forties, with almond skin and a long, narrow face framed by a pale blue headscarf that matched her eyes. She wore an employee badge clipped to the waist of her ankle-length dress. “One of the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons ever discovered. Our pride and joy.”
I wondered, for a brief instant, what a necromancer like Damien Ecko could do with the skeleton of a T. rex. I shrugged the idea off. Nobody’s
that
good.
“Dr. Khoury,” I said, turning to face her. “I assume Bentley told you I was coming.”
Psychic tendrils snaked through the air, violet and glistening, meeting between us. As they brushed, I tasted what little of her leaked out from the edges of her mental shields. Ink-stained hands and long hours in dark libraries. Sandalwood and ritual.
She read me the same way. I wasn’t sure what she sensed—you never know how you look in someone else’s eyes, much less their second sight—but she gave a faint nod as we reeled back our senses. A magician’s handshake.
“It was good to hear from him,” she said. Now she offered me her physical hand. Her grip was firm and dry. Almost oddly dry—her skin had the texture of wax cloth.
“I need to know about Egypt. Well, I think so, anyway.”
“You came to the right place.” She smiled and gestured for me to follow her across the vast lobby floor. “The ancient Near East is my specialty. Come, let’s walk the exhibit. Maybe you’ll see what you’re looking for.”
We walked through a recreation of an Egyptian tomb, where ancient walls—carved out of the original stone and flown across the ocean—stood on display behind sheets of Plexiglas. Faint traces of pigment still stained the rows of hieroglyphs, worn away by time, and I could only imagine how colorful they must have once been.
“I’m embarrassed to admit this is a blank spot in my education,” I told her. “Everything I know about ancient Egypt comes from old Universal monster movies.”
“The real history is infinitely more interesting. But less Boris Karloff. An unfortunate trade.”
I decided that I liked Halima.
We descended a winding staircase to the exhibit hall below. As we strolled through the dimly lit cases, looking for a spot to talk away from tourists’ ears, one display stopped me in my tracks. It was a sarcophagus, its top carved to resemble a young woman’s face. Her sculpted hair flowed down over the coffin’s husk, which was painted from end to end in ornate imagery. Animal-headed gods stood in procession under unfurled wings, while the young woman’s wide, open eyes looked up at the heavens.
“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Halima stared into the display case enraptured. “Her name is Chenet-a-a. She lived in the third intermediate period—about three thousand years ago—when elaborate mummifications were more popular than ever before. A good time to die.”
“Why is her coffin so bright, while the tomb walls upstairs barely have any paint on them? Is it a reconstruction?”
“All original. This was an
inner
coffin. It was kept securely inside a larger, plainer wooden sarcophagus. This material is called
cartonnage
. Barely stronger than an eggshell. If we tried to open it, it would crumble to pieces at a touch.” She looked over at me and smiled. “So we let her sleep.”
I saw a couple of pots and jars on the ground around the coffin, but nothing like what I’d glimpsed in Ecko’s office.
“What about sealed jars? Four of them, a little under two feet tall, with animal-head lids. That mean anything to you?”
Halima led me around the corner, past a massive stone sarcophagus, and pointed into another case. They weren’t an exact match, but the jars in the case and the ones I’d seen at Ecko’s were birds of a feather.
“Canopic jars,” she explained. “Used during mummification to store and protect the vital organs of the deceased. Those heads aren’t animals. They represent the four sons of the god Heru, or Horus in the Greek
I wondered, for a brief instant, what a necromancer like Damien Ecko could do with the skeleton of a T. rex. I shrugged the idea off. Nobody’s
that
good.
“Dr. Khoury,” I said, turning to face her. “I assume Bentley told you I was coming.”
Psychic tendrils snaked through the air, violet and glistening, meeting between us. As they brushed, I tasted what little of her leaked out from the edges of her mental shields. Ink-stained hands and long hours in dark libraries. Sandalwood and ritual.
She read me the same way. I wasn’t sure what she sensed—you never know how you look in someone else’s eyes, much less their second sight—but she gave a faint nod as we reeled back our senses. A magician’s handshake.
“It was good to hear from him,” she said. Now she offered me her physical hand. Her grip was firm and dry. Almost oddly dry—her skin had the texture of wax cloth.
“I need to know about Egypt. Well, I think so, anyway.”
“You came to the right place.” She smiled and gestured for me to follow her across the vast lobby floor. “The ancient Near East is my specialty. Come, let’s walk the exhibit. Maybe you’ll see what you’re looking for.”
We walked through a recreation of an Egyptian tomb, where ancient walls—carved out of the original stone and flown across the ocean—stood on display behind sheets of Plexiglas. Faint traces of pigment still stained the rows of hieroglyphs, worn away by time, and I could only imagine how colorful they must have once been.
“I’m embarrassed to admit this is a blank spot in my education,” I told her. “Everything I know about ancient Egypt comes from old Universal monster movies.”
“The real history is infinitely more interesting. But less Boris Karloff. An unfortunate trade.”
I decided that I liked Halima.
We descended a winding staircase to the exhibit hall below. As we strolled through the dimly lit cases, looking for a spot to talk away from tourists’ ears, one display stopped me in my tracks. It was a sarcophagus, its top carved to resemble a young woman’s face. Her sculpted hair flowed down over the coffin’s husk, which was painted from end to end in ornate imagery. Animal-headed gods stood in procession under unfurled wings, while the young woman’s wide, open eyes looked up at the heavens.
“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Halima stared into the display case enraptured. “Her name is Chenet-a-a. She lived in the third intermediate period—about three thousand years ago—when elaborate mummifications were more popular than ever before. A good time to die.”
“Why is her coffin so bright, while the tomb walls upstairs barely have any paint on them? Is it a reconstruction?”
“All original. This was an
inner
coffin. It was kept securely inside a larger, plainer wooden sarcophagus. This material is called
cartonnage
. Barely stronger than an eggshell. If we tried to open it, it would crumble to pieces at a touch.” She looked over at me and smiled. “So we let her sleep.”
I saw a couple of pots and jars on the ground around the coffin, but nothing like what I’d glimpsed in Ecko’s office.
“What about sealed jars? Four of them, a little under two feet tall, with animal-head lids. That mean anything to you?”
Halima led me around the corner, past a massive stone sarcophagus, and pointed into another case. They weren’t an exact match, but the jars in the case and the ones I’d seen at Ecko’s were birds of a feather.
“Canopic jars,” she explained. “Used during mummification to store and protect the vital organs of the deceased. Those heads aren’t animals. They represent the four sons of the god Heru, or Horus in the Greek
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