Deep into the night, the wizard sat alone, staring into the empty hearth. The snake coiled around his feet hissed softly, but didn't stir as he reached down to caress the scaled head.
In an idle gesture, he drew his wand. The empty hearth exploded into light before subsiding into flickering flame.
Better than contemplating a dead fire, yes?
"You." The man's hand tightened around his wand. The slight emphasis on the word 'dead' had not gone unnoticed.
Me.
"And have you brought me what I asked for?"
Patience. There is a way these things must be done.
"So you have decided there is to be a price after all." He sneered.
There is always a price. It was you who neglected to ask after it.
The wizard's eyes flickered to the heavy, dusty tome on his desk. "I know what you are."
There was faint amusement in her answer. Do you.
"You are a draconian. You feed on fear," he continued. "It gives you energy. I can give it to you. In exchange for immortality."
She did not answer for a long moment. Then a soft chuckle sounded out of the shadows.
You do not understand.
"I can give you fear," he repeated.
Human, I feed on panic, the seconds of desperation before premature death. I feed on fear, yes, but not the fear that you inspire. I feed on animal terror. You cannot give me that.
"I can give you anything you ask for."
There is nothing I would ask for. Offer, and I might accept. Might
"There must be something you want. I have seen your home and the things you keep. If there is nothing you want, why do you keep so many paintings? The rare books and tapestries? Why encumber yourself with the relics of a dead era?"
Baubles.
"But you covet them."
And you covet power that will last only as long as you.
"Shut up," he rasped.
You know it is true: that is why you came to me. You know you are temporary – that once you are no longer there, then you become nothing more than a bogeyman, a story to scare children with.
"Shut up." He waited until he had his temper under control. "I have often wondered," he said, almost to himself, "what happens when a person dies."
Their cells begin to digest themselves, turning their internal organs into a putrid consommé. Amino acids and volatile fatty acids seep into the matrix. Bones disintegrate into calcium, phosphates, sulfur, chlorides and other compounds. Blowflies lay their eggs on the carcass, and maggots devour the flesh before pupating into flies themselves. Et cetera, et cetera.
"You know what I mean," he snapped. "What happens to their soul?"
Life is a biological process, your personality defined by certain neurons and chemical imbalances in the brain. There is no such thing as a soul.
"There must be. How else to explain humans?"
You mean the senseless brutality and selfishness that distinguishes Homo sapiens from other races? It is undoubtedly a crude method of population control.
"What are you talking about?" the wizard demanded, frustrated.
If you are busy killing your neighbors, the species as a whole will not grow so large as to strain the natural resources allocated to it. Of course, in your case, it failed, but things will balance out in the end. Homo sapiens will be no more, and the earth will still turn on its usual axis.
"Why do you torture me like this?" His voice was little more than a hoarse whisper.
Why do you let me? If you were not so weak, the things I speak of would hold no terror. If you were not so weak, you would not fear so necessary an end as death.
The fire still burnt in the hearth, but even it could not protect the wizard from the darkness of the soul.