all of me! I won’t be this hideous monster you see. I’ll be what I was before those Egyptian fools put her in the sun!”
“Hmmm, so she kept her promise,” I said “She walked into the rays of Amon Ra so you would all burn up.”
“What do you know of it? She hasn’t moved or spoken in a thousand years. I was that old when they removed the stones that enclosed her. She couldn’t have walked into the sun. She is a great sacred vial of blood, an enthroned source of power, that’s all, and I will have that blood, which your Marius has stolen out of Egypt.”
I pondered, searching desperately for a means to free myself.
“You came to me as a gift,” said the burnt one. “You were all I needed to take on Marius! He wears his affections and weakness for you like bright silk garments for me to see!”
“I see,” I said.
“No, you don’t!” he said. My head was pulled back by my hair. I screamed in annoyance.
His sharp teeth went into my neck. A series of heated wires threaded me through and through.
I swooned. An ecstasy rendered me motionless. I tried to resist, but I saw visions. I saw him in his glory, a golden man of an Eastern land, in a Temple of skulls. He was dressed in bright green silk breeches with an ornamented band around his forehead. Face delicate of nose and mouth. Then I saw him, without explanation, burst into flames that sent his slaves screaming. He twisted and turned in these flames, not dying but suffering exquisitely.
My head was swimming, and I was weakening. My blood flowed from all parts of my body into his wretched form. I thought of my Father, of my Father saying, “Live, Lydia!” I wrenched my neck away from him and turned, poking him hard with my shoulder, and then pushed him with two hands so that he slid backwards on the floor. I brought my knee up against him. Nothing could get him off me!
I tried to reach for my dagger, but I was too dizzy, and besides, I didn’t have my dagger. My only chance lay with the burning oil in the lamps at the foot of the stairs. I turned, reeling, and the monster caught me again with both hands by my long hair. He yanked me back.
“You demon!” I said. His strength had worn me out He tightened his grip slowly. I knew that soon my arms would break.
“Ah,” he said, twisting free of me, and holding tight as ever. “My purpose is served.”
A brighter light suddenly filled up the stairway.
A torch was placed at the foot of the steps. Then Marius stepped into view.
He appeared utterly calm and he appeared to be looking past me into the eyes of my captor.
“And what will you do now, Akbar?” Marius asked. “Hurt her, violate her but one more time, and I shall kill you. Kill her, and you will die in agony. Let her go and you can run.”
He mounted the steps one by one.
“You underestimate me,” said the burnt thing, “you arrogant Roman bumbler, you think I don’t know you keep the Queen and the King, that you stole them out of Egypt? It is known. The word is spread through the world, through the Northern woods, through the wild lands, through the lands of which you know nothing. You killed the Elder who guarded the King and the Queen and stole them! The King and Queen have not moved or spoken in a thousand years. You took our Queen from Egypt. You think you are a Roman Emperor? You think she is a Queen you can take captive, like Cleopatra! Cleopatra was a Greek whore. This is our Isis, our Akasha! You blaspheming fool. Now let me into Akasha’s presence. Stand against me, and this woman, the only mortal whom you truly love, dies.”
Marius came up step by step towards us.
“Akbar, did your informants tell you that it was the Elder in Egypt, her long keeper himself, who left the Royal Pair to stand in the sun?” asked Marius. He took another step upward. “Did they tell you that it was the Elder that caused the sun to strike them, the fire which destroyed hundreds of us, and spared the oldest only so they could live in agony as you do?”
Marius made a quick gesture. I felt the fangs deep in my neck. I couldn’t get away. Again, I saw this