"Oh, yes, you are so right," I said. I was almost weeping. I thought in my secret heart of Botticelli, the man himself standing in his studio staring at me, wondering helplessly what sort of strange patron I was, and never dreaming that my hunger and adoration were commingled, never dreaming of a danger which had come so close. "It's almost dawn," she said. "I feel cold now. And nothing matters. Do you feel the same way?" "Soon we will leave here," I said in answer, "and we will have golden lamps around us. And a hundred fine candles. Yes, one hundred white candles. And we'll be warm where there is snow." "Ah, my love," she said softly. "I believe in you with my soul." The next night we hunted once more and this time as if it were to be our last in Venice. There seemed no end to the blood I could imbibe. And without confiding it to Bianca, I was eternally listening for Santino's brigands, quite certain that at any moment they might return. Long after I had brought her back for safekeeping in the golden room, and seen her nestled there amid her bundles of clothes and soft burning candles, I went out to hunt again, moving swiftly over the rooftops, and catching the worst and strongest of the killers of the city. I wondered that my hunger did not bring some reign of peace to Venice, so savage was I in cleaning out those bent upon evil. And when I was done with blood I went to the secret places in my burnt-out palazzo and gathered the gold which others hadn't been able to find. Finally, I went to the very highest roof that I could discover and I looked out over Venice, and I said my farewell to it. My heart was broken and I did not know what would restore it. My Perfect Time had ended for me in agony. It had ended for Amadeo in disaster. And perhaps it had ended for my fair Bianca as well. At last I knew from my gaunt and blackened limbs - so little healed by so many kills - that I must press on to Those Who Must Be Kept, and I must share the secret with Bianca, for young as she was, I had no real choice. It faintly excited me in my crushing misery that I could share the secret at last. Oh, what a terrible thing it was to put such a weight upon such tender shoulders, but I was weary of the pain and the loneliness. I had been conquered. And I only wanted to reach the shrine with Bianca in my arms.

Chapter Twenty Seven

At last it was time for the journey. It was far too dangerous for us to remain in Venice,
and I knew that I could carry us to the shrine.
Taking one bundle of clothing with us, and as much of my gold as I could carry, I
wrapped Bianca tightly against me and in less than half of one night, crossed the
mountains, in bitter winds and snow.
By now Bianca was accustomed to certain wonders, and to be set down in a snow-filled
mountain pass did not alarm her.
But within moments we were both painfully aware that I had made a desperate error in
judgment.
I was not strong enough in my present state to open the door of the shrine.
It was I, of course, who had created this ironbound stone door to block any human
assault, and after several pathetic attempts to open it, I had to confess that it was not
within my power, and we must find some other shelter before dawn.
Bianca began to weep, and I became angry with her. I made another assault upon the door
just to spite her, and then stood back and bid the door open with all the power of my
mind.
There was no result, and the wind and the snow beat down hard against us, and Bianca's
weeping infuriated me to where I spoke words that weren't true.
"I made this door and I shall open it," I declared. "Only give me time to determine what I
must do."
She turned away from me, visibly hurt by my anger, and then in a miserable yet humble
voice she asked me,
"What is inside this place? I can hear a dreadful sound from beyond the door, all too like
the sound of a heartbeat. Why have we come here? Where shall we go if we cannot find
shelter here?"
All of these questions angered me, but when I looked at Bianca, when I saw her sitting on
the rock where I had placed her, the snow falling on her head and shoulders, her head
bowed, her tears glistening and red as always, I felt ashamed that I had so used her in my
weakness and that I needed so to be angry with her now.
"Be still and I shall open it," I said to her. "You have no knowledge of what lies within.
But you will in time."
I gave a great sigh and stood back from the door, my burnt hand still tightened on the iron
handle and with all my strength I pulled, but I could not make the door budge.
The absolute folly of it gripped me. I could gain no admittance! I was too weak, and for
how long I would be too weak I didn't know. And yet I made one attempt after another,
only so that Bianca would believe that I could protect her, that I could gain entry to this
strange place.
Finally I turned my back on the Holy of Holies, and I went to her, and gathered her to me,
and covered her head and tried to warm her as best I could.
"Very soon, I shall tell you all," I said, "and I shall find us shelter this night. Don't doubt.
For now, let me say only that this is a place which I built and which is known to me only
and which I'm too weak now to enter as you can see."
"Forgive me that I cried," she said gently. "You won't see tears from me again. But what
is the sound I hear? Can't humans hear it?"
"No, they cannot," I answered. "Please be still for now, my brave darling."
But at that moment, that very single moment, another new and altogether different sound
caught my ear, a sound which could have been heard by anyone.

It was the sound of the stone door opening behind me. I knew the sound infallibly and I turned around, unbelieving and as fearful as I was amazed. Quickly I gathered Bianca to me, and we stood before the door as it opened wide. My heart was racing. I could hardly fill my lungs with air. I knew that only Akasha could have done this, and as the door fell all the way back, I perceived another miracle of equal kindness and beauty of which I'd never dreamt. A rich and abundant light poured forth from the door of the stone passage. For a moment I was too stunned to move. Then pure happiness descended upon me as I gazed upon this flood of beautiful light. And it seemed I could not possibly fear it or doubt its meaning. "Come now, Bianca," I said to her, as I guided her forward at my side. She clutched her bundle to her chest as though she would die if she let go of it, and I held her as though without her to witness with me I would fall. We stepped into the stone passage and made our way slowly into the bright and flickering light of the chapel. All its many bronze lamps were aglow. Its one hundred candles blazed exquisitely. And no sooner had I taken note of these things, amid a subdued glory that filled me with joy, than the stone door was closed behind us with a crushing sound as rock sounded against rock. I found myself staring over the row of one hundred candles up into the faces of the Divine Mother and Father, seeing them as perhaps Bianca would see them, and certainly with refreshed and grateful eyes. I knelt down, and Bianca knelt at my side. I was trembling. Indeed my shock was so great that I could not for a moment fill my lungs with air. There was no way that I could explain to Bianca the full import of what had taken place. I would only frighten her if I tried to do so. And careless words spoken before my Queen would be unforgivable. "Don't speak," I finally said in a whisper. "They are our Parents. They have opened the door, when I could not. They have lighted the lamps for us. They have lighted the candles. You cannot imagine the worth of this blessing. They have welcomed us inside. We can answer them only with prayers." Bianca nodded. Her face was full of piety and wonder. Did it matter to Akasha that I had brought to her feet an exquisite blood drinker? In a low reverent voice I recounted the story of the Divine Parents but only in the simplest and grandest terms. I told Bianca how they had come to be the very first blood drinkers thousands of years ago in Egypt, and that now they no longer hungered for blood or even so much as spoke or moved. I was their keeper and their guardian and had been so for all of my life as a blood drinker and so it would always be. I said these things so that nothing would alarm Bianca and she would feel no dread of the two still figures who stared forward in horrifying silence, and did not seem even to blink. And so it was that tender Bianca was initiated into these powerful mysteries with great care and thought them beautiful and nothing more. "It was to this chapel," I explained, "that I would come when I left Venice, and I would light the lamps for the King and the Queen, and bring fresh flowers. You see, there are none now. But I will bring them when I can." Once again, I realized that in spite of my enthusiasm and gratitude, I couldn't really make her know what a miracle it was that Akasha had opened the door for us, or lighted the lamps. Indeed, I didn't dare to do it, and now that I had finished this respectful recital, I closed my eyes, and in silence I thanked both Akasha and Enkil that they had admitted me to the sanctuary, and that they had greeted us with the gift of light. Over and over I offered my prayers, perhaps unable myself to grasp the fact that they had so welcomed me, and not too certain of what it really meant. Was I loved? Was I needed? It seemed I must accept without presumption. It seemed I must be grateful without imagining things that weren't so. I knelt in quietude for a long time and Bianca must surely have observed me for she too was quiet, and then I could bear the thirst no longer. I stared at Akasha. I desired the Blood. I could think of nothing but the Blood. All my injuries were as so many open wounds in me. And my wounds bled for the Blood. I had to attempt to take the allpowerful Blood from the Queen. "My beauty," I said, placing my gloved hand on Bianca's tender arm. "I want you to go to the corner there and to sit quiet, and to say nothing of what you see." "But what will happen?" she whispered. For the first time she sounded afraid. She looked about herself at the shivering flames of the lamps, at the glowing candles, at the painted walls. "Do as I tell you," I said. I had to say it, and she had to do it, for how was I ever to know whether the Queen would let me drink? As soon as Bianca was in the corner with her heavy cloak wrapped around her and as far away as possible, for whatever good it would do, I prayed in silence for the Blood. "You see me and what I am," I said silently, "you know that I have been burnt. This is why you opened the door for me and admitted me, because I could not do it, and surely you see what a monster I have become. Have mercy on me and let me drink from you as you have done in the past. I need the Blood. I need it more than I have ever needed it. And so I come to you with respect." I removed my leather mask and laid it aside. I was as hideous now as those old burnt gods whom Akasha had once crushed when they came to her. Would she refuse me in the same manner? Or had she known all along what had befallen me? Had she understood completely all things before the door was ever opened? I rose slowly until I knelt at her feet and I could put my hand upon her throat, all the while tensed for the threat of Enkil's arm, but it did not come. I kissed her throat, feeling her plaited hair against me and looking at her white skin before me, and hearing only Bianca's soft tears. "Don't cry, Bianca," I whispered. Then I sank my teeth suddenly, viciously, as I had so often done, and the thick blood flooded into me, brilliant and hot as the lamplight and the light of the candles, pouring into me as if her heart were pumping it willingly into me, racing the beat of my own heart. My head grew light. My body grew light. Far away Bianca wept. Why was she afraid? I saw the garden. I saw the garden I had painted after I had fallen in love with Botticelli, and it was filled with his orange trees and with his flowers and yet it was my garden, the garden of my father's house outside Rome long long ago. How could I ever forget my own garden? How could I ever forget the garden where I had first played as a child? In memory I went back to those days in Rome when I had been mortal, and there was my garden, the garden of the villa of my father, and I was walking in the soft grass and listening to the sound of the fountain, and then it seemed that all through time, the garden changed but never changed, and it was always there for me. I lay down on the grass, and the branches of the trees moved above me. I heard a voice speaking to me, rapidly and sweetly, but I didn't know what it was saying, and then I knew that Amadeo was hurt, that he was in the hands of those who would bring pain and evil to him, and that I could not go to him now, I would only stumble into their snares if I did, and that I must stay here. I was the Keeper of the King and the Queen as I had told Bianca, yes, the Keeper of the King and the Queen, and I must let Amadeo go in time, and perhaps were I to do as I should, perhaps Pandora would be returned to me, Pandora who traveled the northern cities of Europe now, Pandora who had been seen. The garden was verdant and fragrant and I saw Pandora clearly. I saw her in her soft white dress, her hair loose as I had described it to Bianca. Pandora smiled. She walked towards me. She spoke to me. The Queen wants us to be together, she said. Her eyes were large and wondering and I knew she was very close to me, very close, so close that I could almost touch her hand. I can't be imagining this, no, I cannot, I thought. And there came back to me again vividly the sound of Pandora's voice, as she quarreled with me on our first night as bride and groom: Even as this new blood races through me still, eats at me and transforms me, I cling to neither reason nor superstition for my safety. I can walk through a myth and out of it! You fear me, because you don't know what I am. I look like a woman, I sound like a man, and your reason tells you the sum total is impossible. I was looking into Pandora's eyes. She sat on the garden bench, pulling the flower petals out of her brown hair, a girl again in the Blood, a woman-girl forever, as Bianca would be a young woman forever. I reached out on either side of me and felt the grass beneath my hands. Suddenly I fell backwards, out of the dream garden, out of the illusion and found myself lying quite still on the floor of the chapel, between the high bank of perfect candles, and the steps of the dais where the enthroned couple kept their ancient place. Nothing seemed changed about me. Even Bianca's crying came as before. "Be quiet now, darling," I said to her. But my eyes were fastened to the face of Akasha above me, and to her breasts beneath the golden silk of her Egyptian dress. It seemed that Pandora had been with me, that she had been in the very chapel. And the beauty of Pandora seemed bound up with the beauty and presence of Akasha in some intimate way which I could not understand. "What are these portents?" I whispered. I sat up and then rose to my knees. "Tell me, my beloved Queen. What are these portents? Did you once bring Pandora to me because you wanted us to be together? Do you remember when Pandora spoke those words to me? " I fell silent. But my mind spoke to Akasha. My mind pleaded with her. Where is Pandora? Will you bring Pandora to me again? A long interval passed and then I rose to my feet. I went round the bank of candles and found my precious companion quite distraught over the simple wonder she had beheld of me drinking from the immobile Queen. "And then you fell back, as though you were lifeless," she recounted. "And I didn't dare to go to you, as you'd said that I mustn't move." I comforted her. "And then finally you waked, and you spoke of Pandora, and I saw that you were so ... so much healed." This was true. I was more robust all over, my arms and legs thicker, heavier, and my face had more of its natural contour. Indeed, I was still badly burnt, but a man of some stature and seeming strength now, and indeed I could feel more of the old strength in my limbs. But it was now only two hours from dawn, and being quite unable to open the door, and not in any mood to pray that Akasha work common miracles for anyone, I knew I had to give my blood to Bianca, and so this is what I did. Would it offend the Queen, that I, having just drunk from her would offer this powerful

blood to a child? There was nothing to do but find out.
I didn't frighten Bianca with any warnings or doubts on the matter. I beckoned to her that
she should come to me and lie in my arms.
I cut my wrist for her and told her to drink. I heard her gasp with the shock of the
powerful blood and her delicate fingers stiffened to make her two hands into claws.
At last of her own volition she drew back and sat up slowly beside me, her eyes vague
and full of reflected light.
I kissed her forehead.
"What did you see in the Blood, my beauty?" I asked.
She shook her head as though she had no words for it, and then she laid her head on my
chest.
There was only serenity and peace in the chapel, and as we lay down to sleep together,
the lamps slowly burnt out.
At last the candles were down to a few, and I could feel the dawn coming, and the chapel
was warm as I had promised, and glittering with its riches, but above all with its solemn
King and Queen.
Bianca had lost consciousness. I had perhaps three quarters of an hour before the day's
slumber would come for me as well.
I looked up at Akasha, delighting in the last shimmer of the dying candles in her eyes.
"You know what a liar I am, don't you?" I asked her. "You know how wicked I have
been. And you play my game with me, don't you, my Sovereign?"
Did I hear laughter?
Maybe I was going mad. There had been enough pain for it and enough magic; there had
been enough hunger, and enough blood.
I looked down at Bianca who rested so trustingly on my arm.
"I have planted in her mind the image of Pandora, haven't I?" I whispered, "so that
wherever she goes with me she will search. And from her angel mind, Pandora cannot
fail to pluck my image.
And so we may find each other, Pandora and I, through her. She doesn't dream of what
I've done.
She thinks only to comfort me with her listening, and I, though loving her, take her North
with me, into the lands where Raymond Gallant has told me that Pandora was last seen.
"Oh, very wicked, but what does it take to sustain life when life is bruised and burnt as
badly as my life has been? For me it is this extravagant and slender ambition, and for it I
abandon Amadeo whom I should rescue as soon as my strength is restored."
There was a sound in the chapel. What was it? The sound of the wax of the last candle?
It seemed a voice was speaking to me soundlessly.
You cannot rescue Amadeo. You are the keeper of the Mother and the Father.
"Yes, I grow sleepy," I whispered. I closed my eyes. "I know such things, I have always
known them."
You go on, you seek Raymond Gallant, you must remember. Look at his face again.
"Yes, the Talamasca," I said. "And the castle called Lorwich in East Anglia. The place he
called the Motherhouse. Yes. I remember both sides of the golden coin."
I thought dreamily of that supper when he had come upon me so stealthily and stared at
me with such innocent and inquisitive eyes.
I thought of the music and the way Amadeo smiled at Bianca as they danced together. I
thought of everything.
And then in my hand I saw the golden coin and the engraved image of the castle, and I
thought, am I not dreaming? But it seemed that Raymond Gallant was talking to me,

talking very distinctly:
"Listen to me, Marius, remember me, Marius. We know of her, Marius. We watch and
we are always here."
"Yes, go North," I whispered.
And it seemed that the Queen of Silence said without a word that she was content.

Chapter Twenty Eight

As I look back now,! have no doubt that Akasha turned me away from the rescue of Amadeo, and as I consider all that I have revealed here I have no doubt of her intervention in my life at other periods. Had I attempted to go South to Rome, I would have fallen into Santino's hands and met with destruction. And what better lure was there than the promise that I might soon meet with Pandora? Of course my encounter with Raymond Gallant was quite real, and the details of this were vivid within my mind, and Akasha no doubt subtracted these details by virtue of her immense power. The description of Pandora which I had confided to Bianca was also quite real, and this too might have been known to the Queen had she opened her ears to listen to my distant prayers from Venice. Whatever the case, from the night we arrived at the shrine I was set upon a course of recovery and of a search for Pandora. If anyone had told me that both would take some two hundred years, I might have met with despair, but I did not know this. I knew only that I was safe within the shrine, and I had Akasha to protect me, and Bianca to content me. For well over a year I drank from the fount of the Mother. And for six months of this time, I fed my powerful blood to Bianca. During those nights, when I could not open the stone door, I saw myself grow more robust in appearance with each divine feast, and I spent the long hours talking in respectful whispers with Bianca. We took to conserving the oil for the lamps, and the fine candles which I had stored behind the Divine Parents, for we had no inkling of how long it would be before I could open the door and take us to hunting in the distant Alpine towns or cities. At last there came a night when it occurred to me most strongly to venture out, and I was clever enough to know that this thought had not come to me at random. It had been suggested to me by a series of images. I could open the door now. I could go out. And I could take Bianca with me. As for my appearance to the mortal world, my skin was coal black, and heavily scarred in places as though from the stroking of a hot poker. But the face I saw in Bianca's mirror was fully formed, with the serene expression that has always been so familiar to me. And my body was strong once more, and my hands of which I am so vain were a scholar's hands with long deft fingers. For another year, I could not dare to send to Raymond Gallant a letter. Carrying Bianca with me to far-flung towns, I searched hastily and clumsily for the Evil Doer. As such creatures often run in packs, we would enjoy a gluttonous feast; and then I would take such clothes and gold as needed from the dead; and off we would go to the shrine well before daylight. I think when I look back on it that ten years at least went by in this fashion. But time is so strange with us, how can I be certain? What I remember was that a powerful bond existed between me and Bianca that seemed absolutely unshakable. As the years passed, she was as much my companion in silence as she had ever been in conversation. We moved as one, without argument or consultation. She was a proud and merciless hunter, dedicated to the majesty of Those Who Must Be Kept, and always drank from more than one human victim whenever possible. Indeed, there seemed no limit to the blood she could imbibe. She wanted strength, both from me and the Evil Doer whom she took with righteous coldness. Riding the winds in my arms, she turned her eyes to the stars fearlessly. And often she spoke to me softly and easily of her mortal life in Florence, telling me the stories of her youth, and of how she had loved her brothers who had so admired Lorenzo the Magnificent. Yes, she had seen my beloved Botticelli many a time and told me in detail of paintings which I had not seen. She sang songs to me now and then which she composed herself. She spoke in sadness of the death of her brothers and how she had fallen into the power of her evil kinsmen. I loved listening to her as much as I loved talking to her. Indeed, it was so fluid between us that I still wonder at it. And though on many a morn, she combed out her lovely hair and replaited it with her ropes of tiny pearls, she never complained of our lot, and wore the cast-off tunics and cloaks of the men we slew as I did. Now and then, slipping discreetly behind the King and Queen, she took from her precious bundle a gorgeous gown of silk and clothed herself with care in it, this to sleep in my arms, after I had covered her with warm compliments and kisses. Never had I known such peace with Pandora. Never had I known such warm simplicity. Yet it was Pandora who filled my mind -Pandora traveling the cities of the North, Pandora with her Asian companion. At last there came an evening when, after a furious hunt, in exhaustion and satiation, Bianca asked to be returned early to the shrine, and I found myself in possession of a priceless three hours before dawn. I also found myself in possession of a new measure of strength which I had perhaps unwittingly concealed from her. To a distant Alpine monastery I went, one which had suffered much due to the recent rise of what scholars call the Protestant Reformation. Here I knew I would find frightened monks who would take my gold and assist me in sending a letter to England. Entering the empty chapel first, I gathered up every good beeswax candle in the place, these to replenish those of the shrine, and I put all of the candles into a sack which I had brought with me. I then went to the scriptorium where I found an old monk who was writing very fast by his single candle. He looked up as soon as he found me standing in his presence. "Yes," I said at once, speaking his German dialect. "I am a strange man come to you in a strange way, but believe me when I say that I am not evil." He was gray-haired, tonsured, and wore brown robes, and he was a bit cold in the empty scriptorium. He was utterly fearless as he gazed at me. But I told myself that I had never looked more human. My skin was as black as that of a Moor and I wore the rather drab gray garments which I had taken from some doomed miscreant. Now as he continued to stare, quite obviously not in any mood to sound a general alarm, I did my old trick of placing before him a purse of gold coins for the good of the monastery which needed it badly. "I must write a letter," I said, "and see that it reaches a place in England." "A Catholic place?" he asked as he looked at me, his gray eyebrows thick and arched as he raised them. "I should think so," I said with a shrug. Of course I couldn't describe to him the secular nature of the Talamasca.

"Then think again," he said. "For England is no longer Catholic." "What on earth do you mean?" I asked. "Surely the Reformation has not reached such a place as England." He laughed. "No, not the Reformation precisely," he said. "Rather the vanity of a King who would divorce his Spanish Catholic wife, and who has denied the power of the Pope to rule against him." I was so dejected that I sat down on a nearby bench though I'd been given no invitation to do it. "What are you?" asked the old monk. He laid down his quill pen. He stared at me in the most thoughtful manner. "It's no matter," I said wearily. "Do you think there's no chance that a letter from here could reach a castle called Lorwich in East Anglia?" "I don't know," said the monk. "It might well happen. For there are some who oppose King Henry VIII and others who do not. But in general he has destroyed the monasteries of England. And so any letter you write from me cannot go to one of them, only directly to the castle. And how is that to happen? We have to think on it. I can always attempt it." "Yes, please, let us attempt it." "But first, tell me what you are," he asked again. "I won't write the letter for you unless you do so. Also I want to know why you stole all the good candles in the chapel and left the bad ones." "You know I did this?" I asked. I was becoming extremely agitated. I thought I had been silent as a mouse. "I'm not an ordinary man," he said. "I hear things and see things that people don't. I know you're not human. What are you?" "I can't tell you," I said. "Tell me what you think I am. Tell me if you can find any true evil in my heart. Tell me what you see in me." He gazed at me for a long time. His eyes were deeply gray, and as I looked at his elderly face I could easily reconstruct the young man he had been, rather resolute, though his personal strength of character was far greater now even though he suffered human infirmity. At last he turned away and looked at his candle as though he had completed his examination of me. "I am a reader of strange books," he said in a hushed but clear voice. "I have studied some of those texts which have come out of Italy pertaining to magic and astrology and things which are often called forbidden." My pulse quickened. This seemed extraordinary good fortune. I did not interrupt. "I have a belief that there are angels cast out of Heaven," he said, "and that they do not know what they are any longer. They wander in a state of confusion. You seem one of those creatures, though if I am right, you will not be able to confirm it." I was so struck by the curiosity of this concept that I could say nothing. At last I had to answer. "No, I'm not such. I know it for certain. But I wish that I were. Let me confide in you one terrible secret." "Very well," he said. "You may go to Confession to me if you like, for I am an ordained priest, not simply a monk, but I doubt I shall be able to give you Absolution." "This is my secret. I have existed since the time when Christ walked the Earth though I never knew of him." He considered this calmly for a long time, looking into my eyes and then away to his candle, as if this were a little ritual with him. Then he spoke: "I don't really believe you," he said. "But you are a mystifying being, with your black skin and blue eyes, with your blond hair, and with your gold which you so generously put before me. I'll take it, of course. We need it." I smiled. I loved him. Of course I wouldn't tell him such a thing. What would it mean to him? "All right," he said, "I'll write your letter for you." "I can write it myself," I said, "if only you give me the parchment and the pen. I need for you to send it, and establish this place for the receipt of an answer to it. It's the answer which is so important." He obeyed me at once, and I turned to the task, gladly accepting the quill from him. I knew he was watching me as I wrote but it didn't matter. Raymond Gallant, I have suffered a dreadful catastrophe, following upon the very night which I met with you and talked to you. My palazzo in Venice was destroyed by fire, and I myself injured beyond my own imagining. Please be assured that this was not the work of mortal hands, and some night should we meet I shall most willingly explain to you what happened. In fact, it would give me great satisfaction to describe to you in detail the identity of the one who sent his emissaries to destroy me. As for now, I am far too weakened to attempt vengeance either in words or actions. I am also too weakened to journey to Lorwich in East Anglia, and thanks to forces which I cannot describe I do have shelter similar to that which you offered me. But I beg you to tell me if you have had any recent intelligence of my Pandora. I beg you to tell me if she has made herself known to you. I beg you to tell me if you can help me to reach her by letter. Marius. Having finished the letter, I gave it over to the priest who promptly added the proper address of the monastery, folded the parchment and sealed it. We sat in silence for a long moment. "How shall I find you," he asked, "when an answer reaches here?" "I'll know," I said, "as you knew when I took the candles. Forgive me for taking them. I should have gone into a city and bought them from a proper merchant. But I have become such a traveler of the sleepy night. I do things far too much at random." "So I can see," he answered, "for though you began with me in German, you are now speaking Latin in which you wrote your letter. Oh, don't be angry. I didn't read a single word, but I knew it was Latin. Perfect Latin. A Latin such as no one speaks today." "Is my gold recompense enough?" I asked. I rose from the bench. It was now time for me to be off. "Oh, yes, and I look forward to your return. I'll see the letter is sent tomorrow. If the Lord of Lorwich in East Anglia has sworn his allegiance to Henry VIII, you'll no doubt have your answer." I was off so swiftly that to my new friend, it no doubt seemed that I had disappeared. And as I returned to the shrine, I observed for the first time the beginnings of a human settlement all too close to us. Of course we were concealed in a tiny valley high upon an ominous cliff. Nevertheless, a small group of huts had caught my eye far below at the foot of the cliff, and I knew what was going to happen. When I entered the shrine I found Bianca sleeping. No question came from her as to where I had been, and I realized the lengths I had gone to avoid her knowledge of my letter. I wondered if I might reach England were I to travel the skies alone. But what would I say to her? I had never left her alone and it seemed wrong ever to do so. Little less than a year went by during which time I passed nightly within hearing distance of the priest to whom I had entrusted my letter. By this time, Bianca and I had frequently hunted the streets of small Alpine cities in one guise, while buying from their merchants in another. Now and then we rented rooms for ourselves so that we might enjoy common things, but we were far too fearful to remain anywhere but in the shrine at morning. All the while, I continued to approach the Queen at intervals. How I chose my moments, I do not know. Perhaps she spoke to me. All I can avow is that I knew when I might drink from her and I did it, and always there came the rapid healing afterwards, the renewal of vigor, and the desire to share my replenished gifts with Bianca. At last there came a night, when having left a weary Bianca in the shrine once more, I came near to the Alpine monastery and saw my monk standing in the garden with his arms out to the sky in a gesture of such romance and piety that I almost wept to see it. Softly, without a sound, I entered the cloister behind him. At once he turned to face me, as if his powers were as great as mine. The wind swept his full brown robes as he came towards me. "Marius," he said in a whisper. He gestured to me to be quiet, and led me into the scriptorium. When I saw the thickness of the letter he drew from his desk I was astonished. That it was open, that the seal was broken, gave me pause. I looked at him. "Yes, I read it," he said. "Did you think I would give it to you without doing so?" I couldn't waste any more time. I had to read what was inside the letter. I sat down and unfolded the pages immediately. Marius, Let these words not move you to anger or to hasty decision. What I know of Pandora is as follows. She has been seen by those of us who are knowledgeable in such things in the cities of Nuremberg, Vienna, Prague and Gutenberg. She travels in Poland. She travels in Bavaria. She and her companion are most clever, seldom disturbing the human population through which they move, but from time to time they set foot in the royal courts of certain kingdoms. It is believed by those who have seen them that they take some delight in danger. Our archives are filled with accounts of a black carriage that travels by day, comporting within two huge enameled chests in which these creatures are presumed to sleep, protected by a small garrison of pale-skinned human guards who are secretive, ruthless and devoted. Even the most benign or clever approach to these human guards is followed by certain death as some of our members have learnt for themselves when seeking to penetrate the mystery of these dark travelers. It is the judgment of some among us here that the guards have received a small portion of the power so generously enjoyed by their master and mistress, thus binding them irrevocably to Pandora and her companion. Our last sighting of the pair was in Poland. However these beings travel very fast and remain in no one place for any given length of time, and indeed seem more than content to move back and forth across the length and breadth of Europe ceaselessly. They have been known to go back and forth in Spain and to travel throughout France, but never to linger in Paris. As regards this last city, I wonder if you know why they do not stay there long, or if I must be the one to enlighten you. I shall tell you what I know. In Paris, now, there exists a great dedicated group of the species which we both understand, indeed, so large a group that one must doubt that even Paris can content them. And having received into our arms one desperate infidel from this group we have learnt much of how these unusual Parisian creatures characterize themselves. I cannot commit to parchment what I know of them. Let me only say that they are possessed of a surprising zeal, believing themselves to serve God Himself with their strenuous appetite. And should others of the same ilk venture into their domain they do not hesitate to destroy them, declaring them to be blasphemers. This infidel of which I speak has averred more than once that his brothers and sisters were among those who participated in your great loss and injury. Only you can confirm this for me, as I do not know what is madness here or boasting, or perhaps a blending of the two, and you can well imagine how confounded we are to have one so loquacious and hostile beneath our roof, so eager to answer questions and so frightened to be left unguarded. Let me also add that piece of intelligence which may matter to you as much now as any which I have pertaining to your lost Pandora. He who guides this voracious and mysterious band of Paris creatures is none other than your young companion from Venice. Won over by discipline, fasting, penance and the loss of his former Master - so says this young infidel - your old companion has proved to be a leader of immeasurable strength and well capable of driving out any of his kind who seek to gain a foothold in Paris. Would that I could tell you more of these creatures. Allow me to repeat what I have suggested above. They believe themselves to be in the service of Almighty God. And from this principle, a considerable number of rules follow. Marius, I cannot imagine how this information will affect you. I write here only that of which I am most certain. Now, allow me to play an unusual role, given our respective ages. Whatever your response to my revelations here, under no circumstances travel overland North to see me. Under no circumstances travel overland North to find Pandora. Under no circumstances travel overland North to find your young companion. I caution you on all these accounts for two reasons. There are at this time, as you must surely know, wars all over Europe. Martin Luther has fomented much unrest. And in England, our sovereign Henry VIII has declared himself independent of Rome, in spite of much resistance. Of course we at Lorwich are loyal to our King and his decisions earn only our respect and honor. But it is no time to be traveling in Europe. And allow me to warn you on another account which may surprise you. Throughout Europe now there are those who are willing to persecute others for witchcraft on slender reasons; that is, a superstition regarding witches reigns in villages and towns, which even one hundred years ago would have been dismissed as ridiculous. You cannot allow yourself to travel overland through such places. Writings as to wizards, Sabbats and Devil worship cloud human philosophy. And yes, I do fear for Pandora that she and her companion take no seeming notice of these dangers, but it has been communicated to us many times that though she travels overland, she travels very swiftly. Her servants have been known to purchase fresh horses

twice or three times within a day, demanding only that the animals be of the finest
quality.
Marius, I send you my deepest good wishes. Please write to me again as soon as possible.
There are so many questions I wish to ask you. I dare not do so in this letter. I do not
know if I dare at all.
Let me only express the wish and hope for your invitation.
I must confess to you that I am the envy of my brothers and sisters that I have received
your communication. I shall not let my head be turned by this. I am in awe of you and
with justification.
Yours in the Talamasca,
Raymond Gallant.
At last I sat back on the bench, the many sheaves of parchment trembling in my left hand,
and I shook my head, hardly knowing what I might say to myself, for my thoughts were
all a brew.
Indeed, since the night of the disaster in Venice, I had frequently been at a loss for private
words, and never did I know it as keenly as now.
I looked down at the pages. My right fingers touched various words, and then I drew
back, shaking my head again.
Pandora, circling Europe, within my grasp but perhaps eternally beyond it.
And Amadeo, won over to the creed of Santino and sent to establish it in Paris! Oh, yes, I
could envision it.
There came back to me once more the vivid image of Santino that night in Rome, in his
black robes, his hair so vainly clean as he approached me and pressed me to come with
him to his wretched catacomb.
And here lay the proof now that he had not destroyed my beautiful child, rather he had
made of him a victim. He had won him over; he had taken Amadeo to himself! He had
more utterly defeated me than ever I had dreamt.
And Amadeo, my blessed and beautiful pupil, had gone from my uncertain tutelage to
that perpetual gloom. And yes, oh, yes, I could imagine it. Ashes. I tasted ashes.
A cold shudder ran through me.
I crushed the pages to myself.
Then quite suddenly I became aware that, beside me sat the gray-haired priest, looking at
me, very calm as he leaned on his left elbow.
Again I shook my head. I folded the pages of the letter to make of them a packet that I
might carry with me.
I looked into his gray eyes.
"Why don't you run from me?" I asked. I was bitter and wanted to weep but this was no
place for it.
"You're in my debt," he said softly. "Tell me what you are, if only so that I may know if
I've lost my soul by serving you."
"You haven't lost your soul," I said quickly, my wretchedness too plain in my voice.
"Your soul has nothing to do with me." I took a deep breath. "What did you make of what
you read in my letter?"
"You're suffering," he said, "rather like a mortal man, but you aren't mortal. And this one
in England, he is mortal, but he isn't afraid of you."
"This is true," I said. "I suffer, and I suffer for one has done me wrong and I have no
vengeance nor justice. But let's not speak of such things. I would be alone now."
A silence fell between us. It was time for me to go but I had not the strength quite yet to
do it.

Had I given him the usual purse? I must do it now. I reached inside my tunic and brought
it out. I laid it down, and spilled the golden coins so that I might see them in the light of
the candle.
Some vague and heated thoughts formed in my mind to do with Amadeo and the
brilliance of this gold and of how angry I was, and of how I seethed for vengeance
against Santino. I saw ikons with their halos of gold; I saw the coin of the Talamasca
made of gold. I saw the golden florins of Florence.
I saw the golden bracelets once worn by Pandora on her beautiful naked arms. I saw the
golden bracelets which I had put upon the arms of Akasha.
Gold and gold and gold.
And Amadeo had chosen ashes!
Well, I shall find Pandora once more, I thought. I shall find her! And only if she swears
against me will I let her go, will I let her remain with this mysterious companion. Oh, I
trembled as I thought of it, as I vowed, as I whispered these wordless thoughts.
Pandora, yes! And some night, for Amadeo, there would be the reckoning with Santino!
A long silence ensued.
The priest beside me was not frightened. I wondered if he could possibly guess how
grateful I was that he allowed me to remain there in such precious stillness.
At last, I ran my left fingers over the golden coins.
"Is there enough there for flowers?" I asked, "flowers and trees and beautiful plants in
your garden?"
"There is enough there to endow our gardens forever," he answered.
"Ah forever!" I said. "I have such a love of that word, forever."
"Yes, it is a timeless word," he said, raising his mossy eyebrows as he looked at me.
"Time is ours, but forever belongs to God, don't you think?"
"Yes, I do," I said. I turned to face him. I smiled at him, and I saw the warm impression
of this on him just as if I'd spoken kind words to him. He couldn't conceal it.
"You've been good to me," I said.
"Will you write to your friend again?" he asked.
"Not from here," I answered. "It's too dangerous for me. From some other place. And I
beg you, forget these things."
He laughed in the most honest and simple way. "Forget!" he said.
I rose to go.
"You shouldn't have read the letter," I said. "It can only cause you worry."
"I had to do it," he answered. "Before I gave it to you."
"I cannot imagine why," I answered. I walked quietly towards the door of the
scriptorium.
He came beside me.
"And so you go then, Marius?" he asked.
I turned around. I lifted my hand in farewell.
"Yes, neither angel nor devil, I go," I said, "neither good nor bad. And I thank you."
As I had before, I went from him so swiftly he couldn't see it, and very soon I was alone
with the stars, and staring down on that valley all too near to the chapel where a city was
forming at the foot of my high cliff which had been neglected by all mankind for over a
millennium.

Chapter Twenty Nine

I waited along time before showing the letter to Bianca. I never really concealed it from her, for I thought such a thing was dishonest. But as she did not ask me the meaning of the pages which I kept with my few personal belongings, I did not explain them to her. It was too painful for me to share my sorrow with regard to Amadeo. And as for the existence of the Talamasca, it was too bizarre a tale, and too fully interwoven with my love for Pandora. But I did leave Bianca alone in the shrine more and more often. Never of course did I abandon her there in the early part of the evening when she depended upon me totally to reach those places where we might hunt. On the contrary, I always took her with me. It was later in the night - after we had fed - that I would return her to safety and go off alone, testing the limits of my powers. All the while a strange thing was happening to me. As I drank from the Mother my vigor increased. But I also learned what all injured blood drinkers learn - that in healing I was becoming stronger than I had been before my injury. Of course I gave Bianca my own blood, but as I grew ever stronger the gap between us became very great and I saw it widening. There were times, of course, when I put the question in my prayers as to whether Akasha would receive Bianca. But it seemed that the answer was no, and so in fear I didn't dare to test it. I remembered only too well the death of Eudoxia, and I also remembered the moment when Enkil had lifted his arm against Mael. I could not subject Bianca to possible injury. Within a short time, I was easily able to take Bianca with me through the night to the nearby cities of Prague and Geneva, and there we indulged ourselves with some vision of the civilization we had once known in Venice. As for that beautiful capital, I would not return to it, no matter how much Bianca implored me. Of course she possessed nothing of the Cloud Gift herself, and was dependent upon me in a manner which neither Amadeo nor Pandora had ever been. "It is too painful to me," I declared. "I will not go there. You've lived here so long as my beautiful nun. What is it you want?" "I want Italy," she said in a soft crestfallen voice. And I knew only too well what she meant, but I didn't answer her. "If I cannot have Italy, Marius," she said at last, "I must have somewhere." She was in the front corner of the shrine when she spoke these all too significant words, and they were in a hushed voice, as if she sensed a danger. We were always reverent in the shrine. But we did not whisper behind the Divine Parents. We considered it ill-mannered if not downright disrespectful. It's a strange thing when I think of it. But we could not presume that Akasha and Enkil did not hear us. And therefore we often spoke in the front corner, especially the one to the left, which Bianca favored, often sitting there with her warmest cloak about her. When she said these words to me, she looked up at the Queen as though acknowledging the interpretation. "Let it be her wish," she said, "that we not pollute her shrine with our idleness." I nodded. What else could I do? Yet so many years had passed in this fashion that I had grown accustomed to this place over any other. And Bianca's quiet loyalty to me was something I took for granted. I sat down beside her now. I took her hand in mine, and noticed perhaps for the first time in some while that my skin

was now darkly bronzed rather than black, and most of the wrinkles had faded.
"Let me make a confession to you," I said. "We cannot live in some simple house as we
did in Venice."
She listened to me with quiet eyes.
I went on.
"I fear those creatures, Santino and his demon spawn. Decades have passed since the fire,
but they still threaten from their hiding places."
"How do you know this?" she said. It seemed she had a great deal more to say to me. But
I asked for her patience.
I went to my belongings and took from them the letter from Raymond Gallant.
"Read this," I said. "It will tell you, among other things, that they have spread their
abominable ways as far as the city of Paris."
For a long time I remained silent as she read, and then her immediate sobs startled me.
How many times had I seen Bianca cry? Why was I so unprepared for it? She whispered
Amadeo's name. She couldn't quite bring herself to speak of it.
"What does this mean?" she said. "How do they live? Explain these words. What did they
do to him?"
I sat beside her, begging her to be calm, and then I told her how they lived, these Satan
worshiping fiends, as monks or hermits, tasting the earth and death, and how they
imagined that the Christian God had made some place for them in his Kingdom.
"They starved our Amadeo," I said, "they tortured him. This is plain here. And when he
had given up all hope, believing me to be dead, and believing their piety to be just, he
became one of them."
She looked at me solemnly, the tears standing in her eyes.
"Oh, how often I've seen you cry," I said. "But not of late, and not so bitterly as you cry
for him.
Be assured I have not forgotten him either."
She shook her head as if her thoughts were not in accord with mine but she was not able
to reveal them.
"We must be clever, my precious one," I said. "Whatever abode we choose for ourselves,
we must be safe from them, always."
Almost dismissively she spoke now.
"We can find a safe place," she said. "You know we can. We must. We cannot remain as
we are forever. It is not our nature. If I have learnt nothing from your stories I have learnt
that much, that you have wandered the Earth in search of beauty as well as in your search
for blood."
I did not like her seriousness.
"We are only two," she went on, "and should these devils come again with their fiery
brands, it will be a simple thing for you to remove me to some lofty height where they
can't harm me."
"If I am there, my love, if I am there," I said, "and what if I am not? All these years, since
we have left our lovely Venice behind, you have lived within these walls where they can't
harm you.
Now, should we go to some other place, and lodge there, I shall have to be on guard
always. Is that natural?"
This felt dreadful to me, this talk. I had never known anything so difficult with her. I
didn't like the inscrutable expression on her face, nor the way her hand trembled.
"Perhaps it is too soon," she said. "But I must tell you a most important thing, and I
cannot keep it from you."

I hesitated before I answered. "What is it, Bianca?" I asked. I was fast becoming miserable. Utterly miserable. "I think you have made a grievous error," she said. I was quietly stunned. She said nothing more. I waited. Still there came this silence commingled with her sitting back against the wall, her eyes fixed upwards on the Divine Parents. "Will you tell me what this error is?" I asked. "By all means, you must tell me! I love you. I must hear this." She said nothing. She looked at the King and Queen. She did not appear to be praying. I picked up the parchment pages of the letter. I moved through them and then looked at her again. Her tears had dried, and her mouth was soft, but her eyes were filled with some strange look that I could not explain to myself. "Is it the Talamasca that causes you fear?" I asked. "I shall explain all this to you. But see here that I wrote to them from a distant monastery. I left few footprints there, my beauty. I traveled the winds while you were sleeping here." There followed nothing but her silence. It seemed not dark or cold but merely reserved and thoughtful. But when she moved her eyes to me, the change in her face was slow and ominous. With quiet words I hastened to explain to her my strange meeting with Raymond Gallant on my last night of true happiness in Venice. I explained in the simplest manner how he had sought knowledge of us, and how I had learnt from him that Pandora had been seen in northern Europe. I talked of all the things contained in the letter. I talked of Amadeo once more. I spoke of my hatred of Santino, that he had robbed me of all I loved save her, and how on that account she was, of all things, most precious to me. At last I was willing to say no more. I was growing angry. I felt wronged and I couldn't understand her. Her silence hurt me more and more, and I knew that she could see this in my face. Finally, I saw some change in her. She sharpened her gaze and then she spoke: "Don't you see the grievous error you've made?" she asked. "Don't you hear it in the lessons you've made known to me? Centuries ago, the young Satan worshipers came to you for what you could give when you lived with Pandora. You denied them your precious knowledge. You should have revealed to them the mystery of the Mother and the Father!" "Good Lord, how could you believe such a thing?" "And when Santino asked you in Rome, you should have brought him to this very shrine! You should have shown to him the mysteries you revealed to me. Had you done it, Marius, he would never have been your enemy." I was enraged as I stared at her. Was this my brilliant Bianca? "Don't you see!" she went on. "Over and over, these unstoppable fools have made a cult of nothing! You could have shown them something!" She gestured towards me dismissively as though I disgusted her. "How many decades have we been here? How strong am I? Oh, you needn't answer. I know my own endurance. I know my own temper. "But don't you see, all my understanding of our powers is reinforced by their beauty and their majesty! I know whence we come! I have seen you drink from the Queen. I have seen you wake from your swoon. I have seen your skin healing. "But what did Amadeo ever see? What did Santino ever see? And you marvel at the extent of their heresy."

"Don't call it heresy!" I declared suddenly, the words bursting from my lips. "Don't speak
as if this were a worship! I have told you that yes, there are secret things, and things
which no one can explain! But we are not worshipers!"
"It is a truth you revealed to me," she said, "in their paradox, in their presence!" Her
voice rose, ill-tempered and utterly alien to her. "You might have smashed Santino's
illfounded
crusade with a mere glimpse of the Divine Parents."
I glared at her. A madness took hold of me.
I rose to my feet. I looked about the shrine furiously.
"Gather up all you possess," I said suddenly. "I'm casting you out of here!"
She sat still as she had been before, gazing up at me in cold defiance.
"You heard what I said. Gather your precious clothes, your looking glass, your pearls,
your jewels, your books, whatever you want. I'm taking you out of here."
For a long moment she looked at me, glowering, I should say, as if she didn't believe me.
Then all at once she moved, obeying me in a series of quick gestures.
And within the space of a few moments, she stood before me, her cloak about her, her
bundle clasped to her chest, looking as she had some countless years before when first I
had brought her here.
I don't know whether she looked back at the face of the Mother and the Father. I did not. I
did not for one moment believe that either would prevent this dreadful expulsion.
Within moments, I was on the wind, and I didn't know where I would take her.
I traveled higher and faster than I had dared to do before, and found it well within my
power.
Indeed, my own speed amazed me. The land before me had been burnt in recent wars and
I knew it to be spotted here and there with ruined castles.
It was to one of these that I took her, making certain that the town all around had been
pillaged and deserted, and then I set her down in a stone room within the broken fortress,
and went in search of a place where she might sleep by day in the ruined graveyard.
It did not take me long to be confident that she could survive here. In the burnt-out chapel
there were crypts beneath the floor. There were hiding places everywhere.
I went back to her. She was standing as I had left her, her face as solemn as before, her
brilliant oval eyes fixed on me.
"I want no more of you," I said. I was shuddering. "I want no more of you that you could
say such a thing, that you could blame me that Santino took from me my child! I can
have no more of you.
You have no grasp of the burden I have carried throughout time or how many times I
have lamented it! What do you think your precious Santino would do had he the Mother
and the Father in his possession? How many demons could he bring to drink from them?
And who knows what the Mother and Father might permit in their silence? Who knows
what they have ever wanted?"
"You are an evil and negligent brother to me," she said coldly, glancing about herself.
"Why not leave me to the wolves in the forest? But go. I want no more of you either. Tell
your scholars in the Talamasca where you have deposited me and perhaps they will offer
me their kind shelter. But be gone.
Whatever, be gone! I don't want you here!"
Though up to that second I had been hanging upon her every word, I abandoned her.
Hours passed. I traveled the skies, not knowing where I went, marveling at the blurred
landscape beneath me.
My power was far greater than it had ever been! Would I to try it, I could easily reach

England.
I saw the mountains and then the sea, and then suddenly my soul ached so completely
that I could do nothing but will myself to go back to her.
Bianca, what have I done?
Bianca, pray that you have waited for me!
Out of the deep dark heavens I somehow returned to her. I found her in the stone room,
sitting in the corner, collected and still, just as if she had been in the shrine, and as I knelt
before her, she reached up and threw her arms about me.
I sobbed as I embraced her.
"My beautiful Bianca, my beautiful one, I am so sorry, so sorry, my love," I said.
"Marius, I love you with my whole heart eternally." She cried as freely and completely as
I did.
"My precious Marius," she said. "I have never loved anyone as I love you. Forgive me."
We could do nothing but weep for the longest time and then I took her home to the
shrine, and comforted her, combing her hair as I so loved to do and trimming it with her
slender ropes of pearls until she was my perfect lovely one.
"What did I mean to say?" she implored. "I don't know. Of course you could not have
trusted any of them. And had you shown them the Queen and the King some horrid
anarchy might well have come from it!"
"Yes, you have said the perfect word," I answered, "some awful anarchy." I glanced
quickly at the still impassive faces. I went on. "You must understand, oh, please, if you
love me at all, understand what power exists within them." I stopped suddenly. "Oh, don't
you see, as much as I lament their silence, perhaps it is for them a form of peace which
they have chosen for the good of everyone."
This was the very essence of it and I think we both knew it.
I feared what might happen if Akasha were ever to stand up from her throne, if she were
ever to speak or move. I feared it with all my reason.
Yet still, that night and every night I believed that if and when Akasha were ever waked,
a divine sweetness would pour forth from her.
Once Bianca had fallen asleep, I knelt before the Queen in the abject manner which was
so common to me now, and which I would never have revealed to Pandora.
"Mother, I hunger for you," I whispered. I opened my hands. "Let me touch you with
love," I said. "Tell me if I have been in error. Should I have brought the Satan worshipers
to your shrine?
Should I have revealed you in all your loveliness to Santino?"
I closed my eyes. I opened them.
"Unchangeable Ones," I said in a soft voice, "speak to me."
I approached her and laid my lips on her throat. I pierced the crisp white skin with my
teeth, and the thick blood came into me slowly.
The garden surrounded me. Oh, yes, this I love above all. And it was the garden of the
monastery in spring, how wondrous, and my priest was there. I was walking with him in
the clean swept cloister. This was the supreme dream, for its colors were rich and I could
see all the mountains around us. I am immortal, I said.
The garden dissolved. I could see colors washed from a wall.
Then I stood in a midnight forest. In the light of the moon, I beheld a black carriage
coming down the road, drawn by many dark horses. It passed me, its huge wheels stirring
up the dust. There came behind it a team of guards all clothed in black livery.
Pandora.
When I woke, I was lying against Akasha's breast, my forehead against her throat, my left

hand clasping her right shoulder. It was so sweet that I didn't want to move, and all the light of the shrine had become one golden shimmer in my eyes, rather the way that light would become in those long Venetian banquet rooms. At last I kissed her tenderly and withdrew and then lay down and placed my arms around Bianca. My thoughts were troubled and strange. I knew it was time to find some habitat other than the shrine itself, and I knew as well that strangers were coming into our mountains. The small city at the foot of our cliff was now thriving. But the most dreadful revelation of this night was that Bianca and I could quarrel, that the solid peace between us could be violently and painfully ruptured. And that I, at the first hard words from my jewel, could crumple into mental ruin. Why had I been so surprised? Could I not remember my painful quarrels with Pandora? I must know that in anger, Marius is not Marius. I must know and never forget it.

Chapter Thirty

The following night we hunted down a pair of brigands who were traveling the lower
passes of our mountains. The blood was good, and from this small feast we went on to a
little German town where we could find a tavern.
Here we sat, a man and his wife, one might presume, and over our mulled wine we talked
for hours.
I told Bianca all I had ever known of Those Who Must Be Kept. I told her the legends of
Egypt - of how the Mother and Father had centuries ago been bound and ill used by those
who would steal their Precious Blood. I told her of how Akasha herself had come to me
in a vision begging me to take her out of Egypt.
I told her of the few times Akasha had ever spoken to me in the Blood. And I told her
finally, finally, of what a pure miracle it had been that the Divine Parents had opened the
door of the Alpine shrine when I had come to them too weak to budge it.
"Do they need me?" I asked. I looked into Bianca's eyes. "I can't know. That's the horror.
Do they want to be seen by others? I am in ignorance.
"But let me make my final confession. I became so angry last night because centuries ago
when Pandora first drank the Mother's blood, she was full of dreams of bringing back to
the Divine Parents the old worship. By that I mean, a worship that included the Druidic
Gods of the Grove, a religion that went back to the temples of Egypt.
"I was furious that Pandora could believe in such a thing, and on the very night of
Pandora's making I broke her dreams with my forceful logic. And I went beyond that. I
pounded with my fist upon the Mother's very breast and demanded that she speak to us."
Bianca was amazed.
"Can you guess what happened?" I asked.
"Nothing. The Mother gave no answer."
I nodded. "And there came no rebuke or punishment either. Perhaps the Mother had
brought Pandora to me. We could never know. But please understand how I fear the very
notion that the Divine Parents might ever be worshiped.
"Bianca, we are immortals, yes, and we possess our King and Queen, but we must never
for a moment believe that we understand them."
To all this she nodded. She weighed it all for a long time and then she spoke:
"I was very simply wrong in what I said to you," she told me.
"Not in all of it," I answered. "Perhaps if Amadeo had seen the King and Queen, he
would have escaped the Roman blood drinkers and come back to us. Yet there is another
way of looking at it."
"Tell me."
"If he had known the secret of the Mother and the Father, he might have been forced to
reveal it to Santino, and the demons would have returned to Venice, searching for me.
They might have found both of us."
"Ah, yes, all this is true," she said. "I begin to see all of it."
We were easy now with each other in the tavern. The mortals around us took no notice. I
talked on in a soft voice, telling her the story of how Mael had once tried, with my
permission, to drink Akasha's blood and Enkil had moved to stop him.
I told her the dreadful tale of Eudoxia. I told her of how I had left Constantinople.
"I don't know what it is with you, my love," I said, "but somehow I can tell you
everything. It was never so with Pandora. It was never so with Amadeo."
She reached out and put her left hand on my cheek.
"Marius," she said. "Speak freely always of Pandora. Don't ever think that I shall fail to

understand your love for Pandora."
I thought this over for many long moments. I took her right hand in mine and I kissed her
fingers.
"Listen to me, my love," I said. "With every prayer, I ask the Queen if you might drink.
But I gain no clear answer. And after what I witnessed with Eudoxia and Mael, I cannot
take you to her. And so I shall continue to give you my blood in so far as it will make you
strong, but - ."
"I understand you," she said.
I leant across the table and kissed her.
"Last night in my anger I learnt many things. That I cannot live without you was one. But
I learnt another. I can now cover great distances with ease. And I suspect my other
powers have also increased beyond recent measure. I must test these powers. I must know
how easily I can defeat those demons if ever they come near to me. And tonight I want to
test my power of flight more than any other."
"And so you are telling me that you want to take me back to the shrine now, and go off to
England."
I nodded. "The moon is full tonight, Bianca. I must see the isle of Britain in the light of
the moon.
I must discover this Order of the Talamasca with my own eyes. It's scarcely possible to
believe in such purity."
"Why don't you take me with you?"
"I must be swift," I answered. "And if there's danger I must be swifter still to escape it.
These are mortals after all. And Raymond Gallant is only one of them."
"You will be careful then, my love," she said. "You know now more than ever that I very
simply adore you."
It seemed then we would never quarrel again, that such a thing was impossible. And it
seemed imperative that I never lose her.
As we went out into the darkness, as I wrapped her in my cloak, I pressed my lips to her
forehead as I took her into the clouds and homeward.
When I left her, it was two hours before midnight, and I meant to see Raymond Gallant
before morning.
Now, it had been many years since my meeting with him in Venice. He had been a young
man then, and perhaps middle-aged at the time that I wrote my letter to him.
So it did occur to me as I set out on my journey that he might no longer be living.
Indeed, it was a terrible thought.
But I believed in all he had told me about the Talamasca and so I was determined to
approach them.
As I moved towards the stars, the pleasure of the Cloud Gift was so divine that I almost
lost myself in the rapture of the skies, dreaming above the isle of Britain, plunging to
where I could see the land perfectly against the sea, not wanting to touch the solid Earth
so soon or roam it so clumsily.
But I had consulted many a map in recent years to find the location of East Anglia, and I
soon saw below me an immense castle with ten rounded towers which I believed to be the
very one engraved upon the gold coin which Raymond Gallant had long ago given me.
The sheer size of the castle gave me doubts, however, but I willed myself to set foot on
the steep hillside quite close to it. Some deep preternatural instinct told me that I had
reached the right place.
The air was cold as I began to walk, indeed as cold as it had been in the mountains which
I had left behind me. Some of the woods had come back, which had no doubt been cut

down once upon a time for the safety of the castle, and I rather liked the terrain and I
enjoyed walking in it.
I wore a full fur-lined cloak which I had taken from one of my victims.
I had my customary weapons, a thick short broadsword, and a dagger. I wore a longer
velvet tunic than was favored at the time, but this did not matter to me. My shoes were
new and I had bought them from a cobbler in Geneva.
As for the style of the castle, I figured it to be some five hundred years old, built in the
time of William the Conqueror. I surmised that it had once had a moat and drawbridge.
But these elements had long been abandoned, and I could see a great door before me,
flanked by torches.
At last I reached this door, and pulled the bell, hearing a loud clang deep within the
courtyard.
It did not take long for someone to come, and only then did I realize the curious propriety
of what I'd done. In my reverence for this Order of Scholars I had not "listened" outside
to discover who they were. I had not hovered near their lighted tower windows.
And now I found myself, a curious figure no doubt with my blue eyes and dark skin,
standing before the porter.
This young man couldn't have been more than seventeen, and he seemed both sleepy and
indifferent as though my clarion had awakened him.
"I've come in search of Lorwich," I said, "in East Anglia. Have I reached the right place?"
"You have," said the boy, wiping at his eyes and leaning upon the door. "Can I say for
what reason?"
"I seek the Talamasca," I replied.
The young man nodded. He opened the door widely, and I soon found myself in a great
courtyard. There were wagons and coaches parked within. I could hear the faint sound of
the horses in the stables.
"I seek Raymond Gallant," I said to the boy.
"Ah," he replied, as if these were the magic words that he needed from me. And then he
led me further inside and shut the giant wood door behind us. "I'll take you where you
might wait," he said.
"I think that Raymond Gallant is sleeping."
But he's alive, I thought. That's what matters. I caught the scent of many mortals in this
place. I caught the scent of food that had recently been cooked. I caught the scent of oak
fires and as I looked up I saw the faint smoke of chimneys against the sky which I had
not perceived earlier.
With no further questioning, I was soon led by torchlight up a winding stone stairway in
one of the many towers. Over and over again I looked out of small windows at the bleak
land. I saw the dim outline of a nearby town. I could see the patches of the farmers' fields.
All looked so very peaceful.
At last the boy anchored his torch, and, lighting a candle from it, opened two heavily
carved doors to reveal a huge room with sparse but beautiful furnishings.
It had been a long time since I had seen heavily carved tables and chairs, and fine
tapestries. It had been a long time since I had seen rich golden candlesticks and handsome
chests with velvet draperies.
It all seemed a feast for the eyes, and I was about to sit down when there came rushing
into the room a spry elderly man with streaming gray hair in a long heavy white
nightshirt who gazed at me with brilliant gray eyes, crying out:
"Marius!"
It was Raymond Gallant, it was Raymond in his final years, and I felt a terrible shock of

pleasure and pain as I looked at him.
"Raymond," I said, and I opened my arms, and gently enfolded him. How frail he felt. I
kissed him on both cheeks. I held him back tenderly that I might look at him.
His hair was still thick and his forehead smooth as it had been so long ago. And when he
smiled, his mouth seemed that of the young man I remembered.
"Marius, what a wonder it is to see you," he cried. "Why did you never write to me
again?"
"Raymond, I've come. I can't account for time and what it means to us. I've come, and I'm
here, and I'm glad to be with you."
He stopped, turning from right to left suddenly and then he cocked his head. He seemed
as agile and quick as he had ever been. He was listening.
"They're all aware that you're here," he said, "but don't worry. They won't dare to come
into this room. They're far too disciplined for that. They know I will not permit it."
I listened for a moment, and I confirmed what he had said. Mortals throughout the
immense sprawling castle had sensed my presence. There were mind readers among these
mortals. Others seemed to possess some keen hearing.
But I distinguished no supernatural presence here. I caught no inkling of the "infidel" he
had described in his letter.
And I caught no menace from anyone either. Nevertheless, I marked the nearby window,
and noting that it was heavily barred though otherwise open to the night, wondered if I
could easily break through it. I thought that I could. I felt no fear. In fact, I felt no fear of
this Talamasca because it seemed to feel no fear of me and had admitted me so
guilelessly.
"Come, sit down with me, Marius," Raymond said. He drew me near to an immense
fireplace. I tried not to gaze with concern at his thin palsied hands, or his thin shoulders. I
thanked the gods that I had come tonight, and that he was still here to greet me.
He called out to the sleepy boy who remained still at the door.
"Edgar, build the fire and light it, please. Marius, you will forgive me," he said. "I'm very
cold.
Do you mind it? I understand what happened to you."
"No, not at all, Raymond," I said. "I can't fear fire forever on that account. Not only am I
healed now, I'm stronger than ever I was before. It's quite a mystery. And you, how old
are you? Tell me, Raymond. I can't guess it."
"Eighty years, Marius," he said. He smiled. "You don't know how I've dreamed of your
coming. I had so much more to tell you. I didn't dare to write it in a letter."
"And rightly so," I said, "for the letter was read, and who knows what might have
happened? As it was, the priest who received it for me could not make much of it. I
understand everything, however."
He motioned to the door. Two young men at once entered the room, and I made them out
to be the simple sort rather like the busy Edgar who was piling up the oak in the fireplace.
There were richly carved stone gargoyles above the fire. I rather liked them.
"Two chairs," said Raymond to the boys. "We'll talk together. I'll tell you all lean."
"Why are you so generous to me, Raymond?" I asked. I wanted so to comfort him, to stop
his agitation. But as he smiled at me, as if to reassure me, as he put his hand gently on my
arm, and urged me towards the two wooden chairs which the boys had brought to the
hearth, I saw that he did not need my comfort.
"I'm only very excited, my old friend," he said. "You mustn't be concerned for me. Here,
sit down. Is this comfortable enough for you?"
The chairs were as heavily carved as every bit of ornament in the room, and the arms

were the paws of lions. I found them beautiful as well as comfortable. I looked about
myself at the many bookshelves, and mused as I have often done on how all libraries
subdue me and seduce me. I thought of books burnt and books lost.
May this be a safe place for books, I thought, this Talamasca.
"I have been decades in a stone room," I said in a muted voice. "I am quite comfortable.
Will you send the boys away now?"
"Yes, yes, of course, only let them bring me some warm wine," he replied. "I need it."
"Please, how could I be so inconsiderate?" I replied.
We were now facing each other, and the fire had begun with a riot of deep good fragrance
coming from the burning oak, and a warmth that I even enjoyed, I had to admit it.
One of the boys had brought Raymond a red velvet dressing gown, and once he was
clothed in this, and settled in his chair, he did not seem so fragile. His face was radiant
after all, his cheeks actually rosy, and I could easily see the young man in him that I had
once known.
"My friend, should anything come between us," he said, "let me give you to know that
she still travels in her old way, rapidly through many European cities. Never to England,
for I don't think they want to cross the water, though no doubt they can, contrary to
folklore."
I laughed. "Is that the folklore? That we can't cross water? It's nonsense," I said. I would
have said more, but I wondered if it were wise.
He apparently took no note of my hesitation. He plunged on:
"She has for the last few decades traveled under the name of the Marquisa De Malvrier,
and her companion the Marquis of the same name, though it is she who goes to Court
more often than he does. They're seen in Russia, in Bavaria, in Saxony - in countries in
which old ceremony is honored, seeming from time to time to need the courtly balls and
the immense Roman church ceremonies. But understand, I have gleaned my account of
this from many different reports. I'm sure of nothing."
The warm wine was being set upon a small stand beside him. He took the cup in his
hands. His hands were shaking. He drank from the wine.
"But how do such reports come to you?" I asked. I was fascinated. There was no doubt he
was telling me the truth. As for the rest of the house, I could hear its many inhabitants all
around us, waiting in silence it seemed for some kind of summons.
"Forget them," he said. "What can they learn from this audience?" he asked. "They are all
faithful members. To answer your questions, we go out sometimes in the guise of priests
seeking information about those whom we call vampires. We inquire as to mysterious
deaths. And so we gather information which is meaningful to us when it may not be
meaningful to others."
"Ah, of course. And you take note of the name when it is mentioned in Russia or Saxony
or Bavaria."
"Exactly. I tell you it is De Malvrier. They have a liking for it. And I shall tell you
something else."
"Please, you must."
"Several times we have found upon the wall of a church inscribed the name, Pandora."
"Ah, she's done this," I said, desperately trying to conceal my emotion.
"She wants to be discovered by me." I paused. "This is painful for me," I said. "I wonder
if the one who travels with her even knows her by that name. Ah, this is painful, but why
do you assist me?"
"By my very life, I don't know," he said, "except somehow I believe in you."
"What do you mean believe, believe that I'm a wonder? That I'm a demon? Believe what,

Raymond, tell me? Oh, never mind, it doesn't matter, does it? We do things because our hearts impel us." "Marius, my friend," he said, leaning forward and touching my knee with his right hand, "long ago in Venice when I spied upon you, you know that I spoke to you with the purity of my mind. I read your thoughts also. I knew that you slew only those who were the degraded killers of their own sisters or brothers." "That's true, Raymond, and it was that way with Pandora. But is it now?" "Yes, I think so," he said, "for every ghastly crime imputed to the vampires whom these creatures may in fact be is connected to one who was known to be guilty of many murders. So you see it's not difficult for me to help you." "Ah, so she is true to our vow," I whispered. "I didn't think so, not when I heard of her harsh companion." I looked intently at Raymond, seeing with every passing moment more of the young man I had once known so briefly. It was saddening to me. It was dreadful. And the more I felt it, the more I tried to conceal it. What was my suffering to this, the slow triumph of old age? Nothing. "Where was she seen last?" I asked. "On that point," he said, "allow me to give you my interpretation of her behavior. She and her companion follow a pattern in their roaming. They go in rude circles, returning over and over again to one city. Once they have been some time in that city they begin their circles once more until they have gone as far a field as Russia. The central city of which I speak is Dresden." "Dresden!" I said. "I don't know the place. I've never been there." "Oh, it cannot rival your gorgeous Italian cities. It cannot equal Paris or London. But it is the capital of Saxony and it lies on the Elbe River. It has been much adorned by the various Dukes who have ruled there. And invariably, I say invariably, these creatures - Pandora and her companion -return to Dresden. It may not be for twenty years, but they come back to Dresden." I fell silent in my excitement. Was this some pattern meant for me to interpret? Was this pattern meant for me to discover? Was it like a great round spider web meant sooner or later to ensnare me? Why else would Pandora and her companion follow such a life? I couldn't imagine it. But how did I dare to think Pandora even remembered me. She had written her name in the stone of the church wall, not mine. At last I heaved a great sigh. "How can I tell you what all this means to me?" I asked. "You have given me marvelous news. I'll find her." "Now," he said in the most confident manner, "shall we take up the other matter which I mentioned to you in my letter?" "Amadeo," I whispered. "What happened to the infidel? I sense no blood drinker in this place. Am I deceived? The creature's either very far a field or he's left you." "The monster left us soon after I wrote to you. When he realized he could hunt for his victims throughout the countryside, he was gone. We could do nothing to control him. Our appeals to him that he feed only on evil men meant nothing to him. I don't even know if he still exists." "You must guard yourselves against this individual," I said. I looked about myself at the spacious stone room. "This seems a castle of remarkable size and strength. Nevertheless, we speak of a blood drinker." He nodded.

"We are well protected here, Marius. We do not admit everyone as we admitted you, take my word for it. But would you hear now what he told us?" I bowed my head. I knew what Raymond would tell me. "The Satan worshipers," I said, using the more specific words, "the very ones who burnt my house in Venice, they prey upon humans in Paris. And my brilliant auburn-haired apprentice, Amadeo, is still their leader?" "As far as we know," he said. "They are very clever. They hunt the poor, the diseased, the outcast. The renegade who told us so much explained that they fear 'places of light,' as they call them. They have taken to believing that it is not God's will for them to be richly clothed, or to enter churches. And your Amadeo now goes by the name of Armand. The renegade told us that Armand has the zeal of the converted." I was too miserable to say anything. I shut my eyes, and when I opened them I was looking at the fire which was burning very well in the deep fireplace. Then slowly my gaze shifted to Raymond Gallant who was staring at me intently. "I have told you everything, really," he said. I gave him a faint, sad smile and I nodded. "You've been generous indeed. And many a time in the past when one was generous to me, I took from my tunic a purse of gold. But is such needed here?" "No," he said agreeably, shaking his head. "We need no gold, Marius. Gold we have always had in great abundance. What is life without gold? But we have it." "What can I do for you, then?" I asked. "I'm in your debt. I've been in your debt since the night we spoke in Venice." "Talk to several of our members," he replied. "Let them come into the room. Let them see you. Let them ask you questions. That is what you can do for me. Tell them only what you will. But create a truth for them which can be recorded for study by others." "Of course. I'll do this willingly, but not in this library, Raymond, beautiful as it is. We must be in an open place. I have an instinctive fear of mortals who know what I am." I paused. "In fact, I'm not sure I've ever been surrounded by such." He thought on this for a moment. Then he spoke: "Our courtyard is too noisy, too close to the stables. Let it be on one of the towers. It will be cold, but I shall tell them all that they must dress warmly." "Shall we elect the South Tower for our purpose?" I asked. "Bring no torches with you. The night is clear and the moon is full and all of you will be able to see me." I slipped out of the room then, hurrying down the stairs, and easily passing through one of the narrow stone windows. With preternatural speed I went to the battlements of the South Tower, and there waited in the mild wind for all of them to gather around me. Of course it seemed I had traveled by magic, but that I had not was one of the things which I meant to tell them. Within a quarter of an hour they were all assembled, some twenty well-dressed men, both young and old, and two handsome women, and I found myself in the midst of a circle. No torches, no. I was not in any conceivable danger. For a long moment I allowed them to look at me, and form whatever conception they desired, and then I spoke: "You must tell me what you want to know. For my part, I tell you plainly that I am a blood drinker. I have lived for hundreds of years, and I can remember clearly when I was a mortal man. It was in Imperial Rome. You may record this. I have never separated my soul from that mortal time. I refuse to do it."

For a moment only silence followed, but then Raymond began with the questions.
Yes, we had a "beginning," I explained but I could say nothing of it. Yes, we became
much much stronger with time. Yes, we tended to be lone creatures or to choose our
companions very carefully.
Yes, we could make others. No, we were not instinctively vicious, and we felt a deep love
for mortals which was often our spiritual undoing.
There were countless other little questions. And I answered them all to the best of my
ability. I would say nothing of our vulnerability to the sun or fire. As for the "coven of
vampires" in Paris and Rome, I knew little.
At last I said:
"It's time for me to leave now. I will travel hundreds of miles before dawn. I lodge in
another country."
"But how do you travel?" one of them asked.
"On the wind," I said. "It's a gift that has come to me with the passing centuries."
I went to Raymond and I took him in my arms again, and then turning to several of the
others I bade them come and touch me so that they could see I was a real being.
I stood back, took my knife and cut my hand with it, and held out my hand so that they
could see the flesh heal.
There were gasps from them.
"I must be gone now. Raymond, my thanks and my love," I said.
"But wait," said one of the most elderly of the men. He had been standing back all the
while, leaning on a cane, listening to me as intently as all the others. "I have one last
question for you, Marius."
"Ask me," I said immediately.
"Do you know anything of our origins?"
For a moment I was puzzled. I couldn't quite imagine what he meant in this question.
Then Raymond spoke:
"Do you know anything about how the Talamasca came to be? That is what we are
asking you." "No," I said in quiet astonishment.
A silence fell over them all, and I realized quickly that they themselves were confused
about how the Talamasca had come about. And it did come back to me that Raymond had
told me something of this when first I met him.
"I hope you find your answers," I said.
Then off I went into the darkness.
But I didn't stay away. I did what I had failed to do on my arrival. I hovered quite close
but just beyond their hearing and their vision. And with my powerful gifts, I listened to
them as they roamed their many towers and their many libraries.
How mysterious they were, how dedicated, how studious.
Some night in the far future perhaps I would come to them again, only to learn more of
them. But just now, I had to return to the shrine and to Bianca.
She was still awake when I came into the blessed place. And I saw that she had lighted
the hundred candles.
This was a ceremony that I sometimes failed to do, and I was pleased to see it.
"And are you happy with your visit to the Talamasca?" she asked in her frank voice. She
had that beguiling look of simplicity on her face which always prompted me to tell her
everything.
"I was most pleased. I found them the honest scholars they professed to be. I gave them
what knowledge I could, but by no means what I might, for that would have been too
foolish. But all they seek is knowledge and I left them more than happy."

She narrowed her eyes as if she could not quite imagine what the Talamasca was and I
understood her. I sat down beside her, folded her close and wrapped the fur cloak around
us both.
"You smell of the cold, good wind," she said. "Perhaps we are meant to be creatures of
the shrine only, creatures of the cold sky and the inhospitable mountains."
I said nothing, but in my mind I thought of only one thing: the far-off city of Dresden.
Pandora sooner or later always returned to Dresden.

Chapter Thirty One

A hundred years would pass before I found Pandora. During that time my powers increased enormously. That night after my return from the Talamasca in England, I tested all of them and made certain that, never again would I be at the mercy of Santino's miscreants. For many nights I left Bianca to herself as I made certain of my advantages. And once I was utterly sure of my swiftness, of the Fire Gift, and of an immeasurable power to destroy with invisible force, I went to Paris with no other thought but to spy upon Amadeo's coven. Before I left for this little venture, I confessed my goals to Bianca and she had at once beseeched me not to court such danger. "No, let me go," I responded. "I could hear his voice now over the miles perhaps if I chose to do it. But I must be certain of what I hear and what I see. And I shall tell you something else. I have no desire to reclaim him." She was saddened by this, but she seemed to understand it. She kept her usual place in the corner of the shrine, merely nodding to me and exacting the promise from me that I would be most careful. As soon as I reached Paris, I fed from one of several murderers, luring him by the powerful Spell Gift from his place in a comfortable inn, and then I sought refuge in a high bell tower of Notre Dame de Paris itself to listen to the miscreants. Indeed, it was a huge nest of the most despicable and hateful beings, and they had sought out a catacomb for their existence in Paris just as they had in ancient Rome centuries ago. This catacomb was under the cemetery called Les Innocents, and those words seemed tragically apt when I caught their addle-brained vows and chants before they poured out into the night to bring cruelty as well as death to the people of Paris. "All for Satan, all for the Beast, all to serve God, and then return to our penitential existence." It was not difficult for me to find, through many different minds, the location of my Amadeo, and within an hour or so of my arrival in Paris, I had him fixed as he walked through a narrow medieval street, never dreaming that I watched him from above in bitter silence. He was dressed in rags, his hair caked with filth, and when he found his first victim, he visited upon her a painful death which appalled me. For an hour or more my eyes followed him as he proceeded on, feeding on another hapless creature, and then circling back to walk his way to the enormous cemetery. Leaning against the cold stone of the tower room, I heard him deep in his underground cell drawing together his "coven" as he himself now called it and demanding of each how he or she had harried, for the love of God, the local population. "Children of Darkness, it is almost dawn. Each of you shall now open his or her soul to me." How firm, how clear was his voice. How certain he was of what he said. How quick he was to correct any Child of Satan who had not slain mortals ruthlessly. It was a man's voice I heard coming from the lips of the boy I once knew. It was chilling to me. "Why were you given the Dark Gift?" he demanded of a laggard. "Tomorrow night you must strike twice. And if all of you do not give me greater devotion, I shall punish you for your sins, and see that others are brought into the coven." At last I couldn't listen anymore. I was repelled. I dreamt of going down into his underground world, of pulling him out of it as I burnt his followers, and forcing him into the light, of taking him with me to the shrine of Those Who Must Be Kept, and pleading with him to renounce his vocation. But I didn't do it. I couldn't do it. For years and years, he had been one of them. His mind, his soul, his body belonged to those he ruled; and nothing that I had taught him had given him the strength to fight them. He was not my Amadeo anymore. That is what I had come to Paris to learn and now I knew the truth of it. I felt sadness. I felt despair. But maybe it was anger and revulsion which caused me to leave Paris that night, saying to myself in essence that he must free himself from the dark mentality of the coven on his own. I could not do it for him. I had labored long and hard in Venice to erase his memory of the Monastery of the Caves. And now he had found another place of rigid ritual and denial. And his years with me had not protected him from it. Indeed, a circle had long ago closed for him. He was the priest once more. He was the Fool for Satan, as he had once been the Fool for God in far-away Russia. And his brief time with me in Venice had been nothing. When I told these things to Bianca, when I explained them as best I could, she was sad but she didn't press me. It was easy between us as always, with her listening to me, and then offering her own response without anger. "Perhaps in time, you'll change your mind," she said. "You are the one with the power to go there, to fight those who would restrain him if you tried to take him. And that is what it would require, I think, that you would have to take him by force, insist that he come here to be with you, and see the Divine Parents. I don't possess the power to do these things. I ask only that you think on it, that you make no bitter iron resolve against it." "I give you my word," I said, "I have not done that. But I do not think the sight of the Divine Parents would change the heart of Amadeo." I paused. I thought on all this for a long moment and then I spoke to her more directly: "You've only shared this knowledge with me for a brief time," I said. "And in the Divine Parents we both see great beauty. But Amadeo might well see something different. Remember what I've told you of the long centuries that lie behind me. The Divine Parents do not speak. The Divine Parents do not redeem. The Divine Parents ask for nothing." "I understand," she said. But she didn't. She had not spent enough years with the King and Queen. She couldn't possibly comprehend the full effect of their passivity. But I went on in a mild manner: "Amadeo possesses a creed, and a seeming place in God's plan," I said. "He might well see our Mother and Father as an enigma belonging to a pagan era. That wouldn't warm his heart. That wouldn't give him the strength which he derives now from his flock, and believe you me, Bianca, he is the leader there. Our boy of long ago is old now; he is a sage of the Children of Darkness as they call themselves." I sighed. A little flash of bitter memory came back to me, of Santino asking me when we met in Rome if Those Who Must Be Kept were holy or profane. I told this to Bianca. "Ah, then you spoke to this creature. You've never told me this." "Oh, yes, I spoke to him and spurned him and insulted him. I did all of these foolish things when something more vicious was required. Indeed, when the very words 'Those Who Must Be Kept' had come from his lips, I should have put an end to him." She nodded. "I come more and more to understand it. Yet still I hope in time that you will return to Paris, that you will at least reveal yourself to Amadeo. They are weak ones, are

they not, and you could come upon him in some open place where you could - ."
"I know well what you mean to say," I answered. "I wouldn't allow myself ever to be
surrounded by torches. Perhaps I will do as you suggest. But I've heard Amadeo's voice,
and I don't believe he can be changed now. And there is one thing more which is worth
mentioning. Amadeo knows how to free himself from this coven."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I am. Amadeo knows how to live in the lighted world, and he is ten times stronger
by virtue of my old blood than are those who listen to his commands. He could break
away. He chooses not to do it."
"Marius," she said plaintively, "you know how much I love you and how loath I am to
contradict you."
"No, say what you must say," I urged her at once.
"Think of what he suffered," she said. "He was but a child when it happened."
I agreed to all this. Then I spoke again:
"Well, he's no child now, Bianca. He may be as beautiful as he was when I made him
through the Blood, but he is a patriarch in the dust. And all of Paris, the wondrous city of
Paris, surrounds him.
I watched him move through the city streets alone. There was no one there to restrict him.
He might have sought the Evil Doer as we do. But he did not. He drank deep of innocent
blood, not once but twice."
"Ah, I see. This is what has so embittered you."
I thought on it.
"Yes, you're right. It's what turned me away, though I didn't even know it. I thought it
was the manner in which he spoke to his flock. But you are right. It was those two deaths,
from which he drew his hot red feast, when Paris swarmed with mortals steeped in
murder who might easily have been slain by him."
She laid her hand on mine.
"If I choose to snatch any one of these Children of Darkness from his lair," I said, "it is
Santino."
"No, but you mustn't go to Rome. You don't know whether or not there are old ones
among that coven."
"Some night," I said, "some night I shall go there. When I am more certain of immense
power, and when I am more certain of the ruthless rage it requires to destroy many
others."
"Be still now," she said. "Forgive me."
I was quiet for a moment.
She knew how many nights I had wandered alone. I had now to confess what I had been
doing on those nights. I had now to begin my secret plan. I had now - for the first time in
all our years together - to drive a wedge between her and me, while giving her precisely
what she wanted.
"But let's leave talk of Amadeo," I said. "My mind is on happier things."
She was immediately interested. She reached out and stroked my face and hair as was her
custom.
"Tell me."
"How long has it been since you asked me if we could have our own dwelling?"
"Oh, Marius, don't tease me on this account. Is it possible!"
"My darling, it's more than possible," I said, warmed by her beaming smile. "I have found
a splendid place, a lovely little city on the Elbe River in Saxony."
For this I received the sweetest kiss.

"Now in these many nights when I have been off on my own, I have taken the liberty of acquiring a castle near the city, a much decayed place, and I hope you'll forgive me - ." "Marius, this is momentous news!" she said. "I have already spent a considerable sum for the repairs - the new wooden floors and stairs, glass windows, and abundant furnishings." "Oh, but this is wonderful," she said. She put her arms around me. "I'm relieved that you're not angry with me," I said, "for moving so quickly without you. You might say I fell in love with the place, and taking several drapers and carpenters there I told them my dreams and now all is being done as I have directed." "Oh, how could I be angry?" she said. "I want it more than anything in the world." "There is one more aspect to this castle which I should disclose," I said. "Though the more modern building above is more like a palace than a castle, its foundations are quite old. Indeed, a major part of the foundations were built in early times. And there are huge crypts beneath it, and a true dungeon." "You mean to move the Divine Parents?" she asked. "I do. I think it's time for it. You know as well as I that there are small cities and towns springing up all around us. We aren't isolated here. Yes, I want to move the Divine Parents." "If you say, of course, I go along with you." She was too happy to conceal it. "But is it safe there? Didn't you remove them to this remote place so that you never had to fear their discovery?" I thought on this for a while before answering. At last I said: "It is safe there. And with the passing centuries, the world of the Undead changes around us. And I can't endure this place any longer. And so I take them to a new place. And there are no blood drinkers in it. I have searched far and wide for them. They aren't there. I hear no young ones. I hear no old ones. I believe it's safe. And perhaps the most true answer to that logic is this: I want to bring them there. I want a new place. I want new mountains and new forests." "I understand," she said. "Oh, I do understand," she said again. "And more than ever, I believe that they can defend themselves. Oh, they need you, I don't doubt it, and that's why on that long ago night they opened the door for you and lighted the lamps. I can still remember it so vividly. But I spend long hours here simply gazing at them. And I have many thoughts during these hours. And I believe that they would defend themselves against any who sought to hurt them." I didn't argue with her. I didn't bother to remind her that centuries ago they had allowed themselves to be placed in the sun. What was the purpose? And for all I knew she was right. They would crush anyone who tried to subject them to such injury. "Come now," she said, seeing me fallen into a mood. "I'm too happy with this good news. Be happy with me." She kissed me as if she couldn't stop herself. She was so innocent in those moments. And I, I was lying to her, truly lying to her for the first time in all our years together. I was lying because I hadn't told her a word of Pandora. I was lying because I didn't truly believe that she could harbor no jealousy of Pandora. And because I couldn't tell her that my love for Pandora lay at the very heart of what I did. What creature would want to reveal such a scheme to a lover? I meant to place us in Dresden. I meant to remain in Dresden. I meant to be near Dresden at every sunset of my existence until such time as Pandora came again. And I could not tell this to Bianca. And so I pretended that it was for her that I had chosen this beautiful home, and indeed it

was for her, there is no doubt of it. It was for her to make her happy, yes.
But that was not all of it.
Within the month, we began work on the new shrine, utterly transforming the castle
dungeon in Saxony into a fit place for the King and Queen.
Goldsmiths and painters and stone masons were brought down the many flights of stone
steps to enhance the dungeon until it was the most marvelous private chapel.
The throne was covered in gold leaf as was the dais.
And once again, the proper bronze lamps were found, fresh and new. And there were rich
candelabra of gold and silver.
I alone labored on the heavy iron doors and their complex fastenings.
As for the castle, it was more of a palace than a castle, as I've said, having been rebuilt
several times, and it was charming in its placement above the banks of the Elbe, and it
had around it a lovely forest of beech, oak and birch trees. There was a terrace from
which one could look down at the river, and from many large windows, one could see the
distant city of Dresden.
Of course we would never hunt in Dresden or in the surrounding hamlets. We would go
far a field as had always been our custom. And we would waylay the forest brigands, an
activity which had become a regular sport for us.
Bianca had some concerns. And only reluctantly she confessed to me that she had some
fear of living in a place where she could not hunt for herself without me.
"Dresden is big enough to serve your appetite," I said, "if I were not able to carry you
elsewhere.
You'll see. It's a beautiful city, a young city I should say, but under the Duke of Saxony
it's coming along magnificently."
"You're sure of this," she asked.
"Oh, yes, I'm sure of it, and as I've told you, I'm also sure that the forests of Saxony and
nearby Thuringia contain their number of murderous thieves who have always been such
a special repast for us."
She thought on all this.
"Let me remind you, my darling," I said, "you can on any night cut your beautiful blond
hair with the full confidence that it will grow back by day, and you can go out clothed as
a man, traveling with preternatural speed and strength to hunt your victims. Perhaps we
should play at this very soon after our arrival."
"Yes, would you allow me this?" she asked.
"Of course, I shall." I was astonished by her gratitude.
Again she showered me with grateful kisses.
"But I must caution you on something," I said. "The area to which we move has many
small villages, and in these the belief in witchcraft and vampires is quite strong."
"Vampires," she said. "This is the word used by your friend in the Talamasca."
"Yes," I replied. "We must always cover the evidence of our feast, lest we become an
immediate legend."
She laughed.
Finally the castle or schloss as they were called in that part of the world was ready, and it
was time for us to make preparations.
But something else had come to my mind, and I was haunted by it.
Finally there came a night when as Bianca slept in her corner, I proposed to deal with this
matter.
I knelt down on the bare marble and prayed to my motionless and beautiful Akasha and
asked her in most specific words if she would allow Bianca to drink from her.

"This tender one has been your companion these many years," I said, "and she has loved you without reserve. I give her my strong blood over and over again. But what is my blood in comparison to yours? I fear for her, if ever we were to be separated. Please let her drink. Give her your precious strength." Only the sweet silence followed, with the shimmering of so many tiny flames, with the scent of wax and oil, with the glitter of light in the Queen's eyes. But I saw an image in answer to my prayer. I saw in my mind my lovely Bianca lying on the breast of the Queen. And for one divine instant we were not in the shrine but in a great garden. I felt the breeze sweeping through the trees. I smelled flowers. Then I was in the shrine again, kneeling, with my arms out. At once I whispered and gestured for Bianca to come to me. She obeyed, having no idea of what was in my mind, and I guided her up close to the throat of the Queen, covering her as I did so that if Enkil were to lift his arm I would feel it. "Kiss her throat," I whispered. Bianca was shivering. I think she was on the verge of tears, but she did as I told her to do, and then I saw her sink her small fang teeth into the skin of the Queen, and I felt her body become rigid beneath my embrace. It was being accomplished. For several long moments she drank, and it seemed I could hear their heartbeats struggling against each other, one great and one small, and then Bianca fell back, and I gathered her up in my arms, seeing the two tiny wounds heal in Akasha's throat. It was finished. Withdrawing to the corner, I held Bianca close to me. She gave several sighs and undulated and turned towards me and snuggled against me. Then she held out her hand and looked at it, and we could both see that it was whiter now, though it still had the color of human flesh. My soul was wondrously soothed by this event. I am only confessing now what it meant to me. For having lied to Bianca I lived with an unbearable guilt, and now, having given her this gift of the Mother's blood I felt a huge measure of relief from it. It was my hope that the Mother would allow Bianca to drink again, and in fact this did happen. It happened often. And with every draught of the Divine Blood Bianca became immensely stronger. But let me proceed with the tale in order. The journey from the shrine was arduous. As in the past I had to rely on mortals to transport the Divine Parents in heavy coffins of stone, and I experienced some trepidation. But not as much as in former eras. I think I was convinced that Akasha and Enkil could protect themselves. I don't know what gave me this impression. Perhaps it was that they had opened the shrine for me, and lighted the lamps when I had been so weak and miserable. Whatever the case, they were carried to our new home without difficulty, and as Bianca gazed on in complete awe, I took them out of their coffins and placed them on the throne together. Their slow obedient movements, their sluggish plasticity - these things faintly horrified her. But as she had now drunk the Mother's blood, she was quick to join me in adjusting her fine spun dress and Enkil's kilt. She helped me to smooth the plaited hair. She helped me to adjust the Queen's bracelets. When it was all done, I myself tended to the lamps and the candles. Then we both knelt down to pray that the King and the Queen were content to be in this new place. And after that we were off to find the brigands in the forest. We had already heard their voices. We quickly picked up their scent, and soon it was fine feasting in the woods, and a stash of stolen gold to make it all the more splendid. We were back in the world, Bianca declared. She danced in circles in the great hall of the castle. She delighted in all the furnishings that crowded our new rooms. She delighted in our fancy coffered beds, and all the colored draperies. I too delighted in it. But we were in full agreement that we would not live in the world as I had lived in Venice. Such was simply too dangerous. And so having but few servants, we kept entirely to ourselves, and the rumors in Dresden were that our house belonged to a Lady and Lord who lived elsewhere. When it pleased us to visit great cathedrals - and there were many - or great Royal Courts, we went some distance from our home - to other cities such as Weimar, or Eisenbach, or Leipzig-and cloaked ourselves in absurd wealth and mystery. It was all quite comforting after our barren life in the Alps. And we enjoyed it immensely. But at every sunset my eyes were fixed on Dresden. At every sunset I listened for the sound of a powerful blood drinker - in Dresden. And so the years passed. With them came radical changes in clothes which greatly amused us. We were soon wearing elaborate wigs which we found ridiculous. And how I despised the pants which soon came into style, as well as the high-heeled shoes and white stockings which came into fashion with them. We could not in our quiet seclusion include enough maids for Bianca, so it was I who laced up her tight corset. But what a vision she was in her low-breasted bodices and her broad swaying panniers. During this time, I wrote many times to the Talamasca. Raymond died at the age of eighty-nine, but I soon established a connection there with a young woman named Elizabeth Nollis who had for her personal review my letters to Raymond. She confirmed for me that Pandora was still seen with her Asian companion. She begged to know what I might tell of my own powers and habits, but on this I was not too revealing. I spoke of mind reading and the defiance of gravity. But I drove her to distraction with my lack of specifics. The greatest and most mysterious success of these letters was that she told me much of the Talamasca. They were rich beyond anyone's dreams, she said, and this was the source of their immense freedom. They had recently set up a Motherhouse in Amsterdam, and also in the city of Rome. I was quite surprised by all this, and warned her of Santino's "coven." She then sent me a reply that astonished me. "It seems now that those strange ladies and gentlemen of which we have written in the past are no longer within the city in which they dwelt with such obvious pleasure. Indeed it is very difficult for our Motherhouse there to find any reports of such activities as one might expect from these people." What did this mean? Had Santino abandoned his coven? Had they gone on to Paris en masse? And if so, why? Without explaining myself to my quiet Bianca - who was more and more hunting on her own - I went off to explore the Holy City myself, coming upon it for the first time in two

hundred years.
I was wary, in fact, a good deal more wary, than I should want to admit to anyone.
Indeed, the fear of fire gripped me so dreadfully that when I arrived I could do nothing
but keep to the very top of St. Peter's Basilica and look out over Rome with cold, shamefilled
eyes; unable for long moments to hear with my blood drinker's ears no matter how I
struggled to gain control of myself.
But I soon satisfied myself, through the Mind Gift, that there were only a few blood
drinkers to be found in Rome, and these were lone hunters without the consolation of
companions. They were also weak. And as I raped their minds, I realized they knew little
of Santino!
How had this come about? How had this one who had destroyed so much of my life freed
himself from his own miserable existence?
Full of rage, I drew close to one of these lone blood drinkers, and soon accosted him,
terrifying him and with reason.
"What of Santino and the Roman coven?" I demanded. "Gone, all gone," he said, "years
ago. Who are you that you know of such things?"
"Santino!" I said. "Where did he go! Tell me." "But no one knows the answer," he said. "I
never laid eyes on him." "But someone made you," I said. "Tell me."
"My maker lives in the catacombs still where the coven used to gather. He's mad. He
can't help you."
"Prepare to meet God or the Devil," I said. And just that quick I put an end to him. I did it
as mercifully as I could. And then he was no more but a spot of grease in the dirt and in
this I rubbed my foot before I moved towards the catacombs. He had spoken the truth.
There was but one blood drinker in this place, but I found it full of skulls just as it had
been over a thousand years ago.
The blood drinker was a babbling fool, and when he saw me in my fine gentleman's
clothes, he stared at me and pointed his finger. "The Devil comes in style," he said.
"No, death has come," I said. "Why did you make that other one whom I've destroyed this
night?"
My confession made no impression on him.
"I make others to be my companions. But what good does it do? They turn on me."
"Where is Santino?" I demanded.
"Long gone," he said. "And who would have ever thought?" I tried to read his mind, but
he was too crazed and full of distracted thoughts. It was like chasing scattered mice.
"Look at me, when did you last see him!"
"Oh, decades ago," he said. "I don't know the year. What do years mean here?"
I could get nothing further from him. I looked about the miserable place with its few
candles dripping wax upon yellowed skulls, and then turning on this creature I destroyed
him with the Fire Gift as mercifully as I had destroyed the other. And I do think that it
was truly a mercy.
There was but one left, and this one led a far better existence than the other two. I found
him in handsome lodgings an hour before sunrise. With little difficulty I learnt that he
kept a hiding place beneath the house, but that he spent his idle hours reading in his few
well-appointed rooms, and that he dressed tolerably well.
I also learnt that he couldn't detect my presence. He cut the figure of a man of some thirty
mortal years, and he had been in the Blood for some three hundred.
At last I opened his door, breaking the lock, and stepped before him as he stood up, in
horror, from his writing desk.
"Santino," I said, "what became of him?"

Though he had fed like a glutton, he was gaunt with huge bones, and long black hair, and
though he was very finely dressed in the style of the 1600s, his lace was soiled and dusty.
"In the name of Hell," he whispered, "who are you? Where do you come from?"
Again there came that terrific confusion of mind which defeated my ability to subtract
thoughts or knowledge from it.
"I'll satisfy you on those points," I said, "but you must answer me first. Santino. What
happened to him."
I took several deliberate steps towards him which put him into a paroxysm of terror.
"Be quiet now," I said. Again I tried to read his mind, but I failed. "Don't try to flee," I
said. "You won't succeed with it. Answer my questions."
"I'll tell you what I know," he said, fearfully.
"That ought to be plenty."
He shook his head. "I came here from Paris," he said. He was quaking. "I was sent by a
vampire named Armand who is the leader of that coven."
I nodded as though all this were quite intelligible to me, and as though I weren't
experiencing agony.
"That was a hundred years ago, maybe more. Armand had heard no word from Rome in a
long time. I came to see the where and why of it. I found the Roman coven in complete
confusion."
He stopped, catching his breath, backing away from me.
"Speak quickly and tell me more," I said. "I'm impatient."
"Only if you swear on your honor that you won't harm me. I've done you no harm after
all. I was no child of Santino."
"What makes you think I have honor?" I asked.
"I know you do," he said. "I can sense such things. Swear on your honor to me and I'll tell
you everything."
"Very well, I swear. I'll leave you alive which is more than I've done with two others
tonight who haunted the Roman streets like ghosts. Now talk to me."
"I came from Paris as I told you. The Roman coven was weak. All ceremony had fallen
away.
One or two of the old ones had deliberately gone into the fire. Others had simply run
away, and Santino had made no move to catch them and punish them. Once it was known
that such escape was possible many more fled, and the coven was in a state of disaster."
"Santino, did you see him?"
"Yes, I saw him. He had taken to dressing in fine clothes and jewels, and he received me
in a palazzo much larger than this one. He told me strange things. I can't really remember
all of them."
"You must remember."
"He said he had seen old ones, too many old ones, and his faith in Satan had been shaken.
He spoke of creatures who seemed to be made of marble, though he knew they could
burn. He said he could no longer lead. He told me not to return to Paris, to do as I
pleased, and so I have."
"Old ones," I said, repeating his words. "Did he tell you nothing of these old ones?"
"He spoke of the great Marius, and of a creature named Mael. And he spoke of beautiful
women."
"What were the names of these women?"
"He didn't say their names to me. He said only that one had come to the coven on the
night of its ceremonial dance, a woman like a living statue, and she had walked through
the fire to show that it was useless against her. She had destroyed many of the fledglings

who attacked her.
"When Santino showed attention and patience, she talked with him for several nights,
telling him of her wanderings. He had no taste for the coven after that...
"... But it was the other woman who truly destroyed him."
"And who was this?" I demanded. "You can't speak fast enough for me."
"The other woman was of the world, dressing in high style, and traveling by coach in the
company of a dark-skinned Asian."
I was dumbstruck, and maddened that he said nothing more.
"What happened with this other woman?" I finally asked, though a thousand other words
flooded my mind.
"Santino wanted her love most desperately. Of course the Asian threatened him with pure
destruction if he didn't give up this course, but it was the woman's condemnations that
ruined him."
"What condemnations, what did she say and why?" I demanded.
"I'm not certain. Santino spoke to her of his old piety and his fervor in directing the
coven. She condemned him. She said time would punish him for what he'd done to his
own kind. She turned away from him in disgust with him."
I smiled, a bitter smile. "Do you understand these things?" he asked. "Are they what you
wanted?" "Oh, yes, I understand them," I said.
I turned and went to the window. I unfastened the wooden shutter, and stood looking
down into the street. I saw nothing, but I couldn't reason.
"What became of the woman and her Asian companion?" I asked.
"I don't know. I have seen them in Rome since. Maybe it was fifty years ago. They are
easy to recognize, for she is very pale and her companion has a creamy brown skin and
while she dresses always as the great lady, he tends toward the exotic."
I took a deep easy breath. "And Santino? Where did he go?" I demanded.
"That I can't tell you, except that he had no spirit for anything when I talked to him. He
wanted her love, and nothing else. He said the ancient ones had ruined him for
immortality and frightened him as to death. He had nothing."
I took another deep breath. Then I turned around and fixed this vampire in my gaze with
all his considerable details. "Listen to me," I said. "If you ever see this creature again, the
great lady who travels by coach, you must tell her one thing for me and one thing alone."
"Very well."
"That Marius lives and Marius is searching for her."
"Marius!" he said with a gasp. He looked at me respectfully, though his eyes measured
me from head to foot, and then hesitantly he said, "But Santino believes you to be dead. I
think that this is what he told to the woman, that he had sent the coven members North to
hurt you."
"I think it's what he told her too. Now you remember that you saw me alive and that I
search for her."
"But where can she find you?"
"I can't entrust that knowledge to you," I said. "I would be foolish to do it. But remember
what I have said. If you see her speak to her." "Very well," he answered. "I hope that you
find her." With no further words, I left him.
I went out then into the night and for a long time I roamed the streets of Rome, taking
stock of how it had changed with the centuries and how so much had remained the same.
I marveled at the relics from my time which were still standing. I treasured the few hours
had to make my way through the ruins of the Colosseum and the Forum. I climbed the
hill where I had once lived. I found some blocks still from old walls of my house. I

wandered in a daze, staring at things because my brain was in a fever. In truth I could hardly contain my excitement on account of what I had heard, and yet I was miserable that Santino had escaped me. But oh, what a rich irony it was that he had fallen in love with her! That she had denied him! And to think he had confessed to her his murderous deeds, how loathsome. Had he been boasting when he spoke with her? Finally my heart was under my control. I could endure with what I had learnt from the young vampire. I would soon come upon Pandora, I knew it. As for the other ancient one, she who had walked through the fire, I could not then imagine who it was though I think I know now. Indeed, I'm almost certain of it. I wonder what pulled her out of her secretive ways to visit some merciful release upon Santino's followers. At last the night was almost spent, and I went home to be with my ever patient Bianca. When I came down the stone steps of the cellar, I found her asleep against her coffin as if she'd been waiting for me. She was in a long nightgown of sheer white silk, tied at the wrists, and her hair was glossy and flowing. I lifted her, kissed her closing eyes, and then put her down to her rest, and kissed her again as she lay there. "Did you find Santino?" she asked in a drowsy voice. "Did you punish him?" "No," I said. "But I will some night in the years to come. Only time itself can rob me of that special pleasure."

Chapter Thirty Two

It was Bianca who gave me the news. It was early evening, and I was writing a letter which I would later send to my latest confidante in the Talamasca. The windows were open to the breeze off the Elbe. Bianca rushed into the room and told me immediately. "It's Pandora. I know it. I've seen her." I rose from the desk. I took her in my arms. "How do you know?" I asked. "They're dancing now at the Court Ball, she and her Asian lover. Everyone was whispering about them, how beautiful they are. The Marquis and the Marquisa De Malvrier. I heard their heartbeats as soon as I entered the ballroom. I caught their strange vampiric scent. How can one describe it?" "Did she see you?" "Yes, and I put a portrait of you in my mind, my love," she said. "We locked eyes, she and I. Go to her. I know how much you want to see her." I gazed down at Bianca for a long moment. I peered into her lovely oval eyes and then I kissed her. She was exquisitely dressed in a charming ball gown of violet silk and never had she looked more splendid. I kissed her as warmly as I have ever done. After that, I went at once to my closets and dressed for the ball, putting on my finest crimson frock coat and all the requisite lace, and then the large curly wig which was the fashion then. I hurried down the steps to my carriage. When I looked back I saw Bianca on the pavilion above gazing down at me. She lifted her hand to her lips, and blew a kiss to me. As soon as I entered the Ducal Palace I sensed the presence of the Asian, and indeed before I ever reached the doors of the ballroom, he emerged from the shadows of an anteroom and put his hand on my arm. Oh, for so long I had heard about this evil being, and now I confronted him. From India, yes, and most beautiful with large liquid black eyes, and a creamy brown skin that was flawless. He smiled at me with his smooth, enticing mouth. His satin frock coat was a dark blue, and his lace was intricate and extravagant. It seemed he was studded with immense diamonds, diamonds from India where diamonds are worshiped. He had a fortune in rings on his hands. He wore a fortune in buckles and buttons. "Marius," he said. He gave me a small formal bow, as though he were doffing his hat when in fact he wore none. "Of course," he said, "you are going to see Pandora." "You mean to stop me?" I asked. "No," he said with an idle shrug. "How could you imagine such a thing?" His tone was courteous. "Marius, I assure you, she has cast off many another." He seemed perfectly sincere. "So I've been told," I said. "I must see her. You and I can speak later on. I must go to her." "Very well," he said. "I am patient." He shrugged again. "I am always patient. My name is Arjun. I'm glad that we've finally come together. Even with the Roman rogue, Santino, who claimed to have annihilated you I was patient. She was so miserable then and I wanted to punish him. But I did not. I followed her wishes and left him unharmed. What a dejected creature he was. How he loved her. I followed her wishes as I've said. I'll follow her

wishes tonight, as I always do."
"That's very good of you," I replied, my throat so tight I could scarcely utter the words.
"Let me go now. I have waited longer than you can possibly imagine for this moment. I
can't stand here and converse with you as though she weren't steps away from me."
"I can imagine how long you've waited," he said. "I am older than you think."
I nodded, and I slowly withdrew from him.
I couldn't bear it anymore.
Immediately I entered the immense ballroom.
The orchestra was playing one of the soft fluid dances so popular in those times, nothing
as spirited as music would later become, and the lavish room was full of radiant faces and
busy dancing figures, and myriad colors.
I peered through the happy crowd, moving slowly along one wall and then another.
Quite suddenly I saw her. She didn't know I was there. Her companion had sent her no
mental warning.
She was sitting alone, artfully dressed in her fashionable clothes, her satin bodice very
tight and graceful, her ornate skirts huge, and her lovely white face framed by her natural
brown hair drawn back and up in a fancy style with rubies and diamonds.
I leant against the clavichord, smiling benevolently at the musician who played it with
such skill, and then I turned to gaze at her.
How sad was her expression, how remote, how unutterably beautiful.
Was she watching the colors of the room as I watched them? Did she feel the same gentle
love for mortals which I felt? What would she do when she realized I was watching her?
I didn't know. I was afraid. I couldn't know anything until I heard the sound of her voice.
I continued to look. I continued to savor this moment of bliss and safety.
Suddenly, she saw me. She picked me out of the hundreds of faces. Her eyes fixed on me,
and I saw the blood rush into her beautiful cheeks and her mouth opened to speak the
name Marius.
I heard it over the thin sweet music.
I raised my fingers to my lips, just as Bianca had done only a little while ago, and I blew
a kiss to her.
How sad and happy at once she seemed, her mouth opened in a half smile as she gazed at
me. She seemed as frozen in her place as I was.
But this was intolerable. What were these volumes of silence which divided us!
Quickly I crossed the dance floor and bowed before her. I lifted her cold white hand, and
led her out and into the dance, and would take no resistance from her.
"No, you're mine, you're mine, do you hear?" I whispered. "Don't pull away from me."
"Marius, I fear him and he is strong," she whispered in my ear. "I must explain to him
that we've found each other."
"I don't fear him. Besides he knows. What does it matter?"
We were dancing as if we said no such things to one another. I held her tight and kissed
her cheeks.
I didn't care what the mortals around us might think of this impropriety. How very absurd
was the whole notion.
"Pandora, my blessed love, if only you could know how long I've waited. What use is it
to tell you now that from the very beginning I have missed you in pure agony? Pandora,
listen to me, don't close your eyes, don't look away. I knew within the year, the very year,
that I had made a dreadful error!"
I realized that I was turning her too violently: I was pressing her hand too hard. I had lost
the cadence of the dance. The music was a strange shrill noise in my ears. I had lost

control of everything.
She pulled back to look into my eyes. "Take me out on the pavilion," she said. "We can
talk in the river breeze. The music makes me dizzy." Immediately I led her through a
huge pair of doors and we found ourselves on a stone bench overlooking the river.
I shall never forget how clear it was that night, how much the stars seemed in my favor,
and how brilliant the light of the moon on the Elbe. All around us were pots of flowers,
and other couples or groups of mortals who had come to gain a little air before returning
to the ballroom.
But in the main we had the shadows to ourselves and I gave way to kissing her. I felt her
perfect cheeks beneath my lips. I kissed her throat. I felt her brown hair with its tight
waves, which I had so often painted on my wild nymphs as they ran through my thick
gardens. I wanted to pull it loose.
"Don't leave me again," I said. "No matter what is said between us tonight. Don't leave
me."
"Marius, it was you who left me," she said, and I heard a tremor in her voice which
frightened me. "Marius, that was so long ago," she said sadly. "Marius, I wandered so far
and wide searching for you."
"Yes, yes, I admit to all," I said. "I admit to every error. How could I guess what it meant
to break the tie? Pandora, I didn't know! Yea gods, I didn't know! Believe me, I didn't
know. Tell me you will leave this creature, Arjun, and come back to me. Pandora, I want
nothing short of this! I can't make pretty words. I can't recite old poems.
Pandora, look at me."
"I am looking at you!" she declared. "Don't you see, you blind me! Marius, don't think I
too haven't dreamt of this reunion. And now you see me in this shame, this weakness."
"What? I don't care! What shame and weakness?"
"That I'm a slave to my companion, Arjun, that I let him move me through the world, that
on my own, I possess no will, no momentum. Marius, I am nothing now."
"No, that's not true, and besides it doesn't matter. I'll free you from Arjun. I have no fear
of him whatsoever, and then you'll be with me and all your old spirit will come back to
you."
"You dream," she said and the first coldness came into her face and into her voice. It was
in her brown eyes, a coldness that comes from sorrow.
"Are you telling me," I demanded, "that you mean to leave me again for this creature?
You think I will stand for it?"
"And what are you saying to me, Marius, that you will force me?" Her voice was low,
distant.
"But you've told me you're weak, you've told me you're a slave. Is this not asking for me
to force you?"
She shook her head. She was ready to weep. Again I wanted to pull down her hair, to see
it loose, to take the jewels out of it. I wanted to take her face in my hands.
I did it. I held her face too roughly.
"Pandora, listen to me," I said. "One hundred years ago, I learnt from a strange mortal
that in your wanderings with this creature you circled again and again the city of
Dresden. And learning this, I moved myself to this city to wait for you. Not a night has
passed that I have not awakened to look through Dresden to find you.
"Now that I have you in my arms I have no intention of abandoning you."
She shook her head. She seemed for a moment incapable of speech. I felt that she was
imprisoned in her strange fashionable garments and lost in some painful reverie.
"But what can I give you, Marius, but what you've already learnt? The knowledge that I

live still, that I endure, that I wander? With or without Arjun, what does it matter?"
She turned her eyes to me, wondering.
"And what do I learn from you except that you go on, and that you endure -that those
demons in Rome did not destroy you as they claimed, that you were burnt, yes, I can see
that in the color of your skin, but you survive. Marius, what more is there?"
"What on Earth are you saying!" I demanded. I was suddenly furious. "Pandora, we have
each other! Good Lord. We have time. As we come together now, time begins for us all
over again!"
"Does it, Marius? I don't know," she replied. "Marius, I'm not strong enough."
"Pandora, that's mad!" I said.
"Oh, you are so angry and it is so like our quarrels of old."
"No, it's not!" I declared. "It's nothing like our quarrels of old because it's about nothing.
Now I'm taking you from here. I'm taking you to my palace, and I shall deal with Arjun
as best as I can afterwards."
"You can't do such a thing," she said sharply. "Marius, I've been with him for hundreds of
years.
You think you can simply come between us?"
"I want you, Pandora. I shall settle for nothing else. And if such a time comes that you
want to leave me - ."
"Yes, and what if it does come," she said angrily, "then what shall I do when there is no
Arjun on account of you!"
I fell silent. I was in a rage. She was staring at me intently. Her face was full of feeling.
Her breast heaved under the tight satin.
"Do you love me?" I demanded.
"Completely," she said in her angry voice.
"Then you are coming with me!"
I took her by the hand.
No one moved to stop us as we left the palace.
As soon as I had her in the carriage, I kissed her wantonly as mortals kiss and wanted to
sink my teeth into her throat but she forbade it.
"Let me have that intimacy!" I begged. "For the love of Heaven, Pandora, it's Marius who
is speaking to you. Listen to me. Let us share blood and blood."
"Don't you think I want to?" she asked. "I'm afraid."
"Afraid of what?" I demanded. "Tell me what you fear. I'll make it vanish."
The carriage rolled on out of Dresden and through the forest towards my palace.
"Oh, but you won't," she replied. "You can't. Don't you understand, Marius, you're the
same being you were in those times when we were first together. You're strong and
spirited as you were then, and I'm not. Marius, he takes care of me."
"Takes care of you? Pandora, this is what you want! I'll do it. I shall take care of every
tiny detail of your entire existence as though you were my daughter! Only give me the
chance. Give me the chance to restore in love what was lost to us."
We had reached my gates, and my servants were opening them. We were about to enter
when she signaled to me that I must hold the coach. She was looking out the window.
She was looking up at the windows of the palace. Perhaps she could see the pavilion.
I did as she asked. I saw that she was paralyzed with fear. There was no disguising it. She
stared at the palace as though it were full of menace.
"What in the name of Heaven can it be?" I asked. "Whatever it is that frightens you, tell
me.
Pandora, there is nothing that can't be changed. Tell me."

"Oh, you are so violent in your temper," she said in a whisper. "Can't you guess what
reduces me to this abominable weakness?"
"No," I said. "I know only I love you with my whole heart. I've found you again and I'll
do anything to keep you."
Her eyes remained fixed on the palace.
"Even give up the female companion," she asked, "who is inside this very house waiting
for you?"
I didn't answer.
"I saw her at the ball," she said, her eyes glassy, her voice quivering. "I saw her and knew
what she was, quite powerful, quite graceful. I never guessed she was your lover. But
now I know that she is. I can hear her inside. I can hear her hopes and dreams and how
they are pinned on you."
"Stop it, Pandora. It isn't necessary that I give her up. We are not mortals! We can live
together."
I took her by the arms. I shook her. Her hair did come loose and then violently and
cruelly I pulled at it, and I buried my face in her hair.
"Pandora, if you require this of me, I'll do it. Only give me time, give me time to make
certain that Bianca is where she might survive well and happy. I'll do it for you, do you
understand, if only you'll stop fighting me!"
I drew back. She appeared dazed and cold. Her lovely hair spilled down on her shoulders.
"What is it?" she asked in a low sluggish voice. "Why do you look at me this way?"
I was on the edge of tears, but I stopped them.
"Because I imagined," I said, "that this meeting would be so very different. And I did
think that you would come with me willingly. And I did think that we two could live in
harmony with Bianca.
I believed these things. I believed them for a long time. And now I sit with you here and
all is argument and torment."
"That's all it ever was, Marius," she replied in her low sad voice. "That's why you left
me."
"No," I said. "That's not so. Pandora, ours was a great love. You must acknowledge it.
There was a terrible parting, yes, but we had a great love, and we can have it again if we
reach for it."
She gazed at the house, then back at me almost furtively. Something quickened in her and
she suddenly gripped my arm with white knuckles. There came that look of terrible fear
again.
"Come into the house with me," I said. "Meet Bianca. Take her hands in yours. Pandora,
listen to me. Stay in the house while I go to settle things with Arjun. I won't be long, I
promise you."
"No," she cried. "Don't you understand? I can't go into this house. It has nothing to do
with your Bianca."
"What then? What now? What more!" I demanded.
"It's the sound I hear, the sound of their hearts beating!"
"The King and the Queen! Yes, they are inside. They are deep within the Earth, Pandora.
They are as still and silent as always. You need not even see them."
A look of pure terror infected her features. I put my arms around her, but she only looked
away.
"As still and silent as always," she gasped. "Surely that can't be. Not after all this time.
Marius!"
"Oh, but it is," I said. "And to you it should be nothing. You needn't go down the steps to

the shrine. It is my duty. Pandora, stop looking away."
"Don't hurt me, Marius," she cautioned. "You're rough with me as though I were a
concubine.
Treat me with grace." Her lips trembled. "Treat me with mercy," she said sadly.
I started to weep.
"Stay with me," I said. "Come inside. Talk to Bianca. Come to love us both. Let time
begin from this moment."
"No, Marius," she said. "Take me away from that awful sound. Take me back to the place
where I am living. Take me back, or I shall go on foot. I can't bear this."
I obeyed her commands. We were silent as she traveled to a large handsome house in
Dresden whose many windows were dark, and there I held her still, kissing her, refusing
to let her go.
Finally, I drew out my handkerchief and wiped my face. I drew in my breath and tried to
speak calmly.
"You are frightened," I said, "and I must understand it and be patient with it."
She had that dazed cold look in her eyes, a look I had never seen in the early years, a look
that now horrified me.
"Tomorrow night, we shall meet again," I said, "here perhaps in this house where you are
dwelling, where you are safe from the sound of the Mother and the Father. Wherever you
wish. But wherever you can get used to me."
She nodded. She lifted her hand and stroked my cheek with her fingers.
"How well you pretend," she whispered. "How very fine you are, and always were. And
to think those demons in Rome thought they had put out your brilliant light. I should have
laughed at them."
"Yes, and my light shines only for you," I said, "and it was of you I dreamt when I was
burnt black by the fire sent from that demon blood drinker Santino. It was of you I dreamt
as I drank from the Mother to regain my strength, as I searched for you through the
countries of Europe."
"Oh, my love," she whispered. "My great love. If only I could be again the strong one
whom you remember."
"But you will be," I insisted. "You are. I shall take care of you, yes, just as you wish. And
you and Bianca and I - we shall all love one another. Tomorrow night, we'll talk. We'll
make plans.
We'll speak of all the great cathedrals we must see, the windows of colored glass, we'll
speak of the painters whose fine work we have yet to study. We'll speak of the New
World, of its forests and its rivers. Pandora, we will speak of everything."
I went on and on.
"And you will come to love Bianca," I said. "You will come to treasure her. I know
Bianca's heart and soul as ever I knew yours, I swear to you. We will exist together in
peace, believe me. You have no idea of the happiness that awaits you."
"Happiness?" she asked. She looked at me as though she hardly understood the words I
had spoken. Then she said:
"Marius, I leave this city tonight. Nothing can stop it."
"No, no, you can't say this to me!" I declared. I grabbed her by the arms again.
"Don't hurt me, Marius. I leave this city tonight. I told you. Marius, you've waited for one
hundred years to see one thing, and one thing only - that I live. Now leave me to the
existence I've chosen."
"I won't. I won't have it."
"Yes, you will," she whispered. "Marius, don't you see what I'm trying to tell you. I

haven't the courage to leave Arjun. I haven't the courage to see the Mother and the Father.
Marius, I don't have the courage to love you anymore. The very sound of your angry
voice frightens me. I don't have the courage to meet your Bianca. The very thought that
you might love her more than me frightens me.
I am frightened of it all, don't you see? And even now, I am desperate for Arjun that he
may take me away from all of this. With Arjun there is for me a great simplicity! Marius,
please let me go with your forgiveness."
"I don't believe you," I said. "I told you I will give up Bianca for you. Good God,
Pandora, what more can I do? You can't be leaving me."
I turned my back on her. The expression on her face was too strange. I couldn't endure it.
And as I sat there in the darkness, I heard the door of the carriage open. I heard her quick
step on the stones, and she was gone from me.
My Pandora, utterly gone from me.
I don't know how long I waited. It was not a full hour.
I was too distressed, too perfectly miserable. I didn't want to see her companion, and
when I thought of banging on the doors of her house, I found it too utterly humiliating.
And in truth, in pure truth, she had convinced me. She wouldn't remain with me.
I was about to tell my driver to take us home when a sound came to me. It was of her
howling and crying, and of objects within the house being broken.
It was all I needed to push me into action. I left the carriage and ran to her door. I shot an
evil glance at her mortal servants, which rendered them virtually powerless, and threw
open the doors for myself.
I rushed up the marble steps. I found her going madly along the walls, pounding the
mirrors with her fists. I found her shedding blood tears and shivering. There was broken
glass all around her.
I took her wrists. I took them tenderly.
"Stay with me," I said. "Stay with me!"
Quite suddenly behind me, I heard the presence of Arjun. I heard his unhurried step and
then he entered the room.
She had collapsed against my chest. She was shaking.
"Don't worry," said Arjun in the same patient tone he had used with me in the Duke's
palace. "We can talk of all these things in a courteous way. I am not a wild creature,
given to acts of destruction."
He seemed the perfect gentleman with his lace handkerchief and high-heeled shoes. He
looked about at the broken pieces of mirror which lay on the fine carpet, and he shook his
head.
"Then leave me alone with her," I said.
"Is this what you wish, Pandora?" he asked.
She nodded. "For a little while, my darling," she said to him.
As soon as he had left the room, and shut the tall double doors behind him, I stroked her
hair, and I kissed her again.
"I can't leave him," she confessed.
"And why not?" I asked.
"Because I made him," she answered. "He is my son, my spouse, and my guardian."
I was shocked.
I had never supposed such a thing!
In all these years I had thought him some dominating creature who kept her in his power.
"I made him so that he would take care of me," she said. "I took him from India where I
was worshiped as a very goddess by those few who had set eyes upon me. I taught him

European ways. I placed him in charge of me so that in my weakness and despair, he would control me. And it is his hunger for life which drives us both. Without it I might have languished in some deep tomb for centuries." "Very well," I said, "he is your child. This I understand, but Pandora, you are mine! What of this! You are mine, and I have you in my possession again! Oh, forgive me, forgive that I speak so harshly, that I use words such as possession. What do I mean to say? I mean to say I can't lose you!" "I know what you mean," she said, "but you see, I can't turn him away from me. He has done far too well in what I have asked of him, and he loves me. And he cannot live under your roof, Marius. I know you only too well. Where Marius lives, Marius rules. You will never suffer a male such as Arjun to dwell with you on my account or for any other reason." I was so deeply wounded that for one moment I couldn't answer her. I shook my head as though to deny what she had said, but in truth I didn't know whether or not she was wrong. I had always, always thought only of destroying Arjun. "You can't deny it," she said softly. "Arjun is too strong, too willful, and has been too long his own master." "There must be some way," I pleaded. "There will come a night, surely," she said, "when it is time for Arjun to part from me. The same may happen with you and your Bianca. But this is not the time. And so I beg you, let go of me, Marius, say farewell to me, and promise me that you will eternally persevere and I shall give you the same promise." "This is your vengeance, isn't it?" I asked quietly. "You were my child and within two hundred years I left you. And so you tell me now that you won't do the same to him - ." "No, my beautiful Marius, it isn't vengeance, it is only the truth. Now, leave me." She smiled bitterly. "Oh, what a gift to me this night has been, that I have seen you alive, that I know the Roman blood drinker Santino was wrong. This night will carry me through centuries." "It will carry you away from me," I said, nodding. But then her lips caught me by surprise. It was she who kissed me ardently, and then I felt her tiny sharp teeth pierce my throat. I stood rigid, eyes closed, letting her drink, feeling the inevitable pull on my heart, my head suddenly full of visions of the dark forest through which she and her companion so often rode and I couldn't know whether these were her visions or mine. On and on she drank, as though she was starving, and deliberately I created for her the luscious garden of my most cherished dreams, and in it I envisioned the two of us together. My body was nothing but desire for her. Through every sinew I felt the pull of her drinking and I gave no resistance. I was her victim. I held to no caution. It seemed I was not standing any longer. I must have fallen. I didn't care. Then I felt her hands on my arms, and I knew I was on my feet. She drew back, and with blurred eyes I saw her gazing at me. All of her hair had spilled down on her shoulders. "Such strong blood," she whispered. "My Child of the Millennia." It was the first time I had heard such a name for those of us who have lived so long and I was faintly charmed by it. I was groggy, so strong had she been, but what did it matter? I would have given her anything. I steadied myself. I tried to clear my vision. She was far away across the room.

"What did you see in the blood?" I whispered.
"Your pure love," she answered.
"Was there any doubt?" I asked. I was growing stronger by the moment. Her face was
radiant with the blood flush and her eyes were fierce as they had always been when we
quarreled.
"No, no doubt," she said. "But you must leave me now."
I said nothing.
"Go on, Marius. If you don't, I can't bear it."
I stared at her as if I were staring at a wild thing of the wood, and so she seemed to be,
this creature whom I had loved with all my heart.
And once again, I knew it to be finished.
I left the room.
In the grand hallway of the house, I stood stunned, and there Arjun was standing in the
corner, staring at me.
"I am so sorry, Marius," he said, as if he meant it.
I looked at him, wondering if anything could work me into a rage to destroy him. Were I
to do that, she would have to stay with me. And oh, how the thought of it blazed in my
mind. Yet I knew she would utterly and completely hate me for it. And I would hate
myself. For what did I have against this creature who wasn't her vile master as I'd always
supposed, but her child! - a fledgling vampire of some five hundred years or less, young
in the Blood and full of love for her.
I was far far from such a possibility. And what a sublime being he was as he surely read
these thoughts in my desperate and unveiled mind and yet stood his ground with such
poise, merely looking at me.
"Why must we part!" I whispered.
He shrugged. He gestured eloquently with his hands.
"I don't know," he said, "except she wants it so. It is she who wants ever to be on the
move; it is she who draws designs upon the map. It is she who draws the circles in which
we travel, now and then making Dresden the center of our roaming, now and then
choosing some other city, such as Paris or Rome. It is she who says we must go on and
on. It is she. And what can I say, Marius, except that it delights me."
I went towards him and for one moment he thought I meant to harm him and he stiffened.
I took his wrist before he could move. I studied him. What a noble being he was, his
grand white wig in sharp contrast to his lustrous brown skin, his black eyes staring at me
with such earnestness and seeming comprehension.
"Stay with me here," I said. "Both of you. Remain with me. Stay with me and my
companion, Bianca."
He smiled and shook his head. There was no contempt in his eyes. We were male to male
and there was no contempt. He told me only No.
"She will not have it," he said, his voice very placating and calm. "I know her. I know all
her ways. She brought me to herself because I worshiped her. And once having her blood
I have never ceased in that worship."
I stood there, clutching his wrist still, and staring about me as if I were ready to cry out to
the gods. And it seemed my cry would break the very walls of this house if I let it loose.
"How can this be!" I whispered. "That I should find her and know her only for one night,
one precious night of quarreling."
"You and she are equals," he said. "I am but an instrument."
I closed my eyes.
Quite suddenly I could hear her weeping, and when this sound came to my ears, Arjun

gently freed himself from me and said in his soft gentle voice that he must go to her.
I walked slowly out of the hallway, and down the marble steps and into the night,
ignoring my carriage.
I walked home through the forest.
When I reached my house, I went into my library, took off the wig which I had worn to
the ball, threw it across the room and sat in a chair at my writing table.
I put my head down on my folded arms and silently wept as I had not wept since the
death of Eudoxia. I wept. And the hours passed, and at last I realized that Bianca was
standing beside me.
She was stroking my hair with her hand, and then I heard her whisper.
"Time to come down the steps to our cold grave, Marius. It is early for you, but I must go
and I can't leave you this way."
I rose to my feet. I took her in my arms and gave way to the most awful tears, and all the
while she held me silently and warmly.
And then we went down to our coffins together.
The following night, I went immediately to the house where I'd left Pandora.
I found it deserted and then I searched all of Dresden and the many palaces or schlosses
around it. She and Arjun were gone, there was no doubt of it. And going up to the Ducal
Palace where there was a little concert in progress I soon learned the "official" news of it,
of how the handsome black coach of the Marquis and the Marquisa De Malvrier had left
before dawn for Russia.
Russia.
Being in no mood for the music, I soon made my apologies to those gathered in the salon
and I went home again, as miserable as I have ever been in my existence. As heartbroken.
I sat down at my desk. I looked out over the river. I felt the warm spring breeze.
I thought of all the many things she and I should have said to each other, all the many
things I might have said in a calmer spirit to persuade her. I told myself she wasn't gone
beyond reach. I told myself that she knew where I was, and that she could write to me. I
told myself anything I needed to keep my sanity.
And I did not hear it when Bianca came into the room. I did not hear it when she sat
down in a large tapestried armchair quite near to me.
I saw her as if she were a vision when I looked up - a flawless young boy with porcelain
cheeks, her blond hair pulled back in a black ribbon, her frock coat embroidered in gold,
her shapely legs in spotless white hose, her feet in ruby buckled shoes.
Oh, what a divine guise it was - Bianca as the young nobleman, known to the few mortals
who mattered as her own brother. And how sad were her peerless blue eyes, as she
looked at me.
"I feel sorry for you," she said quietly.
"Do you?" I asked. I said these words with my broken heart. "I hope you do, my precious
darling, because I love you, I love you more than I have ever loved you, and I need you."
"But that's just the point, you see," she said in a low compassionate voice. "I heard the
things you said to her. And I'm leaving you."

Chapter Thirty Three

For three long nights I pleaded with her not to go as she made her preparations. I went
down on my knees. I swore to her that I had said only what needed to be said to make
Pandora remain with me.
I told her in every way I knew how that I loved her, and would never have abandoned
her.
I told her that she would never be able to survive alone, and that I feared for her.
But nothing would turn her from her decision.
Only on the beginning of the third night did I realize that she was really going. Up until
then, I had thought that such was absolutely inconceivable. I couldn't lose her. No, such a
thing could not happen.
At last, I begged her to sit down and listen to me as I poured out my honest heart,
confessing every bad thing which I had said, every cheap denial of her which had come
from my lips, every desperate foolish thing I'd said to Pandora.
"But what I want now is to talk of you and me," I said, "and how it's always been
between us."
"Yes, you may do that if you wish," she said, "if it makes the pain less for you, but
Marius, I am going."
"You know how it was with me and Amadeo," I said. "I took him into my house when he
was very young and gave him the Blood when mortality gave me no quarter. We were
Master and pupil always, and there was mockery and a dark division. Perhaps you never
saw this, but it was there, I assure you."
"I saw it," she said. "But I knew your love was greater."
"And so it was," I said. "But he was a child, and my man's heart always knew there was
something finer and greater. Much as I cherished him, much as the mere sight of him
delighted me, I could not confide to him my worst fears or pains. I could not tell him the
tales of my life. They were too big for him."
"I understand you, Marius," she said gently. "I always have."
"And Pandora. You saw it with your own eyes. The bitter quarrel again, just as it had
been so many centuries ago, the bitter fighting in which no real truth can be discovered."
"I saw it," she said in her quiet way. "I follow your meaning."
"You saw her fear of the Mother and the Father," I pleaded. "You heard her say that she
couldn't come into the house. You heard her speak of her fear of everything."
"I did," she answered.
"And what was this one night between me and Pandora but misery, as it had been long
ago, misery and misunderstanding."
"I know, Marius," she answered.
"But Bianca, what has it always been with you and me but harmony?
Think of our long years when we dwelt in the shrine, and went out on the night winds
where I could carry us. Think of the quiet between us, or the long conversations in which
I talked of so many things and you listened. Could two beings have been closer than we
were?"
She bowed her head. She didn't answer.
"And these last years," I pleaded. "Think of all the pleasures we have shared, our
secretive hunting in the forests, our visits to the country festivals, our quiet attendance in
the great cathedrals when the candles burn and the choirs sing, our dancing at the Court
Balls. Think of all of it."
"I know, Marius," she said. "But you lied to me. You didn't tell me why we were coming

to Dresden."
"I confess, it's true. Tell me what I can do to make up for it?"
"Nothing, Marius," she answered. "I'm going."
"But how will you live? You can't live without me. This is madness."
"No, I shall live quite well," she said. "And I must go now. I must travel many miles
before dawn."
"And where will you sleep?"
"That is my worry now."
I was almost on the point of frenzy.
"Don't follow me, Marius," she said, as if she could read my mind which she could not.
"I can't accept this," I responded.
A silence fell between us, and I realized she was looking at me, and I looked at her,
unable to hide a particle of my unhappiness.
"Bianca, don't do this," I pleaded.
"I saw your passion for her," she whispered, "and I knew that in a moment you would
cast me aside. Oh, don't deny it. I saw it. And something in me was crushed. I couldn't
protect that thing. I couldn't prevent its destruction. We were too close, you and I. And
though I have loved you with my whole soul, so I believed I knew you completely, I
didn't know the being you were with her. I didn't know the being whom I saw in her
eyes."
She rose from the chair and moved away from me. She looked out the window.
"I wish I had not heard all those many words," she said, "but we have such gifts, we
blood drinkers. And do you think I don't realize that you would never have made me your
child except for the fact that you needed me? Had you not been burnt and helpless, you
would never have given me the Blood."
"Will you listen to me when I tell you that's not so? When first I saw you I loved you. It
was only out of respect for your mortal life that I didn't share these cursed gifts with you!
It was you who filled my eyes and heart before I ever found Amadeo. I swear this to you.
Don't you remember the portraits I painted of you? Do you remember the hours I spent in
your rooms? Think now on all that we've given each other."
"You deceived me," she said.
"Yes, I did," I said. "And I admit it, and I swear that I shall never do it again. Not for
Pandora or for anyone."
On and on I pleaded.
"I can't stay with you," she said. "I must go now."
She turned around and looked at me. She seemed wrapped in quiet and resolution.
"I'm begging you," I said again. "Without pride, without reserve, I'm begging you, don't
leave me."
"I must go," she said. "And now, please, let me go down to take my leave of the Mother
and the Father. I would do this alone if you would allow it."
I nodded.
It was a long time before she came up from the shrine. She told me quietly that she would
leave on the following sunset.
And true to her word, she did, her coach and four pulling out of the gates, as she began
her journey.
I stood at the top of the stairs watching her go. I stood listening until the coach was deep
into the forest. I stood unbelieving and unable to accept that she was gone from me.
How could this horrid disaster have occurred - that I lose Pandora and Bianca both? That
I should be alone? And I was powerless to stop it.

For many months after that, I could scarcely believe what had befallen me.
I told myself that a letter would soon come from Pandora, or that she herself would return
with Arjun, that Pandora would will it so.
I told myself that Bianca would realize that she could not exist without me. She would
come home, eager to forgive me, or she would send some hasty letter asking me to come
to her.
But these things did not happen.
A year passed and these things did not happen.
And another year and then fifty. And these things did not happen.
And all the while, though I moved deeper into the woods surrounding Dresden, in another
more fortified castle, I remained near at hand in the hopes that one or both of my loves
would come back to me.
For a half century I remained, waiting, not believing, and weighed down with a sorrow I
couldn't share with anyone.
I think I had ceased to pray in the shrine though I tended it faithfully.
And I had begun, in a confidential manner, to talk to Akasha. I had begun to tell her my
woes in a more informal manner than before, to tell her of how I had failed with those
whom I had loved.
"But I shall never fail with you, my Queen," I said, and I said it often.
And then as the 1700s commenced, I prepared to make a daring move to an island where
I would rule supreme in the Aegean Sea, surrounded by mortals who would easily accept
me as their lord, in a stone house which I had prepared for me by a host of mortal
servants.
All who have read The Vampire Lestat's tale of his life know of this immense and
unusual place because he vividly described it. It far exceeded in grandeur any other
palace in which I had ever lived, and its remoteness was a challenge to my ingenuity.
But I was most purely alone now, alone as I had ever been before the love of Amadeo, or
Bianca, and I had no hope of an immortal companion. And perhaps in truth I wanted
none.
It had been centuries since I had heard of Mael. I knew nothing of Avicus or Zenobia. I
knew nothing of any other Child of the Millennia.
I wanted only a great and gorgeous shrine for the Mother and Father, and as I have said, I
spoke to Akasha constantly.
But before I go on to describe this last and most important of all my European dwellings,
I must include one last tragic detail in the story of those who were lost to me.
As my many treasures were moved to this Aegean palace, as my books, my sculptures,
my fine tapestries and rugs and other such were shipped and uncrated by unsuspecting
mortals, there came to light one final piece of the story of my beloved Pandora.
In the bottom of a packing case, one of the workers discovered a letter, written on
parchment, and folded in half, and addressed quite simply to Marius.
I was on the terrace of this new house, gazing out at the sea and over the many small
islands that surrounded me, when the letter was brought to me.
The page of parchment was thick with dust, and as soon as I opened it, I read a date
inscribed in old ink which affirmed that it had been written the night I parted with
Pandora.
It was as if the fifty years separating me from that pain meant nothing.
My beloved Marius, It is almost dawn and I have only a few moments in which to write
to you. As we have told you, our coach will leave within the hour carrying us away and
towards the eventual destination of Moscow.

Marius, I want nothing more than to come to you now, but I cannot do it. I cannot seek
shelter in the same house with the Ancient Ones.
But I beg you, my beloved, please come to Moscow. Please come and help me to free
myself from Arjun. Later you can judge me and condemn me.
I need you, Marius. I shall haunt the vicinity of the Czar's palace and the Great Cathedral
until you come.
Marius, I know I ask of you that you make a great journey, but please come.
Whatever I have said of my love of Arjun, I am his slave now too completely, and I
would be yours again.
Pandora.
For hours I sat with the letter in my hand, and then slowly I rose and went to my servants
and asked them that they tell me where the letter had been found.
It had been in a packing case of books from my old library.
How had I failed to receive it? Had Bianca hidden this letter from me? That I couldn't
believe. It seemed some simpler more haphazard cruelty had taken place - that a servant
had laid it on my desk in the early hours, and I myself had swept it aside into a heap of
books without ever seeing it.
But what did it matter?
The awful damage was done.
She had written to me, and I had not known it. She had begged me to come to Moscow
and I, not knowing, had not gone. And I did not know where to find her. I had her avowal
of love, but it was too late.
In the following months I searched the Russian capital. I searched in the hope that she
and Arjun had for some reason made their home there.
But I found no trace of Pandora. The wide world had swallowed her as it had swallowed
my Bianca.
What more can I say to reveal the anguish of these two losses - that of Pandora whom I'd
sought for so long, and my sweet and lovely Bianca?
With these two losses my story comes to a close.
Or rather I should say we have come full circle.
We now return to the story of the Queen of the Damned and of The Vampire Lestat who
waked her. And I shall be brief as I revisit that story. For I think I see most clearly what it
is that would heal my miserable soul more than anything. But before I can move on to
that, we must revisit Lestat's antics and the story of how I lost my last love, Akasha.

Chapter Thirty Four

The Vampire Lestat

As all know, who follow our Chronicles, I was on the island in the Aegean Sea, ruling over a peaceful world of mortals when Lestat, a young vampire, no more than ten years in the Blood, began to call out to me. Now I was most belligerent in my solitude. And not even the recent rise of Amadeo, out of the old coven in Paris, to become the Master of the new and bizarre Theatre des Vampires, could lure me from my solitude. For though I had spied upon Amadeo more than once, I saw nothing in him, but the same heartbreaking sadness that I had known in Venice. I preferred loneliness to courting him. But when I heard the call of Lestat, I sensed in him a powerful and unfettered intelligence, and I went to him at once, rescuing him from his first true retreat as a blood drinker and I brought him to my house, revealing its location to him. I felt a great outpouring of love for Lestat, and impetuously perhaps, I took him down to the shrine immediately. I watched transfixed as he drew close to the Mother, and then in amazement as he kissed her. I don't know whether it was his boldness or her stillness which so mesmerized me. But you can be certain I was ready to intervene if Enkil should try to hurt him. When Lestat drew back, when he told me that the Mother had confided to him her name, I was caught off guard and a sudden wave of terrible jealousy took hold of me. But I denied this feeling. I was too in love with Lestat and I told myself that this seeming miracle in the shrine meant only good things - that this young blood drinker might somehow spark life in the two Parents. And so I took him to my salon, as I have described - and as he has described - and I told him the long tale of my beginnings. I told him the tale of the Mother and Father and their unending quietude. He seemed a splendid pupil during all the hours that we talked together. Indeed, I don't think I had ever felt closer in my life to anyone than I did to Lestat. I was never closer even to Bianca. Lestat had traveled the world in his ten years in the Blood; he had devoured the great literature of many nations; and he brought to our conversation a vigor I had never seen really in anyone I had loved, not even in Pandora. But the following night, as I was out tending to affairs with my mortal subjects, of whom there were many, Lestat went down to the shrine, taking with him a violin which had once belonged to his friend and fellow blood drinker, Nicolas. And mimicking the skill of his lost friend, Lestat played the violin passionately and wondrously for the Divine Parents. Over the short miles I heard the music. And then I heard a high-pitched singing note such as no mortal could ever have made. Indeed, it seemed the song of the Sirens of Greek mythology, and as I stood wondering what this sound could be, it died away in silence. I tried to bridge the gap which separated me from my house, and what I saw through the unveiled mind of Lestat defied my belief. Akasha had risen from her throne, and held Lestat in her embrace, and as Lestat drank from Akasha, Akasha drank from Lestat. I turned and sped back towards my house and towards the shrine. But even as I did so, the scene shifted fatally. Enkil had risen and had ripped Lestat loose from the Mother and she stood screaming for

Lestat in tones that could deafen any mortal.
Rushing down the stone steps I found the doors of the shrine deliberately shut against me.
I commenced to pound on them with all my force. And all the while I could see within,
through Lestat's eyes, that Enkil had forced Lestat down on the floor, and Enkil, despite
Akasha's screams, meant to crush him.
Oh, how plaintive were her screams for all their volume.
Desperately, I called out to him:
"Enkil, if you harm Lestat, if you kill him, I shall take her away from you forever and she
will help me to do it. My King, this is what she wants!"
I could scarcely believe that I had shouted these words, but they had come to my mind
immediately and there was no time to ponder them.
The doors of the shrine were at once opened. What an impossible and terrifying sight it
was, the two stark white creatures standing there, in their Egyptian raiment, she with her
mouth dripping with blood, and Enkil, standing there, yet as though he were in deep
slumber.
In horror, I saw that Enkil's foot was resting against Lestat's chest. But Lestat still lived.
Lestat was unharmed. Beside him lay the violin, smashed to pieces. Akasha stared
forward as though she had never waked, looking past me.
I moved quickly and put my hands on Enkil's shoulders.
"Go back, my King," I said. "Go back. You have accomplished your purpose. Please, do
as I beg you. You know how I respect your power."
Slowly he removed his foot from Lestat's chest, his expression blank, his movements
sluggish as they always were, and gradually I was able to move him to the steps of the
dais. Slowly he turned to make the two steps, and slowly he sat down on his throne, and I
with quick hands arranged his garments carefully.
"Lestat, run," I said firmly. "Don't for a moment question me. Run from here."
And as Lestat did as he was told, I turned to Akasha.
She was standing as if lost in a dream, and I put my hands very carefully on her arms.
"My beautiful one," I whispered, "my Sovereign. Let me return you to the throne."
As she had always done in the past, she obeyed me.
Within a few moments, they were as they had always been, as if it had been a delusion
that Lestat had come, a delusion that his music had waked her.
But I knew it was no delusion, and as I stared at her, as I spoke to her in my intimate way,
I was filled with a new fear that I did not express to her.
"You're beautiful and unchangeable," I said, "and the world is unworthy of you. It's
unworthy of your power. You listen to so many prayers, don't you? And so you listened
to this beautiful music and it delighted you. Perhaps I can some time bring music to you .
. . bring those who can play it and believe that you and the King are but statues - ."
I broke off this mad speech. What was I trying to do?
The truth is, I was terrified. Lestat had accomplished a breach of order of which I'd never
dreamt, and I wondered what might lie ahead if anyone else attempted such!
But the main point, the point to which I clung in my anger, was this: I had restored the
order. I had, by threats to my Royal Majesty, made him move back to the throne, and she,
my beloved Queen, had followed him.
Lestat had done the unthinkable. But Marius had accomplished the remedy.
At last when my fear and my temper were better, I went down on the rocks by the sea to
meet with Lestat and to chastise Lestat and I found myself more out of control than I
imagined.
Who, but Marius, knew how long these Parents had sat in silence? And now this young

one whom I had wanted so to love, so to instruct, so to enfold - this young one had brought out of them a movement which only further emboldened him. Lestat wanted to free the Queen. Lestat thought we ought to imprison Enkil. I think I must have laughed. Surely I couldn't put into words how much I feared both of them. Later that night, as Lestat hunted in the far islands, I heard strange sounds from the shrine. I went down and discovered that various objects were shattered. Vases, lamps, lay broken or on their sides. Candles had been flung here and there. Which of the two Parents did these things? Neither moved. I couldn't know, and once again the fear in me increased. For one desperate selfish moment, I looked at Akasha and I thought, I shall give you over to Lestat if that is what you wish! Only tell me how to do it. Rise against Enkil with me! But these words didn't really form in my mind. In my soul I felt a cold jealousy. I felt a leaden sorrow. But then I could tell myself it was the magic of the violin, was it not? For when in ancient times had such an instrument been heard? And he, a blood drinker, had come before her to perform, in all probability twisting and turning the music madly. There was no consolation in this for me, however. She had waked for him! And as I stood in the silence of the shrine, staring at all the broken objects, a thought came into my mind as though she had put it there. I loved him as you loved him and would have him here as you would have him. But it cannot be. I was transfixed. But then I moved towards her as I had done a hundred times, advancing slowly so that she might refuse me if she wished, so that he might deny me with even the smallest show of power. And at last I drank from her, perhaps from the very same vein in her white throat, I didn't know, and then I moved back, my eyes on Enkil's face. His cold features registered nothing but listlessness. When I woke the following night I heard noises from the shrine. I found more of the many fine objects broken. I felt I had no choice but to send Lestat away. I knew of no other remedy. It was another bitter terrible parting - as miserable as my parting with Pandora, or my parting with Bianca. I will never forget how comely he appeared, with his fabled yellow hair and his fathomless blue eyes, how eternally young, how full of frenetic hope and marvelous dreams, and how wounded and stricken he was to be sent away. And how my heart ached that I must do it. I wanted only to keep him close - my pupil, my lover, my rebel. I had so loved his rippling speech, his honest questions, his daring appeals for the Queen's heart and freedom. Could we not save her somehow from Enkil? Could we not somehow enliven her? But it was oh, so dangerous even to talk of such things, and Lestat could not grasp it. And so this young one, this young one whom I had so loved, I had to forsake, no matter how broken my heart, no matter how lonely my soul, no matter how bruised my intellect and spirit. But I was now truly afraid of what Akasha and Enkil might do if they were aroused again, and I could not share that fear with Lestat, lest I frighten him or even incite him further. You see, I understood how restless he was even then, and how unhappy in the Blood, and how eager for a purpose in the mortal world, and keenly aware that he had none.

And I, alone in my Aegean paradise after he left, truly pondered whether I should destroy
the Mother and Father.
All who have read our Chronicles know that the year in which this happened was 1794,
and the world was rich in marvels.
How could I continue to harbor these beings who might menace it? But I didn't want to
die. No, I have never really wanted to die. And so I did not destroy the King and the
Queen. I continued to care for them, to shower them with the symbols of worship.
And as we moved into the multitudinous wonders of the modern world, I feared death
more than ever.

Chapter Thirty Five

The Rise and Fall of Akasha

It was perhaps twenty years ago that I brought the Mother and Father across the sea to America and to the frozen wastes in the North where I created beneath the ice my fine technologically splendid house described by Lestat in The Queen of the Damned and from which the Queen rose. Let me pass over quickly what has been mentioned here before -that I made a great modern shrine for the King and Queen with a television screen that might bring them music and other forms of entertainment and "news" from all over the planet. As for me, I was living alone in this house, enjoying a whole string of well-warmed rooms and libraries as I did my eternal reading and writing, as I watched films and documentaries which intrigued me mightily. I had entered the mortal world once or twice as a filmmaker, but in general I had lived a solitary life, and I knew little or nothing of the other Children of the Millennia. Until such time as Bianca or Pandora should want to join me again, what did I care about others? And as for The Vampire Lestat, when he came forth with his mighty rock music I thought it hysterically funny. What more perfect guise for a vampire, I thought, than that of a rock musician? But as his many short rock video films appeared, I realized that he was putting forth in that form the entire history which I had revealed to him. And I realized as well that blood drinkers all over the world were setting their cannons against him. These were young beings of whom I had taken no notice, and I was quite amazed now to hear their voices lifted in the Mind Gift, searching diligently for others. Nevertheless, I thought nothing of it. I did not dream his music could affect the world - not the world of mortals or our world - not until the very night that I came down to the underground shrine and discovered my King, Enkil, a hollow being, a mere husk, a creature drained of all blood, sitting so perilously on the throne that when I touched him with my fingers, he fell onto the marble floor, his black plaited hair breaking into tiny splinters. In shock I stared at this spectacle! Who could have done such a thing, who could have drained him of every drop of blood, who could have destroyed him! And where was my Queen, had she met the same fate, had the whole legend of Those Who Must Be Kept been a deception from the beginning? I knew that it was not a lie, and I knew the one being who could have visited this fate upon Enkil, the only being in all the world who had such cunning, such intimacy, such knowledge and such power. Within seconds, I turned from the fallen husk of Enkil to discover her standing not three inches from me. Her black eyes were narrowed and quickened with life. Her royal raiment was the clothing I had placed upon her. Her red lips formed a mocking smile, and then there came from her a wicked laughter. I hated her for that laughter. I feared her and hated her that she laughed at me. All my sense of possession came to the fore, that she was mine and that she now dared to turn on me. Where was the sweetness of which I had dreamt? I stood in the midst of a nightmare. "My dear servant," she said, "you have never had the power to stop me!"

It was inconceivable that this creature whom I had so protected throughout time could
turn on me.
It was inconceivable that this one whom I so completely adored now taunted me.
Something hasty and pathetic came from my lips:
"But what do you want?" I asked, as I tried to grasp what was taking place. "What do you
mean to do?"
It was a wonder that she even gave some mocking answer to me.
It was lost in the sound of the television screen exploding, in the sound of metal ripping,
in the sound of the ice falling.
With incalculable power she rose from the depths of the house, sending its walls, its
ceilings, and its surrounding ice down upon me.
I found myself buried, calling for help.
And the reign of the Queen of the Damned had commenced, though she had never taken
that name for herself.
You saw her as she moved through the world. You saw her as she slew blood drinkers all
around her, you saw her as she slew blood drinkers who would not serve her purpose.
Did you see her as she took Lestat as her lover? Did you see her as she sought to frighten
mortals with her petty displays of old-fashioned power?
And all the while I lay crushed beneath the ice - spared for what purpose I could not
imagine - sending out my warning to Lestat that he was in danger, sending out my
warning to all that they were in danger. And pleading as well with any Child of the
Millennia who might come to help me rise from the crevasse in which I'd been buried.
Even as I called in my powerful voice I healed. I began to move the ice around me.
But at last two blood drinkers came to assist me. I caught the image of one in the mind of
the other. And it seemed impossible to me, but the one whom I saw so radiantly in the
other's vision was none other than my Pandora.
At last, with their help, I broke the ice that kept me from the surface, and I climbed free
under the arctic sky, taking Pandora's hand, and then gathering her in my arms, refusing
for a moment to think of anything, even of my savage Queen and her deadly rampage.
There were no words now, no vows, no denials. I held Pandora in love and she knew it,
and when I looked up, when I cleared my eyes of pain and love and fear, I realized that
the blood drinker who had come North with her, he who had answered my summons, was
none other than Santino.
For a moment, I was filled with such hatred I meant to destroy him completely.
"No," Pandora said, "Marius, you can't. All of us are needed now. And why do you think
he has come if not to repay you?"
He stood there in the snow in his fine black garments, the wind whipping his black hair
and I could see he was consumed with fear, but he would not confess it.
"This is no repayment for what you did to me," I said to him. "But I know Pandora is
right, we're all needed, and for that reason, I spare you."
I looked at my beloved Pandora.
"There is a council forming now," I said. "It's in a great house in the coastal forest, a
place of glass walls. We'll go there together."
You know of what happened then. We gathered at our great table in the redwood trees -
as if we were a new and passionate Faithful of the Forest - and when the Queen came to
us with her plan to bring harm to the great world, we all sought to reason with her.
It was her dream to be the Queen of Heaven to humankind, to slay male children by the
billions, and make the world a "garden" of tender-spirited women. It was a horrific and
impossible conception.

No one sought more diligently than your red-haired Maker Maharet to turn her from her goals, condemning her that she would dare to change the course of human history. I myself, thinking bitterly of the beautiful gardens I'd seen when I had drunk her blood, risked her deadly power over and over by pleading with her to give the world time to follow its own destiny. Oh, it was a chilling thing to see this living statue now speaking to me so coldly yet with such strong will and contemptuous temper. How grand and evil were her schemes, to slay male children, to gather women in a superstitious worship. What gave us courage to fight her? I don't know except that we knew that we had to do it. And all along, as she threatened us repeatedly with death, I thought: I could have prevented this, I could have stopped it from ever happening had I put an end to her and to all of us. As it is, she will destroy us and go on; and who will prevent her? At one point she knocked me backwards with her arm, so quick was her rage at my words. And it was Santino who came to my assistance. I hated him for this but there was no time for hating him or anyone. At last she laid her condemnation down on all of us. As we would not side with her, we would be destroyed, one after another. She would begin with Lestat, for she took his insult to her to be the greatest. And he had resisted her. Bravely he had sided with us, pleading with her for reason. At this dreadful moment, the elders rose, the ones of the First Brood who had been made blood drinkers within her very lifetime, and those Children of the Millennia such as Pandora and myself and Mael and others. But before the murderous little struggle could begin, there came another into our midst, approaching loudly up the iron steps of the forest compound where we met, until in the doorway we beheld the twin of Maharet: her mute sister, the sister from whom Akasha had torn the tongue: Mekare. It was she who, snatching the long black hair of the Queen, bashed her head against the glass wall, breaking it, and severing the head from the body. It was she and her sister who dropped down on their knees, to retrieve from the decapitated Queen, the Sacred Core of all the vampires. Whether that Sacred Core - that fatal root - was imbibed from heart or brain, I know not. I know only that the mute Mekare became its new tabernacle. And after a few moments of sputtering darkness in which we all of us wondered whether or not death should take us now, we regained our strength and looked up to see the twins standing before us. Maharet put her arm around Mekare's waist, and Mekare, come from brutal isolation I know not where, merely stared into space as though she knew some quiet peace but no more than that. And from Maharet's lips there came the words: "Behold. The Queen of the Damned." It was finished. The reign of my beloved Akasha - with all its hopes and dreams - had come abruptly to an end. And I carried through the world the burden of Those Who Must Be Kept no longer. THE LISTENER The End of the Story of Marius

Chapter Thirty Six

Marius stood at the glass window looking out at the snow. Thorne sat by the dying fire,
merely looking at Marius.
"So you have woven for me a long, fine tale," said Thorne, "and I have found myself
marvelously caught up in it."
"Have you?" said Marius quietly. "And perhaps I now find myself woven within my
hatred of Santino."
"But Pandora was with you," said Thorne. "You were reunited with her again. Why is she
not with you now? What's happened?"
"I was united with Pandora and Amadeo," said Marius. "It all came about in those nights.
And I have seen them often since. But I am an injured creature. And it was I who left
their company. I could go now to Lestat, and those who are with him. But I don't.
"My soul still aches over the losses I've suffered. I don't know which causes me the
greater pain - the loss of my goddess, or my hatred of Santino. She is gone beyond my
reach forever. But Santino still lives."
"Why don't you do away with him?" asked Thorne. "I'll help you find him."
"I can find him," said Marius. "But without her permission I can't do it."
"Maharet?" Thorne asked. "But why?"
"Because she's the eldest of us now, she and her mute twin, and we must have a leader.
Mekare cannot speak and might not have wits to speak even if she could. And so it's
Maharet. And even if she refuses to allow or judge, I must put the question to her."
"I understand," said Thorne. "In my time, we gathered to settle such questions, and a man
might seek payment from one who had injured him."
Marius nodded.
"I think I must seek Santino's death," he whispered. "I am at peace with all others, but to
him I would do violence."
"And very well you should," said Thorne, "from all that you've told me."
"I've called to Maharet," said Marius. "I've let her know that you are here and that you're
seeking her. I've let her know that I must ask her about Santino. I'm hungry for her wise
words. Perhaps I want to see her weary mortal eyes gazing on me with compassion.
"I remember her brilliant resistance of the Queen. I remember her strength and maybe
now I need it. ... Perhaps by now she's found the eyes of a blood drinker for herself, and
need not suffer anymore with the eyes of her human victims."
Thorne sat thinking for a long moment. Then he rose from the couch. He drew close to
the glass beside Marius.
"Can you hear her answer to you?" he asked. He couldn't disguise his emotion. "I want to
go to her. I must go to her."
"Haven't I taught you anything?" Marius asked. He turned to Thorne. "Haven't I taught
you to remember these tender complex creatures with love? Perhaps not. I thought that
was the lesson of my stories."
"Oh, yes, you've taught me this," said Thorne, "and love her I do, in so far as she is tender
and complex as you so delicately put it, but I'm a warrior, you see, and I was never fit for
eternity. And the hatred you harbor for Santino is the same as the passion I harbor for her.
And passion can be for evil or good. I can't help myself."
Marius shook his head.
"If she brings us to herself," he said, "I will only lose you. As I've told you before, you
can't possibly harm her."
"Perhaps, perhaps not," said Thorne. "But whatever the truth, I must see her. And she

knows why I've come, and she will have her will in the matter." "Come now," Marius said, "it's time for us to go to our rest. I hear strange voices in the morning air. And I feel the need of sleep desperately." When Thorne awoke he found himself in a smooth wooden coffin. Without fear, he easily lifted the lid, and then opened it to one side and sat up so that he might see the room around him. It was a cave of sorts, and beyond he heard the loud chorus of a tropical forest. All the fragrances of the green jungle assaulted his nostrils. He found it delicious and strange, and he knew it could only mean one thing: that Maharet had brought him to her hiding place. He climbed from the coffin as gracefully as he could and he stepped out into a huge room full of scattered stone benches. On the three sides the jungle grew thick and lively against a fine wire mesh and through the mesh above a thin rain came down refreshing him. Looking to his right and left, he saw entrances to other such open places. And following the sounds and scents as any blood drinker could do, he moved to his right until he entered a great room where his Maker sat as he had seen her at the very beginning of his long life, in a graceful gown of purple wool, pulling the red hairs from her head and weaving them into thread with her distaff and her spindle. For many long moments he merely stared at her, as if he could not believe this vision. And she in profile, surely knowing he was there, went on with her work, without speaking a word to him. Across the room, he saw Marius seated on a bench and then he realized that a regal and beautiful woman sat beside him. Surely it was Pandora. Indeed, he knew her by her brown hair. And there on the other side of Marius was the auburn-haired boy he had described: Amadeo. But there was also another creature in the room, and this without doubt was the blackhaired Santino. He sat not far from Maharet, and when Thorne entered, he appeared to shrink away from Thorne, and then glancing at Marius to draw back again, and finally towards Maharet as if in desperation. Coward, Thorne thought, but he said nothing. Slowly Maharet turned her head until she could see Thorne, and so that he could see her eyes - human eyes - sad and full of blood, as always. "What can I give you, Thorne?" she asked, "to make your soul quiet again?" He shook his head. He motioned for silence, not to compel her but merely to plead with her. And in the interval Marius rose to his feet, and at once Pandora and Amadeo on either side of him. "I've thought long and hard on it," Marius said, his eyes on Santino. "And I can't destroy him if you forbid it. I won't break the peace with such an action. I believe too much that we must live by rules or we shall all perish." "Then it is finished," said Maharet, her familiar voice bringing the chills to Thorne, "for I'll never grant you the right to destroy Santino. Yes, he injured you and it was a terrible thing, and I have heard you in the night describing your suffering to Thorne. I've listened to your words in sorrow. But you can't destroy him now. I forbid it. And if you go against me, then there is no one who can restrain anyone." "That can't be," said Marius. His face was dark and miserable. He glared at Santino. "There must be someone to restrain others. Yet I can't bear it that he lives after what he's done to me."

To Thorne's amazement the youthful face of Amadeo appeared only puzzled.
As for Pandora, she seemed sad and anxious, as though she feared that Marius wouldn't
keep to his word.
But Thorne knew otherwise.
And as he assessed this black-haired creature now, Santino rose from the bench and
backed away from Thorne, pointing his finger at Thorne in terror. But it was not quick
enough.
Thorne sent all his strength at Santino and all Santino could do as he fell to his knees was
cry out:
"Thorne," over and over again, his body exploding, the blood flowing from every orifice,
the fire finally erupting from his chest and head as he twisted and collapsed on the stone
floor, the flames at last consuming him.
Maharet had let out a terrible wail of sorrow, and into the large room her twin had come,
her blue eyes searching for the source of pain in her sister.
Maharet rose to her feet. She looked down on the grease and ash that lay before her.
Thorne looked at Marius. He saw a small bitter smile on Marius's lips, and then Marius
looked to him and nodded.
"I need no thanks from you," Thorne said.
Then he looked to Maharet who was weeping, her sister now holding tight to her arms,
and pleading mutely with her to explain herself.
"Wergeld, my Maker," said Thorne. "As it was in my time, I exact the wergeld or
payment for my own life, which you took when you made me a blood drinker. I take it
through Santino's life, which I take beneath your roof."
"Yes, and against my will," Maharet cried. "You have done this terrible thing! And
Marius, your own friend, has told you that I must rule here."
"If you would rule here, do it on your own," said Thorne. "Don't look to Marius to tell
you how to do it. Ah, look at your precious distaff and spindle. How will you protect the
Sacred Core if you have no strength to fight those who oppose you?"
She couldn't answer him, and he could see that Marius was angered, and that Mekare
looked at him with menace.
He came towards Maharet, staring intently at her, at her smooth face which now bore no
trace whatever of human life, the florid human eyes seemingly set within a sculpture.
"Would I had a knife," he said, "would I had a sword, would I had any weapon I could
use against you." And then he did the only thing which he could do. He took her by the
throat with both his hands and tried to topple her.
It was like holding fast to marble.
At once there came a frantic cry from her. He couldn't understand the words, but when
her sister drew him back gently he knew it had been a warning for his sake. He reached
out still with both hands, struggling to be free, but it was useless.
These two were unconquerable, either divided or together, it did not matter.
"Put an end to this, Thorne," cried Marius. "It's enough. She knows what's in your heart.
You can't ask for more than this."
Maharet collapsed to her bench and there she sat crying, her sister at her side, Mekare's
eyes fixed on Thorne warily.
Thorne could see that all of them were afraid of Mekare, but he was not, and when he
thought of Santino again, when he looked at the black stain on the stones, he felt a good
deep pleasure.
Then moving swiftly, he accosted the mute twin and whispered something hurried in her
ear, meant only for her, wondering if she would get the sense of it.

Within a second he knew that she had. As Maharet watched in wonder, Mekare forced
him down on his knees. She clasped his face and turned it up. And then he felt her fingers
plunge into the sockets of his eyes as she removed them.
"Yes, yes, this blessed darkness," he said, "and then the chains, I beg you, the chains.
Otherwise do away with me."
Through Marius's mind, he could see the image of himself groping in blindness. He could
see the blood flowing down his face. He could see Maharet as Mekare put the eyes into
her head. He could see those two tall delicate women with their arms entangled, the one
struggling but not enough and the other pressing for the deed to be accomplished.
Then he felt others gathered around him. He felt the fabric of their garments, he felt their
smooth hands.
And only in the distance could he hear Maharet weeping.
The chains were being put around him. He felt their thick links and knew he could not
break loose from them. And being dragged further away, he said nothing.
The blood flowed from his eye sockets. He knew it. And in some quiet empty place he
was now bound exactly as he had dreamt of it. Only she wasn't close. She wasn't close at
all. He heard the jungle sounds. And he longed for the winter cold, and this place was too
warm and too full of the perfume of flowers.
But he would get used to the heat. He would get used to the rich fragrances.
"Maharet," he whispered.
He saw what they saw again, in another room, as they looked at each other, all of them
talking in hushed voices of his fate and none fully understanding it. He knew that Marius
was pleading for him, and he knew that Maharet whom he saw so vividly through their
eyes was as beautiful now as she had been when she made him.
Suddenly she was gone from the group. And they talked in shadows without her.
Then he felt her hand on his cheek. He knew it. He knew the soft wool of her gown. He
knew her lips when she kissed him.
"You do have my eyes," he said.
"Oh, yes," she said. "I see wondrously through them."
"And these chains, are they made of your hair?"
"Yes," she answered. "From hair to thread, from thread to rope, from rope to links, I have
woven them."
"My weaving one," he said, smiling. "And when you weave them now," he asked, "will
you keep me close to you?"
"Yes," she said. "Always."

9:20 p.m. March 19, 2000