not even if we had proclaimed her the goddess and obeyed her every command."
"It was madness," he answered. "They would have stopped her; destroyed her; more quickly than she ever dreamed."
Silence.
"The world would not have wanted her," he added. "That's what she could never comprehend."
"I think in the end she knew it; no place for her; no way for her to have value and be the thing that she was. She knew it when she looked into our eyes and saw the wall there which she could never breach. She'd been so careful with her visitations, choosing places as primitive and changeless as she was herself."
He nodded. "As I said, you know the answers to your questions. So why do you continue to ask them? Why do you lock yourself here with your grief?"
I didn't say anything. I saw her eyes again. Why can't you believe in me!
"Have you forgiven me for all of it?" I asked suddenly.
"You weren't to blame," he said. "She was waiting, listening. Sooner or later something would have stirred the will in her. The danger was always there. It was as much an accident as the beginning, really, that she woke when she did." He sighed. He sounded bitter again, the way he'd been in the first nights after, when he had grieved too. "I always knew the danger," he murmured. "Maybe I wanted to believe she was a goddess; until she woke. Until she spoke to me. Until she smiled."
He was off again, thinking of the moment before the ice had fallen and pinned him helplessly for so long.
He moved away, slowly, indecisively, and then went out onto the terrace and looked down at the beach. Such a casual way of moving. Had the ancient ones rested their elbows like that on stone railings?
I got up and went after him. I looked across the great divide of black water. At the shimmering reflection of the skyline. I looked at him.
"Do you know what it's like, not to carry that burden?" he whispered. "To know now for the first time that I am free?"
I didn't answer. But I could most certainly feel it. Yet I was afraid for him, afraid perhaps that it had been the anchor, as the Great Family was the anchor for Maharet.
"No," he said quickly, shaking his head. "It's as if a curse has been removed. I wake; I think I must go down to the shrine; I must burn the incense; bring the flowers; I must stand before them and speak to them; and try to comfort them if they are suffering inside. Then I realize that they're gone. It's over, finished. I'm free to go wherever I would go and do whatever I would like." He paused, reflecting, looking at the lights again. Then, "What about you? Why aren't you free too? I wish I understood you."
"You do. You always have," I said. I shrugged.
"You're burning with dissatisfaction. And we can't comfort you, can we? It's their love you want." He made a little gesture towards the city.
"You comfort me," I answered. "AH of you. I couldn't think of leaving you, not for very long, anyway. But you know, when I was on that stage in San Francisco ..." I didn't finish. What was the use of saying it, if he didn't know. It had been everything I'd ever wanted it to be until the great whirlwind had descended and carried me away.
"Even though they never believed you?" he asked. "They thought you were merely a clever performer? An author with a hook, as they say?"
"They knew my name!" I answered. "It was my voice they heard. They saw me up there above the footlights."
He nodded. "And so the book, The The Queen Of The Damned," he said.
No answer.
"Come down with us. Let us try to keep you company. Talk to us about what took place."
"You saw what took place."
I felt a little confusion suddenly; a curiosity in him that he was reluctant to reveal. He was still looking at me.
I thought of Gabrielle, the way she would start to ask me questions and stop. Then I realized. Why, I'd been a fool not to see it before. They wanted to know what powers she'd given me; they wanted to know how much her blood had affected me; and all this time I'd kept those secrets locked inside. I kept them locked there now. Along with the image of those dead bodies strewn throughout Azim's temple; along with the