Blood and Gold - Anne Rice [73]
Having long identified my own soul with the salvation of the Empire, I felt no consolation in this city. I felt suspicion and profound distaste.
I did however often roam into Santa Sophia to marvel at the enormous dome which seemed to float above with no means of support. Something ineffable had been captured in that grand church which could humble the most proud spirits.
Avicus and Mael were quite happy in this new city. And both seemed absolutely determined that I be their leader, and as I shopped the marketplace for books in the evening, Avicus was eager to join me, and eager for me to read to him what I found.
Meantime I furnished our house comfortably, and hired artisans to paint the walls. I did not want to become lost in my painted gardens again, and when I thought of my lost Pandora my anguish was worse even than before.
Indeed I searched for Pandora. I told Avicus and Mael a few little stories, harmless and unimportant, of my nights with her, but principally of how I had loved her, so that images of her might exist in their minds in so far as they had the power to keep such images alive.
If Pandora roamed these streets, if she came upon my companions perhaps she could divine from them that I was here and wanted so desperately to be reunited with her.
At once I began to acquire a library, buying whole caskets of scrolls and going through them at my leisure. I set up a fine writing desk and began a rather neutral and impersonal diary of my adventures in the old code I had invented before.
We had been in Constantinople less than six months when it became clear to us that other blood drinkers were coming near to our house.
We heard them in the early morning. They came, apparently to hear of us what they could with the Mind Gift and then they rushed away.
“Why have they taken so long?” I demanded. “They’ve watched us and they’ve studied us.”
“And perhaps they are the reason,” said Avicus, “that we’ve found no Devil worshipers here.”
This was perhaps true, for those who spied on us now were not Devil worshipers. We could tell by the bits and pieces of mental imagery which we were able to glean from their minds.
At last they came at early evening and there was no mistaking their polite invitation to us to come with them to visit their mistress.
I went out of our house to greet them and discovered that there were two of them and that they were pale and beautiful boys.
They couldn’t have been more than thirteen when they were made, and they had very clear dark eyes, and had short curly black hair. They were dressed in long Eastern robes of the finest decorated cloth, trimmed in a fringe of red and gold. Their under tunics were of silk, and they wore ornate slippers and many jeweled rings.
Two mortals carried the torches for them, and they appeared to be simple and expensive Persian slaves.
One of the radiant young blood drinker boys placed a small scroll in my hands, which I at once opened to read the beautifully written Greek.
“It is the custom before hunting my city to ask permission of me,” it said. “Please come to my palace.” It was signed, “Eudoxia.”
I did not care for the style of this any more than I had cared for the style of anything else in Constantinople. And I cannot say that it surprised me, but then here was an opportunity to speak with other blood drinkers who were not the fanatical worshipers of the Snake and that opportunity had never come before.
Also allow me to note that in all my years as a blood drinker, I had not seen any two others who were as fine and elegant and beautiful as these boys.
No doubt the groups of Satan worshipers contained such blood drinkers, with fine faces and innocent eyes, but for the large part, as I have described, it was Avicus and Mael who slew them or came to terms with them, not me. Besides they had always been corrupted by