“Spells,” Urruah said. “They were wizardry.”
“Yes,” Wallis said. “Some of them. It was knowledge I kept to myself. I am no wizard, not as I understand the term is usually meant. But I know a little of the language—Hauhai, the ‘Great Speech’?—some words of it were carved inside the Pyramids. And from other such carvings, and a great many of the papyruses we recovered, I know a fair amount of Ailurin, which was well known by the priestly class in the Old Kingdoms period. This has helped me with some of the mummies, since I’ve been able to tell genuine spells of protection from simple prayers, or lists of things to have the cat ask the Gods for when it gets to Heaven.”
He smiled slightly: but after a breath or so, the smile turned grim. “The matter which has been troubling me,” he said, “is that over the past couple of years, someone seems to have been going to great trouble to destroy as many cat-mummies as possible—especially at the old burial grounds at Bubastis, near the modern city of Alexandria in the northern river delta. No one has made any attempt on our collection here—we have several thousand cat-mummies—but the cemeteries at Bubastis are being systematically destroyed.”
“By whom?” Rhiow said. “And why?”
“By British nitrate wholesalers,” said Wallis, “for fertilizer.”
“What?” Auhlae said.
Wallis looked uncomfortable. “You’ll understand that, even as dry as Egypt is,” he said, “sooner or later, if you simply bury things in the sand, they’ll decay: and if you mummify them and bury them in the sand, they decay in a very controlled manner, so that finally very little is left but material which is very high in nitrites. Some bright lad got the idea of bringing huge cargo ships down there, digging up the mummies, or what was left of them, and shipping them home to England to be sold as fertilizer for ehhif gardens and farmland.”
“Dear Iau,” Auhlae said, “how …” She broke off, apparently unable to think of a word strong enough to describe her feelings.
“Now as I understand feline thought from the writings of the old priests,” Wallis said, “once you leave the body, there’s no great concern for it: you’ve another life waiting, and you go to it and get on with it. So in that regard, whether one ends as fertilizer or food for some scavenger is probably moot. But what troubles me is how many of those mummies were buried with a specific kind of protection. Most of my fellow translators have rendered it as a charm against extreme heat and cold. But I’m not sure they’re right in this. I read it as a spell, a piece of wizardry intended to protect against the Great Fire and the Great Cold that the spell insists will follow it. Some kind of destruction, ‘like the sun falling’, that’s the usual phrase—and then ‘a winter without end’.”
“Iau,” Rhiow said softly.
“And now,” Wallis said, “suddenly all these mummies, many of them with one version or another of this spell in place, are being taken away and destroyed. Ground up and thrown on people’s gardens,” Wallis said, with a grimace of distaste. “Whatever else we know about the Egyptians of that period, we know they were not foolish people. Their priests in particular. I am sure some of them were wizards—possibly wizards of great accomplishment. I don’t believe that anyone would be so careful, over a space nearly fifteen hundred years, to make sure that all these cat-mummies had one version or another of this particular spell written in their bandages. And there are some disturbing hints in the carvings in the great tombs that suggest removing these massed spells would be dangerous. There are mentions of some great destruction that would come. First fire, a terrible fire that will devastate the world. And then ice, ice forever …”
Urruah looked at Rhiow: the others all exchanges glances. “There were visionaries among those ehhif,” Arhu said, “and they worked with the wizards of other species who lived then. Almost certainly with our people too. What did they see?” He looked at Rhiow. “What we came to try to prevent?”
“It’s not beyond probability,” Rhiow said softly. “They might not have understood the science behind the idea of a nuclear winter … but they might have foreseen it, all right, and devised a defense. It wouldn’t surprise me that it would involve our people, either: ehhif always connected us with warmth and the sun … with reason. We told them often enough about Aaurh the Mighty, and how she warred the world free of the cold at the beginning of things … something for which sa’Rrahh always hated her.” She looked up at the young ehhif. “Hwallis,” Rhiow said, “how much of this spell against the Great Fire do you know?”
“Most of it,” he said, “but not all. The whole thing, the ‘master’ version of the spell, was only rarely written out because it was so long and complicated. Most often it was sketched on the bandages in an abbreviated form. Even in the earliest days of the mass mummy burials, few mummies contained it, or the carved version of it on an amulet, again because of the complexity. I had hoped to lead another expedition this year to go back to Bubastis and hunt specifically for the full form of the spell, which the carvings in the Pyramids suggested could reconfirm its protection of the world if it was pronounced by a ‘person of Power’ in the right time and place. But now the cemeteries are almost empty: their contents are in the holds of cargo ships, ground to powder. Even if I went now, I wouldn’t likely find what I’m looking for. What I fear is that protection against this Great Fire, this Great Ice, whatever they may be, is being lost … and that the way is being opened for something terrible to happen. So I asked Ouhish to see if he could get in touch with some wizards, people who might know what to do.” He shrugged. “And here you are …”
“It sounds like the Lone One has been purposely dismantling this protection,” Urruah said. “Using pawns, as usual, to do Its work. Ehhif, and their innocent greed …” He glanced up at Wallis. “Sorry. Nothing personal.”
“No offense taken,” Wallis said.
“So what do we do?” Siffha’h said.
“I would imagine try to find the whole spell,” Rhiow said, “and reinstate the protection. It could very well help with other matters.” She glanced at the others. “It might even make those other occurrences impossible …”
“Might,” said Auhlae.
“I take your point,” Rhiow said. “Hwallis—would it help if we were able to look for your full version of the spell, the master spell of which these others are fragments, in other museums?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Our collection of cat-mummies here is the biggest in the world.”
“Not in a hundred years, it won’t be,” Urruah said.
Wallis looked perplexed. “I beg your pardon?”
“He means,” Arhu said, “that we’re from the future. And the collection of that British Museum is a lot bigger than this one.”
“My God,” the ehhif said. He fell silent for a moment, then said, “I can give you a description of what to look for, both in the written and the carved forms. Will that help?”
“Very much indeed,” Rhiow said. “Ruah?”
“Show me what you have in mind,” Urruah said. “No, I don’t need a drawing: do it in your head. While we’re both working in the Speech, I can see what you’re thinking, a little. Don’t rush, just make pictures …”
They spent a few minutes about it, until Urruah was satisfied. “That’ll do,” he said. “I should have no trouble passing it on.”