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  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 t
o 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. ButMarius 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.

  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 ador
ed 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.