“Do you really know this by heart?”

“I wrote the directive myself,” he said, with a little smile. “I’ve given it to many other members over the years.”

“They know I’m here now?”

“No, of course not. I stopped reporting our meetings to them a long time ago.” He fell into his thoughts again, and then: “Do you search for God?” he asked.

“Certainly not,” I answered. “I can’t imagine a bigger waste of time, even if one has centuries to waste. I’m finished with all such quests. I look to the world around me now for truths, truths mired in the physical and in the aesthetic, truths I can fully embrace. I care about your vision because you saw it, and you told me, and I love you. But that’s all.”

He sat back, gazing off again into the shadows of the room. “Won’t matter, David. In time, you’ll die. And probably so shall I.”

His smile was warm again as though he could not accept this except as a sort of joke.

There was a long silence, during which he poured a little more Scotch and drank it more slowly than he had before. He wasn’t even close to being intoxicated. I saw that he planned it that way. When I was mortal I always drank to get drunk. But then I’d been very young, and very poor, castle or no castle, and most of the brew was bad.

“You search for God,” he said, with a little nod.

“The hell I do. You’re too full of your own authority. You know perfectly well that I am not the boy you see here.”

“Ah, I must be reminded of that, you’re correct. But you could never abide evil. If you’ve told the truth half the time in your books, it’s plain that you were sick of evil from the beginning. You’d give anything to discover what God wants of you and to do what He wants.”

“You’re in your dotage already. Make your will.”

“Oooh, so cruel,” he said with his bright smile.

I was going to say something else to him, when I was distracted. There was a little pulling somewhere in my consciousness. Sounds. A car passing very slowly on the narrow road through the distant village, in a blinding snow.

I scanned, caught nothing, merely the snow falling, and the car edging its way along. Poor sad mortal to be driving through the country at this hour. It was four of the clock.

“It’s very late,” I said. “I have to leave now. I don’t want to spend another night here, though you’ve been most kind. It’s nothing to do with anyone knowing. I simply prefer … ”

“I understand. When will I see you again?”

“Perhaps sooner than you think,” I said. “David, tell me. The other night, when I left here, hell-bent on burning myself to a crisp in the Gobi, why did you say that I was your only friend?”

“You are.”