McCool bowed, but somehow the gesture didn’t seem at all deferential.
“As you say. Sorr.”
Thomas brushed past Callie with a nod. She didn’t acknowledge him. Instead, she looked at McCool with unspoken questions in her dark eyes.
Thomas went down the stairs to the second floor study, thinking that this abrupt summons was typical of the [51] Captain. The man was utterly self-absorbed. He never had a single thought for others. He was only concerned with himself and his own needs. In the long run, Thomas thought, that self-absorption would prove his downfall.
He stopped for a moment at the closed door, engulfed in sudden memory. The Captain’s study was the largest room in Noir Manor. Even so, it was a cramped place crammed with shelves and stacks and piles of books and pieces of bric-a-brac that the Captain had picked up in the course of his worldwide wanderings.
There were marble busts of forgotten Romans and granite statues of even more ancient and even more forgotten Egyptians. An ancient wooden sarcophagus sat in one corner, converted into a file bin for rolled scrolls and tattered papyri. Some of the artifacts were less identifiable, but the Captain had taught Thomas all about the Polynesian Tiki heads and the other idols he’d brought back from other faraway seas. Some were carved from wood, some from bone. Some were hacked from a soapy stone that was almost repellent to the touch. With somewhat human faces and multiple tentacles that seemed to squirm in the uncertain light they were certainly repellent to look at.
Thomas had spent many hours here in close study with the Captain. The subjects he’d studied were more formal than the lessons he’d taken from Callie. First he’d learned the basics. Latin and Greek and other languages, many of which were no longer spoken in the living world. Mathematics and chemistry. Astronomy and astrology. Theology and demonology. Collegiate academics had been simple after years of the Captain’s tutelage. In fact, [52] Thomas had to be careful not to reveal too much of what he’d learned from the Captain’s ancient tomes. They hadn’t burned a witch in the colonies for almost two hundred years and Thomas didn’t want to start a new trend.
He rapped sharply on the dark wooden door, once. That single knock was almost a private signal between him and the Captain. From inside the deep, familiar voice called, “Enter.”
Thomas opened the door. For the briefest moment the well-remembered scene was before him. The chaos of books and manuscripts crowding shelves, listing in piles on furniture, floor, and mantle. Dark wood chairs and the Captain’s great desk. The sarcophagus in the corner, the various statues and icons scattered about, most gazing impersonally into the distance—some disturbingly focused. The Captain himself behind the desk, as hale and hearty as always.
And then it changed.
Thomas blinked. He couldn’t believe it. His right hand went up to massage his eyes, then dropped back to his side. He knew that it would all still be changed no matter how hard or long he rubbed.
He was suddenly facing a long, dark hallway built of stone like those in an ancient temple or tomb. It was lit by open torches guttering in the dense, unmoving air. The walls themselves were covered with intricate pictographic writing that he recognized immediately as Egyptian hieroglyphics. Along one of the walls, as if they were an audience, crouched a line of men dressed in the clothes of Egypt’s long gone past. At the far end of the [53] corridor a man sat on a throne. He was wrapped in funeral garments and his arms were crossed over his chest. His unbandaged hands held the crook and flail of royalty. On his head was the crown of pharaoh. Behind him stood two women whom Thomas knew must be his sister and sister-wife.
Between Thomas and the enthroned figure was a large scale. A creature stood by it, bearing papyrus and stylus. It was a man with the long-beaked head of a bird. Another creature crouched nearby. This being was even more horrible to see. It was an amalgamation of beasts, with the head and terrible snout of a crocodile, the body of a lion, and the thick hindquarters of a rhino. From where he stood Thomas could see slavering anticipation on its face as it regarded him intently with cold reptilian eyes that reminded him, oddly, of Callie’s.
“Are you ready?” a voice growled at Thomas from the shadowy area beside him in the corridor’s mouth.
Thomas barely contained his impulse to flinch. Standing there, previously unseen, his dark-furred features blending into the darkness, was another man wearing an Egyptian kilt. His head was that of a dog, or jackal, complete with long, lolling red tongue. The words he’d spoken hadn’t been in English, though Thomas understood them perfectly.
It wasn’t a jackal-headed man who stood before him. It was a jackal-headed god. It was Anubis himself.
Thomas suddenly knew where he was and what was happening. He was in a dream world, a construct, sprung from the mind of the Captain, and the bloody bastard was testing him. Again.
[54] It was just like the Captain, Thomas thought. Don’t even give me a chance to get my breath. Catch me off-guard. Throw me into a frightening, possibly hazardous situation, and see how I react. See how well I’ve remembered my lessons about reality in general, and this reality in particular.
Thomas smiled. I remember them pretty damn well.
He looked at Anubis, who was grinning a dog-like grin, his tongue hanging out of one side of his mouth. He’d spoken a few words in the language of ancient Kemet, which was what the Egyptians themselves had called their land. Thomas called them back to mind. The few words were little to go on, so he quickly scanned the hieroglyphics painted in bright red, deep blue, and shining gold upon the corridor walls.
Champillon and his rival, Young, had only twenty years ago published their first papers on their theories for translating hieroglyphics. They’d managed to decipher fifteen or twenty of the signs. Scholars were still arguing about the basic underpinnings of the language, whether it was syllabic, ideographic, or alphabetical in nature, among other things. But the Captain had taught Thomas how to read hieroglyphics fluently when he was twelve.
The only question in Thomas’s mind, at this time, was what dialect to use in reply. Language had evolved over the three thousand years Egypt had been in existence. The few words that Anubis had spoken, along with indications from the written gylphs on the walls, indicated a mid-period form, around the time of Ramesses the Second, when the power and might of ancient Kemet was at its peak. One could call it Kemet’s Classical Age.
[55] Very well, Thomas thought. He would use that dialect. Anyway, it was the most elegant form of the language.
“Lead me to judgment, O, Anubis,” he said.
The jackal god grinned at him, his red tongue lolling from his pointed snout like that of a dog’s.
“You know where you stand, human?”
“Certainly.” Thomas tried to maintain at least a semblance of politeness just in case he was wrong—and there was only the slightest, tiniest chance of that—and he wasn’t facing a construct of the Captain’s mind, but rather ... something else. Something unthinkably other. “This is the Hall of Judgement, where the dead are separated into the two categories—the Prosperous and the Exterminated—by the scale of Maat, before Lord Osiris himself, God of the Dead.”
At first he’d spoken hesitantly. But soon the words were tripping off his tongue as easily as if they were English.
Anubis nodded, as if impressed.
“Come then,” he said. He held out his hand, a normal, well-kept human hand, clean and with nicely trimmed nails. Thomas took it. It was warm, as if Anubis were real. They stepped into the corridor, going past the row of minor gods who served as witnesses to the holy rite. Thomas was impressed by the strength of the Captain’s illusion. The corridor was stuffy and much too warm. He could feel himself start to sweat. It smelled musty. The dust of the ages covered the floor. They left footprints in it as they paced toward the scale of Maat, which was taller than Thomas, and the things that waited next to it.
[56] The scale was a simple balance with two pans descending from the horizontal beam on delicate golden chai
ns. One of the pans already sat low. A single feather, standing impossibly upright on the tip of its quill, weighed down the pan. This was Maat’s Feather of Truth. Ibis-headed Thoth, the scribe of the gods, stood next to the balance. An inscrutable look was on his bird face. Ammut, the demon crouching by the scale, was somewhat more scrutable. He slavered in anticipation of an unfavorable judgement. Beyond, Osiris sat on his throne, mummy-wrapped and unknowable. Isis and Nephthys, his sister-wife and sister, respectively, looked on, also impassive.
Thomas silently congratulated the Captain on his imagination. The Egyptian goddesses were breathtakingly beautiful. Dressed in the diaphanous Egyptian manner, their heavy but firm, large-nippled breasts were totally exposed. Their wide hips and shapely thighs were barely concealed by the gauzy skirts wrapped tightly about their seductive forms. Thomas could even smell the cones of incense burning in the thick, wavy hair that descended in black torrents to their waists. They were intoxicating and distracting.
Thomas wrenched his attention back to what was happening before him. Of course they were distracting. That was why they were present. That was why they were so ... womanly. The Captain wanted him to be distracted. He wanted him to fail this test. Whatever it was meant to test. Thomas smiled to himself. He would disappoint the Captain again.
He and Anubis stopped before the scale. This ritual, [57] Thomas knew, was called The Weighing of the Heart. The Egyptians believed that the heart was the center of all knowledge. That that organ contained an indelible record of all the good and bad things an individual had done in his life. The individual’s heart had to be weighed against Maat’s Feather of Truth. If they balanced, then the individual passed judgement. He would be allowed to join the Prospering Dead in paradise. If feather and heart failed to balance, then the individual was doomed to extermination. His heart would be snapped up by Ammut the Devourer and he would be damned forever.
Thomas wasn’t sure what the Captain meant to test with this elaborate charade. In a way, he realized, it was somewhat appropriate. Today was the First Intercalary Day of the calendar of ancient Kemet, corresponding to June twenty-first of the modern calendar. It was the first of the five feast days before the beginning of the Egyptian New Year. The Intercalary Days, falling as they did outside the normal calendar of twelve months of thirty days each, were considered wild and chaotic. Anything could happen on them. Reserved for feasting and festivals, no important business could be conducted during these days as expected outcomes could be lost in the chaos that accompanied their uncertain presence.
The First of the Days was dedicated to Osiris, king of the dead. Traditionally it was held to be Osiris’s birthday, as, traditionally, December twenty-fifth was held to be Jesus Christ’s. Perhaps that was why the Captain had brought him this day before this simulacrum of Osiris. In any event, Thomas thought, he was ready to face anything.
[58] Anubis turned to him. “Are you ready for the judgement, O human?”
“I am,” Thomas said steadily.
“Very well.”
Anubis reached out and plunged his hand into Thomas’s chest. The pain was immediate and excruciating. Thomas screamed as he felt the jackal god’s fingers close around his beating heart.
This isn’t right, he thought wildly. Something has gone wrong.
He looked at the god’s face. The dog grin was unreadable, although on the edge of his vision Thomas could see the Devourer leap forward eagerly.
Despite the pain coursing through his system Thomas realized that he’d been set up. This wasn’t a test of some kind. It was a trap, meant to kill.
His knees were sagging from the pain. His teeth were clenched together. His chest heaved but no breath came into his tortured lungs. He reached out and gripped Anubis’s arm with both of his.
“Get … your ... paws ... off ... me!” Thomas spat the words in English. The pain made him forget to speak in the ancient Kemet tongue.
He felt his heart move in his chest as Anubis tried to tear it from his body. In response he yanked savagely at the thing’s arm with all his strength, and surprisingly Anubis’s arm broke away from his body, coming off in Thomas hands.
For a moment they stood looking at each other. There was no pain or anger on Anubis’s face. Only a stupid dog grin. Then he and everything around him [59] disappeared. It all vanished suddenly, like slumber after a sudden loud sound close by the sleeper’s head.
Thomas stared. He was inside the Captain’s study, though he didn’t remember entering the room. In fact, he stood right before the Captain’s desk. The Captain was looking at him with a peculiar expression on his hard old face.
“What the devil’s the matter with you?” he asked, and Thomas collapsed.
He fell, catching himself briefly on the edge of the Captain’s desk. He must have blacked out for a moment because the next thing he saw was the Captain hunkering over him, shaking him by the shoulders.
“Thomas, wake up, Thomas!”
He was drenched with sweat and his heart was beating wildly, as if he’d just run a long and difficult race at full speed. He grabbed the Captain’s coat sleeve and held on as if for his life.
“What happened?” the Captain asked harshly.
Thomas told him, describing the scene, telling him that he’d first assumed it was a test of some sort, then describing his sudden revelation, the knowledge that if he let Anubis take his heart he would really die.
Benjamin Noir listened with no expression on his hard old face. When Thomas finished, he stood easily. Bearing most of Thomas’s weight, he helped him over to a comfortable chair. He set him down, his expression softening into thoughtfulness.
“Something is happening,” the Captain said. “I’m not sure what. But this is the second assault on our household this very day.”
[60] “Who is it?” Thomas asked, clutching his chest where his heart still raced fearfully. “Who can be doing this?”
The Captain looked at him, his face hard again.
“Who else?” he asked, rhetorically.
“The ... the Derlichts?” Thomas asked.
The Captain just stared at him, as grim as a hanging judge.
4.
Jon Noir was more than a little giddy by the time Schmidt slumped down face first on the wooden table, his face red as a beet, and began to snore.
The cooper had drunk continuously for the two hours he’d held Jon as an unwilling guest, emptying more mugs of brandy than Jon could count. Jon himself had downed several mugs at Johann’s urging, but at a much more sedate pace.
At first the cooper’s conversation had been genial, almost subservient, as he’d praised the Noirs’ sterling qualities he’d supposedly heard everyone in Geiststadt enumerate since he and his daughter had moved to the village. But as he’d drunk more and more brandy he’d become maudlin and then belligerent, bemoaning his fate and blaming his difficulties on the residents of Flatbush, where he’d lived before coming to Geiststadt.
“They wouldn’t give a man a chance,” he’d told Jon blearily towards the end of their mostly one-way conversation. “One mistake! One!” He waved a finger drunkenly in Jon’s face to emphasis his point, “and, whooosh!, we had to leave. Me and my little daughter.” He sniffed in self-pity. “Anyway, she was only a serving girl. Not like she hadn’t done anything like that before. And I didn’t even hurt her. Not a bit.” He sighed and went face down on the table so hard that Jon heard an audible thunk when his head hit the tabletop.
Jon was nonplused. He looked at the drunkenly [62] slumbering cooper, uncertain of what to do. Within moments his daughter arrived, as if she’d been watching from their shop and expecting Schmidt’s eventually collapse.
She looked at him and sighed.
“Father drinks,” she said, by way of explanation.
“Yes,” Jon acknowledged. It seemed the only sensible response. “Do you ... do you need any help with him?”
She shook her head.
“It’s a fine day,” she said. “He can ...
rest ... here for a while. The sun and fresh air will do him good.” She glanced at Jon then quickly looked away. “He wasn’t always like this,” she said. “He’s a good man. He’s just had a hard time of it, lately. Adjusting to the trouble—to our having to move.”
It was on the tip of Jon’s tongue to question her about “the trouble” both had alluded to, to ask why, exactly, they’d had to pull out of Flatbush and move to Geiststadt, but he hesitated. Schmidt had given him a not-so-subtle clue before passing out. Perhaps details weren’t necessary.
“I’m Jon Noir,” he said suddenly.
She looked at him squarely for the first time and again he was captivated by her eyes. They seemed to shine with an internal light of innocence and good cheer that even the present circumstances couldn’t completely douse.
“Yes, I know. That is—I’ve heard your name mentioned around the village.” She smiled briefly, shyly. “I’m Trudi. Trudi Schmidt.”
“Yes,” John said. “I know. It’s nice to finally meet you. Formally, that is.”
“That was a terrible thing that happened to your friend,” Trudi said. “Do you have any idea who did it?”
[63] “No.” Jon shook his head. “Nor why. Erich was a harmless old man. I don’t know why anyone would kill him.”
She was as easy to talk to as she was to look at. Jon wasn’t particularly shy, but he did have a hard time conversing with girls. Struck by a sudden idea, he said, “Um, listen, I was going to go for a walk on HangedMan’s Hill this afternoon. Would you like to accompany me?”
He wasn’t usually forward, especially with someone he’d just met. Unlike Thomas. No female was safe in his company. But Jon felt he really needed to clear his head after imbibing the brandy. After finding Erich and bringing him home. A hike would be just the thing. And Trudi was so beautiful and so sad when she looked down on her sodden father.
THE TWILIGHT ZONE, Book 1: Shades of Night, Falling Page 5