"What is it?"

"Dr. Greenley." She put the phone down. "He just told me to come down to the museum-at this hour!-and hung up. Something's happened! It must have!"

"I'll take you." Jason moved behind her to shut the door, taking out the key to hand to her. She felt a little dazed. In her two years of work-first as a junior a.s.sistant, then as a full-fledged a.s.sistant-this had never happened. She could feel the uneasiness now even as she had felt that shadow of a third presence, which, of course, had never been there, accompanying her through the museum.

"There's something terribly wrong," she murmured as Jason settled beside her in the car and started to work his way out of the parking lot.

"Sure, that Carey," he returned.

But what could Dr. Carey have done or said to make Dr. Joe call her down to the museum at night? She could not think of anything and was still bewildered when Jason brought her to the same back door they had entered some hours earlier. There was a light in the hall now and just inside the door was Hawes. He swung it open.

"Go right on up, Miss Mitford. The elevator's waiting."

Jason had moved out but Tallaha.s.see turned. "No, you stay here, Jas-if it's department business I'll do more than put a foot wrong to bring a stranger into it."

"You sure?" He looked both concerned and doubtful.

She nodded vigorously enough, she hoped, to satisfy him.

"I'm sure. And if it's going to be a long session I'll phone down and Mr. Hawes can tell you. I know you have to take the early plane out. That all right, Mr. Hawes?"

"Sure thing, Miss."

As Tallaha.s.see entered the elevator, she half expected to feel that other presence. But there was nothing, except the rather eerie sensation that was always part of the museum when it was closed to the public and most of the staff was gone, intensified perhaps by the fact this was night. The storm which had promised earlier had not yet broken, but the sky outside was still overclouded and now she heard, even through the thickness of the walls about her, a roll of what could only be distant thunder.

Thunder of drums-somehow that phrase slipped into her mind as she s.h.i.+fted from one foot to the other impatiently, waiting for the elevator to reach the fifth floor. Drums meant so much in Africa-the famous "talking drums" whose expertly induced sounds could actually mimic tribal tongues so that they could be understood....

The elevator door opened, and she looked into the open hall. There was a light on behind the frosted gla.s.s of Dr. Greenley's door. Tallaha.s.see found herself breathing as swiftly as if she had been running. Deliberately she made herself walk more slowly. She was not going to burst into Dr. Joe's office as if she had been called from play like some forgetful child.

When she knocked and heard his m.u.f.fled voice in answer, she worked to summon full control. And a moment later she was facing him across a desk that was no longer stacked with papers as it had been all the length of time she had known him. Those had been swept to the floor, a snowstorm of littered pages, books, magazines. The office was in such wild confusion that she halted just within the door and gasped. It could look no worse, she believed, if a small hurricane had gone to work here.

"What-what happened?"

Dr. Joe's jaw was set. "That's what we are trying to find out, Tallaha.s.see. Someone was undoubtedly hunting something; to the best of my knowledge there was nothing here worth this effort."

"No?" That supercilious voice came from the corner. Dr. Carey sat on a chair, looking about him with a satisfaction he could not hide from Tallaha.s.see's narrowed eyes. "Ask this Miss Mitford of yours what she and her boyfriend so conveniently locked in your safe tonight."

Dr. Joe did not even look at him. "Tallaha.s.see, if you have any explanation at all of this, I would be grateful for it."

Tallaha.s.see made her account brief. "I was called to the airport this afternoon, late. Jason sent for me. They had found something curious in one of the lockers there and wanted an identification. I-well, I thought the artifact looked a little like the rod of office in the Brooke Collection. So the head man-by the way," she turned now to Dr. Carey, "did you call that number he sent? He could have explained it all-"

"What number?" Dr. Joe looked puzzled.

"I told this Mr. Nye that Dr. Carey was coming to evaluate the Brooke Collection. He wrote a number on a card and asked for him to get in touch as soon as possible."

"Carey?" Dr. Joe turned his head.

The other showed no sign of discomfiture. "I did not know the man. If he wanted my services he need only approach me directly-which he did not. No, I did not call."

Why, wondered Tallaha.s.see? The man seemed almost to take the suggestion as an insult.

"But you put this artifact in the safe?" Dr. Joe asked.

"Yes. It was in a lead-lined case-which is why Jason brought it up for me."

"Lead-lined?" Dr. Joe was plainly bewildered.

"They said that the artifact gave off some unidentified type of radiation. They were taking every precaution."

"It was African-a real artifact?"

"Look and see." Tallaha.s.see, shaken as she had been by the sight of the office, now felt a rising irritation.

She put her hand to the safe dial, and then remembered the night alarms. But Dr. Joe had already antic.i.p.ated her request and was on the phone to call Hawes and have those cut off. When the door opened, she brought out the case which was heavy enough that she needed both hands to swing it to the top of the desk. Flicking open the catch she lifted the cover. There the box lay as Dr. Joe went forward eagerly.

Tallaha.s.see took the tongs at the top and lifted out the find with care. To her surprise, Dr. Carey did not join them by the desk. She glanced at him once and saw that he only sat there calmly, a faint, satirical smile on his thin lips, watching them as if they were edging into some trouble that he had no intention of warning them against. His att.i.tude was stranger than ever, strange enough to awaken Tallaha.s.see's feeling of something lurking here, waiting...

Dr. Joe had taken the tongs from her eagerly, was moving the box slowly around.

"Yes, yes! But, what? The style is a mixture-old, though, undoubtedly very old. And just left in a locker locker! We must run a test on it. Carey, what do you think it is-what culture?"

Dr. Carey got up. He moved swiftly, oddly. His eyes were now fastened avidly on the box and the malicious look was gone. With two strides he reached the desk, elbowing Tallaha.s.see roughly to one side. Reaching forward before either of the other two could prevent it, for they were not prepared for his sudden move, he put one hand at either side of the box.

There was no sound, but when Dr. Carey lifted his hands, half the box came away. Inside was a small bundle wrapped in yellowed material.

"Don't!" Tallaha.s.see caught at Carey's elbow. "The radiation!"

He did not even look at her. Instead he dropped the lid with a clatter to the desk and caught at the bundle. Dr. Joe attempted to s.n.a.t.c.h it away, his expression one of complete amazement.

Dr. Carey eluded him, just as he had jerked free from Tallaha.s.see. He was tearing at the wrapping of the bundle frenziedly. The material peeled off in bits, as if the stuff had been weakened by age. What he held, after a second or two of fighting the covering, was an object about a foot long. And the shape was familiar to them all. This was an ankh-that very ancient key to all life which every every representative of an Egyptian G.o.d or G.o.ddess carried in one hand. It had been carved of some crystalline-appearing substance and showed no fracture or erosion. representative of an Egyptian G.o.d or G.o.ddess carried in one hand. It had been carved of some crystalline-appearing substance and showed no fracture or erosion.

Dr. Carey dropped it to the desk top.

"What? Why?" He was wiping his hands up and down the front of his coat as if something he feared and hated clung to them. And now his face was pinched and drawn. "Why?..." he repeated in a voice higher than usual as if he needed an answer from them as to the reason for his actions.

At that moment there was a burst of thunder which seemed so close overhead that the roof itself might have been shattered. Tallaha.s.see cowered and screamed, she could not help it. A second later the lights went out, and they stood in darkness.

"No! No! No!" Someone was crying out-the sound growing fainter with every denial.

"Dr. Joe." Somehow Tallaha.s.see found her voice. "Dr. Joe!" She tried to get around the table and ran into a chair, nearly losing her balance. Then she stood still.

There was light in the room. But it did not come from any bulb, any lamp she knew. It rayed out from the ankh on the table. The thing glowed.

And that glow drew her-just as she knew again that the presence she had sensed earlier was back, stronger than ever.

The ankh arose from the desk top. It was moving-and it was drawing her along after it. She tried to call out, to catch at the chair, at the wall, at anything that could serve as an anchorage. But there was nothing she could do.

"Dr. Joe!" This time her plea came as a faint whisper; the ability to say more had left her. That-that presence presence controlled her better than if someone had laid hands upon her shoulders and was pus.h.i.+ng her ahead. controlled her better than if someone had laid hands upon her shoulders and was pus.h.i.+ng her ahead.

Frightened as she had never been before in her life, Tallaha.s.see followed the floating, ghostly ankh one reluctant step at a time. They were in the outer hall now, she and the thing thing she could not see but well knew was with her, willing her to some task. she could not see but well knew was with her, willing her to some task.

Here there was no light, either, but that given off by the ankh. However, it seemed to glow the brighter, so she could see the stairwell. Holding to the banister she went down and down, always that compulsion pus.h.i.+ng her.

She found herself praying, not even in a whisper, because she could no longer voice even that much, but in her mind. This-this will that held her-it was a nightmare. This thing could not be happening-it could not! Yet it was.

They reached the fourth floor, the ankh swung into the hall there. Dimly, through her fear, Tallaha.s.see realized where they were going-toward the three rooms that held the Brooke Collection. She had somehow surrendered part of herself. This was was happening and apparently there was nothing she could do to prevent it. happening and apparently there was nothing she could do to prevent it.

"Tallaha.s.see!"

Her name echoed hollowly from the stairwell behind. Dr. Joe! But he was too late-too late....Too late for what, a part of her mind asked dully?

There was another roar of thunder but under it something else which pulsed even as the thunder died. Drums-the calling drums. Tallaha.s.see forced her hands up over her ears, but she could not shut out that faint, demanding vibration of sound. And now there was added a tinkling, as if small bits of crystal were shaken one against another. That, too, she identified from a single moment of the past, the sistrum of the temple priestesses of old Egypt. They once had duplicated one in cla.s.s and tried to use it as it must have been swung to summon the attention of the ancient G.o.ds.

She was going mad!

But she was not! Tallaha.s.see's strong mind and intelligence began to rally. There was some logical explanation for all this. There must be! Part of her-that part which controlled her own movements-was in bondage to the influence of the presence. Her mind was still free.

They were at the door of the third and last room. Light greeted them. But not the normal light Tallaha.s.see knew. This was a beam shooting from the depths of the main case in the room. She was not surprised at its source. The crystalline head of the rod of office held a fainter glow maybe, but one which matched, in part, that given off by the ankh floating ahead.

Then the ankh stopped, held in the air as if the girl herself supported it at the level of her breast. The compulsion changed. A new order had been given her, one she was no more able to resist than she had the unvoiced command that had brought her here.

Her hands moved out, willed by that other, to seek the lock of the case. But it resisted her efforts. Now the compulsion strengthened, beat down upon her as physical blows might have done. The other will demanded that she free the rod. But she could not, it was locked. There was no way, no way at all....The part of her mind that was free argued silently with the unseen, even as her body actually swayed back and forth under that beating command.

Out of the dark rang a voice. For one wild, hopeful moment Tallaha.s.see thought either Dr. Joe or Hawes must have come to her rescue. Then she realized she could not understand a word of that impa.s.sioned speech. It was hot with anger, the emotion as strong as the will behind and about her. Yet it was not issuing from the presence that had brought her here.

A part of the control over her failed. As it withdrew, she somehow understood the rage that had gripped it it, in turn, at the sound of that voice. But if it could reply it did not.

Now those words fell into the cadence of a strange chant, the rhythm of which was accented by a distant roll of drums. Tallaha.s.see no longer wondered how she heard what she did, nor from whence it came. She only cowered before the display case in which the light-crowned rod lay, wanting to creep away from the site of battle. For the will that had brought her here was now facing another, and they were joined in struggle.

Tallaha.s.see was suddenly caught up and hurled viciously against the case. She screamed, throwing her arms up over her face, fearing that the gla.s.s would shatter and cut her flesh to ribbons. But though she struck with bruising force, it was not enough to smash the case and accomplish the purpose of that will.

It withdrew, meshed again in a struggle with the invisible other.

More than one voice chanted now. She was sure of that as she clung where the attack had left her, spread-eagled against the case. Her mind whirled. She felt sick with vertigo as forces beyond her knowledge or description stirred into a mad swirl about her. Then the ankh swung over her shoulder, hung directly above the case.

Wide-eyed, she watched the rod stir, rise until it stood vertical, without any support. It leaped upward, its glowing head thumped against the top of the case, while the ankh swooped downward to meet it at just the same point.

The gla.s.s cracked, shattered and fell. And the liberated rod spun through the air. Shadows gathered around it in a hectic dance, as it tipped, fell to the floor.

Above it, the ankh hovered as if trying to spur the staff to another effort. Was that the shadow of a hand hand-a hand so tenuous that it was only outlined in the glow of the ankh? It was something, of that Tallaha.s.see was sure, and it was reaching for the rod. But before it settled close enough to grasp it, the rod itself s.h.i.+fted. Not upward again, but, snakelike for all its stiffness, across the floor. s.h.i.+fted. Not upward again, but, snakelike for all its stiffness, across the floor.

Again the will seized upon Tallaha.s.see, whirled her about, and gave her what amounted to a vicious shove after the slithering rod. The ankh flew up at her, as if to dash itself into her face and was warded off by what she could not see, so that it hovered, making effectual darts as she was forced to obey the orders of her strange captor. She must get the rod into her hands-that was the imperative now filling her whole mind.

Again a voice called out. And Tallaha.s.see realized dimly that the chanting had ceased. The ankh swung away from her, skimmed through the air, to remain poised in one corner of the room toward which the rod was moving with Tallaha.s.see stumbling after it. Since she moved puppetwise by the other will, she was clumsy, slow, trying always to break away from that hold.

But the will was implacable and its hate hot. Not that the hate was turned wholly against her, as a very inept tool it must make use of, but rather more at the enemy it fronted. She saw now that the rod lay quiet.

Once more, a ghostly outline moved across the glow at its head. Meanwhile the will hurled her forward. She tripped and fell as her outstretched hand closed on the other end of the rod just as it was plucked upward. Tallaha.s.see held as she was commanded and forced to. Wraith-like that grasping hand might be-if hand it was-but there was strength in its hold upon the rod. The ankh dipped and touched the gleaming head of the staff.

It was like being caught in an explosion. There followed light, heat, pain, and such a noise as deafened Tallaha.s.see. The girl had a terrifying sensation of being swung out over a vast void of nothingness. That other presence was left behind. Her hands were no longer glued to the rod by its command. But she kept her grasp for her very life's sake. In her welled the knowledge that, should she let go, the answer was death-a death that was unnatural enough to be worse than any her kind had feared since their first beginnings.

She centered every bit of the force and strength left in her to retain her hold. There was nothing nothing around her, a nothingness so negative as to tear at her sanity. Hold-ON! around her, a nothingness so negative as to tear at her sanity. Hold-ON!

Then the nothingness closed about her in a vast and horrible wrapping of utter blackness. Despairing, she lost consciousness.

-3-.

It was hot, as if she lay on the hearth of some furnace breathing in the stifling heat of the blast. Tallaha.s.see tried to edge away from that heat, unaware as yet of anything else. She opened her eyes.

Sun-so blazing that it made an instant glare about her. With a little cry, Tallaha.s.see shrank back, her hands over her eyes to s.h.i.+eld them. It was hot, and she was lying under the sun-where? Her thoughts began to stir feebly, throwing off the torpor left from those last nightmare minutes.

Still s.h.i.+elding her eyes, she dug her elbows painfully against a hard surface on which she lay, levering up the forepart of her body, making herself look around.

Immediately before her was an outcrop of rock. And on its surface she could pick out a pattern deep-eroded by time into just faint lines. She crawled to that rock, lifting sand-encrusted hands for its support in order to gain her feet. Then she turned, giddy and sick, feeling as if each labored movement might send her sailing out again into that dark void. Her dulled mind jibbed at even thinking of that-place.

More rocks beyond. Or were those long-ago quarried stones built into a piece of tumbled wall? But at their foot....

Tallaha.s.see stifled the scream in her throat, made herself blink, and blink again, to be sure she really saw that body stretched out on rock and sand.

The stranger lay face down, arms flung out above the head. In one hand was grasped the ankh, in the other the rod. They no longer pulsed with light. Or perhaps, in this blinding sunlight, their auras of radiation could not be distinguished.

Tallaha.s.see inched along the rock which was her support. Was the stranger unconscious? And who-and what-and where?...She felt as if she were going mad, or had pa.s.sed the border of sanity during the time that the rod had drawn her on.

There was a thin, almost gossamer cotton robe on the body, so finely woven that one could see the gleam of darker flesh through it. It was simply made, reaching from armpit to ankle, with two broad straps of the same material holding it over the shoulders, a belt which gave off glints of gemlike color against the dead white of the garment. The stranger's shoulder-length hair had been woven into many tiny braids, each tipped with a bead of gold, and there was another band of the same precious metal forming a narrow diadem to hold those braids in confinement.

Tallaha.s.see was reminded of something. She moved a fraction closer, fearing to stoop lest her present vertigo send her toppling against the stranger. Instead she dropped carefully to her knees and put out a hand to the shoulder where the brown skin was a shade or so darker than her own.

With an effort she rolled the stranger over, the body limply slack in her hold. She was sure somehow that this was death. But, as the other's face came into view, Tallaha.s.see screamed and flinched away.

Sand was matted on the generous lips, caught in eyebrows that had been darkened and extended by the use of a heavy cosmetic. But the face itself-NO!

Save for the slight difference in the color of their skins, she was looking down at the same features she saw every time she stood before a mirror! Oh, there were differences-the brows artificially lengthened toward the temples and darkened, thick lines drawn under the now-closed eyes, while the headband rose in front to the likeness of a striking serpent.

"Egypt-" Tallaha.s.see whispered. "Egypt and royal..." For that serpent diadem could be worn only by a woman of the Blood, and one placed very close to the throne itself.

She scuttled back on her hands and knees. The girl was dead, she was certain of that. Now she looked around wildly. . . .

They were in a place where sand had been scoured away, perhaps by the wind of some dune-las.h.i.+ng storm, perhaps by human effort. There were ruins all about, stones pitted and defaced by those same grit-filled winds. And she was nowhere on the earth she knew! Shaking with a growing fear, she crouched against the rock that had earlier supported her and tried to understand what had happened. There was no sane explanation for this, none at all!

She was still locked in rising panic when she caught sounds, first faint and then growing louder. It was such chanting as she had heard just before this unbelievable thing had happened to her. Only now it rang far more clear and distinct. It-they-were coming! She tried to force herself once more to her feet, but she literally did not have the strength to move. She could only huddle where she was as the nightmare went on and on.

There was no word in that rise of sound which she could understand. But she began to believe she could detect more than a single voice. Once more Tallaha.s.see made a desperate effort. She must hide! Only, under this blistering sun, in this waste of stone and sand, there was no place of concealment she could see.

The voices ceased suddenly. Now came the ringing of a sistrum. Tallaha.s.see gave a weak laugh. Egypt! But why was her unconscious (which certainly must be directing this weird dream) so set on reproducing Egypt?