![]() ![]() An immense force emanated from her, an invisible and commanding sense of her presence, her occupation of this small and insignificant room. And not merely a woman, but a magnificent bronze-skinned Egyptian woman as artfully bejeweled and dressed as the old queens, in fine pleated linen, with her black hair down to her shoulders and braided with strands of gold. "And slowly I turned my eyes in the direction of the door, and it was a woman I saw standing there. It would have taken a band of mortals several hours to discover the trapdoor, but I found it quickly, and I was able to lift it, which mortals couldn't have done. I went out from the city to where the stars provided the only light, and I walked until I came to a ruined temple, and there I began to dig in the sand. "In the hour that followed I was to remember the strength and the speed I'd known in the forests of Gaul, and had not used since. I leapt over the wall and stood alone listening in the empty unpaved street. "My heart was knocking in me uncontrollably. "I closed my eyes, trying to gather my wits, form some plan of action that didn't include turning and running like a madman, and I heard a dry, crackling sound, and against my closed lids saw fire. I was still Marius, no matter what had been done to me. I could not realize that I was host to an alien entity. "I revolted against all of it because if I was anything, I was an individual, a particular being, with a strong sense of my own rights and prerogatives. I spent the next few nights feasting on blood until my miserable thoughts were drowned in it, and then in the early hours I roamed the great library of Alexandria, reading as I had always done. "But I didn't return to the underground temple. "And he like a stone sentinel in a royal tomb blocked my path. " Yet there was the sand on her feet and on her linen. ![]()
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