‘Good morning. Can I be of any assistance?’
‘Good morning. I’m interested in material on one of the magicians of the past.’
‘Who exactly?’ the vampire enquired.
‘Fáfnir. The Dragon of the Twilight.’
‘Aha,’ the vampire said respectfully. ‘He was a truly powerful magician. One of the most powerful Dark Ones in the history of mankind. What exactly are you interested in?’
‘The circumstances of his death. The reasons for his duel with Siegfried, the prehistory, all the details. In short, I want to make a comprehensive study of this outstanding figure. But unfortunately, I only have a few hours. I’d also like to model the operation of bringing him back from the Twilight.’
The vampire smiled sadly.
‘Unfortunately, that is effectively impossible. It would require interventions of such power and intensity that the right to make them could not be earned even by placing all – let me emphasise that – all the Dark Ones of the world into hibernation for a hundred years.’
‘Nonetheless,’ said Edgar, with a sweeping gesture, ‘I’d like to solve this problem, if only on paper.’
‘Then you should take a look at Al-Hazred’s Necronomicon,’ the vampire advised him. ‘It describes all the necessary interventions for the rematerialisation of essential beings with some precision.’
Then, without a pause, he asked:
‘Are you a theoretical necromancer?’
Edgar smiled more broadly than before.
‘Oh no! I’ve never really dealt with necromancy at all. But I’ve developed an interest.’
‘Then you did right to come to Prague. People here know their necromancy, and there are any number of specialists. But unfortunately they are all theoreticians, and of course you understand why.’
Edgar really did understand why.
Because since the Treaty had been signed the Inquisition had only sanctioned rematerialisation twice, and both times only temporarily. The Tribunal needed to question witnesses, and sometimes there was an opportunity to bring a dematerialised Other back from the Twilight. On both occasions when such an opportunity had been exploited, but after questioning the witnesses had gone back to the Twilight.
Edgar couldn’t believe that a magician of Fáfnir’s power hadn’t established in advance some loophole to allow for his own rematerialisation. He must have done so once he reached a certain grade – indeed, Edgar was hoping to reach that grade himself some day. Of course, he hoped with equal justification never to allow himself to be dematerialised, but life was such a strange business, it was always throwing up surprises. Especially in conditions of continuous war.
‘Go on through,’ said the vampire, indicating the tables. ‘I’ll bring you the books in a moment. I believe it’s not the human experience of the time that interests you, but the chronicles of the Others, is that so?’
‘Of course, dear colleague. Of course.’
‘I’ll just be a second.’
The vampire really did come back very quickly. He had obviously been working as the custodian of the library for more than a decade and knew his books very well.
‘There,’ he said, laying two large volumes on the table. The first was a huge, large-format book in an old binding of dull brown leather – the Necronomicon in Gerhardt Kuchelstein’s translation; the second was rather more modest – not so big, with a florid title that covered half a page: A Life and Exposition of the Glorious Doings and Also the Prophecies and Numerous Unparalleled Discoveries of the Great Dark Magician Well-known among Others by the Name of Fáfnir, or the Dragon of the Twilight by Johann Jetzer. It looked like an original.
The title of Jetzer’s book was probably even more archaic in style, but Edgar didn’t know Old High German, so he had to read the book through the Twilight, where individual stylistic features are smoothed out and the text is levelled down, although it becomes much easier to understand.
Edgar ran his eye diagonally across The Doings of Fáfnir: as was only to be expected, the contents of the thick volume interpreted events rather differently from the two Edda and the Song of the Niebelungen. First, it was clear that Sigurd (a.k.a. Siegfried, a.k.a. Sivrit) and Regin and Hreidmar and Fáfnir himself were all Others. Naturally, Hreidmar wasn’t Fáfnir’s biological father and Regin wasn’t his real brother. By means of long and careful intriguing, Sigurd managed to make the Dark Magicians quarrel and destroyed them all, some through the agency of Others and some with his own hands. Sigurd’s goal, of course, was not treasure at all, not useless pieces of metal and glittering stones. Sigurd and the Others were searching for the legacy of the dwarf Andvari, but Jetzer’s work did not explain what that was. It could have been ancient and powerful artefacts or simply knowledge (in the form of books, for instance). In any case, eventually Sigurd had killed all the Others and taken possession of the legacy of Andvari, but what happened after that, Edgar didn’t have time to find out. Fáfnir had been Sigurd’s penultimate victim, before Regin. It seemed that Fáfnir had taken certain secrets with him into the Twilight after all, but that didn’t really bother the magicians of those times, who weren’t bound by Treaties or codes of law and acted without regard for the Inquisition, since it did not yet exist.
The main thing that Edgar learned was that Fáfnir possessed certain forgotten knowledge in the field of higher battle magic (which didn’t appear to have helped him much in his duel with the crafty Sigurd) and he had taken this with him into the Twilight. So, Zabulon could well be intending to get hold of that knowledge.
Having arrived at this essentially rather obvious conclusion, Edgar turned to the Necronomicon.
The first thing he learned there was that rematerialisation was not the resurrection of an Other who had been dematerialised. It all turned out to be much simpler and more banal.
It was more like castling in chess. Someone withdrew into the Twilight, and in his place someone else emerged from the Twilight. The higher the level of power of the individual rematerialised, the more powerful the person dematerialised had to be. But the levels didn’t have to be identical – some leeway was allowed. If what Jetzer wrote about Fáfnir was true, it meant the Dragon of the Twilight could be exchanged for a second-or third-grade Dark Magician, but only if the overall available energy input was sufficient.
And the required input could for example be provided by acting out the Apocalypse – with the turbulent emotions of thousands of humans generating such a squall that Fáfnir would probably emerge reborn from the Twilight full of power, a mighty Dark Magician thirsting for vengeance and freedom. The freedom he had lost so long ago.
What would he do, this Great Magician from the past who had never even heard of the Treaty of the Inquisition? How was Zabulon planning to handle him? And was he planning at all? The Dragon of the Twilight in the skies over Europe at Christmas – what could possibly be more insane and terrifying?
Assume that Fáfnir runs wild, burning cities and causing all sorts of devastation; if he simply chooses stupid brute force, then even humans would be able to pacify him. With rockets. That Light flying ace who loved the Chicago Bulls could down him with some devastating explosive device from his Phantom or his Harrier. They wouldn’t kill him, but they’d pacify him. But what good would that do Europe? What did Europe want with nuclear mushroom clouds and her cosy little towns burned to cinders by Fáfnir’s flames?