Pandora (24 page)

“Boys, get the lamps, set it on fire!” I shouted. I fought desperately, driving us both back from the stairwell, but I couldn’t get loose from the creature. “Boys, the lamps downstairs!”

The boys clung to one another.

“I have you!” this creature said tenderly in my ear.

“No, you don’t!” I said, and gave him one fine blow with my right elbow. It drove him off balance. He nearly toppled. But he didn’t let me go. The whiteness of his tunic glowed in the shadows as he once more enclosed my arms, and rendered me almost helpless.

“Boys, downstairs, lamps full of oil!” I said. “Flavius!”

The creature hugged me as if he were a giant snake. I could scarce breathe.

“We can’t go downstairs!” one of the boys cried.

“We’re not allowed,” said the other.

The creature laughed in my ear, a rich deep laugh.
“Not everyone is so bound to rebellion as you are, beautiful woman, outwitting your brother at the foot of the Temple steps.”

It was shocking to hear this clear articulate voice coming from a body which seemed burnt beyond all hope of life. I watched the blackened fingers moving over my own. I felt the touch of something cold on my neck. Then I felt the punctures. His fangs.

“Not!” I cried I thrashed back and forth in his grip, then threw all of my weight against him so that he almost toppled again but didn’t fall.

“Stop it, bitch, or I’ll kill you now.”

“Why don’t you?” I demanded.

I twisted to see his face. It was like that of a long-dead corpse dried in the desert, burnt black with a spine of a nose, and arched lips that seemed quite unable to dose over white teeth and the two fangs he bared now as he looked at me.

His eyes were full of blood as Marius’s eyes had been. His hair was a fine black mop very thick, fresh and clean, as though it had sprung from his body, renewing itself like magic.

“Yes,” he said confidently. “That is just what happened. And very soon I will have the blood I need to renew all of me! I won’t be this hideous monster you see. I’ll be what I was before those Egyptian fools put her in the sun!”

“Hmmm, so she kept her promise,” I said “She walked into the rays of Amon Ra so you would all burn up.”

“What do you know of it? She hasn’t moved or
spoken in a thousand years. I was that old when they removed the stones that enclosed her. She couldn’t have walked into the sun. She is a great sacred vial of blood, an enthroned source of power, that’s all, and I will have that blood, which your Marius has stolen out of Egypt.”

I pondered, searching desperately for a means to free myself.

“You came to me as a gift,” said the burnt one. “You were all I needed to take on Marius! He wears his affections and weakness for you like bright silk garments for me to see!”

“I see,” I said.

“No, you don’t!” he said. My head was pulled back by my hair. I screamed in annoyance.

His sharp teeth went into my neck. A series of heated wires threaded me through and through.

I swooned. An ecstasy rendered me motionless. I tried to resist, but I saw visions. I saw him in his glory, a golden man of an Eastern land, in a Temple of skulls. He was dressed in bright green silk breeches with an ornamented band around his forehead. Face delicate of nose and mouth. Then I saw him, without explanation, burst into flames that sent his slaves screaming. He twisted and turned in these flames, not dying but suffering exquisitely.

My head was swimming, and I was weakening. My blood flowed from all parts of my body into his wretched form. I thought of my Father, of my Father saying, “Live, Lydia!” I wrenched my neck away from him and turned, poking him hard with my shoulder,
and then pushed him with two hands so that he slid backwards on the floor. I brought my knee up against him. Nothing could get him off me!

I tried to reach for my dagger, but I was too dizzy, and besides, I didn’t have my dagger. My only chance lay with the burning oil in the lamps at the foot of the stairs. I turned, reeling, and the monster caught me again with both hands by my long hair. He yanked me back.

“You demon!” I said. His strength had worn me out He tightened his grip slowly. I knew that soon my arms would break.

“Ah,” he said, twisting free of me, and holding tight as ever. “My purpose is served.”

A brighter light suddenly filled up the stairway.

A torch was placed at the foot of the steps. Then Marius stepped into view.

He appeared utterly calm and he appeared to be looking past me into the eyes of my captor.

“And what will you do now, Akbar?” Marius asked. “Hurt her, violate her but one more time, and I shall kill you. Kill her, and you will die in agony. Let her go and you can run.”

He mounted the steps one by one.

“You underestimate me,” said the burnt thing, “you arrogant Roman bumbler, you think I don’t know you keep the Queen and the King, that you stole them out of Egypt? It is known. The word is spread through the world, through the Northern woods, through the wild lands, through the lands of which you know nothing. You killed the Elder who guarded the King
and the Queen and stole them! The King and Queen have not moved or spoken in a thousand years. You took our Queen from Egypt. You think you are a Roman Emperor? You think she is a Queen you can take captive, like Cleopatra! Cleopatra was a Greek whore. This is our Isis, our Akasha! You blaspheming fool. Now let me into Akasha’s presence. Stand against me, and this woman, the only mortal whom you truly love, dies.”

Marius came up step by step towards us.

“Akbar, did your informants tell you that it was the Elder in Egypt, her long keeper himself, who left the Royal Pair to stand in the sun?” asked Marius. He took another step upward. “Did they tell you that it was the Elder that caused the sun to strike them, the fire which destroyed hundreds of us, and spared the oldest only so they could live in agony as you do?”

Marius made a quick gesture. I felt the fangs deep in my neck. I couldn’t get away. Again, I saw this creature in his former splendor, taunting me with his beauty, his jeweled feet as he danced, surrounded by painted women.

I heard Marius right beside me, but I couldn’t make out the words.

The folly of it all went through my mind. I had led this creature to Marius, but was that what the Mother wanted? Akasha, that was the ancient name written on the bodies dumped on the steps of the Temple. I knew her name. I knew it in the dreams. I was losing consciousness. “Marius,” I called out with all my strength.

My head fell forward, free of the fangs. I fought this total captivating weakness. I deliberately pictured the Emperor Augustus receiving us on his deathbed. “I shall not see the end of this comedy,” I whispered.

“Oh, yes, you shall.” It was Marius’s calm voice right near us. I opened my eyes. “Akbar, don’t risk it again, you’ve shown your determination.”

“Don’t reach for me again, Marius,” said the burnt creature. “My teeth caress her neck. But one more drop and her heart is silent.”

The rich dark of night brightened the torch below. That was all I could see. The torch. “Akasha,” I whispered.

The burnt thing took a deep breath, his chest heaving against me. “Her blood is beautiful,” he said. He kissed my cheek with the parched burnt lips. I closed my eyes. It was becoming harder and harder for me to breathe. I couldn’t open my eyes.

He went on talking.

“You see, I have no fear to take her into death with me, Marius, for if I must die by your hand, why not with her as my consort?”

These words were distant, echoing.

“Pick her up in your arms,” said Marius. He was very close to us. “And carry her gently, as if she were your only beloved child, and come down with me into the Shrine. Come and see the Mother. Kneel before Akasha and see what she will allow!”

I swooned again, but I heard the creature laugh He did lift me now, under the knees, and my head fell back. We went down the steps.

“Marius,” I said, “he’s weak. You can kill him.” My face fell against the chest of the burnt one as we descended. I could feel the bones of his chest. “Really, very weak,” I said, scarcely able to remain conscious. Akasha, yes, her true name.

“Carefully, my friend,” said Marius. “She dies and I destroy you. You’ve almost overplayed your hand. She narrows your chances with every labored breath. Pandora, be silent, please. Akbar is a great blood drinker, a great god.”

I felt a cold firm hand clasp mine.

We had reached the lower floor. I tried to lift my head. I saw rows of lamps, splendid wall paintings hammered with gold, a ceiling veiled in gold.

Two great stone doors were opened. A chapel lay within, a chapel full of dense fluttering devotional light and the overpowering scent of lilies.

The blood drinker who held me let out a cry. “Mother Isis,” he said piteously. “Oh, Akasha!”

He released me, setting me down on my feet, as Marius at once took hold of me, and the blistered and damaged one rushed towards the altar.

I stared, amazed. But I was dying. I couldn’t breathe. I was falling to the floor. I tried to swallow air but I could not. I could not stand without Marius.

But oh, to leave the Earth and all its miseries with such a vision:

There they sat, The Great Goddess Isis and the King Osiris, or so it seemed, bronzed in skin, not white like the poor captive Queen in my dreams, but perfectly arrayed in garments of spun gold pleated and sewn in the
fixed Egyptian style. Their black hair was long, plaited, real. The paint on their faces was fresh, the dark eyelining and mascara, the reddened lips.

She wore no crown of the horns and sun disk. Her collar of gold and jewels was superb, shimmering and alive in my eyes.

“I must get the crown, restore the crown!” I said aloud, hearing this voice come from me as if it had been born elsewhere to instruct me. My eyes closed.

The black thing knelt before the Queen.

I couldn’t see clearly. I felt Marius’s arms, and then a gush of hot blood come into my mouth. “No, Marius, protect her!” I tried to speak. My words were washed away in this infusion of blood. “Protect the Mother!” Again it came filling my mouth so that I had to swallow. Immediately I felt the strength, the power of this blood, infinitely stronger than the pull of Akbar. The blood rushed like so many rivers to the sea, through my body. It would not be stopped. Another gush followed, as if a giant storm had driven the river even faster into its delta, its broken and random streams seeking every morsel of flesh.

A wide and wondrous world opened and would have welcomed me, sunlight in the deep forest, but I wouldn’t see it. I broke free. “The Queen, save her from him!” I whispered. Did the blood drip from my lips? No, it was gone inside me.

Marius wouldn’t listen to me. Again a bloody wound was pressed to my mouth, and the blood was driven ever faster. I felt the air fill my lungs. I could feel
the length of my own body, sturdy, standing on its own. The blood brightened inside me like light, as though it had enflamed my heart. I opened my eyes. I was a pillar. I saw Marius’s face, his golden eyelashes, his deep blue eyes. His long hair parted in the middle fell to his shoulders. He was ageless, a god.

“Protect her!” I cried. I turned and pointed.

A veil was lifted that had all my life hung between me and all things; now in their true color and shape, they gave forth their deliberate purpose: the Queen stared forward, immobile as the King. Life could not have imitated such serenity, such utter paralysis. I heard water dropping from the flowers. Tiny drops striking the marble floor, the fall of a single leaf. I turned and saw it, curled and rocking on the stones, this tiny leaf. I heard the breeze move under the golden canopied ceiling. And the lamps had tongues of flame to sing.

The world was a woven song, a tapestry of song. The multicolored Mosiacs gleamed, then lost all form, then even pattern. The walls dissolved into clouds of colored mist which welcomed us, through which we could roam forever.

And there she sat, The Queen of Heaven, reigning over all in supreme and unperturbed stillness.

All the yearning of my childish heart was fulfilled. “She lives, she is real, she reigns over Earth and Heaven.”

The King and the Queen. They didn’t stir. Their eyes beheld nothing. They did not look at us. They did
not look at the burnt thing as he drew closer and closer to their throne.

The arms of the Royal Pair were covered in many inscribed and intricate bracelets. Their hands rested on their thighs. It was the manner of many an Egyptian statue. But there never has been a statue to equal either of them.

“The crown, she would have her crown,” I said With astonishing vigor I walked forward towards her.

Marius took my hand. Keenly, he watched the progress of the burnt one.

“She was before all such crowns,” Marius said “they do not mean anything to her.”

The thought itself burst with the sweetness of a grape on my tongue. Of course she was there before. In my dreams, she had had no crown. She was safe. Marius kept her safe.

“My Queen,” said Marius from behind me. “You have a supplicant. It is Akbar from the East. He would drink the royal blood What is your will, Mother?”

His voice was so tranquil! He had no fears.

“Mother Isis, let me drink!” cried this burnt creature. He stood up, threw up his arms and created another dancing vision of his former self. He wore human skulls hanging from his belt. He wore a necklace of blackened human fingers! Another of blackened human ears! It was grisly and revolting, yet he seemed to think it seductive and overpowering. At once the image left him. The god from the faraway land was on his knees.

“I am your servant and always was! I slew only the
evildoer, as you commanded. I never abandoned your true worship.”

How fragile and insignificant seemed this pleading one, so revolting, so easy to clear away now from her presence. I looked at the King Osiris, as remote and indifferent as the Queen.

“Marius,” I said, “the corn for Osiris; doesn’t he want the corn? He’s the god of the corn.” I was filled with visions of our processions in Rome, of people singing and bearing the offerings.