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"Perhaps I said it," I answered. "My mind is clouded by pain. "
I heard her crying.
I struggled to think. I realized a harsh and terrible truth.
I could not hunt on my own because I wasn't strong enough to venture forth from this place with any of my old gifts of speed or ascent and descent.
I could not rely upon her strength to help me in the hunt because she was entirely too weak for it, and to use her boatman was foolish if not downright impossible. The man would witness what I did, and he knew that I resided in this house!
Oh, how mad it all was. How weak I was. How very possible it was that Santino's monsters might return. How important it was for me to leave Venice and seek the shrine of Those Who Must Be Kept. But how could this be done?
"Marius, please let me in," she said softly. "I'm not afraid to see you. Please, Marius. Let me come in. "
"Very well," I said. "Trust in me that I won't harm you. Come down the stairs. Make your way carefully. Trust in me that whatever I tell you is the truth. "
With agonizing effort, I pushed the door open sufficiently so that she might come inside. A faint light filled the stairway and the chamber below. It was enough for my eyes. But not for hers.
With her delicate pale hand she groped her way after me, and she could not see how I crawled with my hands resting heavily again and again against the wall.
At last we had come to the bottom of the steps, and there she struggled to see, but she could not.
"Marius, speak to me," she said.
"I'm here, Bianca," I said.
I knelt down, then seated myself on my heels, and gazing up at the torches that hung on the walk, I tried to light one of them with the Fire Gift.
I directed the power with all my strength.
I heard a faint crackling and then the torch kindled and the light exploded, hurting my eyes. The fire made me shiver, but we could not endure without it. The darkness had been worse.
She raised her tender hands to shelter her eyes from the brightness. Then she looked at me.
What did she see?
She covered her mouth and gave a muffled scream.
"What have they done to you?" she asked. "Oh, my beautiful Marius.
Tell me how to remedy this and I will. "
I saw myself in her gaze, a hooded being of burnt black sticks for neck and wrists with gloves for hands and a floating leather mask for a face.
"And how do you think that can be done, my beautiful Bianca?" I asked. "What magic potion can bring me back from what I am now?"
Her mind was in confusion. I caught a tangle of images and memories, of misery and hope.
She looked about herself at the glittering golden walls. She stared at the shining marble sarcophagi. Then her eyes returned to me. She was aghast but unafraid.
"Marius," she said, "I can be your acolyte as surely as Amadeo was. Only tell me how. "
At the mention of Amadeo's name my eyes filled with tears. Oh, to think this burnt body had within it the blood of tears.
She dropped to her knees so that she might look directly into my eyes. Her cloak fell open and I saw the rich pearls around her throat and her pale breasts. She had worn one very fine gown for this enterprise, not caring how its hem would catch the dirt or the damp.
"Oh, my lovely jewel," I said to her, "how I have loved you both in innocence and guilt. You don't know how much I have lusted after you, both as monster and man. You don't know how I've turned my hunger from you when it was something I could scarce control. "
"Oh, but I do know," she said. "Do you not remember the night you came to me, accusing me for the crimes I'd committed? Do you not remember how you confessed your thirst for my blood? Surely I have not become since then the pure and simple damsel of a children's tale. "
