by Rice, Anne
I still couldn’t bring myself to answer. This was not fear. It was hell. I could feel my teeth growing and my body tingling all over. Frantically, I nodded my head.
“Ah, yes.” He smiled, nodding too, the fire licking the ceiling behind him, the light leaking all about the edges of his face. “It’s only mercy I ask, that I go now to find hell, if there is a hell, or sweet oblivion which surely I do not deserve. If there is a Prince of Darkness, then I shall set eyes upon him at last. I shall spit in his face.
“So scatter what is burned, as I command you, and when that is done, take yourself to my lair through that low passage, being most careful to replace the stone behind you as you enter there. Within you will find my coffin. And in that box or the like of it, you must seal yourself by day or the sun’s light shall burn you to a cinder. Mark my words, nothing on earth can end your life save the sun, or a blaze such as you see before you, and even then, only, and I say, only if your ashes are scattered when it is done.”
I turned my face away from him and away from the flames. I had begun to cry and the only thing that kept me from sobbing was the hand I clapped to my mouth.
But he pulled me about the edge of the fire until we stood before the loose stone, his finger pointing at it again.
“Please stay with me, please,” I begged him. “Only a little while, only one night, I beg you!” Again the volume of my voice terrified me. It wasn’t my voice at all. I put my arms around him. I held tight to him. His gaunt white face was inexplicably beautiful to me, his black eyes filled with the strangest expression.
The light flickered on his hair, his eyes, and then again he made his mouth into a jester’s smile.
“Ah, greedy son,” he said. “Is it not enough to be immortal with all the world your repast? Good-bye, little one. Do as I say. Remember, the ashes! And beyond this stone the inner chamber. Therein lies all that you will need to prosper.”
I struggled to hold on to him. And he laughed low in my ear, marveling at my strength. “Excellent, excellent,” he whispered. “Now, live forever, beautiful Wolfkiller, with the gifts nature gave you, and discover for yourself all those most unnatural gifts which I have added to the lot.”
He sent me stumbling away from him. And he leapt so high and so far into the very middle of the flames he appeared to be flying.
I saw him descend. I saw the fire catch his garments.
It seemed his head became a torch, and then all of a sudden his eyes grew wide and his mouth became a great black cavern in the radiance of the flames and his laughter rose in such piercing volume, I covered my ears.
He appeared to jump up and down on all fours in the flames, and suddenly I realized that my cries had drowned out his laughter.
The spindly black arms and legs rose and fell, rose and fell and then suddenly appeared to wither. The fire shifted, roared. And in the heart of it I could see nothing now but the blaze itself.
Yet still I cried. I fell down upon my knees, my hands over my eyes. But against my closed lids I could still see it, one vast explosion of sparks after another until I pressed my forehead on the stones.
4
For years it seemed I lay on the floor watching the fire burn itself out to charred timbers.
The room had cooled. The freezing air moved through the open window. And again and again I wept. My own sobs reverberated in my ears until I felt I couldn’t endure the sound of them. And it was no comfort to know that all things were magnified in this state, even the misery that I felt.
Now and then I prayed again. I begged for forgiveness, though forgiveness for what I couldn’t have said. I prayed to the Blessed Mother, to the saints. I murmured the Aves over and over until they became a senseless chant.
And my tears were blood, and they left their stain on my hands when I wiped at my face.
Then I lay flat on the stones, murmuring not prayers any longer but those inarticulate pleas we make to all that is powerful, all that is holy, all that may or may not exist by any and all names. Do not leave me alone here. Do not abandon me. I am in the witches’ place. It’s the witches’ place. Do not let me fall even farther than I have already fallen this night. Do not let it happen … Lestat, wake up.
But Magnus’s words came back to me, over and over: To find hell, if there is a hell … If there is a Prince of Darkness …
Finally I rose on my hands and knees. I felt light-headed and mad, and almost giddy. I looked at the fire and saw that I might still bring it back to a roaring blaze and throw myself into it.
But even as I forced myself to imagine the agony of this, I knew that I had no intention of doing it.
After all, why should I do it? What had I done to deserve the witches’ fate? I didn’t want to be in hell, even for a moment. I sure as hell wasn’t going there just to spit in the face of the Prince of Darkness, whoever he might be!
On the contrary, if I was a damned thing, then let the son of a bitch come for me! Let him tell me why I was meant to suffer. I would truly like to know.
As for oblivion, well, we can wait a little while for that. We can think this over for a little while … at least.
An alien calm crept slowly over me. It was dark, full of bitterness and growing fascination.
I wasn’t human anymore.
And as I crouched there thinking about it, and looking at the dying embers, an immense strength was gathering in me. Gradually my boyish sobs died away. And I commenced to study the whiteness of my skin, the sharpness of the two evil little teeth, and the way that my fingernails gleamed in the dark as though they’d been lacquered.
All the little familiar aches were gone out of my body. And the remaining warmth that came from the smoking wood was good to me, as something laid over me or wrapped about me.
Time passed; yet it did not pass.
Each change in the moving air was caressing. And when there came from the softly lighted city beyond a chorus of dim church bells ringing the hour, they did not mark the passage of mortal time. They were only the purest music, and I lay stunned, my mouth open, as I stared at the passing clouds.
But in my chest I started to feel a new pain, very hot and mercurial.
It moved through my veins, tightened about my head, and then seemed to collect itself in my bowels and belly. I narrowed my eyes. I cocked my head to one side. I realized I wasn’t afraid of this pain, rather I was feeling it as if I were listening to it.
And I saw the cause of it then. My waste was leaving me in a small torrent. I found myself unable to control it. Yet as I watched the foulness stain my clothes, this didn’t disgust me.
Rats creeping into the very room, approaching this filth on their tiny soundless feet, even these did not disgust me.
These things couldn’t touch me, even as they crawled over me to devour the waste.
In fact, I could imagine nothing in the dark, not even the slithering insects of the grave, that could bring about revulsion in me. Let them crawl on my hands and face, it wouldn’t matter now.
I wasn’t part of the world that cringed at such things. And with a smile, I realized that I was of that dark ilk that makes others cringe. Slowly and with great pleasure, I laughed.
And yet my grief was not entirely gone from me. It lingered like an idea, and the idea had a pure truth to it.
I am dead, I am a vampire. And things will die so that I may live; I will drink their blood so that I may live. And I will never, never see Nicolas again, nor my mother, nor any of the humans I have known and loved, nor any of my human family. I’ll drink blood. And I’ll live forever. That is exactly what will be. And what will be is only beginning; it is just born! And the labor that brought it forth was rapture such as I have never known.
I climbed to my feet. I felt myself light and powerful, and strangely numbed, and I went to the dead fire, and walked through the burnt timbers.
There were no bones. It was as if the fiend had disintegrated. What ashes I could gather in my hands I took to the window. And as the wind c
aught them, I whispered a farewell to Magnus, wondering if he could yet hear me.
At last only charred logs were left and the soot that I wiped up with my hands and dusted off into the darkness.
It was time now to examine the inner room.
5
The stone moved out easily enough, as I’d seen before, and it had a hook on the inside of it by which I could pull it closed behind me.
But to get into the narrow dark passage I had to lie on my belly. And when I dropped down on my knees and peered into it, I could see no visible light at the end. I didn’t like the look of it.
I knew that if I’d been mortal still, nothing could have induced me to crawl into a passage like this.
But the old vampire had been plain enough in telling me the sun could destroy me as surely as the fire. I had to get to the coffin. And I felt the fear coming back in a deluge.
I got down flat on the ground, and crawled as a lizard might into the passage. As I feared, I could not really raise my head. And there was no room to turn and reach for the hook in the stone. I had to slip my foot into the hook and crawl forward to pull the stone behind me.
Total darkness. With room to rise only a few inches on my elbows.
I gasped, and the fear welled and I almost went mad thinking about the fact that I couldn’t raise my head and finally I smacked it against the stone and lay still, whimpering.
But what was I to do? I must reach the coffin.
So telling myself to stop this whining, I commenced to crawl, faster and faster. My knees scraped the stone. My hands sought crevices and cracks to pull me along. My neck ached with the strain as I struggled not to try to lift my head again in panic.
And when my hand suddenly felt solid stone ahead, I pushed upon it with all my strength. I felt it move as a pale light seeped in.
I scrambled out of the passage, and found myself standing in a small room.
The ceiling was low, curved, and the high window was narrow with the familiar heavy grid of iron bars. But the sweet, violet light of the night poured in revealing a great fireplace cut in the far wall, the wood ready for the torch, and beside it, beneath the window, an ancient stone sarcophagus.
My red velvet fur-lined cape lay over the sarcophagus. And on a rude bench I glimpsed a splendid suit of red velvet worked with gold, and much Italian lace, as well as red silk breeches and white silk hose and red-heeled slippers.
I smoothed back my hair from my face and wiped the thin film of sweat from my upper lip and my forehead. It was bloody, this sweat, and when I saw this on my hands, I felt a curious excitement.
Ah, what am I, I thought, and what lies before me? For a long moment I looked at this blood and then I licked my fingers. A lovely zinging pleasure passed through me. It was a moment before I could collect myself sufficiently to approach the fireplace.
I lifted two sticks of kindling as the old vampire had done and, rubbing them very hard and fast, saw them almost disappear as the flame shot up from them. There was no magic in this, only skill. And as the fire warmed me, I took off my soiled clothes, and with my shirt wiped every last trace of human waste away, and threw all this in the fire, before putting on the new garments.
Red, dazzling red. Not even Nicolas had had such clothes as these. They were clothes for the Court at Versailles, with pearls and tiny rubies worked into their embroidery. The lace of the shirt was Valenciennes, which I had seen on my mother’s wedding gown.
I put the wolf cape over my shoulders. And though the white chill was gone from my limbs, I felt like a creature carved from ice. My smile felt hard and glittering to me and strangely slow as I allowed myself to feel and to see these garments.
In the blaze of the fire, I looked at the coffin. The effigy of an old man was carved upon its heavy lid, and I realized immediately it was the likeness of Magnus.
But here he lay in tranquillity, his jester’s mouth sealed, his eyes staring mildly at the ceiling, his hair a neat mane of deeply carved waves and ringlets.
Three centuries old was this thing surely. He lay with his hands folded on his chest, his garments long robes, and from his sword that had been carved into the stone, someone had broken out the hilt and part of the scabbard.
I stared at this for an interminable length of time, seeing that it had been carefully chipped away with much effort.
Was it the shape of the cross that someone had sought to remove? I traced it over with my finger. Nothing happened of course, any more than when I’d murmured all those prayers. And squatting in the dust beside the coffin, I drew a cross there.
Again, nothing.
Then to the cross I added a few strokes to suggest the body of Christ, his arms, the crook of his knees, his bowed head. I wrote “The Lord Jesus Christ,” the only words I could write well, save for my own name, and again nothing.
And still glancing back uneasily at the words and the little crucifix, I tried to lift the lid of the coffin.
Even with this new strength, it was not easy. And no mortal man alone could have done it.
But what perplexed me was the extent of my difficulty. I did not have limitless strength. And certainly I didn’t have the strength of the old vampire. Maybe the strength of three men was what I now possessed, or the strength of four; it was impossible to calculate.
It seemed pretty damned impressive to me at the moment.
I looked into the coffin. Nothing but a narrow place, full of shadows, where I couldn’t imagine myself lying. There were Latin words inscribed around the rim, and I couldn’t read them.
This tormented me. I wished the words weren’t there, and my longing for Magnus, my helplessness, threatened to close in on me. I hated him for leaving me! And it struck me with full ironic force that I’d felt love for him before he’d leapt into the fire. I’d felt love for him when I saw the red garments.
Do devils love each other? Do they walk arm in arm in hell saying, “Ah, you are my friend, how I love you,” things like that to each other? It was a rather detached intellectual question I was asking, as I did not believe in hell. But it was a matter of a concept of evil, wasn’t it? All creatures in hell are supposed to hate one another, as all the saved hate the damned, without reservation.
I’d known that all my life. It had terrified me as a child, the idea that I might go to heaven and my mother might go to hell and that I should hate her. I couldn’t hate her. And what if we were in hell together?
Well, now I know, whether I believe in hell or not, that vampires can love each other, that in being dedicated to evil, one does not cease to love. Or so it seemed for that brief instant. But don’t start crying again. I can’t abide all this crying.
I turned my eyes to a large wooden chest that was partially hidden at the head of the coffin. It wasn’t locked. Its rotted wooden lid fell almost off the hinges when I opened it.
And though the old master had said he was leaving me his treasure, I was flabbergasted by what I saw here. The chest was crammed with gems and gold and silver. There were countless jeweled rings, diamond necklaces, ropes of pearls, plate and coins and hundreds upon hundreds of miscellaneous valuables.
I ran my fingers lightly over the heap and then held up handfuls of it, gasping as the light ignited the red of the rubies, the green of the emeralds. I saw refractions of color of which I’d never dreamed, and wealth beyond any calculation. It was the fabled Caribbean pirates’ chest, the proverbial king’s ransom.
And it was mine now.
More slowly I examined it. Scattered throughout were personal and perishable articles. Satin masks rotting away from their trimming of gold, lace handkerchiefs and bits of cloth to which were fixed pins and brooches. Here was a strip of leather harness hung with gold bells, a moldering bit of lace slipped through a ring, snuffboxes by the dozens, lockets on velvet ribbon.
Had Magnus taken all this from his victims?
I lifted up a jewel-encrusted sword, far too heavy for these times, and a worn slipper saved perhaps for its rhinesto
ne buckle.
Of course he had taken what he wanted. Yet he himself had worn rags, the tattered costume of another age, and he lived here as a hermit might have lived in some earlier century. I couldn’t understand it.
But there were other objects scattered about in this treasure. Rosaries made up of gorgeous gems, and they still had their crucifixes! I touched the small sacred images. I shook my head and bit my lip, as if to say, How awful that he should have stolen these! But I also found it very funny. And further proof that God had no power over me.
And as I was thinking about this, trying to decide if it was as fortuitous as it seemed for the moment, I lifted from the treasure an exquisite pearl-handled mirror.
I looked into it almost unconsciously as one often glances in mirrors. And there I saw myself as a man might expect, except that my skin was very white, as the old fiend’s had been white, and my eyes had been transformed from their usual blue to a mingling of violet and cobalt that was softly iridescent. My hair had a high luminous sheen, and when I ran my fingers back through it I felt a new and strange vitality there.
In fact, this was not Lestat in the mirror at all, but some replica of him made of other substances! And the few lines time had given me by the age of twenty years were gone or greatly simplified and just a little deeper than they had been.
I stared at my reflection. I became frantic to discover myself in it. I rubbed my face, even rubbed the mirror and pressed my lips together to keep from crying.
Finally I closed my eyes and opened them again, and I smiled very gently at the creature. He smiled back. That was Lestat, all right. And there seemed nothing in his face that was any way malevolent. Well, not very malevolent. Just the old mischief, the impulsiveness. He could have been an angel, in fact, this creature, except that when his tears did rise, they were red, and the entire image was tinted red because his vision was red. And he had these evil little teeth that he could press into his lower lip when he smiled that made him look absolutely terrifying. A good enough face with one thing horribly, horribly wrong with it!