Blood and Gold (20 page)

With utter horror, I beheld this. I knew I had done it. And so did all present. The boy’s bones were visible but for an instant and then they collapsed and the flames leapt and danced on the marble floor.

I had no choice but to turn to Asphar. But Eudoxia cried out.

“Enough.” She struggled to rise but she couldn’t do it. I took both her hands and lifted her to her feet.

With her head bowed she backed away from me. She turned and looked at the remains of Rashid.

“You’ve destroyed one who was dear to me,” she said, her voice quivering. “And you didn’t even know you had the power of Fire.”

“And you meant to destroy my Avicus,” I said, “and you meant to destroy me.” I sighed as I looked at her. “What choice did you give me? You have been my teacher in regard to my powers.” I trembled with exhaustion and fury. “We might have all lived here in accord.”

I looked at Asphar who didn’t dare to come any closer. I looked at Eudoxia who sat weak and useless in her chair.

“I mean to leave now,” I said, “and take my two companions with me. If you try to harm any of us, I’ll turn my full power on you. And as you said, I do not even know what it is myself.”

“You threaten from fear,” she said wearily. “And you won’t leave here without giving me a life for a life. You burnt Rashid. Give me Avicus. Give him to me now of your own free will.”

“I will not,” I said coldly. I felt my power gathered inside me. I glared at Asphar. The poor child blood drinker quivered in terror.

Eudoxia sat sullenly in her chair, her head still bowed.

“What a loss there has been here, Eudoxia,” I said. “We could have given such riches of mind to each other.”

“Stop your golden talk, Marius,” she said, looking up angrily, her eyes full of blood tears. “You still fear me. Bring me to the Mother and the Father, and let the Mother decide who shall be her keeper, you or I.”

I answered quickly,

“I won’t have you under my roof, Eudoxia. But I will take the matter before the Mother and the Father. And after they speak to me, I will speak to you.”

I turned to Asphar.

“Lead us out of this place now,” I said, “or I’ll burn you as I did your companion.”

He obeyed without hesitation, and once he had led us speedily to the street, we fled.

11

W
e 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—or unhappy—with 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.”