He closed the Fuaran. His heart was pounding in his chest. A great power!

A power that had fallen from a witch's hands and disappeared almost two thousand years ago.

Owned by no one, concealed even from the Others. Nobody's Power.

Chapter 1

I DROVE UP TO THE NlGHT WATCH BUILDING SHORTLY AFTER SEVEN IN THE morning. The deadest time of all-the break between shifts. The field operatives who have been on duty all night have handed in their reports and gone home and, following established Moscow tradition, the headquarters staff won't show up before nine.

They were changing shifts in the watch room, too. The guards on their way out were signing some papers, and those who had just arrived were studying the duty roster. I shook hands with all of them and walked through without any of the required checks. Strictly speaking, it was a breach of regulations… although this guardpost was primarily intended for checking people.

On the third floor the guards had already changed shifts. Garik was on duty here and he made no exceptions for me- he inspected me through the Twilight and nodded for me to touch his amulet: an intricate image of a cockerel made out of gold wire. In reference to Pushkin's tale, we called it "greetings to Dodon"-in theory, if a Dark One touched it the cockerel ought to crow. But there were some wits who claimed that if it sensed a Dark One, the cockerel would speak in a human voice: "How disgusting!"

Garik waited until he was through before he gave me a really friendly smile and shook my hand.

"Is Gesar in his office?" I asked.

"Who knows where he is?" Garik replied.

Yes, that really was a dumb question! Higher magicians move in mysterious ways.

"I thought you were supposed to be on leave…" Garik said, as if my strange question had put him on his guard.

"I got fed up with relaxing. Like they say, Monday begins on Saturday…"

"And you're absolutely whacked…" the other magician went on, growing even more cautious. "Okay, come on… stroke the cockerel again."

I sent another greeting to Dodon, then stood still for a while as Garik checked my aura with some ingenious amulet made out of colored glass.

"Sorry about that," he said as he put the amulet away. And added in a slightly embarrassed voice, "You're not yourself today."

"I was on vacation in the country with Sveta, and a very old witch turned up," I explained. "And there was a pack of werewolves getting a bit out of hand. I had to go after the werewolves, and go after the witch…" I gestured despairingly. "After a vacation like that I ought to take sick leave."

"So that's it," said Garik, calming down. "Put in an application-I think we still have some of our quota left for restoring powers."

I shuddered and shook my head. "No thanks. I'll manage on my own."

After I said goodbye to Garik, I went up to the fourth floor. I stood outside Gesar's reception for a while, then knocked.

No one answered, and I went in.

The secretary wasn't at her desk, of course. The door into Gesar's office was firmly closed. But the little "ready" light was blinking cheerfully on the coffee maker, the computer was switched on, and even the television was muttering away quietly on the news channel. The anchorman was saying that another sandstorm had impeded the American forces in yet another peacemaking mission, overturning several tanks and even bringing down two planes.

"And it beat up all the soldiers and took several of them prisoner too," I couldn't resist adding.

What was this strange habit some Others had of watching TV? Either idiotic soap operas or the lies on the news. There was really only one word for it-people…

Maybe the other word was "cattle?"

But no, it wasn't their fault. They were weak and divided. They were people, not cattle!

We were the cattle.

And people were the grass.

I stood there, leaning against the secretary's desk and looking out of the window at the clouds drifting by over the city. Why was the sky so low in Moscow? I'd never seen such a low sky anywhere else… except maybe for Moscow in winter…

"You can cut grass," a voice said behind my back. "Or you can tear it up by the roots. Which do you prefer?"

"Good morning, boss," I said, turning around. "I didn't think you were in."

Gesar yawned. He was wearing a dressing gown and slippers. I caught a glimpse of his pajamas under the dressing gown.

I would never have expected the Great Gesar to wear pajamas covered with pictures of Disney cartoon characters. From Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck to Lilo amp; Stitch. How could a Great Magician, who had lived thousands of years and could easily read thoughts, wear pajamas like that?

"I was sleeping," Gesar said glumly. "Sleeping quietly. I went to bed at five."

"Sorry, boss," I said. Somehow, no other word but "boss" came to mind. "Was there a lot of work last night?"

"I was reading a book, an interesting one," said Gesar, pressing switches on the coffeemaker. "Black with sugar for me, milk and no sugar for you…"

"Something magical?" I enquired.

"No, dammit, science fiction. Golovachev." Gesar growled.

"When I retire I'm going to ask to be his coauthor and write books! Take your coffee."

I took the cup and followed Gesar into his office.

As usual, several new knickknacks had appeared in there. In one cupboard there were lots of little figures of mice made of glass, tin, and wood and ceramic goblets and steel knives. Propped up against the back wall of the cupboard was an old armed forces reserves brochure with a photograph on its cover of a committee judging a parachute training session, and beside it there was a simple lithograph showing a green forest thicket.

For some reason-I couldn't understand exactly why-it all put me in mind of the primary grades in school.

And hanging up under the ceiling was a gold-colored hockey helmet that looked incredibly like a bald head. There were several darts stuck into it.

I glanced suspiciously at all these items, which might mean something very important, or might mean absolutely nothing at all, and sat down in one of the chairs for visitors. I noticed a book with a brightly colored cover lying in the wire-mesh trash basket. Could Gesar really have been reading Golovachev? But I took a closer look and realized I was mistaken-the title on the book was Masterpieces of World Science Fiction.

"Drink your coffee, it cleans out the brain in the morning," Gesar muttered in the same tone of annoyance. As he drank his own coffee, he slurped-I almost thought that if I gave him a saucer and some sugar lumps he'd start drinking it that way- straight from the saucer…

"I need answers to some questions, boss," I said. "A lot of questions."

"You'll get them," Gesar said with a nod.

"Others are much weaker in magic than ordinary people."

Gesar frowned. "Nonsense. An oxymoron."

"But isn't the magical Power of human beings…"

Gesar raised one finger and wagged it at me. "Stop right there. Don't confuse potential energy and kinetic energy."

Now it was my turn to keep quiet, while Gesar strode around the office with his coffee mug, pontificating in a leisurely fashion.

"First… Yes, all living things are capable of producing magical Power. All living things-not only human beings. Even animals, even grass. Is there any physical basis to this Power, can it be measured with a scientific instrument? I don't know. Possibly nobody ever will know. Second… No one can control his own Power. It dissipates into space and is absorbed by the Twilight-part is caught by the blue moss and part is intercepted by Others. Is that clear? There are two processes-the emission of your own Power and the absorption of Power that is not yours. The first process is involuntary and intensifies as you go deeper into the Twilight. The second is also, to a greater or lesser degree, typical of everybody-both human beings and Others. A sick child asks his mother, sit with me, rub my tummy! His mother strokes his tummy, and the pain goes away. The mother wants to help her child, and she is able to direct part of her Power to produce the directed effect. A so-called psychic, that is, a human being with truncated, castrated Other abilities, is not only able to influence people who are near and dear to him in a spontaneous outpouring of heightened emotion, he can heal other people or even put a curse on them. The Power that flows from him is more structured. No longer steam, but not yet ice-it's water. Third… We are Others. In us the balance of emission and absorption is displaced toward absorption."