Masks (24 page)

The forks were the least of Mircea’s problems.

“I thought we’d be at the lady’s table,” Jerome said, glancing enviously at the raised area at the front of the banquet hall, where the senator would soon take her seat.

Mircea didn’t say anything.

The itchy, nervous sensation from outside had increased tenfold once they entered the close confines of the hall. Waves of pure power shot by him, over him, and in some cases through him. He put a hand out to return his glass to the tray a passing servant was carrying, and received a jolt hard enough to make him snatch it back.

The servant gave him a strange look, but Mircea didn’t care. It was starting to feel like a lightning storm had been trapped in between the walls. Had been trapped, and was eager to get out.

But not half as much as Mircea was.

Jerome shot him a glance. “You all right?”

“Yes.”

“You look a little pale.”

“I’m fine,” Mircea said, and closed his eyes.

And still saw the crowd, glowing with power, in his mind.

A shining nimbus hovered about the guests, outlining their shapes far better than the dim lighting. It was so faint around some of them that he had trouble seeing it, but bright as a flame around others. Forming glowing ribbons that streamed out behind them whenever they moved, like the tail of one of the kites he’d flown as a boy. Together, the senator’s milling guests wove a lattice of light across the room, a glowing tapestry of power that—

“Are you sure?” Jerome asked, sounding less than certain himself. “You don’t look so good.”

“I’m fine,” Mircea repeated, a little breathlessly.

Because the scene had just changed. In his mind’s eye, a rainbow swirled about a figure who had just entered from some door he hadn’t noticed and didn’t care about. Because the senator’s presence lit up the room like the sun rising through stained glass.

Or perhaps the Murano variety would be more accurate. The enhanced colors allowed him to see that the strokes of power weren’t just monochrome, as he’d first thought. But shaded, striped, and speckled in a hundred different ways, in colors that overlapped and tinted each other.

And formed a picture of family alliances more distinctive than any coat of arms, Mircea realized, as he finally understood what he was seeing.

These had to be the energy patterns she had talked about, the ones all vampires were supposed to have. He didn’t know how he was suddenly able to perceive them when he never had before. But they were beautiful, beautiful . . . almost mesmerizing. . . .

Until he caught sight of his own hand, which he had unconsciously raised as if to touch one of the passing bands.

And saw it as a dark silhouette against all that power, his own strength so negligible as to be almost invisible, even when he moved.

His hand fell back to his side, abruptly.

Of course. He didn’t have a master. He didn’t belong to anyone. And, he realized, every vampire of any strength had known that, immediately, upon first glance.

No wonder he’d been attacked so many times, on the way to Venice. No wonder he’d been hunted for sport, by those who knew there would be no reprisals for his death. No wonder the Watch had been able to identify him as a blackmail target so easily and so quickly.

He advertised his vulnerability just by walking into a room.

“Mircea?” Jerome was sounding genuinely worried now.

Mircea opened his eyes to see a face that matched the voice looking at him nervously. He put a reassuring hand on his friend’s shoulder, then realized it was shaking. “I need some air,” he said hoarsely.

“But—” Jerome glanced at Paulo, who was busy being charming to one of the senator’s ladies a little way off. “But the senator is here. They’re going to start seating any—”

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Mircea said. And then he was pushing through the crowd, half blind from two types of vision fighting with each other, and heedless of the fine guests except as obstacles in his way.

He somehow reached the courtyard, and then kept on going, the burn of power dissipating behind him. It was replaced by cool night breezes, the sound of a fountain in the distance, and the smell of growing things. And velvety darkness that enveloped him like an old friend.

He felt his muscles sag in relief, almost to the point of causing him to fall down. He was in a cleared area with a statue he didn’t bother to look at before closing his eyes. And thereby gaining even more relief from his too-sharp senses, which might be useful at times but could also be utterly overwhelming.

Like his whole world these days.

He had a sudden, almost physical ache at the thought of home. Of snow-covered hills and fir trees. Of crisp winter air and fresh baked bread. Of a language that he didn’t have to struggle to understand. Of soft arms and a sweet scent that enveloped him while he slept beneath a mountain of furs. Of a familiar voice, whispering in his ear—

“Pretty, isn’t it?”

And that was not it.

Mircea’s shoulders slumped and he sighed before looking around. And saw a vampire with short brown hair standing just behind him, gazing at something past his shoulder. It was the statue he’d barely noticed before and had to look up to see now, since it was more than twice his size.

But that wasn’t what had his jaw dropping.

“That’s porphyry,” Mircea whispered. He was almost sure of it. And then he was sure, when the light from the doorway caught the distinctive flecks in the stone.

“Yes.”

“It’s . . . huge.”

“Yes, well. No point in half measures, is there?” the man said jovially.

Mircea just looked at him. And then back at the statue, where the senator’s lovely features had been rendered in perfect detail. And in the most expensive material on earth.

Or no, it wasn’t expensive as such, since it was practically impossible to buy. He had never met anyone who had actually seen a piece before he came to Venice, and it was rare even here. The only mine where it had ever been found had been lost centuries ago, so all that remained was what had been unearthed in ancient times. And due to the extreme hardness of the stone, there had been damned little of that.

Even in wealthy Venice, porphyry was exceedingly rare, with the smallest piece viewed as a sign of vast wealth.

And here he was, staring at half a ton of it.

“It’s stunning,” he said. There simply was no other word for it.

“And telling, if you know the history.”

The man looked a question, but mostly what Mircea knew about was the rarity. “It came from a mine in Egypt,” he said, scouring his memory. “It was used by the ancients as an accent stone, in floors, columns, sculpture. . . .” He trailed off. That was literally all he remembered. But the vampire didn’t seem to mind.

“Quite,” he said cheerfully. “It was prized for its durability. Other stones wear away over time, but even exposed to the harshest of conditions, even over hundreds of years, porphyry looks the same as the day it was sculpted. But I was talking about the political significance.”

Mircea could only shake his head. He wasn’t sure how a type of stone could have political significance.

“It started with the color,” he was told. “It’s the same shade of purple as the stripe on the togas of the senatorial class. In old Rome,” the man added helpfully.

Mircea nodded. And then noticed, for the first time, that the man was wearing an old fashioned toga himself, blindingly white. Except for the thick purple edge around the bottom.

He swallowed.

“So, the Caesars became fond of it,” the man continued, baring teeth as white as his toga in what might have been a smile—on the face of a feral wolf. “You know how they were—well, you don’t, I suppose, but take it from me, those bastards never lost a chance to make a statement. Everything was politics, everything was symbols. Well, of course it was, half the damned people couldn’t read. But it was more ego than anything else. They wore purple, therefore their palaces must be purple, or have purple accents, at least. And the fact that the damned stuff is so hard that the only way of cutting it required destroying some of the best steel—well, that made it all the better.”

“It became a symbol of their power,” Mircea guessed, because some answer seemed required.

The man nodded. “You’re a quick one, aren’t you? But then, I expected that.” He clapped Mircea on the back, a little harder than necessary.

Mircea managed to catch himself before he hit the ground.

“So on to the tosspots in dear Constantinople,” the man continued, “pretending to be Roman emperors despite the fact that half of them never even saw the place. But they had an entire room covered in porphyry, oh yes, they did, where their empresses gave birth. Allowed the royal brats to take the title Porphyrogenos, ‘born to the purple’, didn’t it?”

“I . . . suppose.” There was a strange undercurrent to this conversation Mircea didn’t understand, and didn’t like. But what the man was saying was interesting in light of what had recently happened.

A woman born to the purple, long before it was called that, with the blood of conquering generals and ancient pharaohs in her veins, met a boy who had not even been able to hold a job as a potter. Yes, he was no longer a boy when she met him, and yes, he was far more powerful than she. But surely, that would make it even worse? That she had to take orders from someone she would consider beneath her?

And had to keep on taking them, for centuries?

Perhaps, Mircea thought, staring into that beautiful carved face, the consul had some reason to be concerned.

“Now, of course, the mine is lost,” the man said, “And so is the secret to the steel needed to cut it. Know how they work it these days? When they can get their grubby hands on a piece, that is?”

Mircea shook his head.

“By grinding it down with another piece of itself!” He laughed. “Takes forever; no wonder they mostly loot it. Damned popes almost destroyed the Pantheon to get porphyry for their churches. And the dear Venetians—pirates, every one—pillaged once-great Constantinople, a fellow Christian city, I might add. And for what? Gold and porphyry!”

“They wanted it for a symbol,” Mircea said, still staring at the face on the statue. “Of greatness past.”

“Oh, it’s more than that. It’s the opposite, in fact. It’s a sign of greatness returning. Of empires to be built, of ancient glory to be reclaimed. He who has porphyry has the imperium of the ancients.” The lips quirked in brief humor. “Or so it’s believed.”

Not a symbol so much, then, Mircea thought dizzily, as a promise. “I can’t believe I overlooked this, the last time I was here.”

“You didn’t.” Whiskey dark eyes met his. “It was moved in here two days ago.”

The man walked off, and Mircea turned to see Paulo silhouetted in the doorway as he glared around the garden. And then at Mircea, when he caught sight of him. “I. Am going. To kill you,” Paulo whispered, grabbing his arm.

Only to have his grabbed back. “Who was that?”

“Mircea! They’re
seating
.”

“The man I was just talking to,” Mircea persisted. “Who was he?”

“Oh, for—another senator—”

“Which one?”

Paulo looked at him as if he might be slow. “The one they call Antony.”

Things did not improve at dinner.

Mircea had hoped that his time outside would clear his head. And it had—in a way. He found that, if he kept his eyes on his plate and concentrated very deliberately on his stuffed squid, he could just about ignore the colors flickering at the edge of his vision.

The sounds, on the other hand, were a different story.

“—not possible,”
someone with a bass voice said.
“Not with every master in Venice—”

“And it will be any more possible later?”
A woman asked.
“He grows in power every year—”

“He doesn’t need
any more power,”
another man’s voice chimed in.
“If he never gained . . . still be millennia ahead of us . . .”

The faint whispers Mircea had heard in the atrium were becoming clearer, fading in and out like voices in a strong wind. But there was no wind. And, as far as everyone else was concerned, there were no voices.

Mircea glanced cautiously to the left, and saw Jerome a few seats down, chatting with a sloe-eyed woman in a flowing gown. She looked like an ancient queen—and might be, for all he knew. But while she wore pearls the size of grapes, she only glowed faintly, with a sweet pink haze that was suffusing the air around Jerome. And putting a silly smile on his face.

He did not, Mircea decided, look like someone hearing phantom voices in his head.

Paulo was on his right, pretending he knew how to use a fork. They were silly things, a strange Venetian affectation that Mircea was surprised the senator had bothered with, but perhaps it was expected. But they only had two prongs, and the beans Paulo was trying to eat were small and kept slipping through the middle.

He finally gave up and started spearing them instead.

He didn’t look like he was hearing things, either.

Neither did anyone else, as far as Mircea could tell. Of course, it was a little hard to be sure out here in the wilds, which didn’t boast the best view. Or the best food—the lady with Jerome kept shooting envious glances at the roast pheasant and suckling pig on the head table, while she made do with pigeons in puff pastry.

Theirs was the last table on the left, in the large U taking up most of the space in the great banquet hall. The senator’s table formed the center of the U, in front of a huge sugar sculpture of three rearing cobras, her personal symbol. The most important guests were seated on her right, with the further someone was away from her, the lower their status.

And their group was about as far as they could get and technically still be in the same room.

Mircea, for one, didn’t mind. In fact, he was grateful they’d been seated here, instead of at the main table on the dais. In his mind, the swirl of power at that end of the room was like staring into the sun—impossible to distinguish anything but bright. And when he opened his eyes, it wasn’t much better, although not because of the light.

But because it was like looking at another age.

On the senator’s immediate right was the man Mircea had been talking to outside. He had a proud, patrician face, more rugged than handsome, with a nose that would have looked good on an ancient coin. And had graced a few, unless Mircea was very much mistaken.

Beside him was a woman in a Grecian gown, looking uncomfortable in one of the rigid, high-backed chairs popular in Venice. Mircea assumed the eating couches of past centuries wouldn’t have all fit, even in a room of this size. But she looked like she wanted one, and maybe a lyre.

There were a number of other men and women on that side of the senator in ancient armor, flowing silks, and a few in more normal clothes, mostly German or French attire. On her left were what appeared to be foreign guests, including the man Mircea had seen on the consul’s terrace. The hawk-bridged nose and sharp eyes were the same, although he’d dressed up for the occasion in a green robe heavily embroidered in gold.

“That’s Hassani, the African consul,” Paulo whispered, seeing the direction of Mircea’s gaze. “Young, ambitious, and ruthless, or so they say. Started out the leader of a group of assassins—”

“Assassins?”

“Hm. And rumor has it, he just returned to old habits a few decades ago, when he engineered the early demise of his own consul. I’m surprised to see him here, frankly. Gossip has it that he and the senator are not on the best of terms.”

“They are enemies?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. But the consul—ours, that is—prefers his palace off in the deserts of Egypt to what he calls the stench of Paris. It works out well for Hassani, who they say has the consul’s ear more than any of his own people do. But it leaves the European Senate leaderless much of the time, and when they do want him to rule on something—”

“He takes his good friend Hassani’s advice,” Mircea finished.

Paulo shot him a surprised look. “Did someone already tell you this?”

“No.”

“Then how—”

“I know politics,” Mircea said shortly. It seemed that ambition was something else that survived the Change.

“In any case, no one was happy when Hassani accompanied the consul to convocation. Not that they don’t usually have guests from other senates here, but . . .”

He let it hang, but Mircea could finish that thought, too.

They didn’t usually have guests who acted more like masters.

Paulo prattled on, happily identifying more famous guests for Mircea. Including a Carthaginian general, an ancient poetess—he’d been right about the lyre, Mircea thought vaguely—and a man with a red beard and a scowl on Hassani’s side of the table.

“He’s always like that,” Paulo dismissed it. “He keeps telling everyone he discovered some vast new land far to the west a few hundred years ago, but nobody believes him. But then on his left, you’ll see—”

He continued gossiping enthusiastically, but Mircea didn’t hear.

Because he was too busy hearing something else.

“—like an idiot! How do you fight a god?”
a shrill voice demanded.

“He’s not a god,”
the bass voice intoned.

“Close enough—”

“And how do you know that?”
A new voice cut in, stronger than the others. Instead of a murmur, it was a bellow, and loud enough that it caused Mircea to drop his fork.

Luckily, Jerome had been doing that in between almost every bite, so nobody noticed.

“How do I
know
?”
The shrill voice reached new octaves.
“Did you see what he—”

The voice chopped off abruptly, but the new, louder one picked up the thread.
“Did I see him butcher twenty of my vampires, do you mean? Did I see when he took what should have been a day of celebration and drenched it in blood—again? Did I see him make a mockery of his position, and a farce of ours? Is that what you meant?”

“I—didn’t think—”

“Clearly. But I did. And my question stands. How do we know?”

“We grieve for your loss, Sergei,”
the bass voice said.
“And for yours, Gregor. But the lesson, harsh as it was, was unmistakable. His power remains . . . overwhelming.”

“In the day!”
A new voice said, and by the accent, Mircea assumed this was Gregor.
“When we are weakest and his strange power is at its height. No one has seen him act in the night in a millennia! What if there is a reason for that?”

“The reason is that no one tests him,”
Sergei said.

“You think his power fades?”
The bass voice asked.

“Why not?”

“Why not?”
the bass voice seemed taken aback.
“You know time does not ravage us as it does the humans. They grow weaker as the years pass; we grow stronger. And he—”

“Has passed the point of our knowledge,”
Sergei said.
“He is old—older than any vampire in memory. We don’t know what rules still apply to him. We cannot know how time treats one of that age when no one knows of another who has reached it!”

“Are we really eternal?”
Gregor added.
“Or are our lives merely much extended? Perhaps we, too, can grow old and feeble in time.”

“Wind and water can wear away even a mountain,”
the bass voice agreed.
“Perhaps what you say is true.
But even if so, there is no way to know.”

“There is one way.”

There was a hush for a moment, but Mircea didn’t fool himself into thinking that the conversation was over. Or that his strange powers had suddenly disappeared. Because the tension in the air was palpable, to the point that he found himself holding a breath he didn’t need.

“Be careful, Gregor.”

Mircea glanced at the dais, where the senator was chatting casually with the woman on her right. Her body was relaxed, her face unconcerned. It was impossible to tell that she’d been listening to the same conversation he had.

But that voice was unmistakable, as was the authority in it.

But apparently, Gregor didn’t agree.

“We’ve been careful! We’ve been careful for centuries! We scraped and crawled and kissed his shriveled ass—”

“Gregor.”

“No! No, I will have my say! I have kept quiet too long. He took my people, my
children
—”
The voice broke.

“
You are in mourning, old friend. This is not the time to act.”

“According to you, it is never time!” Gregor said, as a gray haired man in German dress stood up so quickly, he knocked over his heavy chair. He’d also spoken aloud, something Mircea only realized because the whole room suddenly went deathly silent.

Mircea glanced around to see Jerome blinking, his lady friend looking faint and Paulo frozen with a speared sardine quivering in front of his lips. They looked shocked by the outburst, but also bewildered. As if this had come out of nowhere.

As if they hadn’t been somehow overhearing what was supposed to be a private conversation within the senator’s family.

Mircea didn’t know how he was, either, but it didn’t matter now.

Because if it had been private, it was no longer.

“Sit down, Gregor.” The senator’s voice was soft, but it carried. And while Mircea might not know much about vampire etiquette, he knew a direct order from a superior to a subject when he heard it.

So did Gregor, but he didn’t stop, although tears were running down his face, and into his beard. “I have waited,” he said, his voice trembling. “We have all waited, to see what you would do. But it has been
five days
! And our people remain unavenged!”

“And what would you have me do?” she demanded. “I have remonstrated—”

“Remonstrated! When has that ever done any good?”

“And you think this will?” She didn’t so much as glance at Hassani, but she didn’t have to. Mircea imagined the entire conversation would be relayed to the consul by his friend later that night, assuming he wasn’t hearing it already.

“No.” Gregor was shaking his head wildly. “The time for talk is over. It ended when he butchered some of the best of us in cold blood. If we are to be rid of him, rid of this plague, this
demon—
”

“Don’t be a fool, Gregor!”
That was Antony’s voice, raised in a final, silent plea.

But too late.

“—then we must act, and act now!”

The senator slowly stood up, her face as still as a carved statue. “Gregor. What have you done?”

“What you wouldn’t,” he cried, and the room fell away.