He lay back in his bed, lay very still, and pictured the shattered tomb where roots groped like fossil tentacles and the trees leaned inward to hide their secret. He pictured it, and out loud but also in his mind said:
‘Old one, I’ve come back. I bring you hope in return for knowledge. It’s the third year, and only four remain. How goes it with you?’
Outside in the night a wind sprang up, blowing down from the mountains. Trees soughed as their branches bowed a little, and Dragosani heard a sighing behind the rafters over his head. But as quickly as it had risen the wind fell, and in its place:
Ahhh! Dragosaaani! Is it you, my son? Are you then returned to me in my solitude, Dragosaaani. . . ?
‘Who else would it be, old devil? Yes, it is Dragosani. I have grown stronger, I am become a small power in the world. But I want more! You hold the ultimate secrets of power, which is why I have returned and why I will continue to return, until. . . until. . .’
Four more years, Dragosani. And then . . . then you shall sit upon my right hand, and I shall teach you many things. Four years, Dragosani. Four years. Ahhh!
‘Long years for me, old dragon, for I must wake each morning and sleep each night and count all the hours between. And time is slow. But for you . . .? How has it been, old one, this last year?’
It would have been the merest moment, fleeting, speeding, gone! – had you not disturbed me, Dragosani. But you have given me . . . yearnings. Here I lay and for fifty years hated, and lusted for revenge on them that put me here. And for fifty more I desired only to be up and about my business, which is to put down my enemies. And then . . . then I thought me: but my murderers are no more. They are bones in graves of their own now, or dust blown on the winds. And in another hundred years . . . what of even the sons of my enemies then? Ah! Well might I ask! What of the legions who came up against these mountains in ages past and met my father’s fathers waiting? What of the Lombard and the Bulgar, the Avar . . . and the Turk? Ah! – a brave fighter in his time, the Turk – he was my enemy, but no more. And so five hundred years fleeting by, for I was forgetting the glories just as a grandfather forgets his own infancy, until I had forgotten – almost. Until I was forgotten – almost! And what then, when there was nothing left of me but a word in a book, and when the book itself crumbled to dust? Why, then surely I would have no reason to be at all! And perhaps glad of it. And then you came, a mere boy, but a boy whose name . . . was. . . Dragosaaaniiii. . .
As the voice faded so the wind sprang up again, the two merging and dying away together. Dragosani thought of what was to be done and shivered in his bed. But this was his chosen course, this his destiny. And fearing that he had lost the other, he called out urgently:
‘Old one, you of the Dragon-banner, of the bat and the dragon and the devil – are you there?’
Where else would I be, Dragosani? the voice seemed to mock. Yes, 1 am here. I quicken in my forsaken place, in this earth which was my life. I thought I was forgotten, but a seed was sown and blossomed, and you remembered and knew me. And by your name, so I knew you, Dragosaaaniiii. . .
Tell me again!’ Dragosani was eager. Tell me how it was. My mother, my father, their coming together. Tell me it.’
Twice you have heard it, the voice in his head sighed. And would you hear it again? Do you hope to seek them out? Then I cannot help you. Their names were of no importance to me; I knew them not, knew nothing of them except the heat of their blood. Aye, and of that I tasted the merest drop, a small pink splash. But afterwards there was that of them in me, and that of me in them – which came out in you. Don’t ask after them, Dragosani. I am your father…