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"You must tell me what you want to know. For my part, I tell you plainly that I am a blood drinker. I have lived for hundreds of years, and I can remember clearly when I was a mortal man. It was in Imperial

Rome. You may record this. I have never separated my soul from that mortal time. I refuse to do it. "

For a moment only silence followed, but then Raymond began with the questions.

Yes, we had a "beginning," I explained but I could say nothing of it. Yes, we became much much stronger with time. Yes, we tended to be lone creatures or to choose our companions very carefully. Yes, we could make others. No, we were not instinctively vicious, and we felt a deep love for mortals which was oft

en our spiritual undoing.

There were countless other little questions. And I answered them all to the best of my ability. I would say nothing of our vulnerability to the sun or fire. As for the "coven of vampires" in Paris and Rome, I knew little.

At last I said:

"It's time for me to leave now. I will travel hundreds of miles before dawn. I lodge in another country. "

"But how do you travel?" one of them asked.

"On the wind," I said. "It's a gift that has come to me with the passing centuries. "

I went to Raymond and I took him in my arms again, and then turning to several of the others I bade them come and touch me so that they could see I was a real being.

I stood back, took my knife and cut my hand with it, and held out my hand so that they could see the flesh heal.

There were gasps from them.

"I must be gone now. Raymond, my thanks and my love," I said.

"But wait," said one of the most elderly of the men. He had been standing back all the while, leaning on a cane, listening to me as intently as all the others. "I have one last question for you, Marius. "

"Ask me," I said immediately.

"Do you know anything of our origins?"

For a moment I was puzzled. I couldn't quite imagine what he meant in this question. Then Raymond spoke:

"Do you know anything about how the Talamasca came to be? That is what we are asking you. "

"No," I said in quiet astonishment.

A silence fell over them all, and I realized quickly that they themselves were confused about how the Talamasca had come about. And it did come back to me that Raymond had told me something of this when first I met him.

"I hope you find your answers," I said.

Then off I went into the darkness.

But I didn't stay away. I did what I had failed to do on my arrival. I hovered quite close but just beyond their hearing and their vision. And with my powerful gifts, I listened to them as they roamed their many towers and their many libraries.

How mysterious they were, how dedicated, how studious.

Some night in the far future perhaps I would come to them again, only to learn more of them. But just now, I had to return to the shrine and to Bianca.

She was still awake when I came into the blessed place. And I saw that she had lighted the hundred candles.

This was a ceremony that I sometimes failed to do, and I was pleased to see it.

"And are you happy with your visit to the Talamasca?" she asked in her frank voice. She had that beguiling look of simplicity on her face which always prompted me to tell her everything.

"I was most pleased. I found them the honest scholars they professed to be. I gave them what knowledge I could, but by no means what I might, for that would have been too foolish. But all they seek is knowledge and I left them more than happy. "