His name was Thorne. In the ancient language of the runes,
it had been longer–Thornevald. But when he became a blood
drinker, his name had been changed to Thorne. And Thorne
he remained now, centuries later, as he lay in his cave in
the ice, dreaming.
When he had first come to the frozen land, he had hoped he
would sleep eternally. But now and then the thirst for
blood awakened him, and using the Cloud Gift, he rose into
the air, and went in search of the Snow Hunters.
He fed off them, careful never to take too much blood from
any one so that none died on account of him. And when he
needed furs and boots he took them as well, and returned
to his hiding place.
These Snow Hunters were not his people. They were dark of
skin and had slanted eyes, and they spoke a different
tongue, but he had known them in the olden times when he
had traveled with his uncle into the land to the East for
trading. He had not liked trading. He had preferred war.
But he'd learnt many things on those adventures.
In his sleep in the North, he dreamed. He could not help
it. The Mind Gift let him hear the voices of other blood
drinkers.
Unwillingly he saw through their eyes, and beheld the
world as they beheld it. Sometimes he didn't mind. He
liked it. Modern things amused him. He listened to far-
away electric songs. With the Mind Gift he understood such
things as steam engines and railroads; he even understood
computers and automobiles. He felt he knew the cities he
had left behind though it had been centuries since he'd
forsaken them.
An awareness had come over him that hewasn't going to die.
Loneliness in itself could not destroy him. Neglect was
insufficient. And so he slept.
Then a strange thing happened. A catastrophe befell the
world of the blood drinkers.
A young singer of sagas had come. His name was Lestat, and
in his electric songs, Lestat broadcast old secrets,
secrets which Thorne had never known.
Then a Queen had risen, an evil and ambitious being. She
had claimed to have within her the Sacred Core of all
blood drinkers, so that, should she die, all the race
would perish with her.
Thorne had been amazed.
He had never heard these myths of his own kind. He did not
know that he believed this thing.
But as he slept, as he dreamt, as he watched, this Queen
began, with the Fire Gift, to destroy blood drinkers
everywhere throughout the world. Thorne heard their cries
as they tried to escape; he saw their deaths in so far as
others saw such things.
As she roamed the earth, this Queen came close to Thorne
but she passed over him. He was secretive and quiet in his
cave. Perhaps she didn't sense his presence. But he had
sensed hers and never had he encountered such age or
strength except from the blood drinker who had given him
the Blood.
And he found himself thinking of that one, the Maker, the
red-haired witch with the bleeding eyes.
The catastrophe among his kind grew worse. More were
slain; and out of hiding there came blood drinkers as old
as the Queen herself, and Thorne saw these beings.
At last there came the red-haired one who had made him. He
saw her as others saw her. And at first he could not
believe that she still lived; it had been so long since
he'd left her in the Far South that he hadn't dared to
hope she was still alive. The eyes and ears of other blood
drinkers gave him the infallible proof. And when he looked
on her in his dreams, he was overwhelmed with a tender
feeling and a rage.
She thrived, this creature who had given him the Blood,
and she despised the Evil Queen and she wanted to stop
her. Theirs was a hatred for each other which went back
thousands of years.
At last there was a coming together of these beings–old
ones from the First Brood of blood drinkers, and others
whom the blood drinker Lestat loved and whom the Evil
Queen did not choose to destroy.
Dimly, as he lay still in the ice, Thorne heard their
strange talk, as round a table they sat, like so many
powerful Knights, except that in this council, the women
were equal to the men.
With the Queen they sought to reason, struggling to
persuade her to end her reign of violence, to forsake her
evil designs.
He listened, but he could not really understand all that
was said among these blood drinkers. He knew only that the
Queen must be stopped.
The Queen loved the blood drinker Lestat. But even he
could not turn her from disasters, so reckless was her
vision, so depraved her mind.
Did the Queen truly have the Sacred Core of all blood
drinkers within herself? If so, how could she be destroyed?
Thorne wished the Mind Gift were stronger in him, or that
he had used it more often. During his long centuries of
sleep, his strength had grown, but now he felt his
distance and that he was weak.
But as he watched, his eyes open, as though that might
help him to see, there came into his vision another red-
haired one, the twin sister of the woman who had loved him
so long ago. It astonished him, as only a twin can do.
And Thorne came to understand that the Maker he had loved
so much had lost this twin thousands of years ago.
The Evil Queen was the mistress of this disaster. She
despised the red-haired twins. She had divided them. And
the lost twin came now to fulfill an ancient curse she had
laid on the Evil Queen.
As she drew closer and closer to the Queen, the lost twin
thought only of destruction. She did not sit at the
council table. She did not know reason or restraint.
"We shall all die," Thorne whispered in his sleep, drowsy
in the snow and ice, the eternal arctic night coldly
enclosing him. He did not move to join his immortal
companions. But he watched. He listened. He would do so
until the last moment. He could do no less.
Finally, the lost twin reached her destination. She rose
against the Queen. The other blood drinkers around her
looked on in horror. As the two female beings struggled,
as they fought as two warriors upon a battlefield, a
strange vision suddenly filled Thorne's mind utterly, as
though he lay in the snow and he were looking at the
heavens.
What he saw was a great intricate web stretching out in
all directions, and caught within it many pulsing points
of light. At the very center of this web was a single
vibrant flame. He knew the flame was the Queen; and he
knew that the other points of light were all the other
blood drinkers. He himself was one of those tiny points of
light. The tale of the Sacred Core was true. He could see
it with his own eyes. And now came the moment for all to
surrender to darkness and silence. Now came the end.
The far-flung complex web grew glistening and bright; the
core appeared to explode; and then all went dim for a long
moment, during which he felt a sweet vibration in his
limbs as he often felt in simple sleep, and he thought to
himself, Ah, so, now we are dying. And there is no pain.
Yet it was like Ragnarok for his old gods, when the great
god, Heimdall, the World Brightener, would blow his horn
summoning the gods of Aiser to their final battle.
"And we end with a war as well," Thorne whispered in his
cave. But his thoughts did not end.
It seemed the best thing that he live no more, until he
thought of her, his red-haired one, his Maker. He had
wanted so badly to see her again.
Why had she never told him of her lost twin? Why had she
never entrusted to him the myths of which the blood
drinker Lestat sang? Surely she had known the secret of
the Evil Queen with her Sacred Core.
He shifted; he stirred in his sleep. The great sprawling
web had faded from his vision. But with uncommon clarity
he could see the red-haired twins, spectacular women.
They stood side by side, these comely creatures, the one
in rags, the other in splendor. And through the eyes of
other blood drinkers he came to know that the stranger
twin had slain the Queen, and had taken the Sacred Core
within herself.
"Behold, the Queen of the Damned," said his Maker twin as
she presented to the others her long-lost sister. Thorne
understood her. Thorne saw the suffering in her face. But
the face of the stranger twin, the Queen of the Damned,
was blank.
In the nights that followed the survivors of the
catastrophe remained together. They told their tales to
one another. And their stories filled the air like so many
songs from the bards of old, sung in the mead hall. And
Lestat, leaving his electric instruments for music, became
once more the chronicler, making a story of the battle
that he would pass effortlessly into the mortal world.
Soon the red-haired sisters had moved away, seeking a
hiding place where Thorne's distant eye could not find
them.
Be still, he had told himself. Forget the things that you
have seen. There is no reason for you to rise from the
ice, any more than there ever was. Sleep is your friend.
Dreams are your unwelcome guests.
Lie quiet and you will lapse back into peace again. Be
like the god Heimdall before the battle call, so still
that you can hear the wool grow on the backs of sheep, and
the grass grow far away in the lands where the snow melts.
But more visions came to him.
The blood drinker Lestat brought about some new and
confusing tumult in the mortal world. It was a marvelous
secret from the Chris- tian past that he bore, which he
had entrusted to a mortal girl.
There would never be any peace for this one called Lestat.
He was like one of Thorne's people, like one of the
warriors of Thorne's time.
Thorne watched as once again, his red-haired one appeared,
his lovely Maker, her eyes red with mortal blood as
always, and finely glad and full of authority and power,
and this time come to bind the unhappy blood drinker
Lestat in chains.
Chains that could bind such a powerful one?
Thorne pondered it. What chains could accomplish this, he
wondered. It seemed that he had to know the answer to this
question. And he saw his red-haired one sitting patiently
by while the blood drinker Lestat, bound and helpless,
fought and raved but could not get free.
What were they made of, these seemingly soft shaped links
that held such a being? The question left Thorne no peace.
And why did his red-haired Maker love Lestat and allow him
to live? Why was she so quiet as the young one raved? What
was it like to be bound in her chains, and close to her?
Memories came back to Thorne; troubling visions of his
Maker when he, a mortal warrior, had first come upon her
in a cave in the North land that had been his home. It had
been night and he had seen her with her distaff and her
spindle and her bleeding eyes.
From her long red locks she had taken one hair after
another and spun it into thread, working with silent speed
as he approached her.
It had been bitter winter, and the fire behind her seemed
magical in its brightness as he had stood in the snow
watching her as she spun the thread as he had seen a
hundred mortal women do....