by Rice, Anne
“Ah,” I said, “I see. Before you happened on the god in the cave, you were worshipers of the snake. You’re Ophites, Sethians, Nassenians.”
“That was our first calling,” said the boy. “But now we are of the Children of Darkness, committed to sacrifice and killing, dedicated to inflicting suffering.”
“Oh, Marcion and Valentinus,” Marius whispered. “You don’t know the names, do you? They’re the poetic Gnostics who invented the morass of your philosophy a hundred years ago. Duality—that, in a Christian world, evil could be as powerful as good.”
“Yes, we know this.” Several spoke at once. “We don’t know those profane names. But we know the Serpent and what God wants of us.”
“Moses lifted the Serpent in the desert, up over his head,” said the boy. “Even the Queen of Egypt knew the Serpent and wore him in her crown.”
“The story of the great Leviathan has been eradicated in Rome,” said the woman. “They took it out of the sacred books. But we know it!”
“So you learned all this from Armenian Christians,” said Marius. “Or was it Syrians.”
A man, short of stature, with gray eyes, had not spoken all this while, but he stepped forward now and addressed Marius with considerable authority.
“You hold ancient truths,” he said, “and you use them profanely. All know of you. The blond Children of Darkness in the Northern woods know of you, and that you stole some important secret out of Egypt before the Birth of Christ. Many have come here, glimpsed you and the woman, and gone away in fear.”
“Very wise,” said Marius.
“What did you find in Egypt?” asked the woman. “Christian monks live now in those old rooms that once belonged to a race of blood drinkers. The monks don’t know about us, but we know all about them and you. There was writing there, there were secrets, there was something that by Divine Will belongs now in our hands.”
“No, there was nothing,” said Marius.
The woman spoke up again, “When the Hebrews left Egypt, when Moses parted the Red Sea, did the Hebrews leave something behind? Why did Moses raise the snake in the desert? Do you know how many we are? Nearly a hundred. We travel to the far North, to the South, and even to the East to lands you would not believe.”
I could see Marius was distraught.
“Very well,” I said, “we understand what you want and why you have been led to believe that we can satisfy you. I ask you, please, to go out in the Garden and let us speak. Respect our house. Don’t harm our slaves.”
“We wouldn’t dream of it.”
“And we’ll be back shortly.”
I snatched Marius’s hand and pulled him down the stairs.
“Where are you going?” he whispered. “Block all images from your mind! They must glimpse nothing.”
“They won’t glimpse,” I said, “and from where I will stand as I talk to you, they won’t hear either.”
He seemed to catch my meaning. I led him into the sanctuary of the unchanged Mother and Father, dosing the stone doors behind me.
I drew Marius behind the seated King and Queen.
“They can probably hear the hearts of the Pair,” I whispered in the softest manner audible. “But maybe they won’t hear us over that sound. Now, we have to kill them, destroy them completely.”
Marius was amazed.
“Look, you know we have to do this!” I said. “You have to kill them and anybody like them who ever comes near us. Why are you so shocked? Get ready. The simplest way is cut them to pieces first, and then burn them.”
“Oh, Pandora,” he sighed.
“Marius, why do you cringe?”
“I don’t cringe, Pandora,” he said. “I see myself irrevocably changed by such an act. To kill when I thirst, to keep to myself and keep these here who must be kept by somebody, that I have done for so long. But to become an executioner? To become like the Emperors burning Christians! To commence a war against this race, this order, this cult, whatever it is, to take such a stand.”
“No choice, come on. There are many decorative swords in the room where we sleep. We should take the big curved swords. And the torch. We should go to them and tell them how sorry we are for what we must impart to them, then do it!”
He didn’t answer.
“Marius, are you going to let them go so that others will come after us? The only security lies in destroying every blood drinker who ever discovers us and the King and Queen.”
He walked away from me and stood before the Mother. He looked into her eyes. I knew that he was silently talking to her. And I knew that she was not answering.
“There is one other possibility,” I said, “and it’s quite real.” I beckoned for him to come back, behind them, where I felt safest to plot.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Give the King and the Queen over to them. And you and I are free. They will care for the King and Queen with religious fervor! Maybe the King and Queen will even allow them to drink—”
“That’s unspeakable!” he said.
“Exactly my feelings. We shall never know if we are safe. And they shall run rampant through the world like supernatural rodents. So do you have a third plan?”
“No, but I’m ready. We use the fire and the swords together. Can you tell the lies that will charm them as we approach, armed and carrying torches?”
“Oh, yes, of course,” I said.
We went into the chamber and took up the big curved swords that were keenly sharp and came from the desert world of the Arabs. We lighted another torch from that at the foot of the stairs and we went up together.
“Come to me, Children,” I said as I entered the room, loudly, “come, for what I have to reveal requires the light of this torch, and you will soon know the sacred purpose of this sword. How devout you are.”
We stood before them.
“How young you are!” I said.
Suddenly, the panic swept them together. They made it so simple for us by clustering in this manner that we had the task done in moments, lighting their garments, hacking their limbs, ignoring their piteous cries.
Never had I used my full strength and speed, never my full will, as I did against them. It was exhilarating to slash them, to force the torch upon them, to slash them until they fell, until they lost all life. Also, I did not want them to suffer.
Because they were so young, so very young as blood drinkers, it took quite some time to burn the bones, to see that all was ashes.
But it was finally done, and we stood together—Marius and I—in the garden, our garments smeared with soot, staring down at blowing grass, making certain with our eyes that the ashes were blown in all directions.
Marius turned suddenly and walked fast away from me, and down the stairs and into the Mother’s Sanctuary.
I rushed after him in panic. He stood holding the torch and the bloody sword—oh, how they had bled—and he looked into Akasha’s eyes.
“Oh, loveless Mother!” he whispered. His face was soiled with blood and grime. He looked at the flaming torch and looked up at the Queen.
Akasha and Enkil showed no sign of any knowledge of the massacre above. They showed neither approval, nor gratitude, nor any form of consciousness. They showed no awareness of the torch in his hand, or his thoughts, whatever they might be.
It was a finish for Marius, a finish to the Marius I had known and loved at that time.
He chose not to leave Antioch. I was for getting away and taking them away, for wild adventures, and seeing the wonders of the world.
But he said no. He had but one obligation. And that was to lay in wait for others until he had killed every one of them.
For weeks he wouldn’t speak or move, unless I shook him and then he pleaded with me to leave him alone. He rose from the grave only to sit with the sword and the torch waiting.
It became unbearable to me. Months passed. I said, “You are going mad. We should take them away!”
Then one night, very angry and alone,
I cried out foolishly, “I would I were free of them and you!” And leaving the house, I did not return for three nights.
I slept in dark safe places I made for myself with ease. Every time I thought of him, I thought of his sitting motionless there, so very like them, and I was afraid.
If only he did know true despair; if only he had confronted what we now call “the absurd.” If only he had faced the nothingness! Then this massacre would not have demoralized him.
Finally one morning just before sunrise, when I was safely hidden, a strange silence fell over Antioch. A rhythm I had heard there all my days was gone. I was trying to think, What could this mean? But there was time to find out.
I had made a fatal miscalculation. The villa was empty. He had arranged for the transport by day. I had no clue as to where he had gone! Everything belonging to him had been taken, and all that I possessed scrupulously left behind.
I had failed him when he most needed me. I walked in circles around the empty Shrine. I screamed and let the cry echo off the walls.
He never returned to Antioch. No letter ever came.
After six months or more, I gave up and left.
Of course you know the dedicated, religious Christian vampires never died out, not until Lestat came dressed in red velvet and fur to dazzle them and make a mockery of their beliefs. That was in the Age of Reason. That is when Marius received Lestat. Who knows what other vampire cults exist?
As for me, I had lost Marius again by then.
I had seen him for only a single precious night one hundred years earlier, and of course thousands of years after the collapse of what we call “the ancient world.”
I saw him! It was in the fancy fragile times of Louis XIV, the Sun King. We were at a court ball in Dresden. Music played—the tentative blend of clavichord, lute, violin—making the artful dances which seemed no more than bows and circles.
Across a room, I suddenly saw Marius!
He had been looking at me for a great while, and gave me now the most tragic and loving smile. He wore a big full-bottomed curly wig, dyed to the very color of his true hair, and a flared velvet coat, and layers of lace, so favored by the French. His skin was golden. That meant fire. I knew suddenly he had suffered something terrible. A jubilant love filled his blue eyes, and without forsaking his casual posture—he was leaning his elbow on the edge of the clavichord—he blew a kiss to me with his fingers.
I truly could not trust my eyes. Was he really there? Was I, myself, sitting here, in boned and low-necked bodice, and these huge skirts, one pulled back in artful folds to reveal the other? My skin in this age seemed an artificial contrivance. My hair had been professionally gathered and lifted into an ornate shape.
I had paid no mind to the mortal hands which had so bound me. During this age I let myself be led through the world by a fierce Asian vampire, about whom I cared nothing. I had fallen into an ever existing trap for a woman: I had become the noncommittal and ostentatious ornament of a male personality who for all his tiresome verbal cruelty possessed sufficient force to carry us both through time.
The Asian was off slowly taking his carefully chosen victim in a bedroom above.
Marius came towards me and kissed me and took me in his arms. I shut my eyes. “This is Marius!” I whispered “Truly Marius.”
“Pandora!” he said drawing back to look at me. “My Pandora!”
His skin had been burned. Faint scars. But it was almost healed.
He led me out on the dance floor! He was the perfect impersonation of a human being. He guided me in the steps of the dance. I could scarce breathe. Following his lead shocked at each new artful turn by the rapture of his face, I could not measure centuries or even millennia. I wanted suddenly to know everything—where he had been, what had befallen him. Pride and shame in me held no sway. Could he see that I was no more than a ghost of the woman he’d known? “You are the hope of my soul!” I whispered.
Quickly he took me away. We went in a carriage to his palace. He deluged me with kisses. I clung to him.
“You,” he said, “my dream, a treasure so foolishly thrown away, you are here, you have persevered.”
“Because you see me, I am here,” I said bitterly. “Because you lift the candle, I can almost see my strength in the looking glass.”
Suddenly I heard a sound, an ancient and terrible sound. It was the heartbeat of Akasha, the heartbeat of Enkil.
The carriage had come to a halt. Iron gates. Servants.
The palace was spacious, fancy, the ostentatious residence of a rich noble.
“They are in there, the Mother and the Father?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, unchanged. Utterly reliable in their eternal silence.” His voice seemed to defy the horror of it.
I couldn’t bear it. I had to escape the sound of her heart. An image of the petrified King and Queen rose before my eyes.
“No! Get me away from here. I can’t go in. Marius, I cannot look on them!”
“Pandora, they are hidden below the palace. There is no need to look on them. They won’t know. Pandora, they are the same.”
Ah! The same! My mind sped back, over perilous terrain, to my very first nights, alone and mortal, in Antioch, to the later victories and defeats of that time. Ah! Akasha was the same! I feared I would begin to scream and be unable to control it.
“Very well,” said Marius, “we’ll go where you want.”
I gave the coachman the location of my hiding place.
I couldn’t look at Marius. Valiantly, he kept the pretense of happy reunion. He talked of science and literature, Shakespeare, Dryden, the New World full of jungles and rivers. But behind his voice I heard the joy drained from him.
I buried my face against him. When the carriage stopped I leapt out and fled to the door of my little house. I looked back. He stood in the street.
He was sad and weary, and slowly he nodded and made a gesture of acceptance. “May I wait it out?” he asked. “Is there hope you’ll change your mind? I’ll wait here forever!”
“It’s not my mind!” I said. “I leave this city tonight. Forget me. Forget you ever saw me!”
“My love,” he said softly. “My only love.”
I ran inside, shutting the door. I heard the carriage pull away. I went wild, as I had not since mortal life, beating the walls with my fists, trying to restrain my immense strength and trying not to let loose the howls and cries that wanted to break from me.
Finally I looked at the clock. Three hours left until dawn.
I sat down at the desk and wrote to him:
Marius,
At dawn we will be taken to Moscow. The very coffin in which I rest is to carry me many miles the first day. Marius, I am dazed. I can’t seek shelter in your house, beneath the same roof as the ancient ones. Please, Marius, come to Moscow. Help me to free myself of this predicament. 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. I am a slave to this blood drinker’s will.
I love you,
Pandora
Running back out in the street, I hurried in the direction of his house, trying to retrace the path which I had so stupidly ignored.
But what about the heartbeat? I would hear it, that ghastly sound! I had to run past it, run through it, long enough to give Marius this letter, perhaps to let him grasp me by the wrist and force me to some safe place, and drive away before dawn the Asian vampire who kept me.
Then the very carriage appeared, carrying in it my fellow blood drinker from the ball.
He stopped for me at once.
I took the driver aside. “The man who brought me home,” I said. “We went to his house, a huge palace.”
“Yes, Count Marius,” said the driver. “I just took him back to his own home.”
“You must take this letter to him. Hurry! You must go to his house and put it in his hands!
Tell him I had no money to give you, that he must pay you, I demand that you tell him. He will pay you. Tell him the letter is from Pandora. You must find him!”
“Who are you speaking of?” demanded my Asian companion.
I motioned to the driver to leave! “Go!” Of course my consort was outraged. But the carriage was already on its way.
Two hundred years passed before I learned the very simple truth: Marius never received that letter!
He had gone back to his house, packed up his belongings and, the following night, left Dresden in sorrow, only finding the letter long after, as he related it to the Vampire Lestat, “a fragile piece of writing,” as he called it, “that had fallen to the bottom of a cluttered traveling case.”
When did I see him again?
In this modern world. When the ancient Queen rose from her throne and demonstrated the limits of her wisdom, her will and her power.
Two thousand years after, in our Twentieth Century still full of Roman columns and statues and pediments and peristyles, buzzing with computers and warmth-giving television, with Cicero and Ovid in every public library, our Queen, Akasha, was wakened by the image of Lestat on a television screen, in the most modern and secure of shrines, and sought to reign as a goddess, not only over us, but over humankind.
In the most dangerous hour, when she threatened to destroy us all if we did not follow her lead—and she had already slaughtered many—it was Marius with his reasoning, his optimism, his philosophy who talked to her, tried to calm her and divert her, who stalled her destructive intent until an ancient enemy came to fulfill an ancient curse, and struck her down with ancient simplicity.
David, what have you done to me in prodding me to write this narrative?
You have made me ashamed of the wasted years. You have made me acknowledge that no darkness has been ever deep enough to extinguish my personal knowledge of love, love from mortals who brought me into the world, love for goddesses of stone, love for Marius.
Above all, I cannot deny the resurgence of this love for Marius.
