Napoleon's Pyramids by William Dietrich

tomahawk keeping me from feeling defenseless.
    “Thanks for the extra clothing,” I said.
    “I’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.”
    “Surely 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.
    “The 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.”
    “A glass of wine does more good with less trouble.”
    “On the contrary, alcohol can lead to ruin, my friend.” His aversion to wine was as odd for a Frenchman as his fondness for potatoes.
    “So you’d rather eat the dead?”
    “Dead who were prepared for everlasting life. The elixirs of the ancients are in their remains!”
    “Then why are they dead?”
    “Are 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 vintner, a Toulon cordage maker, and a customs officer who seemed determined to sleep the length of France. I’d hoped for the companionship of a lady or two, but none boarded. Our passage was swift on the paved French highways, but tedious, like all travel. We slept much of the rest of the night, and the day was a numbing routine of brief stops to change horses, buy mediocre fare, and use the rural privies. I kept looking behind but saw no pursuit. When I dozed I had dreams of Madame Durrell demanding rent.
    Soon enough we grew bored, and Talma began to pass the time with his tireless theories of conspiracies and mysticism. “You and I could be on a mission of historic importance, Ethan,” he told me as our coach clattered down the valley of the Rhône.
    “I thought we were merely running from my troubles.”
    “On the contrary, we have something vital to contribute to this expedition. We understand the limits of science. Berthollet is a man of reason, of cold chemical fact. But we Freemasons both respect science yet know the deepest answers to the greatest mysteries are in the temples of the East. As an artist, I sense my destiny is to find what science is blind to.”
    I looked at him skeptically, given that he had already swallowed three nostrums against the filth of the sewers, complained of stomach cramps, and thought the fact that his leg had gone asleep signaled final paralysis. His traveling coat was purple, as military as a slipper. This man was journeying to a Muslim stronghold? “Antoine, there are diseases in the East we don’t even have names for. I’m astounded you’re going at all.”
    “Our destination has gardens and palaces and minarets and harems. It is paradise on Earth, my friend, a repository of the wisdom of the pharaohs.”
    “Mummy powder.”
    “Don’t scoff. I’ve heard of miracle cures.”
    “Frankly, all this Masonic talk of Eastern mysteries hasn’t really made sense to me,” I said, twisting to stretch my legs. “What’s to be learned from a heap of ruins?”
    “That’s because you never really listen at our meetings,” Talma lectured. “The Freemasons were the original men of learning, the master builders who constructed the pyramids and great cathedrals. What unites us is our reverence for knowledge, and what distinguishes us is our willingness to rediscover truths from the distant past. Ancient magicians knew powers we cannot dream of. Hiram Abiff, the great craftsman who built Solomon’s temple, was murdered by his jealous rivals and raised from the dead by the Master Mason himself.”
    Masons were required to play out some of this fantastic story upon initiation, a ritual that had left me feeling foolish. One version of the story suggested resurrection, while another mere