by Anne Rice
He was sure he'd lost her. He threw off the massive weight of the cabinet and rose to his feet. There stood Cleopatra, yards away from him, gazing at something she held in one hand.
His ring. The bronze ring Bektaten had given him for this mission, the one with the tiny chamber full of strangle lily powder. It had slipped from his finger during his scramble and fall, and now she held it in her hands.
What a terrible strategic error they had made! Their most harmless poison, the sedative, had been applied to their most fearsome weapon, their daggers. And their most fearsome to their least conspicuous, their rings, rings that did not fit them, rings too large or too small. If they'd been attempting subterfuge and assassination, this would have been an excellent plan. But with Cleopatra, that was not their plan.
And if Cleopatra were to release the strangle lily, Bektaten would never believe that Ramses had not worked this deliberately.
Cleopatra gazed at the ancient ring as if it were a flower she had picked. She could see what it was, see the threads beneath the jewel, a ring with a secret compartment. She unscrewed the red jewel, revealing the bronze pin underneath. She looked to him, saw the fear in his eyes, and unscrewed the casing that held the pin, revealing the yellow powder underneath.
"No!" he cried. "You must not! You must not!"
"And so this is the poison," Cleopatra said to him, her eyes blazing. "The queen's poison."
"I did not seek to use it on you. I sought to subdue you with another substance, a sedative on my dagger. I did not come to destroy you or even to harm you, Cleopatra. You must believe this!"
"You seek to keep me alive?" She seemed dazed by the possibility.
"Yes. Please. Put down the ring."
"Put the poison aside, you mean. This poison you received from a true queen. Unlike me, a shade of one risen from death by your hand."
"We will discover who and what you are together. All of us."
"Ah, you seek to comfort me now. Would it comfort you to know I never wished to see you again? That I did not cross an ocean for you out of love."
"You seek the elixir. You believe it will make you strong against your connection to Sibyl Parker."
"Sibyl Parker." Her jaw trembled and tears came to her eyes. "Sibyl Parker, the vessel for my true spirit."
"I heard his explanation, his slurs. You must not yet accept them as fact."
"Give me the elixir, and then leave me to my own interpretations of my condition."
"I did not bring it."
"Of course you didn't. Because you never planned to give it to me. Only to abduct me again. For the purposes of what? More torture? Some kind of test to make sense of this madness?"
"You must not believe this. You cannot."
"You come for me with weapons that can end immortals."
"We didn't just come for you. We came for him. To end his destructiveness."
"And what do you seek to end in me, Ramses the Great?"
"Your pain."
She lifted the ring almost to her nose. "I could end it in this very moment, couldn't I?" Her breath was close enough to the open chamber to send small puffs of yellow powder drifting to the carpet when she spoke.
"No!" he cried.
"You wouldn't be pleased if I ended my life right here? You would not be relieved? To be free of the burden of me? From the monster you raised?"
"Come with me, Cleopatra. Let us free you from all of it without ending your life. Without ending Sibyl's life."
"Sibyl," she whispered, eyes wide.
A mistake, he realized too late, to use Sibyl in this way. He'd assumed she'd feel the same loving connection to Sibyl that Sibyl felt to her. But in her leering smile, he saw nothing but jealousy and anger.
"Oh, but of course. The silken sheets. The great roaring fire. She is with you, isn't she? The rescue of which she spoke. It was you, Ramses. I see now. I see why you have come. She is very pretty, isn't she, Sibyl Parker? With her golden hair and her pale skin. Perhaps in her every gesture you see the parts of me you do not despise. For she possesses my true soul, does she not?--the migrant soul that abandoned this flesh two thousand years ago. And so you come not to save me, but to save her."
"Your anguish blinds you...," he said. "We are the victims, all, of powerful mysteries. What can we do but explore them together?"
"Enough, Ramses. Enough of your pity. Enough of your guilt. If these are to be my final days of sanity, I will live them as I see fit."
"Cleopatra!"
He lunged for her.
She hurled the ring at him, its contents rising in a yellow cloud.
He cried out and threw himself against the opposite wall. When he looked up, he glimpsed her through the veil of yellow powder drifting to the floor; she disappeared around the nearest doorway, bound for the entrance to the house.
He went after her.
In the great drawing room, he caught sight of her as she ran. Impossible to tell what it was she was running towards, for there was no doorway in her path.
"Cleopatra!" he cried.
And she turned in place, met his eyes.
"Set me free, Ramses!" she cried. "You raised me from death with no thought of what I would become. And now I am doomed. There is only one way you can repay me. Set me free!"
*
Seeing that her words had frozen him in place, she turned and ran. He watched, helpless, as she hurled herself through the nearest window. Behind her, the glass fell in great shards between billowing drapes.
If she continued in that direction, the others would not catch her. Julie and Aktamu were on the far side of the property, Julie guarding the spellbound Aktamu, who was guiding the hounds.
Footsteps behind him. Ramses turned. In both arms, Enamon carried the seemingly lifeless body of Saqnos. It was not the dogs who had finally subdued the prime minister, Ramses was sure, but the potion from Enamon's dagger, an injection that would only last for several hours before another had to be given. The great gashes and wounds the dogs had left on his face and hands had already begun to heal.
"I must bring him to the queen before he wakes," Enamon said.
"And so if I pursue her, I do so alone. Is this what you mean to say?"
Without a word, Enamon disappeared through the doorway behind him, his steps confident, as if Saqnos weighed nothing at all.
Ramses stood motionless, staring at the broken window.
How quickly the fight had left him at the first sight of her.
He had not been prepared for her perfect likeness to his lost love. He had not been prepared for her agony and her despair.
Her final plea rent his soul even now.
Who was he to deny this request to live out her days as she saw fit before madness claimed her? Could he find her then? Could he use Sibyl's connection to do it? Would he have the courage and the strength to subdue her amidst her madness, to wall her off in darkness for all time, just as Saqnos had threatened, but for her own good? Or could he release her to the world once and for all?
If there was no peace for her, would there ever be peace for him?
38
They came trotting across the lawn in a single pack. At first they appeared to Julie as a patch of deeper darkness that blotted out the lights of the house behind. Then their individual shapes became visible.
Julie stepped from the car where the silent Aktamu lay half comatose on the black leather seat.
The mission had been completed, certainly, for why else would Aktamu guide these dogs back here to their den?
Julie fell into step behind them from a safe distance, even though there was no chance they would turn on her. Aktamu still held these animals in thrall. Somehow, through the angel blossom, he controlled them, and he could see the world through their eyes. A remarkable thing, for there were fifteen of them in all.
On the long drive to Havilland Park, Julie had deluged Aktamu with questions as to this mystery, as to how he meant to turn Saqnos's hounds against Saqnos through a spell tha
t would render Aktamu himself unable to hear or speak. But Aktamu had no words with which to explain it to her, the workings of the angel blossom, and how he meant to unite somehow with fifteen distinct creatures and guide them through a mystic link. He had assured her repeatedly that he would do it, that once he dropped the meat, heavily laced with the pollen of the angel blossom, through the grating of the pit that held these dogs, they would be his to command.
Julie found it fascinating, marvelous, yet another revelation in the realm of revelations which she now shared with these powerful immortals--a realm so vastly different from her old world that at times she could not gain any perspective on it, no matter how much she tried. She was no longer Julie Stratford, really, and she knew it, and her fragile ties to the London of 1914 were dying most surely with every day.
Here she was in the darkness, walking slowly across the grass behind these enchanted animals, fearless yet awestruck, not for a moment repelled by the mystery of the angel blossom, only eager to know more.
She was enthralled by the spectacle of the great hounds moving as one as they approached their home building, at the single-minded manner in which they approached the door to their lair. It was as mesmerizing as the sight of them ascending from the pit had been not one half hour before.
Now each and every powerful canine sat silently before this door waiting for it to be opened.
Trembling, Julie stepped forward and opened the door for them. She stood to one side.
They passed through, one after the other, and began descending the steps into their wretched little pit.
Once they were all inside, she took hold of the rope and lowered the heavy grate gently into place. With a shiver, she saw that each dog had turned to look over its shoulder. This was Aktamu's work, no doubt. He was waiting for her to close and lock the grate before he wiped the pollen from his face, releasing these beasts to their own natures again.
She slid the bolt into place with a loud clang.
But she could not bring herself to leave. Not yet. She had to see this miracle all the way through to its end.
Gradually, a change began to overtake the dogs.
Some of them quivered. Others shook themselves wildly as if trying to free their coats of water. A few of them erupted into barks, but they were not as vicious or aggressive as the sounds they'd made before. They seemed like pained questions. Were they confused by what had just been done to them?
Their paws clicked against the stone floor. Their movements seemed dazed and confused, until she realized they were each trying to move into the best position from which they could peer up at her through the bars.
These creatures had been changed. Whatever this miracle from Bektaten's garden, it had allowed these ruthless canine killers to dance briefly with a human mind. And as a result they appeared submissive now, subdued, and, in their longing looks, eager to take this dance again.
She was almost sad to leave them, for they were monsters no more.
But then the door behind her opened, and there was Ramses, breathless. No triumph in his expression; restrained anguish, but a great relief at the sight of her. Once she found herself in his arms, she realized she had no idea which one of them had initiated this sudden, feverish embrace. But what did it matter now?
"Where is she?" Julie finally asked.
"She escaped."
"Oh, Ramses."
"There was a struggle. My ring, the poison. She took it from me. It was either my life or hers. And so I let her go."
"Does she have this poison now?"
"No. She tore the ring open and hurled it at me to keep me from pursuing her. It lies on the carpet inside the house."
The sound of a car engine outside. Whatever the vehicle, its engine was much larger than those of the cars that had brought them here.
"We've found the van they used to transport Cleopatra here, and the coffin. We will use it for Saqnos. But, Julie, I must go with them so I can help subdue him if he wakes. Can you follow us in the car?"
"Of course, Ramses. Of course."
He turned from her, but as soon as his hand touched the doorknob, he froze.
"I have failed, Julie."
"No. No, Ramses."
"I could have pursued her. There was a moment, before she leapt through a window, where I might have driven her to the floor. But she begged me not to. This Saqnos, he said dreadful things about her nature, Julie, her nature as a revenant, her state of being, which may be true. Nochtin. That's what he called her. We all overheard him. Nochtin. They were appalling things."
"But what, Ramses?"
"That he'd raised creatures himself with the elixir as I'd raised her. And that these nochtin, as he called them, went mad. That is what he told her." Ramses stared off as he spoke these words. "And there was such anguish in her, Julie." He shuttered. "I was prepared for her cruelty or rage, but not her anguish, and so when she asked me to set her free, to live out her last days before madness claimed her, I let her escape."
She took him in her arms again. He was shaking, her pharaoh, her king, her immortal. Shaking from the power of his emotions.
"Have I done a terrible thing again?" he asked. "As terrible as bringing her back to life?"
"No, Ramses."
"But Sibyl? What will happen to Sibyl?"
"Sibyl is now free from whatever horrors Cleopatra suffered in this place. And so is Cleopatra."
"But that was not the extent of what we promised."
"Find her and free her. Those were Sibyl's words. And we have done so. The rest? It will be accomplished in time. Cleopatra is no longer the monstrous, plotting thing we knew in Cairo. We can be sure of this now. She is weakened. She is ailing. And in this moment, it is not Sibyl's expectations with which we should be entirely concerned. She was not the one who demanded we bring Cleopatra to the castle. That was Bektaten. So we must now see if our new queen is satisfied with the hostage we do bring her."
He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her gently. "You marry your wisdom to love, Julie. This ensures I will be forever your captive."
She returned his kiss.
The door swung open behind him, and there stood Aktamu. He had wiped his face free of the pollen, and his look was expectant.
"Come," he said, "we must go."
39
Cornwall
What must he have thought when he awoke to the sight of a comforting fire beside him and the sound of the sea outside? Was he flooded with relief to be freed from the hounds?
Ramses could not know.
When he saw his queen, seated only a few feet away, in a high-backed chair that matched his own, Saqnos went as still as a statue, and so Ramses could not determine the thoughts that went through his mind, but he remained desperately curious.
Saqnos gazed silently at Bektaten. She gazed back.
Did he find her beautiful, this statuesque black woman with the long, thin jeweled braids flowing over her shoulders? For gone was the turban she had worn earlier, and more clinging and flattering was her long red gown.
Was Saqnos still rising from unconsciousness? Was the sedative to explain for his continued silence? They'd given him something else as well. Ramses was sure of it. Some other potion from their endless supply of potions. Would he ever be privy to how many medicines and poisons they possessed?
Upon their arrival, Aktamu and Enamon had taken the man's seemingly lifeless body off to the armory and kept him there for several minutes before carrying him to the great hall like a giant rag doll. Perhaps whatever they had given him was intended to hasten his awakening.
Saqnos shook his head. For the first time he seemed to sense the presence of others in the room aside from Bektaten. He looked at Ramses, and then Julie. They stood close to the window and its view of a star-filled sky.
Slowly, his eyes found the daggers they both held in hand.
What was such a short period of unconsciousness like for an immortal? Ramses wondered. Had he experienced dreaming for the first
time in centuries?
So many questions he could not ask, for this was not his trial to conduct. He and Julie were now witnesses. Witnesses and guards.
Finally, Saqnos spoke. "Am I allowed once again to call you my queen?"
Bektaten was silent for a long time before responding.
Ramses noticed for the first time the jeweled rings she wore, and the jeweled belt that defined her narrow waist, flattering her shapely hips. Were these ornaments worn for Saqnos? Was it for him that she had put aside the robes that concealed her physical gifts?
They certainly affected Ramses, but he used all his power to conceal this, to conceal the quickening in his blood at the vision of this regal black face framed in the gold-and pearl-threaded braids of an ancient Egyptian queen--at the vision of Bektaten's exquisitely shaped breasts.
Finally Bektaten spoke.
"You remember Jericho?" she asked.
"Every moment I have spent in your presence lives in my memory."
"There were many moments when you were unaware of my presence," she said.
"Tell me of these moments, my queen."
"Your laboratorium in Babylon. Your many gatherings of alchemists. I found them all, your elaborate laboratoria."
"You were there. Watching me."
"Yes."
"And if I had succeeded, would you have unleashed your poison against me as you did today?"
"I did not unleash my poison against you. I unleashed it against your fracti--henchmen unworthy of immortality. I unleashed it against your plot to abduct and torture Julie Stratford."
Amazing the gentleness between these two as they discussed these things, Ramses thought. To see them converse as if no time had passed. Did their great age allow for this mix of familiarity and reserve?
Bektaten stood. He noticed a faint perfume rising from her as she moved back and forth before her prisoner, the light glinting on her long shining raven braids.
Around her head, high on her forehead, she wore a circlet of gold that put him in mind even more of his ancient kingdom, of the magnificent women who had been in the harem of the king. Looking down, he put these thoughts out of his mind, yet they had endowed Bektaten with even greater power in his heart. How could an immortal man not muse on what it would be like to have such an immortal woman in his arms? And how could a proud king not deny such thoughts?