Pandora - By Anne Rice Page 0,78

quite beyond all reason. He turned back to the Queen and reached out for her foot.

How her toenails flashed in the light with the golden flesh beneath them. But she was stone-still, as was the crownless King, without seeming judgment or power.

The creature suddenly sprang up and tried to seize the Queen by the neck!

I screamed.

“Shameless, despicable.”

Swiftly the frozen right arm of the Queen rose, her hand surrounding the burnt thing’s skull and crushing it, the blood gushing down her as the monster gave his last fractured cry for mercy. She caught his body as it dropped over her waist. She hurled it in the air, and all its limbs broke loose from it, crashing to the floor like so much timber.

A gusting wind caught each remnant and gathered them all in one as a lamp fell from its three-legged stand to spill its burning oil on the remains.

“The heart, look,” I said. “I can see its heart. The heartbeats.”

But the fire quickly consumed the heart, consumed the flexing fingers and the writhing toes. There was a great stirring, a dance in the fire of bones, bones whirling in the flames, and then the bones blackened, thinned, snapped to pieces, became fragments; all of this thing was reduced at last to smoking cinders, crisping and skittering on the floor.

Then came the breeze again, full of the breath of the garden, lifting these cinders and carrying them away, like so many fragile tiny black insects, into the shadows of the antechamber.

I was spellbound.

The Queen was as before, her hand in its old place. She and the King stared at nothing, as if nothing had taken place. Only the wretched stain on her gown bore witness.

Their eyes took no heed of Marius or of me.

Then there was only quiet in the chapel. Only sweet perfumed quiet. Golden light I breathed deeply. I could hear the oil in the lamps turned to flame. The Mosiacs were peopled with finely made worshipers. I could see the slow minute beginnings of decay of the various flowers, and it seemed but another strain of the same song that expressed their growth, their browning edges but another color in no contradiction to their brilliant colors.

“Forgive me, Akasha,” Marius said softly, “that I let him come so close. I was not wise.”

I cried. Great gushing tears came from me.

“You summoned me,” I said to the Queen through my tears. “You called me here! I will do all you want of me.”

Slowly her right arm rose; it rose from her thigh and extended itself and her hand very gently curved in the beckoning gesture of the dream, but there was no smile, no change in her frozen face.

I felt something invisible and irresistible wrap itself around me. It came from her outstretching welcoming arm. It was sweet and soft and caressing. It made a flush of pleasure through all my limbs and my face.

I moved forward, wound up in its will.

“I beg you, Akasha!” Marius said softly. “I beg you under the name of manna, under the name of Isis, under the name of all goddesses, don’t hurt her!”

Marius simply didn’t understand! Marius had never known her worship! I knew. I knew that her blood drinker children had meant to be judges of the evildoer, and drink only from the condemned, according to her laws. I saw the god of the dark cave, whom I’d seen in my vision. I understood all.

I wanted to tell Marius. But I couldn’t. Not now. The world was reborn, all systems built upon skepticism or selfishness were as fragile as spiderwebs and meant to be swept away. My own moments of despair had been nothing more than detours into an unholy and self-centered blackness.

“The Queen of Heaven,” I whispered. I knew I was speaking in the ancient tongue. A prayer came to my lips.

“And Amon Ra, the Sun God, for all his power, shall never conquer the King of the Dead or his bride, for she is the ruler of the starry heavens, of the moon, of those who would bring the sacrifice of the evildoer. Cursed be those who misuse this magic. Cursed be those who seek to steal it!”

I felt myself, a human, held together by the intricate threads of blood which Marius had given me. I felt the design of its support It had no weight my body.

I was lifted towards her. Her arm came around me and pulled my hair back from my face. I put out my arms