XVIII century. France. Paris. Bastille. Three prisoners learn from their cellmate the centuries-old secret of omnipotence... and witness the sudden death of the narrator. A freethinking aristocrat, a failed writer, an adventurer without roots and without age - which of them is the murderer? Who will outsmart the rest? Who will become the owner of the magic scroll of the ancient order? Each of the heroes, having been released, is ready to fight for possession of the treasure to the end. But the trio is unaware that someone else is laying claim to the relic... A series of mysterious deaths, a string of mystical coincidences, a tangle of incidents. And Paris is seething alarmingly around. And is the scroll of omnipotence destined to become the match that will set fire to the powder keg of the revolution? If this is not the best novel about that era, then which one is better? Who wrote more captivatingly, and with such knowledge of historical realities? We don't know anyone like that.