E-Book - Anne Rice - Vampire Chronicles 8 - Blood And Gold

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Blood and Gold
1
Anne Rice
1
HIS NAME WAS THORNE. In the ancient language of the runes, it had been longer—Thornevald.
But when he became a blood drinker, his name had been changed to Thorne. And Thorne he
remained now, centuries later, as he lay in his cave in the ice, dreaming.
When he had first come to the frozen land, he had hoped he would sleep eternally. But now and
then the thirst for blood awakened him and using the Cloud Gift, he rose into the air, and went in
search of the Snow Hunters.
He fed off them, careful never to take too much blood from any one so that none died on account
of him. And when he needed furs anc boots he took them as well, and returned to his hiding place.
These Snow Hunters were not his people. They were dark of skin and had slanted eyes, and they
spoke a different tongue, but he had known them in the olden times when he had traveled with his
uncle into the land to the East for trading. He had not liked trading. He had preferred war. But he'd
learnt many things on those adventures.
In his sleep in the North, he dreamed. He could not help it. The Mind Gift let him hear the voices
of other blood drinkers.
Unwillingly he saw through their eyes, and beheld the work as they beheld it. Sometimes he didn't
mind. He liked it. Modern things amused him. He listened to far-away electric songs. With the
Mind Gift he understood such things as steam engines and railroads he even understood computers
and automobiles. He felt he knew the cities he had left behind though it had been centuries since
he'd
forsaken them.
An awareness had come over him that he wasn't going to die. Loneliness in itself could not destroy
him. Neglect was insufficient. And so he slept.
Then a strange thing happened. A catastrophe befell the world of the blood drinkers.
A young singer of sagas had come. His name was Lestat, and in his electric songs, Lestat
broadcast old secrets, secrets which Thorne had never known.
Then a Queen had risen, an evil and ambitious being. She had claimed to have within her the
Sacred Core of all blood drinkers, so that, should she die, all the race would perish with her.
Thorne had been amazed.
He had never heard these myths of his own kind. He did not know that he believed this thing.
But as he slept, as he dreamt, as he watched, this Queen began, with the Fire Gift, to destroy
blood drinkers everywhere throughout the world. Thorne heard their cries as they tried to escape;
he saw their deaths in so far as others saw such things.
As she roamed the earth, this Queen came close to Thorne but she passed over him. He was
secretive and quiet in his cave. Perhaps she didn't sense his presence. But he had sensed hers and
never had he encountered such age or strength except from the blood drinker who had given him
the Blood.
And he found himself thinking of that one, the Maker, the red-haired witch with the bleeding
eyes.
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The catastrophe among his kind grew worse. More were slain; and out of hiding there came blood
drinkers as old as the Queen herself, and Thorne saw these beings.
At last there came the red-haired one who had made him. He saw her as others saw her. And at
first he could not believe that she still lived; it had been so long since he'd left her in the Far South
that he hadn't dared to hope she was still alive. The eyes and ears of other blood drinkers gave him
the infallible proof. And when he looked on her in his dreams, he was overwhelmed with a tender
feeling and a rage.
She thrived, this creature who had given him the Blood, and she despised the Evil Queen and she
wanted to stop her. Theirs was a hatred for each other which went back thousands of years.
At last there was a coming together of these beings—old ones from the First Brood of blood
drinkers, and others whom the blood drinker Lestat loved and whom the Evil Queen did not choose
to destroy.
Dimly, as he lay still in the ice, Thorne heard their strange talk, as round a table they sat, like so
many powerful Knights, except that in this council, the women were equal to the men.
With the Queen they sought to reason, struggling to persuade her to end her reign of violence, to
forsake her evil designs.
He listened, but he could not really understand all that was said among these blood drinkers. He
knew only that the Queen must be stopped.
The Queen loved the blood drinker Lestat. But even he could not turn her from disasters, so
reckless was her vision, so depraved her mind.
Did the Queen truly have the Sacred Core of all blood drinkers within herself? If so, how could
she be destroyed?
Thorne wished the Mind Gift were stronger in him, or that he had used it more often. During his
long centuries of sleep, his strength had grown, but now he felt his distance and that he was weak.
But as he watched, his eyes open, as though that might help him to see, there came into his vision
another red-haired one, the twin sister of the woman who had loved him so long ago. It astonished
him, as only a twin can do.
And Thorne came to understand that the Maker he had loved so much had lost this twin
thousands of years ago.
The Evil Queen was the mistress of this disaster. She despised the red-haired twins. She had
divided them. And the lost twin came now to fulfill an ancient curse she had laid on the Evil
Queen.
As she drew closer and closer to the Queen, the lost twin thought only of destruction. She did not
sit at the council table. She did not know reason or restraint.
"We shall all die," Thorne whispered in his sleep, drowsy in the snow and ice, the eternal arctic
night coldly enclosing him. He did not move to join his immortal companions. But he watched. He
listened. He would do so until the last moment. He could do no less.
Finally, the lost twin reached her destination. She rose against the Queen. The other blood
drinkers around her looked on in horror. As the two female beings struggled, as they fought as two
warriors upon a battlefield, a strange vision suddenly filled Thorne's mind utterly, as though he lay
in the snow and he were looking at the heavens.
What he saw was a great intricate web stretching out in all direc-
tions, and caught within it many pulsing points of light. At the very
center of this web was a single vibrant flame. He knew the flame was
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the Queen; and he knew that the other points of light were all the other blood drinkers. He himself
was one of those tiny points of light. The tale of the Sacred Core was true. He could see it with his
own eyes. And now came the moment for all to surrender to darkness and silence. Now came the
end.
The far-flung complex web grew glistening and bright; the core appeared to explode; and then all
went dim for a long moment, during which he felt a sweet vibration in his limbs as he often felt in
simple sleep, and he thought to himself, Ah, so, now we are dying. And there is no pain.
Yet it was like Ragnarok for his old gods, when the great god, Heimdall, the World Brightener,
would blow his horn summoning the gods of Aesir to their final battle.
"And we end with a war as well," Thorne whispered in his cave. But his thoughts did not end.
It seemed the best thing that he live no more, until he thought of her, his red-haired one, his
Maker. He had wanted so badly to see her again.
Why had she never told him of her lost twin? Why had she never entrusted to him the myths of
which the blood drinker Lestat sang? Surely she had known the secret of the Evil Queen with her
Sacred Core.
He shifted; he stirred in his sleep. The great sprawling web had faded from his vision. But with
uncommon clarity he could see the
red-haired twins, spectacular women.
They stood side by side, these comely creatures, the one in rags, the other in splendor. And
through the eyes of other blood drinkers he came to know that the stranger twin had slain the
Queen, and had taken the Sacred Core within herself.
"Behold, the Queen of the Damned," said his Maker twin as she presented to the others her long-
lost sister. Thorne understood her. Thorne saw the suffering in her face. But the face of the stranger
twin, the Queen of the Damned, was blank.
In the nights that followed the survivors of the catastrophe remained together. They told their
tales to one another. And their stories filled the air like so
many songs from the bards of old, sung in the mead hall. And Lestat, leaving his electric
instruments for music, became once more the chronicler, making a story of the battle that he would
pass effortlessly into the mortal world.
Soon the red-haired sisters had moved away, seeking a hiding place where Thorne's distant eye
could not find them.
Be still, he had told himself. Forget the things that you have seen. There is no reason for you to
rise from the ice, any more than there ever was. Sleep is your friend. Dreams are your unwelcome
guests.
Lie quiet and you will lapse back into peace again. Be like the god Heimdall before the battle
call, so still that you can hear the wool grow on the backs of sheep, and the grass grow far away in
the lands where the snow melts.
But more visions came to him.
The blood drinker Lestat brought about some new and confusing tumult in the mortal world. It
was a marvelous secret from the
Christian past that he bore, which he had entrusted to a mortal girl.
There would never be any peace for this one called Lestat. He was like one of Thorne's people,
like one of the warriors of Thorne's time.
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Thorne watched as once again, his red-haired one appeared, his lovely Maker, her eyes red with
mortal blood as always, and finely glad and full of authority and power, and this time come to bind
the unhappy blood drinker Lestat in chains.
Chains that could bind such a powerful one?
Thorne pondered it. What chains could accomplish this, he
wondered. It seemed that he had to know the answer to this question. And he saw his red-haired
one sitting patiently by while the blood drinker Lestat, bound and helpless, fought and raved but
could not get free.
What were they made of, these seemingly soft shaped links that held such a being? The question
left Thorne no peace. And why did his red-haired Maker love Lestat and allow him to live? Why
was she so quiet as the young one raved? What was it like to be bound in her chains, and close to
her?
Memories came back to Thorne; troubling visions of his Maker when he, a mortal warrior, had
first come upon her in a cave in the North land that had been his home. It had been night and he had
seen her with her distaff and her spindle and her bleeding eyes.
From her long red locks she had taken one hair after another and spun it into thread, working with
silent speed as he approached her.
It had been bitter winter, and the fire behind her seemed magical in its brightness as he had stood
in the snow watching her as she spun the thread as he had seen a hundred mortal women do.
"A witch," he had said aloud.
FROM HIS MIND HE BANISHED THIS memory.
He saw her now as she guarded Lestat who had become strong like her. He saw the strange chains
that bound Lestat who no longer struggled.
At last Lestat had been released.
Gathering up the magical chains, his red-haired Maker had
abandoned him and his companions.
The others were visible but she had slipped out of their vision, and slipping from their vision, she
slipped from the visions of Thorne.
Once again, he vowed to continue his slumber. He opened his mind to sleep. But the nights
passed one by one in his icy cave. The noise of the world was deafening and formless.
And as time passed he could not forget the sight of his long-lost one; he could not forget that she
was as vital and beautiful as she had ever been, and old thoughts came back to him with bitter
sharpness.
Why had they quarreled? Had she really ever turned her back on him? Why had he hated so much
her other companions? Why had he begrudged her the wanderer blood drinkers who, discovering
her and her company, adored her as all talked together of their journeys in the Blood.
And the myths—of the Queen and the Sacred Core—would they have mattered to him? He didn't
know. He had had no hunger for myths. It confused him. And he could not banish from his mind
the picture of Lestat bound in those mysterious chains.
Memory wouldn't leave him alone.
It was the middle of winter when the sun doesn't shine at all over the ice, when he realized that
sleep had left him. And he would have no further peace.
And so he rose from the cave, and began his long walk South through the snow, taking his time as
he listened to the electric voices of the world below, not certain of where he would enter it again.
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The wind blew his long thick red hair; he pulled up his fur-lined collar over his mouth, and he
wiped the ice from his eyebrows. His boots were soon wet, and so he stretched out his arms,
summoning the Cloud Gift without words, and began his ascent so that he might travel low over the
land, listening for others of his kind, hoping to find an old one like himself, someone who might
welcome him.
Weary of the Mind Gift and its random messages, he wanted to hear spoken words.
2
SEVERAL SUNLESS DAYS and nights of midwinter he traveled. But it didn't take him long to
hear the cry of another. It was a blood drinker older than he, and in a city that Thorne had known
centuries before.
In his nocturnal sleep he had never really forgotten this city. It had been a great market town with
a fine cathedral. But on his long journey North so many years ago, he had found it suffering with
the dreaded plague, and he had not believed it would endure.
Indeed, it had seemed to Thorne that all the peoples of the world would die in that awful plague,
so terrible had it been, so merciless.
Once again, sharp memories tormented him.
He saw and smelled the time of the pestilence when children wandered
aimlessly without parents, and bodies had lain in heaps. The smell of rotting flesh had been
everywhere. How could he explain to anyone the sorrow he had felt for humankind that such a
disaster had befallen them?
He didn't want to see the cities and the towns die, though he him self
was not of them. When he fed upon the infected he knew no infection
himself. But he could not cure anyone. He had gone on North, thinking perhaps that all the
wondrous things that humankind had done would be covered in snow or vine or the soft earth itself
in final oblivion.
But all had not died as he had then feared; indeed people of the town itself had survived, and their
descendants lived still in the narrow cobbled medieval streets through which he walked, more
soothed by the cleanliness here than he had ever dreamt he would be.
Yes, it was good to be in this vital and orderly place.
How solid and fine the old timber houses, yet the modern machines ticked and hummed within.
He could feel and see the miracles that he had only glimpsed through the Mind Gift. The televisions
were filled with colorful dreams. And people knew a safety from the snow and ice which his time
had never given anyone.
He wanted to know more of these wonders for himself, and that surprised him. He wanted to see
railroad trains and ships. He wanted to see airplanes and cars. He wanted to see computers and
wireless telephones.
Maybe he could do it. Maybe he could take the time. He had not come to life again with any such
goal, but then who said that he must hurry upon his errand? No one knew of his existence except
perhaps this blood drinker who called to him, this blood drinker who so easily opened his own
mind.
Where was the blood drinker—the one he had heard only hours ago? He gave a long silent call,
not revealing his name, but pledging only that he offered friendship.
Quickly an answer came to him. With the Mind Gift he saw a blond-haired stranger. The creature
sat in the back room of a special tavern, a place where blood drinkers often gathered.
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Come join me here.
The direction was plain and Thorne hastened to go there. Over the last century he had heard the
blood drinker voices speak of such havens. Vampire taverns, blood drinker bars, blood drinker
clubs. They made up the Vampire Connection. Such a thing! It made him smile.
In his mind's eye, he saw the bright disturbing hallucination again of the great web with so many
tiny pulsing lights caught within it. That vision had been of all the blood drinkers themselves
connected to the Sacred Core of the Evil Queen. But this Vampire Connection was an echo of such
a web, and it fascinated him.
Would they call to each other on computers, these modern blood drinkers, forsaking the Mind
Gift altogether? He vowed that nothing must dangerously surprise him.
Yet he felt shivers through all his flesh remembering his vague dreams of the disaster.
He hoped and prayed that his newfound friend would confirm the things he'd seen. He hoped and
prayed that the blood drinker would be truly old, not young and tender and bungling.
He prayed that this blood drinker would have the gift of words. For he wanted to hear words more
than anything. He himself could seldom find the right words. And now, more than anything, he
wanted to listen.
He was almost to the bottom of the steep street, the snow coming down lightly around him, when
he saw the sign of the tavern: The Werewolf.
It made him laugh.
So these blood drinkers play their reckless games, he mused. In his time it had been wholly
different. Who of his own people had not believed that a man could change into a wolf? Who of his
own people would not have done anything to prevent this very evil from coming upon him?
But here it was, a plaything, the concept, with this painted sign swinging on its hinges in the cold
wind, and the barred windows brightly lighted beneath it.
He pulled the handle of the heavy door and at once found himself in a crowded room, warm, and
full of the smell of wine and beer and human blood.
The warmth alone was overwhelming. In truth, he had never felt anything quite like it. The
warmth was everywhere. It was even and wondrous. And it crossed his mind that not a single
mortal here realized how truly marvelous this warmth was.
For in olden times such warmth had been impossible, and bitter winter had been the common
curse of all.
There was no time however for such thinking. He reminded himself,
Do not be surprised.
But the inundating chatter of mortals paralyzed him. The blood around him paralyzed him. For
one moment his thirst was crippling. In this noisy indifferent crowd he felt he would run rampant,
taking hold of this one and that one, only to be discovered, the monster among the throng who
would then be hounded to destruction.
He found a place against the wall and leant against it, his eyes closed.
He remembered those of his clan running up the mountain, searching
for the red-haired witch whom they would never find. Thorne alone had seen her. Thorne had
seen her take the eyes from the dead warrior and put them into her own sockets. Thorne had seen
her return through the light snow to the cave where she lifted her distaff. Thorne had seen her
winding the golden red thread on the spindle.
And the clan had wanted to destroy her, and wielding his ax he had been among them.
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How foolish it all seemed now, because she had wanted Thorne to see her. She had come North
for a warrior such as Thorne. She had chosen Thorne, and she had loved his youth and his strength
and his pure courage.
He opened his eyes.
The mortals in this place took no notice of him, even though his clothes were badly worn. How
long could he go unseen? He had no coins in his pockets to purchase a place at a table or a cup of
wine.
But the voice of the blood drinker came again, coaxing him, reassuring him.
You must ignore the crowd. They know nothing of us, or why we keep this place. They are
pawns. Come to the rear door. Push it with all your strength and it will give for you.
It seemed impossible that he could cross this room, that these
mortals wouldn't know him for what he was.
But he must overcome this fear. He must reach the blood drinker who was summoning him.
Bowing his head, bringing his collar up over his mouth, he pushed through the soft bodies, trying
not to meet the gaze of those who glanced at him. And when he saw the door without a handle, at
once he pushed it as he'd been told to do.
It gave upon a large dimly lighted chamber with thick candles set upon each of its scattered
wooden tables. The warmth was as solid and good as that of the outer room.
And the blood drinker was alone.
He was a tall fair creature whose yellow hair was almost white. He had hard blue eyes, and a
delicate face, covered with a thin layer of blood and ash to make him look more human to the
mortal eye. He wore a bright-red cloak with a hood, thrown back from his head, and his hair was
finely combed and long.
He looked most handsome to Thorne, and well mannered, and rather like a creature of books than
a man of the sword. He had large hands but they were slender and his fingers were fine.
It occurred to Thorne that he had seen this being with the Mind Gift, seated at the council table
with the other blood drinkers before the Evil Queen had been brought down.
Yes, he had seen this very one. This one had tried so hard to reason
with the Queen, though inside him there lurked a dreadful anger and an unreasonable hate.
Yes, Thorne had seen this very one struggling with words, finely chosen words, to save everyone.
The blood drinker gestured for him to take a seat to the right, against the wall.
He accepted this invitation, and found himself on a long leather cushion, the candle flame
dancing wickedly before him, sending its playful light into the other blood drinker's eyes. He could
smell blood now in the other blood drinker. He realized that the blood drinker's face was warm with
it, and so were his long tapering hands.
Yes, I have hunted tonight, but I will hunt with you again. You need this.
"Yes," said Thorne. "It's been so long you can't imagine it. To suffer in the snow and ice was
simple. But they're all around me now, these tender creatures."
"I understand," said the other blood drinker. "I know."
These were the first words Thorne had spoken aloud to anyone in years and years, and he closed
his eyes so that he might treasure this moment. Memory was a curse, yes, he thought, but it was
also the greatest gift. Because if you lost memory you lost everything.
A bit of his old religion came back to him—that for memory, the god Odin had given his eye, and
hung upon the sacred tree for nine days. But it was more complex than that. It was not only
memory which Odin gained, it was the mead which enabled him to sing poetry.
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Once years ago Thorne had drunk that poet's mead, given him by the priests of the sacred grove,
and he had stood in the middle of his father's house singing the poems about her, the red-haired
one, the blood drinker, whom he had seen with his own eyes.
And those around him had laughed and mocked him. But when she began to slay the members of
the clan they mocked him no more. Once they had seen the pale bodies with their eyes plucked out,
they had made him their hero.
He shook himself all over. The snow fell from his hair and from his shoulders. With a careless
hand he wiped the bits of ice from his eyebrows. He saw
the ice melt on his fingers. He rubbed hard at the frost on his face.
Was there no fire in this room? He looked about. The heat came magically through small
windows. But how good it was, how consuming.
He wanted to strip off his clothes suddenly and bathe in this heat.
I have a fire in my house. I'll take you there.
As if from a trance, he woke to look at the blood drinker stranger. He cursed himself that he had
been sitting here clumsy and mute.
The blood drinker spoke aloud: "It's only to be expected. Do you understand the tongue I speak?"
"It's the tongue of the Mind Gift," said Thorne. "Men all over the world speak it." He stared at the
blood drinker again. "My name is Thorne," he said. "Thor was my god." Hastily he reached inside
his worn leather coat and pulled out from the fur the amulet of gold which he wore on a chain.
"Time can't rust such a thing," he said. "It's Thor's hammer."
The blood drinker nodded.
"And your gods?" Thorne asked. "Who were they? I don't speak of belief, you understand, I speak
of what we lost, you and I. Do you catch my meaning?"
"The gods of old Rome, those are the gods I lost," said the stranger. "My name is Marius."
Thorne nodded. It was too marvelous to speak aloud and to hear the voice of another. For the
moment, he forgot the blood he craved and wanted only a flood of words.
"Speak to me, Marius," he said. "Tell me wondrous things. Tell me all that you would have me
know." He tried to stop himself but he couldn't do it.
"Once I stood speaking to the wind, telling the wind all things that were in my mind and in my
heart. Yet when I went North into the ice, I had no language." He broke off, staring into Marius's
eyes. "My soul is too hurt. I have no true thoughts."
"I understand you," said Marius. "Come with me to my house. You're welcome to the bath, and to
the clothes you need. Then we'll hunt and you'll be restored, and then comes talk. I can tell you
stories without end. I can tell you all the stories of my life that I want to share with another."
A long sigh escaped Thorne's lips. He couldn't prevent himself from smiling in gratitude, his eyes
moist and his hands trembling. He searched the stranger's face. He could find no evidence of
dishonesty or cunning. The stranger seemed wise, and simple.
"My friend," Thorne said and then he bent forward and offered the kiss of greeting. Biting deep
into his tongue, he filled his mouth with blood, and opened his lips over those of Marius.
The kiss did not take Marius by surprise. It was his own custom. He received the blood and
obviously savored it.
"Now we can't quarrel over any small thing," said Thorne. He settled
back against the wall greatly confused suddenly. He wasn't alone. He feared that he might give
way to tears. He feared that he hadn't the strength to go back out into the dreadful cold and
accompany this one to his house, yet it was what he needed to do so terribly.
"Come," said Marius, "I'll help you."
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They rose from the table together.
This time the agony of passing through the crowd of mortals was even greater. So many bright
glistening eyes fastened on him, though it was only for a moment.
Then they were in the narrow street again, in the gentle swirling snow, and Marius had his arm
tight around him.
Thorne was gasping for breath, because his heart had been so quickened. He found himself biting
at the snow as it came in gusts into his face. He had to stop for a moment and gesture for his new
friend to have patience.
"So many things I saw with the Mind Gift," he said. "I didn't understand them."
"I can explain, perhaps," said Marius. "I can explain all I know and you can do with it what you
will. Knowledge has not been my salvation of late. I am lonesome."
"I'll stay with you," Thorne said. This sweet camaraderie was breaking his heart.
A long time they walked, Thorne becoming stronger again,
forgetting the warmth of the tavern as if it had been a delusion.
At last they came to a handsome house, with a high peaked roof, and many windows. Marius put
his key into the door, and they left the blowing snow behind, stepping into a broad hallway.
A soft light came from the rooms beyond. The walls and ceiling were of finely oiled wood, the
same as the floor, with all corners neatly fitted.
"A genius of the modern world made this house for me," Marius explained. "I've lived in many
houses, in many styles. This is but one way. Come inside with me."
The great room of the house had a rectangular stone fireplace built into its wooden wall. And there
the fire was stacked waiting to be lighted. Through glass walls of remarkable size, Thorne saw the
lights of the city. He realized that they were on the edge of the hill, and that a valley lay below
them.
"Come," said Marius, "I must introduce you to the other who lives here with me."
This startled Thorne, because he had not detected the presence of anyone else, but he followed
Marius through a doorway out of the great room into another chamber on the left, and there he saw
a strange sight which mystified him.
Many tables filled the room, or perhaps it was one great broad table. But it was covered all over
with a small landscape of hills and valleys, towns and cities. It was covered with little trees, and
even little shrubbery, and here and there was snow, as if one town lay under winter and another lay
under spring or summer.
Countless houses crowded the landscape, many with twinkling lights, and there were sparkling
lakes made of some hard substance to imitate the gleam of water. There were tunnels through the
mountains.
And on curving iron tracks through this little wilderness there ran little railroad trains,
seemingly made out of iron, like those of the great modern world.
Over this tiny world, there presided a blood drinker who didn't bother to look up at Thorne as he
entered. The blood drinker had been a young male when he was made. He was tall, but very slight
of build, with very delicate fingers. His hair was the faded blond more common among Englishmen
than Norsemen.
He sat near the table, where before him was a cleared space devoted to his paintbrushes, and to
several bottles of paint, while with his hands he painted the bark of a small tree, as if in readiness to
put it into the world that stretched out all over the room, surrounding and almost enclosing him.
A rush of pleasure passed through Thorne as he looked over this little world. It struck him
suddenly that he could have spent an hour
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inspecting all of the tiny buildings. It was not the harsh great world
outside, but something precious and protected, and even slightly enchanting.
There was more than one small black train which ran along upon the wandering tracks, and a
small droning noise came from these trains as if from bees in a hive. The trains had lights inside
their tiny windows.
All the myriad details of this small wonderland seemed to be correct.
"I feel I'm the frost giant in this room," Thorne whispered reverently.
It was an offering of friendship to the youngish male who continued
to apply the brown paint to the bark of the tiny tree which he held so delicately between his left
fingers. But the youngish male blood drinker did not respond.
"These tiny cities and towns are full of pretty magic," Thorne said, his voice a little more timid.
The youngish male seemed to have no ears.
"Daniel?" said Marius gently to his friend, "do you want to greet Thorne who is our guest
tonight?"
"Welcome, Thorne," said Daniel without looking up. And then as if neither Thorne nor Marius
were there, Daniel stopped the painting of his tree, and dipping another brush into another bottle, he
made a dampened spot for the tree in the great world before him. He set the tree down hard upon
that spot and the tree stood firm as though rooted.
"This house is full of many rooms like this," said Marius in an even voice, his eyes looking at
Thorne gently. "Look below. One can purchase thousands of little trees, and thousands of little
houses." He pointed to stacks upon stacks of small containers on the floor beneath the table.
"Daniel is very good at putting together the houses. See how intricate they are? This is all that
Daniel does now."
Thorne sensed a judgment in Marius's voice but it was soft, and the youngish blood drinker paid
no attention. He had taken up another small tree, and was examining the thick green portion which
made up its leafy upper limbs. To this he soon applied his little paintbrush.
"Have you ever seen one of our kind under such a spell?" Marius asked.
Thorne shook his head, No, he had not. But he understood how such a thing could happen.
"It occurs sometimes," said Marius. "The blood drinker becomes enthralled. I remember
centuries ago I heard the story of a blood drinker in a Southern land whose sole passion was for
finding beautiful shells along the shore, and this she did all night long until near morning.
She did hunt and she did drink, but it was only to return to the shells, and once she looked at
each, she threw it aside and went on searching. No one could distract her from it.
Daniel is enthralled in the same way. He makes these small cities.
He doesn't want to do anything else. It's as if the small cities have caught him. You might say I look
after him."
Thorne was speechless, out of respect. He couldn't tell whether Marius's words affected the blood
drinker who continued to work upon his world. Thorne felt a moment of confusion.
Then a low genial laugh came from the youngish blood drinker. "Daniel will be this way for a
while," said Marius, "and then his old faculties will come back to him."
"The ideas you have, Marius," Daniel said with another little easy laugh. It was hardly more than
a murmur. Daniel dipped the brush again into the paste that would make his little tree stick to the
green grass, and he pressed the tree down with appropriate force. Then out of a box beside him, he
drew another.
摘要：

BloodandGold1AnneRice1HISNAMEWASTHORNE.Intheancientlanguageoftherunes,ithadbeenlonger—Thornevald.Butwhenhebecameablooddrinker,hisnamehadbeenchangedtoThorne.AndThorneheremainednow,centurieslater,ashelayinhiscaveintheice,dreaming.Whenhehadfirstcometothefrozenland,hehadhopedhewouldsleepeternally.Butnow...

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