"There won't be any absence," said Anton. "As far as I understand it, if they have any observational devices here, or if they've cast any tracking spells-they'll provide false information. It's a quality scam."
"Gesar's a clever one," Igor repeated with a smile.
Edgar sat by the window, smoking and slowly sipping a glass of flat champagne. It still tasted good.
His girlfriend was sleeping peacefully in the next room, satisfied and happy. She had turned out to be a fine girl. A German student with some Scandinavian blood, reasonably passionate and reasonably cheerful. But a bit too fanciful in sex for Edgar's taste. Unlike most of his colleagues, Edgar was very conservative in such matters. He didn't take part in orgies, he didn't have underage girlfriends, and out of all the possibilities he preferred the classic missionary position.
But there was no denying that in that position he had achieved perfection.
Edgar stretched sweetly and carefully opened the window. He stood up and breathed in the cold, frosty air. The new day had begun and perhaps the Tribunal would give its verdict that very evening. Then he'd be able to relax and enjoy the festive season, without worrying about all these intrigues.
But who was behind this intrigue, after all… the Day Watch or the Night Watch?
And most important of all-what role had been assigned to him?
Could Yury's hint really be right, was he supposed to be sacrificed, just like Alisa?
"Here, look…" Igor spread out a large sheet of paper on the table and took a pack of felt-tip pens out of his pocket. "I've already drawn a few diagrams… and some things fit together. This is Svetlana."
Anton looked thoughtfully at the circle drawn with a thick yellow line and said, "It doesn't look much like her."
Igor laughed. "All right… very witty. But look at the way things shape up. We and the Dark Ones had a balance, a precarious one, but still a balance… Here are the magicians with first- to third-level powers on our side… here are their equivalents on the Dark Side… Both the ones in active service and the others who can easily be mobilized."
The paper was quickly covered with small circles. Then Igor divided the sheet in two with a sweeping gesture. At the top of one side he wrote "Gesar," and at the top of the other, "Zabulon." He explained: "They're not really in the game. They're the players, but we're interested in the pieces. Look at how things changed with Svetlana's appearance."
"It depends what piece we decide she is," Anton said cautiously. "Right now she's a first-level enchantress… or rather, she was."
"And what does that mean? Just look how many magicians there are at about the same level as her."
"She's a pawn," said Anton, feeling surprised at his own words. "Svetlana's no more than a pawn for years and years to come! While she nurtures her Power, learns to control her abilities, acquires experience… She's more powerful than me… or she was. But I'd have been able to handle her if I'd been on the other side."
"Precisely, Anton," said Igor, deftly pouring himself a glass from the second bottle of vodka-the first was already standing empty under the table. "Precisely! Svetlana made the Night Watch significantly more powerful. And in the future she could easily reach the same level as Gesar. But that's a matter of decades, or even hundreds of years."
"Then why all this activity by the Dark Ones? They almost violated the Treaty, simply in order to get Svetlana out of the game."
"Think," said Igor, glancing into Anton's eyes. "Let's take the chess analogy all the way…"
"A pawn that reaches the far side of the board…"
"… becomes any other piece."
Anton shrugged. "Igor, that's obvious anyway. We're all pawns, but some of us have a chance to become queens. Svetlana has. You don't, I don't, Semyon doesn't… but it's a long way to the far edge of the board, and the Dark Ones don't need to be in such a hurry to eliminate Svetlana."
"The Chalk of Destiny," said Igor.
"What about it? Gesar wanted to use Egor, the boy without any destiny to make him into…"
"Into what?"
Anton shrugged. "A prophet, a philosopher, a poet, a magician… I don't know. Someone who would lead humanity toward the Light. Or perhaps a Mirror? Another Mirror, like Vitaly Rogoza, only he would be on our side?"
"But Svetlana didn't want to interfere," Igor said with a nod. "The boy Egor was left with just his own destiny."
"But then…" Anton began and stopped short. He didn't know if he had the right to tell Igor the truth he had discovered, even under the protection of the amulet.
"But then Olga rewrote someone's destiny with the other half of the Chalk," Igor said with a laugh. "That's an open secret already. The important thing is that the operation was successful anyway. Svetlana didn't do it, but Olga did. And incidentally Gesar managed to have Olga rehabilitated."
"Incidentally?" Anton queried, shaking his head. "Okay, let's say incidentally… But that's the second layer of the truth. I'm sure there's a third layer too."
"The third layer is the person whose destiny Olga rewrote. As soon as Zabulon heard she'd been rehabilitated, he realized he'd been duped. Taken in by a simple diversionary maneuver. And the Dark Ones started looking. They checked poor Egor a dozen times-in case the Book of Destiny had been rewritten twice for him…"
"And how do you know that?"
"I was keeping an eye on the boy. Gesar told me to-it was obvious the Dark Ones would start looking for a trick."
"And?"
"No, there were no tricks with Egor. It wasn't his destiny that was rewritten."
"Then whose was it?"
Igor looked into Anton's eyes without saying anything. As if he didn't have the right to say it himself.
"Svetlana's?" Anton exclaimed in sudden realization. And he suddenly thought that in his place any Dark One would have squealed, "Mine?"
"It looks like it. A brilliant and elegant move. There was such an ocean of Power raging around her that it was impossible for anyone to notice what was being done with her Book of Destiny. And the Dark Ones can't check her Book of Destiny-that would be as good as a declaration of war."
"Gesar wants to accelerate Svetlana's transformation into a Great Enchantress?"
"Out of the question. That's a violation of the Treaty. Dig a bit deeper."
Anton looked at the circles on the paper. He took a felt-tip pen and drew a bright scarlet line upward from Svetlana, then another circle where it ended. An empty circle.
"Yes," said Igor. "Precisely. You know what time this is now, don't you?"
"The end of the millennium…"
"Two thousand years since the birth of Jesus Christ;" Igor said with a laugh.
"Ieshua was a supreme Light magician," said Anton. "I don't even know if we can call him a magician… he was the Light itself… but… Gesar wants a second coming of the Messiah?"
"You said it, not me," Igor replied. "Let's drink… to the Light."
Anton drank a full glass in total bewilderment. He shook his head. "No, but this… Igor, this is playing with the pure powers. With the foundations of the universe! How could he take the risk?"
"Anton, I'm certain that's the way it was all planned. Judge for yourself-there's a boom in religious faiths everywhere, one way or another everybody's expecting either the end of the world or the Second Coming… but then, they're the same thing."
"Not everybody…" Anton protested. "Don't exaggerate."
"Not everybody, but enough people for the torrent of human expectations to start reshaping reality. And if you could just help things along a bit, if you could rewrite someone's destiny… Gesar went for broke. Gesar wants to add someone new to our ranks, an Other so powerful that none of the Dark Ones will be able to match him. Not Zabulon, not a certain modest California farmer, not the owner of a small hotel in Spain, and not a popular Japanese singer… no one."
"That might be true," Anton admitted. "But Svetlana's lost her Power now, and for a long time."
"And what of it? Do
es that prevent her from having a child?"
"Stop," said Anton, waving his hands in warning. "Now we're getting ahead of ourselves! We can believe any hypothesis, but first let's look at the other events. The Mirror, for instance."
"The Mirror…" Igor frowned. "A Mirror is created by the Twilight. Zabulon couldn't make use of him directly… but he certainly could bring those stupid sect members to Moscow with that artifact of theirs and feed Rogoza with Power. And the reason for doing that is obvious-to destroy Svetlana."
"Rogoza didn't destroy her. He only drained her, but then that's…"
"One of us didn't play the game the way Zabulon had planned it," Igor replied. "Someone didn't make the move that would have led to the Mirror totally destroying Svetlana… as an individual. Maybe what saved her was the fact that Tiger Cub and Andrei had already died? A Mirror isn't exactly a Dark Other, and he isn't directly involved in the confrontation between the two Watches. You see, maybe he was expecting another blow of some kind? From you, for instance. From Gesar. But the blow never came… and he didn't strike back with all his strength."
"Then explain to me, Igor-why did Zabulon set you and Alisa up?"
"That was an accident," Igor muttered. "I told you, Alisa…"
"Okay, so she didn't know. But Zabulon knew, believe me! And he sent her to her death-he swapped one piece for another. Why?"
"I wish I knew," said Igor with a shrug.
Chapter five
–«¦»-
Raivo began walking around the hotel room, gesticulating with untypical fervor.
"I still think there's trouble ahead! We have no right to count on assistance from the Day Watch of Moscow, of Prague, or Helsinki -from any of them."
"But that Dark One promised to help us…" Yari objected.
Raivo frowned and waved his hands through the air picturesquely. "He promised. Yes, of course he did. And who was it who promised our brothers that Fafnir would be resurrected?"
"It seems to me," Yukha said in a quiet voice, "that it would have been far more rational to serve the great cause of Fafnir's resurrection than actually try to resurrect the ancient magician…"
There was a moment's silence.
"Yukha…" Yari said reproachfully. "You… you can't just say that…"
"Why can't I? The times when magicians used to play without any rules are long gone. Do you want a global cataclysm?"
"But our…"
"Our decrepit leaders were out of their minds. And that's why they were duped by somebody's promises. That's why they were killed in Berne… And we won't get any help-Raivo's right about that. Those who have departed can't be brought back.
Pasi believed too-and where's Pasi now? Dematerialized in the Twilight by Gesar."
The telephone on the table rang. Clearly reluctant to stop talking, Yukha picked up the receiver. "Yes."
The next moment he leapt in the air, dropping his glass of Czech beer. He shouted: "You? You… where are you calling from? What?"
He listened for a minute, with the expression on his face growing ever more joyful and confused. The expression of a man given good news after he has already braced himself to hear bad news and even managed to infect everyone else with his own pessimism. Finally Yukha put the phone down and whispered:
"Brothers…"
Anton couldn't decide if they'd been right or wrong to open the second bottle of vodka. On the one hand, it seemed like they were getting close to the essential truth of what was going on… but on the other, it was getting harder and harder to discuss the problem. For instance, Igor had become extremely skeptical, and he just couldn't understand what Anton was trying to demonstrate to him.
"Igor, in such a complicated setup, if even one episode doesn't fit in right, the whole thing collapses. There had to be a reason. Maybe you represented some kind of obstacle to Zabulon's plans?"
"Me?" Igor gave a bitter laugh. "Don't be silly. I'm an ordinary field operative. Third level… second level at a stretch… with no special abilities and no prospects. I couldn't have stood up against the Mirror. I don't know, Anton."
"But you have an idea about something," Anton muttered. He poured some vodka, paused for a second, and asked, "Igor, was there something between you and Svetlana?"
"No," Igor answered sharply. "No, and don't even think about it. There wasn't anything, there isn't, and there won't be. And if you're thinking I was supposed to be the father of the future Messiah…" He burst out laughing.
"It was just an idea…" Anton muttered, feeling like a total idiot.
"Anton, think about it… that's your jealousy speaking, not your head, I'm sorry! The ordinary human process of reproduction has nothing to do with all this. If Svetlana's Book of Destiny has been rewritten, if she has to be the mother of the new Messiah-that's a process that involves subtle matter, the energetics of the Light and the Darkness, the fundamental substance of the universe. What difference does it make who…" -he faltered for a moment and went on-"… happens to be the biological father? It even depends on Svetlana only to a certain extent. No, that's nonsense. The only person Zabulon has to be afraid of is Svetlana."
"Then I don't see the point in eliminating you…"
"Neither do I. But there probably is one…"
They drank in silence, without clinking glasses. And then they both began staring at the sheet of paper.
"Let's start with the basics," said Anton, noticing that he was slurring his words a little. "So, a year and a half ago Gesar and Olga rewrote Svetlana's destiny? And now she's supposed to give birth to a Messiah?"
"Yes, that's the way it looks."
"And Zabulon tried to use the appearance of the Mirror to destroy her, but he failed…"
"Yes, that's it…"
"Okay, let's leave your part in all this aside for the moment… What could Zabulon's next move be? Now, when Svetlana has no magic powers at all and is defenseless?"
"She's not defenseless," said Igor, wagging his finger at Anton. "Why do you say that? I'm sure she's been given the finest possible protection. And in any case, to attack her is a violation of the Treaty. The Dark Ones are fond of their own skins, no one wants to face dematerialization…"
"What could his response be? Only one…"
"The appearance of an Antichrist, the only one capable of standing against the Messiah."
"And humanity is expecting the appearance of the Antichrist with no less eagerness," Anton exclaimed, "thanks to mass culture."
"Have you got a Bible?" Igor asked unexpectedly.
"With me? No, of course not…"
"Just a moment…" said Igor. He walked quickly, if not entirely steadily, into the other room and came back with a small, thick book. He gave Anton a rather embarrassed look and said, "Of course, I'm an atheist. But the Bible… you understand. Now…"
"Igor," said Anton, putting his hand on the book, "it won't help us. Why don't we try thinking logically?"
"All right," Igor agreed readily, setting the Holy Writ aside with some relief.
"Zabulon wants to live too. He doesn't want an Apocalypse… I hope. He needs a figure equal in Power to a Messiah of the Light."
"Fafnir…" Igor said thoughtfully. "Fafnir?"
"A powerful Dark magician…" Anton agreed. "But he's not the Antichrist."
"Six six six!" said Igor, squirming in his chair. "Come on, let's count what the letters in the name Fafnir add up to!"
"I don't remember how the name Fafnir is written in the original. But if we write it in Russian, then…" Anton thought for a moment "… then it's eighty-eight! Nothing like six hundred sixty-six."
"But eighty-eight is a strange kind of number too," said Igor, looking at Anton with blazing eyes. "Just think about it. Not eighty-seven. Not eighty-nine. Exactly eighty-eight. It's suspicious!"
"It is…" Anton agreed. The number really had begun to seem suspicious to him for some reason. "And it probably is possible to resurrect Fafnir, to bring him back from the Twilight… But…"
"Not just to resurrect him," said Igor. "This whole business depends on people, right? On their expectations, on their readiness to believe! And if Fafnir's return to life can be staged in the appropriate way, the insane magician can be made into an insane anti-Messiah."
"But how?"
"With those four horsemen of the Apocalypse… the emergence of the beast from the sea…"
Igor's eyes suddenly glazed over. "Anton, Fafnir was supposedly buried at sea! What if Alisa and that boy, Makar, dying in the sea was some kind of sacrifice… what a release of Dark Power…"
Anton shook his head and wiped his sweaty forehead. "Igor, maybe we've had too much to drink? Yes, I agree that Gesar's intending to use… could use Svetlana as the mother of a new Messiah… a reincarnation of Christ to some extent… or just a magician of unprecedented Power… It looks very much that way. And to counter that, Zabulon might try to come up with a figure of equal Power, but tying all this up with Armageddon, the Bible, and religion-that's pushing things too far!"
"What about the year 2000?" Anton almost shouted. "You understand? Magicians might intend to do one thing, but human dreams and fears shape reality in their own way. So the figures who appear will possess all the required qualities. Let's go!"
"Where?"
"To get some vodka. In the restaurant."
Anton sighed and glanced at the bottle. Yes, it really was empty.
"Why don't we just call and order some?"
"Oh no, I feel like a walk."
Anton stood up and put the amulet in his pocket. He nodded. "Okay, let's go…"
There was no one at the elevators, but they had to wait for a long time. Igor leaned against the wall and declaimed. "Look, this is how Zabulon can do it… Fafnir's Talon is taken out of the vault…"
"How?"
"What does it matter how? If they've stolen it once, they'll manage it somehow. Then they carry out the magical operation, plus staging all the mythological notions about the Apocalypse. All those locusts… the star Wormwood… the four horses…"
"I can just see Zabulon leading four horses by the reins…"
"He doesn't need any horses!" Igor said with a frown. "You know as well as I do what the magic of appearances can do. For instance, let's take four people, or better still-four Dark Others. One from Asia-he can be the red horse, one black-skinned-he can be the black horse, the third a European-he can be the white horse, and one, let's say, Scandinavian-the pale horse… We put them on wooden toy horses…"
Day Watch Page 39
