“The Twilight needs Power. This Power is provided by people, ordinary human beings, and the greater their joy or sorrow, the more Power there is. The Twilight is not cruel, but it demands what it needs. Human joy suits it perfectly well, but it rarely happens that there is more joy than sorrow. Far more often people become indifferent and jaded—and, in that case, the Twilight starts to starve. The blue moss is the Twilight’s simplest and weakest instrument: it absorbs Power and can bolster human emotions. But if there are more and more indifferent people in the world, if good and evil give way to quietude and apathy . . . then the Twilight brings forth the Tiger. Prophets are born constantly, but if the Twilight has sufficient nourishment, they can act as they wish—utter good prophecies or bad ones, conceal them, forget them . . . But if humankind calms down, tells itself that it has achieved a state of equilibrium and calm—then the Tiger comes to the Prophets. He makes no distinction between good and bad prophecies. All he wants is for them to be proclaimed. Sooner or later a Prophet opens the door for great upheavals, grief and joy. And the Twilight sates its appetite once again. It is not malicious. It is simply alive . . . and, like everything living, it wants to eat.”

Fan picked up a small piece of something candied and tossed it into his mouth.

“But the Twilight is simply . . . simply . . .” I faltered to a stop.

“Simply what?” Fan laughed. “Simply another world? Simply another dimension of reality? And we, the Others, who can enter into it, who can simply say ‘burn’ and spout forth flame, or transform our bodies into those of demons, or see the future? Esteemed Anton, you make use of magic and you take all this absolutely for granted. But exactly how do you make use of magic?”

“I enter the Twilight . . . or simply—” I broke off and vowed to myself not to use that word again. “Or I reach out to it . . .”

“And then what? Do you grow cannon instead of arms and enema tubes instead of fingers? How do you fight and heal? How can you talk Chinese, when you have never studied it? Where do you think all of this comes from? From the Twilight? In response to your wishes? What is the Twilight to you, then? A computer with a screen that you can just prod with your finger to get what you want? But a computer was invented by someone, someone made it, and someone wrote the programs for it. A computer has no rational mind and you cannot make it brew you coffee or weed the vegetable patch. But the Twilight docilely shares with you the Power that it needs itself and allows you to perform one trick after another . . .”

“But what for, if it is rational?” I exclaimed.