The Curse of the Silver Pharaoh

by Pip Ballantine

  “How—” Julia looked back to the door of the classroom, then back to Verity. “Mickey here is telling you to follow him?”

  “Yes!”

  The girl’s shoulders dropped, and she gave a little huff from her bottom lip, blowing a few locks of hair out of her face. “If’n this little contraption you’ve made here is as clever as you, then I am more than willin’ to follow it than the Delancy flock outside.”

  Verity stared into the glowing green eyes of Mickey. Unlike what she had seen in the Silver Pharaoh’s, this glow felt friendlier, benevolent. The ticking in her head changed, its rhythm and pace altering ever so slightly. Verity somehow recognised this as its language. What she created was not alive, but it did possess a series of commands and routines she knew to be there. She put Mickey together, after all. The Sound, though, was bestowing on her a deeper understanding of her mechanical wonder.

  Once Mickey returned to the floor, he turned about and headed for the far wall of the class. The automaton paused at a blank wall, and then spun around to face both Verity and Julia. The girls followed him to the bare patch of wall and felt around for a latch of any kind. Verity ran a finger along the moulding in the corner and felt a break in the wood. She leaned in closer and pressed. The moulding sunk an inch into the wall, and with a soft click the panel before them slid aside. Gas lanterns in the wall slowly came up, illuminating the way forward.

  “Now how did you get through this door, little fellah?” Julia asked, peering into the secret passage.

  In the film of dust covering the hidden corridor were a set of thin lines that had to be Mickey’s tracks, but around the tracks were two sets of footprints leading out to the classroom. “Mickey went invisible. Whomever these tracks belong to, they must have not seen him on account of the stealth screen I gave him.”

  “You clever thing,” Julia cooed.

  Mickey’s ears wiggled in reply.

  “Julia, find Emma and Henry, if you can. Let them know where I have gone,” Verity said, stepping into the dingy passage.

  “What are ya’ on about, girl?” Julia chided. “Ya’ canna jus’ go in there alone! We are under siege!”

  “No time to explain,” Verity shouted, “Just find Emma and Henry. Let them know where I’ve gone”. Once inside the passage, she waited until Mickey scuttled over to where she stood before placing her fingers on the inside latch.

  “Verity…”—but the rest of Julia’s protestations went unheard as Verity threw the latch, and closed the passageway.

  “Alright then, Mickey,” she said wistfully to the metal mouse at her feet, “lead the way.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Within the Walls of Dead Royalty

  The dust was thick, choking the secret passage and almost Verity herself. She would have imagined thick spider webs blocking her way, but as she and Mickey followed footprints back inside the walls of the academy, the way was clear. She kept her gaze on Mickey, leading the way. The longer she followed the clockwork rodent, the better her eyes adjusted to the dim amber glow of the light coming from the surrounding sconces.

  “Mickey,” Verity spoke softly, “stop.”

  She never gave her invention the ability to understand voice commands. She knew that. However, the little device paused and turned around to face her. She stared at Mickey for a moment. How did she do that? Or did she actually do that? Could this be the Sound helping her connect with technology? She had to make certain to read the book Vidmar gave her.

  Her eyes returned to the floor. She could see the two sets of footprints in the dust. One male, one female, from the cut of the boots. She also saw Mickey’s tracks. That was not what caught her attention. It was what was notably absent.

  The ubiquitous cats of the manor apparently never came here, which was odd considering they went everywhere else. A thought struck her suddenly; in ancient Egypt cats were considered guardians against evil spirits, so could there be something back here even they could not stand? It was a superstition, but after all she had seen recently Verity couldn’t discount it.

  And a cat would have made a better companion than the Sound and the occasional pounding from the airship above. Miss Delancy, must have been prepared for nefarious attacks, fortifying her school. It was quite impressive really.

  Verity wiped her palms on her skirts and swallowed hard. Perhaps she should have gone back for Julia, Emma—or even Henry. She glanced at her ring. What about smashing it and calling for help? Wasn’t this their mission, after all, and now they were under attack would they not need the Ministry’s help?

  But that would end the mission. Completely.

  Her parents had been careful people, note-takers. They were dead. She had apparently inherited none of their practical traits.

  Pushing her hair out of her eyes, Verity muttered to herself, “Just a little further…”

  There came sounds of gunfire, distant screaming. Not the screaming of children, but the sounds of adults. On the other side of the wall, a battle was unfolding. These teachers, evidently, were skilled in more than just letters. With the faint aural glimmers of what was happening on the other side of the walls, Verity considered that did not concern her as much as the silence ahead of her. She didn’t know why, but she was certain something waited for her. Something dark. Evil. But she couldn’t understand how—

  Then, in the back of her brain, she noticed it. The ticking. It changed. Where it was once comforting, she now found it worrying. The Sound had somehow become slower and menacing.

  Mickey was clicking and whirring madly, running in a circle before her. No, not just a circle. Her mechanical companion was moving back and forth, up and back, and then running in a circle. There was a pattern Mickey was making in the dust in front of a broad door before them.

  Bending down for a closer look, Verity inspected the pattern Mickey was making in the dust. It looked like a “T” with a loop attached to its top. She recognised it as an Egyptian hieroglyph she had seen in her trips to the British Museum. Ankh. The Key of Life.

  Verity inclined her head to one side and then looked up at the door rising above her. This close, she could tell the door was not made of a dark wood or iron. It was silver, shrouded in darkness until she took one more step closer. Sconces of green and blue flame leapt to life, giving the door a menacing semblance in the dim corridor.

  The door was nothing that should have been in an English school. It was far older, gleaming under the chemical lights. When she pressed her hand against it, it was cool to the touch. Pure silver, but with more hieroglyphics picked out in gold. She remembered what they called these kind of hieroglyphics when found inside of a long circle. Car-something…

  “A cartouche,” she whispered.

  She leaned forward, the ticking in her head growing more and more frantic, more disjointed. It wasn’t the Sound though that was helping her understand the mystery in front of her. She had seen these hieroglyphs before. These exact hieroglyphs.

  “Psusennes. This is the door to his burial chamber,” she murmured to herself. “But this should be in a museum....”

  “As part of a goodwill outreach to the Empire, the British Museum sponsored a tour with the Silver Pharaoh. The plan was to begin here in England, move up to Scotland, then work their way around the world…and somewhere between Ireland and Scotland, the Silver Pharaoh up and disappeared.”

  This had to be part of the exhibit Thorne told them about. Gone missing three years ago—and here it was installed in an old manor house on the moors of Cornwall. Lord Delancy had gone to real trouble to have the spoils of this dig stolen and brought here. But why?

  “It was the Delancys who funded the original expedition to find the Silver Pharaoh. Since its discovery, my family has been plagued with tragedy and disgrace. The only reason my reputation remains immune is that I was the one who orchestrated the deception at the British Museum. The Silver Pharaoh has been a thorn in my family’s side. I have used much of my inheritance to keep my family’s name intac
t, and keep this school running.”

  “So if it is such a curse on your family, Miss Delancy, why is this here?” Or did she even know if it was here.

  The door was slightly proud of the wall, and as Verity felt along it, she discovered there were three round dials on the right hand side. She suddenly had the eerie feeling if she turned her head, she would see the sickly green phantom of the pharaoh again. Fear clenched her gut, for a second overwhelming the noise of the ominous ticking in her head.

  She wouldn’t allow herself to fall at this hurdle. I can do this, she thought as she closed her eyes and gave into the Sound, as she has done with Mickey and with the ætherequus. The mechanics of the door were ancient, but not beyond responding to her power. The dials began to turn, the rattle of their combination chiming in her head like a series of bells. Certain directions seemed…wrong…discordant somehow. Others sang sweetly in her mind, until she was caught up in their dance. The dials continued to move back and forward seemingly of their own accord, seeking out the perfect melody. Once the right rhythm and melody slipped into place, the three dials clicked together, and the ticking stopped abruptly. A warm glow of success and relief washed over Verity as she opened her eyes to watch the door swing open smoothly as if it was greased.

  Verity looked back over the tracks in the dust. “Come find me, Julia,” she whispered, more as encouragement to herself than a wish.

  All about was ancient silence as she looked around in wonder at a proper burial chamber. This was no reproduction. The room was reconstructed from actual artefacts, built within this secret room of an old manor house. Bathed in warm gaslight, the paintings surrounding her were bright and clear, as if created only a day before. Verity frowned as she moved closer to examine them. Not created the day before, but perhaps discovered the day before.

  The scenes etched and painted in stone were unlike any she’d ever seen or heard of in the British Museum or even in the travels with her parents. In them a pharaoh, his arms spread wide, worked wonders using machines—glorious, complex machines—to carry blocks of stone for building a pyramid or erect incredible temples worshiping Set or Ra. Another scene depicted this pharaoh in another mechanical device redirecting the Nile itself in order to reach outlying villages. Another had the pharaoh operating a creation that carried him aloft to survey all of Egypt. In each of these, the pharaoh was always painted in silver.

  Such revolutionary images would have been the talk of the scientific world, but somewhere between the archaeological dig and the British Museum, these stones ended up here. Under the Delancy Academy for Exceptionality. In Cornwall.

  The ground shuddered underneath her. From the sound of things, Miss Delancy and the faculty were still fighting the good fight. Verity wanted to read the entire story of Psusennes, but time pressed down her. Finding out all she could—hopefully, including what happened to the linguist—while Miss Delancy was occupied was vital. Hopefully, Agent Thorne would grant her time to examine these wonderful scenes and demand answers once this case was solved.

  She paused on seeing another depiction of the Silver Pharaoh at the border of what would have been Germany. This was Thorne’s quirky little story. She went for a closer look when her foot caught on something.

  Lucky for Verity, a corpse broke her fall.

  Being eye to eye with a desiccated body, she only just managed to jam back a scream. Just like Heather von St James, it really shouldn’t have been much of a surprise to find another corpse in a similar state. The drapery of the clothes suggested something that might have been a pretty lavender dress once.

  So a woman, Verity thought, trying to remain as clinical as possible. This academy is rather hard on women, isn’t it?

  Crouching down closer, Verity delicately pulled at the clothing. The cut of it suggested something her own mother might have worn, and the lapel pin she wore displaying the school’s coat of arms did not seem dusty. She couldn’t have been down here very long.

  Her brow furrowed as her eye ran over cropped blonde hair. It was impossible to tell what age she had been when the Silver Pharaoh claimed her, but there was one major difference this woman had over the other victims. Her right hand, along with being desiccated like the rest of the body, was twisted, warped. The bones and skin bore the scars of a terrible accident.

  Her eyes went back to where she had tripped, and this time she could not help but yelp.

  This corpse left behind by the Silver Pharaoh had been a man; a very well dressed gentleman, by the looks of things. He had been down here considerably longer, but there was no mistaking he had come from a family of exceptional wealth.

  A dust covered protuberance in the man’s lapel caught her attention. As she did with the other corpse, Verity gently reached over to the man’s lapel and wiped away the layer of grime.

  “The Delancy Academy crest?” she whispered. She looked back at the older woman and then back to the man. “Were you teachers?”

  “Hello? Who is there?” a voice whispered from the adjoining chamber. It was terse, desperate. “Oh please, help me! Help me!”

  Verity pulled herself up to her feet and scuttled to the open doorway. Slowly, she peered into the next room, doing all she could to remain unseen. When her eyes fell on the frail old man, she stepped into the doorway, alight with joy and relief. It was the person she had last seen being bundled into an automobile, Doctor Xavier Williams. Tied to a chair, his face battered and bruised, he looked considerably worse for wear; but he was alive. Racing to his side, she took his hand and gave it a squeeze. She would never have dared such a thing when he was a venerated scientist at the British museum, and she a street urchin; however, in these circumstances all social barriers were down.

  “My name’s Verity Fitzroy,” she said, working at his bonds. “The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences sent me here to find you. I’m so sorry it took so long.”

  Williams coughed a little. “But you’re just a child. Why on earth didn’t they send someone older?”

  Verity gave a little shrug. “Not sure if you were aware of this Doctor Williams, but you are being held in a school.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “A school?” Then he gave a slight nod. “That would explain the occasional drone of noise reminding me of my Oxford days.”

  “Sending adults to the Delancy Academy would have attracted attention.” Verity scrunched her nose as the knot on his left wrist was rather tight. “Besides, they weren’t positive you were here.”

  “Did you say the Delancy Academy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see them?”

  Verity paused in freeing the Egyptologist. “See who?”

  “The Delancys. In the other room!”

  Her heart seized for a moment. The corpse’s mangled hand, irreparable damaged after a tragic lab accident. Reading her own book to help Emma. Her revulsion of cats. “I don’t understand,” which was a terrible lie, even for her. She wanted to be sure. “Whatever do you mean?”

  Williams went to say something, but his eyes fell to the floor, and he let out a strangled sob. Verity could feel the old man tremble. “Oh dear God, you foolish child. You broke the circle.”

  Glancing down, Verity realised in her haste to get to Doctor Williams, she had disturbed a strange ring of sand around his chair. Before she could ask what he was on about, the bizarre, formless sound she had heard at the séance began to form in her head. A low groan echoed softly from an adjoining passageway on the far end of this antechamber. Williams’ gaze fixed on the far doorway as he tugged frantically at the bonds. He was quickly losing any resemblance of a man of culture.

  “Get me out,” he begged in a whisper. When the moan came a second time, he screamed at Verity, “Get me out!”

  “Please, Doctor, you’re only tightening these knots!”

  The groan echoed from the distant passageway once more, and Verity tried hard not to think of what drew closer. Williams let out a choked gasp, and tried to get to his feet. That was not going to ha
ppen since the chair was solid and pinned to the stone floor.

  “Bloody hell,” Verity snapped, nearly freeing the doctor from his final bond, “what have they been doing to you?”

  “Not they,” Williams stammered, jerking his head in the direction of the groaning, “him!”

  As if it had been only waiting for its cue, a cold wind blasted from the far doorway. The æthereal ticking in Verity’s head was now consuming her senses, just as it consumed her in the library. Doctor Williams did not have to tell her who or what was coming. She knew his signature.

  Psusennes. The Silver Pharaoh.

  The turning point in this final knot was all that stood between freedom and death for Williams. She had to concentrate on that, and not think about the phantasm—which was difficult as she could hear footsteps coming up the passageway behind her. Poor, deluded Doctor Williams was not helping with his frantic thrashing about. Slapping was often considered the cure for such hysterics, but Verity did not have a spare moment to do that. Instead, she set her shoulder against his side in an attempt to keep him still, and concentrated on the final few inches of rope.

  “They wanted to know, they wanted to understand what he was saying! That’s why they kept me down here!” Williams sounded exactly like a lunatic ready to be carted off to Quinne Asylum, but knowing what Verity did, she took careful note. “What I know is based on theory, nothing more! To know exactly what the language sounded like, one would have to live in the time! It could have been similar to Arabic or Coptic, I suppose, but what about the vowels…” The man broke into ragged, gasping breathing which quickly turned into frightened tears. “He just kept coming...trying to touch me…oh God, I didn’t know what he was saying.” Williams’ voice trailed off as if he were about to faint.

  “Come along,” Verity pressed, “there had to be something.”

  “There were some words I could recognise. Return. Kingdom. Science. Maybe?”

  Verity slipped the last knot free just as Williams let out a scream of the damned and jerked with all his strength upright as if he’d been electrocuted. In his terror, he knocked Verity to one side and ran for the chamber containing the hieroglyphics.