The Vampire Chronicles Collection - Anne Rice [214]
“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 making 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