‘And you didn’t tell me,’ I commented.
‘You know it’s best not to talk about these things. It’s best not to know about it if you can’t get there yourself. I’m not at all sure that everybody ends up there, perhaps it’s only the most powerful. The Higher Ones, for example. Why should all the rest know that they won’t have any existence after death?’
‘Thomas the Rhymer said that down there on the lower levels of the Twilight there are magical cities, dragons and unicorns – all the things that don’t exist in our world, but could have done.’
Svetlana shook her head
‘Thomas seems like a very good man to me. But he’s a bard. A poet. You can’t cure that, Anton. You talked to him when he was in his Twilight Form, dreaming about unicorns and fairies, and magical cities, Others who have built a world of their own and don’t live as parasites on the human world. I wouldn’t count too much on all that being true. Perhaps there are only little huts and wooden houses there. And no fairies and unicorns.’
‘That’s still not too bad,’ I said. ‘Very many people would gladly swap the heaven they desperately hope to get to some day for eternal life in a hut out in the countryside. There are certainly trees there.’
‘The Other I saw didn’t look very happy,’ Svetlana said. ‘Of course, he was … well, kind of blurred, not very clear. But that’s only natural, if his usual habitat is the seventh level of the Twilight. But he looked so … creased and rumpled. And he ran towards me, as if he wanted to tell me something. But I had other things on my mind at the time, you understand.’
‘And I saw a former Other on the first level,’ I recalled. ‘When I was hunting that wild White One, Maxim.[11] He even gave me a bit of help, told me which way I should go.’
‘It happens sometimes,’ Svetlana agreed. ‘Not often, but I’ve heard a few stories. And you already told me …’
Neither of us said anything for a while.
‘Maybe they really would be brought back into our world,’ Svetlana said. ‘And that might be enough to make Edgar, Gennady and Arina work together. They must all have lost loved ones, not just Saushkin. And probably anyone who has lost loved ones would be thrown off balance by an opportunity like this.’
‘It would throw anyone at all off balance,’ I said.
We looked at each in alarm. It was good that now we were guarded round the clock. It was bad that our potential enemies were three Higher Ones.
‘I’ll put up a few more protective spells for the night,’ said Svetlana. ‘Don’t think me a coward.’
‘The Crown of All Things can be reached by force,’ I said. ‘By breaking through to the seventh level of the Twilight. But I couldn’t do it. Probably Nadya could. If only I knew how to get through by using my wits … by cunning. I’d use that artefact myself. There’d be about the same number of Light and Dark magicians down there – we’d manage.’
‘And what if we’re wrong, and it’s nothing but a bomb that will destroy the world?’
‘That’s why I prefer not even to think about how to reach the artefact. I’ll leave that headache to Geser and Zabulon.’
‘Let’s go to bed and sleep on it,’ Svetlana said. ‘Tomorrow’s a new day.’
But we didn’t go to bed straight away. First Svetlana put up several new protective spells around the apartment, and then I did the same.
CHAPTER 3
THE MORNING TURNED out so fresh and clear that all of the previous day’s doom and gloom seemed to have evaporated into thin air. Nadya meekly ate the rice porridge that she didn’t like, and Svetlana didn’t say a word when I casually told her that I was thinking of going to work early. But she did suggest that I should come back home early too, so that all of us could go to watch some family movie that her friends had told her was really great. I imagined the Dark Ones who were guarding Nadya being forced to watch a romantic fairy tale in which, naturally, good defeats evil, and I smiled.
‘Definitely I just want to find out how things are going. Maybe there’s been some kind of breakthrough.’
‘They would have called you,’ said Svetlana, scattering my idle dreams like smoke.
But that didn’t spoil my mood. I got ready quickly and grabbed my suitcase full of papers (oh, yes, even Light Magicians have to do their paperwork), then kissed my daughter and my wife and walked out of the apartment.
On the next floor down Roma, an amiable young lummox who had been working in our Watch for about two years, was making lively conversation with a thin, pretty young woman, one of the Dark Ones that Zabulon had assigned to guard us.
I greeted them both and walked on, shaking my head.
That was the way romances with unhappy endings got started. The way it had happened with Alisa and Igor …
The weather was so good that for a second I hesitated, standing outside the door of the building and wondering if I ought to walk to the metro. On the other hand, I really didn’t want to go into the metro at all. Those hot trains, those jostling crowds – the rush hour in Moscow ends at somewhere around midnight.
No, the car would be better. Svetlana wasn’t planning on going anywhere. And if I checked the probability lines, I could skip past the traffic jams and be at work in just twenty minutes.
I removed the protective spells that wouldn’t have done me any harm but would have made sensitive drivers give my car a wide berth. I got into the driving seat, turned the key in the ignition and closed my eyes to check the best route for me to drive. The result was rather discouraging. For some reason all the probabilities were centred on Sheremetievo Airport, which was crazy since I had no intention of going there!
I felt something fluffy twine round my neck, and an amiable voice with a slight drawl asked:
‘Does the king have a long journey to make today?’
I looked in the rear-view mirror and didn’t like what I saw.
I didn’t see Edgar. But I did see the thing that he had thrown round my neck – a silvery strip of fur. It didn’t look much like a decorative neckpiece, there was something predatory about it… as if there were lots of tiny teeth hidden under that grey fur.
And I also saw Gennady Saushkin, sitting on the right side of the back seat. The vampire’s face was composed and impassive.
‘What’s on your mind, Edgar?’ I asked.
‘That’s none of your business,’ Edgar replied, with an ominous laugh. ‘Don’t even think of withdrawing into the Twilight and don’t try any spells. That little ribbon round your neck exists at every level of the Twilight… at least as far down as the sixth. And it will rip your head off if you use even a trace of magic.’
‘I won’t test it,’ I said. ‘So now what?’
‘Maybe you’d like to invite us back home?’ the invisible Edgar asked.
‘Surely you don’t think that I’d give you Nadya?’ I asked. I didn’t feel afraid, I was simply astonished by the question. ‘You can kill me.’
‘I wasn’t really counting on it,’ Edgar said. ‘But Gennady insisted on the question being asked – he’s very keen to make use of your little daughter.’
‘The way he made use of his own son?’ I asked, unable to resist, and was rewarded with a vicious scowl that wiped away everything human in the vampire’s face.
‘Quiet now,’ said Edgar, nudging my shoulder. ‘Don’t get carried away, or I won’t be able to hold Gennady off. He’s very upset with you – can you guess why?’
‘Yes. Why don’t you make yourself visible? It’s not a pleasant sensation talking to empty space.’