‘No, I am not merely a thing of your mind. Do not flatter yourself.’
Boris tried hard to understand. Finally he asked: ‘But what do you do?’
I wait.
‘For what?’
For you, my son.
‘But I’m here!’
It grew darker in a moment, as if the trees had leaned closer together, shutting out the light.
The touch of the unseen presences was feather-light but suddenly bitter as rime. Boris had almost forgotten his fear, but now it flooded back. And because it is a true adage that familiarity breeds contempt, he had almost forgotten just how much evil that voice in his head contained. Now he was reminded of that, too:
Child, do not tempt me! It would be quick, it would be sweet, and it would be futile. There is not enough of you, Dragosani, and your blood lacks substance. I hunger and would feast – and what are you but a nibble?
‘I. . . I’m going now . . .’
Aye, begone. Come back when you’re a man and not merely an irritation.
And over his shoulder as he quickly, tremblingly left the place and headed for the clean snow of the firebreak, Boris called back: ‘You’re only a dead thing. You know nothing! What can you tell me?1
/ am an undead thing. I know everything that needs to be known. I can tell you everything.
‘About what?’
About life, about death, about undeath!
‘I don’t want to know those things!’
But you will, you will.
‘And when will you tell me these things?’
When you can understand, Dragosani.
‘You said I was your future. You said you were my past. That’s a lie. I have no past. I’m just a boy.’
Oh? Ha, ha, ha! So you are, so you are. But in your thin blood runs the history of a race, Dragosani. I am in you and you are in me. And our line is . . . ancient! I know all you want to know, all you will want to know. Aye, and this knowledge shall be yours, and you shall be one of an elite and ancient order of beings.
Boris was half-way to the break now. Until this point and from the moment he fled, his conversation had been part bravado, part terror, like a man whistling in the dark. Now, feeling safer, he became curious again. Clinging to the bole of a tree and turning to look back, he asked: ‘Why do you offer anything to me? What do you want of me?’
Nothing which you will not give freely. Only that which is offered freely. I want something of your youth, your blood, your life, Dragosani, that you may live in me. And in return . . . your life shall be as long, perhaps even longer, than mine.
Boris sensed something of the lust, the greed, the eternal endless craving. He understood – or misunderstood – and the darkness behind him seemed to swell, expand, rush upon him like some black poisonous cloud. He turned from it, fled, saw ahead the dazzling white of fire-break through the black boles of trees. ‘You want to kill me!’ he sobbed. ‘You want me dead, like you!’
No, I want you undead. There is a difference. I am that difference. And so are you. It’s in your blood – it’s in your try name – Dragosaaniiii. . .
And as the voice faded to silence Boris emerged into the open space of the fire-break. In the fading light he felt fear falling from him like a weight, felt strangely -uplifted? – so that he held himself erect as he descended to the foot of the hill and found his sledge. Bubba had waited there, patiently, but when Boris reached out a hand to pat him the dog snarled and drew back, the hair rising in a stiff ridge all along his back. And after that Bubba would have nothing at all to do with him . . .
Under Dragosani’s gaze the snow faded from memory and the slopes turned green again. The old scar of the fire-break was there still, but merging into the natural .contours of the hill under the weight of almost twenty years of growth. Saplings were grown into trees now, their foliage thickening, and in another twenty years it would be difficult to tell that the fire-break had ever been there in the first place.