The queen of the damned - Anne Rice [197]
“Why do you say so? Let us look to nature, as you wanted to do only moments ago. Go out in the lush garden that surrounds this villa; study the bees in their hives and the ants who labor as they have always done. They are female, my prince, by the millions. A male is only an aberration and a matter of function. They learned the wise trick a long time before me of limiting the males.
“And we may now live in an age where males are utterly unnecessary. Tell me, my prince, what is the primary use of men now, if it is not to protect women from other men?”
“What is it that makes you want me here!” I said desperately. I turned around to face her again. “Why have you chosen me as your consort! For the love of heaven, why don’t you kill me with the other men! Choose some other immortal, some ancient being who hungers for such power! There must be one. I don’t want to rule the world! I don’t want to rule anything! I never did.”
Her face changed just a little. It seemed there was a faint, evanescent sadness in her that made her eyes even deeper in their darkness for an instant. Her lip quivered as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t. Then she did answer.
“Lestat, if all the world were destroyed, I would not destroy you,” she said. “Your limitations are as radiant as your virtues for reasons I don’t understand myself. But more truly perhaps, I love you because you are so perfectly what is wrong with all things male. Aggressive, full of hate and recklessness, and endlessly eloquent excuses for violence—you are the essence of masculinity; and there is a gorgeous quality to such purity. But only because it can now be controlled.”
“By you.”
“Yes, my darling. This is what I was born for. This is why I am here. And it does not matter if no one ratifies my purpose. I shall make it so. Right now the world burns with masculine fire; it is a conflagration. But when that is corrected, your fire shall burn ever more brightly—as a torch burns.”
“Akasha, you prove my point! Don’t you think the souls of women crave that very fire? My God, would you tamper with the stars themselves?”
“Yes, the soul craves it. But to see it in the blaze of a torch as I have indicated, or in the flame of a candle. But not as it rages now through every forest and over every mountain and in every glen. There is no woman alive who has ever wanted to be burnt by it! They want the light, my beauty, the light! And the warmth! But not the destruction. How could they? They are only women. They are not mad.”
“All right. Say you accomplish your purpose. That you begin this revolution and it sweeps the world—and mind you I don’t think such a thing will happen! But if you do, is there nothing under heaven that will demand atonement for the death of so many millions? If there are no gods or goddesses, is there not some way in which humans themselves—and you and I—shall be made to pay?”
“It is the gateway to innocence and so it shall be remembered. And never again will the male population be allowed to increase to such proportions, for who would want such horrors again?”
“Force the men to obey you. Dazzle them as you’ve dazzled the women, as you’ve dazzled me.”
“But Lestat, that is just the point; they would never obey. Will you obey? They would die first, as you would die. They would have another reason for rebellion, as if any were ever wanting. They would gather together in magnificent resistance. Imagine a goddess to fight. We shall see enough of that by and by as it is. They cannot help but be men. And I could rule only through tyranny, by endless killing. And there would be chaos. But this way, there shall be a break in the great chain of violence. There shall be an era of utter and perfect peace.”
I was quiet again. I could think of a thousand answers but they were all short-circuited. She knew her purpose only too well. And the truth was, she was right in many things she said.
Ah, but it was fantasy! A world without males. What exactly would have been accomplished? Oh, no. No, don’t even accept the idea for a moment. Don’t even. . . . Yet the