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It was another bitter terrible parting¡ªas 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¡ªmy 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.

Chapter 35

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¡ª 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 ¡ªnot the world of mortals or our world¡ª¡ªnot 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.