"That's David there," said Louis in a simple placating voice, as ifto say, See? You have nothing to worry about.
"No, next to him. Look, look more deeply into the blackness. See,the figure of a woman, so white, so hard, she might as well be a statuein this place?
"Maharet!" I said.
"I am here, Lestat," she said.
I laughed.
"And wasn't that the answer of Isaiah when the Lord called? 'I amhere, Lord'?""Yes," she said. Her voice was barely audible, but clear andcleaned by time, all the thickness of the flesh long gone from it.
I drew closer, moving out of the chapel proper and into the littlevestibule. David stood beside her, like her anointed Second inCommand, as if he would have done her will in an instant, and she theeldest, well, almost the eldest, the Eve of Us, the Mother of Us All, orthe only Mother who remained, and now as I looked at her, Iremembered the awful truth again, about her eyes, that when she washuman, they had blinded her, and the eyes through which she lookednow were always borrowed, human.
Bleeding in her head, human eyes, lifted from someone dead oralive, I couldn't know, and put into her sockets to thrive on her vam-piric blood as long as they could. But how weary they seemed in herbeautiful face. What had Jesse said? She is made of alabaster. Andalabaster is a stone through which light can pass.
"I won't take a human eye," I said under my breath.
She said nothing. She had not come to judge, to recommend.
Why had she come? What did she want?
"You want to hear the tale too?""Your gentle English friend says that it happened as you describedit. He says the songs they sing on the televisions are true; thatyou are the Angel of the Night, and you brought her the Veil, andthat he was there, and he heard you tell.""I am no angel! I never meant to give her the Veil! I took the Veilas proof. I took the Veil because...."My voice had broken.
"Because why?" she asked.
"Because Christ gave it to me!" I whispered. "He said, 'Take it,'
and I did."I wept. And she waited. Patient, solemn. Louis waited. Davidwaited.
Finally I stopped.
"Write down every word, David, if you write it, every ambiguousword, you hear me? I won't write it myself. I won't. Well, maybe ...
if I don't think you're getting it exactly right, I'll write it, I'll write itone time through. What do you want? Why have you come? No, Iwon't write it. Why are you here, Maharet, why have you shownyourself to me? Why have you come to the Beast's new castle, forwhat? Answer me."She said nothing. Her long, pale-red hair went down to her waist.
She wore some simple fashion that could pass unnoticed in manylands, a long, loose coat, belted around her tiny waist, a skirt thatcovered the tops of her small boots. The blood scent of the humaneyes in her head was strong. And blazing in her head, these dead eyeslooked ghastly to me, unsupportable.
"I won't take a human eye!" I said. But I had said that before. WasI being arrogant or insolent? She was so powerful. "I won't take ahuman life," I said. That had been what I meant. "I will never, never,never as long as I live and endure and starve and suffer, take a humanlife, nor raise my hand against a fellow creature, be he human or oneof us, I do not care, I won't ... I am ... I will . . . with my laststrength, I won't. . . .""I'm going to keep you here," she said. "As a prisoner. For awhile. Until you're quieter.""You're mad. You're not keeping me anywhere.""I have chains waiting for you. David, Louis梱ou will help me.""What is this? You two, you dare? Chains, we are talking about349chains? What am I, Azazel cast into the pit? Memnoch would get agood laugh at this, if he hadn't turned his back on me forever!"But none of them had moved. They stood motionless, her immensereservoir of power totally disguised by her slender white form.
And they were suffering. Oh, I could smell the suffering.
"I have this for you," she said. She extended her hand. "And whenyou read it you will scream and you will weep, and we'll keep youhere, safe and quiet, until such time as you stop. That's all. Under myprotection. In this place. You will be my prisoner.""What! What is it?" I demanded.
It was a crumpled piece of parchment.
"What the hell is this!" I said. "Who gave you this?" I didn't wantto touch it.
She took my left hand with her absolutely irresistible strength,forcing me to drop the books in their sacks, and she placed the littlecrumpled bundle of parchment in my palm.
160/163 首页 上一页 158 159 160 161 162 163 下一页 尾页
|