And that was why, for this supremely polite search, he had sent really young Others who weren’t powerful magicians but who understood very well where a microchip with the recording of the prophecy could be hidden.

These young guys had checked everything but had not found anything, although they had special instruments that I’d only seen in the movies, capable of identifying any memory card at a distance even if it wasn’t plugged into anything. I had thanked them—they’d found a couple of flash sticks that I’d lost around the flat a long time ago . . .

But they didn’t find the prophecy.

Naturally. I hadn’t made a copy on an electronic medium. I’m not an idiot.

I opened the drawer of the sideboard, crammed with all sorts of old electronic junk, and took out an old Sony minidisc player. A dead-end branch in the development of electronics, the kind of thing that no one uses now except people who are especially fond of shocking the public (or who are exceptionally thrifty). The battery in it had died a long time ago.

But there was a separate container that could be attached, and I stuck a battery in that, then screwed the container to the player (all fair and square, a sound, reliable screw, not some kind of flimsy clip-on fastening) and pressed the play button. Vysotsky’s hoarse voice started sounding in my earphones:

In remote Murom’s dark, secret, forested parts,

Evil spirits sow fear in all travellers” hearts.

Like wandering corpses, they wail and they howl,

And the birds there don’t sing, they mutter and growl.

Oh, it’s dark and creepy lost in the murk!

In enchanted swamps female hobgoblins lurk,

They’ll grab you and drag you down out of sight.

Fierce wood demons wander the woods day and night.

On foot or on horseback, they’ll give you a fright

Oh, it’s dark and creepy lost in the murk!

Once lost in that deep forest gloom,

Peasant, merchant, or soldier brave,

Drunk or sober, they are all doomed

And there’s no way they can be saved.

Whatever reason brings them there

They all simply vanish into empty air . . .

I didn’t really have to listen, but I did. Right to the end of the song. To the final couplet.

The spirits fought a battle that ended it all,

They all fought to the death, as old graybeards recall,

And that was what made the dread disappear.

Now people go to the forest with nothing to fear

And now it’s not dark and creepy at all!