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"Perhaps," he said thoughtfully. "But then they could easily get out if they wanted to. When you hear the whole story you can judge. Whenever I've found them moved, I've carried them back. I've arranged their limbs as they were before. It takes enormous strength to do it. They are like flexible stone, if you can imagine it. And if I have such strength, you can imagine what theirs might be. "

"You say want . . . wanted to. What if they want to do everything and they no longer can? What if it was the limit of her greatest effort even to reach the door!"

"I think she could have broken the doors, had she wanted to. If I can open bolts with my mind, what can she do?"

I looked at their cold, remote faces, their narrow hollowed cheeks, their large and serene mouths.

"But what if you're wrong. And what if they can hear every word that we are saying to each other, and it angers them, outrages them. . . "

"I think they do hear," he said, trying to calm me again, his hand on mine, his tone subdued, "but I do not think they care. If they cared, they would move. "

"But how can you know that?"

"They do other things that require great strength. For example, there are times when I lock the tabernacle and they at once unlock it and open the doors again. I know they are doing it because they are the only ones who could be doing it. The doors fly back and there they are. I take them out to look at the sea. And before dawn, when I come to fetch them, they are heavier, less pliant, almost impossible to move. There are times when I think they do these things to torment me as it were, to play with me. "

"No. They are trying and they can't. "

"Don't be so quick to judge," he said. "I have come into their chamber and found evidence of strange things indeed. And of course, there are the things that happened in the beginning. . . "

But he stopped. Something had distracted him.

"Do you hear thoughts from them?" I asked. He did seem to be listening.

He didn't answer. He was studying them. It occurred to me that something had changed! I used every bit of my will not to turn and run. I looked at them carefully. I couldn't see anything, hear anything, feel anything. I was going to start shouting and screaming if Marius didn't explain why he was staring.

"Don't be so impetuous, Lestat," he said finally, smiling a little, his eyes still fixed on the male. "Every now and then I do hear them, but it is unintelligible, it is merely the presence of them -- you know the sound. "

"And you heard him just then. "

"Yeeesss . . . Perhaps. "

"Marius, please let us go out of here, I beg you. Forgive me, I can't bear it! Please, Marius, let's go. "

"All right," he said kindly. He squeezed my shoulder. "But do something for me first. "

"Anything you ask. "

"Talk to them. It need not be out loud. But talk. Tell them you find them beautiful. "

"They know," I said. "They know I find them indescribably beautiful. " I was certain that they did. But he meant tell them in a ceremonial way, and so I cleared my mind of all fear and all mad suppositions and I told them this.

"Just talk to them," Marius said, urging me on.

I did. I looked into the eyes of the man and into the eyes of the woman. And the strangest feeling crept over me. I was repeating the phrases I find you beautiful, I find you incomparably beautiful with the barest shape of real words. I was praying as I had when I was very, very little and I would lie in the meadow on the side of the mountain and ask God please please to help me get away from my father's house.

I talked to her like this now and I said I was grateful that I had been allowed to come near her and her ancient secrets, and this feeling became physical. It was all over the surface of my skin and at the roots of my hair. I could feel tension draining from my face. I could feel it leaving my body. I was light all over, and the incense and the flowers were enfolding my spirit as I looked into the black centers of her deep brown eyes.

"Akasha," I said aloud. I heard the name at the same moment of speaking it. And it sounded lovely to me. The hairs rose all over me. The tabernacle became like a flaming border around her, and there was only something indistinct where the male figure sat. I drew close to her without willing it, and I leaned forward and I almost kissed her lips. I wanted to. I bent nearer. Then I felt her lips.

I wanted to make the blood come up in my mouth and pass it to her as I had that time to Gabrielle when she lay in the coffin.

The spell was deepening, and I looked right into the fathomless orbs of her eyes.

I am kissing the goddess on her mouth, what is the matter with me! Am I mad to think of it!

I moved back. I found myself against the wall again, trembling, with my hands clamped to the sides of my head. At least this time I had not upset the lilies, but I was crying again.

Marius closed the tabernacle doors. He made the bolt inside slip into place.