I drew a little closer. I felt I had been rude to Those Who Must Be Kept. I had been rude to him. He had revealed to me this secret and I had shown horror and recoiling. I had disappointed myself.
I moved even closer. I wanted to make up for what I'd done. He turned towards them again and he put his arm around me. The incense was intoxicating. Their dark eyes were full of the eerie movement of the flames of the lamps.
No ridge of vein anywhere in the white skin, no fold or crease. Not even the penstroke lines in the lips which even Marius still had. They did not move with the rise and fall of breath.
And listening in the stillness I heard no thought from them, no heartbeat, no movement of blood.
"But it's there, isn't it?" I whispered.
"Yes, it's there. "
"And do you -- ?" Bring the victims to them, I wanted to ask.
"They no longer drink. "
Even that was ghastly! They had not even that pleasure. And yet to imagine it -- how it would have been -- their firing with movement long enough to take the victim and lapsing back into stillness, ah! No, I should have been relieved. But I was not.
"Long, long ago, they still drank, but only once in a year. I would leave the victims in the sanctuary for them -- evildoers who were weak and close to death. I would come back and find that they had been taken, and Those Who Must Be Kept would be as they were before. Only the color of the flesh was a little different. Not a drop of blood had been spilt.
"It was at the full moon always that this was done, and usually in the spring. Other victims left were never taken. And then even this yearly feast stopped. I continued to bring victims now and then. And once after a decade had passed, they took another. Again, it was the time of the full moon. It was spring. And then no more for at least half a century. I lost count. I thought perhaps they had to see the moon, that they had to know the change of the seasons. But as it turned out, this did rot matter.
"They have drunk nothing since the time before I took them into Italy. That was three hundred years ago. Even in the warmth of Egypt they do not drink. "
"But even when it happened, you never saw it with your own eyes?"
"No," he said.
"You've never seen them move?"
"Not since . . . the beginning. "
I was trembling again. As I looked at them, I fancied I saw them breathing, fancied I saw their lips change. I knew it was illusion. But it was driving me wild. I had to get out of here. I would start crying again.
"Sometimes when I come to them," Marius said, "I find things changed. "
"How? What?"
"Little things," he said. He looked at them thoughtfully. He reached out and touched the woman's necklace. "She likes this one. It is the proper kind apparently. There was another which I use
d to find broken on the floor. "
"Then they can move. "
"I thought at first the necklace had fallen. But after repairing it three times I realized that was foolish. She was tearing it off her neck, or making it fall with her mind. "
I made some little horrified whisper. And then I felt absolutely mortified that I had done this in her presence. I wanted to go out at once. Her face was like a mirror for all my imaginings. Her lips curved in a smile but did not curve.
"It has happened with other ornaments, ornaments bearing the names of gods whom they do not like, I think. A vase I brought from a church was broken once, blown to tiny fragments as if by their glance. And then there have been more startling changes as well. "
"Tell me. "
"I have come into the sanctuary and found one or the other of them standing. "
This was too terrifying. I wanted to tug his hand and pull him out of here.
"I found him once several paces from the chair. And the woman, another time, at the door. "
"Trying to get out?" I whispered.