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I saw the mountains and then the sea, and then suddenly my soul ached so completely that I could do nothing but will myself to go back to her.

Bianca, what have I done?

Bianca, pray that you have waited for me!

Out of the deep dark heavens I somehow returned to her. I found her in the stone room, sitting in the corner, collected and still, just as if she had been in the shrine, and as I knelt before her, she reached up and threw her arms about me.

I sobbed as I embraced her.

"My beautiful Bianca, my beautiful one, I am so sorry, so sorry, my love," I said.

"Marius, I love you with my whole heart eternally. " She cried as freely and completely as I did. "My precious Marius," she said. "I have never loved anyone as I love you. Forgive me. "

We could do nothing but weep for the longest time and then I took her home to the shrine, and comforted her, combing her hair as I so loved to do and trimming it with her slender ropes of pearls until she was my perfect lovely one.

"What did I mean to say?" she implored. "I don't know. Of course you could not have trusted any of them. And had you shown them the Queen and the King some horrid anarchy might well have come from it!"

"Yes, you have said the perfect word," I answered, "some awful anarchy. " I glanced quickly at the still impassive faces. I went on. "You must understand, oh, please, if you love me at all, understand what power exists within them. " I stopped suddenly. "Oh, don't you see, as much as I lament their silence, perhaps it is for them a form of peace which they have chosen for the good of everyone. "

This was the very essence of it and I think we both knew it.

I feared what might happen if Akasha were ever to stand up from her throne, if she were ever to speak or move. I feared it with all my reason.

Yet still, that night and every night I believed that if and when Akasha were ever waked, a divine sweetness would pour forth from her.

Once Bianca had fallen asleep, I knelt before the Queen in the abject manner which was so common to me now, and which I would never have revealed to Pandora.

"Mother, I hunger for you," I whispered. I opened my hands. "Let me touch you with love," I said. "Tell me if I have been in error. Should I have brought the Satan worshipers to your shrine? Should I have revealed you in all your loveliness to Santino?"

I closed my eyes. I opened them.

"Unchangeable Ones," I said in a soft voice, "speak to me. "

I approached her and laid my lips on her throat. I pierced the crisp white skin with my teeth, and the thick blood came into me slowly.

The garden surrounded me. Oh, yes, this I love above all. And it was the garden of the m

onastery in spring, how wondrous, and my priest was there. I was walking with him in the clean swept cloister. This was the supreme dream, for its colors were rich and I could see all the mountains around us. I am immortal, I said.

The garden dissolved. I could see colors washed from a wall.

Then I stood in a midnight forest. In the light of the moon, I beheld a black carriage coming down the road, drawn by many dark horses. It passed me, its huge wheels stirring up the dust. There came behind it a team of guards all clothed in black livery.

Pandora.

When I woke, I was lying against Akasha's breast, my forehead against her throat, my left hand clasping her right shoulder. It was so sweet that I didn't want to move, and all the light of the shrine had become one golden shimmer in my eyes, rather the way that light would become in those long Venetian banquet rooms.

At last I kissed her tenderly and withdrew and then lay down and placed my arms around Bianca.

My thoughts were troubled and strange. I knew it was time to find some habitat other than the shrine itself, and I knew as well that strangers were coming into our mountains.

The small city at the foot of our cliff was now thriving.

But the most dreadful revelation of this night was that Bianca and I could quarrel, that the solid peace between us could be violently and painfully ruptured. And that I, at the first hard words from my jewel, could crumple into mental ruin.

Why had I been so surprised? Could I not remember my painful quarrels with Pandora? I must know that in anger, Marius is not

Marius. I must know and never forget it.