Blood and Gold tvc-8

by Anne Rice

  FOR THREE EONG 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 17008 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.

  34

  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.