Blood And Gold (The Vampire Chronicles #8)

Blood And Gold (The Vampire Chronicles #8) Page 11

11

WE FLED.

There is no other way to describe it. We were in terror and we fled. As soon as we reached our house we closed off every window and door with its heaviest shutters.

But what did all this matter against a power such as Eudoxia possessed?

Gathering in the inner court, we took stock of the situation. We must discover our own powers. We must know what had been given us by time and blood.

Within a few hours, we had some answers.

Avicus and I could move objects easily without touching them. We could make them fly through the air. As for the Fire Gift, I alone possessed it and we could find no limit to my gift in terms of the space of our house. That meant I could burn wood no matter how far it was from me. And as for living things, I chose the unfortunate vermin for my victims, and ignited them from a great distance with ease.

As for our physical strength it was far greater than we had ever supposed. Again, I excelled in this as in everything. Avicus was second to me, and Mael was third.

But I had sensed something else when I was with Eudoxia, and I tried to explain it to Avicus and Mael.

"When we fought, she sought to burn me with the Fire Gift. (And we did use those words then in one form or another.) Of this I'm certain. I felt the warmth. But I was confronting her with a different power. I was using a pressure against her. And that is something I must come to understand."

Once again, I chose the unfortunate rats of our dwelling for my exercise, and holding one of these, I exerted the same force I had used when struggling with Eudoxia in my arms. The creature virtually exploded, but there was no fire involved.

I knew then that I possessed a power different from the Fire Gift, which I might call the Killing Gift, which I had used in my defense. Should I use this pressure against a mortal, and I didn't intend to, the mortal's internal organs would be exploded and the poor creature would die.

"Now Avicus," I said, "you being the eldest of us, see if you possess this Killing Gift, for you very well might."

Having caught a rat, I held it as Avicus directed his thoughts with all due concentration, and within seconds the poor creature bled from its ears and mouth and was quite dead.

This had a sobering effect upon Avicus.

I insisted that Mael attempt the same thing. This time the rat squirmed furiously, letting out terrible little squeaks or cries, but did not die. When I put the little creature down on the mosaic floor of the court, it could not run, or even climb to its small feet, and I, out of mercy for it, put it to death.

I looked at Mael. "The power is growing in you," I said. "The powers are increasing in all of us. We have to be more clever, infinitely more clever, as we face our enemies here."

Mael nodded. "It seems that I might cripple a mortal."

"Or even make him fall," I answered. "But let us turn our attention now to the Mind Gift. We've all used it to locate each other, and sometimes to communicate a silent question or thought, but only in the simplest most self-defensive ways."

We went into the library and seated ourselves in a small triangle, and I sought to put into the mind of Avicus images of what I had seen in the great church of Hagia Sophia, specifically the mosaics which I had most loved.

He was at once able to describe them to me, even down to detail.

Then I became a recipient of his thoughts, which were memories of the long ago year when he was brought North out of Egypt, and up to Britain, to take up his long service in the Grove of the Druids. He had been in chains.

I was shaken by these images. Not only did I see them, I felt a deep physical response. I had to clear my eyes as well as my head. There was something overpoweringly intimate about them, yet something indistinct at the same time. I knew that I would never feel quite the same about Avicus again.

Now it was my turn with Mael. I tried to send him vivid pictures of my former house in Antioch, where I had been so happy¡ªor unhappy¡ªwith Pandora. And again, he was able to describe in words the images I'd sent.

When it came his turn to send me images, he allowed me to see the first night in his youth that he had ever been allowed to join the Faithful of the Forest in the ceremonies of the God of the Grove. I disliked these scenes, for obvious reasons, and again I felt jarred by them, and that I knew him now a little better than I desired.

After this, we tried to eavesdrop upon each other mentally, a skill we had always known we possessed. We proved far stronger in this than we had anticipated. And as for cloaking our minds, we could all do it quite near to perfection, even Mael.

We resolved then that we would strengthen our powers in so far as we could do this for ourselves. We would use the Mind Gift more often. We would do all that we could to prepare for Eudoxia and what she meant to do.

At last, having completed our lessons, and having heard no more of Eudoxia or her household, I resolved to go down into the shrine of Those Who Must Be Kept.

Avicus and Mael were hesitant to remain upstairs without me, so I allowed them to come down and wait near the doorway, but I insisted that I go into the shrine alone.

I knelt down before the Divine Parents, and in a low voice I told them what had taken place. Naturally there was an absurdity to this, for they probably already knew.

Whatever the case, I spoke frankly to Akasha and Enkil of all that Eudoxia had revealed to me, of our terrible struggle, and I told them that I didn't know what to do.

Here was one who laid claim to them, and I did not trust Eudoxia, because she had no respect for me and those I loved. I told them that if they wished to be given over to Eudoxia, all I needed was a sign, but I begged that I and my companions would be saved.

Nothing broke the silence of the chapel except my whispers. Nothing changed.

"I need the blood, Mother," I said to Akasha. "Never have I needed it more. If I am to defend myself this time, I need the blood."

I rose. I waited. I wished that I would see Akasha's hand rise as it had for Eudoxia. I thought of the words of her Maker, "She never destroys those she beckons."

But there was no warm gesture for me. There was only my courage, as I once more embraced Akasha, and pressed my lips to her neck, and then pierced her skin and felt the delicious indescribable blood.

What did I see in my ecstasy? What did I see in this sublime satisfaction? It was the lush and beautiful palace garden, full of carefully tended fruit trees, and the soft dark grass, and the sun shining through the branches. How could I ever forget that fatal and supremely beautiful sun? Beneath my naked foot, I felt the soft waxy petal of a flower. Against my face, I felt soft branches. I drank and drank, slipping out of time, and the warmth paralyzed me.

Is this your sign, Mother? I was walking in the palace garden, and it seemed I held a paintbrush in my hand, and when I looked up, I was painting the very trees that I saw above me, creating the garden on the wall of my house, the garden in which I walked. I understood this paradox perfectly. This was a garden which I had once painted on the walls of the shrine. And now it was mine to have both on a flat wall, and also surrounding me, as if it really existed. And that was the omen. Keep the Mother and the Father. Do not be afraid.

I drew back. I could take no more. I clung to Akasha like a child. I held to her neck with my left hand, my forehead against her heavy black plaits, and I kissed her, over and over again, I kissed her, as though that and only that were the most eloquent gesture in the world.

Enkil did not stir. Akasha did not stir. I sighed and that was the only sound.

Then I withdrew and knelt down before both of them, and I gave my thanks.

How completely and totally I loved her, my shimmering Egyptian goddess. How I believed that she belonged to me.

Then for a long time I pondered this problem with Eudoxia, and I saw it a little more clearly.

It occurred to me that in the absence of a clear sign to Eudoxia, my battle with her would be to the death. She would never allow me to remain in this city, and she meant to take Those Who Must Be Kept from me, so that I would have to use the Fire Gift against her as best I could. What had happened earlier this night was only the beginning of our little war.

It was dreadfully sad to me, because I admired Eudoxia, but I knew that she had been far too humiliated by our struggle ever to give in.

I looked up at Akasha. "How do I fight this creature to the death? " I asked. "This creature has your blood in her. I have your blood in me. But surely there must be a clearer sign of what you mean for me to do?"

I stayed there for an hour or more, and then finally I went out.

I found Avicus and Mael waiting where I had left them.

"She's given me her blood," I said. "This isn't a boast. I only mean for you to know it. And I believe that that is her sign. But how can I know? I believe that she does not want to be given over to Eudoxia, and she will destroy if provoked."

Avicus looked desperate.

"In all our years in Rome," he said, "We were blessed that no one of great strength ever challenged us."

I agreed with him. "Strong blood drinkers stay away from others like them," I said. "But you must see, surely, that we are challenging her. We could leave as she has asked us to do."

"She has no right to ask this of us," said Avicus. "Why can't she try to love us? "

"Love us?" I asked, repeating his words. "What makes you say such a strange thing? I know that you're enamored of her. Of course. I've seen this. But why should she love us?"

"Precisely because we are strong," he responded. "She has only the weakest blood drinkers around her, creatures no more than half a century in age. We can tell her things, things she may not know."

"Ah, yes, I thought the same things when I first laid eyes on her. But with this one it's not to be."

"Why?" he asked again.

"If she wanted strong ones like us, they would be here," I said. And then I said dejectedly, "We can always go back to Rome."

He had no answer for that. I didn't know whether I meant it myself.

As we went up the steps and through the tunnels to the surface, I took his arm.

"You're mad with thoughts of her," I said. "You must regain your spiritual self. Don't love her. Make it a simple act of will."

He nodded. But he was too troubled to conceal it.

I glanced at Mael, and found him more calm about all this than I had imagined. Then came the inevitable question:

"Would she have destroyed Avicus if you hadn't opposed her?" Mael asked.

"She was going to give it a very good try," I said. "But Avicus is very old, older than you or me. And possibly older than her. And you've seen his strength tonight."

Uneasy, filled with misgivings, and bad thoughts, we went to our unholy rest.

The following night, as soon as I rose, I knew that there were strangers in our house. I was furious, but had some sense even then that anger renders one weak.

Mael and Avicus came to me immediately, and the three of us went to discover Eudoxia and the terrified Asphar with her, and two other young male blood drinkers whom we had not see before.

All were settled within my library as if they were invited guests.

Eudoxia was dressed in splendid and heavy Eastern robes with long bell sleeves, and Persian slippers, and her thick black curls were gathered above her ears with jewels and pearls.

The room was not as fine as the one in which she had received me, as I had not finished with my furnishings and other such things, and therefore she appeared the most sumptuous ornament in view.

I was struck once more by the beauty of her small face, especially I think by her mouth, though her cold dark eyes were as mesmerizing as before.

I felt sorry for the miserable Asphar who was so afraid of me, and as for the other two blood drinkers, both boys in mortal life, and young in immortality, I felt rather sorry for them too.

Need I say that they were beautiful? They had been grown children when they were taken, that is, splendid beings with adult bodies and chubby boyish cheeks and mouths.

"Why have you come without an invitation?" I asked Eudoxia. "You sit in my chair as though you're my guest."

"Forgive me," she said gently. "I came because I felt compelled to come. I've searched your house through and through." "You boast of this? "I asked.

Her lips were parted as though she meant to answer but then the tears rose in her eyes,

"Where are the books, Marius?" she said softly. She looked at me. "Where are all the old books of Egypt? The books that were in the temple, the books that you stole?" I didn't answer. I didn't sit down.

"I came because I hoped to find them," she said, staring forward, her tears falling. "I came here because last night I dreamed of the priests in the temple, and how they used to tell me that I ought to read the old tales."

Still I didn't answer.

She looked up, and then with the back of one hand, she wiped at her tears. "I could smell the scents of the temple, the scent of papyrus," she said. "I saw the Elder at his desk."

"He put the Parents in the sun, Eudoxia," I said. "Don't slide into a dream that makes him innocent. The Elder was evil and guilty. The Elder was selfish and bitter. Would you know his ultimate fate?"

"In my dream, the priests told me that you took the books, Marius. They said that, unopposed, you came into the library of the temple and took all the old scrolls away."

I said nothing.

But her grief was heartrending.

"Tell me, Marius. Where are those books? If you will let me read them, if you will let me read the old stories of Egypt, then my soul can find some peace with you. Can you do that much for me?"

How bitterly did I draw in my breath.

"Eudoxia," I said gently. "They're gone, those books, and all that remains of them is here, in my head." I tapped the side of my forehead. "In Rome, when the savages from the North breached the city, my house was burnt and my library destroyed."

She shook her head and put her hands to the side of her face as though she could not bear this.

I went down on my knees beside her and I tried to turn her to me, but she would have none of it. Her tears were shed quietly.

"I'll write it all out, all that I remember, and there is so much that I remember," I said. "Or shall I tell it aloud for our scribes? You decide how you will receive it, and I'll give it to you, lovingly. I understand what you desire."

This was not the time to tell her that much of what she sought came to nothing, that the old tales had been full of superstition and nonsense and even incantations that meant nothing at all.

Even the wicked Elder had said so. But I had read these scrolls during my years in Antioch. I remembered them. They were inside my heart and soul.

She turned to me slowly. And lifting her left hand, she stroked my hair.

"Why did you steal those books!" she whispered desperately, her tears still flowing. "Why did you take them from a sanctum where they had been safe for so long!"

"I wanted to know what they said," I answered candidly. "Why didn't you read them when you had a lifetime to do it? " I asked gently. "Why didn't you copy them when you copied for the Greeks and the Romans? How can you blame me now for what I did? "

"Blame you?" she said earnestly. "I hate you for it."

"The Elder was dead, Eudoxia," I said quietly. "It was the Mother who slew the Elder."

Her eyes suddenly, for all their tears, grew wide.

"You want me to believe this? That you didn't do it? "

"I? Slay a blood drinker who was a thousand years old, when I was just born?" I gave a short laugh. "No. It was the Mother who did it. And it was the Mother who asked me to take her out of Egypt. I did only what she asked me to do."

I stared into her eyes, determined that she must believe me, that she must weigh this final and all-important piece of evidence before she proceeded in her case of hatred against me.

"Look into my mind, Eudoxia," I said. "See the pictures of this for yourself."

I myself relived the grim moments when Akasha had crushed the evil Elder underfoot. I myself remembered the lamp, brought magically from its stand, to pour its naming oil upon his remains. How the mysterious blood had burnt.

"Yes," Eudoxia whispered. "Fire is our enemy, always our enemy. You are speaking the truth."

"With my heart and soul," I said. "It's true. And having been charged with this duty, and having seen the death of the Elder, how could I leave the books behind? I wanted them as you wanted them. I read them when I was in Antioch. I will tell you all they contained."

She thought on this for a long time and then nodded.

I rose to my feet. I looked down at her. She sat still, her head bowed, and then she drew a fine napkin from inside her robes, and she wiped at her blood tears.

Once again, I pressed my promises.

"I'll write down all I remember," I said. "I'll write down all that the Elder told me when first I came to the temple. I'll spend my nights in this labor until everything is told."

She didn't answer me, and I couldn't see her face unless I knelt down again.

"Eudoxia," I said. "We know much that we can give to each other. In Rome, I grew so weary that I lost the thread of life for a century. I am eager to hear all you know."

Was she weighing this? I couldn't tell.

Then she spoke, without raising her face to me.

"My sleep this last day was feverish," she said. "I dreamed of Rashid crying out to me."

What could I say? I felt desperate.

"No, I don't ask for placating words from you," she said. "I only mean to say, my sleep was miserable. And then I was in the temple and the priests were all around me. And I had an awful sense, the purest sense, of death and time."

I went down on one knee before her. "We can conquer this," I said.

She looked into my eyes as though she were suspicious of me and I were trying to trick her.

"No," she said softly. "We die too. We die when it is right for us to die."

"I don't want to die," I said. "To sleep, yes, and sometimes to sleep almost forever, yes, but not to die."

She smiled.

"What would you write for me?" she asked, "if you could write anything at all? What would you choose to put down on parchment for me to read and know?"

"Not what was in those old Egyptian texts," I said forcefully, "but something finer, more truly universal, something full of hope and vitality that speaks of growth and triumph, that speaks¡ªhow shall I put it any other way?¡ªof life."

She nodded gravely, and once again she smiled.

She looked at me for a long and seemingly affectionate moment.

"Take me down into the shrine," she said. She reached out and clasped my hand.

"Very well," I said.

As I rose, so did she, and then she went past me to lead the way. This might have been to show me that she knew it, and, thank the gods, her retinue stayed behind so that I did not have to tell them to do so.

I went down with her, and with the Mind Gift I opened the many doors without touching them.

If this made an impression upon her she didn't acknowledge it. But I didn't know if we were at war with each other any longer. I couldn't gauge her frame of mind.

When she saw the Mother and the Father in their fine linen and exquisite jewelry she let out a gasp.

"Oh, Blessed Parents," she whispered. "I have come such a long way to this."

I was moved by her voice. Her tears were flowing again.

"Would that I had something to offer you," she said, gazing up at the Queen. She was trembling. "Would that I had some sacrifice, some gift-"

I didn't know why but something quickened in me when she said those words. I looked at the Mother first and then at the Father, and I detected nothing, yet something had changed within the chapel, something which Eudoxia perhaps felt.

I breathed in the heavy fragrance rising from the censers. I looked at the shivering flowers in their vases. I looked at the glistening eyes of my Queen.

"What gift can I give you?" Eudoxia pressed as she stepped forward. "What would you take from me that I could give with my whole soul?" She walked closer and closer to the steps, her arms out. "I am your slave. I was your slave in Alexandria when first you gave me your blood, and I am your slave now."

"Step back," I said suddenly, though why I didn't know. "Step back and be quiet," I said quickly.

But Eudoxia only moved forward, mounting the first step of the dais.

"Don't you see I mean what I say?" she said to me without turning her head away from the King and Queen. "Let me be your victim, most holy Akasha, let me be your blood sacrifice, most holy Queen."

In a flash Akasha's right arm rose and pulled Eudoxia forward in a brutal and tight embrace.

An awful groan rose from Eudoxia.

Down came the reddened mouth of the Queen, with only the slightest move of her head, and I saw the sharp teeth only for an instant before they penetrated Eudoxia's neck. Eudoxia was helpless, head wrenched to one side, as Akasha drank from her, Eudoxia's arms hanging limp as her legs, Akasha's face as blank as ever, as the grip tightened and the drinking went on.

I stood horrified, not daring to challenge anything that I beheld.

No more than a few seconds passed, perhaps half a minute before Eudoxia gave a raw and terrible scream. She tried desperately to raise her arms.

"Stop, Mother, I beg you!" I cried out and with all my might I took hold of the body of Eudoxia. "Stop, I beg you, don't take her life! Spare her!" I pulled on the body. "Spare her, Mother!" I cried. I felt the body shift in my grasp and quickly I drew it back from the curved arm which remained poised in space.

Eudoxia still breathed, though she was livid, and groaning miserably, and we both fell back off the dais, as the arm of Akasha returned to its age-old position, at her side, fingers laid on her thigh as though nothing had occurred.

Sprawled on the floor I lay with the gasping Eudoxia.

"Did you want to die!" I demanded.

"No," she said desperately. She lay there with her breast heaving, her hands shuddering, seemingly unable to rise to her feet.

I looked up searchingly into the Queen's face.

The sacrifice had given no blush to her cheeks. And on her lips there was no red blood.

I was stupefied. I picked up Eudoxia and rushed to get her out of the shrine, up the steps, through the various tunnels, and finally into the house above ground.

I ordered all the others out of the library, slamming tight the doors with the Mind Gift, and there I laid her down on my couch so that she might at least catch her breath.

"But how?" she asked me, "did you ever have the courage to take me from her? " She clung to my neck. "Hold tight to me, Marius, don't let me go just yet. I cannot... I do not... Hold tight to me. Where did you get the courage to move against our own Queen?"

"She was about to destroy you," I said. "She was about to answer my prayer."

"And what prayer was that?" she asked.

She let me go. I brought up a chair to sit beside her.

Her face was drawn and tragic, her eyes brilliant. She reached out and clung to my sleeve.

"I asked for a sign of her pleasure," I said. "Would she be given over to you or remain with me? She's spoken. And you see how it is."

She shook her head, but it was not a negation to anything that I'd said. She was trying to recover her clarity of mind. She tried to rise from the couch and then fell backwards.

For a long time, she merely lay there, staring at the ceiling and I couldn't know her thoughts. I tried to take her hand, but she withdrew it from me.

Then in a low voice, she said:

"You've drunk her blood. You have the Fire Gift, and you've drunk her blood. And this she has done in answer to your prayer."

"Tell me," I said. "What prompted you to offer yourself to her? Why did you say such words? Had you ever spoken them in Egypt? "

"Never," she said in a heated murmur. "I had forgotten the beauty." She looked confused, weak. "I had forgotten the timelessness," she whispered. "I had forgotten the silence gathered around them¡ªas if it were so many veils."

She turned and looked at me languidly. She looked about her. I sensed her hunger, her weakness.

"Yes," she sighed. "Bring my slaves to me," she said. "Let them go out and obtain for me a sacrifice, for I'm too weak from having been the sacrifice myself."

I went into the courtyard garden and told her little gang of exquisite blood drinkers to go to her. She could give them this disagreeable order on her own.

When they had gone on their dismal errand, I returned to her. She was sitting up, her face still drawn and her white hands trembling.

"Perhaps I should have died," she said to me. "Perhaps it was meant to be."

"What's meant?" I asked scornfully. "What's meant is that we must both live in Constantinople, you in your house with your little companions and I here with mine. And we must have a commingling of households from time to time that is agreeable. I say that is what is meant."

She looked at me thoughtfully as if she were pondering this as much as she could ponder anything after what had befallen her in the shrine.

"Trust in me," I said desperately in a low voice. "Trust in me for some little while. And then if we should part, let it be amicable."

She smiled. "As if we were old Greeks?" she asked.

"Why must we lose our manners?" I said. "Weren't they nourished in brilliance, like the arts which still surround us, the poetry that still comforts us, and the stirring tales of heroism which distract us from the cruel passage of time? "

"Our manners," she repeated thoughtfully. "What a strange creature you are."

Was she my enemy or my friend? I didn't know.

All too quickly, her blood drinker slaves appeared with a miserable and terrified victim, a rich merchant who glared at all of us with bulbous eyes. Frankly he offered us money for his life.

I wanted to stop this abomination. When had I ever taken a victim under my roof? And this was to happen within my house to one who appealed to me for mercy.

But within seconds, the man was forced down upon his knees and Eudoxia then gave herself over to drinking blood from him with no regard for my standing there and watching this spectacle, and I turned on my heel and went out of the library and remained away, until the man was dead, and his richly dressed body was taken away.

At last I came back into my library, exhausted, horrified and confused.

Eudoxia was much better for having feasted on the poor wretch and she was staring at me intently.

I sat down now, for I saw no reason to stand indignantly with regard to something that was finished, and I felt myself plunged into thought.

"Will we share this city?" I asked calmly. I looked at her. "Can that be done in peace?"

"I don't know the answer to your questions," she said. There was something wrong in her voice, wrong in her eyes, wrong in her manner. "I want to leave you now. We will talk again."

She gathered her band of followers and all of them left quietly, by request, through the rear door of the house.

I sat there very still and weary from what had taken place, and wondering if there would be any change in Akasha who had moved to drink Eudoxia's blood.

Of course there would be no change. I thought back to my first years with Akasha, when I'd been so certain that I could bring her back to life. And here, she had moved, yes, she had moved, but how ghastly had been the expression on her smooth innocent face, more blank than the faces of mortals after death.

An awful foreboding came over me, in which the subtle force of Eudoxia seemed both a charm and a curse.

And in the midst of this foreboding I came to know a terrible temptation, a terrible rebellious thought. Why hadn't I given over the Mother and Father to Eudoxia? I would have been rid of them, rid of this burden which I had carried since the earliest nights of my life among the Undead? Why hadn't I done it?

It would have been so simple. And I would have been free.

And as I recognized this guilty desire inside of me, as I saw it flare up like a fire fed by the bellows, I realized that during those long nights at sea, on the voyage to Constantinople, I had secretly wished that our ship would meet with misadventure, that we would be sunk and Those Who Must Be Kept would have gone down to the bottom of the ocean, never to surface again. I could have survived any shipwreck. But they would have been buried just as the Elder in Egypt had long ago mentioned to me, cursing and carrying on, saying, "Why do I not sink them into the sea? "

Oh, these were terrible thoughts. Did I not love Akasha? Had I not pledged my soul?

I was consumed with self-hatred and dread that the Queen would know my petty secret¡ªthat I wished to be rid of her, that I wished to be rid of all of them¡ªAvicus, Mael, Eudoxia most certainly¡ªthat I wished¡ªfor the very first time¡ªto wander a vagabond like so many others, that I wished to have no name and no place and no destination, but to be alone.

These thoughts were too dreadful. They divided me from all that I valued. I had to banish them from my mind.

But before I could get my wits about me, Mael and Avicus came rushing into the library. There was some sort of disturbance outside the house.

"Can you hear it? " Avicus said frantically.

"Yea gods," I said, "why are all those people shouting in the streets?"

I realized there was a great clamor, and that some of these people were beating on our windows and doors. Rocks were being thrown at our house. The wooden shutters were about to be broken in.

"What is happening? What is the reason for this?" Mael asked desperately.

"Listen!" I said desperately. "They're saying that we seduced a rich merchant into the house, and then murdered him, and threw his corpse out to rot! Oh, damn Eudoxia, don't you see what she's done, it was she who murdered the merchant! She's caused a mob to rise against us. We have only time to retreat to the shrine."

I led them to the entrance, lifted the heavy marble door, and we were soon inside the passage, knowing full well that we were protected, but unable to defend our house.

Then all we could do was listen helplessly as the mob broke in and sacked our entire dwelling, destroying my new library and all I possessed. We did not have to hear their voices to know when they had set the house ablaze.

At last, when it was quiet above, when a few looters picked their way through the smoldering rafters and debris, we came up out of the tunnel, and stared at the ruins in utter disgust.

We scared off the riffraff. Then we made certain that the entrance to the shrine was in fact secure and disguised, which it was, and finally, we went off to a crowded tavern, where, huddled at a table amid mortals, we could talk.

Such a retreat was, for us, quite incredible, but what else could we do?

I told Avicus and Mael what had happened in the shrine, how Eudoxia had been nearly drained of all blood by the Mother and how I had intervened to save Eudoxia's life. I then explained with regard to the mortal merchant, for they had seen him brought in, and seen him removed, but had not understood.

"They dumped his body where it would be found," said Avicus. "They baited the crowd to gather as it did."

"Yes. Our dwelling is gone," I said finally, "and the shrine will be lost to us until such time as I go to bizarre and complex legal measures to purchase under a new name what already belongs to me under an old one, and the family of the merchant will demand justice against the unfortunate individual, whom I was before, if you follow me, so that I might not be able to buy the property at all."

"What does she expect of us?" asked Avicus.

"This is an insult to Those Who Must Be Kept," Mael declared. "She knows the shrine is under the house, yet she incited a riot to destroy it."

I stared at him for a long moment. I was too ready to condemn him for his anger. But quite suddenly I had a confession to make.

"That thought had not occurred to me," I said. "But it seems to me that you are precisely right. It was an insult to Those Who Must Be Kept."

"Oh, yes, she has done an injury to the Mother," said Avicus.

"Surely she has done that. By day, thieves may chip at the very floor that blocks the passage to the shrine below."

A dreadful gloom took hold of me. A pure and youthful anger was part of it. The anger fed my will.

"What is it?" Avicus demanded. "Your entire countenance is changed. Tell us your thoughts, right now, from your soul."

"I'm not so certain I can voice my thoughts," I said, "but I know them, and they don't bode well for Eudoxia or those whom she claims to love. Both of you, seal your minds off from everything so that you give no hint of your whereabouts. Go to the nearest gate of the city, and leave it, and hide yourselves for the coming day in the hills. Tomorrow, come immediately to meet me here at this tavern."

I walked with them part of the distance to the gate, and seeing them safely on their way, I went directly to Eudoxia's house.

It was a simple matter to hear her blood drinker slaves within, and I commanded them brusquely to open the door.

Eudoxia, ever the arrogant one, commanded them to do as I had requested, and once inside, seeing the two young blood drinkers, I began to tremble with anger, but I could not hesitate, and with all my force, I burnt them both at once.

It was appalling to watch, this violent fire, and it set me to gasping and to shaking, but I had no time for observation. Asphar ran from me, and Eudoxia shouted to me fiercely to stop, but I burnt Asphar, wincing as I heard his piteous screams, all the while fighting Eudoxia's enormous powers with all the might I could command.

Indeed so hot was the fire against my chest that I thought I would die, but I hardened all my body, and hurled my own Fire Gift against Eudoxia with full force.

Her mortal slaves were fleeing out every door and window.

She rushed at me, fists clenched, her face a picture of rage.

"Why do you do this to me!" she demanded.

I caught her up in my arms as she fought me, the waves of heat passing over me, and I carried her out of her house and through the dark streets towards the smoking ruins above the shrine.

"So you would send a mob to destroy my house," I said. "So you would do this after I saved you, so you would do this while deceiving me with your thanks."

"I gave you no thanks," she said, twisting, turning, struggling against me, the heat exhausting me as I fought to control her, her hands pushing me with stunning force. "You prayed for my death, you prayed to the Mother to destroy me," she cried. "You told me yourself."

At last I came to the smoking heap of wood and rubble, and finding the mosaic covered door, I lifted it with the Mind Gift, which gave her just time enough to send a scorching blast against my face.

I felt it like a mortal might feel scalding water. But the heavy door was indeed opened, and I protected myself once more against her, as pulling the giant stone down behind me with one arm, I held her with the other, and started to drag her through the complex passages to the shrine.

Again and again, the heat came to burn me, and I could smell my hair scorched by it, and see the smoke in the air around me, as she made some victory no matter how great my strength.

But I fended her off, and I never let go of her. Clutching her with one arm, I opened the doors, one after another, pushing back her power, even as I stumbled. On and on I dragged her towards the shrine. Nothing could stop me, but I could not hurt her with all my force.

No, that privilege was reserved for one far greater than me.

At last we had reached the chapel, and I flung her down on the floor.

Sealing myself off from her with all my strength I turned my eyes to the Mother and Father, only to see the same mute picture which had always greeted my gaze.

And having no further sign than that, and fighting off another crippling wave of heat, I picked up Eudoxia before she could climb to her feet and holding her wrists behind her back, I offered her to the Mother as closely as I dared without disturbing the garments of the Mother, without committing what for me was a sacrilege in the name of what I meant to do.

The right arm of the Mother reached out for Eudoxia, detaching itself, as it were, from the Mother's tranquility, and once again, Akasha's head made that slight, subtle and utterly grotesque movement, her lips parting, fangs bared. Eudoxia screamed as I released her body and stepped back.

A great desperate sigh came out of me. Ah, so be it!

And I watched in quiet horror as Eudoxia became the Mother's victim, Eudoxia's arms flailing hopelessly, her knees pushing against the Mother, until finally the limp body of Eudoxia was allowed to slip from the Mother's embrace.

Once fallen onto the marble floor, it looked like an exquisite doll of white wax. No audible breath came from it. Its round dark eyes did not move.

But it wasn't dead, no, not by any means. It was a blood drinker's body with a blood drinker's soul. Only fire could kill it. I waited, keeping my own powers in check.

Long ago, in Antioch, when unwelcome vampires had assaulted the Mother, she had used the Mind Gift to lift a lamp to burn their remains with fire and oil. So she had done with the remains of the Elder in Egypt, as I have already described. Would she do this now?

Something simpler happened.

Quite suddenly I saw flames erupt from Eudoxia's breast, and then flames run riot through her veins. Her face remained sweet and unfeeling. Her eyes remained empty. Her limbs twitched.

It was not my Fire Gift that had brought about this execution. It was the power of Akasha. What else could it have been? A new power, lain dormant in her for centuries, now known to her on account of Eudoxia and me?

I dared not guess. I dared not question.

At once the flames rising from the highly combustible blood of the preternatural body ignited the heavy ornate garments and the whole form was ablaze.

Only after a long time did the fire die away, leaving a glittering mass of ash.

The clever learned creature who had been Eudoxia was no more. The brilliant charming creature who had lived so well and so long was no more. The being who had given me such hope when first I saw her and heard her voice was no more.

I took off my outer cloak and, going down on my knees like a poor scrubwoman, I wiped up this pollution of the shrine and then I sat down exhausted in the corner, my head against the wall. And to my own surprise, and who knows?¡ªperhaps to the surprise of the Mother and Father¡ªI gave way to tears.

I wept and wept for Eudoxia, and also for myself that I had brutally burnt those young blood drinkers, those foolish unschooled and undisciplined immortals who had been Born to Darkness as we say now, only to be pawns in a brawl.

I felt a cruelty in myself which I could only abhor.

Finally, being quite satisfied that my underground crypt remained impregnable¡ªfor looters were now thick in the ruins above¡ªI laid down for the sleep of the day.

I knew what I meant to do the following night and nothing could change my mind.