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His teeth cut into ers, and I heard my heart thud in my ears My very bowels contracted, and e pleasure swept through all my veins, a pleasure which coursed towards the wounds in my neck I could feel my blood rush towards my Master, towards his thirst and my inevitable death

Even my hands were transfixed with vibrant sensation Indeed, I seelow, as with a low, obvious and deliberate sound, my Master drank my life's blood The sound of his heart, slow, steady, a deep reverberating pounding, filled my ears

The pain in my intestines was alcheht, all knowledge of itself in space The throb of his heart ithinsatin locks of his hair, but I did not hold to them I floated, supported only by the insistent heartbeat and thrilling current of allblood

"I die now," I whispered This ecstasy could not endure

Abruptly the world died

I stood alone on the desolate and windy shore of the sea

It was the land to which I'd journeyed before, but how different it was now, devoid of its shining sun and abundant flowers The priests were there, but their robes were dusty and dark and reeked of the earth I knew these priests, I knew them well I knew their nareasy hair and the black felt hats that they wore I knew the dirt in their fingernails, and I knew the hungry hollow of their sunken glea eyes

They beckoned for me to come

Ah, yes, back to where I belonged We clilass city, and it lay to the far left of us, and how forlorn and empty it was

All the hted its one, turned off at the source Nothing re colors except a deep dull residue of tints beneath the featureless span of hopeless gray sky Oh, sad, sad, to see the glass city without its ic fire

A chorus of sounds rose frolass There was no music in it There was only a bleary luminous despair

"Walk on, Andrei," said one of the priests to me His soiled hand with its thin bits of caked ers I looked down to see that ers were thin and luridly white My knuckles shone as though the flesh had already been stripped away, but it had not

All ry and loose as their skin

Before us careat tangles of blackened driftwood, covering the flatlands with a h it, and its coldness hurt us Yet on ent, the four of us, the three priest guides and olden do still after the horrid ols who had laid waste our city and all her riches and all her wicked and worldly women and men

"Come, Andrei "