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still hoarse from the creatures death grip on his throat.
'
Her momentary panic subsided as she realized what he meant. It took
all her willpower, particularly with the demon only a few paces in front of
her and coming on strong, to look away from the charging apparition and at the
Eye. She managed, picturing in her mind a simple concept.
She felt no sensation, no release, noth-ing, and braced herself for
what could only be the in-evitable strong grasp.
"Jill?" She jumped, almost screaming in panic. She stepped back involuntarily
and looked away from the jewel.
It was Mac.
It took a few seconds longer for that to sink in. Then, still in some shock,
she looked around in all di-rections.
The great palace was still there, but not Asmodeus Mogart.
Everything drained out of her, and she sat down in the dirt. Mac sighed,
understanding, and sat down beside her.
"I-I just wished he'd go away," she told him, "and I guess he did."
Mac nodded. "I don't know where he went, but I'll tell you he just winked
out-one moment hes
'
running for you and the next, gone.
Pffft!"
She suddenly looked up, eyes still dull. "No, I -I think I
do know where he went. I think I told him to go to Hell."
He considered this. "Hmmm . . . I doubt if you can make an Alternative, even
with that,"
he thought aloud. "So-well, I would say you'd better proclaim a Heaven,
too. There's a Hell now even if there wasn't one before. And since he's
the devil himself, I don't think we've seen the last of him."
She thought about that and laughed, slowly at first, then in roaring peals.
She couldn't stop for several minutes, and tears rolled down her cheeks.
Finally, she sighed and lay back on the dirt.
Mac looked at the Eye of Baal, still clutched in her right hand. He pointed to
it. "May I see it?"
he asked curiously.
Suddenly emotion shot back through her, irrational and strange. "No!" she
snapped and quickly stood up, clutching the Eye to her and backing away from
him.
He stared at her in amazement. "Oh, come on," was all he could manage.
She was looking at him strangely, as if seeing him for the first
time. There was a glint of something not quite right in her
expression. Her mouth was slightly open as if she, too, were sensing
the changes inside her in wonder. Behind her eyes a mental battle seemed to be
going on.
Finally she appeared to come to a de-cision and looked again at the jewel.
He watched, a sickening sensation in his stomach, as she began to undergo a
transformation, changing, growing, glowing.
She became, once again, the Queen of Darkness-and more besides. She
was Venus, and
Aphrodite, and the Queen of the Amazons all rolled up into one. She was a true
goddess, radiating and reflecting all the power, awe, and mystery that those
imagined deities supposedly possessed.
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Mac Walters felt all the primal feelings of the an-cients rise
within him, all those emotions associated with the presence of a goddess:
awe, wonder, fear, worship, and yes, love, too. He felt himself kneeling, then
prostrating himself before Her, the supreme, the sublime being who was, in
fact, the center of his creation.
And yet something of his modern rational self re-mained, and deep within a
fading corner of rationality there came the thought, unbidden but deeply felt,
that said, Oh, no! Not again!
The Goddess, sole ruler and Supreme Being of the ravaged Earth, looked down in
satisfaction at Her sup-plicant. The feeling was tremendous, exhilarating in
ways She had never known before.
The sight of wor-ship, even by one lone worshipper, fed and
nurtured Her heady feelings of omnipotence. She understood now what Mogart
had been feeling, what he had striven for and so briefly attained, why he had
felt as he'd felt and done what he'd done.
Megalomania was, in fact, a wonderful disease, at least it was when the
sufferer really attained the power to match the mentality. Or was it the other
way around?
Did absolute power corrupt absolutely? Was that why so many of the demons were
forever imprisoned, kept away from the
Main Line and prevented by special safeguards from stealing other jewels? Were
those whom she had seen imprisoned in their worlds because they had
been so tainted with the disease they couldn't be allowed home?
She put such thoughts from Her mind.
This was Her home, and here was where She had the power.
She turned and looked at Mogarts castle.
'
So crude, She thought.
So common. Gods should have no need of fortresses; they lived in beauty.
Working the Eye of Baal, She altered the structure. Great Grecian columns,
sparkling fountains, marbled walkways, and inviting pools dripping with
flowers ap-peared everywhere. Again She felt the headiness of the Eye; to
think it was to have it.
She turned back to Walters for a moment.
No use making Mogart's mistake, She told herself.
She walked slowly, majestically, forward, trying to decide what to
do with him.
Replace his memories, She decided, so that he would never even know, guess,
or doubt the power of the
Goddess.
She was already making plans. A perfect world, an extension of that valley all
over the
Earth, happiness, kindness, no want or fear, all presided over by Her, of
course. A perfect world, where the mistakes of the past would not be made.
So deeply was She thinking of this new world She was going to create, She
failed to see the board with which Mac had struck Mogart. She stepped on it,
and it flew out from under Her, as did Her feet.
Her Supreme Holiness, Goddess of the Earth Jill McCulloch, fell flat on Her
magnificent fanny.
Mac heard her cry out as she slipped and chanced a look up. She fell hard on
her left side, with no chance to break her fall or time to get herself out of
it by way of the Eye. The great jewel came loose from her right hand when she
opened the hand to try to cushion the fall. As she hit the
ground, the jewel rolled almost in front of him.
Incredulous, he picked it up. She realized what had happened almost
immediately and jumped quickly to her feet. Mac, fighting back those
still-present primal emotions, looked at the glowing orb and thought:
You have no desire for the Eye of Baal. You want me to have it.
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She stopped, looking momentarily confused. In that same moment Mac Walters
started feeling what first Mogart and then Jill McCulloch had felt when [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]