On a Darkling Plain by Unknown Author Read Free Book Online Page B

candor, you ought to prepare yourselves for the possibility that his condition doesn’t have a physiological basis, in which case there will be little I can do.”
    Lazio shook his head, mutely denying that what Potter had said could be true.
    “I’m not following you,” Elliott said. “When someone is ill, there must be a reason for it.”
    “But the cause could be psychological,” Potter replied, “or spiritual. You know as well as I do, it’s a traumatic thing to be one of the Kindred. One struggles constantly to hold the Beast in check. Sometimes it slips its reins anyway, and then the vampire must cope with the guilt its subsequent atrocities inspire. And at the same time he must deal with all the negative aspects of immortality. Boredom. Watching everything and everyone you love pass away.”
    You don’t know the half of it, Elliott thought, remembering Mary’s severed head and mangled body. A pang of anguish wrang his heart, and his eyes stung with unshed tears.
    “Many Kindred can’t handle the strain,” Potter droned on, oblivious to Elliott’s distress. “They go insane, like your prince, capitulating to the Beast and becoming sociopathic, or committing suicide. The pathology frequently manifests itself as they approach their thousandth year, and I understand that Prince Roger was born around the time of the First Crusade.”
    The way Potter was talking, it sounded as if he’d already written off Roger. Lazio shot Elliott an imploring look.
    The Toreador struggled to cast off the paralyzing pall of melancholy that had fallen over him. “I do know all that,” he said to Potter. “Your medical credentials notwithstanding, 1 daresay that at my age, I comprehend the vicissitudes of Kindred existence rather better than you. And 1 can assure you that if there was ever a man capable of transcending them, it’s Roger Phillips. I’ve never known an elder with so much humanitas, who adapted so readily to changes in the world around him, or who so rejoiced in each new night.” For a moment, as Elliott spoke, he felt a fierce surge of pride and affection for Roger, an emotion he hadn’t experienced for a long time. He had always been devoted to his sire, but he usually couldn’t experience the devotion except in an abstract and superficial way. His love for Roger lay buried, cold and inert, beneath his grief for Mary.
    “Perhaps you’re right,” said Potter. “But on the other hand, perhaps the prince is a private person, who up to now has been hiding his growing depression. In which case—” Remembering the manner in which he’d portrayed Henry V, that indomitable, commanding warrior-king, Elliott gave Potter an intimidating stare. “I think,” he said, “that it would be best to proceed on the assumption that there is a physical cause for Roger’s malady. You will remain here until you discover the cause and bring about his full recovery. Needless to say, your success will be well rewarded, just as — and here I’m speaking purely hypothetically, of course — your premature departure would earn you the enmity of every Kindred in this domain.”
    Potter tried to match Elliott stare for stare, but after a moment he was forced to lower his eyes. “Of course,” he mumbled. “With your permission, I’d better get back to my patient.”
    Elliott gave him a regal nod. Potter turned and strode back down the corridor.
    Lazio sighed. His shoulders slumped as the tension went out of his body. “I had the same feeling you did,” the dresser
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    said. “He wasn’t going to try to help Roger if he could get out of it.”
    “Because he’s baffled,” said Elliott somberly. He felt the momentary passion that his clash of wills with Potter had engendered ebbing, and the accustomed deadness stealing back into his soul. “And it won’t do his reputation any good if he actually tries to cure Roger and fails.”
    “If he doesn’t know what to do,” said Lazio,