Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (The Vampire Chronicles #12)

by Anne Rice

It’s the doom of beings to read patterns in the stars, to give them names, to cherish their slowly shifting positions and clusters. But the stars never say a word.

And I knew then as I know now that love is the only defense we ever have against the cold meaninglessness around us—

“Undercover Agent for the Blues.”

“Tina!”

This was a voice speaking to him, and he was not alone.

That's how I feel when I listen to G 💚

Here were the even Grecian features and the beautiful forehead and the blond hair, the picture of a male in his prime, with the confidence of the fair.

What does she mean by "with the confidence of the fair"?

Silence. It was like dealing with a child.

Still? Lol

“Traitor,” said Amel. “Slut.” I tried to conceal my smile. I just love being called a slut. I don’t know why. I just do. “Have at it, beloved numbskull,” I mumbled without moving my lips.

Lol what?! XD

I shrugged. My great overused gesture. I’ve been shrugging my shoulders at the world for one reason or another since I was born.

What are we that we can make such great blunders without the slightest realization of what we are doing? What is man that he is so mindful of himself and knows so little of the consequences of what he does!”

Love you, yes, always and forever…. I’d be dead forever now beneath the earth were it not for you, or a ghost wandering without ever having glimpsed what you gave me….

The narrator, Simon Vance, said these lines so sweetly and soft! *melts*

I turned and took Magnus’s right hand and kissed it. Flesh. Anyone would have thought so. I don’t know that I’d ever kissed any being’s hand before, but I kissed his.

This is so cute!

The air was fresh and clean, or clean as it could ever be in New York, and he had hope in his heart.

But he loved New York at twilight, with the traffic thickening, and lights coming on brilliantly all around him in towers and townhouses, and people taking to the streets as they left their places of employment to join in the vigorous nightlife that would go on unabated until the small hours of the following morning.

It was January 15 in the year 1890 and Prince Brovotkin had taken Garekyn to the premiere of The Sleeping Beauty ballet by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky at the lavish gilded Mariinsky Theatre.

And in his vest, he carried the Prince’s great pocket watch with the quotation from Shakespeare engraved inside the cover: LOVE ALL, TRUST A FEW, DO WRONG TO NONE.

But Garekyn Brovotkin could also hear those voices effortlessly and detect a subtle difference in timbre in those voices from the voices of the humans who so badly wanted to play the imaginary game of the Children of the Night and the kingdom of the great Prince Lestat.

the kingdom of the great Prince Lestat.

Out onto the small granite porch stepped a diminutive male figure dressed in a black three-piece suit of worsted wool, with a sharp Italian fedora on his head. Little Man! Benji Mahmoud himself!

Honestly, I think only Benji can pull off that fedora

“Little Man,” as they called him, paused at the foot of the steps to sign autograph books for a couple of young humans. And to another he tipped his hat with a charming ease and then, with a tactful little hand gesture pleading for privacy, walked swiftly towards Madison Avenue and towards Garekyn.

lol he's so famous, big celebrity like, big celebrity are we? Ha ha XD like does Benji know he's bad? Does he know he's the shit? XD As I write all that, everything's about Benji XD Benji might be my new favorite character! 😃 Seeing as how much I comment on him! 😜

Garekyn could hardly contain himself.

At first I thought Gaerkyn was his fan too XD

“Now that’s a thought, or possibly an exquisite deck with face cards that have special meaning for us. Would our beloved Prince be the jack of diamonds? If so, who would be the king?”

Of course Lestat would be the jack of diamonds XD

The sun was rising over the city of Manhattan.

Like a stunned and drunken creature he blundered into his room, stripped off his bloodstained clothes, and headed for the steady blast of the shower.

Slowly, he was able to collect his thoughts.

“Yea gods,

I think only Lestat can say this.

He was powerfully excited.

“I loathe the Prince with my whole soul,” muttered Rhoshamandes. “I will not call him nor will I go to his court.”

Rhosh is the obvious villain, isn’t he?

The firelight. The candle flickering on its shelf. The sound of the wind beyond the window, and perhaps rain in the wind, sweet rain cooling his face. Oh, the miracle of rain after all those years beneath the ground in Budapest. The sweet smell and taste of rain.

He opened his eyes and stared up at the distant window and he could see rain swirling in the darkness like tiny needles in a whirlwind.

He turned so that he lay with his left shoulder against the wall, the warmth intensifying to heat again, staring dully at the distant window, wondering if stars would ever become visible there when perhaps the rain stopped and the heavy pregnant clouds were gone. Only slowly did he realize that when the night died, he would see blue sky through that window! He would see actual light! Now that was something to hope for, to cling to, even if the fire were allowed to die, and the room grew as cold as the sea.

Derek closed his eyes. I want to die, he thought. I am finished. It is over. Kapetria lives, but she will never find me. It is too late for me. He was sobbing, but his sobs made no sound, and the tears slid down his face and it didn’t matter. He tried to feel his missing left arm and hand as if they were invisibly still connected to him, but they weren’t there, and the dull heat throbbed in his left shoulder stronger than before.

The sobs poured out of him like blood.

But what does it matter? Despair paralyzed him. What good would it do?

He felt the fingers touching the left nipple of his chest, felt them pulling on the nipple, pulling and pulling, and the warmth collected into heat beneath his nipple. A soft wet mouth, a tiny mouth, closed over the nipple.

This is so weird.

And the new one, the new Derek, Derek’s son, cried with him.

I just want to say that the whole last part with Dereck's severed arm becoming his "son" was extremely weird to me. Like WTF?!? 🤨😟🤯

The boy looked at him. “Now I want you to give me a name.”

I think Derek’s son is so demanding and blunt.

Amor ti vieta di non amar.

This is Italian (obviously) for “love forbids you not to love”

The boat rocked him like a child in a cradle. Or so he imagined, because he had never been a child. Just like a child in a cradle, riding the whale path! Derek drifted. Was Kapetria on her way this very minute to meet them in Derry?

I feel so bad for Derek. He is free, but he doesn’t feel it, like he said earlier in this chapter. Also, Derek kind of reminds me of Five from The Umbrella Academy.

AIX-EN-PROVENCE

A French city

Was this the end of our stay in this paradise? Was this the end of our lives? Was this the end of our mission, and who among us wanted to lock arms and detonate and blow the magnificent and complex world of Atalantaya to high Heaven?

“The People of the Purpose” reminds me of The Umbrella Academy because of the impending apocalypse. Lol. Can you tell that I’m obsessed with The Umbrella Academy at this moment? XD

He looked tired suddenly, crestfallen, and empty. His mind was wandering.

“Break your heart!” cried Maxym. He came close again and then did something that struck me as most unwise. He came up behind the couch and leaned over Amel menacingly. But Amel did not respond. Now, had any being come this close to me, and leaned over me in this manner, I would have moved away. But Amel sat there, staring off, as if this were nothing threatening to him and only barely interesting. “What heart do you have to break?” Maxym asked. “What are you but a Replimoid, the same as I? You have no heart. And you have no soul.”

Lol I was like, oh shit! I wanna add the GIF of the cat going oooo with his paw to his mouth here. Also, I think that Maxym has a point here.

“Because I love him,” said Amel with a sad smile. “And he is immortal as I am immortal. I love you for the same reason. I have had lovers. I have had wives. I have lost them all. I can’t share this immortality of mine with anyone.” He sighed. “But there’s more to it,” he said. “I would rather have him here in Atalantaya shaking his fist at me, than out in the Wilderness lands fomenting his worship of the Maker among the tribes.” He shrugged. “But someday, he will no doubt wander out into the Wilderness—and he will find infinitely more appreciation for his fear-inspiring ideas than he ever finds among us.”

Amel’s love for Maxym reminds me of Lestat and Louis’s love/hate relationship! XD OMG LOL. How Louis hates, but still loves Lestat. I wonder if all immortal relationships or relationships between immortals are a love/hate relationship. Maybe, because of what I have seen so far.

in a riotous waltz spinning off of Camille Saint-Saëns’s “Danse Macabre,” carrying the melodies to savage heights.

I’m listening to this song right now and it is absolutely perfect for this scene! I can see all the immortals dancing! I feel like this song was used in a lot of movies. The violins in this song sound so scary too, which is perfect!

And without a hint of irony the orchestra and the chanting voices went into the full-throated straight-up “Emperor Waltz” by Strauss—producing wild laughter everywhere from the colorful crowd who began to mock it with their exaggerated steps and turns—newcomers in rags prancing as proudly as those in sequins and diaphanous silver and gold.

What does it feel like to a ghost to dance? And would they someday be as solid as Gremt was, imprisoned in their bodies they had constructed for themselves, and would Kapetria build them splendid Replimoid-style bodies for their ancient souls?

Now this is an interesting thought here, Lestat. I wonder if Kapetria can build them bodies as well. Hmmm... very interesting indeed. 🤔

Rhoshamandes felt so tired suddenly, so weary thinking that this might go on and on through the hours of the night, and there came back to him some little wisdom he’d picked up centuries ago from a Roman Emperor, esteemed as a Stoic, that all you have to lose in death, no matter how long you’ve lived, is the present moment in which you die. He smiled. Because now it seemed true.

Not much written in the pages of mortal philosophy was written for immortals, but Marcus Aurelius had it right. He had written that you can live three thousand years or thirty thousand years, and all you have to lose is the life you are living right now. He felt he was drifting. He could hear their mingled voices but not their words.

After all, it is a lot of trouble to hate people, isn’t it? And a lot of trouble to be angry, and a lot of trouble to bother with such abstract notions as guilt or revenge.