Chinese art—Ming, Sung, Han, Tang. I don't know my dynasties. Big Kwan Yin. Foo dogs. A Ho-Ti in the milky perfection of jade. That's valuable, the jade. Tao—
"Go to the stairs."
The staircase is around the corner, in the outer hallway. There are other rooms opening off the hall, containing more glass cases. A fortune in the stuff. Hexler must be filthy rich.
"Move slowly."
I must climb the stairs. They creak, so easy does it. One step at a time. And now where?
"The third door on the left."
It's darker here in the upper hall, because all the doors are closed. One, two, three. Here.
Now, open the door. Open it just a trifle, as the Voice directs. There's moonlight streaming through the window and I can see.
I'm standing in a bedroom, a vast bedroom. The high, canopied bed in the corner is a million miles away. Its curtains waver slowly in the breeze from the open window, billowing back and forth like batwings flapping in the dark. The bed is a huge beast, crouching over its prey—
I walk silently, threading a path through the tables lining the long room. There are bell-jars on the tables, with more jade beneath them. Jade and ebony and ivory. There's a jackal-headed figure beneath one jar. That would be Anubis, the Opener of the Way. Who opened the way for me?
And what's that sound . . . ?
I hear a tinkling. A tinkling in the moonlight, a faint clicking and clattering. Something is stirring in the breeze; the same breeze that ripples the short hairs rising along the nape of my neck.
Now I see it, on the table, next to the bed. There's a little silver skeleton, mounted on a pedestal.
I stare at it, but there's no mistake. It's a perfectly-fashioned miniature skeleton, completely articulated; a silver skeleton with ruby eyes, hinged and jointed and hung from a hook rising out of the pedestal's base.
No wonder it clicks and clatters. For the tiny figure is weaving with the wind, bobbing and grimacing in a dance of death.
Death.
I must get out of here. What am I doing? This is all wrong, I must—
"The window-seat. Open the window-seat."
