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He grabbed my arm again and this time the fury in me knew nobounds. I hurled him backwards over the dissolving and tumblingsouls. The Helpful Dead turned here and there to witness and cryout, their pale oval faces full of alarm and distress.
"You go now," Memnoch swore, even as he lay still on the groundwhere I had thrown him. "And as God is my witness you come backmy pupil and my student on your knees at death, and never again thisoffer to make you my prince, my helper!"I froze, staring over my shoulder at him, at his fallen figure, hiselbow digging into the soft black underdown of his wing as he rose tohis cloven feet and came at me again, in that hobbled monstrouswalk.
"Do you hear me!""I cannot serve you!" I roared at the top of my lungs. "I cannotdo it."Then I turned for the last time, knowing I would not look back,with only one thought in my mind, Escape! I ran and ran, slidingdown the loose marl and the slippery bank, and stomping throughthe shallow streams and through the clumps of astonished HelpfulDead, and over wailing souls.
"Where is the stairs? Where are the gates? You can't deny it tome. You have no right. Death has not taken me!" I shouted but Inever looked back and I never stopped running.
"Dora! David, help me!" I called.
And there came Memnoch's voice almost at my ear. "Lestat, don'tdo this thing, don't go. Don't return. Lestat, don't do it, it's folly,don't you see, please, for the love of God, if you can love Him at alland love them, help me!""NO!" I turned and gave him a great shove, seeing him stumblebackwards down the steep stairs, the dazed figure amid the hugefluttering wings awkward and grotesque. I pivoted, turning my back onhim. Ahead, I could see the light at the very top, the open door. ?
I ran for it.
"Stop him!" Memnoch cried. "Don't let him out. Don't let himtake the veil with him.""He has Veronica's veil!" cried one of the Helpful Dead lungingat me through the gloom.
My foot nearly slipped, yet on I ran, step after step, bounding, legsaching. I could feel them closing in, the Helpful Dead.
"Stop him.""Don't let him go!""Stop him!""Get the veil from him," Memnoch cried, "inside his shirt, theveil, the veil must not go with him!"I waved my left hand, driving the Helpful Dead in a soft shapelessclatter against the cliff. High above loomed the door. I could see thelight. I could see the light and I knew it was the light of Earth,brilliant and natural.
Memnoch's hands clamped on my shoulders and he spun mearound.
"No, you don't!" I snarled. "God forgive me. You forgive me, butyou're not taking me or the veil!" I roared.
I raised my left arm to stave off his reaching, clawing hands, andshoved him again, but against me he flew as if his wings now came tohis aid, and he almost pressed me back against the steps. I felt hisfingers plunge into my left eye! I felt them drive open the lids,smashing my eye back into my head in an explosion of pain, and then thegelatinous mass slipped down my cheek, through my tremblingfingers.
I heard Memnoch gasp.
"Oh no. ..." he wailed, his fingers to his lips, staring in horror atthe same object at which I stared.
My eye, my round blue eye, shivering and gleaming on the stair.
All the Helpful Dead stared at the eye.
"Step on it, crush it," cried one of the Helpful Dead and rushedforward. "Yes, crush it, step on it, smear it!" cried another, swoopingdown upon the sight.
"No, don't do that, don't! Stop, all of you!" Memnoch wailed.
"Not in my kingdom, you will not!""Step on the eye!"That was my moment, that was my chance.
I flew upwards, feet scarcely touching the steps, I felt my head andshoulders plunge through the light and the silence and into the snow.
And I was free.
I WAS on earth. My feet struck the frozen ground, the slippery sludgeof snow.
I was running, one-eyed and bleeding, with the veil in my shirt,running through the driving storm, through the drifts of snow, mycries echoing up the buildings I knew, the dark, obdurate skyscrapersof the city I knew. Home, Earth.
The sun had only just set behind the dark gray veil of the descendingstorm, the winter twilight eaten up in darkness by the whitenessof the snow.
"Dora, Dora, Dora!"On and on I ran.
Shadowy mortals slouched through the storm; shadowy humanshurried through small slippery paths, automobiles crawled throughthe blizzard, beams searching the rising, collecting whiteness. Thesnow was in such thick drifts that I fell and then scrambled to myknees; yet on I went.
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