by Anne Rice
As I told you, the Legions now controlled everything. Somebody should have told Macrinus. Instead of fighting he bought off the enemy. The troops were hardly proud of this. And then he cracked down on them, taking away some of their benefits.
He didn't seem to grasp that he had to maintain their approval to survive. Though of course what good had this done for Caracalla, whom they loved?
Whatever, the sister of Julia Domna, named Julia Maesa, who was a Syrian and of a family dedicated to the Syrian sun god, seized this dreary moment in the life of the lusty legions to put her grandson, born of Julia Soemis, in power as Emperor! It was an outrageous plan actually, for any number of reasons. First and foremost, all three Julias were Syrian. The boy himself was fourteen years old, and also he was a hereditary Priest of the Syrian sun god.
But somehow or other Julia Maesa and her daughter's lover, Gannys, managed to convince a bunch of soldiers in a tent that this fourteen-year-old Syrian boy should become the Emperor of Rome.
The Army deserted the Imperial Macrinus, and he and his son were hunted down and murdered.
So, high on the shoulders of proud soldiers rode this fourteen-year-old boy! But he didn't want to be called by his Roman name. He wanted to be called by the name of the god he worshiped in Syria, Elagabalus. The very presence of him in Antioch shook the nerves of all citizens. At last, he and three remaining Julias - his aunt, his Mother and his grandmother, all of them Syrian Priestesses - left Antioch.
In Nicomedia, which was very near to us, Elagabalus murdered his Mother's lover. So who was left? He also picked up an enormous sacred black stone and brought it back to Rome, saying that this stone was sacred to the Syrian sun god, whom all must now worship.
He was gone, across the sea, but it took sometimes no more than eleven days for a letter to reach Antioch from Rome, and soon there were rampant rumors. Who will ever know the truth about him?
Elagabalus. He built a Temple for the stone on the Palatine Hill. He made Romans stand around in Phoenician gowns while he slaughtered cattle and sheep in sacrifice.
He begged the physicians to try to transform him into a woman by creating a proper opening between his legs. Romans were horrified by this. At night he dressed as a woman, complete with a wig, and went prowling taverns.
All over the Empire the soldiers started to riot.
Even the three Julias, grandmother Julia Maesa, his aunt Julia Domna, and his own Mother, Julia Soemis, started to get sick of him. After four years, four years, mind you, of this maniac's rule, the soldiers killed him and threw his body in the Tiber.
It did not seem to Marius that there was anything left of the world we had once called Rome. And he was thoroughly sick of all the Christians in Antioch, their fights over doctrine. He found all mystery religions dangerous now. He served up this lunatic Emperor as a perfect example of the fanaticism gaining ground in the times.
And he was right. He was right.
It was all I could do to keep him from despair. In truth he had not yet confronted that terrible darkness I had once spoken of; he was far too agitated, far too irritated and quarrelsome. But I was very frightened for him, and hurt for him, and didn't want him to see more darkly, as I did, to be more aloof, expecting nothing and almost smiling at the collapse of our Empire.
Then the very worst thing happened, something we had both feared in one form or another. But it came upon us in the worst possible form.
One night there appeared at our eternally open doors five blood drinkers.
Neither of us had caught the sound of their approach. Lounging about with our books, we looked up to see these five, three women and a man and a boy, and to realize that all wore black garments. They were dressed like Christian hermits and ascetics who deny the flesh and starve themselves. Antioch had a whole passel of these men in the desert roundabouts.
But these were blood drinkers.
Dark of hair and eye, and dark of skin, they stood before us, their arms folded.
Dark of skin, I thought quickly. They are young. They were made after the great burning. So what if there are five?
They had in general rather attractive faces, wellshaped features and groomed eyebrows, and deep dark eyes, and all over them I saw the marks of their living bodies - tiny wrinkles next to their eyes, wrinkled around their knuckles.
They seemed as shocked to see us as we were to see them. They stared at the brightly lighted library; they stared at our finery, which was in such contrast to their ascetic robes.
"Well," said Marius, "who are you."
Cloaking my thoughts, I tried to probe theirs. Their minds were locked. They were dedicated to something. It had the very scent of fanaticism. I felt a horrid foreboding.
They started timidly to enter the open door.
"No, stop, please," said Marius in Greek "This is my house. Tell me who you are, and then I perhaps shall invite you over my threshold."
"You're Christians, aren't you?" I said. "You have the zeal."
"We are!" said one in Greek. It was the man. "We are the scourge of humanity in the name of God and his son, Christ. We are the Children of Darkness."
"Who made you?" asked Marius.
"We were made in a sacred cave and in our Temple," said another, a woman, speaking in Greek also. "We know the truth of the Serpent, and his fangs are our fangs."
I limbed to my feet and moved towards Marius.
"We thought you would be in Rome," said the young man. He had short black hair, and very round innocent eyes. "Because the Christian Bishop of Rome is now supreme among Christians and the theology of Antioch is no longer of great matter."
"Why would we be in Rome'?" asked Marius. "What is the Roman Bishop to us?"
The woman took the fore. Her hair was severely parted in the middle but her face was very regal and regular. She had in particular beautifully defined lips.
"Why do you hide from us? We have heard of you for years! We know that you know things - about us and where the Dark Gift came from, that you know how God put it into the world, and that you saved our kind from extinction."
Marius was plainly horrified, but gave little sign of it.
"I have nothing to tell you," he said, perhaps too hastily. "Except I do not believe in your God or your Christ and I do not believe God put the Dark Gift, as you call it, into the world. You have made a terrible mistake."
They were highly skeptical and utterly dedicated.
"You have almost reached salvation," said another, the boy at the far end of the line, whose hair was unshorn and hung to his shoulders. He had a manly voice, but his limbs were small. "You have almost reached the point where you are so strong and white and pure that you need not drink!"
"Would that that were true, it's not," said Marius.
"Why don't you welcome us?" asked the boy. "Why don't you guide us and teach us that we may better spread the Dark Blood, and punish mortals for their sins! We are pure of heart. We were chosen. Each of us went into the cave bravely and there the dying devil, a crushed creature of blood and bone, cast out of Heaven in a blaze of fire, passed on to us his teachings."
"Which were what?" asked Marius.
"Make them suffer," the woman said. "Bring death. Eschew all things of the world, as do the Stoics and the hermits of Egypt, but bring death. Punish them."
The woman had become hostile. "This man won't help us," she said under her breath. "This man is profane. This man is a heretic."
"But you must receive us," said the young man who had spoken first. "We have searched so long and so far, and we come to you in humility. If you wish to live in a palace, then perhaps that is your right, you have earned it, but we have not. We live in darkness, we enjoy no pleasure but the blood, we feast on the weak and the diseased and the innocent alike. We do the will of Christ as the Serpent did the will of God in Eden when he tempted Eve."
"Come to our Temple," said one of the others, "and see the tree of life with the sacred Serpent wound around it. We have his fangs.
We have his power. God made him, just as God made Judas Iscariot, or Cain, or the evil Emperors of Rome."
"Ah," I said, "I see. Before you happened on the god in the cave, you were worshipers of the snake. You're Ophites, Sethians, Nassenians."
"That was our first calling," said the boy. "But now we are of the Children of Darkness, committed to sacrifice and killing, dedicated to inflicting suffering."
"Oh, Marcion and Valentinus," Marius whispered. "You don't know the names, do you? They're the poetic Gnostics who invented the morass of your philosophy a hundred years ago. Duality - that, in a Christian world, evil could be as powerful as good."
"Yes, we know this." Several spoke at once. "We don't know those profane names. But we know the Serpent and what God wants of us."
"Moses lifted the Serpent in the desert, up over his head," said the boy. "Even the Queen of Egypt knew the Serpent and wore him in her crown."
"The story of the great Leviathan has been eradicated in Rome," said the woman. "They took it out of the sacred books. But we know it!"
"So you learned all this from Armenian Christians," said Marius. "Or was it Syrians."
A man, short of stature, with gray eyes, had not spoken all this while, but he stepped forward now and addressed Marius with considerable authority.
"You hold ancient truths," he said, "and you use them profanely. All know of you. The blond Children of Darkness in the Northern woods know of you, and that you stole some important secret out of Egypt before the Birth of Christ. Many have come here, glimpsed you and the woman, and gone away in fear."
"Very wise," said Marius.
"What did you find in Egypt'?" asked the woman. "Christian monks live now in those old rooms that once belonged to a race of blood drinkers. The monks don't know about us, but we know all about them and you. There was writing there, there were secrets, there was something that by Divine Will belongs now in our hands."
"No, there was nothing," said Marius.
The woman spoke up again, "When the Hebrews left Egypt, when Moses parted the Red Sea, did the Hebrews leave something behind? Why did Moses raise the snake in the desert? Do you know how many we are? Nearly a hundred. We travel to the far North, to the South, and even to the East to lands you would not believe."
I could see Marius was distraught.
"Very well," I said, "we understand what you want and why you have been led to believe that we can satisfy you. I ask you, please, to go out in the Garden and let us speak. Respect our house. Don't harm our slaves."
"We wouldn't dream of it."
"And we'll be back shortly."
I snatched Marius's hand and pulled him down the stairs.
"Where are you going?" he whispered. "Block all images from your mind! They must glimpse nothing."
"They won't glimpse," I said, "and from where I will stand as I talk to you, they won't hear either."
He seemed to catch my meaning. I led him into the sanctuary of the unchanged Mother and Father, closing the stone doors behind me.
I drew Marius behind the seated King and Queen.
"They can probably hear the hearts of the Pair," I whispered in the softest manner audible. "But maybe they won't hear us over that sound. Now, we have to kill them, destroy them completely."
Marius was amazed.
"Look, you know we have to do this!" I said. "You have to kill them and anybody like them who ever comes near us. Why are you so shocked'? Get ready. The simplest way is cut them to pieces first, and then burn them."
"Oh, Pandora," he sighed.
"Marius, why do you cringe?"
"I don't cringe, Pandora," he said. "I see myself irrevocably changed by such an act. To kill when I thirst, to keep to myself and keep these here who must be kept by somebody, that I have done for so long. But to become an executioner? To become like the Emperors burning Christians! To commence a war against this race, this order, this cult, whatever it is, to take such a stand."
"No choice, come on. There are many decorative swords in the room where we sleep. We should take the big curved swords. And the torch. We should go to them and tell them how sorry we are for what we must impart to them, then do it!"
He didn't answer.
"Marius, are you going to let them go so that others will come after us? The only security lies in destroying every blood drinker who ever discovers us and the King and Queen."
He walked away from me and stood before the Mother. He looked into her eyes. I knew that he was silently talking to her. And I knew that she was not answering.
"There is one other possibility," I said, "and it's quite real." I beckoned for him to come back, behind them, where I felt safest to plot.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Give the King and the Queen over to them. And you and I are free. They will care for the King and Queen with religious fervor! Maybe the King and Queen will even allow them to drink -"
"That's unspeakable!" he said.
"Exactly my feelings. We shall never know if we are safe. And they shall run rampant through the world like supernatural rodents. So do you have a third plan?"
"No, but I'm ready. We use the fire and the swords together. Can you tell the lies that will charm them as we approach, armed and carrying torches?"
"Oh, yes, of course," I said.
We went into the chamber and took up the big curved swords that were keenly sharp and came from the desert world of the Arabs. We lighted another torch from that at the foot of the stairs and we went up together.
"Come to me, Children," I said as I entered the room, loudly, "come, for what I have to reveal requires the light of this torch, and you will soon know the sacred purpose of this sword. How devout you are."
We stood before them.
"How young you are!" I said.
Suddenly, the panic swept them together. They made it so simple for us by clustering in this manner that we had the task done in moments, lighting their garments, hacking their limbs, ignoring their piteous cries.
Never had I used my full strength and speed, never my full will, as I did against them. It was exhilarating to slash them, to force the torch upon them, to slash them until they fell, until they lost all life. Also, I did not want them to suffer.
Because they were so young, so very young as blood drinkers, it took quite some time to burn the bones, to see that all was ashes.
But it was finally done, and we stood together - Marius and I - in the garden, our garments smeared with soot, staring down at blowing grass, making certain with our eyes that the ashes were blown in all directions.
Marius turned suddenly and walked fast away from me, and down the stairs and into the Mother's Sanctuary.
I rushed after him in panic. He stood holding the torch and the bloody sword - oh, how they had bled - and he looked into Akasha's eyes.
"Oh, loveless Mother!" he whispered. His face was soiled with blood and grime. He looked at the flaming torch and looked up at the Queen.
Akasha and Enkil showed no sign of any knowledge of the massacre above. They showed neither approval, nor gratitude, nor any form of consciousness, They showed no awareness of the torch in his hand, or his thoughts, whatever they might be.
It was a finish for Marius, a finish to the Marius I had known and loved at that time,
He chose not to leave Antioch. I was for getting away and taking them away, for wild adventures, and seeing the wonders of the world.
But he said no. He had but one obligation. And that was to lay in wait for others until he had killed every one of them.
For weeks he wouldn't speak or move, unless I shook him and then he pleaded with me to leave him alone. He rose from the grave only to sit with the sword and the torch waiting.
It became unbearable to me. Months passed. I said, "You are going mad. We should take them away!"
Then one night, very angry and alone, I cried out foolishly, "I would I were free of them and you!" And leaving the house, I did not return for three nights.
I
slept in dark safe places I made for myself with ease. Every time I thought of him, I thought of his sitting motionless there, so very like them, and I was afraid.
If only he did know true despair; if only he had confronted what we now call "the absurd." If only he had faced the nothingness! Then this massacre would not have demoralized him.
Finally one morning just before sunrise, when I was safely hidden, a strange silence fell over Antioch. A rhythm I had heard there all my days was gone. I was trying to think, What could this mean? But there was time to find out.
I had made a fatal miscalculation. The villa was empty. He had arranged for the transport by day. I had no due as to where he had gone! Everything belonging to him had been taken, and all that I possessed scrupulously left behind.
I had failed him when he most needed me. I walked in circles around the empty Shrine. I screamed and let the cry echo off the walls.
He never returned to Antioch. No letter ever came.
After six months or more, I gave up and left.
Of course you know the dedicated, religious Christian vampires never died out, not until Lestat came dressed in red velvet and fur to dazzle them and make a mockery of their belief. That was in the Age of Reason, That is when Marius received Lestat. Who knows what other vampire cults exist'?
As for me, I had lost Marius again by then.
I had seen him for only a single precious night one hundred years earlier, and of course thousands of years after the collapse of what we call "the ancient world."
I saw him! It was in the fancy fragile times of Louis XIV, the Sun King. We were at a court ball in Dresden. Music played - the tentative blend of clavichord, lute, violin - making the artful dances which seemed no more than bows and circles.
Across a room, I suddenly saw Marius!
He had been looking at me for a great while, and gave me now the most tragic and loving smile. He wore a big full-bottomed curly wig, dyed to the very color of his true hair, and a flared velvet coat, and layers of lace, so favored by the French, His skin was golden. That meant fire. I knew suddenly he had suffered something terrible. A jubilant love filled his blue eyes, and without forsaking his casual posture - he was leaning his elbow on the edge of the clavichord - he blew a kiss to me with his fingers.