The only sounds in the silence that followed were the chirping of birds and the chattering of insects in the park. I remembered what Arina had told me.
To be honest, the only thing that raised any doubts was the ‘tsar’.
But then, prophecies are always allegorical, they are transmitted through the consciousness of the prophet. Arina’s friend who liked rhyming her prophecies couldn’t have said ‘president’, could she? Or ‘general secretary’?
‘But could the prophecy already have come true?’ I asked. ‘Arina, some things could quite easily be regarded—’
‘Shut up!’ Arina growled. ‘Fan, how can the Tiger be killed?’
‘He cannot be killed,’ Fan said, shrugging again. ‘The Tiger is the embodiment of the Twilight in the real world. Can you kill the Twilight, Witch?’
‘I’m an Enchantress!’
‘You have changed your colour, but you were, are and always will be a Witch,’ Fan replied calmly. ‘There is no insult in my words. Let me ask again: can you kill the Twilight?’
‘Why does he come, Fan?’ I asked quickly, to get in before Arina.
I didn’t think he would answer. But Fan did begin to answer, and with obvious enjoyment – he had probably not had such interested listeners very often.
‘The Twilight needs Power. This Power is provided by people, ordinary human beings, and the greater their joy or sorrow, the more Power there is. The Twilight is not cruel, but it demands what it needs. Human joy suits it perfectly well, but it rarely happens that there is more joy than sorrow. Far more often people become indifferent and jaded – and, in that case, the Twilight starts to starve. The blue moss is the Twilight’s simplest and weakest instrument: it absorbs Power and can bolster human emotions. But if there are more and more indifferent people in the world, if good and evil give way to quietude and apathy … then the Twilight brings forth the Tiger. Prophets are born constantly, but if the Twilight has sufficient nourishment, they can act as they wish – utter good prophecies or bad ones, conceal them, forget them … But if humankind calms down, tells itself that it has achieved a state of equilibrium and calm – then the Tiger comes to the Prophets. He makes no distinction between good and bad prophecies. All he wants is for them to be proclaimed. Sooner or later a Prophet opens the door for great upheavals, grief and joy. And the Twilight sates its appetite once again. It is not malicious. It is simply alive … and, like everything living, it wants to eat.’
Fan picked up a small piece of something candied and tossed it into his mouth.
‘But the Twilight is simply … simply …’ I faltered to a stop.
‘Simply what?’ Fan laughed. ‘Simply another world? Simply another dimension of reality? And we, the Others, who can enter into it, who can simply say ‘burn’ and spout forth flame, or transform our bodies into those of demons, or see the future? Esteemed Anton, you make use of magic and you take all this absolutely for granted. But exactly how do you make use of magic?’
‘I enter the Twilight … or simply—’ I broke off and vowed to myself not to use that word again. ‘Or I reach out to it …’
‘And then what? Do you grow cannon instead of arms and enema tubes instead of fingers? How do you fight and heal? How can you talk Chinese, when you have never studied it? Where do you think all of this comes from? From the Twilight? In response to your wishes? What is the Twilight to you, then? A computer with a screen that you can just prod with your finger to get what you want? But a computer was invented by someone, someone made it, and someone wrote the programs for it. A computer has no rational mind and you cannot make it brew you coffee or weed the vegetable patch. But the Twilight docilely shares with you the Power that it needs itself and allows you to perform one trick after another …’
‘But what for, if it is rational?’ I exclaimed.
‘The blue moss also eats Power as well as gathering it,’ Fan laughed. ‘The Twilight needs the blue moss for one purpose. The Tiger for another. And the Others for yet another. But all of us together do the same thing – we stir up humankind, we jolt people, make them do something, invent something, strive for something … sometimes they achieve success, sometimes they take a beating. We are all part of the Twilight, its symbiotes if you like. Its hands and feet, eyes and ears. The rakes and spades it uses to cultivate its vegetable patch – humankind. Do you wish to rebel against the Tiger? You will be rebelling against the Twilight. And therefore against yourself, against your own nature, your abilities, your life. The Tiger cannot be killed.’
‘Then what did you do?’ Arina asked. I looked at her and shuddered – she had aged. No, her camouflage hadn’t disappeared, but now it was only the mask of a beautiful and confident woman on the face of an unhappy, devastated old one.
‘We sacrificed to him. A Tiger has no need to kill a Prophet if the Prophet has already proclaimed his prophecy to human beings and thereby set the mechanism working. And if the Prophet is willing to die in order not to reveal the prophecy … if the Tiger realises that really is the case … then he leaves. He is not cruel. He does not punish for resistance. All he does is try to achieve a result. If no result is possible – the Tiger loses interest in the Prophet.’
‘And you killed your friend to show the Tiger that the prophecy would not reach human ears …’ Arina whispered.
‘No. I was the one who should have died. We had thought it all through …’ Fan hesitated. ‘But Li had thought a little further. He deceived me. He arranged things so that I killed him, I killed him in front of the Tiger, while certain that I would die myself. That convinced the Tiger. He realised that Li was sacrificing himself and that I would never insult his heroic deed by repeating what he had said. The Tiger turned and walked away. New Prophets are born in the world all the time, and each of them on one occasion utters something that can turn the human world upside down. The Tiger walked away.’ Fan stopped, but then went on after alclass="underline" ‘After saying that he felt for me. It was moving. I wanted to die too, but Li had asked me to live. So I had to live.’
‘Wait,’ I whispered. The old magician’s words had roused something in my memory. ‘Wait, Fan. Something’s not right. Something doesn’t fit. I … I believe you. Or rather, I believe you are saying what you think is the truth, and it looks like the truth, but …’
‘But?’ Fan repeated, obviously intrigued.
‘But if the Tiger hunts Prophets simply in order to induce them to speak, not to make them remain silent … why did he want to kill the boy-Prophet in Moscow?’
‘He did not want to kill him,’ Fan said firmly. ‘He was trying to urge him on. Make him hurry.’
‘When we tried to protect the boy, the Tiger demanded that we leave. And he said … he said that the prophecy must not be heard.’
Fan gazed at me unblinkingly. His expression had suddenly shed all its geniality.
‘Did he lie?’ I asked.
‘No, the Tiger cannot lie. You misheard. You didn’t catch what he said.’
I reached into the Twilight, shuddering as I remembered Fan’s words … how was I doing this? How did I control energies that I didn’t understand? How did I perform what people called miracles? It wasn’t important, just at the moment it didn’t matter if Fan was right in what he had said about the Twilight … ‘Here, catch,’ I said, tossing a replica of my memory to Fan. Fan stared into empty space, watching us standing in the Tiger’s path in the basement corridor of the Watch …
‘Inconceivable,’ he said slowly. ‘The Tiger does not want the prophecy …’