The Bone House (22 page)

“To unravel the mystery of tombs.”

“The pharaohs’ tombs?”

“
All
tombs.” At Kit’s quizzical expression, he said, “Since the human creature became a conscious being, we have made tombs and graves for our dead. Is this not so?”

“I suppose.”

“It is a fact. From one end of the world to the other, and in every successive age from the dawn of human consciousness until now, and from the simplest societies to the most sophisticated, we have made graves and tombs for our dead. Have you ever stopped to consider why?” Thomas peered at him expectantly. “Why engage in such an expensive and ultimately pointless activity, if death is the final, irrefutable answer to all of life’s questions?”

“Maybe,” Kit ventured, thinking of how he rued leaving Cosimo and Sir Henry unburied and unmourned, “we don’t do it for them, but we do it for ourselves.”

Thomas commended this response. “Very good! Yet, if we do it for ourselves alone, what do we hope to gain by such taxing endeavour? For, if annihilation is all there is at the end of life, then tombs ultimately make no sense whatsoever.”

“True,” Kit allowed.

“True—
unless
,” countered Thomas quickly, “there is something more than mere physical existence, something that lies beyond the grave, something even our most primitive ancestors knew that we moderns seem to have forgotten.”

“What did our ancestors know?”

“That is the riddle of the tombs,” declared Thomas. “And
that
is what I am trying to discover.”

Kit considered this for a moment. “After all your work, you must have some theories.”

“Oh, I do,” Thomas assured him with a laugh. “In my avocation as a scientist, there is no shortage of theories. Indeed, it is the one commodity we have in admirable abundance.”

“So, what’s your theory about the tomb-building?”

“It is all of a piece with the very plain and simple fact that we are immortal.”

“I don’t feel very immortal,” admitted Kit, a little unsettled by the turn the conversation had taken.

“But you are—and so am I!” Thomas declared. “All human beings, by virtue of having been born into this world, are immortal beings—not our material bodies; those are sadly quite fragile, inasmuch as they are bound by the laws of matter and time. The spirit, however, is indestructible. It obeys different laws.”

Dr. Young turned on the path and started back to the restaurant. “Do you have a place to stay?” he asked.

“Not as such.”

“Then you will be my guest.” He glanced at Kit. “Unless you have any objection?”

“None whatsoever,” Kit replied. “Thanks.” He looked at the hotel facade rising above the palms. “You have rooms here?”

“My dear friend,” chided Thomas lightly. “I am but a simple London doctor. I cannot afford to stay in such luxurious accommodation. Besides, it is not convivial to my work. Instead, I have a
dahabiya
.”

“I’m sorry?”

Thomas chuckled. “It is a kind of sailboat. You will have seen them on the river. As it will soon be dark, I suggest we go there now, if you have no objection.”

“Lead on, Doctor.”

They mounted the steps and made their way through the hotel lobby and out onto the street where three lonely mule-drawn carriages waited for passengers. Thomas called a few words to one of the drivers, they climbed into the carriage, and they were soon clip-clopping along the road fronting the river. The sun was low, turning the hazy sky a warm golden orange and the Nile to molten bronze. They passed through a market—a chaos of shops no bigger than broom closets; flimsy kiosks constructed of cloth and palm branches and held together with, so far as Kit could see, bits of raffia twine; and street sellers whose place of business was merely a hand’s breadth of cloth spread out on the ground to showcase their meagre wares.

The press and confusion of people were daunting, the cacophony of voices alarming. The carriage slowed to a crawl. Thomas bought a bag of dates from one of the sellers and some onions from another; the carriage did not stop for these transactions, but squeezed through the heaving throng of merchants and customers at a pace slower than walking.

Dr. Young’s boat was moored a little distance downriver, away from the noisy centre of the town. Once away from the crush, the coach rolled briskly past a row of large and very ornate colonial-style buildings that housed government administration offices.

“It isn’t time travel,” said Kit, repeating to himself what Cosimo had told him. Why was that so hard to keep in mind? “Ley travel is not the same as time travel. We have to keep remembering that—at least, I do.”

“You are right, of course,” agreed Thomas.

“What you said about being dead and buried and everything being worthless and all—that’s not exactly true.”

“I suppose not. Forgive me, I was not thinking very clearly and spoke in haste.”

“You
were
right about time being out of joint. The different worlds overlap somehow, and history gets a little slippery. But just because Wilhelmina found your book already published in one world doesn’t mean that what you’ve done in this one is worthless. None of us ever knows what impact we have on the world around us.” He shrugged. “We can only live the life we’ve been given, and we have to do the best we can with it—no matter what is happening in any other world or universe. Just do the next thing—that’s all we can do. Anyway, I expect the work you’ve done here is just as valuable to this world as it was in the world where Mina picked up your book.”

“That is a gladsome thought,” observed the doctor. “I shall accept it in that generous spirit.” He thought for a moment, then asked, “Do you suppose that if I were to visit that world—where our Wilhelmina retrieved my book—I should meet myself composing it?”

Kit frowned. “Is it possible to meet yourself in another world?” The thought had crossed his mind, but he had never asked Cosimo for clarification on this precise point. There was still so much to learn. “Maybe,” he conceded. “Cosimo never told me one way or another. I don’t know.”

“Well,” allowed Thomas, “we shall add that to the growing list of questions to be investigated when we are more at leisure to do so.”

They talked on, and soon the carriage rolled to a stop at a large mooring. “It is called
The Blue Lotus
,” said Thomas, gazing down the line of low feluccas and stately dahabiyas tied up along the riverbank. “It is just here.”

He charged off along the riverbank. Kit followed, falling into step beside him. “There is still one thing you haven’t told me—why Wilhelmina wanted us to get together.”

“I thought you knew.”

“Things got a little rushed. She didn’t exactly have time to fill me in on everything,” reflected Kit. “In fact, she didn’t tell me very much.”

“Then allow me to enlighten you.”

“Please.”

“The young lady was, as I say, most intent on recovering a certain artefact.” He peered at Kit with a hopeful expression. “Am I right in assuming you know the object in question?”

“I have a pretty good idea.”

“This artefact, she believed, was to be found in a particular tomb of which she had a certain knowledge. She wanted me to organise the excavation of said tomb—an experience, she suggested, that would prove invaluable to my ongoing work.” He glanced at Kit for confirmation. “She also said you would be my guide. Am I to take it you know the location of the tomb of which she spoke?”

“I’m pretty sure I could find it again.” Kit felt his stomach squirm, and a clammy feeling washed over him.

“And you will show me?”

Kit nodded. The thought of returning to the scene of his recent ordeal—and the decaying corpses of Cosimo and Sir Henry—filled him with dread, but he did not see that he had any choice in the matter just now. And then he saw it: the sheer beauty of Wilhelmina’s plan, and it brought him up short.

Dr. Young saw him stop and turned to ask, “Is anything the matter?”

“Call me a slow coach, but I just realised that Wilhelmina is some kind of genius.” Now that he saw it, her plan was as obvious as the nose on his face. How many times did he have to remind himself: this was not the same world he had left behind. Mina had sent him to an alternate Egypt where, in the year 1822, the tomb of Anen had not yet been discovered, much less excavated. The notion of snatching the map from the tomb
before
it could be found by anyone else was a shrewd bit of guile. The girl was canny, give her that. “I think we’re in for a real treat,” Kit said. “We can leave whenever you like.”

“Is it far, this tomb?”

“Not too far. With transportation, less than a day.”

“Splendid!” The physician rubbed his hands, his steel-rimmed glasses glinting in the pale evening light. “Ah, here, we are!
The Blue Lotus
.” Dr. Young stopped beside a low-slung, rather boxy-looking boat with a broad open deck and twin red sails, which were furled to the masts for the night. A gangplank extended from the bow, at the foot of which three sailors in pale blue kaftans squatted around a hookah pipe, which gurgled as the smoke bubbled up. A most acrid smoke drifted on the soft evening breeze.

“Salaam!” called Thomas. He greeted the captain and crew of his vessel by name, and then climbed the gangplank. “This way. Watch your step!”

A servant appeared bearing a tray with a jar and glasses.

“Welcome aboard, my friend,” said Thomas, pouring fresh lemonade into the glasses and passing one to his guest. “Please, make yourself at home. Mehmet, here, will show you to your quarters. I have only the one guest cabin. All the others are filled with the accoutrements of my work.”

Kit gulped down his lemonade and followed the servant to the companionway below deck, and to the guest quarters. “Please to refresh yourself, sir,” said Mehmet, ushering Kit inside. “I will sound the gong for dinner.”

The cabin was snug and contained two narrow beds at one end and a small water closet at the other. There was a round porthole window and, between the beds, a night table with two candles. The beds were laid with clean white sheets, and there was a lace curtain at the porthole. The floors and walls were teak with brass fittings—all in all, a trim and tidy little stateroom.

“Well, Kit, old son,” said Kit, gazing around with approval, “it looks like we’ve landed on our feet.” A basin of fresh water sat on a stand. Stepping to the porcelain bowl, he dipped his hands and washed his face, then wet the linen towel and, kicking off his shoes, stretched out on the bed with the damp cloth over his eyes.

“Thank you, Wilhelmina,” he sighed. At the invocation of her name, he mused, “What was it she called Dr. Young?” The phrase from her letter came back to him:
The last man in the world to know everything
.

CHAPTER 18
In Which a Visit to Prague Is Wangled

L
ady Haven Fayth sat on the edge of the bed and laced up her shoes—good sturdy high-top boots to protect her feet from the hazards of unfamiliar roads in lands and times unknown. Burleigh had promised to teach her the intricacies of what she called ley leaping, and so far the Black Earl—as she thought of him—had been as good as his word. He had taken her on several of his journeys to various worlds and shown her how to recognise some of the more subtle elements of ley lines. Under his somewhat haphazard tutelage she had begun to master a few of the basic skills necessary not only for making such leaps but for finding her way around strange new places.

If not exactly a fount of valuable wisdom, at least the earl was reliable in that the things he chose to show her worked. Even so, it was clear to her that there was much more to be learned, and that he was withholding far more than he was telling. For example, she knew from her long association with her uncle that there was a prize of inestimable value associated with the cause, and which Burleigh and his men were determined to find. The earl was careful never to make mention of this fact directly, and Haven thought best to pretend ignorance of it too. She let on that, so far as she knew, it was only ever about the exploration of the other worlds connected by the leys—about discovering and mapping.

She also knew Burleigh was desperate to get his hands on the Skin Map, but that he had not yet achieved even so much as a glimpse of the genuine article—a fact that surprised her, given his enormous expenditure of money, time, and energy. Then again, the only two people she knew who had ever possessed a piece of the fabled map were now lying in an Egyptian tomb—dead at the Black Earl’s hand.

And for that, Haven Fayth would loathe him to the end of time.

As for the rest—abandoning Kit and Giles . . . well, regrettable as that might be, it had been simple expediency and could not be helped. In that dreadful, tragic situation—made prisoners and entombed with poor dead Cosimo and her dying Uncle Henry . . .

To remain locked up with the others would have been death. To stay alive gave her a fighting chance. It was as simple as that. And if she were able to stay alive long enough to master the technique of ley leaping, and gain the necessary knowledge, there was every chance that she could return to the tomb in time to rescue her friends.

So far as Haven was concerned, there had been only one choice. She did not regret making it, but she hated Burleigh for forcing the issue. The man was a dastard and a brute.