Day Watch

There was something to that last idea. Fafnir… the Apocalypse… At least it made some sense of Gesar's remark about mass hysteria over the year 2000. But why would the Dark Ones want to stage the end of the world? And what about all the other things? The witch Alisa… the Chalk of Destiny…

Anton regretted that he didn't have his laptop. It would have been interesting to lay the situation out on the screen, shuffle the variants around and see what fitted with what. There was a standard program called Mazarini for analyzing intrigues, and it would have helped him understand a few things.

The Chalk of Destiny…

He took a gulp of wine, and it turned out to be surprisingly pleasant. Then he frowned. Gesar and Zabulon. They were really the two determining factors in the entire business. They were far more mysterious and complicated than ancient artifacts like the Chalk of Destiny and Fafnir's Talon, or Others like the Mirror and Alisa. They probably understood everything that was going on… and they were trying to outwit each other. As usual.

Gesar.

Zabulon.

The starting point for the analysis probably ought to be the Chalk of Destiny. When Svetlana, the new Great Enchantress, had appeared and joined the Night Watch, Gesar had tried to carry through yet another intervention on a global scale. Svetlana had been provided with the Chalk of Destiny-an ancient and extremely powerful artifact that could be used to rewrite the Book of Destiny and change human life. At first glance it had appeared that Svetlana was supposed to rewrite the destiny of the boy Egor, an Other with an indeterminate aura, inclined equally to the Darkness and the Light, and make him into either a future prophet or a future leader. But, with some assistance from Anton, Svetlana had failed to do this. All she had done was to bring Egor's destiny into equilibrium by removing all the influences exerted on him by the Watches in their struggle against each other.

But of course, there had been more than one level to Gesar's plan, and at the second level another Great Enchantress, his longtime girlfriend Olga, recently rehabilitated after being punished by the leadership of the Light Ones, had recovered her magical abilities and used the other half of the Chalk of Destiny to rewrite someone else's destiny-while all the Dark Ones of Moscow were watching Svetlana.

That was the truth that Anton knew. The second level of truth. But maybe there was a third one?

Okay he'd have to put that on hold for the time being. What had come next? Alisa Do

This wasn't one of Gesar's intrigues. Its ruthless and cynical style bore the signature of the Day Watch. Zabulon had sacrificed his girlfriend… but what had he sacrificed her for? To get Igor out of the way? That seemed strange. It had been almost a straight swap. Alisa Do

So it was one intrigue in response to another…

Then there was the appearance of the Mirror. Gesar was certain it had been impossible to predict, so it must have been a coincidence. But no doubt Gesar and Zabulon had both immediately decided to exploit it… each for his own ends.

Anton suppressed the desire to swear out loud. There just wasn't enough data for an analysis. Nothing but conjectures, blanks, assumptions…

And not much was certain about the Regin Brothers either. They'd been lured to Moscow by Zabulon. Had he wanted to spread panic among the members of the Night Watch? Or feed the Mirror with Power? The only thing that could have lured the Dark magicians into their insane attack on the Inquisition was a promise to resurrect Fafnir. Naturally, the old magicians, who had seen Fafnir when he was alive, had agreed-it was just about their last chance of victory. Naturally, the young magicians had followed… all those young Fi

But what had Zabulon been after?

No. Anton didn't understand a thing. He shook his head and accepted his inability to figure out what was going on. Well then… he'd just have to do the job he'd been given to do. Try to save Igor.

Try to make the charges against the Day Watch stick.

The plane was already making its approach for landing…

The latest issue of National Geographic didn't help Edgar relax. He just couldn't get into the article about the Italian custom of throwing old things out of the window at New Year and other amusing European New Year rituals. The only thing Edgar took away from the leading paragraphs was a firm determination not to go strolling around any narrow old streets in Italy at New Year.

The smooth hum of the turbine engines set his thoughts vibrating in sympathy. And despite himself, Edgar began thinking once again about his mission and the current situation of constant conflict between the Light and the Darkness in the persons of the Others.

All right, he thought. Let's take it from the begi

In recent times the Day Watch had significantly strengthened its position and struck several substantial blows against the Light Ones, inflicting losses that could not be made good on the spot. It would take time-not even years, but decades. Zabulon's natural move should be to build on success right now, without waiting for the Light Ones to gather strength again. To dash to victory while the enemy was still stu

What could weaken the Light Ones and strengthen the Dark Ones right now? After the Night Watch had lost a very powerful and highly promising enchantress? An attempt to take someone else out of the game?

Edgar pondered for a moment and regretted he hadn't brought his laptop with him. He could have weighed up the possible variants, run through all the White magicians with any real skills and tried to identify their weak sides… There was even a special program for that, called Richelieu -the Day Watch wasn't short of qualified programmers.

He would have to rely on his own natural computer-powerful but imperfect.

Who? Gesar was obviously not a candidate; he had already crossed that line beyond which an Other becomes almost invulnerable to his colleagues.

Objectively speaking, number two in the Night Watch hierarchy ought to be Svetlana Nazarova, but she would be out of the game for a long time, so Edgar had to award that honor either to the tricky Olga, an old specialist in combat operations, who had only just come back from being out of the game herself, or to Ilya, a first-level magician. In fact, Edgar suspected that was not the limit of Ilya's abilities. Eventually, he could quite easily develop his powers and become a Great Magician, but metamorphoses like that required time and colossal effort, primarily from the magician himself, and Ilya was still too young to abandon many of the simple, almost human, pleasures of life.

Who then? Olga or Ilya? Which of them should they go for now?

Like Stirlitz, the Russian spy at Nazi HQ in the cult film of the '70s, Edgar pulled down his little table and calmly sketched two symbolic portraits on napkins-a shapely female silhouette and a narrow face in spectacles. Olga or Ilya?