by David Case
“Yes,” he nodded. “Those are Sam’s quarters.” He said this as if to forestall my questioning.
“You keep him locked in?”
“I thought it advisable, after yesterday’s incident—”
“But, my God, he’s a human being.”
Mallory smiled.
“No doubt of that,” he said.
“You can’t keep him caged like an animal!”
“I can’t? But you see, I do. You have a habit of leaping to indefensible conclusions, Ashley.”
“I meant, you shouldn’t.”
“Ah. In his present condition, he’s no more than an animal, you know. Less, perhaps, in some ways. And more, too. He has no objections.”
“You asked him, I suppose?”
“Believe me, it’s better this way. Of course—” He raised his eyebrows. “If you would prefer to have him wandering about the house—why, lift the bar, by all means. Sam won’t harm me.”
“For Lord’s sake, Mallory. He just sits in there all day, a prisoner?”
“Not a prisoner. That implies a sentence, a definite duration. You know nothing of time. Nor does Sam. He does not suffer. Not at all. All forms of suffering are caused by chemical imbalances and glandular secretions, and Sam, because of the extent of his brain damage, can feel none of those emotions. Fortunate, in a way.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “You’re an incredible man, Mallory.”
“Yes, I am rather, aren’t I?”
“And insufferable.”
“To you? Or to Sam? Why be antagonistic, Ashley. Go ahead, if you will. Lift the bar. Open the door. Sam will come out to see you.”
Mallory was smiling coldly. His eyes were gathering twin points of light.
“Yes,” he sneered. “Sam will come out.”
I had a searing vision of Sam’s face, horribly contorted, as he crouched over John and myself; as he drew me effortlessly toward his gaping jaws. No, I was not going to open that door. Mallory knew as much. It was satisfaction which caused him to smile. I turned from the door and followed him to his workroom.
It was a curious sanctum, to say the least, this workroom of Mallory’s. He ushered me in with a gesture, and standing just inside the door, I looked about in amazement. A large chamber with stone walls, hung with faded tapestries and set with high narrow windows, it resembled nothing so much as an underground burial vault. Yet remarkable though the room might be, it was the contents that I found singular. Mallory had collected a vast hoard of objects and artifacts which were scattered about without any semblance of order; strewn at random on tables and shelves and packing crates. It was as if, unable to define the purpose of this room, he had fashioned a contrived combination of museum, storehouse, and laboratory; unable to isolate his own interests, he spent his days bolting back and forth from shelf to shelf amid the confusion.
Mallory was peering at me, gauging my impressions, as I regarded the room. And I found it hard to gauge my own impressions, to decide if this were the study of a scholar or the armamentarium of a madman. There were hundreds of relics from Egypt and Haiti, and some of these were no more than the souvenirs one might purchase in any bazaar or market. Mallory obviously was not discriminating. There were angular figurines of stone and wood, stalking deities and squat gods, twisted serpents and graceful birds, Horus and Isis in worthless representations, modern plaster casts made from ancient molds, a set of orange and black voodoo drums of goatskin, a necklace of crocodile teeth. These things were palpably tasteless and without artistic merit.
Yet amid this rubbish, jumbled together as though he knew not the difference, I began to perceive other objects, venerable and valuable. One by one they emerged phoenixlike from the rubble: I gazed upon an amulet of lapis lazuli, a beetle-shaped scarab inscribed with mystic incantations, clay tablets of indeterminate age, talismans from the Nile. There was a complete section of tiled wall from a tomb, the figures characteristically contorted so that the heads were in profile, the torso in front view, the limbs twisted without regard for anatomy. I knew it must have taken great effort—and some bending of the export law—to have obtained such a segment, and yet it reposed side by side with a plastic ikon. I went over to examine it. Mallory came up behind me, his shadow falling over the tiled surface like an adumbration of eternity.
“Well? What do you think of my atelier?”
“It’s—crowded.”
He laughed.
“My design,” he said. “The modern and the ancient, side by side, as it should be.”
“Even plastic?”
“Why not? Plastic has become the teak of our times.”
Moving past the wall, I paused at a splendid mummy case that stood, upright and closed, in the corner. The surface was delicately carved, and the bright pigments had not faded badly. I spent a moment studying the case, then stepped to the side and discovered the modern world represented in its most definitive form—a chemist’s bench. This explained why Arabella had referred to the workroom as a laboratory. The bench was lined with beakers of colored fluids, vials of exotic liquids, test tubes and a microscope, dried leaves and arcane herbs. I assumed Mallory must use these tools to determine chemically the age of his artifacts, and was about to interrogate him on his methods when I noticed what was perhaps the most remarkable object of all—remarkable in having no apparent function with regard to the other objects. It was a high flat platform with tubular steel legs and an arrangement of leather straps, not unlike an excruciatingly uncomfortable bed. Did Mallory, exhausted by his labors, crawl onto this curious table to sleep? I stared at the contraption, thinking it looked vaguely familiar, something about the leather straps—then I realized what it was. An operating table. What on earth was it doing here? I wondered. Had Snow examined Sam on this table? Or—I had a sudden image of Mallory performing some grisly dissection on his mummy, feverishly carving the withered flesh. The image was more unpleasant than the fact.
Mallory interrupted my macabre imaginings.
“But step over here,” he said.
I followed him to a battered antique escritoire, incongruously equipped with a goose-necked lamp. A clay tablet rested on the surface, and observing the familiar hieroglyphs, I recognized it as the one I’d already translated from the photocopy. I examined it. Mallory sighed impatiently. After a moment he said, “You’ve already translated that, it’s not important.”
“I don’t understand you. This is valuable.”
“As an artifact? Can’t I impress upon you that it is the content which is valuable, not the lump of clay?”
“You cannot. You’ve offered no reasons for such an astonishing assumption.”
“Yes. Well, you will see. If this is what I think it is—” He conveyed a small silver casket to the front of the desk and then paused, idly caressing the elegantly chased lid. The casket still unopened, he peered at me thoughtfully. “You will continue to regard these translations as confidential, of course?”
“As you like,” I retorted shortly, tired of such nonsense and wanting to get to work. Mallory nodded and opened the box, withdrew a papyrus scroll and unrolled the brittle yellow parchment. I spread it on the desk and bent over it, studying the markings.
Presently, I frowned.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, looking worried.
“This isn’t—properly—writing at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Not a form of written language. Some of it. See here—” I traced a forefinger across the parchment. “These pentagrams and symbols—and this, a diagram— This isn’t something that can be translated as to connotation.”
Mallory whitened, frowning.
“You can’t do it?”
“Some of it. See—here are hieroglyphics. But the other symbols represent incantations as a whole. Not even verbal, perhaps.”
“I don’t un
derstand.”
“Look—can you see the difference between this papyrus and the writing on the tablet? The tablet is a block of hieroglyphic script, it can be translated word for word. But these symbols are the runic signs of the priests and magicians. It isn’t a language. Possibly it doesn’t even have meaning.” Mallory was staring at me. “I can translate the hieroglyphs,” I continued. “That’s like any language. Certain signs represent particular sounds like the alphabet or certain objects, as in pictographic writing. But these diagrams can’t be translated that way. They represent an idea, a concept, in total. There’s no way to break down the significance piece by piece.”
“I see,” he muttered doubtfully.
“I might add that I’ve never seen anything quite like this scroll—the juxtaposition of symbol and pentagram, of common writing and mystic design. You may well have made an astounding discovery. But I’m afraid we have no Rosetta stone to reveal the meaning.”
“You’ll try?”
“Of course. But I cannot promise exactitude.”
“Ashley, you have no idea how vital this is.”
Mallory was tense and pale, his hands clenched.
“I’ll do my best.”
He nodded slowly and seemed about to say more, but his lips moved without sound. He nodded again. “I’ll leave you alone then,” he said. Mallory left the room. I sat down, bent the lamp to position, and commenced my work.
7
The papyrus was fine, made from Nile reed split into strips and pasted together with overlapping edges. A second sheet was placed at right angles to the first, for strength, and then pressed flat. The scroll consisted of several such sheets fastened end to end. The writing had been done with a pointed reed pen and ink fashioned of gum and carbon, and the script was in the cursive flowing hieratic common to the high priests. I had little difficulty with this hieratic writing itself, but the text was repeatedly interrupted by the insertion of the unknown diagrams and symbols. I struggled with these for some time, then abandoned them and began translating the remainder, hoping the meaning would become apparent through the translated text. It was slow work. I kept at it for several hours without pausing. Arabella came in at one point and left me a pot of coffee. I scarcely noticed her, although the coffee was welcome. Mallory also looked in several times from the door, but did not disturb my efforts.
Gradually a partial translation began to emerge, a line here and a line there, through persistence rather than inspiration. But there was no consistency. Each line was obscured by the interjection of one of the meaningless diagrams. I became frustrated: it almost seemed as though the long-dead scribe had deliberately obscured the meaning; as if he had written in code. I persevered, crumbling sheets of paper in annoyance, smoking my pipe aggressively, pausing to glare at ikons and figurines as if they were responsible for my difficulties. Presently I found my thoughts clouding with fatigue. I was making absurd mistakes. Perhaps Mallory’s impatience had affected me, but haste is no virtue in work of this nature. I put down my pen and walked about the room while my head cleared, idly examining the remarkable profusion of artifacts and relics.
I came to the mummy case.
I wondered if the papyrus had come from this particular coffin; if it contained the mummy which Mallory claimed had been embalmed with its organs intact. Not wishing to open it without his permission, I contented myself with studying the carved inscriptions. They seemed familiar, and I looked closer. They were the same diagrams as those on the papyrus, the runic unknowns which I could not decipher. It shed no light on the problem, however. I passed my fingertips along the smooth wood, as if knowledge could seep into my mind through tactile contact, by some strange mental osmosis. My fingers seemed to tingle.
At the top of the case, where the head of the mummy should rest, was the typical winged disk supported on the outspread wings of a vulture. I had seen this common symbol many times, but it affected me now in a fanciful manner. What is as hideous as a scavenger, yet as necessary to nature’s scheme? And how, too, like the mind of man—a creature which can soar above the clouds in glorious sunlight, and still must nourish its body in the filth of the earth. I thought of the mummy within the case, of his life, of all the men of his time. Were they so different from us? I wondered. Would I, granted the impossible ability to journey to the Egypt of five thousand years past, know the mood of the age as the ancients knew it? And find it the same, perhaps? For like us, they had their hopes, their dreams, their secrets.
It struck me like a bolt.
Secrets.
I stood very still, my mind turning over ponderously on the shaft of insight.
I knew then what the papyrus was.
I rushed back to the desk and looked at it; in a moment I saw that it was true, and stood open-mouthed, awed. The document before me was the code book of the high priests, the grimoire of the mystics. What I had taken for obscurity was in fact clarity. In effect, I had been translating a translation. Some priest, daring the wrath of the gods, had on this parchment set down the meanings of the sacred symbols in the common language of his time. It was an electrifying realization, an enormous find, comparable to the Rosetta stone itself. All fatigue banished, I resumed my seat. Now it was clear. The lines I had succeeded in translating defined the diagrams which followed; the meanings were the same. The papyrus gave the key to the arcane knowledge of the past, the knowledge denied the common man and lost through the ages. Almost afraid to touch such a document, I began to work again.
Mallory came in some time later.
“Any progress?” he asked.
I turned in my chair and regarded him with a mixture of effort and exaltation. My expression caused his eyes to glitter, and he excitedly advanced across the room and stood over me as I explained the true nature of the papyrus.
“Then you’ve found the key?”
“No, you found it—God knows how. I am simply turning it in the lock now.”
“How long will it take?”
“How long? Does it matter? It’s tremendously difficult, of course. Do you realize how hard it is to decode a message even in modern English? Well, imagine deciphering a code in a dead language. It will take some time.”
“Time, yes. Always time,” he muttered distastefully. I could not understand why it mattered. “I loath the concept of time,” he grimaced, “the galling tyranny of an entity that endures forever while we must pass briefly through it. My great antagonist, time. And my great love. To master the secret of time—” He had gestured grandiloquently. Now he hesitated, looking somewhat sheepish. “You’ll remain as long as necessary?”
“For this, yes.”
He leaned over my shoulder, scrutinizing my scribblings, sensing my deep involvement.
“Can I help you in any way?” he asked.
I shook my head, wanting no more of his eccentric sophistries and obscure monologues. He continued to hang over me. “Of course,” I said, “if you would explain exactly what you hope to find in these writings, it might help. I’d know, at least, what I was looking for.”
“That would help?”
“Possibly.”
He seemed to be debating with himself. I waited, gazing steadily at him. His shadow was cast away from the lamp and up the far wall, elongated, gaunt. I saw that it fell directly over the mummy case, as if it represented his spirit; as if his soul sought to enter the sarcophagus. Then he took a deep breath and drew a chair to the desk. He sat facing me, staring at me intently; so intently that I became uncomfortable.
“Well?”
He nodded once, slowly.
“Ashley, I am going to confide in you,” he said.
I waited.
Lucian Mallory began his incredible tale.
Mallory started speaking slowly, as if ordering his thoughts and arranging them in a logical sequence. He said, “I believe I told you I’d found a mummy wit
h both the internal organs and the brain intact?”
“You did.”
“Did you believe me?”
“I don’t know. The process of embalming was rooted in the myth of Osiris, you know. Set cut Osiris into pieces and scattered them in the desert, but Isis gathered the segments and put him together again, giving him immortality. Mummification was a literal reenactment of this legend. Any departure would seem to be at odds with their religion.”
“I’m not talking of theology, but science.”
“Weren’t they the same?”
“Has it never occurred to you that there might have been more reason than a vague theology behind the process? More reason than adhering to an absurd myth?”
“Reason?” I said. “It was reason enough to the ancients. They could not conceive of a life other than physical, therefore they gained immortality in preserving the body. It’s as much reason as most religions are based upon.”
“Agreed, Ashley. But I told you, I am not speaking of religion. I mean true reasons, not belief. Fact, not faith. Suppose there were a physical reason to preserve the bodily tissue from decay?”
He seemed to expect an answer.
“Go on,” I prompted.
“I’d often pondered that. Then, when I found my unusual mummy—that is true, by the way—it came to me. I perceived the meaning clearly.” He paused to light a cigarette, the first I had ever seen him smoke. “You know, of course, that body tissue dies at different rates? That, for instance, the hair and fingernails may continue to grow—and therefore, to live—long after the other body cells are dead?”
I nodded. “Corpses have been disinterred and discovered to have long talons and hair, yes: it was formerly supposed they had been buried alive.”
“Quite. Now consider this, Ashley. Suppose there were a process by which the brain cells continued to function after putative death?”