'Uncle Igor, we're not afraid,' Petya said unexpectedly.
The young Anton backed him up.
'We'll go with you!'
They looked at me calmly, without resentment. Clearly they hadn't expected anything else.
'They can't do anything more . . .' said Igor. 'Watchman . . .'
'That's okay. If they distract the witch, that will be a help. Now transform!'
Svetlana turned away. But she didn't say anything.
The werewolves began getting undressed silently. The little girl was the only one who looked around shyly and went behind a currant bush, the others weren't embarrassed.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a village woman walking along the road, carrying a bucket filled with potatoes. She'd probably dug them up out of the collective farm field. When she saw what was happening inside the fence, she stopped, but I couldn't give a damn about her right then. I wasn't in great shape as it was, I had no power to waste on chance witnesses. I needed to learn to run. To run fast, so that I could keep up with the wolves.
'Let me help,' said Svetlana. She moved her open hand through the air, and I felt a pleasant ache fill my body and strength start flooding into my legs. I instantly felt hot, as if I'd stepped into an overheated sauna. 'Pace' is a simple spell, but it has to be used with great caution. Catch the cardiac muscle as well as the legs, and you'll give yourself a heart attack.
Beside me Igor began groaning and arched over with his hands and feet on the ground and his spine reaching towards the sky, as if it had snapped in half. So that was where all the old folktales about having to jump over a rotten tree stump came from . . . His skin turned dark, broke out in a bright red rash, then sprouted clumps of damp, rapidly growing fur.
'Quickly!' I shouted. The air coming out of my mouth was hot and damp, I could see my breath steaming, as if there was a frost. It was unbearably difficult to stand still – my body craved movement.
It was good to see that the werewolves felt the same.
The large wolf grinned. For some reason his teeth were the last thing to change. The human teeth in a wolf 's mouth looked comical, and at the same time horrific. I suddenly had the strange thought that werewolves had to manage without fillings and crowns.
But then, I realised, their bodies are a lot stronger than human ones. Werewolves don't suffer from tooth decay.
'Let's-s-s go . . .' the wolf barked with a lisp. 'It's hot.'
The cubs ran up to the wolf, yelping – they were wet too, as if they'd been sweating. One of them still had human eyes, but I couldn't tell if it was one of the boys or the girl.
'Let's run!' I said.
And I tore off, without looking back at Svetlana, without thinking about whether anyone would see us or not. I could sort that out later. Or Svetlana would erase our tracks.
But the streets were empty, even the woman with the bucket had gone. Maybe Svetlana had driven everybody back home? It would be good if she had. It's a strange sight – a man running faster than nature allows, and four wolves running along with him.
My legs seemed to carry me on of their own accord. The ten-league boots in children's fairy tales and Baron Münchhausen's fleet-footed friend – these are the reflections in human myth of this little piece of magic. Only the fairy tales don't tell you how much the pounding of the road against your feet hurts . . .
After about a minute we turned towards the river and it was easier running over soft earth. I stayed beside the wolf, like some considerate storybook Prince Ivan who didn't want to exhaust his grey friend. The cubs fell behind – it was harder for them. Werewolves are very strong, but their speed doesn't come from magic.
'What ideas . . . have you . . . come up with?' the wolf barked. 'What are . . . you going . . . to do?'
If only I knew the answer to that.
A battle between Others is the manipulation of the Power dissolved in the Twilight. I was a second-grade magician – which is pretty high. Arina was way beyond all frameworks of classification. But Arina was a witch, and that was an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time. She couldn't have taken all her charms and talismans and amulets with her . . . only a few little things. But on the other hand, she could draw power directly from nature. In the city, her powers decreased, but here they increased. For really serious magic she needed to use some particular amulet, and that took time . . . but the charge of accumulated power in an amulet could be monstrously strong.
I couldn't tell. There were too many variables. I wouldn't even have tried to predict the outcome of a fight between Arina and Gesar. The Great Magician would probably win, but it wouldn't be easy.
And what could I use against the witch?
Speed?
She'd withdraw into the Twilight, where she felt a lot more confident. And with every successive level, I'd get slower and slower.
Surprise?
To some degree. After all, I was hoping Arina wasn't expecting me.
Simple brute force? Smash her over the head with a rock?
To do that, I had to get close to her.
Everything suggested that I had to sneak up on her and get as close as possible. And the moment the witch was distracted, attack. With a crude, primitive punch.
'Listen!' I shouted to the wolf. 'When we get close, I'll withdraw into the Twilight. I'll go on ahead and creep up on the witch. You advance in the open. When she starts talking to you and gets distracted, I'll attack. Help me then.'
'All r-r-right,' the wolf growled, saying nothing about what he really thought of the plan.
CHAPTER 7
WAS THIS SPOT still marked on maps of the Second World War? Maybe it was a battlefield well known to historians and celebrated in all the books, a place where two armies had once clashed in a bloody, murderous conflict – and the juggernaut of the blitzkrieg had shuddered to a halt and been rolled back?
Or maybe it was one of our obscure, unknown fields of shame, where the crack German units had trampled into the mud the untrained and poorly armed volunteers thrown in against them? A place only remembered in the archives of the Ministry of Defence?
I didn't know my history very well, but it was probably the latter. This place was too deserted, too bleak and dead. An abandoned patch of dirt that not even the collective farms had coveted.
In our country we don't like to erect monuments on battlefields where we were defeated.
Maybe that's because our victories weren't all that slick either?
I stood on the bank of the narrow river and looked at the area of dead ground. It wasn't all that big: a strip of land between the forest and the river, about a kilometre wide and ten kilometres long. Not so very many people had been killed here. More likely hundreds than thousands.
But then, how could you really say that wasn't many?
The field was utterly deserted. I couldn't see anybody with my normal vision, and a glance through the Twilight hadn't revealed anything either.
Then I picked up my shadow – the sun was setting behind me – and entered the Twilight.
At the first level the ground was overgrown with blue moss, but not too thickly. The usual scraggy clumps, clutching greedily at faint echoes of human emotion.
There was one thing that put me on my guard. The moss seemed to run in rings round one particular spot. I knew that it could move, creeping along slowly but stubbornly towards its food.
And in this place there was only one possible reason for it to form into circles.
I set off through the thick grey haze. The human world was visible through it all around me, like a faded, poorly exposed black-and- white photograph. It was cold and cheerless – I was losing energy with every second I spent here. But there was a positive side to that. Not even Arina could stay in the Twilight constantly. She could glance into the first level from the ordinary world, but even that required Power.
And right now she was in no position to be reckless and wasteful with the Power she had stored up over the years.
At th
e first level the terrain is almost unchanged. Here too I had earth under my feet, ruts and humps. But I discovered something else. I could see, or rather, sense, the old weapons in the ground. Not every one, of course, only those that had actually killed. Half-decayed sub-machine guns, slightly better preserved rifles . . . There were more rifles.
About a hundred metres from Arina I hunkered down and started running in a squat. The spell Svetlana had put on me was still working, or I would soon have been out of breath. About fifty metres away I lay down and started to crawl. The ground was damp, and I was instantly coated with mud. At least I knew that when I left the Twilight the mud would simply drop off. The blue moss began stirring, uncertain what to do – move closer to me or crawl away from any possible danger. That was bad. Arina might realise what was agitating it.
And then, very close to me, only about five metres away, a head with long black hair began rising slowly from the densely overgrown ground. The trench was so narrow, it looked as if Arina was emerging straight from the earth.
I froze.
But Arina wasn't looking in my direction. Her body rose up very slowly until it was completely erect – she seemed to be sitting on the bottom of the old trench. Then she raised her hand theatrically to shade her eyes, as if she was saluting. I realised she was looking through the Twilight.
Fortunately not at me.
My press-ganged recruits were getting close.
How beautifully they ran! Even through the Twilight their movement looked fast, the only difference was that they hung in the air too long when they leapt. The wise old wolf was leading the way, with the cubs behind him.
A human being would have been frightened.
Arina laughed. She put her hands on her hips, for all the world like a young peasant woman from Ukraine watching her good-for- nothing husband approach with his drinking companions. She spoke, and low, rumbling sounds began drifting through the air. She was in no hurry to enter the Twilight.
I moved back into the human world.
'. . . stupid loudmouths!' I heard. 'Wasn't what you got last time enough for you?'
The wolves slowed to a walk and stopped about twenty metres away.
The leader stepped forward and barked:
'Witch! . . .Talk . . .We have to talk!'
'Talk away, grey wolf,' Arina said amiably.
Igor couldn't distract the witch for long, I knew that. Any moment now she would plunge into the Twilight and take a proper look around her.
But where was Nadiushka?
'Give us . . . the little girl . . .' the wolf half-shouted, half-howled. 'The Light One . . . is on the rampage . . . give us the girl . . . or it will . . . be worse for you . . .'
'Do you really think you can threaten me?' Arina asked in surprise. 'Have you completely lost your wits? Who would give a child to wolves? Leave while you still can!'
Strange, she seemed to be dragging things out.
'Is the child . . . alive?' the wolf asked in a slightly clearer voice.
'Nadenka, are you alive?' Arina asked, looking down towards the ground. She stooped, lifted my little girl out of the trench and set her on the surface.
I caught my breath. Nadenka didn't look frightened or tired at all. She seemed to be enjoying what was happening – a lot more than her walks with Grandma.
But she was close to the witch, too close.
'Wolfie!' said Nadya, looking at the werewolf. She reached her hand out to him and laughed happily.
The werewolf started wagging his tail.
It only lasted a few seconds, then Igor tensed up, his fur bristled, and once again we were watching a wild beast, not a tame dog. But even so, it had happened – a werewolf had fawned on a two-year-old girl, an uninitiated Other.
'Wolfie,' Arina agreed. 'Nadenka, look to see who else is here. Close your eyes and look. The way I taught you.'
Nadiushka cheerfully put her hands over her eyes. And began turning in my direction.
The witch was initiating her.
If Nadiushka really had learned to look through the Twilight . . .
My daughter turned towards me. She smiled.
'Daddy . . .'
I realised two things.
First, Arina knew perfectly well that I was nearby. The witch had been toying with me.
Second, Nadiushka wasn't looking through the Twilight. She had parted her fingers and looked through them.
I immediately withdrew into the Twilight. I was in such a nervous state that I plunged straight through to the second level – into that desolate cotton-wool silence and those pale-grey shadows.
Arina's aura was blazing orange and turquoise. Nadiushka's head was surrounded by a glowing, pure white halo – like a beacon beaming light into space: a potential Other. A Light One. With immense Power.
And the werewolves, who had started to run now, were bundles of red and crimson, fury and spite, hunger and fear . . .
'Svetlana!' I shouted into the grey space, into the soft silence. 'Come!'
I marked the spot for the portal simply – flinging pure Power into the Twilight, like stretching out a string of fire, a landing corridor. From me to Arina.
And at the same time I leapt up and started to run, so that Nadiushka wouldn't be between Arina and me, scattering from my fingers spells that I had learned a long time ago.
'Freeze' – a localised halt in time.
'Opium' – sleep.
'Triple blade' – the crudest and simplest of all the combat spells.
'Thanatos' – death.
I had no hope any of them would work. These things could only be effective when you were facing a very weak opponent. An Other with superior powers would parry the blows, whether he was in the Twilight or the human world.
All I wanted to do was distract the witch and slow her down. Overload her defences, which had to be based on amulets and talismans. All these fireworks were only calculated to identify a breach in those defences.
My 'freeze' seemed to disappear into nowhere.
The 'sleep' spell ricocheted off and shot up into the sky. I hoped there weren't any aeroplanes overhead.
The 'triple blade' struck home and the glittering blades sliced into the witch. But to her the triple blade was a mere scratch.
Things went worst of all with the summons to death. I had good reason to be fond of this piece of magic, so dangerously close to the spells of the Dark Ones. But even in the ordinary world, Arina still had time to hold out her hand. And the little bundle of grey mist that paralysed the will and stopped the heart landed obediently in her open palm.
Arina looked at me through the Twilight, smiling. Her hand was hovering over Nadiushka's head, and the grey bundle was slowly oozing between her fingers.
I leapt towards them – if I couldn't turn the blow aside, at least I could take it myself . . .
But Arina was already on the second level of the Twilight, moving fast. She looked blindingly beautiful. A movement of her fingers crumpled my spell, and she casually tossed it at the wolves.