Blood and Gold - Anne Rice [55]
Avicus answered my question politely but Mael said not one word.
“Things are better for us,” said Avicus. “Mael heals well.”
“I want to tell you certain things,” I commenced without asking whether or not they wanted such knowledge. “I don’t believe from what happened that either of you know your own strength. I know from my own experience that power increases with age, as I am now more agile and strong than I was when I was made. You too are quite strong, and this incident with the drunken mortals need not have ever taken place. You could have gone up the wall when you were surrounded.”
“Oh, leave off with this!” said Mael suddenly.
I was aghast at this rudeness. I merely shrugged.
“I saw things,” said Mael in a small hard voice, as though the confidential manner of it would make his words all the more important. “I saw things when I drank from you which you could not prevent me from seeing. I saw a Queen upon a throne.”
I sighed.
His tone was not as venomous as it had been before. He wanted the truth and knew he could not get it by hostile means.
As for me I was so fearful that I dared not move or speak. Naturally I was defeated by this news from him, dreadfully defeated, and I didn’t know what chance I had of preventing everything from becoming known. I stared at my paintings. I wished I had painted a better garden. I might have mentally transported myself into a garden. Vaguely I came to thinking, But you have a beautiful garden right outside through the doors.
“Will you not tell me what you found in Egypt?” Mael asked. “I know that you went there. I know that the God of the Grove wanted to send you there. Will you not have that much mercy as to tell me what you found?”
“And why would I have mercy?” I asked politely. “Even if I had found miracles or mysteries in Egypt. Why would I tell you? You won’t even be seated under my roof like a proper guest. What is there between us? Hatred and miracles?” I stopped. I had become too heated. It was anger. It was weakness. You know my theme.
At this, he took a chair beside Avicus and he stared before him as he had done on that night when he told me how he’d been made.
I saw now as I looked at him more closely that his throat was still bruised from his ordeal. As for his shoulder, his cloak covered it but I imagined it to be the same.
My eyes moved to Avicus and I was surprised to see his eyebrows knit in a strange little frown.
Suddenly he looked to Mael and he spoke.
“The fact is, Marius can’t tell us what he discovered,” he said, his voice calm. “And we mustn’t ask him again. Marius bears some terrible burden. Marius has a secret which has to do with all of us and how long we can endure.”
I was dreadfully aggrieved. I’d failed to keep my mind veiled and they had discovered all but everything. I had little hope of preventing their penetration into the sanctum itself.
I didn’t know precisely what to do. I couldn’t even consider things in their presence. It was too dangerous. Yes, dangerous as it was, I had an impulse to tell them all.
Mael was alarmed and excited by what Avicus had said.
“Are you certain of this?” he asked Avicus.
“Yes,” Avicus answered. “Over the years my mind had grown stronger. Prompted by what I’ve seen of Marius, I’ve tested my powers. I can penetrate Marius’s thoughts even when I don’t want to do it. And on the night when Marius came to help us, as Marius sat beside you, as he watched you heal from your wounds as you drank from me, Marius thought of many mysteries and secrets, and though I gave you blood, I read Marius’s mind.”
I was too saddened by this to respond to anything said by either of them. My eyes drifted to the garden outside. I listened for the sound of the fountain. Then I sat back in my chair and looked at the various scrolls of my journal which lay about helter-skelter on my desk for anyone to pillage and read. Oh, but you’ve written everything in code, I thought. And then again, a clever blood drinker might decipher it. What does it all matter now?
Suddenly I felt a strong impulse