Quickly I take the Tula-ware box from my desk and press the hidden catch.
“Aha, aha!” murmurs Lipotin with a grin, “excellent; I can see you are doing your best to keep Hywel Dda’s legacy safe and sound. But there is one piece of advice I would give you: choose a different hiding place for the family jewels. Have you not noticed that this little box has a certain ... let us not say relationship, let us say similarity with the earthly dress of our distinguished Princess? It is not a good idea to combine symbols; the forces that stand behind them can easily start to mingle.”
A storm of half-understood insights rages round my soul. I snatch the dagger from the box, as if that would break the spell that has kept me bound for days, weeks – or years? But Lipotin raises his eyebrows in an expression that drains the courage from me: I cannot bring myself to stab him – or even his phantom.
“Our magic is still in its infancy.” – Lipotin laughs at me, starts whistling again – “We cling to externals, although we also neglect them, like a novice mountaineer with all the latest equipment but forgetting to keep an eye on the weather. And the goal has moved on; it is no longer conquering the peak – that is left to self-tormenting ascetics – but transcending the world and humanity.” I decide to reveal all my secrets and sorrows:
“You will help me, Lipotin, I am sure of that. To put you in the picture: I have called upon Jane with all the power of my soul. But she does not come. The Princess comes instead of her.”
“In magic what comes is what is closest to us. And what is closest is what resides within us. That is why the Princess has come.”
“But I do not want her to come!”
“That makes no difference. She senses the erotic force in you and in your call.”
“But, for God’s sake, I hate her!”
“That is what she feeds on.”
“I curse her; may she rot in the lowest depths of hell where she belongs! I abhor her, I would strangle her, murder her if I could, if I only knew how.”
“Such fire is like a declaration of love to her – and she is not entirely wrong.”
“You think I might love the Princess, Lipotin?”
“You hate her already. That creates a high degree of magnetism or attraction – scientists are agreed on that.”
“Jane!” I cry out.
“A dangerous appeal” warns Lipotin. “The Princess will intercept it. Do you not realise that what you call ‘Jane’ is the vital erotic energy within you? A fine suit of armour you have there! Nothing but gun cotton: it might keep you warm but it’s highly explosive; it might go up in flames at any moment.” The world goes out of focus; I am near to fainting. I grasp Lipotin’s hand.
“Help me, old friend! You must help me!”
Lipotin flashes a glance at the dagger lying on the table between us and grudgingly agrees:
“I think I have no choice.”
There is a gnawing distrust at the back of my mind, and I place my hand firmly on the weapon in front of me. I draw it nearer to me and never let it out of my sight. Lipotin appears not to take any notice at all and lights a fresh cigarette. His wheezing voice comes through a cloud of smoke:
“Do you know anything at all about Tibetan sexual magic?”
“A little.”
“Then you will perhaps have heard of an oriental practice called ‘Vajroli Tantra’ which makes it possible to transform sexual energy into a magic force.”
“Vajroli Tantra!” I murmur the words to myself. I vaguely remember having read in a rather bizarre book about something of the kind. I do not know precisely what it is, but an inner feeling tells me it must be something foully perverse, something contrary to all healthy, normal human sentiments. There must be good reason why it is a secret kept by all who know of it on pain of death.
“Some kind of exorcism rite?” I ask absentmindedly.
Lipotin shakes his head slowly:
“Exorcise sex!? What would that leave of man? Not even the external form of a saint. Elemental forces cannot be destroyed. That is why there is no point in trying to drive out the Princess.”
“Lipotin – sometimes I think it isn’t the Princess at all but ...”
The ghostly antiquarian gives a whinnying laugh:
“You think she is the Thracian goddess Isaïs? Not bad! Not bad, my friend. Not so far off the mark.”
“It is really all the same to me whether she is Isaïs or Bartlett Greene’s Black Mother called up by the blood of his Scottish cats! Once she appeared to one of her victims as Lady Sissy.”
“Whatever guise she appears in, the being that appears to you in this chair, currently occupied by my humble self, is more than a ghost, more than a living woman, more even than a goddess neglected for thousands of years: she is the power of blood in man, and whoever would defeat her must be beyond the power of blood.”
Instinctively I raise my hand to my neck; I can feel the artery hammering feverishly, as if demanding entrance to deliver its message – perhaps from some alien force exulting in its power over me? All the while I stare at Lipotin’s crimson scarf. Lipotin gives me a friendly and understanding nod.
“Are you beyond the power of blood?”
Lipotin seems to deflate; he suddenly becomes grey, old, frail; he croaks feebly:
“Being beyond the power of blood is almost the same as never having been subject to it. You tell me: where is the difference between being beyond life and never having lived? There is none, is there? Is there?”
It sounds like a cry from the depths, like an appeal from a scarcely concealed desperation, like naked fear, whose cold tentacles I could feel stretching out towards me. But before I could relate this unexpected
