"Of course not."
Semyon took out his cigarettes and lit up. Then he said casually:
"In your place, I'd find out exactly what the courier brought with him from the East. Maybe that's your chance."
I laughed bitterly.
"The Dark Ones couldn't find out. Are you suggesting I should start rummaging in the boss's safe?"
"The Dark Ones couldn't take it. Whatever it was. You have no right to take what the courier brought or even touch it, of course. But just finding out…"
"Thanks. I really mean that."
Semyon nodded, accepting my gratitude without any false modesty.
"We'll settle up in the Twilight. You know, I've had enough of vacation too. After lunch I'm going to borrow Tiger Cub's motorcycle and go back to town. Can I give you a lift?"
"Uh-huh."
I felt ashamed. It was the kind of shame probably only Others can feel. We can always tell whenever someone's helping us out, when they're giving us something we don't deserve but can't possibly refuse.
I couldn't stay there any longer. Stay there and see Svetlana, Olga, and Ignat. Listen to their truth.
I would always have my own truth.
"Can you handle a motorcycle?" I asked, trying clumsily to change the subject.
"I rode one in the first Paris-Dakar rally. Let's go give the guys a hand."
I glanced sullenly at Ignat. He was chopping wood, handling the axe like a real virtuoso. After every blow he froze for a moment and looked around quickly at everyone, flexing his biceps.
He really loved himself. Sure, he loved the rest of the world too. But he came first.
"Let's do that," I agreed. I swung my arm back and hurled the sign of the triple blade through the Twilight. Several blocks of wood flew apart into neat sticks of firewood just as Ignat had raised his axe for the next blow. He lost his balance and almost fell. Then he started looking around.
Naturally, my blow had left a spatial trace. The twilight was vibrating, greedily drawing in energy.
"Antosha, what did you do that for?" Ignat asked in an offended voice. "What for? That's not the sporting way!"
"But it is efficient," I said, walking down from the terrace. "Shall I chop some more?"
"Don't bother," said Ignat, bending down to collect up the firewood. "Carry on like that and we'll end up grilling the kebabs with fireballs."
I didn't feel at all guilty, but I started helping anyway. The firewood had been chopped cleanly and the cuts glittered a rich amber yellow. It seemed a shame to put something so beautiful on the fire.
Then I looked at the house and saw Olga standing in the ground-floor window.
She'd been following my little escapade very seriously. Far too seriously.
I waved to her.
Chapter 5
Tiger Cub's motorcycle was really good, if that vague word can ever be applied to a Harley, even the simplest model. After all, there are motorcycles, and then there are Harley-Davidsons.
Why Tiger Cub needed it, I couldn't tell. As far as I could see, she only rode it once or twice a year. Probably for the same reason she needed a huge house on the weekends. In any case, we arrived back in town before it was even two in the afternoon.
Semyon handled the heavy two-wheeled vehicle like a master. I could never have done it, not even if I'd activated the "extreme skills" implanted in my memory and reviewed the reality lines. I could have got there almost as fast by expending a considerable portion of my reserves of Power. But Semyon simply drove—and his superiority over an ordinary human driver was because of nothing but his great experience.
Even riding at a hundred kilometers an hour the air still felt hot. The wind lashed at my cheeks like a hot, rough towel. It felt like we were riding through a furnace, an endless asphalt furnace full of vehicles that had already been roasted in the sun and were slowly crawling along. At least three times I was sure we were going to crash into a car or an inconveniently sited pillar.
It wasn't likely that we'd be killed outright. The other guys would sense what had happened and come and put us back together, piece by piece, but it wouldn't exactly be fun.
We arrived without any mishaps. After the Ring Road Semyon used his magic about five times, but only to make the highway patrolmen look the other way.
Semyon didn't ask my address, even though he'd never been to my place. He stopped outside the door of the building and switched off the engine. The young teens swilling cheap beer in the little kids' playground stopped talking and stared at the bike. How great it must be to have such clear and simple dreams: beer, ecstasy at the discotheque, a hot girlfriend, and a Harley to ride.
"How long have you been having premonitions?" Semyon asked.
I started. I hadn't really told anyone that I'd been having them.
"Quite a long time now."
Semyon nodded. He looked up at my windows. He didn't tell me why he'd asked the question.
"Maybe I ought to go up with you?"
"Listen, I'm not your date who needs to be seen to her door."
The magician smiled.
"Hey, don't get me confused with Ignat. Okay, it's not such a big deal. Be careful."
"Of what?"
"Of everything, I suppose."
The bike's engine howled. The magician shook his head.
"There's something coming, Anton. Coming this way. Be careful."
He zoomed off to roars of approval from the adolescents, and slipped neatly through the gap between a parked Volga and a slow-moving Zhiguli. I watched him go and shook my head. I didn't need any premonitions to know that Semyon would spend the whole day zooming round Moscow. Then he'd attach himself to some group of bikers, and a quarter of an hour later he'd be a fully fledged member, already creating legends about a crazy old biker.
Be careful…
Of what?
And more important, what for?
I tapped the code into the lock, walked into the entrance, and called the elevator. That morning I'd been on vacation with my friends, and everything had been fine.
Nothing had changed now, except that I wasn't there any longer.
They say that when Light Magicians go off the rails, the first sign is always flashes of insight, like the ones epileptics have before a fit. Then the pointless use of power, like killing flies with fireballs and chopping firewood with combat spells. Quarrels with the people they love. Sudden disagreements with some friends and equally unexpected warm relations with others. Everyone knows that, and everyone knows what happens after a Light Magician goes off the rails.
Be careful…
I walked up to the door and reached for my keys.
But the door was already unlocked.
My parents had a set of keys. But they would never have come all the way from Saratov without giving me any warning. And I would have sensed that they were coming.
No ordinary human thief would ever break into my apartment; the simple sign on the threshold would have stopped him. And there were barriers against Others too. Of course, they could be overcome with sufficient Power. But the sentry systems ought to have been triggered!
I stood there, looking at the narrow crack between the door and the doorjamb, the crack that shouldn't have been there. I looked through the Twilight, but I didn't see anything.
I didn't have a weapon with me. The pistol was in the apartment. So were the ten combat amulets.
I could have followed instructions. A member of the Night Watch who discovers that a home secured by magical means has been penetrated by strangers must first inform the duty operations officer and his supervisor, and then…
But the moment I imagined appealing to Gesar, after he'd casually scattered the entire Day Watch only two days earlier, I lost any desire to follow instructions. I folded my fingers into the sign for a rapid "freeze" spell, probably because I remembered how well it had worked for Semyon.
Be careful?
I pushed open the door and walked into the apartment that had
suddenly stopped being mine.
And as I walked in, I realized who had enough power, authority, and sheer effrontery to come calling without an invitation.
"Good afternoon, boss!" I said, glancing into the study.
I wasn't entirely mistaken.
Zabulon was sitting in a chair by the window, reading. He raised his eyebrows in surprise and put down the newspaper Arguments and Facts. Then he carefully took off his spectacles with the slim gold frames.
"Good afternoon, Anton. You know, I'd be very glad to be your boss."
He smiled. A Dark Magician beyond classification, the head of the Moscow Day Watch. As usual, he was wearing an immaculately tailored black suit and a light-gray shirt. An Other of indeterminate age with a lean frame and close-cropped hair.
"My mistake," I said. "What are you doing here?"
Zabulon shrugged:
"Take your amulet. It's in the desk somewhere, I can sense it."
I walked over to the desk, opened the drawer, and took out the ivory medallion on a copper chain. I squeezed the amulet in my fist and felt it growing warm.
"Zabulon, you no longer have any power over me."
The Dark Magician nodded:
"Good. I don't want you to feel any doubts about your own safety."
"What are you doing in a Light One's home, Zabulon? I would be within my rights to report you to the Tribunal."
"I know," Zabulon said with a shrug. "I know all that. I'm in the wrong. This is stupid. I'm exposing myself to reprisals and exposing the Day Watch too. But I haven't come to you as an enemy."
I didn't say anything.
"And you don't need to worry about any observation devices," Zabulon added casually. "Either your own, or the ones that the Inquisition installs. I took the liberty of, shall we say, putting them to sleep. Everything we say to each other will remain just between the two of us forever."
"Believe half of what a human says, a quarter of what a Light One says, and not a word of what a Dark One says," I muttered.
"Of course, you have every right not to trust me. It's your duty not to! But please hear me out." Zabulon suddenly smiled in a remarkably open and reassuring fashion. "You're a Light One. You are obliged to help everyone who asks for help, even me. And now I'm asking."
I hesitated, then went across to the couch and sat down. Without taking my shoes off, without canceling the suspended "freeze," as if it weren't totally absurd to imagine myself doing combat with Zabulon.
There was an outsider in my apartment. So much for "my home is my castle"—and I'd almost started to believe it during the years I'd been working in the Watch.
"First of all, how did you get in?" I asked.
"First of all, I took a perfectly ordinary lock pick, but…"
"Zabulon, you know what I mean. The sentry systems can be destroyed, but they can't be tricked. They should have been triggered by any unauthorized entry."
The Dark Magician sighed.
"Kostya helped me to get in. You gave him access."
"I hoped he was my friend. Even if he is a vampire."
"He is your friend," Zabulon said with a smile. "And he wants to help you."
"In his own way."
"In our own way, Anton. I've entered your home, but I have no intention of causing any harm. I haven't looked at any of the official documents you keep here. I haven't left any monitoring signs. I came to talk."
"Then talk."
"You and I have a problem, Anton. The same one. And today it reached critical proportions."
The moment I saw Zabulon, I'd known what we'd be talking about, so I just nodded.
"Good, you understand." The Dark Magician leaned forward in his chair and sighed. "Anton, I'm not under any illusions here. We see the world differently. And we understand our duty in different ways. But even under those conditions our interests sometimes coincide. From your point of view, we Dark Ones have our failings. Sometimes our actions seem rather ambiguous. And we are obliged by our very nature to be rather less caring with people. That's all true. But note that nobody has ever accused us of attempting to change the entire destiny of humanity. Since the Treaty was concluded we have simply lived our own lives and we'd like you to do the same."
"Nobody has ever accused you," I agreed. "Because whichever way you look at it, time is on your side."
Zabulon nodded:
"And what does that mean? Perhaps we're more like human beings? Perhaps we're right? But let's not get into those arguments; there's no end to them. I repeat what I have said before. We honor the Treaty. And we often observe it far more closely than the forces of Light."
A standard tactic in an argument. First admit to some kind of generalized guilt. Then gently reproach your opponent with being equally guilty of the same general kind of fault. Reproach them a bit and then drop it. Let's just forget the whole thing!
And then move on to what's really important.
"But let's deal with what's really important here," said Zabulon, getting serious. "There's no point in beating about the bush. In the last hundred years the forces of Light have launched three global experiments. The revolution in Russia. The Second World War. And now this new project. Following the same scenario."
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said. I suddenly had this desperate, aching feeling in my chest.
"Really? Let me explain. Social models are developed that should eventually—at the cost of massive upheavals and immense bloodshed—create the ideal society. Ideal, that is, from your point of view, but I won't argue about that! Certainly not. Everyone has a right to his own dream. But your path is so very cruel…" Another sad smile. "You accuse us of cruelty, and not entirely without reason, but what's one child killed in a black mass compared with any fascist children's concentration camp? And fascism was another of your inventions. Another one that got out of control. First there was internationalism and communism—those didn't work. Then there was national socialism. Another mistake? You put your heads together and examined the result. Then you sighed, wiped the slates clean, and started experimenting all over again."
"They turned out to be mistakes thanks to your efforts."
"Of course! We do have an instinct of self-preservation, you know. We don't construct social models on the basis of our ethics. So why should we tolerate your projects?"
I didn't say anything.
Zabulon nodded, apparently satisfied.
"So you see, Anton. Maybe we're enemies. We are enemies. Last winter you caused us some inconvenience, serious inconvenience. This spring you frustrated me again. You eliminated two Day Watch agents. Yes, of course, the Inquisition declared that your actions were committed in self-defense out of absolute necessity but, believe me—I was not pleased. What kind of leader is it who can't even protect his own subjects? So, we are enemies. But now we have a unique situation. Yet another experiment. And you're indirectly involved in it."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Zabulon laughed and raised his hands in the air.
"Anton, I'm not trying to coax any secrets out of you. I'm not going to ask any questions. Or ask you to do anything. Just listen to what I have to say. And then I'll go."
I suddenly remembered how the young witch Alisa had used her right to intervention up on the high-rise roof the previous winter. A very minor intervention: All she did was allow me to speak the truth. And that truth had turned Egor to the side of the Dark Ones.
Why did things happen that way?
Why was it that the Light acted through lies, and the Darkness acted through the truth? Why was it that our truth proved powerless, but lies were effective? And why was the Darkness able to manage perfectly well with truth in order to do Evil? Whose nature was responsible, humankind's or ours?
"Svetlana's a wonderful sorceress," said Zabulon. "But her future is not to lead the Night Watch. They intend to use her for just one single purpose. For the mission that Olga failed to complete. You know, don't you, that a courier from
Samarkand entered the city illegally this morning?"
"Yes, I know," I admitted, without really knowing why.
"And I can tell you what he brought with him. Would you like to know?"
I gritted my teeth.
"You would," said Zabulon, with a nod. "The courier brought a piece of chalk."
Never believe what the Dark Ones say. But somehow I got the feeling he wasn't lying.
"A little piece of chalk." The Dark Magician smiled. "You could write on a school blackboard with it. Or draw hopscotch squares on the sidewalk. Or chalk your pool cue with it. You could do all that, just as easily as you could use a large royal seal to crack nuts. But things change if a Great Sorceress picks up that piece of chalk—it has to be a Great one, an ordinary sorceress wouldn't be strong enough; and it has to be a sorceress; in male hands the chalk will remain nothing but chalk. And in addition to that the sorceress has to be a Light One. This artifact is useless for Dark Ones."
Did I imagine it, or had he just sighed? I said nothing.
"A small piece of chalk." Zabulon leaned back in his armchair. "It's already worn down; beautiful young women with bright fire in their eyes have picked it up in their slim fingers several times already. It has been put to use, and the earth has trembled, the boundaries of states have melted away, empires have risen, shepherds have become prophets and carpenters have become gods, foundlings have been recognized as kings, sergeants have risen to become emperors, seminarians who failed to graduate and talentless artists have grown into tyrants. A little stub of chalk. Nothing more than that."
Zabulon stood and spread his hands in a conclusive gesture.
"And that's all I wanted to tell you, my dear enemy. You'll understand the rest for yourself—if you really want to, that is."
"Zabulon." I unclenched my fist and looked at the amulet. "You're a creature of the Darkness."
"Of course. But only of the darkness that was in me. The darkness that I chose myself."
"Even your truth works evil."
"To whom? The Night Watch? Of course. But to human beings? There I must beg to differ."