Everything had been prepared for our conversation. Waiting for us on an elegant little table were a teapot, cups, candied fruits and some other kinds of local sweetmeats. Soft red cushions had been thoughtfully arranged on the benches. In addition to the Sphere of Inattention, I detected another five spells to prevent eavesdropping and spying by Others, one more directed against humans – not to distract their attention, but to prevent anyone taking photos or videos – and one with a strange design. At first I suspected that it affected the minds and the vision of people sitting in the pavilion, but having studied it a little I realised it was relatively innocuous. Its entire effect consisted in making the already wonderful view on all sides even more amazing, in addition to awaking in the soul a gentle sadness and sense of peace in the face of nature. I thought for a moment and allowed the spell to affect me. A very elegant and agreeable magic.
‘Why, the jokers,’ Arina said good-naturedly, looking round the pavilion. She was obviously doing the same as I was – untangling the net of spells. ‘How many did you spot?’
‘Two against people, five against Others, one for our own enjoyment. A very amusing little spell, so Chinese – woven out of air, water and earth …’
‘That’s right,’ Arina agreed, with obvious disappointment, giving me a sideways glance. ‘That’s what there is. You’re a good charm-weaver, Anton …’
‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t say thank you when a Witch praises you,’ Arina said unexpectedly. ‘It’s a bad sign.’
I looked at her.
‘Feeling nervous?’
Arina nodded.
Just at that moment an elderly Taiwanese man appeared out of the trees and came towards us. Short, stout and smiling, he looked like one of the incarnations of the Buddha. A Light One, of the fourth level of Power, seemingly without a specialisation in any particular aspect of magic – he practised all of them a little bit …
‘Mr Fan,’ I said, getting up and bowing. To my surprise, Arina also stood up and lowered her head quite sincerely.
‘Stop it, stop it!’ exclaimed Fan, waving his arms. ‘Let’s have none of this oriental ceremonial! It’s quite unnecessary, believe me, we’re civilised Others, we live in the twenty-first century …’
He walked up into the pavilion, shook me firmly by the hand, touched his lips to Arina’s palm and then looked around with undisguised pleasure.
‘Ah, how I love this place! And how rarely I am granted the opportunity simply to sit in peace and quiet in pleasant company … Will you have tea? We Taiwanese are crazy about green tea. But in Russia you mostly drink black tea, right? With milk? Or is it the English who drink it with milk?’
‘We drink green tea and black tea, with milk and with lemon,’ I said.
‘With milk and with lemon?’ asked Fan, wincing. ‘At the same time?’
‘Oh, no,’ I said, feeling myself involuntarily starting to relax. ‘Either one or the other. We have lots of different ways.’
‘Excellent!’ exclaimed Fan, beaming. ‘This mutual enrichment of cultures and fusion of customs is a wonderful thing. I like Russia a lot in general, I like reading Dostoevsky and watching Russian films.’
I took the final remark to be an oriental politeness and didn’t enquire which Russian films he had seen. We sat down and Mr Fan poured our tea himself.
‘What has brought you to Formosa in these delightful days of our autumn?’ Fan continued. ‘Apart from simple interest in these exotic climes? No, no, don’t answer – allow me to guess for myself!’
We allowed him. Fan pondered for a few moments, drinking his tea in tiny sips, then suddenly exclaimed: ‘I know! The Tiger! I heard about the skirmish that the Moscow Watch was involved in!’
‘The Tiger,’ I admitted. In all honesty, the gleeful comedy that Fan had played out was not much better than the comically managed visit to the hotel. But at least it was more upbeat and cheerful to watch.
‘A terrible … er … creature,’ said Fan. ‘I’m not sure that the word “creature” suits the case, it’s unlikely that the Tiger has any essential substance as we understand it. But we have to call him something, do we not?’
‘You have already encountered him,’ said Arina. It wasn’t a question, but Fan nodded.
‘Yes, yes, yes. An old, painful story. Eighty-something years ago …’ He fell silent for a moment and something genuinely heartfelt showed through the affected jollity. ‘I had a friend. A very good friend, we were inseparable. These days we would be considered lovers, but then the idea never even occurred to anyone – including us. But on the spiritual level we were very close, closer than married couples or brothers.’
Fan put down his cup and looked at Arina.
‘He was a Prophet and I was the only one to hear his first prophecy. Prophets often forget what they prophesy and only remember some time later. But Li remembered his prophecy. So we were able to discuss it … and decide what to do. Li was greatly concerned that I too had heard the prophecy and was therefore doomed to become the Tiger’s victim.’
‘You didn’t think of telling the prophecy to humans?’
‘No,’ said Fan. ‘We didn’t. Not a single human has heard it … and neither has any Other apart from me. When my time comes, I shall take it with me into the Twilight and bury it there.’
‘I see,’ Arina said, nodding. After a brief pause, she added: ‘Those were hard times.’
‘There are no easy times,’ Fan remarked.
‘The very existence of the Celestial Empire as a unitary state was in doubt.’
‘The Celestial Empire is now divided,’ said Fan.
‘But perhaps the outcome could have been worse?’ Arina asked insinuatingly.
Fan poured himself some more tea. Then he said: ‘We knew that if the prophecy remained with us, the Tiger would come. The legends are preserved in the chronicles – and we could surmise why some prophets had preferred to die without telling anyone what they had foreseen in the future. We did not want to die. And we started searching for a way out …’
‘The simplest way out is to change the prophecy,’ said Arina. ‘I had a similar case. It threatened … a very bad future for Russia. We told the prophecy to humans, and then I did something to prevent it from being realised.’
‘Then it was not a prophecy, but a prediction,’ Fan said, with a shrug. ‘A prophecy that has been proclaimed to humans cannot be annulled. It will be realised.’
‘It was a prophecy and I changed it!’ Arina said firmly.
Fan pondered for a moment. Then he looked at Arina in a different way.
‘I am very sorry, esteemed Miss Arina. But a prophecy that has reached humans always comes true. The only thing that can be done is to postpone it by destroying the shortest and most obvious route to its realisation. But a prophecy that has not been realised in its own time will only accumulate power and strike again, with even graver consequences. I am very sorry.’
Arina’s eyelid twitched. Then red patches appeared on her cheeks.
‘That’s nonsense!’
‘I am afraid not, Miss Arina. As you can understand, I studied this matter very closely at one time. And what’s more, I continued studying it later. For eighty years I have been collecting all the information I can find about prophecies, the Tiger, the possibility of changing the outcomes of prophecies …’
‘You can’t know everything!’ Arina cried: it was almost the only time I had seen her lose her self-control. ‘You don’t know my case! The prophecy didn’t happen and it won’t happen.’
‘I do not know what it was that you heard in your time and what you did,’ said Fan, bowing his head. ‘And I do not dare to ask, although if you share it with me, I shall be grateful. But ask yourself – is what you tried to avert possible today?’