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  “The exception to the rule?” Gesar asked curiously.

  “So-called Zero-Order Magicians like me,” Nadya replied without any superfluous modesty. “We infinitely surpass the Power of any other magicians, including Higher Magicians, because theoretically we can create a spell with any degree of Power.”

  “With any degree of Power, within the limits of the magical energy that exists on Earth,” Gesar added. “Be more precise in your formulation!”

  “Yes, I just didn’t have time to finish,” said Nadya.

  She wormed her way out of that neatly!

  “All right. A-minus,” said Gesar. “So what did you want to say?”

  “How can there be a magician who surpasses a Higher Clairvoyant by an order of magnitude? He’s either a Zero-Order Magician, or a . . .”

  “Well, well?” Gesar encouraged her.

  “Or not a magician at all.” Nadya suddenly felt embarrassed and snuggled up against her mother. Svetlana put her arm round her shoulders. I caught my daughter’s eye and nodded approvingly.

  “We cannot entirely exclude the existence of another Zero-Order Magician,” said Gesar. “But none of the prerequisites exist.”

  “And that includes any prophecies concerning it,” remarked Glyba. “But Nadya was foretold.”

  “Let’s examine the other possibilities,” said Gesar. “A magician, even a Zero-Order one, is only a magician.”

  “A Mirror?” Svetlana asked quietly.

  There was a tense silence.

  A Mirror is bad news. He’s very bad news, because it’s practically impossible to fight against him. A mirror is generated by the Twilight—that is, no one really knows why any particular, ordinary, uninitiated Other with an indeterminate aura, who is inclined equally towards the Light and the Darkness, becomes transformed into a Mirror Magician, and how it happens. But we do know in general why the Mirror appears and what happens after that. The Mirror shows up at a place where the balance between the Light and the Darkness has been seriously disrupted, and then joins the losing side. He eliminates the gap. And in the most direct fashion possible—either by killing magicians or by taking away their power. Eleven years earlier Svetlana had lost most of her power—and we were very lucky that she had been able to restore herself so quickly.

  “It can’t be a Mirror,” said Gesar, shaking his head. “A Mirror Magician only rises up the levels in the course of combat with normal magicians. Have any of our Higher Magicians fought a Mirror?”

  “How about the Dark Ones?” suggested Mark Emmanuilovich.

  “They only have one Higher Other in their Watch: Zabulon himself.”

  “What about Yury and Nikolai?” asked Jermenson, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

  “Yury moved to Minsk seven years ago—his career prospects are better there,” Gesar laughed. “And Nikolai is in the reserve, like you. For more than four years now. I don’t think he does anything very much, except go fishing on the Akhtuba . . .”

  “He still writes romance novels, under a female pseudonym,” Olga put in.

  “Does he?” asked Glyba, suddenly interested. “And what are they like?”

  “Quite readable,” Olga said eagerly. “Especially—”

  “Quiet!” said Gesar, tapping his finger on the table. The sound was surprisingly loud. He closed his eyes and sat for a few moments without speaking. “I’ve asked Zabulon to check on his Higher Ones in the reserve. But I’m assuming that none of them has fought with anyone. And why would a Mirror be killing Dark Ones? With the present balance of power, he should be killing us again!”

  “Then who?” Jermenson asked, with a shrug. “If not a Mirror . . . one of the ancient magicians? There were Zero-Order Magicians among them . . . well . . . close to it, at least . . .”

  “Who and why?” Gesar asked. “Most importantly—why? Why appear in Moscow in secret, do God only knows what to someone who just happens to cross your path . . . No, let’s consider other possibilities!”

  “Not a Mirror, and not a High . . . er, Zero-Order Magician that we don’t know about?” asked Glyba.

  “What other possibilities can there be?” said Svetlana, asking her first question. “I’m sorry, Boris Ignatievich, my borscht has been left half-cooked on the stove, Nadya was just doing her homework, then you dragged us over here . . . and, as far as I can see, you’re not even sure why!”

  Gesar looked at me and said: “You have a go, Anton. What frightens you in all this?”

  I thought for a minute before starting to answer.

  “A plane . . . a plane that should have crashed, but didn’t. A boy-Prophet who turned up so fortuitously right in front of my eyes. What he said . . . about me in the first instance. A policeman I ran into many years ago and who can now see Others, although he himself isn’t an Other. His partner, whose aura has disappeared and who couldn’t give a damn about anything anymore. Some unknown individual, whom the policeman called a ‘tiger.’ The fact that the two policemen described this unknown individual quite differently. The fact that a clairvoyant Higher Magician is unable to foresee events.”

  “But how can all that be interconnected?”

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly.

  “And what exactly is it that frightens you? Surely not what was said about a ‘tiger’? This policeman of yours calls us ‘dogs’ and the Dark Ones ‘wolves.’ ”

  “What frightens me is the intense concentration of strange elements,” I said. “It all started this morning. Only eight and a half hours ago. There’s so much, and all at once!”

  Gesar nodded. He seemed satisfied with what I’d said.

  “That’s right. Too many strange things. It can’t be a coincidence, so there must be a common reason. Can you suggest any possibilities?”

  “You’re just like Dr. House, Boris Ignatievich,” Svetlana said ironically.

  “What?” asked Gesar—it was one of the rare occasions when I’d seen the boss bewildered. I don’t believe he ever had any interest in the cinema, and all he watched on TV was the news and the figure skating, which he found attractive for some reason.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Svetlana. “Just this . . . famous doctor. He used to propose crazy theories to his junior colleagues, and then choose the correct one himself.”

  Gesar gave Svetlana a rather dubious look. Then he nodded and said: “I hope he had more enterprising colleagues than mine. I haven’t heard a single theory so far.”

  “A divine being,” Jermenson said unexpectedly. “No, I’m not talking about God or a Messiah, but perhaps we’re dealing here with a manifestation of some sacral, mystical entity . . .”

  “Retirement’s having a bad effect on you, Mark,” Gesar said irritably. “The only mystical entity in our world is us—the Others. All the rest is human folklore.”

  “Well, some Others don’t think so . . .” Jermenson muttered, but without any real conviction.

  “So this is Other folklore, then!” Gesar snapped. “Are there any serious theories?”

  “An emanation of primal Power,” suggested Glyba. “The Light or the Darkness . . .”

  “That’s the same ‘divine entity’ again, only in different words,” said Gesar.

  “But the Light and the Darkness exist,” said Glyba, with a shrug. “When we swear on the Light, it confirms our words.”

  Gesar frowned. “Sophistry. We don’t know how or why it happens. Do you know? I don’t. Possibly one of the Great Magicians of ancient times created a spell that’s still working now. To suspect the Light and the Darkness of conscious action is—”

  “It’s just like expecting the Twilight to create a Mirror and send it to the side that’s losing . . .” Olga said in a gentle voice.

  Gesar shut up.

  He didn’t simply stop talking, he shut up. He sat there for a while, gazing at the tabletop, and then said: “The theory is accepted. It’s absurd. I don’t like it—because I’m afraid of something of the kind. But as a theory, it’s accepted.
Anything else?”

  Nadya raised her hand again. “Boris Ignatievich, I don’t think we should be trying to guess right now,” she said. “What difference does it make to us who has appeared? After all, we already know that he’s very powerful and he does strange things. So all right. We need to understand what he wants.”

  “And?” asked Gesar.

  “Da— Anton . . .” Nadya blushed.

  “It’s all right, we know that he’s your daddy,” Gesar said in a surprisingly gentle voice. “Go on.”

  “It all started when Daddy saw the boy-Prophet who was afraid to fly in the airplane because the airplane was going to crash,” said Nadya, clearly embarrassed. “Well, he saved the boy and his mummy, didn’t he? But what if someone else wanted to save him too, only he did it a simpler way: he saved the whole airplane all at once? And that’s why the airplane didn’t crash. And then, when he realized the boy wasn’t on it anymore, he set out to look for him . . .”

  “That business with the policeman? Why did he give himself away like that? He left witnesses and a trail as well.”

  “He didn’t give himself away. He . . . he introduced himself,” Nadya said quietly.

  “He left his visiting card,” exclaimed Olga, snapping her fingers. “That’s right. He realized that one of the policemen had recognized him as an Other and deliberately affected his partner. But what made him think we’d find those policemen, and so quickly?”

  “If that policeman is an ordinary person, but he can see Others, it could be the result of his contact with Daddy,” said Nadya. “They taught us that a spell can leave a side effect, a trace . . . and that trace is usually connected with the magician who cast the spell. What if someone saw the trace on the policeman and realized he was connected with my daddy? For him it was . . . well, like kicking a dog to make it whine so that its master would look round.”

  “A fine comparison,” Olga said drily.

  “Sorry,” Nadya answered, “I was judging from the point of view . . .”

  I noticed that Gesar had been sitting with his eyes closed for about half a minute. And slowly turning crimson. Then he opened his eyes and stood up.

  “Right. I can’t hear Semyon. And I can’t contact him. Someone else try!”

  Olga closed her eyes too.

  Glyba applied his palm to his forehead picturesquely.

  Jermenson chewed on his lips.

  Svetlana frowned intensely.

  But I took out my mobile and pressed one of the “hot keys.”

  “Yes, Antokha?” Semyon answered cheerfully.

  “Where are you?”

  “Me? I’m at Olya and Kesha’s place. Drinking tea. Telling them all about our wonderful school for artistically gifted children.”

  “Gesar can’t make contact with you,” I said

  There was a brief pause, and then Semyon said: “You know, I can’t make contact either. With anyone. It’s like . . . everything’s gone blank . . .”

  “Tell him we’re on our way,” ordered Gesar, walking rapidly towards the door. “Anton, Mark, Olga, you’re with me! Svetlana, Sergei, you’re in charge of the Watch.”

  “I’m not on the staff!” Svetlana exclaimed indignantly.

  “Consider yourself drafted,” Gesar flung out without looking round.

  “Sveta, if we start arguing now, the child might be killed,” Olga said gently as she got up to follow Gesar. “And Semyon too. Do you understand?”

  And Svetlana, who I could remember beating off Gesar’s attempts to get her involved in the Watch’s business at least a hundred times, backed down immediately. She just asked as we left: “What exactly do I have to do?”

  “Kill everything strange that tries to get into the office,” Gesar replied.

  “I’m a doctor, not a killer!” Sveta exclaimed indignantly.

  “Every good doctor has his own graveyard,” snapped Gesar.

  When we ran out into the yard, the boom across the entrance was already raised and Alisher and Garik were getting into the patrol van—a battered old Japanese SUV. They were obviously on duty-call today.

  “Mark Emmanuilovich, please join the two young watchmen, if you would be so kind,” Gesar said briskly.

  Apparently he seriously believed that we needed to have at least one Higher Other in each vehicle.

  We got into the old BMW that Gesar had been riding around in for as long as I could remember. I sat in the front, Olga was on the backseat and Gesar was at the wheel. He didn’t usually sit there, I wasn’t even sure that the Great One knew how to drive a car.

  But it turned out that he did—and how! We went flying out into the street and roared straight off up the oncoming lane, which apparently seemed less crowded with traffic to Gesar. We were spared the choruses of loud curses from drivers about wild, irresponsible Duma deputies and bureaucrats by just one thing.

  The car was invisible.

  And moreover, Gesar didn’t use an ordinary spell like the Sphere of Negation or other similar ones. We were entirely invisible. We were an empty space, hurtling along the road like a draft, a void as far as any other driver could see.

  To be quite honest, this is pretty stressful, even when the driver at the wheel is a Higher Magician who could well have more than a hundred years of driving experience.

  But it turned out that Gesar had no intention of playing tag with the motorists of Moscow. A moment later the car slipped into the Twilight.

  Any Other can enter the Twilight. And taking someone else with you, or carrying something in, is a simple technical matter.

  But to drag an entire car into the Twilight!

  “Remember the way we rode into the Twilight on a battle elephant?” Olga suddenly asked with a laugh.

  Was she joking or serious? Who could tell . . .

  Now we were hurtling along through Twilight Moscow. The first layer is the one closest to reality. Here there are even buildings, cars and people. Everything is gray, dull and slow—but still real. Almost real, that is. Except that blue moss has been added to the roads and the walls of the buildings . . .

  Our car had changed radically too. The old but sturdy German automobile seemed to melt: its dimensions shifted, the interior became far more old-fashioned, the wheel in Gesar’s hands shrank and became slimmer, with a glittering nickel rim on the inside and a rampant-deer emblem in the center. A similar figure of a deer sprang up out of the bonnet. The instrument panel bulged out, thrusting towards Gesar a semicircular speedometer with four tiny square dial-plates lurking under it. At its center the basic on-board computer was replaced by an absolutely primitive two-band radio receiver, and in front of me a primeval mechanical clock appeared.

  “Yes,” said Gesar, “I prefer Russian cars. A Series 2 Volga. My faithful old warhorse. Please don’t tell anyone about it—I know what you humorists are like . . .”

  It wasn’t just a facade—I could smell the leather upholstery, and I started slipping about on the shiny seat. Well, would you believe it . . . I didn’t even know the Soviet automotive industry had ever made a Volga with a leather interior and automatic transmission . . . maybe it even had airbags in it . . . they could certainly come in useful!

  That boss of ours! Riding around in an ancient Volga and disguising it as a decent old “Beemer!” I wouldn’t have expected that kind of secretive patriotism from him, to be honest . . . or maybe it wasn’t patriotism, just conservatism?

  But then, as a general rule, patriotism and conservatism are inseparable.

  Gesar swung the wheel, swerving away from a Range Rover standing in the middle of the road. It was a strange-looking kind of vehicle—hung all over with advertising slogans and rotted right through, with its engine falling out of the chassis. This informational phantom probably hadn’t existed in the real world for a long time already, but it was still decaying here in the Twilight—that’s what happens with objects when they’ve been a focus of human attention for a long time, for whatever reason. The result of some kind of road accident
, maybe?

  “No, we need to go deeper,” Gesar suddenly decided.

  This time he really did amaze me. He groaned—and the world around us turned completely colorless.

  We were on the second level of the Twilight.

  All the buildings became wooden—I must say that wooden buildings nine or ten stories high look really strange. The road turned into a winding country track covered in tussocky grass. The people almost disappeared: here on the second level they were barely even visible. Everything was gray. Instead of cars there were little clouds of steam hanging above the road—as if someone had breathed out, emptying his lungs on a cold day . . .

  Well, and of course, it turned very cold.

  And the car changed again.

  Very noticeably and for the better.

  The deer, arched over in its leap on the bonnet, was transformed into a young woman with wings.

  I gazed for a while at the emblem of two intertwined Rs, then asked:

  “So you prefer Russian automobiles then, Boris Ignatievich?”

  Gesar dove the Rolls-Royce Phantom hard over the empty roads, hurtling nonchalantly straight through the clumps of steam and the human shadows. Most people wouldn’t notice anything. Some would sense a chill on their skin and feel a blank, hopeless yearning for something glorious and enthralling—some experience that life had never granted them. In cases like that Americans say: “Someone just walked over my grave.”

  But the reality is actually even more chilling—at that instant an Other has just walked or driven straight through you.

  “Everyone lies, Anton,” Gesar said suddenly. “Everyone lies.”

  So apparently he did watch TV after all.

  And his conservatism wasn’t equivalent to patriotism either.

  “A really fine car,” he admitted. “That’s just between the two of us, of course.”

  We traveled through the second level at the same speed as in the ordinary world. Except, of course, that there weren’t any traffic jams blocking our way. But that wasn’t what interested Gesar. The important thing was that time passed far more slowly here than in the real world—we would reach Semyon literally a minute after the phone call.