‘Ah, you saucy thing!’ Arina exclaimed skittishly as she got up. ‘Whatever happens, a man only ever has one thing on his mind!’
I really did like her, after all. Despite her witchy nature . . .
Beside me Nadya had already jumped off Kesha, her entire manner demonstrating that she would rather have fallen into a heap of rubbish than land on some boy or other.
But overall, no one was actually hurt.
‘Daddy, where are we?’ asked Nadya.
I looked round.
A little wooden-walled house with one room. Walls covered with wallpaper that had faded with age. Furnished with a table and a couple of chairs, a sideboard, an iron bedstead with little nickel balls on the headboard – the kind that used to be all the fashion in the 1930s – a ponderous ancient television, bookshelves . . . but almost no books.
That was right, the Inquisition had taken them all away when it cleaned out Arina’s home.
It was strange that they hadn’t burnt the house down.
I said so out loud.
‘Strange that the Inquisition didn’t burn the house. I thought that was standard procedure for a fugitive witch’s home.’
‘They set fire to it. Only it’s not that easy to burn my house,’ Arina replied, straightening her dress. ‘This is my land. The village I come from used to stand here. I was born here and apparently I’ll die here. Burn the house, do whatever you like to it – it will just spring back up out of the ground.’
I believed her.
The house had a well-lived-in feel to it. Apparently Arina must have made her base here, wisely deciding that no one would bother to check the site of her burnt-out home. There was an open packet of cheap sweets on the table, and in the sideboard a carton of milk and half a loaf of white bread, carefully wrapped in a clean rag.
‘But they carried off all the books,’ Arina sighed. ‘I’ve begun restoring my library little by little, but I don’t know myself what for. After all, I won’t have time to finish the job.’
I stepped towards the bookshelves and touched the spine of one of the books.
Aliada Ansata.
The Witch’s Herbal.
None of the others had anything to do with magic. Ten volumes of Pushkin, including two or three volumes printed in his lifetime. The fourth volume of Harry Potter, a collection of Ralph Stout’s detective stories and a little volume of Bunin’s verse, Leaf Fall – also an old pre-revolutionary edition. Apparently witches sometimes simply wanted something to read.
‘I’m sorry, Arina,’ I said sincerely. ‘For your house – and for you.’
‘No need to feel sorry for me,’ she replied calmly. ‘My day is done. Either the Tiger will polish me off or old age will get me, as soon as the magic dries up. It’s easier for you Magicians. You’ll just start to age like everyone else. You’re still young.’
‘Arina, I don’t want to destroy the Twilight,’ I said.
The witch said nothing for a moment. Then she asked: ‘Why not?’
‘For numerous reasons. In short, I don’t believe that the Twilight works evil . . . or only evil,’ I corrected myself.
‘Did the Tiger seem benign to you?’ Arina asked me.
‘None of us are benign when someone’s trying to destroy us.’
‘That’s not what’s bothering you,’ Arina said calmly. ‘It’s something else. What you’ll tell your daughter when she grows up and realises that she could have been a supremely powerful Enchantress, but has become an ordinary human being. The fact that your wife will get old and wrinkles will cover her face and behind every glance there’ll be the question: “Why this?” And you’ll be old and sick too, doddery and gasping for breath, with a stabbing pain in your side, struggling to make ends meet on a meagre pension and groaning over the injustice of the world . . . no longer able to defend yourself, let alone help anyone else. You’ve tried what it’s like living without magic for one evening. And it frightened you.’
I didn’t answer.
‘But you don’t have any choice,’ Arina went on. ‘I know that you like me – not as a woman, but as a person. And I like you. But Wen-yan killed the friend he loved more than himself. Only that could prove to the Twilight that he would keep the secret of the prophecy. And that prophecy probably only promised disaster for a billion Chinese, but ours will kill the Twilight itself. Our prophecy must either die with us or be fulfilled. Any move leads to defeat.’
‘In chess that’s called a zugzwang,’ Kesha put in out of the blue.
I looked at him and asked: ‘But do you know what I should do?’
Kesha looked at me as if I was an idiot and exclaimed: ‘I’m ten years old – how should I know?’
‘In the movies, when things get critical, a little child always suggests a brilliant move to the hero,’ said Arina. ‘Don’t be surprised, Kesha. When grown men don’t know what to do, not only will they ask a child, they’ll even ask a woman . . . Anton, make your mind up. The Tiger won’t take long to find us.’
‘Can you recharge the Sphere?’ I asked, holding out the little ball of marble.
‘It’s completely drained,’ Arina replied after inspecting the artefact. ‘It wasn’t intended for dragging four Others through space. If it isn’t completely dead, it will take at least five years to recover. A pity – it’s unique, it opens a portal from anywhere at all at any time, in any circumstances. No, Anton. You can’t run away any longer.’
‘Can I have a sweet?’ Kesha asked.
‘Of course,’ Arina agreed hospitably. ‘I can give you some bread and milk, too. Nadya, would you like some bread and milk?’
The lad was in a well-balanced state of mind. I wondered what that meant. After all, he was a Prophet, and if we were about to be killed, he ought to foresee it.
So had I made up my mind?
‘I’ll just have a smoke, Arina,’ I said. ‘All right?’
‘The door’s open,’ the witch said calmly as she took an odd assortment of cups out of the sideboard.
‘Aren’t you afraid that the Tiger might be out there already and he’ll just splat me?’ I asked as I opened the door.
‘Well, that would solve all our problems!’ Arina exclaimed. ‘Surely a daughter would avenge her father?’
Nadya looked at me in fright.
‘Daddy, don’t go!’
‘Nadya, don’t be afraid,’ I said. ‘Arina’s right, it doesn’t make sense for the Tiger to kill me. ‘Tell me, can you open a portal?’
Nadya paused for a second, then shook her head.
‘I’m sorry, daddy. It’s like the Twilight’s boiling. It’s all ripples and bubbles . . .’
I couldn’t imagine what she was seeing and where. As far as I could see, the Twilight was still the Twilight. Perfectly normal.
On the first level, at least.
I sighed, opened the door and walked out into the evening forest gloom. Arina’s little house stood right in the middle of the forest, without any fences, vegetable plots or other extravagances. There was only one path that led to it.
The one and only item of convenience here was a fallen tree fairly close by. It had fallen in just the right spot and a few of its branches had been trimmed off, transforming it into a kind of natural bench.
I stood there, looking at the bench and the individual sitting on it.
Then I walked up, sat down beside the Tiger, took out my cigarettes and asked him: ‘Like one?’
The young man in a formal business suit and light-coloured raincoat looked at me for a while without answering. Then he said: ‘Smoking’s bad for your health.’
‘It’s okay for Others,’ I said glibly.
‘If I disappear, your Power disappears too,’ the Tiger reminded me. But he took a cigarette. It lit up on its own in his hand. The Tiger took a drag, removed the cigarette from his mouth, looked at it quizzically and shrugged.
‘Who are you?’ I asked.
‘That’s the wrong question,’ said the Tiger, shaking his hea
d. ‘What’s the point of asking that? You can’t check what I say, can you? I could say that I’m God, when I’m really the devil.’
‘But even so, if you did answer me, what would you say?’
The Tiger looked at me curiously.
‘I’d say that I’m the Twilight. That I’m a person. That I’m a reflection of the consolidated mind of all the people who have become Others, lived their lives and departed – departed into me. That I want to live, although you can’t even imagine what my life is like. That I have my own interests, which you can’t understand. But all of this is just words spoken for you.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Good. Then tell me, what do you want?’
‘The wrong question again!’ said the Tiger, frowning. ‘The wrong one! But if you want an answer, then my reply is that I want to live. Simply live.’
‘Why do you kill the Prophets?’
The Tiger took his time answering this one. And I suddenly noticed that the cigarette he was smoking wasn’t getting any shorter. The doctors’ and tobacco magnates’ nightmare – an everlasting cigarette . . .
‘Do all prophecies have to be heard?’
‘But killing . . .’
‘Is that a member of the Night Watch, who has personally killed Dark Others, speaking?’ asked the Tiger.
‘You mean to say that you are Good?’
‘I am not Good. I am not Evil. I am the Twilight. I want to live, and my life is people. Everything that is good for humankind is good for me. Everything that is harmful to it is harmful to me too.’
I looked at the hut and saw three faces in the window. Arina, Nadya and Kesha. Nadya and Arina looked tense. Kesha was drinking milk.
‘But prophecies often bring good. And you allow them to be heard and carry them out.’
‘I do?’ the Tiger asked, with a clear note of amazement in his voice. ‘A prophecy is a ruptured abscess. Cassandra was not to blame for the fall of Troy. And neither was I. It is the will of humankind, its aspirations and anticipations that erupt into the world through the prophets. And once they have broken through, they come to pass. I can hurry them along and I can delay them . . . sometimes. No more than that.’
‘And the prophecy that Arina is frightened about?’ I asked. ‘The one she tried to annul and merely . . . postponed. Or has it already happened?’
The Tiger shrugged.
‘Once again, what does my answer mean to you? I could say something that will reassure you. But how will you know that it’s the truth?’
‘Tell me anyway,’ I insisted.
‘I don’t demolish kingdoms and unleash wars,’ the Tiger said quietly. ‘I have seen the fall of Sumerian Kish and the long death of Uruk, the ruination of Assyria and the destruction of Babylon. I have seen great empires crumble and small states fade away. I have seen armies marching in an endless stream for three days and nights, seen cities plundered and prisoners killed. I have seen evil out of which grows good and good that is pitiless and brings death. But all of this is not I. And it is not even you, the Others, who imagine yourselves to be the shepherds of humankind. All of this is human beings. All of this is their love and hate, courage and cowardice. Are you, like Arina, concerned for the fate of your nation and your country? I have no answer for you. Just as I had no answer for Wen-yan. And no answer for Erasmus. In the end only people decide if they are going to live or die. I am an executioner. But I am not a judge. Great joy is as useful to me as great sorrow. But the joy and sorrow are chosen by people.’
‘So what should I do?’
This time around the Tiger paused longer. Then he said: ‘I want to live. If you tell people the prophecy . . . then it will be fulfilled. That means that people don’t need magic any longer. They don’t want anyone who is different from the rest. Anyone who craves what is strange. Who pushes and pulls humanity along. Then I shall die. And I can also die if I fight your daughter.’
He paused before adding: ‘But there is a chance. She’s only a child and she might not be able to manage it.’
‘But is there another way out?’ I asked. ‘So that you will not die and all of us will not die . . .’
The Tiger shrugged and replied: ‘See how well you have already understood everything for yourself. The answer was in your question.’
I nodded.
‘That’s a shame.’
We sat there in silence for a while. I smoked a second cigarette, then a third one. It was completely dark already. Darkness falls quickly in the forest, in the forest there is no twilight. A fluttering candle flame started twinkling in the window.
‘I’m sorry,’ the Tiger said unexpectedly.
‘I’m sick of you all apologising to me!’ I howled, jumping up. ‘I’ve had enough of it!’
‘You have to make up your mind what to do, Anton,’ the Tiger said.
‘Give me five minutes,’ I said.
‘Ten,’ the Tiger said, carrying on smoking. The spot of light flared up and faded away repeatedly as I walked towards the hut.
The children were sitting, quiet and alert, at the table, on which two candles were burning. Arina was still standing at the window, gazing at the Tiger.
‘Have you decided?’ she asked without turning towards me.
‘Nadya . . .’ I began, looking at my daughter. I could barely make out her face in the candlelight. ‘Will you do what I ask you to do?’
‘What?’ she asked tensely.
‘We have only two choices,’ I said, gazing at her. It was a good thing I had been able to see her grown up – even if it had been in a dream.
In a dream that must not come true.
‘There are always three,’ Nadya said stubbornly. ‘In all the fairy tales, there are always three paths.’
‘It can’t be helped, this isn’t a proper fairy tale,’ I said and tried to laugh. ‘Only two. Kill the Tiger – and destroy all the magic in the world. All the Others will become ordinary people. And there could be all sorts of cataclysms . . . I don’t know.’
‘Magic has become an evil,’ Arina said intensely. ‘People must—’
‘People must be people,’ I responded. ‘If there’s no magic, they’ll find some other way of destroying themselves.’
‘So have you decided to let the Tiger kill us?’ Arina exclaimed.
‘And there’s a second way,’ I said, glancing at my daughter. ‘To prove to the Tiger . . . to prove to the Twilight that we will never reveal the prophecy. We won’t tell any people about it. Then it won’t come true. And the Tiger won’t have to kill us.’
‘To make the Tiger believe that, you need a sacrifice,’ Arina snorted. ‘A terrible, irrevocable sacrifice . . .’ She paused for a moment and then screeched in outraged indignation: ‘Anton, you want to kill—’
‘Daddy, do you want me to kill you?’ Nadya asked.
Arina was a former Dark One. And Dark Ones take everything the wrong way. Unlike Light Ones.
I shook my head.
‘No, my love, I don’t want to leave you with that burden. And anyway, there’s still Arina, isn’t there? Promise me. Simply promise that you’ll never tell anyone Erasmus’s prophecy. And you swear too, Kesha.’
‘He’ll kill the boy,’ Arina said quickly. ‘The Tiger will kill him. Tear him to pieces in front of your daughter – won’t that be a fine psychological trauma for her?’
Kesha exclaimed passionately: ‘I won’t tell anyone! Not anyone!’
‘Swear,’ I repeated. ‘So that what I’m about to do won’t be in vain. Swear.’
Kesha started nodding desperately.
Nadya got halfway up off her stool.
‘Don’t,’ I told her and turned to Arina.
‘You’ll never do it,’ Arina said quickly. ‘We’re both Higher Ones, but I’ve got more experience, Anton.’
I didn’t say anything . . .
About what Edgar had once told me. At the Cosmodrome in Baikonur, when I was standing facing Kostya Savushkin, my friend and a Higher Vampire, who was plannin
g to turn all the people of the world into Others . . .
The Power ran through me, and the chill of it scorched my fingers. Arina put up a shield – she didn’t understand what I was doing.
Some things are hard to understand for someone who has been a Dark One for too long.
The Twilight shuddered as the white stone walls rose up through it. Space seemed to expand: the table at which the children were sitting was carried off into the distance, the ceiling dissolved and its place was taken by a gleaming white dome, the floor was covered over with marble slabs.
I didn’t have quite enough Power after all. But I had an unlimited source right beside me: I reached out to my daughter and scooped some up – and the space around me assumed its final form.
A round hall about ten metres in diameter, with a domed ceiling.
No windows and no doors.
Nothing.
Gleaming white stone, in which Arina and I were imprisoned.
For ever.
The Sarcophagus of Time – the Inquisition’s most terrible spell of all. A spell that worked on the victim and the executioner.
‘You’ve lost your mind,’ Arina whispered and sat down on the floor.
‘Probably,’ I said, sitting down beside her.
There was air in there and it would probably always stay fresh.
There was even Twilight – but there was no way out of the Sarcophagus onto any of its levels.
If Edgar had been right, prisoners in the Sarcophagus didn’t feel either hunger or thirst.
They were allowed to carry on going out of their minds for all eternity, without any physical suffering.
‘It’s impossible to break open,’ said Arina. ‘Do you understand? There’s no way. Not even your daughter can do it.’
I shrugged.
A patch of white stone ten metres across. A capsule adrift in eternity.
I wondered if the expansion of the Universe would be followed by contraction and a new Big Bang. If it was, then we had some kind of chance.
I started laughing, imagining billions of years of incarceration. Arina reached out and gave me a resounding slap on the cheek.