Dusk Watch, known in the English-speaking world as 'Twilight Watch' [1] (Russian: Sumerechniy Dozor, Сумеречный Дозор) is a fantasy novel by Russian writer Sergey Lukyanenko. It's the sequel to The Night Watch and Day Watch and the third part of tetralogy that concludes with Final Watch.
Contents |
Plot
Among us live the Others. They are humans who can enter the Twilight, a shadowy world that exists alongside our real world, and gain unnatural powers from it. As long as they are in the Twilight, Others are drained of their life essence and may be consumed if they remain in it for too long. Others are made up of two distinct groups- the Light Others and Dark Others. A long time ago, the Light and Dark others fought a fierce battle in which neither side could win. In the end, both sides signed a Great Treaty- a set of laws which would govern them and the use of powers. Light Others created Night Watch, to ensure that the Dark Others wouldn't break the Treaty while Dark Others created Day Watch, to watch the Light Others as well. Both sides created Inquisition- an organization which ensures that neither of the two sides become too powerful. The book is separated into three novellas:
Nobody's Time
Anton Gorodetsky is assigned by Gesser to investigate mysterious warning letters sent to both the Watches and the Inquisition. In the letters, a powerful Great Light Other promises a human that they will turn him into an 'Other', which the human deeply desires. However, this is impossible and as such, the Light Other is in danger because refusal to fulfill this human's request means that they will dematerialize in The Twilight. Anton is assigned the case and goes to the Assol, a rich district in Moscow where the letters came from. Vampire Kostya Saushkin has also been assigned to the case, along with Edgar and Vitezislav from Inquisition. Anton discovers that the Light Other who made the promise is Olga, and that the human is her and Geser's child, now a 60 year old businessman. Anton is the first to discover the truth and finds out that yet again he has become an unknowing pawn in Gesar's schemes.
Nobody's Space
Anton takes his wife Svetlana (who left Night Watch) and their daughter on a vacation in a remote area. However, he is asked to check out an incident where werewolves attacked two children. The children were saved by a mysterious woman living in the forest. When describing her house, the girl mentions that she saw a book titled "Fuaran" on the shelf. Anton can hardly believe it, as Fuaran is a legendary and extremely powerful artifact, believed to be lost ages ago or maybe never to have existed at all. According to stories, the book, written by an ancient witch (named Fuaran) contains a spell able to turn an ordinary human into an Other. Anton finds the witch's cottage and the witch, Arina, herself, but not Fuaran - the witch only shows him a book about the legend of Fuaran. She is a co-author of it. Higher powers begin to take interest in the witch. Anton finds out that Arina was exiled after a joint Watch experiment to create a perfect socialist state in the 20s, in which she was given a pivotal role. Instead, all subjects died, supposedly due to the Arina's intentional sabotage of the experiment. Arina manages to escape and cover her tracks. Edgar (an inquisitor) and Anton search her hut, but find nothing of interest.
Nobody's Power
Several days later, Geser receives a cell phone call to go to the hut immediately. After traveling there with Anton through magical means, they meet Kostya, Edgar, Zabulon and Svetlana. Vitezoslav's ashes have been found in a hidden room with no indication of who could have killed him, except that it would have to be someone powerful, as Vitezoslav was a Higher Vampire. At first, they suspect Arina. However, it soon turns out that the Other who killed Vitezoslav and took the book is Kostya, who himself became a Higher Vampire after drinking a blood cocktail he invented (a mix of blood from 12 donors). Apparently, both vampires found the book in the hidden room. Vitezoslav tried it on Kostya increasing his powers exponentially, after which Kostya challenged Vitezoslav to a vampire duel. The loser of such a duel is ashed. His ultimate goal is to travel to the International Space Station and read the book while looking at the Earth from orbit (the spell of Fuaran works on everyone in the caster's range of sight), turning all humans into Others, so at last he will not be different from the rest. All but Kostya realize that this will be a disaster - "you step on someone's foot in a tram, he curses at you; now he can incinerate you." Also, what most Others do not realize is that it is, in fact, humans who emit magical energy. The Others absorb it more than they emit, allowing them to use it. The mage level of an Other depends on the absorb/emit ratio. There were several "zero" Others in history: Jesus (Yehoshua), Merlin (he managed to turn from Light to Dark), and Anton and Svetlana's daughter. Their power is nearly unlimited as all they do is absorb magic. If Kostya manages to turn all humans into Others, the amount of magic energy available will drastically decrease. Kostya makes it to the Baikonur Cosmodrome and mind-controls the humans there to suit him up for the rocket launch. Anton catches up and confronts him, with Geser, Zabulon, and Edgar all linked to his mind. Each is telling him to use a different destructive spell on the vampire. They realize that Kostya is not planning to steal a rocket, as not even the Higher Vampire is capable of launching a rocket into orbit by himself. He is instead planning to open a portal to the space station. As a precaution, he is still putting on a spacesuit. To demonstrate the effectiveness of "Fuaran" to Anton, he uses it on a human, turning him into a low-level Other. What neither Kostya nor Anton realized at the moment was that Anton affected too - as he was standing right in front of Kostya - turning him into a mage without classification (Geser's level). However, when Kostya was about to open the portal, Anton took all the energy he got from Geser, Zabulon, and Edgar ... and spent it to create a shield around himself in order to shield his thoughts from Kostya. What Anton did not want the vampire to realize was that because Kostya was now a Zero Level Other, he would not be able to perform any magic alone in space. Kostya expressed his surprise at such an act of cowardice and opened the portal. Only when the vampire stepped through it did Anton relax - the threat was over. It takes thousands of calculations to put a rocket into orbit. He knew that Kostya could not possibly calculate the exact position of the station. The portal deposited Kostya into orbit, leaving him to float in his spacesuit, unable to perform any magic until he burned up in the atmosphere along with the book.
Characters:
Light Others
Dark Others
Inquisition
See also
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Books by Sergey Lukyanenko (full bibliography)
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| Island Russia: Today, Mom! · Island Russia · Tsar, Tsarevich, King, Prince |
| A Lord from Planet Earth: A Princess Is Worth Death · The Planet which Doesn't Exist · Glass Sea |
| Line of Delirium: Line of Delirium · Emperors of Illusions · Shadows of Dreams |
| Labyrinth of Reflections: Labyrinth of Reflections · False Mirrors · Transparent Stained-Glass Windows |
| The Stars Are Cold Toys: The Stars Are Cold Toys · Star Shadow |
| World of Watches: The Night Watch · Day Watch · Dusk Watch · Final Watch |
| Genome: Dances on the Snow · Genome |
| Seekers of the Sky: Cold Shores · Morning Nears |
| Other fiction: Knights of Forty Islands · Nuclear Dream · The Boy and the Darkness · Autumn Visits · Not the Time for Dragons · Spectrum · Rough Draft |
| Short story collections: H is for Human · Nuclear Dream · Gadget |
