The view from the street of The University of Ancient Cultures had given a false impression. Of course if I had studied my map in more detail, I would have realised just how big it was. It was just that the buildings were so old they only had three stories at most, and it sprawled over a considerable area, whereas more modern universities might consist of a single high-rise building. But here it was, square after square after square surrounded by old red brick walls, each square with its own little garden. There were libraries, lecture theaters, stairs, old pillars, vaulted ceilings and windows of colored glass. I walked through lots of squares, and opened many doors and walked through some ground floor halls only to find myself in yet another square.
To put it simply: I was lost.
After having wandered around for half an hour I simply sat down on a bench.
"I suppose they have so few applicants they don't want to let them get away..." a voice said.
On another bench in front of me, almost hidden by a large rose bush on the opposite side of the square, was the guy whose toes I had squashed, just sitting there with his back pack.
"Oh, so you're lost too?" I asked.
"Very much so, I'm afraid. I was just waiting for someone to walk by so I could follow them somewhere," he ruffled his dark hair. "I'm Miro, by the way. My family originally came from Egypt, which is why I am here, really. They are very proud of ancient Egyptian history and one of us had to be an Egyptologist. As my old aunt is... well, not getting any younger... they decided it was about time for one of us to apply to this university. My sisters refused. Too stuffy, they said. So the lot fell on me."
"Interesting... why on earth does your family want to have one Egyptologist in the family?" I asked, "Oh, and I am Nina. From the Nordic Plate."
"Pleased to meet you, Nina," Miro smiled, "and it has to do with our legacy. Or anyway, that's what they tell me."
"Legacy?"
Miro nodded and continued, "We have in our possession some volumes of ancient Egyptian scripts. Museums have been trying to buy them from our family for ages. It was going on even before the Impact. We managed to save them all from the catastrophe."
"Well, shouldn't they be in a museum?"
"It's a bit more complicated than that... it seems that we get to live on the Palace Plate for as long as we are taking care of those ancient texts and studying them. If we give them away, the trust that feeds us will kick us out."
"That sounds rather... strange," I tried to find the proper word, "what kind of trust is that?"
"Well, that is kinda strange too. My aunt knows, of course, but she has never explained it to me. It has to do with a certain group of... people. Unusual people..." Miro clearly did not want to tell me what the group was. "All we know is that someone owns the place we live in, and pays all our costs in return for us keeping the library and researching it in order to find... something."
"Ok, that is officially odd," I said, wondering why he was telling me all this.
Miro seemed to be having second thoughts about the discussion as well.
"Tell me about it..." he said, clearly changing the subject, "but I am quite certain that I'll be accepted here as a student, as the professors all know of which family I'm a member, and they are all drooling over the possibility of being allowed to have a peek at our texts. And you?"
"Nah... I wasn't really applying for real. I was more interested in seeing the Library of Ancient Tomes. This was one of the few opportunities that outsiders have to get into the University Plate so I pretended I was applying to a university."
"Pretended? But if you wanted to visit the Library of Ancient Tomes, you must be interested in ancient writing as well? Any particular subject?"
"Well... ancient Egyptian curses. Cursed souls, to be exact." It sounded so odd that I thought he would laugh at me outright. That isn't what happened.
Miro's smile died so fast it shocked me. He was on his feet in an instant, gathered up his belongings and was obviously about to leave in a hurry when a figure clad in black entered the garden at some distance from us.
"Shit!" Miro said between his teeth, sinking back onto the bench and leaning backwards so that the bush hid him.
"What? Who is that?" I saw an extremely elegant lady in high heels.
"You're trying to tell me that you don't know her?" Miro asked in a voice that to my surprise was filled with irony.
"Her? Why would I know her? No, I've never seen her in my life before!"
Miro seemed to be unsure of what to do next. He looked around as if he was going to jump into the bush beside his bench. And then he did just that - climbed over the backrest of the bench, keeping as low as he could. I stared at the bush, barely seeing Miro's shadowy form hidden in its leaves. Then I heard approaching steps and decided to play stupid.
"Hello, dear..."
The woman had walked straight up to me and was now standing with enviable balance on the sandy path in her high heels. Perhaps it was intuition that made me dislike her immediately. That, or the feeling of two very hot hands grabbing mine, trying to pull me back. A swarm of flies appeared from somewhere and buzzed straight at the lady like tiny kamikaze pilots. She waved her hand to get them off her, but to no avail.
I considered myself warned and directed a blankly innocent look at the lady.
"I was wondering if you have seen my nephew. He seems to have lost his way... I was looking for him at the entrance exam hall, but they said he had already left. Did you by any chance take part in the same exam?" the lady tried to smile kindly, but to me she looked like a hyena baring her teeth. It was something to do with the cold eyes.
"Oh no, I don't have the head for that kinda thing," I invented on the spot, swirling my ponytail around one finger. "I'm here waiting for my aunt. She's the one who's taking the exam. To be honest, I cannot understand why anyone would want to read about weird old mummies and all that. Creepy, if you ask me. And sooo boring!"
I rolled my eyes and dug up a pack of chewing gum from my pocket. I put two pieces in my mouth and chewed them with my mouth open – a disgusting habit of Tina's which I now copied to good effect. The woman almost asked me what someone like me was doing at the university, then, if I wasn't applying, but she refrained. That might have something to do with the smacking noises resulting from my chewing, or from the vacant stare that accompanied it.
"Well, if you see him, would you let me know, dear?" Another icy smile fixed itself on the blood red lips.
"Great lipstick!" I said admiringly. "Which brand is it?"
"Nothing you could afford, I'm sure," the lady said waving more flies away from her face. "Look, I'll give you my card. Let's arrange it so that if you do see him, you'll call me on this number without letting him know I am here. You see we haven't seen each other in years and he does not know I want to meet him. It'll be a wonderful surprise. He's about your age and height, has dark hair and eyes and an ancient Egyptian necklace in the shape of an ankh decorated with black and blue beads."
"In the shape of a what?" I popped my eyes open and chewed harder.
"Look at the card, dear, the picture on it is an ankh. Oh, and he's very good-looking. Now give me your phone number so I can send the card to you."
I did not want her to have my number or find out who I was, so I just chewed on my gum and sighed.
"Sorry, my phone isn't working. It had a little accident with a milkshake last week."
"All right..." the lady opened her handbag and with one fluid movement fished out an old-fashioned visiting card. If I didn't already find her very strange, this one act would have confirmed it. Her handbag was a considerable size, even though it was elegant: and she had taken the card out of it like a robot, not even glancing down. No woman I knew could manage such a feat without rummaging around a bit.
I took the thick visiting card, carefully avoiding touching her fingers, blew a pink bubble and nodded. My fingers let out an electric snap when I took the card and she looked startled. Her eyes narrowed and she stared at me as if she was trying to see through me.
"Oooo... I've seen earrings like that at the mall."
Not wanting to reveal how nervous her stare was making me, I pointed at the ankh-sign on her card, and then rummaged around for some mascara and a hand mirror in my own bag.
The woman seemed to have had enough of the aroma of strawberry chewing gum and the fat flies that filled the air around her.
"If you do see him and get him to call me, I'll buy you a lipstick like mine, darling," the woman stretched out her words like a southern belle from one of the American Plates, "it comes in a case with gilt decoration..."
"You don't say?" I commented to the mirror, adding mascara with my mouth hanging open. Tina always had her mouth open when she added mascara and I knew how inane that look was. The pink bubblegum on my tongue added to the effect. The woman shivered slightly.
I hoped I had convinced the lady in the tight black dress that I was a brainless teenager. "Yeah, I'll call you if I see him. And light pink lipstick suits me best."
"Thank you, dear..." the lady did not seem overly impressed with my intellectual qualities, but she kept on staring at me with a strange look on her face. When she lifted her hand as if to touch me, I jerked backwards instinctively, surprised at my own response. It was weird. I had felt a sensation like magnetic poles rejecting each other. Without another word she turned and hurried off.
The bush next to me began to shake and Miro appeared. He was laughing.
"Gosh you were good! If I hadn't been so scared I would have laughed out loud. Thank you for saving my skin."
"You're welcome. As a thank you - could I have a look at that ankh-necklace she was talking about? Is it very old?"
Miro looked at me for a while, but now he seemed convinced I was not in league with the woman in black – whoever she was – and so he lifted the amulet from under his shirt by holding it from its chain.
"That's quite beautiful," I said, bending closer to see it. I was careful not to touch it, though. After all, I didn't really know anything about Miro and his sudden rabbit-leap into the bushes had made me a bit wary, especially as I seemed to be giving out little electric shocks with my hands again. "And it looks ancient too!"
"It is," Miro agreed, "and... well, I am sorry. You must wonder why I behaved like that."
"Well, yes! You freaked out when I said I was interested in ancient Egyptian curses and cursed souls. Not to mention you immediately suspected I was in league with that... whoever that woman was, the one that looked like a hyena in human form. In my books that's kind of odd. Also I am not quite sure why you told me so much about your family..."
"What if I told you that that woman uses an ancient spell to command dark souls who can take over your body? And that she has been following me and I think she wants to exchange souls so she can get access to the scripts we have?" Miro blurted it all out in a rush.
I stared at him in disbelief.
"Yes, I know, no one would ever believe that," Miro shook his head, "but as you already think I am odd, I suppose I thought it wouldn't do any harm to tell you. But having that knowledge is enough reason not to let her touch you."
I was glad I was already sitting down when his words hit home. I found my own story tumbling out despite myself.
"Well, what would you say if I told you that the very thing happened to me just two days ago? Not that I have any ancient scripts, or what d'you call thems, ankhs, but the body-snatching part really happened to me. I actually left my body and saw a cursed soul trying to strangle me. That's why I'm here, I'm trying to find the same spell that she uses."
Now it was his turn to gawk at me.
"Ok, we need to talk." If he thought I was crazy, that made two of us. I continued, "Unless you want us to carry on staring at each other with flies zooming into our mouths, that is. Not to mention that woman still stalking around. Where can we go? Where's safe?"
"First of all, we need to find our way out," Miro said. "Let's go into one of these buildings and see if we can find someone to escort us."
Inside we found ourselves in a long hallway with no one else in sight.
"Let's try knocking on some doors," I suggested. "The whole building can't be empty, can it?"
Which we did. Apparently I was wrong as no one answered their door. At the end of the corridor we turned the corner and bumped into a cart full of detergents, rags and brushes. Some of the stuff fell off. The cleaning lady sighed and looked at us with tired eyes.
"Sorry!" Miro said. "Here, let me help you!"
He bent down to pick up what had fallen off and I helped him.
"Let me apologise properly," Miro smiled at the lady, "we seem to be lost and can't find a way out, and weren't paying enough attention..."
"Well, you are not the first to get lost here," the lady said. "Even some of the professors have to be shown the way out occasionally when we see them wandering about for the third day wearing the same clothes. We suspect they haven't even noticed they are lost, but often their families call us, the cleaners, inquiring if we have spotted them. Often we have but sometimes they really are lost. Most of the time, though, they've just forgotten to go home, absorbed in whatever it was they were doing."
"Well, lucky we found you!" Miro said. "Can you show us the way out?"
"Certainly," the lady wiped her hands on a hand towel and turned. "This way!" she said.
She knew exactly where she was going, but I have to say I completely lost my bearings after the fifth turn. It seemed we had been heading right towards the center of the complex as it took a considerable time for us to reach the main gate.
"By the way, there's something you should know. I think you might be the person that someone was asking me about. She said she was willing to pay me if I saw you, not long before you appeared," the cleaning lady said. "She told me you would be wearing the ankh-sign round your neck."
Miro's hand slapped his hand over the pendant still hanging in plain sight.
"But don't you worry about it. As far as that woman is concerned, I have never seen you," the cleaning woman said. "She was eating some candy and dropped the paper on the floor right in front of me. I don't like people who have no respect for my job. They should try it themselves! Still, she didn't strike me as someone I would like to offend or meet in a lonely place if she ever found out that I hadn't contacted her. She was... creepy, for want of a better word. Get going now, before she finds her way out of the building. Not that I expect her to. I told her I saw someone matching her description of you at the other end of the complex, and so it should take her at least an hour to find her way out."
"Thank you..." Miro bowed and extended his hand, smiling with relief.
The cleaning woman looked at the note he had placed on her palm, surprised. As was I. It was worth a month's salary.
Miro turned around as casually as if it was nothing more than a small tip and walked out of the gate into the street. He immediately took out his phone and spoke into it briefly. In less than a minute a limousine was gliding to an almost silent stop in front of him.
"Jump in," Miro said. "This is one place we can be certain we can talk without anyone overhearing us."