Pride House: The Quest for Vainglory

The Chorus was repeated. At the end of the song, Reason punched the pause button, freezing the picture, and turned to Pride.

  “I’m as sorry as Love is,” she told him.

  “No need to apologize,” he said. “It’s accurate. You’d better go on with it.”

  “OK, if you’re sure. Uh, the next one is about Doubt.”

  When the tape resumed, Love said to the camera, “Now Mrs. Doubt, if you’re there, please try to take this the right way. I guess we’d better just sing it, and please listen to the whole thing because the second verse is the most important. This is called ‘Queen of the Ruins.’”

  She began with a doleful instrumental introduction; then they sang.

  She’s the queen of the ruins and the rats and the dust,

  She’s the queen of a dark empty room.

  All she holds turns to rubble and stubble and rust,

  All she covets is plunged into gloom.

  She must suffer great anguish and thirst, and she must

  Live her death in the damp of a tomb.

  Chorus:

  She’s a traitor, destroyer, usurper, and spy.

  She honors an unburied corpse as her brother;

  The Devil’s her father, and Sin is her mother;

  And she can’t love at all, and she won’t wonder why.

  When the King of the earth and the sea and the sky

  Puts His hand on her quivering soul....

  At this point, Doubt dashed forward, shut off the machine, and without turning, fled through the open doorway.