The Eleventh Plague (26 page)

‘Use it? Use it how?’ asked Destine.

‘Let me rephrase that…use
me.
’

‘To do what?’ enquired Destine, hooked on every word. ‘Why would your benefactor hire you to find the Pharaoh’s Cradle if he suspected it might be infected with this bacterium?’

‘He wasn’t after the treasure – he was after the bacterium! He’d been searching for it for years…and my dig site provided him with all the proof that he required. We didn’t piece it together at first…but when several of my men fell sick after examining some of the wrappings inside the mouth of the tomb, I knew something was up. It took us close to a month to clear the tomb’s entrance to excavate the Cradle, but in that time, the sick men grew worse. Their eyes became drawn, their noses bled profusely, they became little more than walking dead.’ Aloysius’s shimmering light seemed to fade, only to return twice as brightly. ‘The bacterium fed off them like a parasite, and I watched them wither away before my eyes. All three of them died exactly a month after infection, on the same day, the same hour, practically the same minute. Like clockwork. I’d never seen anything so ghastly, and our best medical man had no idea what we were dealing with.’

‘How ever did you discover the cause?’ asked Destine.

Aloysius smiled, just a hint. ‘You warned me. You came barging into my tent one night, telling tales of a vision that you had experienced. You told me that Godfrey Joyce was betraying me and was allied with Nastasi. They sought to take the Cradle from me by force – now that Cho-zen Li’s little field test had been successful. You told me things that horrified me, Destine…things that would occur if the Pharaoh’s Cradle ever saw daylight again. Your visions were remarkably accurate, telling that the bacterium was transferred by skin contact…passed on by the merest handshake.’ Bedford’s spectral eyes looked down at the sand, losing their focus, yet his mind was as sharp as a pin. ‘Had your clairvoyant
gifts not warned me, I would have done Cho-zen Li’s bidding…becoming infected with the plague myself.

‘Imagine, Destine: I would have been welcomed back to England and hailed a hero. The scientific community would have flocked to my side, desperate to be seen with the archaeologist that found the lost Pharaoh’s Cradle. I would have infected them all…every one of them. The Empire’s greatest minds – dead because of me! That is why I had to act…and I died for it.’ All light disappeared from Aloysius’s face, making him look ghostlier.

‘What happened?’ asked Destine, remembering that she was talking to a dead man.

‘After your warning, I did the only thing that I could. I uncovered the Pharaoh’s Cradle, exposing myself to the plague in the bargain, and then hid it as best I could so that Joyce and Nastasi would never find it,’ explained Aloysius. ‘Then I wrote down what I could as a warning to others…sealing my thoughts, inscribing them for the future…and I gave it to you for safekeeping.’

‘Your journal!’ gasped Destine.

‘That diary is the key, Destine,’ confirmed Aloysius. ‘But I misjudged how traumatised you’d be following the massacre in Umkaza. Your grip on reality was slipping away by the second, weakened by all that you had suffered. I prayed that you would be strong enough to leave word of what happened…just as I had left word to you.’

‘My letters!’ Destine cried. ‘I remember! I was weak…in pain…and I feared that Nastasi’s men were pursuing me. And so I took the journal to a place far from Umkaza, to a wondrous place that you had once shown me…Sekhet Simbel. I had hoped to return and collect it once my mind was healed.’ She
snapped her fingers, grasping the splinters of memory. ‘Not knowing where to turn, I relied on my clairvoyance to be my compass. It led me to Agra, to the only friend that I could trust…Ahman. I sensed a strong link to that place – to him – and before my mind was cleansed of the memory, I sat down to write those letters…knowing they were safe in Ahman’s care.’

‘And they were, Madame,’ reminded Aloysius. ‘For twenty years those letters remained unopened…the secret preserved – until it was time for your destiny to bring you back to Egypt and they called you to them.’ He looked over his shoulder nervously, as though someone were pursuing him. As he gripped Destine’s wrists, she felt a cold chill constrict around them, as if they were submerged in iced water. ‘Destine, you have to put an end to this! My diary is the key, remember?’

‘Aloysius, what do you mean?’ Destine called to him.

‘Warn others! Warn them of the Eleventh Plague,’ said Aloysius Bedford, his voice fading along with his spectral form, gradually becoming one with the mist that hung in the air. ‘Destine, my time is short and I must go. They have come for me.’

‘Who?’ asked Destine. ‘Who has come for you?’

An almighty white blast of light bathed the sand dunes and a piercing wail like a thousand screams shattered the silence. Destine clamped her hands to ears and crouched into a ball on the ground. Moments later, the silence returned and Aloysius was gone from the desert…and so was Madame Destine.

She was back in the underground citadel in Fantoma. Alone in the room. Numbly, she glanced down at her bare feet, staring at the sand between her toes, and she remembered. She remembered
everything.
The past was back in place, pigeonholed within her memories. And they were not alone in her mind. Her clairvoyant gifts had returned, just as Aloysius had said they would.
A shower of elation soaked Destine’s body as she felt the tingle of her ability’s re-emergence.

Madame Destine was whole again.

She had become a swan.

Her mind was being flooded with messages, images and visions of the future, as though she had returned from a long holiday to greet a carpet of unopened letters. As the onslaught besieged her, one vision in particular was possessed of clarity – the last prophecy that she had experienced prior to her voyage to Egypt. Considering all that she had learned from Aloysius’s spectre, the words seemed to make a strange sort of imperfect sense:

The past and the present shall entwine once more.

Beware the dawn of the Eleventh Plague.

‘The journal is the key!’ Destine gasped. ‘That is why I wrote those letters to myself, that is what they were leading me to…and now I know why! I have to use it to make sure that the Eleventh Plague can never rise again.’ She patted herself down, sifting through the folds of her gown for the book – just as a sudden realisation slammed so violently into her mind that it brought a tear to her eye. She recalled the moments before the hooded riders on the road to Umkaza attacked her, she recalled giving the book to her trusted friend for safekeeping, and she recalled exactly where Aloysius’s journal was.

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING
, the sun loomed low over the Egyptian desert, casting the ominous shadows of the Hawass Mountains over the tiny encampment positioned at its foot. Yawning loudly, Godfrey Joyce pawed clumsily at his eyes as the sight of two hooded Hades Consortium assassins startled him awake.

‘Oh, thank God,’ he blurted uncontrollably. ‘You’ve come to rescue me!’

‘Rescue you?’ smiled Cornelius Quaint, pulling down his dark red hood. ‘Not quite, Godfrey.’

‘You? I thought you were one of
them
!’ gasped Joyce.

‘That’s the general idea,’ said Quaint. ‘I told you it would work, Faroud.’

Standing at Quaint’s side – also dressed head to foot in claret-coloured robes – Aksak Faroud threw off his hood and patted his assassin’s ragged uniform about his torso. ‘We fooled him, but we have still to test them on the sentries guarding Fantoma.’

‘Have faith, Aksak!’ said Quaint. ‘This plan’ll work.’

‘It had better – it is the only one we have got,’ reminded Faroud. He motioned to the grouped Scarabs, as everyone slowly roused themselves awake. ‘Come, brothers, we must ready ourselves for the battle that lies ahead.’

S
INCE HER ARRIVAL
at the Hades Consortium’s lair, Madame Destine had been in solitary confinement. That situation was about to be remedied, yet the company would not be pleasant.

She lifted her head to greet the newcomers, noticing the stooped old man first. Sir George Dray dragged his hunched form into the room, huffing and puffing with each expense of energy, with Lady Jocasta following at his heels.

‘Madame Destine, isn’t it,’ Sir George said rather than asked. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you and I mean that sincerely. I hope you don’t mind the interruption, but I want to ask you a question about a mutual friend, if you don’t mind.’

‘You may ask me as many questions as you wish, monsieur, but that does not mean I will choose to answer them,’ Destine replied defiantly.

‘That’s hardly polite behaviour towards your host,’ Dray grinned.

‘What makes you think that I would relish consorting with a vile monster like you?’ Destine replied.

‘But we’ve not even been formally introduced yet!’ said Dray, with a laugh.

‘I know who you are, monsieur…I know
what
you are,’ said Destine.

‘And I know you, my dear lady,’ Sir George said, teasing his cracked lips with his tongue. ‘And I would have thought that someone like
you
would be used to consorting with vile monsters…after all, you gave birth to one.’ The old man watched the effect his words had upon Destine with keen interest. ‘It was a real shame what happened to Antoine in London. You have my sympathies.’

‘You may keep them!’ Destine said. ‘I have long since given up shedding tears for him – he chose his life, and he deserved his death. He was nothing but a cold-blooded murderer.’

‘True…but one of the most gifted cold-blooded murderers I’ve ever met,’ said Dray, flashing a glimpse of his yellowed teeth. ‘No remorse, no conscience, and no limits to the lengths he would go to get the job done. The Hades Consortium can’t take all the credit, of course. All we did was encourage his skills along a little. But your son is not why I am here, Madame. Like I said, I have a question about a mutual friend…the man responsible for your son’s death…Cornelius Quaint.’

‘My son was responsible for his
own
death!’ replied Destine forthrightly.

Dray cackled. ‘So you approved of Cornelius’s actions, did you? Interesting. That takes rare strength of character, Madame. I doubt that I’d be so generous if someone did that to
my
son!’

Lady Jocasta felt her blood chill.

It was almost as if the old man was speaking one thing, but meaning something else, and something directed only at her. She tried to mask her shattered nerves, praying he could not sense her fear.

‘Cornelius acted with honour, as he always does, monsieur!’ Destine said.

‘Maybe so. We shall soon see if he holds
you
in as much regard,’ said Dray, as he leaned on his walking cane and pulled himself unsteadily to his feet. ‘Our sentries tell us that Cornelius is camped on the outskirts of this very base. He is no doubt coming for you, but when he gets here he will have a very nasty surprise waiting for him.’

Destine looked up. ‘Which is?’

Sir George Dray smiled a tight, crooked smile. ‘Me.’

C
ORNELIUS
Q
UAINT AND
Aksak Faroud held centre stage in front of the group of Clan Scarabs (plus Godfrey Joyce) gathered around the ashes of the campfire.

‘Right then, does everyone know their part?’ Quaint asked. ‘Faroud and I will be disguised as Consortium guards at the rear. Joyce is the vanguard, and Kulfar and Nehmet here will be masquerading as his prisoners – namely Faroud and myself respectively. Once we get close, the Consortium guards will be watching us like hawks so you’ll have to keep your nerve – not to mention your wits.’ He clasped his hands behind his back and looked out across the Scarabs’ apprehensive faces. ‘The rest of you are to be our second wave. After we enter the sanctorum, Faroud and I will be causing a commotion and drawing a lot of attention to ourselves. The Consortium will be running around like headless chickens. Wait for the signal before you join the fray. You’ll know it when you see it. It will be up to you to back us up. We may be outnumbered and outgunned – but they won’t be expecting us to bring the fight to them. Once we get a foot in the door, we’ll bottleneck them within the confines of the tunnels, but whatever we do, we can’t let them
use numbers against us.’ Quaint smiled effusively. ‘Now, we’ve assembled an array of weaponry that you lot thoughtfully managed to procure from Bara Mephista before you left. I suggest everyone fills their pockets. Any questions? No? In that case…good luck to us all.’

Just outside the city of Fantoma, the band split into two groups, with the conjuror’s advance guard heading towards the ruins of the ancient city, whilst their backup team moved into position in the shadows of the imposing Mount Zahi. Cornelius Quaint rode steadily at Faroud’s side whilst Kulfar and Nehmet rode ahead of them. Godfrey Joyce led the pack from the front in his horse-drawn cart. Faroud looked at Quaint as they cantered towards the high walls of Fantoma. Although the conjuror’s hood obscured his features, the Scarab leader could see the look of disquiet upon his comrade’s rough, lined face.

‘Joyce reeks of suspicion. We were wise to suspect a trap,’ Faroud hissed.

‘Suspecting a trap is one thing…
expecting
one is something else,’ Quaint replied.

‘I take it you have a backup plan?’ asked Faroud.

Quaint grinned unabashedly. ‘Aksak, if there is one thing you should know about me by now, it’s that I
always
have a backup plan.’

The ancient site at Fantoma was just one of the glittering gems within Egypt’s crown. Construction had begun as far back as the sixteenth century BC and, as a consequence, the ravages of both time and the weather had left their scars. Even so, just one look at the deserted city’s many towering columns and walls – each
one engraved with grand inscriptions by the phantoms of the past – was all it took to raise a lump in the back of Cornelius Quaint’s throat.

In his lifetime, he had visited many ancient cities and places of worship in the Orient, South America and India, but none had more of a vibrant connection with the ghosts of the past than Fantoma. Huge multistorey buildings, crumbling and fading more by the day, nestled next to ornate obelisks and columns of white stone that pricked the azure sky. A bleached white shroud of dust covered every building and every monument, as the centuries of harsh Egyptian weather eroded former works of art and colourful decorations. Now everything looked the same, as though a master artist had created the landscape but with just one colour to his palette. Skilfully detailed carvings, scriptures scored into stone, venerated deities etched into the rocks – proof that not all of Egypt’s treasures were to be found buried under the sand.

The small band traversed down a slender corridor between two huge edifices, no wider than ten yards, with high sandstone walls on either side. Godfrey Joyce looked over his shoulder, held up his hand, and pulled his cart to a stop. As Quaint and Faroud trotted towards him, he spoke:

‘This is the main entrance, next to this temple, chaps. The passageway descends underground from here, and grows very slender on the way so I doubt the horses will make it.’

On foot through the high-walled passage, they entered a large building decorated with an array of mythical-looking beasts around its parapets. At its base at ground level, former artistic glories were only visible as etched scoring and flaky pockmarked artwork. Quaint wondered how magnificent the city must have been in its prime, but he could not allow Fantoma’s grandeur to blind him to the dangers that lurked beneath the sand.

They found themselves heading down a steep incline, into a darkened tunnel carved from the rocks beneath the foundations of the building above. This dim place was bereft of both light and air, and something sent a chill up Quaint’s spine. In such a narrow place, were they to get trapped down there, they might never get out. Quaint had, indeed, filled his pockets with tools from the Scarabs’ armoury, and out of Joyce’s sight, he deposited several explosive sticks upon the ground where a breach in the rocks led to the outside.

He mouthed the words ‘Backup plan’ to the Scarab leader, who greeted the sight with a roll of his dark-rimmed eyes.

The small band ventured through the maze-like tunnels in silence. Eventually, at the end of one dimly lit by a succession of mounted torches on the walls, they reached the pair of carved stone doors that signalled entrance to the Hades Consortium’s sanctorum.

‘We’re here,’ said Godfrey Joyce.

Quaint readjusted the hood of his commandeered uniform.

‘This is it,’ he whispered to his band of men. ‘Play your parts…and wait until we’re in deep before revealing yourselves.’ Then he took a step towards Joyce. ‘Just remember I’m right behind you. If you so much as think about double-crossing us, you’ll feel my sword between your shoulder blades quicker than you can blink.’

‘You are quite the motivator, Mr Quaint,’ sneered Joyce.

‘I hear that a lot,’ muttered Quaint.

Joyce pushed hard against the doors with both hands, and their hinges complained noisily against each other, announcing the group’s arrival better than a doorbell. Joyce stood pensively in the doorway, expecting the guards at the entrance to announce themselves. To his apparent surprise, the other side of the vast stone doors was completely deserted.

Quaint stepped forward gingerly, listening for any signs of habitation. There was nothing. No sound at all.

‘Where is everyone?’ he asked his comrades in arms.

Faroud shrugged. ‘I do not know…but we should make the best of our luck!’

The group were just about to move into the main cavernous lair, when their ears heard a trembling sound. It was difficult to pinpoint its exact location; it seemed to be echoing from every direction at once. Quaint’s mind tried to evaluate the noise.

It was footfalls, and lots of them.

‘I think our luck just ran out,’ he said grimly.