The Anubis Gates

“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.

They were just columns of roiling flame now, with bursts of fire shooting out in random directions. “Yaaah!” a couple of them were roaring. “Yaaah? Yaaaaah!”

“It’s turned off!” Romany shouted. “Look, it’s off, it’s stopped! Do you want me to turn it on again?”

The flames gradually settled down and reassumed their roughly human shapes. “Turn it on again,” spoke one.

“When you’ve done what I want done,” said Doctor Romany, mopping his forehead with his sleeve, “I will.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you all to appear in London tomorrow night—the blood and brandy fires will be set for beacons—and then I want you to remember this toy, and imagine what it will be like when you can watch it go for as long as you please.”

“London? You asked us to do this once before.”

“The time in 1666, yes.” Romany nodded. “But it wasn’t me asking you then. It was Amenophis Fikee.”

“It was a pair of shoes. How should we distinguish?”

“I guess it’s not important,” Doctor Romany muttered, feeling vaguely defeated. “But it’s to be tomorrow night, do you understand? If you do it at the wrong time, or at the wrong place, you won’t get to have this toy, or even see it again.”

The flames swayed restlessly; the yags weren’t inclined toward punctuality. “N-never see it again?” sang one, in a voice half pleading and half threatening.

“Never,” affirmed Romany.

“We want to see the toy work.”

“Very well. Then when you become aware of the beacon fires, come quickly and animate them. I want you to go wild then.”

“We will go wild then,” echoed a yag in tones of satisfaction.

Romany let his shoulders slump with relief, for the hard part was over. All that was necessary now was to wait politely until the yags departed, and the fire was once again just a fire. The only sounds were the flutter of flames, the occasional explosive snap of a splitting board, and, when the breeze was from the north, the muttered conversation of tree frogs.

Abruptly a shout sounded from the dark periphery of the camp: “Where are you hiding, Romany or whatever your name is? Step forward, you son of a bitch, unless the price of sorcery has left you a cowering eunuch!”

“Yaaah!” exclaimed one of the yags, simultaneously brightening and relaxing its human shape. “Shoes is a cowering eunuch!” A burst of billowing flame shot out, roaring like laughter.

“Ho ho!” the next one yelled. “Young curly-head wants to extinguish our host! Can’t you taste his wrath?”

“Perhaps he’ll work the toy for us!” yipped another, losing all consistency of form in its extreme excitement.

Doctor Romany cast a panicky glance toward the unseen intruder, agonizedly aware that the fire elementals were on the brink of going totally and disastrously out of control. “Richard!” he shouted. “Wilbur! Damn it, get that man at the south end of camp and shut him up!”

“Avo, rya,” wailed an unhappy gypsy’s voice from the darkness.

“If you’ll all just calm down,” Romany roared at the yags, who by this time were exploding fiery pseudopods in all directions, “I’ll turn on the toy one more time.” In addition to being scared, Romany was angry, and it was not so much the intrusion that irritated him as the fact that the yags could see the intruder—and even read his mind to a limited extent.

“Wait a moment,” commanded one of the flame columns to the others. “Shoes is going to work the toy again.” The flames slowly and reluctantly resumed their human template.

There came no more shouting from the edge of camp, and Romany relaxed a little, light-headed in the aftermath of the crisis. His confidence was almost fully restored as he turned once again toward the village Bavarois.

Richard hurried up just as Romany was reaching for the master switch. The old gypsy’s teeth were bared in a rictus of fear at being this close to the yags, but he walked right up next to Doctor Romany and spoke into the sorcerer’s ear. “The m-man shouting, rya, it was your gorgio lord, come home early.”

Romany sagged, his tenuous confidence abruptly eradicated like fresh ink washed from a page by a gush of ice water. “Byron?” he whispered, wanting to be absolutely sure of defeat.

“Avo, Byron,” Richard muttered quickly. “He’s wearing different clothes now, and he’s got two pistols in a case. Wanted to fight a duel with you, but we’ve got him tied up.”

The gypsy bowed and then sprinted wildly back into the darkness toward the tents.

That’s torn it, Romany thought, dazed, as he automatically continued the motion of reaching for the master switch. He must have met someone who knew the real Byron; and whoever it was awakened him, broke my control.

He pushed the switch into the on position, held it there for a few moments while the mannikins moved and the music jingled and honked incongruously away across the nighttime fields, and the yags began billowing and roaring, then he clicked it off.

“I’ve changed my mind!” he shouted. “I’ve decided you can have the toy tonight—never mind London.” The Master, he remembered ruefully, had said that the burning of London alone, if not coupled with both the ruin of the British money and the scandalous regicide, would be an inconclusive blow at best, and a waste of a lot of valuable preparation. “Wait until my men can load it on a cart, and then we’ll carry it way out across the heath to the edge of the woods so you can enjoy it with, uh, a lot of elbow room.”

Romany’s voice was flat with disappointment, though the yags were flaring like powder keg detonations. “Take it easy now,” he told them, “here in camp. Wait till you get to the woods before you cut loose. Listen to me, damn it, or you can’t have the toy!”

At least there’s the time traveling possibility to explore, he told himself as he turned to go fetch Richard and Wilbur. At least I don’t have to report a total failure.

* * *

“They’ll be shut down for the night,” said the cab driver for the third time. “I’m certain of it. But see here, I can take you to a palm-reading lady I know in Long Alley.”

“No thank you,” said Doyle, pushing open the little door of the cab. He unfolded his tall frame out and stepped to the ground carefully, for the half-drunk driver hadn’t secured the brake. The air was chilly, and the sight of flames flickering in the distance beyond the dark gypsy tents made the prospect of going in there at least a little more attractive.

“I’d best wait anyway, sir,” the driver said. “It’s a long way back to Fleet Street, and you’ll not get another cab way out here.” The horse stamped a hoof in the dirt impatiently.

“No, you go, I’ll walk back.”

“If you’re sure. Good night then.” The driver snapped his long whip and the cab rocked and thumped away. A few seconds later Doyle heard the wheels rolling on the pavement of Hackney Road, moving back toward the dim glow in the southwest that was the city.

Faintly he could hear voices from the direction of Romany’s camp. I suppose Byron must already be here, he thought. The haberdasher had said he’d left his shop a good half hour before Doyle arrived there, and had paused after getting his boots and clothes only long enough to ask where the nearest gunsmith was; and by the time Doyle had found the gunsmith shop, Byron had moved on from there too, having purchased, with more of the gold sovereigns Romany had given him, a set of duelling pistols. And then Doyle had had to stop a policeman to ask where Doctor Romany’s gypsy camp was currently set up, while Byron already knew the way.