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to me.
    ―Well, in the center of the map, above the site of the Unholy Tomb, wherever it was supposed to be located, was a rough sketch of a dragon, wearing a castle as a sort of crown on its head. The dragon looked nothing like the one in my—our—old books, but I conjectured it must have come down to the Turks with the legend of Dracula. Below the dragon someone had inked tiny words, which I thought at first were Arabic, like the proverbs in the map‘s borders. Looking at them through a magnifying glass, I suddenly realized that these markings were actually Greek, and I translated aloud before I had thought about courtesy—although of course the library room was empty except for myself and occasionally a bored librarian who came in and out, apparently to make sure I didn‘t steal anything. At this moment I was completely alone. The infinitesimal letters danced under my eyes as I sounded them out: ‗In this spot, he is housed in evil. Reader, unbury him with a word.‘
    ―At that moment, I heard a door slam in the downstairs foyer. Heavy footsteps came up the stairwell. I was still occupied with a flash of thought, however: the magnifying glass had just told me that this map, unlike the first two more general ones, had been labeled by three different people, in their three different languages. The handwritings as well as the languages were dissimilar. So were the colors of the old, old inks. Then I had a sudden vision—you know, that intuition that a scholar can almost trust when it‘s backed by weeks of careful work.
    ―It seemed to me that the map had originally consisted of this central sketch, and the mountains that surrounded it, with the Greek command in the center. It had probably only later been labeled in that Slavic dialect to identify the places it referred to—in code, at least. Then it had somehow fallen into Ottoman hands and been surrounded by Qur‘anic material, which appeared to house or imprison that ominous message at the center, or to encircle it with talismans against the dark. If this were true, who, knowing Greek, had marked the map first, perhaps even drawn it? I knew that Greek was used by Byzantine scholars of Dracula‘s time, not by most scholars in the Ottoman world.
    ―Before I could write down even a note on this theory, which might involve tests beyond my own powers, the door on the other side of the stacks flew open, and a tall, well-built man came in, hurrying wildly past the books and stopping on the other side of the table where I worked. He had the air of a conscious intruder, and I felt sure he wasn‘t one of the librarians. I also felt for some reason that I should rise to my feet, but out of a certain pride I couldn‘t bring myself to; it might have seemed deferential, when the interruption had been sudden and rather rude.
    ―We looked each other in the face, and I was more startled than ever. The man was distinctly out of place in that esoteric setting, handsome and well-groomed in a swarthy Turkish or South Slavic way, with a drooping, heavy mustache and tailored dark clothes like a Western businessman‘s. His eyes met mine belligerently, and their long lashes looked somehow disgusting in that stern face. His skin was sallow but beautifully unblemished, and his lips very red. ‗Sir,‘ he said in a low, hostile voice, almost a growl of Turk-accented English. ‗I do not think you have proper permissions for this.‘
    ―‗For what?‘ My academic hackles rose at once.

    ―‗For this work of research. You are involved in material the Turkish government considers private Turkish archive. May I see your papers, please?‘
    ―‗Who are you?‘ I asked with equal coolness. ‗May I see yours?‘
    ―He pulled a wallet out of his interior jacket pocket, slapped it open on the table in front of me, and snapped it shut again. I had just time to see an ivory card with a jumble of Turkish titles on it. The man‘s hand was unpleasantly waxen and long-nailed, with a ridge