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It seemed a voice was speaking to me soundlessly.

You cannot rescue Amadeo. You are the keeper of the Mother and the Father.

"Yes, I grow sleepy," I whispered. I closed my eyes. "I know such things, I have always known them. "

You go on, you seek Raymond Gallant, you must remember. Look at his face again.

"Yes, the Talamasca," I said. "And the castle called Lorwich in East Anglia. The place he called the Motherhouse. Yes. I remember both sides of the golden coin. "

I thought dreamily of that supper when he had come upon me so stealthily and stared at me with such innocent and inquisitive eyes.

I thought of the music and the way Amadeo smiled at Bianca as they danced together. I thought of everything.

And then in my hand I saw the golden coin and the engraved image of the castle, and I thought, Am I not dreaming? But it seemed that Raymond Gallant was talking to me, talking very distinctly:

"Listen to me, Marius, remember me, Marius. We know of her, Marius. We watch and we are always here. "

"Yes, go North," I whispered.

And it seemed that the Queen of Silence said without a word that she was content.

Chapter 28

28

AS I LOOK BACK NOW, I have no doubt that Akasha turned me away from the rescue of Amadeo, and as I consider all that I have revealed here I have no doubt of her intervention in my life at other periods.

Had I attempted to go South to Rome, I would have fallen into Santino's hands and met with destruction. And what better lure was there than the promise that I might soon meet with Pandora?

Of course my encounter with Raymond Gallant was quite real, and the details of this were vivid within my mind, and Akasha no doubt subtracted these details by virtue of her immense power.

The description of Pandora which I had confided to Bianca was also quite real, and this too might have been known to the Queen had she opened her ears to listen to my distant prayers from Venice.

Whatever the case, from the night we arrived at the shrine I was set upon a course of recovery and of a search for Pandora.

If anyone had told me that both would take some two hundred years, I might have met with despair, but I did not know this. I knew only that I was safe within the shrine, and I had Akasha to protect me, and Bianca to content me.

For well over a year I drank from the fount of the Mother. And for six months of this time, I fed my powerful blood to Bianca.

During those nights, when I could not open the stone door, I saw myself grow more robust in appearance with each divine feast, and I spent the long hours talking in respectful whispers with Bianca.

We took to conserving the oil for the lamps, and the fine candles which I had stored behind the Divine Parents, for we had no inkling of how long it would be before I could open the door and take us to hunting in the distant Alpine towns or cities.

At last there came a night when it occurred to me most strongly to venture out, and I was clever enough to know that this thought had not come to me at random. It had been suggested to me by a series of images. I could open the door now. I could go out. And I could take Bianca with me.

As for my appearance to the mortal world, my skin was coal black, and heavily scarred in places as though from the stroking of a hot poker. But the face I saw in Bianca's mirror was fully formed, with the serene expression that has always been so familiar to me. And my body was strong once more, and my hands of which I am so vain were a scholar's hands with long deft fingers.

For another year, I could not dare to send to Raymond Gallant a letter.

Carrying Bianca with me to far-flung towns, I searched hastily and clumsily for the Evil Doer. As such creatures often run in packs, we would enjoy a gluttonous feast; and then I would take such clothes and gold as needed from the dead; and off we would go to the shrine well before daylight.

I think when I look back on it that ten years at least went by in this fashion. But time is so strange with us, how can I be certain?

What I remember was that a powerful bond existed between me and Bianca that seemed absolutely unshakable. As the years passed, she was as much my companion in silence as she had ever been in conversation.

We moved as one, without argument or consultation.

She was a proud and merciless hunter, dedicated to the majesty of Those Who Must Be Kept, and always drank from more than one human victim whenever possible. Indeed, there seemed no limit to the blood she could imbibe. She wanted strength, both from me and the Evil Doer whom she took with righteous coldness.