In time, his questions stopped. He lived like an animal scratching at the lice on his head, sleeping on the infested floor with the rest of the men. At least, he thought, he was gaining a little weight, and the paralyzing numbness in his limbs had gone.
Then one day a crack of light appeared high overhead. The men stopped their activity at once and looked up, squinting, in silence. The light broadened.
A door. Zharkov's heart pumped wildly. The place he was in was not a pit, after all, but a cellar of some building. But there was no stairway leading to the high door. It seemed to be cut out of the stone wall as an observation point.
Into the bright light of the doorway appeared the silhouette of a small, bent figure. Like an insubstantial shadow, it wavered in the light, turning its small head slowly right and left, as if searching for someone. Then it seemed to find what it wanted, and a thin arm rose and pointed at the mass of men below.
Several hands shoved Zharkov forward. The dark figure in the doorway nodded slowly in assent, then lowered a narrow rope ladder into the pit.
When Zharkov reached the base of the rope, the figure on high nodded again, and he climbed up, leaving the stink and squalor of the black-painted men behind.
The individual at the top of the ladder was an Asian of indeterminate sex. The head was shaved and the face expressionless, but the eyes shone with what Zharkov could only describe as malice. Although he could not understand why, the whole bearing of the little creature unnerved him.
Zharkov was led first to a large, steaming bath chamber where he washed gratefully and dressed in robes that had been laid out for him. Then the androgynous guide took him as far as the entrance to a large, dark room.
Even from outside, Zharkov could smell the strong incense. The guide gestured for him to enter, but for some reason he hesitated. Something frightening was inside that room. Zharkov didn't know how he knew that, but he was certain. Something frightening and deadly and almost unbearably compelling.
He felt beads of sweat form on his brow. "What's in there?" he asked, although he didn't expect an answer.
The guide answered in flawless Russian. "The goddess Varja awaits. She has sent for you."
"Why?" Zharkov asked.
The guide’s eyes again smiled malevolently. "She owns you." Even the voice of the small, bent Asian was without gender.
Zharkov contained his annoyance. "What about the men? In the cellar."
"She owns them, too," the soft voice said.
Zharkov suppressed a shudder, then went inside. Those steps into the woman's chamber changed his life forever.
He slept after their lovemaking. When he awoke, Varja was gone. The androgynous gnome stood near him.
"Where is she?" Zharkov snapped.
"The goddess Varja commands you elsewhere."
"Commands?" He stared imperiously at the little guide.
"Commands," the Asian repeated with assurance, then gestured toward the door.
Zharkov followed. He was taken to another room. It was smaller and painted stark white. There were no furnishings in it except for a large white dais in the shape of a cube. On top of the cube, covered by many layers of white silk, rested a long object.
He waited alone in the room for some time before Varja entered. She was wearing a long gown of black brocade studded with rubies, like a thousand red eyes that saw into his soul. Zharkov trembled in her presence. As before, the very sight of her mesmerized him and infused in him a sense of utter, unquestioning obedience.
She held out her hand. Every finger on it was covered with precious rings, and an enormous ruby bound her wrist. Zharkov fell to one knee in front of her and kissed it.
"You have pleased me, my prince," she said. "As reward, I have called you here to show you a gift that I will give you in years to come."
"Whatever you have chosen to give me, goddess, whenever you choose for me to receive it, I will treasure."
She smiled. "You will most certainly treasure this," she said. "It will be of great help to you later, and pleasure beyond counting. It will be yours to use as you please, and destroy when you choose."
He rose. "But I could never destroy a gift from you."
"Not now, perhaps, but someday. When you are truly my disciple, when the suffering of men and the weakness of your spirit and the need of your flesh no longer concern you, you will destroy my gift. Then will you return to me, pure, strong, complete. Then will you be my mate for all the ages of evil to come."
She made a quick gesture, and the sexless gnome appeared carrying an embroidered footstool. The Asian placed the stool beside the dais, bowed once, and departed.
He climbed to the top of the cube and removed the thick silk wrapper. Beneath it was a girl, no more than fourteen or fifteen years old, tall and dark-haired and beautiful.
And dead.
"Her name is Duma. I have saved her for you," Varja whispered. "Enter her."
Zharkov felt a knot in his stomach. The girl's skin was cold as ice.
"Do not disobey me!" the goddess shrieked, her eyes flashing.
He turned back to the body. Swallowing the lump of nausea in his throat, he spread the girl's stiff legs and opened the robe he wore.
His organ was shriveled. Surely the goddess asked too much. Surely he could never...
At first he thought the low hiss in the room was his imagination. But when he turned toward Varja, he understood that in this place of magic, anything was possible.
Black smoke was issuing from the goddess's fingers like serpents' tails. Her eyes were rolled back in her skull, exposing only the whites, and from her mouth poured strange sounds as ancient as the magic mountains themselves.
And as Zharkov breathed in the acrid smoke and his ears filled with the droning, savage sounds of Varja's words, his mind raced backward, back beyond memory, before his own birth, through empty centuries to the time of his ancestors. What he saw in his half-conscious state were only impressions, brief pictures: a tree with a bark of iron ... a saber, flashing with inner power ... Black. Hats, the mark of a magic long buried ... an old man, a severed hand, a golden snake...
"No!" Zharkov screamed.
A golden snake bearing death, death for ages, death forever.
"The Wearer of the Blue Hat has returned," Varja warned.
Zharkov clutched his forehead. It felt as if a dagger had just pierced it. A dagger ... or a bite from a golden snake.
"He became the snake and destroyed our kind, but I have kept our power alive," the goddess said. "This time, he must die. He must die ... he must die ... he must die ... This time you failed to kill him. The next time, you will not fail...."
Her voice receded in his mind, replaced by the thunder of his own obsession. The golden snake! Like Jehovah destroying the kingdom of Edom, the golden snake had obliterated the sacred cult of the Black Hats and the unbounded power they possessed. Only if he killed the snake would his own kind be permitted to thrive again. Thrive and rule, with Zharkov himself, the Wearer of the Black Hat, to lead them ....
His flesh quickened. He kissed the belly of the dead girl beneath him, and her cold, lifeless body filled him with aching desire. His hardness throbbed for her. With one deep thrust he entered her, groaning in twisted pleasure. The room was warming, Zharkov realized. And not just from the heat of his own loins, but from the flesh beneath him as well. What was once a cold slab of meat was emanating heat and lust and the sweet fragrance of a woman.
The body was coming to life.
"Take her, Prince of Death," Varja said, her thousand red eyes glowing. "Take her with your body now. Later you will love her. And later still, you will kill her. For me."
"For you, my goddess," Zharkov said, closing his eyes to the exquisite pleasure of the girl's awakening limbs. She rolled her hips to his rhythm, raising her knees to let him penetrate her more deeply. Her hands, once still, clawed at his back like a cat's. She lifted her breasts to give him suck. Then he galloped her, and she cried low in her throat,
pressing him to her. At the moment when he burst, frenzied and hard as iron inside her tight wetness, the girl's eyes fluttered open.
They were blank eyes, neither worldly nor naive. There was nothing behind them, no feeling, no fear, no joy, no remembrance. They looked past Zharkov into space.
The smoke cleared away in an instant. Varja spoke. "You have awakened from life-in-death to aid him who now controls you."
"Yes, my goddess," Duma said. She still did not look at Zharkov.
"You will be taught everything you need to function in the world of men. When you are prepared, you will be sent to him."
"I understand."
"Do you remember any of your life before the moment of your awakening?"
"No, goddess."
"Whom do you serve?"
"I serve the great goddess Varja and those she selects to carry out my destiny."
Varja smiled. "Then it begins," she said with satisfaction. "Our time has come again at last."
On the dais, Duma looked into Zharkov's eyes for the first time. He thought he saw something like disappointment register in them fleetingly, but the reaction vanished as quickly as it came, if it had come at all. The girl's face was as blank as a mannequin's.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
At seven-thirty in the morning, Zharkov went to Sergei Ostrakov's office in full dress uniform. He waited in an anteroom until Ostrakov arrived minutes later, smiling.
"My dear comrade, come in," he said, taking Zharkov's arm. Zharkov brushed his hand away.
"Why did you place Katarina Velanova's apartment under surveillance?" he asked bluntly.
"Alyosha." The general spread his arms and grinned broadly. "It will all be explained to you soon. But I can tell you that my orders originated from the highest sources. The highest, you understand."
"And did these high sources order you to break into Velanova's home in the middle of the night, too?"
Ostrakov made a disapproving noise with his mouth. "You are so dramatic, Alyosha. There was no breaking in. Comrade Velanova invited us inside most graciously. She is a charming woman, your friend. You ought to marry her."
"My private life is no concern of yours."
Ostrakov shrugged. "How much you have changed, Alyosha. I'm only suggesting that one could do worse than to marry a beautiful woman who is also a loyal Party member. A very loyal member."
"What you're suggesting is that she's working for you against me. It won't work, Ostrakov. I've used the same ploy myself."
"Alyosha! I meant nothing of the kind." He smiled mirthlessly. "Perhaps your position has made you suspicious."
"Bugging Katarina's apartment may have had something to do with that. But, of course, what should one expect from thugs?"
Ostrakov's face reddened with anger. "Nichevo is an insulated pocket in the security system. It makes its own rules, runs its own projects. Through the years, its director—first your father, now you—has become nearly inviolate. Above the law, as it were. Nichevo could become a dangerous organization."
"I'm not here to discuss Nichevo. What did you want with me last night?"
"Comrade, I came to bring you good news. Great news. The hour was late, but I was sure my message would have more than made up for the small inconvenience. Unfortunately, you were nowhere to be found. Playing tricks on sweet Katarina already, eh?" With his hands, he formed the exaggerated shape of a woman in the air. Zharkov had to control an impulse to hit the man.
"You know perfectly well where I was," he said, "since the whore who works for you reported all to you. What did you want?"
His voice was growing colder, and his lizard-lidded gray eyes locked on Ostrakov's, forcing the KGB official to look away.
"The premier wishes to see you," Ostrakov said.
"Kadar?"
"The Vozhd," Ostrakov whispered. "He wants to see you. Now."
The Vozhd, or great leader, had had no time for Zharkov since his inauguration three months before. The only time Zharkov had even met the man was at a formal reception during the inaugural ceremonies. Kadar had been polite—part of his new image, which was already being cultivated by a staff of underlings for the selling of the premier to the world—but the leader's ill feeling toward Zharkov had been evident even then.
Konstantin Kadar had been head of the KGB since 1955, under Premiers Malenkov, Bulganin, Khrushchev, Kosygin, Brezhnev, and Andropov. Under his direction, the Soviet secret service had become the largest and most powerful police organization in the world. Kadar could, almost at will, execute nearly any person in the world without reprisal, and frequently took that option. The political prisoners at Lubyanka—some of whom could not even recall their "crimes" against the state, all of whom had been tried secretly—referred to Kadar as “Little Josef” because of his Stalinesque methods. Others had labeled him more succinctly "the Butcher."
During his KGB years, everyone in Russia had been answerable to Kadar except for the premier and Nichevo, which had been formed as an independent organization before Kadar’s rise to power. Through the years, Kadar had used every device available to obliterate Nichevo, or at least bring it under the control of the KGB. He had gone to each of the six premiers he served and warned him against Nichevo and its potential to overthrow the government, the possibility that it was a hub of foreign espionage activity, the foolishness of allowing an intellectual like Vassily Zharkov to run such an autonomous operation as Nichevo, and the consummate unwisdom of replacing Zharkov with his own son after his death. But none of the leaders had taken his advice. Not one.
What at last became clear to Kadar, what only a handful of people in the Soviet Union and absolutely no one outside it knew, was that Nichevo—so secret, so special to those in ultimate power—was the personal tool of the premier himself.
"The czar's army," Kadar had called Nichevo during a violent quarrel with Zharkov's father. It was not far from the truth. Nichevo originated under Stalin, and Stalin was nothing if not a czar.
After the execution of Premier Aleksei Rykov in 1938, it was evident that in a country with Russia's centuries-old tradition of violence, even the head of state was not safe from government factions vying for power. V. M. Molotov nominally held the office of premier after Rykov, but the real power was already in the hands of Stalin. Stalin was not about to permit the execution of another head of state, particularly if the head was his. He formed Nichevo, drawing it like a cloak around him, then fabricated the myth that the organization was of no importance to him.
The general populace of the intelligence community scoffed at Nichevo from the beginning—at its thugs, its childish projects, even its joking name. The brighter ones wondered aloud why a brilliant and acclaimed political scientist like Vassily Zharkov would toy with such a ridiculous organization, and so another myth was fabricated: Zharkov became Stalin's "nephew." When they heard this new piece of manufactured information, even the bright ones laughed. To make it legitimate. Zharkov was married off to one of Stalin's nieces.
And then came the purges.
First, Stalin wiped out the landowners and dissidents. Next came his enemies. They fell by the thousands, and among them were some of the highest members of government. The NKVD—the old name for the KGB before it accrued its almost total power—was the instrument used to carry out the murders. Then, because the leaders of the NKVD knew too much about his crimes, Stalin ordered them removed, too.
The order went to Vassily Zharkov, head of Nichevo, who carried it out ruthlessly, implacably, quietly.
Nichevo had come of age, and it was untouchable. The KGB had no control over it. Nichevo belonged to the Vozhd alone and answered only to him.
Now it belonged to Konstantin Kadar, who could not embrace the organization even though, as premier, Nichevo had finally come under his purview. He still hated it.
And very shortly, Zharkov would give him even more reason to hate it.
"The vozhd wants to see you. Immediately," Ostrakov was saying. He had a broad smile on his
face.
Zharkov nodded. "When I am through with him," he said, "I will have more to say to you."
"We shall see," Ostrakov said.
"Yes, we shall," said Zharkov.
Zharkov waited in the Kremlin for three hours before he was taken to the premier’s opulent private library. It was a small room, once used as the personal retreat of Czar Nicholas I.
Konstantin Kadar, seated behind an intricately carved rosewood desk, dominated the room. He was a tall man, slim but well muscled for his sixty-four years. His head, elegant and oval-shaped, looked more German than Russian, with its fringe of silver-white hair, its long nose and tight lips. It was not the face of a policeman, Zharkov thought, except for the eyes. Behind their old-fashioned metal-framed glasses, Kadar's eyes were as flat and dead as a shark's.
"Sit down, Colonel Zharkov." When he spoke, nothing moved but his lips. He waited until Zharkov obeyed, not moving a muscle. Zharkov had the feeling of being in the presence of a huge stone idol.
When Zharkov was seated, Kadar arranged some papers into a neat pile and laid them carefully on the desk in front of him. "They call you a prince. Do you know that?"
"No, sir," Zharkov said.
"A prince," Kadar repeated softly, leafing through the papers in front of him. "A scholar, a soldier, a scientist. A chess prodigy at the age of eight. The son of the illustrious Vassily Zharkov." Kadar looked up as he spoke the name, his thin lips wrapping around his teeth. "A chess master at ten. Accepted into the university at fifteen. Honors in senior levels in engineering and physics. Recruited into the intelligence service at seventeen. I remember you, Colonel. You didn't finish the program."
"I was removed to be enrolled at the Institute of International Relations."
"It was unnecessary. We would have used you in the KGB. You were a bright boy. You would have made an adequate analyst."
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