This groping in the dimness was terrifying, and I expected at any second to be pounced on by the Thing that had brought me there. I wondered again if I might not actually be dead-if this was some terrible version of death, which I had momentarily mistaken for a continuation of life. But nothing pounced on me, the pain in my legs was convincing enough, and I was getting closer to the light, which danced and flickered at one end of the long chamber. Before this glow, I could see now, loomed a motionless dark bulk. When I was within a few yards of it I saw a fire on a hearth, burning low and red. It was framed by an arched stone fireplace, and it gave enough light to play off several massive old pieces of furniture-a great desk littered with papers, a carved chest, a tall angular chair or two. In one of the chairs, which had its back to me and its front to the fire, someone was sitting very still-I saw a dark shape just above the chair back. I wished now that I had felt my way in the opposite direction, away from the light and towards some possible escape, but I was terribly drawn by my glimpse of that dark shape and the regal chair below it, and by the soft red of the fire. On the one hand, it took all my willpower to walk towards it, and on the other I could not have turned away if I had tried.
I came slowly into the firelight on my bruised legs, and as I rounded the great chair a figure slowly rose and turned to me. Because his back was now to the fire, and because there was so little light around us, I could not see his face, although I thought in the first second that I caught a glimpse of bone-white cheek and glittering eye. He had long, curling, dark hair, which fell around his shoulders in a short mantle. There was something about his movement that was indescribably different from that of a living man, but whether it was swifter or slower I couldn’t have said. He was only a little taller than I, but gave a sense of height and bulk, and I could see the spread of his broad shoulders against the firelight. Then he reached for something, bending to the fire. I wondered if he was about to kill me and I stayed very quiet, hoping to die with some dignity, however it happened. But he was merely touching a long taper to the fire, and when it caught he lit other tapers in a candelabrum near his chair and turned again to face me.
Now I could see him better, although his face was still in shadow. He wore a peaked cap of gold and green with a heavy jewelled brooch pinned above his brow, and a massive-shouldered tunic of gold velvet with a green collar laced high under his large chin. The jewel on his brow and the gold threads in his collar glittered in the firelight. A cape of white fur was drawn around his shoulders and pinned with the silver symbol of a dragon. His clothing was extraordinary; I felt almost as frightened of it as I did of his strange undead presence. It was real clothing, living, fresh clothing, not the faded pieces of a museum exhibition. He wore it with extraordinary richness and grace, too, standing silently before me, so that the cape fell down around him like the swirl of snow. The candlelight revealed a blunt-fingered, scarred hand on a dagger hilt, and farther down a powerful leg in green hose and a booted foot. He shifted a little, turning in the light, but still silent. I could see his face better now, and the cruel strength of it made me shrink back-the great dark eyes under knitted brows, the long straight nose, the broad bonelike cheeks. His mouth, I saw now, was closed in a hard smile, ruby and curving under his wiry, dark mustache. At one corner of his lips I saw a stain of drying blood-oh, God, how that made me recoil. The sight of it was terrible enough, but the immediate realization that it was probably mine, my own blood, made my head swim.
He drew himself up even more proudly and looked me full in the face across the dimness that separated us. “I am Dracula,” he said. The words came out cold and clear. I had the sense that they were in a language I did not know, although I understood them perfectly. I was unable to speak and stood staring at him in a horrified paralysis. His body was only ten feet from me, and it was undeniably real and powerful, whether it was actually dead or alive. “Come,” he said in that same cold, pure tone. “You are tired and hungry after our journey. I have set out a supper for you.” His gesture was graceful, even courtly, with a flash of jewels on his big white fingers.
I saw a table near the fire, laden with covered dishes. I could smell food now, too-good, real, human food-and the aroma made me feel faint. Dracula moved quietly to the table and poured out a glass of something red from a decanter there, something I thought for a moment must be blood. “Come,” he said again, more softly. He moved away and sat down in his chair, as if he thought I might be more likely to approach if he stayed at a little distance. I went haltingly towards the empty chair by the table, my legs trembling under me from sheer weakness as well as fear. I sat down among the dark cushions there, a collapse, and looked at the dishes. Why, I wondered, did I long to eat when I might die any moment? It was a mystery only my body understood. Dracula was gazing into the fire now; I could see the ferocious profile, the long nose and strong chin, the dark curl of hair over his shoulder. He had pressed his hands thoughtfully together, so that his mantle and embroidered sleeves fell away, showing wrists of green velvet and a great scar across the back of his near hand. His attitude was quiet and pensive; I began to feel I was dreaming rather than menaced, and I dared to lift the lids of some of the dishes.
Suddenly I was so hungry that I could hardly restrain myself from eating wildly with both hands, but I managed to lift the metal fork and bone knife on the table and carve up first a roasted chicken and then a piece of some gamey dark meat. There were ceramic bowls of potatoes and gruel, a hard bread, a hot soup full of greens. I ate ravenously, trying to slow myself enough to keep my stomach from cramping. The silver goblet at my elbow was brimming with strong red wine, not blood, and I drank it all. Dracula did not stir during my meal, although I couldn’t help glancing at him every few seconds. When I was done I felt almost ready to die, content for a long minute. So this was why a person about to be executed was given a last meal, I thought. It was my first clear thought since I had awakened in the sarcophagus. I slowly covered the empty dishes, trying to make as little noise as possible, and sat back, waiting.
After a long while, my companion turned in his chair. “You have finished your dinner,” he said quietly. “Then perhaps we can converse a little, and I will tell you why I have brought you here.” His voice was clear and cold again, but this time I noticed a faint rattle in its depths, as if the mechanism that produced it was infinitely old and worn. He sat looking thoughtfully at me, and I felt myself shrinking under his gaze. “Do you have any idea where you are?”
I had hoped not to have to speak to him, but I felt that there was little point in my keeping silent, which might enrage him, although he seemed calm enough at the moment. It had also suddenly occurred to me that by answering, by engaging him somehow, I might buy a little time in which to test my surroundings for possible escape, or for some means to destroy him, if I could work up the nerve, or both. This must be night, or he would not be awake, if the legend was accurate. Eventually morning must come, and if I was alive to see it he would have to sleep while I stayed awake.
“Do you have any idea where you are?” he repeated, almost patiently.
“Yes,” I said. I could not bring myself to address him by any title. “At least, I think so. This is your tomb.”
“One of them.” He smiled. “My favorite one, in any case.”
“Are we in Wallachia?” I could not help asking it.
He shook his head so that the firelight moved in his dark hair and over his bright eyes. There was something inhuman about the gesture that made my stomach twist inside me. He did not move like a living person, and yet-again-I couldn’t have said exactly what the difference was. “Wallachia became too dangerous. I should have been allowed to rest there forever, but there was no possibility of that. Imagine-after fighting so hard for my throne, for our freedom, I could not even lay my bones there.”