Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (The Vampire Chronicles 12)

It was all right, thought Alain Abelard. At any rate he had thought so tonight over his wine. So what if his wife had left him, and his father was dead, and his sons had gone to work in Paris or Berlin or Sao Paulo? He was happy enough, with the Prince's weekly walks through the snow in the dark, with the Prince praising him for all his work, and offering new suggestions and new challenges. Alain would stay here forever. And he had no need, it seemed, to confide his suspicions that the Prince was no ordinary person, that some devastating secret was concealed by his placid and never-changing youthful face.

The Prince loved Alain Abelard. There was talk in the Chateau ballroom nightly as to when the Prince would bring him over. And what about some of the others, would Lestat ever make blood drinkers of the more promising craftsmen who excelled at painting and gilding and upholstering and woodwork and restoring the fine paintings which were always turning up in crates for newly developed bedchambers or stairway walls? Would the Court grow in the Blood the way the Court of Notker the Wise had grown over the centuries with new musicians chosen from the human herd?

The human community of the Prince was certainly growing, the project ever expanding. Take the de Lenfent manor house, for instance. How the Prince wanted it perfect, though the house itself had been burnt to the ground in the Great Fear when the last Count de Lioncourt of the ancien regime had just managed to escape to Louisiana with his life and a small band of devoted servants.

Now this manor house was to become the residence of Alain himself, the Prince had already explained to him. But it must be done according to the Prince's private research and dreams, and the little cul-de-sac leading to its front gates was already paved with the appropriate stones.

One had to marvel at what had been achieved here through imagination, ambition, and faith.

And Rhoshamandes did marvel at it. He marveled at all of it.

And in his heart of hearts he did not really want to destroy it, or harm it in any way.

Yet he had come for just that purpose. And they, the blood drinkers of the Chateau, certainly knew he was here. They had to know. As he eavesdropped on their thoughts and fears, he caught indistinct but certain indications that Marius knew he was here, and Seth knew he was here, and that his old loved ones Nebamun, now known as Gregory, and Sevraine knew he was here, though they could not hear Rhoshamandes any more than the young ones who flashed him the intelligence unconsciously and irrepressibly as they paused at the great open windows of the ballroom to look out over the snowy fields.

Where is he? What does he want?

Ah, that was the question. What did he want?

He could burn that intricate and marvelous little village to the ground now, couldn't he? He could start so many fires so fast that the flames would bring down every structure within an hour, no matter what precautions against fire had been taken. And he could blast the Chateau itself with such bolts of heat that its plaster ceilings and murals would be blackened and ruined before any flood of saving waters poured forth from all the hidden pipes. Indeed, he could melt wires, cables, computer systems, and motion-picture screens, sconces, the chandeliers. He could spend all of his energy blasting every nook and cranny, every out

building and vehicle, until the horses were running wild in the snowy night and mortals were racing to find their automobiles and drive off in terror, while immortals--did what? Fled through the portals to the sky? Or rushed down into the dungeons knowing that the sunlight would eventually drive away the enemy?

And what if he decided to die in this effort, to give it all the destructive power of his body and soul as they, the ancient ones, surrounded him and sought with their bolts to make the blood catch fire in his veins, to make his bones explode?

How much did Rhoshamandes want to eradicate everything and everyone the Prince loved? How much was he willing to suffer to make the Prince regret ever lifting that ax to sever Rhosh's hand and Rhosh's arm? How much did he want to punish the blond blue-eyed anointed one of that fickle and infantile spirit that had sent him rampaging into Maharet's compound to complete the annihilation of herself of which she'd been dreaming? How much did he want to punish Allesandra and Arion and Everard de Landen and Eleni for leaving him? And how much did he want to hurt Benedict, sweet Benedict who'd pulled the rug out from under Rhosh's past, present, and future?

He honestly didn't know. He only knew that the anger was eating away at him as if it were a fire, and that he was just on the verge, the verge of sending that first fatal bolt through the ballroom window before soaring above the castle to throw his powerful blasts of heat at the village roofs and those who slept beneath them.

Just on the verge? And why? Because a miserable mutant with a brain as empty as a helium balloon had somehow eluded all his efforts to gain information that he, Rhosh, had wanted to use against the Prince? It was as if the voices of the Dark World were taunting him, jeering at him, telling him, "You are nothing and you have nothing and all your yesterdays mean nothing and never did."

Was that enough to bring his journey to a close? Was that enough when he might not even touch the Prince himself, or the Core inside him?

And who knew what lay beyond in that undiscovered country? What if it was the Hell of the Greeks and the Romans and the Christians where demons exulted as they burned you with unquenchable fire? Or what if it was nothing, nothing but floating in the thin atmosphere above the earth along with mindless spirits such as Gremt had once been, and Amel had once been, and Memnoch had once been? What if he found himself there, bodiless, neither thirsty nor full, neither warm nor cold, neither sleepy nor wide awake, drifting forever as he peered down on the lights of the earth as his memories slowly dimmed and finally left him completely alone with all his suffering, a thing that might witness without understanding, or haunt out of a need for which he no longer had a name?

Was the air itself made of dead souls?

And what if some night, floating up there beyond the reach of love or hatred, of pity or fear, he heard the music again coming from the ballroom of a mountain chateau below, heard music which he had all his life so loved, music down there, music once more organizing his thoughts and his emotions and calling him back to himself to discover that he was as dead as anything in this strange world could be?

To die or not to die, that is the question; it is nobler to live in torment and rage than not to live at all? And to recall almost nothing of the slings and arrows that drove one over the brink?

Someone was coming towards him. Someone was walking rapidly up an old path through boulders and trees, towards the spot where Rhosh sat, like an angel perched upon a small cliff.

And who would that be? Well, who did it have to be--the Prince himself, of course, the one being that Rhosh could not blast into infinity unless he chose to destroy himself?

He watched and listened. The figure was hurrying. The figure had a time of it in the deep snow, and jumped uneasily from this outcropping to that. No, that couldn't be the Prince. The Prince was too strong and likely knew the woods too well.

Suddenly, as the figure drew closer and came up the rise directly below him, Rhoshamandes knew for certain who it was, and turned away, burying his head in the crook of his right arm.

Oh, that this too, too certain pain would not come.

It was Benedict standing only a few yards below him, his own beloved Benedict, who had left him six months ago in a rage of recriminations and condemnations and sought the shelter of those who'd forgiven Benedict for the slaughter of Maharet but not Rhosh.

Benedict waited, as if for a signal. And when no signal came, he drew closer, climbing up the steep cliff until he stood beside Rhosh. Rhosh could smell the scent of the hearth on his clothes, the scent of his old regular perfume, the scent of his clothes. Rhosh could hear the regular and powerful beating of Benedict's heart.

"Rhosh, please, I beg you, don't do it," said Benedict. The everlasting boy was sitting beside him, and wonder of wonders, he had put his arm around Rhosh.

"Rhosh, they know you burned Garekyn Brovotkin's house in London. They know everything. And if you do what you are thinking of, if you so much as burn any part of this place, they'll take it as an act of war."