"Enough for what!" she cried sharply, almost savagely.
"For our lives, Akasha," he said. "For all our lives!"
I heard Khayman laugh softly, the one who hadn't spoken even once.
The steps had reached the landing.
Maharet stood at the edge of the open doorway, and Mael was beside her.
I hadn't even seen them move.
Then I saw who and what it was. The woman I'd glimpsed moving through the jungles, clawing her way out of the earth, walking the long miles on the barren plain. The other twin of the dreams I'd never understood! And now she stood framed in the dim light from the stairwell, staring straight at the distant figure of Akasha, who stood some thirty feet away with her back to the glass wall and the blazing fire.
Oh, but the sight of this one. Gasps came from the others, even from the
old ones, from Marius himself.
A thin layer of soil encased her all over, even the rippling shape of her long hair. Broken, peeling, stained by the rain even, the mud still clung to her, clung to her naked arms and bare feet as if she were made of it, made of earth itself. It made a mask of her face. And her eyes peered out of the mask, naked, rimmed in red.
A rag covered her, a blanket filthy and torn, and tied with a hemp rope around her waist.
What impulse could make such a being cover herself, what tender human modesty had caused this living corpse to stop and make this simple garment, what suffering remnant of the human heart?
Beside her, staring at her, Maharet appeared to weaken suddenly all over as if her slender body were going to drop.
"Mekare!" she whispered.
But the woman didn't see her or hear her; the woman stared at Akasha, the eyes gleaming with fearless animal cunning as Akasha moved back towards the table, putting the table between herself and this creature, Akasha's face hardening, her eyes full of undisguised hate.
"Mekare!" Maharet cried. She threw out her hands and tried to catch the woman by the shoulders and turn her around.
The woman's right hand went out, shoving Maharet backwards so that she was thrown yards across the room until she tumbled against the wall.
The great sheet of plate glass vibrated, but did not shatter. Gingerly Maharet touched it with her fingers; then with the fluid grace of a cat, she sprang up and into the arms of Eric, who was rushing to her aid.
Instantly he pulled her back towards the door. For the woman now struck the enormous table and sent it sliding northward, and then over on its side.
Gabrielle and Louis moved swiftly into the northwest corner, Santino and Armand the other way, towards Mael and Eric and Maharet.
Those of us on the other side merely backed away, except for Jesse, who had moved towards the door.
She stood beside Khayman and as I looked at him now I saw with amazement that he wore a thin, bitter smile.
"The curse, my Queen," he said, his voice rising sharply to fill the room.
The woman froze as she heard him behind her. But she did not turn around.
And Akasha, her face shimmering in the firelight, quavered visibly, and the tears flowed again.
"All against me, all of you!" she said. "Not a one who would come to my side!" She stared at me, even as the woman moved towards her.
The woman's muddy feet scraped the carpet, her mouth gaping and her hands only slightly poised, her arms still down at her sides. Yet it was the perfect attitude of menace as she took one slow step after another.
But again Khayman spoke, bringing her suddenly to a halt.
In another language, he cried out, his voice gaining volume untii it was a roar. And only the dimmest translation of it came clear to me.
"Queen of the Damned . . . hour of worst menace ... I shall rise to stop you. ..." I understood. It had been Mekare's-the woman's-prophecy and curse. And everyone here knew it, understood it. It had to do with that strange, inexplicable dream.
"Oh, no, my children!" Akasha screamed suddenly. "It is not finished!"
I could feel her collecting her powers; I could see it, her body tensing, breasts thrust forward, her hands rising as if reflexively, fingers curled.
The woman was struck by it, shoved backwards, but instantly resisted.
And then she too straightened, her eyes widening, and she rushed forward so swiftly I couldn't follow it, her hands out for the Queen.
I saw her fingers, caked with mud, streaking towards Akasha; I saw Akasha's face as she was caught by her long black hair. I heard her scream. Then I saw her profile, as her head struck the western window and shattered it, the glass crashing down in great ragged shards.
A violent shock passed through me; I could neither breathe nor move. I was falling to the floor. I couldn't control my limbs. Akasha's headless body was sliding down the fractured glass wall, the shards still falling around it. Blood streamed down the broken glass behind her. And the woman held Akasha's severed head by the hair!
Akasha's black eyes blinked, widened. Her mouth opened as if to scream again.
And then the light was going out all around me; it was as if the fire had been extinguished, only it hadn't, and as I rolled over on the carpet, crying, my hand clawing at it involuntarily, I saw the distant flames through a dark rosy haze.
I tried to lift my weight. I couldn't. I could hear Marius calling to me, Marius silently calling only my name.
Then I was rising, just a little, and all my weight pressed against my aching arms and hands.
Akasha's eyes were fixed on me. Her head was lying there almost within my reach, and the body lay on its back, blood gushing from the stump of the neck. Suddenly the right arm quivered; it was lifted, then it flopped back down to the floor. Then it rose again, the hand dangling.
It was reaching for the head!
I could help it! I could use the powers she'd given me to try to move it, to help it reach the head. And as I struggled to see in the dimming light, the body lurched, shivered, and flopped down closer to the head.
But the twins! They were beside the head and the body. Mekare, staring at the head dully, with those vacant red-rimmed eyes. And Maharet, as if with the last breath in her, kneeling now beside her sister, over the body of the Mother, as the room grew darker and colder, and Akasha's face began to grow pale and ghostly white as if all the light inside were going out.
I should have been afraid; I should have been in terror; the cold was creeping over me, and I could hear my own choking sobs. But the strangest elation overcame me; I realized suddenly what I was seeing:
"It's the dream," I said. Far away I could hear my own voice. "The twins and the body of the Mother, do you see it! The image from the dream!"
Blood spread out from Akasha's head into the weave of the carpet;
Maharet was sinking down, her hands out flat, and Mekare too had weakened and bent down over the body, but it was still the same image, and I knew why I'd seen it now, I knew what it meant!
"The funeral feast!" Marius cried. "The heart and the brain, one of you- take them into yourself. It is the only chance."
Yes, that was it. And they knew! No one had to tell them. They knew!
That was the meaning! And they'd all seen it, and they all knew. Even as my eyes were closing, I realized it; and this lovely feeling deepened, this sense of completeness, of something finished at last. Of something known!
Then I was floating, floating in the ice cold darkness again as if I were in Akasha's arms, and we were rising into the stars.
A sharp crackling sound brought me back. Not dead yet, but dying. And where are those I love?
Fighting for life still, I tried to open my eyes; it seemed impossible. But then I saw them in the thickening gloom-the two of them, their red hair catching the hazy glow of the fire; the one holding the bloody brain in her mud-covered fingers, and the other, the dripping heart. All but dead they were, their own eyes glassy, their limbs moving as if through water. And Akasha stared forward still, her mouth open, the blood gushing from her shattered skull. Mekare lifted the brain to her mouth; Maharet put the heart in her other hand; Mekare took them both into herself.