The Tiger grabbed me by the collar and hauled me up into the air without the slightest effort.
“For instance, that if the Twilight dies, her beloved daddy will come back from the Sarcophagus.”
“Is that true?” I wheezed, clutching at my throat and trying to loosen my collar.
“No! But is she really going to believe me?”
The next moment the Tiger lunged forward—and we passed through the wall.
Arina’s scream broke off behind me, as if it had been chopped off with a knife.
Once again we were standing in the little house lost in the depths of the forest outside Moscow.
“Daddy!” shouted Nadya, dashing towards me. The Tiger let go of my collar and moved a few steps away. I hugged my daughter and looked at him. The Tiger looked morosely at Kesha, standing beside him. The boy seemed to have turned to stone.
“Don’t even think about it!” I said.
“But what guarantees do I have?” he asked in a low voice.
“None. We get by without guarantees all our lives—you’ll just have to get used to doing the same.”
The Tiger fixed Kesha with a piercing stare. Then he said: “Boy-Prophet—for my own safety, I ought to kill you . . .”
“I don’t want you to!” Kesha exclaimed, terrified, and started backing away awkwardly in my direction.
“All right. That’s what we’ll write: Innokentii Tolkov refused,” said the Tiger. And he disappeared.
The three of us were left alone together.
“Has he really gone?” asked Nadya. “What do you think, Daddy?”
“I think . . .” I said, rubbing my throat and coughing to clear it—the Tiger had almost strangled me as he dragged me out of the Sarcophagus, he didn’t know his own strength—“I think any being that has a sense of humor can’t be all bad.”
Nadya sobbed and hugged me even tighter. Kesha hesitated for a second, then walked up and nuzzled against me awkwardly from the other side.
“Everything’s fine, just fine,” I said. “It’s all over now.”
“But where’s Arina?” Nadya asked in a low voice.
“In the Sarcophagus of Time,” I replied.
“Does that mean forever?”
“That means that never before has anyone ended up in a Sarcophagus that is impossible to get out of, with a Minoan Sphere that can open portals from absolutely anywhere . . . I don’t know, Nadya. Probably not even the Tiger knows that.”
I myself didn’t know whether what I’d said was really the truth or an attempt to console my daughter.
And I was even less sure if I wanted the ancient witch to make her inconceivable escape from that dungeon. It was basically fine by me if she stayed there until the end of time.
“Shall I try to open a portal?” asked Nadya. “The Twilight is settling down . . .”
“In ten minutes and thirty seconds the Great Gesar and Great Zabulon will open a portal to us,” Kesha suddenly announced. His voice had changed. As often happens with young prophets, the fright had started him prophesying. “Next week you will explain your actions at the Inquisition Tribunal in Prague . . .”
“That much I can figure out for myself,” I whispered, gazing at the tousled hair on the top of Kesha’s head.
“You are Anton Gorodetsky,” the boy continued. “You are a Light Other. You are Nadya’s father. Because of you . . . all of us . . . all of us . . .”
I held my breath.
But there was silence
“Did I say something?” Kesha asked timidly.
Isn’t that always the way!
Just when you really want to know if you did the right thing or not.
But no one will ever answer that question for you.
Not even the Twilight.
About the Author
Sergei Lukyanenko was born in Kazakhstan and educated as a psychiatrist. He began publishing science fiction in the 1980s and has published more than twenty-five books.
Andrew Bromfield (translator) is a founding editor of the Russian literature journal Glas. He is known for his acclaimed translations of Victor Pelevin and Boris Akunin, and his work has been short-listed for numerous translation prizes.
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Credits
Cover design by Gregg Kulick
Cover photographs: © Christian Hoehn/Getty Images (Man); © Toby Maudsley/Getty Images (Tiger)
Copyright
This text includes extracts from songs by the bands Picnic, Sunday, Spleen, and Blackmore’s Night.
NEW WATCH Copyright © 2014 by Sergei Lukyanenko. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Originally published as (Novyi Dozor) in hardcover in Russia in 2012 by AST.
English translation © Andrew Bromfield 2013
ISBN 978-0-06-231007-1
EPUB Edition APRIL 2014 ISBN 9780062310088
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