Pandora - By Anne Rice Page 0,64
will be protected from me and from them. You will never become part of this old tale that goes on verse by verse no matter how the world changes! I won’t allow it.”
“Explain these things to me. I will not cooperate with you until you explain everything. Do you know the anguish of the Queen of the dream? Her tears are like yours. Look. Blood. You stain your tunic! Is she here, this Queen; has she summoned me?”
“And what if she has and she wants to punish you for this former life you dreamt in which the evil gods kept her fettered. What if that is so!”
“No,” I said. “That is not her intention. Besides, I wouldn’t do what the dark gods of the dream said. I wouldn’t drink from ‘the Fount.’ I ran and that’s why I died in the desert.”
“Ah!” He threw up his hands! And walked away. He stared out into the dark peristyle. Only the stars lighted the trees there. I saw a faint glow coming from the far dining room on the other side of the house.
I looked at him, at his great height and the straightness of his back, and the way his feet were so firmly fixed on the mosaic floor. The lamps made his blond hair glorious.
I heard him, though he whispered with his back to me.
“How could this stupid thing have happened!”
“What stupid thing!” I demanded. I came to his side. “You mean that I am here, in Antioch. I’ll tell you how. My Father arranged my escape, that’s how . . . ”
“No, no, I don’t mean that. I want you to be safe, alive, out of all danger, protected, so that you flower as you are meant to do. Your petals aren’t even bruised at the edges, look at you, and your boldness heats your beauty! Your brother had no chance against your learning or your rhetoric. And yet you charmed the soldiers and made slaves of them with your superiority, never once rousing their resentment. You have years of life in you! But I must think of some way to make you safe. Look. This is the heart of it. You have to leave Antioch during the day.”
“ ‘Friend of the Temple,’ that’s what the Priest and Priestess called you. They said you could read the old script. They said you bought up all the Egyptian books when they came into the port. Why? If you seek her, the Queen, then seek her through me, because it is she who said that she had summoned me.”
“She didn’t speak in the dreams! You don’t know who spoke the words! What if the dreams do have their root in your migrant soul? What if you have lived before? And now you come to the Temple and there is one of these loathed ancient gods on the prowl and you are in danger. You must get away, from here, from me, from this wounded hunter, whom I will find.”
“You’re not telling me all you know! What happened to you, Marius! What happened! Who did this to you, this miracle of your radiance. This is no cloak; the light comes from within!”
“Damn it, Pandora, do you think I wanted my life foreshortened and my destiny extended forever!” He was suffering. He looked at me, unwilling to speak, and I felt such pain coming from him, such loneliness, that for a moment it was unbearable.
I felt a wave of my own anguish of the long night before, when the utter vacuity of all religions and creeds had struck me hard and the sheer effort of a good life seemed a fool’s trap, and nothing more.
He suddenly closed his arms around me, surprising me, holding me firmly and rubbing his cheek gently against my hair, and kissing my head. Silken, polished, gentle beyond words. “Pandora, Pandora, Pandora,” he said. “The beautiful little girl grown into the marvelous woman.”
I held this hard effigy of the most spectacular and singular man I had ever known or seen: I held it and this time heard the beating of his heart, the distinct rhythm of it. I laid my ear on his chest.
“Oh, Marius, if only I could lay my head to rest next to yours. If I could only yield to your protection. But you are driving me away! You don’t promise guardianship, you ordain flight for me, wandering and more nightmares, and mystery, and despair. No. I can’t.”
I turned away from his caresses. I could feel his kisses on my hair.
“Don’t