by Anne Rice
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 ill-founded 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.
30
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 greatdistances 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.
