«I wasn't expecting anything.»
«Then I'm sorry you got a surprise!»
«Did you sense my trail in the room? When you woke up?»
«Yes.» Svetlana pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket with a struggle and lit one. «I'm tired. Maybe I am still only learning, and not working yet, but I'm tired. And I came here to relax.»
«You were the one who started talking about everyone faking a good time…«
«And you were only too happy to back me up!»
«True,» I agreed.
«And then you went off to guzzle vodka and organize conspiracies.»
«What conspiracies?»
«Against Gesar. And against me, by the way. How absurd! Even I sensed it! Don't get the idea you're some great magician who can…«
She stopped short. But too late.
«I'm not a great magician,» I said. «I'm third grade. Maybe second, but no higher than that. We all have limits of our own that we can't go beyond, not even if we live for a thousand years.»
«I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you,» Svetlana said, embarrassed. She lowered the hand holding the cigarette.
«Forget it. I'm not offended. Do you know why the Dark Ones form families of their own so often , and we prefer to choose our wives and husbands from among ordinary people? The Dark Ones find it easier to bear inequality and constant competition.»
«A human being and an Other—that's even more unequal.»
«That doesn't count. We're two different species. That means nothing counts.»
«I want you to know,» said Svetlana, taking a deep drag on her cigarette, «that I wasn't intending to let things go so far. I was waiting for you to come down and see us and get jealous.»
«I'm sorry, I didn't know I was supposed to get jealous,» I said repentantly.
«And then everything just got crazy and I got carried away.»
«I understand everything, Sveta. It's okay.»
She looked at me in confusion.
«Okay?»
«Of course, it happens to everyone. The Watch is one big, tight-knit family. With all the consequences that follow from that.»
«What a bastard you are,» Svetlana exclaimed. «Anton, if only you could see yourself now from the outside! How did you ever end up on our side?»
«Sveta, you came to make up, didn't you?» I asked in surprise. «So I'm making up. It's all okay. Nothing counts. That's life; all sorts of things happen.»
She jumped up and glared icily at me for a second. I started blinking rapidly.
«You idiot,» Svetlana blurted out and went back into the house.
So what had I been expecting? Hurt feelings, accusations, sadness?
But more important, what had Gesar been expecting? What would change if I stopped playing the role of Sveta's ill-starred lover? Would someone else take on the role? Or was it already time for her to be left alone—all alone with her great destiny?
The goal. I had to know what Gesar's goal was.
I sprang up off the beach chair and walked into the house. I immediately spotted Olga, alone in the living room. Standing in front of the open display case, holding a sword with a long, narrow blade out in front of her. She wasn't looking at it the way you look at an antique toy. Tiger Cub probably looked at her swords in the same kind of way. But her love of old weapons was abstract and Olga's wasn't.
When Gesar came to live and work in Russia—because of her, by the way—swords like that might still have been in use.
But eighty years ago, when Olga had been deprived of all her rights, wars were already fought differently.
A former Great Sorceress. A former Great Goal. Eighty years.
«It's all so well planned, isn't it?» I said.
Olga started and swung round.
«We can't defeat the Darkness ourselves. The little people have to be enlightened first. Become kind and loving, industrious and intelligent. So that every Other can see nothing but the Light. What a great goal it was; how long the ripples lasted when it was drowned in blood.»
«You figured it out after all,» said Olga. «Or did you just guess?»
«I guessed.»
«Good. Now what?»
«How did you slip up, Olga?»
«I accepted a compromise. A little compromise with the Darkness. And because of that we lost.»
«We did? We'll always survive. Adapt, fit in, find our place. And we'll continue the old struggle. It's only people who lose.»
«Retreats are inevitable sometimes,» said Olga, gripping the double-handed sword easily in one hand and swinging it above her head. «Do I look like a helicopter with its engines idling?»
«You look like a woman waving a sword around. Do we really never learn anything, Olga?»
«Sure we do. This time everything's going to be different, Anton.»
«A new revolution?»
«We didn't want the last one. It was all supposed to happen almost completely without bloodshed. You understand: We can win only through ordinary people. When they become enlightened, when their spirit is uplifted. Communism was a wonderfully well-calculated system, and it's all my fault that it wasn't realized.»
«Oho! Why aren't you in the Twilight already, if it's all your fault?»
«Because everything had been agreed. Every step of the way approved. Even that ill-fated compromise, even that seemed acceptable.»
«And now—a new attempt to change people?»
«One more in the series.»
«Why here?» I asked. «Why in Russia again?»
«Why not?»
«How much more of this does our country have to put up with?»
«As much as it takes.»
«Come on—why here again?»
Olga sighed, deftly slipped the sword back into its scabbard, and put it back on its stand.
«Because, my dear boy, in this arena it's still possible to achieve something. The potential of Europe and North America has already been exhausted. Everything that was possible has already been tried there. There are a few things being developed right now. But all those countries are already half asleep. A healthy retiree in shorts with a digital camera—that's the prosperous countries of the West. We need to experiment with the young ones. Russia, Asia, the Arab world—these are where the battles of the present day are fought. And don't look so offended, I love my country as much as you do! I've spilled more blood for it than you have flowing in your veins. What you've got to understand, Antoshka, is that the battlefield is the entire world. You know that just as well as I do.»
«Our war's with the Darkness, not with human beings!»
"Yes, with the Darkness. But we can only win by creating an ideal society. A world that will be ruled by goodness, love, and justice. The Watches don't exist to capture psychopathic magicians on the streets and issue licenses to vampires! All those little things take up time and energy, but they're by-products, like the heat from an electric light bulb. Light bulbs are meant to produce light, not heat. We have to change the human world, not just neutralize Darkness's minor outbursts. That's the goal. That's the path to victory!»
«Olga, I understand that.»
«Wonderful. Then you have to understand something that's never said in so many words. We've been fighting for thousands of years. And all that time we've been trying to change the course of history. To create a new world.»
«A brave new world.»
«Don't be so cynical. We have achieved something, after all. Through all the blood and suffering the world is becoming a more humane place. But we need a real, genuine revolution.»
«Communism was our idea, then?»
«No, not ours, but we supported it. It seemed quite attractive.»
«So now what?»
«You'll see.» Olga smiled. A friendly, sincere smile. «Anton, everything will be fine. Trust me.»