by Anne Rice
"Drink, and find my soul," said Derek, "and know what you do is wrong. But then it's always wrong when you drink, isn't it? Everyone you kill has a soul."
"Open to me, tender one," said the stranger. "I mean you no harm."
Derek closed his eyes and turned away. Then came the sharp fine stinging pain and immediately behind it the rush of sweetness, of more of those rippling chills on his neck, his back, down his arms and legs. The world dissolved, and with it the fetid dust and soot of the dungeon cell. And he was floating as this thing drew the blood out of him in deep slow draughts.
In a mighty unexpected flash Derek saw a long table, blood drinkers on either side of it, and a blond-haired figure with an ax in his hand. The Prince! What a comely being, and with such a beguiling smile. Down came the ax and the Prince held up the severed left hand. They stared at each other in rage, Rhoshamandes and the Prince, and the blond Prince hacked off Rhoshamandes's arm! Derek saw the hand and the limb on the table. He felt the pain that Rhosh had felt, splintering, burning into his shoulder and then gone.
Tell me where my son is. Or you will die.
So that was it, was it? Derek was growing weaker. "You held his son captive, that's what you did, and you wonder that he hurt you? I would hurt you, if I could. I would hack you limb from limb and I've never hurt anyone. I am sworn never to hurt human beings on this planet, never, but your humanity long ago went dry inside you, and I would cheerfully torture you...."
It was gone. He was gone. No more Derek the fighter who could look for anything in the blood drinker's mind. He was drifting without a body, without a place.
Dream.
Atalantaya, the splendid city of Atalantaya...no words, don't give them words. Look. But don't name. But then he was just there.
They were gone, the monsters of the present moment in Budapest.
Derek was in great Atalantaya with the others, his kindred, his own--Kapetria and Garekyn and Welf, all of them together, holding hands, his sister and his brothers--and they were watching as the Great One appeared. Amel. The Great One was unmistakable, a fine figure of a human male with a skin of unearthly paleness, and green eyes, and full reddish-golden hair. They'd made Amel to look like a god. But they'd made Derek and Kapetria and their brothers to look only human. Well, he did look like a god, if gods are pale and shining.
"Amel," said Kapetria.
Derek didn't want words, no, but he couldn't stop them, couldn't stop the words they were speaking. He was in the dream but not in control of it.
And for one moment the world was frozen. Nothing moved; nothing lived; the world was lifeless and meaningless and the voice of Rhoshamandes said: "Amel?"
Gone. No more Rhosh. No more voice. No more defenses. Just now...the warm sunlight pouring through the great clear luracastric dome of Atalantaya, beautiful Atalantaya...
Voice of the Parents. You must get inside the dome. Remember, you must strike against him inside the dome.
All around them stood the populace of Atalantaya, dark eyed and dark haired as they were, Derek and Welf and Garekyn and Kapetria. But there came the Great One with the unearthly attributes of the god.
"Our mistake, you see," said the Parents, "because he has come to believe that he is a god."
In his hands the Great One held an oval object, shimmering in the sunlight, and all around the Great One the people were crying out, pointing, cheering, bowing to him, and calling out their praise. All around them in the windows of the high buildings and towers were faces turned to see the Great One. People stood way above on the rooftops looking down on the freshly turned field that lay ready for the object which the Great One now planted in the moist, fragrant soil.
Suddenly everyone was singing, singing in a rolling wordless melody. People put their arms around one another and began to sway as they sang. Kapetria put her arm around Derek, her familiar smile flashing warmly on him. And Derek held tight to Garekyn. And the fountains poured forth their water, raining down on the oval as the oval began to grow larger and larger and then to break open, its thin casing peeled back as if into a collection of petals out of which the great tall glistening shoots began to grow.
"But does the singing make it happen?" Derek asked Kapetria.
"No, beloved," she said. "It's entirely chemical. All of this is chemical. Everything you see here is chemical. But don't you see the genius of it? He is making the common people feel a part of it; he has given them a ritual so that they are united in it. Oh, he has been so clever, so very clever."
The Great One stood back with his thumbs hooked in his leather belt watching them all as they sang and danced, his eyes moving up the towers across from him to the thousands of beings clustered on all those terraces and in all those windows. How proud he was, how happy. Tears hovered in his eyes. He stood there, weight on his left foot, the other leg relaxed, his long blue tunic hanging loose around him, such richly colored wool, splendidly stitched with golden acorns at the hem, and so bright the buckle that sparkled on his belt and the buckles on his shoulders. How he gloried in it, and then his eyes fixed on Derek and even for Derek he smiled.
Amel.
The great clear shoots of luracastria were spreading out now, broadening, growing thicker, and then transforming themselves into great sheets of clear shimmering material rising higher and higher and growing wider and wider as the immense surrounding crowd began to cheer as well as sing.
Derek stood amazed watching the building grow out and upwards, watching walls and windows rising and forming in front of him, seeing the entire interior and exterior of the tower unleashed from the oval as if its birth into growth couldn't be stopped. It was like seeing a great tree grow from a seed in a matter of minutes, thrusting forth its mighty limbs, its tiniest leaves, its flowers, its seeds.
Everywhere the people laughed, shouted, and pointed, punctuating the waves of singing which never stopped. Up and up went the tower until it was now as tall as all the others, a splendid edifice of doorways and balconies and windows, grown out of the oval which was now lost beneath it, as its tentacles anchored themselves deep in the earth. Derek could hear them. Why, the thing had been growing downwards as surely as it had grown upwards.
"Behold the luracastria," said one of the people beside them. "I see you don't know what it is. Everything in the center of Atalantaya is built of luracastria, behold luracastria--in one form or another, even the great dome is luracastria."
Derek was so happy. So very happy. How could anyone want to destroy all this, destroy the Great One, destroy all these people, these happy multitudes, these souls whose songs rose Heavenward under the dome? It was unthinkable to him, as unthinkable to him as the idea of his own death. A fear took hold of him, so terrible that he began to tremble.
It was fading. No, I don't want to go. I want to be with you, Kapetria. Hold tight to me! Kapetria, I'm alive, I exist still. Where are you! Find me. Welf, Garekyn, find me.
Darkness.
Blackness.
No sound from his own heart. Yes, a human would be dead now. He knew this, but it seemed to take forever for him to know it again, and know it was finished, and he would have his mind and his body back.
Surely Rhoshamandes had let him go. But Derek couldn't feel anything, neither up nor down, or right or left. But his brain was working. The cells in his bone marrow were working.
"But I have killed him!"
"No, believe me, you have not. He looks dead; he sounds dead; he feels dead. But he's not dead. Just be patient. The thing is not dead. It's what happens to him when he's assaulted; he loses consciousness; he stops breathing; but he's not dead."
Silence. Then the fragrance of the room again, damp stone, the soot from the little fireplace for which there was neither wood nor coal. The smell of the blood drinkers, of skin that had been in the sun to burn it by day as they slept so they could pass for human, and the scents of their clothes and their perfume. The smell of books, of old pages. Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
passing through nature to eternity. Well, not me.
"It tasted like human blood, the finest of human blood, only it was thicker, and a little sweeter. Just a little..."
"Yes."
"It has nutrients that human blood does not have."
"Perhaps. But I don't know what the Hell they are. It lasts longer."
"What is this creature?"
"It would be nice to have an entire stable of such creatures, wouldn't it?" Roland laughed. And laughed. How Derek hated that laugh. "And look at it, the blood's already being regenerated. Look at his hands, his fingers, his nails."
Something touched Derek but he couldn't locate the sensation. All through him he felt tingling and the tingling was Derek.
But they continued to talk. And his soul recorded every heartless word they spoke.
"He doesn't die, not from anything," said Roland, the cruel one, the one without feeling. "Not from starvation, not from thirst. I've left him a month without either food or drink. I haven't tried other means. But what did you see? What did you see that he couldn't conceal? Did he give you anything?"
Then came the warmer voice of Rhoshamandes....
"I saw this place, this spectacular city, and this amazing phenomenon. It was as if a skyscraper, an intricate high-rise tower made of glass were growing from an egg!"
No. How did he see these things? Help me. Derek felt the tears slide down his cheeks. He tried to raise a hand to his face but he couldn't find his hand. It would be a while before he could feel his body again. But he could feel his tears. Help me. Find me. Get me out of here--Garekyn. Garekyn, was it you that they saw in Saint Petersburg? Garekyn, your brother is alive.
"But it was a great city, humming as if alive with electricity, running water, power, illimitable power--and the towers, I've never beheld anything like it, these giant spectacular towers...everything looked to be translucent as if made of glass...and beyond there were huge walls of glass...a great roof of glass...."
"Could you identify the city!"
"No, I've never seen anything like it! And I saw his companions with him, creatures who looked like him as you said."
"I knew it. I knew you could go deeper than I've ever gone," said Roland. "What else, tell me!"
"They were like him, but one was a female, and they did all have the gold streaks in their black hair. They had these streaks to identify themselves to one another. Or identify them to someone else. And there were names, but I couldn't catch them, I couldn't catch the name of the city, the city had a name, though, I knew it--but I caught one name, one name and that name was Amel."
"Well, he's heard us talking of Amel for years. And now with the Prince and the Court, he's heard Arion and me speaking of Amel over and over. He's heard me speaking of Amel from time to time with others who pass through. He can hear keenly. He can hear the conversations we have in the rooms above."
"No, the name was coming from that time and that place, I'm sure of it, and he didn't want me to hear it, but he had no control over it. Roland, this Great One, this one who planted the seed that grew into a skyscraper, it was Amel!"
They were moving away. They were leaving him. The door shut, the key turned in the lock. The bolts slid into place. Soft footfalls on the staircase.
"Describe him."
"Reddish hair, golden. Tall. Finely dressed, dressed as if in my time. Roland, their clothes, their clothes were simple, wool but mostly silk, like the clothes of my time, but it wasn't my time. It wasn't any time or place I've ever seen. Roland, it could have been long before my time!"
Farther and farther away they moved.
Derek strained to hear them. What have I done!
Rhoshamandes talked excitedly. "This place, I don't know where it is, but don't you see, Roland, don't you understand what this means?"
They lapsed quite abruptly into another language. For a moment the words confused Derek, but he had only to wait, to concentrate before they became clear. He sensed, however, that this was an older and simpler language, a language they'd shared aeons ago. Soon the sense was clear.
"No, what does it mean?" asked Roland. He sounded sullen and cross, Roland. He had not the wit or passion of his friend, Rhoshamandes.
"Good Lord, Roland, if Amel was there in this place with this creature and his friends, don't you see, he's not a spirit, not a spirit at all, he's a ghost!"
"What does that matter? These spirits come from somewhere, don't they? Maybe they're all ghosts. What's the difference between a spirit and a ghost? I've never heard of any difference. What does that matter to us?"
"But Roland, if he's a ghost, if he lived before, if he had a personality and power, why this might change everything!"
"I don't see that it changes anything," said Roland. "But if Fareed and Seth are as interested as you are, they'll want this creature most certainly! They'll be willing to pay for him, Rhosh, pay a great deal. I could use that payment. I could use it for centuries to come. I need such a payment."
"I can give you all the gold you want, Roland. Think no more on any problem with gold. I'll pay you handsomely for the creature now. But you're not grasping the significance..."
Far away. Sounds of traffic. Vibrations moving down through the earth under the traffic.
Rhoshamandes was still speaking in a rush of excited words, Derek could no longer understand him.
"I still say..."
"No, you're wrong." And then it was a rumbling again like water in the pipes of this house, or cars on the boulevard above. And the monsters had left the house.
Derek sat up. He was nauseated, weak, thirsting. He grabbed for the pitcher on the table beside him. Empty. The monsters had left him without water. He lay back down again thirsting from every pore in his body. With all his will, he tried to feel vigor but his body was deadweight.
All he could hear now was the vibration of Rhoshamandes's voice and then he raised his voice in exasperation. "No, no, they mustn't know anything about this for now, Roland. Nothing. No one must know of this until I think this through."
Derek fell back on the pillow, hungry and cold. He stared at the distant lightbulb, this soiled ugly light shining in its rusted cage, and he cried with all his soul.
"Chop you up, rend you limb from limb," he whispered. "If only..." When had he, Derek, ever thought such vengeful thoughts? And to think he'd never understood this dimension of human beings, and now he was as poisoned with dreams of vengeance as any human could be.
He rolled over on his left side, and brought the blanket up over his shoulder. Was it safe now to remember that moment, when the tower had blossomed and grown from the egg? Was it all right to remember their being together, roaming Atalantaya together in those endless warm days and nights? He was walking again, with his arm around Garekyn under the great arching green banana leaves, and everywhere he looked there were flowers, pink and red and yellow and purple, flowers of such colors--petals caught swirling in the breeze.
Vines climbed the walls of luracastria, and clusters of petals shivered above him, clusters shaped like clusters of grapes.
Arion woke him. Arion had come in and sat on the bed beside him.
"I have something for you," he said.
"Water, please, I beg you."
"Oh, I brought that as well," said Arion.
Derek sat up. He opened the glistening plastic bottle of cold water and he drank and drank. "I love you for this," he whispered. "I've had no water in days and nights."
"I know. I've put water for you in the refrigerator. I've hidden several bottles under the bed. And I brought you this too."
It was an apple, a bright red apple. Derek took it without a word and devoured it down to the core and then swallowed the seeds and the stem. How fresh and sweet it tasted. He lay back staring at the ceiling. So sweet. He saw the endless fruit trees of Atalantaya, the yellow and orange fruit. You could pick the fruit anywhere at any time. But don't think about it lest this creature, good as he is, can read your mind.
A
rion sat there staring off. He was dressed simply in a sweatshirt and jeans and an old leather jacket with shiny worn elbows. He had none of the elegance of Roland, none of the vanity, none of the preoccupation with subtle ornament. He looked sad, so terribly sad.
"Take what you want from me," said Derek. "I'd beg you to let me out of here but I know you can't."
Arion smiled, but not at Derek. Then he removed something small from his pocket. An iPod. It had to be, though Derek hadn't seen one in years. It had a thin white cord attached and an earpiece.
"Wait till morning," he said, "when you're sure all are sleeping, and then listen to this thing. It's stocked with music and archived radio broadcasts."
Oh, this was a treasure!
Derek accepted the device gratefully and tried to figure it out but unlike his last iPod, his iPod of ten long years ago, this one was a flat piece of glass.
With a few quick taps, Arion brought it to life. Derek followed his fingers, and heard a surge of music, a surge of mingled voices. He put the white earbud in his ear, and heard the throaty voice of the woman singing a song he'd known and loved, "Undercover Agent for the Blues."
"Tina!" he whispered. Oh, this was priceless. This was too wondrous. This was like a magic portal out of his despicable prison.
He bent forward and put his arm around Arion and kissed his cold face. Like stone, it felt, so smooth, as if it were polished stone. They all felt that way, these blood drinkers.
"Now look here, pay attention," said Arion. "I'm going to show you how to find one particular radio archive."
"How will this radio archive help me?" Derek asked.
Arion sat there silent for a moment, pondering, his brows knitted and the iPod held idly in his hand.
"I don't know," Arion said. "But it's our radio, our broadcast...."
"I've heard of this before. From the Court, the Court of the Prince."
"Yes, and no. I don't know. I think it comes from America. But it's something. There are two sound threads, one for humans and a lower one, one only for us. But you'll be able to hear it. Listen to it. Listen to it and maybe you'll come to understand us." He showed Derek the charger. He took it and plugged it in behind the little refrigerator. "Of course if or when he finds out you have it, he'll take it away."
