by Anne Rice
"No, you will never," said the Voice, "you will never be alone again."
I looked at the others once more, all gathered there so expectantly and in awe. I could see the muted wonder in Marius, and the quiet sad trust in Louis, and the childlike amazement in Armand. I saw their doubts, their suspicions, their questions all so uneasily subsumed in the moment by wonder. I knew.
And how could I ever explain how I had reached this moment, I who had been Born to Darkness of rape, and sought for redemption in a borrowed mortal body, and followed spirits yet unexplained to realms of inexplicable Heaven and nightmarish Hell, only to fall back again to the brutal Earth, broken, and battered, and defeated? How to explain why this, this alone, was the bold and terrifying alliance that would give me the passion to travel the road of the centuries, of the millennia, of the aeons of uncharted and unimagined time?
"I will not be the Prince of the Damned," I said. "I give no power to that old poetry! No. Never. We claim now the Devil's Road as our road, and we will rename it for ourselves and our tribe and our journey. We are reborn!"
"Prince Lestat," said Benji again, and then Sybelle echoed it, and then Antoine and Louis and Armand and Marius and Gregory, Seth, Fareed, Rhoshamandes, Everard, Benedict, Sevraine, Bianca, Notker, all of them echoed it, and on the words kept coming from those for whom as yet I had no names.
Viktor stood in the shadows with Rose, and Viktor said it and so did Rose, and Benji shouted it again, throwing up his hands and balling his fists.
"They are beautiful," said Amel. "These children of me, these parts of me, this tribe of me."
"Yes, beloved, they have always been that," I answered. "That has always been true."
"So beautiful," he said again. "How can we not love them?"
"Oh, but we do," I said. "We certainly do."
Part IV
THE PRINCIPALITY
OF
DARKNESS
28
Lestat
The Prince's Speech
MY FIRST TRUE DECISION as monarch was that I wanted to go home to France. This monarch was going to rule from his ancestral Chateau de Lioncourt on one of the most isolated mountain plateaus of the Massif Central where he had been born. And it was also decided that Armand's luxurious house in Saint-Germaine-de-Pres would hence forward be the Paris headquarters of the court.
Trinity Gate would be the royal residence in New York, and we would have the ceremony for Rose and Viktor tomorrow night at Trinity Gate as planned.
An hour after the transformation--when I was at last ready for it--we took the remains of Mekare from the library, and buried them in the rear garden in a spot surrounded by flowers and open to the sun in the day. We were all to a one gathered for this, including Rhoshamandes and Benedict.
Mekare's body had turned to something resembling clear plastic, though I detest the crudeness of that word. What blood she'd retained had pooled as she lay on the floor and her remains were largely completely translucent by the time we carried her to her grave. Even her hair was becoming colorless, and breaking apart into myriad silver needlelike fragments. So Sevraine and my mother and the other women laid her out on a bier for the burial, placing the missing eye back into its socket, and covered her over with black velvet.
We stood silent at the site as she was laid to rest in what was a shallow but completely adequate grave. Flower petals were gathered by some of us from throughout the garden and these were sprinkled over the bier. Then others gathered more flowers. I turned back the velvet one last time and bent down to kiss Mekare's forehead. Rhoshamandes and Benedict did nothing, because they obviously feared the censure of all if they tried to make any gesture. And Everard de Landen, the French-Italian fledgling of Rhoshamandes, was the last to place several roses on the corpse.
Finally, we began to fill the grave with earth, and soon all sight of Mekare's form was lost.
It was agreed that two of those vampire physicians working for Seth and Fareed would go to the Amazon compound and exhume whatever remained of Khayman and Maharet and bring those relics here to be laid to rest with Mekare sometime in the coming month. And of course I knew full well that Fareed and Seth would harvest samples from those remains. Possibly they had done it with Mekare, but then again perhaps not, as this was a solemn occasion.
David and Jesse would also go there to retrieve whatever had survived of Maharet's library and archives, of her keepsakes and belongings, and any legal papers that were worth preserving for her mortal family or for Jesse herself.
I found all this unrelievedly grim, but I noticed that the others, to a one, seemed comforted by these arrangements. It took me back to the night long ago when Akasha had died at the hand of Mekare. I realized with shame I had not the slightest idea what had become of her corpse.
Not to care, not to question, not to bother--all this had been part of the old way for me, one of shame and melancholy, an existence in which I assumed completely that we were cursed and the victims of the Blood as surely as mortals thought themselves to be the guilty victims of Original Sin. I had not seen us as worthy of ceremonies. I had not believed in the small coven that Armand had sought to rescue from those ghastly nights when he created the old Night Island for us to gather in the Florida climes.
Well, I saw the sense of all this now. I saw its immense value, for the old and the young.
I had been tired before the momentous change had been worked and, elated as I was--and the word does little justice to what I felt--I was still tired and needing to be alone now, alone with Amel.
But before I retired for the night, back to the French library, I felt we had to meet in the attic ballroom once more around the long rectangular gilded table that was still in place as it had been for our first assembly.
For one thing, every single immortal inhabitant of the household was watching me, trying to figure how Amel was infecting and affecting me, and I knew this, and so I had no hesitation about spending more time with them now.
So we returned to the long golden table and chairs. I stood at the head as before. Rose and Viktor kept to the wall with those retiring blood drinkers brought to Trinity Gate by Notker and Sevraine, whom I was determined to come to know before I left this place.
Whatever it might have been like for Akasha or Mekare to hold the Core, I couldn't know. But for me, having Amel inside of me multiplied and expanded my senses and my energy beyond measure. I still saw each of them and all of them when I looked at the assembly in a new and remarkably vivid way.
"I think this ballroom should be the place for Rose and Viktor to receive the Dark Gift," I said. "The table should be broken up and its parts put back on the periphery. I think the place should be filled with all the flowers from the shops of Manhattan that it can hold. Armand's local mortal agents can surely see to this during the daylight hours." He at once agreed. "And I suggest that all be present under the roof, but not in this room, leaving this room alone to Rose and to Viktor and Pandora and Marius for the giving of the Gift."
No one objected.
"Then at such a time as the ceremony is complete, others may be invited up, one by one, to give their ancient blood. Gregory, Sevraine, Seth. Perhaps you will agree to this. Marius, and Pandora, you will approve. Rose and Viktor, you will be willing. And I will give you a measure of my blood then too."
Agreement all around.
"Marius and Pandora can then take the fledglings down to the garden," I said, "for the physical death and its pain. And when that's past, they can be clothed in new garments and come into the house reborn. After that, Marius and Pandora can take our young ones out to experience the hunt for the first time."
Again there was obvious and enthusiastic agreement.
Rhoshamandes asked for permission to speak.
I gave it.
His arm and his hand had been working perfectly since their reattachment with no problem whatsoever as I knew they'd be, and he was handsomely clothed in a tailored gray leather jacket and a sweater of li
ghter gray wool.
He looked cool and collected and charming as if he'd never hacked anyone to death or kidnapped anyone, or threatened to kill my son if he didn't get his way.
"I can well understand if no one wants me to do more than be a quiet prisoner here," he said. "But I will give my blood to the young couple if they will accept it. And maybe this can go towards my forgiveness by this group."
Viktor and Rose waited on me for my response. And I, after looking intently at Rhoshamandes and Benedict for a long moment, noting the dazzling equanimity of the former and the obvious abject misery of the latter, said yes to this if Marius and Pandora approved, and if Viktor and Rose gave their consent.
Understand, I could hardly believe myself that I was doing this, but the Prince was in charge now and the Brat Prince was no more.
The motion carried, so to speak.
"I am sorry from my heart," said Rhoshamandes, with amazing calmness. "I have truly in my long life among the Undead never sought conflict even when others thought I should. I am sorry. I lost my own fledglings to the Children of Satan rather than make war. I ask the tribe to forgive me, and to accept me as one of its own."
Benji was staring at him with fierce narrow black eyes, and Armand was looking up at me from his chair with slightly raised eyebrows, and Jesse merely looked at him coldly, her arms folded. David had no discernible expression, but I felt I knew what he was thinking even though I couldn't read his thoughts.
What precisely are we to do with this one if we don't accept him back into the tribe? And what danger is he to anyone if we do?
Well, as I saw it, he was no danger. If he was not accepted, well then, he might become a danger, especially if others took this to mean that he had been "proscribed" like the ancient enemies of the dictator Sulla, who were then free game to be murdered by their Roman brethren. I was no Sulla.
I listened quietly for the voice of Amel, conscious that I wanted very much to know what he had to say. All had changed between us so totally that he was no longer even the specter in my mind of the old Voice. But if I had underestimated the complexity of all this, I did want a hint of that now.
In the silence, I heard his faint whisper. "I used him. Can we not be thankful that he failed?"
"Very well," I said. I turned to Rhoshamandes. "I say your apology is accepted. You are a member of this tribe. I can see no threat from you now to anyone here. Who disagrees with me on this? Speak up or forever be quiet."
No one spoke up.
But there were tears in the eyes of the regal, ashen-haired Allesandra when I said this and Rhoshamandes nodded and took his seat. I'm not sure anyone but I caught Everard's sharp personal glance to me and the confidential negative shake of his head.
Benedict looked confused, and so I directed my remarks to him.
"You are now once more in good standing," I said. "Whatever you did, and why ever you did it--all this is now closed."
But I knew this was small comfort to him. He'd live for years with the horror of what he'd done.
It was by that time almost 4:00 a.m., and sunrise would occur in slightly over two hours.
I stood silent at the head of the table. I could feel all these eyes on me as fixed and probing as ever, but I felt most keenly the scrutiny of Seth and Fareed, though why I wasn't sure.
"We have much to do," I said, "all of us, to establish what it means for us and for all those blood drinkers out there the world over that we are now one proud tribe, one proud People of Darkness, one proud race that seeks to prosper on this Earth. And as it has fallen to me to rule, by invitation and by unique selection, I want to rule from my home in the Auvergne.
"I live now in my father's castle there, almost fully restored, a great stone edifice including as many comfortable chambers as this amazing house in which we're gathered now. And I will be your prince."
I paused to let the point be absorbed, then I went on.
"Prince Lestat I will be," I said. "That is the term that's been offered to me over and over in one form or another, it seems. And my court shall be in my castle, and I invite all of you to come there and help forge the constitution and the rules by which we'll live. I will need your help in deciding a multitude of questions. And I will delegate to those of you who are receptive various tasks to help us move to a new and glorious existence which I hope that all the blood drinkers of the world will come to share."
Benji was now close to tears. "Oh, if only this were being recorded!" he declared. Sybelle told him to be quiet, and Armand was laughing silently at him but also motioning for him to restrain himself.
"You may report my words in full whenever you wish," I said. "You have my express permission."
With a subtle gesture he opened his spiffy little jacket to reveal an iPhone peeping out of his inner pocket.
"Marius," I said, turning to him. "I ask that you write for us all the rules by which you've lived and prospered for centuries, as I've never found anyone more ethical in these matters than you are."
"I'll do my best with this," said Marius.
"And Gregory," I said. "Gregory, you who have survived with such astonishing success in the mortal world, I ask that you help to establish a code by which blood drinkers can effectively interact with mortals to preserve their material wealth as well as their secrecy. Please give us the benefit of all you've learned. I have much to share on this and so does Armand, but you are the past master."
"I'm more than willing," said Gregory.
"We must assist the most befuddled fledgling out there in obtaining whatever papers and documents are required to move from place to place in the physical world. We must do our best to halt the creation of a class of desperate vampiric tramps and marauders."
Benji was beside himself with excitement at all these proceedings. But he was shocked when I turned now to him.
"And you, Benjamin, obviously you must be our Minister of Communications from now on; and wherever in the world I am I will be in communication with you here at your headquarters every night. We must talk, you and I, about the radio program and the website, and what more we can do together through the internet to gather the lost sheep in the Blood."
"Yes!" he said with obvious joy. He lifted his fedora in salute to me and it was the first time that I'd seen his adorable little round face and cap of curly black hair for what they were.
"Notker," I said. "You've brought your musicians here, your singers, your violinists, and they've joined with Sybelle and with Antoine, and given us the extraordinary pleasure that only blood drinker musicians and artists can give. Will you come with me to my court in the Auvergne and help to create my court orchestra and my court choir? I want this with my whole heart."
"Oh, my prince, I'm at your service," said Notker. "And my own humble fiefdom is only minutes away from you in the Alps."
"Seth and Fareed," I said. "You are our physicians, our scientists, our bold explorers. What can I do? What can all of us do to support you in your ongoing work?"
"Well, I think you know," said Seth. "There's much we can learn from you and from ... Amel." Understatement. Burning eyes.
"You'll have my complete cooperation always," I said. "And you'll have your rooms at my court and whatever else you need or desire. And I will be open to you, and offer you whatever knowledge or experience that I can."
Fareed was smiling, obviously pleased, and Seth was satisfied for the moment but not without grave suspicions of what might lie ahead.
"We will never again, any of us here, be isolated from one another, in exile, and unreachable." I stopped, taking the time to meet the eyes of each and every one present. "We must all promise. We must maintain our lines of communication, and we must seek to see how we may benefit from one another as a united people. For that is what we are now, not so much the Children of Darkness, but the People of the Savage Garden, because we have come of age as such."
I stopped. People of the Savage Garden. I didn't know if it was the right or ultimate term for u
s. I had to think on that, the matter of an ultimate term--consult, listen to the inevitable poetry that would rise to create a term from all the tribe. For now I had done the best that I could do. There was so much more to be done. But I was tired, raggedly tired.
I motioned that I needed a moment to collect my thoughts. And I was startled to hear a soft applause break out in the room that soon included everyone, it seemed, and then died away quietly.
So much more to say.
I thought again of Magnus, that ghost, Magnus who'd come to me in the golden caves of Sevraine's little city in Cappadocia. I thought of Gremt, the grand spirit who had been there too.
"And we must take up one more matter now," I said. "It's the matter of the Talamasca. It's the matter of what they've made known to me and Sevraine about their members."
"And to me as well," said Pandora. "I've met Gremt as I know you have, the spirit who in fact brought the Talamasca into being."
"And I too have been contacted by them," said Marius. "And a meeting with them soon might be to the benefit of us all."
Again, I listened for Amel, but there was only silence, and the warm subtle embrace under my skin that let me know he was there. I was looking down. I waited.
"Learning, Prince Lestat," he said in the lowest whisper. "Learning as I have never dreamed it was possible to learn."
I looked up. "Yes, and we will indeed meet with them, meet with those who've revealed themselves to us, and we will determine among other things how to treat the old ongoing mortal Order of the Talamasca whom these spectral founding fathers have apparently cut loose to pursue its own destiny."
Seth was marveling, obviously wanting to know so much more on this.
"Now, if there's nothing more," I said, "I'd like to retire. I've made that French library my lair and it's waiting for me and I need to rest perhaps more now than ever before in my life."
"One thing more," said Seth. "You hold the Core now. You are the Source. You are the Primal Fount."
"Yes?" I responded calmly, patiently, waiting.
"Your fate is our fate," he said.
"Yes?"
"You must vow never to slip away from us, never to seek to hide from us, never to be careless with your own person, any more than any earthly monarch on whom the peace of a realm depends."