The Anubis Gates

by Tim Powers

  Before he could once more prod the exhausted vein in his arm, though, a voice like the drawing of a violin bow across a choked-up E string sang from behind him. “I see shoes.” There was merry savagery in the inhuman voice.

  “I do, too,” replied another like it.

  Romany breathed a sigh of thanks to dead gods, then braced himself for the always disconcerting sight of the yags, and turned around.

  The awakened columns of flame had assumed roughly human outlines, so that at a quick glance they looked like burning giants waving their hands over their heads.

  “The shoes face us now,” rang another voice over the crackling of the flames. “I believe they must belong to our indistinct summoner.”

  Romany licked his lips, annoyed as always that the elementals couldn’t really see him. “These shoes do indeed belong to your summoner,” he said sternly.

  “I hear a dog barking,” sang one of the fire giants.

  “Oh, a dog, is it?” said Romany, angry now. “Well, fine. A dog couldn’t unveil for you the excellent toy under the sheet behind me, now could he?”

  “You’ve got a toy? What does it do?”

  “What are you asking a dog for?” said Romany.

  For a few moments the bright figures waved their arms without speaking, then one said, “We beg your pardon, sir sorcerer. Show us the toy.”

  “I’ll show it to you,” Romany said, bobbing on his spring-shoes over to the shrouded shape, “but I won’t turn it on until you’ve promised to do something for me.” He drew the sheet off the village Bavarois, pleased to see that the candles all still glowed in their proper places behind the windows of the miniature houses. “As you can see,” he said, trying to appear confident that the thing would work, and that the yags would keep any promise they might make, “it’s a Bavarian village. When it’s working, all the little men you see there walk around, and these sleds move, pulled by these horses, whose legs actually bend! And these girls dance to a, uh, refreshing accordion tune.” The tall flames were arched over toward him as if by a strong wind, and their outlines were no longer so carefully human, an indication that they were getting excited. “T-t-tuuurn… it on,” stuttered one of them.

  Very carefully. Doctor Romany reached for the switch. “I will let you see it move for a moment only,” he said. “Then we will discuss what I want of you.” He clicked the switch over. The machine inhaled deeply, then began cranking out jolly music as the tiny figures danced and marched and moved around. He clicked it off again and glanced nervously at the yags.

  They were just columns of roiling flame now, with bursts of fire shooting out in random directions. “Yaaah!” a couple of them were roaring. “Yaaah? Yaaaaah!”

  “It’s turned off!” Romany shouted. “Look, it’s off, it’s stopped! Do you want me to turn it on again?”

  The flames gradually settled down and reassumed their roughly human shapes. “Turn it on again,” spoke one.

  “When you’ve done what I want done,” said Doctor Romany, mopping his forehead with his sleeve, “I will.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want you all to appear in London tomorrow night—the blood and brandy fires will be set for beacons—and then I want you to remember this toy, and imagine what it will be like when you can watch it go for as long as you please.”

  “London? You asked us to do this once before.”

  “The time in 1666, yes.” Romany nodded. “But it wasn’t me asking you then. It was Amenophis Fikee.”

  “It was a pair of shoes. How should we distinguish?”

  “I guess it’s not important,” Doctor Romany muttered, feeling vaguely defeated. “But it’s to be tomorrow night, do you understand? If you do it at the wrong time, or at the wrong place, you won’t get to have this toy, or even see it again.”

  The flames swayed restlessly; the yags weren’t inclined toward punctuality. “N-never see it again?” sang one, in a voice half pleading and half threatening.

  “Never,” affirmed Romany.

  “We want to see the toy work.”

  “Very well. Then when you become aware of the beacon fires, come quickly and animate them. I want you to go wild then.”

  “We will go wild then,” echoed a yag in tones of satisfaction.

  Romany let his shoulders slump with relief, for the hard part was over. All that was necessary now was to wait politely until the yags departed, and the fire was once again just a fire. The only sounds were the flutter of flames, the occasional explosive snap of a splitting board, and, when the breeze was from the north, the muttered conversation of tree frogs.

  Abruptly a shout sounded from the dark periphery of the camp: “Where are you hiding, Romany or whatever your name is? Step forward, you son of a bitch, unless the price of sorcery has left you a cowering eunuch!”

  “Yaaah!” exclaimed one of the yags, simultaneously brightening and relaxing its human shape. “Shoes is a cowering eunuch!” A burst of billowing flame shot out, roaring like laughter.

  “Ho ho!” the next one yelled. “Young curly-head wants to extinguish our host! Can’t you taste his wrath?”

  “Perhaps he’ll work the toy for us!” yipped another, losing all consistency of form in its extreme excitement.

  Doctor Romany cast a panicky glance toward the unseen intruder, agonizedly aware that the fire elementals were on the brink of going totally and disastrously out of control. “Richard!” he shouted. “Wilbur! Damn it, get that man at the south end of camp and shut him up!”

  “Avo, rya,” wailed an unhappy gypsy’s voice from the darkness.

  “If you’ll all just calm down,” Romany roared at the yags, who by this time were exploding fiery pseudopods in all directions, “I’ll turn on the toy one more time.” In addition to being scared, Romany was angry, and it was not so much the intrusion that irritated him as the fact that the yags could see the intruder—and even read his mind to a limited extent.

  “Wait a moment,” commanded one of the flame columns to the others. “Shoes is going to work the toy again.” The flames slowly and reluctantly resumed their human template.

  There came no more shouting from the edge of camp, and Romany relaxed a little, light-headed in the aftermath of the crisis. His confidence was almost fully restored as he turned once again toward the village Bavarois.

  Richard hurried up just as Romany was reaching for the master switch. The old gypsy’s teeth were bared in a rictus of fear at being this close to the yags, but he walked right up next to Doctor Romany and spoke into the sorcerer’s ear. “The m-man shouting, rya, it was your gorgio lord, come home early.”

  Romany sagged, his tenuous confidence abruptly eradicated like fresh ink washed from a page by a gush of ice water. “Byron?” he whispered, wanting to be absolutely sure of defeat.

  “Avo, Byron,” Richard muttered quickly. “He’s wearing different clothes now, and he’s got two pistols in a case. Wanted to fight a duel with you, but we’ve got him tied up.”

  The gypsy bowed and then sprinted wildly back into the darkness toward the tents.

  That’s torn it, Romany thought, dazed, as he automatically continued the motion of reaching for the master switch. He must have met someone who knew the real Byron; and whoever it was awakened him, broke my control.

  He pushed the switch into the on position, held it there for a few moments while the mannikins moved and the music jingled and honked incongruously away across the nighttime fields, and the yags began billowing and roaring, then he clicked it off.

  “I’ve changed my mind!” he shouted. “I’ve decided you can have the toy tonight—never mind London.” The Master, he remembered ruefully, had said that the burning of London alone, if not coupled with both the ruin of the British money and the scandalous regicide, would be an inconclusive blow at best, and a waste of a lot of valuable preparation. “Wait until my men can load it on a cart, and then we’ll carry it way out across the heath to the edge of the woods so you can enjoy it with,
uh, a lot of elbow room.”

  Romany’s voice was flat with disappointment, though the yags were flaring like powder keg detonations. “Take it easy now,” he told them, “here in camp. Wait till you get to the woods before you cut loose. Listen to me, damn it, or you can’t have the toy!”

  At least there’s the time traveling possibility to explore, he told himself as he turned to go fetch Richard and Wilbur. At least I don’t have to report a total failure.

  * * *

  “They’ll be shut down for the night,” said the cab driver for the third time. “I’m certain of it. But see here, I can take you to a palm-reading lady I know in Long Alley.”

  “No thank you,” said Doyle, pushing open the little door of the cab. He unfolded his tall frame out and stepped to the ground carefully, for the half-drunk driver hadn’t secured the brake. The air was chilly, and the sight of flames flickering in the distance beyond the dark gypsy tents made the prospect of going in there at least a little more attractive.

  “I’d best wait anyway, sir,” the driver said. “It’s a long way back to Fleet Street, and you’ll not get another cab way out here.” The horse stamped a hoof in the dirt impatiently.

  “No, you go, I’ll walk back.”

  “If you’re sure. Good night then.” The driver snapped his long whip and the cab rocked and thumped away. A few seconds later Doyle heard the wheels rolling on the pavement of Hackney Road, moving back toward the dim glow in the southwest that was the city.

  Faintly he could hear voices from the direction of Romany’s camp. I suppose Byron must already be here, he thought. The haberdasher had said he’d left his shop a good half hour before Doyle arrived there, and had paused after getting his boots and clothes only long enough to ask where the nearest gunsmith was; and by the time Doyle had found the gunsmith shop, Byron had moved on from there too, having purchased, with more of the gold sovereigns Romany had given him, a set of duelling pistols. And then Doyle had had to stop a policeman to ask where Doctor Romany’s gypsy camp was currently set up, while Byron already knew the way.

  The damn fool, Doyle thought. I told him pistols wouldn’t daunt the likes of Romany.

  He took two steps toward the flame-silhouetted tents, then stopped. What exactly do you hope to do here? he asked himself. Rescue Byron, if he’s still alive? The police are the ones for that. Make some kind of deal with Doctor Romany? Oh, right; sure, it would be useful to learn the location of the 1814 gap that Darrow’s employees will jump back to 1983 through, so that I could be there and run up and grab one of them by the hand an instant before the gap closed—but if Romany thought I knew anything he wanted, he’d just seize me, not bargain with me.

  Doyle rolled his shoulders back and gripped his hands together hard, feeling the flexed muscles strain against the fabric of his shirt. Though this time, he thought with cautious satisfaction, he might not find me quite so easy to overpower. I wonder how Dog-Face Joe is doing with my old body. I guess he’s not one to worry about going bald, at least.

  He could feel the vertigo coming on again, so he shook his head sharply, took several breaths of the chilly night air and strode forward through the grass. I’ll just sneak around and reconnoiter, he told himself. Snoop. I needn’t even get close to the tents. A thought struck him and he paused. Then he grinned deprecatingly and kept walking, but a moment later he stopped again. Why not? he asked himself. Enough insne things are proving to be true for it to be worth a try. He sat down in the grass, pulled his right boot off and, with Dog-Face Joe’s—or possibly Benner’s—pocketknife he hacked a hole through the stitching of the back seam. Then he pulled down his stocking, fished the length of clock chain out of his pocket, tied one end of it around his bare ankle and put the boot back on. With the blade of the knife it wasn’t difficult to draw the trailing end of the chain out through the hole so that the end of it dangled a foot and a half from his heel. He stood up and continued walking toward the tents.

  * * *

  The yags brightened and leaned over south, toward the tents. “Look at the confused man,” chimed one. “Coming here without knowing what he wants.”

  “Or even who he is,” added another with lively interest. Doctor Romany glanced to the south, where he could dimly see Wilbur and Richard harnessing a horse to a wagon. It can’t be either of them the yags are reading, he thought. It must be the Byron ka, his head full of contradictory memories and instructions, radiating confusion. If his emotions continue to excite the yags, I’ll have Wilbur knock him out—or even kill him; he’s of no use anymore.

  Doyle could feel the bright flickering intrusions in his mind, like the hands and eyes of frisky children who, finding the library door unlocked, dart inside to feel the bindings and gape at the dust jackets.

  He shook his head again, trying to clear it. What was I doing now? he thought. Oh, of course—scouting the camp to see where the fine toy is… no! Byron and Romany. Why, he wondered uneasily, did I think of a toy just then? A wonderful intricate toy with little men and horses running cleverly down little paths… his heart was pounding with excitement, and he wanted to shoot huge fireballs glaring out across the dark fields…

  “Yaaah!” came a weird, roaring shout from ahead of him, and at the same time the flames beyond the tents flared up.

  Distantly he heard a more normal voice yelling, “Richard! Hurry up with that!”

  Whatever’s going on over there, Doyle thought, it’s certainly holding everyone’s attention. He hurried forward, hunched over and keeping a broad tent between himself and the fires, and in a few moments he was crouched behind the tent, pleased to see that he was not panting at all.

  The fluttering aliennesses brushed his mind again, and he heard a wild, roaring voice say, “His new body runs better!”

  My God, Doyle thought, his palms suddenly damp, something over there is reading my mind!

  “Never mind him!” shouted the voice that Doyle now realized differed from the roaring ones in that it was human. “He’s tied up! If you want the toy you’ve got to calm down!”

  “Shoes is no fun at all,” sang another of the inhuman voices.

  I’ve got to get out of here, Doyle thought, standing up straight and turning back toward the road.

  “Richard!” called the voice Doyle now suspected was Doctor Romany’s. “Tell Wilbur to stay with the—with Byron, and be ready to kill him when I give the word.”

  Doyle hesitated. I don’t owe him anything, he thought. Well, he did buy me lunch and give me a couple of his sovereigns … But hell, they were Romany’s to begin with… Still, he didn’t have to help me… But I did warn him not to come back here… Oh, he’ll be all right—he doesn’t die until 1824… in the history I remember, that is—of course in that history Byron wasn’t in London in 1810… Oh well, I guess I can at least keep an eye on things.

  A lush old horse chestnut tree stood a few yards to his right, serving as a mooring for several of the tent ropes, and he quickly tiptoed over behind it. Looking up, he saw a branch that seemed likely to support him, and he leaped and caught it.

  The chain that trailed from his right heel was suddenly swinging free in the air, and not touching the ground.

  “He is disappeared.’” exclaimed one of the yags, its voice screechy with astonishment.

  * * *

  “Wilbur!” yelled Romany. “Is Byron still there, and conscious?”

  “Avo, rya!”

  Then what, Romany wondered, is the yag talking about? Could there have been a stranger hanging about? If so, I guess he’s gone. Richard had cringingly drawn the wagon up beside the village Bavarois, and now stepped down from the driver’s bench and approached the toy.

  “Can you lift that into the wagon by yourself?” barked Romany tensely.

  “I d-don’t think so, rya,” Richard quavered, keeping his eyes averted from the restless fire giants.

  “We’ve got to get them out of the camp at once. Wilbur! Kill Byron and come here!”

  Richard w
inced. He’d killed several men during the course of his life, but it had each time been a desperate, hot-blooded and roughly equal contest, and only the reflection that he’d have been killed himself if he’d held back had sustained him during the subsequent hours of horrified trembling and nausea; this cold throat-cutting of a bound man was not only beyond his capacity to perform, but even, he realized unhappily, beyond his capacity to stand by and observe.

  “Wait, Wilbur!” he yelled, and when Romany turned wrathfully toward him he deliberately reached out and shoved the master switch of the village Bavarois into the on position—and then broke it off.

  As soon as he’d heard Doctor Romany order Wilbur to kill Byron, Doyle had crawled out along a nearly horizontal branch, hoping to be able to see this Wilbur and pitch something down at him, but he had not yet learned to allow for the greater weight of his new body—the branch, which would only have flexed under his old body’s weight, bowed, gave a groan that went up the scale to a screech, and then with a rapid fire burst of cracks and snappings, tore right off the trunk.

  The heavy limb and its rider plunged through the top of the tent below, demolishing what had served as the gypsies’ kitchen; kettles, spoons, pots and pans added a wild percussive clatter to the ripping and crashing and the ground-shaking thump, and then very quickly the billowed out, slowly settling tent fabric was illuminated from within by fire.

  Doyle rolled off the collapsing tent onto his hands and knees on the grass. The tall fires beyond the tents were billowing and roaring like a gasoline dump going up, and he decided he must have been imagining things when, while still in the tree, he’d thought the flames were shaped like men.

  He hopped to his feet, wary and ready to run in any direction, and as soon as his chained foot touched the ground he felt again the inquisitive flutter-touches in his mind, and he heard one of the inhuman voices shout, “There he is again?”