Upon reaching the base of the hill, she saw a narrow footpath spiralling up the side of the mound and followed it to the top. The way was steep, but she soon reached the summit and paused a moment to catch her breath. The high plateau gave unobstructed views of the countryside all around, and Wilhelmina walked all the way around the perimeter but saw no one about. So much the better, she thought. If she was going to experiment with ley travel on the tump, she did not want an audience.
She took out the ley lamp once more-still no activity, so she conducted a closer examination of her surroundings. This was quickly accomplished. Apart from the three old oaks, fascinating as they were, there was not much to see-except for a single stone she found embedded in the turf near the centre of the hill. Broad and flat as a paving stone from someone’s garden, there was nothing at all remarkable about it. As twilight was a little way off yet, she decided to sit down and wait to see if anything might happen.
She sat, her legs drawn up, her chin resting on her knees, and closed her eyes. Tired from her long walk, she was soon asleep. Fragments of dreams, disjointed and disturbing, flitted through her subconscious. She awoke with a start to the sound of raucous laughter. Looking around, she saw that the sun had gone down and the sky above was filled with circling rooks-their cackling call the disembodied laughter of her dream. Having grown stiff sitting on the stone, she unfolded herself and stood, and instantly became aware of a warmth emanating from her pocket. She took out the ley lamp; it was not only warm to the touch, but the little blue lights were all aglow within the filigreed metallic carapace.
On her initial survey of the tump top, Wilhelmina had detected no indication of a ley line anywhere. Not only that, but there did not seem to be room enough for a line of any length. But the blue lights were aglow, and they did not lie. So, holding the lamp in front of her, she began walking slowly, first one direction, then another, watching the lights. She quickly noticed that the little blue indicators glowed more brightly as she neared the centre of the mound and dimmed as she moved away. The strongest reading came when she stood directly on the flat stone marker.
“This is it,” she murmured. “Now what?” How did one traverse a ley that was not a line, but a point?
As she was considering this, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye and glanced around to see two dark shapes racing towards her across the level plain of the tump. Shielded by the trees until they were almost upon her, she had but a glimpse, but it was enough to know that they were after her.
Whipping the ley lamp out of sight, she turned to meet her pursuers.
“Oi!” shouted the nearest one. “Stand right there! Don’t you move a muscle, me darlin’!”
Wilhelmina felt a sudden surge of energy flash up around her. The hair on her arms and the back of her neck stood erect. She could feel the tingle on her skin and a faint crackling of static snapping around her ankles. The very air tingled.
The men rushed closer. Dressed in long, dark cloaks and widebrimmed hats, their faces grim and determined, they closed on her with swift strides. One of them produced a pistol. “Put your hands up, girly,” he ordered.
His companion threw out a hand, caught his arm, and spun him around. “Don’t tell her that!” he cried. “That sets it off!”
But it was already too late. At the sight of the gun, Wilhelmina had instinctively raised her hands. Her fingers tingled with the pent power flowing around her. She raised her arms higher, the air grew misty, and she saw the disbelief register on the men’s faces. One of them let out a shout, but his words were lost in the scream of the wind suddenly swirling around her.
The world grew hazy and her vision quavered and she was enveloped by the shimmery, glowing halo of high-energy photons-an earthbound aurora borealis. At the same time she became aware that pressure was building around her, crushing down, squeezing the air from her lungs. Instinctively she resisted, holding herself upright. Burleigh’s two thugs made a rush towards her. She gave a little hop, and the world winked out in a fizzing pop like that of a firecracker tossed into the air.
Mina blinked, and when she opened her eyes again she was standing in the dazzling white light of a blistering sun on a wide, stone-paved path lined on either side with statues, hundreds of them, stretching for a thousand metres or more, each one with the head of a man and the body of a lion-an avenue of sphinxes. One look at the impassive granite face gazing at her from the nearest statue and Wilhelmina Klug knew beyond any doubt that she had arrived in Egypt.
PART FOUR
CHAPTER 21
Somewhere between shutting her eyes and opening them again on the new day, Cass had changed her mind and decided that instead of trying to find her way home by herself, she would to return to the Zetetic Society. They were offering help, after all, and help was what she needed right now. If they could describe for her what was happening and how it worked-well, that was well worth hanging around an extra day to find out. While she still had no intention of joining them, or getting mixed up in their mysterious machinations, whatever they were, simply getting a few answers to some questions- like: what was the best and quickest way home-would be no bad thing.
That decided, Cassandra shared a noisy breakfast with the nuns and orphans of Saint Tekla’s and helped with clearing and washing the dishes. Then, free to follow her bliss for the day, she started off for her visit to the society. At the convent gate, one of the sisters approached with a thin cotton robe of drab green. “Pour vous, mon amie,” she said, holding out the garment.
“For me?” wondered Cass. “But-”
“ S ’il vous plait,” insisted the nun. “C’est mieux, ma soeur.” She pointed to Cass’s clothes and held out the gown for her to put on. It came to Cass that it was the same kind of drab robe she had seen on women going into the bazaar-less than a burka, but more than a housedress- that would, in her case, be useful for keeping her modern dress covered. She understood then that the sisters, having noticed her odd garb, were trying to protect her from difficulty.
“Merci,” said Cass, accepting the robe. She allowed the nun to help her into it. “ Cella-la est bonne, ma soeur. Merci.”
Smiling, the nun also arranged Cass’s cotton scarf into a more convincing head covering, then opened the gate for her. “Bonne journee.”
Cass wished her a good day and, stepping through the gate and into the street beyond the walls, made her way back to the society’s black lacquered door. She knocked once, waited, then knocked again. When there was no answer, she knocked a third time and waited some more. Still too early, she thought, and deciding to try again later, she spun on her heel and started off to explore a little more of Damascus. Deep in thought, she reached the end of the lane and rounded the corner onto the busy main street-where she collided heavily with a tall, thin man in a three-piece suit of pale cream linen topped off with a natty white panama hat.
Cass was thrown backward into the road. The man hooked her elbow to keep her from falling.
“Steady there.” He helped her to right herself, then moved back a step and regarded her with the disinterested concern of a stranger. “Are you quite all right, miss?”