I lay down in the hammock and took out my disk player, pressed the random selection switch, and closed my eyes. I felt like tuning out completely, filling my ears with something meaningless…
But I was unlucky. I got Picnic.
Oh no, this makes me want to laugh,
There is no window here, the door's corroded;
The Grand Inquisitor himself
Has come to torture me.
The Inquisitor squats down,
Picks up an instrument:
"Tell me everything you know,
And you'll feel better too."
I'm sure he wants to open me up
Like a simple suitcase, he knows one thing:
Even the very emptiest of the emptiest
Has a false bottom, a false bottom.
I don't like coincidences like that. Even the most ordinary people can influence reality-they're just not capable of directing their Power. Everybody's familiar with the feeling-when buses turn up just as you need them or stubbornly refuse to appear; when the songs playing on the radio match up with your thoughts; when you get phone calls from people you were just thinking about… By the way, there is a very simple way of checking if you're getting close to the abilities of an Other. If for several days in a row when you happen to glance at the clock you see the figures 11:11-it means your connection with the Twilight has become more intense. On days like that you shouldn't neglect your premonitions and intuitions…
But that's just small-scale human stuff. In Others the connection is just as unconscious as in people, but it's far more pronounced. And I really didn't like the fact that the song about the Grand Inquisitor had turned up at precisely that moment…
If I had had more strength
I would have told him: "Dear fellow,
I do not know who I am, where I am,
What forces rule this world;
And the labyrinths of long streets
Have snared by wandering feet…
The Inquisitor does not trust me,
He gives the screw a turn
I'm sure he wants to open me up
Like a simple suitcase, he knows one thing:
Even the very emptiest of the emptiest
Has a false bottom, a false bottom.
Aha. And I would have liked to know what forces rule this world too…
Someone patted me gently on the shoulder.
"I'm not asleep, Sveta…" I said. And opened my eyes.
The Inquisitor Edgar shook his head, smiling reticently. I read his lips: "Sorry, Anton, but I'm not Sveta." Despite the heat, Edgar was wearing a suit, a tie, and polished shoes without a single speck of dust on them. And in these city clothes he still didn't look ridiculous. That's Baltic blood for you.
"What the hell," I barked, tumbling out of the hammock. "Edgar?"
Edgar waited patiently. I pulled the button earphones out of my ears, caught my breath, and declared, "I'm on vacation. According to the rules, harassing an employee of the Night Watch while he is off duty…"
"Anton, I just dropped in to see you," said Edgar. "You don't mind, do you?"
I didn't feel any dislike for Edgar. He'd never be a Light One, but his move to the Inquisition had inspired me with respect. If Edgar wanted to have a word with me, I'd be happy to meet him anytime.
But not at the dacha where Sveta and Nadiushka were on vacation.
"Yes, I mind," I said sternly. "If you don't have an official warrant-get off my land."
And I pointed with an impossibly absurd gesture to the crooked picket fence. My land… what a grand-sounding phrase.
Edgar sighed, and slowly reached for his inside pocket.
I knew what he would take out, but it was too late to start backpedaling now.
The warrant from the Moscow Office of the Inquisition said that "for purposes of an official investigation we hereby command the employee of the Moscow Night Watch, Anton Gorodetsky, Light Magician of the second rank, to afford every possible assistance to Inquisitor of the second rank Edgar." It was the first time I'd ever seen an actual warrant from the Inquisition, and so a few petty details stuck in my mind: The Inquisitors continued to define power in the old-style "ranks," they weren't ashamed to use a phrase like "hereby command," and they called each other only by their first names even in official documents.
Then I noticed the most important part, at the bottom. The seal of the Night Watch and a flourish in Gesar's handwriting: "I have been informed and consent."
How about that.
"What if I refuse?" I asked. "I don't much like it when I am 'hereby commanded.'"
Edgar frowned and peered at the document. "Our secretary's just turned three hundred. Don't take offense, Anton. It's nothing but archaic terminology. Like 'rank'," he said.
"And is doing without surnames another part of old tradition?" I asked. "I'm just curious."
Edgar glanced at the piece of paper, perplexed. He frowned again. Then he said irritably, beginning to draw out his vowels in the Baltic style, "Why-y that old hag… She forgot my surname and she was too proud to ask."
"Then I have good grounds for throwing this warrant on the compost heap." I looked around the plot of land for a compost heap, but didn't find one. "Or down the privy. The instruction doesn't have your surname on it, so it has no force, right?"
Edgar didn't answer.
"And what's in store for me if I refuse to cooperate?" I asked.
"Nothing too serious," Edgar said glumly. "Even if I bring a new warrant. A complaint to your immediate superior, punishment at his discretion…"
"So your intimidating document comes down to a request for help?"
"Yes," said Edgar and nodded.
I was relishing the situation. The terrible Inquisition that green novices used to frighten each other had turned out to be a toothless old hag.
"What's happened?" I asked. "I'm on vacation-do you realize that? With my wife and daughter. And my mother-in-law, too. I'm not working."
"But that didn't stop you going to see Arina," said Edgar, without batting an eyelid.
It served me right. Never, ever, let your guard down.
"That relates to my direct professional responsibilities," I retorted. "Protecting people and monitoring the activities of Dark Ones. Always and everywhere. By the way, how do you know about Arina?"
Now it was Edgar's turn to smile and take his time.
"Gesar informed us," he said eventually. "You called him yesterday and reported in, right? Since this is a nonstandard situation, Gesar felt it was his duty to warn the Inquisition. In token of our unfailingly friendly relations."
I didn't understand a thing.
If the witch was somehow mixed up in that business with Gesar's son… So she wasn't mixed up in it then?
"I have to give him a call," I said, walking away melodramatically toward the house. Edgar remained docilely beside the hammock. He actually squinted at a plastic chair, but decided it wasn't clean enough.
I waited with the cell phone pressed against my ear.
"Yes, what is it, Anton?"
"Edgar's come to see me…"
"Yes, yes, yes," Gesar said absentmindedly. "Yesterday, after your report, I decided I ought to inform the Inquisition about the witch. If you feel like it-help him out. If you don't-just send him you know where. His warrant is drawn up incorrectly-did you notice?"
"Yes, I did," I said, glancing sideways in Edgar's direction. "Boss, what about those werewolves?"
"We're checking," Gesar replied after a brief hesitation. "A dead end so far."
"And something else, about that witch…" I glanced down at the "book about the book." "I requisitioned a rather amusing book from her… Fuaran-fantasy or fact?"
"Yes, yes, I've read it," Gesar said amiably. "Now if you'd found the genuine Fuaran, then you'd have something. Is that all, Anton?"
"Yes," I said, and Gesar hung up.
Edgar was waiting patiently.
I walked up to him, paused theatrica
lly for a moment and asked, "What is the purpose of your investigation? And what do you want from me?"
"You are going to cooperate, Anton?" Edgar exclaimed, genuinely delighted. "My investigation concerns the witch Arina, whom you discovered. I need you to show me how to get to her."
"And what business does the Inquisition have with the old bag of bones?" I enquired. "I don't see the slightest indication of any crime here. Not even from the Night Watch's point of view."
Edgar hesitated. He wanted to lie-and at the same time, he realized that I could sense if he was lying. Our powers were more or less equal, and even his Inquisitor's gimmicks wouldn't necessarily work.
"We have some old leads on the witch," the Dark Magician admitted. "On file from back in the '30s. The Inquisition has a number of questions for her…"
I nodded. I'd been bothered from the beginning by her story about being persecuted by the malicious security police. All sorts of things happened back then. The peasants could have kicked up a racket to try to get even with a witch. But they could only have tried. A trick like that might work with a lower-level Other, but not with a witch of such great power…
"Okay, we'll go see her," I agreed. "How would you like some breakfast, Edgar?"
"I wouldn't say no." The Dark Magician said frankly. "Er… won't your wife object?"
"Let's ask her," I said.
It was an interesting breakfast. The Inquisitor felt out of place and he tried awkwardly to crack jokes, as well as pay compliments to Svetlana and Ludmila Ivanovna, talk baby-talk to Nadiushka and praise the simple omelette.
Clever little Nadiushka took a close look at "Uncle Edgar," shook her head and said, "You're different."
After that she never left her mother's side.
Svetlana found Edgar's visit amusing. She asked him some innocent questions, recalled the "story of the Mirror" and in general behaved as if she was entertaining a colleague from work and a good comrade.
But Ludmila Ivanovna was absolutely delighted with Edgar. She liked the way he dressed and spoke-even the way he held his fork in his left hand and his knife in his right hand made my mother-in-law ecstatic. Anyone would have thought the rest of us were eating with our hands… And the fact that Edgar firmly refused "a little glass for the appetite" provoked a reproachful glance in my direction, as if I were in the habit of gulping down a couple of glasses of vodka every morning.
And so Edgar and I set out on our way feeling well-fed, but slightly irritated. I was irritated by my mother-in-law's ecstatic raptures, and he seemed to be irritated by her attention.
"Can you tell me what the charges against the witch are?" I asked as we approached the edge the forest.
"Well, after all, I suppose we did drink to Bruderschaft," Edgar reminded me. "Why don't we start talking to each other less formally again? Or is my new job…"
"It's no worse than your job in the Day Watch," I chuckled. "Okay, at ease."
Edgar was satisfied with that and he didn't drag things out any longer.
"Arina is a powerful and respected witch… in the witches' own narrow circles. You know how it is, Anton, every group has its own hierarchy. Gesar can mock Witezslav as much as he likes, but as far as vampires are concerned-he's the most powerful there is. Arina occupies a similar sort of position among the witches. An extremely high one."
I nodded. My new acquaintance was no simple witch, no doubt about that…
"The Day Watch asked her to work for them more than once," Edgar continued. "Just as insistently as your side fought for Svetlana… please don't take offense, Anton."
I was not offended in the slightest…
"The witch refused point-blank. Well okay, that's her right. Especially since in certain situations she did collaborate on a temporary basis. But early last century, soon after the socialist revolution, a certain unpleasant event took place…"
He paused uncertainly. We entered the forest. I set off with rather ostentatious confidence, and Edgar followed. Looking absurd in his city suit, the Dark Magician clambered fearlessly through the bushes and the gullies. He didn't even loosen his tie…
"At the time the Night Watch and the Day Watch were fighting for the right to conduct a social experiment," Edgar told me. "Communism, as you know, was invented by the Light Ones…"
"And subverted by the Dark Ones," I couldn't resist remarking.
"Oh, come on, Anton," Edgar said resentfully. "We didn't subvert anything. People chose for themselves what kind of society to build. Anyway, Arina was asked to collaborate. She agreed to carry out… a certain mission. The interests of the Dark Ones and the Light Ones were involved, and even the witch's. Both sides were in agreement with the… mission. They were both counting on winning out in the end. The Inquisition was keeping an eye on things, but there was no reason to intervene. It was all happening with the agreement of both Watches…"
This was interesting news. What kind of mission could it have been, if it was approved equally by the Dark Ones and the Light Ones?
"Arina carried out her mission brilliantly," Edgar continued. "She was even awarded special privileges from the Watches… If I'm not mistaken, the Light Ones granted her the right to use second-level magic.
This was serious stuff. I nodded and took note of the information.
"But after a while the Inquisition began having doubts about the legality of Arina's actions," Edgar said dryly. "The suspicion arose that in the course of her work she had fallen under the influence of one of the sides and acted in its interests."
"And that side was?"
"The Light Ones," Edgar said somberly. "A witch, helping the Light ones-incredible isn't it? That's why it took a long time before they got around to suspecting her, but the circumstantial evidence of treachery was just too strong… The Inquisition summoned Arina for an interview. And then she just disappeared. The search for her went on for some time, but in those times-you know the way things were…"
"But what was it she did?" I asked, not really expecting an answer.
But Edgar sighed and said, "Intervened in the minds of human beings… Total remoralization."
I gulped. What interest could Dark Ones have in that?
"Surprised?" Edgar growled. "Do you have a clear idea of what remoralization is?"
"I've even carried it out. On myself."
Edgar gaped at me, dumbstruck, for a few seconds and then nodded.
"Ah… yes, of course," he said. "Then you don't need too much explanation. Remoralization is a relative process, not an absolute one. Whatever you might say, there is no absolute standard of morality in the world. And so remoralization makes a person act absolutely ethically, but only within the limits of his own basic morality. To put it crudely, a cannibal in the jungle who doesn't think eating his enemy is a crime will calmly continue with his dinner. But he won't do anything that his morality forbids."
"I'm aware of that," I said.
"Well then, this remoralization wasn't entirely relative. The communist ideology was implanted in people's minds… you've probably heard about many of them, but the names aren't important for purposes of the case."
"The moral code of the builder of communism," I said with a wry laugh.
"That hadn't been invented yet," Edgar replied very seriously. "But let's say, something very similar. And these people started to behave entirely in accordance with the idealized model of communist ethics."
"I can understand what the Night Watch's interest was in all this," I said. "The principles of communism are certainly attractive… But where did the Dark Ones' interest lie?"
"The Dark Ones wished to demonstrate that imposing a nonviable system of ethics would not produce anything good. That the victims of the experiment would either go insane, or be killed, or start acting contrary to their remoralization."
I nodded. What an experiment. Never mind those Nazi medics who mutilated people's bodies. It was souls that had gone under the knife here…
"Are you outraged by the Light Ones' b
ehavior?" Edgar asked suggestively.
"No." I shook my head. "I'm sure they didn't wish those people any harm. And they hoped the experiment would lead to the building of a new, happy society."
"Were you ever a member of the Communist Party?" Edgar asked with a grin.
"I was only a Young Pioneer. Okay, I get the idea of the experiment. But why did they bring in a witch to do it?"
"In this case it was far more efficient to use witchcraft than magic," Edgar explained. "The experiment was aimed at thousands of people of every possible age and social group. Can you imagine the forces that magicians would have had to assemble? But a witch was able to do it all by using potions…"
"Did she put them in the water supply or what?"
"In bread. They got her a job in a bread-making plant." Edgar laughed. "She actually proposed a new, more efficient way of baking bread-with the addition of various herbs. And she even won a special bonus for it."
"I see. And what was Arina's interest in all this?"
Edgar snorted. He jumped nimbly over a fallen tree and looked into my eyes.
"Do you have to ask, Anton? Who wouldn't like to fool about with magic as powerful as that? And she even had permission from the Watches and the Inquisition."
"I suppose so…" I muttered. "So, there was an experiment… And the result?"
"As should have been expected," Edgar said, his eyes glinting ironically. "Some of them went insane, took to drink, or killed themselves. Some were repressed-for over-zealous devotion to their ideals. And some found ways to get around the remoralization."
"The Dark Ones were proven right?" I asked, so stunned that I stopped dead in my tracks. "But even so the Inquisition considers that the witch corrupted the spell-acting on instructions from the Light Ones?"
Edgar nodded.
"That's raving lunacy," I said, walking on. "Absolute nonsense. The Dark Ones effectively proved their point. And you say the Light Ones were to blame."
"Not all the Light Ones," Edgar replied imperturbably. "One particular individual… maybe a small group. Why they did it, I don't know. But the Inquisition is dissatisfied. The objectivity of the experiment was compromised, the balance of power was undermined, some kind of very long-term, obscure plan was launched…"
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