Had Marius ever stood in these sands? We wandered through the giant temple of Ramses, enchanted by the millions upon millions of tiny pictures cut into the walls. I kept thinking of Osiris, but the little figures were strangers. We prowled the ruins of Luxor. We lay in the riverboat together under the stars. On our way back to Cairo when we came to the great Colossi of Memnon, she told me in a passionate whisper how Roman emperors had journeyed to marvel at these statues just as we did now.
"They were ancient in the times of the Caesars, " she said, as we rode our camels through the cool sands. The wind was not so bad as it could have been on this night. We could see the immense stone figures clearly against the deep blue sky. Faces blasted away, they seemed nevertheless to stare forward, mute witnesses to the passage of time, whose stillness made me sad and afraid. I felt the same wonder I had known before the pyramids. Ancient gods, ancient mysteries. It made the chills rise. And yet what were these figures now but faceless sentinels, rulers of an endless waste?
"Marius, " I whispered to myself. "Have you seen these? Will any one of us endure so long? " But my reverie was broken by Gabrielle. She wanted to dismount and walk the rest of the way to the statues. I was game for it, though I didn't really know what to do with the big smelly stubborn camels, how to make them kneel down and all that. She did it. And she left them waiting for us, and we walked through the sand.
"Come with me into Africa, into the jungles, " she said. Her face was grave, her voice unusually soft. I didn't answer for a moment. Something in her manner alarmed me. Or at least it seemed I should have been alarmed. I should have heard a sound as sharp as the morning chime of Hell's Bells. I didn't want to go into the jungles of Africa. And she knew I didn't. I was anxiously awaiting news of my family from Roget, and I had it in my mind to seek the cities of the Orient, to wander through India into China and on to Japan.
"I understand the existence you've chosen, " she said. "And I've come to admire the perseverance with which you pursue it, you must know that. "
"I might say the same of you, " I said a little bitterly. She stopped.
We were as near to the colossal statues as one should get, I suppose. And the only thing that saved them from overwhelming me was that there was nothing near at hand to put them in scale. The sky overhead was as immense as they were, and the sands endless, and the stars countless and brilliant and rising forever overhead.
"Lestat, " she said slowly, measuring her words, "I am asking you to try, only once, to move through the world as I do. " The moon shone full on her, but the hat shadowed her small angular white face.
"Forget the house in Cairo, " she said suddenly, dropping her voice as if in respect for the importance of what she said.
"Abandon all your valuables, your clothes, the things that link you with civilization. Come south with me, up the river into Africa.
Travel with me as I travel. " Still I didn't answer. My heart was pounding. She murmured softly under her breath that we would see the secret tribes of Africa unknown to the world. We would fight the crocodile and the lion with our bare hands. We might find the source of the Nile itself. I began to tremble all over. It was as if the night were full of howling winds. And there was no place to go. You are saying you will leave me forever if I don't come. Isn't that it? I looked up at these horrific statues. I think I said:
"So it comes to this. " And this was why she had stayed close to me, this was why she had done so many little things to please, this was why we were together now. It had nothing to do with Nicki gone into eternity. It was another parting that concerned her now. She shook her head as if communing with herself, debating on how to go on. In a hushed voice she described to me the heat of tropical nights, wetter, sweeter than this heat.
"Come with me, Lestat, " she said. "By day I sleep in the sand. By night I am on the wing as if I could truly fly. I need no name. I leave no footprints. I want to go down to the very tip of Africa. I will be a goddess to those I slay. " She approached and slipped her arm about my shoulder and pressed her lips to my cheek, and I saw the deep glitter of her eyes beneath the brim of her hat. And the moonlight icing her mouth. I heard myself sigh. I shook my head.
"I can't and you know it, " I said. "I can't do it any more than you can stay with me. " All the way back to Cairo, I thought on it, what had come to me in those painful moments. What I had known but not said as we stood before the Colossi of Memnon in the sand. She was already lost to me! She had been for years. I had known it when I came down the stairs from the room in which I grieved for Nicki and I had seen her waiting for me. It had all been said in one form or another in the crypt beneath the tower years ago. She could not give me what I wanted of her. There was nothing I could do to make her what she would not be. And the truly terrible part was this: she really didn't want anything of me! She was asking me to come because she felt the obligation to do so. Pity, sadness-maybe those were also reasons. But what she really wanted was to be free. She stayed with me as we returned to the city. She did and said nothing. And I was sinking even lower, silent, stunned, knowing that another dreadful blow would soon fall. There was the clarity and the horror. She will say her farewell, and I can't prevent it. When do I start to lose my senses? When do I begin to cry uncontrollably? Not now. As we lighted the lamps of the little house, the colors assaulted me-Persian carpets covered with delicate flowers, the tentwork woven with a million tiny mirrors, the brilliant plumage of the fluttering birds. I looked for a packet from Roget but there was none, and I became angry suddenly. Surely he would have written by now. I had to know what was going on in Paris! Then I became afraid.
"What the hell is happening in France? " I murmured. "I'll have to go and find other Europeans. The British, they always have information. They drag their damned Indian tea and their London Times with them wherever they go. " I was infuriated to see her standing there so still. It was as if something were happening in the room-that awful sense of tension and anticipation that I'd known in the crypt before .Armand told us his long tale. But nothing was happening, only that she was about to leave me forever. She was about to slip into time forever. And how would we ever find each other again!