THE BLOOD OF WINTER: ALL OUR YESTERDAYS
by JoAnne Soper-Cook, 1994
jsoperco@morgan.ucs.mun.ca
sequal to The Blood of Winter

     High in a tower room at the very top of La Belle Estat,
three figures slept through daylight and into dusk.  The snow of
a French winter clasped the mountain in its chilly embrace as the
crimson sun was swallowed up by night, and the haunting songs of
winter birds were chased by the advancing wall of darkness.
     One of the three figures stirred, rising through layers of
preternatural sleep to clutch at consciousness,  the awareness of
existence flooding through her limbs like her blood.  She turned,
raised slender arms above her head and stretched luxuriously,
then sat up; the motion freed her masses of copper hair to swirl
around her creamy shoulders.  
     It was dark, and Rhiannon Llewellyn felt the pulse of hunger
begin to beat along the underside of her skin; a desperate hunger
that rose in her limbs like smoke. She would soon have to feed,
and then the night would be hers to savor as she wished.
     But it was cold, and the hunger could wait a moment
longer...she snuggled down into the bed beside the other two
occupants, a gorgeous blond young man and his friend, a beautiful
dark-haired vampire whose eyes were as green as new leaves. 
Hmmm...a smile tugged at the corners of Rhiannon's mouth as she
watched the two of them, still sleeping. Somehow during the short
winter's day the two had contrived to move over into each other's
arms, and now lay entwined like trees, each in the embrace of the
other.  She studied them, silently appreciating their unique and
otherworldly beauty: Lestat, the blond, whose skin was as smooth
and silkily poreless as fine alabaster; and Louis, the dark-
haired satyr. Louis was dreaming, as evidenced by the slight
cleft between his finely-drawn brows and the small twitch that
now and again worried the corners of his wide, sensuous mouth. 
He moaned softly and Lestat's arms tightened unconsciously around
him,  Louis's head coming to rest against Lestat's hard shoulder. 
As Rhiannon watched, Lestat's sapphire eyes slid open and his
hand came up to cup the back of Louis's head as his lips pressed
a gentle kiss to Louis's forehead, a benediction.  "Awaken,
beautiful one," Lestat whispered into Louis's dark hair. "The
daylight is gone."
     Louis de Pointe de Lac writhed in a nightmare, betrayed to
consciousness only by the small cleft between his brows, the
twitching of his mouth.  He whimpered gently in his sleep, but
behind his closed lids, a scene from hell was being played out: 
an older man, who looked shockingly like Lestat, except that he
had a beard, roamed around the chateau compound in demented
grief, calling, calling.... a woman in a long white nightgown
plunged from the topmost tower of the castle, her hair streaming
in the winter wind, the flames from a burning cross making eerie
patterns on her oddly-serene face....animals screamed in terror
as the barn burned, the entire mountaintop engulfed in flames. 
The bearded man, dressed in old-fashioned, 17th-century clothes,
moaned over and over, tearing his hair, crouching over the
shattered body of the woman whose split head leaked blood and
brain onto the flagstones....
     Louis could hear him calling, it was so real, so
real....'Rhiannon!'  
     "Rhiannon!" Louis bolted up, yanked out of sleep like a
swimmer out of water, gasping, blinking in the dying rays of
sunset.
     "I'm here, what is it?" Rhiannon touched Louis's shoulder
gently, turned him to face her.  "You were dreaming."  But
because she was mind-blind to him, she knew no more than that. 
Louis's dreams were closed to her.
     Lestat's smooth brow furrowed in concern.  "What is it,
cherie? You seem very afraid."  He reached out and with the back
of his hand, smoothed Louis's cheek.  "What is it?"
     Louis stared at Lestat, his friend's face being for a moment
transfigured into that of the bearded man in Louis's dream...and
the woman in the nightgown, her long hair streaming in the wind
as she fell.... 
     Louis shuddered reflexively, forced himself to look away
from Lestat's puzzled face, and climbed out of bed abruptly.  He
chose one of Lestat's robes out of the closet and pulled it on,
his trembling hands knotting the belt somewhat tighter than was
necessary.  "I'm going to take a shower. I'll---" He left the
thought unspoken and quickly darted from the room.
     "What do you make of that?"  The crease between Lestat's
brows deepened as he watched Louis go.  "I can read nothing from
him."
     "Nor I," Rhiannon reminded him.  She absently ran her palm
down Lestat's hard shoulder.  "Why do you suppose he called out
my name?"
     Lestat shook his head slowly, his gaze faraway.  "I don't
know, cherie. I really do not know."  He took a deep breath, the
action flaring his elegant nostrils slightly.  "We should get
up."  He pulled back the covers and sat up, his back to Rhiannon. 
"Louis is...." His head turned slightly towards her, so that she
could see his profile highlighted in the last remaining rays of
sunset.  "...different from you and I, cher....he feels things
very deeply."  Lestat took a robe and went out.
     Rhiannon rolled onto her stomach and pondered things
silently for a moment or two, lolling in the luxurious expanse of
the big bed, her skin savouring the warmth left by the other two
vampires. Her enhanced sense of hearing told her that Lestat had
joined Louis in the shower just down a level from the tower room,
and the two of them were "playing" as Lestat had often called it,
smirking as he'd said it.  She desperately wished she could
"read" Louis or Lestat but since the two of them had 'made' her,
that wasn't possible.  Louis had been dreaming, and it had
obviously frightened him....
     What was it her Gift had shown her the first time she'd been
here, in the chateau?  Her mind wandered back, picking over
memories, absently choosing and discarding, until one stood out
in her mind, and it was upon this that she fastened.  She
distinctly recalled having received resonances of some ancient
tragedy that had taken place here--yes! The vision of the burning
chateau compound swam into her consciousness, and she could see
it all again, just as sharply as she had the first time:  the
smell of burning, the terrified cries of the animals as they
tried to escape, the image of an older, bearded Lestat, or
someone who looked very much like him, stumbling about the
compound in demented grief---
     --and the woman, plunging to her death from the top of the
tower room--this room!  God, what did it all mean?  Rhiannon's
head swarmed with images, and she pressed the heels of her hands
against her closed eyes, as if that would shut it out.
     "Louis!" Lestat's tenor voice rang out, yanking Rhiannon
back to reality.  Again, "Louis!" and Lestat was laughing. 
Rhiannon felt the tension leave her, and she sagged with relief. 
Perhaps it was nothing.  
     An hour later, freshly showered and changed, she closed the
chateau's heavy old door behind her and went out into the night
with Louis and Lestat.  
     Rhiannon left the two men as soon as the three of them
reached the village, to hunt for herself.  Soon after her making
she discovered that she preferred it this way, the solitary joy
of stalking some unsuspecting mortal, throbbing with gorgeous,
unrestrained life; the ultimate ecstatic moment when her teeth
slid into soft, unresisting flesh, and her victim's warm
existence spilled into her waiting mouth.  It was better than
sex, the appeasement of that all-consuming hunger.
     She approached the outside of a large tavern, used by the
villagers as a sort of dance hall, and tonight, despite the clear
chill of the evening, it was filled to capacity with laughing,
chattering teenagers.  Rhiannon glided near to one of the windows
and peered inside, saw groups of young people dancing to some
music that had a monotonous beat, smelled the unmistakeable aroma
of alcohol, overlaid with the sweeter scent of hashish and
marijuana.  Near the entrance to the building, several young
women, all in their mid-to-late teens, stood around in tight
jeans and tops, smoking cigarettes with the manufactured hauteur
of their supposed rebellion.  One of them, a giggly little
brunette, was chattering endlessly in her dialectic French,
tossing back her mane of hair, the front of which had been fixed
to an impossible height by some unknown hair laquer.  Rhiannon
drew close, watching the girl from the shadows, noting with
satisfaction the plump swell of her girlish breasts, pressing
against the tight top; the juicy curve of her rounded buttocks, 
the sweet skin of her face, so like the smooth skin of a peach. 
Yes, this would be the one.  Now, to lure her away from the rest
of that gaggle....
     Rhiannon stepped into the circle of light thrown by the
overhead bulb, allowing the darkness surrounding her to melt
away, revealing her preternatural beauty.  She smiled, a
benificent gesture, and drew near to the girls.  They stopped
talking, a single entity, and drew closer to one another.
     "Excuse me," Rhiannon said in French, "but I'm looking for
my sister, Angelique.  I wonder if one of you have seen her?" 
She slid closer to the little brunette as she spoke and turning,
gifted the girl with a dazzling smile.
     "What the fuck do I look like?  A babysitter?" The brunette
chewed aggressively on her gum, then blew a thoughtful stream of
smoke into Rhiannon's face.  
     You little bitch, Rhiannon thought, but forced herself to
remain pleasant to the girl.  She was such a juicy thing now,
wasn't she?  Rhiannon permitted herself a mental giggle--she was
beginning to sound like Lestat.  "So you haven't seen her?" 
Rhiannon smiled down into the girl's eyes, allowing the charm to
do its work.  "Perhaps one of your friends might have spoken with
her earlier, at the dance?"  Rhiannon surveyed the group of
girls, still smiling.  "I wonder if one of you could go inside
and see if she's there?  She looks like me, with long red hair,
but younger."  
     The little brunette dropped her cigarette and crushed it out
under her heel.  She flipped her mane of hair back and gazed for
a long moment at Rhiannon.  'That's right, dearie, take a good
long look, because in a moment I'm going down on you like the
wrath of God....'
     "Louise, you go.  Ask Gaston if he's seen her. She would
have paid, like the rest of us."  The brunette turned back to
Rhiannon.  "I don't know you---are you a tourist?"
     "Oh, my goodness, no!" Rhiannon allowed her silvery peal of
laughter to ring out into the night.  "I'm doing a motion
picture...."  She began talking, leading the entranced girl
slowly away from the protective circle of light over the door and
into the velvety darkness of the forest. 
     The girl had followed Rhiannon for some distance, and was
now clearly cold, her breath pluming out into the freezing air. 
She had wrapped her hands into her armpits to warm them, and now
walked beside Rhiannon with no idea of why she did so.
     "Oh, my dear, you're cold!"  Rhiannon slipped out of her
heavy jacket, not really needing it.  She wrapped it around the
girl's shoulders, noting with satisfaction the girl's erect
nipples poking through the fabric of her blouse.  A juicy little
thing indeed... Rhiannon could feel the hunger rising to an
unendurable level, throbbing with the intensity of lust, and
tossing off the coat she had wrapped so lovingly around the
girl's shoulders, caught the little brunette in a crushing
embrace, lifting her off the ground.  Her nostrils filled with
the girl's mingled scents:  the sour smell of sweat, the tangy
artificiality of hairspray, the deeper smell of the girl's blood. 
Rhiannon's fang teeth broke the tender skin just under the girl's
ear, and her mouth fastened eagerly, sucking life. 
     The teenager thrashed futilely in Rhiannon's grasp for a
second or two, but Rhiannon had no trouble holding the hot,
squirming body to her while her busy mouth drew deeply on the
exposed vein.  Rhiannon's mind was flooded with the girl's dying
memories, some standing out more clearly than others:  an
afternoon tryst in a hidden mountain glade with some village boy
who spoke soothing words as he entered her body for the first
time....  Rhiannon saw the details of this memory through a haze
of lust, watched dreamily the girl's delectable body arching up
against the boy in pleasure, her small, rounded hips grinding
against him, her mouth opening in that silent, joyous scream.  Oh
yes, a juicy thing indeed, that long brown hair streaming back
against the mossy ground, those pert breasts crushed against the
boy....Rhiannon saw other secret meetings in that glade, and
details of school, and dances, standing there in darkness sucking
up the life that leached out of the dying girl's throat.  She
drew deeply, the final drink before she must disengage or be
pulled down into death, and in that final drink, Rhiannon's mind
was filled with a roaring, blinding terror; a terror fraught with
hellish images that came pouring into her mind.
     "RHIANNON!!!"  The bearded man, his name...? His name was
Gaston de Lioncourt, he was screaming, crying, stumbled about the
chateau compound while fleeing servants, burning animals,
shrieking children streamed past him.  A great wooden cross
stood, engulfed in flames, at the center of the compound, and
other fires licked their way up great medieval battlements.  A
woman in a nightgown stood swaying on the topmost point, her arms
outspread as if to catch the evening's breezes, her long red hair
streaming in the wind as she toppled forward and plunged like a
stone, her skull split open against the ancient flagstones....
     "Rhiannon!" Rhiannon straightened up abruptly and thrust the
girl's body from her, tossed it to lie in a crumpled heap against
the base of a tree.  She staggered back a pace, wiping her mouth
clumsily on her sleeve, bumping into a hard male body.  She
recoiled and, poised to run, was caught in an embrace, pressed
against a chest that felt familiar....
     "Shhh, cherie, it is alright."  Lestat's soothing voice in
her ear gentled her, brought her back to the reality of the
present, and the dead girl lying by the tree.  His warm mouth
pressed softly against her forehead, as his hands stroked her
hair, holding her against the reassuring thump of his heartbeat.
     "It was horrible....I wasn't seeing her life, her memories,
but some awful, other---"
     "Shhh, I know. I know.  This also happened to me, as well as
Louis."  Lestat looked up.  "Ah, there is Louis."  He spoke to
the other man.  "She is very frightened, cher."
     Louis arranged the body of the girl, closed her sightless
eyes against the cold glare of the night.  Rhiannon had drained
her, and she was already beginning to stiffen.  A young teenager,
in tight blue-jeans--but there was no time for regret.  Louis
straightened and went over to where Lestat and Rhiannon still
huddled together.  He grabbed Rhiannon's hand in both of his and
squeezed.  "We should return to the chateau.  I have fed, and I
fear I have no more appetite this night."  
     Lestat sighed.  "Nor I. We must...explore this happening,
the three of us."  He helped Rhiannon to her feet, retrieved her
coat and buttoned it around her.  "Come on, cherie, we will all
go home now."  
     Without a backward glance, the three left the dead girl in
the clearing and headed towards the chateau.


     Lestat had summoned a fire in the grate while Rhiannon went
upstairs to wash her face, and he and Louis sat now in silence in
the great, vaulted living-room, both staring into the fire.  
     Louis got up from his seat on the floor and came over to the
couch where Lestat's elegant body was draped, one arm over the
back of the leather sofa.  Louis fitted himself into the curve of
Lestat's body, felt the other vampire's arm go around him as his
head rested against Lestat's shoulder.  Both were silent for a
long moment, then Louis shifted and pressed his mouth against
Lestat's cheek.  "What is happening to us, cherie?"
     Lestat's blue eyes were faraway, reflecting the glow of the
fire, and he drew himself back slowly from his musings.  "I do
not know, Louis.  I do know what I saw, and I suspect it is much
the same thing as what you saw, and Rhiannon."  
     Louis felt Lestat shudder, drew closer to his friend and
lover.  "Yes.  The thing about the burning cross, I--"  Louis
stopped, not knowing what further he should say.  "The man, he
looked like you, and the woman on the tower, is she...?"  Louis
lapsed again into silence.  He slid his arm around Lestat's waist
and hugged him gently.
     "It is something to do with this house."  Lestat gently
eased Louis away from him.  "I have some old photographs
upstairs, in my safe....perhaps we should look at them."  
     Louis got up from the couch and tossed another thick log on
the fire, crouching for a moment in front of the heat.  Unusual
for him to feel the chill so keenly, but tonight it seemed as if
he couldn't get warm at all.  He wandered over to one of the
floor-to-ceiling windows that were set into the ancient stone
walls, and peered out at the winter's night.  The chilly air was
already making beautiful frost patterns on the old glass, blazing
flowers that were frozen in place like halted flames.  Louis
pressed his long fingers against the glass idly and breathed out,
his warm breath making a hole in the pattern.  He laid his
forehead against the window, his slender body sagging slightly so
that parts of him touched the glass in places, creating an odd
patchwork design.  
     What was that...?
     Sometime had moved in the darkness, just beyond the circle
of light thrown by the chateau's security lamps, not more than a
flicker, so fast that even Louis's preternatural eye-sight didn't
catch it.
     There it was again! What...?
     Louis turned from the window, "Lestat!" and froze in place,
the word already clotted in his throat.  The flicker he'd seen
had coalesced into the shimmering form of a woman, drifting and
rippling in front of him as if borne into the room on invisible
currents of air.  She was opaque, silvery, the merest sketching
of a woman, and she was dressed in a long, flowing night gown. 
As Louis watched, she floated towards him, her hands outstretched
as if supplicating, pleading, and her eyes were sad.
     Louis was absolutely still, listening wide-eyed to the
hammering of his own heart.  His brows creased in the center as
the woman floated nearer to him...this was the woman he'd seen in
the dream! This was--
     "RHIANNON!!!"
     The scream came from outside of the chateau, a hoarse,
gutteral sound wrenched up from the depths of someone's personal
anguish.  "Rhiannon......!"  A man's voice, stripped of all
civility by a desperate horror, a demented grief, a man's voice
that went on calling and calling.  Louis watched as the woman's
silvery form turned as if trying to go towards that sound, and
then, appearing to lose cohesion, the apparition dissolved before
his eyes.
     Louis sat down on the floor--hard.  He blinked rapidly,
trying to clear his vision.  This was absurd! He was a vampire,
for God's sake, he dwelt in the shadowy netherworld of
supernatural phenomena...was he to be so undone by the ghost of
some poor dead woman?!
     "Lestat!"  Louis called out as he heard footsteps
approaching from the stairs.  "Lestat!"  He struggled to pull
himself to his feet and had just succeeded when the first bolt of
lightning came.
     Lancing out of a clear winter sky, it struck the topmost
point of the chateau--the tower room--and rebounded, sizzling
into the frozen ground.  Lestat had been at the foot of the
stairs, his arms full of old photos, and Rhiannon had been right
behind him.  Another bolt struck, following immediately in the
wake of the first, and shattered into the ground right in front
of the window where Louis had been standing.
     The fabric of reality shifted, slid sideways, and the aura
of the chateau changed with it, began to subtly shimmer, from the
very top of the tower room all the way down to the ancient damp
basement where the old rotted bones lay, deep in earth.  Louis
watched in stultified horror as Lestat's modern outfit melted
away, was replaced by 17th-century garb, and on his smooth-shaven
vampiric face a beard began to sprout.  Lines appeared on his
face, impossible lines on a face that had ceased to age at
twenty, and his broad, hard shoulders stooped a little forward. 
Rhiannon's dark-red hair, glossy with an immortal beauty, dulled
to a faded blonde, and she was dressed suddenly in a tattered
night-gown, a shawl around her shoulders. 
     "Louis!" Lestat cried out as Louis, enveloped in a cloak of
the shimmering stuff, vanished from sight.  "Oh, God--Louis!
What's happening?"  He said this in shocked disbelief,  the voice
of a man hovering around the edges of madness.  
     A third bolt struck, the final lancing shard that completed
the ancient magic, and Lestat's current life slid out of his
head, lost in the swirling maelstrom.  He turned at last to
Rhiannon, when the effect had died away, and his voice was subtly
changed:  "You should go to bed, my dear.  The night is cold, and
you should sleep."
     Rhiannon merely stared at him, her eyes merely reflections
of things she saw around her, her mind engaged instead in her own
fantastical visions.  She was irrevocably mad.


     "Monsieur Vernier, the work is nearly finished."
     Huh?
     Louis turned to look down at the shorter man, hovering near
his shoulder.  The man was dressed simply, in a peasant's baggy
pants and blouse, and wore a carpenter's apron.  "The cross is
nearly done. Tonight--"  he tapped Louis on the shoulder "--we do
God's work, Monsieur!"
     Louis nodded absently, and looked around the clearing.  It
seemed to be some sort of village square, lined roundabout with
simple shops, all of which had long since closed.  He supposed. 
He couldn't seem to get any kind of bearing as to who he was or
what he was doing here.  There was a vague rememberance of some
kind of lightning storm, and sitting in front of a fire, but he
knew little beyond these fragments.  
     Louis turned as three men emerged from a nearby workshop,
carrying on their shoulders a massive cross, roughly built and
merely tacked together, but sufficient to their purpose.  The
little carpenter approached Louis, squinting up at a point higher
up the mountain.  "Those goddamn witches, we burn them tonight!" 
He pointed, and Louis turned to look at a majestic chateau set
into the face of the mountain like a jewel.  All the many windows
sparkled with candlelight, and on this clear evening, Louis could
hear the gentle lowing cries of stabled cattle.  He found
something clutched in his hand, turned over the rough stake in
his hand, peered at it curiously.  What was it for?
     "Yes, we go up and burn them and their witching, burn them
in the name of God, eh?"  The carpenter clapped Louis on the back
and shouted something at the three men carrying the cross.  Louis
watched as the men struggled to load the cross onto a cart,
stumbled in unison and nearly fell, except for the little
carpenter's vigorous curses which Louis was sure kept them
upright.  He fell into step behind the cart and began the long
trek up the mountain road.  He wasn't sure why, but it seemed the
correct thing to do.


     "Fly bonny boat, like a bird on the wing, onward the sailors
cry...."  Rhiannon de Lioncourt swayed rhythmically in front of
the window, peering down at the dimly-lit village below, seeing
little that was in front of her.  She could hear the whispering
of the servants from time to time as they passed the opened door
of her chamber, heard their soft footfalls.  Not at all like home
here, not at all like her own lush Celtic isle, and Gaston's
servants hated her, she knew that.  "You all think I'm mad, don't
you!?"  She screeched like this periodically and on purpose, to
let them know she was listening, that she heard their whispering
chatter.  "Gaston! Gaston! Come up here now!"  She pushed open
the casement window and leaned out; there was Gaston now, his
wavy blond hair streaming in the chilly wind as he strode across
the compound, chasing an escaped horse.  Rhiannon watched as he
caught the boy responsible, a young urchin, son of one of the
churls, and boxed his ears soundly.  "Gaston!" she screeched,
leaning far out of the casement, her long hair streaming in the
wind. 
     "Get in!" Gaston de Lioncourt gesticulated angrily at the
opened window.  "Shut the window! You'll catch your death!"
     "Ahhhh!" Rhiannon slammed the casement shut, nearly catching
her fingers, and slumped for a moment on the window seat.  Cold.
She could do with a fire.  "I want fire in here! In here! Fire!"
she bellowed this at the door, and for a moment the chittering
whispers of the servants was silent.  "I know you're listening!
Fire!"  Their silence infuriated her, and she stamped her
slippered feet uselessly against the stone floor. "Goddess rot
you, all of you! Gaston!"
     Gaston de Lioncourt ignored his mad wife's screeching
demands and stood for a long moment at the edge of the compound,
staring down at the village.  A chilling prickle that had nothing
to do with the cold scraped along the back of his neck, as he saw
the procession winding its way relentlessly up the mountain road. 
What was going on? What was this?
     "Gaston!"  Rhiannon was at the door of the compound, her
hair long and loose, still wearing the same tattered nightgown,
her shawl thrown carelessly about her.  Her voice streamed out
into the night air.  "You come in here, Gaston!"  She stamped her
foot. "Come IN!"
     Gaston turned slowly from the eerie silence that surrounded
the advancing procession, caught one of the churls by the sleeve
as he passed.  "Louis---go and make sure all the animals are
stabled, and the door is locked, eh?"  
     "Yes, Monsieur--right away, Monsieur."  The churl bobbed a
hasty bow, clearly confused that Gaston continued to hold his
sleeve after he'd given the direction.  What did the Monsieur
want with him?
     Gaston stared at the boy for a long moment, his blue eyes
narrowed as if measuring him; there was something...what was it?
The boy had brilliant green eyes, the color of new leaves, his
name was Louis.... What was it? Nothing.  The feeling vanished
and Gaston let go the boy's sleeve, feeling vaguely foolish.  "Go
stable the horses," he said gruffly, and let the boy go.  He
watched the elegant grace of the boy's stride as he went off
across the compound.... what was it? Nothing.
     The procession continued to advance. In a matter of minutes
they would be at the top of the mountain, inside the compound.
What was going on? The cold tore through Gaston's thin shirt and
set his eyes to streaming.  He wiped the tears impatiently on the
back of his sleeve.  Rhiannon was still standing in the doorway.
     "You go on inside, wife, there is something wrong."  Gaston
pushed Rhiannon into the house absently, his mind whirling in odd
circles.
     "They are coming for us--I told you they would! I knew it! I
told you, and you all thought I was mad!" Rhiannon's reproachful
gaze raked the compound, settling on Gaston.  "They will burn
this to the ground!"
     "Woman, be quiet!" Gaston dealt her a stinging blow across
the face.  "Go into the house!"
     Rhiannon picked herself up from the dirt, where his blow had
landed her, and spat at him.  She missed his face, and a thin
shower of spittle splattered over the shoulder of his shirt. 
"You rot in hell, Gaston!" She gathered her tattered rags about
her and disappeared into the darkness inside the house.
     By the time the procession had reached the chateau compound,
Gaston de Lioncourt had barricaded himself, his wife, and his
servants inside the massive old building.  He stood now in
silence on the other side of the door, a candle in his hand, and
peered through the slot at the compound, watching what was going
on.  The procession was led, he saw now, by Monsieur Vernier, the
cooper, who marched into the chateau compound ahead of a wagon
bearing a giant cross.  
     "Gaston de Lioncourt, come out and prepare to endure the
judgement of a swift and merciless God!"  Vernier bellowed,
hammering on the door.  
     "Go away! I have no quarrel with you!"  De Lioncourt grasped
the candle tighter; the melting wax dripped down, burning his
hand.  "Leave my house!"
     "You will answer to the judgement of God!"  There was a
great roar and the giant cross went up in flames; fixed to a spot
in the middle of the compound, it made a fearsome spectacle: a
burning tower of wood some seven feet high.
     Somewhere in the chateau a woman screamed; De Lioncourt
wrenched open the door and ran into the compound.  Two churls
followed, both racing to the stables to free the animals before
the deadly flames spread to the rest of the house.  "Why do you
do this?" De Lioncourt grabbed Vernier's lapels and shook him. 
"What quarrel do you have with me and my house?"
     "Witches," Vernier hissed, his green eyes cold and empty. 
"You serve the Devil, all of you, and especially that Irish wife
of yours! Better you endure the flames of eternal torment than
continue as a scourge to this village!"  
     "This is madness--I beg of you, stop this, now!"  De
Lioncourt was pleading with Vernier, shaking him.  "You can make
them stop, you can call them off! Stop them! We are innocent
people!"
     Something wavered in Vernier's expression, and his face
changed completely, for just an instant.  A recognition crept
into his eyes, and his wide mouth formed one word, "Lestat...." 
It was little more than a breathy whisper.
     Inside the chateau, Rhiannon de Lioncourt was burrowing
madly through an ancient chest, the only thing left to her after
her harrowing flight across the sea to France.  She tossed aside
gowns and shawls, slippers and nightrobes, to find at the very
bottom, the iron sword she sought.  She pulled it out of the
sheath with a hiss, and grasping it firmly in both hands (for it
was very heavy) she ran to the tower room.
     A set of wooden stairs affixed to the outside of the tower
led to a sort of rampart from where one could look down upon the
village.  It was to this platform that she now fled, the sword in
her hands.
     "A great evil," she whispered, panting, nearly sobbing in
her urgency to reach the topmost point of the chateau.  "Oh,
Goddess, a great evil, this evil!"  She wrenched open the
shuttered casement that led to the rampart, but was stalled by
the glorious leaded window.  The catch holding its two
beautifully-worked panes together had corroded with centuries of
disuse, and refused to open.  "Oh, Goddess forgive--" Rhiannon
raised the sword and smashed easily through the ancient panes.
     She was on the roof.  Below her, the compound had been
transformed into a scene from hell.  Broad tongues of flame
licked the medieval walls, and the shrieks and cries of terrified
animals echoed off the great stone of the mountain.  She had only
minutes, precious minutes, to undo this evil, and Goddess help
her to remember, she must remember....
     Holding the sword in both hands over her head, she screamed
out the arcane words, shouting to hear herself over the hellish
din below:  "From Earth and Fire, from Wind and Water, I call You
up!"  
     A single lancing beam of bluish lightning sliced the heavens
and lit upon the iron sword held upright in Rhiannon's hands. 
The power traveled through the sword and down her body, sizzling
to earth where it split the ground in a long, jagged line.
     "Stop this! Don't do this, Vernier, I beg of you---" Gaston
de Lioncourt saw Vernier's face highlighted in the terrible glow
of supernatural lightning, Vernier's hand upraised with that
awful wooden stake, his green eyes empty.  The lightning flashed
and the stake in Vernier's hand dropped to the ground.  He drew
in breath, a great sobbing gasp, "Lestat!"
     Another streak of blue light sliced the winter sky, and as
Lestat de Lioncourt drew his friend and lover into his embrace,
an iron sword clanged down, stuck point-first into the frozen
ground.  Louis deftly stepped aside, moving Lestat with him, and
as he did so, he happened to look up at the tower room, where
Rhiannon Llewellyn swayed.
     "Oh, God, she's been hit by lightning!" Lestat let go of
Louis and raced across the compound.  "Louis--get inside and see
if you can get her--if she falls, I'll have to---"
     He didn't finish the sentence.  Rhiannon swayed once more,
and caught in the grip of ancient forces, her body tumbled from
the top of the tower, her long hair streaming in the wind. 
Lestat's exceptional vision caught the movement and he darted
forward like a god of lightning.  Rhiannon's body fell into his
arms with a soft impact, which was easily absorbed by his
strength.
     Louis's startled face peered out of the window of the tower
room as the entire ancient scene melted out of existence. 
"Lestat!"
     "I got her, she's all right."  Lestat hugged Rhiannon close
to him.  Her nightgown had gone the way of the other illusions,
and she was dressed in her normal jeans and top.  He pressed a
kiss to her forehead, smoothed her cheek with the back of his
hand.  "Ma cherie, you gave us quite a turn!" 
     "Is it--is she gone?" Rhiannon moved out of Lestat's embrace
and stood on her own, pushing her hair out of her face.
     Lestat chuckled.  "She's gone."  He looked up as Louis
approached at a run, slipping and sliding over the hard-packed,
icy snow of the compound.  "Everything is as it should be,
cherie."  He hugged her gently, motioned to Louis.  "Come Louis--
we should go inside. It is far too cold a night without the
warmth of fire. Hmmm?"
     The chateau door closed behind them, leaving the squat
shadow of La Belle Estat alone in a circle of light.

			THE END