The Passion of Cleopatra (Ramses the Damned 2)

Ah, yes, remember this moment, always, with the music playing and your darling smiling at you, and this new friend Elliott at your elbow, and no matter what the future holds, do not ever yield to the darkness again, do not ever yield to sleep, to escape. This world is simply too wondrous for that.

An hour later they said their farewells to Elliott in the bustling lobby of the hotel before going up to their rooms.

Julie peeled off the constricting male clothes and stepped out of them, a pink blossom escaping from a sheath of white. She fell into his arms.

"My queen, my immortal queen," he said. The tears stood in his eyes. He allowed her to remove his jacket and throw it aside, to unbutton the stiff and cumbersome shirt.

Naked together, they embraced in the enormous bed, amid linen that smelled of sunshine and rain, as the singing of a passing gondolier drifted through the windows.

And she will never die as all the others died, Ramses thought, kissing her hair, her breasts, the tender flesh inside her shapely arms, her smooth legs. Never die as they all have, all those other mortals with whom he'd ever struggled in darkened chambers. "My Julie," he whispered.

As he entered her, he saw her face flush and grow moist, the blood beating in her cheeks, her lips slack and her lids half closed. Such trusting surrender, when she was now as powerful as he. He lifted her tight against him as he came.

Thank you, thank you, god of the elixir. Thank you for this blessed spouse who will live as long as I live.

*

Early morning. He never really slept. Yes, he dozed now and then, rested, but he never really slept, yet Julie slept, nestled among the pillows, pink as the roses in the nearby vase, her shining hair on the pillow. He was looking out the window again, at the dark shimmering canal below, and then up at the black sky with its inscrutable stars. Once, as pharaoh, he had thought he would journey there on his death, one of the immortals, and now he knew the truth about those stars, the modern truth of the vast reaches of space and the truth of this tiny, insignificant planet.

He thought of Cleopatra, or the monster that he had raised from the dead. He saw that blaze as the car hit the train and the gasoline in it had exploded.

Forgive me, whoever, whatever, you were! I didn't know. I simply didn't know.

He padded silently across the polished floor, back to the bower of down coverlets and pillows in which he'd left his Julie. "This one lives," he whispered. "She lives and she loves me, and there is a bond forged between us that will give me the strength to forgive myself everything else."

He kissed her lips. She stirred. She stared up at him. He couldn't stop kissing her, her neck, her shoulders, he

r warm breasts. His fingers found her nipples and pressed them hard as he kissed her open mouth. He could feel the warmth between her legs against him. Forever. Forever with her, the future brilliant and magnificent as this very moment. Discovery and wonder, and love without end.

3

Alexandria

She liked this Teddy, this Dr. Theodore Dreycliff.

She liked the way he made love to her, his ministrations hungry and solicitous.

She liked that he treated her as a queen.

She liked that his pale skin turned pink under her slaps.

She had made him rich beyond his wildest imagining and still he clung to her, still he showed devotion.

But it had been a mistake, asking him to bring her to Alexandria.

There was little he could do to fix it now. They stood together on the seawall, staring out at the Mediterranean. Meditating on a sea crowded with ugly steel ships was easier than exploring a city so terribly changed from what she remembered. From what she wanted to remember of it.

To see Cairo overtaken by the mad growl of motorcars had not rent her heart in this same way.

During her time as queen, she had been no stranger to the length of the Nile. And yet even then the Upper Nile had been shrouded in the feel of the ancient; its inhabitants spoke a language most of her advisors could not. She had made it a point to learn this language, but that did not mean those regions had felt like home to her. Alexandria had been her home, and so to see it robbed of its great lighthouse and library, webbed with dark alleyways where there had once been glittering, vine-dappled streets, all of this was more than she could bear.

She found herself clutching Teddy's hand as if it were the only rail on a steep, open staircase.

"Darling," he finally whispered, "you're in pain. What can I do? Tell me and I shall do it."

She kissed him gently, cupped his face in her hands. There was nothing he could do. Not in this moment. But everything he had done up until then had been a triumph, and so she refused to make him feel anything other than great confidence in his abilities.

In Cairo, he had found the collectors, brought them to the tomb she'd unearthed, and arranged for the quick sale of everything inside.