The sorcerer Svet Smoroda, now a career employee of the Novgorod special services, is sent to the port city of Klyuchgrad with the task of investigating the very unusual murder of one of his comrades. There is a version that a Varangian spy had a hand in the murder. Svet is forced to be left alone with a hypothetical enemy, since a suspicion arises that an unusually powerful sorcerer is operating in Klyuchgrad, whose very existence contradicts everything that Svet and his colleagues were taught at the school of wizards. In addition, domestic magicians begin to weave intrigues around the World, for whom Smoroda crossed the road in terms of career growth...