And somewhere far off to my right in a flash I saw the specters dancing, Magnus with the ghostly bride of Teskhamen, none other than the willowy and beguiling Hesketh. What does it feel like to a ghost to dance? And would they someday be as solid as Gremt was, imprisoned in their bodies they had constructed for themselves, and would Kapetria build them splendid Replimoid-style bodies for their ancient souls?

22

Rhoshamandes

WHAT A COLLECTION they were, the ancient ones whose minds he could so little penetrate and his own fledglings turned against him whose minds had always been locked from the keenest love he’d known for them or the worst suffering he’d ever endured.

“And when we—each of us—were taken prisoner by the Children of Satan, you turned your back on us!” cried the bitter and ungrateful Everard de Landen, such a brittle little dandy in his off-the-rack designer jacket and friable Italian shoes.

“And what did you do for the others, Everard, when you obtained your freedom!” Benedict shot back, poor loyal Benedict standing beside him. “When you got free of the Children of Satan, you never came back to help the others get free. You hid out in Italy, that’s what you did.”

“And when they tortured us and made us believe the old Satanic creed,” said Eleni, weeping, weeping blood tears, “you did nothing to help us. You who were so strong. Oh, we never dreamed how strong you were, how old you were, that you’d existed long before the land into which we’d been born even had a name!”

“Why didn’t you help us?” asked Allesandra, the one who had supposedly forgiven him. Did she really want her Rhosh to confess it all again?

“I wanted peace,” Rhosh said. He shrugged. He stood against the wall beside the empty blackened fireplace unable to move, the collective power of Gregory and Seth and Sevraine holding him there. And when would these telepathic beams turn to blasts of heat? How long does it take for someone as old as me to burn up, he wondered. He had not sought to use that cruel power against Maharet. He had used a simple mortal weapon only to strike at the head, at the brain.

Oh, that he had never gone that night to her compound, never believed the Voice, never been the dupe of the Voice.

And here he was—damned if he did and damned if he didn’t—cursed that he’d not been warrior enough to fight the Children of Satan who’d captured and tormented his fledglings, and cursed because he had struck at the great Maharet.

Benedict continued to plead. “Everywhere he goes, they curse at him, spit at him! Everywhere he goes. It’s the mark of Cain!”