“You will live without pain, you will live without aging. You will live without the fear of death and above the laws of man.”
Bernard lay like a broken toy, all the tension, all the life, gone from him. His arms hung dead on the coffin bottom, his legs lay dead, one bent, tilted against the sarcophagus wall. His head lay still on his flaccid neck, his eyes open, staring, his mouth open.
Love, he thought distantly. Love has the human form divine.
“You think now,” Iago went on, “that you’ll quail at the letting of blood, at the killing of your own children. But I promise you, you will not quail. More than that, I promise you the act will free you, will give you a power over your own life—and a joy in that power—you can’t even imagine now. Any beast can give life to its offspring. But only we can give life to ourselves, over and over.”
Bernard lay motionless, lay limp. Lay staring into nothing, seeing nothing. The human form divine, he thought.
“It will become your nature, Bernard, I swear. It is your nature now, if you would only confess it. You can’t help but feel it as I speak. You can’t help but imagine it: lifting the knife over the infant’s body, unafraid of capture, unafraid of sin. Taking its blood for your own life. You can’t help but imagine it and feel how exciting it is to you. It is exciting to you, isn’t it, Bernard? Isn’t it?”
Bernard lay barely breathing; staring. Arms dead, legs dead, eyes open. Love has the human form divine.
Then, slowly, as on a rusty hinge, his mouth moved.
“Yes,” he said distinctly.
He thought he heard Iago sigh.
“You see, it can be done,” came the smoke of the voice above. “We can be honest with each other about who we really are. Now,” he went on, his tone growing more charged. “Now—will you let me release you? Will you let me free you from your coffin? Will you travel with me for a while—just a little while—and mix your life with mine, and give me my fair chance to prove my case to you?”
Love, thought Bernard senselessly. Lying, staring, not even aware of the tears that had started to run down his cheeks.
“Will you agree?” said Iago.
And Bernard, at last, said, “Yes.”
At once there was a thick, scraping sound. Bernard’s head remained where it was, but his eyes moved slightly. He looked upward. The deep grind of stone on stone came again. He let out a silent sob of relief. The lid of the sarcophogus was shifting.
Now he heard other voices, murmuring. A grunt of effort. Another deep scrape. A long grating rumble.
Suddenly, a line of gray light slashed across his face like a sword. He shut his eyes, but the light throbbed red behind his lids. The cool air poured down over his cheeks, and his body seemed to seize it, drag it in.
“Oh,” he whispered.
He stirred now, opened his eyes. Turned his head to look up as the line of light expanded. The light was not bright but it seemed to him a Niagara of blinding radiance. He squinted into it. Gasped the fresh air. A milkshake in the desert. He gasped and gasped it, his stomach rolling over with its unaccustomed richness. Exquisite. The pain in his head, the aching throughout his body: it was all exquisite, it was exquisite life, the promise of this exquisite life forever.
His shoulders began to shake as he started crying harder, with joy this time. He peered up into the cascade of light. It seemed to separate like swimmers in a water ballet, it seemed to bloom like flowers, changing from a downpour to a spreading canopy of streaming beams.
And there—at the center of those rays—there was Iago.
It was difficult for Bernard to distinguish between the surge of passionate pleasure that went through him at the opening of his tomb, and the powerful, bewildering warmth he felt upon finally seeing that face. The long, dark hair framed features chiseled in brutal planes and angles. But the eyes were as cool and smoky as the voice had been, relaxed, even witty. The smile was gently welcoming.
This was his father.
“Now you’ll see,” Iago said, the voice washing down with the radiant light. “With me, above all else, you will never be ashamed of who you are.”
Bernard tried to nod. “Love …” he almost whispered. But his eyes sank closed, and he fainted.