by Rice, Anne
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.
35
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 End of the Story of Marius
THE LISTENER
36
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 black-haired 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.”
