He drew the gate closed behind him, as if this gesture would somehow wall off the implications of what had just taken place.
The winds were not as strong inside the courtyard. But the plants and blossoms in Bektaten's garden still danced and shifted and made a whispering music as they rustled together. Some of the stalks were taller than her by half, and while many of the flowers seemed ordinary at first glance, upon closer inspection he saw a certain characteristic in each that marked it as miraculous: strangely shaped leaves and petals that reminded him of human hands, blossoms of such an intense hue and size it was almost impossible to look away from them.
As she paused in the aisle between the two rows of plantings, of secrets, of miracles, Ramses expected her to collapse, or at least to fall to her knees. Perhaps in grief, or perhaps from relief. But she stood steady and strong, fingering one of the blossoms closest to her.
There was a creaking metal sound from above. He looked up. It was Julie, drawing the window to Sibyl's room shut.
"And so there is something that can make us what we were," Ramses finally said.
"Is there?" she asked. "Could you ever again be the man you were before you became pharaoh? Before you became immortal? Or have you been so marked by your experiences since then, the return of your mortality would simply usher in a new existence, however limited in years?"
"Have you ever wished to know this yourself? After so much life, you must have some desire to meet the gods, should they exist. Some desire to see what realm lies beyond this one."
She considered his words for a while. She began walking again with Ramses beside her, but her focus seemed to be on each plant she passed.
"Many times I have walked the length of the land they now call Africa. I visited other kingdoms lost to history, smaller, humbler, than my own. But no less glorious in their own way. I counseled the rulers of kingdoms still largely unknown to this century, kingdoms whose great monuments have yet to be discovered. But many of my travels were solitary. And thousands of years ago, I walked endlessly, it seemed, towards a great cloud of black smoke on the horizon. Eventually I came to a roaring inferno that swept across a landscape free of humans, with nothing to stop its advance. So large was this fire, it could have consumed Thebes or Meroe. Alone, I marched towards it. Knowing with each step that I would give myself to it. That I would test the limits of my immortality, alone, with the flames.
"I tied myself to a tree. I could easily free myself if I wanted. But the time it would take to undo the rope would give me time to reconsider my decision. I tied myself to a tree so that I could watch the flames advance. So I could behold their fury and their mystery as no other human could. So that I could watch the trees fall before it and turn to ash. So that I could watch the helplessness of the soil and the life it had given birth to against a power of such force.
"And the animals that ran from this fire. The lions and the giraffes and the other great beasts, some of them paused and gazed at me as if I were a creature beyond their understanding. As if my absence of fear made me a god. And then the flames arrived. They consumed me. And I did what I could to give myself to them entirely. I released screams heard by no one. Sounds that did not seem human to my own ears. It was as if I was singing to the flames themselves." She was close to him now. She gave him her full attention. "And they sang back," she whispered.
"You heard the words of gods? Is this what you mean to say?"
"I tasted death, Ramses. There is no way to measure the time it took for the flames to pass over me. Hours, days. I cannot be sure. These measurements did not exist then. Only the passage of the sun was reliable for this. And these flames, they blotted out the sun and the night darkness entirely. The fire, it moved like a lumbering and contented beast, and I gave myself to it until it had passed."
"But what did you see, Bektaten? What did you see aside from the flames and the ruin they brought? What was this singing you heard?"
"There is no heaven. There is no hell. There is no above or below. If there is a realm beyond this one, it is no more beautiful, no more significant, no more full of truth, than ours here on earth."
"How can you say this? What did you see in the flames that would suggest this?"
"I saw a spirit world so intricate and vast, so thoroughly laced through our existence here on earth, that the rivers of departing souls have no choice but to turn back to it. They were not lost, these spirits. They did not wander. They did not wail. They did not cry out for guidance or the resolution of some petty mystery that had plagued them in mortal life. They returned. They returned with hunger. They returned with joy. They sought no greater realm. And what could that mean but there is no greater realm than this, Ramses. And so why would I wish to ever leave?"
"You don't believe it was just a vision produced by madness?" he asked.
"It was not a vision. It was sustained. For the time it took the flames to pass me, I lived between this world and a world that is here but not clearly seen."
"And you emerged from this place believing there are no fields of Aaru. No kingdom of heaven."
"No," she whispered, "I emerged from this place believing that if such a place exists, it offers no wonder greater than those here on earth. For the essence of what I saw was this: our soul, once set free, seeks only to return." He looked away from her. "You hate this thought? It angers you. You have loved and nourished visions of a world beyond this one."
"I have, in all my many years, loved and nourished many visions which I have been forced to set free. Your experience suggests a far greater challenge."
"What is the greater challenge, Ramses?"
"It suggests that all immortals must have an experience such as yours with the great fire, or we are doomed to become Saqnos. Consumed by a singular, blinding pursuit. Lost to a loneliness we create."
"Don't be so certain of this," she said, taking his hand gently and leading him back to the castle. "Don't be so certain of anything. There are many experiences within the Shaktanis that I wish to share with you. You may read and absorb them at your leisure. But do absorb them, Ramses. Don't leap to rash conclusions. Don't diminish them into a hasty code of morals and laws for beings such as us. Let them embrace you so they may guide you."
"You will teach me your ancient tongue so that I may read them?"
"Of course."
He stopped suddenly, and looked back to the garden.
"And if I ever wish..."
"What, Ramses?"
"If I ever wish to be mortal again?" he asked. "If Julie ever wishes it?"
A long silence. She released his hand.
"I will grant that wish," she finally said. "But I will not grant it to any immortal you make in the days that follow this one, as I wish you to make no immortals at all. Can this be our treaty?"
Treaty. A deep sense of relief coursed through Ramses. A treaty. Ah, so we are equal, are we? This powerful being now honors me by speaking of treaties, rather than of judgment. Ah, the marvel of queens. Even in ancient times he had heard talk of queens protecting their kingdoms, while kings go forth to conquer new ones, of queens protecting their power, while kings seek more. And in modern times, he had heard tell of a great queen, Elizabeth of England, who had followed this very path, protecting her great kingdom and its far-flung colonies, but never initiating a war to gain increased power or land.
Ramses smiled.
"A treaty?" he asked. "You speak to me now as if I'm still a king."
"Are you not?" she asked.
"Beloved queen," he said. "I haven't told you of another to whom I gave the elixir."
"And you need not tell me, for I know of it. Elliott, the Earl of Rutherford--a learned and sober man."
"Yes," he said. "Nor can I swear to you that I will never give the elixir to another. I know too much now of loneliness and isolation to make such a pledge to you. Elliott Savarell, the Earl of Rutherford, is my responsibility now, just as is Julie Stratford. And Cleopatra, my wounded Cleopatra, remains my res
ponsibility. No. I cannot swear to you that I will not give the elixir again. We stand before a new and modern world of which I never dreamed. We may become lost from each other in this world, Bektaten. And who knows what tragedy or wisdom or need, for that matter, might guide me or drive me to do?"
Bektaten regarded him for a long moment in silence, and then she smiled. How bright and beautiful she appeared with this smile.
"Spoken like a king," she said. "But this elixir, in all its purity and power, you stole from the one to whom I'd entrusted it, and when you did this, you stole it from me."
"Yes, my queen, I know this now," said Ramses. "But I cannot go back and right that wrong. And I cannot erase the secrets of the elixir from my mind. Thousands of years have passed since that great theft. And right or wrong, I now possess the secret. Do not ask of me impossible things."
"You know what I am really asking of you," she said.
"I do. That I never act rashly again, that I never go against nature, that I never traffic again with the dead."
"Precisely," she replied.
"I give you my word on this. How could I not? I will never again do what I did in rousing this revenant Cleopatra from her slumber. I have made a nochtin, as Saqnos called it, and would I could undo it."
He broke off, unable to say another word.
"Nochtin?" Bektaten pondered. "Nochtin--a species described by a fool. Perhaps your broken Cleopatra is not a nochtin. Remember, it was with a corrupted elixir that Saqnos worked his resurrections, the same corrupted elixir that doomed his fracti."
"That's true," he said.
"It was the pure elixir that you brought to the corpse of your Cleopatra. Who is to say that she is a nochtin or that she will go mad?"
"If only...," Ramses whispered. "But she is going mad, is she not?"
"She is suffering. She is in confusion. She has a dark path before her. But again, it was the pure elixir that brought her into being, and very possibly more of it will help her now."
This almost brought tears to Ramses' eyes. "Perhaps..."
"As you have said, Ramses, she is your responsibility. And I do not presume to question you as to what you do with this creature so long as you do not seek to destroy her. That I cannot abide."
"I understand."
"I shall be watching. I shall always be watching."
"And you'll see me a chastened and wiser man for all this," Ramses said. "I promise you."
"Well, then, Ramses the Great. We have a treaty, do we not?"
42
The Rutherford Estate
They were saying he should never set foot on the property again. That no one should. He had even heard nurses at the clinic suggest that the main house and tenant farms and even the old Roman temple be burned to the ground, and the land blessed by priests from every known religion.
They had infuriated him, these words. For this superstitious gossip had also taken hold among the other party guests being treated for shock and exhaustion at the same clinic where he'd taken his mother. And all of it upset him as nothing in his life had before. Not the loss of his beautiful companion in Cairo, Mr. Ramsey's mad friend. Not the loss of Julie, who had never truly been his to begin with. And not the long absence of his father, who even now had not sent word.
And where was his father? Another casino? Perhaps when the story broke across the Continent, he would be in touch. But for now there had been no telegram, no telephone call, no word of any kind--only another large deposit at the bank.
Throughout the night, Alex had managed to control his anger. He'd managed to turn his back on the gossiping doctors and nurses before lashing out at them. To worry a handkerchief between his fists whenever he felt the urge to tell those who had not been present for the horror to stop flapping their gums about it.
Instead, he'd been a perfect gentleman, a good sport. But both those roles were tattered costumes incapable of containing his confusion and grief.
When the police had questioned him, the supposedly logical explanation they were assembling became instantly clear.
While they weren't accusing everyone at the party of having suffered from a collective madness, they kept insisting that there were facts that needed to be addressed. Such as why had no one at the party recognized or known the people who had subsequently undergone such a horrific death? The police had managed to collect a few of their names from those who had chatted briefly with them on the lawn. And yet not one of these names was familiar to Alex, his mother, or any of the other guests to whom they'd spoken. The police had also managed to talk to the secretary who had assembled the guest list. She'd confirmed the names appeared nowhere on it. These mysterious people had come out of nowhere and vanished into nowhere. Perhaps, suggested the police, they had never actually existed at all?
And then there was the matter of the strange tunnel on the property. Alex had known nothing of this tunnel. Yet the police said there were tracks in the tunnel, and tracks cut in the lawn where the tunnel opened near the pond.
They were connected, these things, the police insisted. It was all some sort of misdirection, some sort of sleight of hand. A grand illusion intended to distract with chaos while some criminal activity took place. A theft, perhaps.
When Julie had finally reached him at the hospital by telephone early that morning, he had shared all these things with her, and his anger had boiled to the surface. How calm she had seemed. How soothing her words. She was terribly sorry they'd been separated in the chaos, but she and Ramsey were quite well, albeit as shocked by what they'd witnessed as everyone else. And it wasn't as if she had an explanation of her own. Care for your mother, she had said, that's what matters now. Care for your mother. They, on the other hand, would soon travel north to speak with the police.
And she was right, of course.
She was half right. His mother was very dear to him. But the house still mattered. The estate still mattered. And the crazy notion that some sort of theft had taken place had to be either proved or disproved. And so, after the nurses sedated his mother once more, he slipped away and returned to the house.
The fact that it was still standing startled him, which was absurd, of course.
A childish part of him had assumed the curses he'd heard visited upon the place by the party's traumatized guests had somehow managed to punch out the house's soaring windows, tear pieces from its roof, shred the hedges lining the long, curving drive to the front door.
Was the possibility really so absurd when you considered what they had all witnessed? People, living, breathing people, guests of the party, dissolving to ash before their very eyes.
And how would the police ultimately explain this?
A drug. They had all been drugged and subjected to some piece of visual trickery that was a cover for a great theft. But the police had searched the grounds throughout the night, had brought him and his mother detailed lists of the rooms' contents, right down to the jewels his mother had brought from London two days before.
Everything appeared to be in place. Perhaps when his mother got her wits more about her, she would notice something missing from the lists that should be there. But would it be so large as to require a secret tunnel to carry it away?
Alone now, Alex walked rooms that had just a day before been filled with laughter and delight, and then panic and screams. Could he fill them with his memories of childhood, of the toy train set his father had once helped him to build across the living room? Of the hours spent reading in the windows that looked out over the broad lawns?
Must go to the lawn, he told himself. Must face seeing it again now, or never.
What was the old saying about falling off a horse? Perhaps it wasn't quite fitting, considering he would have much preferred a broken bone to the shock of what he'd seen the day before.
Drugs. An illusion. A trick. A theft.
He was merely tasting these words, sampling them, seeing if they would prove digestible. And the answer would come only once he gazed upon the sc
ene of the crime again.
The glass doors to the terrace had been shattered in the panic. Strange that the police hadn't put some sort of barricade or a piece of wood over the opening. But they weren't in the renovation business. He stepped through the framework carefully, so as not to loosen the remaining shards of glass. And then he followed the path the guests had followed the day before, out onto the patio and then down the stone steps leading to the grass.
He should have prepared himself for the sight of the overturned chairs, the toppled umbrellas, their canopies flapping in the gentle breeze. The debris of the great exodus had all been left behind. But the piles of ash, and the emptied clothing and shoes, were gone, thanks be to God.
Still, the sight of the wreckage before him was more upsetting than he'd anticipated. Perhaps the clear, beautiful morning only made it worse, for it called to mind better, happier days of sunsets like great orange bonfires lighting up the western horizon beyond the line of green, rustling trees. The clink of croquet balls on the lawn. Not this ghostly, haunted silence.
Already, I am not the same, he realized. Already, I am changed by what I have seen.
How long did he stand there in the breeze? How long did he stand there amidst the ghosts of yesterday's terror?
How long before the music began to play?
It started quietly at first. During the first few warbling notes, he thought it might be coming from the neighboring estate. But the neighboring estate was too far away. And this man's soaring operatic voice, the Italian words utterly familiar to him, was coming from the drawing room, and the gramophone within.
Upon his return to England, with a longing for the woman he'd known in Cairo pulsing within him like a second heartbeat, he had, in secret, rushed to the library where he had read the entire libretto of Aida in a single, hungry sitting. It was lyrics from that opera that he heard now, lyrics sung by the voice of the great Enrico Caruso, so powerful and insistent despite the scratches on the recording. It carried through the shattered doors behind him.
Celeste Aida, forma divina,
Mistico serto di luce e fior.
Had his mother been released from the hospital? For the recording was her gift to him. She'd mentioned it to him before the party. But it couldn't be her. They'd sedated her only a half hour before.