Grave Importance

by Vivian Shaw

  “What Ed was worried about,” Greta said. “Yes. I know. Thank you for your quick thinking.” She bent over Maanakhtef and began very, very carefully to run her fingertips over his limbs, feeling for any give that should not be there, fractures in the bones beneath the fragile wrappings. She’d brought mummies back from much worse situations than this one, but Greta couldn’t help thinking of how she’d reassured Maanakhtef just this afternoon that he’d be fine, that she’d take care of him, that she knew how to fix him, and it was painfully obvious that despite all her training she didn’t, in fact, have a clue.

  “One of you take notes,” she said, evenly and clearly, to the other nurses gathered around. “And someone go get me a hard C-collar and a stretcher. Fracture of the left clavicle. Ribs two, three, and four, left side, broken. He landed on that shoulder, the scapula may be cracked—left humerus, too—possible hip fracture as well. I’m amazed the skull is sound and I want C-spine imaging now. Brigitte, you stay with me. Melitta, go power up the CT. Delphine, get Tefnakhte and page the imaging tech on duty.”

  When they were alone with the unconscious Maanakhtef, Greta sat back on her heels and took a deep breath. “Ed was right,” she said. “I shouldn’t have let him out of bed until this—whatever it is—is identified and controlled. We knew he’d had multiple instances of these attacks.”

  “All of which were transient,” said the chief of nursing. “This one appears to have been prolonged and a great deal worse than the others.”

  “I can’t help wondering if it’s something I did today,” said Greta. “I know it’s ridiculous, but I can’t help it. I asked Tefnakhte about the magic he’s been doing on the patients, and he was way ahead of me—already had been looking for patterns and failing to find any, and if he didn’t find any, I’m inclined to think there are no patterns to be found.”

  “I don’t think there’s any correlation between your treatment today and this episode,” said Sister Brigitte. “You’ve done some procedures already and nobody’s fainted afterward.”

  “I know. I just wish I had any idea what was going on.” It was the worst thing, as a scientist. Not knowing why—and not having any idea where to start looking for answers.

  Sister Brigitte was about to say something else—had drawn breath to say it—when Maanakhtef gave a very faint creaking moan, and shifted slightly. Brigitte’s hands held his head and neck still, while Greta took his unhurt right hand carefully in hers, bending over him. “Maanakhtef,” she said gently, “stay still, it’s going to be all right. You’ve had a bad fall and you’re hurt, but we’re going to fix you. I need to make sure I know where all the damage is and then I will repair you. I promise.”

  “… Doctor… Helsing?” he said, a whispered creak. The bandaged fingers curled weakly around hers. “… Hurts.”

  “I know it does,” she said, aching herself. “I know. But this I can fix, Maanakhtef. This I know how to repair, and we’ll give you something to send you away again for a little while so that you don’t have to feel it. Can you move your feet?”

  He tried; the damaged foot she’d been about to repair obviously hurt to move, but he could get both of them to respond, and Greta relaxed a bit. “Good, that’s wonderful. You’re managing beautifully. In a minute I’m going to put something stiff around your neck to hold you steady while we get you onto a stretcher, and I’m sorry if it’s uncomfortable but you won’t need it for long at all.”

  “What… happened?” he asked.

  “You had another attack,” said Sister Brigitte. “A very bad one, it seems—and unfortunately it happened while you were upright. Do you remember anything?”

  “No,” he said, “just—this terrible weakness, all my strength gone, and then nothing.”

  She was about to ask more questions when the two nurses reappeared with a stretcher and a hard C-collar. “Mr. Tefnakhte is on his way to the imaging suite,” one of them told Greta, without looking up to meet her eyes. “He says he’ll do anything he can to help.”

  “Splendid,” said Greta, and nodded for them to put the stretcher down on Maanakhtef’s left side. She and Sister Brigitte got the collar fastened around his neck; she and the other two nurses knelt down on his right. “Brigitte, you’re maintaining neutral inline stabilization. Melitta and Delphine, on my count, we’re rolling him onto his side, in three, two, one.”

  They were as careful as they could be, and Greta had determined that holding his damaged left shoulder and side was preferable to rolling him onto it, but Maanakhtef gave a horrible stifled little groan nonetheless. Greta and the nurses got the stretcher flat against his back and eased him down to the floor again. “That’s the worst of it over,” she told him, taking his right hand and settling it on his chest. “You’re doing extremely well, and in a few minutes we’ll be able to give you something for the pain; you’ll feel much better soon. Melitta, take the left side, I’ve got the foot of the stretcher.”

  As long as she was inside the clinical necessity of action, as long as she had no time to stop and think, Greta could set aside the awful sinking feeling of not being in control, of not knowing what was happening and why. As she and the nurses hurried Maanakhtef to imaging—as she watched Tefnakhte say several sentences in Egyptian, touching Maanakhtef’s injuries with an amulet, and watched her patient visibly relax as his pain eased—as she stood looking over the imaging tech’s shoulder at the monitors while the CT scanner spun around Maanakhtef and told the story of just how badly he’d been damaged, how much she would have to repair—cracked and broken bones, torn ligaments, sections of ancient muscle tissue destroyed, reduced to powder—she’d be able to hang on to her clinical compartmentalization; but she knew that as soon as it was over, as soon as she was done and all the repairs as complete as she could make them, she would need to find somewhere very private to do a bit of quiet, self-contained, discreet falling apart.

  Later, she thought grimly, and went to scrub. Later for that. Right now I have work to do.

  CHAPTER 6

  The time Grisaille had spent with Corvin and the vampire coven under Paris had encouraged nocturnal habits; it was only because he’d been cohabiting with Edmund Ruthven in the ordinary world that he had picked up the knack of walking abroad by day and sleeping at night.

  Well, sort of night, anyway. They’d come back to the hotel around three, and—waking alone in the great bed, Grisaille could see the grey beginning of dawn. He frowned up at the ceiling, not sure what had woken him, head still muzzy with sleep, but when the sound came again, he was completely awake all at once. Awake and worried.

  He didn’t need to turn the bathroom light on to be able to see Ruthven being violently sick; in the dark, Grisaille’s eyeshine was faintly reflected by the white tile as he knelt down beside him, putting a steadying hand on Ruthven’s shoulder through another vicious, convulsive spasm of retching. Grisaille could feel him shaking helplessly, the silk of his pajamas damp with sweat, his breath coming in ragged sobs, and couldn’t help but wrap his arms around him and try to ground some of the misery in his own bone and muscle, brace him through the force of it. He was murmuring useless phatic reassurances, barely aware of doing so—I’ve got you, it’ll be all right—and not being even slightly sure he wasn’t lying.

  Ruthven had very clearly brought up everything inside him, but it seemed to take forever before the retching passed and he could hang exhausted in Grisaille’s arms, gasping. When he found his voice, it was a hoarse wreck, acid-scoured, strengthless: “… I’m awfully sorry you had to see that.”

  Grisaille stifled an urge to shake him, and just sat back on his heels, cradling Ruthven against him. “Never mind me,” he said. “What’s—what happened? Did you eat someone you shouldn’t?”

  Ruthven shook his head, and then moaned, pressed his hands to his face as if attempting to keep his skull from bursting. “… headache,” he managed after a moment. “This is… bad… but not unheard-of.”

  “Another migraine?” Grisaille de
manded, and then bit his lip. “This isn’t like you.”

  “It’s rare. But… I haven’t had one in years… I was probably due?”

  “That’s not how that works,” he said, but the returning strength in Ruthven’s voice was going some way toward reassuring him. “Are you finished, do you think?”

  “Yes. It’s—already fading.” Ruthven leaned against him, still shivering. “I really am sorry to have woken you.”

  “Stop apologizing,” Grisaille said, and kissed his temple very lightly before helping him up. He let Ruthven rinse his mouth out, not at all pleased by how hard he was leaning on the edge of the sink, before adding, “I’m taking you back to bed.”

  “I can walk,” Ruthven protested, but Grisaille didn’t give him the chance: very carefully, as smoothly as he could, he lifted him into his arms and carried him back to the bedroom, settling him against the pillows.

  In the gathering light he looked absolutely dreadful, grey-white except for the bruised shadows under each eye, his face and throat sheened with sweat, but at least when he opened those eyes, he could focus on Grisaille; he had some vision back.

  “You need a doctor,” Grisaille said.

  “Of course I don’t, it’s—just a migraine, there’s nothing to be done about them, and anyway, it is passing.” He sounded a little more like himself. “I need to sleep for about eight hours and then I will be quite all right again. Promise.”

  Grisaille sat on the edge of the bed and stroked a lock of sweat-damp hair away from his face. “Do you want to go home?”

  “No,” said Ruthven, and lifted a hand to capture Grisaille’s fingers, pressed them against his cheek. “I do not. I want to enjoy the rest of my holiday, and go to see lots of museums, and—possibly not stay out all night engaging in riotous living?”

  “I think riotous living is probably contraindicated,” Grisaille agreed, “at least for now, and—can you take pills, or best not to try it just yet?”

  “I think I can,” he said. “I’d like to try, anyway.”

  “Right, then.” Grisaille went to fetch a glass of water and the painkillers, still not quite able to relax. He’d never seen anyone that sick, except perhaps his old boss’s consort in the middle of a junkie-blood overdose, and he knew for a fact that none of the people he and Ruthven had fed from recently had been carrying anything untoward in their bloodstreams: they’d shared, and Grisaille himself felt entirely fine, if seriously concerned.

  If he’s not better when he wakes up, Grisaille thought, I am going to call someone.

  The Egyptian section of the Met represents one of the world’s finest collections of Egyptian artifacts, including not only an actual Old Kingdom mastaba tomb from the Saqqara necropolis but also a temple that once stood in Lower Nubia; visitors can walk freely through both structures. They are among the most popular exhibits in the section, and often very crowded; Leonora Van Dorne ignored them completely as she stalked through the echoing halls, heels clicking sharply. She had much, much more interesting things to look at, and in any case, she found the wholesale installation of an actual historical structure in a museum to be somewhat lacking in taste.

  She passed through the galleries, paying no attention to the stares she was receiving from other museum visitors, until she reached Gallery 128: early fourth century. Here was the famous Metternich Stela, as well as the Hermopolis Stela; here, fragments of statues displaying the smooth detailed modeling of the human form that characterized this period; here, smaller, complete statues like the figure of Horus protecting Nectanebo II; and here, in a very special case, a perfect tiny sculpture of a woman sitting on a block, hands resting calmly on her thighs, staring into eternity with a faint little smile curving her lips. GENEROUSLY LOANED FROM THE PRIVATE COLLECTION OF LEONORA IRENE VAN DORNE, the discreet plaque beside it read.

  Ms. Van Dorne could see herself reflected in the thick glass of the case, her own face superimposed on the statue’s tiny one; the smile was identical. I know something you don’t, it said.

  She was aware of footsteps behind her, but didn’t turn around; not till the assistant curator actually reached her side did she move at all, and then it was only to turn her head to face her—and watched the woman go white and stare.

  Her smile widened. “Yes?” she said.

  The curator went on staring for a few more moments before blushing. “—I’m—I’m sorry, I—”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “I—no—that is—” she stammered, and then finally seemed to get herself under control. “You look amazing. I’m sorry, that was completely inappropriate of me, wow.”

  She had, in fact, not been able to avoid glancing at herself in every reflective surface she passed all morning, and now she let a tinge of condescension into the smile, and watched the curator blush again.

  “I’m so sorry. Forget I said anything. I—was there something we could help you with?”

  “No,” said Ms. Van Dorne, “I’m just visiting her. I approve of the security measures you have taken.”

  The curator’s shoulders slumped a little. “Oh, good,” she said. “I’m so glad. We followed all your instructions, of course.”

  “Of course. This is a similar case to the ones for the magical stelae, I see.”

  “It’s very similar,” the curator assured her, clearly relieved to have something to show off. Ms. Van Dorne followed her over to the two freestanding cases in the middle of the room, each containing a dark green stone slab about two and a half feet tall, densely carved with hieroglyphs and complex reliefs. “You can see the reinforced glass is the same thickness, and the chamber itself is locked with a multiply-redundant system and purged with nitrogen.”

  “Excellent,” said Ms. Van Dorne, skimming the columns of incised hieroglyphs on the Metternich Stela:… remove for me the poison of the bite which is in every limb of the patient, / so that your words are not rejected on account of it. / See, your name is called today. / May you create the raising of your renown, when you have lifted by your words of light. / May you cause the sufferer to live for me, / so that adoration is given to you by the populace…

  “It’s a—” the curator began.

  “A healing spell. I am familiar with the type of artifact,” said Ms. Van Dorne, and had the pleasure of watching her blush again. “Sacred to Horus. They are covered with incantations to be recited to protect someone from harmful creatures. One would pour water over the stela and give it to the victim to drink, who would then be healed as Horus was healed from the scorpion’s sting.” She could remember the first time she’d come across the concept, and how neat she’d found it. How satisfying. Egyptian ritual was enormously satisfying, in a way no modern religion had ever seemed worth pursuing to her.

  “Er, yes,” said the curator, who was wearing a name tag; Ms. Van Dorne glanced at it.

  “So, Susan,” she said, still with that little smile, and rested her hand on the second glass case. “Tell me what’s different about this stela.”

  I know you know I know, she thought. And you’re being tested.

  “This one,” Susan began, faintly pink in the face, “is remarkable among magical stelae. To our knowledge, it is the only one sacred to Thoth rather than Horus that has ever been discovered. The rest of the known magico-medical stelae are often termed cippi of Horus and invariably feature some aspect of the story of Horus’s poisoning and cure, but the Hermopolis Stela’s inscriptions show the story from Thoth’s point of view.”

  “Hermopolis,” said Ms. Van Dorne. “Also called Khemenu. The center of the Thoth cult.”

  “… yes,” said Susan. “As it happens.”

  “I’m surprised there aren’t more.”

  “As far as we know, this is the only one ever found. That’s not to say there aren’t others—just that no one knows where they are.”

  “One of a kind,” said Ms. Van Dorne, and ran her fingertips gently over the glass. “Immensely powerful, I should think.”

  “To the a
ncient Egyptians, certainly,” said Susan. Her phone buzzed, and she took it out of her pocket, looking apologetic. “Oh. I’ve got to go, I’m afraid, I’ve been summoned to a meeting, but of course feel free to spend as long as you like—it’s always so nice to see you—”

  Ms. Van Dorne waved her away, distracted; she had begun to read the columns of inscription on the Hermopolis Stela, with a gathering sense of excitement. In the glass she could see her own face quite clearly, with the darkness of the stone as a backdrop, and she knew precisely why the girl Susan had reacted so sharply; she had lost not just a year or two, but something closer to ten. The woman looking back at her out of the glass might have been in her mid-thirties, and felt like it: the encroaching embarrassments of age were gone from her body as well as her face, leaving her with a kind of bright energy she had almost forgotten how to feel.

  And that had been accomplished with such minor artifacts: ushabti figurines, amulets, cosmetic boxes. Nothing with real metaphysical significance.

  Imagine, she thought, touching her reflection with a hand whose skin was firm and taut once more, the veins and tendons smoothly hidden, imagine what I could do with this to play with.

  How far could I go?

  Dawn had come and gone while Greta was working. In all it had taken nearly nine hours to repair the damage to Maanakhtef, while he was safely under the influence of Tefnakhte’s sleep spell: she’d had a second shift of nurses scrub in halfway through. The worst hadn’t been the fractures. Those she could simply seal with dual-cure resin cement and reinforce with micro-mesh wrapping impregnated with more resin, not unlike fiberglass. The worst was definitely the powdered muscle tissue she’d had to replace with layer after layer of interwoven elastic bandage, re-creating lost tendons and ligaments with nylon straps, anchoring everything into the reinforced bones with tiny titanium screws. On the post-op scans his left side lit up like a tiny night sky with the individual screws glowing brightly against the dark.