"Ah, don't you see? " came the ghastly voice with its long words, whispers without end, "My heir chosen to take the Dark Gift from me with more fiber and courage than ten mortal men, what a Child of Darkness you are to be. " I kissed his eyelids. I gathered his soft black hair in my hands. He was no ghastly thing to me now but merely that which was strange and white, and full of some deeper lesson perhaps than the sighing trees below or the shimmering city calling me over the miles. His sunken cheeks, his long throat, the thin legs . . . these were but the natural parts of him.
"No, fledgling, " he sighed. "Save your kisses for the world. My time has come and you owe me but one obeisance only. Follow me now. "
3
Down a winding stairs he drew me. And every thing I beheld absorbed me. The rough-cut stones seemed to give forth their own light, and even the rats shooting past in the dark had a curious beauty. Then he unlocked a thick iron-studded wooden door and, giving over his heavy key ring to me, led me into a large and barren room.
"You are now my heir, as I told you, " he said. "You'll take possession of this house and all my treasure. But you'll do as I say first. " The barred windows gave a limitless view of the moonlit clouds, and I saw the soft shimmering city again as if it were spreading its arms:
"Ah, later you may drink your fill of all you see, " he said. He turned me towards him as he stood before a huge heap of wood that lay in the center of the floor.
"Listen carefully, " he said. "For I'm about to leave you. " He gestured to the wood offhandedly.
"And there are things you must know. You're immortal now. And your nature shall lead you soon enough to your first human victim.
Be swift and show no mercy. But stop your feasting, no matter how delicious, before the victim's heart ceases to beat. "
"In years to come, you'll be strong enough to feel that great moment, but for the present pass the cup to time just before it's empty. Or you may pay heavily for your pride. "
"But why are you leaving me! " I asked desperately. I clung to him. Victims, mercy, feasting . . . I felt myself bombarded by these words as if I were being physically beaten. He pulled away so easily that my hands were hurt by his movement, and I wound up staring at them, marveling at the strange quality of the pain. It wasn't like mortal pain. He stopped, however, and pointed to the stones of the wall opposite. I could see that one very large stone had been dislodged and lay a foot from the unbroken surface around it.
"Grasp that stone, " he said, "and pull it out of the wall. "
"But I can't, " I said. "It must weigh- "
"Pull it out! " He pointed with one of his long bony fingers and grimaced so that I tried to do it as he said. To my pure astonishment I was able to move the stone easily, and I saw beyond it a dark opening just large enough for a man to enter if he crawled on his face. He gave a dry cackling laugh and nodded his head.
"There, my son, is the passageway that leads to my treasure, " he said. "Do with my treasure as you like, and with all my earthly property.
But for now, I must have my vows. " And again astonishing me, he snatched up two twigs from the wood and rubbed them together so fiercely they were soon burning with bright small flames. This he tossed at the heap, and the pitch in it caused the fire to leap up at once, throwing an immense light over the curved ceiling and the stone walls. I gasped and stepped back. The riot of yellow and orange color enchanted and frightened me, and the heat, though I felt it, did not cause me a sensation I understood. There was no natural alarm that I should be burned by it. Rather the warmth was exquisite and I realized for the first time how cold I had been. The cold was an icing on me and the fire melted it and I almost moaned. He laughed again, that hollow, gasping laugh, and started to dance about in the light, his thin legs snaking him look like a skeleton dancing, with the white face of a man. He crooked his arms over his head, bent his torso and his knees, and turned round and round as he circled the fire.
"Mon Dieu! " I whispered. I was reeling. Horrifying it might have been only an hour ago to see him dancing like this, but now in the flickering glare he was a spectacle that drew me after it step by step.
The light exploded on his satin rags, the pantaloons he wore, the tattered shirt.
"But you can't leave me! " I pleaded, trying to keep my thoughts clear, trying to realize what he had been saying. My voice was monstrous in my ears. I tried to make it lower, softer, more like it should have been. "Where will you go! " He gave his loudest laugh then, slapping his thigh and dancing faster and farther away from me, his hands out as if to embrace the fire. The thickest logs were only now catching. The room for all its size was like a great clay oven, smoke pouring out its windows.
"Not the fire. " I flew backwards, flattening myself against the wall. "You can't go into the fire! " Fear was overwhelming me, as every sight and sound had overwhelmed me. It was like every sensation I had known so far. I couldn't resist it or deny it. I was half whimpering and half screaming.
"Oh, yes I can, " he laughed. "Yes, I can! " He threw back his head and let his laughter stretch into howls. "But from you, fledgling, " he said, stopping before me with his finger out again,
"promises now. Come, a little mortal honor, my brave Wolfkiller, or though it will cleave my heart in two, I shall throw you into the fire and claim for myself another offspring. Answer me! " I tried to speak.
I nodded my head. In the raging light I could see my hands had become white. And I felt a stab of pain in my lower lip that almost made me cry out. My eyeteeth had become fangs already! I felt them and looked at him in panic, but he was leering at me as if he enjoyed my terror.
"Now, after I am burned up, " he said, snatching my wrist, "and the fire is out, you must scatter the ashes. Hear me, little one. Scatter the ashes. Or else I might return, and in what shape that would be, I dare not contemplate. But mark my words, if you allow me to come back, more hideous than I am now, I shall hunt you down and burn you till you are scarred the same as I, do you hear me? " I still couldn't bring myself to answer. This was not fear. It was hell. I could feel my teeth growing and my body tingling all over. Frantically, I nodded my head.
"Ah, yes. " He smiled, nodding too, the fire licking the ceiling behind him, the light leaking all about the edges of his face. "It's only mercy I ask, that I go now to find hell, if there is a hell, or sweet oblivion which surely I do not deserve. If there is a Prince of Darkness, then I shall set eyes upon him at last. I shall spit in his face.
"So scatter what is burned, as I command you, and when that is done, take yourself to my lair through that low passage, being most careful to replace the stone behind you as you enter there. Within you will find my coffin. And in that box or the like of it, you must seal yourself by day or the sun's light shall bum you to a cinder. Mark my words, nothing on earth can end your life save the sun, or a blaze such as you see before you, and even then, only, and I say, only if your ashes are scattered when it is done. " I turned my face away from him and away from the flames. I had begun to cry and the only thing that kept me from sobbing was the hand I clapped to my mouth. But he pulled me about the edge of the fire until we stood before the loose stone, his finger pointing at it again.