"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 something, hoping my reaction was casual.

"I found it in the appendices of two different histories. One was a mere reference; the other had a more detailed account of how you foiled an assassination plot against you, but not before being wounded by the culprit's knife, then repeating the ritual words as you bled."

"He wounded me slightly with only a scratch along my ribs." Damned historians, they never do get things right.

"And the repeating of the words?"

That had been my antic humor getting the better of me. The witnesses to what had happened in the castle garden had been so wide of eye and in awe that I had given in to temptation and shocked them even more.

"What happened?" he pressed.

"I took possession of the knife-no others were willing to touch it. A moment later I cut myself on the hand by accident, forgetting how sharp the blade was."

"By accident? I do not believe in them, not when it comes to magic."

"Believe as you like." I was growing irritated at the direction he was taking.

"But it was a magical knife, and you spoke the ritual words. Perhaps far back in the darks of time they were truly magical in origin-"

"I did, and I see where you wish to go with this and concede the possibility of a connection. I think it most unlikely, though. Why should it even interest you?"

"Because if your tie to the land is too strong, then you may never be able to escape Barovia."

I met this statement with a long silence and a stony face. What is his game? was my first thought. Was he trying to prepare me for a future failure in this proposed escape? If he broke free of this plane and left me behind… I would not be able to do a damned thing to stop him. Not unless I watched him much more closely than I was already.

"Of course, there may be ways around such a tie," he added.

"If it exists."

"I have no doubt that it does. I'm thinking that if you have any valedictory ritual that we can employ, it might serve to negate the tie you established at the time, freeing you to escape."

I had a mental picture of him holding out a carrot with his right hand, and the instant I took it I would then discover the stunning effect of the stick hidden in his left. Such a ritual as he conjectured existed, but to initiate it was not a light matter.