by Gregg Taylor
“I wish I had my sword,” the Red Panda said as casually as he could manage.
“Take one of theirs,” the Flying Squirrel offered, holding up a throwing star made of anti-magic alloy. “Think these’ll do anything?” she asked.
“No,” he said glumly.
She shrugged and threw it into the advancing line, now less than twenty feet away. It passed through one of the horde and buried itself deep into the one behind him. Both of them fell and did not get up.
“I mean, yes,” the Red Panda corrected, diving down the stairs and racing forward with the intention of grabbing the swords of the fallen. There was very little holding these monsters up. If he could take them out at the legs, it might not destroy them, but it would certainly help to slow them down. The pungent smell of tomb dust and long-dead flesh grew as he closed in. He heard a whistling sound whizz past each of his ears, and the front lines began to crumble before him as the Flying Squirrel peppered them with missiles.
The Red Panda rolled at the bottom of the stairs and came up with a khopesh, an ancient Egyptian sword with a curved blade. He had trained with one of these long ago. It cut like a sabre but handled like a lightweight axe, and the young August Fenwick had not been fond of it. Now that he was older, wiser and surrounded by the resurrected dead, he thought it was just dandy, and picked up a second blade for his left hand as he parried the first of many blows with his right. He bound over his attacker’s blade with his sword, holding it against the ground as he brought the weapon in his left hand up through the legs of his undead foe. The creature fell to the ground and hissed, but did not have the sense to die again. The Red Panda pinned the sword the beast still gripped down hard with his right hand and brought the blade in his left down on the mummy’s head, cleaving it in two with a cloud of dust. This was even less effective, as the beast seemed entirely unaffected by the loss and continued to struggle to free his blade.
“Legs it is, then,” the Red Panda said to no one in particular, as he turned his motion into a rapid rotation of his footing, and the blades he held on either side. Like a whirling dervish, he cut through the thick crowd of attackers, leaving behind a battlefield littered with legless things that still flailed with their weapons. They were slower than living fighters, but they fought without fear, and no sooner had he cleared away one creature than two more leapt from the shadows to take its place.
For a time he held his own as the sounds of gunfire began to fade, replaced by bone-chilling screams as Pavli’s men were set upon by horrors from beyond the grave. The rending and tearing sounds that followed the screams did not seem to abate when the screaming finally stopped, and though he could not pause to look, it suggested to the man in the mask that these mummies did not know enough to stop killing them when they were already dead. That did not bode well, but at least it seemed to be keeping some of them busy.
The Red Panda heard several blasts for which no origin seemed clear to him, and knew that the Stranger must also be in the fray. The air hung thick with the smell of ancient corpses burning until there was not enough left of them to continue the fight. It explained why they had not yet been overwhelmed by foes enveloping the altar of Anubis from the other side of the room, but it was clearly too good to last. The Red Panda gasped in a lungful of the fetid, smoke-filled air. Was Max strong enough to keep this up for long? For that matter, was he? He swung his blade again and hoped so.
More than once he would have been cut off from potential retreat were it not for a steady stream of attacks from the Flying Squirrel. These seemed to be growing less and less frequent, though, and if there were any sign that the howling mob of monsters from beyond the grave was running out of conscripts, he certainly couldn’t see it. Indeed, they seemed to be getting stronger and faster as they fought. This had to end soon, or it was not to end well.
An undead soldier howled as he sprang forward at the masked man, his blade raised high above his head. The Red Panda was off-balance and did not know if he could respond in time, not without throwing himself backwards blindly, and leaving himself wide open to the next attack. The mummy was so close already that the Red Panda felt certain he could see the rage and murderous intent in the dead man’s empty eye sockets. And just as suddenly as the threat had appeared, a crimson combat boomerang crashed into the mummy’s head, shattering the skull and dropping the creature to the ground, lifeless once again.
“Boss!” the Squirrel’s voice rang out over the din. “That’s my last boomerang and I’ve thrown it three times already! The law of large numbers says sooner or later it ain’t comin’ back!”
“I understand,” he called grimly.
“No, you don’t,” she protested. “Get your fanny over here!”
He threw himself backwards twice head over heels to gain some space, brought his fist across through the skull of the only mummy between himself and the stairs and took the steps at a sprint. For the first time since the battle had begun, he saw what she was seeing. The main force of the horde of undead creatures were at the front of the dais, pressing in toward Pavli desperately, held back only by the force of Maxwell Falconi’s attacks. A few would scatter with each blast the wizard threw, one or two would fail to rise, but the end seemed inevitable, and soon.
“Obey me!” Pavli shrieked desperately, waving the Eye of Anubis as if it weren’t the thing that was bringing the monsters down on his head. “Obey me!”
“Boss,” Kit’s voice rang out, “up here!”
She was halfway up the statue, crouched against the enormous torso of Anubis, and she clutched her last boomerang as though it were made of gold. He activated his Static Shoes and ran up the surface toward her.
“What’s the plan?” he called as he climbed.
“Plan?” she cried in disbelief. “When would I have thought of a plan? How about ‘don’t die’, that’s my plan!”
“Max,” the Red Panda yelled to be heard over the hysterical Pavli, “what have you got left?”
“Almost nothing, old boy,” the sorcerer called. “One good blast. Maybe two.”
“The Eye is an amplifier!” the Red Panda cried. “It takes what it is given.”
The horde of hissing monsters was reassembling itself for another charge. There was nothing else left. “I think you had better both get down here,” the Stranger ordered, “as near to me as you can!”
The heroes dropped and drew in close beside Falconi as the enchanter muttered softly under his breath, his hands moving in a rapid, complex sequence.
“Obey me!” Pavli implored one last time.
“I’m sorry, Aris,” the Stranger said softly as he unleashed a blinding stream of pure energy into the very heart of the jewel which his rival held aloft. The mummies froze but seemed to howl in unison, a terrifying song of cold death that rose high in the chamber and seemed to make the walls quake.
“The timing of this will be a bit tricky,” the Stranger said as the world seemed to explode all around them into a blaze of black fire. The Flying Squirrel squeaked in spite of herself before she realized that there was something holding the savage fury of the blast away from them. A glowing, golden dome that surrounded the three heroes, held together by the pure force of the Stranger’s will.
An instant later it was over. Aris Pavli and the undead horde that desperately wished to fulfil their dying pledge by destroying him were reduced to atoms by the force of the blast. Walls had shattered, enormous god-shaped pillars were crumbing into dust, and suddenly a mighty quake seemed to seize the ancient chamber and hurl the treasures it contained about the room.
“Okay,” Kit cried, “this is actually a little bit worse.”
“I don’t know if we can make that door!” Falconi cried.
The Red Panda threw his gaze up to the darkened ceiling of the great hall. He knew what he was desperate to see and, to his elation, it was there, far larger and clearer than before. The beam of light that shone down into Anubis’ hand. The single ray of sunlight in this terrible place.
“Look up,” he shouted as more great stones fell from above, making the beam of light wider and more brilliant still. “That’s our doorway!”
“I got it!” she called, firing her Grapple Gun blindly into the darkness, hoping it took hold.
“Hold on tight, Max,” the Red Panda ordered as he seized his mentor with his left arm and fired his own Grapple with his right. “We won’t get a second shot at this.”
An instant later there was a roar like thunder, a mighty fall of stone and earth, and the great Hall of Anubis passed from this world into history and legend.
Twenty-Nine
Al-Qurn looked more or less the same from the outside. There had been some shifting as space within collapsed, the doorway at the base had been buried in a rock slide and Max had taken care of the fissure in the rock they had crawled out of by causing another small one. The sun was blazing with the heat of the late afternoon and the world turned as if it were entirely unaware of how close it had just come to ending.
“Well, Max,” the Red Panda said, “I’m sorry that we failed to retrieve the Eye.”
Falconi smiled grimly and shook his head. “I’m not sorry in the least. The Council of Mages may think that they are above the temptations of power, but the safest place for the Eye of Anubis is buried under tons of rock. Al-Qurn hid the stone for thousands of years, I feel certain that it may continue to do so.”
“You know,” the Red Panda said hopefully, “although the great hall was destroyed, it is entirely possible that much of that pyramid survived the blast intact.”
“Though you couldn’t really excavate it without someone discovering the Eye, could you?” Falconi said gently.
“Ah, no,” the Red Panda agreed. “Well, there it is.”
“You daydreamin’ about a career change?” the Flying Squirrel asked.
“Not for me,” the Red Panda protested, “for Fenwick. Renown Egyptologist sounds better than Wealthy Playboy, doesn’t it?”
“You’d have a heck of a commute for night patrol,” she grinned, showing an alarming number of teeth. The Flying Squirrel was not sorry to see the back of this particular adventure.
The Red Panda surveyed the slope. “You know,” he said, “we can’t really assume that no one will notice all of this shifting. The Valley of the Kings is a pretty closely observed site and it is right next door.”
“I agree,” the Stranger said. “Once the two of you have secured a boat to take you back to Luxor, I thought I might whip up a little sandstorm to hide any features that might provoke interest.”
“You aren’t comin’ with us?” the Flying Squirrel asked, surprised.
Falconi shook his head. “No, my dear, I thank you for the offer, and for coming all this way to rescue an old fool, but I really am feeling more like my old self. The Great Falconi touring show is en route to Australia, and I must meet it there.”
“That’s a long trip,” the Squirrel said, concerned.
“Yes,” the Stranger seemed gently amused, “it might take me twenty minutes.”
“Show-off,” she grinned.
“Darn tootin’,” he replied.
The three of them began to walk down the slope, skirting the valley, toward the river crossing. “This sandstorm I was thinking of starting,” Falconi began. “I’ll probably let it run for hours. You two probably won’t be able to leave the hotel at all until morning.”
The Flying Squirrel glared daggers at the sorcerer and mouthed the words “Stop it!” behind the Red Panda’s back, but she needn’t have worried.
“Suits me,” the man in the mask said. “I haven’t slept in days.”
“Ah, yes,” the Stranger said sadly, shaking his head.
“What about Pavli’s clients?” the Red Panda asked. “Do you think they will try and excavate the mountain and retrieve the Eye? That would be as bad as losing in the first place.”
Falconi shook his head. “I doubt very much that Pavli kept them that closely in the loop for fear of being cut out entirely. And searching the mountain was something of an improvisation, as you may recall. But I feel certain that the Council will put a watcher on it, just in case.”
Falconi stopped walking. “This is where I shall say adieu, my friends. Take care of each other. Until the next time.”
The Red Panda shook the Stranger’s hand. “You’ll have a devil of a time explaining away that dirty old robe when you get to Australia, Max,” he smiled.
“My dear boy,” Falconi said, “I am in Show Business. I don’t have trouble explaining anything.”
The Flying Squirrel looked down at her catsuit. “Hey, talking about explanations, how the heck am I supposed to get across the river and back to the hotel like this? It was one thing in the middle of the night, but-”
“Take off the mask,” he offered, and removed his own, along with his gloves. “Easy.”
“Easy for you,” she protested. “You’re a man in a suit.”
“No one knows us here,” he said, removing her flight goggles and putting them in his pocket. “It’ll be fine.”
She thought for a moment that he was going to remove her mask for her, which would probably have been a little more excitement than she could stand without making some appallingly girlish noise, but then they both seemed to remember the safety device in her cowl that would give him a painful electric shock if he tried. She pulled her cowl back herself and freed her hair, which fell about her face in the mortifyingly mop-like manner she called ‘cowl-head’. He removed his fedora and plunked it on her head gently, then removed his long grey coat and held it out for her to put on. It was like a tent on her, and even as she rolled up the sleeves, she looked like a child playing dress-up. But the Squirrel Suit was effectively hidden.
“There,” he said proudly, “you look-”
“Like I stayed out all night and forgot my clothes somewhere?” she offered.
“No one knows us here,” he said soothingly.
“No,” she said, looking up at him from under the brim of his own hat, “I guess they don’t.”
For a moment neither one of them said anything.
“Well,” he said at last, breaking the spell, “I suppose we should see about a boat.”
“Right,” she said.
“Youth is wasted on the young,” Falconi said softly.
“What’s that?” the Red Panda asked, turning back to him.
“I said thank you again, old friend,” Maxwell Falconi said with a twinkle in his eye. “And good-bye.”
Thirty
Weston had the entire squadron of servants packed and ready to go when they got back to Cairo. Kit hadn’t known quite what Fenwick was up to when he sent the telegrams, both in code, one to someone she had never heard of in Alexandria, the second to an operative in Toronto. The response, he had explained, would be two pre-arranged messages, one telling Weston that Fenwick was through visiting his non-existent friends in Alexandria and would be back at the Hotel Imperial within a day, and the second advising Fenwick that vitally important business required his attention and his signature immediately back in Toronto, forcing their return after what was, after all, quite a brief stay. In the end it had worked even better than he had thought.
“I hope I didn’t overstep my bounds, sir,” Weston said, “but the man at the desk said the telegram was very urgent, and I did not want to be responsible for any delays it was in my power to avoid.” Weston had assembled the staff, got them packed, made arrangements with the hotel and for their charter flights and packed his master’s effects. Fenwick read the telegram, looked very grave and nodded to his new butler.
“Very good, Weston,” he smiled. “Very good indeed.”
The net effect was that three hours later, having scarcely had time to process the fact that she was apparently not going to die in an undiscovered pyramid, or at least not this week, Kit Baxter was back on an airplane headed for home. As relieved as she was, with no mission to prepare for this time she was bored to tears.
“May I sit down, Miss Baxter?” It was Weston. He had been up front with Fenwick since the plane took off, and she couldn’t imagine what had provoked him to wander back now, but she wasn’t sorry to see him. She was, as usual, sitting apart from the rest of the staff, and while they were more subdued than on the trip in, there was a good deal of whispering going on, and Kit was fairly certain that none of it was about her for a change.
“Oh, hello, Weston,” she smiled. “Please do. Is there any chance of you calling me Kit?”
“The master generally refers to you as ‘Miss Baxter’, at least when in company,” Weston said with a pleasant smile. “It seems improper for me to be more familiar than he is.”
Kit said nothing about Fenwick being a good deal more familiar than he let on, mostly because Weston wouldn’t know that she meant in a painfully platonic, fighting gangsters, killer robots and the undead sort of way. Instead she just smiled, also pleasantly, but waited for the other shoe to drop.
“Is something the matter?” Weston asked her.
“No,” she said, surprised, “why do you ask?”
“You seem to be, how can I explain it… you seem to be steeling yourself against something.”
Kit blinked at him in astonishment. Why was it that the only man in her life who could tell what she was thinking had to be the butler?
“Perhaps you are expecting a scolding of some kind?” he asked.
“Yeah, well, that would be the norm, I guess,” she replied. “Or a lecture, or a vague threat.”
Weston’s brows knit. “Have you done anything to deserve such a thing?” he asked.
“That’s never mattered before,” Kit said ruefully.
Weston smiled and settled back into the seat beside her. His voice dropped a touch to avoid being heard by any of the others over the steady drone of the engines, but Kit could hear him just fine.
“You do, occasionally, put a butler in an awkward position, you know,” he said. “Through no particular fault of your own. Really, when one thinks about it, it is quite unfair, saddling the head of a household staff with this sort of responsibility for the personal lives of those under his command. It isn’t the part of the job that I particularly enjoy. But someone has to do it. Indeed, some days one should really be issued a tranquilizer gun.”
