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"And while we are considering all the People of the Book¡ªMoslems, Jews, Christians¡ªwhy not go to southern Iraq and listen to the cry of the starving Kurds whose marshes have been drained and whose people are being exterminated? If you want, we could just concentrate on the sack of holy places¡ªmosques, cathedrals, churches. We could use that method to travel right up to the present time.
"Mind you, not one suggestion I've made has involved people who don't believe in God or Christ. People of the Book, that's what we're talking about, the Book which starts with the One God and keeps changing and growing.
"And today and tonight, documents of inestimable value go up in flames. It is the unfolding of Creation; it is Evolution; it is sanctified suffering on somebody's part surely, because all these people you see here worship the same God. "
I made no answer.
Mercifully his voice stopped, but the battle didn't. There was an explosion. The flames roared so high that I could see the saints on the very dome. In one flash the entire magnificent scope of the basilica blazed around me¡ªits great oval, its rows upon rows of columns, the great half-arches supporting the dome above. The light dimmed, exploded again, as cries rang out with renewed vigor.
Then I closed my eyes and lay still, ignoring the kicks and the feet that even ran over me, crushing down on my back for a moment as they moved on. I had the veil and I was lying there, still.
"Can hell be worse than this?" I asked. My voice was small and I didn't think he could hear me over the noise of battle.
"I actually don't know," he said, in the same intimate tone as if whatever bound us together carried our messages between each other effortlessly.
"Is it Sheol?" I asked. "Can souls get out?"
He didn't answer.
"Do you think I would wage this battle with Him on any terms if souls couldn't?" he asked, as if the very idea of an eternal hell offended him.
"Get me out of here, please," I whispered. My cheek was resting on the stone floor. The stench of the manure of the horses was mingled with urine and blood. But the cries were the worst. The cries and the incessant clatter of metal!
"Memnoch, get me out of here! Tell me what this battle is about between you and Him! Tell me the rules!"
I struggled to sit up, drawing my legs in, wiping at my eyes with my left hand, the right still clutching the veil. I began to choke on the smoke. My eyes burned.
"Tell me, what did you mean when you said you needed me, that you were winning the battle? What is the battle between you and Him! What do you want me to do? How are you his adversary! What in the name of God am I supposed to do!"
I looked up. He sat relaxed, one knee up, arms folded, face clear one moment in a flash of flame and pale the next. He was soiled all over, and seemed rather limp and in a strange misery of ease. His expression was neither bitter nor sarcastic, only thoughtful¡ªfixed with an enduring expression just as the faces on the mosaics were fixed as they bore lifeless witness to the same events.
"So we pass so many wars? We leave behind so many massacres? We have passed over so much martyrdom," he said. "But then you do not lack imagination, Lestat. "
"Let me rest, Memnoch. Answer my questions. I am not an angel, only a monster. Please let's go. "
"All right," he said. "We'll go now. You've been brave, actually, just as I thought you would be. Your tears are plentiful and they come from the heart. "
I didn't answer. My chest was heaving. I held on to the veil. I put my left hand over my ear. How could I move? Did I expect him to take us in the whirlwind? Had I limbs any longer that would obey commands?
"We'll go, Lestat," he said again. I heard the wind rising. It was the whirlwind, and the walls had already flown backwards. I pressed my hand against the veil. I heard his voice in my ear:
"Rest now. "
The souls whirled around us in the dimness. I felt my head against his shoulder, the wind ripping at my hair. I closed my eyes and I saw the Son of God enter a great vast dark and gloomy place. The rays of Light emanated from his small distinct figure in all directions, illuminating hundreds of struggling human forms, soul forms, ghost forms.
"Sheol," I struggled to say. But we were in the whirlwind, and this was an image against the blackness of my closed eyes only. Again the Light grew brighter, the rays merging in one great blaze as if I were in its very presence, and songs rose, louder and clearer, drowning out the wailing souls around us, until the mingling of wail and song became the nature of the vision and the nature of the whirlwind. And they were one.
Chapter 19
19
I WAS lying still somewhere, in an open place, on the rocky ground. I had the veil. I could feel the bulk of it, but I didn't dare to reach inside and draw it out or examine it.
I saw Memnoch standing some distance away, in full glorified form, his wings high and stiffly drawn down behind him, and I saw God Incarnate, risen, the wounds still red on His ankles and on His wrists, but He had been bathed and cleaned, and His body was on the same scale as that of Memnoch, that is, greater than human. His robes were white and fresh and His dark hair still richly colored with dried blood, but beautifully combed. It seemed more light seeped through the epidermal cells of His body than it had before His crucifixion, and He gave off a powerful radiance, which rendered the radiance of Memnoch slightly dim by comparison. But the two did not fight each other, and were basically the same kind of light.
I lay there, looking up, and listening to them argue. And only out of the corner of my eye¡ªbefore their voices became distinct to me¡ªdid I see this was a battlefield littered with the dead. It wasn't the same time as the Fourth Crusade. No one had to tell me. This was an earlier epic, and the bodies wore the armour and the clothes that I might connect, if asked, to the third century perhaps, though I could not be certain. These were early, early times.
The dead stank. The air was filled with feasting insects, and even some lowering, awkward vultures, which had come to tear at the swollen hideous flesh of the soldiers, and far off, I heard the nasty argument, in growls and barking¡ªof contending wolves.
