Chapter Twenty-Two

The Touch of Silver

 

“Look,” whispered Suzanne from behind Verity and Doctor Williams. “Beautiful things.”

As it was in the academy’s network of passages, amber lanterns illuminated what was a remarkable near-reproduction of King Psusennes’ burial chamber. There were inconsistencies, such as the inner wall of the academy and the gaslight, but there was no mistaking what this was to represent. Even down to the variety of aromas in the air, the chamber did not smell like anything from England. Lord Delancy had obviously taken great care with recreating this part of the Pharaoh’s tomb.

For once, begrudgingly, Verity agreed with Suzanne. There were indeed beautiful things scattered about the floor. Lapis Lazuli bracelets. Statues of gods carved from alabaster. Gold cups for the Pharaoh to drink from in the afterlife. It all looked normal for an ancient Egyptian tomb. It must have cost him and his family a great deal to steal it.

Her brow furrowed slightly. Something was off. “Doctor Williams,” she began, “do you…”

“The Coptic jars which should contain Psusennes’ organs. We never found them,” he whispered to her. “From what we found in parchments and other records, they never existed.”

“When he and his finest warriors returned that night, the story goes that the Egyptian forces all turned on their leader and his guard. Forty against four hundred thousand...” Thorne had told her. “Of the records we have in the Archives, we know only this: King Psusennes was taken alive, and the Egyptian Empire lost half of their men that night And you ask why their buried him in a silver coffin?”

King Psusennes was taken alive. That would mean…

“The Egyptians set the hieroglyphics of his grand machine away from the other chambers to hide it,” Verity said.

“To hide such advancements and accomplishments?” asked Williams. “From whom?”

Verity’s throat went dry. “From him.”

Williams scrunched his face as he glanced at Verity. “Whatever do you mean, child?”

“Such treasures!” Suzanne gasped, stepping over to one silver chest the size of a large valise. Throwing back its cover, gold coins and gems of all varieties caught the light of the lanterns around them. “Stella, did you ever imagine…?”

“In a moment, my dear Suzanne,” she replied, keeping the ankh between her and the Silver Pharaoh. Just then, the whole tomb wobbled. Stella glanced around her “Your Majesty, whatever you are going to do, you might want to get on with it.”

The girls shared glances with each other for a moment, as the Silver Pharaoh continued towards an open sarcophagus. His sarcophagus. He reached into what had served as his resting place and pulled out from inside it a box no longer in length than Verity’s forearm and no wider than her waist. The entire crate was cast in purest silver. He placed it on the edge of a stone table which stood opposite of his coffin, and then stepped back.

Verity felt something tickle in the back of her brain all of a sudden. A strange pressure started to form in her head.

When Stella took a step towards the box, Psusennes held up a single hand to her. Another rumble rippled through the tomb, but everyone remained stock still as the ancient king motioned with the outstretched arm to Verity.

“Right then, Verity,” Stella said, “open it.”

Verity paused. Why would she need…

The voice suddenly filled her head as it had in the library. Open the box, my child.

Her breath was taken away at hearing the words, and through the sudden pain in her temples, she heard it. The syncopated ticking pattern she heard during the séance. Whatever the phantasm had brought with him that night, the source was in the silver box.

Verity tried to clear her mind as she crossed to the gift of the sarcophagus, but it wasn’t easy. A warmth reminiscent of the desert sun was growing on her skin, and she smelt things too. Wine, honey, and the piny odour of frankincense. All these things were used to make a mummy, but any smell should have long disappeared.

Do as I wish, the whisper came again.

He was a king. He ruled over a great nation. He could have commanded her, but he was asking her to do this simple thing for him. Behind the plea, Verity could just make out the whisper of words ancient and forgotten. She took in a breath, nearly succumbing to vapours as she found herself lost in olfactory echoes of another time, and looked up to Psusennes. His eyes were alight with desire and want.

The longer she stared at the box, the more insistent the ticking grew in her head. Her fingertips ran along the cool, smooth surface of the container, and the ticking became more than just a sound in her head. She could feel the rhythm through all of her body. The sensation was an odd combination of magic and mechanics. In opposing sides of the box she found a set of indents which her fingers could easily slide inside. She glanced at the pharaoh’s own hands. His Majesty’s fingers would have never been able to slip inside of these tiny openings so easily. Where her fingertips rested revealed themselves to her as dials. She stared at the engravings of Thoth and Seshat, both deities of wisdom and building, across the lid. From here, the Sound worked through her. Cogs caught. Gears slowly turned. Latches disengaged.

With a sudden hiss, Thoth and Seshat drew apart from one another, revealing nestled in a small cushion a golden cylinder with fantastic ivory and onyx rings lining it from end to end. The ticking resounding in Verity’s head threatened to deafen her. She had to take control lest she lose herself forever in this madness. She closed her eyes and took in one breath, then another. Gradually the Sound responded to her, and the wild rhythm of this ancient science began to subside.

Well done, my child, the Pharaoh said to Verity.

Something pulled her away from the box, and she stumbled back into Doctor Williams. Verity blinked and Stella came into focus. She had cast her aside, and was now lifting the ornate cylinder out of its crate.

“The Sconce of Ra,” Stella whispered aloud holding it up with one hand while the ankh was in the other. “Da’ was right. It’s so beautiful. Such a beautiful start.”

“Beautiful start?” Suzanne’s shrill voice cut through the tension. “The beautiful start to what?”

“The World Engine. The Alpha and the Omega. The Beginning and End of All Things.”

Suzanne took a step away from Verity and Williams and asked again, “Whatever are you on about?”

Stella took in a quick breath and looked back to Suzanne. Verity caught in the girl’s smile a strange tightness. Had she forgotten Suzanne was there, holding a gun? “I’ll explain once we escape the academy.”

Verity’s gaze jumped back to the Psusennes. He had dipped his head slightly while staring at her, a sly grin on his face. How long had he been looking at her like that? You have done well, Verity Fitzroy. She felt her skin prickle at hearing him speak her real name. Your loyalty will be rewarded.

His face suddenly twisted into a savage snarl as his eyes flared angrily.

That was when Verity realized Stella had turned her back on Psusennes.

“Stella!” Verity managed to scream just as he placed his fingers on either side of the girl’s head and spun her around to face him.

With a wild roar and a flash of sickly green light, Psusennes leaned in with mouth agape. He looked as if he would kiss the terrified Stella Masters, her face frozen in a wild scream, but he stopped just short of her lips. He took in a great, deep breath, and Stella shook wildly as green mist caressed her body. In the space between their mouths, a pearlescent fog rushed out of Stella’s body and into his own. The more he drew, the paler Stella became. Even after her eyes rolled back into her head, her body wracked violently as Psusennes continue to feed.

Agent Thorne’s story came rushing back to Verity. “The following morning, King Psusennes and his men had disappeared once again, but their servants and seconds were discovered. According to the hieroglyphics, their bodies had been completely drained of all life. Their beloved pharaoh, it appeared, had become something quite terrible.”

As Verity heard Agent Thorne tell the story of Psusennes to her once again, Stella’s skin began to draw tight against her bones and muscle, and her already pale skin was now turning a sickening grey.

The Silver Pharaoh was not a vampire. He was something much, much worse.

The glowing white fog thinned between their mouths, and then finally dissipated. Psusennes was still taking in a breath, even as he tipped his head back up to the ceiling. He then let out a mighty roar as he cast aside the husk that was once Stella Masters, and raised his arms up to the ceiling. Verity could see the feeding had, in fact, added girth to the Silver Pharaoh. He looked less spindly under his wrappings. Muscles bulged while his eyes grew brighter.

A scream tore through the second of silence, and with a puff of black and emerald mist, a small hole appeared in the centre of his chest.

Psusennes looked up and began to advance on Suzanne as she fired again, and again, and again. The Silver Pharaoh’s arm reached out for her, as Suzanne stumbled back, the gun now dry firing as the space between them diminished.

“Psusennes!” a voice bellowed.

The words that came out of Doctor Xavier Williams were not completely alien to Verity. She recognised some of them as being used by the workers on her father’s digs, but the dialect was strange. He gestured with his free hand while the other clutched on to the Sconce of Ra. Spittle flew from his mouth as he beat his chest and ended this strange tirade with thrusting two fingers upward.

Psusennes stood statuesque for perhaps one of the longest, strangest moments in Verity’s life.

“Run,” Doctor Williams said just as the Pharaoh’s face darkened.

Verity, with Suzanne and Doctor William, on her heels were halfway down the corridor between the tomb and William’s broken sand circle be the time Psusennes had finished his furious cry. The sounds of stone breaking and crumbling came from behind them. What was that monster doing to what was supposed to be his eternal resting place?

“Doctor,” Verity shouted over her shoulder, “what did you say to him?”

“As I told you,” he huffed as they entered the first chamber once again, “the language of his time is completely different from what we understand as Egyptian although some words are intelligible. So I said something about his family’s lineage, his mother, his sister, and a pack of hunting dogs. I simply gambled what I was saying was an insult.”

On reaching the massive silver door, another growl echoed from the inner-chamber.

“I believe you have succeeded, Doctor. Well done,” Verity said.

She turned around and held her breath. With the battle raging both inside and outside the school, the secret corridors were covered with a heavy film of dust. There would be no way to follow her original pathway out of the passageways.

There was another problem. Smoke. The school was on fire.

“We’re going to die. We’re going to die. We’re going to die,” blathered Suzanne, shaking her hands wildly. “We don’t know where to go, and we are under attack, and there’s a great mummy out to kill us!”

“Keep your wits about you, for goodness sake,” Verity snapped. The corridor ahead was filling with smoke, but the junction to her right was clear. “This way.”

The three of them sprinted down the narrow corridor, despite the heat rising all around. Thankfully, the air was still relatively clear of smoke. Verity had taken so many twists and turns in these corridors, there was no way to tell where they were.

Their path reached its end, right and left both showing signs of the growing fire. Wisps of thick white smoke remained suspended like cobwebs attached to air.

“Left or right?” Suzanne pressed. “Left or right?”

A wall behind them exploded, and Psusennes in all his wrapped glory stepped through the opening. The pharaonic crown was jammed on his head, while he brandished the crook and flail in his hands. The snake protruding from the crown was the only part that was gold instead of silver. Swirls of sand angrily dancing around him only illuminated his horror. His flail crackled with the kind of white lightning Mr Tesla himself would have been in awe of. It was a weapon Verity was in no hurry to examine closely.

“Go left!” Verity said, leading the way.

“Why left?” asked Suzanne.

“Call it a feeling.”

They could hear the electric crack of the flail behind them as they followed the passage. The smoke was thick at some points, stinging Verity’s eyes, while it thinned out at other points. As curious as she was about what was happening to the school, she was terrified to find out exactly what.

Another path ending. “Right. Go right!”

Verity turned the corner and Doctor Williams and Suzanne collided into her. Only a few feet ahead, the corridor ended. There was no visible latch. No exit.

Behind them, the Silver Pharaoh emerged.

The dead end disappeared in a wild rush of fire, wind, and sound. Verity squinted at the sudden kick up of dust, and from the other side of the debris veil, she saw a dimly lit face surrounded by a halo of red hair.

“Ach! Wonderful stuff that Vesuvian Fire!” Julia called.

Verity nearly ran down Julia as she emerged from the smouldering hole she created. “You found us!”

“Nah, I didn’t find ya’ but he did!” Julia said pointing behind her on the floor.

Scooting about in a wide circle was Mickey, his green eyes blinking madly while his mechanical nose and ears twitched.

“Verity!” Emma squeaked.

“You found Emma and Henry!” Verity asked, scooping up Mickey and shoving him into her pocket.

“I found Emma. Couldna’ find Henry, but I’m guessin’ he’s outside.” Julia said, not paying any notice to Williams or Suzanne running up to join Verity. “But good news, I found—BLOODY HELL WHA’ IS THA’?!?”

They all turned to see the Silver Pharaoh, his eyes so bright and hot they were almost white.

“Excuse me,” a voice said from behind them. They all turned to see the bell-shaped barrel of a Lee-Metford Mark III. “Please move.”

The small group of people parted as the Red Sea to this Moses. The barrel flared to life as a concentrated sphere of light erupted from it and punched the Silver Pharaoh square in the chest, knocking him several hundred yards down the secret passageway.

“Oh, I like this model,” the saviour said with delight. “This one will be hard to top.”

Verity looked up and wondered for a moment if she were not having some sort of odd hallucination. “Mrs Seddon?”

“Questions and answers later, Fitzroy,” Seddon said, scooping up Emma as if she weighed nothing.

The odd sensation washed over Verity once again. Did Mrs Seddon just call her Fitzroy?

“Come along, everyone. The shelter is no longer safe, we have to get out.” Seddon said, pushing them towards the main exit. They were not the only ones.

Julia and Verity joined the rush for the front door, a collection of both students and teachers, as fire was now spreading through the wing. There were bodies everywhere, most of them of men and women wearing what looked like ancient robes. Persian, perhaps? They had just rounded the corner when a wall in front of them exploded outward, and Psusennes burst into the school. There was no question on his desiccated face. Pharaohs were not used to being treated in such an insolent fashion.

Then he looked about. All around were children with enough life to restore him to the monster he was in ancient times. Perhaps stronger.

That was a terrifying thought.

“Mrs Seddon,” Verity said, yanking the Sconce of Ra out of Williams’ grasp. “Get everyone to safety.”

“Are you mad, girl?” Seddon said, removing the rifle from her shoulder. “We can put him down—”

“He’s after this,” Verity said, waving the sconce in her hand, “and if I do not lure him away, other students are going to die.” She shuffled away from the rest of her party, running towards the pharaoh. “Get out of here! Now!”

The Silver Pharaoh stopped advancing on seeing Verity with the Sconce. “You want this?” she cried over the drone of growing fire around them.

He snarled once, then launched into a dead run for her. Feeding off of Stella Masters made him quite agile for a monarch of Ancient Egypt.

“You must want this rather badly then,” she said, ducking into a nearly staff stairwell.

Her ascent was relatively flame free. That was until the flail struck her at the top of the staircase. She felt the arc of lightning scorch her arm and strike a far window, engulfing it in flames.

“Just avoid the fire and the pharaoh,” she muttered to herself as she ran down the smoke-filled corridor, searching for another way up. “Oh yes, and try not to think about how Mum and Dad died while you do it, Verity.”