7

I WAS VERY SURPRISED the next night to find the walls of my library completely painted over. I had forgotten that I'd given such a command to my slaves. As soon as I saw all the pots of fresh paint in any number of colors, I then remembered what I had told them to do.

Indeed, I couldn't think of anything but Mael and Avicus and must confess I was more than fascinated by the mixture of civilized manners and quiet dignity which I found in Avicus and not at all in Mael.

Mael would always be for me a barbarian, unlettered, unrefined, and above all fanatical, for it was due to his fanatic belief in the Gods of the Grove that he had taken my life.

And realizing that the only way I could escape my thoughts of the pair was to paint: the newly prepared walls, I set to work at once.

I took no notice of my guests who were already dining of course, and of those going and coming through the garden and the open gate.

Realize, if you will, that by this time I did not have to hunt for blood that often, and though I was still much too much the savage in this respect, I often left it till late in the evening or early in the morning, or did not hunt at all.

So to the painting, I went. I didn't stand back and take stock of what I meant to do. Rather I went at it fiercely, covering the wall in great glaring patches, making the usual garden which obsessed me, and the nymphs and goddesses whose forms were so familiar to my mind.

These creatures had no names for me. They might have come from any verse in Ovid, or from the writing of Lucretius, or indeed from the blind poet, Homer. It was no matter to me. I lost myself in depicting uplifted arms and graceful throats, in painting oval faces and garments blowing gently in the breeze.

One wall I divided with painted columns, and around these I painted vines. Another wall, I worked with stiff borders of stylized greenery. And the third wall I allotted into small panels in which I would feature various gods.

Meantime, the house grew crowded with the ever noisy party, and some of my favorite drunkards drifted inevitably into the library and watched me at work.

I knew enough to slow my pace somewhat so as not to scare them with my unnatural speed. But otherwise, I took no notice, and only when one of the lyre players came in to sing for me did I realize how mad the house must seem.

For there were people dining and drinking everywhere now, and the master of the house in his long tunic stood painting a wall, the proper work for craftsmen or artists, not Patricians you understand, and there seemed no decent boundary of any kind.

I began to laugh at the absurdity of it.

One of the young guests marveled at my talent.

"Marius, you never told us. We never imagined."

"Neither did I," I said dully, going on with my work, watching the white paint disappear beneath my brush.

For months I went on with my painting, even moving into the banquet room where the guests cheered me on as I worked. Whatever I accomplished it did not please me and it certainly did not amaze them.

They thought it amusing and eccentric that a rich man should decorate his own walls. And all the drunken advice I received did not amount to very much. The learned men knew the mythic tales I depicted and they enjoyed them, and the young men tried to get me in arguments which I refused.

It was the spacious garden I loved to paint above all, with no painted frame to set it apart from our world with its dancing figures and bending laurels. It was the familiar garden. For I imagined that I could escape into it with my mind.

And during that time I did not risk attending to the chapel. Rather I painted all the rooms of my house.

Meantime, the old gods whom I painted were fast disappearing from the Temples of Rome.

At some point or other, Constantine had made Christianity the legal religion of the Empire, and now it was the pagans who couldn't worship as they chose.

I don't think Constantine himself was ever in favor of forcing anybody in religious matters. But that's what had come about.

So I painted poor old Bacchus, the god of wine, with his cheerful followers, and the brilliant Apollo chasing the desperate and lovely Daphne who turned into a laurel tree rather than allow the godly rape.

On and on I worked, happy with mortal company, thinking, Mael and Avicus, please do not search my mind for secrets.

But in truth all during this time I could hear them very near me. My mortal banquet parties puzzled them and frightened them. I could hear them approach my house and then go away every night.

Finally the inevitable night came.

They stood at my gate.

Mael was for coming in without permission, and Avicus kept him back, begging me with the Mind Gift to admit them once more.

I was in my library, painting it over for the third time, and the dinner party that night, thank the gods, had not spilled over into the room.

I put down my brush. I stared at my unfinished work. It seemed another Pandora had emerged in the unfinished Daphne and it struck a tragic chord in my heart that Daphne had eluded her lover. What a fool I'd been to escape mine.

But for a long self-indulgent moment I looked at what I had painted¡ªthis unearthly creature with her rippling brown hair.

You understood my soul, I thought, and now others are coming only to sack my heart of all its riches. What am I to do? We argued, yes, you and I, but it was with loving respect, was it not? I cannot endure without you. Please come to me, from wherever you are.

But there was no time for my solitude. It suddenly seemed rather precious, no matter how much of it I had had in the past years.

I closed off my happy human guests from the library, and then silently, I told the blood drinkers that they might come in.

Both were richly dressed, and their swords and daggers were encrusted with jewels. Their cloaks were fixed at the shoulder with rich clasps and even their sandals were ornamented. They might have been preparing to join the opulently clad citizens of the new capital, Constantinople, where great dreams were still being realized though Constantine was now dead.

It was with mixed feelings that I gestured for them to sit down.

However much I wished that I had allowed Mael to perish, I was drawn to Avicus¡ªto his keen expression and the friendly way in which he regarded me. I had time to observe now that his skin was a lighter brown than it had been, and that its dark tone gave a rather sculpted quality to his strong features, especially his mouth- As for his eyes they were clear and held no cunning or lie.

Both remained standing. They looked anxiously in the direction of the mortal banquet room. Once again, I urged them to be seated.

Mael stood, quite literally looking down his hawk nose at me, but Avicus took the chair.

Mael was still weak and his body emaciated. Quite obviously, it would take many nights of drinking from his victims before the damage done him would be completely healed.

"How have things been with you?" I asked, out of courtesy.

And then out of private desperation I let my mind envision Pandora.

I let my mind completely recall her in all her splendid details. I hoped thereby to send the message of her to both of them, so that she, wherever she was, might receive this message somehow, a message which I, on account of the blood I had given her in her making, could not send on my own.

I don't know that either received any impression of my lost love.

Avicus answered my question politely but Mael said not one word.

"Things are better for us," said Avicus. "Mael heals well."

"I want to tell you certain things," I commenced without asking whether or not they wanted such knowledge. "I don't believe from what happened that either of you know your own strength. I know from my own experience that power increases with age, as I am now more agile and strong than I was when I was made. You too are quite strong, and this incident with the drunken mortals need not have ever taken place. YOU could have gone up the wall when you were surrounded.""Oh, leave off with this!" said Mael suddenly.

I was aghast at this rudeness. I merely shrugged.

"I saw things," said Mael in a small hard voice, as though the confidential manner of it would make his words all the more important. "I things when I drank from you which you could not prevent me from seeing. I saw a Queen upon a throne."

I sighed.

His tone was not as venomous as it had been before. He wanted the truth and knew he could not get it by hostile means.

As for me I was so fearful that I dared riot move or speak. Naturally I was defeated by this news from him, dreadfully defeated, and I didn't know what chance I had of preventing everything from becoming known. I stared at my paintings. I wished I had painted a better garden. I might have mentally transported myself into a garden. Vaguely I came to thinking, But you have a beautiful garden right outside through the doors.

"Will you not tell me what you found in Egypt?" Mael asked. "I know that you went there. I know that the God of the Grove wanted to send you there. Will you not have that much mercy as to tell me what you found? "

''And why would I have mercy?" I asked politely. "Even if I had found miracles or mysteries in Egypt. Why would I tell you? You won't even be seated under my roof like a proper guest. What is there between us? Hatred and miracles?" I stopped. I had become too heated. It was anger. It was weakness. You know my theme.

At this, he took a chair beside Avicus and he stared before him as he had done on that night when he told me how he'd been made.

I saw now as I looked at him more closely that his throat was still bruised from his ordeal. As for his shoulder, his cloak covered it but I imagined it to be the same.

My eyes moved to Avicus and I was surprised to see his eyebrows knit in a strange little frown.

Suddenly he looked to Mael and he spoke.

"The fact is, Marius can't tell us what he discovered," he said, his voice calm. "And we mustn't ask him again. Marius bears some terrible burden. Marius has a secret which has to do with all of us and how long we can endure."

I was dreadfully aggrieved. I'd failed to keep my mind veiled and they had discovered all but everything. I had little hope of preventing their penetration into the sanctum itself.

I didn't know precisely what to do. I couldn't even consider things in their presence. It was too dangerous. Yes, dangerous as it was, I had an impulse to tell them all.

Mael was alarmed and excited by what Avicus had said.

"Are you certain of this?" he asked Avicus.

"Yes," Avicus answered. "Over the years my mind had grown stronger. Prompted by what I've seen of Marius, I've tested my powers. I can penetrate Marius's thoughts even when I don't want to do it. And on the night when Marius came to help us, as Marius sat beside you, as he watched you heal from your wounds as you drank from me, Marius thought of many mysteries and secrets, and though I gave you blood, I read Marius's mind."

I was too saddened by this to respond to anything said by either of them. My eyes drifted to the garden outside. I listened for the sound of the fountain. Then I sat back in my chair and looked at the various scrolls of my journal which lay about helter-skelter on my desk for anyone to pillage and read. Oh, but you've written everything in code, I thought. And then again, a clever blood drinker might decipher it. What does it all matter now?

Suddenly I felt a strong impulse to try to reason with Mael.

Once again I saw the weakness of anger. I had to put aside anger and contempt and plead with him to understand.

"This is so," I said. "In Egypt, I did find things. But you must believe me that nothing I found matters. If there is a Queen, a Mother as you call her, and mind you, I don't say she exists, imagine for the moment that she is ancient and unresponsive and can give nothing to her children any longer, that so many centuries have passed since our dim beginnings that no one with any reason understands them, and the matter is left quite literally buried for it matters not one jot."

I had admitted far more than I intended, and I looked from one to the other of them for understanding and acceptance of what I'd said.

Mael wore the astonished expression of an innocent. But the look on the face of Avicus was something else.

He studied me as if he wanted desperately to tell me many things. Indeed his eyes spoke in silence though his mind gave me nothing and then he said,

"Long centuries ago, before I was sent to Britain to take up my time in the oak as the god, I was brought before her. You remember I told you this."

"Yes," I said.

"I saw her!" He paused. It seemed quite painful for him to relive this moment. "I was humiliated before her, made to kneel, made to recite my vows. I remember hating those around me. As for her, I thought she was a statue, but now I understand the strange words that they spoke. And then when the Magic Blood was given me, I surrendered to the miracle. I kissed her feet."

"Why have you never told me this!" begged Mael. He seemed more injured and confounded than angry or outraged.

"I told you part of it," said Avicus. "It's only now that I see it all. My existence was wretched, don't you understand?" He looked to me and then to Mael, and his tone became a little more reasonable and soft. "Mael, don't you see?" he asked. "Marius is trying to tell you. This path in the past is a path of pain!"

"But who is she and what is she?" Mael demanded. In that fatal instant my mind was decided. Anger did move me and perhaps in the wrong way.

"She is the first of us," I said in quiet fury. "That is the old tale. She and her consort or King, they are the Divine Parents. There's no more to it than that."

"And you saw them," Mael said, as if nothing could make him pause in his relentless questioning.

"They exist; they are-safe," I said. "Listen to what Avicus tells you. What was Avicus told? "

Avicus was desperately trying to remember. He was searching so far back that he was discovering his own age. At last he spoke in the same respectful and polite voice as before.

"Both of them contain the seed from which we all spring!" he answered. "They cannot be destroyed on that account for if they were, we would die with them. Ah, don't you see?" He looked at Mael. "I know now the cause of the Terrible Fire. Someone seeking to destroy us burnt them or placed them in the sun."

I was utterly defeated. He had revealed one of the most precious secrets. Would he know the other? I sat in sullen silence.

He rose from the chair and began to walk about the room, incensed by his memories,

"How long did they remain in the fire? Or was it only one day's passage in the desert sand?" He turned to me. "They were white as marble when I saw them. 'This is the Divine Mother,' they said to me. My lips touched her foot. The priest pressed his heel to the back of my neck. When the Terrible Fire came I had been so long in the oak I remembered nothing. I had deliberately slain my memory. I had slain all sense of time. I lived for the monthly blood sacrifice and the yearly Sanhaim. I starved and dreamed as I'd been commanded to do. My life was in rising at Sanhaim to judge the wicked, to look into the hearts of those who were accused and pronounce on their guilt or innocence.

"But now I remember. I remember the sight of them¡ªthe Mother and the Father¡ªfor I saw both of them before they pressed my lips to her feet. How cold she was. How awful it was. And I was unwilling. I was so filled with anger and fear. And it was a brave man's fear."

I winced at his last words. I knew what he meant. What must a brave general feel when he knows the battle has gone against him and nothing remains but death?Mael looked up at Avicus with a face full of sorrow and sympathy.

But Avicus was not finished. On he went with his walking, seeing nothing before him but memory, his thick black hair falling forward as he dipped his head under the weight of memories he bore.

His black eyes were lustrous in the light of the many lamps. But his expression was his finest feature.

"Was it the sun, or was it a Terrible Fire?" he asked. "Did someone try to burn them? Did someone believe such a thing could be done? (Oh, it's so simple. I should have remembered. But memory is desperate to leave us. Memory knows that we cannot endure its company.

Memory would reduce us to fools. Ah, listen to old mortals when they have nothing but memories of childhood. How they go on mistaking those around them for persons long dead, and no one listens. How often I have eavesdropped on them in their misery. How often I have wondered at their long uninterrupted conversations with ghosts in empty rooms."

Still I said nothing.

But he looked at me at last, and asked me:

"You saw them, the King and Queen. You know where they are?"

I waited a long moment before answering. I spoke simply when I answered.

"I saw them, yes. And you must trust me that they are safe. And that you don't want to know where they are." I studied both of them. "If you were to know, then perhaps some night other blood drinkers could take you prisoner and wring the truth from you, and they might strive to claim the King and Queen."

Mael studied me for a long while before he responded. "We fight others who attempt to take Rome from us. You know we've done this. We force them to leave."

"I know you do," I said. "But the Christian vampires continue to come, and they come in numbers, and those numbers grow larger all the time. They are devoted to their Devil, their Serpent, their Satan. They will come again. There will be more and more...""They mean nothing to us," said Mael disgustedly. "Why would they want this Holy Pair?"

For a moment I said nothing. Then the truth broke from me hatefully, as though I couldn't protect them from it, nor protect myself.

"All right," I said. "Since you know so much, both of you, let me explain the following: many blood drinkers want the Mother and the Father. There are those who come from the Far East who know of them. They want the Primal Blood. They believe in its strength. It's stronger than any other blood. But the Mother and Father can move to defend themselves. Yet still thieves will always be in search of them, ready to destroy whoever keeps them in hiding. And such thieves have in the past come to me."

Neither of them spoke. I went on.

"You do not want, either of you," I said, "to know anything further of the Mother and the Father. You do not want rogues to come upon you and try to overpower you for your knowledge. You do not want secrets which can be ripped from your heart."

I glared at Mael as I said these last words. Then I spoke again.

"To know of the Mother and the Father is a curse."

A silence fell, but I could see that Mael would not allow for it to be very long. A light came into his face, and he said to me in a trembling voice:

"Have you drunk this Primal Blood?" Slowly he became incensed. "You have drunk this blood, haven't you?"

"Quiet, Mael," said Avicus. But it was no use.

"You have drunk it," said Mael in fury. "And you know where the Mother and Father are concealed."

He rose from the chair and rushed at me, and suddenly clamped his hands on my shoulders.

Now, I am by nature not given to physical combat, but in a rage I pushed him off me with such force that he was thrown across the floor and back against the wall.

"How dare you? " I asked fiercely. I struggled to keep my voice low so as not to alarm the mortals in the banquet room. "I ought to kill you. What peace of mind it would give me to know you were dead. I could cut you into pieces that no sorcerer could reassemble. Damn you."

I was trembling with this uncharacteristic and humiliating rage.

He gazed at me, his mind unchanged, his will only slightly chastened and then he said with extraordinary fervor:

"You have the Mother and the Father. You have drunk the Mother's blood. I see it in you. You cannot hide it from me. How will you ever hide it from anyone else? "

I rose from my chair.

"Then you must die," I said, "isn't that so? For you know, and you must never tell anyone else." I made to advance on him.

But Avicus who had been staring at all this in shock and horror rose quickly and came between us. As for Mael, he had drawn his dagger. And he seemed quite ready for the brawl.

"No, Marius, please," said Avicus, "we must make peace with each other, we cannot keep up this struggle. Don't fight with Mael. What could be the outcome, but two wounded creatures hating each other even more than now?"

Mael was on his feet. He held his dagger ready. He looked clumsy. I don't think he knew weapons. As for his supernatural powers, I didn't think either of them understood fully what they might do. All this, of course, was defensive calculation. I didn't want this battle any more than Avicus wanted it, yet I looked to Avicus now and said coldly:

"I can kill him. Stay out of the way."

"But that is the point," said Avicus, "I cannot do this, and so you will be fighting the two of us, and such a fight you can't win."

I stared at him for a long moment during which words failed me completely. I looked to Mael with his uplifted dagger. And then in a moment of utter despair I went to my desk and sat down and rested my head on my elbows.

I thought of the night in the far city of Antioch when Pandora and I had slaughtered that bunch of Christian vampires who had come so foolishly into our house talking about Moses in the desert lifting the Serpent, and secrets from Egypt, and all such seemingly marvelous things. I thought of all that blood and the burning afterwards. And I thought also how these two creatures, though we didn't speak or see each other, had been my only companions all these years in Rome. I thought of everything perhaps that mattered. My mind sought to organize itself round Mael and Avicus, and I looked up from to the other, and then out to the garden again.

"I'm ready to fight you," said Mael with his characteristic impatience.

And what will you achieve? You think you can cut out the secret of the Mother and the Father from my heart?"

Avicus came to my desk. He sat down in the nearest chair before me and looked to me as if he were my client or friend.

Marius, they are close to Rome. I know it. I have known it for a long time. Many a night you have gone out into the hills to visit some strange and lonely place, and with the Mind Gift I have followed you, wondering what could take you to such a distant spot. I believe now that you go to visit the Mother and the Father. I believe you took them out of Egypt. You can trust me with your secret. You can also trust me with your silence if you wish."

"No," said Mael, coming forward immediately. "Speak, or I'll destroy you, Marius, and Avicus and I will go to the very spot and see the Mother and Father for ourselves."

"Never," said Avicus, becoming for the first time angry. He shook his head. "Not without Marius. You're being foolish," he said to Mael.

"They can defend themselves," I said coldly. "I've warned you. I've witnessed it. They may allow you to drink the Divine Blood. They may refuse you. If they refuse, you will be destroyed." I paused for emphasis then went on.

"Once a strong god from the East came into my house in Antioch," I said. "He forced his way into the presence of the Mother and the Father. He sought to drink from the Mother. And when he made to sink his fangs into her neck, she crushed his head, and sent the lamps of the room to burn his flailing body till there was nothing left. I don't lie to you about these things." I gave a great sigh. I was tired of my own anger. "Having told you that, I'll take you there if you wish."

"But you have drunk her blood," said Mael.

"You are so very rash," I answered. "Don't you see what I'm saying? She may destroy you. I cannot say what she will do. And then there is the question of the King. What is his will? I don't know. I'll take you there, as I've said."

I could see that Mael wanted to go. Nothing would stop him from this, and as for Avicus, he was very fearful and very ashamed of his own fear.

"I must go," said Mael. "I was her priest once. I served her god in the oak. I have no choice but to go." His eyes were brilliant with his excitement. "I must see her," he said. "I cannot take your warnings. I must be taken to this place."

I nodded. I gestured for them to wait. I went to the doors of the banquet room and opened them. My guests were happy. So be it. A couple of them cheered my sudden presence, but quickly forgot me. The drowsy slave poured the fragrant wine.

I turned and went back to Avicus and Mael.

We went out into the night, the three of us, and as we made for the shrine, I learnt immediately that neither Mael nor Avicus moved at the speed which their strength allowed. I told them both to walk faster, especially when there were no mortals to watch, and very soon I had them silently exhilarated that they were more in possession of their true gifts.

When we came to the granite door of the shrine, I showed them how it was quite impossible for a team of mortals to open it and then I lighted the torch and took them down the stone steps.

"Now, this is Holy Ground," I remarked before opening the bronze doors. "You do not speak irreverently or idly and you don't speak of them as if they cannot hear."

The two were enthralled.

I opened the door, lighted the torch within, and then let them enter and stand before the dais. I held the torch high.

All was perfect, as I had assumed it would be. The Queen sat with her hands on her thighs as she always did. Enkil took the same posture. Their faces, framed so beautifully in their black plaited hair, were beautifully empty of thought or woe.

Who could have known from the sight of them that life pumped inside them?

"Mother and Father," I said distinctly, "I have brought two visitors who have begged to see you. They are Mael and Avicus. They've come in reverence and respect."

Mael went down on his knees. He did it as naturally as a Christian. He held out his arms. He began to pray in the language of the Druid priesthood. He told the Queen she was most beautiful. He told tales of the old gods of the oak. And then he begged her for her blood.

Avicus winced, and I suppose, so did I.

But I was sure something quickened in Akasha. Then again perhaps not.

All of us waited in uneasy stillness.

Mael rose and walked towards the dais.

"My Queen," I said calmly, "Mael asks with all respect and all humility, if he may drink from the primal fount."

He stepped up, bent over the Queen lovingly and daringly and bent to drink from her throat.

It seemed nothing would happen. She would allow it. Her glassy eyes stared forward as if it were of no import. Her hands remained on her thighs.

But all of sudden, with monstrous speed, the heavy boned Enkil turned sideways, as if he were a wooden machine worked by wheels and cogs, and he reached out with his right hand.

I sprang forward, threw my arms around Mael and drew him backwards just under the descending arm and all the way to the wall. I flung him into the corner.

"Stay there!" I whispered.

I stood up. Enkil remained turned, his eyes empty, as if he could not find the object of his rage, his hand still poised in the air. How many times, when I'd dressed them or cleaned them, had I seen them in the same attitude of sluggish inattention?

Swallowing my terror, I mounted the dais. I spoke to Enkil coaxingly.

"My King, please, it's finished," I said. I put my trembling hands on his arm, and I gently returned him to his proper place. His face was hideously blank. Then I put my hands on his shoulders and I turned him until he was staring forward as before. Gently I attended to his heavy golden necklace. I arranged his fingers carefully. I smoothed his heavy kilt.

As for the Queen she remained undisturbed. It was as if none of it had ever taken place, or so I thought, until I saw the droplets of blood on the shoulder of her linen gown. I should have to change it when I could.

But this was evidence that she had allowed the kiss, and he had forbidden it. Well, this was most interesting, for I knew now that when I had last drunk from her, it was Enkil who had thrown me back on the chapel floor.

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."

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¡ªVenus, Ariadne, Hera¡ªand 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.