‘It does,’ Foma agreed. ‘Anton, I’d like to ask you not to leave the investigation just yet. There’s something here that really bothers me. Try having a word Victor’s girlfriend.’
‘Is the girl still here?’
‘Of course. The police asked her not to leave town. The Alex City hotel, not far from here. I think it will be easier for you to make contact with her.’
‘Do you suspect her of something?’
Foma shook his head.
‘She’s just an ordinary person … It’s something else. She’s taking her lover’s death very hard, cooperating willingly with the police. But maybe a fellow Russian will find it easier to get through to her. A gesture, a glance, a word – any little thing. I really don’t want to close this case and leave everything to the police, Anton.’
‘And it would be a good thing to meet the owner of the Dungeons of Scotland, too,’ I said.
‘That won’t get you anywhere,’ Foma said dismissively.
‘Why not?’
‘Because those stupid Dungeons belong to me!’ Foma said with loathing.
‘But—’ I broke off. ‘Well… but then …’
‘What then? I have a small holding company – Scottish Colours – that works in the tourist business. Our Night Watch is a shareholder in the company, and the profits go to finance its activities. We organise musical events and circus performances, we have shares in a few hotels, four pubs, the Dungeons of Scotland, three tour buses and an agency that takes tourists to the Scottish lochs. How else would you like us to earn our money?’ He laughed. ‘The whole of Edinburgh lives off the tourists. If you go to Glasgow and you find yourself in the suburbs, you’ll see a frightening sight – buildings on the point of collapse, hotels boarded up, factories closed down. Industry is dying. It’s not profitable to produce goods in Europe any longer, but it is profitable to produce services. What else should an old bard do but run concerts and tourist attractions?’
‘I understand, it was just unexpected …’
‘There aren’t any Others working there,’ Foma repeated. ‘It’s a strange place – the blue moss doesn’t grow there – that was why I bought the land in the first place. But I didn’t find anything unusual.’
‘Then could the murder have been intended as a blow against you?’ I asked. ‘Against you personally and the Night Watch of Edinburgh? Does someone want to compromise Light Ones?’
Foma smiled and stood up.
‘That’s what I need you for, Anton. To have a powerful magician from the outside involved in the investigation. Have a word with Valeria, all right? And don’t put it off.’
But I had to put off the meeting with Valeria for a little while after all.
When I was already almost at the hotel I saw yet another crowd of tourists gathered in a circle around a performing street artist. There was a whole rainbow of tiny little coloured balls flying up in the air above the people’s heads, and somehow I knew who I was going to see. Even though Egor had called himself an illusionist and not a juggler.
In actual fact, there were five performers there. Three young guys in bright ‘circus’ clothes were taking a break. A young girl in a flowing semi-transparent dress was going round the spectators with a tray, and they were gladly putting in coins and notes.
At the moment, only Egor was performing. He was wearing a black suit and white shirt, with a bow tie – looking very well-groomed and quite different from the crowd in their summery clothes.
Egor was juggling with the coloured balls. But not simply juggling … His right hand was shooting red, blue and green balls no bigger than a cherry high up into the air. The open palm swivelled with emphatic slowness, demonstrating that there was nothing in it. Then the fingers folded together and the whole hand swung rapidly – and another ball went soaring upwards. His left hand caught the falling balls and crumpled them into his fist, breaking off the rainbow, and then immediately opened again – empty.
The little balls came from nowhere and disappeared into nowhere. There were more and more of them all the time – as if Egor didn’t have enough time to take back out of the air everything that he had thrown up into it. The coloured parabola kept growing brighter and brighter, denser and denser, turning into a gleaming, glittering rope of colour. It was dazzling. The movements of his fingers became so fast that they exceeded the ability of any prestidigitator. The spectators held their breath. The sounds of the street rolled up to that motionless circle of people and died, like the murmuring waves of a distant sea. The coloured cord fluttered through Egor’s hands,
The tension grew and grew. The girl stopped collecting money – nobody was looking at her now in any case. She turned towards Egor and looked at him with eyes filled with love and delight.
Egor suddenly jerked both his hands – and he was left holding a fluttering brightly coloured ribbon.
The spectators applauded as if they had just woken up.
I recalled the hoary old joke about the conjuror who came to a circus looking for a job. ‘I go out onstage and juggle with different-coloured fish, get it? And then they fly up into the big top and disappear. The only thing is, I haven’t figured out how to do it yet…’
Poor stupid conjuror. To do that, you have to be an Other. Even an uninitiated one.
In actual fact, even without being initiated, or having made that first entry into the Twilight, an Other is capable of far more than an ordinary human being. And in Egor’s case everything was far more complicated. He had entered the Twilight when he was a child. He had even broken through into the second level – although he was fed Power by someone else, since his own abilities were minimal.
But he had avoided going through with initiation, and remained what he was – an indeterminate Other who did not know how to control his abilities and had not turned either to the Light or the Dark. His Book of Fate had been rewritten, returning him to his initial condition and giving him the chance to choose again – but he had refused to make a choice.
And he had decided that he was an ordinary human being.
Egor himself did not understand how he performed his act. He was certain that he was controlling the little balls very deftly, skilfully transferring them from one hand to the other before launching them into the air again, and then adroitly replacing them with a special kind of ribbon that was evidently weighted at several points to make it all easier.
In actual fact a trick like that is impossible.
But Egor was quite certain that he performed his act without any magic. Like a very dexterous ordinary human being.
The spectators applauded with expressions of lively, genuine delight on their faces, the kind of delight that you only see in the faces of children at the circus. For a moment the world had become magical and wonderful for them.
They didn’t know that that’s the way the world really is – our world …
Egor bowed and walked round the circle quickly – not collecting money, although they were holding out notes to him, but simply looking in the eyes of the spectators.
He was drawing Power from them, feeding! Without even realising it, he was feeding on the emotions of his spectators!
I started hastily making my way out of the crowd, but the spectators behind me were pushing forward, there were children jumping about at my feet, and a semi-naked girl with studs in her pierced lips was breathing hotly in my ear. I was too slow, Egor had spotted me. And he stopped.
There was nothing left to do but open my arms wide.
Egor hesitated for a second, then whispered something to the girl with the tray, who was following him. He squirmed his way into the crowd. People made way for him, but they also slapped him enthusiastically on the back and made delighted comments in various languages.