by Anne Rice
"Ah, no, you are rnad to suggest this!" I said. "Don't you realize they know about the Mother and the Father? Don't you remember all I've told you?"
"We mean to destroy them to a one," said Mael who stood behind me. "But to make a fine finish we must lure the old one here before the destruction."
"Come, Marius," said Avicus, "we need you and your eloquence. Convince them that you are sympathetic. That they must bring their leader here, and then and only then will you allow them to remain. Mael and I cannot so impress them as you can. This is no vain flattery, be assured."
For a long time I stood with my paintbrush in hand, staring, thinking,
Should I do this, and then finally, I confessed that I could not. "Don't ask it of me," I said to Avicus. "Lure the being yourselves.
And when he comes here, let me know of it, and then I promise I will come."
The following night, Avicus returned to me.
"They are such children, these Satanic creatures," he said, "they spoke of their leader so willingly, admitting that he resides in a desert place in the North of Egypt. He was burnt in the Terrible Fire, no doubt of it, and has taught them all about the Great Mother. It will be sad to destroy them, but they rampage about the city, seeking the sweetest mortals for their victims, and it cannot be borne."
"I know," I said quietly. I felt ashamed that I had always allowed Mael and Avicus to drive these creatures from Rome on their own. "But have you managed to lure the leader out of his hiding place? How could such a thing be done?"
"We have given them abundant riches," said Avicus, "so that they may bring their leader here. We have promised him our strong blood in return for his coming, and that he sorely needs to make more priests and priestesses of his Satanic cause."
"Ah, your strong blood, of course," I said. "Why did I not think of it? I think of it in regard to the Mother and Father, but I did not think of it in relation to us."
"I cannot claim to have thought of it myself," said Avicus. "It was one of the Satanic children who suggested it for the leader is so weak that he can never rise from his bed, and survives only to receive victims and to make followers. Of course Mael and I immediately promised. For what are we to these children with our hundreds of years? "
I heard nothing further of the matter for the next several months, except I knew through the Mind Gift that Avicus had slain several of die Satan worshipers for their public crimes which he considered to be so dangerous, and on one mild summer night, when I stood in my garden looking down over the city, I heard Mael rather distantly arguing with Avicus as to whether they should slay all the rest.
At last the band was slain, and the catacomb was empty, and drenched in blood, and Mael and Avicus appeared at my house and begged me to come to it for those returning from Egypt were expected within the hour and we must strike fast.
I left my warm happy room, carrying my finest weapons, and went with them as I had promised.
The catacomb was so small and tight, I could scarce stand up in it. And I knew it at once to be the burial place of mortal Christians and a place where they had sometimes gathered in the very first years of the sect.
We traveled through it some eighty or ninety feet before we came into an underground place, and there found the old Egyptian blood drinker on his bier, glaring at us, his youthful attendants horrified to find their abode empty and full of ashes of their dead.
The old creature had suffered much. Bald, and thin, black from the Great Fire, he had given himself up utterly to the making of his Satanic children, and so never healed as another blood drinker might. And now he knew himself to be tricked. Those he had sent on to Rome were gone forever, and we stood before him, looking down upon him in judgment, blood drinkers of unthinkable power who felt no pity for him and his cause.
Avicus was the first to raise his sword, but he was stopped as the old creature cried out,
"Do we not serve God?"
"You'll know sooner than I will," Avicus answered him, and with the blade, cut off his head.
The remaining band refused to run away from us. They fell on their knees and met our heavy blows in silence.
And so too it was with the fire that engulfed them all.
The next night and the night after that we went back, the three of us, to gather the remains and burn them over again, until it was finished and we thought that had put an end to the Satanic worshipers once and for all.
Would that it had been so.
I can't say that this awful chapter of our lives brought me together with Avicus and Mael. It was too dreadful, too against my nature, and too bitter for me.
I went back to my house, and gladly resumed my painting.
I rather enjoyed it that none of my guests ever wondered as to my true age, or why I didn't grow old or die. I think the answer lay in the fact that I had so very much company that no one couH pay attention to any one thing for very long.
Whatever it was, after the slaughter of the Satanic children, I wanted more music than before, and I painted more relentlessly and with greater invention and design.
Meantime the state of the Empire was dreadful. It was now quite totally divided between East and West. In the West, which included
Rome, of course, Latin was the language; while in the East the common language was Greek. The Christians too felt this sharp division and continued to quarrel over their beliefs.
Finally the situation of my beloved city became intolerable. The Visigoth Ruler Alaric had taken the nearby port of Ostia, and was threatening Rome itself. The Senate seemed powerless to do anything about the impending invasion, and there was talk throughout the city that the slaves would side with the invaders, thereby bringing ruin on us all.
At last, at midnight, the Salarian gate of the city was opened. There was heard the horrifying sound of a Gothic trumpet. And in came the rapacious hordes of Goths and Scythians to sack Rome herself. I rushed out into the streets to see the carnage all around rne. Avicus was immediately at my side.
Hurrying across the roofs, we saw everywhere that slaves had risen against their masters, houses were forced open, jewels and gold were offered up by frantic victims, who were nevertheless murdered, rich statues were heaped upon wagons in those streets large enough to allow such, and bodies soon lay everywhere as the blood ran in the gutters and as the inevitable flames began to consume all that they could. The young and the healthy were rounded up to be sold into slavery, but the carnage was often random, and I soon realized I could do nothing to help any mortal whom I saw.
Returning to my house, I discovered with horror that it was already in flames. My guests had either been taken prisoner or had fled. My books were burning! All my copies of Virgil, Petronius, Apuleius, Cicero, Lucretius, Homer, Pliny were lying helpless amid the flames. My paintings were blackening and disintegrating. Foul smoke choked my lungs.
I had scarce time to grab a few important scrolls. Desperately I sought for Ovid, whom Pandora had so loved, and for the great tragedians of Greece. Avicus reached out his arms to help me. I took more, seeking to save my own diaries, but in that fatal instant Goth soldiers poured into my garden with loud shouts, their weapons raised.
At once I pulled my sword and began with fierce speed to decapitate them, shouting as they shouted, allowing my preternatural voice to deafen them and confuse them, as I hacked off random limbs.
Avicus proved even more fierce than I was, perhaps being more accustomed to this kind of battle, and soon the band lay dead at our feet.
But by now my house was completely engulfed in flames. The few scrolls we'd sought to save were burning. There was nothing more to be done. I could only pray that my slaves had sought some refuge, for if they hadn't they would soon be taken for loot.
"To the chapel of Those Who Must Be Kept," I said. "Where else is there to go?"
Quickly, we made to the roofs again, darting in and out of the blazes which everywhere lighted up the night sky. Rome was weeping; Rome was crying out for pity; Rome was d
ying. Rome was no more.
We reached the shrine in safety, though Alaric's troops were pillaging the countryside as well.
Going down into the cool confines of the chapel, I lighted the lamps quickly and then I fell down on my knees before Akasha, uncaring of what Avicus might think of such a gesture, and I poured out for her in whispered words the nature of this tragedy which had struck my mortal home.
"You saw the death of Egypt," I said reverently. "You saw it become a Roman province. Well, now Rome dies in its turn. Rome has lasted for eleven hundred years and now it's no more. How will the world survive? Who will tend the thousands of roads and bridges that
everywhere bring men and women together? Who will maintain the fabulous cities in which men and women thrive in safe houses, educating their youth to read and write and worship their gods and goddesses with ceremony? Who will drive back these accursed creatures who cannot farm the land which they have burnt and who live only to destroy!"
Of course there was no response from the Blessed Parents.
But I fell forward and my hand wrent out to touch Akasha's foot. I breathed a deep sigh.
And finally, forgetting all formality, I crept into the corner and sat rather like an exhausted boy.
Avicus came to sit beside me. He clasped my hand.
"And what of Mael?" I asked softly.
"Mael is clever," said Avicus. "Mael loves to fight. He has destroyed many a blood drinker. Mael will never allow himself to be wounded as he was on that long ago night. And Mael knows how to hide when all is lost."
For six nights we remained in the chapel.
We could hear the shouts, the crying, as the looting and pillaging went on. But then Alaric marched out of Rome to wreak havoc on the countryside to the South.
Finally the need for blood caused both of us to go back to the world above.
Avicus bid me farewell and went in search of Mael, while I found myself in the street near my house, coming upon a soldier who was dying with a spear through his chest. He was no longer conscious. I removed the spear, which caused him to moan in his sleep, and then lifting him I opened my mouth over the gushing wound.
The blood was full of scenes of the battle, and quite soon I had enough. I laid him aside, composing his limbs artfully. And then I
discovered I was hungry for more.
This time a dying man would not do. I walked on, stepping over rotted and stinking bodies, and passing the gutted ruins of houses, until I found an isolated soldier with a sack of loot over his back. He made to draw his sword, but quickly I overcame him, and bit into his throat. He died too soon for me. But I was satisfied. I let him fall at my feet.
I then came upon my house utterly destroyed.
What a sight was my garden where the dead soldiers lay swollen and reeking.
Not a single book remained unburnt.
And as I wept I realized with a cruel shock that all the Egyptian scrolls I possessed—all the early tales of the Mother and the Father— had perished in the fire.
These were scrolls I had taken from the old temple in Alexandria on the very night I took the Mother and Father from Egypt. These were scrolls which told the old tale of how an evil spirit had entered into the blood of Akasha and Enkil, and how the race of blood drinkers had come about.
All this was gone now. All this was ashes. All this was lost to me along with my Greek and Roman poets and historians. All this was gone along with all that I had written myself.
It seemed quite impossible that such a thing had happened, and I faulted myself that I had not copied the old Egyptian legends, that I had not saved them in the shrine. After all, in some foreign
marketplace I could find Cicero and Virgil, Xenophqn and Homer.
But the Egyptian legends? I would never recover the loss.
I wondered: Would my beautiful Queen care that the written stories
of her had perished? Would she care that I alone carried the tales in my mind and heart?
I walked into the ruin of my rooms, and looked at the little that did still appear visible of the paintings on the blackened plaster walls. I looked up through the black timbers which might at any moment fall on me. I stepped over piles of burnt wood.
At last I left the place where I had lived for so long. And as I went about, I came to see that the city was already rising from its punishment. Not all had been put to the torch. Rome was far too huge, with far too many buildings of stone.
But what was it to me, this piteous sight of Christians rushing to help their brethren, and naked children crying for parents who were no more? So Rome had not been razed to the ground. It did not matter. There would come more invasions. These people who remained in the city, struggling to rebuild it, would endure a humiliation which I could not endure.
I went back out to the chapel again. Arid going down die stairs, and into the sanctum, I lay in the corner, satiated and exhausted, and I closed my eyes.
It was to become my first long sleep.
Always in my life as an immortal I had risen at night and spent the allotted time which the darkness gave to me, either to hunt, or to enjoy whatever distractions or pleasures that I could.
But now I paid no attention to the setting of the sun. I became like you, in your cave of ice.
I slept. I knew I was safe. I knew Those Who Must Be Kept were safe. And I could hear too much of the misery from Rome. So I resolved that I would sleep.
Perhaps I was inspired with the story of the Gods of the Grove, that they could starve in the oak for a month at a time, and still rise to receive the sacrifice. I'm not sure.
I did pray to Akasha. I prayed, "Grant me sleep. Grant me stillness. Grant me immobility. Grant me silence from the voices that I hear so strongly. Grant me peace."
How long was my slumber? Many months. And I began to feel the hunger terribly and to dream of blood. Yet stubbornly I lay on the floor of the shrine, eyes closed during die night when I might have
wandered, deaf to intelligence of the outside world.
I could not bear to see my beloved city again. I could think of nowhere to go.
Then a strange moment came. In a dream, it seemed, Mael and Avicus were there, urging me to rise, offering me their blood for strength.
"You're starved, you're weak," said Avicus. How sad he looked. And how gentle he was. "Rome is still there," he maintained. "So it is overran with Goths and Visigoths. The old Senators remain as always. They humor the crude barbarians. The Christians gather the poor to them and give them bread. Nothing can really kill your city. Alaric is dead, as if he succumbed to a curse for what he did, and his army long gone."
Was I comforted by this? I don't know. I couldn't allow myself to wake. I could not open my eyes. I wanted only to lie where I was and be alone.
They went away. There was nothing more for them to do. And then it seemed that they came at other times, that I would see them by the light of a lamp and that they would talk to me, but it was dreamlike and did not matter at all.
Surely months passed, and then years. I felt light in all my limbs and only the Mind Gift seemed to have strength.
A vision took hold of me. I saw myself lying in the arms of a woman, a beautiful Egyptian woman with black hair. It was Akasha, this woman, and she comforted me, she told me to sleep, and that nothing could hurt me, not even the thirst, because I had drunk her blood. I was not like other blood drinkers. I could starve and then rise again. I would not become fatally weak.
We were in a splendid chamber with silk hangings. We lay on a bed, draped with silk so fine I could see through it. I could see golden columns with lotus leaves at their crowns. I could feel the soft cushions beneath me. But above all I could feel my comforter who held me firmly and warmly and told me to sleep.
After a very long while I rose and went out into the garden and saw that, yes, it was the garden I had painted, only it had been perfected, and I turned round, trying to see the dancing nymphs only they were too quick for me. They were gone before
I could see them, and in the distance the singing was too soft for me to hear.
I dreamed of colors. I wanted the pots of paint before me, the pure colors so that I could make the garden come alive.
Yes, sleep.
At last a divine blackness settled over my mind and no thoughts whatsoever could penetrate. I knew that Akasha still held me because I could feel her arms around me and feel her lips against my cheek. That was all I knew.
And the years passed.
The years passed.
Quite suddenly my eyes opened.
A great sense of alarm came over me, giving me to know that I was a living being with a head and arms and legs. I didn't move, but I stared up into the darkness, and then I heard the sound of sharp footfalls, and a light blinded me for a moment.