Or was I wrong after all? Maybe the Dark Ones followed their own paths, unlike ours?
‘And hello to you, Gesar,’ Zabulon said with a nod. ‘What kind of loathsome beast was that?’
I laughed. And I kept on laughing until understanding dawned on Gesar’s face.
‘Did you see a repulsive, malicious demon, Zabulon?’ he asked.
The Dark One frowned. And nodded.
‘I saw a cunning, elderly man,’ said Gesar. ‘Anton, I surmise, saw some pleasant, straightforward young guy. Jermenson saw a wise old Jew. Olga saw a wily, guileful woman.’
‘You forgot to add that you didn’t just see a cunning, elderly man, but a very modest, cunning, elderly man,’ said Olga.
‘Yes, and one with a very high opinion of himself,’ snorted Zabulon. ‘But, as it happens, he only disappeared when I showed up.’
‘Maybe he just has a well-developed aesthetic sensibility …’ Alisher muttered, but in a low voice. It’s not really a good idea for an ordinary Light Magician to quarrel with Higher Dark Ones.
The three of us – Gesar, Zabulon and I – went up to the flat where the small Tolkov family lived. Zabulon had politely confirmed in advance that the Day Watch did not claim any right to initiate the boy-Prophet, but said that he would be interested in taking a look at the child. Simply out of general interest, because a genuine Prophet only turns up once or twice in a generation, and he had never met a Prophet with a ‘tiger’ hot on his trail.
‘Do you have any ideas about all this?’ Gesar asked him as we were riding up in the lift.
‘Yes, Gesar. I do. That it’s a good thing you met this boy first and he’s not our headache.’
‘Well, well, the Day Watch forgoes a Prophet,’ Gesar muttered. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t have fought the “tiger” for him?’
‘I would have,’ Zabulon confessed regretfully. ‘Greed would have forced me to. But I certainly didn’t like to see that four Higher Light Ones couldn’t even frighten a single stranger, let alone defeat him.’
‘And who is he, this stranger?’ I asked.
Zabulon looked at me and something very hostile flickered in his eyes. No, there wasn’t any personal vendetta between us at the moment. But we’d done each other plenty of bad turns in our time. It had just happened that when I was a rank-and-file member of the Watch I’d managed to foul things up for Zabulon … and become his personal enemy. Right now, though, we had a quasi-truce.
But Dark Ones don’t become Higher Others because they know how to forgive and forget. They simply know how to wait.
‘I don’t know, Anton, I don’t know,’ Zabulon answered, with a sigh. ‘At first I thought we were dealing with a Mirror Magician after all. But a Mirror only reflects Others’ power, not their appearance, and the way he behaved …’ Zabulon stopped short.
‘Finish what you were saying,’ Gesar said amicably. ‘You might as well.’
‘By the way, you haven’t already forgotten that I helped you out just now, have you?’ asked Zabulon.
We walked out of the lift onto the eleventh floor.
‘I haven’t forgotten,’ said Gesar. ‘And I’m ready to help you …’
‘The Day Watch,’ Zabulon corrected him.
‘The Day Watch of Moscow,’ Gesar agreed, ‘in a situation where to do so will clearly not be detrimental to the goals and interests of the Night Watch or human beings.’
‘Evasive, but acceptable,’ Zabulon said, with a nod. ‘My dear enemy, I even sympathise with you slightly. I have a distinct feeling that this “tiger” of yours is not a person at all.’
‘Why ours?’ I asked.
‘Why not a person?’ asked Gesar.
‘I’m prepared to answer one question,’ Zabulon declared gleefully. ‘You choose which.’
Gesar snorted contemptuously and said: ‘Basically, the answers to both questions are elementary. He didn’t have any aura at all. He could hardly have concealed it from several Higher Others. And he appeared differently to each of us. That means he’s not a material entity, but merely reflected in our consciousness. And he’s “ours” because he’s interested in the boy who is now under our protection.’
‘Oh, so there’s no need for any answers, then?’ Zabulon asked delightedly.
It sometimes seems to me that they could go on sparring like that for ever.
‘Answer Anton’s question,’ said Gesar. ‘Why the “tiger” is our problem.’
Zabulon nodded: ‘By all means. In my view, the real issue is not that he’s hunting the boy. Perhaps he merely wanted to pat him on the head and wish him luck in his fight for the cause of the Light? What is far more interesting is that the “tiger” left after I made my appearance.’
‘He didn’t want to fight on two fronts,’ said Gesar, growing more sombre with every second.
Zabulon burst into laughter.
‘Too hopeful by far! I suspect that he didn’t wish to harm me.’
‘A kindred spirit?’ I asked.
‘Oh, don’t be so childish, Anton!’ Zabulon rebuked me. ‘When has that ever been a hindrance to Dark Ones? At the present moment the Day Watch is less powerful than you are. If he had annihilated all of us the Night Watch would simply have been exsanguinated, but the Day Watch would have been left practically dead.’
‘Maintaining the balance is the Inquisition’s job,’ said Gesar. ‘Is that what you’re hinting at?’
‘No, Gesar. What I’m hinting at is that the balance is also maintained by the Twilight. This is a Twilight Creature. You may not believe in them, but …’
For a few seconds Gesar and Zabulon stared daggers at each other. I felt like saying: ‘Don’t bother – you’re not going to fight anyway!’ – but I wasn’t sure that I would be right.
The situation was defused by the door of one of the flats opening. An old granny stuck her head out of the door slowly and solemnly, like a tortoise poking its head out of its shell. Actually, she wasn’t even fifty yet, but she looked like a genuine old woman, the caricature Russian ‘babushka’ of the American and European imaginations – flabby and shapeless, wearing a sloppy housecoat, slippers over thick stockings, a headscarf. Incredible! You usually only see that kind of thing outside a church.
‘What are you doing standing there?’ the granny asked. ‘Get off my doormat, you pervert.’
Zabulon glanced down at his feet in surprise. He really was standing on the corner of the mat that the granny had set out in front of the door of her flat. The mat had clearly seen better times. It had once been part of a big, bright carpet of synthetic fibre, the kind that people used to queue up for in Soviet times. And then, when even the polyvinyl chloride had faded with age, was covered in stains and worn right down to the bare threads, it had done time lying on an open balcony. The rain had drenched it. The insane city moths had tried to gnaw on it. A tin of paint had been spilled on it.
And now this putrid, semi-decayed floor covering had been hacked into crooked pieces and set out in front of the door as a doormat.
Zabulon gave an emphatically polite nod and stepped off the mat.
‘Come up here to drink, have you?’ asked the granny. ‘The ninth floor, that’s where the winos live! But we’re decent people here!’
The most surprising thing was that Zabulon wasn’t even slightly angry with the granny. He studied her with the intensely keen interest of an entomologist gazing at a cockroach and attempting to establish contact with it. Gesar was the one who was fuming.
‘We’ve come to see your neighbours,’ he said. ‘Everything’s all right, don’t worry.’