Quoted By:
The Vampire
Once there was a Magician, who was little more than a Child.
A changeling Child Of Two Worlds, exiled from his own sorcery and power.
The Magician-Child met a Girl, who was Ugly. He gave her a Rose. The Ugly Girl loved him and led him to another: this Woman was beautiful, but bewitched. The Magician was fascinated by her, for somehow in her beauty the woman seemed to command both worlds, overcoming the curse of Exile. The woman seemed to possess the magic of belonging in both worlds together.
The Magician abandoned the Ugly Girl to follow the bewitched Woman, Beauty. He reasoned that because the Ugly Girl could not even speak (perhaps because the Magician cared not to understand her), Love would never last; he did not even remember the Ugly Girl's Name.
Even then, the Magician knew he did not Love the other, the woman possessed by the Beauty of two worlds. He must have followed her only because he was Bewitched, but in truth because The Exile told him it was right.
The Magician gave the Woman gifts and lavished all his attentions upon her. He took her to great ceremonies and showed her secret wonders; she took his gifts, and saw him revealed of all his mysteries. He showed Beauty all the magic of the ancient world, banquets and conjurations of golden splendour; yet she possessed greater power, possessed by the desire of others the Magician could never even approach. The woman did not tell the Magician of her world, for she held her own secrets close to herself.
Perhaps it was not enough, or as the Magician had felt even from the beginning - the feelings were false, for all magic Betrays; Beauty was always promised to another.
For all his magic, his illusions and conjurations, the Magician could not compel a woman to feel Love. Perhaps this was not the right way; perhaps he did not care. Then the Magician remembered what he had always known with the Ugly Girl, the devoted girl he had left and whose Name he could not even remember; recalled how he had felt even then: one who abandons is abandoned in return.
There were never Two Worlds; you choose only One.
And so the aged Magician surrendered all his magic of old, and returned to The Exile alone.
The strangest part of the story is this: it happened twice, under nearly the exact same circumstances; once with a Stranger, then again with another - of my own Blood.
