The Nightwatch

  "Are you angry with me?" Olga asked.

  I touched her hand, smiled, and went into the house. I wanted to do something. I wanted to do something as badly as a genie who's been let out of his bottle for the first time in a thousand years. Anything at all: Raise up castles, lay waste cities, program in Basic, or embroider in cross-stitch.

  I opened the door without touching it, by pushing it through the Twilight. I don't know why I did it. I don't often do things like that, just sometimes when I've drunk a lot, or when I get really angry. The first reason didn't fit here.

  There was no one in the living room. Why would anyone want to sit inside, when outside there were hot kebabs, cold wine, and more than enough beach chairs positioned under the trees?

  I flopped down into an armchair. Picked up my glass—or Sveta's—from the low table and filled it with cognac, then downed it in one, as if it were cheap vodka, not fifteen-year-old Prazdnichny. Poured myself another glass.

  That was when Tiger Cub came in.

  "Don't mind, do you?" I asked.

  "Of course not." The sorceress sat down beside me. "Anton, has something upset you?"

  "Just ignore me."

  "Have you had a fight with Sveta?"

  I shook my head.

  "That's not the problem."

  "Anton, have I done something wrong? Aren't the guys having a good time?"

  I stared at her in genuine amazement.

  "Tiger Cub, don't be stupid! Everything's just great. Everyone's enjoying themselves."

  "And you?"

  I'd never seen the shape-shifting sorceress look so uncertain of herself. Were they having a good time or weren't they—you can't please everyone.

  "They're moving ahead with Svetlana's training," I said.

  "What for?" the young woman asked with a slight frown.

  "I don't know. For something that Olga couldn't do. For something very dangerous and very important at the same time."

  "That's good." She reached for a glass, poured herself some cognac, and took a sip.

  "Good?"

  "Sure. That they're training her, giving her direction." Tiger Cub looked around, trying to find something, then frowned and looked at the music center by the wall. "That remote's always going missing," she said.

  The music center lit up and Queen started to play "It's a Kind of Magic." I was impressed by how casually she did it. Controlling electronic circuits at a distance isn't a simple trick; it's not like drilling holes in a wall just by looking at it or keeping the mosquitoes away with fireballs.

  "How long did you train to work in the Watch?" I asked.

  "I started at around seven years old. At sixteen, I was already involved in field operations."

  "Nine years! And it's easier for you—your magic's natural. They're planning to turn Svetlana into a Great Sorceress in six months or a year!"

  "That's tough going," the young woman agreed. "Do you think the boss is wrong?"

  I shrugged. To say the boss was wrong would have been about as stupid as denying that the sun rises in the east in the morning. He'd been learning how not to make mistakes for hundreds—even thousands—of years. Gesar might act harshly, even cruelly. He might provoke the Dark Ones and leave the Light Ones to carry on alone. He might do anything at all. Except make a mistake.

  "I think he's overestimating Sveta's strength."

  "Come off it! The boss calculates everything."

  "I know he calculates everything. He plays the old game very well."

  "And he wishes Sveta well," the sorceress added stubbornly. "Do you understand that? In his own way, maybe. You would have acted differently; so would I, or Semyon, or Olga. Any one of us would have done things differently. But he's in charge of the Watch. And he has every right to be."

  "So he knows best?" I asked.

  "Yes."

  "And what about freedom?" I asked, pouring myself another glass. I didn't really need it; my head was already starting to hum. "Freedom?"

  "You talk like the Dark Ones do," the young woman snorted.

  "I prefer to think they talk like I do."

  "It's all very simple, Anton." Tiger Cub leaned down over me and looked in my eyes. She smelled of cognac and something else, a light floral smell. It wasn't likely to be perfume: shape-shifters don't like anything that is scented. "You love her."

  "Sure, I love her. That's no news to anyone."

  "You know she'll soon be on a higher level of power than you?"

  "If she isn't already." I didn't mention it, but I remembered how easily Sveta had sensed the magical screens in the walls.

  "She'll go way beyond you. Her powers will totally dwarf yours. Her problems will seem incomprehensible to you; they'll seem weird. Stay with her and you'll start feeling like a useful parasite, a gigolo; you'll start clutching at the past."

  "Yes." I nodded and was surprised to notice my glass was already empty. My hostess watched me closely as I filled it again. "So I won't stay. I don't need that."

  "But there isn't anything else on offer."

  I'd never suspected that she could be so hard. I'd hadn't expected her to be so worried about whether everyone liked her hospitality and her home, and I hadn't expected to hear this bitter truth from her either.

  "I know."

  "If you know that, Anton, there's only one reason you're feeling so outraged about the boss dragging Sveta upward so fast."

  "My time will soon be gone," I said. "It's sand running through my fingers, rain falling from the sky."

  "Your time? Yours and hers, Anton."

  "It was never ours, never."

  "Why?"

  It was a good question. Why? I shrugged.

  "You know, there are some animals that don't reproduce in captivity."

  "There you go again!" the young woman exclaimed indignantly. "What captivity? You should be glad for her. Svetlana will be the pride of the Light Ones. You were the first one to discover her; you were the one who saved her."

  "For what? One more battle with Darkness? An unnecessary battle?"

  "Anton, now you're talking just like a Dark One yourself. You love her! So don't demand or expect anything in return. That's the way of the Light!"

  "Love begins where Darkness and Light end."

  Tiger Cub was so indignant she couldn't even answer that. She shook her head sadly and said reluctantly:

  "You can at least promise…"

  "That depends on what."

  "To be sensible. To trust your senior colleagues."

  "I promise halfway."

  Tiger Cub sighed and then said reluctantly:

  "Listen, Anton, you probably think I don't understand you at all. But it's not true. I didn't want to be a shape-shifting magician. I had healing powers, and pretty serious ones."

  "Really?" I looked at her in amazement. I'd never have thought it.

  "Yes, I did," the young woman confirmed casually. "But when I had to choose which side of my powers to develop, the boss called me in. We sat and talked over tea and cakes. We talked very seriously, like grown people, although I was only a little girl, younger than Yulia is now. About what the Light needed and who the Watch needed, what I could achieve. And we decided that I should develop my combat powers, even at the expense of everything else. I didn't much like the idea at first. Do you know how painful it is when you change?"

  "Into a tiger?"

  "No, changing into a tiger's okay; the hard part's changing back. But I stuck with it. Because I believed the boss, because I realized it was the right thing to do."

  "And now?"

  "Now I'm happy," the young woman declared passionately. "When I see what I would have lost, what I would have been doing with my time. Herbs and spells, fiddling with distorted psychic fields, neutralizing black vortices, mixing up charms…"

  "Blood, pain, fear, death," I said in the same tone. "Doing battle on two or three levels of reality simultaneously. Dodging the fire, tasting the blood, going through hell and high water."

>   "That's war."

  "Yes, probably. But why do you have to be the one in the front line?"

  "Someone has to be, don't they? And then, after all, I wouldn't have had a house like this." Tiger Cub waved her hand around the living room. "You know yourself you can't earn much from healing. If you heal with all your power, it just means someone else keeps killing people."

  "This is a nice place," I agreed. "But how often are you here?"

  "Whenever I can be."

  "I guess that's not very often. You take shift after shift; you're always where the action's hottest."

  "That's my path."

  I nodded. What business was it of mine? I said:

  "You're right. I suppose I must be tired. That's why I'm talking such nonsense."

  Tiger Cub looked at me suspiciously, surprised I'd given in so quickly.

  "I need to sit here with my glass for a while," I added. "Get totally drunk all on my own, fall asleep under the table, and wake up with a splitting headache. Then I'll feel better."

  "Go on, then," the sorceress said, with a slightly nervous note in her voice. "What did we come here for? The bar's open; you can choose whatever you like. We can go and join the others. Or I could stay and keep you company."

  "No, I'd be better off on my own," I said, slapping my hand against the pot-bellied bottle. "In absolute misery with no food to go with the drink and no company. Look in before you go for a swim. Just in case I'm still capable of moving."

  "Okay."

  She smiled and went out. I was left all alone—unless the bottle of Armenian cognac counted as company. Sometimes it helps to believe it does.

  She was a fine girl. They were all fine and wonderful, my friends and colleagues at the Watch. I could hear their voices through the music of Queen, and I liked that. I got along really well with some of them and not so well with others. But I had no enemies here and I never would have. We were a close team, we always would be, and there was only one way we could ever lose each other.

  So why was I so unhappy about what was going on? I was the only one—Olga and Tiger Cub approved of the boss's plan, and if I asked the others, they'd all feel the same way.

  Maybe I really wasn't being objective?

  Probably.

  I took a sip of cognac and then peeped through the Twilight, trying to locate the pale lights of alien, unintelligent life in the living room.

  I discovered three mosquitoes, two flies, and one spider, right up in a corner under the ceiling.

  I shuffled my fingers and made a tiny fireball, two millimeters across. I took aim at the spider—a fixed target is best for practicing on—and sent the fireball on its way.

  There was nothing immoral about my behavior. We're not Buddhists, at least most of the Others in Russia aren't. We eat meat, we kill flies and mosquitoes, we poison cockroaches: If you're too lazy to learn new frightening spells every month, the insects quickly develop immunity to your magic.

  Nothing immoral. It was just funny; it was the proverbial "using a fireball to kill a mosquito." A favorite game with children of all ages when they're studying in the Watch's courses. I think the Dark Ones probably do the same, except that they don't distinguish between a fly and a sparrow, a mosquito and a dog.

  I fried the spider with my first shot. And the drowsy mosquitoes weren't any problem, either.

  I celebrated each victory with a glass of cognac, clinking my glass against the obliging bottle. Then I started trying to kill the flies, but either I already had too much alcohol in my blood or the flies were much better at sensing the little ball of fire approaching. I wasted four shots on the first one, but even though I missed, at least I managed to disperse the first three in time. I got the second fly with my sixth shot, and in the process I managed to zap two balls of lightning into the glass of the cabinet standing against the wall.

  "Sorry about that," I said repentantly, downing my cognac. I got up and the room suddenly swayed. I went over to the cabinet, which contained swords hanging on a background of black velvet. At first glance I thought they looked German, fifteenth or sixteenth century. The lighting was switched off, and I didn't try to determine their age more precisely. There were little craters in the glass, but at least I hadn't hit the swords.

  I thought for a while about how to put things right and couldn't come up with anything better than putting the glass that had been scattered around the living room back where it had come from. It cost me more effort than if I'd dematerialized all the glass and then recreated it.

  After that I went into the bar. I didn't feel like any more cognac, but a bottle of Mexican coffee liqueur looked like a good compromise between the desire to get drunk and the desire to perk myself up. Coffee and alcohol, all in the same bottle.

  When I turned back around I saw Semyon sitting in my chair.

  "They've all gone to the lake," the magician told me.

  "I'll be right there," I promised, walking toward him. "Right there."

  "Put the bottle down," Semyon advised me.

  "What for?" I asked. But I put it down.

  Semyon looked hard into my eyes. My barriers didn't go up, and when I realized it was a trick it was too late. I tried to look away, but I couldn't.

  "You bastard," I gasped, doubling over.

  "Down the corridor on the right!" Semyon shouted after me. His eyes were still boring into my back; the invisible connecting thread was still trailing after me.

  I reached the toilet. Five minutes later my tormentor caught up with me.

  "Feeling better?"

  "Yes," I said, breathing heavily. I got up off my knees and stuck my head into the sink. Semyon opened the faucet without saying anything and slapped me on the back.

  "Relax. We started with basic folk remedies, but now…"

  A wave of heat ran through my body. I groaned, but I didn't complain anymore. The dull stupefaction was long gone already, and now the final toxins came flying out of me.

  "What are you doing?" I asked.

  "Helping your liver out. Have some water and you'll feel better."

  It helped all right.

  Five minutes later I walked out of the toilet, sweaty and wet, but absolutely sober. I even tried to protest at the violation of my rights.

  "What did you interfere for? I wanted to get drunk and I did."

  "You young people," said Semyon, shaking his head reproachfully. "He wanted to get drunk? Who gets drunk on cognac? Especially after wine? And especially that quick, half a liter in half an hour. There was this time Sasha Kuprin and I decided to get drunk…"

  "Which Sasha's that?"

  "You know the one, the writer. Only he wasn't a writer then. We got loaded the right way, the civilized way, totally smashed, complete with dancing on the tables, shooting into the ceiling, and wild debauchery."

  "Was he an Other then?"

  "Sasha? No, but he was a good man. We drank a quarter of a bucket, and we got the grammar school girls tipsy on champagne."

  I slumped down onto the couch. I looked at the empty bottle and gulped, starting to feel sick again.

  "A quarter of a bucket; you must have got really drunk?"

  "Of course we got drunk!" Semyon said. "It's okay to get drunk, Anton. If you need to real bad. Only you have to get drunk on vodka. Cognac and wine—that's all for the heart."

  "So what's vodka for?"

  "For the soul. If it's hurting real bad."

  He looked at me in gentle reproach, a funny little magician with a cunning face, with his own funny little memories about great people and great battles.

  "I was wrong," I admitted. "Thanks for your help."

  "No problem, my man. I once sobered up another Anton three times in the same evening, when he needed to drink without getting drunk; it was work."

  "Another Anton? Chekhov?" I asked in astonishment.

  "No, don't be stupid. It was another Anton, one of us. He was killed in the Far East, when the samurai…" Semyon flipped his hand through the air and stopp
ed. Then he said almost affectionately. "Don't you be in such a hurry. We'll do things the civilized way this evening. Right now we've got to catch up with the others. Let's go, Anton."

  I followed Semyon meekly out of the house. And I saw Sveta. She was sitting on a lounger, already wearing her bathing suit and bright-colored skirt, or rather a strip of cloth around her hips.

  "Are you okay?" she asked, looking at me in surprise.

  "Absolutely. The kebabs just didn't agree with me."

  Svetlana stared hard at me. But apparently the dark flush on my face and my wet hair were the only signs I'd gotten drunk so quickly.

  "You should have your pancreas checked out."

  "Everything's okay," Semyon put in rapidly. "Believe me, I studied healing too. It was the heat, the sour wine, the fatty kebabs—nothing more to it. What he needs now is a swim, and in the cool of the evening we'll polish off a bottle together. That's all the treatment he needs."

  Sveta got up, walked up to me, and looked into my eyes sympathetically.

  "Maybe we should just sit here for a while? I'll make some strong tea."

  Yes, probably. It would be good. Just to sit here. The two of us. And drink tea. Talk or not say a word. That didn't matter. Look at her sometimes or not even look. Just hear her breathing—or stop up my ears. Simply know that we're together. Just the two of us, and not the entire Night Watch team. Together because we want to be, not because of some plan hatched up by Gesar.

  Had I really forgotten how to smile?

  I shook my head, twisting my stubborn face into a cowardly smile.

  "Let's go. I'm not a doddery old veteran of the magic wars yet. Let's go, Sveta."

  Semyon had already gone on ahead, but somehow I could tell that he winked. In approval.

  The night didn't bring any real coolness, but at least it took the edge off the heat. From about six or seven the company split up into little groups. The indefatigable Ignat stayed down by the lake with Lena and, strangely enough, Olga. Tiger Cub and Yulia went off to wander through the forest. The others were scattered around the house and the surrounding yard.

  Semyon and I occupied the large balcony on the second floor. It was cozy in there; with its comfortable wicker furniture, the breeze blows through—the perfect place for hot weather.