The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers Page A

knife away. “As you know, this violates the terms of our agreement—you’ll be getting a fifty percent refund, and right now the guards will escort you to a trailer outside the lot, where you’ll be held in luxurious captivity until dawn. And in a spirit of friendly concern,” he added, with the coldest smile Doyle had ever seen, “I do strongly advise you to leave here quietly.”
    “Well, one good result of all that,” said Benner lightly as Treff was led, naked, out the door, “is that a dressing room is now free. In you go, Brendan.”
    Doyle stepped forward and, muttering “Excuse me” to several people, went into the newly vacated dressing room. There was a guard on a stool inside, and he looked relieved that this wasn’t Treff coming back in.
    “Doyle, aren’t you?” the man said, standing up.
    “Yes.”
    “Right, then, off with your clothes.”
    Sucking in his belly a little, Doyle obediently shed his clothes and hung his suit carefully on a hanger the guard handed him. There was a door in the back of the dressing room, and the guard bustled away through it, taking Doyle’s things with him.
    Doyle leaned against the wall, hoping they wouldn’t forget about him. He tried to scratch under the leather band on his forearm, but it was drawn too tight for him to get a finger under it. He gave up, resolving just to ignore the way the carved bit of green stone under the leather made his shaved skin itch. A mobile hook, Darrow had called it, and he’d let Doyle look at the thing before it was covered by the strap that would hold it tightly against him. Doyle had turned the small lozenge of green stone in his fingers, noting the symbols carved on it—they seemed to be a mix of hieroglyphics and astrological notations.
    “Don’t look at it so disapprovingly, Doyle,” Darrow had said. “It’s what will bring you back to 1983. When the 1810 gap comes to an end, this thing will pop back to the gap it came from, which is here and now, and as long as it’s in contact with your flesh it’ll take you back with it. If you were to lose it, you’d see us all disappear and you’d be marooned in 1810; which is why it’s to be locked onto you.”
    “So we’ll all just disappear from there after four hours?” Doyle had asked as Darrow soaped and shaved his forearm. “What if you’ve miscalculated the length of the gap, and we all disappear in the middle of the lecture?”
    “We wouldn’t,” Darrow had said. “You’ve got to be within the gap as well as touching the hook, and the gap is five miles away from the tavern we’re going to.” He laid the stone on Doyle’s arm and wrapped the wide leather band around it. “But we haven’t miscalculated, and we have a comfortable margin of time to get back to the gap field after the lecture, and we’re bringing two carriages, so,” he had said as he drew the strap tight and snapped the little lock onto it, “don’t worry.”
    Now, leaning naked against the wall of the dressing room, Doyle smiled at himself in the mirror. What, me worry?
    The guard came back and gave Doyle a set of clothes that presumably wouldn’t raise any eyebrows in 1810; he also gave him directions on how to put them on, and had actually to assist him in tying the little bow at the front of the cravat. “Your hair doesn’t need cutting, sir, the fashion in length is about the same again, but I will just brush it down a bit in front here, so; a bald spot’s nothing to be ashamed of. That’s it precisely, semi-Brutus style. Have a look at yourself now.”
    Doyle turned to the mirror, cocked his head and then laughed. “Not bad,” he said. He was wearing a brown frockcoat with two rows of buttons; in the front it came down only to belt level, but in back it swept in a long tail that reached to the backs of his knees. He had on tight tan trousers and knee-high Hessian boots with tassels, and the white silk cravat visible between the high wings of the coat’s collar gave him, he