Page 106

"Why didn't you help us?" asked Allesandra, the one who had supposedly forgiven him. Did she really want her Rhosh to confess it all again?

"I wanted peace," Rhosh said. He shrugged. He stood against the wall beside the empty blackened fireplace unable to move, the collective power of Gregory and Seth and Sevraine holding him there. And when would these telepathic beams turn to blasts of heat? How long does it take for someone as old as me to burn up, he wondered. He had not sought t

o use that cruel power against Maharet. He had used a simple mortal weapon only to strike at the head, at the brain.

Oh, that he had never gone that night to her compound, never believed the Voice, never been the dupe of the Voice.

And here he was--damned if he did and damned if he didn't--cursed that he'd not been warrior enough to fight the Children of Satan who'd captured and tormented his fledglings, and cursed because he had struck at the great Maharet.

Benedict continued to plead. "Everywhere he goes, they curse at him, spit at him! Everywhere he goes. It's the mark of Cain!"

"And what did you think would happen?" asked Sevraine, who never raised her voice. "The Prince let you go, but he couldn't promise you a cloak of invincibility, or invisibility. What did you think would happen when you walked boldly in the big cities where the young ones hunt?"

"What do you want of me!" Rhosh asked. "What? Is this mere prelude to an execution? Why drag it out? For whose benefit do you say all this?"

"You must never strike at any of us again," said Gregory in a level voice.

"Oh, you, of such little loyalty!" said Rhoshamandes with contempt. "And I stood by you when the Mother imprisoned you for your love of Sevraine. Have you a veil of forgetfulness over those times when I served you in the Queens Blood with my whole soul! What did you teach me then about authority, about monarchs, about presumptuous immortals who made up tales of 'divine right'?"

"I have said nothing to you about divine right," said Gregory in a low voice. "You kept that innocent Derek, that helpless Derek, prisoner here when you knew we were under attack by these Replimoids. You knew, yet you made no move to bring him to us. And you know what we want."

"Tell us where this Roland is hiding, the one who kept him for ten years," said Sevraine.

"And why would I do that?" asked Rhoshamandes. "Why would I betray the only blood drinker in the world who befriended me after I was cast out by all of you, yes, all of you, and forced to wander in exile! And what is it to me if Roland kept this strange prisoner? Am I the keeper of Roland? Am I the keeper of anyone?"

"They are our friends now," said Seth. "They are our family and they demand justice for what happened to Derek. They demand this to seal the pact of peace with us."

Benedict drew close to Rhosh again, and Rhosh motioned for him to stay back.

"Don't let it be the last thing I see," he said to Benedict, "that you're destroyed with me. I beg you. Not that."

"All right," said Benedict to Gregory and Seth. "He kept Derek here. Rhosh struck off Derek's arm, the same way the Prince had struck off Rhosh's arm. Surely there's something he can do or say to settle this! I don't believe the Prince wants this. I know he doesn't. The Prince would be here if this was what he wanted."

Face streaming with blood tears. Poor Benedict. Rhosh couldn't bear to see Benedict suffering like this, and the appalling reality struck him that if and when they brought this to a close, he'd be gone, and there would be no one to console Benedict and Benedict would be alone, really alone for the first time ever in all these long centuries.

Rhoshamandes felt so tired suddenly, so weary thinking that this might go on and on through the hours of the night, and there came back to him some little wisdom he'd picked up centuries ago from a Roman Emperor, esteemed as a Stoic, that all you have to lose in death, no matter how long you've lived, is the present moment in which you die. He smiled. Because now it seemed true.

Not much written in the pages of mortal philosophy was written for immortals, but Marcus Aurelius had it right. He had written that you can live three thousand years or thirty thousand years, and all you have to lose is the life you are living right now. He felt he was drifting. He could hear their mingled voices but not their words.

"Benedict, go back with them. Leave and go back with them."

Was that his voice? He seemed to be two people suddenly, the one pinned to the wall with his arms dangling helplessly and another watching all of this as it unfolded. And so it ends like this. If only I could see one more opera, one more good production of Gounod's Faust, have one walk through the palatial opera house in Prague or Paris. He couldn't hear them now, his accusers. He was hearing those lovely raw sounds of an orchestra tuning its myriad instruments. Echoes in a giant gilded theater. He was hearing Marguerite's last song in the finale of Faust, Marguerite on the point of death. Oh, how lovely to be recalling it so vividly, so nearly perfectly. He could hear her voice rising in triumph. He could hear the angelic chorus. And he felt free as he always did when he heard this music, no matter where it was, or at what time. He felt like nothing could intrude on him here, in the great gilded theater of the mind, as long as he could hear this music in his head.

But something was bringing him back. The music was growing dimmer and fainter, and he couldn't revive it. He could see Marguerite, a tiny figure on an immense stage, but he couldn't hear her.

Reluctantly he lowered his eyes and let the assembly of accusers come into focus again. "Judged!" said Mephistopheles. But what was happening?

Roland was standing there before him. Roland. And that was Flavius, the old Greek slave, beside him, and Teskhamen, the powerful Teskhamen whom he'd never known in ancient times, holding Roland fast by the right arm. They'd found him, brought him in out of the wind and rain, and Roland stood there, his face a mask of terror. Arion too was in terror. And Allesandra, his faithful Allesandra, had lifted her hands to cover her eyes. It seemed they were all talking at once.

The figure of Roland went up in flames. Flames sprang from his heart, his limbs. Rhosh could scarcely believe what he was seeing, Roland turning around and around, and the flames shrinking him to a great whirling cinder while not a sound rose from Roland, not a sound rose from anyone--not from anyone--flames shooting to the ceiling, flames dancing and collapsing on themselves until there was nothing more in the flames. And no flames.

Out went the fire. Not a sound in this room. Something unspeakable was collected there on the stone floor. Something as thick and dark and foul as the soot in the fireplace.

And then Benedict crying, Benedict the only one crying for Roland--that was the only sound.

Rhosh closed his eyes. He could hear the sea pounding against the island, and the wind rushing into the great open arched windows, the wind that wore at the delicate Gothic tracery of the windows. Benedict was sobbing.

A weight struck Rhosh.