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Back New Watch Save as PDF
Chapters (37)
  1. Dedication
  2. Epigraph
  3. Part One - Dubious Intent
  4. Prologue
  5. Chapter 1
  6. Chapter 2
  7. Chapter 3
  8. Chapter 4
  9. Chapter 5
  10. Chapter 6
  11. Chapter 7
  12. Chapter 8
  13. Part Two - Dubious Times
  14. Prologue
  15. Chapter 1
  16. Chapter 2
  17. Chapter 3
  18. Chapter 4
  19. Chapter 5
  20. Chapter 6
  21. Chapter 7
  22. Chapter 8
  23. Part Three - Dubious Doings
  24. Prologue
  25. Chapter 1
  26. Chapter 2
  27. Chapter 3
  28. Chapter 4
  29. Chapter 5
  30. Chapter 6
  31. Chapter 7
  32. Chapter 8
  33. About the Author
  34. Also by Sergei Lukyanenko
  35. Back Ad
  36. Credits
  37. About the Publisher

A sect . . . Maybe it really could be. One that had been sitting quietly, doing nothing for a couple of centuries, waiting for a prophet. Maybe they wanted him to reveal the meaning of life to them. Sitting there, waiting . . . Pumping artifacts full of energy, training a hunter . . .

A good theory. Exotic, but coherent. I’d have liked to hope that was the way it really was.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

NADYA AND MATHS DIDN’T GET ALONG. LANGUAGES WERE fine, and she did the work herself on principle, without using magic. History was excellent: she found it all very interesting, both human history and Other history. She also read a lot and enjoyed it.

But she had trouble with maths.

We just about scraped through the quadratic equations (you can call me a sadist and bring in the children’s ombudsman, but she went to a school where the program differed from the one approved by the ministry of education). My daughter closed her exercise book with a sigh of relief and climbed onto the bed with a book. I glanced quickly at the cover and decided it must be some kind of Harry Potter clone—it showed an inspired-looking boy working spells (well, that is, with his hands wreathed in blue glowing mist and his forehead wrinkled up grimly). And I went into the sitting room, picked out a Terry Pratchett book, and lay down on the sofa with it.

What more could a middle-aged magician with a family want for perfect contentment at the end of a hectic day? Read about invented magicians while his wife cooks the borscht and his daughter’s doing something quiet and peaceful . . .

“Daddy, so there really are Twilight Creatures after all?”

I looked at Nadya. What was stopping her from reading?

“Probably. I don’t know.”

“And they chase after Prophets?”

“Don’t believe everything it says in fairy tales,” I replied, turning a page. The magician Rincewind had just got himself into yet another scrape, which he would wriggle his way out of, of course. Heroes always wriggle their way out of scrapes, if the author loves them . . . and if he’s not sick of them.

“But they’re not fairy tales!”