The Shadow Conspiracy II Read online

  Of these men, but one spoke English — and he, our guide — an ill-favoured fellow with a scarred chest and the fearful, glittering eyes of a rat. As midnight passed, some of the tribesmen began to point at me and mutter among themselves.

  Once again, Sir Thomas noticed not a thing, and continued puffing on the water pipe and conducting an animated pantomime discussion with the mahout. From their gestures, I concluded they were debating how best to disable an opponent, but they could very well have been comparing how to saddle a horse, for all I could tell. My mind had wandered as they were talking; I thought of Osiris. I always thought of him.

  “Honoured sir,” said the guide. “My Lord.”

  I did my best to ignore him.

  He repeated his address and volunteered his name, Rafi.

  “I am just a painter,” I told him, probably more angrily than I should have spoken. “You may call me Dadd.”

  “The men say that you do not travel alone,” Rafi said.

  “Of course I do not,” I replied. “We are all here together.”

  “They mean,” he said, his dark brow wrinkling as if he struggled to find a word. “They say that someone is following you.”

  “Impossible. Who would follow me? I know no one here but Sir Thomas and you.”

  Rafi shook his head. “They believe —” He cut himself short. The tribesmen had begun to whisper among themselves, saying “Algul, algul,” as they pointed into the thicket of palms at my back. The guide watched them for a moment and barked a command — ”Tah-wah-quaff-ah.”

  Their faces closed like shutters.

  “They are foolish,” said Rafi, turning back to me. “Superstitious. They see things everywhere that are not there.”

  At last, Sir Thomas seemed to notice my discomfort.

  “Another dispute over your looks?” he asked, leaning forward.

  “I suppose,” I said. “Rafi here seems to think it’s mere superstition.”

  “Richard is a capital fellow,” announced Sir Thomas. “Look here, show the fellows your pictures. They ought to appreciate that.”

  I reached for my sketch book and drew it out. By chance, the page fell open to one of my fantastic sketches of fairies — something I did to amuse myself and please gullible children, for when they looked, I told them the fairies were all quite real and I even knew their names. As yet, not one child in a dozen had questioned this absurd assertion.

  Upon the tribesmen, however, this image created quite the opposite reaction to childish laughter and delight. They gasped and frowned, and several of them held up their hands with all four fingers extended to ward off the ‘evil eye’ and backed away.

  “Oh,” said Rafi, laughing. He repeated a few rapid phrases in Arabic, and then some of them began to laugh.

  “It is, how do you say — a ‘graven image’,” he told me. “It is against our faith, and also, they believe that if you draw a figure, it is somehow captured on the paper. Show them another without a living figure. A mountain, perhaps, or some trees.”

  I allowed that I did have such pictures, and showed them several pages of the Greek seaside, at which they wondered, and then a few of their own barren hills.

  These, they examined with interest, pointing and muttering at the smallest detail. One fellow ran his dirty finger over the page and I resisted the urge to slap his hand away. After a bit, they were all grinning and at ease.

  Now satisfied, Rafi sat back on his heels and took full advantage of the pipe, until the mahout complained he was being too greedy. Most reluctantly, Rafi passed it to the next fellow, and on to the next, and so-on, until it was my turn and I took a deep draw of the acrid smoke, holding it for a long while in my lungs as I had seen the others do, until the fire itself swam before my eyes, almost like a vision of Hell.

  I felt a presence beside me and startled, throwing my hands up suddenly.

  But it was not him.

  It was one of the tribesmen, his head wrapped in a broad swath of blue cotton. As I looked in his face, begrimed with desert dust and smoke, I realised the fellow was scarcely older than myself.

  He had a dagger in his hand!

  “Sir Thomas!” I cried.

  My patron leapt up and was about to grab the fellow’s robes when I understood that he meant me no harm and was in fact offering me the weapon as a sort of gift.

  “I — I don’t need a dagger,” I said. Of course he did not understand a word and continued gesturing and speaking rapidly in Arabic.

  “You must accept,” said Rafi, who had become indolent, doubtless from the thick smoke of the “hubbly — bubbly.”

  “I dare say you ought to, Dicky,” said Sir Thomas.

  I looked between their faces, as the young man continued to press the leather-wrapped hilt of the dagger into my hand.

  “Thank you,” I said, taking the dagger in my trembling fingers.

  “Shukran,” said Rafi, nodding. I understood that he wanted me to repeat the word, and I did, feeling the unfamiliar syllables falling strangely from my tongue.

  “A’salaam aleikem,” said the young man.

  “You must say ‘wa-lai-koom a’salaam,’” said Sir Thomas.

  It was clear to me that my patron had learned more of the Arab patois than I, so I repeated the words. At this, with a broad grin, the young tribesman sat back down among his fellows. After this action, they all gave a great cry that, though it seemed to be of joy and congratulations, did not fail to make the small hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention.

  “It is a holy dagger,” said Rafi. “It has been blessed by a marabout, a holy man.” It was an important gift indeed, Rafi said. I must keep it safe and be very grateful.

  I did not know what I felt, looking upon the dagger, but it was not gratitude.

  I looked at the dancing reflection of firelight shimmering on the dagger’s blade for some time. Then, I slowly drew my thumb across its blade and watched the blood swell forth, a fine line of red, truer than any I could draw with pen or brush.

  There was much merriment around the fire.

  In the shadowed palms, I knew that the god Osiris remained. Watching and waiting.

  It had been some days since our sojourn at the oasis. We travelled on camels through the Levant, coming at last to the great river Nile. It was strange. The closer we travelled to the land of his birth, the more distant Osiris seemed. I began to wonder if somehow, we had lost him in the desert, for I had not felt his presence for some time.

  Perhaps it was the dagger given to me by the young Bedouin. Perhaps it really had been blessed by a holy man and held some power.

  Sir Thomas wished to see the great monuments of ancient Egypt, so well-depicted by David Roberts. As in Greece, I wondered if my poor efforts would compare at all well to the Scottish master’s depictions. It had indeed been Mr. Roberts who recommended me to Sir Thomas, and I, as yet, hoped that I would make a good showing of it. We boarded a boat in Luxor, a majestic sailing vessel which they called a dahabeya.

  The dahabeya, once a royal conveyance, had a large, luxurious deck made of split cedar, with white and gold columns supporting a broad linen canopy, and at either end, cedar masts and broad linen sails. Belowdecks, the cabins were spacious and indescribably cleaner and more pleasant than those we had endured on the steamship to Missolonghi.

  As we sailed calmly on the Nile, which surely must be among the world’s most beautiful rivers, I felt strangely at ease. Although the sun in this place was like a great burning lamp, ever-present, I felt at home, perhaps for the first time since leaving London.

  Egypt was a magical land, with shimmering stone monuments arising miraculously from the blue ribbon of the Nile. Amid the minarets and mosques and palms were the monuments of much older times. The pylons and obelisks of the great Temple of Luxor were so great that I could not comprehend how they were raised by any work of men. On them were carved the forms of ancient Egyptians, some so lifelike that if they would have moved and spoken, I would not have been
surprised in the least. Ramses the King guarded this temple, and more than one of him — his seated figure taller than ten ordinary men.

  The Colossi of Memnon were taller still, but their faces and forms were obscure, having crumbled in some ancient upheaval. About them were tumbled stones of the great temple they must have guarded. Gazing at their cracked and broken visages, I felt a sense of strange longing, and sadness; how grand and powerful they must have once been, and how lonely and silent they now where. A porter who spoke some little bit of English told me that after the last great upheaval of earth, the rightmost of the two had moaned and groaned each morning. After a time, he said, people took more and more stones from the base, until at last, the moaning ceased, and both Colossi fell silent, as they had been for centuries.

  After several sketches of these wonders, I retired to the dahabeya, feeling somewhat fevered. There, I received some palmwine, and the crew adjudged me to be sunburnt and in need of ointment and salve, foul-smelling stuff which they applied liberally to my nose, cheeks and forehead.

  With Sir Thomas’ blessing, I fell asleep in his cabin, which facing east, away from the setting sun, was considerably cooler than my own berth.

  I woke with a start, sitting up in the silk and linen covers. It was dim in the cabin; the sun had set.

  “Who’s there?” I asked. The porters had a habit of doing their cleaning and work whether one was in one’s cabin or on deck or not. I thought I heard a soft sweeping noise.

  “You’ve disturbed my nap,” I said.

  I heard no voice, only a susurration — a whisper among the linen curtains. These fell from the lintel above the window to the floor. I pushed back the covers and crept forward. My fingers looked impossibly long and pale in the moonlight, my wrist a harsh, raw block of white flesh and bone.

  Grasping the fabric, I drew the curtain back. It was he.

  My heart seemed to poise itself to leap forward. My lips moved, but I could make no sound.

  “Hello, Richard,” he said. “We have much to discuss.”

  His cold dark fingers closed on my shoulder and I felt myself led like a terrified child toward my bed. He drew the curtains closed, and sat beside me on the bed.

  He seemed not to notice that I recoiled as he drew closer. In fact, I had begun to scuttle back across the rumpled covers, and thrust my hands behind my back, fingers scrabbling about beneath the pillow. For there I had secreted the holy dagger given to me by the Arabs. My fingers found the leather hilt, and — curse it! It was firmly fastened in its scabbard. I would never loosen it without drawing his attention.

  “Richard,” he said in a cool tone. “You seem alarmed. I would have thought you would be overjoyed to see me.”

  “Overjoyed?” I cried. “You — fiend!”

  “Fiend and friend alike hold sway over thy heart,” said Osiris.

  “You — are a demon!” I backed as far from him as I dared. He seemed little surprised, and even smiled with his odd teeth, the strange, dark, poreless skin stretched taut.

  “There is nothing supernatural about me,” Osiris said.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “I asked you to call me Osiris because that is the name that I have assumed — the Egyptian king who was murdered, his body scattered to the four corners of the earth and then resurrected by the Goddess Isis, his loving wife.”

  “You are —” I stuttered.

  “You may well think of me as Osiris. One such name is as good as another. For I was resurrected back to eternal life. Do you know why bodies decay and die, Richard?”

  I shook my head.

  “It is because our bodies lack the strength to permanently contain the fiery intelligence inside us all. A machine, however, is made of stronger stuff. Hence,” he said, holding out his arm and rolling up the sleeve to expose a smooth expanse of dark grey poreless, hairless flesh, “a spirit in a mechanical body may well be eternal. Go ahead. Touch.”

  I brushed my fingertips over his cool arm. The cold, clammy flesh was loathsome. I heard the whirring of wheels and gears as he moved his fingers, and a horrid whine of a tiny motor when he leaned close to me, still smiling.

  “As men, we have been too much in love with the supernatural,” he said. “We have forgotten that which is natural.”

  “You are as unnatural as they come, sir!” I exclaimed.

  At this, he laughed. “Perhaps. But my frame is cast of earthly metals. My joints are lubricated by vegetable oil; my internal engines use a similar device.”

  “Where — where is your soul?” I asked.

  “There is no soul,” he said scornfully. “Only our intellect. If my mind and memories were lost to death and decay, what an immense loss it would have been to the world!” he cried.

  “All men die,” I said. “If not, what room would there be for the next generation?”

  “Man is obsessed with reproduction. Respiration. Circulation. Urination. Defecation. I can assure you that, once these processes are removed, it focuses the mind intensely. In my case, it has enabled me to determine that which is truly vital for the world to consider. The well-being and future of the species, Mr. Dadd — that is the crucial issue. The main issue. Indeed, it is the only reasonable thing for the consideration of an intelligent man.”

  “You’re mad,” I told him.

  “You say this because you are trapped in your prison of flesh,” he replied.

  “Prison! The Lord says that our bodies are our temples!” I told him.

  “Another delusion of which I shall have to dissuade you,” he said.

  “What is it that you want from me?” I asked. “I don’t want to help you. You’re evil...monstrous!”

  “Oh, but you will help, Richard. You cannot help but — help.” He grinned broadly. “You shall be an integral part of our plans to further the human race. We intend to replace those who rule over humanity first, with individuals of unique manufacture. Automata, with pure, perfect, logical minds. They will choose properly. War, famine, disease — soon they will all be forgotten — curiosities of a distant, dimly-remembered past.”

  “What do you mean, those who rule?” I asked.

  “The Pope in Rome,” he said. “Your most-esteemed ruler, Queen Victoria; Louis-Philippe, the King of France; Nicholas Romanov, the Russian Tsar — even the American leader. What is his name again? Ah, Tyler. A fool, easily replaced.”

  “Sir, you speak madly. Surely you cannot–-”

  “Oh, but I can,” said Osiris. “I will.”

  My fingers found the hilt of the holy dagger. I was desperate now. I didn’t care if he perceived my intent or not.

  “Why do you haunt me?” I whispered.

  “You are special, Richard,” he said. “I told you that from the first.”

  “I — I am an ordinary man,” I said.

  “Bah!” said Osiris. “Far from ordinary. You have an extraordinary gift.”

  Even as filled with fear and loathing as I was, here, the demon had me. Although I seldom admitted it, I had ever been vain of my talent. A smile must have played across my lips, although I meant to keep my eyes and mouth fixed in a disapproving scowl. Osiris laughed again, a terrible, high-pitched cackle.

  “What if you had eternity to paint — no other distractions? Might you not become the greatest painter who ever lived?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No — no,” I said. “You are mad.”

  “I assure you,” Osiris said, “I am quite sane. If you do as I bid you, I promise, everything I have said will come true.”

  He sidled toward me on the bed. “Your profession is valuable to us, Richard — most precious indeed.”

  “I’m just a painter,” I said.

  “A gifted one, as I previously pointed out. So gifted that, so young, you have already received several commissions and were chosen for this trip with Sir Thomas Phillips. Hardly a connoisseur of art, but one of the most famous men in England. A good word from Sir Thomas will enable you to take on many commissions,
very quickly.”

  “What — what is that to you?” I said, my voice trembling. My fingers slid the holy dagger farther from beneath the pillow. I nearly had it fully in my grasp. If only–-

  Osiris smiled again. “Your portraits are most accurate, Richard. You shall paint a faithful likeness of your well-known patrons, and we will do the rest.”

  “The rest?” I asked, though I had an idea of what he meant — a horrible one.

  “I’m sure you have already guessed that we intend to manufacture simulacra of these great leaders and place within them intellects of our choosing. At the proper time, we shall replace the fleshly, weak originals with new, perfect automata of our device. They shall be perfect in every detail, Richard, thanks to you.”

  “Never!” I cried. I pulled the dagger out and began to fumble with its scabbard. I could not loose the blade — but Osiris seemed unconcerned. In fact, he gazed upon the thing, threw his wicked head back, and began to laugh.

  “You — you — demon!” I cried, finally releasing the weapon from its leather prison.

  “I am no demon,” Osiris said. “I am a pure intellect, in its most perfect–-”

  I lunged at him, plunging the dagger deep into his chest. He flew back on the bed, and I leapt onto him, ripping the dagger out, drawing back my arm, and plunging it again deep into the place where I thought his heart must be.

  His dark face was turned aside, lips slightly apart, eyes closed to slits. This was all most silent, as if I was not hurting him a bit.

  Again and again, I plunged the knife into his inert form.

  At last, exhausted, I fell back, and dared to look on my handiwork. The white blouse that he wore was tattered, and a great quantity of black and oily goo had spilled forth. This must have been his horrible blood, I reasoned. His chest, his body, moved not an inch.

  Standing, I staggered back, staring at the dagger in my hand. Its blade was streaked yellow and black, and a metallic, oily stench filled my cabin.

  I had begun to recover my breath, when the horrible face turned, and he rose on his elbows, facing me.