The Anubis Gates

So what the hell happened, gang? Doyle thought. The “hellish retinue” sounds ominous… and what do you mean by “the Connexion”? He flipped hopelessly to the back of the book, and his eye was caught by a very short note written clearly on the endpaper.

He read it, and for the first time during all his adventures and mishaps he actually doubted his sanity.

The note read: “IHAY, ENDANBRAY. ANCAY OUYAY IGITDAY?”—and it was in his own handwriting, though the ink was as faded with age as every other notation in the book.

Suddenly dizzy, he sat down on a stack of books, which exploded to dust under his weight, spilling him backward against another pile, which toppled down upon him, burying him in damp, disintegrating parchment and showers of panicked spiders and silverfish.

The appalled Moss actually fled when the incoherently shouting giant, now garlanded with bugs and rotting paper, rose from the ruin like a Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse embodying Decay.

The man who at this point didn’t know whether he was Doyle or Ashbless or some long-dead member of the Antaeus Brotherhood got his feet under him and, still shouting, and slapping bugs out of his beard, ran out of the archive closet and through the sitting room into the hall. A cuckoo clock hung on the wall, and impelled by an impulse he didn’t pause to question he seized one of the dangling pendulum chains, yanked the brass pinecone-shaped weight off the end of it, and then drew the end of the chain up through the clock’s works and out free. He stumbled away down the stairs, clutching the length of chain and leaving the clock stopped forever behind him.

* * *

The heat of the burning platform was intense, and when Doctor Romany turned and took several steps away, the night air was frigid on his sweaty face. He clenched his fist and opened it, grimacing at the stickiness of the blood that had run down his arm during the repeated lancetings. He sighed deeply and wished he could sit down on the grass. At that moment it seemed to him that the freedom to just sit down on the ground must be the dearest of the countless things he’d had to forfeit in order to pursue sorcery.

Wearily, still facing out beyond the wheel of red firelight into the darkness that was connected to him by his long shadow, he took the stained lancet and the sticky bowl out of his pocket for one more try.

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.