That moment was the end of my life as I had known it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

You may wake now,” says Drood.

I open my eyes. No, that is not correct. My eyes were already open. Now, with his permission, I can see through them.

I cannot lift my head nor move it from side to side, but from where I lie supine on a cold surface, I can see enough to know that I am not in King Lazaree’s opium den.

I am naked—that much I am able to see without moving my head and can tell from the press of cold marble on my back and buttocks that I am lying on what might be a block of stone or a low altar. I feel the movement of cold air across my belly and chest and genitals. Above me on the right, a giant black onyx statue, at least twelve feet tall, shows a man’s body naked to the waist with a short gold skirt wrapped around his middle, and his powerful arms ending in huge, muscled hands hold a golden spear or pike. The man’s body stops at the neck, and the head of a jackal completes the terrible black form. To my left, a similar lance-holding statue rises to the same height, but instead of a jackal’s visage, this one sports the head of some great curved-beaked bird. Both heads stare down at me.

Drood steps into my field of vision and also looks down on me in silence.

The creature is as pale and loathsome as I had dreamt of him in Birmingham and as I had glimpsed him in my home in June of the previous year, but otherwise he looks very little the same.

He is naked from the waist up, except for a wide, heavy collar that appears to be made of hammered gold with inset rubies and strips of lapus. On his naked, grub-white chest hangs a heavy gold figure that at first I take to be a Christian cross, but then notice the elongated loop at the top. I have seen similar items behind glass in the London Museum and even know it is called an ankh, but I have no idea of its significance.

Drood’s nose is still no more than two slits in a living skull’s face, his eyelids are still missing, but around his deep-set eyes he has painted whorls of dark blue—so dark as to appear almost black—that come to points like cat’s eyes at the sides of his temples. A stripe of blood-crimson rises from between where his eyebrows should be and then up over his forehead to bisect his bald, white, and seemingly skinless scalp.

He is carrying a jewel-encrusted dagger. Its tip has been freshly dipped into red paint or blood.

I try to speak but find I cannot. I am not able even to open my mouth or to move my tongue. I can feel my arms, legs, fingers, and toes, but cannot will them to move. Only my eyes and eyelids are mine to control.

He faces to my right, with the dagger in his hand.

“Un re-a an Ptah, uau netu, uau netu, aru re-a an neter nut-a.

I arefm Djewhty, meh aper em heka, uau netu, uau netu, en Suti sau re-a.

Khesef-tu Tem uten-nef senef sai set.

Un re-a, apu re-a an Shu em nut-ef tui ent baat en pet enti ap-nef re en neteru am-es.

Nuk Sekhet! Hems-a her kes amt urt aat ent pet.

Nuk Sakhu! Urt her-ab baiu Annu.

Ar heka neb t’etet neb t’etu er-a sut, aha neteru er-sen paut neteru temtiu.

May Ptah give me voice, remove the wrappings! Remove the wrappings which the lesser gods have placed over my mouth.

Come unto me Djewhty, bearer of Heka, full of Heka, remove the wrappings! Remove the wrappings of Suti which fetter my mouth.

May Tem turn back those who would restrain me.

Give me voice! May my mouth be opened by Shu with that divine instrument of iron with which the gods were given voice.

I am Sekhet! I watch over the heaven of the west.

I am Sakhu! I watch over the souls of Annu.

May the gods and their children hear my voice, and resist those who would silence me.”

He takes the dagger and traces a vertical line in the air to my right, cutting downward in a smooth down deadly motion.

“Qebhsennuf!”

What sound like a hundred other voices—all belonging to forms out of my line of sight—cry out in unison:

“Qebhsennuf!”

He turns to the direction my feet are pointing and traces a vertical line in the air.

“Amset!”

The choir of bodiless voices answers him:

“Amset!”

Drood turns to my left and draws a vertical line in the air with the dagger.

“Tuamutef!”

“Tuamutef!” cries the choir.

Drood raises the dagger towards my face and traces another vertical line in air that I now realise is thick with smoke and incense.

“Hapi!

I am the flame which shines upon the Opener of Eternity!”

The invisible chorus cries out in a single, sustained note that sounds like the baying of jackals along the Nile at midnight.

“Hapi!”

Drood smiles at me and says very softly, “Misster Wilkie Collinss, you may move your head, but only your head.”

Suddenly I am free to move. I cannot lift my shoulders but I throw my head from side to side. My glasses are gone. Everything more than ten feet away is cloaked in blur: marble columns rising into darkness, hissing braziers breathing smoke, robed figures by the score.

I do not like this opium dream.

I do not think that I’ve said this aloud, but Drood throws back his head and laughs. Candlelight glints on the gold and lapis collar around his thin neck.

I try to move my body until I weep from frustration, but only my head obeys my commands. I thrash my face back and forth, tears spilling onto the white altar.

“Misster Wilkie Collinsss,” purrs Drood. “Praise to the lord of truth, whose shrine is hidden, from whose eyesss mankind issued, and from whose mouth the godsss came into being. As high as isss the heaven, as broad as isss the earth, as deep as isss the sea.”

I try to scream but my jaw and lips and tongue still will not obey me.

“You may speak, Misster Wilkie Collinsss,” says the pale face. He has moved around to my right side now, the red-tipped dagger held in both hands against his chest. The circle of hooded forms has pressed closer.

“You filthy bugger!” I cry. “You wog bastard! You stinking foreign piece of dung! This is my opium dream, damn your eyes! You are not welcome in it!”

Drood smiles again.

“Misster Wilkie Collinsss,” he whispers, the smoke from the braziers and incense burners swirling around his face, “above me stretchesss Nuit, the Lady of Heaven. Beneath me liesss Geb, the Lord of the Earth. At my right hand Ast, Lady of Life. At my left hand Asar, the Lord of Eternity. Before me—before you—risesss Heru, the beloved Child and the Hidden Light. Behind me and above us all shines Ra, whose namesss even the godsss do not know. You may be silent now.”

I try to scream but once again I cannot.

“From this day forward, you shall be our scribe,” says Drood. “In the yearsss remaining to your mortal life, you shall come to uss to learn of our faith’s old daysss, old waysss, and eternal truthsss. You shall write of them in your own language so that generationsss yet unborn shall know of usss.”

I flail my head from side to side but cannot will my muscles or voice to work.

“You may speak if you wish,” says Drood.

“Dickens is your scribe!” I cry. “Not I! Dickens is your scribe!”

“He isss one of many,” says Drood. “But he… resistsss. Misster Charlesss Dickensss believesss that he iss the equal of a priest or priestessss of the Temple of Sleep. He believesss that his force of will isss equal to our own. He hasss taken instead the ancient challenge that would exempt him from being our full-time scribe.”

“What is that exemption?” I cry out.

“To kill an innocent human being in full sight of othersss,” hisses Drood with a return of that small-toothed smile. “He hopesss that his imagination shall provide the equal service, that the gods will be fooled, but so far he… and hisss much-vaunted imagination… have failed.”