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"I like the houses that come in the packages. It's difficult to assemble them, even for me. Besides, I would never think of so many different types of houses. I don't know why Marius has to say such disparaging things. "

Thorne was perplexed. Finally he said simply, "I have no answer. "

Daniel went quiet.

Thorne waited for a respectful interval and then he went into the great room.

The fire was going on a blackened hearth within a rectangle of heavy stones, and Marius was seated beside it, slumped in his large leather chair, rather in the posture of a boy than a man, beckoning for Thorne to take his place on a big leather couch opposite.

"Sit there if you will, or here if you prefer," said Marius kindly. "If you mind the fire, I'll damp it down. "

"And why would I mind it, friend?" asked Thorne, as he seated himself. The cushions were thick and soft.

As his eyes moved over the room, he saw that almost all the wood paneling was painted in gold or blue, and there were carvings on the ceiling beams above, and on the beams over the doorways. These carvings reminded him of his own times. But it was all new ¡ª as Marius had said, it was made by a modern man, this place, but it was made well and with much thought and care to it.

Sometimes blood drinkers fear the fire," said Marius, looking at the flames, his serene white face full of light and shadow. "One never knows. I've always liked it, though once I suffered dreadfully on account of it, but then you know that story. "

"I don't think I do know it," said Thorne. "No, I've never heard it. If you want to tell it, I want to hear. "

"But first there are some questions you want answered," said Marius. "You want to know if the things you saw with the Mind Gift were entirely real. "

"Yes," said Thorne. He remembered the net, the points of light, the Sacred Core. He thought of the Evil Queen. What had shaped his vision of her? It had been the thoughts of the blood drinkers who had gathered around her council table.

He realized he was looking directly into Marius's eyes, and that Marius knew his thoughts completely.

Marius looked away, and into the fire, and then he said offhandedly:

"Put your feet up on the table. All that matters here is comfort. "

Marius did this with his own feet, and Thorne stretched his legs out, crossing his feet at his ankles.

"Talk as you please," said Marius. "Tell me what you know, if you wish; tell me what you would know. " There seemed a touch of anger in his voice but it wasn't anger for Thorne. "I have no secrets," Marius said. He studied Thorne's face thoughtfully, and then he continued: "There are the others¡ªthe ones you saw at that council table, and even more, scattered to the ends of the world. "

He gave a little sigh and then a shake of his head, then he went on speaking.

"But I'm too alone now. I want to be with those I love but I cannot. " He looked at the fire. "I come together with them for a short while and then I go away . . .

". . . I took Daniel with me because he needed me. I took Daniel because it's unendurable to me to be utterly alone. I sought the North countries because I was tired of the beautiful South lands, even tired of Italy where I was born. I used to think no mortal nor blood drinker could ever grow tired of bountiful Italy, but now I'm tired, and want to look on the pure whiteness of snow. "

"I understand," said Thorne. The silence invited him to continue. "After I was made a blood drinker," he said, "I was taken South and it seemed Valhalla. In Rome I lived in a palace and looked out on the seven hills each night. It was a dream of soft breezes and fruit trees. I sat in a window high above the sea and watched it strike the rocks. I went down to the sea, and the sea was warm. "

Marius smiled a truly kind and trusting smile. He nodded. "Italy, my Italy," he said softly.

Thorne thought the expression on his face was truly wondrous, and he wanted Marius to keep the smile but very quickly it was gone.

Marius had become sober and was looking into the flames again as though lost in his own sadness. In the light of the fire, his hair was almost entirely white.

"Talk to me, Marius," said Thorne. "My questions can wait. I want the sound of your voice. I want your words. " He hesitated. "I know you have much to tell. "

Marius looked at him as if startled, and warmed somewhat by this. Then he spoke.

"I'm old, my friend," he said. "I'm a true Child of the Millennia. It was in the years of Caesar Augustus that I became a blood drinker. It was a Druid priest who brought me to this peculiar death, a creature named Mael, mortal when he wronged me, but a blood drinker soon after, and one who still lives though he tried not long ago to sacrifice his life in a new religious fervor. What a fool.

"Time has made us companions more than once. How perfectly odd. It's a lie that I hold him high in my affections. My life is full of such lies. I don't know that I've ever forgiven him for what he did¡ª taking me prisoner, dragging me out of my mortal life to a distant grove in Gaul, where an ancient blood drinker, badly burnt, yet still imagining himself to be a god of the Sacred Grove, gave me the Dark Blood. "

Marius stopped. "Do you follow my meaning?" "Yes," said Thorne. "I remember those groves and the whispers among us of gods who had lived in them. You are saying that a blood drinker lived within the Sacred Oak. " Marius nodded. He went on.

'Go to Egypt,' he charged me, this badly burnt god, this wounded god, 'and find the Mother. Find the reason for the terrible fire that has come from her, burning us far and wide. ' "