This was the sprawling metropolis.
And as I narrowed my eyes, I saw a million windows like so many projections of beams of light, and then as if this were not enough, in the very depths I saw the unmistakable movement of the people. Tiny mortals on tiny streets, heads and hands touching in the shadows, a lone man, no more than a speck ascending a windblown belfry. A million souls on the tessellated surface of the night, and coming soft on the air a dim mingling of countless human voices. Cries, songs, the faintest wisps of music, the muted throb of bells.
I moaned. The breeze seemed to lift my hair and I heard my own voice as I had never heard it before crying.
The city dimmed. I let it go, its swarming millions lost again in the vast and wondrous play of lilac shadow and fading light.
"Oh, what have you done, what is this that you've given to me!" I whispered.
And it seemed my words did not stop one after another, rather they ran together until all of my crying was one immense and coherent sound that perfectly amplified my horror and my joy.
If there was a God, he did not matter now. He was part of some dull and dreary realm whose secrets had long ago been plundered, whose lights had long ago gone out. This was the pulsing center of life itself round which all true complexity revolved. Ah, the allure of that complexity, the sense of being there . . .
Behind me the scratch of the monster's feet came on the stones.
And when I turned I saw him white and bled dry and like a great husk of himself. His eyes were stained with blood-red tears and he reached out to me as if in pain.
I gathered him to my chest. I felt such love for him as I had never known before.
"Ah, don't you see?" came the ghastly voice with its long words, whispers without end, "My heir chosen to take the Dark Gift from me with more fiber and courage than ten mortal men, what a Child of Darkness you are to be."
I kissed his eyelids. I gathered his soft black hair in my hands. He was no ghastly thing to me now but merely that which was strange and white, and full of some deeper lesson perhaps than the sighing trees below or the shimmering city calling me over the miles.
His sunken cheeks, his long throat, the thin legs . . . these were but the natural parts of him.
"No, fledgling," he sighed. "Save your kisses for the world. My time has come and you owe me but one obeisance only. Follow me now."
3
Down a winding stairs he drew me. And every thing I beheld absorbed me. The rough-cut stones seemed to give forth their own light, and even the rats shooting past in the dark had a curious beauty.
Then he unlocked a thick iron-studded wooden door and, giving over his heavy key ring to me, led me into a large and barren room.
"You are now my heir, as I told you," he said. "You'll take possession of this house and all my treasure. But you'll do as I say first."
The barred windows gave a limitless view of the moonlit clouds, and I saw the soft shimmering city again as if it were spreading its arms:
"Ah, later you may drink your fill of all you see," he said. He turned me towards him as he stood before a huge heap of wood that lay in the center of the floor.
"Listen carefully," he said. "For I'm about to leave you." He gestured to the wood offhandedly. "And there are things you must know. You're immortal now. And your nature shall lead you soon enough to your first human victim. Be swift and show no mercy. But stop your feasting, no matter how delicious, before the victim's heart ceases to beat."
"In years to come, you'll be strong enough to feel that great moment, but for the present pass the cup to time just before it's empty. Or you may pay heavily for your pride."
"But why are you leaving me!" I asked desperately. I clung to him. Victims, mercy, feasting . . . I felt myself bombarded by these words as if I were being physically beaten.
He pulled away so easily that my hands were hurt by his movement, and I wound up staring at them, marveling at the strange quality of the pain. It wasn't like mortal pain.
He stopped, however, and pointed to the stones of the wall opposite. I could see that one very large stone had been dislodged and lay a foot from the unbroken surface around it.
"Grasp that stone," he said, "and pull it out of the wall."
"But I can't," I said. "It must weigh-"
"Pull it out!" He pointed with one of his long bony fingers and grimaced so that I tried to do it as he said.
To my pure astonishment I was able to move the stone easily, and I saw beyond it a dark opening just large enough for a man to enter if he crawled on his face.
He gave a dry cackling laugh and nodded his head.
"There, my son, is the passageway that leads to my treasure," he said. "Do with my treasure as you like, and with all my earthly property. But for now, I must have my vows."
And again astonishing me, he snatched up two twigs from the wood and rubbed them together so fiercely they were soon burning with bright small flames.
This he tossed at the heap, and the pitch in it caused the fire to leap up at once, throwing an immense light over the curved ceiling and the stone walls.
I gasped and stepped back. The riot of yellow and orange color enchanted and frightened me, and the heat, though I felt it, did not cause me a sensation I understood. There was no natural alarm that I should be burned by it. Rather the warmth was exquisite and I realized for the first time how cold I had been. The cold was an icing on me and the fire melted it and I almost moaned.
He laughed again, that hollow, gasping laugh, and started to dance about in the light, his thin legs snaking him look like a skeleton dancing, with the white face of a man. He crooked his arms over his head, bent his torso and his knees, and turned round and round as he circled the fire.
"Mon Dieu!" I whispered. I was reeling. Horrifying it might have been only an hour ago to see him dancing like this, but now in the flickering glare he was a spectacle that drew me after it step by step. The light exploded on his satin rags, the pantaloons he wore, the tattered shirt.
"But you can't leave me!" I pleaded, trying to keep my thoughts clear, trying to realize what he had been saying. My voice was monstrous in my ears. I tried to make it lower, softer, more like it should have been. "Where will you go!"
He gave his loudest laugh then, slapping his thigh and dancing faster and farther away from me, his hands out as if to embrace the fire.
The thickest logs were only now catching. The room for all its size was like a great clay oven, smoke pouring out its windows.
"Not the fire." I flew backwards, flattening myself against the wall. "You can't go into the fire!"
Fear was overwhelming me, as every sight and sound had overwhelmed me. It was like every sensation I had known so far. I couldn't resist it or deny it. I was half whimpering and half screaming.
"Oh, yes I can," he laughed. "Yes, I can!" He threw back his head and let his laughter stretch into howls. "But from you, fledgling," he said, stopping before me with his finger out again, "promises now. Come, a little mortal honor, my brave Wolfkiller, or though it will cleave my heart in two, I shall throw you into the fire and claim for myself another offspring. Answer me!"
I tried to speak. I nodded my head.
In the raging light I could see my hands had become white. And I felt a stab of pain in my lower lip that almost made me cry out.
My eyeteeth had become fangs already! I felt them and looked at him in panic, but he was leering at me as if he enjoyed my terror.
"Now, after I am burned up," he said, snatching my wrist, "and the fire is out, you must scatter the ashes. Hear me, little one. Scatter the ashes. Or else I might return, and in what shape that would be, I dare not contemplate. But mark my words, if you allow me to come back, more hideous than I am now, I shall hunt you down and burn you till you are scarred the same as I, do you hear me?"
I still couldn't bring myself to answer. This was not fear. It was hell. I could feel my teeth growing and my body tingling all over. Frantically, I nodded my head.
<
br /> "Ah, yes." He smiled, nodding too, the fire licking the ceiling behind him, the light leaking all about the edges of his face. "It's only mercy I ask, that I go now to find hell, if there is a hell, or sweet oblivion which surely I do not deserve. If there is a Prince of Darkness, then I shall set eyes upon him at last. I shall spit in his face.
"So scatter what is burned, as I command you, and when that is done, take yourself to my lair through that low passage, being most careful to replace the stone behind you as you enter there. Within you will find my coffin. And in that box or the like of it, you must seal yourself by day or the sun's light shall bum you to a cinder. Mark my words, nothing on earth can end your life save the sun, or a blaze such as you see before you, and even then, only, and I say, only if your ashes are scattered when it is done."
I turned my face away from him and away from the flames. I had begun to cry and the only thing that kept me from sobbing was the hand I clapped to my mouth.
But he pulled me about the edge of the fire until we stood before the loose stone, his finger pointing at it again.
"Please stay with me, please," I begged him. "Only a little while, only one night, I beg you!" Again the volume of my voice terrified me. It wasn't my voice at all. I put my arms around him. I held tight to him. His gaunt white face was inexplicably beautiful to me, his black eyes filled with the strangest expression.
The light flickered on his hair, his eyes, and then again he made his mouth into a jester's smile.
"Ah, greedy son," he said. "Is it not enough to be immortal with all the world your repast? Good-bye, little one. Do as I say. Remember, the ashes! And beyond this stone the inner chamber. Therein lies all that you will need to prosper."
I straggled to hold on to him. And he laughed low in my ear, marveling at my strength. "Excellent, excellent," he whispered. "Now, live forever, beautiful Wolfkiller, with the gifts which I have added to the lot."
He sent me stumbling away from him. And he leapt so high and so far into the very middle of the flames he appeared to be flying.
I saw him descend. I saw the fire catch his garments.
It seemed his head became a torch, and then all of a sudden his eyes grew wide and his mouth became a great black cavern in the radiance of the flames and his laughter rose in such piercing volume, I covered my ears.
He appeared to jump up and down on all fours in the flames, and suddenly I realized that my cries had drowned out his laughter.
The spindly black arms and legs rose and fell, rose and fell and then suddenly appeared to wither. The fire shifted, roared. And in the heart of it I could see nothing now but the blaze itself.
Yet still I cried. I fell down upon my knees, my hands over my eyes. But against my closed lids I could still see it, one vast explosion of sparks after another until I pressed my forehead on the stones.
4
For years it seemed I lay on the floor watching the fire burn itself out to charred timbers.
The room had cooled. The freezing air moved through the open window. And again and again I wept. My own sobs reverberated in my ears until I felt I couldn't endure the sound of them. And it was no comfort to know that all things were magnified in this state, even the misery that I felt.
Now and then I prayed again. I begged for forgiveness, though forgiveness for what I couldn't have said. I prayed to the Blessed Mother, to the saints. I murmured the Aves over and over until they became a senseless chant.
And my tears were blood, and they left their stain on my hands when I wiped at my face.
Then I lay flat on the stones, murmuring not prayers any longer but those inarticulate pleas we make to all that is powerful, all that is holy, all that may or may not exist by any and all names. Do not leave me alone here. Do not abandon me. I am in the witches' place. It's the witches' place. Do not let me fall even farther than I have already fallen this night. Do not let it happen . . . Lestat, wake up.
But Magnus's words came back to me, over and over: To find hell, if there is a hell . . . If there is a Prince of Darkness...
Finally I rose on my hands and knees. I felt light-headed and mad, and almost giddy. I looked at the fire and saw that I might still bring it back to a roaring blaze and throw myself into it.
But even as I forced myself to imagine the agony of this, I knew that I had no intention of doing it.
After all, why should I do it? What had I done to deserve the witches' fate? I didn't want to be in hell, even for a moment.
I sure as hell wasn't going there just to spit in the face of the Prince of Darkness, whoever he might be!
On the contrary, if I was a damned thing, then let the son of a bitch come for me! Let him tell me why I was meant to suffer. I would truly like to know.
As for oblivion, well, we can wait a little while for that. We can think this over for a little while . . . at least.
An alien calm crept slowly over me. I was dark, full of bitterness and growing fascination.
I wasn't human anymore.
And as I crouched there thinking about it, and looking at the dying embers, an immense strength was gathering in me. Gradually my boyish sobs died away. And I commenced to study the whiteness of my skin, the sharpness of the two evil little teeth, and the way that my fingernails gleamed in the dark as though they'd been lacquered.
All the little familiar aches were gone out of my body. And the remaining warmth that came from the smoking wood was good to me, as something laid over me or wrapped about me.
Time passed; yet it did not pass.
Each change in the moving air was caressing. And when there came from the softly lighted city beyond a chorus of dim church bells ringing the hour, they did not mark the passage of mortal time. They were only the purest music, and I lay stunned, my mouth open, as I stared at the passing clouds.
But in my chest I started to feel a new pain, very hot and mercurial.
It moved through my veins, tightened about my head, and then seemed to collect itself in my bowels and belly. I narrowed my eyes. I cocked my head to one side. I realized I wasn't afraid of this pain, rather I was feeling it as if I were listening to it.
And I saw the cause of it then. My waste was leaving me in a small torrent. I found myself unable to control it. Yet as I watched the foulness stain my clothes, this didn't disgust me.
Rats creeping into the very room, approaching this filth on their tiny soundless feet, even these did not disgust me.
These things couldn't touch me, even as they crawled over me to devour the waste.
In fact, I could imagine nothing in the dark, not even the slithering insects of the grave, that could bring about revulsion in me. Let them crawl on my hands and face, it wouldn't matter now.
I wasn't part of the world that cringed at such things. And with a smile, I realized that I was of the dark ilk that makes others cringe. Slowly and with great pleasure, I laughed.
And yet my grief was not entirely gone from me. It lingered like an idea, and that idea had a pure truth to it.
I am dead, I am a vampire. And things will die so that I may live; I will drink their blood so that I may live. And I will never, never see Nicolas again, nor my mother, nor any of the humans I have known and loved, nor any of my human family. I'll drink blood. And I'll live forever. That is exactly what will be. And what will be is only beginning; it is just born! And the labor that brought it forth was rapture such as I have never known.
I climbed to my feet. I felt myself light and powerful, and strangely numbed, and I went to the dead fire, and walked through the burnt timbers.
There were no bones. It was as if the fiend had disintegrated. What ashes I could gather in my hands I took to the window. And as the wind caught them, I whispered a farewell to Magnus, wondering if he could yet hear me.
At last only charred logs were left and the soot that I wiped up with my hands and dusted off into the darkness.
It was time now to examine the inner room.
5
The ston
e moved out easily enough, as I'd seen before, and it had a hook on the inside of it by which I could pull it closed behind me.
But to get into the narrow dark passage I had to lie on my belly. And when I dropped down on my knees and peered into it, I could see no visible light at the end. I didn't like the look of it.
I knew that if I'd been mortal still, nothing could have induced me to crawl into a passage like this.
But the old vampire had been plain enough in telling me the sun could destroy me as surely as the fire. I had to get to the coffin. And I felt the fear coming back in a deluge.
I got down flat on the ground, and crawled as a lizard might into the passage. As I feared, I could not really raise my head. And there was no room to turn and reach for the hook in the stone. I had to slip my foot into the hook and crawl forward to pull the stone behind me.
Anne Rice - Vampire Chronicles 2 - The Vampire Lestat (1985) Page 11
