Seekers of the Sky
Sergey Lukyanenko
 A renowned thief named Ilmar the Slick is captured and sent to a penal colony, sentenced to mine iron for the rest of his life on the Isles of Sorrow. On the prison ship, he meets a teenager named Mark. He soon discovers that Mark knows the Word and keeps a dagger on it, among other things. Using this knowledge, Ilmar comes up with an escape plan and puts it into motion when the ship arrives to its destination. However, they are unable to get off the island, as the local administration takes radical and over-the-top measures to catch the escapees, which makes Ilmar wonder what is really happening. Mark reveals that he is the reason, as he was sent to the mines by mistake; his true sins are much more serious (he refuses to explain further, although Ilmar realizes that the boy is of noble blood). Ilmar and Mark then sneak onto the island airstrip, as the only other way out is blocked by a State warship. They find only one glider on the strip. It belongs to Helen, who has brought a warrant for Mark's arrest to the island. Ilmar and Mark force Helen to fly them to the mainland. Helen does as she is told, but her glider crashes on landing. As both Ilmar and Helen are in worse condition than he is, Mark departs. However, before leaving, in return for rescuing him, Mark grants Ilmar the title of the Count of the Isles of Sorrow. After Mark's departure, Helen helps Ilmar recover by having sex with him (he is pretty much helpless at that point). After his recovery, Ilmar secretly arrives to Amsterdam. There he finds wanted posters of him and Mark, whose real name is Marcus. Marcus is a junior prince of the House (official title of the Possessor's bastard children). Ilmar is discovered and nearly caught by officer Arnold, but the thief manages to escape and hide in a church. There he discovers that the Church of the Sister is carrying out a separate investigation and search for Marcus. Ilmar, as a valuable witness, is sent to Urbis (possibly, Rome) to meet with the head of the Church to give his statement. He is escorted out of the cordoned off city by a paladin. Unfortunately, their stagecoach is intercepted by a party of clerics (headed by another paladin) from the Church of the Redeemer, whose orders are to kill Ilmar and Marcus. In the ensuing fight, both paladins kill each other, and Ilmar manages to slip away. Shortly after that, Ilmar accidentally encounters Jean, who recognizes Ilmar as the escaped thief, but lets him go, as he has fond memories of Marcus. Some time later, Helen finds Ilmar. She explains what is happening. Apparently, shortly before his escape, Marcus stole an ancient (two thousand years old) book from a restricted church archive. The highly-bureaucratic administrators of the archive had no idea about the true value of the book, but informed the heads of the Church just the same. They immediately ordered the immediate recovery of the book, but Marcus has disappeared along with it. The value of the book is the reason why the entire nation is out to get Marcus. However, Helen does not know why the book is so valuable. After discussing their situation, Ilmar and Helen decide that their only chance for survival is to find Marcus and convince him to return the book. After some investigative work, they manage to find the boy, who was hiding in a female monastery as a nun. The mother superior of the monastery, Sister Louisa, is a former lady of the court and hid the boy, as she believes that it is the will of God. Marcus and Sister Louisa meet with Ilmar and Helen. Marcus explains the true value of the book. The book was written by the Sister, one of the Redeemer's disciples, and contains in it the True Word. This information is extremely valuable, as the wielder of the True Word would have access to everything that anyone has ever placed into the Cold, including all the treasures of the world. After learning this, Ilmar and Helen realize that simply giving Marcus up will not spare them, as they will be executed for fear of knowing the True Word. They decide to run and hide. However, officer Arnold manages to find them and attempts to detain Marcus. Then Marcus, as the Redeemer had done in his own time, performs a wonder by putting all the weapons of the guards, including Arnold's revolver, into the Cold without touching them. This convinces Arnold to help the escapees, as he believes that the Redeemer has finally returned. Ilmar, Helen, Sister Louisa, Arnold, and Marcus attempt to leave the State, but they are found. Ilmar stays behind to delay the pursuers. Ilmar is captured by the Church. The head of the Church (analogous to the Pope) interrogates him, after which the thief is thrown into the dungeon of Urbis. Despite this, Ilmar manages to escape, along with Brother Jähns. They arrive to Jean's house, seeking his counsel on what they should do next. There they meet Antoine of Lyon. The four of them decide to search for Marcus together to find if he really is the next Redeemer or the Tempter (the Antichrist). They come to the conclusion that Marcus is going to attempt to reach Judea, the Holy Land. They split up into pairs: Jean with Brother Jähns and Ilmar with Antoine, and agree to meet at Aquincum. At a boarding house, Ilmar and Antoine encounter Bishop Gerard Lightbringer, who recognizes Ilmar. However, he also wants to find out which of the prophesied figures is Marcus, so he helps the escapees and joins their quest. In Aquincum, Bishop Gerard cures a Magyar boy named Peter, who wants to help the trio search for Marcus. While he initially does not know who exactly they are searching for, he soon manages to figure it out. During Bishop Gerard's stay in Aquincum, Baron Fahrid Komarov of the Russian Khanate asks him for an audience. While he claims to be a traveler and a négociant, in reality, he is a Russian spy, as his government has their own interest in Marcus. Eventually, Ilmar and Antoine locate Marcus and his companions. Together, they try to leave Aquincum, but the State's army surrounds the city. With Komarov's help, they use underground tunnels to escape the city and the State into the Ottoman Empire. There, they finally meet Jean and Jähns. Realizing where Marcus has escaped to, the State and the Khanate both demand that the Ottomans capture and extradite the escapees. However, the escapees make their way to an air field and capture two gliders, which they use to get to Judea. The State and the Khanate wish to capture Marcus and the True Word at any cost. They send their elite forces to Judea: the State sends the Grey Vests, an elite praetorian legion, while the Khanate sends the Semetskiy guard regiment. They chase the escapees to the top of Tel Megiddo, but, at the last moment, there is a conflict of interest between the two forces. The Grey Vests and the Semetskiy regiment are almost at each others' throats. However, before they can kill each other, Marcus, who has reached his full potential at the top of the hill, performs the greatest wonder of them all by pulling everything that has ever been stored in the Cold for the last two thousand years.