‘Hell’s fucking bells!’ I swore. ‘This is bullshit! I don’t believe in…’
But I didn’t actually finish the phrase.
Of course I don’t believe in fairies. It’s ages now since I even believed in Santa Claus.
But even so, I preferred not to say it.
CHAPTER 5
THE MUSIC ROARED. Harsh, unfamiliar and, to my ear, totally discordant. But the people around me seemed to like it. The discotheque was packed solid – the young people weren’t dancing so much as swaying, twitching on the spot and brushing against each other, periodically grabbing each other by the hands and starting to move in a strange, grotesque, tangled roundelay. The ceiling glowed, and it wasn’t just beams of light from projectors or disco lamps, it was as if the panels of the ceiling were themselves radiating light. Streaks of different colours were replaced by an even orange light, then the ceiling started glowing cerulean blue – and then it became a single, continuous screen. Above us was the sky, with white, feathery clouds drifting across it.
‘What’s this?’ I asked, dodging away from a chain of teenagers that had just meshed together.
‘A discotheque,’ they told me.
I turned my head. Standing beside me was a youth of about eighteen, short and chubby. He looked familiar somehow.
‘Kesha?’ I asked, suddenly recognising him.
‘What, Anton Sergeevich?’
What?
I didn’t know ‘what’. I didn’t understand where I was and how I’d got here. But I had to ask something.
‘Where’s Nadya?’ I said, suddenly realising that was the right question.
‘Here,’ Innokentii Tolkov replied with a shrug. ‘Somewhere here…’
I tried to spot her in the crowed. Then I realised I was involuntarily looking too low, at the level where a ten-year-old girl’s head would be. I should be looking higher…
And I saw Nadiushka almost immediately. I wasn’t sure how I recognised her… she had grown, just like Kesha. But she had changed far more – her head was completely shaved, with just two clumps of white-bleached hair left above her ears. A long narrow skirt, with slits that reached almost right up to her waist, boots that reached halfway up her calves… and an absolutely plain white blouse. Nadya looked grotesque and pitiful, even hideous, dressed like that, but this was my Nadya. And I felt my heart contract painfully in my chest.
I took a step forward, elbowing my way through the jostling youngsters, grabbed my daughter by the arm and dragged her out of the chain of ‘dancers’. The bright-coloured metal bracelets that covered her entire wrist jangled.
‘Dad?’ Nadya asked in surprise. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked at the same time.
Nadya shrugged.
‘Relaxing.’
The boy and girl between whom Nadya had been swaying in the chain pushed their way through to us. They looked… well, appropriate. The boy was wearing a glittering thong and a fluffy shirt (yes, it was a shirt, and it was fluffy), the girl had the same kind of plain blouse and long skirt with slits that Nadya was wearing.
Clearly, that was fashionable.
It was a long time since I’d attended any teenage gatherings.
‘Nadya, what does this ersatz want?’ the boy asked. Not actually threateningly, but defiantly.
‘Pull on back,’ Nadya replied incomprehensibly. ‘This is my abu.’
The boy gave me a look that was unfriendly, but a bit softer. And he asked: ‘Any problems, honourable sir?’
‘No problems,’ I said. ‘And if you disappear straight away, none will arise.’
The boy grinned crookedly. Apparently I hadn’t scared him. The little fool. I could soon have him on his way home to do his homework and wash the floors…
‘Everything’s smooth, Vovik,’ said Nadya. ‘Lighten a bit.’
‘Tap me if anything comes up,’ Vovik answered, and flashed another glance at me. Then he disappeared into the crowd with his girlfriend.
‘What idiot kind of slang’s that?’ I asked.
‘The usual,’ Nadya replied and sniffed. Her eyes were red. ‘What did you come here for, dad?’
‘Nadya, let’s go home,’ I said.
‘What for?’
‘Nadya, your mum will be worried,’ I said, appealing to the argument that had worked unfailingly when she was ten.
‘What have you and mum got to do with anything?’ asked Nadya.
I got a terrible cold feeling in my chest.
‘Nadya, I don’t understand what’s happening,’ I said. The music was hammering in my ears, dark storm clouds were covering over the sky on the ceiling screen. ‘Let’s talk somewhere else.’
‘What’s wrong with here?’
‘This is no place for a Higher Other!’ I exclaimed in exasperation.
Nadya laughed. And if at first it was simply quiet laughter, as if she’d heard a good joke, an instant later it had become loud, hysterical giggling.
I hate women’s hysterics! It’s a totally dishonest trick to use in the relations between men and women!
The only thing worse than women’s hysterics is men’s hysterics.
‘For a Higher Other?’ Nadya repeated. ‘For an Other? Dad… daddy, you’ve really lost it! Dad, after what you did to us, how can you even say the word “Other”?’
And she went off into the crowd, still laughing and running her hand over her face, as if she was brushing away tears.
And I stood and watched her go.
Then I shifted my gaze to Kesha.
‘“You are Anton Gorodetsky…”’ I said. ‘“Because of you… all of us…” Just what have I done to “all of you”?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Kesha.
‘Why didn’t Nadya say anything to you?’
‘She didn’t see me.’
Thunder rumbled above my head, and heavy raindrops started pattering down. I held out my hand to them… a drop fell onto my palm and disappeared. There was rain, but it was an illusion – like the clouds above me.
Like everything here.
‘Why didn’t she see you, Kesha?’
‘Because this is your vision, Anton Sergeevich,’ the young man replied. ‘And your dream.’
He swung round and disappeared into the crowd too – still as plump, awkward and unattractive as he had been as a child.
And apparently still as lonely and unhappy.
‘It’s not true!’ I shouted.
And I woke up.
In silence.
The low ceiling of a cheap London hotel. In general the English live in tiny houses the size of postage stamps. Probably so that it’s easier to defend them – after all, ‘my home is my castle’.
Sunlight splashing in through the small window. Morning, although it’s still early…
I glanced at the clock – only seven a.m., local time.
Then I looked at Sir Erasmus’s wooden chalice standing on the bedside table. Maybe it was the beer that was to blame, or maybe it was the glass of cognac I added to it while I was watching the television before I went to bed, but when I wanted a drink of water I had unpacked the gift and drunk the water out of it. And not casually either, but in the profound conviction that I would then hear Darwin’s first prophecy.
It didn’t work, as far as Darwin’s prophecy was concerned. But now I’d got one of my own.
Or had I?
What was it – a very vivid and realistic dream produced by a mixture of alcohol, fatigue and a host of new impressions?
A prophecy?
I can foresee the future, like any Other – like any human being, if it comes to that. Even better than many Others – at one time Gesar quite seriously recommended that I should specialise in predictions. But I have dreams that are simply stupid too, like anybody else.
Mulling this over, I went to the toilet and took a shower. (Everything was squeezed very compactly into two square metres – and these people reproached the Soviet Un
ion for the ‘Khrushchev slums’?) I got dressed and walked pensively downstairs into the semi-basement, where the hotel’s small restaurant was located. The waitress who was bustling about there, pouring the guests coffee and clearing away the dirty plates, had such an everyday face that I greeted her in Russian. And I guessed right.
‘Oh, hello,’ she said, embarrassed for some reason. ‘Will you have tea or coffee?’
‘Coffee,’ I said with a nod, casting an eye over the food laid out on the table.
‘The coffee’s not great,’ the girl whispered quietly, leaning towards me.
‘Even so,’ I replied just as quietly. ‘I have to wake up.’
‘I’d better make you some instant,’ the girl suggested and disappeared into the kitchen.
I took a yogurt, a piece of bread, a hermetically sealed plastic briquette of cheese (Cheddar is Cheddar) and scrambled eggs, which is the most outrageous insult to eggs that Europe has been able to invent.
But at least they were hot.
I sat down at a table in the corner and picked up a lump of the crumbling eggy mass with my fork, examined it cautiously and popped it into my mouth. It tasted better than it looked…
At that moment I smelled coffee. Good, genuine coffee, not chemicalised instant. And then a huge cup of this delightful coffee appeared in front of me.
‘Thank you,’ I said, looking up.
Smiling, Arina took my plate with the scrambled eggs and left it on an empty table. She said: ‘Don’t eat that garbage. I tell you that as a Witch.’
She held out another plate, with fried eggs, cooked just right, so that the yolks had thickened but were still liquid, sprinkled with finely chopped spring onions and with pieces of fried fatty bacon just visible in the congealed whites. Arina set down another cup of coffee in front of herself.
‘“Eat the hare’s dung, it makes you feel young”?’ I declared. Since Arina’s only response to Filatov’s poem was simply to raise an eyebrow in surprise, I sighed and said, ‘You’re not a Witch any more, you’re a Light One.’
‘There’s no such thing as a former Witch. How did you sleep, Higher One?’
First I dispatched a piece of fried egg into my mouth and followed it with a large gulp of coffee. Then I said: ‘Your doing, was it?’
‘What, exactly?’ Arina asked in surprise.
‘My dream.’
‘I’ve no idea what you dreamed about,’ she said, shaking her head and frowning. ‘Something unpleasant, was it? Prophetic? I don’t interfere in your dreams.’
‘It’s nothing – nonsense, really,’ I said, with a dismissive wave of my hand. I downed the rest of the coffee. ‘Listen, do you earn a bit on the side as a waitress in London?’
‘Unfortunately I don’t have a work permit,’ Arina laughed. ‘It’s all charity work. You’re looking a bit crumpled.’
‘I had a nightmare,’ I admitted reluctantly. ‘Nothing very informative. Just Nadka, grown up already and… kind of strange… like all teenagers, I suppose… Not very nice, to be honest. And she accused me of doing something to the Others.’
Arina’s expression turned serious. And what she said only convinced me that she took this dream seriously.
‘It’s nonsense, Anton. Some dreams are just dreams. Can you tell me about it in a bit more detail?’
‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Okay, let’s drop it. Do you happen to know if fairies really exist?’
‘Er…’ Arina hesitated. ‘I don’t know. Probably not, of course, but it seems kind of rude to say that right beside Kensington Gardens.’
‘Yesterday, as I was walking to the hotel, I saw a little boy on a fallen tree. He was playing a reed pipe and glowing insects were swarming around him. He saw me, grinned and ran off.’
‘Ran off or flew off?’
‘That I don’t know.’
‘And you decided you’d run into Peter Pan?’
‘God only knows what I thought!’
‘Inversion. And projection.’
‘What?’
‘A vapour trail. How many people have read the story of Peter Pan? How many children have watched a cartoon or a film? How many of them have imagined Kensington Gardens and Peter? How many of those were overt or potential Others?’
‘We can’t create people.’
‘Any woman can do that,’ Arina laughed. ‘But we’re talking about something different here. An image – one that has been adequately visualised – is projected onto a point at which there is already an immense concentration of Power. The Power at the various levels of the Twilight starts to get agitated. The energy is stabilised at a higher level. You can calculate it using the Boltzmann Distribution, the whole process is almost identical to thermodynamic equations, you can even use Planck’s Constant – only for the twilight it’s called the Canterbury Constant.’
I suddenly realised that I was sitting there with my mouth wide open, holding a fork with a piece of fried egg suspended on it. I hurriedly clamped my mouth shut, biting the fork painfully, and swore in a whisper.
‘It’s the standard process for the appearance of ghosts,’ Arina continued. ‘Don’t the Light Ones teach that these days?’
‘No,’ I admitted. ‘And the Dark Ones don’t, either… probably.’
‘Well, they should,’ said Arina. ‘It’s no practical use at all, but surely you must be interested in where phantoms come from, the life of the Twilight, which spells will be most effective at what point in space?’
‘I didn’t even know it was possible…’ – I hesitated – ‘…to reduce it all to formulas.’
‘But Witches have always known that,’ Arina told me. ‘Surely you don’t think that Witches are dirty old women who boil up unappetising substances in cauldrons and mutter “by the pricking of my thumbs…”?’
I thought it best not to say anything. Arina drank her coffee, clearly savouring the situation.
‘Well, what have you decided?’ she asked insistently.
‘The mere fact that I’m talking to you without trying to arrest you is official misconduct,’ I said gruffly.
Arina snorted.
‘Swear on the Light and the Darkness,’ I said.
Arina raised her eyes to look at me.
‘Swear that you had nothing to do with the dream I had last night,’ I went on.
‘So things are that bad, are they?’ Arina said, with an understanding nod. ‘All right…’
She said nothing for a few seconds, as if she was trying to recall something. Then she reached her hands out across the table and turned them palms upwards.
I was scalded by a chilly breath of wind.
The few other hotel guests all turned away and diligently stopped noticing us.
‘I, Arina, swear on the primordial Powers. I, a Dark One Beyond Classification, swear on the Darkness – and may the eternal Darkness bear witness to my words. I, a Light One and Healer Beyond Classification, swear on the Light – and may the eternal Light bear witness to my words. I, the thirteenth and final Head of the Supreme Conclave of Witches, do swear on the earth from which I came, the water that is within me, the air that surrounds me, the fire into which I shall depart. I have not exerted any influence on you, your powers, your prophecies, your thoughts, your visions, your desires, your fears, your love, your hate, your joy and your sorrow. All that I have said to you is true or I believe it to be true.’
A white flame started dancing on her left palm, a spot of darkness condensed on her right. Arina brought her palms close together – and a small sphere started spinning furiously between them. It was white and black at the same time, it glowed brightly and consumed light simultaneously. It wasn’t grey, like the Inquisitors had, but dual, simultaneously Light and Dark.
‘I believe you and accept your oath,’ I said.
The small sphere shrank to a blindingly black point and disappeared.
‘So, Head of the Supreme Conclave,’ I mused. ‘And the Watches tried so hard to guess who that was and where
she had disappeared to…’
Arina shrugged.
‘I’m simply choosing the lesser evil,’ I added.
‘Even when choosing the lesser evil, never forget that you’re still choosing evil,’ Arina said seriously.
‘But in choosing nothing, we choose both the greater and the lesser evil at once,’ I replied.
‘Then we understand each other,’ she said, nodding – the final Supreme Witch of the Conclave that had been disbanded a hundred years earlier.
‘But that still leaves one little problem,’ I said. ‘The Tiger. As I understand it, the prophecies are not active at the moment.’
‘They’re sleeping,’ said Arina.
‘If we learn what they are – the Tiger will come for us.’
‘But if we reveal them to humans – the Tiger will leave us in peace.’
‘And what if the prophecies are bad? Are you suggesting we should die a heroic death? Or open Pandora’s box, and to hell with human beings?’
‘No and no again. Witches have always preferred to choose a third way.’
I looked at her questioningly.
‘We have tried to understand the nature of the Tiger,’ said Arina. ‘As you have no doubt already realised, in certain areas the Conclave possessed knowledge that equalled the knowledge of the Watches. We did not succeed, but…’ She paused. ‘We did find an Other who knows how to defeat the Tiger. He is still alive. I suggest that we meet him, to obtain this information – and open the prophecies after that.’
I sat there for a while, digesting what I’d just heard. Then I asked: ‘Where is he? Somehow I get the feeling it’s not London and not Moscow.’
‘Formosa,’ Arina said, nodding.
It took me a few seconds to recall what used to be called Formosa in Arina’s time.
‘Taiwan?’ The globe that I had given Nadya a year earlier to further her general education appeared in front of my eyes. ‘That’s… How far is that?’
‘Almost ten thousand kilometres. Fourteen hours. Fortunately, there’s a direct flight,’ said Arina, looking at her watch, an elegant timepiece of pink gold – probably with a diamond mechanism, I thought. ‘It’s half past seven now. The flight’s in one hour and forty minutes. Do you need long to pack?
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