The Anubis Gates

“Damn me,” whispered Byron, sitting back, “I think you’re serious! And do you know, my recollections of lying sick in Patras don’t seem more than a week old. Yes, I was in Patras Saturday last, and so was this Romanelli villain.” He grinned. “Ah, there’s sorcery in this, Ashbless! Not even… cannons, arranged in a relay system across the continent, could have got me from there to here in time to have been buying drinks for people in London yesterday. Julius Obsequens wrote about such things in his book of prodigies. Romanelli evidently has command of aerial spirits!”

This is getting murky, thought Doyle. “Maybe,” he said cautiously. “But if Romanelli was your doctor out there, then he’s—well he’s probably still there. Because this Doctor Romany, who’s apparently a twin of him, has been here all along.”

“Twins, is it? Well, I’m going to get the full account from the London twin—at gunpoint, if necessary.” He stood up purposefully, then glanced down at his clothes and stockinged feet. “Damn! I can’t challenge a man while I’m dressed so. I’ll stop first at a haberdasher’s.”

“You’re going to threaten a sorcerer with pistols?” Doyle inquired sarcastically. “His… aerial spirits will drop a bucket over your head so you can’t see to aim. I say we pay a visit to this Antaeus Brotherhood first—if they were once a threat to Romany and his people, they may still know some effective defenses against them, mightn’t they?”

Byron snapped his fingers impatiently. “I suppose you’re right. We, you say? You have matters to settle with him yourself?”

“There’s something I need to learn from him,” said Doyle, standing up, “that he won’t… willingly… tell me.”

“Very well. Why don’t we investigate this Antaeus Brotherhood while my boots and clothes are being prepared. Antaeus, eh? I daresay they all walk around barefoot on dirt floors.”

This reminded Doyle of something, but before he could track it down Byron had struggled back into his despised shoes and opened the door.

“You are coming?”

“Oh, sure,” Doyle said, picking up Benner’s coat. But remember that remark about bare feet and dirt floors, he told himself. That reminds me of something that seems important.

* * *

The sweat drops were rolling like miniature crystal snails down Doctor Romany’s bald temples, and his concentration was shattered by physical exhaustion, but he resolved to try once more to contact the Master in Cairo. The trouble, he realized, was that the ether was for once too receptive, and within probably ten miles the beam of his message became a cone that widened out and extended its energy in lateral spread rather than motion forward toward the candle that was always burning in the Master’s chamber; and then the message shuddered to a halt, and rebounded back to Romany’s candle, producing the loud, warped echoes that infuriated Doctor Romany and terrified the gypsies.

Again he held the lamp flame to the black curl of candle wick, and because this was the twelfth attempt, he could feel the energy drain out of him at the instant the round flame appeared.

“Master,” he rasped into it. “Can you hear me? This is the Romanelli ka in England. It is urgent that I speak to you. I have news that may cause you to want to abort the present enterprise. I—”

“Gorble geermee?” His own voice, distorted and slowed, came back at him so loudly that he jerked away from the candle. “Diw a Rubberbelly kadingle. Idda zurjee…” Abruptly the idiot echo faded out, leaving only a sound like distant wind, waxing and waning as if heard through a flapping curtain. Romanelli leaned forward again. This wasn’t the sharpening that indicated successful contact, but at least it was something different. “Master?” he said hopefully.

Without becoming a voice or seeming to be anything more than the sound of vast emptiness, the distant sussuration began to form words. “Kes ku sekher ser sat,” the void whispered, “tuk kemhu a pet… “

The peculiar flame went out when the candle, propelled by Romany’s fist, thumped into the side of the tent. He stood up and, sweating and trembling and bobbing unevenly, strode out of the tent. “Richard!” he yelled angrily. “Damn it, where are you? Get your—”