existence for us both.
'If any hint of their intent had come to me earlier, I would have dealt with it then,' he added, but there was a defensive tone-albeit a highly suppressed one-in his harsh voice. I had, it seemed, stung a tender spot.
'No doubt,' I said. 'Happily such problems don't plague me here. I can count on the loyalty of my subjects.'
'Even the ones in your dungeons?'
'They forsook any privilege of my protection when they broke my law, but their crimes have to do with murder and thievery and the like, not treason. Treason is not unknown here, but it's very rare. I haven't seen a case of it in some two hundred years.'
'Then you are a most fortunate ruler, that, or your people have no spirit to them.'
To this blatant insult I simply smiled-or rather showed my teeth. 'They have spirit enough, their blood is hearty with the very life of the land beneath them.'
'And if my reading on the subject is correct, then you are yourself part of the land?'
'What do you mean?'
'The possession ceremony?' he prompted. 'Does it mean they feed as much from you as you do from them?'
'Only in a philosophical sense, and I have no desire to put much effort into such musings. The ceremony was for the sake of symbol only. The meaning is to indicate that by binding my blood to the land, I willingly defend it from all invaders.'
'Yes, I have seen how you have dealt with past intruders. I suppose I should count myself fortunate you did not attempt the same policy with me.' Emphasis on the word 'attempt.' Hardly subtle of him.
'Those others were the same as the filth in my dungeons, deserving of their fate.'
'But I was an exception.'
'Because you chose not to violate my laws and wisely sought my protection.'
Here followed a long silence on his part. I glanced up at him from tipping some spider dust into a small measuring spoon. Azalin's face was quite unreadable, yet the impression I got had to do with strongly repressed anger. The only obvious sign of his inner agitation was the way his gloved fingers clenched a bottle full of rat's blood as though to break it. With me suddenly looking on he immediately relaxed his grip and kept quite still, but he could not hide the searing fire in his red glazed eyes. Another tender spot stung.
I pretended not to notice, though it was a solid confirmation to me of something I'd long surmised, based upon how my own reaction would be were our positions reversed. I was thankful that they were not, for he would not have been so kind a host to me.
'But you were asking me about the origins of the ceremony were you not?' He made no reply. I continued. 'That in which I engaged was much more restrained than past efforts, if one is to believe the early historians and earlier legends. In very ancient times a new ruler was expected to provide a much greater blood sacrifice to mark the occasion.'
'Such as?' he asked after a moment, having apparently mastered himself.
'Oh, animals large and small, anything from birds to bullocks; the number varied, it all varied according to the specific culture involved or the whim of the ascending monarch. I suppose it made it convenient to the cooks, providing them with the necessary supplies of meat for a celebratory feast afterwards.'
'So long as the animal in question was edible. How did human bloodletting come into it?'
'Of that I have no knowledge, but again it depended on the culture involved. Some forms were no more than that: form, involving only a symbolic sacrifice and some play-acting. Others were much more graphic, requiring the actual taking of a life.'
'Not the life of the ruler.'
'Sometimes that was done.'
'You jest!' Anger of a different sort from him now, and for once not aimed at me. Refreshing, that.
'It was understandably uncommon, but not unheard of. If the priests of that ruler's faith were up to the task, then they would be able to resuscitate the corpse soon after. If life was restored, then it was seen as a sign from the gods that the right person was on the throne.'
His hands were steady as he poured dried beetles into a large mortar and began grinding them into dust with a pestle, but there was an abstracted air about him. It would have been interesting to find out what he was really thinking about beyond the needs of his work.
'Foolishness,' he finally grunted.
'One may assume that those whose faith was somewhat questionable were careful to either make sure the priests were wholly loyal, or willing to do some pretending themselves by faking the ceremony. It was from this I rather suspect the custom grew of turning it into an act rather a genuine sacrifice.'
'I would have abolished such mummery altogether.'
'For you are accustomed to more enlightened behavior. Others' ancestors were often raised in a brutal world and had to abide by its brutal decrees.'
'Which may be changed if one is strong enough to the task.'
'Not without difficulty. The broad fact is that the bulk of the population of any one country is likely to be undereducated in anything new, therefore they cling most determinedly to the little they do know, for the unfamiliar is a threat, and the familiar-no matter how absurd we may see it to be-is their greatest comfort.'
'To bow before the pressure of the ignorant is weakness.'
'Not bow, employ it to one's own ends. Hence my willingness to proceed with the ceremony when I took up my rule. It was a trivial thing to me after all. A moment's stinging from the knife cut, the reciting of a few words, then a healer to knit the skin together again. But the impact of this upon the common folk was all important. To them it meant I was bound to the land as their protector for all of my life.'
'But would you have been willing to sacrifice your life for the sake of possessing the land as they did of old, trusting the priests to bring you back?'
'Of course I'd have done so.' Back then I would have. Now that ploy might be more difficult to carry out.
He seemed mightily surprised. 'You would have been mad then!'
'Hardly. I was on the battlefield each day and subject to the same peril of sudden death as any in my army. At any time I could have been killed in the struggle to obtain the rule of Barovia, and perhaps the priests could not have brought me back-but that threat did not deter me from my goal. I would have done no less in facing the feeble requirements of political protocol.'
'Your determination must have been very great.'
'It still is. The land is mine.' I thought he might want to debate that point, but he eschewed the opening for a slight turning in the topic.
'So though much mitigated from past barbarities of custom the cutting of your wrist and letting the blood flow onto the earth was a powerful symbol.'
'Indeed, or else it would not be part of the ritual.' My court at that time had been very concerned with such trivialities. Now nearly all of it was forgotten.
'Symbol is the very heart of spell work,' he continued, now as if instructing a slow student, and stating that which was as familiar to me as my own skin. 'Had you been casting a spell at the time it would have effectively bound you to the land.'
'I was bound already by word and deed; no magic was necessary. It was but a formality, something to give work to the scribes.'
'There is more to it than that. In all your time here you must surely have noticed how the weather reacts to your state of mind.'
I dismissed the idea with a wave. 'Mere coincidence. I rather think it is the other way around, the same as for most people.'
In actuality, he did have a point. I'd long noticed how the weather often reflected my strongest emotions with storms, clear skies, or biting winds. The Mists, of course, were quite something else again. Perhaps I could have admitted to it, but I had good reason to always lead him into underestimating me.
'What about this second ceremony, though?' he asked.
'Second ceremony?'
'The one performed with the Ba'al Verzi knife.'
'Where did you read of that?' That incident was not in the official record. I pretended to search the table for
