by Anne Rice
He wore a robe of dark blue velvet trimmed in gold embroidery, made of actual gold thread, and studded with twinkling jewels.
“Beautiful,” I whispered, and out of sheer delight at this great unique feast for my eyes, I laughed a soft reverent laugh. “Beautiful,” I said again. “What are you? Who are you? How did you come to be here?”
I realized suddenly what sort of person he resembled, or just might be: a kingly being from an old Assyrian wall, a lord from the ancient lands of the two rivers, a lord who might have ruled in Nineveh or Babylon or some forgotten city long before, now erased by desert sands.
He smiled. And a familiar voice came out of him as he reached to embrace me.
“It’s Gregory, beloved,” he said. “It’s Gregory as he looks when he rises before he shears off all the hair of his face, and clips the hair of his head. It’s Gregory as I looked the night the Mother made me.”
I was filled with delight. I couldn’t quite explain it, that the explanation for this glittering splendor was so very simple. But it was most certainly Gregory and now I saw his good nature in his eyes, and as he smiled again, I saw his small pointed white fangs.
“Come here to me, Prince,” he said. “Let me give you my blood. Let me give you the blood of the fourth blood drinker ever made.”
I couldn’t resist. It didn’t even occur to me. I saw him rise before me and I lay back on the marble bed and he was stretched out on top of me, a warm gentle weight against me, and my fangs were pressed to his neck. I drank.
The cell vanished. I vanished.
There was only the night and the forest thick on either side of the ribbon of road that twisted and turned as it made its way amid these monstrous trees. How impossibly dark this forest that not a particle of moonlight could pierce its canopy, and it was in this darkness, just a few feet off the road and following it, that Gregory walked. He was the vampire Nebamun and he wore the leather armor of an Egyptian warrior, but his legs were wrapped and bound with linen to protect him from the northern cold, and a great fur cloak covered his shoulders, which he held close about him with his left hand. His hair was long and rich and thick to his shoulders, and his beard wild and unkempt.
Far off to his right, far away in the forest, he caught the flicker of light. It seemed no more than a spark in the distance, but he moved towards it, the brambles and tiny broken branches of the forest crushed beneath his leather boots.
Deeper and deeper into the woods he walked, pushing the shrubbery out of his path, deeper into the scents and sounds of the forest, when out of the perfect blackness there came a savage roar that shook me to the bone.
A monstrous pair of claws scratched at Nebamun, and a great gaping mouth filled with sharp white teeth closed over his head.
In a fury, he fought the beast, sending it hurtling away from him, rolling on its back, its fierce eyes red and gleaming, and its roar filled with fury, and Nebamun heard the clank of the chains that held the beast captive. He lifted his spear to kill it but waited, waited until he felt a hand close on his hand.
“Nebamun” came the whisper.
“Ah, I’ve found you!” Nebamun said. And the two blood drinkers embraced each other, their lips locked in a long kiss. For the longest time, in the darkness, they held to one another, Nebamun’s lips moving over the face of the other, and again back to his lips.
“Santh, my Santh, my beloved Santh.”
“Come with me,” said the other. “I didn’t expect you so soon.” He led the way towards a pale uneven light, pushing the tall growth out of his path.
The beast roared and pulled on the chains that bound him. And every time, the roar sent a shiver through Nebamun. It was as bad as the roar of the lion in the African jungles.
“I knew that you left the stockade of the god at sundown,” said Santh. “I didn’t know you’d make such time.”
“But how did you know?” asked Nebamun.
“I have my followers all through these woods,” said the other.
They had come to the mouth of a low-roofed cave. It seemed impossible that any being would choose to live in such a place, but they’d gone only a few feet into it when the low ceiling opened up into a great cavern, and across that cavern they found another corridor through which they moved towards a distant light.
Finally, they came around a turn and found themselves before a roaring fire of forest wood and dead leaves. Above them the roof of the cave was covered with strange drawings—little men made of sticks just as children draw and great humped buffalo and the unmistakable image of a bear.
“What is the meaning of this?” Nebamun asked.
“No one knows,” said Santh. “It’s always been here. We hide in these places by day because the humans in these parts are terrified of them and won’t come near.”
Nebamun was glad of the warmth and drew as close to the fire as he could.
“Is all the world cold except for Egypt?” he asked. He looked at his friend, at his thick shaggy blond hair and beard.
“All the world where I was born,” said the blond one. “Come sit down. Let me look at you. Ah, your wounds are healed already? We gods are amazing creatures!”
This sent them both into paroxysms of boyish laughter and they slapped their thighs as they laughed. “We gods!” scoffed Nebamun. They were doubled over with laughing.
They fell down on the soft earth, laughing, and they slapped their thighs as they laughed.
Nebamun’s dark skin was like mahogany, but Santh’s skin was a gleaming white. He wore only furs, a tunic of fur girded at the waist in leather, to which there was a sword attached in a bright golden scabbard, and a dagger in its sheath.
Again, they embraced each other, and moved along to a place where they could rest against the cave wall, yet have the fire very near to their feet.
“Well, if you knew I was coming,” said Nebamun, “then you know why.”
“Yes, but I don’t know the why of the why” came the answers. “They want me to come back. They publish through the world that I am pardoned if only I return. They’ll charge nothing against me if I come to temple in Saqqâra, but why do they want to pardon me? Why now?”
“The King and Queen no longer speak or move,” said Nebamun. “They say it will eventually happen to all of us. We’ll become as statues, we blood gods. But what do they know? They weren’t there at the beginning. They don’t know. So many things they don’t know.”
“Explain this to me,” said Santh.
“They sit silent and have for years now,” said Nebamun. “They don’t take blood when it’s offered. There is no reason anymore to keep them imprisoned in stone.”
They both stared into the fire for a long moment.
“Then who is it that sends for me?” asked Santh.
“The Elder. The Elder would have you be the leader now if you wish it. And go throughout the world visiting the blood gods in their shrines, taking account of those that have gone mad, and doing away with them, and bringing new gods into the Blood to serve.”
“Why haven’t they offered this to you?”
“I refused it,” said Nebamun. “I say the old religion is dead. I say it is meaningless. I say we are not gods, and never were, and we are not meant to pronounce judgment on humans. I say none of it matters now and I will not make new gods for old shrines.”
“Then why did you come to bring me this message?” asked Santh.
“Because I wanted you to know there is no one now to hunt you. There are only foolish priests in the temple in Saqqâra, and even they don’t believe it anymore. And I want you to know that if you want to come down to Egypt that you can. If you want to see Nineveh, you can.”
“And you? What will you do?”
Nebamun didn’t answer. He looked at his friend.
“I don’t know, Santh,” he said. “I don’t
know.”
“You never found Sevraine, did you?” asked Santh.
“No.” Nebamun shook his head. “I found Rhoshamandes once, but he knew nothing of her by the time I found him.”
Again they stared into the flames.
“What do you want, Nebamun?” asked Santh.
“I don’t know, Santh. I don’t know.” He picked up a loose stick for no good reason, and began to make scratch marks in the earth. He made a long line twisting and turning, which he thought of as a road. Not a particular road in a particular place. But the road of his life. “It’s all finished, Santh,” he said. “I’m tired. I don’t know the people of Egypt now. I haven’t known them for as far back as I can really remember, and the times before that, they’re like a dream, a bad dream.”
He could see by Santh’s expression that he didn’t understand. His green eyes were lively, and almost cheerful except for the sadness he felt for his friend.
“Stay with me, then,” said Santh. “Don’t go back this time. Stay here!”
A long silence fell between them. Nebamun realized he was weeping and he was ashamed. He felt Santh’s arm over his shoulder, and he said in a soft voice to Santh, “This is your world, my friend, I have no world now.”
A terrible sadness crumpled the face of Santh. He wasn’t ashamed to cry. He hated the blood coming from his eyes and he wiped at it angrily with the fur of his sleeve, but he wasn’t ashamed. “You cannot give in to this!” he said. “This is like a sickness, this feeling. You have to find a place somewhere. You have to find something. You and I were there at the beginning! Who’s left who was there at the beginning? We must continue—.”
Very softly through his tears, Nebamun asked, Why.
I woke.
I was sitting up on the bench. I could take no more blood, and as I stared at the candle I felt his blood and the power of his blood was beyond description. I could hear the wax slowly melting around the wick, and it seemed the breath I took into my lungs was like the moment before the death of the victim is about to come, and all my body is nothing but my mouth and the blood and the coming. I stared at the halo of light and color surrounding the tiny flame. I had never realized there were so many colors in that halo, that that halo was so large.
I turned and put my forehead down against Gregory’s shoulder. I felt his hand come up to take mine, and I clasped his hand and then I reached past it and embraced him tightly.
“Is this sickness gone now?” he asked.
“Oh yes,” I said. I closed my eyes.
“That was the last time I ever saw him,” he said in a low confiding voice. “He begged me to stay, but I went home to Egypt. I made the long journey south again across northern Europe and down to the great sea, and around the sea until I reached Egypt, my Egypt, and I went down into the sands to sleep.
“Once, a long time after I’d risen and fallen in love with all the wonders of the Greek and Roman world, I met a blood drinker who told me that Santh was no more. Do I believe he made that scoundrel in the dungeon? I do not. I’ve heard so many claim to have been made by Santh or made by one who was made by him, but Santh was as miserly with his blood as I’ve been with mine. We don’t make blood drinkers like us. We seek our partners and our mates among those already in the Blood, that is, sometimes. I have my Chrysanthe. And unlike Sevraine she has never left me. But Santh is gone, and it’s been a thousand years since I’ve even heard somebody speak his name.”
“Why did you come to me like this?” I asked. I was still holding him. His blood was quite truly a fire in my limbs. It was burning my heart. All the secrets of the world seemed inscribed in the pattern of the marble wall so close to my eyes.
“Because I knew you were weary and confused, and you hated for anyone to be condemned to the dungeon. And I know that Marius alarmed you when he said he had a design for what might be done with the condemned.”
I couldn’t deny it.
“And I want you to be strong,” he said. “We need you to be strong. When you realize how much we need you, and how much you must be strong for us, then it will be easier for you.”
“Maybe you’re right. But as of now, I can’t imagine it,” I said. “I never dreamed of dungeons, or condemned prisoners, or passing sentence on an ancient like Rhoshamandes….Oh, what’s the use of saying any more?”
“You’ll come to see it,” he said. “You’ll come to see that all we are doing will be defeated if we do not act in our own defense with resolve.”
Words, I wanted to say, words and words. But I didn’t want to offend Gregory, not for the world. For the first time I felt I knew him, knew him intimately, the way I’d once known Armand, over two centuries ago, when he had spellbound me and Gabrielle and showed us in that spell his memories of Marius who had made him, and how all that he loved had been lost.
“Come,” he said. “Let’s go. Benedict is here. He knows we’re about to pass judgment. He knows. And he is not pleading for his master, and I don’t know why.”
Chapter 10
I had to have a thorough wash and a change of clothes before I confronted the throng in the ballroom. And so did Gregory, apparently, because he appeared at the same moment I did, his face clean shaven, his hair short, dressed in his usual costly business attire, winking secretively at me as we both approached a gift brought to me by Benedict.
A large rectangular dais had been brought into place before the right side of the orchestra for this gift—a dais that was not quite as high as that used by the conductor. And on this dais I saw a great medieval chair, made of oak, and ornamented all over with carving. The back and the seat were padded with red velvet.
It might have come from a cathedral. Indeed, I’ve seen popes photographed in such chairs. Winged lions crouched under the two padded arms, and above the cushion of the back was a pyramid of carved blossoms and leaves. The legs were beautifully turned. And over all the wood were the remnants of a thick gilding—with just enough gold polishing every feature of the wood to be elegant.
Benedict stood there watching me as I inspected the chair. He wore a monk’s habit of dark brown wool, with a simple rope around the waist and great sleeves in which his folded hands were buried.
I reached out to him and he came forward and we embraced. He was warm from the kill, as we say, filled with blood, his boyish face so flushed it seemed almost human, and his hands were warm.
No such warmth emanated from me. Gregory’s blood was as cold as it was powerful. Only human blood creates such heat.
“A monarch should have a throne,” Benedict said. His voice was strained, faltering. He stepped back yet held my shoulders as if I were a schoolboy, and he kissed me on either cheek. “Prince,” he said. His lip trembled.
“Thank you, my friend,” I said. “Is Rhoshamandes with you?”
“No.” He shook his head, and gave a short scoffing laugh. “I want to say my farewells in the Council Chamber.”
“What farewells?” I asked. But he was already moving across the ballroom. The musicians were tuning their instruments. Nods and gestures of greeting distracted me. And I saw that some of the elders were following Benedict as I was.
When we reached the Council Chamber, I opened the door for Benedict and followed him in.
We were not a large group—only Gregory, Sevraine, Seth and Fareed, and Allesandra. But within a few moments, others joined us, David and Jesse, and then came Armand along with Marius and Pandora.
I sensed we were waiting for others to come. But only two more did, Bianca and Louis.
Louis continued to feel that he was out of place at these meetings, but I wouldn’t hear of such an idea. He took the chair to my right as always. Benedict was to his right.
Marius sat at the far end of the table as he often did, and all the others were in random places.
“Thank you for coming,” said Benedict. “I
have reached the very end of my life, and I wish to say farewell before seeing to my death. I don’t want to leave the world without a farewell to those here who have shown me friendship.”
There was an immediate chorus of protests, the loudest from Allesandra and Sevraine, but Benedict immediately gestured for silence. His mouth became hard, which looked faintly absurd on such a youthful and sensitive face, and for a moment I thought he was going to give way to tears, but he merely remained quiet until all the others were quiet too.
“There are things I wish to say,” he said. “Things I’ve learned. They will strike some of you as obvious, and perhaps ridiculous, but I want to say them, because they are things of which I’m sure, absolutely sure, and who knows when one of you or some of you may make use of my words?
“Well, the first thing I must say is that two are not enough. No. Two are not enough in this life. There must be others. We deceive ourselves when we think that two can be a secure partnership against the horrors of time. It’s not true. And what you have created in this Court is a refuge and a shelter and a sacred place where any and all can find others with whom to form those ties that matter so much.”
I could see Marius nodding to these words. Gregory looked suddenly sad, dreadfully sad. And for a moment in a flash, I saw him as he had come to me only an hour before as that great Sumerian king or angel; perhaps I would always see something of that shining hair and shining beard now when I looked at him.
“Don’t ever think that two is enough,” Benedict said. “Don’t ever imagine it. And don’t ever be crippled by believing that you cannot live without one other being, and only that being. You must have more than that to love, because loving, loving keeps us alive, loving is our best defense against time, and time is merciless. Time is a monster. Time devours everything.” He shuddered. I was hoping against hope that he didn’t begin to weep, because he didn’t want to weep.
“I don’t mean to keep you long,” he said. He clasped his hands, running his fingers through one another, and pressed his hands anxiously together. His cheeks were suddenly red.