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 Black Magicians into their insane attack on the Inquisition was a promise to resurrect Fáfnir. Naturally the old magicians, who had known Fáfnir when he was alive, had agreed – it was just about their last chance of victory. The young magicians had followed of course, … all those young Finns of African and Asian origin, collected one at a time – they were too isolated in their own little world, they thought of what was happening as a game, not an outrageous crime.
But what had Zabulon been after?
No. Anton didn’t understand a thing. He shook his head and accepted his inability to fathom what was going on. Well then, he’d just have to do the job he’d been given. 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 an article about the Italian custom of throwing old things out of the window and other amusing European New Year rituals. The only thing Edgar took away from the opening paragraphs was a firm determination not to wander down narrow old Italian streets at New Year.
The smooth hum of the turbines set his thoughts vibrating in sympathy. And despite himself, Edgar’s thoughts turned once again to his mission and the constant conflict between the Light and the Dark.
All right, he thought. Let’s take it from the beginning.
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 immediately be made good. It would take time – not years but decades. Zabulon’s obvious move should be to build on success right now, without giving the Light Ones time to re-gather their strength. To dash to victory while the enemy was still stunned.
What could weaken the Light Ones and strengthen the Dark Ones right now? When 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 again regretted he hadn’t brought his laptop with him. He could have weighed up the possible variants, run through all the White Magicians of any real power and tried to identify their weak points. There was even a specialised program, 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 considered, the 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 honour either to the tricky Olga, an old specialist in combat operations, but who had only just returned from being out of the game herself; or to Ilya, a first-grade magician. But Edgar suspected that was not the limit of Ilya’s abilities. Eventually, he could in all likelihood develop his powers and become a Great Magician, but such metamorphoses require 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 tackle now?
Like Stirlitz, the Russian spy at Nazi HQ in the cult seventies film, Edgar pulled down his tray table and calmly sketched two symbolic portraits on napkins – a shapely female silhouette and a narrow face in spectacles. Olga or Ilya?
Olga. Intelligent, experienced, perceptive, worldly wise and cynical. Edgar didn’t know her exact age, but it was reasonable to suspect that she was at least twice as old as he was. Edgar didn’t know her true power – he’d never had a chance to test it to make sure. And to be quite honest, he didn’t really want to try. To deprive her of her powers again would certainly be incredibly difficult – if you’ve just been released from imprisonment, you value your freedom very highly. Olga wouldn’t think twice, she’d think a thousand times before taking another risk and ending up in front of a Tribunal. Apart from that, she was Gesar’s long-time lover, and the boss of the Night Watch would certainly take great pains to protect her. In Zabulon’s place Edgar would be wary of offending Olga, for an enraged Gesar was a far more dangerous enemy than the usual Gesar.
Edgar scratched his nose thoughtfully with the end of his felt-tip pen and drew a cross through the female portrait on the napkin.
Ilya. A very powerful magician with the face of a refined intellectual, who wore glasses for some reason, although he could easily have corrected his own sight. Just at the moment he wasn’t in Moscow, or even in Europe. He was somewhere in Sri Lanka – for the last five years or so Light Ones from the Moscow Night Watch had been making trips to Sri Lanka with suspicious frequency. Edgar wondered what they got up to there.
He made a mental note of that – he ought to pass the information on to the analytical section, let them rack their brains over it. Although most likely they were probably already monitoring this anomaly. But what if they weren’t? Edgar would do better to play safe, even if he did make himself look stupid, than to feel sorry later, if no one had paid any attention to the Sri Lanka business.
Ye-es. But if Zabulon was plotting something against Ilya, he would hardly be likely to choose Prague to put his plans into practice at any time in the near future. Unless he could lure him there somehow.
Edgar pushed the napkin away and took a clean one. The last one. He divided it into four with two lines at right angles and began to draw a face in each quadrant. The first three were sketched in sparing strokes but were remarkably vivid, in the style of Bidstrup or Chizhikov.
In Edgar the world had probably lost a fine caricaturist.
Ilya, Semyon … Igor, the defendant at the Tribunal. Should he count him or not? Probably he should, especially since he was now the most vulnerable of all.
Edgar thought for a moment and then drew Anton Gorodetsky in the fourth quadrant. The only one who was still using his surname. But even so, he had already reached second grade, which made him Edgar’s equal. If less experienced.
Which one? Of course it was simplest to exclude Igor. He already had one foot in the shadows of the Twilight.
And then there was Gorodetsky – he was flying to Prague too. But these were only the simplest variations. How many were there altogether?
The mere thought of the theoretically possible number set Edgar’s teeth on edge. Ah, if only he had his laptop and the windows of Richelieu, with its heuristic module …
Stop, Edgar said to himself. Stop. How depressingly one-sided you are, Dark One!
The thought that had occurred to him was simple and surprising.
Eliminating one of their enemies from the game wasn’t the only way to make the Dark Ones stronger. Why not the opposite approach – introducing a powerful Dark One into the battle?
But who was there to swell the all-too thin ranks of the Day Watch? Vitaly Rogoza, whose appearance had filled Edgar with childish delight, had turned out to be no more than a Mirror. And after he’d done everything the Twilight had created him to do, he’d disappeared for ever. Hunt down some promising young recruits? They were looking and they did find a few. But you couldn’t mould any of them into a genuinely powerful Other overnight and the Dark Ones hadn’t come across a prodigy like Svetlana Nazarova for a long time now.