrabin. “We’ll need six—no, ten—of your biggest and coolest boys, ones smart enough to grab and bind a big man without killing him or denting his precious brain. Oh, and a couple of carriages, and fresh horses.”

  There was some snickering from the crowd, and Horrabin said, with a not very confident attempt at bravado, “I do not take orders from a damned… walking cast-off snakeskin.”

  Romanelli opened his mouth to contradict him, but the ragged creature in the middle of the floor waved him to silence.

  “That’s nearly exactly what you’ll take orders from, clown,” it said. “You’ve done my bidding before, though I can scarcely now remember those evenings of scheming, hanging side by side in the buried bell tower. What I remember more clearly is waiting for your birth. I knew your father when he stood no higher than the table there, and I knew him when he was the tall leader of this thieves’ guild, and then I used to chat with him over a snitched bottle of wine sometimes in the days after you’d shortened him down again so as to have a court jester.” A couple of the creature’s teeth were blown out of its mouth by the vehemence of its speech, and they spun away upward like bubbles rising through oil. “It’s a terrible thing to have to sit through one’s own foolish speeches again, knowing they’re all wrong while you wait for the clock to come around again, but I’ve done it now. I’m the only one in the world that knows the whole story. I’m the only one worth taking orders from.”

  “Do as he says,” growled Doctor Romanelli.

  “Aye,” said the bobbing creature. “And when you’ve got him, I’ll come along to Cairo with you, and after the Master’s finished with him I’ll kill whatever’s left of him.”

  * * *

  Having copied out the cover letter to The Courier from memory, Doyle tossed it onto the stack of manuscript pages that lay beside Doctor Romany’s sheathed sword on the desk. It hadn’t even come as too much of a surprise to him when he’d realized, after writing down the first few lines of “The Twelve Hours of the Night,” that while his casual scrawl had remained recognizably his own, his new left-handedness made his formal handwriting different—though by no means unfamiliar: for it was identical W. William Ashbless’. And now that he’d written the poem out completely he was certain that if a photographic slide of this copy was laid over a slide of the copy that in 1983 would reside in the British Museum, they would line up perfectly, with every comma and i-dot of his version precisely covering those of the original manuscript.

  Original manuscript? he thought with a mixture of awe and unease. This stack of papers here is the original manuscript … it’s just newer now than it was when I saw it in 1976. Hah! I wouldn’t have been so impressed to see it then if I’d known I had made or would make those pen scratches. I wonder when, where and how it’ll pick up the grease marks I remember seeing on the early pages.

  Suddenly a thought struck him. My God, he thought, then if I stay and live out my life as Ashbless—which the universe pretty clearly means me to do—then nobody wrote Ashbless’ poems. I’ll copy out his poems from memory, having read them in the 1932 Collected Poems, and my copies will be set in type for the magazines
, and they’ll use tear sheets from the magazines to assemble the Collected Poems! They’re a closed loop, uncreated! I’m just the… messenger and caretaker.

  He pushed the vertiginous concept away, stood up and went to the window. Lifting the curtain aside, he looked down at the wide yard of the Swan With Two Necks, crowded with post and passenger coaches. I wonder where Byron is, he thought. He should have been able to find any number of bottles of claret by now. I wouldn’t mind having a few glassfuls of something, so I could postpone considering certain questions… such as what is to become of this Byron ka—he’s got to disappear, for I know there’s no historical record of him, but here he is talking about looking up old friends tomorrow. So how will he vanish? Do kas wear out? Will he die?

  Even as he let the curtain fall there was a knock at the door. He crossed to it. “Who’s there?” he asked cautiously.

  “Byron, with refreshments,” came the cheery reply. “Who did you suppose?”

  Doyle undid the chain and let him in. “You must have gone far afield for them.”

  “I did go over to Cheapside,” Byron admitted, limping over to the table and setting a waxed paper bundle down on it, “but with good result.” He tore the paper away. “Voila! Hot mutton, lobster salad and a bottle of what is unlikely to be, as the vendor swore it was, a Bordeaux.” His face went blank. “Glasses.” He looked up at Doyle. “We haven’t any.”

  “Not even a skull to drink it out of,” Doyle agreed.

  Byron grinned. “You’ve read my Hours of Idleness!”

  “Many times,” said Doyle truthfully.

  “Well, I’ll be damned. In any case, we can pass the bottle back and forth.”

  Byron glanced around the room, and noticed the stack of poetry on the desk. “Aha!” he cried, snatching it up. “Poesy! Confess, it’s your own.”

  Doyle smiled and shrugged deprecatingly. “It’s no one else’s.”

  “May I?”