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Rhosh didn't answer. He listened to this familiar voice, this voice he hadn't heard for half a year, and he wondered that it could produce such pain in him, pain that was worse than the most searing rage.

"Rhosh, the elders want you dead." He said the last word the way mortals sometimes say it, with mingled horror and a fear of even speaking the word aloud. "Rhosh, they haven't settled all their questions of authority. Marius and the older ones, the very oldest of the older ones, want you destroyed, and it's only Lestat who is holding them back."

"Am I supposed to be grateful for this?" Rhosh asked. He turned and looked at his old companion.

"Rhosh, please don't tempt them to overrule the Prince. Even the Prince has said that if you strike at the Chateau or the village, that will be an act of war."

"And what do you care, my beloved old friend?" Rhosh asked. "You who said you'd never lodge with me again?"

"I'll go with you now," said Benedict. "Please. Let's go, the both of us, let's go home."

"And why would you do that?"

Benedict didn't answer right away. Rhosh turned and studied Benedict's profile as the boy looked out over the valley below.

"Because I don't want to be without you," Benedict said. "And if you are going to die, if you are going to bring upon yourself the judgment of those strong enough to destroy you, well, I want to die with you."

Tears. Plaintive youthful expression. Eternally innocent. Something sweet surviving through centuries of Amel's alchemy, something trusting.

"I hope and I pray with all my soul that you can come back to them, be rejoined with them, be part of them--."

Rhosh put up his hand for silence.

More tears. Tears so like the tears of that immortal child, Derek. Except that these tears were red with blood.

Rhosh couldn't bear it. He reached out and pulled Benedict towards him and kissed the tears.

Benedict put his arms around Rhosh.

Yea gods, what are we, that this means so much above all?

"Rhosh, these non-humans, they're coming tomorrow. And now let us go, let us leave here together, and let us take the time we have because of this, to think of some plan. Rhosh, if we don't think of something, sooner or later the elders will overrule the Prince. I know it. I--."

"Stop," said Rhosh. "Don't be afraid. I understand."

"They're bound and determined and--."

"I know, I know. Let it be."

He picked up the boy as he had so many times and gently ascended until the roar of wind in his ears was the only sound, and riding higher, through the banks of cloud, he turned and moved towards home.

18

Lestat

THEY HAD ARRIVED in the village three hours before dark, and been given the best rooms at the inn. There were eight of them. And they were waiting in the grand ballroom when I came upstairs. The entire Court was curious, but the young ones were told to keep away from the main rooms, and that included of course not only fledglings but the many drawn to the Court who had

no interest in power. Louis had steadfastly refused to join me. He was downstairs, reading, alone in his own crypt.

Marius, Gregory, Sevraine, and Seth were with the visitors, and had been during the forty-five minutes or more that I was confined to the shelter of my crypt.

Fareed met me in the salon adjacent to the ballroom. He explained telepathically and in a hushed voice that the visitors had admitted some of their group had not come with them. They'd been candid. They couldn't see entrusting themselves entirely to this meeting with us.

"We know Derek was locked up for ten years," said Fareed. "Yet there's a perfect clone of Derek in this group, except for the hair. And there's a clone of the female Kapetria with the same distinct difference, more gold in the hair. Same with Welf; same with Garekyn Brovotkin."

"What does this tell you?" I asked.

That they are the most dangerous threat to this planet that I have ever known. And they are certainly a huge threat to us. We must make the most of this visit in every conceivable way. They want us to know we are at a grave disadvantage.