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.
Dragosani supposed that somewhere in the land ordi nances governing these parts, there must be a clause which still forbade farming or hewing or gaming on the green cross of the hills. Yes, for despite old Kinkovsi's lack of more typical peasant superstition (which was doubtless a direct spin-off of the relative tourist boom) the old fears still lived. The taboos were still there, even if their origins were forgotten. They still existed, as surely as the thing in the ground existed. Laws which were intended to isolate it now protected it, preserved it.
The thing in the ground. That was how he thought of it. Not as 'he' but 'it'. The old devil, the dragon, the vampir. The real vampire and not merely a creature of sensational novels and films. Still there, lying in the ground, waiting.
Again Dragosani let his mind slip back through the years...
When he was nine the local school in Lonesti had closed and his step-father had boarded him out to a school in Ploiesti. There in a very short time it had been discovered that his intelligence was of a high order, and the State had stepped in and sent him to a college in Bucharest. Always on the lookout for talent in the young of their satellite nations, Soviet officials from the Ministry of Education had eventually found him there and 'recommended' that he go on to higher education in Moscow. What they meant by 'higher education' was in fact intensive indoctrination, following which he would one day be sent back to Romania as a puppet official in a puppet government.
But before that - when he had first learned that he was to board in Ploiesti, and that he could only come home once or twice a year - then he had gone back to the dark glade under the trees to ask the advice of the thing in the ground. Now he went there again, on the wings of memory, and saw himself as he had been: a boy, sobbing into his hands where he kneeled beside a broken slab and poured his tears over the bas-relief motif of bat-dragon-devil.
What? Knowing I seek iron and strong meat, you offer me salt and gruel? Can this be you, Dragosani, who has the seed of greatness in him? Was I mistaken, then? And am I doomed to lie here forever?
Tm to go to school in Ploiesti. I'm to live there and only come back now and then.' And this is the cause of your grief? 'Yes.'
Then you are a girl! How would you hope to learn the ways of the world here in the shadow of the mountains? Why, even the birds that fly see more and farther than you have seen! The world is wide, Dragosani, and to know its ways you must walk them. And Ploiesti? But I know this P loiesti: it is distant by only a hard day's riding - two at the most! And is this a good reason to weep?'
'But I don't want to go...'
I did not want to be put in the ground, but they put me here. Dragosani, I have seen a sister with her head cut off, with a stake through her breast and her eyes hanging on her cheeks, and I did not weep. No, but I pursued her payers and skinned them and made them eat their skins, and I raped them with hot irons and before they could die soaked them in oil and put them to the torch and hurled them from the cliffs at Brasov! Only then did I cry - tears of sheerest joy! What? And did I call you my son, Dragosani?
‘I'm not your son!' Boris snapped, tears angrily flying. I'm no one's son. And I have to go to Ploiesti. And it's not two days away but only three or four hours, in a car! You pretend you know so much, but you've never even seen a car, have you?'
No, I never have - until now. Now I see it, in your mind, Dragosani! I've seen a great many things in your mind. Some have surprised me, but none have awed me. So, your step-father's 'car' will make it easier for you to get to Ploiesti, eh? Good! And it will make it easier for you to come back again when the time comes...
'But -'
Now listen: go to school in Ploiesti - become as clever as your teachers, more clever - and when you return, come back as a scholar. And as a man. I lived for five hundred years and was a great scholar. It was necessary, Dragosani. My learning stood me in good stead then, and will again. One year after I rise, I shall be the greatest power in this world! Oh, yes! Once I would have been satisfied with Wallachia, Transylvania, Rumania, call it what you will - and before that it was enough that the mountains were mine, which no one else wanted - but the world is a smaller place now and I would be greater. When I took part in man's wars I learned the joy of the conqueror, so that next time I would conquer all. And you, too, shall be great, Dragosani - but all in good time.
Something of the importance of what the voice said got through to Boris. Behind its words, he sensed the raw power of the creature which issued them. 'You want me to be...a scholar?'
Yes. When I walk this world again I would speak with learned men, not village idiots! Oh, I shall teach you, Dragosani - and far more than any tutors in Ploiesti. Much knowledge you shall have from me - and in my turn I shall doubtless learn from you. But how shall you teach me if you yourself are ignorant?
'You've said as much before,' said Boris. 'But what can you teach me? You know so little of things as they are now. How can you know more? You've been dead - undead - in the ground, anyway - for five hundred years, you said so yourself!'
There came a throaty chuckle in Boris's head. No fool you, Dragosani. Well, and perhaps you are right. Ah, but there are other seats of knowledge, and other sorts of knowledge! Very well, I have a gift for you. A gift... and a sign that indeed I can teach you things. Things you cannot possibly imagine.
'A gift?'
Indeed. Go, quickly now, and find me a dead thing.
'A dead thing?' Boris shivered. 'What sort of dead thing?'
Any sort. A beetle, a bird, a mouse. It makes little difference. Find me a dead thing - or kill me a live thing -and bring the body to me. Give it to me as a gift, and you in turn shall have your gift.
'I saw a dead bird at the foot of the slope. A pigeon chick, I think. It must have fallen from the nest. Will that do?'