Suddenly I was distracted.

Memnoch seemed too shaken to say any more just yet.

Something changed in the landscape. I looked towards the circle of stones, and realized a figure was sitting there, the figure of a dark-skinned, dark-eyed man, emaciated and covered with the sand of the desert, and he was looking at us. And without one fiber of his flesh being other than human, He was obviously God.

I was petrified.

I had lost the map. I didn't know the way back or the way forward, or what lay to left or to right.

I was petrified, yet I wasn't frightened, and this man, this dark-eyed one, was merely looking at us with the softest sympathy in his face, and the same unbounded acceptance of us that I had seen in Him in Heaven when He'd turned and taken me by the arms.

The Son of God.

"Come here, Lestat," he called now softly, over the desert wind, in a human voice.

"Come closer."

I looked at Memnoch. Memnoch was looking at him, too, now and he gave a bitter smile. "Lestat, it is always a good idea, no matter how He is behaving, to do exactly what He says."

Blasphemy. I turned, shivering.

I went directly towards the figure, conscious of each shuffling step through the boiling sand, the dark thin form coming ever more clear to me, a tired and suffering man. I sank down on my knees in front of Him, looking up into His face.

"The Living Lord," I whispered.

"I want you to come into Jerusalem," He said. He reached out and brushed back my hair, and the hand was as Memnoch described it, dry, calloused, darkened from the sun as his brow was darkened. But the voice hovered somewhere between natural and sublime, it struck a timbre beyond the angelic. It was the voice that had spoken to me in Heaven, only confined to human sounds.

I couldn't answer. I couldn't do anything. I knew that I would do nothing until I was told. Memnoch stood off, arms folded, watching. And I knelt, looking into the eyes of God Incarnate and I knelt before Him completely alone.

"Come into Jerusalem," He said. "It won't take you long, no more perhaps than a few moments, but come into Jerusalem with Memnoch, on the day of my death, and glimpse my Passion—see me crowned with thorns and carrying my cross. Do this for Me before you make your decision whether or not to serve Memnoch or the Lord God."

Every part of me knew I couldn't do it. I couldn't stand it! I couldn't watch it. I couldn't. I was paralyzed. Disobedience, blasphemy, those weren't the issues. I couldn't endure the thought of it! I stared at Him, at His sunburnt face, at His soft and loving eyes, at the sand clinging to the edge of His cheek. His dark hair was neglected, wind-torn, swept back from His face.

No! I can't do it! I can't bear it!