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Akasha's face darkened again with anger Yet even in rage, the prettiness of her expression remained "You have always opposed me!" she said to Maharet "I would destroy you if I could I would hurt those you love "
There was a stunned silence I could sh no one dared to move or speak
Maharet nodded She sly
"It is you who are arrogant," she answered "It is you who have learned nothing It is you who have not changed in six thousand years It is your soul which remains unperfected, while rasp In your isolation you dreamed dreams as thousands of e; and you ee from your silence, ready tothe a handful of your fellow creatures, and they crumble You cannot defend them How could anyone defend them? And you tell us we deny e see!"
Slowly Maharet rose fro on her fingers as they touched the wood
"Well, I'll tell you what I see," she went on "Six thousand years ago, when ly and irreversible accident occurred; it was as awful in its oay as the monsters born now and then to ing to life, and clinging to your will, and clinging to your royal prerogative, refused to take that awful rave To sanctify it, that was your purpose To spin a great and glorious religion; and that is still your purpose now But it was an accident finally, a distortion, and nothing more
"And look now at the ages since that dark and evil ic; founded upon some apparition or voice from the clouds! Founded upon the intervention of the supernatural in one guise or another- from the dead!
"Look on the effect of your religions, those movements that have swept up millions with their fantastical claims Look at what they have done to huht on account of them; look at the persecutions, the massacres Look at the pure enslavement of reason; look at the price of faith and zeal
"And you tell us of children dying in the Eastern countries, in the nauns crackle and the bombs fall!
"And the war of which you speak in which one tiny European nation sought to exterrand spiritual design for a neorld was that done? And what does the world remember of it? The death camps, the ovens in which bodies were burnt by the thousands The ideas are gone!
"I tell you, ould be hard put to deterion or the pure idea The intervention of the supernatural or the elegant simple abstract solution! Both have bathed this earth in suffering; both have brought the huuratively to its knees
"Don't you see? It is not man who is the enemy of the human species It is the irrational; it is the spiritual when it is divorced fro heart or one bleeding vein
"You accuse us of greed Ah, but our greed is our salvation Because we knoe are; we know our limits and we know our sins; you have never known yours
"You would begin it all again, wouldn't you? You would bring a new religion, a new revelation, a neave of superstition and sacrifice and death "
"You lie," Akasha answered, her voice barely able to contain her fury "You betray the very beauty I dream of; you betray it because you have no vision, you have no dreams "