At the far end of the room he stood, his bare feet composed on the glowing rose-colored floor, his arms outstretched. "Come to me, Amadeo, walk towards me, come to me, to take the rest."
I struggled to obey him. The room raged with colors around me. I saw the Procession of the searching Magi. "Oh, that it's so vivid, so utterly alive!"
"Come to me, Amadeo."
"I'm too weak, Master, I'm fainting, I'm dying in this glorious light."
I took one step after another, though it seemed impossible. I placed one foot before the other, drawing ever closer to him. I stumbled. "On your hands and knees, then, come. Come to me." I clung to his robe. I had to climb this great height if I wanted it. I reached up and took hold of the crook of his right arm. I lifted myself, feeling the gold cloth against me. I straightened my legs until I stood. Once again, I embraced him; once again I found the fount. I drank, and drank, and drank.
In a gilded gush the blood went down into my bowels. It went through my legs and my arms. I was a Titan. I crushed him under me. "Give it to me," I whispered. "Give it to me." The blood hovered on my lips and then flooded down my throat.
It was as if his cold marble hands had seized my heart. I could hear it struggling, beating, the valves opening and closing, the wet sound of his blood invading it, the swoosh and flap of the valves as they welcomed it, utilizing it, my heart growing ever larger and more powerful, my veins becoming like so many invincible metallic conduits of this most potent fluid.
I lay on the floor. He stood above me, and his hands were open to me. "Get up, Amadeo. Come, come up, into my arms. Take it."
I cried. I sobbed. My tears were red, and my hand was stained with red. "Help me, Master."
"I do help you. Come, seek it out for yourself."
I was on my feet with this new strength, as if all human limitations had been loosened, as if they were bonds of rope or chain and had fallen away. I sprang at him, pulling back his robe, the better to find the wound.
"Make a new wound, Amadeo."
I bit into the flesh, puncturing it, and the blood squirted over my lips. I clapped my mouth against it. "Flow into me."
My eyes closed. I saw the wild lands, the grass blowing, the sky blue. My Father rode on and on with the small band behind him. Was I one of them?
"I prayed you'd escape!" he called out to me, laughing, "and so you have. Damn you, Andrei. Damn you and your sharp tongue and your magical painter's hands. Damn you, you foul-mouthed whelp, damn you." He laughed and laughed, and rode on, the grass bending and falling for him.
"Father, look!" I struggled to shout. I wanted him to see the stony ruins of the castle. But my mouth was full of blood. They had been right. Prince Feodor's fortress was destroyed, and he himself long gone. My Father's horse reared up suddenly as it came to the first heap of vine-covered stones.
With a shock, I felt the marble floor beneath me, so wondrously warm. I lay with both hands against it. I lifted myself. The swarming rosy pattern was so dense, so deep, so wondrous, it was like water frozen to make the finest stone. I could have looked into its depths forever.
"Rise up, Amadeo, once more."
Oh, it was easy to make this climb, to reach for his arm and then his shoulder. I broke the flesh of his neck. I drank. The blood washed through me, once again revealing my entire form with a shock against the blackness of my mind. I saw the boy's body that was mine, of arms and legs, as with this form I breathed in the warmth and light around me, as if all of me had become one great multipored organ for seeing, for hearing, for breathing. I breathed with millions of minute and strong tiny mouths.
The blood filled me so that I could take no more.
I stood before my Master. In his face I saw but the hint of weariness, but the smallest pain in his eyes. I saw for the first time the true lines of his old humanity in his face, the soft inevitable crinkles at the corners of his