The Nightwatch

  The smile disappeared from his face. He repeated the same words, like an incantation.

  "I demand compassion and justice, watchman."

  "I'm not in the Watch anymore," I said.

  The pistol jerked and the breech clattered slowly, lazily spitting out the cartridge cases. The bullets zipped through the air like a small swarm of angry wasps.

  He screamed only once, then two bullets shattered his skull. When the pistol clicked and fell silent, I reloaded the clip slowly, mechanically.

  The body on the ground in front of me was mangled and mutilated. It had already begun to emerge from the Twilight, and the Twilight mask on the young face was dissolving.

  I waved my hand through the air, grasping and clutching at an imperceptible something flowing through space. The outside layer of it. A copy of the Dark Magician's human appearance.

  Tomorrow they'd find him. The wonderful young man everybody loved. Brutally murdered. How much Evil had I just brought into the world? How many tears, how much bitterness and hate? Where did the chain of future events lead?

  And how much Evil had I killed? How many people would live longer and better lives? How many tears would never be spilled, how much malice would never be stored? How much hate would never even be born?

  Maybe I'd stepped across the barrier that should never be crossed.

  And maybe I'd understood where the next boundary was, the one that had to be crossed.

  I put the pistol back in its holster and left the Twilight.

  The sharp needle of the Ostankino television tower was still boring into the sky.

  "Now let's try playing without any rules," I said. "Without any at all."

  I managed to stop a car immediately, without even giving the driver an attack of altruism. Maybe that was because now I was wearing such a very charming face, the face of the dead Dark Magician?

  "Get me to the TV tower," I said as I climbed into the battered model 6 Lada. "As fast as you can, before they close the doors."

  "Going out for a bit of fun?" the driver asked with a smile. He was a rather dour-looking man in glasses.

  "You bet," I answered. "You bet."

  Chapter 5

  They were still letting people into the tower. I bought a ticket, paying extra so I could go to the restaurant, and set off across the lawn around the tower. The last fifty meters of the path were covered by a puny sort of canopy. I wondered why they'd put it there. Maybe the old building sometimes shed chunks of concrete?

  The canopy ended at a booth where they checked ID. I showed my passport and walked through the horseshoe frame of the metal detector—which wasn't working anyway. There were no more checks; that was all the protection this strategic target had.

  I was beginning to have serious doubts. I had to admit it was a strange notion to come here. I couldn't sense any concentration of Dark Ones nearby. If they really were here, then they were very well shielded, which meant I'd have to deal with second-and third-grade magicians. And that would be suicide, pure and simple.

  The headquarters. The field headquarters of the Day Watch, set up to coordinate the hunt. The hunt for me. Where else could the inexperienced Dark Magician have been expected to report his sighting of the quarry?

  But I was walking straight into a setup where there must be at least ten Dark Ones, including experienced guards. I was sticking my own head in the noose, and that was plain stupidity, not heroism—if I still had even the slightest chance of surviving. And I was very much hoping I did.

  Seen from down below, under the concrete petals of its supports, the TV tower was far more impressive than it was from a distance. But it was a certainty that most Muscovites had never been up to the observation platform and thought of the tower as just a natural part of the skyline, a utilitarian and symbolic object, but not a place of recreation. The wind felt as strong as if I were standing in the aerodynamic pipe of some complex structure, and right at the very limit of my hearing, I could just catch the low hum that was the voice of the tower.

  I stood there for a moment, looking upward at the mesh-covered openings, the shell-shaped hollows corroded into the concrete, the incredibly graceful, flexible silhouette. The tower really is flexible: rings of concrete strung on taut cables. Strength in flexibility.

  I went in through the glass doors.

  Strange. I'd have expected to find plenty of people wanting to view Moscow by night from a height of three hundred and thirty-seven meters. I was wrong. I even rode up in the elevator all on my own, or rather, with a woman from the tower's service personnel.

  "I thought there would be lots of people here," I said, giving her a friendly smile. "Is it always like this in the evening?"

  "No, usually it's busy," the woman said. She didn't sound very surprised, but I still caught a slightly puzzled note in her voice. She touched a button and the double doors slid together. My ears instantly popped and my feet were pressed down hard against the floor as the elevator went hurtling upward—fast, but incredibly smoothly. "Everyone just disappeared about two hours ago."

  Two hours.

  Soon after my escape from the restaurant.

  If they set up their field headquarters, then it didn't surprise me that hundreds of people who'd been planning to take a ride up into the restaurant in the sky on this warm, clear spring evening had suddenly changed their plans. Human beings might not be able to see what was going on, but they could sense it.

  And even the ones who had nothing to do with this whole business were savvy enough not to go anywhere near the Dark Ones.

  Of course, I had the young Dark Magician's appearance to protect me. But I couldn't be sure that kind of disguise would be enough. The security guard would check my appearance against the list implanted in his memory; everything would match up, and he would sense the presence of Power.

  But would he dig any deeper than that? Would he check the different kinds of Power, check if I was Dark or Light, what grade I was?

  It was fifty-fifty. He was supposed to do all that. But security guards everywhere always skip that kind of thing. Unless they just happen to be dying of boredom or they're new to the job and still very eager.

  But a fifty-fifty chance was pretty good, compared to my chances of hiding from the Day Watch on the city streets.

  The elevator stopped. I hadn't even had time to think everything through properly; it had taken only about twenty seconds to get up there. That kind of speed in ordinary apartment blocks would really be something.

  "Here we are," the woman said, almost cheerfully. It looked pretty much like I was the Ostankino tower's last visitor of the day.

  I stepped out onto the observation platform.

  This place was usually full of people. You could tell right away who'd just arrived by the uncertain way they moved; how timidly they approached the panoramic window and the reinforced glass windows set in the floor.

  But this time it looked to me like there were no more than twenty visitors. There were no children at all—I could just picture to myself the scenes of hysterics that must have taken place as they approached the tower, the parents' anger and confusion. Children are more sensitive to the Dark Ones.

  Even the people who were on the platform seemed confused and depressed. They weren't admiring the view of the city spread out below them, with all its lamps glowing brightly—Moscow in its usual festive mood. Maybe it was a feast in a time of plague, but it was a beautiful feast. Right now, though, no one was enjoying it. Everything was dominated by the atmosphere of Darkness. Even I couldn't see it, but I could feel it choking me like carbon monoxide gas, which has no taste, no color, and no smell.

  I looked down at my feet, pulled up my shadow, and stepped into it. The guard was standing near me, just two steps away, on one of the glass windows set in the floor. He glared in a friendly sort of way, looking slightly surprised. He obviously wasn't too comfortable hanging around in the Twilight, and I realized the other side hadn't assigned its best men to guard the field hea
dquarters. He was young and well-built, wearing a plain gray suit and a white shirt with a subdued tie—more like a bank clerk than a servant of the Darkness.

  "Ciao, Anton," the magician said.

  That took my breath away for a moment.

  Had I really been that stupid? So monstrously, incredibly naive?

  They were waiting for me; they'd lured me here, tossed another sacrificed pawn into the scales, and even—God only knew how—drafted someone who'd departed into the Twilight long, long ago.

  "What are you doing here?"

  My heart thumped and started beating regularly again. It was all very simple, after all.

  The dead Dark Magician had been my namesake.

  "Just something I spotted. I need some advice on it."

  The guard frowned darkly. Not the right turn of phrase, probably. But he still didn't catch on.

  "Spit it out, Anton. Or I won't let you through, you know that."

  "You've got to let me through," I blurted out at random. In our Watch anyone who knew the location of a field headquarters could enter it.

  "Oh yeah, who says?" He was still smiling, but his left hand was already moving down toward the wand hanging on his belt.

  It was charged to full capacity. Made out of a shinbone with intricate carvings and a small ruby crystal on the tip. Even if I dodged or shielded myself, a discharge of Power like that would bring every Other in the area running.

  I raised my shadow from the floor and entered the second level of the Twilight.

  Cold.

  Swirling mist, or rather, clouds. Damp, heavy clouds rushing along high above the ground. There was no Ostankino tower here; this world had shed its final resemblance to the human one. I took a step forward through the damp cotton wool, along an invisible path through the droplets of water. The movement of time had slowed—I was actually falling, but so slowly that it didn't matter yet. High above me the curtain of cloud was pierced by the light of three moons—white, yellow, and blood-red. A bolt of lightning appeared ahead of me and grew, sprouting branches that crept slowly through the clouds, burning out a jagged channel.

  I moved close to the vague shadow that was reaching for its belt with such painful slowness. I grabbed the arm. It was heavy, unyielding, as cold as ice. I couldn't stop it. I'd have to burst back out into the first level of the Twilight and take him on face to face. At least I'd have a chance.

  Light and Darkness, I'm no field operative! I never wanted to end up in the front line! Give me the work I enjoy, the work I'm good at!

  But the Light and the Darkness didn't answer. They never do when you call on them. There was only that quiet, mocking voice that speaks sometimes in every heart, whispering: "Who promised you an easy life?"

  I looked down at my feet. They were already about ten centimeters below the Dark Magician's. I was falling; there was nothing to support me in this reality; there were no TV towers or anything of the sort here—there are no cliffs that shape or trees that tall.

  How I wished I had clean hands, a passionate heart, and a cool head. But somehow these three qualities don't seem to get along too well. The wolf, the goat, and the cabbage—what crazy ferryman would think of sticking them all in the same boat?

  And when he'd eaten the goat for starters, what wolf wouldn't like to try the ferryman?

  "God only knows," I said. My voice was lost in the clouds. I put my hand down and grabbed hold of the Dark Magician's shadow—a limp rag, a blur in space. I jerked the shadow upward, threw it over his body, and tugged the Dark One into the second level of the Twilight.

  He screamed when the world suddenly became completely unrecognizable. He'd probably never been any lower than the first level before. The energy required for his first trip came from me, but all the sensations were quite new to him.

  I braced myself on the Dark One's shoulders and pushed him downward, while I crept upward, stamping my feet down hard on his hunched back. I "Great magicians climb their way up over other people's backs."

  "You bastard, Anton! You bastard!"

  The Dark Magician still hadn't realized who I was. He didn't realize it until the moment he turned over onto his back, still providing support for my feet, and saw my face. Here, on the second level of the Twilight, my crude disguise didn't work, of course. His eyes opened wide; he gave a short gasp and howled, clutching at my leg.

  But he still didn't understand what I was doing and why I was doing it. I kicked him over and over again, trampling his i fingers and his face with my heels. It wouldn't really hurt an Other, but I wasn't trying to do him any physical damage. I wanted him lower; I wanted him to fall, move downward on all levels of reality, through the human world and the Twilight, through the shifting fabric of space. I didn't have the time or the skill to fight a full-scale duel with him according to all the laws of the Watches, according to all the rules that had been invented for young Light Ones who still had their faith in Good and Evil, the absolute truth of dogma and the inevitability of retribution.

  When I decided I'd trampled the Dark Magician down low enough, I pushed off from the spread-eagled body, leapt up into the cold, damp mist, and jerked myself out of the Twilight.

  Straight out into the human world. Straight onto the observation platform.

  I appeared squatting on my haunches on a slab of glass, soaking wet from head to foot, choking in an effort to suppress a sudden cough. The rain of that other world smelled of ammonia and ashes.

  A faint gasp ran around the room and people staggered back, trying to get away from me.

  "It's all right," I croaked. "Do you hear? It's all right."

  Their eyes told me they didn't agree. A man in uniform by the wall, a security guard, one of the TV tower's faithful retainers, stared at me stony-faced and reached for his pistol holster.

  "It's for your own good," I said, choking in a new fit of coughing. "Do you understand?"

  I let my Power break free and touch the people's minds. Their faces started looking more relaxed and calm. They slowly turned away and pressed their faces against the windows. The security guard froze with his hand resting on his unbuttoned holster.

  Only then did I look down at my feet. And I froze in amazement.

  The Dark Magician was there, under the glass. He was screaming. His eyes had turned into round black patches, forced wide open by his pain and terror. The fingertips of one hand were imbedded in the glass and he was hanging by them, with his body swaying like a pendulum in the gusts of wind. The sleeve of his white shirt was soaked in blood. The wand was still there on the magician's belt, but he'd forgotten about it. I was the only thing that existed for him right now, on the other side of that triple-reinforced glass, inside the dry, warm, bright shell of the observation platform, beyond Good and Evil. A Light Magician, sitting above him and gazing into those eyes crazy with pain and terror.

  "Well, did you think we always fight fair?" I asked. Somehow I thought he might be able to hear me, even through the thick glass and the roar of the wind. I stood up and stamped my heel on the glass. Once, twice, three times—it didn't matter that the blow wouldn't reach the fingers fused into the glass.

  The Dark Magician jerked, trying to tug his hand out of the way of that crushing heel—a spontaneous, instinctive, irrational reaction.

  The flesh gave way.

  For a moment the glass was covered with a red film of blood, but then the wind swept it away. And all I could see was the vague outline of the Dark Magician's body, getting smaller and smaller, tumbling over and over in the tower's turbulent slipstream. He was being carried in the direction of The Three Little Pigs, a fashionable establishment at the foot of the tower.

  The invisible clock ticking away in my mind gave a loud click and instantly cut the time I had left in half.

  I stepped off the glass and walked around the platform in a circle. I wasn't looking at the people; I was gazing into the Twilight. No, there weren't any more guards here. Now I had to find out where their headquarters were. Up on top
in the service premises, among all the equipment? I didn't think so. Probably in more comfortable surroundings.

  There was another security guard, a human, standing at the top of the stairs leading down into the restaurants. One glance was enough for me to see that he'd been influenced already, and quite recently. It was a good thing they'd only influenced him superficially.

  And it was a very good thing they'd decided to influence him at all. That was a trick that cut both ways.

  The security guard opened his mouth, getting ready to shout.

  "Quiet! Come this way!" I ordered.

  The security guard followed me without saying a word.

  We went into the restroom—one of the tower's free attractions, the highest urinal and toilet bowls in Moscow. Please feel free to make your mark among the clouds. I waved my hand through the air. A spotty-faced youth came scurrying out of one cubicle, buttoning up his pants; the man at the urinal grunted, broke off, and went wandering out with a glassy look in his eyes.

  "Take your clothes off," I ordered the security guard and starting pulling off my wet sweater.

  The holster was half-open, and the Desert Eagle was far older than my Makarov, but that didn't particularly bother me. The important thing was that the uniform was almost a perfect fit.

  "If you hear shooting," I told the guard, "go down and carry out your duty. Do you understand?"

  He nodded.

  "I turn you toward the Light," I said, intoning the words of the enlistment formula. "Renounce the Darkness, defend the Light. I give you the vision to distinguish Good from Evil. I give you the faith to follow the Light. I give you the courage to fight against the Darkness."

  I used to think I'd never get a chance to use my right to enlist volunteers. How could there be free choice in genuine Darkness? How could I involve anybody in our games when the Watches themselves were established to counterattack that practice?

  But now I was acting without hesitation, exploiting the loophole that the Dark Ones had left me by getting the security man to guard their headquarters, the way some people keep a small dog in their apartment: It can't bite, but it can yap. What they'd done gave me the right to sway the security man in the opposite direction and get him to follow me. After all, he wasn't either good or bad; he was a perfectly ordinary man with a wife he loved in moderation, elderly parents whom he didn't forget to help, a little daughter, and a son from his first marriage who was almost grown up, a weak faith in God, a tangled set of moral principles, and a few standard dreams—an ordinary, decent man.