But it was finally done, and we stood together -  Marius and I - in the garden, our 
garments smeared with soot, staring down at blowing grass, making certain with our eyes 
that the ashes were blown in all directions.
  Marius turned suddenly and walked fast away from me, and down the stairs and into the 
Mother's Sanctuary.
  I rushed after him in panic. He stood holding the torch and the bloody sword - oh, how 
they had bled - and he looked into Akasha's eyes.
  "Oh, loveless Mother!" he whispered. His face was soiled with blood and grime. He 
looked at the flaming torch and looked up at the Queen.
  Akasha and Enkil showed no sign of any knowledge of the massacre above. They showed 
neither approval, nor gratitude, nor any form of consciousness, They showed no awareness 
of the torch in his hand, or his thoughts, whatever they might be.
  It was a finish for Marius, a finish to the Marius I had known and loved at that time,
  He chose not to leave Antioch. I was for getting away and taking them away, for wild 
adventures, and seeing the wonders of the world.
  But he said no. He had but one obligation. And that was to lay in wait for others until 
he had killed every one of them.
  For weeks he wouldn't speak or move, unless I shook him and then he pleaded with me to 
leave him alone. He rose from the grave only to sit with the sword and the torch waiting.
  It became unbearable to me. Months passed. I said, "You are going mad. We should take 
them away!"
  Then one night, very angry and alone, I cried out foolishly, "I would I were free of 
them and you!" And leaving the house, I did not return for three nights.
  I slept in dark safe places I made for myself with ease. Every time I thought of him, I 
thought of his sitting motionless there, so very like them, and I was afraid.
  If only he did know true despair; if only he had confronted what we now call "the 
absurd." If only he had faced the nothingness! Then this massacre would not have 
demoralized him.
  Finally one morning just before sunrise, when I was safely hidden, a strange silence 
fell over Antioch. A rhythm I had heard there all my days was gone. I was trying to 
think, What could this mean? But there was time to find out.
  I had made a fatal miscalculation. The villa was empty. He had arranged for the 
transport by day. I had no due as to where he had gone! Everything belonging to him had 
been taken, and all that I possessed scrupulously left behind.
  I had failed him when he most needed me. I walked in circles around the empty Shrine. I 
screamed and let the cry echo off the walls.
  He never returned to Antioch. No letter ever came.
  After six months or more, I gave up and left.
  Of course you know the dedicated, religious Christian vampires never died out, not 
until Lestat came dressed in red velvet and fur to dazzle them and make a mockery of 
their belief. That was in the Age of Reason, That is when Marius received Lestat. Who 
knows what other vampire cults exist'?
  As for me, I had lost Marius again by then.
  I had seen him for only a single precious night one hundred years earlier, and of 
course thousands of years after the collapse of what we call "the ancient world."
  I saw him! It was in the fancy fragile times of Louis XIV, the Sun King. We were at a 
court ball in Dresden. Music played - the tentative blend of clavichord, lute, violin - 
making the artful dances which seemed no more than bows and circles.
  Across a room, I suddenly saw Marius!
  He had been looking at me for a great while, and gave me now the most tragic and loving 
smile. He wore a big full-bottomed curly wig, dyed to the very color of his true hair, 
and a flared velvet coat, and layers of lace, so favored by the French, His skin was 
golden. That meant fire. I knew suddenly he had suffered something terrible. A jubilant 
love filled his blue eyes, and without forsaking his casual posture - he was leaning his 
elbow on the edge of the clavichord - he blew a kiss to me with his fingers.
  I truly could not trust my eyes. Was he really there'? Was I, myself, sitting here, in 
boned and low-necked bodice, and these huge skirts, one pulled back in artful folds to 
reveal the other? My skin in this age seemed an artificial contrivance. My hair had been 
professionally gathered and lifted into an ornate shape.
  I had paid no mind to the mortal hands which had so bound me. During this age I let 
myself be led through the world by a fierce Asian vampire, about whom I cared nothing. I 
had fallen into an ever existing trap for a woman: I had become the noncommittal and 
ostentatious ornament of a male personality who for all his tiresome verbal cruelty 
possessed sufficient force to carry us both through time.
  The Asian was off' slowly taking his carefully chosen victim in a bedroom above.
  Marius came towards me and kissed me and took me in his arms. I shut my eyes. "This is 
Marius!" I whispered. "Truly Marius."
  "Pandora!" he said, drawing back to look at me. "My Pandora!"
  His skin had been burned. Faint scars. But it was almost healed.
  He led me out on the dance floor! He was the perfect impersonation of a human being. He 
guided me in the steps of the dance. I could scarce breathe. Following his lead, shocked 
at each new artful turn by the rapture of his face, I could not measure centuries or even 
millennia. I wanted suddenly to know everything - where he had been, what had befallen 
him. Pride and shame in me held no sway. Could he see that I was no more than a ghost of 
the woman he'd known? "You are the hope of my soul!" I whispered.
  Quickly he took me away. We went in a carriage to his palace. He deluged me with 
kisses. I dung to him.
  "You," he said, "my dream, a treasure so foolishly thrown away, you are here, you have 
persevered."
  "Because you see me, I am here," I said bitterly. "Because you lift the candle, I can 
almost see my strength in the looking glass."
  Suddenly I heard a sound, an ancient and terrible sound. It was the heartbeat of 
Akasha, the heartbeat of Enkil.
  The carriage had come to a halt. Iron gates. Servants.
  The palace was spacious, fancy, the ostentatious residence of a rich noble.
  "They are in there, the Mother and the Father" I asked.
  "Oh, yes, unchanged. Utterly reliable in their eternal silence." His voice seemed to 
defy the horror of it.
  I couldn't bear it. I had to escape the sound of her heart. An image of the petrified 
King and Queen rose before my eyes.
  "No! Get me away from here. I can't go in. Marius, I cannot look on them!"
  "Pandora, they are hidden below the palace. There is no need to look on them. They 
won't know. Pandora, they are the same."
  Ah! The same! My mind sped back, over perilous terrain, to my very first nights, alone 
and mortal, in Antioch, to the later victories and defeats of that time. Ah! Akasha was 
the same! I feared I would begin to scream and be unable to control it.
  'Very well," said Marius, "we'll go where you want."
  I gave the coachman the location of my hiding place.
  I couldn't look at Marius. Valiantly, he kept the pretense of happy reunion. He talked 
of science and literature, Shakespeare, Dryden, the New World full of jungles and rivers.