The hero of Kontorovich's story has traded his grey police overcoat for the armour of a knight — not by choice, but by circumstance. Our Moscow now seems to him like a ghostly dream. The world that has become his home lags behind by some five hundred years. And there is one more thing: this world has not yet exhausted its reserves of magic.
As long as there is even one Grey Knight in this world, all the forces of Darkness will be directed against him — which means ordinary mortals can live their usual lives in peace: sowing and harvesting, raising children, rejoicing and loving… By becoming Cardinal, he has become a barrier against an all-powerful secret order that ruled people's fates here. And the scales have been tipped once again.