Blood 20

by Tanith Lee

  The transport is definitely stalled again. The grey drab woman makes no complaint, however. She goes on staring vaguely into nothingness. How old is she? Perhaps fifty … fifty-seven? A non-unusual face, thin and dry as the slice of a modern loaf. Eyes empty.

  And yet, behind the eyes, one must expect (as no doubt behind the empty opaque eyes of so many of these poor human remnants) is the dream of eventually getting home. Not, that is, a dream of home itself, which for the woman, as for so many of the rest, comprises a room slightly larger than a cupboard, with a separate shared kitchen-cubicle and lavatoriet down the passage. But in the room, in the home, will be the wonderful god who can and does save all mankind: a Computer. They – she? – will stagger in, perhaps cram down their throats some mouthful of gormless and unappetising permitted ‘food’, then activate the Machine of Delight. In this dire day and desperate age, what human being does not resort to that other world – the world of Virtual Reality, or ‘Vire’, as popular abbreviation now has it. Vire, where you can do anything, be anything, eat banquets, get drunk, fornicate, love and laugh and sing and live. That’s where home is then, for 99 percent of the populace of these purgatories of contemporary civilisation. The alternate world of dreams-that-come-true, haven from hell, the only, yet perfect rescue from Real Life.

  Surely, surely, she too must be longing now for that?

  And yes … she is thinking of her Computer, of course she is. Of the importance of switching over from one existence to another. Reality to Virtuality. Real to Vire to Real to – She has held off so long, feeling guilty. She has refused to do it, resisted. But now, she must give in. This has gone on too long.

  Skipping then a scene or two more of the beached transport, its slow, wallowing revival, the 11 (23) o’clock station, the grey woman’s lonely trudge through nearly unlit streets policed by seeing electric eyes, the opening of a low door, a narrow stair, another lower door, the manifestation of a great golden square of light and potential. Is there the tap-tap of keys, like a piano played in silence? Or did that already occur, before …?

  And then – the transformation.

  One moment here – then there. (As there, then here.) In-out, out-of in-to. Away, away.

  Away.

  She is flying, high up, under a sky of midnight black so strung with stars – platinum, green, topaz – it seems light as day to her. But then, inevitably, she has not seen or experienced an actual day for some three hundred years.

  Behind her, on its crag, the huge stone mansion, by starlight like a marvellous model cut from blackest granite and lit with tall, dim, blue windows. Below, before, the tumble of the jet-stone forests, their topmost spires star-polished to silver. There, just beneath, the familiar tarn, a piece of mirror that reflects her shadow somewhat, but as no looking-glass on Earth now ever can. But that scarcely matters. She remembers well her beauty, her dark red hair, the moon whiteness of her flawless flesh. Her mouth is red and succulent as edible cinnabar, and set with teeth both peerless and workmanlike.

  She swoops down, the tree-tips harmlessly brushing her mostly-invulnerable form, a caress of sharp urgent fingers – but is to come.

  And here, miles from her mountain fortress, she sees the villages lying now, updated with concrete and steel and netted electric masts – yet, this way, still littered like pretty pebbles along the banks of the wide river. And next the town appears, also enhanced, but the hedge of its raised needles of church towers remain – at these she only smiles. Crosses will never hurt her; all that is a lie. As for the stake through her beautiful hungry vampire heart, that has been tried, once or twice. It never took. She healed and rose up, laughing, throwing off the soil of her burial like an annoying quilt …

  And there now too, directly opening from among the trees beyond the town, she recognises the glade where, some nights ago, she noted a young man standing. He is a poet, who leaves his father’s wealthy town house to come out and stargaze. And noticing him then, his handsome face and fine body, she had alighted quietly, and so walked toward him, soft as a gazelle through the pines. And he had not believed his eyes, asking her if she were an angel, or his muse. The opium product he had indulged in earlier had apparently added to his perceptions. But she nodded serenely. Of course, what else. She was and is his angel and his muse.

  She had done little that first time. A kiss, a sip (the opium was not unpleasant), no more, leaving desire to grow in worth with waiting. And she knows now, while she has liked the gap of waiting, he has been frantically yearning – yes, see how pale he is. His eyes so dark and deep – They will take her reflection too, that she alone can see, if inadequately.

  ‘My love – my soul –’ he whispers, as she glides down now to the fragrant balsamic ground. He is not alarmed that she can levitate or fly – what else, for an angel?

  She slides her slender ivory hands about his neck, holding the strong and glorious vessel of it, a wine cup so charmingly fashioned for her lips to drink at, and at last to drain.

  Within a few minutes, no explanation asked or offered, they lie among the clawed roots of the trees. He caresses her very ably and deliciously, then loses all will and becomes an arc of blind singing lust beneath her. Her bite is honed as a serpent’s. Through the crystal straw of his vein she sucks out the crimson elixir.

  The taste of it –! There is nothing in a million years or worlds, not spice, nor honey, nor wine, to match the flavour and kick of sheer human blood. It is, this drink, the Water of Immortality, red as sunset, clear as diamond. You cannot ever get enough. Until, obviously, all is consumed. She has learned this every time, yet curiously, on each occasion, seems also to forget. The ecstasy of greed and fulfilment is followed always and instantly, by a strange second surge, a sickening emotion – not regret, not sorrow, but a peculiar lowering and heaviness, dullness. She lets him fall back, dead naturally as death itself, a tasty thing now ruined and useless.

  For a while after she has left her victim, the beautiful vampire wanders the lighter woodland that opens beyond the pines. On some clear nights she will fly again as far as the coast, and stare across the acres of wave-pleated water, to the unknown and exotic, if undesired, countries that lie there unseen. Why should she bother with them? All places, however dissimilar, are alike to her. She is impervious and absolute. She may do as she pleases. Every door opens to her. And the delirious joy of blood is followed always by the surging out-drawn tide of weight and dreariness.

  Long before the pink and hideous dawn has even hinted, she rises up again and soars toward the mountain crag and the mansion that will shelter her in its vaults. Long before she needs to sleep, she will pretend to.

  Her house is full of treasures and astonishments – man-size dolls that dance and sing, clockwork birds that twitter and flitter, books seeming old almost as the planet, experiments and games she has invented and played with and let alone. There are also the most ancient puzzles and most current inventions ever devised to amuse and comfort the mind and heart and soul.

  In the great chair of gilded bronze and yew she sits a short while. She is considering. But it is too soon. She must not even contemplate – not yet – not yet –

  She is day-dreaming, the beautiful vampire.

  Of a stalled train packed with graceless, desperate and exhausted people – or at least the facsimiles of such a train and such people. A mindless and thankless, hard and ill-paid job of work. Of rising at four on mornings still black with night, or grey as ash with night’s crushed dog-ends. Of horrible cramped journeys, disgusting food, a room small as a closet, a lavatory-closet (she never, as herself, requires such an essential) smaller almost than the lavatory it holds. Dark pitiless streets with sneaking police-eyes, stinking drains, the ugliness and unimportance of the skinny old-before-its-time face – hers – that she can always see in any mirror. Dreaming of the one she can become, the ash-grey, drab little female working six to 18 o’clock, or to 24 pm if she can get it. A life that is real, solid, dramatic in its awfulness, significant
in its despair. Real – but not real, of course. For her luxurious and supernatural life here, in the castle, or out hunting the forests for human blood, that – this – is the Real World. And how it burdens her, bores her even to death – if she, a vampire, could ever in fact die. Thank God, who of course cannot hurt her either, for human genius that has invented the Computer, and set within it such wonderful miracles as the portal to a second, truer, better Fantasy life – the world of Virtual Reality: Vire.

  And how she longs now for Vire, even though she has only been back in reality here for part of one night. She must control herself. She must say No. She did before – and then gave in. And so prior to this night, she had remained to revel in the grey glory of the Vire hell-world one whole month. Therefore now she must not return there after so short a stay in reality.

  When the sun rises she will go down to the vaults and step elegantly into her sumptuous coffin, lay her noble head, her fox-red, red hair, her lovely face upon the linen pillow, and sleep. She will not instead, as she has, seal the upper room to blackness, and stay there, awake, asleep, in Vire with the Computer … Sleeping in the coffin, if only she might dream truly of the Vire world. But vampires, as she knows too well, never dream.

  She has closed and locked up the Computer. The golden gateway of the screen is void. She is an addict and must resist. Tomorrow evening, maybe, she will contact the System, and cancel her membership in the Vire … or maybe …

  How tired she looks, the drab female, stood rocking and leaning there, hanging on to the torturer-insect’s filament strap dangled from the transport ceiling. Then the transport jumps again, and once more everyone missteps. A man treads heavily on her toe.

  A squeak of genuine pain. A sigh. Sheer bliss.

  THE BEAUTIFUL BITING MACHINE

  When the two suns go down and it starts to get dark, the Nightfair wakes up, a beast with a thousand bright eyes.

  Five miles long, four miles wide, the valley is full of lights, noises, musics, between the tall and echoing hills.

  This world’s a pleasure planet. It has many and various attractions. The Nightfair is only one. Here there are spinning wheels of yellow sparks against the dusk, and glimmering neon ghost towers ringing with screams, and carousels that maybe come alive. Not everyone cares for these, or the candy awnings, the peppermint arenas, the cries of fortune-tellers in glass cages, the crashing of prearranged safe vehicular accidents, the soaring space-flights that never leave the ground. Those that don’t care for them don’t come. But for those that do, there are the cuisine and superstition and popular art, the sex and syntax and the sin of twenty worlds, to be sampled for a night, or a week of nights. (Who could tolerate more?)

  So visit the Valley of Lights. Hurry, hurry, don’t be slow or sly or shy.

  Welcome to the Nightfair.

  This gentle vyrainian’s gotta slight complaint.’

  ‘Tell him to see a doctor.’

  ‘Don’t cheek me, Beldek.’

  ‘No, Mr Qire. What seems to be the trouble, sir?’

  Beldek and Qire looked through the one-way window at the gentleman from Vyraini. Like all Vyrainians, he was humanoid, greenish, fretful. Vyraini did not esteem the human race, but was patronisingly intrigued by it and its culture. Anything human, where possible, should be experienced, explored. Now this Vyrainian had come to Qire’s pavilion at the Nightfair, and was not quite satisfied, had a slight complaint.

  ‘Go and talk to it – him,’ said Qire.

  ‘Me, sir?’

  ‘You. You speak their lingo. You speak half the damn gurglings of half the damn galaxy, don’t you, Beldek? You lazy son-of-a-ghex.’

  ‘If you say so, Mr Qire.’

  Beldek opened the long window and stepped through. The other side of the window it looked like a door, glamorous with enamel paint and stained glass. Beldek bowed to the gentlevyrainian with his hands to his face, which was the correct form of greeting from an outworlder. The Vyrainian stood impassive, ears folded.

  ‘Fo ogch m’mr bnn?’ Beldek inquired courteously.

  The Vyrainian seemed gratified, lifted its ears and broke into staccato Vyrainese.

  The glottal conversation continued for two and a half minutes. After which, feeling Qire’s beady little eyes on him through the one-way door-window, Beldek leisurely set the computer for a twenty percent refund.

  The Vyrainian took its cash, and offered Beldek the salute used when bidding farewell to an inferior but valuable alien. Not all Earthmen knew exactly what the salute implied (a rough translation was: I will let you lick my feet another time, O wise one). Beldek, who did, smiled pleasantly.

  The whaal-ivory screens of the outer doors closed on the Vyrainian’s exit.

  Beldek turned as Qire came storming from the inner office. Qire was a bulging, broad-faced type, the little eyes somewhat slanting, the mane of golden hair an implant. His clothes, though gaudy, were the best – real silk shirt, whaal-leather sandals. A ruby in his neck-chain.

  ‘Why d’yah do that?’

  ‘What, Mr Qire, sir?’

  ‘Refund the bastard his money.’

  ‘Twenty percent. The amount he agreed would compensate for the slight complaint.’

  ‘What was wrong with her?’

  Beldek said, ultra-apologetically, fawningly, ‘A little something I told you about, that clicks –’

  ‘Why the Garbundian Hell didn’t you, for Christ’s sake, get it fixed?’

  ‘I have tried, Mr Qire,’ said Beldek humbly. ‘I truly have.’

  Qire glowered.

  ‘I should put you out on your butt. Why don’t I?’

  ‘I’m useful?’ Beldek, attempting humbly to be helpful, now.

  ‘Like urx-faron you are. All right. Give me the receipts. I’m going over to Next Valley. I’ll be here again five-day week. Chakki’ll be by in three days.’

  Beldek keyed the computer for the cash receipts, tore them off when they came, and presented them to Qire. Qire riffled through them, glancing for mistakes. ‘Okay, Beldek. I want to hear from Chakki that she’s back in good order, you savvy?’

  ‘Oh yes, Mr Qire, sir.’

  Qire swore. At the whaal-ivory doors he turned for one last snarl.

  ‘I’ve got other concerns on this planet, Beldek. If Malvanda packs up, it’s no great loss to me. You’re the one’ll suffer. Back to hoofing the space-lanes with your card tricks and your dipscop seventh-rate jaar. You get me?’

  ‘To the heart, sir,’ said Beldek. ‘And all the way up yours, Mr Qire.’

  Qire cursed him and slammed out.

  The doors, ever serene, whispered shut in his wake.

  Beldek leaned on the ornamental counter, keying the computer, which he had long ago rigged, to count the amount he had creamed off Qire’s takings for the last five-day period. Qire, of course, guessed he did this. It was an inevitable perk of the job. All told, Qire seemed to value disliking Beldek. Value the hypertensive rage that came to the boil whenever Beldek’s cool clear eyes met his with such angelic sweetness above the long, smiling mouth that said: Yes, Mr Qire, sir. Most of the human portion of the Valley of Lights knew about Qire’s hatred of his employee Beldek, the drifter from the space-lanes. Beldek who could speak half the languages of the galaxy, and could charm rain from a desert sky, if he wanted. Usually he didn’t want. Beldek, whose un-implanted long thick lank brass-coloured hair hung on his shoulders and over his high wide forehead. Lean as a sculpture and tall, from birth on some unspecified lower-gravity world. Pale and pale-eyed. Something about him: more than the rumoured past, card-sharp, kept creature of male, female, humanoid … tales of a man murdered out among the stars … More than the fact of working for Qire, in attendance on one of the weirdest novelties of the Nightfair. Be careful of Beldek.

  The pavilion stood on a rise. A quarter of a mile below, a bowl of dizzy fires, the Arena of Arson, flashed and flared. Back a way, one of the great wheels whirled gold against the black sky. But the crimson pavilion was clouded
round with Sirrian cedars. Far-off lamps winked on their branches; the apex of the pavilion, a diadem of rose-red glass lit subtly from within, just pierced, with a wicked symbolism of many carnal things, from the upper boughs. Once among the trees, the rest of the Fair seemed siphoned off. You came to the kiosk with the ivory doors. You went in, read something, signed something, paid something, and were let through another door, this one of black Sinoese lacquer. And then the Fair was very far away indeed. For then you were in the Mansion of Malvanda. And she was there with you …

  A faint bell chimed on the console. Beldek killed the read-out and looked urbanely at the door-screens. Another customer.

  The doors opened.

  A new-worlder stepped through. He was alone. Most of them came alone, the same as most were men, or rather, most were male. A mixture of human and some genetically-adhesive other-race, the new-worlder was fresh-skinned, grinning, handsome, and without whites to his eyes.

  ‘Say,’ he said.

  ‘Good-evening, gentlenewman. You wish to visit Malvanda’s Mansion?’