Prince Lestat (41 page)

He stood there gazing at it, remembering all the reports of the Burnings. They’d started in Tokyo, moved to China, then, Mumbai, Kolkata, the Middle East. And then broken out madly all over South America, in Peru, Bolivia, and Honduras.

Then Europe had been stricken. Even Budapest which contained Rhosh’s favorite opera house. Maddening.

It seemed there had been a plan at first; but the plan had broken down into utterly random attacks—except for one thing. The Burnings in South America had occurred in an arc that had become a crude circle. Only there did such a pattern appear. And that’s where the twins were, he was sure of it, deep within the Amazon. Those who knew for certain were clever indeed, and of course he was far too close to the twins in age to have a telepathic advantage with them. But he knew. They were in the Amazon.

The eccentric Maharet favored jungle locations, and always had since the Sacred Core had been taken into her sister. He had now and then caught some weak flashes of the twins in his dreams, emanating from other minds, conveyed to yet other minds and so forth. Yes, they were in the jungles of the Amazon, the ghastly pair who had stolen the Sacred Blood from Akasha’s Egypt.

Rebels, heretics, blasphemers. He’d been nourished on those old tales. In fact they were reputedly the cause of it all, were they not? The twins had brought the evil spirit of Amel into Akasha’s kingdom. He didn’t really care about that old mythology but he did appreciate irony and patterns in human behavior just as he appreciated these elements in books.

Well, he had scant affection for Akasha, who’d been a raving tyrant by the time he’d been dragged into her presence and forced to drink from the Sacred Fount and pledge his eternal fidelity. Icy merciless goddess. She’d been reigning for a thousand years. Or so they said. How she had inspected him, running her hard thumbs over his head, his face, his shoulders, his chest. How her unctuous fawning priests had examined him in all his parts before he was pronounced perfect to be a blood god.

And what fate had awaited him as a blood god? It was either fight under Prince Nebamun’s command with the Queen’s defenders or be walled up in a mountain shrine, starving, dreaming, reading minds, passing judgment for peasants who brought him blood sacrifices on holy feasts and beseeched him with endless superstitious prayers.

He’d run away soon enough. He’d planned it early. A wanderer from the isle of Crete, a seagoing wanderer and merchant, he’d never bought the dark tangled beliefs of old Egypt.

But he’d refused to abandon Nebamun in the time of his worst trial, Nebamun who’d always been kind to him. And he was not going
to run when Nebamun stood before the Queen accused of high treason and blasphemy for the frivolous and selfish making of a woman blood drinker.

Making women into blood drinkers was the decadent and foul practice of the First Brood rebels, and utterly forbidden to the Queens Blood. For the blood gods and the dedicated soldiers of the Queens Blood, there need be only one woman, the Queen. Why would anyone dare to make a blood drinker of a woman? True, it had happened a few times, but only with the Queen’s reluctant blessing. Not even her own sister had she brought into the Blood. Nor her daughters.

He’d been sure that Nebamun and Sevraine, his bride, were going to be put to death when Rhosh had delayed his own escape. But it hadn’t happened.

The all-powerful Queen who thought her smallest whim a reflection of the Divine Mind had “loved Sevraine” when she had looked upon her. And she had let Sevraine drink her powerful blood and called her handmaiden.

As for Nebamun, for his transgressions and presumptions, his soldiering times were over. Shut up in a shrine for all time, he was to ponder his offenses. Were he to serve obediently for a century he might be forgiven.

In the early hours of the morning, when the guards of the shrine slept in a drunken stupor, Rhosh had crept to the brick walls and begged Nebamun to speak to him.

“Run away, leave this place,” said Nebamun. “She has taken my precious Sevraine and doomed me to this harsh and unbearable existence. The time will come when I’ll escape these walls. Leave here now, my friend. Get as far away as you can. Find the First Brood rebels if you can, and if you cannot, bring others into the Blood. All we’ve defended is lies built upon lies built upon lies. Blood drinkers of the First Brood tell the truth. She is no goddess. There is a demon inside her, a thing named Amel. I have seen the work of that demon. I was there when it possessed her.”

For words like that they would have ripped out his tongue. But no one had heard that night through the brick wall except Rhoshamandes. And Rhoshamandes would forever love Nebamun for those brave words.

It had been fifty years before Rhoshamandes had returned and smashed that shrine to dust, freeing Nebamun. As for Sevraine, she’d
long ago betrayed the Queen. She’d had no use for the old religion either. There was a price on her head. She was hated, as were the twins. Cursed for her blond hair and blue eyes, as if these natural gifts alone marked her as a sorceress and a traitor. And she had vanished.

“Well, old friends, wherever you are,” said Rhoshamandes out loud in the quiet of his little library. “We may soon have to meet over this present disaster. But for now I’m going forth to find out what I can on my own.”

Of course he knew where Nebamun was, he’d known for centuries. Nebamun had become Gregory in the Common Era, and kept a blood drinker family of awe-inspiring stability in the greatest luxury. Just about every year or so, the face of that ancient and powerful Nebamun would flash full bright on a television screen as some mortal commentator spoke of Gregory Duff Collingsworth’s vast pharmaceutical empire, his worldly dealings on different continents, even his famous
fin de siècle
tower on the shores of Lake Geneva.

How many catching those televised glimpses recognized that face? Probably no one. Except Sevraine perhaps. But then perhaps Sevraine was with Gregory. And perhaps they too had heard the Voice.

Perhaps the Voice was a consummate flatterer and liar. Perhaps the Voice played blood drinkers against one another.

“You alone, I have loved above all, your face and form and your mind,” the Voice had said to Rhoshamandes.

Hmmm. We’ll see about that.

He blew out the candles. For some reason his telekinetic powers could never just make them go out. He had to do it with his breath. So that’s how he did it.

He went back into his bedchamber and opened another armoire that was indeed a true armoire, holding his weapons, those items he’d collected over the years more for sentiment than any other reason. He took the sharp knife he loved best off the shelf, and tied the scabbard to his leather belt inside his coat. Then he took out another weapon, a small greenish weapon from modern war called simply a hand grenade. He knew what this could do. He’d seen it plenty during the great wars that had laid waste to Europe in the twentieth century. He tucked it into his coat. He knew how to pull the pin and hurl it should the need arise.

Then he went out on the high windswept battlements and stared up at the misty sky and out over the cold, roiling gray sea.

For a moment he was tempted to abandon all this, to return to his library and light those candles again and the oak he’d chopped himself for the little fireplace, to sink down into his velvet chair and pick up one of the many books that he’d been reading of late, and just let the night pass as so many others.

But he knew he couldn’t do that.

There was a raw inescapable truth in Benji Mahmoud’s chiding words. He and the others like him had to do something. He’d always admired Maharet, and cherished the wee bits of time in the past that he had spent with her. But he knew nothing of her in this era except what others had written. And it was time to go see her himself and get to the bottom of this mystery. He figured he knew exactly who this Voice was, and it was time for Rhosh and the Voice to meet.

He’d never bowed to anyone’s authority, but avoiding the wars and quarrels of the Undead had cost him dearly. And he wasn’t so sure he was willing to acquiesce or migrate again. The Voice was right about power. We seek power so as not to fall under anyone else’s power, yes.

Long years ago, this cold island remote from the British mainland had been perfect for his retreat, even if it did take him one hundred years to build this castle and its dungeons and its fortifications. He’d brought the trees here for the barren gullies and gorges, planting oak, beech, alder, elm, sycamore, and birch. He’d been a benevolent lord to the mortals who constructed this castle, dug out his many secret chambers from the bedrock, and created a refuge eventually which humans could not themselves conquer by any siege.

Even in the last two centuries, this place had been perfect. It had been simple to ferry coal and firewood from the mainland, and to keep a pleasure boat of his own in the little harbor for those times when he wanted to be out on the stormy seas.

But the world was wholly different now.

Coast helicopters regularly patrolled the area, satellite images of the castle could be accessed on any computer, and well-meaning mortals frequently made a nuisance of themselves attempting to confirm the safety and well-being of the inhabitants.

Wasn’t it the same now for other immortals, those legendary vampire musicians who lived in the Alps, for instance, Notker the Wise with his fiddlers and composers and immortal boy soprano singers? Those boys were such a treat. (You didn’t have to castrate a boy to fix him as a soprano forever. Just give him the Blood.) And wasn’t it the
same for Maharet and Mekare in their remote jungles, and any other exile from the world who’d counted on the survival of impenetrable wildernesses which were no more?

Only the clever ones like Gregory Duff Collingsworth and Armand Le Russe—who could thrive right in the midst of mortals—were undisturbed by the shrinking of the planet. But what a price they paid.

Where would immortals have to go next to build their citadels? Into the mountain ranges beneath the sea? He’d thought of it of late, he had to admit, a great sprawling palace made of space-age steel and glass in a deep dark ocean ravine, accessible only to those powerful enough to swim to the lower depths. And yes, he had the wealth perhaps to create such a retreat for himself of sorts, but he was angry, angry that he had even to think of giving up this lovely island where he’d been at home for hundreds of years. Besides, he wanted to see trees and grass and stars and the moon from his windows. He liked to chop wood himself for his own hearths. He wanted to feel the wind on his face. He wanted to be part of this Earth.

Now and then he reflected: What if we did come together and use our considerable powers to destroy half the human race? It wouldn’t be that hard, would it? Especially when people don’t believe you exist. Wholesale destruction and anarchy would make for new wildernesses all over the planet, and blood drinkers could hunt with impunity and have the upper hand once more. But then Rhosh also loved the technological accomplishments of the shrinking planet—great flat-screen televisions, recorded poetry and music, DVDs and the streaming of documentaries and dramatic programs and films to viewers everywhere, magnificent electronic sound systems, satellite broadcasting, telephones, cell phones, electric heat and modern construction techniques, synthetic fabrics, high-rise buildings, fiberglass yachts, airplanes, nylon carpet, and modern glass. Saying goodbye to the modern world would be anguishing, no matter how good the hunting became.

Oh, well … He had no stomach for destroying half the human race anyway. He had no inveterate aversion to mortals. None at all.

But Benji Mahmoud was right. We ought to have a place here! Why are we, of all the creations, supposed to be damned? What do we do that other creatures do not do, he would like to know. And the fact is, we hide more from each other than from mortals. When had
mortals ever troubled Rhosh? When had they ever troubled Notker the Wise if he was still in his alpine musical school for the Undead? Or the clever Sevraine?

He took a deep breath of the fresh sea air.

Not a human soul within forty miles except for the old caretaker’s family watching an American television program and laughing in their little cottage down there, their warm parlor with all the blue and white china hanging in the cupboard and their little white dog sleeping on the mat before the stove.

He was prepared to fight for it all, wasn’t he? And he was prepared to consider fighting with others for it. But for now, he uttered a prayer to the maker of the universe asking only for his own safety, the safety of Benedict, and his own imminent return.

No sooner had the prayer left his lips, however, than he felt a great doubt. What was it that he meant to do and why? Why challenge the wise Maharet in her own house? And certainly his arriving there unannounced would be seen as a challenge, would it not?

It might be a damn sight better for him to go to New York, and seek out there other immortals who were concerned with the crisis and tell them exactly what he knew of the fickle and treacherous Voice.

There was a sudden sound inside his head as real as a whisper against his ear. Sealed off from the roaring wind, it was loud and distinct.

“Listen to me, Rhoshamandes, I need you.” It was the Voice. “And I need you to come to me now.”

Ah, was this what he’d been waiting for? Am I the anointed one?

“Why me?” he asked, his words lost in the wind, but not to the Voice. “And why should I believe you?” he demanded. “You betrayed me. You almost struck down my beloved Benedict.”

“How was I to know Benedict was in danger?” said the Voice. “If you had gone into London and done my bidding, there would have been no danger for your Benedict! I need you, Rhoshamandes. Come to me now.”

“Come to you?”

“Yes, the Amazon jungles, my beloved, precisely as you have surmised. I am in prison. I am in darkness. I wander the pathways of my tentacles and tendrils and my endless withering and coiling and threadlike extremities, searching, searching for those to love, but
always—always—I am unanchored and rolled back into this mute and half-blind prison, this miserable sluggish and ruined body that I cannot quicken!—this thing that does not move, does not hear, does not care!”