Albadi waved his arm around taking in the stacks of ancient tomes. “As for the Book; where better place for clues to be found than in one of the world’s most ancient libraries?” He chortled. “The Mad Arab – some would say we’re all mad, yes? I assure you, Professor, he, like the book, was, real. Alhazred was a poet from Sanaá, in Yemen, who lived during the period of the Ommiade caliphs, around 700 AD. He roamed the Middle East, visiting the ruins of Babylon and the subterranean secrets of the great southern deserts of Arabia – the Roba El Khaliyeh, the vast empty space of the ancients. He also transversed the ad-Dahna or Crimson Desert of the Saudi Arabians, which is held to be protected by evil spirits and monsters of death.”

Albadi crossed to a small, heavy wooden door set into the wall. He unlocked it, and from the space behind brought forth something wrapped in an oilcloth. He set it on the table before them. He placed one hand on it, fingers steepled.

“In his last years of his life, Alhazred lived in Damascus, and in 738, he wrote a book of pure horror and mad prophecy in Syriac, Arabic, and multiple other languages, some that could not be read. He called it the Al Azif.”

“And you have it?” Tania’s eyes burned.

“No.” Albadi smiled, and turned from her, back towards Matt. “In 950, the Book was translated into Ancient Greek and called The Necronomicon by Theodorus Philetas, a scholar from Constantinople. This version was later outlawed, and then burned in 1050 by Patriarch Michael. However, not before it was translated from Greek into Latin by Olaus Wormius in 1228. In 1232, Pope Gregory IX banned all editions of the work, calling it ‘a blasphemous script of ultimate evil’.”

“Now that’s a book review you won’t see on Amazon,” Andy said, grinning.

“But the book did survive.” Albadi turned his back on the geologist. “A Greek edition was found in Italy in the first half of the sixteenth century, and supposedly translated into English. But this edition has never been seen, other than as fakes turning up for sale, even today on the internet.”

Albadi sipped at his coffee again and then smiled. “Time is the enemy of history, my friends: sometimes it erases it. By 1050, when the Greek version of the Al Azif was created, the original version had already long disappeared.” He shrugged. “And with all translations, the new versions lost much along the way – much of the meaning, much of the power, and also anything written in the strange languages that refused to be translated by the best scholars of antiquity.” He turned back. “The original has never been found, and even a location for it remained a mystery.”

“The language refused to be translated?” Matt asked. “What does that mean? Was it not an Arabic or Syriac dialect or form?”

Albadi shook his head. “I do not know: other than a symbol here and there, I have never really seen it, and no one else living has either. But they became known as the forbidden passages, and it is said they were not in any human language. It is perhaps nothing but the scribbling of a madman, or…” he looked levelly into Matt’s eyes “…Enochian, true Enochian.”