‘And you won’t stop me,’ said Valentin, working himself up even more. ‘I’ll go to the Kremlin – the president’s addressing the Duma there today. And I’ll bring them all to their senses! I’ve worked out the whole thing. I’ll have enough Power to repel any of your spells, with plenty left over for a mass remoralisation.’
‘The Sphere of Negation?’ I asked.
‘Uh-huh,’ said Valentin, nodding proudly.
‘A good spell,’ I admitted. ‘You really will be able to block any of my magic, and you can draw Power from it, too.’
Valentin smiled. He looked like a schoolboy who has earned words of praise from a strict teacher.
There was no point in dragging things out any longer. I stuck my hand in the pocket of my anorak and took out a short telescopic truncheon. I shook it and it snapped out to its full length.
‘Ah …’ said Valentin, starting to get to his feet. He had realised belatedly what was happening.
I shoved him gently in the chest with my free left hand – as I was expecting, Valentin flung his hands up to protect himself against the harmless blow. And that was when I whacked him with the truncheon, swinging hard so that the dense rubber with the heavy metal core thudded dully against the top of the hapless Other’s head.
Valentin’s eyes rolled up and he went limp. I held him up by his anorak as I sat him back down on his chair. Pastukhov was there beside me immediately, holding his own far heavier truncheon at the ready.
‘Easy now, everything’s fine,’ I told him. ‘Right … just a moment …’
Oh, the young guy had really pumped himself full! I absorbed as much Power as I could and then started simply releasing it into space. With no one controlling it any more, the Sphere of Negation no longer impeded me. The people in the stands livened up, started applauding and yelling. The music started playing louder.
What is the point of teaching them? All that effort, but instead of the Magician’s Shield, which protects against everything, they still use the Sphere of Negation. He could at least have set a weak Crystal Shield under the Sphere …
Ah, these young people.
When I’d finished, I cast the Clamps spell on him, blocking his magical abilities completely. The Clamps can only be used on an Other who is unconscious, and they only hold for a few hours. But that would be enough.
‘He’s alive,’ Pastukhov declared in relief after examining Valentin. ‘Listen – he’s one of yours, a Light One, isn’t he?’
‘If he’s a Light One, that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s one of ours,’ I sighed. Semyon was already walking towards us.
‘And what’s going to happen to him now?’ Pastukhov asked. He seemed almost to sympathise with the young guy.
‘A trial,’ I said, shrugging. ‘He didn’t have time to actually do anything – he’ll get five to ten years’ deprivation of rights. That means living without magic.’
‘Well, that’s not so terrible,’ said Pastukhov, relaxing.
‘You think so?’ I sighed. ‘Ah, but it is – if you’re already used to it – And he is.’
CHAPTER 6
GESAR LOOKED AT me with an expression of affronted amazement. No, he wasn’t just affronted, he was seriously disappointed. That was probably the kind of look a great artist would give his pupil if he found out the pupil had been stealing his brushes and paint and had drawn moustaches on several pictures of lovely ladies just for the fun of it.
‘Why?’ Gesar asked bitterly, flinging my old minidisc player down on the desk in anger. ‘Why the hell didn’t you give me the prophecy straight away?’
‘Because it’s too dangerous,’ I explained. ‘I didn’t want to get the entire leadership of the Watch involved in this business. The Tiger would have come—’
‘And eaten us all up,’ Gesar snorted. ‘I can’t see anything terrible in the prophecy.’
‘Really?’ I asked, astonished.
‘It doesn’t actually forecast anything at all,’ Gesar said calmly. ‘All it does is articulate the possibility that an Absolute Enchantress is capable of destroying the Twilight. You don’t think that’s news to me, do you?’
Now it was my turn to gape at the boss in absolute disbelief.
‘It’s simply axiomatic,’ Gesar continued. ‘An absolute force is capable of destroying everything. Doesn’t it frighten you that your daughter is capable of blowing up the planet?’
‘What?’ I bleated lamely.
‘Blow it up. Incinerate it. Flood it. And all exclusively by magical means – she draws Power from an effectively infinite source, she has enough to do all that. And she can destroy the Twilight the same way.’
‘How?’ I asked.
‘Maybe collapse all the levels together,’ Gesar explained casually. ‘Then the whole world would be overgrown with blue moss and a second moon would appear in the sky – although most of the time it would be hidden from sight by the fluorescent clouds. Basically, there would be an incredible transposition of spatial dimensions. One hell of a cataclysm. Maybe magic would be preserved if that happened, or maybe not … But there is a second possibility, also quite likely. The world won’t change, but we won’t be able to enter the Twilight. The level of magic will start to decline … and then, even in this case, there are various alternatives.’
He got so carried away that I realised he’d been wanting to talk all this over with someone for a long time.
‘I, for instance, believe that magic would be completely lost to people,’ he explained. ‘But Zabulon believes the opposite – that those people with the highest magical temperatures, who nowadays don’t possess even the weakest of clairvoyant abilities, would become Great Magicians!’
‘Zabulon?’ I asked stupidly. ‘You’ve discussed this with him?’
‘Yes, Zabulon,’ Gesar replied firmly. ‘You should understand, Anton, that there are some things so important for all Others that all enmity is forgotten in the effort to understand them.’
‘But if there’s no Twilight, how will these human-Others use magic?’
‘They won’t need to enter the Twilight. They’ll operate with just their own internal energy – although perhaps in time they’ll discover a way to pump energy directly out of other people … and we’ll become practically immune to magic,’ Gesar laughed. ‘You can’t give an electric shock to someone who doesn’t conduct electricity.’
He paused and then sighed.
‘But we’d have a really tough time, of course. We could forget all about having such a long life.’
‘So Kesha’s prophecy isn’t dangerous, and it doesn’t contain anything new,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘And perhaps it’s not the first of that kind?’
Gesar didn’t say anything, but he smiled.
‘Then why was the Tiger so afraid that the prophecy would be heard?’
‘Because there really is a chance that someone will try to destroy the Twilight,’ Gesar said calmly. ‘For instance, as we see, your girlfriend Ar—’
I frowned.
‘A certain Witch of your acquaintance,’ said Gesar, correcting his mistake. ‘As you’ve already seen, she has a definite bee in her bonnet – she’s afraid that her careless interference with a prophecy has brought disaster down on the country. And she’s not the only one, either. There are radical Dark Ones, for instance.’
‘But what do they want? Are they prepared to lose their Power?’