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I nodded, at a loss for words, and then murmured, "So it seems, and so it is. And the world's never given me such a treasure." But how weak these words seemed.

"You're not angry?" he asked.

"Angry! How could I be?" I responded. "How could I possibly be angry?" I embraced him again, held him as tight as I dared.

I couldn't conceive of his life, it was impossible, and the images flashing before me were fragmentary and did not achieve a story that I could follow at all.

Suddenly the Voice overpowered me.

"Enjoy your moment!" said the Voice, seething with anger. "Enjoy it, because you're not long to have many like it." And it began to sing loudly an ugly Latin hymn of gruesome metaphors that I'd heard many a time before.

I couldn't hear what Viktor was saying to me. The Voice was unstoppable. I tried to cut it off but it was rumbling on and on with the hymn. Rose was standing behind Viktor, and he turned and put his arm around her. She was obviously afraid.

I saw Mekare standing near. And Rose had seen her too. She was with Jesse and David and appeared bewildered but subdued--as white as calcite, her tangled red hair shimmering in the garden lights. Her gown was wrinkled and torn. Her feet were bare.

David and Jesse led her towards the back steps of the townhouse, but she stared at Viktor when she saw him, and though she still followed their lead, she slowed her pace. She looked at me and then at him. She stopped.

There came that flash from her, that flash that Benedict had described, Benedict who was here in the garden now with Seth. That flash of Maharet and Mekare together, seated in some quiet and restful spot. I saw it. The Voice was jabbering. It was a green spot in sunshine, and the twins were clear eyed and young. Just for a second they both appeared to look at me, long-dead daughters of another spring, and then this was gone.

"Can you see all this, Voice?" I asked. "Did you see that place?"

"See it, yes, I see it, I see it as you see it, because you see it, yes, I see it, and I knew it and I was a spirit there! So what!"

The Voice went on, roaring its curses, a lot of figurative ancient language that had little or no real meaning anymore. "A tomb!" he groaned. "A tomb."

And on she went into the house, the tomb, and then the miserable and weeping Benedict followed, not even glancing in our direction. Such a submissive and defeated figure, this Benedict, pretty like his maker, with sad reddened eyes, and walking with a modern demeanor, casually, without that sense of presence so effortlessly reflected by the older ones. You would have thought: Just a kid, just a student somewhere, just a boy.

Seth stopped.

"What do you want to do with him?" he asked me. "With them both?"

"You're asking me?" I said a little angrily. "Maybe we should decide that as a council." I could barely hear my own voice over the Voice. "I swore only to give Rhoshamandes back his severed limbs, but after that?"

"Kill them both," said the Voice. "They failed me. Kill them cruelly."

"The others will accept your decision, obviously," said Seth. "You're our leader now. Why wait for a council? Give the word."

"Well, I haven't really been anointed ruler yet, have I?" I said. "And if I have, well, I will call for a council before they're sentenced to death. Keep them here alive."

The Voice railed.

Viktor stood there staring at me as I spoke to Seth as if every little expression or nuance in my tone was of interest to him, absorbed him, transfixed him.

"As you wish," said Seth. "But I doubt anyone will question you if you terminate them both."

Terminate. Such a word. "That's unfortunate, if that's the case," I answered. "And it will not happen that way."

So this was his concept of monarchy, was it? Absolute tyranny. Good to know.

If he'd read my thoughts, he gave no sign. He nodded.

And he and Benedict moved on.

26

Lestat

Hostages to Fortune