Сергей Лукьяненко - Day Watch

All right, any attempt to eliminate a future Great Enchantress was quite justified and understandable. But why had Zabulon started scheming against the magician Igor? Why him especially? And why right now, and not earlier, when he was weaker and more careless?

There was only one answer that fit: Igor had only become dangerous after Svetlana had joined the ranks of the Night Watch.

All right. Let's move on.

The resurrection of Fafnir. You couldn't imagine a better time and place than the ones chosen: on the eve of the year 2000, in the center of European necromancy. How was this connected with the Tribunal and the Teplov-Donnikova case?

That was the problem.

Edgar sipped gloomily at his champagne, thinking that he was very short of time-he only had until the evening. So he took the only possible decision: to pay a visit to the local Day Watch office right away and request all available information about the duel between Siegfried and Fafnir, and also study the relevant section of the Necronomicon .

Edgar was a powerful enough magician to know about the mechanism for the resurrection of a great Dark One and understand which of the necessary conditions could be met at present and which couldn't.

The German girl was still sleeping serenely: Edgar took pity on her and didn't wake her up. He washed, shaved, and got dressed, gently touched her sleeping mind, and went out into the morning snow of Prague.

The Day Watch office was located on Vyshegrad, right beside the Valtava River, in the three-story brick building of a private house with a water pump that clearly still worked even though it was so old. The handle of the pump was like a twisted, pointing finger. Following tradition, Edgar got out of his taxi some distance away to give his colleagues a chance to spot him and decide what to do, if anything.

His colleagues were on the ball-they spotted Edgar about three hundred meters from the door. He felt a Light touch on his aura and opened himself up-exactly enough for the magician who was scanning him to realize that a Dark One was approaching, a Dark magician, a second-level Dark magician, coming on business. Just like that, increasing the dose of information each time.

Of course, Prague was a European capital, but it wasn't Moscow. The Beskud on duty-the only guard, as it happened, gave Edgar a toothy smile.

Another Beskud , Edgar thought, surprised. Are they more common in Prague then? This is already the second one …

There were only six Beskuds registered on the territory of the former USSR: two in Turkmenia and one each in the Crimea, Belorussia, Yakutia, and Kamchatka. Edgar knew that for certain, because fifteen years earlier he had a case outside Estonia in which all six of them had testified as witnesses.

The Beskud's Twilight image was almost classical.

"Greetings, colleague!"

"Good morning."

Of course, in the Twilight there were no language barriers.

"What brings you to our bastion? Business? Or simply a courtesy visit?"

"Business. Where's your archive here?"

"The second floor down, and then you'll see for yourself."

The second floor down , thought Edgar. So they have a multilevel basement … "Thank you. So can I go on down?"

"Of course. A Dark One is free to go wherever he wants, isn't that so?"

Edgar sighed. That was right, but not entirely…

"The elevator's over that way," the Beskud told him.

"Thank you," Edgar said again and set off in the direction indicated.

A very, very old elevator took him down to two floors below street level. And that wasn't the deepest level: There were another five hidden under the ground. The Prague Watch was certainly firmly established!

The vestibule in front of the elevator was absolutely tiny: four meters by four. There was a door on the left and one on the right; the plaque on one said "Library" and the plaque on the other said "Computer Room."

Let's start with the library , thought Edgar. In Fafnir's and Al-Hazred's time there weren't any computers… at least not in the modern meaning of the word .

Edgar stepped toward the door on his left. It was closed, but not locked.

It was a classical library: a large hall with about ten tables and long rows of shelves with books. One glance at their spines was enough to understand that these venerable tomes remembered more than many of the Others…

Edgar stopped, and just at that moment an incredibly thin Other emerged from behind the shelves. A vampire. And a Higher Vampire-Edgar realized that immediately.

The ordinary vampires that were quite common in Moscow were the junior members of the team. The cannon fodder that Anton Gorodetsky had mentioned. They had hardly any magic, and even a degenerate Dark magician was still more powerful than they were. But Higher Vampires were a quite different matter, although for some reason there weren't any in Moscow, or anywhere in Eastern Europe-with the exception of the Czech Republic and Romania.

"Good morning. Can I be of any assistance?"

"Good morning. I'm interested in material on one of the magicians of the past."

"Who exactly?" the vampire inquired.

"Fafnir. The Dragon of the Twilight."

"Oho!" the vampire said respectfully. "He was a really mighty magician. One of the most powerful Dark Ones in the entire history of mankind. What exactly are you interested in?"

"The circumstances of his death. The reasons for his duel with Siegfried, the prehistory, the details… In short, I want to make a comprehensive study of this outstanding individual. But unfortunately, I only have a few hours in which to do it. And in addition I'd like to model the operation of bringing him back from the Twilight…"

The vampire smiled sadly. "Unfortunately, that's something that is effectively impossible. It would require interventions of such power and intensity that the right to make them could not be earned even by putting all-let me emphasize that-all the Dark Ones of the world into hibernation for a hundred years."

"Nonetheless," said Edgar, with a sweeping gesture of his hand. "I'd like to solve this problem, if only on paper."

"Then you should take a look at Al-Hazred's Necronomicon ," the vampire advised him. "It describes all the necessary interventions for the rematerialization of essential beings with some precision. Are you a theoretical necromancer?"

Edgar smiled more broadly than before.

"Oh no! I've never really dealt with necromancy at all. But I've developed an interest…"

"Then you did right to come to Prague. People here know their necromancy, and there are any number of specialists… But unfortunately they are all theoreticians, and of course you understand why."

Edgar really did understand why. Because since the Treaty had been signed the Inquisition had only sanctioned rematerialization twice, and both times only temporarily. The Tribunal needed to question witnesses, and sometimes there really was an opportunity to bring a dematerialized Other back from the Twilight. Such opportunities had been exploited twice, but after questioning, the witnesses had gone back to the Twilight.

Edgar couldn't believe that a magician of Fafnir's level hadn't set up some loophole in advance to allow for his own rematerialization. He must have done it once he reached a certain level- as a matter of fact, Edgar was hoping to reach that level himself some day. He hoped with equal justification never to allow himself to be dematerialized, but life was such a strange business. It was always throwing up surprises, especially in conditions of continuous war.

"Go on through," said the vampire, indicating the tables. "I'll bring the books in a moment. I believe it's not the human experience of the time that interests you, but the chronicles of the Others. Is that so?"