incidentally beautiful world.
  
  Yes, all was well here.
  
  Good to be in these warm rooms. Nothing amiss with the soft leather furnishings 
scattered about the thick wine-colored carpet. Fireplace piled with wood. Books lining 
the walls. And there the great bank of electronic equipment waiting for him to insert 
Lestat's tape. That's what he wanted to do, settle by the fire and watch each rock film 
in sequence. The craft intrigued him as well as the songs themselves, the chemistry of 
old and new-how Lestat had used the distortions of media to disguise himself so perfectly 
as another mortal rock singer trying to appear a god.
  
  He took off his long gray cloak and threw it on the chair. Why did the whole thing give 
him such an unexpected pleasure! Do we all long to blaspheme, to shake our fists in the 
faces of the gods? Perhaps so. Centuries ago, in what is now called "ancient Rome," he, 
the well-mannered boy, had always laughed at the antics of bad children.
  
  He should go to the shrine before he did anything else, he knew that. Just for a few 
moments, to make certain things were as they should be. To check the television, the 
heat, and all the complex electrical systems. To place fresh coals and incense in the 
brazier. It was so easy to maintain a paradise for them now, with the livid lights that 
gave the nutrients of the sun to trees and flowers that had never seen the natural lights 
of heaven. But the incense, that must be done by hand, as always. And never did he 
sprinkle it over the coals that he did not think of the first time he'd ever done it.
  
  Time to take a soft cloth, too, and carefully, respectfully, wipe the dust from the 
parents-from their hard unyielding bodies, even- from their lips and their eyes, their 
cold unblinking eyes. And to think, it had been a full month. It seemed shameful.
  
  Have you missed me, my beloved Akasha and Enkil? Ah, the old game.
  
  His reason told him, as it always had, that they did not know or care whether he came 
or went. But his pride always teased with another possibility. Does not the crazed 
lunatic locked in the madhouse cell feel something for the slave who brings it water? 
Perhaps it wasn't an apt comparison. Certainly not one that was kind.
  
  Yes, they had moved for Lestat, the brat prince, that was true-Akasha to offer the 
powerful blood and Enkil to take vengeance. And Lestat could make his video films about 
it forever. But had it not merely proved once and for all that there was no mind left in 
either of them? Surely no more than an atavistic spark had flared for an instant; it had 
been too simple to drive them back to silence and stillness on their barren throne.
  
  Nevertheless, it had embittered him. After all, it had never been his goal to transcend 
the emotions of a thinking man, but rather to refine them, reinvent them, enjoy them with 
an infinitely perfectible understanding. And he had been tempted at the very moment to 
turn on Lestat with an all-too-human fury.
  
  Young one, why don't you take Those Who Must Be Kept since they have shown you such 
remarkable favor? I should like to be rid of them now. I have only had this burden since 
the dawn of the Christian era.
  
  But in truth that wasn't his finer feeling. Not then, not now. Only a temporary 
indulgence. Lestat he loved as he always had. Every realm needs a brat prince. And the 
silence of the King and Queen was as much a blessing as a curse, perhaps. Lestat's song 
had been quite right on that point. But who would ever settle the question?
  
  Oh, he would go down later with the video cassette and watch for himself, of course. 
And if there were just the faintest flicker, the faintest shift in their eternal gaze.
  
  But there you go again.... Lestat makes you young and stupid. Likely to feed on 
innocence and dream of cataclysm.
  
  How many times over the ages had such hopes risen, only to leave him wounded, even 
heartbroken. Years ago, he had brought them color films of the rising sun, the blue sky, 
the pyramids of Egypt. Ah, such a miracle! Before their very eyes the sundrenched waters 
of the Nile flowed. He himself had wept at the perfection of illusion. He had even feared 
the cinematic sun might hurt him, though of course he knew that it could not. But such 
had been the caliber of the invention. That he could stand there, watching the sunrise, 
as he had not seen it since he was a mortal man.
  
  But Those Who Must Be Kept had gazed on in unbroken indifference, or was it 
wonder-great undifferentiated wonder that held the particles of dust in the air to be a 
source of endless fascination?
  
  Who will ever know? They had lived four thousand years before he was ever born. Perhaps 
the voices of the world roared in their brains, so keen was their telepathic hearing; 
perhaps a billion shifting images blinded them to all else. Surely such things had almost 
driven him out of his mind until he'd learned to control them.
  
  It had even occurred to him that he would bring modern medical tools to bear on the 
matter, that he would hook electrodes to their very heads to test the patterns of their 
brains! But it had been too distasteful, the idea of such callous and ugly instruments. 
After all, they were his King and his Queen, the Father and Mother of us all. Under his 
roof, they had reigned without challenge for two millennia.
  
  One fault he must admit. He had an acid tongue of late in speaking to them. He was no 
longer the High Priest when he entered the chamber. No. There was something flippant and 
sarcastic in his tone, and that should be beneath him. Maybe it was what they called "the 
modern temper." How could one live in a world of rockets to the moon without an 
intolerable self-consciousness threatening every trivial syllable? And he had never been 
oblivious to the century at hand.
  
  Whatever the case, he had to go to the shrine now. And he would purify his thoughts 
properly. He would not come with resentment or despair. Later, after he had seen the 
videos, he would play the tape for them. He would remain there, watching. But he did not 
have the stamina for it now.
  
  He entered the steel elevator and pressed the button. The great electronic whine and 
the sudden loss of gravity gave him a faint sensuous pleasure. The world of this day and 
age was full of so many sounds that had never been heard before. It was quite refreshing.