"Whatever the case, there are not many of them. If they were vampires, then surely they are only a few of those who have been destroyed. So the others perhaps do not have the strength to come back. Or they do not choose to do so. Who can know? Pandora was convinced she had died when the Mother and the Father had been put in the sun. "
"Dear God, they are born again as mortals and they want to be vampires again? " Marius smiled.
"You're young, Lestat, and how you contradict yourself. What do you really think it would be like to be mortal again? Think on this when you set eyes on your mortal father. " Silently I conceded the point. But what I had made of mortality in my imagination I didn't really want to lose. I wanted to go on grieving for my lost mortality. And I knew that my love of mortals was all bound up with my not being afraid of them. Marius looked away, distracted once more. The same perfect attitude of listening. And then his face became attentive to me again.
"Lestat, we should have no more than two or three nights, " he said sadly.
"Marius! " I whispered. I bit down on the words that wanted to spill out. My only consolation was the expression on his face, and it seemed now he had never looked even faintly inhuman.
"You don't know how I want you to stay here, " he said. "But life is out there, not here. When we meet again I'll tell you more things but you have all you need for now. You have to go to Louisiana and see your father to the finish of his life and learn from that what you can. I've seen legions of mortals grow old and die. You've seen none. But believe me, my young friend, I want you desperately to remain with me. You don't know how much. I promise you that I will find you when the time comes. "
"But why can't I return to you? Why must you leave here? "
"It's time, " he said. "I've ruled too long over these people as it is. I arouse suspicions, and besides, Europeans are coming into these waters. Before I came here I was hidden in the buried city of Pompeii below Vesuvius, and mortals, meddling and digging up those ruins, drove me out. Now it's happening again. I must seek some other refuge, something more remote, and more likely to remain so. And frankly I would never have brought you here if I planned to remain. " "Why not? "
"You know why not. I can't have you or anyone else know the location of Those Who Must Be Kept. And that brings us now to something very important: the promises I must have from you. " "Anything, " I said. "But what could you possibly want that I could give? "
"Simply this. You must never tell others the things that I have told you. Never tell of Those Who Must Be Kept. Never tell the legends of the old gods. Never tell others that you have seen me. " I nodded gravely. I had expected this, but I knew without even thinking that this might prove very hard indeed.
"If you tell even one part, " he said, "another will follow, and with every telling of the secret of Those Who Must Be Kept you increase the danger of their discovery. "
"Yes, " I said. "But the legends, our origins . . . What about those children that I make? Can't I tell them- "
"No. As I told you, tell part and you will end up telling all. Besides, if these fledglings are children of the Christian god, if they are poisoned as Nicolas was with the Christian notion of Original Sin and guilt, they will only be maddened and disappointed by these old tales. It will all be a horror to them that they cannot accept. Accidents, pagan gods they don't believe in, customs they cannot understand.
One has to be ready for this knowledge, meager as it may be. Rather listen hard to their questions and tell them what you must to make them contented. And if you find you cannot lie to them, don't tell them anything at all. Try to make them strong as godless men today are strong. But mark my words, the old legends never. Those are mine and mine alone to tell. "
"What will you do to me if I tell them? " I asked. This startled him. He lost his composure for almost a full second, and then he laughed.
"You are the damnedest creature, Lestat, " he murmured. "The point is I can do anything I like to you if you tell. Surely you know that. I could crush you underfoot the way Akasha crushed the Elder. I could set you ablaze with the power of my mind. But I don't want to utter such threats. I want you to come back to me. But I will not have these secrets known. I will not have a band of immortals descend upon me again as they did in Venice. I will not be known to our kind. You must never-deliberately or accidentally-send anyone searching for Those Who Must Be Kept or for Marius. You will never utter my name to others. "
"I understand, " I said.
"Do you? " he asked. "Or must I threaten you after all? Must I warn you that my vengeance can be terrible? That my punishment would include those to whom you've told the secrets as well as you? Lestat, I have destroyed others of our kind who came in search of me. I have destroyed them simply because they knew the old legends and they knew the name of Marius, and they would never give up the quest. "
"I can't bear this., " I murmured. "I won't tell anyone, ever, I swear. But I'm afraid of what others can read in my thoughts, naturally. I fear that they might take the images out of my head. Armand could do it. What if- "
"You can conceal the images. You know how. You can throw up other images to confuse them. You can lock your mind. It's a skill you already know. But let's be done with threats and admonitions. I feel love for you. " I didn't respond for a moment. My mind was leaping ahead to all manner of forbidden possibilities. Finally I put it in words:
"Marius, don't you ever have the desire to tell all of it to all of them!
I mean, to make it known to the whole world of our kind., and to draw them together? "
"Good God, no, Lestat. Why would I do that? " He seemed genuinely puzzled.
"So that we might possess our legends, might at least ponder the riddles of our history, as men do. So that we might swap our stories and share our power- "And combine to use it as the Children of Darkness have done, against men? "
"No . . . Not like that. "
"Lestat, in eternity, covens are actually rare. Most vampires are distrustful and solitary beings and they do not love others. They have no more than one or two well-chosen companions from time to time, and they guard their hunting grounds and their privacy as I do mine. They wouldn't want to come together, and if they did overcome the viciousness and suspicions that divide them, their convocation would end in terrible battles and struggles for supremacy like those revealed to me by Akasha, which happened thousands of years ago. We are evil things finally. We are killers. Better that those who unite on this earth be mortal and that they unite for the good. " I accepted this, ashamed of how it excited me, ashamed of all my weaknesses and all my impulsiveness. Yet another realm of possibilities was already obsessing me.
"And what about to mortals, Marius? Have you never wanted to reveal yourself to them, and tell them the whole story? " Again, he seemed positively baffled by the notion.
"Have you never wanted the world to know about us, for better or for worse? Has it never seemed preferable to living in secret? " He lowered his eyes for a moment and rested his chin against his closed hand. For the first time I perceived a communication of images coming from him, and I felt that he allowed me to see them because he was uncertain of his answer. He was remembering with a recall so powerful that it made my powers seem fragile. And what he remembered were the earliest times, when Rome had still ruled the world, and he was still within the range of a normal human lifetime.
"You remember wanting to tell them all," I said. "To make it known, the monstrous secret. "