Anne Rice: The Mummy or Ramses the Damned

In a daze he turned and looked at them. Alex Savarell was struggling to get up, his clothes blackened and smoking. His father stood beside him, a burnt garment hanging from his hand. He would live, the young man. That was clear.

But she! Where was she! Appalled, he stared at the giant trains, the one stopped now, the other fast disappearing; had ever the world known such power? And the explosion; it had been like a volcano.

"Cleopatra!" he cried out. Then he felt himself, for all his immortal strength, slowly crumpling. Julie Stratford held him in her arms.

* * *

The dawn came with a fiery glow on the horizon; the sun, caught in a mist, seemed not so much a disk but a great layer of simmering heat. The stars faded slowly.

Once again he walked back and forth over the same stretch of railroad track. Samir watched him patiently. Julie Stratford had gone to sleep in the backseat of the car.

Elliott and his son had returned to the hotel.

Faithful Samir alone stood with him, as once again he examined the burnt mangled car. Horrid the skeleton of the thing. Horrid the bits and pieces of charred leather clinging to the blackened springs.

"Sire," Samir said patiently, "nothing could survive such an explosion. In the olden times, sire, such heat was unknown."

It was known, he thought. It was known in the eye of an erupting mountain, the very image that had come to him last night.

"But there must be some trace, Samir. Something must remain."

But why punish this poor mortal who had never done anything but give him comfort? And Julie, his poor Julie. He must take her back to the safety and quiet of the hotel. She had not spoken since it happened. She had stood by him, holding on to him, but she had not spoken a word.

"Sire, give thanks for what has taken place," Samir said tentatively. "Death has reclaimed her. Surely she is at peace again."

"Is she?" he whispered. "Samir, why did I frighten her! Why did I drive her out into the night? Samir, we quarreled as we had always quarreled. We strove to hurt each other! There was no time suddenly; we stood outside it, warring with each other." He broke off, unable to go on.

"Come rest now, sire. Even immortals must rest."

10

THEY STOOD all together in the train station. For A Ramses, a moment of the most pure and undiluted anguish. But he had no more words to use to persuade her; when he looked into her eyes, he saw not a coldness, but a deep and unhealing hurt.

And Alex, he was changed now into another human being with Alex's face and form. He had listened resentfully to the half-truths they'd given him. A woman Ramsey had known; mad; dangerous. Then he had closed himself off; he wanted to hear no more.

They were older now, this young man and this young woman. There was a faint grayness in Julie's expression; there was a numbness and sullen quiet to Alex as he stood at her side.

"They won't keep me here more than a few days," Elliott said to his son. "I'll be home perhaps a week after your arrival. Take care of Julie. If you take care of Julie ..."

"I know, Father, it will be the best thing for me."

Icy the smile that had once been so warm.

The conductor made his call. The train was ready to roll out of the station. Ramses did not want to see it moving; did not want to hear that noise. He wanted to escape now, but he knew that he would stay till the end.

"You will not change your mind," he whispered.

She continued to look away.

"I'll always love you," she whispered. He had to bend down to hear it, let her lips almost touch him. "To my dying day, I shall love you. But no, I cannot change my mind."

Alex took his hand suddenly. "Good-bye, Ramsey, Hope I see you in England."

The ritual was almost over; he turned to kiss Julie, but she'd already pulled away. She was on the metal stair into the passenger car, and then for one instant their eyes met.

It wasn't reproach; it wasn't condemnation; she couldn't do anything else. She had explained it a thousand times in those same few words.

Finally the noise again, the awful engulfing sound. With uneven chugs, the string of windowed cars began to move forward; he saw her face at the window. She pressed her hand to the glass and looked down at him again, and again he tried to interpret the look in her eyes. Was there a moment's regret?

Dully, miserably, he heard Cleopatra's voice. I called out for you in those last moments.

The train was sliding by; the window was suddenly bright silver as it moved into the sunlight; he couldn't see her anymore.

It seemed the Earl of Rutherford led him out of the station to where the motor cars waited, with the uniformed chauffeurs at their open doors.

"Where will you go?" the Earl asked him.

Ramses was watching the train disappear, the last car with its little iron gate growing smaller and smaller, the noise entirely manageable now.

"Does it matter?" he answered. Then as if waking from a spell, he looked at Elliott. Elliott's expression surprised him almost as much as Julie's. No reproach; only a thoughtful sadness. "What have you learned from all this, my lord?" he asked suddenly.

"It will take time to know that, Ramses. Time, perhaps, which I do not have."

Ramses shook his head. "After all you have seen," he asked, dropping his voice so that only Elliott could hear him, "would you still ask for the elixir? Or would you refuse as Julie has refused?"

The train was gone now. Silence reigned in the empty station. If one did not count the low hum of conversation here and there.

"Does it really matter now, Ramses?" Elliott asked, and for the first time Ramses saw a flash of bitterness and resentment in Elliott.

He took Elliott's hand. "We shall meet again," he said. "Now I must go, or I will be late."

"But where are you going?" Elliott asked him.

He didn't answer. He turned and waved as he crossed the train yard. Elliott acknowledged it with a polite little nod and a scant movement of his hand, then moved on to his waiting car.

* * *

Late afternoon. Elliott opened his eyes. The sun fell in .slashes through the wooden blinds, the fan churning slowly overhead.

He lifted his gold pocket watch from the bedside table. Past three. Their ship had sailed. He enjoyed the relief for a long moment before thinking of anything else that he must do.

Then he heard Walter open the door.

"Have those damned people from the governor's office called yet?" Elliott asked.

"Yes, my lord. Twice. I told them you were sleeping and I had not the slightest intention of disturbing your rest."

"You're a good man, Walter. And may they burn in hell."

"My lord?"

"Never mind, Walter."

"Oh and Your Lordship, the Egyptian fellow's been by."

"Samir?"

'Brought the bottle of medicine from Ramsey. It's right there, my lord. Said you'd know what it was."

"What?" Elliott rose on his elbows. Then, slowly, he turned his gaze away from Walter to the table on his right.

It was a flask bottle, the kind used for vodka or whisky, but with no color to the glass. And it was filled entirely with a milk-white liquid, which gave off strange, almost luminescent glints in the light.

"I'd be careful of that, my lord," Walter said, opening the door, "if it's some kind of Egyptian thing, I'd watch my step."

Elliott almost laughed aloud. There was a note by the bottle with his name on it. He sat up and remained there motionless until Walter was gone. Then he reached for the note, and tore it open.

It was printed in block letters very like Roman printing, angular and clean.

* * *

Lord Rutherford, it is now your decision. May your philosophy and your wisdom sustain you. May you choose the right path.

He couldn't absorb it. No, he simply couldn't believe it. He stared at the note for a long moment; then he looked at the flask.