The Cygnet and the Swan
SITTING UPON AN iron bed-frame in an otherwise empty room below Sir George's quarters, Madame Destine's mind was an uneven patchwork of conflicting thoughts and emotions. She clenched handfuls of her dress in her fists, tugging them towards her. It was late and she was tired, yet she could not sleep – not with that incessant voice constantly calling her name.
Destine's heart stopped.
Her name?
She looked around, but she was still in the room within Fantoma's bowels, still confined. Perhaps the day had finally taken its toll on her, and sleep had crept in unannounced. It must have been the last vestiges of her conscious mind giving way to tiredness. She lay down on the bed. She could feel the coolness of the underground room making her eyes itch, and she could feel the tightness of her chest drawing air. Amongst these feelings, something else began tugging at her senses, but it was not sleep.
A sensation descended upon her, similar to the glimpse of the past that had manifested itself the previous night. Knowing this, Destine accepted the feelings more readily, forcing her mind to relax. She could sense something approaching. It was like a dim candle in a darkened room, yet she could feel its warmth upon her skin. Consciously, she steered herself towards it.
Her location melted away, and just like the apres-monition in the clearing by lake, she was somewhere else. She was in the same place, but not necessarily in the same time. The sand was cold beneath her toes.
Sand?
An amorphous carpet of mist clung to the damp sand that parted between her toes. Trails of warm breath floated from Destine's mouth, curling into the violet-black sky. She moved forward across raised dunes, with the mist parting as she strode through it. Up ahead, she could see a silhouette of a man upon the rise of the hill, and she approached unerringly, feeling not one jot of fear.
He was in his mid-fifties with a thin, waxed moustache adorning his top lip. He was wearing braces over a collarless shirt, with a broad belt around his waist and a variety of items hanging from it, such as a telescope, a canteen of water and a small pocket-knife. He seemed to be waiting for her, and as Destine stepped closer, he beamed a once-handsome smile in her direction.
Yet another apres-monition from my past, she thought to herself.
'No, Madame…not this time,' said Aloysius Bedford. 'You look surprised to see me.'
'Actually…I am more surprised that you can see me.'
'Of course I can see you!' Bedford replied. 'I might be dead, but I'm not blind.'
Destine faltered in her approach. 'Dead?'
'As a doornail,' replied Aloysius.
'If you are dead…then you are obviously not from the present…nor the future. Yet you say you are not an apres-monition? So what are you? I have never been able to commune with spirits of the dead before.'
'Perhaps they just had nothing much to say.' Aloysius gave a deep-throated chuckle. 'Your gifts are still a mystery to you, aren't they? Even after all this time? You truly have no idea what wonders you can perform…what wonders you will perform.' His voice floated upon the air like spring blossom, lighter than the cool breeze that nipped at Destine's bare feet. 'Perhaps it is time that I enlightened you.'
Destine scowled at the spirit before her, its form fluctuating in and out of cohesiveness. 'If this is no apres-monition…how can this be, Aloysius? If that is indeed who you are and not some trick of my mind.'
'What do you think? Do you believe that I am Aloysius?' the ghost asked.
Destine shook her head…which then seemed to evolve into a nod of its own accord. 'I wish you to be…I have so much to ask you!'
'And I have so much to tell,' Aloysius responded, with a playful smile.
'But how can any of this be true? How am I able to see you? To speak with you?' Destine asked. 'As attuned to the spiritual world as I am…I had thought there was supposed to be a barrier between the living and the dead?'
'And indeed there is…yet some wrongs are worth crossing barriers to right,' answered Aloysius, his answer not remedying the confusion in the Frenchwoman's head. 'You are presently on a course laid out by your younger self, a course that has already been long and arduous, yet there is far more to be done before you will see its end. Your bewilderment is causing you to drift from the road…and I am here to put you back on track.'
Destine took a sudden step forward at his words, hungry for more.
'You know? You know of the task that I set myself in those letters? The task to find your journal?' she asked.
Aloysius nodded. 'Of course I know, Dusty. It is my actions that have guided you thus far.'
'Then tell me why I could forget all that occurred in Umkaza all those years ago?' the Frenchwoman demanded. 'So many dead – murdered! How could I have ignored that…choosing instead to write a letter that I had no assurance I would ever get to read?'
'You had assurance enough, Destine,' said Aloysius. 'You had your premonitions to guide you…even if they are no longer your guide at this time. That was the only thread you had to cling to, my dear, the only hope. You knew that you were powerless to undo what had been done…and only by sealing that night within your words were you able to survive. As for how it has slipped from your recall…what occurred twenty years ago in Umkaza was horrific for anyone to witness. But for someone as gifted as you are, it was even more so. It almost cost you your life.'
Destine so wished to interrupt, but something held her tongue. As the ghost of Aloysius Bedford continued, finally she was on the verge of so many answers.
'Your connectivity to human emotion has been a great tool to you in the past, yet on that night in 1833, it was almost your undoing. Back then it was not as easy for you to control…to deafen your ears to the feelings of those around you. Unknown emotions and sensations would come at you unannounced, and often you were unsure which were your own feelings, and which were those belonging to others. On the night that those men died in Umkaza, your senses were wide open. You had no defence. You "felt" every death as though it was your own and the extrasensory feedback almost crippled you.'
'That does not explain why I would forget,' said Destine. 'If I experienced all that pain for myself, surely it is something that would stay with me for ever.'
'The human mind is a conscious beast, my dear,' replied Aloysius. 'And it's propensity for self-preservation goes far beyond your conscious levels. When it is threatened, it does what many beasts do – it runs away. It retreats into itself. Yet no matter how long it curls up and cowers, the danger will always be there. That is why you have no memory of that time. It was hidden away, deep within your subconscious…because your mind knew that should you ever discover it…you would relive all that pain and misery and death all over again.'
'And yet…since I arrived in Egypt…since learning of my warning and finding your journal…I have felt glimpses of my past coming back to me,' said Destine. 'So what does that mean, Aloysius?'
'It means that you are near to unearthing that which you secreted in your memory, Destine,' Aloysius replied, his voice stronger now, more forceful. 'You have strong mental defences, my dear – far stronger than you know, but your reawakening to your past began weeks ago when you decided to come back to Egypt. Back to a place that harboured so many painful memories. Once you had learned of the letters, the stronger the psychic connections to your past became, and with every step that you took, the more your mind was opened.
'It was difficult for me not to reveal myself to you before now, and spell out your task in detail. But it had to be done slowly. At your mind's pace. You had to piece it together bit by bit. Were you to have access to your memories in one fell swoop, the pain would have torn your mind to pieces, leaving you nothing but a mindless husk!'
'I must be imagining this,' whispered Destine.
'You are,' replied Aloysius merrily. 'But don't let that put you off. Soon this will all make sense. Soon you will understand why matters of the mind cannot be rushed. You are a cygnet right now…but soon you shall become a swan.'
'And what is that supposed to mean?' Destine asked.
'You have discovered my journal, you have experienced the atrocity in Umkaza firsthand, and your task is now fully illuminated before you. You know what you must do, and so, now that it is safe for me to relinquish my hold over your clairvoyant abilities, they will soon return…and stronger than ever.'
Destine's mouth fell open, sensing shock for the first time since meeting the spirit, and her lips quivered with fear. 'Your hold? What do you mean…your hold?'
'It was necessary, Destine. For your own good,' said Aloysius.
'My own good? What are you talking about?' demanded Destine. 'What was for my own good?'
Aloysius Bedford's form dissipated slightly, as if it was difficult maintaining coherence. His pale face glanced at the Frenchwoman, seeing her anger all too clearly. 'I had to act to protect you. I have been trapped in this formless limbo waiting for you to catch up with your past, and once it became clear that you were to return to Egypt, I had no recourse but to do what I did.'
'What?' Destine snapped. 'What did you do to me?'
'As an astral being, it is forbidden for me to intervene in affairs of the living. We have discarded our physical forms, and with them…all ties to our lives are cast off also,' explained the ghost. 'But what happened in Umkaza was something that I could not abandon, Destine! Even a spirit can be haunted…and that memory would never fade from my mind. And so, when Fate conspired to bring you back to Egypt, I had to protect you and ensure that the clarity of the message was not diluted.'
'I am waiting, Aloysius,' said Destine. 'Ghost or not, my tolerance for being toyed with is not one that you wish to measure.'
Aloysius held up his hands in submission. 'You assumed that it was the elixir of life that had stolen your clairvoyant gifts from you, but it is not so,' he admitted, dolefully. 'It was I that stole them from you.'
'You?'
'But only because I had to!' insisted Aloysius, and his expression quickly adjusted to one of grave concern. 'Your thoughts had to be clear of noise. You had to believe in the task laid at your feet. If you were to think it a stray thought from your past, you would never have paid it any heed! I could not take that chance, and so even though intervention is not permitted, it is within my power…and it was necessary if light was to be shed on the crimes that occurred in Umkaza. But as powerful as I am in this form, I could not hold the memories back for ever…not once you got closer to your goal. Shards of your past have been slipping through my fingers these past few days…giving you glimpses of your time in Egypt. The chains that bound your memory were weakening, and I was forced to exert all my energies to ensure that your past was fed to you carefully…lest you go insane.'
'You mean…my apres-monitions?' Destine gasped.
'Yes,' Aloysius confirmed, his eyes twinkling like onyx.
Destine's legs buckled and she slumped onto the cold sand. The mist rose up to her shoulders only to turn tail and evaporate around her. She almost wished that she would become lost within it, transported back to reality.
'All of this…it is so much to take in,' she mumbled. 'You are a ghost. After all I have seen and done…this is so unbelievable.'
'If it helps, try not to think of me as a ghost,' said Aloysius. 'Think of me as a sort of intermediary between you and your subconscious. A translator, if you will…surely you can identify with that!' He beamed a translucent smile. 'You asked me a few minutes ago how you were able to speak to me. This is why. Now your mind is clear for the first time in your life. No little side distractions from the future to get in the way. You have learned much of what occurred in Umkaza on the night that my fate was sealed…but you do not know it all, you do not know enough.'
'Enough to do what?' asked Destine.
'Absolutely the right question, my girl,' Aloysius grinned. 'I speak for all the men that perished in Umkaza, Destine. All their tormented souls, locked within that moment. There is more to be told before the scales can be balanced…and they will be free.'
Destine rubbed her arms furiously as another trail of warm breath floated from her mouth. 'So tell me…what is so important that you would tear down the barriers between life and death to communicate with me? Godfrey Joyce is our enemy, yet he works for the British government! I can do nothing to expose him!'
'This is more important than him,' said Aloysius. 'Just as I was, Godfrey Joyce is just a plaything of a much grander puppeteer.'
'Enough riddles, monsieur!' snapped Destine.
'I have spent twenty years as a ghost, and you're the impatient one?' laughed Aloysius. 'All right. I will tell you…' In actuality, the ghost did not need to breathe, yet there was still so much of it that was still a man, and Aloysius Bedford took a long, thoughtful breath before he continued. 'Back in 1833, I was hired by a Chinaman named Cho-zen Li to find one of Egypt's greatest treasures – the Pharaoh's Cradle. A treasure lost for centuries beneath the sand, with rumour and guesswork the only guide to its location. Cho-zen promised that he knew the whereabouts of the Cradle, and I leapt at the chance to uncover it.'
'Cho-zen Li…I read of his name in your journal,' said Destine.
'Yes…devil that he is,' snarled Aloysius. 'You see, Cho-zen was after a bigger prize than the Pharaoh's Cradle alone. He'd heard tell of a curse upon it: any man to disturb the treasure would die. Now, I'm no fool, Destine. I've heard a thousand curses over the years, and not a one of them has ever been grounded in any truth…except for this one.'
'The Pharaoh's Cradle was cursed?' gasped Destine. 'It was responsible for the massacre in Umkaza?'
'In a way…' replied Aloysius. 'Yet the curse was not born of sorcery or witchcraft – the Cradle was infected with a deadly bacterium that had festered within its tomb. The expedition was all a sham so that Cho-zen Li could get his hands on that bacterium…and use it.'
'Use it? Use it how?' asked Destine.
'Let me rephrase that…use me.'
'To do what?' enquired Destine, hooked on every word. 'Why would your benefactor hire you to find the Pharaoh's Cradle if he suspected it might be infected with this bacterium?'
'He wasn't after the treasure – he was after the bacterium! He'd been searching for it for years…and my dig site provided him with all the proof that he required. We didn't piece it together at first…but when several of my men fell sick after examining some of the wrappings inside the mouth of the tomb, I knew something was up. It took us close to a month to clear the tomb's entrance to excavate the Cradle, but in that time, the sick men grew worse. Their eyes became drawn, their noses bled profusely, they became little more than walking dead.' Aloysius's shimmering light seemed to fade, only to return twice as brightly. 'The bacterium fed off them like a parasite, and I watched them wither away before my eyes. All three of them died exactly a month after infection, on the same day, the same hour, practically the same minute. Like clockwork. I'd never seen anything so ghastly, and our best medical man had no idea what we were dealing with.'
'How ever did you discover the cause?' asked Destine.
Aloysius smiled, just a hint. 'You warned me. You came barging into my tent one night, telling tales of a vision that you had experienced. You told me that Godfrey Joyce was betraying me and was allied with Nastasi. They sought to take the Cradle from me by force – now that Cho-zen Li's little field test had been successful. You told me things that horrified me, Destine…things that would occur if the Pharaoh's Cradle ever saw daylight again. Your visions were remarkably accurate, telling that the bacterium was transferred by skin contact…passed on by the merest handshake.' Bedford's spectral eyes looked down at the sand, losing their focus, yet his mind was as sharp as a pin. 'Had your clairvoyant gifts not warned me, I would have done Cho-zen Li's bidding…becoming infected with the plague myself.
'Imagine, Destine: I would have been welcomed back to England and hailed a hero. The scientific community would have flocked to my side, desperate to be seen with the archaeologist that found the lost Pharaoh's Cradle. I would have infected them all…every one of them. The Empire's greatest minds – dead because of me! That is why I had to act…and I died for it.' All light disappeared from Aloysius's face, making him look ghostlier.
'What happened?' asked Destine, remembering that she was talking to a dead man.
'After your warning, I did the only thing that I could. I uncovered the Pharaoh's Cradle, exposing myself to the plague in the bargain, and then hid it as best I could so that Joyce and Nastasi would never find it,' explained Aloysius. 'Then I wrote down what I could as a warning to others…sealing my thoughts, inscribing them for the future…and I gave it to you for safekeeping.'
'Your journal!' gasped Destine.
'That diary is the key, Destine,' confirmed Aloysius. 'But I misjudged how traumatised you'd be following the massacre in Umkaza. Your grip on reality was slipping away by the second, weakened by all that you had suffered. I prayed that you would be strong enough to leave word of what happened…just as I had left word to you.'
'My letters!' Destine cried. 'I remember! I was weak…in pain…and I feared that Nastasi's men were pursuing me. And so I took the journal to a place far from Umkaza, to a wondrous place that you had once shown me…Sekhet Simbel. I had hoped to return and collect it once my mind was healed.' She snapped her fingers, grasping the splinters of memory. 'Not knowing where to turn, I relied on my clairvoyance to be my compass. It led me to Agra, to the only friend that I could trust…Ahman. I sensed a strong link to that place – to him – and before my mind was cleansed of the memory, I sat down to write those letters…knowing they were safe in Ahman's care.'
'And they were, Madame,' reminded Aloysius. 'For twenty years those letters remained unopened…the secret preserved – until it was time for your destiny to bring you back to Egypt and they called you to them.' He looked over his shoulder nervously, as though someone were pursuing him. As he gripped Destine's wrists, she felt a cold chill constrict around them, as if they were submerged in iced water. 'Destine, you have to put an end to this! My diary is the key, remember?'
'Aloysius, what do you mean?' Destine called to him.
'Warn others! Warn them of the Eleventh Plague,' said Aloysius Bedford, his voice fading along with his spectral form, gradually becoming one with the mist that hung in the air. 'Destine, my time is short and I must go. They have come for me.'
'Who?' asked Destine. 'Who has come for you?'
An almighty white blast of light bathed the sand dunes and a piercing wail like a thousand screams shattered the silence. Destine clamped her hands to ears and crouched into a ball on the ground. Moments later, the silence returned and Aloysius was gone from the desert…and so was Madame Destine.
She was back in the underground citadel in Fantoma. Alone in the room. Numbly, she glanced down at her bare feet, staring at the sand between her toes, and she remembered. She remembered everything. The past was back in place, pigeonholed within her memories. And they were not alone in her mind. Her clairvoyant gifts had returned, just as Aloysius had said they would. A shower of elation soaked Destine's body as she felt the tingle of her ability's re-emergence.
Madame Destine was whole again.
She had become a swan.
Her mind was being flooded with messages, images and visions of the future, as though she had returned from a long holiday to greet a carpet of unopened letters. As the onslaught besieged her, one vision in particular was possessed of clarity – the last prophecy that she had experienced prior to her voyage to Egypt. Considering all that she had learned from Aloysius's spectre, the words seemed to make a strange sort of imperfect sense:
The past and the present shall entwine once more.
Beware the dawn of the Eleventh Plague.
'The journal is the key!' Destine gasped. 'That is why I wrote those letters to myself, that is what they were leading me to…and now I know why! I have to use it to make sure that the Eleventh Plague can never rise again.' She patted herself down, sifting through the folds of her gown for the book – just as a sudden realisation slammed so violently into her mind that it brought a tear to her eye. She recalled the moments before the hooded riders on the road to Umkaza attacked her, she recalled giving the book to her trusted friend for safekeeping, and she recalled exactly where Aloysius's journal was.