Ethan Gage Collection # 1 by William Dietrich

us. Then we stood under stone arches, catching our breath.
    â€œIs there a way out?” Talma asked.
    â€œPast the wine barrels is a grate. The drain is big enough to slip through and leads to the sewers. Some Masons escaped that way in the Terror.”
    My friend grimaced, but did not quail. “Which way to the leather market?”
    â€œRight, I think.” He stopped us with his hand. “Wait, you’ll need this.” He lit a lantern.
    â€œThanks, friend.” We scampered past his barrels, pried off the grate, and skidded thirty feet down a tunnel of slime until we poppedout into the main sewer. Its high stone vault disappeared into darkness in both directions, our dim light illuminating the scurrying of rats. The water was cold and stinking. The grate clanged above as our savior locked it back into place.
    I examined my smeared green coat, the only nice one I had. “I admire your fortitude in coming down here, Talma.”
    â€œBetter this and Egypt than a Parisian jail. You know, Ethan, every time I’m with you, something happens.”
    â€œIt’s interesting, don’t you think?”
    â€œIf I die of consumption, my last memories will be of your shouting landlady.”
    â€œSo let’s not die.” I looked right. “Why did you ask about the leather market? I thought the stage left near the Luxembourg Palace?”
    â€œExactly. If the police find our benefactor, he’ll misdirect them.” He pointed. “We go left.”
    S o we arrived: half wet, odiferous, and me without baggage except for rifle and tomahawk. We washed as best we could at a fountain, my green traveling coat hopelessly stained. “The potholes are getting worse,” Talma explained lamely to the postman. Our standing wasn’t helped by the fact that Talma had purchased the cheapest tickets, economizing by perching us on the open rear bench behind the enclosed coach, exposed and dusty.
    â€œIt keeps us from awkward questions,” Talma reasoned. With my own money mostly stolen, I could hardly complain.
    We could only hope the fast stage would get us well on the way to Toulon before the police got around to querying the stations, since our odd departure would likely be remembered. Once we reached Bonaparte’s invasion fleet we’d be safe: I carried a letter of introduction from Berthollet. I masked my identity with the name Gregoire and explained my accent by saying I was a native of French Canada.
    Talma had his own valise delivered before accompanying my adventure, and I borrowed a change of shirt before it was hoisted to the coach roof. My gun had to go in the same place, with only the tomahawk keeping me from feeling defenseless.
    â€œThanks for the extra clothing,” I said.
    â€œI’ve far more than that,” my companion boasted. “I’ve got special cotton for the desert heat, treatises on our destination, several leather-bound notebooks, and a cylinder of fresh quills. My medicines we will supplement with the mummies of Egypt.”
    â€œSurely you don’t subscribe to such quackery.” The crumbled dust of the dead had become a popular remedy in Europe, but selling what looked like a vial of dirt encouraged all kinds of fraud.
    â€œThe medicine’s very unreliability in France is the reason I want a mummy of my own. After recovering our health we can sell the remainder.”
    â€œA glass of wine does more good with less trouble.”
    â€œOn the contrary, alcohol can lead to ruin, my friend.” His aversion to wine was as odd for a Frenchman as his fondness for potatoes.
    â€œSo you’d rather eat the dead?”
    â€œDead who were prepared for everlasting life. The elixirs of the ancients are in their remains!”
    â€œThen why are they dead?”
    â€œAre they? Or did they achieve some kind of immortality?”
    And with that illogic we were off. Our companions in the coach proper were a hatter, a