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.
"You wouldn't dare to burn it," he said.
"I would if I had a bit of flame," I said. "I would bring flame, only if I bring flame I may hurt that woman, and those others who don't deserve it-"
"Never mind, my bumbling one."
My heart pounded. Candles. There were no burning candles in this room.
There came a snap. I saw the light in my eye. He held a tiny burning stick, a match.
"Here, take it," he said. "If you're so sure."
I took the stick from him. I cradled the flame in my fingers. "Oh, this is so pretty," I said, "and so warm. Oh, I feel it . . ."
"It's going to go out if you don't hurry. Light the fire. Light the crumpled paper there. The fire's built up. The boys do it. It's made to roar up the chimney. Go ahead. Burn the bones. Do it."
"You know, Gregory," I said, "I can't stop myself from doing it." I bent down and touched the dying flame to the edge of the paper, and at once the paper was laced with flame and rising and collapsing. Little burning bits flew up the chimney. The thin wood caught with a loud crackling sound and the blast of heat came at me. The flames curled up around the casket. They blackened the gold, oh, God! What a sight, the cloth inside caught fire. The lid began to curl.
I couldn't see my own bones for the flames!
"No!" He screamed. "No." He reached over, chest heaving, and dragged the casket and the lid out onto the floor, dragging some of the fire with them, but this was only paper fire, and he stamped it out angrily. His fingers were burnt.