Edgar couldn't understand.

What else was required for the resurrection of the Dragon of the Twilight? A second-or third-level magician in the right place... But what place was that?

Edgar spent about ten minutes calculating the answer from the stars and the shifting foci of energy. It was a problem of average difficulty: Fafnir had been cast down into the Twilight in the north of Europe... So, the most convenient place to rematerialize him on the cusp of the years 1999 and 2000 was... He had it.

Edgar wasn't very surprised by the result. The Czech Republic. Prague.

Edgar was immediately struck by a dark sense of foreboding. A Dark magician of the required level in the right place... In Prague...

That was him! Edgar the Estonian!

Edgar wiped away the cold sweat that had sprung out on his forehead and went back to his reading.

Not every magician would suit for Zabulon's purposes. For instance, the object of the castling move had to have been born in a specific place. It was rather unclear... What place exactly? When he figured it out it was Scandinavia, northern Germany, or the Baltic region.

The Baltic.

The chief of the Moscow Day Watch had suddenly summoned an Estonian to work in the Russian capital... And Edgar hadn't been able to see any obvious need for it...

Who else was there who had been born in Scandinavia, northern Germany, or the Baltic region and was in Prague just then?

No one. Only Edgar.

That was what Yury had warned him about before he flew to Prague. This had to be it. What else could it be?

All right. Easy now, easy. Just don't start getting nervous. Forewarned is forearmed. What else does the Necronomicon have to tell us?

Right, another four Dark Ones were required to form the Cir-cle of Resurrection. Well, that was clear enough. The Circle was a kind of portal supported by the Power of the four Dark Ones, who were referred to very elegantly as their horses of Darkness.

And the hors.e.m.e.n were red, black, white, and pale. The precise scenario of the Apocalypse. Point for point.

And there were even magicians in Prague who would suit, although there were only three of them now-the Regin Brothers, who happened to be red-haired (the Asiatic), black (the African), white (the Slav), and pale (the Scandinavian that Gesar had killed).

Zabulon himself had said that this group had a place in his plans. Now Edgar could reasonably foresee what exactly those plans were. And Zabulon wasn't likely to be stopped by the absence of the fourth horseman.

Edgar studied the section of the Necronomicon to the end and discovered another two details that were small but, in the general context, important. Because Fafnir was a dragon, the canonical form of his resurrection should be to emerge from the sea-only that wasn't absolutely essential. What was essential was to make a sacrifice to the sea. In advance. Anywhere at all-it could be in China, or in the Falkland Islands.

Or even in the Crimea.

The person sacrificed was supposed to be "a youth or a maiden." No longer a child, but not yet an adult.

Artek, Edgar thought immediately. The boy who drowned because of the duel.

And then again, if Zabulon had set his sights on Edgar as the second figure in his castling move, then during the final twenty-four hours-no matter where Zabulon might be-he had to find an image of Edgar. A portrait or photograph. More likely a portrait. And keep this image with him. Until the moment when the move was made.

That was all-the library had no more help to offer Edgar. He hastily thanked the vampire librarian and hurried across to a computer.

Of course, he could have simply phoned Moscow. But a phone call was easy to trace, and Edgar didn't want to show his hand too soon. And he was absolutely certain that Alita was chatting on one of the IRC channels right at that moment.

The young IT manager-either a weak magician or a wizard-was glad to show him how to get onto the Internet.

Edgar thanked him, and the young guy instantly stuck his nose into his own notebook computer, with its screen full of machine code. He was programming the old-fashioned way, without any of those newfangled Delphi Windows.

Edgar launched miRC and connected in the usual way to the Getborg DALnet server, with the funny cow in its logo (of course, the cow was drawn in pseudo-graphics-with letters and numbers). He identified himself, but he didn't log into any of the channels. He selected "Query" from the menu and put in the name he was interested in: Alita.

A new window opened.

What Edgar was most afraid of was a curt phrase appearing in the status window, saying: "No such name or channel."

But the Darkness was merciful-the reply came almost instantaneously. And from the right

"Edgar, hi! Are you in Prague?"

"Yes. Alita, I have an urgent question... it's rather strange.

And not for everyone's ears. Will you help me?"

"Do you need to ask, Edgar? Of course."

"Have you been in the chief's office during the last few days?"

In general, the likelihood of any witch being summoned by Zabulon himself was pretty low, but he had to start somewhere...

"Yes, I have, why?"

Well, well, Edgar thought to himself. I guessed right!

He typed in: "You didn't happen to notice if he had a photograph or portrait of me in his office, did you? On the desk, for instance..."

"How did you guess?"

And Alita sent him a generous scattering of smiley faces to symbolize her good mood.

"After you left the chief commissioned two drawings. Your portrait and a picture of a dragon. They're both standing in frames on his desk. I went to the arts and crafts salon on Tverskaya Street to get the frames. The chief gave me a bottle of Veuve Cliquot as a reward!"

Edgar closed his eyes. That was it. The final touch for the planned switch of pieces. Your death sentence, Edgar the Estonian Now what are you going to do?

"Thanks, Alita," he typed in with wooden fingers. "Got to run I'm snowed under with work..."

"Cheers, Edgar. Kiss!"

Edgar didn't even want to look at the smiley faces. He closed the window on the screen and got up from the table The young programmer glanced at him from behind his note book. "Is that it?" he asked without any real surprise.

"Yes," Edgar replied. "Thanks."

He reached the exit without thinking about anything-hi; head felt strangely dull and empty.

He'd been specially selected, like a cow for the Christmas kebabs. A reasonably powerful magician from the Baltic. He'd been lured in and treated well. Allowed to run things for a little while-in the Moscow Watch, not some dull backwater. But all the time he'd been nothing more than a sacrificial cow, who would be slaughtered when the right moment came. Used, just like a thing Swapped, like a mindless chess piece.

After all, the game went on forever-it was only the presence of the pieces on the checkered board that was temporary.

But so what? If the time had come for one more black queen to join the game, did that mean it was pointless for the rook hastily drafted in from the periphery to dig in and clutch hard at the slippery surface of the board?

Oh no! thought Edgar. I may not be a queen, but I'm certainly not a p.a.w.n. And I don't want to leave the board that easily. I'm going to kick up a fuss. And if I can manage it, I'll save half of Europe some serious problems.

If all else failed, there was the Inquisition. Something told Edgar that the gray-robed officials were unlikely to be pleased by the i.e. of a visit from the Dragon of the Twilight.

Festive Prague seemed to have disappeared, faded, and receded into the distance. Edgar caught a taxi and rode to the hotel he needed without once looking out the window. He paid the driver automatically and walked into the vestibule, giving the doorman a look that probably made him wish he could disappear through the granite slabs of the floor.

Edgar strode toward the elevators so rapidly that his unb.u.t.toned raincoat almost fluttered behind him. He walked toward the suite that he knew from his intuition as an Other.

Then he suddenly stopped as if he'd run into something and swallowed convulsively.

The Finns had just come out of the bar. The Regin Brothers. All four of them. Four, not three-the Chinese, the African, and the Slav had been joined by a genuine Finn, the one everybody had thought was dead.

But there he was, alive and well.

But of course-why would Gesar have wanted to kill a witness?

No doubt the artist is overwhelmed by a whole range of inexpressible feelings when he puts in place the final piece of gla.s.s in a mosaic. But what are you supposed to do when the gla.s.s pieces of the mosaic form the spa.r.s.e words of your own death sentence?

"Brother!" one of the Finns said triumphantly to Edgar. "We want to thank you and the Day Watch of Moscow for your support. Why don't you join us? We're celebrating the survival of our brother Pasi-everybody thought he was dead."

The genuine Finn gave an embarra.s.sed smile, his entire appearance showing how touched he was by his comrades' concern.

"Congratulations..." Edgar said in a hollow voice, although there wasn't really anything to congratulate them on-all four of them would be certain to die at Fafnir's resurrection.

"Brother Dark One..." Seeing Edgar's hesitation, the magician stopped pressing him. "Do you happen to know...

the Light One who is also a defendant... why did he call us four horses?"

His colleagues all began nodding indignantly.

"Are we ent.i.tled to regard it as an unjustified insult?" the leader of the Regin Brothers asked hopefully.

"No," Edgar replied. "It's worse than an insult-it's the truth."

And he sprinted for the elevator.

Chapter six.

-?- By midday Anton had given up.

He and Igor hadn't drunk any more vodka, despite its remarkable ability to stimulate the imagination. Coffee already made him feel sick. And he didn't feel like drinking any of the wonderful Czech beer either.

Igor was standing by the window with a gla.s.s of Dannon drinking yogurt in his hand. He shook his head at Anton's latest suggestion. "No, come on. What sort of dragonslayer would I make? And I thought we'd abandoned the Fafnir scenario?"

"But what if it's right after all?"

"It makes no difference. It's a battle of magic, not a duel with a fire-breathing dragon..." Igor chuckled and added cynically. "And anyway, in a fight between Fafnir the Dragon and a pair of modern battle helicopters, I'd put my money on the choppers. There's no point in any more guessing, Anton. We won't come up with anything."

"But even so, Igor, you're the key."

"But what can we do about it? n.o.body ever tells keys which doors they're going to open. Anton, I'm a perfectly ordinary Other. Only Zabulon knows what makes me so important. And Gesar probably knows too. He'll come upstairs and join us in a moment, then we can ask him."

Anton looked through the Twilight and said enviously: "Seriously? Is he already close? I can't sense him..."

"I can't sense him either: I just saw them through the window, walking into the hotel."

There was a gentle tap at the door. Just a token gesture of politeness, no more than that, and a moment later the visitors entered through the Twilight. Gesar, his silent shadow Alisher, and Svetlana. Svetlana was led through the Twilight by the magicians, and she only saw Anton when all three of them emerged from the Twilight into the human world. She smiled and gave a slightly guilty shrug, as if to say: "Just look what I'm like now." Once again Anton was overcome by a miserable feeling of guilt and tenderness, mixed with shame and anger at himself.

Even though he'd had no other option but to let the Mirror take away all of Svetlana's Power... And the most important thing was that as a result, Svetlana was still alive... But he couldn't rid himself of the cursed feeling that the game had been lost.

Could Igor really have similar feelings when he remembered Alisa? Similar, but far more bitter? In that case Anton could only be surprised and delighted that he was still alive.

"Good afternoon, lads..." Gesar said in a soft voice.

He was wearing a modest, inexpensive suit and plain tie, looking like a run-of-the-mill businessman who bought his clothes from Marks and Spencer and always sent his employees modest presents for Christmas. In this case, of course, Gesar regarded himself as the very best present...

"h.e.l.lo, Boris Ignatievich," said Anton. He couldn't bring himself to call this afternoon good. "h.e.l.lo, Alisher."

He and Sveta simply exchanged glances again and he took her by the hand and led her across to a chair, as if she were an invalid... It was awful.

"Good afternoon, boss," Igor said calmly. "I'm glad to see you. h.e.l.lo, Sveta. Hi, Alisher."

Gesar's bodyguard (that is, of course, if it was really possible to regard a third-level magician as a bodyguard for a Great Magician)-or, perhaps more accurately, his orderly, the son of a devona and a human woman-Alisher nodded to the magicians without speaking and moved into the corner of the room, where he froze with his arms crossed on his chest and partially withdrew into the Twilight. Anton sensed that Alisher's ability to observe in the Twilight had been heightened artificially, clearly by the boss. And he also noticed that the young magician was trying not to look at Igor. That was another crazy tangle-Alisher's father had been killed by Alisa Donnikova. And even though he hadn't been a human being or an Other... it was hard to formulate the precise status of a devona, a faithful helper of the Great Magicians. The devona himself did not perform any great feats of heroism, that was not his job. He merely served the heroes, removed minor obstacles from their path. And he strengthened family ties, facilitating the birth of great heroes...

Anton caught his breath.

As a rule, werewolves' children inherited the ability to transform, while magicians' children only became Others very rarely. But how did it work with devonasl Who was Alisher: simply a magician or a devona like his father, who had been Gesar's a.s.sistant in Central Asia for many centuries? And what did the boss need the young Uzbeki magician for? Was it only for sentimental reasons that Gesar had taken him into the Moscow Watch and made him his retainer?

"Anton!"

He looked at Svetlana and only then realized that he was squeezing her hand too hard. "Sorry..."

Gesar was standing in front of Igor, looking into his eyes. He looked for a long time without saying anything. Then he sighed and walked away to a chair, hunched over and looking limp. He sat down and lowered his face into his hands.

"Boris Ignatievich," said Igor, "forgive me."

"No!" Gesar barked, with his hands still over his face, "I won't forgive you! So what if you fell in love with a witch? I won't condemn you for that-that's destiny. But you've given up on yourself-don't expect any forgiveness for that!"