The queen of the damned - Anne Rice [141]
He laughed. “I was never young. But what do you mean by this?”
“You rant and rave. And I can’t console you.”
“And you would if you could?”
“Yes.”
He laughed softly.
But very gracefully she opened her arms to him. The gesture shocked him, not because it was extraordinary but because he had seen her so often go to embrace her sister in this manner in the dreams. “My name is Maharet,” she said. “Call me by my name and put away your distrust. Come into my house.”
She leant forward, her hands touching the sides of his face as she kissed him on the cheek. Her red hair touched his skin and the sensation confused him. The perfume rising from her clothes confused him—the faint Oriental scent that made him think of incense, which always made him think of the shrine.
“Maharet,” he said angrily. “If I am needed, why didn’t you come for me when I lay in that pit of ice? Could she have stopped you?”
“Marius, I have come,” she said. “And you are here now with us.” She released him, and let her hands fall, gracefully clasped before her skirts. “Do you think I had nothing to do during these nights when all our kind were being destroyed? To the left and right of me, the world over, she slew those I had loved or known. I could not be here and there to protect these victims. Cries reached my ears from every corner of the earth. And I had my own quest, my own sorrow—” Abruptly she stopped.
A faint carnal blush came over her; in a warm flash the normal expressive lines of her face returned. She was in pain, both physical and mental, and her eyes were clouding with thin blood tears. Such a strange thing, the fragility of the eyes in the indestructible body. And the suffering emanating from her—he could not bear it—it was like the dreams themselves. He saw a great riff of images, vivid yet wholly different. And quite suddenly he realized—
“You aren’t the one who sent the dreams to us!” he whispered. “You are not the source.” She didn’t answer.
“Ye gods, where is your sister! What does all this mean?”
There was a subtle recoiling, as if he’d struck her heart. She tried to veil her mind from him; but he felt the unquenchable pain. In silence, she stared at him, taking in all of his face and figure slowly and obviously, as if to let him know that he had unforgivably transgressed.
He could feel the fear coming from Mael and Santino, who dared to say nothing. Pandora drew even closer to him and gave him a little warning signal as she clasped his hand.
Why had he spoken so brutally, so impatiently? My quest, my own sorrow . . . . But damn it all!
He watched her close her eyes, and press her fingers tenderly to her eyelids as if she would make the ache in her eyes go away, but she could not.
“Maharet,” he said with a soft, honest sigh. “We’re in a war and we stand about on the battlefield speaking harsh words to each other. I am the worst offender. I only want to understand.”
She looked up at him, her head still bowed, her hand hovering before her face. And the look was fierce, almost malicious. Yet he found himself staring senselessly at the delicate curve of her fingers, at the gilded nails and the ruby and emerald rings which flashed suddenly as if sparked with electric light.
The most errant and awful thought came to him, that if he didn’t stop being so damned stupid he might never see Armand. She might drive him out of here or worse. . . . And he wanted so—before it was over—to see Armand.
“You come in now, Marius,” she said suddenly, her voice polite, forgiving. “You come with me, and be reunited with your old child, and then we’ll gather with the others who have the same questions. We will begin.”
“Yes, my old child. . . . ” he murmured. He felt the longing for Armand again like music, like Bartók’s violin phrases played in a remote and safe place where there was all the time in the world to hear. Yet he hated her; he hated all of them. He hated himself. The other twin, where was the other twin? Flashes of heated jungle. Flashes of the vines torn and the saplings breaking underfoot. He tried