by Anne Rice
This little speech from Zenobia was spoken tenderly as all her words had been spoken, and when she finished it I could see that Avicus was charmed. This did not mean that he would love her completely or forever, mind you, I knew that. But I could see that there was no barrier between the child and himself.
He drew closer still and seemed at a loss to express his respect for her beauty, and then, surprising me completely, he spoke to her:
"My name is Avicus," he said. "I am a long-time friend of Marius." Then he looked at me, and then back to Zenobia. He asked: "Are you alone?"
"Quite alone," said Zenobia, though she did glance at me first to see if I meant to silence her,
"and if you — all of you or perhaps one of you — do not take me with you out of here, or remain with me in this house, I'm lost."
I nodded to both my long-time companions.
Mael gave me a withering look and shook his head in negation. He glanced at Avicus. But Avicus was still looking at our child.
"You won't be left here unprotected," said Avicus, "that's unthinkable.
But you must leave us alone now, so that we may talk. No, you remain where you are. There are many rooms in this house. Marius, where can we gather? "
"The library," I said at once. "Come, both of you. Zenobia, don't be afraid, and don't try to listen, for you may hear only parts of what we say, and all is what matters. All is what will contain the true sentiments of the heart."
I led the way, and we quickly seated ourselves in Eudoxia's fine library just as we had only a short time before.
"You must take her," I said. "I can't do it. I'm leaving here and I'm taking the Mother and the Father, just as I've told you. Take her under your wing."
"This is impossible," Mael declared, "she's far too weak. And I don't want her! I tell you that plainly, I don't want her!"
Avicus reached out and covered Mael's hand with his own.
"Marius can't take her," said Avicus. "He's speaking the simple truth. It's not a choice. He cannot have such a little creature with him."
"Little creature," said Mael disgustedly. "Say what's really the truth. She is a frail creature, an unknowing creature, and she will bring us harm."
"I beg you both, take her," I said. "Teach her all that you know. Teach her what she needs to be on her own."
"But she's a woman," said Mael disgustedly. "How could she ever be on her own?"
"Mael, when one is a blood drinker such a thing doesn't matter," I said. "Once she is strong, once she truly knows everything, she can live like Eudoxia once lived if she chooses. She can live any way that she likes."
"No, I don't want her," said Mael. "I will not take her. Not for any price or on any terms."
I was about to speak but when I saw the look on his face, I realized he was telling the truth more completely than he knew himself. He would never be reconciled to Zenobia, and if I did leave her with him, I would be leaving her in danger. For he would abandon her or desert her, or even worse. It would only be a matter of time.
I looked to Avicus only to see that he was miserably at the mercy of Mael's words. As always he was in Mael's power. As always he could not break free of Mael's anger.
Avicus pleaded with him. Surely it would not change their lives so very much. They could teach her to hunt, could they not? Why, surely she knew already how to hunt. She wasn't so very human, this lovely little girl. It wasn't hopeless, and shouldn't they do what I had asked?
"I want her to be with us," said Avicus warmly. "I find her lovely. And I see in her a sweetness that touches my heart."
"Yes, there is that," I said. "It's very true, this sweetness."
"And why is such a thing of use in a blood drinker?" asked Mael. "A blood drinker should be sweet?"
I couldn't speak. I thought of Pandora. The pain in me was simply too intense for me to form words. But I saw Pandora. I saw her, and I knew that she had always combined both passion and sweetness, and that both men and women can have such traits, and this child,
Zenobia, might grow in both.
I looked off, unable to speak to either of them as they argued, but I realized suddenly that Avicus had grown angry, and that Mael was boiling to a rage.
When I looked back to them, they fell silent. Then Avicus looked at me as if for some authority which I knew that I did not possess.
"I can't command your future," I said. "I'm leaving you as you know."
"Stay and keep her with us," said Avicus.
"Unthinkable!" I said.
"You're stubborn, Marius," said Avicus softly. "Your own strongest passions frighten you. We could be the four of us in this house."
"I've brought about the death of the owner of this house," I said, "I cannot live in it. It is blasphemy against the old gods that I linger this long. The old gods will bring about vengeance not so much because they exist but because I once honored them. As for this city, I've told you, I must leave it, and I must take Those Who Must Be Kept to where they are truly secret and safe."
"The house is yours by right," said Avicus. "And you know this. You've offered it to us."
"You didn't destroy her," I said. "Now let us return to the question at hand. Will you take this girl? "
"We will not," said Mael.
Avicus could say nothing. He had no choice.
I looked away once more. My thoughts were purely and completely with Pandora on the isle of Crete, something which I could not even envision. Pandora, the wanderer. I said nothing for the longest while.
Then I rose without addressing either one of them, for they had disappointed me, and I went back into the bedchamber where the lovely young creature lay on the bed.
Her eyes were closed. The lamplight was soft. What a lush and passive being she seemed to be, her hair cascading over the pillow, her skin flawless, her mouth half closed.
I sat down beside her.
"Besides your beauty, why did Eudoxia choose you?" I asked. "Did she ever say?"
She opened her eyes as if startled, which could be the case with one so young, and then she reflected before answering, to say finally in a soft voice:
"Because I was quick of wit and knew whole books by memory. She had me recite them to her." Without rising from the pillows, she held her hands as if she had a bound book in them. "I could but glance at a page and remember all of it. And I had no mortals to grieve for. I was but one of a hundred attendants to the Empress. I was a virgin. I was a slave."
"I see. Was there anything more?"
I was aware that Avicus had come to the door, but I said nothing to acknowledge him.
Zenobia thought for a moment, then answered:
"She said my soul was incorruptible, that though I'd seen wickedness in the Imperial palace, I could still hear music in the rain."
I nodded. "Do you still hear it, this music?"
"Yes," she said. "More than ever, I think. Though if you leave me here, it won't sustain me."
"I'm going to give you something before I leave you," I said.
"What is that? What can it be?" She sat up, pushing herself back against the pillows. "What can you give me that will help me?"
"What do you think?" I asked gently. "My blood."
I heard Avicus gasp at the doorway, but I paid no attention to it. Indeed, I paid no attention to anything but her.
"I'm strong, little one," I said, "very strong. And after you've drunk from me, as long as you wish and however much you wish, you'll be a different creature from the one you are now."
She was mystified and drawn by the notion. Timidly she lifted her hands and placed them on my shoulders.
"And this I should do now?"
"Yes," I said. I was seated firmly there, and I let her take hold of me, and as I felt her teeth go into my neck, I gave out a long sigh. "Drink, precious one," I said. "Pull hard to take as much blood from me as you can."
My mind was flooded with a thousand tripping visions of the Imperial palace, of golden rooms, and banquets, of music and m
agicians, of the daylight city with its wild chariot races crashing through the Hippodrome, of the crowd screaming with applause, of the Emperor rising in his Imperial box to wave to those who worshiped him, of the huge processions passing into Hagia Sophia, of candles and incense, and once again of palatial splendor, this time beneath this roof.
I grew weak. I grew sick. But it didn't matter. What mattered was she must take all that she could. And at last, she fell back on the pillows, and I looked down at her, and I saw her cheeks stark white with the Blood.
Scrambling to sit up, to look at me, she stared like a newborn blood drinker as if she'd never had the true vision of the Blood before.
She climbed off the bed and walked about the room. She made a huge circle, her right hand clenching the fabric of her tunic, her face shining with its new whiteness, her eyes wide and swimming and bright.
She stared at me as if she'd never seen me before. Then she stopped, obviously hearing distant sounds to which she'd been deaf. She put her hands to her ears. Her face was full of quiet awe and sweetness, yes, sweetness, and then her eyes played over me.
I tried to climb to my feet but I was too weak for it. Avicus came to help me but I waved him away.
"What have you done to her!" he said.
"You see what I've done," I answered. "Both of you, you who wouldn't take her. I've given her my blood. I've given her a chance."
I went to Zenobia and made her look at me.
"Pay attention to me," I said. "Did Eudoxia tell you of her early life?" I asked. "Do you know that you can hunt the streets as a man?"
She stared at me with her new eyes, too dazzled, uncomprehending.
"Do you know that your hair, if cut, will grow back in the space of one day, and be as long and full as before?"
She shook her head, her eyes passing over me and over the myriad bronze lamps of the room, and over the mosaics of the walls and the floor.
"Listen to me, lovely creature, I don't have that much time to teach you," I said. "I mean to leave you armed with knowledge as well as strength."
Assuring her again that her hair would grow back, I cut it off for her, watching as it fell to the floor, and then taking her to the rooms of the male blood drinkers, I dressed her in male clothes.
Then ordering Mael and Avicus sternly to leave us, I took her out with me into the city, and tried to show her the manner in which a man would walk, and how fearless he might be, and what was the life of the taverns, which she'd never even dreamt of, and how to hunt on her own.
All the while I found her enchanting as I had before. She seemed now to be her own older, wiser sister. And as she laughed over the usual wasted cup of wine at the table in the tavern, I found myself half resolving that I would urge her to come with me, but then I knew I could not.
"You don't really look like a man, you know," I said to her, smiling, "hair or no hair."
She laughed. "Of course, I don't. I know it. But to be in such a place as this, a place I'd never see if it weren't for you."
"You can do anything now," I told her. "Merely think on it. You can be male. You can be female. You can be neither. Seek the Evil Doer as I do and you will never choke on death. But always, whatever your joys, whatever your misery, don't put yourself in danger of the judgment of others. Measure your strength and take care."
She nodded, her eyes wide with fascination. Of course the men in the tavern shot glances at her. They thought I had brought my pretty boy out drinking with me. Before things got out of hand, I left with her, but not before she had tested her powers to read the minds of those around her, and to daze the poor slave boy who had brought our wine.
As we walked through the streets, I gave her random instructions in the ways of the world which I thought she might need. I enjoyed doing this far too much.
She described for me all the secrets of the Imperial palace so that I might better penetrate it to satisfy my curiosity, and then we found ourselves in a tavern again.
I warned her,
"You'll come to hate me for what I did to Eudoxia, and for what I did to the other blood drinkers as well."
"No, that's not so," she said plainly. "You must understand that Eudoxia never allowed me one moment of freedom, and as for the others they felt only contempt for me or jealousy, I never knew which."
I nodded, accepting this, but then I asked her,
"Why do you think that Eudoxia told me the story of her life, of how she herself had once wandered in a boy's clothing in Alexandria, when she never told you such things? "
"She had some hope of loving you," Zenobia answered. "She confided this to me, not directly you understand, but through her descriptions of you and her enthusiasm for seeing you. But these emotions were mixed up in her mind with wariness and cunning. And I think that her fear of you won out."
I was quiet, thinking it over, the tavern noises like music.
Zenobia was watching me and then she said,
"From me, she wanted no such knowledge of herself or understanding.
She was content to have me as a plaything. And even when I read to her or sang for her, she would not really look at me, or care for me. But you? You, she saw as a being who was worthy of her. When she spoke of you, it was as if no one was listening. She went on and on, making her plan to summon you to her house and speak with you. It was an obsession full of fear. Don't you see?"
"It went so wrong," I said. "But come, there are many things I must teach you. We have only so many hours before dawn."
We went out into the night, holding fast to each other. How I loved teaching her! There was such a spell to it for me.
I showed her how she might climb walls effortlessly, and how easy it was to get past mortals in the shadows, and how she could draw mortal victims to herself.
We crept into Hagia Sophia, a thing she believed to be impossible, and for the first time since she'd been given the Blood she saw the great church she'd known so well when she was alive.
Finally, after we'd both claimed victims in the back streets for the night's thirst, at which time she learnt of her considerable new strength, we returned to the house.
There I found the official documents pertaining to its ownership, and I examined these with her, and suggested how she might maintain the house of Eudoxia for her own.
Avicus and Mael were both there. And as it came near to sunrise they asked if they might remain.
"That question you must put to Zenobia," I said. "This house belongs to her."
Immediately, in her kindness of heart she told them to remain. They could take the hidden places that had belonged to Asphar and Rashid.
I could see that she found the well-built Avicus with his finely molded features quite handsome, and she also seemed to look far too kindly and guilelessly upon Mael.
I said nothing. But I was feeling extraordinary confusion and pain. I didn't want to be separated from her. I wanted to lie down in the darkness of the crypt with her. But it was time for me to take my leave.
Being very weary, no matter how good the hunting had been, and it had been marvelous, I went back to the ashes of my house, and down into the shrine of the Divine Parents and lay down to sleep.
13
I AM NOW at an important point in my story, for I mean to come forward in time towards the present by something slightly near to a thousand years.
I cannot say exactly how much time had passed for I am not sure when I left Constantinople, only that it was well after the reign of the Emperor Justinian and Theodora, and before the Arabs had risen with the new religion of Islam and begun their swift and remarkable conquest from East to West.
But the important matter here is that I cannot tell you all my life, and that I choose now to pass over those centuries which history has seen fit to call the Dark Ages, and during which I did in fact live through many small stories which I might confess or make known at a later date.
For now, let me say only that as I left Zenobia's house that night, I was greatly agitated
for the safety of Those Who Must Be Kept.
The attack of the mob on our house had left me almost terror stricken. Those Who Must Be Kept had to be taken to safety well away from any city and any lodging of mine within a city. They had to be unreachable save by me.
Where could I take them, that was the question.
I could not go East due to the warring Persian Empire, which had already taken Asia Minor whole and entire from the Greeks, and had even captured the city of Alexandria.
As for my beloved Italy, I wanted to be near it, but not in it as the turmoil there was unendurable for me to behold.
But I did know of a very good place.
The Italian Alps, or the mountain range to the North of the Italian peninsula, was an area I had known in my mortal years. Several passes had been built through the mountains by the Romans, and I myself when young and fearless had traveled the Via Claudia Augusta, and I knew the character of the land.
Of course the barbarians had frequently swept through the Alpine valleys, both as they went down to attack Italy, and as they withdrew. And there was a great deal of Christianity in those lands now, with churches, monasteries and the like.
But I would not be seeking a fertile and populated valley, and certainly not a mountaintop on which a castle or church or monastery had been built.
I needed only the seclusion of a small, high and completely hidden valley that only I could reach. And I would perform the arduous task of climbing, digging, clearing and creating a vault, and then bringing the Mother and the Father to this safe place. Only a superhuman creature could do this, but I could do it. I had to do it.
There was truly no other path for me.
All the while, as I thought this over, as I hired slaves and purchased wagons for my journey, as I made my preparations, Zenobia was my companion, though Avicus and Mael would have joined us if I had allowed. I was too angry with them still for their early refusal to protect Zenobia. And it did not assuage my anger that they wanted to remain with Zenobia now.
Zenobia sat with me long hours in this tavern or that one, as I made my plan. Did I care that she might read from my mind my thoughts on where I was going? Not at all, for I had only a dim scheme of it myself. The final location of the shrine of Those Who Must Be Kept would be known to no one but me.