‘So what should I do?’
This time around the Tiger paused longer. Then he said: ‘I want to live. If you tell people the prophecy … then it will be fulfilled. That means that people don’t need magic any longer. They don’t want anyone who is different from the rest. Anyone who craves what is strange. Who pushes and pulls humanity along. Then I shall die. And I can also die if I fight your daughter.’
He paused before adding: ‘But there is a chance. She’s only a child and she might not be able to manage it.’
‘But is there another way out?’ I asked. ‘So that you will not die and all of us will not die …’
The Tiger shrugged and replied: ‘See how well you have already understood everything for yourself. The answer was in your question.’
I nodded.
‘That’s a shame.’
We sat there in silence for a while. I smoked a second cigarette, then a third one. It was completely dark already. Darkness falls quickly in the forest, in the forest there is no twilight. A fluttering candle flame started twinkling in the window.
‘I’m sorry,’ the Tiger said unexpectedly.
‘I’m sick of you all apologising to me!’ I howled, jumping up. ‘I’ve had enough of it!’
‘You have to make up your mind what to do, Anton,’ the Tiger said.
‘Give me five minutes,’ I said.
‘Ten,’ the Tiger said, carrying on smoking. The spot of light flared up and faded away repeatedly as I walked towards the hut.
The children were sitting, quiet and alert, at the table, on which two candles were burning. Arina was still standing at the window, gazing at the Tiger.
‘Have you decided?’ she asked without turning towards me.
‘Nadya …’ I began, looking at my daughter. I could barely make out her face in the candlelight. ‘Will you do what I ask you to do?’
‘What?’ she asked tensely.
‘We have only two choices,’ I said, gazing at her. It was a good thing I had been able to see her grown up – even if it had been in a dream.
In a dream that must not come true.
‘There are always three,’ Nadya said stubbornly. ‘In all the fairy tales, there are always three paths.’
‘It can’t be helped, this isn’t a proper fairy tale,’ I said and tried to laugh. ‘Only two. Kill the Tiger – and destroy all the magic in the world. All the Others will become ordinary people. And there could be all sorts of cataclysms … I don’t know.’
‘Magic has become an evil,’ Arina said intensely. ‘People must—’
‘People must be people,’ I responded. ‘If there’s no magic, they’ll find some other way of destroying themselves.’
‘So have you decided to let the Tiger kill us?’ Arina exclaimed.
‘And there’s a second way,’ I said, glancing at my daughter. ‘To prove to the Tiger … to prove to the Twilight that we will never reveal the prophecy. We won’t tell any people about it. Then it won’t come true. And the Tiger won’t have to kill us.’
‘To make the Tiger believe that, you need a sacrifice,’ Arina snorted. ‘A terrible, irrevocable sacrifice …’ She paused for a moment and then screeched in outraged indignation: ‘Anton, you want to kill—’
‘Daddy, do you want me to kill you?’ Nadya asked.
Arina was a former Dark One. And Dark Ones take everything the wrong way. Unlike Light Ones.
I shook my head.
‘No, my love, I don’t want to leave you with that burden. And anyway, there’s still Arina, isn’t there? Promise me. Simply promise that you’ll never tell anyone Erasmus’s prophecy. And you swear too, Kesha.’
‘He’ll kill the boy,’ Arina said quickly. ‘The Tiger will kill him. Tear him to pieces in front of your daughter – won’t that be a fine psychological trauma for her?’
Kesha exclaimed passionately: ‘I won’t tell anyone! Not anyone!’
‘Swear,’ I repeated. ‘So that what I’m about to do won’t be in vain. Swear.’
Kesha started nodding desperately.
Nadya got halfway up off her stool.
‘Don’t,’ I told her and turned to Arina.
‘You’ll never do it,’ Arina said quickly. ‘We’re both Higher Ones, but I’ve got more experience, Anton.’
I didn’t say anything …
About what Edgar had once told me. At the Cosmodrome in Baikonur, when I was standing facing Kostya Savushkin, my friend and a Higher Vampire, who was planning to turn all the people of the world into Others …
The Power ran through me, and the chill of it scorched my fingers. Arina put up a shield – she didn’t understand what I was doing.
Some things are hard to understand for someone who has been a Dark One for too long.
The Twilight shuddered as the white stone walls rose up through it. Space seemed to expand: the table at which the children were sitting was carried off into the distance, the ceiling dissolved and its place was taken by a gleaming white dome, the floor was covered over with marble slabs.
I didn’t have quite enough Power after all. But I had an unlimited source right beside me: I reached out to my daughter and scooped some up – and the space around me assumed its final form.
A round hall about ten metres in diameter, with a domed ceiling.
No windows and no doors.
Nothing.
Gleaming white stone, in which Arina and I were imprisoned.
For ever.
The Sarcophagus of Time – the Inquisition’s most terrible spell of all. A spell that worked on the victim and the executioner.
‘You’ve lost your mind,’ Arina whispered and sat down on the floor.
‘Probably,’ I said, sitting down beside her.
There was air in there and it would probably always stay fresh.
There was even Twilight – but there was no way out of the Sarcophagus onto any of its levels.
If Edgar had been right, prisoners in the Sarcophagus didn’t feel either hunger or thirst.
They were allowed to carry on going out of their minds for all eternity, without any physical suffering.
‘It’s impossible to break open,’ said Arina. ‘Do you understand? There’s no way. Not even your daughter can do it.’
I shrugged.
A patch of white stone ten metres across. A capsule adrift in eternity.
I wondered if the expansion of the Universe would be followed by contraction and a new Big Bang. If it was, then we had some kind of chance.
I started laughing, imagining billions of years of incarceration. Arina reached out and gave me a resounding slap on the cheek. I stopped laughing.
‘Do you really believe him?’ Arina asked. ‘The Twilight?’
‘I don’t know. The only thing I do believe is that people make their own destiny. People, and not the Twilight. And not you and me.’
Arina said nothing for a moment, then spread her arms helplessly.
‘Well … we’ll never know the answer now, anyway. Never.’
I reached into my pocket, took out the pack of cigarettes and glanced into it. Two left.