And so Edgar and I set out on our way feeling well-fed, but slightly irritated. I was irritated by my mother-in-law's ecstatic raptures, and he seemed to be irritated by her attention.

"Can you tell me what the charges against the witch are?" I asked as we approached the edge the forest.

"Well, after all, I suppose we did drink to Bruderschaft," Edgar reminded me. "Why don't we start talking to each other less formally again? Or is my new job…"

"It's no worse than your job in the Day Watch," I chuckled. "Okay, at ease."

Edgar was satisfied with that and he didn't drag things out any longer.

"Arina is a powerful and respected witch… in the witches' own narrow circles. You know how it is, Anton, every group has its own hierarchy. Gesar can mock Witezslav as much as he likes, but as far as vampires are concerned-he's the most powerful there is. Arina occupies a similar sort of position among the witches. An extremely high one."

I nodded. My new acquaintance was no simple witch, no doubt about that…

"The Day Watch asked her to work for them more than once," Edgar continued. "Just as insistently as your side fought for Svetlana… please don't take offense, Anton."

I was not offended in the slightest…

"The witch refused point-blank. Well okay, that's her right. Especially since in certain situations she did collaborate on a temporary basis. But early last century, soon after the socialist revolution, a certain unpleasant event took place…"

He paused uncertainly. We entered the forest. I set off with rather ostentatious confidence, and Edgar followed. Looking absurd in his city suit, the Dark Magician clambered fearlessly through the bushes and the gullies. He didn't even loosen his tie…

"At the time the Night Watch and the Day Watch were fighting for the right to conduct a social experiment," Edgar told me. "Communism, as you know, was invented by the Light Ones…"

"And subverted by the Dark Ones," I couldn't resist remarking.

"Oh, come on, Anton," Edgar said resentfully. "We didn't subvert anything. People chose for themselves what kind of society to build. Anyway, Arina was asked to collaborate. She agreed to carry out… a certain mission. The interests of the Dark Ones and the Light Ones were involved, and even the witch's. Both sides were in agreement with the… mission. They were both counting on winning out in the end. The Inquisition was keeping an eye on things, but there was no reason to intervene. It was all happening with the agreement of both Watches…"

This was interesting news. What kind of mission could it have been, if it was approved equally by the Dark Ones and the Light Ones?

"Arina carried out her mission brilliantly," Edgar continued. "She was even awarded special privileges from the Watches… If I'm not mistaken, the Light Ones granted her the right to use second-level magic.

This was serious stuff. I nodded and took note of the information.

"But after a while the Inquisition began having doubts about the legality of Arina's actions," Edgar said dryly. "The suspicion arose that in the course of her work she had fallen under the influence of one of the sides and acted in its interests."

"And that side was?"

"The Light Ones," Edgar said somberly. "A witch, helping the Light ones-incredible isn't it? That's why it took a long time before they got around to suspecting her, but the circumstantial evidence of treachery was just too strong… The Inquisition summoned Arina for an interview. And then she just disappeared. The search for her went on for some time, but in those times-you know the way things were…"

"But what was it she did?" I asked, not really expecting an answer.

But Edgar sighed and said, "Intervened in the minds of human beings… Total remoralization."

I gulped. What interest could Dark Ones have in that?

"Surprised?" Edgar growled. "Do you have a clear idea of what remoralization is?"

"I've even carried it out. On myself."

Edgar gaped at me, dumbstruck, for a few seconds and then nodded.

"Ah… yes, of course," he said. "Then you don't need too much explanation. Remoralization is a relative process, not an absolute one. Whatever you might say, there is no absolute standard of morality in the world. And so remoralization makes a person act absolutely ethically, but only within the limits of his own basic morality. To put it crudely, a cannibal in the jungle who doesn't think eating his enemy is a crime will calmly continue with his dinner. But he won't do anything that his morality forbids."

"I'm aware of that," I said.

"Well then, this remoralization wasn't entirely relative. The communist ideology was implanted in people's minds… you've probably heard about many of them, but the names aren't important for purposes of the case."

"The moral code of the builder of communism," I said with a wry laugh.

"That hadn't been invented yet," Edgar replied very seriously. "But let's say, something very similar. And these people started to behave entirely in accordance with the idealized model of communist ethics."

"I can understand what the Night Watch's interest was in all this," I said. "The principles of communism are certainly attractive… But where did the Dark Ones' interest lie?"

"The Dark Ones wished to demonstrate that imposing a nonviable system of ethics would not produce anything good. That the victims of the experiment would either go insane, or be killed, or start acting contrary to their remoralization."

I nodded. What an experiment. Never mind those Nazi medics who mutilated people's bodies. It was souls that had gone under the knife here…

"Are you outraged by the Light Ones' behavior?" Edgar asked suggestively.

"No." I shook my head. "I'm sure they didn't wish those people any harm. And they hoped the experiment would lead to the building of a new, happy society."

"Were you ever a member of the Communist Party?" Edgar asked with a grin.

"I was only a Young Pioneer. Okay, I get the idea of the experiment. But why did they bring in a witch to do it?"

"In this case it was far more efficient to use witchcraft than magic," Edgar explained. "The experiment was aimed at thousands of people of every possible age and social group. Can you imagine the forces that magicians would have had to assemble? But a witch was able to do it all by using potions…"

"Did she put them in the water supply or what?"

"In bread. They got her a job in a bread-making plant." Edgar laughed. "She actually proposed a new, more efficient way of baking bread-with the addition of various herbs. And she even won a special bonus for it."

"I see. And what was Arina's interest in all this?"

Edgar snorted. He jumped nimbly over a fallen tree and looked into my eyes.

"Do you have to ask, Anton? Who wouldn't like to fool about with magic as powerful as that? And she even had permission from the Watches and the Inquisition."

"I suppose so…" I muttered. "So, there was an experiment… And the result?"

"As should have been expected," Edgar said, his eyes glinting ironically. "Some of them went insane, took to drink, or killed themselves. Some were repressed-for over-zealous devotion to their ideals. And some found ways to get around the remoralization."

"The Dark Ones were proven right?" I asked, so stunned that I stopped dead in my tracks. "But even so the Inquisition considers that the witch corrupted the spell-acting on instructions from the Light Ones?"

Edgar nodded.

"That's raving lunacy," I said, walking on. "Absolute nonsense. The Dark Ones effectively proved their point. And you say the Light Ones were to blame."

"Not all the Light Ones," Edgar replied imperturbably. "One particular individual… maybe a small group. Why they did it, I don't know. But the Inquisition is dissatisfied. The objectivity of the experiment was compromised, the balance of power was undermined, some kind of very long-term, obscure plan was launched…"