Sixth Watch

  I sighed, and stepped toward the Tiger.

  “Just as I thought,” he remarked sadly. “Gorodetsky, why don’t you like simple solutions?”

  “They usually have complicated consequences,” I replied.

  Traveling in the grip of the Tiger was no fun.

  Only a moment ago we were in an Alpine restaurant with two hundred witches, whose combined ages probably amounted to about a hundred thousand years.

  But the Tiger had simply grabbed me by the collar, and suddenly here we were, surrounded by swirling gray glop. It looked like foam made of little soap bubbles, illuminated weakly by a dim white light from some indefinite source. The bubbles parted as we moved through them, yielded springily underfoot, and retreated when I reached my hand out toward them.

  “What is this?” I asked. The Tiger was still grasping my collar, holding me out at arm’s length. “And would you kindly let go of me, please?”

  “This is the space between the levels of the Twilight,” the Tiger replied. “These are the reverberations of emotions and echoes of feelings. This is everything that has ever existed in the world. The squeak of the first mouse as it was caught by the first cat. The purring of a cat, curled up on a woman’s knees. The shriek of a new mother who has sensed that her child will be an evil man. The weeping of a criminal on the night before he mounts the scaffold. All the sounds of the world. All the colors of the world. All the feelings of the world.”

  “Thank you,” I said, “very poetic. But . . .”

  “If I let go of you, you’ll disintegrate into . . .” the Tiger thought for a moment. “Into tiny bubbles.”

  “But Zabulon told me he hid between the levels of the Twilight.”

  “Your Zabulon can do many things, Gorodetsky. Be patient. We need to talk. I don’t get any pleasure out of holding you up by the scruff of your neck.”

  “By the scruff of my neck,” I laughed. “You really have got a grip on the language! Okay, let’s talk.”

  “At this very moment we are passing the point of no return, Gorodetsky,” said the Tiger. In the feeble, grayish light his face looked like a plaster mask. His lips barely even moved, and his eyes were blank gaps, openings into nothingness. “Are you sure you want to get Arina out of there? Perhaps we should just lay her to rest?”

  “What’s wrong, Tiger?” I asked. “Do you think the old witch will confound me once and for all?”

  “No, Anton. That’s not it at all.”

  I caught on. I was getting smarter every day—it was frightening to think how shrewd I would be when I reached Gesar’s age.

  “So, on the contrary, she’ll explain everything?”

  “Yes, Anton, Arina knows everything. About the Sixth Watch, about the Two-in-One. She even knows a lot more about the Twilight than she lets on. Perhaps more than I know myself.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “I can foresee it. If you talk to her, everything will change. Everything will be absolutely different, Anton.”

  “For instance?”

  “It’s quite possible that you will die,” said the Tiger.

  “Well, unpleasant things like that happen to people.”

  “You’re not an ordinary person, you’re an Other. You don’t have to die.”

  “What else?”

  “I’ll die,” the Tiger said simply. “In this version of the future I die.”

  “And in the other version?” I asked after a moment’s pause.

  “I die in that one too.”

  “I see,” I said with a nod. “Then tell me the most important thing, Tiger . . .”

  “Nadya dies in the reality where you decide to destroy the Sarcophagus,” said the Tiger. “In the alternative reality, she doesn’t necessarily die.”

  “Then why are you even bothering to ask my opinion?” I laughed.

  “Because the reality in which Nadya doesn’t die will bring you greater suffering,” said the Tiger, turning his eyes away. “You could come to regret that we didn’t shatter the Sarcophagus in eternity.”

  “That’s impossible!” I shouted. “That couldn’t happen. Why would it?”

  “I don’t know,” replied the Tiger. “I’m not certain. I’m not the Twilight, after all. And I’m sick, Anton. I’m infected with humanity, that’s why I’m talking to you now. And even if I were well, reading the destinies of Great Ones and an Absolute Enchantress is fiendishly difficult.”

  I groaned. I wanted to shrug the Tiger’s hand off my neck and dissolve into little bubbles.

  I’d never imagined I could possibly consider such a simple, cowardly way out.

  “Take me to the witch,” I said. “Maybe I’ll regret this, but there’s nothing else I can say right now. I can’t choose a future in which Nadya is killed. Let’s go to the Sarcophagus.”

  “All right,” said the Tiger. “I knew that already, but I had to make sure. So let’s go, you who was begotten of the Darkness. I’ll take you to Arina . . .”

  “What?” I shouted, then the gray gloom dissipated and I went tumbling across a cold marble floor. “Who?”

  The only reply I heard was the Tiger’s quiet whisper in the distance.

  “Now it’s up to you to persuade her.”

  I got up and looked around. The Tiger wasn’t there. There was only a dimly lit stone hall with a high dome above it. Arina was nowhere to be seen. I took a few steps. The air was still as fresh and cool as I remembered it.

  “Arina,” I called. “It’s me! Anton! Anton Gorodetsky!”

  “I already guessed it wasn’t Chekhov. He was a cultured man, who didn’t yell like that when other people were sleeping . . .”

  The witch’s voice was coming from somewhere above me. I stopped and looked up.

  There was a gray cocoon, twisted together out of rags and threads, nestling crookedly against the domed ceiling about three yards above my head. The cocoon trembled and a hand appeared, making a gap in the wall, and then another. Finally a head was thrust out through the gap.

  “Good morning, Arina,” I said, looking at the witch. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

  “You won’t get away with just apologies,” said the witch. “Are you alone?”

  “Yes,” I said, and paused before asking: “What’s that . . . thing made of?”

  “You don’t need to know that,” said Arina. “Just turn away for a moment.”

  I turned away and moved toward the center of the Sarcophagus, hearing rustling and crackling sounds behind me, as if Arina was rolling up her cocoon.

  It was really disgusting.

  Maybe it was very rational, ecologically sound, and natural to weave a cocoon and sink into hibernation. But that’s what you expect from an insect, not a human being.

  Witches . . .

  “I’m glad to see you, Anton,” Arina said. “You’re looking good. Only a bit tired somehow . . .”

  I looked around. The witch was standing behind me and the cocoon on the ceiling had disappeared. Her face was calm and peaceful. She was wearing a smart business suit with slacks (I vaguely recalled that she had arrived here in different clothes).

  “How’s the Minoan Sphere?” I asked. “I kept thinking about it, wondering if it would get you out of here.”

  Arina ran her hand over her clothes and a little ball glinted in her hand.

  “That’s absurd,” she said. “Very little Power flows in here. It would have taken another twenty or thirty years for the Sphere to charge.”

  “Is that why you went into hibernation?”

  “Yes. But when you entered, a lot of Power burst in with you. The Sphere is charged now.”

  “Don’t be in any hurry to use it,” I said. “Maybe we’ll leave here some other way.”

  “Well now,” Arina said with a smile. “Tell me about it!”

  “We’ve got problems.”

  Arina nodded.

  “So what’s new?” she asked.

  “What do you know about the Sixth Watch and the Two-in-One?”
I asked.

  Arina’s face suddenly went tense and her eyes glinted viciously.

  “The Sixth Watch is dead! The Two-in-One no longer exists!”

  “The Watch is dead all right,” I said, nodding. “But the Two-in-One has just tried to kill my daughter twice.”

  Arina stood there, shifting from one foot to the other and staring daggers at me. Then she sighed and sank down onto the floor.

  “Sit down, Gorodetsky, there’s no point in standing. Let’s talk.”

  “Haven’t you done enough sitting?” I asked in amazement. “Don’t you want to get out of here?”

  “Yes, I do. But I don’t know if I ought to,” she replied. “Sit down, will you? An hour or two won’t make any difference, and I’ve spent years in here.”

  I nodded and sat down facing her.

  “What’s happened? Tell me everything from the beginning,” Arina demanded.

  “First a vampiress appeared. Gesar believes she’s one that I once laid to rest, who has been resurrected. She bit a series of people, and the initials of their names spelled out a message: ‘Anton Gorodetsky, be ready, he awaits, it’s your decision.’”

  “What nonsense,” Arina muttered. “Like some Agatha Christie detective story. That’s not the Two-in-One. It’s not his style.”

  “I didn’t say it was. Whoever this vampiress might be, she turned out to be on our side. My daughter was attacked at school. Two Others who were guarding her, a Light One and a Dark One, killed the third guard, and an Inquisitor. It looked like they were possessed.”

  “How did they kill him? Fire and ice?”

  I nodded in relief. Arina really did know about the Two-in-One!

  “Are they together?” Arina asked.

  “They try to hold hands all the time,” I said cautiously

  She nodded.

  “Svetlana and I couldn’t beat them,” I went on. “But the vampiress showed up and drove them away. It was just like an ordinary fight, only very fast . . .”

  “Go on,” Arina said.

  “A prophecy occurred. All the Prophets and all the Seers proclaimed the same thing at the same time: ‘It was not spilled in vain, nor burned to no purpose. The first time has come. The Two shall arise in the flesh and open the doors. Three victims, the fourth time. Five days are left to the Others. Six days are left to people. To those who stand in the way, nothing will be left. The Sixth Watch is dead, the Fifth Power has disappeared. The Fourth has come too late. The Third Power does not believe, the Second Power is afraid, the First Power is exhausted . . .’ After that we started searching for the Sixth Watch and its members.”

  Arina nodded and closed her eyes.

  “Do you understand what it’s about?” I asked.

  “How long ago was the prophecy proclaimed?”

  “Four days ago.”

  “So this is the last day,” said Arina. “Yes . . . I understand everything. What’s happening in the world right now, Anton? What’s happening to the people?”

  “Everything’s the same as usual,” I said. “War in the Middle East. War in Ukraine.”

  “That’s trivial,” said Arina, shaking her head. “But then, the balance doesn’t have to be disrupted so obviously. The world can appear normal until the very last day.”

  “What balance?”

  “Between good and evil, of course.”

  “I wouldn’t say the Day Watch has gotten completely out of hand . . .”

  “Good and evil have got nothing to do with the Watches!” she snapped. “You of all people should understand that. The Night Watch maintains a stance of altruism, or more precisely, active altruism by Others toward people. The Day Watch regards the welfare of people and their requirements as insignificant in comparison with the requirements of Others.”

  “But that still comes down to good and evil in the end. On the day-to-day level,” I said.

  “Tell that to the people who die for the exalted ideas of the Night Watch,” Arina said dismissively. “People and Others have rather different ideas about good and evil.”

  “All right,” I said, “so the balance has shifted. I believe you. The world really does seem to have gone insane. But this is human business, even if people decide to start World War III.”

  “What is the Twilight?” Arina asked.

  “A certain rational force,” I said. “A superforce.”

  Arina continued looking at me expectantly.

  “Generated by human thoughts, emotions, dreams . . .”

  “The Twilight doesn’t have a physical body,” Arina said. “It doesn’t even have a mind in the human sense of the word; it’s something quite different. The consciousness of people who are alive now is the pattern of its will. The memory of people who have died is the pattern of the Twilight’s memory. If the world tends toward evil, the Twilight becomes harsher. If the world tends toward good, the Twilight becomes kinder. But the Twilight doesn’t like to change; homeostasis is fundamental to every living thing.”

  “You mean to say there’s more evil in the world now than, let’s say, during World War II?” I asked, shaking my head. “I don’t believe it!”

  “It’s not a matter of there being more. It’s a matter of the balance. World wars are a monstrous atrocity, a boundless ocean of pain and fear. But they also involve great hopes, self-sacrifice, acts of mercy! A war doesn’t alter the balance, it merely raises the stakes. But if the Two-in-One has come, it means the balance has shifted. It means there is evil everywhere. Quiet, calm, indifferent evil. In men and women, children and adults. When the balance changes, the Twilights starts feeling uncomfortable, it begins to resist the change. And it manifests an entity of some kind in the human world. In the simplest cases, it’s Mirror Magicians, who restore the balance at a local level. If it’s something more serious, then it’s Absolute Others, who can give the world a new truth and change people’s nature. If prophecies capable of disrupting the balance are proclaimed, the Tiger comes. But if the balance is disrupted fundamentally, then the Two-in-One appears.”

  “Who is he?” I asked. “I had meetings with vampires, I know he’s an ancient vampire god . . .”

  “Ah, he’s not the vampires’ god,” Arina said with a frown. “Those ancient, toothy bloodsuckers are too ambitious. The Two-in-One is the great balancer, the eraser, the purger. If human civilization goes off the rails, he comes and destroys it. He reduces life to the most basic, banal truths. Eating, drinking, killing, reproducing. That’s what the Two-in-One does, he simplifies.”

  “Well he hasn’t managed it yet,” I said.

  “Who told you that?” Arina asked in surprise. “He has come many times before.”

  “But we’re alive. People are alive. And he—”

  “The Two-in-One doesn’t kill all the people!” she exclaimed, gesturing abruptly. “He kills the Others, or almost all of them—to be honest I don’t know exactly. ‘Five days are left to Others, six days to the people,’ right? Where does it say that everyone will die?”

  “Well . . .” I said embarrassed. “From the context it—”

  “Not everyone,” Arina said calmly. “The overwhelming majority. Ninety-nine percent. Or 99.9 percent. And a large number of animals will die too, especially the more complex ones. Do you know why?”

  I shook my head.

  “Because Power will come gushing into the world. Because the Twilight can’t recycle it all, it doesn’t need that much. And if the Others, who use Power, who control it through the Twilight and bleed off the excess, are killed, then people will be swamped by Power. One by one, they will all acquire the ability to work magic. And then it will start. It’s not even like giving a man a machine gun—this is an atom bomb. Imagine you’re an ordinary man. And suddenly you find that you’re able to work miracles. Only simple ones to begin with. But what are the simplest things? Burning. Blasting. Freezing. Shredding.”

  “Everyone has enemies,” I said.

  “Of course. And even if you don’t want to harm
anyone, you’ll feel frightened that they want to harm you. And you’ll start flinging magic about wildly, simply in order to defend yourself and your loved ones. Some will learn to do certain things, some will try to introduce rules and new laws, but people won’t have enough time to learn how to handle this gift, there won’t be any teachers to help them to understand how to live as Others. There won’t be any Watches. And the world will collapse.”

  She paused for a moment and then went on.

  “Yes, and don’t forget about the animals. They generate Power too. And when magic is accessible to everyone, when there’s an excess of it, the Twilight will start fulfilling their wishes. And animals have very simple wishes, Anton. Even simpler than people’s.”

  “The world will come to an end,” I said.

  “Almost. It will go on until very few people are left and the survivors learn how to cope with their new powers. Until homeostasis is restored and people lose their magical abilities . . . But new Others will appear among them. They’ll be primitive and weak by our standards, but in the changed world they will be the kings and rulers. And history will embark on a new cycle. Yet again.”

  “Which brings us back to the Sixth Watch,” I said. “To how you happen to know about it and what we can do.”

  Arina nodded.

  “All right, only I don’t want to tell the same story a hundred times. Call the Tiger.”

  “What Tiger?” I asked in an unnatural voice.

  “The one who brought you here. It’s not possible for an Other to enter the Sarcophagus of Time. I’m not a fool, Anton.”

  CHAPTER 4

  THE WITCHES WERE EATING. IT WAS PROBABLY A NERVOUS RESPONSE. I had assumed that after I disappeared with the Tiger they would start discussing the situation or all go to their rooms. But they had decided to continue with their meal.

  The hors d’oeuvres and the cognac had disappeared from the tables, and entrées of every description had appeared. The meat dishes included roasted piglets, saddles of lamb, and roast beef. There were all kinds of poultry, from quails to grouse and turkeys. And the fish ran from filleted trout to immense sturgeon carved into slices. The only alcohol left now was wine, but there was an incredible amount of it. The pretty young witches acting as waitresses kept bringing out dishes of oysters and prawns, which were eaten raw.