RU, FR. "Magiosi" (novel, vol. 2: "My Sin is Always with Me", 1999)

Alternate history, urban fantasy; Russia at the beginning of XX century.

The alternative history with magic. Alternative Russia, the end of XIX – the early beginning of XX century. The magic exists in this alternative variant of our world, but all magic actions are un-lawful. And all magicians are considered to be criminal. The special police service called "The Raiding Corps “Barbarian”" traces the magicians (mages) in Russia to put them into jail. The "Barbarians" are unreceptive to magic influences.

The system of magic in this world is unusual. Every mage must have a pupil to be able to cast spell. A mage is powerless without a pupil. A mage signs a special mystical contract with their future pupil. And then when the mage casts some spells, their pupil learns these spells automatically, without an individual process of teaching and learning. The energy needed in the case of "ordinary teaching" is not spent in the case of such "direct teaching". And the "teacher"-mage uses this saved energy for their spell. They have no different source of magic energy.

But all these actions and contracts are not only completely illegal. The system of "direct magic teaching" leads to magic's degradation. Actually a "teacher” prints their own magic "matrix" on their pupil. But a copy is always worse than an original. And a copy of a copy is much worse – and all the following copies are even worse, and worse, and worse... So, in the present time all mages are much weaker than hundreds years or even decades ago.

The main characters of this novel are two mages: a man and a woman, their pupils (a young lad and a young girl) – and a lieutenant-colonel ("half-colonel") of "Barbarian" Raiding Corps, who resists the mages. Two mages without pupils, who were exiled to Siberia for their criminal actions, find themselves in a very dangerous situation. They find new pupils and escape from Siberia to European part of Russia with the help of their magic. Some criminal and magic adventures follow.

At the same time the half-colonel begins a new secret but unlawful police operation of killing magician's pupils in order not to teach new people magic. But during this operation the half-colonel begins to understand, that the magic system of "direct teaching" may be useful in other fields of human activity. Finally he puts a stop to the secret operation, meets the above-mentioned mages with their pupils and offers them collaboration to investigate the magic system of teaching.

But in a process of collaboration with half-colonel the mages and their pupils begin to understand, that spreading "the direct teaching" system in other fields of human activity may lead to the end of the human civilization...

The dynamic plot, interesting entourage of alternative Russia, romantic love story, magic and criminal adventures, some fighting, psychological portraits of the heroes and some philosophical and ethical ideas included.

Published 16 times from 2000 to 2015 (Poland, France, Russia).