And moreover, Gesar didn’t use an ordinary spell like the Sphere of Negation or other similar ones. We were entirely invisible. We were an empty space, hurtling along the road like a draft, a void as far as any other driver could see.

To be quite honest, this is pretty stressful, even when the driver at the wheel is a Higher Magician who could well have more than a hundred years of driving experience.

But it turned out that Gesar had no intention of playing tag with the motorists of Moscow. A moment later the car slipped into the Twilight.

Any Other can enter the Twilight. And taking someone else with you, or carrying something in, is a simple technical matter.

But to drag an entire car into the Twilight!

“Remember the way we rode into the Twilight on a battle elephant?” Olga suddenly asked with a laugh.

Was she joking or serious? Who could tell . . .

Now we were hurtling along through Twilight Moscow. The first layer is the one closest to reality. Here there are even buildings, cars and people. Everything is gray, dull and slow—but still real. Almost real, that is. Except that blue moss has been added to the roads and the walls of the buildings . . .

Our car had changed radically too. The old but sturdy German automobile seemed to melt: its dimensions shifted, the interior became far more old-fashioned, the wheel in Gesar’s hands shrank and became slimmer, with a glittering nickel rim on the inside and a rampant-deer emblem in the center. A similar figure of a deer sprang up out of the bonnet. The instrument panel bulged out, thrusting towards Gesar a semicircular speedometer with four tiny square dial-plates lurking under it. At its center the basic on-board computer was replaced by an absolutely primitive two-band radio receiver, and in front of me a primeval mechanical clock appeared.

“Yes,” said Gesar, “I prefer Russian cars. A Series 2 Volga. My faithful old warhorse. Please don’t tell anyone about it—I know what you humorists are like . . .”

It wasn’t just a facade—I could smell the leather upholstery, and I started slipping about on the shiny seat. Well, would you believe it . . . I didn’t even know the Soviet automotive industry had ever made a Volga with a leather interior and automatic transmission . . . maybe it even had airbags in it . . . they could certainly come in useful!

That boss of ours! Riding around in an ancient Volga and disguising it as a decent old “Beemer!” I wouldn’t have expected that kind of secretive patriotism from him, to be honest . . . or maybe it wasn’t patriotism, just conservatism?

But then, as a general rule, patriotism and conservatism are inseparable.