And then I heard Erasmus’s voice. Slower and more powerful. No longer a frightened boy’s voice, but the voice of a maturing man.
‘You, magician from a harsh northern country, who heard not what you should have heard at the proper time, but have come here as a disembodied shadow and learned what you did not wish to know … The Executioner will die and magic will quit our world. Your choice. Her Power. His fate. The Executioner will come and you will have to decide. But whatever you may decide, you will never know peace again.’
‘I’ve never known it anyway!’ I shouted. I wanted to grab hold of Erasmus, drag him out of the hollow tree and lash him hard across the cheeks – to make him shut up. But I knew that my hands would pass straight through the Prophet’s body.
‘I pity you – and forgive me,’ Erasmus said and fell silent. The legs protruding from the hole in the tree twitched and went limp. He had clearly lost consciousness.
As I stood there, I didn’t realise immediately that I was sobbing and tears were running down my cheeks. Zabulon was groaning somewhere close by. The Tiger walked up to the tree unhurriedly. He stood there, looking at the part of Erasmus that was visible. He was the same as in our time – young, with a genial, serene face. Only the clothes he was wearing were old-fashioned and terribly uncomfortable, to my way of thinking. The Tiger looked at Erasmus for a few seconds. Then he turned his head and looked at me. As if he could see me.
And he smiled – sadly and understandingly.
We were all still in the poses in which the prophecy had caught us. Me with my hand stretched out to the blazing chalice. Nadya huddled up against the fridge, Kesha valiantly protecting her with his body. Arina off at one side, giggling quietly and tramping her feet on the spot. Had the old witch really gone out of her mind?
‘Was that a prophecy?’ asked Kesha.
I didn’t answer. I touched my face – it was wet with tears. I looked down at my feet – they were covered in dust.
Very slick. So had this not been simply an illusion, but something like a journey in time?
‘I think I said something like that too, only I’ve forgotten it …’ Kesha added quietly. ‘But that was about the Tiger …’
‘The chip in the toy was too small,’ I replied. ‘Not everything was recorded.’
‘I never did trust technology,’ said Arina. And she cackled with laughter.
‘Daddy, am I going to have to fight someone?’ Nadya asked. ‘And kill him?’
I looked at Arina. The witch was as happy as if she had stuffed herself with her own witch’s toadstools in toad sauce.
‘What are you so delighted about?’ I asked. ‘Do you realise what’s happened? We’ve heard the prophecy for which the Tiger killed Erasmus Darwin today.’
‘Killed him?’ Arina asked, knitting her brows. But the smile remained on her face. ‘I’m sorry for the old alcoholic, I really am. But I’m glad that everything has been settled. Now we can get this over and done with, Anton! You and me – or rather, your daughter. But we’ll help. The Tiger will come and Nadya will destroy him.’
‘I think you didn’t hear the prophecy clearly,’ I said. ‘It’s for me to decide. Do you understand?’
I stepped towards my daughter and put my arms round her.
‘It’s for me to decide whether Nadya kills the Tiger.’
‘I don’t want to kill anyone,’ Nadya said quickly. ‘Daddy, I don’t want to!’
‘I’m afraid you don’t have any choice any more,’ Arina said calmly. ‘The Executioner will die and magic will quit our world. It has been said! If we tell the prophecy to humans – it will come true.’
‘And what if we don’t tell them?’ I asked.
‘Then the Tiger will come and kill all the Others who know the prophecy,’ Arina said, smiling. ‘I’m ready. I’ll die anyway when the Twilight disappears, as you already know: ordinary people don’t live as long as I have.’
‘You’re the one to blame,’ I said. ‘You’re involved in this somehow. You knew how to activate the prophecy, didn’t you? Had you known for a long time?’
‘I suspected,’ Arina said calmly. ‘It’s basically an old witch’s method, to make a spell dependent on the destruction of some valuable item. Then you can hope it will only be used in a case of extreme need. But you were absolutely right, Anton, I couldn’t have influenced your daughter. I couldn’t have enchanted an Absolute Enchantress. I had to make sure that she had no choice and you didn’t either.’
‘There’s always a choice,’ said Nadya, slipping out from under my arm and giving Arina an angry look. ‘I won’t kill anyone! Not even if I get killed!’
‘But your daddy will be killed too,’ Arina said. ‘And Kesha also, as it happens. Will you be able just to watch the Tiger kill them?’
Nadya’s face fell.
‘So you couldn’t have influenced Nadya,’ I said. ‘But what about Erasmus?’
Arina lowered her eyes for a moment.
‘It was only curiosity … As you know, it killed the cat. And that old Irish drunkard, too.’
‘Why?’
‘To give you a nudge. Erasmus had foretold that you would hear his final prophecy. So he had to get in touch with you. And you had to panic. And make up your mind to destroy the chalice.’
‘All you needed to do after that was make sure Nadya got home in time,’ I said, nodding. ‘And not alone – so that I would feel responsibility for someone else’s child as well. I won’t even ask if Anna Tikhonovna’s illness was a coincidence.’
‘At our age, Anton, your health gets so frail!’ Arina exclaimed. ‘Well, I’m sorry! Forgive an old witch! You understand it’s not for myself! It’s for a higher goal!’
‘What goal?’
‘To put an end to all this! No more feeding the Twilight! No more paying for our Power with human suffering!’
‘Arina, you don’t even know if that prophecy is active – and what it really said! Maybe all those disasters have already overtaken our country and they’re over now!’
Arina shrugged and said in a firm voice: ‘Even so. What we do is repugnant in the sight of God. And if we can put an end to it, then we must.’
I suddenly felt a pricking in the tips of my fingers. A sharp sensation, just for a second.
The sentry spells around our building had been triggered, the spells that had been cast a long, long time ago by Gesar and – as I now realised – by Zabulon. The spells guarding the Absolute Enchantress. The Enchantress that the Great Ones were holding in reserve as a Doomsday weapon.
I looked out of the window. And saw the Tiger walking towards our building from a side street.
It was very easy to see him – he wasn’t trying to hide, he wasn’t trying to walk round the defences or remove them. He was simply breaking through them – probably in exactly the same way as he had broken through the defences of our office when he came for Kesha. The Tiger looked like a man cast out of white-hot metal. As he walked along, a firestorm raged around him. Branches of trees burst into flames. Parked cars overturned with their alarms screeching. A stray tomcat driven crazy by what was happening started dashing about in front of the advancing Tiger, as if it couldn’t decide which way to run.
Cats see on all levels of the Twilight. Maybe right then it was seeing something inconceivable even for a cat that could follow the stealthy movements of werewolves in the night and observe the flights of witches in the twilight sky.
The Tiger stopped, facing the cat. Leaned down and stroked it. Then walked on.
The cat instantly forgot about its panic, sat down in the middle of the courtyard and started licking itself.
And the Tiger moved on towards our entrance.