Great.
I want to be a human being. For at least twenty-four hours.
Semyon stopped and nodded to me.
“Let’s take two bottles. Three, even. Someone else might decide to join us.”
“It’s a deal,” I said with a nod. He hadn’t been reading my thoughts, it was just that he had so much more experience of life than I did.
“It’s easier for you,” Semyon added. “I almost never get the chance to be a human being.”
“Do you need to?” Tiger Cub asked, halting by the door.
Semyon shrugged:
“Of course not. But I kind of like the idea.”
We went into the house.
Twenty guests were a bit too much even for this house. If we’d been ordinary people, it would have been different. But we made too much noise. Try bringing together twenty kids who’ve been studying hard for months, give them the free run of a well-stocked toy shop, let them do anything they like, and see what you end up with.
Sveta and I were just about the only ones not really caught up in the noisy fun and games. We grabbed a glass of wine each off the buffet table and settled down on a leather couch in the corner of the living room.
Semyon and Ilya locked horns in a duel of magic. Very cultured, peaceful, and amusing for the others who were watching—at first, that is. Semyon must have wounded his friend’s vanity in the car: Now they were taking turns changing the climate in the living room. We’d already had winter in the forest outside Moscow, and autumn mist, and summer in Spain. Tiger Cub had categorically forbidden any kind of rain, but the magicians weren’t trying to summon up a violent display of the elements. They’d obviously imposed some restrictions of their own on the extent of climatic change, and the competition was less about who could produce the most unusual moment of nature ever recorded than who could deliver something that suited the mood of the moment.
Garik, Farid, and Danila were playing cards. A perfectly ordinary game, with no frills, but the air above the table was sparkling with magic. They were using magical means for cheating and protecting themselves against it. It made no real difference what cards they were holding in their hands.
Ignat stood by the open doors, surrounded by all the women from the research department, with our useless programmers in tow. Our sexual giant must have suffered some kind of romantic reversal, and now he was seeking comfort from a close circle of friends.
“Anton,” Sveta asked in a low voice, “what do you think—is all this for real?”
“What exactly?”
“The happy mood. You remember what Semyon said, don’t you?”
I shrugged:
“Can we come back to this when we get to be a hundred? I’m feeling good. It’s that simple. I don’t have to go running off anywhere; I don’t have to do any calculations. The Watches are lying low in the shade with their tongues hanging out.”
“I feel good too,” Svetlana agreed. “But there are only four of us here who are young, or almost young. Yulia, Tiger Cub, you, and me. What are we going to be like after a hundred years? Or after three hundred?”
“We’ll have to wait and see.”
“Anton, listen to me,” Sveta said, touching my cheek lightly with her hand. “I’m very proud that I joined the Watch. I’m happy that my mother’s well again. My life’s better now, no doubt about it. I can even understand why the boss put you through that ordeal . . .”
“Don’t, Sveta.” I took hold of her hand. “Even I understood that, and I got the worst of it. Don’t talk about it.”
“I wasn’t going to.” Sveta drained her glass of wine and put it down. “Anton, what I’m trying to say is—I can’t see any real joy.”
“Where?” Sometimes I must seem incredibly thick-headed.
“Here. In the Night Watch. In our close, friendly team. After all, every day is just one more battle for us. A big one or a little one. With a crazed werewolf, with a Dark Magician, with all the powers of Darkness at once. Summon up those sinews, jut out those chins, prepare to block that gun port with your bare chest, or squat on a hedgehog with your bare ass.”
I snorted with laughter.
“Sveta, what’s so bad about all that? Yes, we’re soldiers. Every last one of us, from Yulia to Gesar. Sure, it’s no great fun being at war. But if we pull back, then . . .”
“Then what?” Sveta asked. “Will the Apocalypse arrive? The forces of Good and Evil have been fighting each other for a thousand years. Tearing at each other’s throats, setting armies of human beings against each other—and all for their loftiest goals. But tell me, Anton, have people really not become any better in all that time?”
“Yes, they have.”
“And what about since the Watches were set up? Anton, my darling, you’ve told me so many things, and not just you. That the most important battle is for people’s souls, that we’re preventing mass slaughter. But are we? People still kill people. Far more than they used to do two hundred years ago.”
“Are you trying to tell me that the work we do is actually harmful?”
“No,” said Sveta, with a weary shake of her head. “No, I’m not. I’m not that conceited. I was just trying to say that maybe we’re simply the Light, and that’s all there is to it . . . You know, they’ve started selling fake New Year Tree decorations in Moscow. They look just like the real thing, but they don’t bring people any joy at all.”
She told the short joke with an absolutely straight face, without even changing her tone of voice. She looked in my eyes.
“Do you understand what I mean?”
“I understand.”
“Maybe you do. The Dark Ones have started doing less Evil,” said Svetlana. “These mutual concessions of ours, good deed for bad deed, licenses for murder and healing, that can all be justified, I’m sure. The Dark Ones do less Evil than they used to, and we don’t do Evil by definition. But what about the people?”
“What have people got to do with it?”
“What do you mean? It’s them we’re defending. Tirelessly, self-sacrificingly. So why aren’t their lives getting any better? They do the work of Darkness themselves. Why? Maybe it’s because we’ve lost something, Anton? The faith the Light Magicians used to have when they sent entire armies to their death, and marched in the front ranks themselves? The ability not just to defend people, but to bring them joy? What good are secure walls if they’re the walls of a prison? People have forgotten about genuine magic; people don’t believe in the Darkness, but they don’t believe in the Light either! Yes, Anton, we are soldiers! But people only love the army when there’s a war going on!”
“There is a war going on.”
“Who knows about it?”
“We’re not just plain soldiers, I suppose,” I said. It never feels good to retreat from old, familiar positions, but there was no other way out. “More like hussars. Taram, taram, taram . . .”
“The hussars knew how to smile. But we hardly ever do.”
“Then tell me what I ought to do,” I said, realizing that what had promised to be a beautiful day was rapidly running downhill into a dark, stinking ravine filled with old garbage. “Tell me! You’re a Great Sorceress, or you soon will be. A general in our war. I’m just a simple lieutenant. Give me my orders, and make sure they’re the right ones. Tell me what I should do!”
I noticed that the entire living room had fallen silent; nobody was listening to anything but us. But I didn’t care.
“Tell me to go out in the street and kill Dark Ones, and I’ll go. I’m not very good at it, but I’ll give it my best shot! Tell me to smile and shower Good on the people, and I’ll go and do it. Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, we use these words so often we lose sight of what they mean; we hang them out like flags and leave them to rot in the wind and the rain. Then give us a new word! Give us new flags! Tell me where to go and what to do!”
Her lips started trembling. I stopped short, but it was too late.
Svetlana sat there cryin
g, with her hands over her face.
What on earth was I doing?
Had we really forgotten how to smile at each other?
Maybe I was absolutely right, a hundred times right, but . . .
What was my truth worth, if I was prepared to defend the entire world, but not those who were close to me? If I subdued hate, but wouldn’t give love a chance?
I jumped up, put my arm around Svetlana’s shoulders and led her out of the living room. The magicians all stood there, looking the other way. Maybe it wasn’t the first time they’d seen scenes like this. Maybe they understood the whole thing.
“Anton.” Tiger Cub appeared beside me without making a single sound. She pushed me forward and opened the door, looking at me with a mixture of reproach and unexpected understanding. Then she left us alone.
We stood there for a moment without even moving. Svetlana cried quietly, sobbing into my shoulder, and I waited. It was too late for words now. I’d said far too much already.
“I’ll try.”
I hadn’t been expecting that. Anything at all: resentment, a counter-attack, complaints, anything but that.
Svetlana took one hand away from her wet face. She shook her head and smiled.
“You’re right, Antoshka. Absolutely right. So far all I’ve done is complain and protest. I whine like a child and I don’t understand anything. Everyone just sticks my nose into my porridge and let’s me play with fire and waits for me to grow up a bit. So I’ll just have to do it; I’ll try, I’ll give you new flags.”
“Sveta . . .”
“You’re right,” she interrupted. “Only I’m a little bit right too. But I shouldn’t have cut loose like that in front of the others, of course. They’re only having fun the best way they know how. Today’s a day off, and nothing should be allowed to spoil it. Deal?”
I felt that wall again. The invisible wall that would always stand between me and Gesar, between me and the top bosses.
The wall that time would build between us. That day I’d laid a few rows of cold crystal bricks in it with my own hands.
“Forgive me, Sveta,” I whispered. “Forgive me.”
“Let’s forget it,” she said very firmly. “Let’s forget it. While we still can forget.”
We finally looked around.
“The study?” Sveta guessed.
Stained oak bookshelves with the volumes protected by dark glass. A massive desk with a computer on it.
“Yes.”
“Does Tiger Cub live alone, then?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “We don’t usually ask about things like that.”
“It looks as if she does. Right now, at least.” Svetlana took out a tissue and began dabbing the tears off her face. “She has a nice house. Let’s go, everyone must be feeling awkward.”
I shook my head:
“They must have sensed that we’re not quarreling.”
“No, they couldn’t have. There are barriers between all the rooms here; you can’t sense anything through them.”
I looked through the Twilight and spotted the concealed glimmering in the walls.
“I see it now. You’re getting more powerful every day.”
Svetlana smiled, a bit tensely, but with pride. She said:
“It’s strange. Why put up barriers if you live alone?”
“And why build them if you don’t?” I asked in a low voice that didn’t require an answer. Svetlana didn’t try to give me one.
We walked out of the study back into the lounge.
The atmosphere wasn’t totally funereal, but it was close enough.
Either Semyon or Ilya had made a supreme effort and filled the room with a damp, marshy smell. Ignat was standing with his arms around Lena and gazing miserably at everyone else. He preferred fun, in absolutely any form; any quarreling or tension was like a knife in the heart to him. The card players were staring silently at a single card lying on the table, and as they looked, it twitched about, changing its suit and its value. Yulia looked sulky. She was asking Olga about something in a quiet voice.
“Will someone pour me a drink?” Sveta asked, holding me by the hand. “Didn’t you know the best medicine for hysterical women is a shot of cognac?”
Tiger Cub, who had been standing by the window and looking unhappy, walked quickly across to the bar. Did she really blame herself for our argument?
Sveta and I took a glass of cognac each, clinked glasses demonstratively and kissed each other. I caught Olga’s glance: not delighted, not saddened, just interested. And just slightly jealous.
I suddenly had a bad feeling.
As if I’d emerged from a labyrinth I’d been wandering around in for days, for months. And when I came out I saw only the entrance to the next set of catacombs.
CHAPTER 2
IT WAS ANOTHER TWO HOURS BEFORE I GOT A CHANCE TO talk with Olga alone. The merrymaking that had seemed so forced to Svetlana had already moved outside. Semyon was in charge of the barbecue, handing out kebabs to everyone who wanted them—they seemed to me to cook with a speed that definitely hinted at the use of magic. There were two crates of dry wine standing in the shade nearby.
Olga was having a friendly chat with Ilya, both holding kebab skewers and glasses of wine. It was a shame to interrupt the idyll, but . . .
“Olya, I need to have a word with you,” I said, going across to them. Svetlana was completely engrossed in an argument with Tiger Cub—the girls were having a passionate discussion about the Watch’s traditional New Year Carnival, which they’d moved on to from the subject of the hot weather. The moment was just right.
“Excuse me, Ilya,” said Olga with a shrug. “We’ll come back to this, okay? I find your views on the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union very interesting. Even though you’re not right.”
Ilya smiled exultantly and walked away.
“Ask away, Anton,” Olga said to me in exactly the same tone.
“Do you know what I’m going to ask?”
“I think I can guess.”
I glanced around. There was no one near us. It was still that brief moment at the beginning of a summerhouse picnic when people want to eat and drink, before their stomachs and their heads both start to feel heavy.
“What’s in store for Svetlana?”
“It’s not easy to read the future. Especially the future of Great Magicians and Sorceresses . . .”
“Don’t avoid the issue, partner,” I said, looking into her eyes. “Stop it. We worked together, didn’t we? We were partners? When your punishment was still in force and you didn’t even have that body. And your punishment was just.”
The blood drained from Olga’s face.
“What do you know about my offense?”
“Everything.”
“How?”
“I work with the data, after all.”
“You don’t have high enough clearance. And what happened to me has never been entered into the electronic archive.”
“Circumstantial evidence, Olya. You’ve seen ripples running out across water, haven’t you? The stone might be lying on the bottom already, deep in the silt, but the circles still keep on going. Eroding the banks, casting up garbage and foam, even overturning boats if the stone was really big. Let’s just say I’ve spent a long time standing on the bank, Olya. Standing and watching the waves wearing it away.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“No. Olga, what happens to Sveta next, after this? What stage of the training?”
The sorceress looked at me, completely forgetting her cold kebab and half-empty glass. I struck another blow.
“You’ve been through that stage, haven’t you?”
“Yes.” It looked like she was going to open up. “I have. But I was prepared for it more slowly.”
“So what’s the great hurry with Sveta?”
“Nobody was expecting another Great Sorceress to be born this century. Gesar had to improvise, make things up as he went along.”
>
“Is that why they let you have your old form back? Not just for doing a good job?”
“You say you understand everything!” said Olga, her eyes glinting angrily. “So what’s the point of tormenting me?”
“Are you monitoring her training? On the basis of your own experience?”
“Yes. Satisfied?”
“Olga, we’re on the same side of the barricades,” I whispered.
“Then don’t stop your comrades from doing their jobs.”
“Olga, what’s the ultimate goal? What was it you couldn’t do? What is it Sveta has to do?”
“You . . .” she said, genuinely confused now. “Anton, you were bluffing!”
I didn’t answer.
“You don’t know anything! Ripples on the water! You don’t even know which way to look to see them!”
“Maybe so. But I got the important thing right, didn’t I?”
Olga looked at me and bit her lip. Then she nodded.
“You did. A straight answer to a straight question. But I’m not going to explain anything. You shouldn’t even know about it. It doesn’t concern you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
“None of us wish Sveta any harm,” Olga said sharply. “Is that clear?”
“We don’t know how to wish anyone harm. It’s just that sometimes our Good is no different from Evil.”
“Anton, let’s stop right there. I have no right to answer your questions. And we shouldn’t spoil this surprise vacation for the others.”
“Just how much of a surprise is it?” I asked suggestively. “Well, Olya?”
But she’d already pulled herself together, and her expression remained impenetrable. Much too impenetrable for a question like that.
Night Watch Page 35