panic-stricken retreat? His manner had indicated such importance! Ah, but this was foolish. I didn’t care, and I knew I didn’t. I knew what I meant to do.
“Lestat, stay here!” David said. “You promised the very next timewe met, you would let me say all I have to say. You wrote that to me, Lestat, you remember? You won’t go back on your word.”
“Well, I have to go back on it, David. And you have to forgive me because I’m going. Perhaps there is no heaven or hell, and I’ll see you on the other side.”
“And what if there is both? What then?”
“You’ve been reading too much of the Bible. Read the Lovecraft story.” Again, I gave a short laugh. I gestured to the pages he was holding. “Better for your peace of mind. And stay away from
Faust
, for heaven’s sake. You really think angels will come in the end and take us away? Well, not me, perhaps, but you?”
“Don’t go,” he said, and his voice was so soft and imploring that it took my breath away.
But I was already going.
I barely heard him call out behind me:
“Lestat, I need you. You’re the only friend I have.”
How tragic those words! I wanted to say I was sorry, sorry for all of it. But it was too late now for that. And besides, I think he knew.
I shot upwards in the cold darkness, driving through the descending snow. All life seemed utterly unbearable to me, both in its horror and its splendour. The tiny house looked warm down there, its light spilling on the white ground, its chimney giving forth that thin coil of blue smoke.
I thought of David again walking alone through Amsterdam, but then I thought of Rembrandt’s faces. And I saw David’s face again in the library fire. He looked like a man painted by Rembrandt. He had looked that way ever since I’d known him. And what did we look like—frozen forever in the form we had when the Dark Blood entered our veins? Claudia had been for decades that child painted on porcelain. And I was like one of Michelangelo’s statues, turning white as marble. And just as cold.
I knew I would keep my word.
But you know there is a terrible lie in all this. I didn’t really believe I
could
be killed by the sun anymore. Well, I was certainly going to give it a good try.
THREE
T HE Gobi Desert.
Eons ago, in the saurian age, as men have called it, great lizards died in this strange part of the world by the thousands. No one knows why they came here; why they perished. Was it a realm of tropical trees and steaming swamps? We don’t know. All we have now in this spot is the desert and millions upon millions of fossils, telling a fragmentary tale of giant reptiles who surely made the earth tremble with each step they took.
The Gobi Desert is therefore an immense graveyard and a fitting place for me to look the sun in the face. I lay a long time in the sand before the sunrise, collecting my last thoughts.
The trick was to rise to the very limit of the atmosphere, into the sunrise, so to speak. Then when I lost consciousness I would tumble down in the terrible heat, and my body would be shattered by this great fall upon the desert floor. How could it then dig in beneath the surface, as it might have done, by its own evil volition, were I whole and in a land of soft soil?
Besides, if the blast of light was sufficiently strong to burn me up, naked and so high above the earth, perhaps I would be dead and gone before my remains ever struck the hard bed of sand.
As the old expression goes, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Nothing much could have deterred me. Yet I did wonder if the other immortals knew what I meant to do and whether or not they were in the least concerned. I certainly sent them no farewell messages; I threw out no random images of what I meant to do.
At last the great warmth of dawn crept across the desert. I rose to my knees, stripped off my clothing, and began the ascent, my eyes already burning from the faintest bit of light.
Higher and higher I went, propelling
“Lestat, stay here!” David said. “You promised the very next timewe met, you would let me say all I have to say. You wrote that to me, Lestat, you remember? You won’t go back on your word.”
“Well, I have to go back on it, David. And you have to forgive me because I’m going. Perhaps there is no heaven or hell, and I’ll see you on the other side.”
“And what if there is both? What then?”
“You’ve been reading too much of the Bible. Read the Lovecraft story.” Again, I gave a short laugh. I gestured to the pages he was holding. “Better for your peace of mind. And stay away from
Faust
, for heaven’s sake. You really think angels will come in the end and take us away? Well, not me, perhaps, but you?”
“Don’t go,” he said, and his voice was so soft and imploring that it took my breath away.
But I was already going.
I barely heard him call out behind me:
“Lestat, I need you. You’re the only friend I have.”
How tragic those words! I wanted to say I was sorry, sorry for all of it. But it was too late now for that. And besides, I think he knew.
I shot upwards in the cold darkness, driving through the descending snow. All life seemed utterly unbearable to me, both in its horror and its splendour. The tiny house looked warm down there, its light spilling on the white ground, its chimney giving forth that thin coil of blue smoke.
I thought of David again walking alone through Amsterdam, but then I thought of Rembrandt’s faces. And I saw David’s face again in the library fire. He looked like a man painted by Rembrandt. He had looked that way ever since I’d known him. And what did we look like—frozen forever in the form we had when the Dark Blood entered our veins? Claudia had been for decades that child painted on porcelain. And I was like one of Michelangelo’s statues, turning white as marble. And just as cold.
I knew I would keep my word.
But you know there is a terrible lie in all this. I didn’t really believe I
could
be killed by the sun anymore. Well, I was certainly going to give it a good try.
THREE
T HE Gobi Desert.
Eons ago, in the saurian age, as men have called it, great lizards died in this strange part of the world by the thousands. No one knows why they came here; why they perished. Was it a realm of tropical trees and steaming swamps? We don’t know. All we have now in this spot is the desert and millions upon millions of fossils, telling a fragmentary tale of giant reptiles who surely made the earth tremble with each step they took.
The Gobi Desert is therefore an immense graveyard and a fitting place for me to look the sun in the face. I lay a long time in the sand before the sunrise, collecting my last thoughts.
The trick was to rise to the very limit of the atmosphere, into the sunrise, so to speak. Then when I lost consciousness I would tumble down in the terrible heat, and my body would be shattered by this great fall upon the desert floor. How could it then dig in beneath the surface, as it might have done, by its own evil volition, were I whole and in a land of soft soil?
Besides, if the blast of light was sufficiently strong to burn me up, naked and so high above the earth, perhaps I would be dead and gone before my remains ever struck the hard bed of sand.
As the old expression goes, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Nothing much could have deterred me. Yet I did wonder if the other immortals knew what I meant to do and whether or not they were in the least concerned. I certainly sent them no farewell messages; I threw out no random images of what I meant to do.
At last the great warmth of dawn crept across the desert. I rose to my knees, stripped off my clothing, and began the ascent, my eyes already burning from the faintest bit of light.
Higher and higher I went, propelling
Similar Books
