“Vazotas, Zamarath, Katipa!” cried Bezděchovský. “Astroschio, Abedumabal, Asath! Speak! I summon you to speak!”
There was a long silence, interrupted only by the sizzling of candles.
“Completum est…” Samson’s calm voice finally sounded. “Completum est quod dixi de Operatione Solis.”
Neither the spells nor the names of God helped, neither Astroschio nor Abedumabal helped. The ritualistic gestures made over Samson using the athame and the boline didn’t help. Fumigation with incense didn’t help. The aspergillum of verbena, periwinkle, sage, mint and rosemary didn’t help. Both the Greater and the Lesser Keys of Solomon proved to be powerless, and the Enchiridion and The Grand Grimoire fared no better. Magic had almost destroyed the building, but Samson didn’t say another word.
The wizards of the Archangel pretended they weren’t bothered by the fiasco, saying, Never mind, we’ve made a start and we’ll see happens next. Jan Bezděchovský, who found it hardest to put on a brave face, only managed to cite several similar cases of change of personality—he had in mind among others the casus of Poppo of Osterna, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order. Pessimism was in the air, since in that case all the efforts of the Prussian sorcerers had come to nothing. To the end of his life, until his death in 1256, Poppo of Osterna had been “different”—which no one minded, for the real Poppo had been an awful whoreson.
Teggendorf looked on the bright side, attributing the infortunium to simple bad luck, invoked al-Kindi and tirelessly told stories about shaytans, ghouls, jinn and ifrits. Fraundinst and Edlinger Brehm blamed the dies egiptiaci, the unlucky Egyptian days, to which in their opinion belonged that memorable Friday, the thirty-first of August 1425, the day of the exorcism in the Silesian Benedictine monastery. The evil “Egyptian” aura, they said, had tainted the exorcism and its results, and the matter had become singularly abnormal and difficult to reverse because of it. Telesma then remarked that nothing would be achieved without talismans and promised to manufacture some suitable ones. Radim Tvrdík, before he was shouted down, mumbled something about golems and shems.
Štěpán of Drahotuše meanwhile criticised in toto the strategy and tactics adopted by the mages. The error, he claimed, lay not just in the method, because that was of lesser import, but in the goal they had set: on the simple and indisputable assumption that Samson Honeypot’s personality and spirit were transplanted by an unknown power into the body of a dopey giant. Steps ought to be taken towards reversing the process—in other words, towards discovering the causative factor, since nihil fit sine causa. Having discovered that causa efficiens, it might be possible to reverse it. But what were the mages of the Archangel doing? Concentrating on attempts to solve the mystery, to unlock the secret that Samson himself clearly didn’t want to or could not reveal. In trying to investigate who—or what—Samson was, the sorcerers were striving to satisfy their own curiosity and vanity, behaving like doctors, diagnosing and examining a mysterious illness just to learn about it, without a trace of consideration or sympathy for the person afflicted by that illness.
The mages bridled at and shouted down the Moravian. Before one can begin a treatment, they said—referring to the metaphor—one must acquaint oneself thoroughly with the illness. Scire, they said, quoting Aristotle, est causam rei cognoscere. Thus, a key element was finding out who—or what—Samson was. Continuing to use medical comparisons—Samson’s secret and mystery were not merely symptoms, they were the nexus itself, the crux, the essence of the illness. If the illness was to be cured, the secret had to be revealed.
So they made efforts to uncover it. Eagerly and with fervour. And with not a trace of effect.
Samson, meanwhile, had made friends with all the mages of the Archangel. He debated for hours with Jan Bezděchovský about God and Nature. He and Edlinger Brehm stood for days on end beside alembics and retorts with the slogan solve et coagula on their lips. He discussed the theories of Arab hakims and Jewish Kabbalists with Teggendorf. He pored over unknown and seriously damaged manuscripts by Pietro di Abano and Cecco d’Ascoli with Štěpán of Drahotuše. He and Jošt Dun made talismans which they later tested in the city. He and Radim Tvrdík walked beside the Vltava, collecting sludge for making golems. Posing as an idiot, he carried out interventionist shopping trips for Beneš Kejval at rival apothecaries.
He played cards, drank and sang with all of them.
The sorcerers had taken a liking to Samson Honeypot. Reynevan couldn’t rid himself of the thought that they liked him so much, they had utterly abandoned any efforts that might result in his leaving them.
The door leading to the occultum opened and Vincent Reffin Axleben emerged. Gathering up the folds of his black robe, he sat down at a table and downed a glass of Alicante in a single draught. He sat in the silence, without contributing anything himself. He was pale and sweaty; the sweat had stuck his thin hair to his temples and the back of his head.
Vincent Reffin Axleben was a temporary guest in Prague. He was travelling from Salzburg, where he lived, to Krakow for a series of lectures at the academy there. From Krakow, the sorcerer was planning to go to Gdańsk, then on from there via Königsberg to Riga, Dorpat and Pernau. From what Reynevan had heard, Axleben’s ultimate destination was Uppsala. He had also heard other things. That Axleben, though a powerful, able and famous sorcerer, was not respected since he practised necromancy and demonomancy, which were deemed controversial. His fun and games with corpses and evil spirits had brought him social ostracism from many circles. Rumours attributed to him the knowledge of and ability to use Manusfortis, the Mighty Hand, an extremely powerful spell which could be cast with a single movement of the hand. Gossip had also turned Axleben into one of the leading ideologists of the eastern-European Waldensians and adherents of Joachim of Fiore, and he was also linked to the Lombardist Stregheria. Axleben’s very close ties with the Brethren and Sisterhood of the Free Spirit were also no secret—it had greatly astonished the sorcerers of the Archangel that during his stay in Prague, Axleben was staying with them and not at the House of the Black Rose, the Brethren’s secret Prague headquarters. Some people attributed it to Axleben’s amical relationship with Jan Bezděchovský. Others suspected that the necromancer wanted to pursue his own goals.
“It would be out of the question for me to have this Samson of yours for ever, would it?” asked Axleben, finally raising his head and looking around the assembled company.
Reynevan was already getting up with a sharp retort on his lips, but a poke from Scharley restrained him. The necromancer didn’t even notice and appeared only to be looking for an answer in the eyes and face of Jan Bezděchovský. He saw the answer and grimaced.
“Of course, I understand. Pity. I’d love to talk to this… gentleman. A well-read individual… An elegant speaker… And very witty. Very, very witty.”
“Bravo, Samson,” whispered Fraundinst.
“Samson treated him,” Telesma whispered back, “to the Emerald Tablet…”
“You won’t believe,” Axleben decided to pretend not to hear the whispers, “what he told me when he was under. Which is also why I’ll keep it to myself. Why blab it out, since you won’t believe it? I’ll only say he gave me various pieces of advice when he was in a trance. I shall, indeed, try to employ them and we’ll see with what results.