‘Grigor, you were marvellous tonight!’ she bellowed. ‘That’s the sort of PR stuff we need for the museum. A bit of colour and excitement! Much more effective than all that tedious sermonising. Let’s get the spirit of entertainment into this musty old place!’ She laughed loudly.
Grigor winced. ‘Let’s hope all our guests feel the same.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I suppose I was playing them up, making a point about their scepticism. None of what I said could be authenticated, Emily; it was fiction. I’m sorry if I caused you any embarrassment.’
Emily’s face seemed unsure whether to fall or not. ‘Well... I enjoyed it and so did the journalist from the Herald.’
‘I bet!’
Grigor mumbled a few phrases about feeling ill, and Emily seemed almost relieved to learn he wouldn’t be around for a few days. He could tell she thought it would give her the freedom to capitalise on his unwise and sensational lecture.
At home, Grigor lay restless on his bed. Outside the night was warm and sultry, reminiscent of some far eastern summer. He felt feverish, and after a bottle of wine and a couple of pain-killers, drifted on the edge of sleep, unable to succumb because his mind was so busy. He saw crosswords solving themselves before his inner eye, resolving into chequered roads that snaked through a black background. Then he was walking one of those roads, not dreaming, but visualising freely. The landscape around him was in negative; black trees on a white sky, even though he knew it was night. The path beneath his feet was of black and white slabs and they led to a tall building in the distance; a temple like a great cube of stone, its walls decorated with cyclopean bas-reliefs of striding gods so large he could discern their shape even this far away. He thought: I must go back, but continued to walk. Coloured smoke rose into the air above the temple from a tall, narrow chimney that was intersected by circular slates. The smoke was reddish brown - the only colour in the landscape - and he could smell it now: musty, resinous, bloody. He could hear a regular, heavy thumping sound coming from deep within the earth.
Then he was at the temple gates. They were over thirty feet high; dense satiny wood adorned with pictograms like none he’d seen before: an array of dots, spirals and lines. He could hear music now; staccato yet rhythmic, a whining flute backed by hiccupping drums. Colour had bled back into the world. The stones of the temple were massive, a polished tawny brown. He could not recognise their origin. The carvings loomed over him; an army of giants all facing towards the gates. They were inhumanly beautiful, with attenuated bodies and faces, swathed in cloaks of feathers and attended by monstrosities; lolloping foetuses tentacled and clawed, with the beaks of squids; deformed animals; women who tore their breasts with hooked finger-nails, whose mouths and eyes were gaping holes, whose hair was snakes and feathers.
Grigor put one hand against the door and a vibration shuddered through him. He was paralysed by it, his body rising onto tip-toe, his head thrown back, gasping. Then he was inside the temple, in a courtyard roofed with amber glass. The flag-stones beneath his feet were dusted with sand, and a hot breeze cut around his ankles. The atmosphere was intense, watchful. He felt as if he was under great pressure. Looking down, he saw he was dressed in a long robe, grey with dust. He was supporting himself upon an elaborately carved staff, for he was tired, having travelled a long way. Before him, the inner precincts of the temple were hidden in darkness. Through the tawny gloom, he caught a glimpse of columns, rank upon rank, and thick smoke oozed out heavily between them, hugging the ground. From far within, the music still called to him and he went towards it.
As he entered the shadows, a tall man dressed in the robes of a priest appeared beside him and bowed respectfully. ‘Welcome master. You have come for the dance of invocation and the hour is nearly upon us.’
‘Yes,’ Grigor replied. ‘But first, refresh me.’ He spoke with a casual authority that shocked him and sat down on a stone bench between the columns.
The priest glided away, but presently returned, bearing a flagon of cold water, which tasted intensely pure and poured through Grigor’s body like a reviving drug. He wiped his mouth and handed the flagon back to the priest. ‘Take me to the inner place.’
The priest bowed again, and gestured for Grigor to follow him. They walked between innumerable columns and down what seemed like miles of triangular corridors. All the walls were of a strange, soapy green stone, highly polished and mostly unadorned, except for occasional sections where the alien script was cut into the surface. Grigor wanted to pause and examine his surroundings in detail, but his body felt full of urgency, and the priest’s steps were swift ahead of him.
Eventually, they mounted a flight of glassy stone steps that led up to a shadowed gallery. Here dark red drapery swayed in the hot breeze and the air was difficult to breathe. There was a dampness to it, and the incense failed to mask a wet, earthy odour.
Grigor sat down and found himself looking over a balcony into a vast chamber below, clearly the heart of the temple. Its floor was slabbed with stones of different sizes and shapes like the board to an unknown game. They were dark brownish red and purple, and occasionally, gold. The middle of the room was dominated by an immense but slender pillar, fashioned from polished black basalt, and crowned by a large crystal stone, which Grigor knew represented the foundation and was called the Eye of Anu. His mind felt as if it was disintegrating, for while part of him gawped in astonishment, another part knew the history of this place and had walked there often. It was the Temple of Transcendence, which he had mentioned in his lecture earlier, and in this place the dance was sacred. The temple was dedicated to the Watchers, the fallen Sons of God, who were Anu’s rebel sons, reviled and scorned. On the glazed green wall opposite, Grigor saw a gargantuan ochre-coloured pictogram of the sole of a foot, in whose centre burned the symbol of an unblinking eye. The feet of the dancers were holy here; they who saw the gods through the sorcery of their sacred steps. To left and right, six black columns reared down either side of the chamber. Grigor knew that each of them resonated a particular tone. When they vibrated in harmony they called the Watchers into the temple.
A slim figure glided out from between the left hand columns into the centre of the room. Grigor knew at once that it was Nezzar. He was clad in a short, peacock-blue tunic decorated in metallic thread with the same unusual symbols that were carved upon the outer gates. The tunic was belted with silver; long, delicate chains, strung with wafer-like disks, hung down around Nezzar’s waist. His hair was bound up in a copper fillet, coiled tendrils, clattering with beads and shells, escaping down his back. His arms, his neck, even his face were decorated with curling tattoos, and his wrists and ankles were adorned with bangles hung with more bells and rattling beads. When he shook his head, long earrings tinkled like wind-chimes. He would provide his own music for the dance. His feet were painted red, and Grigor knew that upon each sole was a tattoo of the unblinking eye.
Grigor could see that his fantasies of Nezzar did not match the reality, if this was reality. His face was not perfect and in fact resembled Gez more than Grigor had believed. Perhaps it was Gez down there, invading his dreams. If I am dreaming, Grigor thought, then let it happen. I will enjoy it.
Nezzar stamped abruptly and filled the echoing hall with chimes. He began to move, slowly at first, invoking his body music. He stamped lightly, his hips rotating sensually, his sinuous arms held high, the fingers splayed out; rigid yet graceful. Conjuring a percussion from his beads and chains, he began to enact what looked like a primal flamenco dance. Gradually, his movements became faster; his hair and the chains about his waist swung out.
Grigor felt the air around him stir. It was stifling now. Each breath was an agony. Below him, Nezzar stamped and spun, and it seemed that the air was sparkling with jewelled dust around his body, as if he’d summoned it up to accompany the dance. The whirling motes slowly eclipsed his form, until he was a spinning maelstrom of glittering particles, each of which were pulsing and continually enlarging. Concurrently, the atmosphere i
n the temple became charged.
Grigor’s heart had begun to race. Something was coming, moving swiftly towards the temple like rolling thunder. Grigor could sense the vibration of its approach through the walls, through the floor beneath his feet, and more deeply, within the sinews of his tensed muscles. A presence had been attracted by the dance and was now driven to manifest.
The Grigor who belonged in the waking world was terrified, and did not want to see what might happen next, but the other side of him was stronger and would not tear his eyes away.
Shadows rose like curling smoke from between the cracks in the flagstones of the temple floor, while the darkness at the edge of the room had become denser. The shadows brought with them the pungent, metallic aroma of carrion and reached out with waving filaments to touch the dancer, withdrawing as if scalded when they made contact with his shimmering nimbus.
Abruptly, Nezzar came panting to a stand-still, his body running with sweat. The sparkling mist still spun around him. Within it, he was a glowing being who raised his arms and saluted all four quarters of the compass. Then, he turned to his audience of one and raised his head. ‘Master, He is summoned, and yours to command!’
Grigor stared down at the boy, perplexed. What had been summoned, and why? He could not speak now, but even as he thought this his body had involuntarily risen to its feet. He pointed down at Nezzar. ‘You have done well. Go now to the Tower of Silence and await my presence.’
Nezzar inclined his head. ‘As you wish, master.’ He ran nimbly from the hall.
Grigor saw that the boy had left the swirling mist behind him. Shadows massed around it inquisitively. He sensed a sentience within them, that reached out to him. Its presence affected him deeply on an emotional and physical level; he felt both lustful and immensely strong.
‘Sin-na’el!’ he uttered in a rasping voice, then again, more loudly, ‘Sin-na’el!’
The shadows and the glittering mist conjoined, condensed. Grigor saw Him then, complete and clear, in a single second. He was monstrous; ten feet high, a man yet not a man. His eyes burned with crimson fire in his dark face; long hair hung matted to his bony hips. His hands were clawed, and his obsidian skin was caked with dry blood and ashes. He wore a cloak of tattered feathers, decorated with bones and hanks of hair. His feet were splayed talons, like those of a gigantic vulture, and were bandaged at the ankles with bloodied rags. His cloak was adorned, like Nezzar’s costume, with artefacts that conjured sound, but these were grisly instruments; bones of children, vipers and lizards. His beauty was terrible, almost repulsive, for while his features were refined they were twisted into a bestial leer. The sight made Grigor’s eyes ache and burn, yet conjured a fire in his loins; such was the way the Watchers affected any human who dared to confront them.
‘Nephilim!’ Grigor called and the creature folded into a crouch, snarling up at him. A terrible cacophony started up, as if a thousand prisoners confined in dungeons below the temple had all started to panic and lament at once. Grigor heard screams and thumpings and draggings, the tortured sounds of metal against metal. His throat was dry, his eyes seared and tearless in his head. Yet he dared not look away.
‘Sin-na’el,’ he said, in a low yet ringing voice. ‘You who were fourth avatar of the High Lord, and for your blood-lust cast out of Paradisa, the High Place. You who taught the children of men to dance for ecstasy, and who seduced the son of King Shusin, King of Ur. You whose eyes were plucked out for the sin of gazing upon a prince of the royal line, and whose feet were sundered from your body for the sin of profane dance, hear me now. Blinded Nephilim, whose corrupted flesh has lain for a thousand years, beneath a thousand rocks, below this sacred place, witness the desires of my soul with the life-blood which is your sight, for I have a boon to ask of you.’
The entity below straightened up, and a fearsome intelligence seemed to fill the burning, scarlet pits that had once been eyes of flesh. ‘I may not see your form, priest, but your spirit I perceive well, for its light betrays to me your intent. I will grant you any boon, Ashur, if you can meet the cost.’
Grigor nodded once. ‘I know this. My apprentice has applied himself diligently to learning the art of your conjuration. We have worked long years to invoke your presence, mighty lord. We are your servants and your worshippers, and will do your bidding. We ask in return the sacred contract; knowledge of longevity and passage through the sacred flame to the stars.’
The Watcher laughed; a hollow sound. ‘Do not place faith in what you’ll reap from me, Ashur. You say you worship me, yet the cold light of reason burns in your eyes.’ Sin-na’el folded His long, sinuous arms. ‘I know you are of my heart, my making, priest. You are my creature, but must prove it. Show me that your reasoning is worthy, by placing it higher than that which is most dear to you. Give this to me and we have the contract you desire.’
Grigor hesitated. He was conscious of being a passenger in a cruel, hard brain. His own instincts wanted to force himself to back off - he sensed a trick - but his voice said, ‘You already have what you ask.’
‘Then give it to me in a manner that will please me, but do not conjure me once more in regret, should the light of the flame burn your reason from you.’
Grigor bowed. ‘As you wish, mighty lord.’
The dank, intense atmosphere and the vision of the Watcher vanished instantly.
Grigor awoke abruptly, as if someone had slapped him. He sat up in bed, terrified, gasping for air, and groped for the switch to his bed-side light. Vile, vile! His flesh was crawling. What was happening to him? He was in half a mind to call Nell, but forced himself not to. She already thought he was going slightly mad; this would only confirm her suspicions.
Grigor lay back down again, blinking at the ceiling. He still felt obscenely aroused, yet sick with horror, as if a lingering presence of the creature haunted the shadows of his room. Nightmare. It was best that he was going to stay away from work for a while. He must forget the exhibit, throw himself into mundane, ordinary things.
In the morning, Nell called him. Her voice sounded troubled. ‘Grigor, I hate to bother you like this, but I think you’ll have to come in.’
‘Why? What’s happened?’
‘It’s... it’s the mummy. It’s been damaged.’
‘Damaged? How?’
He heard her sigh. ‘Look, will you just come over for an hour or so?’
Grigor found Emily, the curator, prowling round the Eastern rooms in a foul temper. Several police were in evidence. She asked Grigor how he was, in a manner hardly indicative of concern, and then launched into complaints about how her demands for more security had been ignored, and now this had happened. ‘It’s your baby, Grigor, take a look.’
Grigor went reluctantly over to the mummy case. The glass shield appeared unmarked, and initially he couldn’t see what the problem was.
The director came over and sighed. ‘How the hell they did it, I’ve no idea! Bloody ghouls!’
It was then Grigor noticed the feet, or rather the lack of feet. Nezzar’s attenuated legs ended in neatly-shored stumps at the ankles. He uttered a shocked sound. ‘My god! The case is alarmed. How could anyone get into it?’
Emily sighed, her arms stiffly folded. ‘You tell me. Probably some nutty group after gruesome relics for unhealthy practices or whatever. Perhaps they cast a spell on the security systems! Who the hell knows!’
Nell was standing some feet back, chewing the inside of her mouth. Grigor had the distinct impression she was more worried about this than Emily. She knew something.
‘I don’t like this thing,’ Emily said, grimacing down at the mummy. ‘First your funny turn last night, now this...’
The staff must have been gossiping about him to her. ‘It was not a funny...’
She would not let him continue. ‘Grigor, I know what I said last night, but I’ve had time to think about it since. I’ve worked with you for nearly ten years now, and I’ve never seen you like that. I realise now you weren’t just ill.
This thing is trouble. I’ll be glad when the exhibition’s over and the anthropologists have finished raking over the bones.’
So Emily had a superstitious streak. Grigor had to restrain a smile. ‘What do the police think?’
‘There’s no sign of a break-in,’ she replied. ‘I don’t want to think this is an inside job, but...’
Grigor couldn’t help raising his eyes to meet Nell’s glance. She shook her head at him slightly, looked away. ‘I hardly think that’s likely,’ Grigor said, mildly, ‘unless you believe my funny turn, as you put it, might have been a precursor to mutilation.’
Emily uttered a shocked snort. ‘Grigor, I was not implying any such thing! I was thinking more about some of the students who come in.’
After speaking to the police, Grigor went to his office with Nell. ‘OK, madam’ he said, once the door was shut behind them. ‘What’s on your mind about this?’
Nell sighed and flopped into a chair. ‘Oh, this will sound so loopy. I don’t know. It was Gez last night.’
Grigor froze. ‘What?’
Nell shook her head. ‘He was very weird when we left here. We went to the club where he works and he was talking strange. Asked a lot about you - I mean, a lot. But it spooked me. Didn’t seem like him. He seemed as obsessed with the mummy as you are. I didn’t like it. It sounds weird, but I kept thinking he was - well - using me in some way, that he had an agenda about you and the mummy.’
Grigor sat down. ‘Nell, we’re both over-reacting now! I refuse to believe we can be affected by an exhibit like this - any of us. We can’t give these fancies credence. That’s dangerous territory.’
‘I know that.’ She leaned back in her chair. ‘It was just what happened to you last night and then at the club...’
‘What does Gez do there?’ Grigor enquired.