Chapter 30
BEFRIEND THE WOLF BUT KEEP THE AXE SHARP
“So, we’re in agreement?”
“Yes.” The powerful man stood with his back turned to the boy who was not as unlike himself as he thought back to who he’d been when he’d first arrived in this strange dreamworld.
True, Nikolai Novikov wasn’t as clever and didn’t possess as many gifts, but he held one very valuable gift that even someone with as many assets as Grigor had amassed in his time couldn’t easily come by—knowledge of his future.
Turning, he said, “Tell me again—why would you do this? Betray your friends, the tsarevna you profess to love, all simply in the hope that I will take you on as my protégé? I must confess, I’m afraid I cannot trust your motives.”
“Then let’s go over it again. When you return, you take me with you.
You train me in your ways. Teach me how to bend time like you do.
Perhaps you haven’t done it yet, but you will.
You’ll become so powerful that one day you’ll be able to reanimate the dead.
Then, when all is in place, we’re going to stop my father from marrying my mother; either that, or kill him when he’s young.
Either way, I’ll be able to remove the curse of him from my life. ”
“But won’t that mean you’ll never be born?”
“Maybe. If so, I don’t care.”
“How can you not care about such a thing?”
Nik picked up one of the Death Draughtman’s books of magic and flipped through the pages boldly.
He was no longer frightened about what the man could do to him.
Now he was filled with purpose and determination, and there was nothing on earth or in the heavens that could shift him from it.
“I had a meeting with Death,” Nik replied softly.
“He said I was kept alive all these years for a purpose. Now I know what it is.”
“Do you?” Grigor Sobol Petrovsky hadn’t felt that level of feverish determination in himself for quite some time. Perhaps he should reconsider killing the young man and see if he could indeed help him escape from this prison of the mind he’d found himself a captive of all these years.
“Yes,” Nik replied. “I carry the deaths of innocents on my back and shoulders, dragging them like weighted balls, shackles, and anchors that threaten to drown me with each step. It’s time I cast off those chains, placing them upon the man who truly deserves them.”
“So, what do you intend to do?”
“With your help, I’m going to send my father to hell.”