The Vampire Chronicles Collection - Anne Rice [380]
“ ‘Come with me,’ he said. And he commenced to walk with a shuffling step out of the large room and down a long corridor, decorated as the chamber had been.
“I sensed we were in an even older place, something built before the temple from which we’d just come. I do not know how I knew it. The chill you felt on the steps here on the island was not there. You don’t feel such things in Egypt. You feel something else. You feel the presence of something living in the air itself.
“But there was more palpable evidence of antiquity as we walked on. The paintings on these walls were older, the colors fainter, and here and there was damage where the colored plaster had flaked and fallen away. The style had changed. The black hair of the little figures was longer and fuller, and it seemed the whole was more lovely, more full of light and intricate design.
“Somewhere far off water dripped on stone. The sound gave a songlike echo through the passage. It seemed the walls had captured life in these delicate and tenderly painted figures, it seemed that the magic attempted again and again by the ancient religious artists had its tiny glowing kernel of power. I could hear whispers of life where there were no whispers. I could feel the great continuity of history even if there was no one who was aware.
“The dark figure beside me paused as I looked at the walls. He made an airy gesture for me to follow him through a doorway, and we entered a long rectangular chamber covered entirely with the artful hieroglyphs. It was like being encased in a manuscript to be inside it. And I saw two older Egyptian sarcophagi placed head to head against the wall.
“These were boxes carved to conform to the shape of the mummies for which they were made, and fully modeled and painted to represent the dead, with faces of hammered gold, and eyes of inlaid lapis lazuli.
“I held the candle high. And with great effort my guide opened the lids of these cases and let them fall back so that I might see inside.
“I saw what at first appeared to be bodies, but when I drew closer I realized that they were heaps of ash in manly form. Nothing of tissue remained to them except a white fang here, a chip of bone there.
“ ‘No amount of blood can bring them back now,’ said my guide. ‘They are past all resurrection. The vessels of the blood are gone. Those who could rise have risen, and centuries will pass before we are healed, before we know the cessation of our pain.’
“Before he closed the mummy cases, I saw that the lids inside were blackened by the fire that had immolated these two. I wasn’t sorry to see them shut up again.
“He turned and moved towards the doorway again, and I followed with the candle, but he paused and glanced back at the painted coffins.
“ ‘When the ashes are scattered,’ he said, ‘their souls are free.’
“ ‘Then why don’t you scatter the ashes!’ I said, trying not to sound so desperate, so undone.
“ ‘Should I?’ he asked of me, the crisped flesh around his eyes widening. ‘Do you think that I should?’
“ ‘You ask me!’ I said.
“He gave one of those dry laughs again, that seemed to carry agony with it, and he led on down the passage to a lighted room.
“It was a library we entered, where a few scattered candles revealed the diamond-shaped wooden racks of parchment and papyrus scrolls.
“This delighted me, naturally, because a library was something I could understand. It was the one human place in which I still felt some measure of my old sanity.
“But I was startled to see another one—another one of us—sitting to the side behind the writing table, his eyes on the floor.
“This one had no hair whatsoever, and though he was pitch black all over, his skin was full and well-modeled and gleamed as if it had been oiled. The planes of his face were beautiful, the hand that rested in the lap of his white linen kilt was gracefully curled, all the muscles of his naked chest well defined.
“He turned and looked up at me. And something immediately passed between us, something more silent than silence, as it can be with us.
“ ‘This is the Elder,’ said