Another book, like The Gates of Anubis, written in the genre of alternative or crypto history, history where events well known to us are closely intertwined with things that elude our sight. Where the greatest poets of all time take their inspiration from the vampires and lamias who drain them and exact a bloody price for their care. Where surgeon Michael Crawford goes to his wedding and does not yet know the role he is destined to play in the lives of great poets. Where over the entire old world the Austrian Habsburg Empire hovers like a huge dark shadow. And from above, the eternal mountains silently look down on all this mouse fuss.