Finally he was ready. Surely no mortal on the planet would think him anything but human, except perhaps some gifted witch who knew all the many mysteries, she might see through him, but not the others. And Amel had been right that Gremt could no longer disperse the particles. I didn't have to ask. I knew it was true. Because if the particles could have been sent flying, it would have happened when I broke into his blood.
I led him back into the swirling golden light and music of the ballroom. He was sleepy, sluggish, but otherwise unharmed. We brushed past dancers, and those who stood stranded on the edge, and Avicus appeared in the corner of my eye and beside him the red-haired Thorne, and Cyril's dark faintly amused face.
"All hail the mighty Prince," Cyril muttered. But the smile wasn't mocking and neither were the words. Just Cyril commenting on the state of things. And Cyril's comments always had an ironic twang. Tonight he was dressed for the ball in black-and-white finery, and it was amusing to see that--Cyril, the haunter of caves and shallow graves, all decked out to the golden cuff links. I almost laughed.
"Yeah, the mighty Prince," I said in a low snarling voice. "Just what we all need right now, right?" That was my best New York gangster imitation and Cyril loved it, and laughed under his breath.
I helped Gremt to sit down on the only couch I could find in deep shadow, a brocade settee lost beneath a sconce of burnt dead candles and wisps of acrid smoke. I held him steady.
"What did you see?" I asked. "What did you see in me?"
"Hope," Gremt said. "Hope, you'll get us all through this."
Not at all what I expected.
"And you didn't see him?"
"I saw you."
He was gazing at the great writhing mass of dancers under the dim chandeliers. And without a hint of irony the orchestra and the chanting voices went into the full-throated straight-up "Emperor Waltz" by Strauss--producing wild laughter everywhere from the colorful crowd who began to mock it with their exaggerated steps and turns--newcomers in rags prancing as proudly as those in sequins and diaphanous silver and gold. I saw Rose dancing with Viktor, Rose throwing back her head and letting her hair fly loose, and all around her fledglings with their petal-pink faces like her face, and then my son, straight backed and graceful as a European prince leading Rose in the Viennese flourishes. Viktor took this so seriously. Viktor wanted it all to succeed. Viktor believed in the power of pomp and circumstance.
Even Gremt laughed softly and his head moved faintly with the festive, happy music. But then here came the kettledrums and the French horns and dark strings to give the waltz the tension so prized by the company.
Why was this so important, why did so much depend upon it, immortals gathered here in wild community, in this fortress against the human world?
"But I don't understand," I said. I put my lips to Gremt's ear. "What has our fate to do with yours? You can go on no matter what happens to us. Why would I give you hope?"
He turned sharply and looked at me as if he had to see me to understand what I had said.
Then he asked, "But who would want to go on without you?"
I stared at him, astonished.
"And what of Amel?" I asked. "What of Kapetria's whole story? You said nothing in the end. Was it what you had always wanted to know?"
"What?" he asked. "That Amel wasn't born evil, that he'd been a champion of the good when he was alive? It wasn't what I expected. But does it matter now? It mattered yesterday and last year, and the year before that, and the century before this one, and the century before that. But I don't know that it matters now. I'm here and I'm alive, and that woman can help me though I don't know how and why."
I nodded. I thought of what Kapetria might do for the ghost of Magnus. And surely Magnus was here somewhere, invisible, watching.
"Why does she have to leave?" Gremt asked me. "Why can't she stay? Gregory begged her to stay and so did Seth and so did Teskhamen. After you left last night they offered her the moon. Gregory said he would build whatever laboratories she wanted in Paris, that she could have whole floors of one of his buildings, that no one would ever pry into what she did. But she said no, that they had to go off, come to terms with one another, get to know one another. What if we never see any of them again?"
"Now that might be the very best thing that could ever happen to us," I said. "But what's to stop you from going with her?"
"But that's just it. She won't tell anyone where she's headed. She kept repeating, 'Not now, not yet, not now.' "
"Maybe she has to test us, Gremt," I said. "Maybe she has to make certain that we aren't playing with her, that we will let her go. And we have to meet the test. If we don't, everything we told them about kindred loyalty is a lie."
He didn't answer. "I'm spent," he whispered. "I have to find my bed and lie down."
Of course. I'd taken enough blood to knock a mortal down to the threshold of death.
I helped him to his feet again and gestured to Cyril. "Take him to his rooms," I said. "He needs to sleep now. Get him anything that he wants."
Without a word Cyril took Gremt in hand.
It seemed the music had risen a notch in volume. Something radiant and inviting was standing in front of me. It was my Rose, her long full burgundy skirts swirling around her, feet in dagger heels and jeweled straps.
"Father, dance with me," she said. Her teeth were white against her red lips. I couldn't refuse. And suddenly she was leading me in great circles all through the shifting crowd, and we were dancing faster than I'd ever danced. I had to laugh. I couldn't stop laughing. The blood of Gremt had quickened me. All around us people were bowing and applauding. Rose sang the long monosyllabic chant of Notker's singers, and the orchestra seemed to swell in volume or size. This is our place, I thought, our ballroom, our home. We, who have always been despised, we who have always been loathed, we who have always been condemned--this is our Court.
Round and round the floor we went, and I saw nothing but Rose's upturned face, and her red lips and her glowing eyes.
Hope...that you'll get us all through this.
And somewhere far off to my right in a flash I saw the specters dancing, Magnus with the ghostly bride of Teskhamen, none other than the willowy and beguiling Hesketh. What does it feel like to a ghost to dance? And would they someday be as solid as Gremt was, imprisoned in their bodies they had constructed for themselves, and would Kapetria build them splendid Replimoid-style bodies for their ancient souls?
22
Rhoshamandes
WHAT A COLLECTION they were, the ancient ones whose minds he could so little penetrate and his own fledglings turned against him whose minds had always been locked from the keenest love he'd known for them or the worst suffering he'd ever endured.
"And when we--each of us--were taken prisoner by the Children of Satan, you turned your back on us!" cried the bitter and ungrateful Everard de Landen, such a brittle little dandy in his off-the-rack designer jacket and friable Italian shoes.
"And what did you do for the others, Everard, when you obtained your freedom!" Benedict shot back, poor loyal Benedict standing beside him. "When you got free of the Children of Satan, you never came back to help the others get free. You hid out in Italy, that's what you did."
"And when they tortured us and made us believe the old Satanic creed," said Eleni, weeping, weeping blood tears, "you did nothing to help us. You who were so strong. Oh, we never dreamed how strong you were, how old you were, that you'd existed long before the land into which we'd been born even had a name!"
"Why didn't you help us?" asked Allesandra, the one who had supposedly forgiven him. Did she really want her Rhosh to confess it all again?
"I wanted peace," Rhosh said. He shrugged. He stood against the wall beside the empty blackened fireplace unable to move, the collective power of Gregory and Seth and Sevraine holding him there. And when would these telepathic beams turn to blasts of heat? How long does it take for someone as old as me to burn up, he wondered. He had not sought t
o use that cruel power against Maharet. He had used a simple mortal weapon only to strike at the head, at the brain.
Oh, that he had never gone that night to her compound, never believed the Voice, never been the dupe of the Voice.
And here he was--damned if he did and damned if he didn't--cursed that he'd not been warrior enough to fight the Children of Satan who'd captured and tormented his fledglings, and cursed because he had struck at the great Maharet.
Benedict continued to plead. "Everywhere he goes, they curse at him, spit at him! Everywhere he goes. It's the mark of Cain!"
"And what did you think would happen?" asked Sevraine, who never raised her voice. "The Prince let you go, but he couldn't promise you a cloak of invincibility, or invisibility. What did you think would happen when you walked boldly in the big cities where the young ones hunt?"
"What do you want of me!" Rhosh asked. "What? Is this mere prelude to an execution? Why drag it out? For whose benefit do you say all this?"
"You must never strike at any of us again," said Gregory in a level voice.
"Oh, you, of such little loyalty!" said Rhoshamandes with contempt. "And I stood by you when the Mother imprisoned you for your love of Sevraine. Have you a veil of forgetfulness over those times when I served you in the Queens Blood with my whole soul! What did you teach me then about authority, about monarchs, about presumptuous immortals who made up tales of 'divine right'?"
"I have said nothing to you about divine right," said Gregory in a low voice. "You kept that innocent Derek, that helpless Derek, prisoner here when you knew we were under attack by these Replimoids. You knew, yet you made no move to bring him to us. And you know what we want."
"Tell us where this Roland is hiding, the one who kept him for ten years," said Sevraine.
"And why would I do that?" asked Rhoshamandes. "Why would I betray the only blood drinker in the world who befriended me after I was cast out by all of you, yes, all of you, and forced to wander in exile! And what is it to me if Roland kept this strange prisoner? Am I the keeper of Roland? Am I the keeper of anyone?"
"They are our friends now," said Seth. "They are our family and they demand justice for what happened to Derek. They demand this to seal the pact of peace with us."
Benedict drew close to Rhosh again, and Rhosh motioned for him to stay back.
"Don't let it be the last thing I see," he said to Benedict, "that you're destroyed with me. I beg you. Not that."
"All right," said Benedict to Gregory and Seth. "He kept Derek here. Rhosh struck off Derek's arm, the same way the Prince had struck off Rhosh's arm. Surely there's something he can do or say to settle this! I don't believe the Prince wants this. I know he doesn't. The Prince would be here if this was what he wanted."
Face streaming with blood tears. Poor Benedict. Rhosh couldn't bear to see Benedict suffering like this, and the appalling reality struck him that if and when they brought this to a close, he'd be gone, and there would be no one to console Benedict and Benedict would be alone, really alone for the first time ever in all these long centuries.
Rhoshamandes felt so tired suddenly, so weary thinking that this might go on and on through the hours of the night, and there came back to him some little wisdom he'd picked up centuries ago from a Roman Emperor, esteemed as a Stoic, that all you have to lose in death, no matter how long you've lived, is the present moment in which you die. He smiled. Because now it seemed true.
Not much written in the pages of mortal philosophy was written for immortals, but Marcus Aurelius had it right. He had written that you can live three thousand years or thirty thousand years, and all you have to lose is the life you are living right now. He felt he was drifting. He could hear their mingled voices but not their words.
"Benedict, go back with them. Leave and go back with them."
Was that his voice? He seemed to be two people suddenly, the one pinned to the wall with his arms dangling helplessly and another watching all of this as it unfolded. And so it ends like this. If only I could see one more opera, one more good production of Gounod's Faust, have one walk through the palatial opera house in Prague or Paris. He couldn't hear them now, his accusers. He was hearing those lovely raw sounds of an orchestra tuning its myriad instruments. Echoes in a giant gilded theater. He was hearing Marguerite's last song in the finale of Faust, Marguerite on the point of death. Oh, how lovely to be recalling it so vividly, so nearly perfectly. He could hear her voice rising in triumph. He could hear the angelic chorus. And he felt free as he always did when he heard this music, no matter where it was, or at what time. He felt like nothing could intrude on him here, in the great gilded theater of the mind, as long as he could hear this music in his head.
But something was bringing him back. The music was growing dimmer and fainter, and he couldn't revive it. He could see Marguerite, a tiny figure on an immense stage, but he couldn't hear her.
Reluctantly he lowered his eyes and let the assembly of accusers come into focus again. "Judged!" said Mephistopheles. But what was happening?
Roland was standing there before him. Roland. And that was Flavius, the old Greek slave, beside him, and Teskhamen, the powerful Teskhamen whom he'd never known in ancient times, holding Roland fast by the right arm. They'd found him, brought him in out of the wind and rain, and Roland stood there, his face a mask of terror. Arion too was in terror. And Allesandra, his faithful Allesandra, had lifted her hands to cover her eyes. It seemed they were all talking at once.
The figure of Roland went up in flames. Flames sprang from his heart, his limbs. Rhosh could scarcely believe what he was seeing, Roland turning around and around, and the flames shrinking him to a great whirling cinder while not a sound rose from Roland, not a sound rose from anyone--not from anyone--flames shooting to the ceiling, flames dancing and collapsing on themselves until there was nothing more in the flames. And no flames.
Out went the fire. Not a sound in this room. Something unspeakable was collected there on the stone floor. Something as thick and dark and foul as the soot in the fireplace.
And then Benedict crying, Benedict the only one crying for Roland--that was the only sound.
Rhosh closed his eyes. He could hear the sea pounding against the island, and the wind rushing into the great open arched windows, the wind that wore at the delicate Gothic tracery of the windows. Benedict was sobbing.
A weight struck Rhosh.
It was Benedict crushed up against Rhosh, his back to Rhosh and his arms out. For a moment Rhosh was free of the pressure of the telepathic beams and tried with all his might to throw Benedict aside, but Benedict was unyielding and Benedict was finally calling on all his strength, finally learning how to use it, to remain there as the others held Rhosh's arms.
"Very well," said Seth, the vicious Prince, the proud Prince of Kemet. "Give us your word that you will never again strike out at any one of us or any one of them."
"He gives it!" cried Benedict. "Rhosh, tell them."
Sevraine stepped forward and turned now towards the others. "And let it be known throughout the world that no one shall accuse him or spit at him, or curse him or in any way seek to mock him!--that that is at an end!"
When no one spoke, she raised her voice again. "What is the good of a court or a prince or a council, if you can't give that order! Roland is gone, finished, punished for what he did. Now Rhoshamandes, please, give them what they want, and you, and you and you, give him what he wants!"
Benedict turned around and embraced Rhosh and laid his head against Rhosh's head. "Please," he whispered. "Or I will die with you, I swear it."
Gently, Rhosh moved Benedict to the side.
"I am sorry for what I did," said Rhosh. And it was true, wasn't it? He was sorry. He could have shrugged again at the pure irony of it. Of course he was sorry! Sorry he'd ever been such a fool and botched it on top of everything, and sorry he'd ever let the Children of Satan ensnare his fledglings and drive him out of France. He was so sorry. So sorry for everything. Seems
he was saying it aloud, and who the devil cared that they had no idea what he really meant.
"But I want to come to Court!" he said.
They stood facing him like pieces on a chessboard.
"And I will not clean up that abominable soot you have left on my floor!"
Benedict lifted his fingers to Rhosh's lips. "I'll clean it away," he whispered. "I'll do it."
"Come yourself to Court and ask the Prince if this is what he can accept," said Gregory. "And if you ever strike at any of us again, at any of us, your Blood Kindred, or the Replimoids, it will be the end for you, mark my word."
Silence.
Rhoshamandes nodded. "Very well," he said.
They were gone.
Just that quickly, they were gone. The long heavy velvet draperies scarcely moved on their rods. A ripple ran through the massive old tapestry on the far wall, and all those French lords and ladies looked at him from the corner of their eyes.
Rhosh was walking out of the room before he had made up his mind to do it. In his bedchamber he sought the only chair he had ever much liked, and rested his head against the high wooden back. There the civilized fire of early evening still burned, and the golden clock on the wall said it was not yet midnight.
He closed his eyes. He slept.
When next he came awake the clock told him he'd been sleeping for an hour, and he saw that the fire had been banked and built up. The very sight of the flames, always so comforting to him, was chilling. He looked at his hands, so white, so inhuman, yet so strong, and he rested his head back again, vaguely aware of the clock striking the hour of one.
Sleeping. Dreaming.
Then Benedict and he lay side by side on the bed.
"Will you go to Court and talk to the Prince?" Benedict asked.
"No," he said as he stared up at the interior of the baldachin. "But I won't be told that I can't."
Benedict laid his head on Rhosh's chest.
Rhosh wanted to say so many things to him, tell Benedict how much he loved him, tell Benedict that he'd never seen such bravery, tell Benedict that he would never ever as long as they walked the Devil's Road together forget Benedict's courage...but none of these words were spoken, because words couldn't do justice to the sentiments inside him and words took too much effort and words cheapened the love, the consummate love he felt for Benedict and always had.