Blood and Gold (15 page)

There was no time to ponder it. I had to get Avicus and Mael away from the shrine.

Only when we were back within the confines of my brightly lighted study did I turn my fury on Mael.

“Two times I’ve saved your miserable life,” I said. “And I will suffer for it, I’m sure of that. For by all rights, I should have let you die the night Avicus sought my help for you, and I should have let the King crush you as he would have done tonight. I despise you, understand it. No end of time will change it. You are rash, willful and crazed with your own desires.”

Avicus sat with his head down nodding as if to say he agreed.

As for Mael he stood in the corner, his hand on his dagger, regarding me with begrudging silence.

“Get out of my house,” I said finally. “And if you want to end your life, then break the peace of the Mother and the Father. For ancient as they are and silent as they are, they will crush you as you have seen for yourself. You know the location of the shrine.”

“You don’t even know the measure of your crime,” Mael answered. “To keep such a secret. How could you dare!”

“Silence, please,” said Avicus.

“No, I won’t keep silent,” said Mael. “You, Marius, you steal the Queen of Heaven and you keep her as if she were your own? You lock her up in a painted chapel as if she were a Roman goddess made of wood? How dare you do such a thing?”

“Fool,” I said, “what would you have me do with her! You spit lies at me. What you wanted is what they all want. You wanted her blood. And what would you do now that you know where she is? Do you mean to set her free and for whom and how and when?”

“Quiet, please,” said Avicus again. “Mael, I beg you, let us leave Marius.”

“And the snake worshipers who have heard whispers of me and my secret, what would they do?” I demanded, now quite lost in my fury. “What if they were to gain possession of her and take the blood from her, and make themselves an army stronger than us? How then would the human race rise up against our kind with laws and hunts to abolish us? Oh, you cannot begin to conceive of all the ills that would be loosed upon this world were she known to all our kind, you foolish, mad, self-important dreamer!”

Avicus stood before me, imploring me with his upraised hands, his face so sad.

I wouldn’t be stopped. I stepped aside and faced the furious Mael.

“Imagine the one who would put them both in the sun again,” I declared, “bringing fire on us like the fire which Avicus suffered before! Would you end your life’s journey in such agony and by another’s hands?”

“Please, Marius,” said Avicus. “Let me take him away with me. We will go now. I promise you, no more trouble from us.”

I turned my back on them. I could hear Mael leaving, but Avicus lingered. And suddenly I felt his arm enclose me and his lips on my cheek.

“Go,” I said softly, “before your impetuous friend tries to stab me in base jealousy.”

“It was a very great miracle you revealed,” he whispered. “Let him ponder it until he has made its greatness small enough for his mind.”

I smiled.

“As for me, I don’t wish ever to see it again. It is too sad.”

I nodded.

“But allow me to come in the evenings, quietly,” he whispered. “Allow me to watch at the garden windows in silence as you paint your walls.”

8

T
he years passed too fast.

The great city of Constantinople in the East was all the talk in Rome. More and more of the honorable Patricians were drained away by its magic. Meanwhile after Constantine the Great there came no end of warring Emperors. And the pressure along the borders of the Empire continued to be intolerable, demanding the complete devotion of anyone elevated to the purple.

A most interesting character proved to be Julian, lately known as the Apostate, who tried to restore paganism and completely failed. Whatever his religious illusions, he proved an able soldier and died on a campaign against the irrepressible Persians many miles from home.

The Empire continued to be invaded by the Goths, the Visigoths, the Germans and the Persians on all sides. Its rich and beautiful cities, with their gymnasiums, theaters, porticoes and temples were overrun by tribes of people who cared nothing for philosophy or manners, poetry, or the old values of the genteel life.

Even Antioch, my old home with Pandora, had been sacked by barbarians—quite an unimaginable spectacle to me, which I could not ignore.

Only the city of Rome itself seemed impervious to such a horror, and indeed, I think the old families, even as houses crumbled around them, believed that the Eternal City could never suffer such a fate.

As for me, I went on with my banquets for the disreputable and despised, and I wrote by the hour in my diaries, and I painted my walls.

When my regular guests inevitably died, I suffered it rather dreadfully. And so I saw to it that the company was always very large.

On I went with the pots of paint no matter who drank or vomited in the garden, and so the house seemed mad with all its lamps and the master filling walls with his illusions, and the guests laughing at him and raising their cups to him, and the music strumming on unto the dawn.

At first I thought it would be a distraction to have Avicus spying upon me, but I grew used to hearing him slip over the wall and come into the garden. I grew used to the nearness of someone who shared these moments as only he could.

I continued to paint my goddesses—Venus, Ariadne, Hera—and gradually I grew resigned that the figment of Pandora would dominate everything I did in that particular, but I worked on the gods as well. Apollo, above all, fascinated me. But then I had time to paint other figures of myth, such as Theseus, Aeneas, and Hercules, and sometimes I turned to reading Ovid or Homer or Lucretius directly for inspiration. Other times, I made up my own themes.

But always the painted gardens were my comfort for I felt I was living in them in my heart.

Over and over again I covered all the rooms of my house, and as it was built as a villa, not an enclosed house with an atrium, Avicus could wander the garden all around it, seeing all that I did, and I couldn’t help but wonder if my work was changed by what he saw.

What moved me more than anything perhaps was that he lingered so faithfully. And that he was silent with so much respect. Seldom did a week pass that he did not come and stay almost the entire night. Often he was there for four or five nights in a row. And sometimes even longer than that.

Of course we never spoke to each other. There was an elegance in our silence. And though my slaves once took notice of him and annoyed me with their alarm, I soon put a stop to that.

On the nights when I went out to Those Who Must Be Kept Avicus didn’t follow me. And I must confess that I did feel a sort of freedom when I painted alone in the shrine. But melancholy was also coming down upon me, harder than ever in the past.

Finding a spot behind the dais and the Precious Pair, I often sat dejected in the corner, and then slept the day and even the next night without going out. My mind was empty. Consolation was unimaginable. Thoughts of the Empire and what might happen to it were unspeakable.

And then, I would remember Avicus, and I would rise, shaking off my languor and go back into the city and begin painting the walls of my rooms again.

How many years passed in this way, I can’t calculate.

It is far more important to note that a band of Satanic blood drinkers again took up their abode in an abandoned catacomb and began to feast upon the innocent which was their custom, being desperately careless so as to scare humans and to cause tales of terror to spread.

I had hoped that Mael and Avicus would destroy this band, as they were all very weak, and blundering, and it wouldn’t have been hard at all.

But Avicus came to me with the truth of the matter which I should have seen long before.

“Always these Satan worshipers are young,” he said to me, “and never is there one who is more than thirty or forty years from his mortal life. Always from the East they come, speaking of how the Devil is their Ruler and how through serving him, they serve Christ.”

“I know the old story,” I said. I was going about my painting, as if Avicus was not standing there, not out of rudeness, but out of weariness with the Satan worshipers, who had cost me Pandora so long ago.

“But you see, Marius, someone very old must surely be sending these deadly little emissaries to us, and it is this old one whom we must destroy.”

“And how will you do that?” I asked.

“We mean to lure him to Rome,” said Avicus, “and we’ve come to ask you to join us. Come down into the catacombs with us tonight and tell these young ones that you are a friend.”

“Ah, no, you are mad to suggest this!” I said. “Don’t you realize they know about the Mother and the Father? Don’t you remember all I’ve told you?”

“We mean to destroy them to a one,” said Mael who stood behind me. “But to make a fine finish we must lure the old one here before the destruction.”

“Come, Marius,” said Avicus, “we need you and your eloquence. Convince them that you are sympathetic. That they must bring their leader here, and then and only then will you allow them to remain. Mael and I cannot so impress them as you can. This is no vain flattery, be assured.”

For a long time I stood with my paintbrush in hand, staring, thinking, Should I do this, and then finally, I confessed that I could not.

“Don’t ask it of me,” I said to Avicus. “Lure the being yourselves. And when he comes here, let me know of it, and then I promise I will come.”

The following night, Avicus returned to me.

“They are such children, these Satanic creatures,” he said, “they spoke of their leader so willingly, admitting that he resides in a desert place in the North of Egypt. He was burnt in the Terrible Fire, no doubt of it, and has taught them all about the Great Mother. It will be sad to destroy them, but they rampage about the city, seeking the sweetest mortals for their victims, and it cannot be borne.”

“I know,” I said quietly. I felt ashamed that I had always allowed Mael and Avicus to drive these creatures from Rome on their own. “But have you managed to lure the leader out of his hiding place? How could such a thing be done?”

“We have given them abundant riches,” said Avicus, “so that they may bring their leader here. We have promised him our strong blood in return for his coming, and that he sorely needs to make more priests and priestesses of his Satanic cause.”

“Ah, your strong blood, of course,” I said. “Why did I not think of it? I think of it in regard to the Mother and Father, but I did not think of it in relation to us.”

“I cannot claim to have thought of it myself,” said Avicus. “It was one of the Satanic children who suggested it for the leader is so weak that he can never rise from his bed, and survives only to receive victims and to make followers. Of course Mael and I immediately promised. For what are we to these children with our hundreds of years?”

I heard nothing further of the matter for the next several months, except I knew through the Mind Gift that Avicus had slain several of the Satan worshipers for their public crimes which he considered to be so dangerous, and on one mild summer night, when I stood in my garden looking down over the city, I heard Mael rather distantly arguing with Avicus as to whether they should slay all the rest.

At last the band was slain, and the catacomb was empty, and drenched in blood, and Mael and Avicus appeared at my house and begged me to come to it for those returning from Egypt were expected within the hour and we must strike fast.

I left my warm happy room, carrying my finest weapons, and went with them as I had promised.

The catacomb was so small and tight, I could scarce stand up in it. And I knew it at once to be the burial place of mortal Christians and a place where they had sometimes gathered in the very first years of the sect.

We traveled through it some eighty or ninety feet before we came into an underground place, and there found the old Egyptian blood drinker on his bier, glaring at us, his youthful attendants horrified to find their abode empty and full of ashes of their dead.

The old creature had suffered much. Bald, and thin, black from the Great Fire, he had given himself up utterly to the making of his Satanic children, and so never healed as another blood drinker might. And now he knew himself to be tricked. Those he had sent on to Rome were gone forever, and we stood before him, looking down upon him in judgment, blood drinkers of unthinkable power who felt no pity for him and his cause.

Avicus was the first to raise his sword, but he was stopped as the old creature cried out,

“Do we not serve God?”

“You’ll know sooner than I will,” Avicus answered him, and with the blade, cut off his head.

The remaining band refused to run away from us. They fell on their knees and met our heavy blows in silence.

And so too it was with the fire that engulfed them all.

The next night and the night after that we went back, the three of us, to gather the remains and burn them over again, until it was finished and we thought that had put an end to the Satanic worshipers once and for all.

Would that it had been so.

I can’t say that this awful chapter of our lives brought me together with Avicus and Mael. It was too dreadful, too against my nature, and too bitter for me.

I went back to my house, and gladly resumed my painting.

I rather enjoyed it that none of my guests ever wondered as to my true age, or why I didn’t grow old or die. I think the answer lay in the fact that I had so very much company that no one could pay attention to any one thing for very long.

Whatever it was, after the slaughter of the Satanic children, I wanted more music than before, and I painted more relentlessly and with greater invention and design.

Meantime the state of the Empire was dreadful. It was now quite totally divided between East and West. In the West, which included Rome, of course, Latin was the language; while in the East the common language was Greek. The Christians too felt this sharp division and continued to quarrel over their beliefs.

Finally the situation of my beloved city became intolerable.

The Visigoth Ruler Alaric had taken the nearby port of Ostia, and was threatening Rome itself. The Senate seemed powerless to do anything about the impending invasion, and there was talk throughout the city that the slaves would side with the invaders, thereby bringing ruin on us all.

At last, at midnight, the Salarian gate of the city was opened. There was heard the horrifying sound of a Gothic trumpet. And in came the rapacious hordes of Goths and Scythians to sack Rome herself.

I rushed out into the streets to see the carnage all around me.

Avicus was immediately at my side.

Hurrying across the roofs, we saw everywhere that slaves had risen against their masters, houses were forced open, jewels and gold were offered up by frantic victims, who were nevertheless murdered, rich statues were heaped upon wagons in those streets large enough to allow such, and bodies soon lay everywhere as the blood ran in the gutters and as the inevitable flames began to consume all that they could.

The young and the healthy were rounded up to be sold into slavery, but the carnage was often random, and I soon realized I could do nothing to help any mortal whom I saw.

Returning to my house, I discovered with horror that it was already in flames. My guests had either been taken prisoner or had fled. My books were burning! All my copies of Virgil, Petronius, Apuleius, Cicero, Lucretius, Homer, Pliny were lying helpless amid the flames. My paintings were blackening and disintegrating. Foul smoke choked my lungs.

I had scarce time to grab a few important scrolls. Desperately I sought for Ovid, whom Pandora had so loved, and for the great tragedians of Greece. Avicus reached out his arms to help me. I took more, seeking to save my own diaries, but in that fatal instant Goth soldiers poured into my garden with loud shouts, their weapons raised.

At once I pulled my sword and began with fierce speed to decapitate them, shouting as they shouted, allowing my preternatural voice to deafen them and confuse them, as I hacked off random limbs.

Avicus proved even more fierce than I was, perhaps being more accustomed to this kind of battle, and soon the band lay dead at our feet.

But by now my house was completely engulfed in flames. The few scrolls we’d sought to save were burning. There was nothing more to be done. I could only pray that my slaves had sought some refuge, for if they hadn’t they would soon be taken for loot.

“To the chapel of Those Who Must Be Kept,” I said. “Where else is there to go?”

Quickly, we made to the roofs again, darting in and out of the blazes which everywhere lighted up the night sky. Rome was weeping; Rome was crying out for pity; Rome was dying. Rome was no more.

We reached the shrine in safety, though Alaric’s troops were pillaging the countryside as well.

Going down into the cool confines of the chapel, I lighted the lamps quickly and then I fell down on my knees before Akasha, uncaring of what Avicus might think of such a gesture, and I poured out for her in whispered words the nature of this tragedy which had struck my mortal home.

“You saw the death of Egypt,” I said reverently. “You saw it become a Roman province. Well, now Rome dies in its turn. Rome has lasted for eleven hundred years and now it’s no more. How will the world survive? Who will tend the thousands of roads and bridges that everywhere bring men and women together? Who will maintain the fabulous cities in which men and women thrive in safe houses, educating their youth to read and write and worship their gods and goddesses with ceremony? Who will drive back these accursed creatures who cannot farm the land which they have burnt and who live only to destroy!”