by Geonn Cannon
He took a seat on the bed and looked out the porthole.
It was just a few days now. A matter of hours.
He would be ready.
#
A small diner stood next to the hotel, and Trafalgar took advantage of it when she woke from her nap. She told the owner she was a tourist and thanked him when he made her a small sample dish of his best sellers. She took it back to the hotel and sat in the lobby, taking a position where she could see the stairs. She tried to remember the name of each dish as she tasted it: the kebab was delicious, as were the fava beans, falafel, and hawawshi. She wasn’t entirely sold on the shawarma, but she could see the appeal of it. She made a mental note to return to the diner before they left Cairo so she could get the full experience.
When Dorothy came downstairs, Trafalgar lifted her hand to wave her over. The sight of her was a revelation. The day they left London, she thought she had seen Desmond at his worse. Now there was a new contender for that prize. The short sandy brown hair was uncombed, and lines criss-crossed the face under the beard as if she had been fast asleep only moments ago. She wore a wrinkled white shirt untucked over tan slacks, and her suspenders also hung limp from her hips.
Dorothy stopped by the front desk and spoke with the clerk. Whatever answer she received shifted her features into a look of concern as she joined Trafalgar at the table.
“You look positively dreadful.”
“I feel worse,” Dorothy said, her tone carefully hidden under the roughness of Desmond’s voice. She gestured at the glass of milk and Trafalgar gestured for her to take it. Dorothy took a long swallow and sighed. “The telegram I sent to Beatrice wasn’t delivered. No one answered at the house.”
Trafalgar tried not to look overly concerned, but that was quite alarming. The only reason she could think of for Beatrice’s absence was if she somehow convinced the Keepings to take her along when they left. But surely Agnes and Leonard would have found some way to let them know she was safe and with them. Beatrice had to know Dorothy would check up on her. Simply vanishing would be unintentionally cruel, and Trafalgar had never known the majordomo to be anything close to cruel when it came to Dorothy’s feelings.
Dorothy said, “How did you sleep?”
“Wonderfully, I’m afraid. The bed felt luxurious after the plane. Speaking of which, did you know Mazzi is still in Cairo? Apparently she only went as far as the Nile before turning back.”
Dorothy avoided her gaze. “Yes, she stopped by my room...”
Trafalgar sat up straighter. Dorothy’s disheveled state suddenly made more sense. “Oh, Dorothy. Please tell me you didn’t--”
“Of course not! I would never.”
Trafalgar arched an eyebrow.
“I would never take advantage of her or of Desmond in that matter.”
“That, I believe,” Trafalgar said. “So you turned her away.”
Dorothy nodded. “It wasn’t easy. She was persistent. She thought she would... wake me with a pleasant surprise, so I woke with her in the midst of... things.”
Trafalgar said, “Oh.”
“Yes.”
“I see.”
“Right.”
“That must not have been--”
“It was not.”
“Is it still...?”
“No.”
“Did you--”
“Can we stop discussing it? For the record, no. Things have settled down now. But it took this body far too long to realize nothing was going to happen. I barely got any sleep.” She sighed and sipped Trafalgar’s milk again, this time not bothering to ask permission. Trafalgar chose not to complain and looked for a waiter to request a second glass. “I had to reveal everything to Mazzi. It was the only way I could dismiss her without feeling like a cad.”
“A cad?”
Dorothy met Trafalgar’s eye. “Hm?”
“You were worried about being seen as a cad? That’s a very... masculine term.”
Dorothy rolled her eyes. “I just spent the last twenty minutes with an erection. Forgive me if I feel a bit manlier than usual this morning.”
“Quite. But you did ask me to monitor your situation. If there’s a possibility you’re becoming too comfortable in Desmond’s body--”
Dorothy laughed loud enough to draw attention from the staff. Trafalgar used hand signals to request a second drink.
“Trust me, my dear Trafalgar, I am in no kind of comfort this morning. I am more determined to get back where I belong now than ever.”
“If you’re absolutely sure.”
Dorothy grunted. “Finish your breakfast. I want to get to the museum as quickly as possible.”
“As you wish, sir.”
Trafalgar smirked at Dorothy’s angry look and focused on finishing her food.
Chapter Twelve
According to the front desk, a car had been left for them at the hotel. Trafalgar knew the way to the museum, and felt confident enough in her driving abilities to take the wheel. Denny and Leola were waiting for them in Denny’s office, dressed much the same as they’d been the day before. Leola had chosen a blue dress with golden accents, something much softer than Dorothy ever remembered seeing her wear in London. Perhaps her relationship with Khalid and a quiet, settled life was something that agreed with certain people. Denny wore a suit with a plaid bowtie, and he smiled when he saw Dorothy. She nodded a greeting to him and tried to smooth out the wrinkles of her clothes as she took a seat.
“I apologize for my appearance...”
Leola said, “No apologies necessary. The circumstances are quite unusual.”
Dorothy nodded. “So we’ve all been apprised on the situation?”
“You are Lady Dorothy Boone,” Leola said, “despite outward appearances to the contrary. You believe the man who stole your body is an ancient High Priest named Amenemhat, and he is coming here to Cairo for reasons unknown. But it is fairly reasonable to assume he’s coming after the Books of Breathing, which will allow him to transfer his spirit to another body. You wish to regain your body while preventing the knowledge of his magic from falling into the wrong hands. Is that the long and short of it?”
“The broad strokes, yes.” Dorothy looked at Trafalgar. “This one is sharp. Why did you let her get away?”
“You try making her stay when she wants to leave.”
Leola grinned. “Too right. Now... shall we begin?”
Dorothy gestured at the table. “This is your home, so I shall defer to your leadership.”
“Very well. Mr. Razek, why don’t you tell us what you’ve found in regard to our foe?”
Denny stepped forward. “What do you know about damnatio memoriae?”
Dorothy looked at Trafalgar, who shrugged and said, “Not a thing. It’s a Latin phrase for condemnation of memory. What does it have to do with Egypt?”
“Names had great power in Egypt. To carve your name in stone was to confirm your existence. Conversely, erasing someone’s name was believed to erase them from history. Horemheb famously destroyed all shrines or monuments of Akhenaten and used the debris to build his own shrines. It was only fairly recently that the names he eradicated were rediscovered.”
Trafalgar said, “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.”
Denny looked enraptured. “Nothing beside remains. Shelley. I adore that poem. I suppose most archaeologists have a soft spot for it, of course, but the first time I read it, I got chills. It’s so sublime.” He looked down at his notes and cleared his throat. “But, ahum, getting back to the matter at hand. After a fair amount of investigating, I discerned that Amenemhat was a victim of such an erasure. After he died, an enemy went to the effort of destroying any written reference to him.”
Dorothy said, “What did he do to deserve such a fate?”
“He fell in love with the wrong woman. History is more familiar than some people like to think. The names may change, but humanity has always had the same flaws. Amenemhat lived in Thebes during the Twenty-first Dynasty. H
e was a High Priest of Amun. They were extremely powerful individuals. Some believe they even held sway over the pharaohs. Despite his power, there was one person who was absolutely off-limits. The God’s Wife of Amun. She was the mother of the king, a cult princess, basically the closest thing to a goddess on Earth. Amenemhat fell in love with a God’s Wife called Henuttaui. In fact, I believe the feeling was mutual, otherwise the punishment may not have been quite so severe. When the relationship was discovered, they were sentenced to death.
“Amenemhat, in addition to being a High Priest, had more than a passing interest in the occult. He accepted their fate, but he found a way to ensure their spirits lived on. He bound his spirit to the ka statue so that when he was executed, his soul would enter into it rather than passing into the afterlife. He did the same with Henuttaui’s spirit. He hoped one of his followers would wait until things settled down and then come to revive them both in new bodies. Unfortunately, his rivals acted first. Every mention of Amenemhat was erased, including the hiding place of the ka statues containing Henuttaui and himself.”
Dorothy was staring at Denny. To say she was impressed would be a vast understatement. “A fair amount of investigating, you say? How long did Trafalgar and I sleep?”
Denny shrugged awkwardly. “Once I get my grip on something, I find it difficult to let go.”
“So it would seem,” Dorothy said.
Trafalgar said, “We obviously know what became of Amenemhat’s ka statue. But you said Henuttaui had one as well.”
“If he survived this long, then perhaps she did as well,” Leola said. “Perhaps in addition to finding the Books, he is coming back to awaken her. I’ve been in contact with the shop where I originally found the ka statue and the owner has been trying to determine its provenance. I’ll get in touch with him later today to see what progress has been made.”
“Excellent,” Dorothy said.
Denny winced. “Well, not exactly. I’m not confident that will lead anywhere of value. The ka statue was listed as a fake, so it had to have come from someone who had no idea of its origins. It could have been passed down within a family through several generations or it may have been unearthed during the military action of the Great War. Finding its origin through the pawn shop is next to impossible. But I thought we should cover our options.”
Trafalgar said, “Do you have any idea where we should look? Luxor? The Valley of the Kings?”
“No. Ordinarily that would be a fine place to start, but the people we’re looking for were executed and disgraced. They wouldn’t have merited an honorable burial, but they would have had the means to ensure they weren’t just buried in the desert and lost to time. I believe Amenemhat and Henuttaui were buried in mastaba. They were underground burial chambers with an above-ground offering temple.”
Dorothy waited a moment to see if Denny was going to pull the rug out from underneath them once more. When he seemed to be finished, she said, “So if we find these mastaba, then there’s a chance we will find Henuttaui and Amenemhat’s final resting places. Will that include the Books of Breathing?”
“I don’t know. But Henuttaui’s tomb will hopefully still have her ka statue.”
Trafalgar said, “And if it does, perhaps we can use it as a bargaining chip. A way of forcing Amenemhat to return your body without resorting to violence.”
“A hostage exchange?” Dorothy said.
“I don’t like it either,” Trafalgar said, “but it would seem to be the least objectionable scenario. If it helps, the hostage we’re holding would be completely insensate and unaware of what was happening, so it wouldn’t truly be a kidnapping scenario.”
“Saved by semantics,” Dorothy said. “I suppose I can live with that. Before we do anything, we have to find the tombs and pray they’re still intact. The grave robber who stole Amenemhat’s ka statue may have also taken the Books of Breathing.”
Denny said, “Yes. I... I didn’t want to bring up that possibility, but there is a good chance that’s true.”
Dorothy sighed and looked at the table in front of them. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Do we have any semblance of a plan?”
“Yes!” Denny said. “I don’t mean to imply it’s hopeless. Mastabas are quite large, and there are records of who is buried where and when the tombs were constructed. We can eliminate some of these so-called cities of the dead as too recent or too old, and that leaves us with only a handful which could possibly have been used for his burial. Out of those... well, many have been desecrated over the ages, and even more were looted during the War, but I believe I’ve narrowed our options quite considerably.”
Trafalgar said, “Narrowed to...?”
“Three tombs. Well, five.”
Dorothy raised an eyebrow. “Well done, Denny. You’re quite handy to have around.”
He averted his eyes, suddenly awkward. “I may be a bit verbose, but I’m enthusiastic. Give me a jigsaw puzzle and I’ll have you a picture you can frame in ten minutes. Fifteen if there’s a lot of sky.”
Dorothy laughed. “And probably talking the entire time. Never let anyone tell you to shut up.”
Denny picked up his notebook and tore out a few pages. “I took the liberty of writing down where the tombs can be found. We can split up and take a quick look at each one. As I said, I’m not sure what you should expect to find in them. The ka statue would have been interred behind a false wall. If you find one that’s broken and empty, then the odds are good that it’s Amenemhat’s. Or that... you know... someone else... robbed a different tomb. We’ll meet up back here in three hours to share what we’ve found. If anyone has any promising leads, we can all go and fully investigate. Miss Trafalgar, you can go with Leola so the two of you can get reacquainted. Lady Boone, if it would be all right with you, I’d be honored to be your driver.”
Dorothy said, “I’m sure I’ll hear a great deal about the history of this great city while we’re driving. I can’t wait.”
“Then let us be off,” Trafalgar said. “Amenemhat draws ever closer and time is at a premium.”
“Agreed. See you all back here in three hours’ time.”
Denny moved to walk beside Dorothy as they left the office. “Were you aware that the Arabic name for Cairo is al-Qahirah, which means the vanquisher or the victorious.”
Dorothy put an arm across his shoulders. “Really? I wasn’t aware of that.”
“On our way to our first tomb, I can show you the church in which it’s believed that the Holy Family - Mary, Joseph, and the Christ child - sheltered after fleeing Egypt...”
“Fascinating!”
Dorothy looked back to see both Trafalgar and Leola striving not to laugh at her. She winked and focused on Denny’s story as they left the museum.
#
The flame elemental introduced herself as Lasair. Beatrice followed them back to the car, where Lasair chose the dickey seat above the boot despite being exposed to the elements. Beatrice climbed into the passenger seat and stared at the remains of the church as Virago drove them back onto the main road. There was no rain, but the sky threatened a downpour any moment. She thought about the woman in the backseat, the fact that the quest she’d been on for the past year was now half finished, and she furrowed her brow.
“It’s convenient, don’t you think?” Beatrice said. “Four powerful elementals, and we’re all located in Great Britain? Clustered together in a space smaller than some American states?”
Virago laughed. “Nothing convenient about it at all. I was born here, and you were born... well, you don’t know, do you? Somewhere in Asia seems the most likely choice there. And you, Lasair?” She looked over her shoulder. Lasair had lowered her hood to reveal she was bald save for a small layer of pale red peach fuzz. “Where were you born?”
Lasair looked as if she wasn’t going to answer but, finally, she said, “South Africa.”
“So there you have it,” Virago said. “The four corners of the Earth. North, east, south, and
now we know where to find our fourth.”
Beatrice said, “So someone born on the American continents? That narrows it down.”
“Well, of course it does. It eliminates almost eighty-five percent of the population. And then narrowing it down further, whoever it is will be drawn to this region just as you and Lasair were as children. The thing that makes us what we are, the power within us, it desperately wants to be complete. We merely have to find someone who is magically adept, who was born in the Americas, and who now lives in Great Britain.”
“If you put it like that,” Beatrice muttered.
Virago said, “The three of us working together should make short work of the search.”
“And what then?” Lasair said.
“A fantastic question.” Beatrice looked at Virago. “You’re the one spurring us on, the one abducting me and using me to convince Lasair to join our cause. What is the endgame?”
Lasair said, “Void. Whatever that entails.”
Beatrice said, “And you’re not the least bit curious what that could mean? It doesn’t sound particularly pleasant to me.”
“It means power. For us. The four who bring it forth will be rewarded.”
“My god, you have no idea,” Beatrice muttered. “You’re simply working on faith.”
“I have no doubt that this is what we were meant for. This is why we were created, why we’re here on this planet. Our purpose.”
“Created?” Beatrice said. “Not born?”
“Do you remember your parents?”
Beatrice said, “That’s--”
“The road!” Lasair shouted, the first time they’d heard her raise her voice.
Virago faced forward in time to see the dirt path they were on rising up like a carpet with something moving underneath it. She moved her foot to the brake but there was no time for the vehicle to respond. They drove onto the sloped ground and were immediately tossed to one side, both occupants of the vehicle bracing as Lasair was thrown from her perch. Beatrice gathered her energy as Virago let go of the steering wheel to thrust both hands at the ground they were fast approaching.