“I would leave you with your privacy, but Sirocco regulations won’t allow me to,” Cleo said as she closed the door. It latched with a soft snick. “I know this is personal for you.”
Eleanor watched Cleo round the table. Her mechanical hands made no sound as she reached for the lid of the box on the table; the lights gleamed over the rotating cogs and gears that allowed her arms their normal motions, precisely-made fingers easily gripping the lid and lifting it away. Eleanor stepped toward the table and found herself looking down at a familiar body, if in unfamiliar surroundings. The Lady looked to be sleeping on her side in the Egyptian sand she had been discovered in. Muslin sheltered the body from the box edges, but Eleanor fancied it a kind of blanket, to keep her warm. It was the thought of a twelve-year-old, but she allowed herself the silliness, feeling as if she had stepped backward in time. Within the dirt that surrounded the Lady, Eleanor saw small, time-darkened beads and the curve of something that could have been a bracelet.
Everywhere she walked, she made a kind of music, her mother had told her on countless nights as she wove the story. She strung beads herself, for she enjoyed it so.
“All this fuss with flood and theft and they didn’t damage the arm, whoever took her ring,” Cleo said, gesturing to a smaller box which sat beyond the Lady. It was the box Eleanor had seen in the photograph, with its chipped edge.
“I thought she was still out there,” Eleanor said. “In the dirt. I’m glad she’s been here, as silly as that may sound.” Safe from further damage, safe from potential floods, the Lady slept the years away in this quiet place, where not even the ticking of a clock might wake her.
“She’s been quite a mystery all this time,” Cleo said. “I haven’t been able to find anything about her—though it would help if I had a name, a symbol, something. No tomb, no markings, nothing but the clothes and jewelry she wore.” Her fingers chimed lightly together. “The linen she wore was of the finest quality. Between that and the jewelry, one has to assume she was someone of substance.”
Eleanor didn’t know much more than Cleo did when it came to the woman’s identity, though she had her theories. Looking at the timeworn body now, Eleanor’s heart skipped.
“I suppose there is a possibility,” Cleo added, “she could have stolen . . . ”
“But that’s not how the story goes,” Eleanor whispered, drawing Cleo’s full regard. “My mother told me stories of this woman, of her life and her rings. How could my mother have known so much, and we so little?”
The easiest answer was that Dalila Folley had known of the ancient burial all along, perhaps since childhood, and had simply made up the stories to match what she had seen. Or perhaps the Lady had not died so long ago after all. As any Egyptologist knew, such things could be, and had been, faked. Another answer—that Dalila Folley had known about the woman because she was the woman—seemed both impossible and logical at the same time.
“We know next to nothing about these remains, because while I have been in charge of her, I’ve also been kept from her.” A thread of tension ran through Cleo’s voice at the admission. “The agent in this position prior to me participated in an initial exam, but upon her dismissal, her files were confiscated. I maintain certain items in this collection, Miss Folley, but admit that I know very little about them.”
That no files remained from the Lady’s original examination was curious to Eleanor. Anything of value could have been carried away or hidden, and with the agent who performed the examination dismissed, it didn’t bode well for them discovering what, if anything, had been with the Lady. “How did Mallory arrange this?”
Cleo’s gleaming fingers worked to fold over an edge of the Lady’s muslin. “Director Irving and his men are presently in the Dominion of Canada, which gives us a small window of opportunity. Director Walden knows about your visit—Mallory spoke with him. He wants your help in finding the carnelian ring—but he is the only one at that level.”
“The Lady is bait.”
Cleo actually considered it, which proved to Eleanor that she was not wrong when it came to the agency’s reputation. “Incentive, maybe.”
Eleanor walked along the side of the table and peered at the Lady’s calm face. It was a face Eleanor had dreamed through the years: familiar and loved, like a family member.
“You’ve had her for all of these years,” Eleanor said, trying to remind herself that the Lady had been safe. It was foolish to be jealous of Cleo for knowing, for having some access to her. “You may not have all of the facts assembled, but surely you’ve formed an opinion.” From the light in Cleo’s eyes, Eleanor could see that was true enough. “Tell me.”
Cleo released the little fold of muslin she had made and tented her fingers together. In the electric lights, her mechanical arms gleamed in shades of copper and gold, and made strange shadows across the Lady and table.
“She’s unusual, to be certain. The quality of the linen, the ring, the condition of the body—all indicate an ancient death, but we have, of course, no real proof of that. No formal burial, no coffin. It appears she was tossed into the desert, or collapsed on a journey.”
She was forced to flee, Dalila had told a young Eleanor. The people feared the power of her rings, the power behind her eyes. She fled into the desert wastes and no one knew of her again. They did not mourn her loss, save for one noble lady, who hid from the people herself. The noble’s time had come and gone, and so too had her friend.
“I’m still trying to locate the original files from the time of her discovery.” Cleo tilted her head. “I’m sorry—I keep forgetting that you and your mother were the ones to discover her.”
Eleanor pulled the mantle closer around her shoulders. “We uncovered her, but didn’t get much beyond that.”
Tears turning the dust on her mother’s cheeks to muddy tracks; no one believed . . . we have to get her out before the summer floods come . . . Father should see, Eleanor had said, and turned, only to see those riders. Those awful riders.
“Does she look much different to you?” Cleo asked.
Given the lighting and the box that encompassed her, the Lady did look different to Eleanor, but these were minor things. The condition of the body was much the same, brown like winter-thin twigs. While the world outside had marched onward, time had ceased to matter for this woman, drowsing in her muslin bed.
“No, she doesn’t. Do you know why the agent in charge of the Lady was dismissed?” Eleanor asked.
“Gin will spin a grand conspiracy for you, I’m sure. That she knew too much, that the agency sought to deny the Lady’s existence, that the museum did as well.”
“The latter points are true enough,” Eleanor said. “Every time we tried to see the body, we were told it didn’t exist.”
“If we could locate the original files, we could determine if there was anything else with the Lady when Sirocco took her from the sands: other artifacts or jewelry, possibly.” One mechanical finger tapped against the table. “Virgil wants a radiant energy image of the Lady. It’s an experimental technology to be certain, but he thinks it might tell us more about the body.”
Other jewelry. Could it be Sirocco had recovered another ring and, Cleo having been kept from the entire truth, no one in their circle knew of it? The idea that other rings could be absolutely anywhere sent Eleanor’s mind reeling, but she pulled it back. She told herself that there had to be logic to the madness, even if they hadn’t discovered it.
“Radiant energy?”
As Cleo spoke of invisible radiant energy and photographic plates, Eleanor was reminded of her father’s extractor, which could harmlessly produce a view of a dig site before extractions began. Was the technology related?
“Are you saying we’ll be able to see inside the Lady?”
Cleo’s head bobbed in a nod. “We have been experimenting with it on a few sealed sarcophagi, and the results have been encouraging. One can actually see inside without breaking any original seals. The equipment won’t be av
ailable until tomorrow, if you take my meaning.”
More secrecy, but Eleanor welcomed it. If no one knew they were examining the Lady in this manner, all the better. She hoped Director Irving stayed away long enough for them to make decent headway.
Over the course of the afternoon, she and Cleo talked at length about the Lady. Eleanor shared her childhood notebook—like her file, it had been found in the wreckage of the Nuit—which contained her original drawings of the dig site and the body. The images looked primitive now, drawn by a child’s hand, but Cleo studied them with intent. They were the best documents she had seen from the day of the Lady’s discovery.
They spoke, too, about the so-called Glass of Anubis, and its potential existence. Eleanor didn’t talk about the light she had seen that day; she held back, still uncertain. It could have easily been the product of a child’s traumatized mind. How much had she invented in order to move past the loss of her mother?
Cleo seemed to welcome the idea that the rings opened such a portal, and could again. It might lead to more knowledge about the ancient world, Cleo said, to discoveries they wouldn’t otherwise make—it might well prove the existence of the Egyptian gods! Eleanor heard a sliver of herself in Cleo’s voice; that optimism, that hope. But no one, Eleanor was coming to see, would use such a portal for benign purposes. Agents were dead, an airship downed.
Eventually, Cleo allowed the men into the examination room, wrapped in mantles and gloves so they wouldn’t shed anything that could possibly contaminate the Lady. While Eleanor was pleased to see Mallory, it felt odd to have three more people in the room. She had gotten comfortable with the Lady and Cleo; during their conversation, she half expected to look up and see her mother rather than the young Egyptologist.
Gin came nose to nose with the Lady before Mallory pulled him back a polite distance. Gin prattled on about her smell, how he swore myrrh clung to her. Mallory’s eyes trailed over the Lady’s taut cheeks, the withered hollow of her neck. His interest in the Lady made Eleanor feel more comfortable about her own. No longer were people telling her how strange she was to pursue such an idea, but encouraged it instead. They had their own motives, of course, but she had come to believe their motivations were honest.
As the sun began to sink, they journeyed back to the hotel, the agents and Eleanor sharing a dinner at a small tavern a short distance from Sirocco’s headquarters. They feasted on bread baked on sun-heated stones, fish baked in palm leaves, red wine, and spicy candied ginger. By the time Eleanor let herself into her room, she felt pleasantly drowsy and full.
She was brushing her hair out of its knot when she spied the envelope propped near the vanity’s mirror. It was small, inscribed with her first name and a small drawing of a lotus. Eleanor set her hairbrush aside and plucked the envelope from the vanity. It was not sealed, the flap simply tucked inside. She withdrew a sheet of stationery to read:
We have shared the Lady,
We are trusting yet timid;
Learn a greater trust,
Climb the Great Pyramid.
Eleanor looked around the rest of her room, but saw nothing else out of place, nothing that didn’t belong. What was Mallory thinking? And how had he managed to leave the note inside her locked room? She pictured him charming the staff with that smile of his—I really am quite nice, or so my mother says—leaving the note before he joined them at dinner, though he hadn’t been late, had he?
So few people had climbed the pyramids to the top—Eleanor had only done it once before, and then as a child—and she picked up her hairbrush again. That was reason enough to do it.
The following morning dawned cloudy, though the day remained humid. In the depths of Sirocco’s headquarters, it stayed cool and dry, and Eleanor found herself wishing she had brought a jacket. The chill began to sink through her blouse from the minute she stepped off the elevator. A long night with little sleep added to her discomfort.
She dreamed of the pyramids, but the poem-leaving Mallory didn’t put in an appearance. Instead, as she worked her way up the crumbled structure, it was another hand that reached for hers at the top. This hand slid down the length of her forearm, curling familiarly around her elbow. She was pulled the rest of the way up until she stood above the entire world, looking down on small lights that were like candle flames in the dark. Breath skimmed her bare shoulder and her toes curled against the Egyptian stone.
Now, Eleanor.
It was the voice from her childhood, and Eleanor felt herself fall to pieces.
She was everywhere and nowhere all at once. Even the pyramid fell away, and she was running through an endless marsh of papyrus, the green fronds brushing her shoulders. Muddy ground squelched between her toes and the air filled her nose; she inhaled deeply and then tasted the world as a snake might, licking everything into her mouth.
There were birds nearby and fish in the deeper parts of the swamp. Birds rushed from their roosting places to take to the amber sky above. Papyrus shivered around them, and Eleanor wanted to fly with the birds, but could not, for the hand held her to the earth.
She woke in a sweat, her room entombing her in silence. Sleep was hard to find again, and when it came, was fitful.
The elevator ride to the lower level of the building was nearly as quiet and suffocating as her room. She craved companionship, even as the idea of sharing the Lady made her bristle. While alone, she felt the hand would come for her again, would cart her off, whereas being among others might give her an anchor to hook herself to.
The elevator worked soundlessly around her, depositing her into the foyer where Auberon and Mallory waited. She shivered at the chill in the air. It didn’t feel like Egypt down here, but some other country far removed.
“It’s always cold down here,” Auberon said in apology.
Mallory headed down the corridor ahead of them, intent on putting distance between himself and Eleanor. She supposed she might be embarrassed about leaving someone a poem, too. He might also share her craving and repulsion at the idea of company.
“I imagined the opposite,” Eleanor said to Auberon, “for so many tombs seem to hold the warmth of the world inside.” Still, she knew it was also the memory of that dream which made her uneasy and cold. Was the dark hand that of Anubis himself? And, if so, what did he want with her?
When they reached Cleo’s office, Mallory had found a clean mantle and draped it over Eleanor’s shoulders. She wished she had time to ask him about the note he had left in her room, but Auberon stayed with them. The poem was a private thing, so she held her questions. Mallory didn’t seem prone to poetry, but what did she truly know of the man? He kept her file close to his side, he steadied her before moving away, he hadn’t smelled of opium since their journey began, he hadn’t eaten her in the temple. For the time being, the last was most important.
“Thank you, Mallory,” she said. “Agent.”
“Mmm.”
The sound Mallory made was unrevealing, but Eleanor took it for amusement. She wrapped the mantle around her and moved into the examination room, where Cleo was already at work. A young boy dressed in tidy trousers and a smudged tunic assisted her. The Egyptian boy, perhaps nine, stood on a stool at the counter, mixing chemicals in rectangular trays, humming as he worked. When they entered, he looked over his thin shoulder. His brown eyes brightened and he called out a welcome in Arabic.
“And to you, Usi,” Auberon said, returning the greeting and bowing to the young boy. “It has been two years?”
“Much too long,” Usi said, older than his years. He turned back to his work, mindful of measurements, his gloved hands steady at each step.
The Lady occupied the same table, the muslin drawn back to reveal her browned body. Who are you, and why did my mother need to find you so desperately? Eleanor hoped today would bring them answers.
Around the Lady’s box sat a strange machine that Eleanor had never seen before. She presumed this was the radiant energy contraption Cleo had spoken of. It was crafted of va
rious metals that gleamed under the room’s electric lights, wires snaking from this tube to that tube and back again. The tubes were clear glass and shimmered under the lights, revealing myriad colors. Cleo made adjustments to the machine as they came in, taking hold of one handle and turning it so that the entire housing swung upward to perch above the Lady like a vulture.
“I’ve never seen its like,” Eleanor said, wishing her father were there, for wouldn’t he enjoy such a piece of machinery? She thought, too, that the patrons of the Exposition would have appreciated it.
Cleo grinned. “Isn’t she beautiful!” She stroked her metal fingers down the length of the machine, as though she could actually feel its lines and curves. “And look here.” She gestured beneath the table, where a curious collection of trays balanced. Then, she gestured to Usi. “Usi prepares the photographic plates and we slide them into these trays. Before they have a chance to dry, we expose the radiant energy, capturing it on the plates!”
Eleanor moved deeper into the room to take a closer look at the contraption. “This is why I deal with dead people,” she said. “Modern science . . . ” She trailed off.
“Seems like magic more times than not,” Mallory said as he drew the door shut, effectively sealing all of them inside. “How detailed will this image be, Cleo? I heard that Tesla, and Pulyui before him, had some very good results.”
Cleo allowed that was so, but couldn’t guarantee anything. “We have had varying results. Sometimes the plates come out with clear images and other times they are smudged with shadows. Usi!”
“Yes, yes!” The small boy waved a hand, clearly waiting for something to happen in the trays before him, and when it did, he clapped. “Mister Auberon, your assistance, please.”
The two worked together as if they had many times before. Usi handed the wet photographic plates to Auberon, who slid them with care into the trays beneath the Lady, despite his cast arm. Two plates slid into position beneath a mica-lined insulator before Cleo cranked the machine. The capacitor and discharge circuits hummed. It was like a photographic camera to Eleanor, so she came to look at each plate as a photo. Cleo took photos of every part of the Lady, from her head, to her outflung arm, to her curled feet.
Rings of Anubis: A Folley & Mallory Adventure Page 18
