The Vampire Chronicles Collection - Anne Rice [367]
“This forest itself seemed made to the scale of Titans. The oaks were ancient and enormous, the interlacing of their limbs blocked out most of the light, and we moved for hours through a world of damp and dark green leaves and deep shadow.
“I do not remember towns. I do not remember villages. I remember only a crude fortress. Once inside the gates I saw two rows of thatched-roof houses, and everywhere the leather-clad barbarians. And when I was taken into one of the houses, a dark low place, and left there alone, I could hardly stand for the cramps in my legs, and I was as wary as I was furious.
“I knew now that I was in an undisturbed enclave of the ancient Keltoi, the very same fighters who had sacked the great shrine of Delphi only a few centuries ago, and Rome itself not too long after, the same warlike creatures who rode stark naked into battle against Caesar, their trumpets blasting, their cries affrighting the disciplined Roman soldiers.
“In other words, I was beyond the reach of everything I counted upon. And if all this talk about my becoming one of the gods meant I was to be slain on some blood-stained altar in an oak grove, then I had better try to get the hell out of here.”
6
HEN my captor appeared again, he was in the fabled long white robes, and his coarse blond hair had been combed, and he looked immaculate and impressive and solemn. There were other tall white-robed men, some old, some young, and all with the same gleaming yellow hair, who came into the small shadowy room behind him.
“In a silent circle they enclosed me. And after a protracted silence, a riff of whispers passed amongst them.
“ ‘You are perfect for the god,’ said the eldest, and I saw the silent pleasure in the one who had brought me here. ‘You are what the god has asked for,’ the eldest said. ‘You will remain with us until the great feast of Samhain, and then you will be taken to the sacred grove and there you will drink the Divine Blood and you will become a father of gods, a restorer of all the magic that has inexplicably been taken from us.’
“ ‘And will my body die when this happens?’ I asked. I was looking at them, their sharp narrow faces, their probing eyes, the gaunt grace with which they surrounded me. What a terror this race must have been when its warriors swept down on the Mediterranean peoples. No wonder there had been so much written about their fearlessness. But these weren’t warriors. These were priests, judges, and teachers. These were the instructors of the young, the keepers of the poetry and the laws that were never written in any language.
“ ‘Only the mortal part of you will die,’ said the one who had spoken to me all along.
“ ‘Bad luck,’ I said. ‘Since that’s about all there is to me.’
“ ‘No,’ he said. ‘Your form will remain and it will become glorified. You will see. Don’t fear. And besides, there is nothing you can do to change these things. Until the feast of Samhain, you will let your hair grow long, and you will learn our tongue, and our hymns and our laws. We will care for you. My name is Mael, and I myself will teach you.’
“ ‘But I am not willing to become the god,’ I said. ‘Surely the gods don’t want one who is unwilling.’
“ ‘The old god will decide,’ said Mael. ‘But I know that when you drink the Divine Blood you will become the god, and all things will be clear to you.’
“ESCAPE was impossible.
“I was guarded night and day. I was allowed no knife with which I might cut off my hair or otherwise damage myself. And a good deal of the time I lay in the dark empty room, drunk on wheaten beer and satiated with the rich roasted meats they gave to me. I had nothing with which to write and this tortured me.
“Out of boredom I listened to Mael when he came to instruct me. I let him sing anthems to me and tell me old poems and talk on about laws, only now and then taunting him