October 17, 1929 -- Letter To Ineska Rulinov

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Written at Trujillo Spain, and hand delivered by messenger

Ineska,

Having carefully considered your ultimatum regarding our present and future relations, I regret to inform you that I must decline your offer of friendship. Moreover, if I am not deceived and have read aright your motives in this affair, I am skeptical about the likelihood of your considering any counter-offers I might make. Notwithstanding your insistence upon the resolution of our differences prior to the Change, (1)I am nevertheless willing to hear any subsequent offers you may care to make once we are outside the influence of the monastery. (2)

If we must be enemies, then I want us to have a clear understanding. The terms of your offer as they now stand -- to labor among the Enclave(3) on behalf of the Dark Queen (4) in exchange for the privilege of maligning her through me -- are unacceptable. I will not allow you to harm Medea (5) or the integrity of the new People (6) by continuing this cycle of private vendetta.

Hannah and I have chosen the path that leads to the supplication for the freedom of the People, and if the Enclave are to lend their aid to us towards that common goal, then it must be out of genuine concern for the People -- not for the settling of old scores. It is true that the survival of the People may depend greatly upon the benevolence of the Enclave Council,(7)but if that dependence leads to enslavement to the old ways -- to Dante's (8) way -- then we shall have none of it, even it if means our failure.

Perhaps you forget, Ineska, that the Change has not yet occurred; and that until that moment has come to pass, you seek to win the heart of a mortal man, who yet partakes of that necessity which the Condition (9) seems so easily to obviate in so many of the Nightfolk(10)- the doom of choice. Both Medea and I are committed to the People, but if we are to hope for the accomplishment of the Change, we must be totally committed to one another as well. There are many reasons why I might refuse the Change(11) and remain just a man -- Hannah is my reason for staying.

Where I already one of the Nightfolk, I might view your offer of Communion(12) differently, but in my present mortal ignorance it would be a betrayal of Hannah's trust, and so a betrayal of myself. That could prove fatal for the Change, and so for all of us.

Perhaps I would see things differently through your eyes, Ineska - they have seen much pain and have doubtless greater wisdom than my own limited vision - but it is in this ignorance that the prophecy(13)summons me, and it demands that the choice I make be made on the basis of that judgement, not on yours.

You know that I love Hannah -- deeply -- and that your proposition must engender a certain amount of personal revulsion on my part. But let me assure you, Ineska; that jealousy which must give you so much satisfaction to elicit dissolves before me into insignificance next to the fear and doubt which now rend my human soul in the face of what lies before me, and to reject your offer at this moment is my only hope for fulfilling what I have been called to become.

Respectfully

Steele

Notes

(1) Change: the event that will transform Hannelore into the Nightfolk's redeemer.
(2) The stronghold outside of Trujillo, Spain.
(3) A secretive community of old Nightfolk in Romania
(4) A title used interchangeably with "Medea" to refer to Hannelore Rhyner
(5) Medea - see Note (4)
(6) People - the word used by the Nightfolk to identify themselves.
(7) The ruling body of the Enclave community
(8) Dante - the name used inside the Enclave by Peter Fagin
(9) The biological vector that transmits the vampirism
(10) Word used outside the community of the People to identify them. (See note 6)
(11) Change used in this context to mean the transformation into one of the People (Nightfolk)
(12) The sharing of blood between one of the People and a human, for survival - but also for a spiritual and emotional bond.
(13) The community of the People had a long standing prophecy or folktale of the coming of a redeemer who would restore many lost traits of humanity to them.