Christ the Lord - Anne Rice [70]
Christ the Lord.
“What is it?” he demanded. “What did you say?”
I turned and looked at him, awakening from this terrible vision, this great sweep of destruction. I saw him again, vividly, in his finery, his skin no less fine than his costly robes.
“Those aren't your nations,” I said. “The kingdoms of this world aren't yours. They never were.”
“Of course they're mine,” he said. It was almost a hiss. “I am the ruler of this world and I always have been. I am its Prince.”
“No,” I said. “None of it belongs to you. It never has.”
“Worship me,” he said gently, beguilingly, “and I will show you what is mine. I will give you the victory of which your prophets sang.”
“The Lord on High is the One whom I worship, and no one else,” I said. “You know this, you know it with every lie you speak. And you, you rule nothing and you never have.” I pointed. “Look down, yourself, on this perspective that is so dear to you. Think of the thousands upon thousands who rise each day and go to sleep without ever thinking evil or doing evil, whose hearts are set upon their wives, their husbands, their fathers and mothers, their children, upon the harvest and the spring rain and the new wine and the new moon. Think of them in every land and every language, think of them as they hunger for the Word of God even where there is no one to give it to them, how they reach out for it, and how they turn from pain and misery and injustice, no matter what you would have them do!”
“Liar!” he said. He spit the word at me.
“Look at them, use your powerful eyes to see them everywhere around you,” I said. “Use your powerful ears to hear their cheerful laughter, their natural songs. Look far and wide to find them coming together to celebrate the simple feasts of life from the deepest jungle to the great snowbound heights. What makes you think you rule these people! What, that one may falter, and another stumble, and someone in confusion fail to love as he has striven to do, or that some evil minion of yours can convulse the masses for a month of riot and ruin? Prince of this world!
“I'd laugh at you if you weren't unspeakable. You're the Prince of the Lie. And this is the lie: that you and the Lord God are equal, locked in combat with one another. That has never been so!”
He was near petrified with fury.
“You stupid, miserable little village prophet!” he said. “They'll laugh you out of Nazareth.”
“It is the Lord God who rules,” I said, “and He always has. You are nothing, and you have nothing and rule nothing. Not even your minions share with you in your emptiness and in your rage.”
He was red faced, and speechless.
“Oh, yes, you have them, your minions. I've seen them. And you have your followers, those poor cursed souls you squeeze in your anxious fist. You even have your shrines. But how paltry are your grudging triumphs in this vast, vital world of blowing wheat and shining sun! How tawdry your attempts to rush into the breach of every petty dissension, to raise your puny standard over every hideous squabble or tenuous web of avarice and deceit—pathetic your one true possession: your lies! Your abominable lies! And always, always you seek to drive men to despair, to convince them in your envy and greed that your archenemy, the Lord God, is their enemy, that He is beyond their reach, beyond their pain, beyond their need. You lie! You have always lied! If you ruled this world you wouldn't offer to share a particle of it. You couldn't. There would be no world for you to share, because you would destroy it. You are yourself The Lie! And you are nothing other than that.”
“Stop it, I demand that you stop!” he