The final chapter contained a discussion of the theme 'What did Fuaran invent?' The authors had no doubt that she really had succeeded, but they believed the book had been lost forever. The reluctant conclusion was that her discovery was so fortuitous and original that its essential nature was impossible to guess.
But what surprised me most of all was the brief résumé – if the book Fuaran still existed, it was the duty of every Other to destroy it immediately, 'for reasons clear to everyone, despite the substantial temptation and motives of personal gain . . .'
Oh, those Dark Ones! How they clung to their great power!
I closed the book and started walking round the yard. I looked into the barn again, and decided once more not to risk turning on the car's engine.
Fuaran and her book had existed. The witches had been certain of that. I had to allow for the possibility of a hoax, but in my heart I didn't really believe it.
So the theoretical possibility of transforming a human being into an Other did exist!
That made sense of what had happened at Assol. Gesar and Olga's son had been a human being – as Others' children usually were. That was why the Great Ones hadn't been able to find him. But when they had found him, they'd turned him into an Other, then set up the whole show . . . they hadn't even been afraid to deceive the Inquisition.
I lay down in the hammock and took out my minidisc player. Pressed the random selection switch and closed my eyes. I felt like switching off 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 soon'.
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 enjoy 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; when the songs playing on the radio link to your thoughts; when you get phone calls from people you were just thinking about . . . 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, 22.22 or 00.00, it means your connection with the Twilight is becoming more intense. On days like that you shouldn't ignore 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. 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 my 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 out my earphones, caught my breath and declared:
'I'm on holiday. According to the rules, harassing an employee of the Night Watch while he is off duty . . .'
'Anton, I just dropped in to see you,' he replied. 'You don't mind, do you?'
I didn't dislike Edgar. He'd never be a Light One, but his move to the Inquisition inspired respect. If Edgar wanted to have a word with me, I'd be happy to meet him any time.
But not at the dacha where Sveta and Nadiushka were on holiday.
'Yes, I mind,' I said sternly. 'If you don't have an official warrant, get off my land!'
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 something in his inside pocket.
I knew what it was. But it was too late to start back-pedalling 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 Edgar, Inquisitor of the second rank'. 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.
And 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 being 'hereby commanded'.
Edgar frowned and peered at the document. He said:
'Our secretary's just turned three hundred. Don't take offence, Anton. It's nothing but archaic terminology. Like "rank".'
'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 round the plot of land for a compost heap, but didn't find one. 'Or down the toilet. 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 co-operate?' 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 for frightening each other with, had turned out to be a toothless old crone!
'What's happened?' I asked. 'I'm on holiday, do you realise that? With my wife and daughter. And my mother-in-law too. I'm not working.'
'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, didn't you? Since this is an unusual situation, Gesar felt it was his duty to warn the Inquisition. As a token of our unfailing friendly relations.'
r />
I didn't understand a thing.
Was the witch somehow mixed up in that business with Gesar's son?
'I have to call him,' I said, walking demonstratively towards the house. Edgar remained standing docilely beside the hammock. He even peered briefly at a plastic chair, but decided it wasn't clean enough.
I waited with the mobile phone pressed against my ear.
'Yes, what is it, Anton?'
'Edgar's come to see me . . .'
'Yes, yes, yes,' Gesar said absent-mindedly. '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 really deserve a medal. Is that all, Anton?'
'Yes,' I said. Gesar hung up.
Edgar was waiting patiently.
I walked up to him, paused theatrically for a moment and asked:
'What is the purpose of your investigation? And what do you want from me?'
'You are going to co-operate, 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.'
'What business does the Inquisition have with that 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 realised that I would sense it if he did. 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 1930s. The Inquisition has a number of questions for her.'
I nodded. I'd been bothered from the start by her story about being persecuted by the malicious NKVD. All sorts of things happened back then, the peasants could have kicked up a racket to attempt to try to get even with a witch. But they could only have tried. A trick like that might work with a lower-grade Other. But not with a witch of such great power . . .
'Okay, we'll go to see her,' I agreed. 'Would you like some breakfast, Edgar?'
'I wouldn't say no,' the Dark Magician replied frankly. 'Er . . . Will your wife object?'
'Let's ask her,' I said.
It was an interesting breakfast. The Inquisitor felt out of place and tried awkwardly to crack jokes, at the same time as paying compliments to Svetlana and Ludmila Ivanovna, talking baby-talk to Nadiushka and praising 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 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.
* See The Day Watch, Story One
But Ludmila Ivanovna was delighted with Edgar. She liked the way he dressed and spoke. The way he held his fork in his left hand and his knife in his right made her 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 was in the habit of gulping down a couple of glasses of vodka every morning.
And so Edgar and I set out feeling well fed, but slightly irritated. I was irritated by my mother-in-law's fawning 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 of the forest.
'Well, after all, I suppose we did drink to Brüderschaft back in Prague that time,' Edgar reminded me. 'Why don't we address each other less formally? Or is my new job . . .'
'It's no worse than your job in the Day Watch,' I laughed. 'Okay, at ease.'
Edgar was satisfied with that and didn't drag things out any longer.
'Arina is a powerful and respected witch . . . within their narrow circles. You know how it is, Anton, every group has its own hierarchy. Gesar can mock Witiezslav 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 clearly no simple witch.
'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 offence, Anton.'
I wasn't offended in the slightest . . .
'The witch refused point-blank. Okay, that's her right. Especially as she did collaborate on a temporary basis in certain situations. But early last century, shortly after the socialist revolution, an unpleasant event took place . . .'
He paused. As 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 Watches 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 adding.
'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, as well as the witch's. Both sides were in agreement over 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. What kind of mission could it have been, if it was approved equally by Dark Ones and 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-degree 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 drily. '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 sombrely. 'A witch, helping the Light ones – incredible, isn't it? That's why it took so long for them to get round 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 days – you know the way things were . . .'