Michael closed his eyes, trading outer darkness for the darkness within. He listened to the water drip… drip… drip. He drew a long lungful of breath, let it go in a whisper, and he left this world.
FOUR – The Change
1
He sat up, and heard water dripping down a wall of ancient stones. His vision was fogged by sleep and brain fever, but a small fire of pine branches smoldered in the center of the chamber and by its ruddy glow Mikhail could see the figure of a man standing over him. He said the first thing that came to him: “Father?”
“I’m not your father, boy.” It was the voice of Wiktor, speaking with a hint of rough agitation. “You’ll not call me that again.”
“My… father.” Mikhail blinked, trying to focus. Wiktor towered over him, clad in his deerskin robe with its snow-hare collar, his gray beard trailing down his chest. “Where’s… my mother?”
“Dead. All of them are dead. You already know that; why do you persist in calling to ghosts?”
The little boy pressed his hand against his face. He was sweating, but his insides felt cold, as if he were July on the skin and January in the blood. His bones were throbbing, like a dull axblade chopping an ironwood tree. Where was he? he wondered. His father, mother, and sister… where were they? It began to come back to him, through the murk of memory: the picnic, the shootings in the meadow, the bodies lying on scarlet-spattered grass. And the men after him, the crash of horse hooves through the underbrush. The wolves. The wolves. Here his mind sheared away, and the memories fled like children past a graveyard. But deep down he knew where he was-the depths of the white palace-and he knew the man standing before him like a barbarian king was both more and less than human.
“You’ve been with us for six days,” Wiktor said. “You’re not eating anything, not even the berries. Do you want to die?”
“I want to go home,” Mikhail answered, his voice weak. “I want to be with my mother and father.”
“You are home,” Wiktor said. Someone coughed violently, and Wiktor glanced over with his keen amber eyes to where the shape of Andrei lay under a cover of cloaks. The coughing turned into a choking noise, and Andrei’s body lurched. When the sound of mortal illness faded away, Wiktor returned his attention to the little boy. “Listen to me,” he commanded, and squatted down on his haunches before Mikhail. “You’re going to be sick soon. Very soon. You’ll need your strength, if you’re going to live through it.”
Mikhail held his stomach, which felt hot and swollen. “I’m sick now.”
“Not nearly like you’re going to be.” Wiktor’s eyes shone like copper coins in the low red light. “You’re a thin whelp,” he decided. “Didn’t your parents feed you any meat?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but grasped Mikhail’s chin with his gnarled fingers and lifted the boy’s face so it caught most of the fire’s glow. “Pale as milk pudding,” Wiktor said. “You won’t be able to stand it. I can tell.”
“Stand what, sir?”
“Stand the change. The sickness that’s going to come over you.” Wiktor released his chin. “Don’t eat, then. It would be a waste of good food. You’re finished, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Mikhail admitted, and shivered as a chill passed through his bones.
“I know. I’ve learned to recognize strong reeds and weak ones. A lot of weak reeds lie in our garden.” Wiktor motioned outward, beyond the chamber, and Andrei suffered another spasm of coughing. “All of us are born weak,” Wiktor told the boy. “We have to learn to be strong, or we perish. A simple fact of life and death.”
Mikhail was tired. He thought of a mop he’d once watched Dimitri use to swab the carriage, and he felt the way that wet old mop had looked. He lay down again, on a pallet of grass and pine straw.
“Boy?” Wiktor asked. “Do you know anything about what’s happening to you?”
“No sir.” Mikhail closed his eyes and squeezed them tight. His face felt as if it were made of the candle wax he used to dip his finger in and watch harden.
“They never do,” Wiktor said, mostly to himself. “Do you know anything about germs?” He was addressing the boy again.
“Germs, sir?”
“Germs. Bacteria. Virus. You know what those things are?” Again, he didn’t wait for a response. “Look at this.” Wiktor spat in his hand, and put the spittle-pooled palm in front of Mikhail’s face. The boy looked at it obediently, saw nothing but spit. “It’s in there,” Wiktor said. “The pestilence and the miracle. It’s right there, in my hand.” He pulled his hand away, and Mikhail watched him lick the saliva back into his mouth. “I’m full of it,” Wiktor said. “In my blood and my insides. My heart and lungs, my guts, my brain.” He tapped his bald skull. “I’m infested with it,” he said, and he stared forcefully at Mikhail. “Just as you are, right now.”
Mikhail wasn’t sure he understood what the man was talking about. He sat up again, his head pounding. Chills and fever played through his body, malicious partners in torment.
“It was in Renati’s spit.” Wiktor touched Mikhail’s shoulder, where a bandage of leaves and some kind of brown herbal paste Renati had mixed was pressed to the inflamed, pus-edged wound. It was no more than a glancing touch, but the pain made Mikhail wince and draw a breath. “It’s in you now, and it’s either going to kill you or…” He paused and shrugged. “Teach you the truth.”
“The truth?” Mikhail shook his head, puzzled and hazy in the brain. “About what?”
“Life,” Wiktor said. His breath wafted into the boy’s face, and it smelled of blood and raw meat. Mikhail saw flecks of something red in his beard, which also held bits of leaves and grass. “A life beyond dreams-or nightmares-depending on your point of view. Some might call it an affliction, a disease, a curse.” He had sneered that last word. “I call it nobility, and I would only live one other life, if I could be reborn: I would know the wolf’s way from birth, and be ignorant of that beast called a human being. Do you understand what I’m saying, boy?”
One thought was paramount in Mikhail’s mind. “I want to go home now,” he said.
“My God, we’ve brought a simpleton into the pack!” Wiktor almost shouted. He stood up. “There is no home for you now but here, with us!” He nudged with his sandal an uneaten piece of meat that lay on the floor near the boy’s pallet; it was rabbit flesh, and though Renati had passed it over a flame a few times, it still oozed a little blood. “Don’t eat!” Wiktor thundered. “In fact, I command you not to eat! The sooner you die, the sooner we can tear you to pieces and eat you!” That sent a shiver of pure terror through Mikhail, but his face, glistening with sweat, remained impassive. “So you leave this alone, do you hear me?” He kicked the piece of rabbit meat a few inches closer to Mikhail’s side. “We want you to get weak and die!” The coughing of Andrei broke his tirade. Wiktor turned away from the boy to go across the chamber, and he knelt at Andrei’s side and lifted the blanket. Mikhail heard the breath hiss between Wiktor’s teeth, and Wiktor grunted and said, “My poor Andrei,” in a quiet, subdued voice. Then, abruptly, Wiktor stood up, shot a dark glance at Mikhail, and stalked out of the chamber.
Mikhail lay very still, listening to the sound of Wiktor’s sandals scrape on the stairs going up. The little fire popped and spat sparks, and Andrei’s breathing was like a rumble of freight cars on a distant track. Mikhail shivered, full of frost, and stared at the bloody piece of rabbit meat.
I command you not to eat, Wiktor had said. Mikhail stared at the meat, and watched a fly buzz slowly around it. The fly landed on the meat and crawled happily over it, as if searching for a tender place from which to draw the first sip of juice. I command you not to eat.
Mikhail looked away. Andrei coughed raggedly, twitched, and then lay still again. What was wrong with him? Mikhail wondered. Why was he so sick? His gaze slid back to the rabbit flesh. He thought of wolf fangs, distended and dripping, and in his mind’s eye he saw a big pile of bones licked clean and white as October snow. His stomach mewled like a kitten. He looked away from the meat again. It was so bloody, so… awful. Such a raw thing would never be found on the gilded plates of the Gallatinov dining table. When was he going home, and where were his mother and father? Oh, yes. Dead. All dead. Something gripped tight in his mind, like a fist around a secret, and he couldn’t think about his parents or his sister anymore. He stared at the rabbit flesh, and his mouth watered.
One taste, he thought. Just one. Would it be so bad?
Mikhail reached out and touched the flesh. The fly, startled, buzzed around his head until he swatted it away. Mikhail drew his fingers back and looked at the faint smears of scarlet on the fingertips. He sniffed them. The odor of metal, a memory of his father oiling a silver sword. Then Mikhail licked his fingers, and tasted blood. It was not a bad taste, nor a particularly good one. It was faintly smoky, and a little bitter. But even so, it made his stomach growl louder and his mouth water more. If he died, the wolves-and Wiktor was one of them-would rip him to pieces.
