The Anubis Gates

He could feel the vertigo coming on again, so he shook his head sharply, took several breaths of the chilly night air and strode forward through the grass. I’ll just sneak around and reconnoiter, he told himself. Snoop. I needn’t even get close to the tents. A thought struck him and he paused. Then he grinned deprecatingly and kept walking, but a moment later he stopped again. Why not? he asked himself. Enough insne things are proving to be true for it to be worth a try. He sat down in the grass, pulled his right boot off and, with Dog-Face Joe’s—or possibly Benner’s—pocketknife he hacked a hole through the stitching of the back seam. Then he pulled down his stocking, fished the length of clock chain out of his pocket, tied one end of it around his bare ankle and put the boot back on. With the blade of the knife it wasn’t difficult to draw the trailing end of the chain out through the hole so that the end of it dangled a foot and a half from his heel. He stood up and continued walking toward the tents.

* * *

The yags brightened and leaned over south, toward the tents. “Look at the confused man,” chimed one. “Coming here without knowing what he wants.”

“Or even who he is,” added another with lively interest. Doctor Romany glanced to the south, where he could dimly see Wilbur and Richard harnessing a horse to a wagon. It can’t be either of them the yags are reading, he thought. It must be the Byron ka, his head full of contradictory memories and instructions, radiating confusion. If his emotions continue to excite the yags, I’ll have Wilbur knock him out—or even kill him; he’s of no use anymore.

Doyle could feel the bright flickering intrusions in his mind, like the hands and eyes of frisky children who, finding the library door unlocked, dart inside to feel the bindings and gape at the dust jackets.

He shook his head again, trying to clear it. What was I doing now? he thought. Oh, of course—scouting the camp to see where the fine toy is… no! Byron and Romany. Why, he wondered uneasily, did I think of a toy just then? A wonderful intricate toy with little men and horses running cleverly down little paths… his heart was pounding with excitement, and he wanted to shoot huge fireballs glaring out across the dark fields…

“Yaaah!” came a weird, roaring shout from ahead of him, and at the same time the flames beyond the tents flared up.

Distantly he heard a more normal voice yelling, “Richard! Hurry up with that!”

Whatever’s going on over there, Doyle thought, it’s certainly holding everyone’s attention. He hurried forward, hunched over and keeping a broad tent between himself and the fires, and in a few moments he was crouched behind the tent, pleased to see that he was not panting at all.

The fluttering aliennesses brushed his mind again, and he heard a wild, roaring voice say, “His new body runs better!”

My God, Doyle thought, his palms suddenly damp, something over there is reading my mind!

“Never mind him!” shouted the voice that Doyle now realized differed from the roaring ones in that it was human. “He’s tied up! If you want the toy you’ve got to calm down!”

“Shoes is no fun at all,” sang another of the inhuman voices.

I’ve got to get out of here, Doyle thought, standing up straight and turning back toward the road.

“Richard!” called the voice Doyle now suspected was Doctor Romany’s. “Tell Wilbur to stay with the—with Byron, and be ready to kill him when I give the word.”

Doyle hesitated. I don’t owe him anything, he thought. Well, he did buy me lunch and give me a couple of his sovereigns … But hell, they were Romany’s to begin with… Still, he didn’t have to help me… But I did warn him not to come back here… Oh, he’ll be all right—he doesn’t die until 1824… in the history I remember, that is—of course in that history Byron wasn’t in London in 1810… Oh well, I guess I can at least keep an eye on things.