“A trial,” I said, shrugging. “He didn’t have time to actually do anything—he’ll get five to ten years’ deprivation of rights. That means living without magic.”

“Well, that’s not so terrible,” said Pastukhov, relaxing.

“You think so?” I sighed. “Ah, but it is—if you’re already used to it— And he is.”

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

GESAR LOOKED AT ME WITH AN EXPRESSION OF AFFRONTED amazement. No, he wasn’t just affronted, he was seriously disappointed. That was probably the kind of look a great artist would give his pupil if he found out the pupil had been stealing his brushes and paint and had drawn moustaches on several pictures of lovely ladies just for the fun of it.

“Why?” Gesar asked bitterly, flinging my old minidisc player down on the desk in anger. “Why the hell didn’t you give me the prophecy straight away?”

“Because it’s too dangerous,” I explained. “I didn’t want to get the entire leadership of the Watch involved in this business. The Tiger would have come—”

“And eaten us all up,” Gesar snorted. “I can’t see anything terrible in the prophecy.”

“Really?” I asked, astonished.

“It doesn’t actually forecast anything at all,” Gesar said calmly. “All it does is articulate the possibility that an Absolute Enchantress is capable of destroying the Twilight. You don’t think that’s news to me, do you?”

Now it was my turn to gape at the boss in absolute disbelief.

“It’s simply axiomatic,” Gesar continued. “An absolute force is capable of destroying everything. Doesn’t it frighten you that your daughter is capable of blowing up the planet?”

“What?” I bleated lamely.

“Blow it up. Incinerate it. Flood it. And all exclusively by magical means—she draws Power from an effectively infinite source, she has enough to do all that. And she can destroy the Twilight the same way.”

“How?” I asked.

“Maybe collapse all the levels together,” Gesar explained casually. “Then the whole world would be overgrown with blue moss and a second moon would appear in the sky—although most of the time it would be hidden from sight by the fluorescent clouds. Basically, there would be an incredible transposition of spatial dimensions. One hell of a cataclysm. Maybe magic would be preserved if that happened, or maybe not . . . But there is a second possibility, also quite likely. The world won’t change, but we won’t be able to enter the Twilight. The level of magic will start to decline . . . and then, even in this case, there are various alternatives.”

He got so carried away that I realized he’d been wanting to talk all this over with someone for a long time.

“I, for instance, believe that magic would be completely lost to people,” he explained. “But Zabulon believes the opposite—that those people with the highest magical temperatures, who nowadays don’t possess even the weakest of clairvoyant abilities, would become Great Magicians!”