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I was petrified, yet I wasn't frightened, and this man, this dark-eyed one, was merely looking at us with the softest sympathy in hisface, and the same unbounded acceptance of us that I had seen inHim in Heaven when He'd turned and taken me by the arms.
The Son of God.
"Come here, Lestat," he called now softly, over the desert wind,in a human voice. "Come closer."I looked at Memnoch. Memnoch was looking at him, too, nowand he gave a bitter smile. "Lestat, it is always a good idea, no matterhow He is behaving, to do exactly what He says."Blasphemy. I turned, shivering.
I went directly towards the figure, conscious of each shuffling stepthrough the boiling sand, the dark thin form coming ever more clearto me, a tired and suffering man. I sank down on my knees in front ofHim, looking up into His face.
"The Living Lord," I whispered.
"I want you to come into Jerusalem," He said. He reached outand brushed back my hair, and the hand was as Memnoch describedit, dry, calloused, darkened from the sun as his brow was darkened.
But the voice hovered somewhere between natural and sublime, itstruck a timbre beyond the angelic. It was the voice that had spokento me in Heaven, only confined to human sounds.
I couldn't answer. I couldn't do anything. I knew that I would donothing until I was told. Memnoch stood off, arms folded, watching.
And I knelt, looking into the eyes of God Incarnate and I knelt beforeHim completely alone.
"Come into Jerusalem," He said. "It won't take you long, nomore perhaps than a few moments, but come into Jerusalem withMemnoch, on the day of my death, and glimpse my Passion梥ee mecrowned with thorns and carrying my cross. Do this for Me beforeyou make your decision whether or not to serve Memnoch or theLord God."Every part of me knew I couldn't do it. I couldn't stand it! Icouldn't watch it. I couldn't. I was paralyzed. Disobedience,blasphemy, those weren't the issues. I couldn't endure the thought of it! Istared at Him, at His sunburnt face, at His soft and loving eyes, at thesand clinging to the edge of His cheek. His dark hair was neglected,wind-torn, swept back from His face.
No! I can't do it! I can't bear it!
"Oh, yes, you can," He said reassuringly. "Lestat, my bravebringer of death to so many. Would you really return to Earthwithout this glimpse of what I offer? Would you really give up this chanceto glimpse me crowned with thorns? When have you ever passed up achallenge, and think what I am offering to you now. No, youwouldn't back off from it, even if Memnoch urged you to do it."I knew He was right. Yet, I knew I couldn't stand it. I could not gointo Jerusalem and see the actual Christ carrying His Cross. Icouldn't. I couldn't. I didn't have the strength, I would?I was silent.
A riot of thought within me condemned me to utter confusion andcontinued paralysis. "Can I look at this?" I said. I closed my eyes!
Then I opened them and looked at Him again and at Memnoch, whohad come near and looked down with a near, cold expression at me,cold as his face could be, which wasn't cold at all so much as serene.
"Memnoch," said God Incarnate. "Bring him, show him the way,let him but glimpse it. You be his guide, and then go on with yourexamination and your appeal."He looked at me. He smiled. How frail a vessel He seemed for Hisown magnificence. A man with lines around his eyes from the hotsun, with worn teeth, a man.
"Remember, Lestat," God said to me. "This is only the world.
And you know the world. Sheol awaits. You have seen the World andHeaven but you have not seen Hell."18WE WERE in the city, a city of deep brown and fadedyellow stones and clay. Three years had passed. It had tobe so. All I knew was that we were in a huge crowd ofpeople, robed and veiled and ragged梩hat I could smell the humansweat, and the heat of stagnant breath, and stench of human wasteand camel dung overpoweringly, and that though no one took noticeof us, I could feel the press around us, I could feel unwashed menshoving against me, and brushing in front of me, and the sand saltedthe air here within the walls of the city, within these narrow streets,just as it had salted the air of the desert.
People clustered in small rounded doorways, peeped from windowsabove. Soot mingled with the everlasting sand. Women drawingtheir veils around their faces cleaved to one another, pushing pastus. Up ahead I could hear screams and shouting. Suddenly, I realizedthat the crowd was pressed so tight around us, I couldn't move.
Desperately I looked for Memnoch.
He was right beside me, watching all calmly, neither of us shiningwith any preternatural gleam among these drab and soiled humans,these everyday creatures of this early and harsh time.
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