Fevre Dream Page 0,72

was boundless. I tried to kill myself. I bought a silver knife with a handle fashioned in the shape of a cross-the superstitions still had a grip on me, you see. And I cut my wrists open, and lay down in a warm bath to die. I healed. I fell on my sword in the manner of the ancient Romans. I healed. I was learning more of my abilities every day. I mended so quickly, with only a brief time of pain. My blood clotted virtually instantaneously, no matter how gaping the wound I inflicted. Whatever I might be, I was clearly a wonder.

Finally I hit on the way. Outside my house, I attached two great iron chains to the wall. By night I donned the manacles, and threw the key as far as I was able. A very long way. I waited for the dawn. The sun was worse than I remembered. It burned and blinded me. Everything blurred. My skin was on fire. I think I began to scream. I know I closed my eyes. I was out there for hours, closer and closer to death. There was nothing in me except guilt.

And then, somehow, in the fever of my death, I decided to live. How, why, I cannot tell you. But it seemed to me that I had always loved life, in myself and in others. That was why health and beauty and youth drew me so. I loathed myself because I gave death to the world, and yet here I was, killing once more, though this time the victim was myself. I could not wash out my sins with more blood, more death, I thought. To atone, I must live, bring life and beauty and hope back into the world to take the place of all that I had taken. I remembered my father's vanished servants then. There were others of my race in the world. Vampires, werewolves, warlocks, whatever they might be, they were out there in the night. How did they deal with the red thirst, I wondered. If only I could find them. I could trust my own kind where I could not trust humans. We could help each other conquer the evil that consumed us. I could learn from them.

I decided I would not die.

The chains were very strong. I had seen to that, fearful that I would seek escape from pain and death. But now I found a strength in my resolve greater than anything I had ever known, even when the thirst was driving me on. I determined to break the chains, to pull them from the stone walls where I had fastened them. I pulled and strained and yanked. They would not give. They were strong chains. I had been in the sun for hours and hours. What kept me conscious I cannot say. My skin was black and burned. The pain had grown so terrible I scarcely felt it any more. Still I worked at those chains.

Finally one of them broke free. The left. The ring set into the wall came out in a crumble of masonry. I was half free. But I was sick unto death, having strange visions. I knew I would faint soon, and once I slipped to the ground there would be no getting up again, ever. And the right chain seemed as strong and secure as when I had begun my struggle, an endless time before.

The chain never gave, Abner. Yet I won free, and sought the safety of my cool black cellars, where I lay for more than a week, dreaming and burning and writhing in pain, but healing all the while. I turned on myself, you see. I gnawed through my own wrist and left my right hand lying there while I slipped the stump through the manacle.

When I regained consciousness, a week later, I had a hand again. It was soft and small, half-formed, and it hurt. It hurt terribly. But in time the skin hardened. Then the hand swelled up, and the skin cracked and split, oozing a thick pale fluid. When it dried and peeled away, the flesh beneath was healthier. Three times that happened. The process took more than three weeks, but when it was over you would never have known that anything had happened to my hand at all. I was astounded.

That was in the year 1812, which marked a turning point in my life.

When I had recovered my strength, I found I had emerged from