‘What a pity that we can only speak for two and a half minutes!’ said Erasmus.
‘Why?’ I asked in surprise. ‘Er … is your mobile phone running down? Or is there no money in the account?’
Erasmus laughed quietly.
‘No, no! There’s enough money in it to last to the end of my life. Antoine … please. I can’t carry on guessing about the Great Gesar’s present. Tell me, Antoine! What is the secret of the bonsai that he sent me?’
The noise in the phone grew louder.
I hesitated for a moment.
‘Erasmus, I don’t know for sure. I haven’t asked Gesar. But I think I’ve realised what the truth is.’
‘Well, well?’ Erasmus asked eagerly.
‘It’s just a little tree in a pot. Just a bonsai. Without any magic. Gesar’s idea of a joke.’
Erasmus said nothing for a second, while the noise in the earpiece grew louder. Then he burst into laughter.
‘Gesar! Oh, the cunning old Tibetan fox! I’d been told that he likes wacky jokes! Thank you, Antoine! I had to find out. I had to hear the answer. Otherwise it was just too upsetting!’
‘Erasmus, what’s going on?’ I asked. ‘Pardon me for asking, but are you drunk?’
‘Yes, a little bit,’ he admitted. I heard a distinct gulp. ‘But this is such a rare whisky … so very old. I was keeping it for a special occasion …’
‘Erasmus, what’s happening there?’ I shouted.
‘It’s the Tiger,’ the prophet replied very calmly. ‘I deceived you ever so slightly, Antoine. Don’t hold it against me. I carved two chalices out of the tree into which I shouted my prophecy.’
‘You’ve found out what your own prophecy was?’ I cried, jumping up off my chair. I ran to the window. Right now: who was there on the premises right now? No one … but if I really hurried, there were people walking by in the street … ‘Erasmus, hold on for a minute! I’ll hand the phone to someone, you tell them.’
‘Don’t bother, Antoine,’ Erasmus told me. ‘It’s all predetermined. Don’t bother! And don’t try to discover my prophecy, please. It won’t bring you joy and a long life. Don’t be angry that I gave you the chalice. Forget about it, bury it.’
‘I can’t promise you that I’ll do that,’ I said honestly.
Erasmus sighed into the phone.
‘Then forgive me. I only have twenty seconds left. The Tiger’s about to break through my defences. I’m putting my will into a briefcase – a crocodile-skin briefcase … there. It will be lying on the table in the kitchen.’
‘Erasmus, I’m very sorry!’ I exclaimed. ‘Maybe there’s something I can do?’
‘Contact the London Day Watch. Ask them … to tidy up my home.’ He paused for a moment, and then said quite calmly and clearly, in good Russian: ‘Farewell, Moscow Magician Anton Gorodetsky.’
First the noise in the earpiece fell silent.
And then the connection was broken.
I looked at the screen. Length of conversation: two minutes, twenty-eight seconds. I had heard Erasmus Darwin’s final prophecy even as he spoke it.
Erasmus was a good Prophet.
Or rather, he had been.
And in general, not a bad Other. For a Dark One, quite remarkable.
I walked over to the window, opened it and lit a cigarette. It was cold and overcast, threatening rain.
That was how Olga found me – smoking at the window. She walked up without saying a word and took out her slim ‘feminine’ cigarettes. When she had emerged from her confinement in the body of an owl thirteen years earlier, she had smoked Belomor papyroses at first – the height of chic back in her time. Only she had soon found her bearings in a changed world.
‘What’s wrong, Anton?’ she asked. ‘You look really terrible.’
‘Erasmus phoned me.’
‘Darwin? What did he want?’
‘To say goodbye. He had another chalice with the prophecy sealed inside it – and he couldn’t resist the temptation. He found out his own prophecy … and then the Tiger came.’
Olga swore. Coarsely, like a man. She asked: ‘Is there nothing we can do?’
‘No. He only had two and a half minutes – he wanted to say goodbye. And he asked me not to try to find out the prophecy, no matter what.’
‘Destroy the chalice,’ Olga said firmly. ‘Anton, don’t play games with prophecies. It’s a good thing that Kesha’s prophecy turned out to be so vague – incredibly vague, if you ask me. But any prophecy is potentially dangerous.’
I wasn’t surprised that Gesar had already shared his information with her. Or that Olga had immediately come to me and was concerned for my safety: that was in her nature. But there was something bothering me. Something wasn’t right. But Olga gave me a demanding look and I nodded reluctantly.
‘All right.’
‘Today.’
‘All right.’
‘I feel like I ought to keep tabs on you, Anton.’
‘Olga, I swear. I’ll go back home today and destroy the chalice.’
She looked into my eyes and nodded, reassured.
‘Thank you. Maybe everything will be all right. Probably it was wrong—’ she said and stopped.
‘What was wrong?’ I asked. ‘You mean it was wrong of Gesar and you to think up that trick with the Chalk of Destiny? Wrong to turn my daughter into a Zero-Level Enchantress?’
‘Who could tell then that she would be yours …’ Olga replied sombrely.
‘Why did you need to do it at all? A massive shift like that in the balance between the Watches … I can just imagine the kind of concessions it cost.’
‘Let’s just say we did it on credit,’ Olga said casually.
‘Meaning?’
‘We’ll be settling up with the Dark Ones for fifty years.’
I didn’t say anything to that.
‘I suppose it would be pointless to ask what the Dark Ones were granted the right to in exchange for Nadya’s appearance?’
‘Absolutely pointless,’ Olga replied sharply. ‘Let’s just drop the subject.’
‘But why? What did you need to do it for? A Zero-Level Enchantress is a violation of the equilibrium, a disruption of the balance, it … it’s like an atomic weapon that’s made in order not to be used …’
I understood the whole thing myself before I’d even finished speaking.
‘It’s not against the Dark Ones, is it?’ I asked Olga. ‘That’s why Zabulon agreed … that’s why the Inquisition turned a blind eye …’
For a long moment Olga didn’t answer. The dead cigarette end trembled in her fingers.
‘Nadya’s a weapon against the Twilight, right?’ I said. ‘She’s the only Other capable of destroying the Twilight – of destroying the entire world of magic. You … you had suspected for a long time … for a long time that the Twilight was not simply an environment, not just energy – but a person. And you were afraid. That was why Gesar consulted with Zabulon. And you involved the Inquisition too, right? And it was decided that the Others needed a deterrent, just in case … in case the Twilight should suddenly stop carrying out our petty whims and become far too active. How did you decide what colour she would be? Did you toss a coin? Zabulon took heads and Gesar took tails? Doesn’t it bother you that you’re raising a child as a living weapon?’
‘I had no part in it!’ Olga replied abruptly. ‘If you remember, I was still a stuffed bird.’
‘But you held the Chalk!’
‘I was desperate not to spend another fifty years in the cupboard, Anton! And I didn’t realise what it was all about at first. Do you think Gesar let me in on all the details straight away? Oh, sure – it sometimes seems to me that he hides his own plans from himself!’