Everard was no expert on any of this. He was more grateful for this clarifying advice, frankly, than he could say. He had to admit Benji Mahmoud had been saying something similar, but he’d never trusted him any more than humans trusted televangelists.

And Everard had never been formally taught a thing about the higher gifts. He was not going to confess that all he knew of them he’d learned from the Vampire Chronicles, and that he’d been practicing his skills, if that’s what they were, based on descriptions written by disreputable vampire authors like Lestat de Lioncourt and Marius de Romanus and so forth and so on. He let these thoughts roll where they might. Curse the Children of Satan and their rules and injunctions. They hadn’t cared anything for vampiric gifts!

Now the great Rhoshamandes, his maker, that was another matter. What tales he’d told of riding the winds, and, oh, the spells he could cast, the visions he could arouse for Everard and others. Rhoshamandes in his burgundy-colored robes, fingers laden with rings, playing chess at his great inlaid-marble chessboard with those kings and queens and knights and bishops and pawns carved especially for him, to whom he’d given various names. Chess was his favorite game, he declared, because it pitted Mind Gift against Mind Gift.

“Yes,” Magnus whispered. “I remember him so very well. And I often sat at that chessboard with him.”

Everard would have blushed had he been human, to have had his thoughts read that easily, those images examined. But he didn’t mind. He was too fascinated with this ghost of Magnus. So many questions came to his mind: “Can you eat, can you drink, can you make love, can you taste?”

“No,” said Magnus, “but I can see very well, and I can feel hot and cold in a pleasurable way, and I have a sense of being here, being alive, occupying this space, being tangible, and having a tempo in time.…”

Ah, this was Magnus all right, this was Magnus talking, who could talk the night away with Rhoshamandes. How Rhoshamandes had loved him and respected him, throwing a veil of protection about him and forbidding all blood drinkers to harm him. Even after he’d stolen the Blood, Rhoshamandes had not hunted him down and sought to kill him.

“He has a great fascination for me,” Rhoshamandes had said. “And Benedict is to blame for allowing it to happen. But let’s see what he will do with the Blood, poor humpbacked and clever Magnus.”