He sneers at the mention of the Scale. “We both know how it treated you. Loved your expression when it began to wail. You have to admit it, Sita, it took a pretty dim view of your time on earth.”
Mocking me appears to improve his mood. Still, I feel he is trying to steer the conversation away from certain directions. He is used to being in total command and this moment he is not.
“The answer to my first riddle, tell me,” I demand.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I told you. You don’t even remember—”
“‘What is the most useless human emotion?’” I say.
He blinks, surprised, but then settles down and finishes his drink. Yet when I gesture for him to respond, he shakes his head. “The answer can’t help you,” he says. “Only I can help you.”
“Since it was the first question the ferryman asked, I suspect it could help me a great deal. But if you’re not ready to answer, let’s leave my riddle aside for a moment. Let’s talk about yours.”
He acts amused. “I’ve never stooped so low as to ask a ferryman for a ride across that disgusting river.”
“Maybe you should have. You know what those fire-and-brimstone ministers always say. ‘Pride goeth before the fall.’ In other words, you might benefit from a dose of humility.”
He suddenly stands, his glass still in his hand.
“Need I remind you who you’re speaking to?” he asks.
I carefully shake my head.
He continues. “Then I suggest, if you want to make a deal, make it. Otherwise, you’re beginning to bore me, and you know what becomes of those who displease me.”
I stand and speak in a firm but reasonable voice. If I provoke him too soon, he won’t allow me to finish, and this being his world, he probably will crush me like an insect. On the plus side, I have two cards to play. Both are aces but both have to work.
“Pride goeth before the fall,” I repeat. “That’s the answer to your riddle. That’s the answer you accidentally showed me in that motel room in London. You wanted to take me to the depths of hell to break me. Only you took me so deep I saw who you really are. I discovered your little secret. Only it’s not so little, after all. Actually, it’s so important mankind’s greatest minds have struggled with it since the beginning of time.”
“Stop!” he screams, and throws his drink at my face. His reflexes are extraordinary, greater than my own. The glass hits my chin, where it shatters and tears a three-inch gash in my flesh. My blood gushes out but I ignore it. Already, I fear, I have pushed him too far.
“You’re the one who took me to that place where I saw the truth.”
“Be silent! I command you!” he shouts.
I take a step toward him. “You must have wanted me to see. You weren’t really talking about Umara when you ordered me to destroy the Light Bearer. You were talking about yourself. It’s time to quit hiding behind that silly name, Tarana. I mean, it’s just an invented word, it doesn’t explain who the Light Bearer is and why he fell. If humility is out of your reach, and you must be proud of something, then admit who you really are. We both know who the real Light Bearer is.” I stop. “Don’t we, Lucifer?”
The whites of his eyes vanish. There is only black. I cannot bear to look at him and yet he forces me to do so. I feel I will be sick. The nausea arises from a sudden pressure at the back of my skull.
He speaks softly, in a deadly tone. “Last warning, Sita.”
I smile and raise my arms as if to applaud him. “You are the greatest of the great. The one who was given the divine light. But it wasn’t enough for you. You wanted more. Unfortunately, when you went to war to get it, you had to call upon your great light. You had to dive deep into it. So deep you discovered, quite by accident, that the Lord you were fighting was the same as yourself. Most would have rejoiced in such a discovery, that they were one with God. But you . . . it just made you want to run and hide.”
He turns away so I can’t see his face.
I come close so I can whisper in his ear.
It is the bravest thing I have ever done in my life.
“That is why you ended up in this godforsaken realm. You were too proud to admit you were no different from the Lord. Yet you never told the truth to the others who fought by your side. You damned them for no reason. You fell for nothing, which makes you nothing in my eyes.”
He slowly turns and grips my neck.
“You think you can mock me? How will your Hydra look without its immortal head?” he asks as he flexes his fingers as a prelude to decapitating me. He chokes off my air, and I don’t know how I manage to get out my last words.
“You no longer have any power over me,” I gasp. “You never did. You see, I remember the answer to the riddle, and what it means for me.”
My remark shocks him. He blinks.
His spell wavers as another instant passes.
Suddenly Shanti and I are back in the motel room.
She has her hands around my neck.
I knock them loose and grip her throat.
Finally, my hands are clean.
“Guilt,” I say. “That is the most useless of all emotions. No matter how many people I’ve saved in my life, I still felt guilty about those I killed. It was my guilt that made me feel I didn’t deserve to see Krishna. But it was all a lie, and you, the father of lies, exploited my weakness when you caused me to remember only a portion of what happened when I died.”
Shanti stares at me with genuine fear in her eyes.
Her master has left her all alone.
“What you say is true,” she says, fighting to sound sincere. “Show me mercy now and you will definitely see Krishna when you die.”
I laugh. “You fool! What I do with your miserable life won’t change what happens at the Scale. Don’t you understand? I’m already dead.”
I’m sick and tired of this bitch and her lies.
I rip off her head and throw it out the window.
EPILOGUE
Suddenly I stand before the Scale.
Judgment has been passed. There are no beautiful chimes to welcome me into paradise. A forsaken wail echoes through the ancient structure. The left door and the burning light await me. The tall Caretaker in the red robe with the searing grip takes hold of my left arm, ready to drag me through the door from which no one ever returns, unless I agree to do his bidding. All this I recognize. All this is as it was before.
The devil gives his speech about me being damned and how horrible it will be to burn. But just when he’s talked me into a state of total despair, he offers me a deal. Kill the Light Bearer and you will have a respite from the agony that awaits you. In my fear I offer my right hand and accept his deal.
Then I realize I’m holding down the left plate. That I unconsciously pushed it down after the invisible force released my hands, while the Scale was still bobbing up and down. Guilt caused me to do it. It’s like I felt the pain of every single person I hurt during the thousands of years I walked the earth.
Yet suddenly I am able to let go of the guilt, and when I do, I remove my thumb from the edge of the left plate, and its right counterpart, loaded with diamonds, sinks down.
Delicious chimes fill the air. The crowd sighs with relief.
My own relief could fill the sky. I weep with joy.
The red-hooded Caretaker releases my left arm.
“Almost, Sita,” he whispers. “Almost.”
I smile. “Go to hell,” I say.
A white-hooded Caretaker takes me by the arm and leads me toward the door on the right from where the golden light emanates. Before I leave the room and the others waiting to be judged, the mysterious woman reaches from the crowd and our fingers touch.
“Will I see you soon?” I ask.
She smiles and in that moment I almost know her name.
“Of course,” she says.
My Caretaker leads me to the door on the right and I enter the golden light. The change I feel in that ins
tant fills me with wonder. Suddenly I’m no longer bathing in the light, I feel as if it enters me and I become one with it.
Once again, I pass through a long tunnel. I assume I’m still walking but at the same time I glide along without effort. The tunnel is neither big nor small, it’s just the right size, and as I sweep through it I see different colored caves. Some give off a white light that fills me with amazement. Others shine with a green glow that reminds me of everyone I ever loved in life. Still other tunnels radiate a combination of colors and I know it is to these realms the majority of people are drawn. Yet I see no one along the way, and I know that’s because I have yet to reach the place where I belong.
Finally I come to a tunnel filled with an intoxicating blue light.
As I turn into it, I feel my feet and legs return and I recognize the body that carried me through my journey on earth. Suddenly I’m wearing a blue gown with a yellow sash tied at my waist. Around my neck is a gold chain, which holds a single indigo-colored jewel.
It reminds me of the famed Kaustubha gem Krishna often wore on earth but it is a darker hue. The jewel hangs above my heart and seems to emit an energy that fills every cell in my body with joy.
The tunnel ends in an ordinary door with a domed top.
A man not much taller than myself, with long black hair, stands to the side of the door. He wears loose-fitting gold trousers and an open saffron shirt. His chest muscles are smooth and strong, his smile inscrutable, his blue eyes as bewitching as a night sky filled with a galaxy of newborn stars. The sight of him sends a thrill through my heart but I hesitate to let myself accept who he is. He stares at me with such love, and yet a part of me, a small childish part, feels afraid, or unworthy.
I hesitate. “My Lord?”
He nods. “Sita.”
My name, he has said my name, and my doubt lessens. Yet I begin to weep and don’t know why. I couldn’t be happier, however, I feel sad, too, consumed with sorrow. Both emotions feel very old. He reaches out and strokes my hair.
“Welcome home, Sita.”
“Lord,” I say, struggling to find the words to explain my confusion. “Do I really belong here?” I ask.
He gives a faint smile, he has the most seductive lips. “The choice is yours. You feel there’s much you still have to do to atone for those you hurt. But there comes a time when even the last vampire is permitted to leave the world to its own destiny.”
“But I did leave so much undone,” I say, wiping at my tears. “I just changed Teri into a vampire. She’ll need my guidance. And Matt and Paula and Seymour are left to face the Telar and the IIC. It doesn’t feel right that I should get to enter paradise while they struggle against such evil.”
“That evil is finished. You already defeated it.”
His words make no sense. Or maybe they do and it’s my memory that’s at fault. For as I move closer and stare at his face, I catch glimpses of myself linking minds with a bunch of disturbed children as I psychically try to hunt down Haru and his followers. I also see images of a pretty woman more than twice my age, who possesses more wisdom than anyone I have ever met, except for Krishna.
I realize it is the woman I met on the banks of the river.
The one who bid me farewell after I passed the Scale.
“Umara,” I say aloud.
“She waits for you inside.”
“But I don’t know her. I never met her.”
“Are you sure?” he asks.
Three simple words but they feel as if they unlock a whirlwind inside of me. Especially as I focus more tightly on Krishna’s eyes. As I gaze into them, I feel as if I lift into the air and exchange positions with him. Now I see through his eyes, and see myself, and all the things I still want to do.
If I decide to return to earth.
I realize it is Krishna who is making me the offer to extend my life. Not that demon in the red robe. However, even though I see with his eyes, not all of my confusion vanishes. For they are so mesmerizing, their blue so deep and dark, they seem to gaze in all directions at once. The past and the future have no meaning to him. They are linear, he is infinite.
But they still have meaning to me. The simple remembrance causes me to shift positions again, and once more I find myself back in my body, wondering if I really want to ask if I should go back or not. To leave him feels like an impossibility.
Before I can speak the question aloud, Krishna smiles.
“It matters not, Sita. Stay or go, you will always be with me.”
His words heal my last shred of doubt.
I have faith. It doesn’t matter what I decide.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHRISTOPHER PIKE is a bestselling author of young adult novels. The Thirst series, The Secret of Ka, and the Remember Me and Alosha trilogies are some of his favorite titles. He is also the author of several adult novels, including Sati and The Season of Passage. Thirst and Alosha are slated to be released as feature films. Pike currently lives in Santa Barbara, where it is rumored he never leaves his house. But he can be found online at christopherpikebooks.com.
HERE’S A PEEK AT ANOTHER SERIES BY
Christopher Pike
SOME PARTIES ARE TO DIE FOR.
I should never have gone on vacation in Europe, Jessica Hart thought. After climbing the Matterhorn, starting high school again feels ridiculous.
The day was a Friday, the last day of the first week of school, but Jessica’s first glimpse of Tabb High. Less than twenty hours earlier she had been enjoying the crisp, cool air of Switzerland’s Alps. Now she had Southern California’s worst to breathe; the morning was as smoggy as it was hot. Plus she had a terrible case of jet lag. She probably should have skipped what was left of the school week and rested up over Saturday and Sunday, but she had been anxious to see her friends and to check out the place where she was doomed to spend her one and only senior year. So far it had not impressed her.
“I want to have a party,” Alice McCoy was saying to her as they wove through the crowds in the outdoor hallway toward Jessica’s locker room. “We could get, say, thirty kids from Mesa, with thirty kids from Tabb.”
Mesa High had been their alma mater until midsummer, when those in power had decided that the district could not afford two partially full high schools. Tabb had absorbed perhaps three-quarters of Mesa’s students. Although Tabb was older than Mesa, it was far bigger. The other twenty-five percent had ended up at Sanders High, five miles farther inland. Fortunately for Jessica, the majority of her friends had moved with her to Tabb, not the least of whom was Alice McCoy. Two years younger, she was—in Jessica’s unbiased opinion—the sweetest girl in the whole world.
“You mean as a get-to-know-each-other sort of thing?” Jessica asked.
“Yeah. I think it would help break the ice between us.”
“I wouldn’t worry about any ice today,” Jessica said, brushing her dark hair off her sweaty forehead. On hot days like this she wished she had Alice’s bright blond curls; they seemed to reflect most of the sun’s rays. “Does this joint have airconditioning?” Jessica asked.
“In some of the rooms.”
“Some?”
“The teachers’ lounge is real cool. I was in there yesterday. They want me to paint a mural on the wall.” Alice laughed. “They want a mountain glacier.”
“It figures. I hope you’re charging them?”
“I’m not.”
“Fool. Back to this party business. How would you know which thirty Tabb kids to invite?”
Alice nodded. “That’s a problem. But maybe in the next week we’ll meet some neat people. Have you run into anyone that you like yet?”
Jessica shook her head. “No, and I’ve been here all of thirty minutes. But maybe by lunch I’ll get some guy to fall in love with me.”
The words came out easily, but were accompanied by a slight feeling of uneasiness. She had gone on few dates while at Mesa High. Guys just didn’t ask her out much. Her best friend, Sara Cantrell, said it was bec
ause they were intimidated by her beauty.
“You’re right, Sara, that must be it. All those guys watching me from across campus and thinking to themselves that there’s a babe beyond their reach. Really, they have a lot of nerve even looking at me.”
Actually, Jessica knew she was pretty. Enough people had told her so for enough years, and they couldn’t all be wrong. Besides, she had only to look in the mirror. Her face was a perfect oval, with a firm chin and a wide, full mouth that she had trained to smile even when she didn’t feel much like smiling. Her hair and eyes matched beautifully. The former was dark brown, long and wavy, with a sheen that had stayed with her from infancy; the latter, an even darker brown, large and round, giving her either a playful or nasty look, depending on her mood. And with a carefully controlled diet and daily jogs around the park, she kept her figure slim and supple. She’d even picked up a tan this summer.
I sound practically perfect!
But, no, she wasn’t perfect. She believed, like most teenage girls who don’t date much, that there was something wrong with her, something missing. Yet she didn’t know what it could be. She didn’t understand how Alice—a nice enough looking girl, but certainly no fairy princess—drew girls and guys alike to her in droves. Some people were charismatic, she supposed, and others weren’t, and that was that.
Just then Jessica caught sight of a girl in a cheerleader’s uniform standing beside a tree and chatting with a group of what appeared to be football players. A stab of envy touched her. The past spring she had successfully tried out for the cheerleading squad. And all summer she had been looking forward to entering the mainstream of her school’s social life. But then her school had disappeared, and those who decided such things—who were those jerks, anyway?—had felt that Tabb High should be allowed to maintain its pep squads without integrating those from Mesa High.
God, now there’s a girl that looks out of reach.