by Paula Guran
“Capital.” Kray emptied his glass, chuckled with pleasure again as Ramose repeated his earlier performance, stilting and propping across to the decanter, tilting forward to pick up the second tray of the three, and returning with it, setting it down on the occasional table between Kray and myself. Fortunately, instinctively, my guest moved his empty glass clear and placed it on the tray when he took a filled one. Ramose could not have managed such a retrieval. The mummy then stiff-legged back to his place to the left of the fire and became still, though, as ever, seemed to be listening, following everything we said.
While Kray’s attention was on the construct, I checked the time. A quarter of four. Kray’s examination of the WH38 casket had taken longer than expected. Bendeck would be here soon. It was time to give the good doctor his due. Minchin had been their agent in Cairo, the one who did the dirty work, Bendeck the main investor. But Herbert Kray, as several reliable sources had it, had been the mastermind behind all that had happened in the tomb in the rocky defile at Wadi Hatas that day. Minchin and his fellahin may have done the actual deed, Bendeck may have sold on the artifacts, but Kray had undoubtedly planned the whole affair. I had simply been an awkwardness, an additional complication to be dealt with, someone to be left behind when they had finished plundering the tomb and sealed it up again. They knew nothing of the two goat-herders who had followed us, brothers to the one who had sold me the papyrus. Instead of robbing me themselves as they had originally intended, they had become my liberators.
I pretended to sip my port, began directing the small talk that would crown the afternoon’s events. “Dr Kray, do you know what a Shaddowwes Box is?”
“No, Trenton. I can’t say that I do.”
“The great Elizabethan alchemist John Dee was said to have had one. And Aleister Crowley, our Great Beast. It’s a sealed box containing nothing but darkness. A sort of memento mori, really. A reminder of what awaits us all unless we believe in a Creator. Even Shakespeare was said to own one. And it’s spelt ‘shaddowwe’ with the double ‘d’ and ‘w’ after one of the Bard’s favored spellings for ‘shadow.’ ”
“I see.” Kray didn’t see at all, and my rhapsodic tone clearly troubled him.
I gestured at the coffin behind his chair. “I must say that having an unopened casket standing there for the past three weeks has given me a shudder or two. I mean, have you ever wondered about what truly happened to that Unknown Man E in the DB320 cache?”
Kray had to come back from where his own thoughts had taken him. “The Unknown Man? I have to say I know very little about it. He’s the chap they found screaming, yes?”
“Indeed. Wrapped in a sheepskin—something ritually unclean to the ancient Egyptians—bound hand and foot, it seems. Some say it’s Penteweret, the conspirator son of Ramesses III who was captured when the harem conspiracy against his father failed. Some accounts say he was made to take poison, others that he was buried alive in an unmarked casket.”
“Awful business either way.”
“Indeed. But it makes you think. Both versions may be correct. The poison could have been a sedative and Penteweret awoke in darkness to find himself entombed alive.”
“Yes, well.” Now Herbert Kray was the one to bring out his timepiece, an impressive gold one, and check the time. “Elleston will be here soon. This mechanical mummy of yours will really take his fancy. He has always loved automata.”
Again I pretended to sip my port. “I’m pleased to hear it. And do excuse my rambling on like this. It’s having that casket in here. I’m not one to worry about mummies coming back to life, but the darkness now, that is another thing. It bothers me. Have you ever wondered what might happen in total darkness, Dr Kray?”
Irritation showed briefly in Kray’s eyes, though was brought quickly under control. “Presumably nothing, sir. The workings of air and silence, I suppose. Time doing its thing. In windowless rooms the movement of dust particles. In caves the drip of water, I suspect. The formation of stalactites. You tell me.”
“But that is unconsidered darkness surely. The darkness of nature, chance, and random circumstance. What of the considered kind?”
Herbert Kray had no idea how to respond to such a question or, ultimately, even what it meant. Things were taking a definitely queer turn, but if there were treasures, even trinkets, to be gained, he had resolved to be politeness itself. “If you mean to tell me, sir, pray do. I admit that your exact point escapes me.”
“If I consider it, I change it.”
“Really? How so?”
“By the participating mind, Dr Kray. Our minds, our very thoughts, galvanize the thing observed at its most basic level. There are religions that turn on this way of thinking. Someday it will be proven beyond doubt as a scientific fact as well.”
Kray chuckled. “I’m sure. So I might argue that I could affect this rather fine port by reflecting upon it.”
“You may not be able to measure the shift enough for it to matter, but yes. First, you are unconvinced, skeptical. Secondly, it would take more time than I believe you would care to give it.”
Kray chuckled again. “You probably need to do better than that, Mr Trenton. That’s the refrain of mystics and charlatans the world over. You must believe! You must allow time! Have the correct discipline. Oh, and a small donation will help to purchase paraffin for the lamps during such a vigil. Your support will be ever so greatly appreciated.”
I made sure that I smiled before pressing my subject again. “I ask my question because the rage and anguish, the despair and agony felt by Unknown Man E waking in his coffin could have been enough to change the imprisoning darkness, if you follow my drift. That darkness would have been the intensely considered kind, I suggest.”
“Doubtless true, old fellow. We can only wonder what Maspero and his assistants must have felt when that particular coffin was opened. The pharaoh’s curse of the melodramas!”
I turned my glass in my hands. “Or simply sufficiently changed darkness. Nothing more.”
“Well, let’s pray that fellow behind you had a peaceful and easy time of it.”
“On the contrary, Dr Kray. I have it on good authority that the fellow within was definitely buried alive. Unlike Penteweret, or whoever Unknown Man E happens to be, this mummy had an accompanying papyrus telling his story.”
Kray’s eyes widened. “You have this papyrus?”
“I do, and had it translated some years ago. Best of all it is that rarity amongst Egyptian funerary texts, not the usual fragments of the Amduat, not a list of personal accomplishments, but an actual account of a non-royal burial.”
“Non-royal?”
“And of a desperate reckoning. His name is Panuhe, Dr Kray, a luckless courtier who murdered the lesser princess with whom he was smitten when he could not have her for himself. Her slighted husband was high vizier and dealt with him accordingly, had him sealed up in a rough-hewn annex in her own modest tomb. All very sordid, I know, the very stuff of melodrama in any age!”
Suddenly the clock in the hall began chiming. At the same time, the bells of St Paul’s started sounding across the river. Bendeck’s knock came mere moments later.
Kray’s relief was palpable, yet quickly replaced by a natural concern. “There were other things in the annex, did you say?”
I heard Mrs Danvers answering the door, heard voices in the hall. “You are being mischievous, Dr Kray. I deliberately did not say.”
Kray grinned. “Of course. Of course. Look, old man, about this three o’clock thing. Do you think—?”
I anticipated him. “Best we say that you arrived just a few minutes ago. The keen enthusiast arriving a tad early.”
Kray nodded. “Splendid. Greatly appreciated.”
Mrs. Danvers showed Elleston Bendeck into the room and left us, closing the door behind her. It was her final duty for me. Her salary was paid; I would never see her again.
Bendeck was a portly man in his late fifties with gray eyes, steel-gray hair and as well t
urned out as Kray was, though wearing one of the new American suits that had become all the fashion lately. Again the pleasantries were hardly started before he was crying out in astonishment and delight as Ramose repeated his earlier performance, stilting over to fetch the final port tray.
Then, with both men seated before the fire holding their glasses, sharing first in the bewildering eccentricity of my toast to the king, then to the success of our negotiations, I prepared to enter our final phase. This time the port contained a strong-enough sedative, though one sufficient to cause mere muscular debilitation rather than unconsciousness. I wanted my guests awake.
“Dr Bendeck, while awaiting your arrival I was just now showing your colleague that casket behind you and suggesting that it is quite likely the handiwork of the re-burial commissions of the Twentieth Dynasty.”
“Indeed. Twentieth Dynasty, you say?” Bendeck craned his neck to see, pointedly ignoring any social impropriety in our apparently having commenced proceedings without him. He dealt in antiquities, not always from reputable suppliers. He knew to go with the flow of events if ultimately to his advantage.
“I was also suggesting that it is effectively a Shaddowwes Box, such as Dr John Dee was said to possess and even William Shakespeare. Not a Shaddowwes Box in intention, mind, more by circumstance, purest chance.”
“Right.” He turned to his partner. “I see that you have the advantage of me, Kray. Perhaps, Mr Trenton, you might care to—”
But the door to the drawing room slammed open then and stopped his words. Through that doorway came an old bath chair in which sat slumped none other than Charles Minchin, clearly in a torpor, as if just now roused from an opium sleep. And that wasn’t the only cause for amazement. The chair was being pushed by another mummy, stilting and propping as best it could, and door was now being closed by yet another.
“Minchin!” Bendeck cried, and Kray did too, more in astonishment at the sight of additional clockwork manikins appearing in the room as seeing their colleague like this, both men rising to their feet, and doing so unsteadily, I noted, as the sedative took effect.
“Our final guest, gentlemen,” I announced, watching as Ahmose wheeled Minchin in alongside Bendeck’s armchair. Senawe had closed the door and now came prop-stilting over to join Ramose and Ahmose. Then, in startling unison, the three mummiforms began hooking away the bandages across their stomachs, each drawing forth a golden dagger concealed there, all three brandishing them in an inevitably comical but clearly menacing fashion.
“Trenton, what’s going on?” Bendeck demanded.
“Not Trenton!” Minchin slurred the words. “That’s Salteri! Lucas Salteri.”
“What’s that you say?” Kray cried. “Salteri?”
“Left ’im in the tomb,” Minchin managed, drooling as he spoke. “Left ’im in the bloody tomb!”
“You did, Minchin,” I said. “Took everything and sealed it up again. But the fellahin I’d bought the papyrus from had followed with his brothers. They meant to loot the place themselves, you see, but wanted to have this document translated first before attempting it. That’s why they sold it to me. They were being cautious. I mean, gentlemen, how many tombs have a papyrus in a sealed canopic-style vessel deliberately left at its main entrance, right beneath the traditional seal of the nine bound captives? Our vengeful vizier wanted posterity, possibly the great gods, to know Panuhe’s story. Anyway, the brothers released me, and we found this casket in its hidden annex.”
“The brothers—” Kray could barely manage the words. “Not these?”
“My three friends here? Hardly. Well, parts of them at least.”
I was now moving to the doorway, about to close and lock it behind me. Mrs Danvers had long since departed the premises. The mummies stood with their gilded daggers between the three men in the chairs and the room’s only exit.
“You surely do not hope to scare us with a few sideshow gimmicks, Salteri?” Bendeck called, his words slurred.
“No, Dr Bendeck. They are mere diversions, window dressing to distract you from the sound of additional clockwork now operating at the casket behind you. If you turn your heads, if you can manage it, you will notice that a special mechanism has already been activated, is even now preparing to apply pressure to the casket.”
“What, an’ set ’nother mummy on us?” Bendeck said. The words were still recognizable.
“Hardly. Just as the papyrus says, the body in that coffin was never mummified.”
“I don’t follow,” Kray said, slumped heavily in his chair.
“Unlike Unknown Man E, this sorry fellow truly was interred alive in that casket, bound and helpless. He filled that darkness, gentlemen. Surely changed it in more than a casual way. I now give you that darkness. It is my gift to you.”
And with that I extinguished the remaining lights, closed and locked the heavy mahogany door and arranged the special bolster at the bottom to shut out all hope of illumination.
All timed. All of it. The pressure edges would be touching the wood by now, relentless. A true full minute to the splintering point, so far as I could judge. But now it was ten seconds to step through the front door, eight more to turn the key behind me. Five seconds for the front steps. Twelve paces along the sidewalk, fifteen, possibly twenty.
Then darkness in darkness.
And the screaming.
“Egyptian Avenue” is one of Kim Newman’s series of occult/sf/mystery stories featuring Richard Jeperson. The story was inspired by a J. K. Potter photograph of the famous Egyptian Avenue in London’s Highgate Cemetery. The “avenue” path begins with a neo-Egyptian gateway, flanked by a pair of obelisks. The cemetery opened in 1839 when the first wave of nineteenth-century Western Egyptomania inspired such Victorian architectural interpretations. The association of Egypt with the memorialization of the dead was, at least, understandable. The “tourist guide” speech in the story about the fictional cemetery is very close to the facts about the real one.
Egyptian Avenue
Kim Newman
“This tomb’s leaking sand,” said Fred Regent. “And beetles.” Fine white stuff, hourglass quality, not bucket and spade material, seeped from a vertical crack, fanning out around and between clumps of lush, long green grass. Black bugs glittered in morning sunlight, hornlike protrusions rooting through the overgrowth, sand-specks stuck to their carapaces.
Fred looked up at the face of the tomb, which was framed by faux-Egyptian columns. The name BUNNING was cut deep into the stone, hemmed around by weather-beaten hieroglyphs.
It was the summer of 197—. Fred Regent, late of the Metropolitan Constabulary, was again adventuring with the supernatural. As before, his guide off life’s beaten track was Richard Jeperson, the most resourceful agent of the Diogenes Club, which remained the least-known branch of Britain’s intelligence and police services. All the anomalies came down to Jeperson. Last month, it had been glam rock ghouls gutting groupies at the Glastonbury Festival and an Obeah curse on Prime Minister Edward Heath hatched somewhere inside his own cabinet; this morning, it was ghosts in Kingstead Cemetery.
Jeperson, something of an anomaly himself, scooped up a handful of sand and looked down his hawk nose at a couple of fat bugs.
“Were we on the banks of the great River Nile rather than on a pleasant hill overlooking the greater city of London,” said Jeperson, “I shouldn’t be surprised to come across these little fellows. As it is, I’m flummoxed. These, Fred, are Scarabaeidae beetles.”
“I saw Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb at the Rialto, Richard. I know what a scarab is.”
Jeperson laughed, deepening creases in his tanned forehead and cheeks. His smile lifted black moustaches and showed sharp teeth-points. The Man from the Diogenes Club sounded as English as James Mason, but when suntanned he looked more like an Arab, or a Romany disguised as Charles II. His mass of black ringlets was not a wig, though. And no gypsy would dress as gaudily as Richard Jeperson.
“Of course you do, Fred. I elucidate
for the benefit of exposition. Thinking out loud. That is Sahara sand and these are North African beasties.”
“Absolutely, guv’nor. And that bloody big dead one there is a scorpion.”
Jeperson looked down with amused distaste. The scorpion twitched, scuttled, and was squashed under Jeperson’s foot.
“Not so dead, Fred.”
“Is now.”
“Let us hope so.”
Jeperson considered his sole, then scraped the evil crushed thing off on a chunk of old headstone.
For this expedition to darkest N6, he wore a generously bloused, leopard-pattern safari jacket and tight white, high-waisted britches tucked into sturdy fell-walker’s boots. His ensemble included a turquoise Sam Browne belt (with pouches full of useful implements and substances), a tiger’s-fang amulet that was supposed to protect against evil, and an Australian bush hat with three corks dangling from the rim. Champagne corks, each marked with a date in felt-tip pen.
“The term for a thing so out of place is, as we all know, an ‘apport,’ ” said Jeperson. “Unless some peculiar person has for reasons unknown placed sand, scarabs, and scorps in our path for the purpose of puzzlement, we must conclude that they have materialized for some supernatural reason. Mr Lillywhite, this is your belief, is it not? This is yet another manifestation of the spookery you have reported?”
Lillywhite nodded. He was a milk-skinned, fair-haired middle-aged man with burning red cheeks and a peacock tail-pattern smock. His complaint had been passed from the police to the Diogenes Club, and then fielded to Jeperson.
“What is all this doing here?” asked Vanessa, Jeperson’s other assistant—the one everyone noticed before realizing Fred was in the room. The tall, model-beautiful redhead wore huge sunglasses with swirly mint-and-yellow patterns on the lenses and frames, a sari-like arrangement of silk scarves that exposed a ruby winking in her navel, and stack-heeled cream leather go-go boots. Beside the other two, Fred felt a bit underdressed in his Fred Perry and Doc Martens.