Those Who Must Be Kept
Encyclopedia
Those Who Must Be Kept are fictional characters in Anne Rice
's The Vampire Chronicles
. They are portrayed as the progenitors of all vampire
s, and are thus regarded as the "King and Queen of the Vampires".
Originally King Enkil and Queen Akasha of Kemet
(now Egypt
) circa 5,000 BC, they became the first vampires when an evil spirit named Amel was able to enter the body of Akasha through a wound and fuse with her flesh. Akasha then turned Enkil into a vampire by drawing out nearly all of his blood and then allowing him to drink nearly all of hers. (See: The Queen of the Damned
)
The term "Those Who Must Be Kept" was coined by the vampire Marius
referring to the fact that what befalls Akasha and Enkil also befalls all vampires; if they are injured, so are their children, if they die, so do all vampires. An example of this is explained in the story of Marius' life: The current caretaker of the two sought to be free of them, and placed them in the sun. The two lived, but weaker vampires were destroyed by spontaneous combustion
.
Long before Marius came into conservatorship of Those Who Must Be Kept, they were nearly completely inanimate, seated seemingly unconscious for centuries without moving.
This all came to an end in the 1980s, when the music of vampire rock star Lestat
roused Queen Akasha. In so rising she killed her consort Enkil, draining him of blood and caused her guardian Marius to become imprisoned in the ice and remains of his house. (See: The Vampire Lestat
, The Queen of the Damned
)
Akasha thereafter traveled the world over striking down every vampire except Lestat, those whom Lestat loved and those she could not detect. It later becomes clear that Akasha intends for those vampires she has spared to become her "angels", or if they chose to fight her, they will become devils opposed to her.
This, in addition to Lestat's first concert, led to an unprecedented gathering of ancient and fledgling vampires at the Sonoma compound of Maharet, one of the first brood of vampires. They gathered to hear Maharet tell the story of how the Queen became a vampire and to plot their defense against her expected onslaught.
Meanwhile, Akasha absconded with Lestat to remote places around the world, spreading her dictum that she is the "Queen of Heaven" with Lestat as her mute consort, and commanding women to rise up and kill every man and boy, save a few.
It appeared that Akasha would carry out her maniacal plan with or without the help of the other vampires. Her appeals falling on deaf ears it seemed that a great battle between the Queen and her subjects was inevitable. But another ancient vampire appeared, the long-lost twin of Maharet, Mekare
, who had sworn an oath to destroy Akasha. Mekare quickly decapitated
the Queen and in so doing seemed to spell the end for all vampires. But, as The Vampire Lestat writhed on the floor watched by the others, Mekare took Akasha's brain and heart thus taking Amel into herself, absorbing the core of the spirit and becoming the new Queen of the Damned.
created.
As told in the novel, Akasha was originally from Uruk, or modern-day Iraq
. She rose to become a Queen in Kemet
, the land that would eventually become Egypt; she and her husband King Enkil wanted their people to turn away from their cannibalistic ways
and encourage the eating of grains. Rice describes Akasha as a lovely young woman who was "almost too pretty to be truly beautiful, for her prettiness overcame any sense of majesty or deep mystery." Underneath her physical beauty, Akasha is a fundamentally dark
, empty
, nihilistic
person with no sense of morality
, ethics
, or human compassion
; her actions are almost always based on her insatiable
need to fill her own inner emptiness.
Akasha eventually becomes fascinated by the spirits of the supernatural
, forcibly bringing the red-haired witch sisters Maharet and Mekare
to her court to commune with these spirits. Against their advice, Akasha forces the witch sisters to seek answers from the spirits to countless shallow questions she asks, but the ensuing answers, some in the form of obscene gestures, ultimately enrage the Queen by confirming her inner emptiness -- "She had asked questions of the supernatural, a very foolish thing to do, and she had received answers which she could neither accept nor refute." One spirit in particular, a bloodthirsty, aggressive entity called Amel, threatens Akasha and ultimately stages a weak but demonstrative attack against her. Akasha, in turn, has Mekare and Maharet publicly raped by her servant Khayman
for their "witchcraft", and banishes them from Kemet.
One year later, the twin witches are recalled to the kingdom by Khayman, where they learn that Amel had kept his presence in the kingdom and that, when the King and Queen were coincidentally assassinated by supporters of cannibalism one night, the spirit of Amel joined with Akasha's soul
as it rose from her body, re-entering her body through her wounds and fusing with her heart and brain to create an entirely new being: the vampire. Amel's deadly lust for human blood
thus passed to Akasha. Akasha then took her king Enkil and passed the "Dark Gift" onto him, transforming Enkil into a vampire, and then made Khayman, who then passed it on to Mekare and Maharet. It was Mekare who tells the Queen what kind of being she has become, as well as explaining her newfound sensitivity to sunlight and thirst for blood.
As her progeny proliferate, Akasha's need for blood diminishes. Eventually she (along with Enkil) becomes a living statue, kept safe for centuries by guardians who know that she is the source of their existence and immortality. After one of these guardians tires of the task, he places Akasha and Enkil in the sun; vampires worldwide are burned or destroyed as a result of all being linked by the spirit of Amel that still resides in Akasha.
Akasha draws the vampire Marius
to her and urges him to take her and Enkil out of Egypt. Marius does so and protects them for nearly two thousand years. At one point, Maharet stabs the statue of Akasha in the heart; as Maharet feels the energy leave her own body, it confirms the legend that to kill Akasha is to annihilate all vampires.
In 1985, the vampire Lestat
wakes Akasha from her trance with his music. She rises and becomes a relentless destroyer, killing most of her vampire progeny worldwide while simultaneously kidnapping Lestat, who becomes her lover and cohort. She spares at least 17 (Maharet, Mekare, Khayman, Louis, Jesse, Gabrielle, Armand, Daniel, Marius, Mael, Santino, Pandora, Eric, Vittorio, Thorne and the coven that made Quinn Blackwood; Manfred Blackwood, Petronia, and one from ancient Greece) vampires from her slaughter—either ancient vampires she can't easily destroy, or Lestat's loved ones—and demands that they join with her in her plan for a new world order: to kill 99% of the world's men and to set up a new Eden in which women, with Akasha as Goddess, reign. A heated philosophical discussion ensues; while Akasha insists that her plan is for the benefit of humanity in the long run and will usher in a new era of peace, Maharet boldly defies her and points out the underlying truth: that Akasha simply wants to dominate and be worshipped, to once again subject everyone to her will, and to once again create a new system of religious dogma to fill her inner emptiness, with absolutely no regard for the lives at stake.
The surviving vampires all refuse to join with Akasha, but before she can destroy them, the vampire Mekare
arrives at the scene and shoves her into a glass wall. The broken shards decapitate Akasha. Maharet and Mekare then immediately grab Akasha's heart and brain. Mekare eats the brain and then the heart, and thereby the soul of Akasha; as Mekare does so, she takes into herself the source of the spiritual fusion with Amel and becomes the new life force of the vampires, while Akasha's ancient body finally disintegrates into black dust.
eventually has the task of keeping them, and it is while in his keeping that Akasha destroys Enkil and consumes his blood as she no longer needs him and feels imprisoned and dead around him. With Enkil's powers added to her own she becomes the single ancestor of the vampiric race.
In the book The Vampire Lestat it is specifically spelled out that Enkil and Akasha were made into vampires at the same time by a demonic infusion but it is later explained in Queen of the Damned that Akasha made Enkil into a vampire, after she was first made by demonic infusion, in order to save him from the wounds inflicted upon him by citizens of Kemet. At numerous points in the canonical history of Rice's books, Enkil rises from his throne to defend Akasha from being drained of her powerful blood. Marius rescues Lestat from being destroyed by Enkil after Enkil rises and hits him away while he is drinking from Akasha, despite (or possibly because of) the fact that Akasha appears to have summoned Lestat to her.
Anne Rice
Anne Rice is a best-selling Southern American author of metaphysical gothic fiction, Christian literature and erotica from New Orleans, Louisiana. Her books have sold nearly 100 million copies, making her one of the most widely read authors in modern history...
's The Vampire Chronicles
The Vampire Chronicles
The Vampire Chronicles is a series of novels by Anne Rice that revolves around the fictional character Lestat de Lioncourt, a French nobleman turned into a vampire in the 18th century....
. They are portrayed as the progenitors of all vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
s, and are thus regarded as the "King and Queen of the Vampires".
Originally King Enkil and Queen Akasha of Kemet
Kemet
Kemet may refer to:* Km , km.t the name of ancient Egypt in Egyptian* Kemetism, revivals of the ancient Egyptian religion* Kmt , an academic journal of ancient Egypt- See also :* Kama* Kami* Kemi* Km...
(now Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
) circa 5,000 BC, they became the first vampires when an evil spirit named Amel was able to enter the body of Akasha through a wound and fuse with her flesh. Akasha then turned Enkil into a vampire by drawing out nearly all of his blood and then allowing him to drink nearly all of hers. (See: The Queen of the Damned
The Queen of the Damned
The Queen of the Damned is the third novel of Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles series. It follows Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat...
)
The term "Those Who Must Be Kept" was coined by the vampire Marius
Marius de Romanus
Marius de Romanus is a fictional character in The Vampire Chronicles novels written by Anne Rice. He is the primary character in the novel Blood and Gold.- Fictional biography :...
referring to the fact that what befalls Akasha and Enkil also befalls all vampires; if they are injured, so are their children, if they die, so do all vampires. An example of this is explained in the story of Marius' life: The current caretaker of the two sought to be free of them, and placed them in the sun. The two lived, but weaker vampires were destroyed by spontaneous combustion
Spontaneous combustion
Spontaneous combustion is the self-ignition of a mass, for example, a pile of oily rags. Allegedly, humans can also ignite and burn without an obvious cause; this phenomenon is known as spontaneous human combustion....
.
Long before Marius came into conservatorship of Those Who Must Be Kept, they were nearly completely inanimate, seated seemingly unconscious for centuries without moving.
This all came to an end in the 1980s, when the music of vampire rock star Lestat
Lestat de Lioncourt
Lestat de Lioncourt is a fictional character appearing in several novels by Anne Rice, including The Vampire Lestat. He is a vampire and the main character in the majority of The Vampire Chronicles, narrated in first person.-Publication history:...
roused Queen Akasha. In so rising she killed her consort Enkil, draining him of blood and caused her guardian Marius to become imprisoned in the ice and remains of his house. (See: The Vampire Lestat
The Vampire Lestat
The Vampire Lestat is a novel by Anne Rice, and the second in her Vampire Chronicles, following Interview with the Vampire. Many events in the two books appear to contradict each other...
, The Queen of the Damned
The Queen of the Damned
The Queen of the Damned is the third novel of Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles series. It follows Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat...
)
Akasha thereafter traveled the world over striking down every vampire except Lestat, those whom Lestat loved and those she could not detect. It later becomes clear that Akasha intends for those vampires she has spared to become her "angels", or if they chose to fight her, they will become devils opposed to her.
This, in addition to Lestat's first concert, led to an unprecedented gathering of ancient and fledgling vampires at the Sonoma compound of Maharet, one of the first brood of vampires. They gathered to hear Maharet tell the story of how the Queen became a vampire and to plot their defense against her expected onslaught.
Meanwhile, Akasha absconded with Lestat to remote places around the world, spreading her dictum that she is the "Queen of Heaven" with Lestat as her mute consort, and commanding women to rise up and kill every man and boy, save a few.
It appeared that Akasha would carry out her maniacal plan with or without the help of the other vampires. Her appeals falling on deaf ears it seemed that a great battle between the Queen and her subjects was inevitable. But another ancient vampire appeared, the long-lost twin of Maharet, Mekare
Maharet and Mekare
Maharet and Mekare are two characters from Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles.- Story as told in The Queen of the Damned :Maharet and Mekare were twin sisters and powerful witches living in a beautiful valley not far from Egypt six thousand years ago. They had curly red hair and green eyes. They...
, who had sworn an oath to destroy Akasha. Mekare quickly decapitated
Decapitation
Decapitation is the separation of the head from the body. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, knife, wire, or by other more sophisticated means such as a guillotine...
the Queen and in so doing seemed to spell the end for all vampires. But, as The Vampire Lestat writhed on the floor watched by the others, Mekare took Akasha's brain and heart thus taking Amel into herself, absorbing the core of the spirit and becoming the new Queen of the Damned.
Akasha
Akasha is the very first vampireVampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
created.
As told in the novel, Akasha was originally from Uruk, or modern-day Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
. She rose to become a Queen in Kemet
Kemet
Kemet may refer to:* Km , km.t the name of ancient Egypt in Egyptian* Kemetism, revivals of the ancient Egyptian religion* Kmt , an academic journal of ancient Egypt- See also :* Kama* Kami* Kemi* Km...
, the land that would eventually become Egypt; she and her husband King Enkil wanted their people to turn away from their cannibalistic ways
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
and encourage the eating of grains. Rice describes Akasha as a lovely young woman who was "almost too pretty to be truly beautiful, for her prettiness overcame any sense of majesty or deep mystery." Underneath her physical beauty, Akasha is a fundamentally dark
Dark
Dark commonly refers to darkness, the absence of light.Dark may also refer to:*Evil, sinister or malign*Dark , a term used to describe a broadcasting service that has ceased transmission...
, empty
Emptiness
Emptiness as a human condition is a sense of generalized boredom, social alienation and apathy. Feelings of emptiness often accompany dysthymia, depression, loneliness, despair, or other mental/emotional disorders such as borderline personality disorder...
, nihilistic
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
person with no sense of morality
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
, ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
, or human compassion
Compassion
Compassion is a virtue — one in which the emotional capacities of empathy and sympathy are regarded as a part of love itself, and a cornerstone of greater social interconnection and humanism — foundational to the highest principles in philosophy, society, and personhood.There is an aspect of...
; her actions are almost always based on her insatiable
Insatiable
"Insatiable" is the debut solo single released by Australian singer Darren Hayes, former lead singer of the band Savage Garden, in 2002.The song reached #3 on the Australian ARIA Charts on 21 January 2002, and #8 on the UK Singles Chart on 14 April....
need to fill her own inner emptiness.
Akasha eventually becomes fascinated by the spirits of the supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
, forcibly bringing the red-haired witch sisters Maharet and Mekare
Maharet and Mekare
Maharet and Mekare are two characters from Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles.- Story as told in The Queen of the Damned :Maharet and Mekare were twin sisters and powerful witches living in a beautiful valley not far from Egypt six thousand years ago. They had curly red hair and green eyes. They...
to her court to commune with these spirits. Against their advice, Akasha forces the witch sisters to seek answers from the spirits to countless shallow questions she asks, but the ensuing answers, some in the form of obscene gestures, ultimately enrage the Queen by confirming her inner emptiness -- "She had asked questions of the supernatural, a very foolish thing to do, and she had received answers which she could neither accept nor refute." One spirit in particular, a bloodthirsty, aggressive entity called Amel, threatens Akasha and ultimately stages a weak but demonstrative attack against her. Akasha, in turn, has Mekare and Maharet publicly raped by her servant Khayman
Khayman
Khayman is a fictional character in The Vampire Chronicles universe created by Anne Rice. One of the oldest vampires at nearly six thousand years old, he appears in very few of the books in the series, but is nevertheless considered a powerful force among their number...
for their "witchcraft", and banishes them from Kemet.
One year later, the twin witches are recalled to the kingdom by Khayman, where they learn that Amel had kept his presence in the kingdom and that, when the King and Queen were coincidentally assassinated by supporters of cannibalism one night, the spirit of Amel joined with Akasha's soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
as it rose from her body, re-entering her body through her wounds and fusing with her heart and brain to create an entirely new being: the vampire. Amel's deadly lust for human blood
Blood
Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....
thus passed to Akasha. Akasha then took her king Enkil and passed the "Dark Gift" onto him, transforming Enkil into a vampire, and then made Khayman, who then passed it on to Mekare and Maharet. It was Mekare who tells the Queen what kind of being she has become, as well as explaining her newfound sensitivity to sunlight and thirst for blood.
As her progeny proliferate, Akasha's need for blood diminishes. Eventually she (along with Enkil) becomes a living statue, kept safe for centuries by guardians who know that she is the source of their existence and immortality. After one of these guardians tires of the task, he places Akasha and Enkil in the sun; vampires worldwide are burned or destroyed as a result of all being linked by the spirit of Amel that still resides in Akasha.
Akasha draws the vampire Marius
Marius de Romanus
Marius de Romanus is a fictional character in The Vampire Chronicles novels written by Anne Rice. He is the primary character in the novel Blood and Gold.- Fictional biography :...
to her and urges him to take her and Enkil out of Egypt. Marius does so and protects them for nearly two thousand years. At one point, Maharet stabs the statue of Akasha in the heart; as Maharet feels the energy leave her own body, it confirms the legend that to kill Akasha is to annihilate all vampires.
In 1985, the vampire Lestat
Lestat de Lioncourt
Lestat de Lioncourt is a fictional character appearing in several novels by Anne Rice, including The Vampire Lestat. He is a vampire and the main character in the majority of The Vampire Chronicles, narrated in first person.-Publication history:...
wakes Akasha from her trance with his music. She rises and becomes a relentless destroyer, killing most of her vampire progeny worldwide while simultaneously kidnapping Lestat, who becomes her lover and cohort. She spares at least 17 (Maharet, Mekare, Khayman, Louis, Jesse, Gabrielle, Armand, Daniel, Marius, Mael, Santino, Pandora, Eric, Vittorio, Thorne and the coven that made Quinn Blackwood; Manfred Blackwood, Petronia, and one from ancient Greece) vampires from her slaughter—either ancient vampires she can't easily destroy, or Lestat's loved ones—and demands that they join with her in her plan for a new world order: to kill 99% of the world's men and to set up a new Eden in which women, with Akasha as Goddess, reign. A heated philosophical discussion ensues; while Akasha insists that her plan is for the benefit of humanity in the long run and will usher in a new era of peace, Maharet boldly defies her and points out the underlying truth: that Akasha simply wants to dominate and be worshipped, to once again subject everyone to her will, and to once again create a new system of religious dogma to fill her inner emptiness, with absolutely no regard for the lives at stake.
The surviving vampires all refuse to join with Akasha, but before she can destroy them, the vampire Mekare
Maharet and Mekare
Maharet and Mekare are two characters from Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles.- Story as told in The Queen of the Damned :Maharet and Mekare were twin sisters and powerful witches living in a beautiful valley not far from Egypt six thousand years ago. They had curly red hair and green eyes. They...
arrives at the scene and shoves her into a glass wall. The broken shards decapitate Akasha. Maharet and Mekare then immediately grab Akasha's heart and brain. Mekare eats the brain and then the heart, and thereby the soul of Akasha; as Mekare does so, she takes into herself the source of the spiritual fusion with Amel and becomes the new life force of the vampires, while Akasha's ancient body finally disintegrates into black dust.
Enkil
Enkil was the King, who ruled with Akasha. He was the first person she made into a vampire. Together they are later referred to as "Those Who Must Be Kept" and are motionless as statues. MariusMarius de Romanus
Marius de Romanus is a fictional character in The Vampire Chronicles novels written by Anne Rice. He is the primary character in the novel Blood and Gold.- Fictional biography :...
eventually has the task of keeping them, and it is while in his keeping that Akasha destroys Enkil and consumes his blood as she no longer needs him and feels imprisoned and dead around him. With Enkil's powers added to her own she becomes the single ancestor of the vampiric race.
In the book The Vampire Lestat it is specifically spelled out that Enkil and Akasha were made into vampires at the same time by a demonic infusion but it is later explained in Queen of the Damned that Akasha made Enkil into a vampire, after she was first made by demonic infusion, in order to save him from the wounds inflicted upon him by citizens of Kemet. At numerous points in the canonical history of Rice's books, Enkil rises from his throne to defend Akasha from being drained of her powerful blood. Marius rescues Lestat from being destroyed by Enkil after Enkil rises and hits him away while he is drinking from Akasha, despite (or possibly because of) the fact that Akasha appears to have summoned Lestat to her.