Prince Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles 11)

"Could it be her twin, Mekare?"

Still Gremt didn't answer.

"Unspeakable thought," whispered Arjun.

"Well, who else could guide gentle Khayman to such things?" Pandora murmured. She was thinking out loud.

Again Gremt didn't answer.

"And if it is not one of those two," Pandora went on. "Well, then, who is it?" She asked it as if she were a lawyer and Gremt were a hostile witness in a courtroom.

"It's far from clear," Gremt said finally. "But I think I know who it is. What I don't know is what it wants and what it means to do in the long run."

"And what is all this to you, precisely?" Pandora demanded.

Arjun was frightened by her tone, and he blinked as if she were a light blinding him with her coldness.

"What does it matter to you, in particular," she pressed, "what happens to us, creatures like us?"

Gremt pondered. Sooner or later he must reveal all. Sooner or later he must put forth all he knew. But was this the time for it, and how many times must he confess everything? He'd learned what he needed to learn here from Arjun, and he had comforted Arjun as had been his intention. And he had laid eyes on Pandora to whom he owed an immense debt, but he was not sure he could answer her questions fully.

"You are dear to me," he said to her now in a small but steady voice. "And it gives me a certain pleasure, at last, after all these years, these centuries, to tell you that you are, and that you have always been, a shining star on my path, when you had no way of knowing it."

She was intrigued and mollified, but not satisfied. She waited. Her pale face, though she'd rubbed it with ashes and oil to make it less luminous tonight, looked virginal and biblical on account of her robes and the delicacy of her features. But behind that beautiful face she was calculating: How could she defend herself against a being like Gremt? Could she use her immense strength to harm him?

"No, you cannot," he said, giving her the answer. "It's time for me to leave you both." He rose to his feet. "I urge you to go to New York, to join with Armand and Louis there...."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because you must come together to meet the challenge of the Voice, just as you did long ago to meet the challenge of Akasha! You cannot allow this thing to continue. You must get to the root of the mystery, and that is best done if you come together. If you go there, Marius will follow your lead surely. And so will others, others whose names you do not know and have never known, and surely Lestat will come. And it is to Lestat that people look for leadership."

"Oh why, oh why to that insufferable brat," murmured Arjun. "What has he ever done but make trouble?"

Gremt smiled. Pandora laughed softly under her breath as she glanced at Arjun, but then she fell silent again, thinking, gazing up at Gremt.

She weighed all this calmly. Nothing he'd said shocked or surprised her.

"And you, Gremt ... why is it that you want the best for us?" asked Arjun. He rose to his feet. "You have been so kind to me. You have comforted me. Why?"

Gremt hesitated. He felt a knot loosened inside him.

"I love you all," he said in a low confidential voice. He wondered if he looked cold to them as he spoke. He was never entirely sure how his emotions registered on this made-up human face, even when he could feel the blood in his veins rushing to his cheeks, feel the tears rising in his eyes. He never knew for sure if all these myriad systems that he so well controlled with his mind were truly working as he wanted them to work. To smile, to laugh, to yawn, to weep--this was nothing. But to truly register what he felt inside his own true invisible heart--well, that was another matter.

"You know me," he said to Pandora. The tears were indeed rising in his eyes. "Oh, how I have loved you."

She sat in the peacock chair like a queen on a throne gazing up at him, the soft black silk hood making a dark frame around her radiant face.

"It was long, long ago," he said, "on the coast of Southern Italy, and a great man, a great scholar of those times, died on that night in a beautiful monastery that he had built called Vivarium. Do you remember these things? Do you remember Vivarium? His name was Cassiodorus, and all the world remembers him, remembers his letters, his books, and most truly what he was, the scholar that he was in those days when darkness was closing over Italy." His voice was rough now with his emotions. He could hear it breaking. But he went on, staring into her placid unwavering gaze.

"And you saw me then, saw me, a bodiless spirit, rise from the beehives in which I'd been slumbering, extended, and rooted through a thousand tentacles in the bees, in their energy, in their collective and mysterious life. You saw me spring loose at that moment and you saw me embrace with all my power the ludicrous figure of a straw man, a scarecrow, a thing of ridicule in a beggar's coat and pants, with an eyeless head and fingerless hands, and you saw me weep in that form, weep and mourn for the great Cassiodorus!"

Red tears had risen in her eyes. She had written of this not long ago, but would she believe now that he was the one she'd seen? Would she remain silent?

"I know you remember the words you spoke to me," he said. "You were so very brave. You didn't flee from something you couldn't understand. You didn't turn away in disgust from something unnatural even to you. You stood your ground and you spoke to me."

She nodded. She repeated the words she'd said to him that night.

" 'If you would have fleshly life, human life, hard life which can move through time and space, then fight for it. If you would have human philosophy, then struggle and make yourself wise, so that nothing can hurt you ever. Wisdom is strength. Collect yourself, whatever you are, into something with a purpose.' "