The Ruby Tear by Suzy McKee Charnas
After all this time and effort, when the ultimate moment came you threw it away. You have forgiven your enemy his debt and shown tenderness to him and his. Your bond with me is broken by the weakness of your own hand, Baron. Your blood quest is ended. Without blood, you have nothing to offer me.
“No, wait!" he cried aloud in his own language, starting up out of his seat. “Where can I go, what shall I do?”
Where and what you wish, but never set foot in my domain again. You are banished from this day on.
In a dizzy, nauseous panic he begged, “Lady, don’t leave me!”
There was no reply, only a sudden drawing sensation throughout his body, as if some scorching internal wind blew through all his cells, sucking up every drop of moisture in one endless instant.
Like this, he thought, it’s like this, to have all your blood drained by a hungry vampire. It’s just like this that the body of the thirsty undead dries to powder in a flash before the amazed eyes of his executioners. It feels like this, from the inside. How horrible, he thought, with distant compassion for his own physical self.
And now what—judgment? Extinction? What was he—murderer, avenger, demon hound of the house of Griffin? What angel or devil waited, poised to snatch his flying soul from the desiccated body after all those years of error and deception?
He hung blind, deaf, and helpless in the grip of a merciless furnace, while high walls of blackness closed in.
Come, Devil, he thought, groping in chaos for some weapon, some defense. Come fight me, come make your claim!
“Sir? Are you all right, sir?” A young woman in a Flight Attendant uniform knelt by his chair, peering anxiously at his face.
“Am I?” he croaked, astonished to see her, to hear her, and most of all to speak in reply. His throat felt dry as paper.
“Do you want a doctor?”
Craggen shook his head, then turned to look out of the plate glass window again. There was no denser dark against the sky. There was no observant companion in his mind. He was alone, cut off, and abandoned in the place and time he had come to, after his long years of hunting.
Oh, I am free, he thought with wonder. And then, I will regret this, bye and bye. I will live to regret it, when my hair and my teeth drop out with age. If I live that long—this too is a dangerous world, and I exist in it now with only my human will and my human strength.
But for the present, it seems, I will live.
Look at those lights, fairy lights, like in an enchanted wood, into which the young prince pursues the magical white doe (oh beautiful one, I will never forget you!) and finds himself turned into—into what?
He looked down at his spatulate hands, at the broad band of the expensive watch on his wrist, the lustrous fall of fine woolen cloth over his knees, the glowing leather of the carry-on bag on the floor between his feet in their well-made shoes.
Turned into what? What a marvelous question, its answers so brilliantly transparent as to be undetectable. Turned into a dragon, a kobold, an angel?
“What’s your flight number, sir?” the concerned young woman was saying. “Let me see your ticket, please.”
“No,” he said thickly, suddenly having trouble locating the right words in this language that was not his. “Thank you. I’m all right, I have just a—a small reaction, an allergy. It’s nothing, it will pass. Let me sit here a moment; I’ll be fine.”
She finally left him. Other passengers in the lounge looked away and pretended they hadn’t been watching.
Giddy with elation, he peered again at his own face in the window glass: broad-cheeked, strong-looking, the face of an intelligent and resourceful young man of action. (A tear-stained, shock-blank face; how odd). Surely such a man could get along anywhere, in any age, even without comment and advice from ancient entities of brutal appetite? Surely he could find ways to live as other men lived, until his days came to a natural end?
Perhaps he could find good things to do with this life, after having done so much ill. Perhaps not, perhaps what he was could never be “good" in this world of the future. He was little different at base than the Lady herself—primitive, violent, single-minded, or so he had proven himself through several centuries of time.
But he had not killed Nicolas Griffin. His final enemy had offered his throat, his blood, and the last Baron von Craggen had not struck him down. As if breaking free from some heavy, evil dream, he had found another way, with a woman’s help.
A woman who only played stories of vengeance on the stage, old stories that perhaps one could learn real lessons from without the spilling of real blood. She was brave, though. He might learn to be brave in that way.
Who could tell what he might learn or come to be, with the long hunt over at last, the iron claws of the Lady’s demand released from his neck? How had he never noticed till now, in his sudden freedom, how tight, how bitter that controlling grip had been?
God, what a thirst he had! What a raging, cracking, driving thirst, unslaked for centuries while that other need was fed in its place. He got up with an effort, walked unsteadily to the drinking fountain by the wall, and joyfully gulped the cold, cold water until his need was quenched.
Then he folded his dark wool coat over his arm, and carrying his one bag in his hand he went to find the monitors where he could read the names of all the destinations to choose from in the wide, whirling, pulsing world of life.
The End
Other Books by ElectricStory
Suzy McKee Charnas
My Father’s Ghost
The Vampire Tapestry
Music of the Night
George R. R. Martin
“In the House of the Worm”
“A Song for Lya”
“The Glass Flower”
Lucius Shepard
Green Eyes
Suzy McKee Charnas, The Ruby Tear
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“No, wait!" he cried aloud in his own language, starting up out of his seat. “Where can I go, what shall I do?”
Where and what you wish, but never set foot in my domain again. You are banished from this day on.
In a dizzy, nauseous panic he begged, “Lady, don’t leave me!”
There was no reply, only a sudden drawing sensation throughout his body, as if some scorching internal wind blew through all his cells, sucking up every drop of moisture in one endless instant.
Like this, he thought, it’s like this, to have all your blood drained by a hungry vampire. It’s just like this that the body of the thirsty undead dries to powder in a flash before the amazed eyes of his executioners. It feels like this, from the inside. How horrible, he thought, with distant compassion for his own physical self.
And now what—judgment? Extinction? What was he—murderer, avenger, demon hound of the house of Griffin? What angel or devil waited, poised to snatch his flying soul from the desiccated body after all those years of error and deception?
He hung blind, deaf, and helpless in the grip of a merciless furnace, while high walls of blackness closed in.
Come, Devil, he thought, groping in chaos for some weapon, some defense. Come fight me, come make your claim!
“Sir? Are you all right, sir?” A young woman in a Flight Attendant uniform knelt by his chair, peering anxiously at his face.
“Am I?” he croaked, astonished to see her, to hear her, and most of all to speak in reply. His throat felt dry as paper.
“Do you want a doctor?”
Craggen shook his head, then turned to look out of the plate glass window again. There was no denser dark against the sky. There was no observant companion in his mind. He was alone, cut off, and abandoned in the place and time he had come to, after his long years of hunting.
Oh, I am free, he thought with wonder. And then, I will regret this, bye and bye. I will live to regret it, when my hair and my teeth drop out with age. If I live that long—this too is a dangerous world, and I exist in it now with only my human will and my human strength.
But for the present, it seems, I will live.
Look at those lights, fairy lights, like in an enchanted wood, into which the young prince pursues the magical white doe (oh beautiful one, I will never forget you!) and finds himself turned into—into what?
He looked down at his spatulate hands, at the broad band of the expensive watch on his wrist, the lustrous fall of fine woolen cloth over his knees, the glowing leather of the carry-on bag on the floor between his feet in their well-made shoes.
Turned into what? What a marvelous question, its answers so brilliantly transparent as to be undetectable. Turned into a dragon, a kobold, an angel?
“What’s your flight number, sir?” the concerned young woman was saying. “Let me see your ticket, please.”
“No,” he said thickly, suddenly having trouble locating the right words in this language that was not his. “Thank you. I’m all right, I have just a—a small reaction, an allergy. It’s nothing, it will pass. Let me sit here a moment; I’ll be fine.”
She finally left him. Other passengers in the lounge looked away and pretended they hadn’t been watching.
Giddy with elation, he peered again at his own face in the window glass: broad-cheeked, strong-looking, the face of an intelligent and resourceful young man of action. (A tear-stained, shock-blank face; how odd). Surely such a man could get along anywhere, in any age, even without comment and advice from ancient entities of brutal appetite? Surely he could find ways to live as other men lived, until his days came to a natural end?
Perhaps he could find good things to do with this life, after having done so much ill. Perhaps not, perhaps what he was could never be “good" in this world of the future. He was little different at base than the Lady herself—primitive, violent, single-minded, or so he had proven himself through several centuries of time.
But he had not killed Nicolas Griffin. His final enemy had offered his throat, his blood, and the last Baron von Craggen had not struck him down. As if breaking free from some heavy, evil dream, he had found another way, with a woman’s help.
A woman who only played stories of vengeance on the stage, old stories that perhaps one could learn real lessons from without the spilling of real blood. She was brave, though. He might learn to be brave in that way.
Who could tell what he might learn or come to be, with the long hunt over at last, the iron claws of the Lady’s demand released from his neck? How had he never noticed till now, in his sudden freedom, how tight, how bitter that controlling grip had been?
God, what a thirst he had! What a raging, cracking, driving thirst, unslaked for centuries while that other need was fed in its place. He got up with an effort, walked unsteadily to the drinking fountain by the wall, and joyfully gulped the cold, cold water until his need was quenched.
Then he folded his dark wool coat over his arm, and carrying his one bag in his hand he went to find the monitors where he could read the names of all the destinations to choose from in the wide, whirling, pulsing world of life.
The End
Other Books by ElectricStory
Suzy McKee Charnas
My Father’s Ghost
The Vampire Tapestry
Music of the Night
George R. R. Martin
“In the House of the Worm”
“A Song for Lya”
“The Glass Flower”
Lucius Shepard
Green Eyes
Suzy McKee Charnas, The Ruby Tear