Rings of Anubis: A Folley & Mallory Adventure

by E. Catherine Tobler

  Irving came at her a third time, and Eleanor stayed low, meaning to kick his legs out from under him. But it was Mallory who lunged into Irving’s side, throwing the man off his feet. Human Mallory, but growling. Eleanor heard the sickening smack of Irving’s head against the side of Caroline’s casket as he went down. The bloodied knife spilled from his grip.

  Eleanor crawled to Irving’s side. The man was motionless, but his chest still rose with labored breaths, telling her he lived. She grasped his hand and then the carnelian ring he wore. She tugged it free and slid away from him.

  “No.” Irving stirred and tried to lift his hand to reclaim the ring, but Mallory kicked his arm back down.

  Blood from her hands coated the ring, making its passage smooth as she slid it onto her own finger for safekeeping. Eleanor shuddered at the memory of placing the bloody ring on Anubis’s finger. The world before her swam, darkness threatening to pull her away.

  It was Mallory who pulled her away before anything else could. They staggered from Irving and the incoherent screams from Sabrina Irving’s mouth, down the temple ramp and into the chaos that ruled the dusty plain. Irving might not have had all his men, but those he did have were unwilling to surrender, a good match to those Mallory had brought. Mallory pulled Eleanor toward the airships as if he meant for them to make their escape.

  “Virgil—” The knife wound in her side throbbed with every frantic heartbeat. “They mean to bring Caroline back.” Mallory didn’t turn or stop, and she didn’t know if he had heard her. She tried to slow his pace, but could not; onward he trudged toward the airships.

  “Virgil.” Her voice broke on a sob.

  He guided her free of the immediate chaos and then turned to her, to press his hand against her bleeding side. The warmth of his hand sank through her, and she took a slow, steady breath.

  Dust coated Mallory, blood freckled a path across his face and jaw, and she saw tears brightening his eyes. It hit her then, what the idea of Caroline coming back would mean to him, Caroline’s husband.

  Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years! I am so weary of toil and of tears . . .

  “Oh, Virgil.”

  All the words Eleanor meant to say stuck in her throat. It couldn’t be done, surely he knew that the way she did. No matter how much he might want such a thing—he had to know.

  “They have to know that cannot happen.”

  Mallory’s words echoed her thoughts, and it took her a heartbeat to realize that he had spoken them instead of her. After stripping the remains of the ropes that had bound her from her wrists, Mallory pressed a bundle into her hands. She looked down to see the Lady’s three rings.

  “My tesorina,” he whispered.

  “We ride it out,” she said.

  With shaking hands, Eleanor freed the rings from their gold chain, sliding them onto the fingers of her left hand one by one. They fit as though they had been made for her hand and felt strangely familiar as each settled into place. The carnelian sat upon her middle finger, the lapis and gold scarab following to the left. The silver band ringed her forefinger much the way Mallory’s silver ring did his.

  Mallory’s hands were damp with her blood when they closed over hers, over the rings. And then the world went black.

  Nothing existed except the rings and the fiery pain that came with each heartbeat. Eleanor could no longer feel Mallory’s hands on hers, only the hot metal of the rings against her blood-damp flesh. She feared the metal would sink down to her bones the way Anubis’s touch had seemed to, feared that she wouldn’t know what to do to get them out of this black space, but then—

  There came the gleam of light.

  The light was familiar, piercing the darkness from a singular distant point. This point expanded and the pain in her hand receded, the light dancing the way Egyptian sunlight did when it sank between shadowed pyramids. Shadows moved within the light, one of them her own.

  She was smaller, only twelve, kneeling in the Egyptian sand to brush it back from the Lady. The shadows became fluid, ink moving through golden light as Eleanor grew to meet Christian in the artisan’s tomb.

  Despair washed through her, as sharp as the knife wound she now bore. Though she couldn’t see them, she felt the squeeze of Mallory’s hands around hers. Felt, too, a presence at their backs; this presence swept a hand across the light, and more shadow images flared into life. Eleanor watched shadow-Mallory bending over Caroline’s dead body. Regrets spilled from him like rain to wash the forms away.

  Eleanor blinked, and time rushed forward and then back once more, showing her more shadowed images from her life and Mallory’s. There were instances she could hardly separate: seeing herself walk down a street in Morocco, where Mallory sprawled and asked about a blue parrot. She felt his sorrow as he packed away Caroline’s belongings, and then her own delight when she encountered Mallory on the upper deck of the Nuit, barefoot. She tasted the opium smoke as he took it in, dizzyingly sweet to him, and then the bitter tang of a toad.

  The sweet scent of orange blossoms seeped through the light. With this scent came a black hand. Eleanor found she no longer feared this hand; Anubis did not reach for her, only expanded the range of light and the images it held. Eleanor saw her mother and Sagira both—one swept away, the other following.

  “Virgil,” she whispered.

  “Eleanor, look.”

  His hand slid under her chin, guiding her attention upward. Toward what should have been the sky, the light of the Glass diminished. There came the soft whisper of balsam-scented branches around them. Near their feet, a peacock dipped its beak into a pool of moonlit water, and in the near distance—

  A flawless Djeser-djeseru rose against the moon-washed cliffs, braziers of fire turning each pillar into a living flame. Rows of sphinxes flanked the ramps toward the temple, and the ramps were filled with—people. People should not have been remarkable, but they were, because they should not have existed. They had in the past, but not now. Not now, unless—

  Eleanor couldn’t finish a proper thought. She leaned into Mallory, hoping the trees would conceal them, but they had already been seen.

  Dalila Folley strode toward them amid the moonlit myrrh.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Djeser-djeseru, Kmet ~ Sometime between Year 12 and Year 22

  of the reign of Maatkare Hatshepsut-khenmetamun

  Years before, when she first began her quest, Eleanor told herself a story. Each night before bed and on days when she felt the path toward truth vanishing before her, Eleanor told herself a story so she wouldn’t lose her will. She closed her eyes and thought of the tale her mother shared, but here the story became her own, crafted by her own hands.

  It was a familiar story, beginning much like the one Dalila had shared with a young Eleanor, about a forgotten lady in the desert. These women longed to be found, for no life should be spent withering beneath Egypt’s vast deserts. These women wanted to be discovered, unburied, brushed off; wanted to feel the sunlight on their bones; wanted to be remembered.

  Eleanor had told herself Dalila wanted to be found as much as Eleanor wanted to find her. Where Eleanor possessed a singular need to know what happened to her mother, Eleanor told herself Dalila possessed an opposite and equal need to have her daughter know.

  Now Eleanor realized that while the Lady had not been a bedtime story, the tales she had spun about her own mother had been. Not that Dalila’s life had not ended that day in the desert—this was true enough—but that Dalila had kept any affection for the family she had left behind. Time and tide had changed Dalila Folley, just as they had changed Eleanor.

  Dalila Folley strode closer, trailed by two other women. The myrrh branches parted against their sun-browned shoulders with fragrant whispers. White linen draped Dalila, a many-pleated cloak over a dress, and gold gleamed at her wrists, neck, and ears. Dalila’s head was covered by a wig of gleaming onyx braids, her face painted; the outlines that began at her eyes trailed over her cheeks, branching out
ward to her ears and down to her jaw like tree roots.

  Eleanor wanted to brush it off as a dream—it would have been easier that way—but the touch of the night air on her cheeks was real enough, the moon burning bright and clear overhead. Eleanor laced her fingers with Mallory’s, wanting to ensure that he didn’t step away to allow them the privacy he might think they needed. But Mallory only moved enough to press his handkerchief over Eleanor’s still-bleeding side.

  “Daughter.”

  It was a voice Eleanor had not heard in eighteen years. Even though it stumbled as if English were unfamiliar, Eleanor would have known the sound of it anywhere. Part of her still wanted to fling herself into her mother’s arms, but the larger part of her held back. She left. She wanted to be here, in the past, and she left. Left me. Da. Everything. But as with Sabrina outside the temple, it was no longer anger that glossed those thoughts; it was sorrow.

  “Mother.”

  Beyond all else, she remained that, and Eleanor wanted to weep for the loss she still felt. She gritted her teeth together and looked beyond her mother, to the two women behind her. Eleanor was astonished to recognize one of them—the woman from the canyon with the braided, bound silver hair. The woman who had wanted Cleo for study. Eleanor’s mouth grew dry.

  “Come,” Dalila said, “and let us clean you up.” She nodded toward the press of Mallory’s hand and the bloody handkerchief. Dalila’s words were slow as she struggled to find them. “You and your friends.”

  Despite the wound she was painfully aware of, the child within Eleanor wanted to protest, to stomp a foot and scream no. She wanted to speak with her mother, wanted to unravel the questions that had plagued her for eighteen years. Instead, she followed her mother’s gaze.

  “Friends?” she murmured.

  Through the myrrh trees, others approached. Auberon and Gin, Irving and Sabrina, and Cleo too. Cleo carried a small case, and Eleanor stared in silence.

  “I’m not allowing Mallory anywhere near a needle,” Cleo said as she came to Eleanor’s side.

  Only when Cleo took hold of Eleanor’s arm did Eleanor realize how unsteady she was on her feet. She was aware of the pain, the blood, but had trouble thinking beyond the fact she had found her mother.

  “Come then,” Dalila said and turned, guiding them through the trees.

  They walked up ramps that were only partly familiar to Eleanor; here they were whole and gleaming rather than crumbling into dust. As they approached the temple, the people there stepped back, some going to their knees as the group passed. Eleanor held to Mallory and Cleo, wondering at Mallory’s silence. But then, what did a person say about such a thing? Eleanor could hardly marshal her own thoughts and emotions. When she sought logical explanations, the mere sight of her mother obliterated them.

  Dalila led them into the temple, between the flame-lit columns and into a private room. Eleanor opened her mouth to protest when her mother made to leave—the fear that Dalila would vanish was overwhelming and childish, but there even so. Dalila didn’t leave the room, only spoke to the woman Eleanor recognized from the canyon in hushed tones.

  “Please take your rest here,” Dalila said, finally addressing Eleanor. “There will be food and drink, and also time.” Dalila’s eyes pinned Eleanor at that final word. Eleanor could only nod.

  Eleanor settled onto a low settee as Mallory took a bowl from another servant and passed it to Cleo. Eleanor felt frozen, as though movement required too much thought. She was almost thankful when her mother and her attendants left the room, for she felt she could breathe again.

  “When you returned to Cairo,” Cleo said to Auberon as she helped Eleanor lie down, “I had no idea you intended to bring me to such a wondrous place.”

  “I do endeavor to surprise you,” Auberon said. He unfolded a length of clean linen and offered it to Cleo. He then set to threading one of the fine needles within the small case Cleo had brought with her.

  Cleo unbuttoned Eleanor’s waistcoat and rolled up the bloody hem of her blouse to expose the vicious wound that spread below Eleanor’s ribs. Irving had struck her well, leaving her bloody and bruised. Cleo dunked the clean linen into the bowl, and it came back out the color of dark wine. Eleanor flinched when Cleo began to clean the wound and squeezed Mallory’s hand, finding him too quiet by far.

  “Say something,” Eleanor said, and Mallory laughed low. He lifted her bloody hand and pressed his lips against the rings she still wore.

  “When I saw the blood in the chapel—” He broke off and bowed his head. He rested his forehead against her hand in a long moment of silence.

  Eleanor exhaled, for St. Michael’s chapel felt like ages ago. The memory of Christian dying on the floor came back in a rush, and then she was crying as she tried to explain to them all that had happened. Exhaustion and fear pulled at her equally, but so did relief that they were here and safe. “The Irvings are outside,” Gin reported as he joined them in the small room. He crossed to the settee and crouched beside Auberon, rocking from foot to foot as if keeping still were impossible. “There is a casket. Mrs. Irving said . . . ” He trailed off.

  “They think Anubis can bring Caroline back to life,” Mallory finished. Auberon and Cleo looked at him as though they’d both been struck between the eyes.

  “What?” Cleo whispered. “You aren’t telling me that they’re going to attempt that?” Though she was plainly surprised, her mechanical hands remained steady as she took the needle from Auberon and began to stitch Eleanor’s now-clean wound. Eleanor winced. No chloroform this time.

  “I couldn’t say what they mean to attempt,” Mallory said. He kissed Eleanor’s hand again. “Being that the Glass exists, and we are here, it would be logical that Anubis himself exists as well.”

  Eleanor was filled with the intense desire to leave. She wanted off the settee and out of this too-small room. If Mallory wanted Caroline brought back from the dead— She couldn’t finish the thought, because only madness lay that way.

  A frown creased Mallory’s forehead; then his eyes met Eleanor’s. His hand tightened around hers, even though she was still coated in her own blood. “They have to know that cannot happen. That it shouldn’t. Death is a line that should only be crossed one way. And even if it could be countered, who would want that?” His thumb stroked slowly over Eleanor’s. “I don’t want her back, Eleanor.”

  Eleanor supposed that someday, her emotions and thoughts would order themselves properly. That she would eventually be blessed with a clarity of both. For now, this was not the case. As much as she had wanted to leave this room only moments ago, she now wanted the others gone, so she and Mallory might be alone, so she could slide her arms around him and allow herself to want everything they might have beyond this place and time.

  It was Mallory who bent down despite the others in the room and covered her mouth with his own. Eleanor could taste a trace of tears between them, but if they were hers or his, she did not know. When they parted, she knew it didn’t matter; they were two halves of the same confused thing: what was his was also hers.

  Cleo bent her head to her task, her mechanical arms steady and gentle as she worked to mend the wound in Eleanor’s side. When she had finished, she helped Eleanor sit up and wrapped another length of clean linen around Eleanor’s ribs and abdomen.

  “Here.”

  Auberon offered a fresh basin of water, and Eleanor set to washing the blood from her hands. The lamplight shimmered across the surface of the water as she washed, reminding her of the light that had broken through the darkness. She cleaned the blood from each ring, rubbing the markings with her thumb, and found herself not wanting to take them off.

  “What are you thinking?”

  Eleanor looked up at Mallory’s question, finding the others had moved toward the edges of the room. They looked out onto the thriving plain before the temple. Cleo gestured to the pools and trees, while Gin complained they obscured the potential field of battle.

  “I’m thinking that these r
ings are not mine and need to be returned,” she said.

  Mallory slid a hand into the basin of water to help her clean the last of the blood from the markings on each ring. “You don’t want to stay?”

  The idea was absurd to Eleanor, and she stared at Mallory in confusion before saying, “I don’t belong here, Virgil. It was never about staying for me. It was about knowing what happened to my mother. I wanted . . . ” She withdrew her hands from the water and dried them on another square of linen. “I always thought she would want to come back with me, not that I would stay. If we can get home, that’s where we belong.”

  “We.” Mallory’s mouth curled upward.

  “We.” She touched Mallory’s shirt collar, the fabric rumpled beyond all recourse. “If I never have time to say it again, thank you for coming back to the exhibition after I told you no.”

  Mallory brushed his cheek against hers. “I have the persistence of a cat chasing a mouse, or so my mother says. If she knew the truth, she would revise that to include a dog somehow.”

  “Mothers,” Eleanor whispered, knowing that hers was just outside. There was much yet to say, to hear.

  With her wound tended to, Eleanor and Mallory left the small room for the terrace outside. Dalila looked to be holding court, with her attendants and priests gathered around her. The Irvings lingered near Caroline’s coffin, holding each other. Eleanor didn’t care to imagine what this was like for them, so didn’t. She couldn’t, not when her thoughts were in revolt. It was too much.

  Another person drew Eleanor’s attention, a woman Eleanor had only seen photographs of. If, she supposed, she didn’t count unearthing her body outside Giza when she was twelve. Her grandmother, Sagira el Jabari, was among the crowd, beautifully regal and completely alive.

  “My dear daughter of my daughter,” Sagira said, stepping out from the others. “You look like your photograph, even now.” Her grandmother’s English was even rustier than Dalila’s. For all Eleanor knew, she may never have been fluent before her journey to the past. So much Eleanor did not know.