Rings of Anubis: A Folley & Mallory Adventure

by E. Catherine Tobler

  The damage intentionally inflicted after Hatshepsut’s reign was extensive; where once her image had been carved, it had been chiseled away. In certain places, the image of another pharaoh overlapped Hatshepsut’s own. Another mystery.

  “Eleanor?”

  At the touch of a hand against her arm, she turned to find Mallory, smudged with dust from his own explorations. The sunlight slanted through the pillars, painting stripes of color over his forehead and nose.

  “Auberon has found something,” he added, pulling her away from the image she had been looking at.

  Auberon knelt in a corner deep within the colonnade. His lantern threw a blotch of light onto the wall before him, illuminating a set of hieroglyphs that Eleanor had no trouble reading. They were surrounded by an oval, the traditional cartouche.

  “My grandmother’s name, Sagira,” Eleanor said and touched the carving before them. Part of her wanted there to be some deeper awareness when she touched the stone, but it was only stone, nothing magical. It was still beneath her fingers, warmed by the day’s heat despite the shadows.

  “Cartouches were reserved for royalty, weren’t they?” Auberon asked.

  Eleanor would have nodded, but could not draw her attention from the hieroglyphs. The Egyptians had no word for queen, nor had they known mirrors as Eleanor and the others knew them, so what the writing told her should have been impossible. She read it three times and tried to put the pieces together differently. She tried to force them into some historical sense, but could not, not around the wonder of her grandmother’s name before her. Her fingers lingered in the curve of an ankh.

  “They called her the Queen of the Mirror,” Eleanor finally said, “but that isn’t possible.” However, if her grandmother’s name could be upon these walls at all, how could one say what was possible? She drew her fingers away.

  “Anubis’s mirror?” Gin whispered.

  Eleanor didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She was too stricken by the idea that her grandmother commanded such an honor. That her grandmother’s name was written upon these walls at all was something that robbed Eleanor of her patience. They were close to something, very close. She could feel it pricking up her spine. Eleanor grew tired of waiting, but Sagira’s name upon the wall appeared to confirm her grandmother had stepped backward in time. That she had lived a life here, had been remembered by the people.

  While Auberon and Gin settled in to take rubbings of the wall, Eleanor moved deeper into the temple. She felt Mallory’s eyes on her and offered him a smile. He didn’t follow, seeming to understand her need to wander alone; if anyone in their group would understand, it would be him. Eleanor felt torn between laughter and tears. How many times had she explored the Valley of the Kings? And here all this sat, essentially on the other side of a broad hill. A small mark upon an ancient stone: a small mark that could have answered as many questions as it produced.

  She wandered deeper into the temple, through slanting shafts of sunlight. She found carvings of dwarves, of mighty birds, and of Ma’at, spreading her generous, balancing wings over everything she could. Eleanor looked for other instances of Sagira’s name, but saw none. She came around again to the temple’s front row of pillars, finding a small chapel in the rightmost corner.

  Its roof was still intact, and while the front pillars remained intact as well, most within the chapel had crumbled. Eleanor could see there had once been twelve of them: four rows, three pillars deep. Those that remained retained specks of paint that Eleanor longed to touch, but didn’t. Some part of her wanted this to be as it was for all the days to come; she wanted this place untouched by time and hand.

  A scorpion scuttled across her path and she exhaled, mindful of Mallory’s earlier warning about snakes. She walked with a little more caution, but still found herself startled again when a mural of Anubis reared up on a wall before her.

  The mural was worn by sunlight, wind, and time. It was little more than flecks of paint on stone, but Eleanor felt it was somehow more than that, for her heart raced at the sight of the dark god. In one hand, he held an ankh, but the other was raised, and above his palm there floated four circular daubs. The paint was chipped, but not badly enough that Eleanor couldn’t easily see the colors: blue, red, yellow, and white.

  Daughter.

  Eleanor pushed the voice out of her head, but she felt it lingering close even so. Waiting. She took a step closer to the wall, daring to place her hand against the painting, and when she saw how perfectly it fit against the daubs of paint, she pictured her grandmother’s hand there too. With her palm flat against the stone, each finger touched one of the daubs. No—

  “Rings,” she whispered.

  “Rings,” confirmed another voice.

  Eleanor whirled around at the sound, drawing her revolver from its holster. There, atop a half-crumbled pillar, perched Christian Hubert.

  Dublin, Ireland ~ October 1886

  The wind blew hard enough to rattle every shutter Folley’s Nicknackatarium and adjoining house possessed, keeping Eleanor awake long into the night. She pushed her blankets down once again and eased up onto her elbows, listening to the mournful sound of the wind as it twisted down the chimneys and through the walls. She closed her eyes and imagined that the moaning of the wind was every mummy in the Nicknackatarium coming to dreadful life, to shuffle their wrapped feet over the wood floors and shamble up the winding staircases.

  This was not the way a normal young lady spent her evenings; however, Eleanor Folley was still far from normal. She pictured the wind slipping under the shutters to batter at the windows with small, insistent hands. Where the wind found a crack, it would steal inside to twirl about the house until it evaporated. She gave the rain a small voice that hummed “let me in, let me in” with each drop that began to hammer against the rooftop, and then came the thunder, which shook the bones of the house with its baritone.

  Somewhere above, a shutter snapped as it came loose in the storm. Eleanor jumped at the sound and felt she was only five again as she clutched her nightgown and willed her heart to calm. She was well beyond the age of being frightened by a storm, yet something about this one had set her on edge.

  She slipped out of bed, stuffing feet into slippers and wrapping her robe around her before moving toward the door. The hallway stretched in silence, the window at its end illuminated by a flash of lightning. Her father’s door was closed, no light seeping from beneath. Eleanor presumed he was asleep as she turned in the other direction, toward the narrow staircase leading to the attic. If that window had come open again, she was going to have some choice words for it and the man who claimed to have repaired it.

  “Crow dives through a window, ain’t ever going to be the same, miss,” the little man had said as he’d slid the repaired frame with its new pane into position.

  “No, I daresay the crow is dead after that,” she’d said. “Injured at the least.” The crow in question had been injured, enough so that Eleanor had been left to finish the work the window had begun, wringing its neck and burying it at the base of a tree that grew near the River Liffey. It had been the closest bit of dirt she could find.

  “The window, miss, the window!”

  And what about the poor bird? Eleanor thought as she climbed the stairs. Lightning illuminated the window at the landing, its silvered light throwing everything into momentary brightness. At the attic door she could already feel the draft of wind snaking over its threshold and she scowled, pushing the door inward to fully feel the chilled air.

  She and her father had spent two afternoons moving crates and other storage away from the problematic window after its repair, just in case. And here was the “just in case,” she thought as she padded across the wood floor to the window that had blown inward. The curtains were soaked, and the shutter thumped incessantly against the side of the house.

  Cold rain pelted Eleanor as she grabbed the shutter and pulled it closed. She secured it with a muttered curse, but the wind whipped up again, sending the
shutter flying loose. Drenched and glaring, Eleanor hauled the flapping panel back into place.

  “All right,” she muttered, finding a length of twine in the attic to further secure the shutter. “A prayer to Saint Frances of Rome, then?” She looked heavenward, then closed the window itself, shivering with cold and wet. “Saint Frances, I beseech you to look after this window and see it stays closed this very stormy ni—”

  That was when Eleanor saw the boot print illumined by another flash of lightning. Every hair seemed to stand on end as she looked at the mark on the attic floor and realized someone was in the house.

  She turned her back to the window, shaking now for an entirely different reason. Every shadow took on a sinister depth; each was unknowable and might contain a dozen intruders. This was one reason the Folleys had opted to live in town; there was no telling what might befall their collection of artifacts in some isolated location. Here, they could at least provide their own security. In theory.

  Eleanor reached for the nearest crate and found it not near at all, since she and her father had moved every crate in the attic. Swallowing another curse, she stepped away from the window and made it to the nearest stack of crates. She reached into the top one, pulling out the first item she came to, a rough pottery vase. She stared at it, pondering what she might do with it—she could remember excavating it, knew exactly what it was worth—and then a shadow moved. She would mash the intruder in the brainpan with it, no matter its value.

  “Saint Frances,” said a male voice, “is the patron saint of widows, sweetheart. Not windows.”

  Eleanor stiffened. Surely it wasn’t—

  Christian Hubert slipped out of the shadows to stand before Eleanor, dripping rain onto the attic floor. Had rats been built broad and tall, he looked like a drowned one, his mackintosh having provided little protection from the storm. Eleanor gritted her teeth together, trying to stop them from chattering. God’s foot, he had to be cold, having been out in the rain, and on—

  “ . . . on my roof, what in the name of God were you doing on my roof, and more to the point, in my attic!” Eleanor lifted the vase, still prepared to smack him into unconsciousness if the need arose.

  “It wasn’t the ideal entry, no,” Christian said. He shook then, like a massive dog, flinging water every which way.

  Eleanor jerked as the water flew. “Get out. You have no—” She broke off, too stunned by his appearance here to properly finish a sentence. “You were breaking into my house?” There was a sentence; Eleanor felt proud of herself, vase still held at the ready as Christian took a step forward. “Stay where you are!”

  “Eleanor. You’re soaked to the bone.”

  His voice held that familiar edge, the one that said wouldn’t they both rather be out of these cold, wet clothes, and discussing this over, say, whiskey, in front of a roaring fire?

  “Your doing, I would point out,” Eleanor said. She gestured to the window with the vase. “Had you secured the shutter, your trespass might have gone unnoticed.” Though she doubted that very much, for Christian was more the kind to make it clear he had been somewhere. Especially somewhere he wasn’t meant to be. He wanted people to know, after all. Wanted to bask in their exasperation and admiration alike. “What the hell are you—?”

  Christian took a quick step forward, but Eleanor didn’t allow him any others. She struck out with the vase, catching Christian in the jaw and sending him to the floor in a wet pile. She was stunned when the vase didn’t shatter, further proving its value and the craftsmanship of the ancient Egyptians.

  “Ele—Blast!” He cradled his jaw as he lay there, staring at the ceiling. She hoped his vision was swimming.

  “Shall I tie you and leave you for the authorities, then?” she asked. What would he tell them? Why had he come? As Eleanor sifted through possible reasons, she could only come up with one: Christian had come to get the ring back. The ring she wore on a chain around her neck even tonight.

  “Is that woman with you?” Eleanor tilted her head toward the window, but could only hear the storm rattling against the roof.

  “No.”

  The single word came out with an emphasis that made Eleanor smile a little. She hoped his jaw was hurting him to hell and back.

  “Get off my floor and out of this house.” Another complete sentence. Eleanor wondered if she would soon remember how to speak in entire paragraphs. “And out of Dublin while you’re at it.”

  “Eleanor, can’t we tal—”

  “No.”

  “You’re being hysteric—”

  “I’d say I have every right to be hysterical, a thief in my attic in the middle of a stormy night!”

  Christian peered up at her, hand finally coming away from his jaw. “Would there be less trauma involved if the night weren’t stormy?”

  Eleanor flung the vase at him. The solid piece of pottery thumped off his shoulder and into a crate, where it clattered to the floor.

  They only looked at each other, Eleanor filled with a fear and rage she had thought long behind her. Coming home two years ago, she believed this entire thing finished. No rings, no path, her mother well and truly lost. Now, here sat a fragment of all that had been hoped for. The man she had once thought might help her unravel all those riddles. The man she thought she had loved. Breaking into her house.

  “You need to go,” she whispered. “I’m surprised all this noise hasn’t awakened my father.” Behind her, the shutter slapped open again, sending a fresh gust of rain into the attic. “I have no intention of explaining your presence to him.”

  Christian picked himself up from the floor, smoothing his mac and trousers into a different mass of wet wrinkles. “Eleanor—” He winced at the motion of his jaw. “I didn’t intend—”

  “Don’t try to placate me,” she said, beginning to shiver under the continued assault of the wind and rain behind her. “Just go. This is over, Christian. Whatever you came here for . . . It’s no longer yours.”

  Something flickered in his eyes then, perhaps annoyance because she could read him so well, even after so long apart. He opened his mouth to say more, but thought better of it. He moved toward the window, climbed onto the sill, then slid onto the slight ledge of roof. Had she been feeling generous, Eleanor might have walked him downstairs, to the front door, but all things considered, she decided he should leave as he had come. On the ledge, Christian only looked at her, as if in silent appeal.

  “Close the shutter and go,” she said.

  He did only that; he swung both shutters inward, holding them until Eleanor tied them firmly again with the twine. By the time she had closed the window itself, Christian was making his loud, slippery descent from the roof, and by the time Eleanor had dried off and crawled back into bed, she was thankful her father slept so soundly and prayed Christian Hubert was well and truly leaving Dublin behind—forever.

  Though the storm calmed and the wind quieted, Eleanor didn’t sleep; she lay awake long into the night, listening for the sound of the loose shutter and the entrance of another wayward bird.

  Deir-el-Bahri, Egypt ~ October 1889

  Eleanor hadn’t seen Christian in three years, and, physically, he had not changed much. He was imposing, made larger by the flowing Bedouin robes he wore. His white cotton thawb flowed down to cover his feet, while his completely unnecessary outer bisht was colored in wide stripes of green. His face was deeply browned, as if he had taken no shelter from the sun in years, a white kufiya wrapped loosely around it against the heat. The length of his robes uncurled as a snake might with his movement; he rose to stand on the pillar and lingered before dropping both booted feet to the ground. In his hands, he held a pocket watch, and snapped its case shut. The sound was loud in the small chapel, and Eleanor flinched.

  “I almost didn’t think you would come,” he said, “but then this is your life’s work, isn’t it?”

  Christian sounded as though he pitied her; that he wished she could move on and find something else to trouble herse
lf with. There were days Eleanor had longed for that—to put this riddle to rest—but days like this made her reconsider. If Christian was here, her grandmother’s name upon these very walls paired with evidence of Anubis’s rings, she was close. If she stepped off this path, it allowed Christian unfettered access to the Glass and anything it might reveal.

  “How could I resist such charming poetry?” Eleanor asked. Her voice sounded calmer than she felt, and she was proud that her gun arm didn’t tremble as she kept the weapon trained on him. She was not about to call out to the others; Christian surely had weapons. He didn’t appear armed, but that meant he was. At least one revolver tucked into his robes, and certainly a knife secreted somewhere—a bullet was quick, but a blade was silent. The best way to pry any information out of him was alone, when he believed he had the advantage.

  She wanted to look at the image of Anubis again, but didn’t dare take her eyes off Christian. She knew his ways all too well.

  “Appears I learned a few things after all, hieratic among them,” Christian said. He turned a slow circle to admire the chapel around them.

  It annoyed Eleanor that he knew her so well—knew she wouldn’t fire on him with his back turned. Still, she kept the gun on him. Its weight in her hand made her feel better, foolish as that was.

  “Have you found your grandmother’s name on the walls yet?”

  Eleanor didn’t answer, her grip tightening on her revolver as Christian prowled the perimeter of the chapel. His fingers brushed absently over the walls, and as he passed the chapel’s backmost wall, Eleanor saw a break in the wall, a small access corridor flooded with sunlight. The roof was crumbling, a river of stone filling the corner. Outside, she saw a shadow move: a tethered airship.

  “Toss your weapons down,” Eleanor said.

  Christian’s hand brushed over a wall, intentionally dislodging pieces of rock and paint. “You jest,” he said, content with his exploration of the wall. “You’ve got one trained on me, Eleanor Folley, and you’re a good shot. I’m still a quick draw.”