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"... and each and every act, in its own way, Lestat, and I didn'tknow ... I didn't know...."Distinct and ghastly and demanding, he rose before me only torecede into the countless others.
In all directions I saw them. The others.
Scenario lapping into scenario, ashen colors brightening, or dyingin a murky haze, and rising here and there from the horrid furiousturbulent fields of Hell, the Purified Souls. There came the beat ofdrums, there came the piercing shrieks of some unendurable torture;a mass of men in crude white robes shoved into the blazing logs, theirarms appealing to the souls who shrank and howled and screamed inremorse, in awful recognition.
"My God, my God, we are both forgiven!"What was this sudden whirl of the filthy, stinking wind?
Upward souls went with arms out, garments suddenly stripped orfaded away into the indistinguishable robes of the Saved, the Tunnelopening.
I saw the Light, saw the myriad spirits flying loose up the Tunneltowards the celestial blaze, the Tunnel perfectly round, and wideningas they rose and for one blessed moment, one blessed tiny instant, thesongs of Heaven resounded down the tunnel as if its curves were notmade of wind but of something solid that could echo these etherealsongs, and their organized rhythm, their heartbreaking beautypiercing the catastrophic suffering of this place.
"I didn't know, I didn't know!" The voices rose. The Tunnelclosed.
I stumbled, turning this way and that. Here soldiers tortured ayoung woman with their spears, while others wept and sought tothrow themselves between her writhing form and her tormentors.
Here babies ran on chubby legs with little hands outstretched to begathered in the arms of weeping fathers, mothers, murderers.
And pinned to the ground, his body covered in armour, his beardlong and red, his mouth open in a howl, lay one cursing God cursingthe Devil and cursing all Fate. "7 will not, I will not, I will not!""And who stands behind those doors," said a sombre HelpfulGhost, her beautiful hair shimmering around her in etherealwhiteness, her soft hand on my face. "See there? The double doorsabout to open, the walls lined with books. "Your dead, my beloved,your dead, all those you've killed!"I stared at the soldier on his back, roaring from his red-beardedmouth, "Never, never will I say it was right, never, never....""Not my dead," I cried. I turned and ran. I stumbled and fellagain on my face in the soft press of bodies. Beyond, the ruins of acity withered in fire; walls crumbled on all sides, the cannon explodedagain, and once more, a noxious gas filled the air, people fell coughingand choking for breath, the chorus of i DID NOT KNOW blended allin one instant of order that was worse than none!
"HELP ME!" I cried and cried. I never knew such release inscreaming, such pure and abandoned cowardice, to shout to HighHeaven in this Godforsaken place where cries were the very air itself,and no one heard, no one but the smiling Helpful Dead.
"Learn, my dearest.""Learn." Whispers like kisses. A wraith, an Indian man, turbanedhead, darkened face. "Learn, my young one.""Look up, see the blossoms, see the sky. ..." A Helpful Ghostdanced in circles, her white dress passing in and out of the clouds andspurts of soot and filth, her feet sinking into the marl but turning stillwith certainty.
"Don't fool me, there is no garden here!" I shouted. I was on myknees. My clothes were torn, but in my shirt I had the veil! I bad it.
"Take my hands....""No, let me go!" I slipped my hand in my coat to cover the veil.
Staggering towards me a dim figure rose, hand outstretched, "You,you cursed boy, you filthy boy, you in the Paris streets, like LuciferHimself full of golden light, you! Think what you did to me!"The tavern took form, the boy falling backwards from the blow ofmy mortal fist, the barrels going over and the growl of the disheveledand drunken men who closed in on me.
"No, stop it," I roared. "Get him away from me. I don't rememberhim. I never killed him. I don't remember, I tell you, I can't. . ..
"Claudia, where are you? Where are you, the one I wronged!
Claudia! Nicolas, help me!"But were they here, lost in this torrent, or gone, long gonethrough the Tunnel to the blazing glory above, to the blessed songsthat wove the silence into their very chords and melodies? Pray gone,pray there, above.
My own cries had lost all dignity and yet how defiant theysounded in my own ears. "Help me, someone! Help!""Must you die first to serve me?" Memnoch asked. He rose beforeme, the granite angel of darkness, wings outstretched. Oh yes, blotout the horrors of Hell, please, even in this most monstrous of forms!
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