by Paula Guran
“What happened?” Bruce said. “What happened to them?”
I told him I didn’t know and I didn’t: no team of Soviet commandos, however brutal, however ruthless, would have done this. Overhead, a small flock of skuas, a half-dozen or so, circled, crying. This, this was gratuitous, this was—I didn’t know how to describe it to myself; it was outside my vocabulary.
As was what I saw next.
There, running toward us from over the rise beyond the camp, was Frigga. For a moment that stretched on elastically, I was sure my mind had broken, that the superabundant carnage spread out in front of me had snapped it with the ease with which you snap a match between your fingers. So, I thought, this is insanity, as I watched her race closer, her back hunched, her braid flapping from side to side like the tail of an animal, her sightless eyes pointed at me, her mouth open wide, her arms stretched out to either side of her, her fingers hooked. Amazing, I thought, what detail. Then Bruce saw her too and started screaming, which was all it took for me to know I was not insane, and even as I knew this I felt a tremendous regret, because I was not sure my mind could support Frigga running across the ground and everything that implied, and I felt a tremendous fear, my gut squeezing. I leveled the pistol, aligning the sights on Frigga’s chest, and squeezed the trigger. The gun roared, almost kicking itself from my hands, but I held on to it and fired again, and again, and again. I could see the fabric of her tunic pucker where the bullets struck with what at this distance should have been sufficient force to knock a big man sprawling with several large holes in him. I fired again before she was on me, striking me on the side of the head with a kindling-thin arm that connected like a heavy club in the hands of a weightlifter, sweeping me from my feet and sending me rolling down the hill. Everything spun around, and around, and around, then I hit the bundle that was my duffel bag.
On the hillside above, Bruce was screaming. Pushing myself up on my hands, I saw him on his back, Frigga straddling him, one hand at his throat, the other approaching his jaw. My God, I thought, the warning was true: she’s going to take his face. She did not care that Bruce had had nothing to do with what had happened to her so long ago: she had suffered, and now someone else could suffer. The pistol had fallen from my grip, but was close; I picked it up, aimed it, and emptied the rest of the clip into Frigga’s back. It did not affect her in the least. As Bruce struggled to free her hand from his throat, she dug the thumb of her other hand into his skin and began drawing it along his jaw, blood squirting out as she split his flesh. His screams increased. Enraged, I threw the useless pistol at her. It struck her head and fell to the side, without her noticing. Frantically, I looked about for a weapon, for something that might be of use against her, as her thumb continued its circuit of Bruce’s face and his screams continued. Guns were useless, and I doubted explosives—the sword! It had kept her in place for a thousand years: it might be effective. Bruce had rolled it up inside the tent to protect it. The tent was behind my duffel bag; I dropped to my knees and began furiously untying the tent’s straps. Bruce’s screams continued. I fought with a knot, tore the strap off. I undid the remaining strap, unrolled the tent, shouting for Bruce to hold on. His screams continued. I did not look up. Two pairs of socks, a sweater, where was the sword? There! Swaddled in a blanket I yanked away. There was a tearing sound, like a shirt caught on a nail, and Bruce’s screams became a wet, choked gurgle. I looked up, the sword in my hand, and saw that I was too late: Frigga had taken Bruce’s face, peeled it off him the way you might peel an orange, and draped it over her own ruined face. His face gone, his throat split open by her thumb, Bruce was dead. Through the ragged holes in Bruce’s face, Frigga’s empty sockets gazed at me, and my mind trembled at the sight. In a bound, she had leapt off him, and was running toward me.
I fled. Sword in hand, I ran as fast as I could for the beach, praying that the boat would have made its appearance, that it would be sitting there in the bay and I would be able to swim out to it, leave Frigga behind. Even as the beach came into view, though, and I ran down on to it, slipping and almost falling on a loose rock, and I saw the bay, the sea beyond, and, yes, the ship approaching in the not-too-distant distance, I could hear Frigga’s feet clattering across the rocks behind me, feel her hand reaching out to catch my jacket. She was too fast; she was on me: I was going to die here, on the beach, in sight of the ship and salvation; if I were lucky, she would break my neck and be done with me quickly. A tidal wave of rage swelled in my chest, rushing up into my brain, swamping my fear. I was going to die here, on this Godforsaken island, at the hands of a monster I had brought up out of the ground, and no one would know, no one would know any of this, anything. I caught the sword in both hands, stopped, pivoted, and swung it as hard as I could, screaming my throat raw with fury and frustration.
Frigga could not stop in time to avoid me. The blade caught her on the side of the head, cracking it, sending poor Bruce’s empty face flying off her. She staggered, and I struck again, bringing the sword down on her right collarbone, breaking it and three of the ribs beneath it, ripping open her leathery skin. She swept at me with her left hand, catching me a glancing blow on the right shoulder that spun me half around; I struck her right arm and heard a bone snap. We were at the water; a wave swept around my boots. I backed into it, Frigga following, her dark face streaked with Bruce’s blood. The freezing water rising to my knees, my thighs, I continued back, holding the sword before me. Frigga feinted to the right, then lunged at me, and with a scream I drove the sword straight through her, just under the breastbone, all the way in and out the other side, to the hilt. It pushed through her with the sound of leather tearing. I kept screaming as she stumbled and fell in the water with a splash; I kept screaming as she tried to stand and could not, flailing at the sword impaling her; I kept screaming as I pulled off my coat, tugged off my boots, and swam for the boat. I screamed as if screaming would defeat her. I did not see Frigga sink under the water, a crowd of skuas descending on to it as she did, flapping and crying: that was what the ship captain claimed to have seen. I was still screaming when they pulled me out of the water on to the ship, and when at last I stopped screaming, all I would say, for a week, in reply to whatever question was posed to me, was, “They’re dead. They’re all dead. She got them. Frigga got them.”
Of course, that isn’t enough for you. Of course, you want to hear more; you want to know what happened next. It’s all right: I would, too. I was put in a hospital, in Edinburgh, in a private room. I saw various doctors, took various medications, and had many interviews with many men, some of them in uniform, some in suits. I told them all the same story I told you. I presume there was an investigation, even several, although apparently Frigga was not found; that was what I was told, at least. No charges of any kind were brought against me; why they would have been, I’m not sure, except that when things go wrong to this magnitude and this many people die, a scapegoat is usually required. I have no idea what explanation was provided Bruce’s family, whether his body was returned to them and if so in what state. In the hospital, I tried to compose a letter expressing my sympathy at their loss, but I could not write anything that did not sound too much like a lie, so in the end I sent a generic card that a nurse bought for me. I presume the deaths of Collins, Ryan, Joseph, and the others were assigned an unrelated tragic cause: lost at sea during training maneuvers; killed when their helicopter went down. Eventually, I was released from the hospital, with a generous supply of pills to keep me from waking in the night, screaming. I taught at Aberdeen the following semester, actually delivering my own lectures and running my own tutorials, but I returned home before the last semester, leaving the department in the lurch and not caring that I did. They have not invited me back; I’ve had no desire to return. My career since then—has been less than it could have been. I—I think I’ve psychoanalyzed myself sufficiently for one night. I’ll leave the reasons for my failure to achieve, whether they be guilt, fear, heredity, a combination of the lot, or
none of the above, to your discussion.
I tend to avoid the sea. Had I realized how close this house is to the Atlantic, I most likely would not have come. You told me, Bob, I simply wasn’t paying attention. Beside the sound and smell of the ocean, I try to stay busy; when my mind is free, I wonder: Was that final blow sufficient to kill Frigga? Can you even speak of such a thing, is it possible? The birds, the skuas, what were they doing there? Did the deaths of Collins and the men, Bruce’s death, satisfy her, or, even now, as we sit here talking, is she making her way toward me? Nights like this, if I’m unwise or unlucky enough to find myself by the sea, I imagine—well, I’m sure you can guess.
Paul Cornell’s mummy makes a unique journey to the afterlife. The Niagara Falls Museum he references was the oldest (1827) museum in Canada and did, indeed, house what is probably the mummy of Ramesses I for almost one hundred and forty years. In 1998, the museum’s contents were sold to a Canadian businessman who sold the Egyptian collection (including the mummies) to the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. The mummy’s probable identity was deduced from X-rays, CT scans, skull measurements, and radiocarbon dating. The care and skill used in mummification indicates a high-status or royal individual and the mummy’s arms are in a position reserved for royal males of the proper period. There is also a notable physical resemblance to the extremely well-preserved mummies of Seti I (Ramesses’ son) and Ramesses II (his grandson) The museum returned the mummy to Egypt in 2003 as a gift of goodwill and international cultural cooperation. It now resides in the Luxor Museum . . . another unique journey.
Ramesses on the Frontier
Paul Cornell
Imagine Pharaoh Ramesses I, first of his dynasty, the father of imperial Egypt, being kept at the Niagara Museum and Daredevil Hall of Fame in Ontario, Canada. Ramesses himself can’t. He lies in a stone casket, not his own. Only a rope strung between two sticks stops the casket from being interfered with. A sign nearby proclaims something in livid letters that he can’t read. He’s been put on display with several others. These include a man with two heads (one of them added post-mortem; Ramesses has looked closely and seen the stitches), an unfortunate with some sort of skin disease that gives him webbing between his fingers, and something with a thick coating of fur, preserved under glass. To be arranged with them annoys Ramesses. One of these things is not like the others, that’s what he wants to shout. These are dead bodies that have been defiled. He is . . . well, he’s not quite sure what he is right now, but he has the powers of awareness and motion, and these sorry bastards don’t.
He keeps wondering if something went wrong with his funeral rites. He’s sure his ka, which left his body at the moment of death, has been provided with excellent refreshment. And many spells had been written and placed to allow him to deal with the problems of the afterlife. He examined the lists himself, just days before he went to bed for what turned out to be his final sleep. There had been a great rush to get it all done. He’d only been pharaoh for a few months before his illness, and they’d only made a small tomb as a result, but he’d been told that everything was ready. His son Seti had repeatedly assured him. But here he is, feeling like he’s still in his body, but with his body being a . . . well, Ramesses isn’t really comfortable thinking about that.
His ka certainly left, because he remembers the moment of his death, him looking up at his beautiful son, and darkness moving swiftly in from the world all around his eyes. His ba, the record of his ethical efforts, is supposed to have stayed attached to his body until the correct ceremonies were performed, but there’s no way to tell if they were, because he’s as unaware of his ba now as he was in life.
If that new high hriest got that bit wrong, then perhaps that’s why he’s more like a corpse than an akh. This is definitely not what he was expecting.
He’s sure that whatever’s going on here, he won’t be here forever. But time does seem to be stretching on, and nothing much seems to be happening. When he was high priest, he put the correct religion back in its rightful place. The gods owe him. So what’s the hold-up?
It’s not just himself he’s worried for. It’s his people. The nation of the river, the mirror of heaven, depends upon him completing this journey in order for others to follow. He is their ambassador. He changes the way as he passes through it. He makes it easier, like someone who stamps down reeds as they walk through a marsh. The rest of his folk who’ve died will be backed up by now for . . . well, who knows how long he’s been here? The halls have certainly changed during that time, but they might change continually. He walks at night, but he doesn’t know if that’s every night. He only feels it is night because the mysterious lighting is kept so low, and he has a vague awareness of there being times when it’s been brighter.
So that’s his situation. He’s awake again tonight. He’s stuck. And he can’t find a god to complain to.
As usual, he cautiously pulls back the lid of the casket, waits for a moment to check that there is only what passes here for silence, and climbs out. He feels the ache in his back. He sighs. He wonders if there is ever, actually, an end to pain. He sometimes thinks that’s his punishment, but it’s really not much of one, is it? And one should be aware of justice having been done to one, not just wake up in jail none the wiser. When he sent those sun worshippers running, he made damn sure they knew what was being done to them. Don’t be such cowards, he bellowed at them, Ra will be back tomorrow, and it’s the other gods you should worry about. The people applauded him and threw things at the sun worshippers as they ran from his soldiers. A great day.
Ramesses realizes he’s allowed himself to become lost in reverie. Again. This is no good. His mind is a little foggy. But maybe that’s only to be expected, considering how far he is from his organs.
He goes for a wander.
He walks through the vast, quiet halls, looking up once more in undiminished awe at the crystal ceiling, the flowing images that are somehow pinned to the walls, put inside frames like important declarations. This building, so reminiscent of a tomb, must be the Duat, the underground world where spirits and gods come and go, which leads to final judgment. The images on the walls are one piece of evidence that points to this theory being correct. What he’s seeing there are perhaps those caught on the way, because of his own predicament. He sees the same faces many times. They are mostly faces that are rather like those of Syrians, but paler, which is a bit weird. Perhaps that’s just who was coming across when he got here, when the system seized up. It is a little surprising that these unknown races should be involved. That they should be depending on him. But pleasing, in a way. The true religion must be true wherever you go. His river people are ahead in that regard. At least, they are now he’s gotten them back on track.
The pale people’s clothes are bizarre. Ramesses assumes that their dream selves are being examined alongside their lives. There is no other explanation for the impossible wonders. Whoever these foreigners are, he’s pretty sure that if they could, for instance, fly by the use of machines, they would have jealously come and taken the land of the river. He shivers at the thought of how many of them there are, and how strong. He’s glad they’re dead now, and not about to invade his beloved land. But still, he’ll put in a good word for them. They seem fun.
Ramesses moves on.
At the end of the central chamber, there are a series of paintings, rendered to a high degree of detail, most of them oddly not in the colors of life but in blacks and silvers. Perhaps the artist only had those available. They show the great river that must be nearby, the sound of which Ramesses can sometimes hear when the halls are relatively quiet. In the pictures, souls are either in the river, or in containers placed in the river. These are very like the vases that, back in his grave, contain his own internal organs, assuming that new high priest got that bit right. The pictures show people getting into these containers and being taken out of them. There are a few on display—just the remains of them, with no sign of the sou
l inside. All of them are pictured in the vicinity of a thing Ramesses has only heard of, but never previously seen: a great downward plunge of water, foam, and rising mist.
He stands there staring up at the perplexing images. What is he supposed to do? What is he missing?
There are doors that obviously lead outside, but he has put his ear to them, and heard strange blarings and screamings every time he has done so, surely the wailings of those who haven’t been allowed into the Duat. One is not supposed to arrive in the Duat and then simply leave. If he could find just one minor god, he could indicate to them that the Pharaoh is here, and they would surely realize that something has gone wrong and remember their obligations. He would be gracious. He would say hey, mistakes happen. They’d be tripping over themselves with an urgent need to put right this terrible faux pas.
He stops beside one of the upright walls of crystal and considers himself. He is not what he was. He looks as hollow as he feels, well, as hollow as, actually, he is. His arms are used to resting across his chest now, so accustomed to the position that, whenever he gets up, he fears he will break one of them. His eyes have narrowed to slits, so he looks permanently like he’s holding in a laugh, which isn’t how he feels at all. His nose, which used to be so fine, looks like it’s been broken in a fight. His neck is thin, like that of a strangled goose. At least his temples still remind him of himself. He still has wisps of hair, pushed back from his bald patch. He touches them sometimes. They remind him of touching the head of Seti, of smelling that scalp when the kid was newborn. His own head is that soft now. All that’s left of his wrappings, so carefully prepared, are a few rags. They do not preserve his modesty. Not that he’s got much to hide. His legs are so thin it’s like walking on stilts. His hands are all knuckle. He holds one up and looks at his palm. It resembles papyrus. He is a scroll that has been filled with writing, and is now crisp out of its jar, and yet still he knows too little. No scroll knows the information it contains, he thinks. And all he wants is to be read.