It was midnight at last, and Jennings fell to his knees before the young woman. “Behold, Yemanjá has come!” he shouted.
But the worshipers paid him no heed, because they knew this was only the poor girl who sold candles at the cemetery.
“She did not come,” the young woman said, helping him to his feet. “There is no Yemanjá.”
“There must be!” he insisted. “She must be here! She must be real!”
“Why?”
“Because I am Exú,” he said at last. “I am Exú and I am real.”
“The devil.” She said it simply, neither believing nor disbelieving.
“I am the one they worship back there, with their candles and popcorn and orgies at midnight. I walked among them and they did not recognize me. Even the priest did not recognize me.”
“I recognize you, Exú,” she told him.
The chanting grew louder all around them, and he reached out his arm to her. “How can I tell them? How can I tell them that I have no use for their blood and chickens and heads of priests? There is more evil in the mind of man than even I would have thought possible.”
“I will tell them for you,” she said. “I will tell them tomorrow.”
“By tomorrow I will be elsewhere.”
Presently they slept there on the beach together, and at the first light of dawn when the young woman awakened she saw that the man named Jennings was no longer beside her. As far as she could see down the beach there was no sign of him.
She waded into the surf to wash herself, and as she emerged a young girl brought her flowers, thinking she was Yemanjá.
ABOUT “THE WEEKEND MAGUS”
Egyptian mummies, a mad scientist, and the Loch Ness Monster… This tale, also commissioned by Hoch’s friend Bill Pronzini and reprinted in several other anthologies, brings diverse horror motifs together.
First publication—Mummy! ed. Bill Pronzini; Arbor House, 1980.
THE WEEKEND MAGUS
“He goes up to Scotland every weekend,” Sir Richard’s secretary had told me. “Nobody knows what he does there.”
I’d come to London to obtain an interview with Sir Richard Forbish for an American newsmagazine, and if I had to follow him to Scotland to get it, that was all right with me, too. I flew up to Glasgow on the afternoon plane and rented a car at the airport, getting out just before the weekend rush.
Sir Richard’s Scottish retreat was fifty miles northwest of Glasgow, on the banks of Loch Awe. The sun was low in the sky by the time I reached it, and my first impression was only of a country house of modest proportions. The bell was answered not by a gaunt, mysterious butler but by a pert young blonde in a tennis tunic. I was beginning to learn what Sir Richard did with his weekends.
“Come in! You must be that American writer who’s come to interview Rich.”
“Guilty,” I admitted. “Is Sir Richard about?”
“Oh, yes.” Her accent wasn’t quite British. “He’s working downstairs. I’ll call him.” She paused and said, almost as an afterthought, “I’m Minerva Athens. Pleased to meet you.” Glancing down at her short white tunic and bare legs she added, “Rich and I had a game of tennis earlier.”
“Charming,” I remarked, leaving her to take it however she would.
She vanished through a door to the basement and when she reappeared after a moment she was followed by a tall, slender man who was both younger and handsomer than I’d expected him to look at forty-eight. “Good to see you here,” he said, extending his hand.
“It’s an honor, Sir Richard,” I assured him.
“I don’t usually receive journalists here on weekends, you know. I come up here with Minerva to get away from the pressures of London.”
Minerva cleared her throat. “Let me slip into something else and I’ll get us all a drink.”
Sir Richard led me into a massive book-lined study in the best tradition of British manor houses. Seated behind his wide oak desk he seemed to assume the role of eminent man of science for the first time. “I was a bit baffled by your request for an interview,” he said. “Is your publication doing a series on non-winners of the Nobel Prize?”
“You must know you’re in line for that any year now.”
“Perhaps.”
“My editors in New York are mainly interested in your experiments with the radioactive dating of archeological sites.”
“An interesting field,” Sir Richard said. “We’ve made some astonishing discoveries right here in Scotland.”
I reached for my briefcase. “Mind if I record this?”
“I wasn’t aware the formal interview had begun. Let us relax with a drink first. Good Scotch always tastes best right here in Scotland.”
In a moment Minerva Athens was back, wearing a gold lounging robe. While she went off to fix our drinks I asked Forbish, “Just as general background, what is your marital status?”
“My wife and I are separated. Minerva has been a great help to me in this trying time.” His words seemed well rehearsed, as if he’d recited them many times in past months.
“She’s a lovely young woman.”
“She is that,” he agreed.
Minerva returned with the Scotch and sat down to join us. Sir Richard left his desk and took one of the other chairs, reinforcing the informality of the session. “Are these weekends strictly for relaxation or do you manage to get some work in?” I asked.
“I’m working on something downstairs. A hobby of sorts.”
“You’ve been especially successful in dating Egyptian artifacts.”
Forbish warmed to his favorite subject. “My technique goes a step beyond carbon dating as practiced elsewhere. Interestingly enough, I’ve found some artifacts from Roman times right here in Scotland.”
“This far north?”
Sir Richard smiled. “Hadrian’s Wall was near the Scottish border, but the Wall of Antoninus was well into Scotland. And the Romans certainly ventured north of their walls, or they would not have realized the need for them.”
“To keep out the barbarians from the north?”
He nodded and sipped his Scotch. “I have found evidence that Egyptians accompanied the Romans this far.”
“What would Egyptians be doing here?”
He motioned toward the woman at his side. “Minerva is one-quarter Egyptian and she is here.”
“But—”
“Seriously, Cleopatra lived in Rome as Caesar’s mistress, and the ties between the two people were very great. I believe Egyptian specialists sometimes traveled with the Roman legions.”
“Specialists in what?”
“Astronomy, embalming, the building of pyramids.”
Minerva interrupted with a snort. “This solemn talk bores me. Do you play tennis?”
“Hardly at all,” I answered.
“We have an indoor court around back. The house is much larger than it appears at first glance. I’ll show you around tomorrow. You will be staying the weekend, won’t you?”
“I hadn’t planned—”
“Nonsense!” Sir Richard said. “Of course you’ll stay!” He gave instructions for Minerva to prepare the guest room.
Later, after an excellent dinner of freshly killed pheasant, she showed me to the room. “He’s pleased to have you here,” she told me. “He has something very special to show you tomorrow.”
* * * *
In the morning after breakfast Sir Richard and I strolled down the hill to the edge of Loch Awe. I noticed that the rear of the large house overhung the hill, and big double doors provided a level access to the basement. “Is that a garage?” I asked.
“It was built as a boat house. The previous owner had a ramp running down to the water. I’ve put the space to other use.”
“It’s a fine clear lake for boating.”
“All Scottish lochs are. That’s why I love the country so much.” He tossed a pebble far into the lake, and I watched the ripples break the calm mirrored surface.
“You’re a weekend laird,” I suggested.
“More of a weekend magus.” His eyes twinkled at the words.
“Just what is it you’re doing up here?”
Forbish stared out over the water. “Shortly after I purchased this house I made an amazing discovery. What I found was confirmation of an Egyptian presence here—confirmation in the most vivid manner. It was an earthen burial mound in the shape of a pyramid, containing the mummified remains of a man.”
“A mummy? In Scotland?”
“Exactly.”
“That’s quite a discovery.”
“There were the usual personal objects buried with him, and even what I took to be a pet. The Egyptians often buried mummified dogs and cats—even baboons—with their dead rulers.”
“You found another tomb of King Tut!”
Sir Richard chuckled. “Hardly! There were no treasures of gold or precious gems. But my experiments with the mummified remains could make the Nobel Prize committee sit up and take notice.”
I was beginning to see why this interview was so important to him. He would use it to make some important announcement. Before I could comment he hurried on. “Are you familiar with the experiments of the Americans Harris and Weeks in x-raying the mummies at the Cairo museum?”
“Vaguely.”
“The work was carried out ten years ago by the University of Michigan School of Dentistry and yielded a wealth of new information. I attempted to carry the x-ray and radiation experiments a step further.”
“With what result?”
He shrugged casually and tossed another pebble. “There is evidence of some reanimation in the bones of one of the subjects.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe my ears. “Are you talking about bringing a mummy back to life? Shades of Dr. Frankenstein!”
Forbish laughed. “Hardly anything like that. You won’t encounter Boris Karloff lurching around the place trailing his wrappings.”
“I hope not.”
“Part of the Egyptian mummification technique involved the removal of brain matter, usually by metal hooks inserted through the nostrils. After such a procedure any resurrection would be quite impossible.”
“Then what—?”
He held up a hand. “All in good time. Do you have a camera?”
“I have a small one in my briefcase, but my editor usually arranges to send a photographer if it’s necessary.”
“Never mind. Your camera will serve very well. And I’ve been teaching Minerva to operate my little movie camera.”
“When will all this photography take place?”
Sir Richard smiled. “Perhaps this evening.”
* * * *
After lunch I watched them play tennis on the indoor court around the back of the house. Minerva was quite good, and more than a match for Sir Richard. While he disappeared downstairs I went for a stroll with her on the grounds of the estate, along the wooded hill that overlooked Loch Awe.
“What does he have in the basement?” I asked, coming right to the point.
She made a face. “Mummies. He’ll show you tonight. That’s what he lured you up here for.”
“Mummies in Scotland! I can’t get over it!”
“Neither can he. It’s become an obsession with him—though only a weekend obsession, thank heavens!”
“He spoke of himself as a weekend magus.”
“He is that, I suppose. A magus, a necromancer who would communicate with the dead.”
“He wants to communicate?”
“Figuratively speaking.”
“He mentioned reanimation.”
“Yes.”
“That implies a return to life.”
“Sir Richard is a great man, a great scientist. You must know from your short time with him that he is no madman surrounded by bubbling test tubes and sparking generators.”
“He seems quite sane,” I agreed cautiously.
“The sanest man I’ve ever known. He has something here—a discovery whose very existence would be enough to make him famous around the world. And yet he’s kept it secret for nearly a year while he’s spent his weekends trying for the ultimate breakthrough. You see, he doesn’t just want to be famous. He wants the recognition of his colleagues. He wants that prize.”
“The Nobel. I gathered as much.”
“Will you help him get it?”
“I’m only a poor journalist.”
“But your magazine is one of the most important in America! This is not just any story he’s giving you. It’s the story of a lifetime!” She took a deep breath. “Can you get him a cover photograph?”
“If he can make a mummy walk, I’ll get him his cover.”
She turned to stare at me. “It will not walk, but I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”
We dined as we had the night before, by candlelight in the ornate dining room. Minerva proved to be a versatile cook, and this time the meal was French. As I finished my dessert and complimented her, Sir Richard pushed back his chair. “We must be about our business,” he announced. “Let me show you to my laboratory.”
Descending the basement steps reminded me of all the horror films of my youth, and only the light chatter of Forbish and Minerva relieved the tension. The basement room, behind the big double doors that led down to the water, was large enough to have accommodated several boats in its day. Now, however, it was given over to an array of electrical equipment. I recognized a large x-ray machine and some radiation gear of the sort sometimes found in hospitals for the treatment of tumors.
“This is expensive apparatus,” I commented.
“But quite necessary.” He led me to a table where a flat stone lay displayed beneath an overhead light. There was a line of hieroglyphics at the top, and beneath it a sentence in Latin. Forbish translated it for me. “Here is entombed the remains of the Egyptian Satni along with his favorite Gavia who perished here together in the third summer of the reign of Antoninus Pius.”
“What date would that be?” I asked.
“Probably A.D. 141. Antoninus Pius was the adopted son of Hadrian, and like Hadrian he built a wall of his own across the country, quite close to here. He was attempting to extend Roman rule further into what is now Scotland, but he had little success. His own adopted son, Marcus Aurelius, was a much better emperor.”
“So the mummies you uncovered belong to Satni and Gavia?”
“It would seem so.” Sir Richard walked to another table and pulled away a sheet, revealing the traditional form of a wrapped mummy. “This is Satni. I uncovered a portion of the head for testing purposes. Carbon dating techniques confirm the date sometime in the middle of the second century.”
“An Egyptian mummy in Scotland.” There was a tone of wonder in my voice that I couldn’t conceal. “It’s quite a discovery.”
“But only the beginning. After all, what’s one more mummy in the world? Every big museum has a few on display.”
“And this Gavia? Was it a woman?”
“More of a pet, I believe. The inscription speaks of his favorite. The word itself, ‘Gavia,’ is Latin for seagull—but it was loosely used here as a graceful name, a pet name, for a sea creature.”
As he spoke he moved to the back of the large room and pulled aside a long drape.
And then I saw it, stretched across the basement floor for a distance of perhaps forty feet, its great scaled body intertwined with electric wires and the remains of the mummy-wrappings. “This,” Sir Richard announced with a flourish, “is Gavia.”
“It’s some sort of giant serpent!” I exclaimed. “A python, perhaps?”
“Not at this size! Look again, sir—you are gazing upon a creature of the sea, an inhabitant of this very loch. I suspect it might be an ancestor of the one seen to the north of here, in Loch Ness.”
“But—this is fantastic! You’re telling me you’ve uncovered the mummy of some sea serpent that was buried along with an Egyptian in the second century? Why in heaven’s name would they be buried together?”
Sir Richard was smiling at my bafflement. “The evidence indicates the Egyptian may have been riding on the back of Gavia when he died.” He showed me another stone, and there upon it was a crude drawing of a man who seemed to be riding a serpent through the waves.
“I—I’m speechless!”
Minerva was at my elbow with a chuckle. “So was Rich when he first found this thing. I wanted him to phone the police, the government, anyone. I wanted to shout from the rooftops what he’d discovered. But he was wise to wait.”
“What are all these wires?” I asked.
“Naturally I was trying to date and x-ray the serpent as I’d done with the other mummy. In the process of administering a massive dose of radiation I detected some movement.”
“You mean you’ve brought it back to life?”
“Hardly that! I mean the creature was never really dead. It went into some sort of shock to its nervous system at the time Satni died. We’ll never know exactly what happened, but I believe it’s been in a state of suspended animation—a sort of prolonged hibernation—ever since. Naturally the embalmers did not use the same technique on this monster that they used on humans. As near as I can tell, its brain and internal organs are intact. The embalming and mummification process only served to keep it alive.”
“How much movement has there been?”
“Only a bit of thrashing when the radiation is applied. If you’ll get your camera I’ll give a demonstration. And Minerva—the movie camera, please.”
The Future Is Ours Page 18