Then we could take that as a starting point.

Now for the other prophecy. The one that was shouted into a hollow tree by a quite different boy who lived in Britain a long, long time ago. A prophecy that had been slumbering, stored away in a wooden chalice for almost three hundred years.

Did it have anything to do with me?

Or did it announce the independence of the United States of North America, the discovery of penicillin, or the sinking of the Titanic?

No. In matters such as prophecy, there was no such thing as coincidence. If it had come into my hands, if I had guessed—of course, if I really had guessed . . . how I could hear it . . .

These were two links in a single chain.

But between them was a third link, the prophecy about the Absolute Enchantress Nadezhda . . .

And I didn’t have any options. I was a cat who had been smeared with mustard under his tail—and I was going to lick it off, with passion and with gusto.

Because my daughter’s fate was at stake.

And because I really didn’t like the dream that I had had, about Nadya screaming at me with hate in her voice: “Daddy, what have you done to us?” And it wasn’t just a dream generated by nervous stress, a drop of strong drink, and a song about a magician who was a poor student of his art that had surfaced from my subconscious. It was a case of precognition, what ordinary people call a “prophetic dream.”

I got out of bed quietly, so as not to wake Svetlana. The bed creaked treacherously and I froze, but my wife didn’t wake up. I went to the sitting room, closed the door to the bedroom, and switched on a dim standard lamp.

In a modern home, if you don’t happen to be a fanatical opponent of progress, and especially if you’re keen on gadgets, there are many electronic devices capable of carrying information. All of them at my home had been checked. The desk PC and the laptop. And Nadya’s netbook. And Svetlana’s tablet. And the mobile phones. And the alarm clock, on which you could record your own music to wake you up. And all the flash sticks. And the answering machine on the landline phone. Even the teddy bear that had a chip in it with the phrase “I love you, Nadenka” recorded on it by Svetlana had been checked—with apologies. They hadn’t forgotten my MP3 player, either.

Many Others, especially those who have been alive for more than a hundred years, have a pretty poor grasp of electronics and modern technology in general. In this respect, Gesar is a sophisticated Other, a smart guy who tries to get some idea of what’s what.