Anne Rice - Servant of the Bones

“Right,” he said suddenly, answering my thought. “He was merely the instrument. He had no idea. No idea at all that it was for me that he kept the bones. And Esther’s words, that’s what made the link. Esther gave me the link as she died; she sent me to him to get the bones, and to get you from him, you see. You are destined for me, and worthy of me.”

He paced and stroked the flesh beneath his lower lip with his finger. “Esther’s death was inevitable, necessary. I didn’t realize it myself. She was the lamb. And she brought you to me. It is I who must make plain to you your full destiny.”

“You know, maybe you do have something,” I said, “with this talk of my being worthy of you. I mean, perhaps you are worthy of me . You are so surprising. I wonder.”

I paused, then went on:

“Those masters, maybe they weren’t worthy of me.”

“They couldn’t have been,” he said with chilling smoothness. “But I am. And now you’re beginning to understand, and you’re helping me to understand. I am the Master, but only in so far as I’m your destination, I’m your…your.…”

“Responsibility?” I said.

“Ah, yes, perhaps that’s exactly the word.”

“That’s why I don’t kill you now, even though you sanctify the murder of that poor girl with some fancy babbling?”

“It’s facts. She brought you to me, through my grandfather. She sent me to you, and you to me! She did it! That means the plan will work, the plan will be realized. She was a martyr, a sacrifice, and an oracle.”

“God guides in all this?” I asked derisively.

“I will guide things as I think God wants me to,” he answered. “Who can do better?”

“You would seduce me to love you, wouldn’t you? You are so used to love, love from people who open your doors and pour your drink and drive your car…”

“I have to have it,” he whispered. “I have to have the love and recognition of millions. I love it. I love it when the camera shines on me. I love when I see my grand scheme ever expanding.”

“Well, maybe you won’t get it from me for very long. Before I ever saw Esther die, I was damned tired of being a ghost! I’m tired of serving masters. I don’t see any reason for me to do what it says on the casket!”

Anger again. Heat. But it was no more than might come from the body of a man.

I stared at the casket. I ran back my own words through my head. Had I said such a bold thing? Yes, I had, and it had been true , and it had been no curse or supplication to anyone.

Silence. If he said anything I didn’t hear him. I heard something, but it was a cry of pain, or worse. What’s worse than pain? Panic? I heard a cry that was right between the ultimate agony one can feel and the madness which is about to obliterate all sense of it. I heard a fine scream, you might say, right there between the light and the dark, like a vein of ore on a horizon.

“You saw your own murder?” He was talking to me. “Azriel, perhaps now you will come to see the reason for it.”

I could hear the fire beneath the cauldron. I could smell the potions thrown into the boiling gold!

I couldn’t answer. I knew that I had, but to speak it, to think on it, was to realize and remember too much. I couldn’t. I had tried before. I had memory upon memory of trying to remember and not being able to remember at all.

“Listen, you miserable creature,” I said to him in a fury. “I’ve been here forever. I sleep. I dream. I wake. I don’t remember. Maybe I was murdered. Maybe I was never born. But I am forever and I’m tired. I’m sick to death of this half death! I’m sick of all things that stop short of the full measure!”

I was flushed. My eyes were wet. The clothes felt rich and embracing, and it was good to fold my arms, to clutch at my shoulders with my crossed hands, and to look up suddenly and see the faintest shadow of the tangle of my own hair, to be alive, even flooded with this pain.

“Oh, Esther. Who were you, my darling?” I asked aloud. “What did you want of me?”

He was enrapt and silent.

“You ask the wrong person,” he said, “and you know you do. She doesn’t want vengeance. What can I do to convince you, you were destined for me?”

“Tell me what you want of me. I am to witness something? What? Another murder?”

“Yes, let’s proceed. You have to come with me into my secret office. You have to see the maps for yourself. All the plans.”

“And I’ll forget about her death, forget about avenging her?”

“No, you’ll see why she died. For great empires somebody must die.”

This sent a rivet of pain through my chest. I bent forward.

“What is it?” he asked. “What good would it do to avenge the death of one girl? If you’re an avenging angel, why don’t you walk out there in the streets? There are deaths happening now. You can avenge them. Come out of the pages of a comic book! Kill bad guys. Go ahead. Do it till you’re tired of it, the way you’re tired of being a ghost. Go on.”

“Oh, you are one fearless man.”

“And you’re one tenacious spirit,” he said.

We stood glaring at one another.

He spoke first:

“Yes, you are strong, but you’re also stupid.”

“Say this to me again?”

“Stupid. You know and you don’t know. And you know I’m right. You gather your knowledge from the air, the way you do the matter that creates your clothing, even your flesh perhaps, and the knowledge rains on you too fast. You are confused. Is that the better word? I can hear it in your questions and your answers. You long for the clarity you feel when you talk to me. But you’re afraid that you need me. Gregory is necessary for you. You wouldn’t kill me or do what I don’t want.”

He drew in closer, eyes growing wide.

“Know this thing first before you learn any more,” he said. “I have everything in the world a man could want. I am rich. I have money beyond counting. You were right. I have money the Pharaohs never had, nor the Emperors of Rome, or even the most powerful wizard who ever bombarded you with his Sumerian poetry! The Temple of the Mind of God I invented, whole and entire and worldwide. I have millions of followers. Do you know what the word means? Millions? What does this mean? It means this, Spirit. What I want is what I want! Not some fancy, or longing, or need! It’s what I want, a man who has everything.”

He looked me up and down.

“Are you worthy of me ?” he demanded. “Are you? Are you part of what I want and what I’ll have? Or should I destroy you? You don’t think I can. Let me try. Others have gotten rid of you. I could get rid of you. What are you to me when I want the world, the whole world! You’re nothing!”

“I will not serve you,” I said. “I won’t even stay here with you.”

He had been all too right. I was beginning to love him and there was something deeply horrible in him, something fiercely destructive which I’d never encountered in any human.

I turned my back on him. I didn’t have to understand the loathing I felt or the rage. He was abhorrent to me and that was enough. I had no reason now, only pain, only anger.

I went to the casket, opened the lid, and looked down at the grinning skull of gold that had been me and still had me somehow, like a flask has its liquid. I took the casket up into my arms.

He came after me, but before he could stop me I carried the casket and its loose cover to the marble hearth. I shoved it noisily on the pyre of wood, and watched the sticks tumble as the heap shifted to receive it. The lid fell to one side.

He stood right beside me, studying me, and then looking down at it. We were looking to the side at each other, each of us, to the side of the hearth.