by Anne Rice
It was no safe place for Those Who Must Be Kept. So it proved most wise that I had created their shrine well away from the burgeoning city, and settling into my villa, I played "a Roman gentleman" to those around me, the loving master of several simple-minded and gullible slaves.
Now understand that I had been away from Rome for over two hundred years.
Glorying in the cultural riches of Antioch, a Roman city, yes, but an Eastern city, listening to her poets and teachers in the Forum, roaming her libraries by torchlight, I had been horrified by descriptions of the latest Roman Emperors who had disgraced the title altogether by their antics and inevitably been murdered by their bodyguards or their troops.
But I was far wrong that the Eternal City had fallen into degradation.
Great Emperors of the past hundred years there had been such as Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius, and Septimius Severus, and there had been an enormous number of monumental buildings added to the capital as well as a great increase of population. Not even a blood drinker such as myself could have inspected all of Rome's temples,
amphitheaters and baths.
Indeed Rome was more than likely the largest and most impressive city in the world. Some two million people made up the populace, many of the plebs, as the poor were called, receiving a daily ration of corn and wine.
I yielded to the spell of the city immediately. And shutting out the horrors of the Imperial quarrels and continuous war along the frontiers
I diverted myself by studying the intellectual and aesthetic handiwork
of mankind as I've always done.
Of course I went immediately to play the hovering ghost about the town houses of my descendants, for I had kept some track of them, though never admitting it to Pandora, and I found them to be good members of the old Senatorial class, striving desperately to maintain some order in government, while the army elevated Emperor after Emperor in a desperate attempt to secure power for this or that faction in this or that far-flung place.
It broke my heart actually to see these young men and women whom I knew to have come down from my uncles and aunts, from my nieces and nephews, and it was during this period that I broke my record of them forever, though why precisely I cannot say.
It was a time for me of breaking all ties. I had abandoned Pandora. I had put Those Who Must Be Kept at some remove from me, and now I came home one night, from spying upon a supper party at the house of one of my many descendants, and I took out of a wooden chest all the scrolls in which I had written the names of these young people, gleaned from letters to various agents, and I burnt them, feeling rather wise in my monstrosity, as though this would prevent me from further vanity and pain.
After that, I haunted the precincts of strangers to gain knowledge. With vampiric dexterity I slipped into shadowy gardens and listened at the open doorways of the dimly lighted villas as those inside talked softly over dinner or listened to the delicate music of a young boy accompanying himself with a lyre.
I found the old conservative Romans very touching, and though the libraries were not as good here as they had become in Antioch, I found much to read. There were of course schools of philosophy in Rome, and though they too were not as impressive as those in Antioch, I was interested in listening to what I could.
But understand, I did not really enter into the mortal world. I made n0 friendships with mortals. I did not converse with them. I only ed them, as I had always done in Antioch. I did not believe then could penetrate with any true success into their natural realm.
As for my blood thirst, I hunted furiously in Rome. I kept to the
Evil Doer always, which was a simple matter, I can assure you, but I fed
my hunger far more than I needed to feed it. I bared my fangs cruelly to those I killed. The huge population never left me hungry. I was more the blood drinker than ever in my existence up to that time.
It was a challenge to me to do it properly, to sink my teeth but once and cleanly, and to spill not a drop as I took the death along with the blood.
There was no need in such a place as Rome of those times to hide the bodies for fear of discovery. Sometimes I threw them in the Tiber. Sometimes I did nothing but leave them in the street. I loved particularly
to kill in taverns which is something I like even now, as you know.
There is nothing like the long passage through the damp dark night, and then the sudden opening of the door of the tavern upon an entire little universe of light and warmth and singing and laughing humans. I found taverns very enticing indeed.
Of course, all this ravening, this endless killing—it was on account of my grief for Pandora, and it was because I was alone. Who was there to restrain me? Who was there to outdo me? No one at all.
And understand, during the first few months, I might have written to her! There was surely a chance that she had remained in Antioch, in our house, waiting for me to come to my senses, but I did no such thing.
A fierce anger, the very anger I fight now, welled up in me, and it made me weak, as I've already told you. I couldn't do what I had to do—bring her back to me. And sometimes my loneliness pushed me to take three and four victims in a night, until I was spilling blood I couldn't drink.
Sometimes in the early hours of the morning my rage was quieted, and I went back to my historical writing, something which I had begun in Antioch and never revealed to a single soul.
I described what I saw in Rome of progress or failure. I described the buildings in ponderous detail. But then there came nights when I thought that everything I'd written was useless. After all, what was the purpose? I could not enter these descriptions, these observations, these poems, these essays, into the mortal world!
They were contaminated in that they came from a blood drinker, a monster who slew humans for his own survival. There was no place for the poetry or history which had come from a greedy mind and heart.
And so I began to destroy not only my fresh writings, but even the old essays which I had written in Antioch in the past. I took the scrolls out of the chests one by one and burnt them as I had burnt the records of my family. Or I merely kept them, locked up tight, and away from my eyes, so that nothing I'd written could spark in me anything new.
It was a great crisis of the soul.
Then something happened which was totally unforeseen.
I came upon another blood drinker—indeed I came upon two of them in dark streets of the late night city as I was coming down a hill.
The moon had gone behind the clouds at that moment, but naturally
I could see quite perfectly with my preternatural eyes.
The two creatures were approaching me rapidly with no knowledge that I stood against the wall, trying not to block their path.
At last the first of the pair lifted his head and I recognized the face at once. I knew the hawk nose and deep-set eyes. I knew the gaunt cheeks. In fact I recognized everything about him, the slope of his shoulders, his long blond hair, and even the hand that held the cloak at his throat.
This was Mael, the Druid priest who had long ago captured me and taken me prisoner, and fed me alive to the burnt and dying God of the Grove. This was Mael who had kept me in captivity for months as he prepared me for the Dark Magic. This was Mael, the pure of heart, and the fearless one, whom I had come to know so very well.
Who had made Mael a blood drinker? In what grove had Mael been consecrated to his old religion? Why was he not shut up in some oak tree in Gaul, there to preside over the feasts of his fellow Druids?
Our eyes met, but I experienced no alarm. In fact, I had assessed his strength and found it wanting. He was as old as I was, yes, that was plain, but he had not drunk as I had from Akasha. I was by far the stronger. There was nothing he could do to me.
And so at this moment, I looked away and to the other blood drinker who was much taller, and infinitely stronger, and whose skin was a dark-brown color, surely from having been burnt in the Terrible Fire.
This one had
a large face of rather agreeable and open features, with large questioning black eyes, a thick and well-proportioned mouth, and a head of wavy black hair.
I looked back to this blond-headed one who had taken my mortal
life with such religious conviction.
It occurred to me that I could destroy him by ripping his head from his body, and by keeping possession of his head and then placing it somewhere in my garden where the sun would inevitably find it and burn it black. It occurred to me that I ought to do this, that this creature deserved no better. Yet there were other thoughts working in my mind.
I wanted to talk to this being. I wanted to know him. I wanted to know the other being with him, this brown-skinned blood drinker who stared at me with such a mixture of innocence and warmth. This blood drinker was much older. This blood drinker was like no being who had ever come at me in Antioch, crying for the Mother and Father. This being was an entirely new thing.
It was in this moment that I understood perhaps for the first time that anger was weak. Anger had robbed me of Pandora over a sentence of less than twenty words. Anger would rob me of Mael if I destroyed him. Also, I thought, I can always delay the murder. I can talk with Mael now. I can let my mind have this company it craves and I can always kill him later on.
But I'm sure you know such reasoning is false, because once we grow to love a person we are not likely to want that person's death.
As these thoughts raced through my mind, words suddenly spilled from my lips.
"I'm Marius, don't you remember me?" I said. "You took me to the Grove of the Old God, you gave me to him, and I escaped." I was appalled at the hostility with which I'd spoken.
He cloaked his thoughts completely, and I couldn't tell whether he had known me by my appearance or not. He spoke quickly in Latin.
"Yes, you abandoned the grove. You abandoned all those who worshiped you. You took the power given you, and what did you leave for the Faithful of the Forest? What did you give back?"
"And you, my precious Druid priest," I said, "do you serve your old gods? Is that what has brought you to Rome?" My voice was quaking with anger, and I felt the weakness of it. I struggled to regain clarity and strength. "When I knew you, you were pure of heart. Seldom have I ever known any creature more deluded, more given over to comforts and illusions of religion as you were." I stopped. I had to check myself, and I did.
"The old religion is gone," he said furiously. "The Romans have taken even our most secret places. Their cities are everywhere. And thieving barbarians swoop down upon us from across the Danube. And the Christians, the Christians come into places where the Romans are not. There is no stopping the Christians."
His voice grew louder, even though it had taken on the tone of a whisper.
"But it was you, Marius," he said, "you, who corrupted me. It was you, Marius, who poisoned me, it was you who divided me from the Faithful of the Forest, you who gave me dreams of greater things!"
He was as angry as I was. He was trembling. And as often happens with two people who are quarreling, this anger produced a good calm in me. I was able to sink my enmity down into myself with that little resolve, You can always kill him later, and so I went on.
The other creature looked quite surprised by all this and fascinated with an almost childlike expression on his face.
"What you're saying is nonsense," I answered. "I ought to destroy you. It would be an easy thing for me to do."
"Very well then, try," he answered.
The other one reached from behind and put his hand on that of Mael.
"No, listen to me, both of you," he said in a kindly rather deep voice. "Don't go on with this quarrel. However we came to the Dark Blood, either through lies or violence, it has made us immortal. Are we to be so ungrateful?"
"I'm not ungrateful," I said, "but I owe my debt to fate, not to Mael. Nevertheless, I'm lonely for your company. That's the truth of it. Come to my house. I'll never harm anyone who comes as a guest under my roof."
I had quite surprised myself by this little speech but it was the truth. "You have a house in this city?" asked Mael. "What do you mean by a house?"
"I have a house, a comfortable house. I bid you to come and talk to me. I have a pleasant garden with beautiful fountains. I have slaves. They are simple-minded. The light is pleasant. The garden is full of night-blooming flowers. Come."
The one with the black hair was openly surprised as he had been before.
"I want to come," he said, glancing at Mael, though he still stood behind him. His voice had an authority to it, a pure strength, though it was soft.
Mael was rigid and helpless in his anger. With his hawk nose and frightful eyes, he reminded me of a wild bird. Men with such noses always do. But in truth, he possessed a rather unusual beauty. His
forehead was high and clear, and his mouth was strong.
But to go on with my tale, it was only now that I noticed that both men wore rags like beggars. They were barefoot, and though blood drinkers are never truly soiled, for no soil clings to them, they were unkempt.
Well, I could soon remedy that if they would allow. I had trunks of garments as always. Whether I went out to hunt or to study some fresco in a deserted house, I was a well-dressed Roman, and often
carried dagger and sword.
At last they agreed to come, and with a great act of will, I went ahead, turning my back on them to lead them, using the Mind Gift to maximum effect to watch over them that neither tried to strike out at me.
Of course I was profoundly grateful that Those Who Must Be Kept were not in the house where either of these two might have detected their powerful heartbeats, but I could not allow myself to visualize these beings. On we walked.
Finally, they came into my house, looking about themselves as though they were among miracles when all that I possessed were the simple furnishings of a rich man. They gazed hungrily at the bronze oil lamps that filled the marble-floored rooms with brilliant light, and the couches and chairs they hesitated to touch.
I cannot tell you how often this has happened me over the centuries,
that some wandering blood drinker, bereft of all human attachments,
has come into my house to marvel at simple things.
This is why I had a bed for you when you came here. That is why I had clothes.
"Sit down," I said to them, "there's nothing here that can't be cleaned or thrown away. I insist that you be comfortable. I wish we had some gesture that I might give, equal to that which mortals make when they offer guests a cup of wine."
The larger taller man was the first to be seated in a chair, rather than a couch. Then I followed taking a chair as well, and bidding Mael please to be seated to my right.
I could see now quite clearly that the bigger blood drinker possessed
infinitely more power than Mael. Indeed he was much older. He was older than me. That was why he had healed after the Terrible Fire, though that had been two hundred years ago, I had to admit. But I sensed no menace from this creature, and then quite unexpectedly, indeed, silently, he gave me his name.
"Avicus."
Mael gazed at me with the most venomous expression. He did not sit back as he might have done, but kept himself bitterly erect and ready as if for a brawl.
I sought to read his mind but this was useless.
As for me, I considered myself the consummate master of my hatred and my rage, but when I saw the anxious look on the face of Avicus I thought perhaps I was wrong.
Suddenly, this blood drinker spoke.
"Lay down your hatred, each for the other," he said in Latin, though he spoke with an accent, "and perhaps a battle of words will put all to right."
Mael didn't wait for my agreement to this plan.
"We brought you to the grove," he told me, "because our god told us we must do this. He was burnt and dying, but he would not tell us why. He wanted you to go to Egypt, but he wouldn't tell us why. There must be a new god, he said, but he didn't tell us why
."
"Calm yourself," said Avicus softly, "so that your words truly speak for your heart." Even in his rags he looked rather dignified and curious as to what would be said.
Mael gripped the arms of the chair and glared at me, his long blond hair hanging over his face.
"Bring a perfect human for the old god's magic, we were told. And that our legends told us was true. When an old god is weak there must be a new one. And only a perfect man can be given over to the dying god for his magic in the oak."
"And so you found a Roman," I said, "in the prime of life, happy and rich, and dragged him off against his will. Were there no men among you who were fit and right for your own religion? Why come to me with your wretched beliefs? "