Even the very emptiest of the emptiest

Has a false bottom, a false bottom.

Aha. And I would have liked to know what forces rule this world too…

Someone patted me gently on the shoulder.

"I'm not asleep, Sveta…" I said. And opened my eyes.

The Inquisitor Edgar shook his head, smiling reticently. I read his lips: "Sorry, Anton, but I'm not Sveta." Despite the heat, Edgar was wearing a suit, a tie, and polished shoes without a single speck of dust on them. And in these city clothes he still didn't look ridiculous. That's Baltic blood for you.

"What the hell," I barked, tumbling out of the hammock. "Edgar?"

Edgar waited patiently. I pulled the button earphones out of my ears, caught my breath, and declared, "I'm on vacation. According to the rules, harassing an employee of the Night Watch while he is off duty…"

"Anton, I just dropped in to see you," said Edgar. "You don't mind, do you?"

I didn't feel any dislike for Edgar. He'd never be a Light One, but his move to the Inquisition had inspired me with respect. If Edgar wanted to have a word with me, I'd be happy to meet him anytime.

But not at the dacha where Sveta and Nadiushka were on vacation.

"Yes, I mind," I said sternly. "If you don't have an official warrant-get off my land."

And I pointed with an impossibly absurd gesture to the crooked picket fence. My land… what a grand-sounding phrase.

Edgar sighed, and slowly reached for his inside pocket.

I knew what he would take out, but it was too late to start backpedaling now.

The warrant from the Moscow Office of the Inquisition said that "for purposes of an official investigation we hereby command the employee of the Moscow Night Watch, Anton Gorodetsky, Light Magician of the second rank, to afford every possible assistance to Inquisitor of the second rank Edgar." It was the first time I'd ever seen an actual warrant from the Inquisition, and so a few petty details stuck in my mind: The Inquisitors continued to define power in the old-style "ranks," they weren't ashamed to use a phrase like "hereby command," and they called each other only by their first names even in official documents.

Then I noticed the most important part, at the bottom. The seal of the Night Watch and a flourish in Gesar's handwriting: "I have been informed and consent."

How about that.

"What if I refuse?" I asked. "I don't much like it when I am 'hereby commanded.'"

Edgar frowned and peered at the document. "Our secretary's just turned three hundred. Don't take offense, Anton. It's nothing but archaic terminology. Like 'rank'," he said.

"And is doing without surnames another part of old tradition?" I asked. "I'm just curious."

Edgar glanced at the piece of paper, perplexed. He frowned again. Then he said irritably, beginning to draw out his vowels in the Baltic style, "Why-y that old hag… She forgot my surname and she was too proud to ask."

"Then I have good grounds for throwing this warrant on the compost heap." I looked around the plot of land for a compost heap, but didn't find one. "Or down the privy. The instruction doesn't have your surname on it, so it has no force, right?"

Edgar didn't answer.

"And what's in store for me if I refuse to cooperate?" I asked.

"Nothing too serious," Edgar said glumly. "Even if I bring a new warrant. A complaint to your immediate superior, punishment at his discretion…"

"So your intimidating document comes down to a request for help?"

"Yes," said Edgar and nodded.

I was relishing the situation. The terrible Inquisition that green novices used to frighten each other had turned out to be a toothless old hag.

"What's happened?" I asked. "I'm on vacation-do you realize that? With my wife and daughter. And my mother-in-law, too. I'm not working."

"But that didn't stop you going to see Arina," said Edgar, without batting an eyelid.

It served me right. Never, ever, let your guard down.

"That relates to my direct professional responsibilities," I retorted. "Protecting people and monitoring the activities of Dark Ones. Always and everywhere. By the way, how do you know about Arina?"

Now it was Edgar's turn to smile and take his time.

"Gesar informed us," he said eventually. "You called him yesterday and reported in, right? Since this is a nonstandard situation, Gesar felt it was his duty to warn the Inquisition. In token of our unfailingly friendly relations."

I didn't understand a thing.

If the witch was somehow mixed up in that business with Gesar's son… So she wasn't mixed up in it then?

"I have to give him a call," I said, walking away melodramatically toward the house. Edgar remained docilely beside the hammock. He actually squinted at a plastic chair, but decided it wasn't clean enough.

I waited with the cell phone pressed against my ear.

"Yes, what is it, Anton?"

"Edgar's come to see me…"

"Yes, yes, yes," Gesar said absentmindedly. "Yesterday, after your report, I decided I ought to inform the Inquisition about the witch. If you feel like it-help him out. If you don't-just send him you know where. His warrant is drawn up incorrectly-did you notice?"

"Yes, I did," I said, glancing sideways in Edgar's direction. "Boss, what about those werewolves?"

"We're checking," Gesar replied after a brief hesitation. "A dead end so far."

"And something else, about that witch…" I glanced down at the "book about the book." "I requisitioned a rather amusing book from her… Fuaran-fantasy or fact?"

"Yes, yes, I've read it," Gesar said amiably. "Now if you'd found the genuine Fuaran, then you'd have something. Is that all, Anton?"

"Yes," I said, and Gesar hung up.

Edgar was waiting patiently.

I walked up to him, paused theatrically for a moment and asked, "What is the purpose of your investigation? And what do you want from me?"

"You are going to cooperate, Anton?" Edgar exclaimed, genuinely delighted. "My investigation concerns the witch Arina, whom you discovered. I need you to show me how to get to her."

"And what business does the Inquisition have with the old bag of bones?" I enquired. "I don't see the slightest indication of any crime here. Not even from the Night Watch's point of view."

Edgar hesitated. He wanted to lie-and at the same time, he realized that I could sense if he was lying. Our powers were more or less equal, and even his Inquisitor's gimmicks wouldn't necessarily work.

"We have some old leads on the witch," the Dark Magician admitted. "On file from back in the '30s. The Inquisition has a number of questions for her…"

I nodded. I'd been bothered from the beginning by her story about being persecuted by the malicious security police. All sorts of things happened back then. The peasants could have kicked up a racket to try to get even with a witch. But they could only have tried. A trick like that might work with a lower-level Other, but not with a witch of such great power…

"Okay, we'll go see her," I agreed. "How would you like some breakfast, Edgar?"

"I wouldn't say no." The Dark Magician said frankly. "Er… won't your wife object?"

"Let's ask her," I said.

It was an interesting breakfast. The Inquisitor felt out of place and he tried awkwardly to crack jokes, as well as pay compliments to Svetlana and Ludmila Ivanovna, talk baby-talk to Nadiushka and praise the simple omelette.

Clever little Nadiushka took a close look at "Uncle Edgar," shook her head and said, "You're different."

After that she never left her mother's side.

Svetlana found Edgar's visit amusing. She asked him some innocent questions, recalled the "story of the Mirror" and in general behaved as if she was entertaining a colleague from work and a good comrade.

But Ludmila Ivanovna was absolutely delighted with Edgar. She liked the way he dressed and spoke-even the way he held his fork in his left hand and his knife in his right hand made my mother-in-law ecstatic. Anyone would have thought the rest of us were eating with our hands… And the fact that Edgar firmly refused "a little glass for the appetite" provoked a reproachful glance in my direction, as if I were in the habit of gulping down a couple of glasses of vodka every morning.