When I was a fully functional Other, I could easily go without sleep for five or six days. But even now I wasn't feeling sleepy at all. Quite the opposite. I could feel my blood simply seething with energy.
I got back to our summer house half an hour before reveille and looked in on the girls¡ªsome of them were tossing and turning as they woke up, but everything was all right. No one had run off to go swimming and drowned, no one had been kidnapped by evil terrorists, no one had got it into her head to go looking for their brigade leader in the middle of the night.
I went into my room with a smile of stupid satisfaction. I got undressed slowly and lazily, standing in front of the mirror, then ran my hands sensuously over my thighs and stretched like a satisfied cat.
An insane night. A magical night. I must have done just about all the wild things that a woman can do when she's in love with a man. Even things I hadn't liked before had suddenly become tantalizing pleasures that night. Surely I couldn't really have fallen in love with a human being? It wasn't possible... Not with an ordinary man, even if he did understand me better than anyone else in the world.
It just wasn't possible.
"Darkness, let him be an Other,"I whispered. "Great Darkness, I implore you..."
It's a dangerous game to bother the primordial Power with such petty requests. Although... I don't believe the Darkness is able to hear a simple witch. But I expect Zabulon can shout loud enough for it to hear him...
Zabulon...
I sat on the bed and covered my face with my hands.
Only two days ago nothing would have brought me more joy than his love. But now?
Of course, he himself had suggested that I should amuse myself. And of course, he couldn't give a damn for banal human dogmas, especially those that made up the repertoire of the Light Ones. Infidelity meant nothing to him. And as for jealousy... he wouldn't even say a word against it if Igor and I...
Stop! Where is this taking me?
"Alisa, you've lost your wits..." I whispered.
Was I really still so much like ordinary people? Could I really think¡ªwhat a terrible thing to say¡ªof getting married? To a human being? Of cooking him borscht, washing his socks, bearing his children and raising them?
It was just like the old saying: The Watch by day, disgrace by night...
But yes, I could...
I shook my head, imagining how the other girls would react. No, there was nothing unusual about the actual fact. Most witches are married and, as a rule, to human beings. But...
It was one thing to cast a spell on some wealthy and influential man, an oligarch, or even a deputy of the State Duma or some major Moscow gangster. But a simple young guy, a student, without any money or contacts? I imagined the kind of jokes that would be hurled at me... and with good reason¡ª that was the most terrible thing!
But it wasn't the sex that was driving me insane.
What was it that was happening to me?
It was as if I'd been enchanted by an incubus...
I shuddered at the monstrous thought. What if Igor was an ordinary incubus? A colleague... from one of the primitive types of Dark Ones?
No. It was impossible. An incubus would have sensed that I was an Other. A Dark Other, even if I had been temporarily deprived of Power. And he would have never turned his Power on a witch, knowing the price he would have to pay for that. I'd grind him into dust if my Power returned and I discovered love had been imposed on me...
Love? So it was love then? "Oh, Alisa..." I whispered. "What a fool you are..."
Well all right, so I am a fool!
I took a clean pair of panties out of my bag and went into the shower.
I dashed about like someone possessed all day long until the evening. Everything went quickly, but that didn't bother me in the slightest. I even had a bit of a quarrel with the camp commandant when I was trying to get good places for my girls at the movie festival. But I got them, and I think I left her with an improved opinion of me. Then they gave out the pieces of dark glass that had been brought from somewhere in the town of Nikolaev for watching the next day's eclipse of the sun. Five pieces of glass were given out to every brigade, but I managed to get hold of six. I hadn't even expected anyone in Ukraine to think of making them, but since they had...
After that came the beach, but of course didn't it just happen that today the boys' brigades had gone off on some stupid trip or other! Even the sea brought me no joy. But at a certain moment I looked at Natasha, understood her sad glance, and realized the comedy of the situation. I wasn't the only fool. There were two of us: the girl, pining for her boy and barely even daring to fantasize about kisses, and me, who had done things the night before that you wouldn't even find in the porn videos in the alley at the Gorbushka Market... Opposite extremes meeting.
"Are you missing him?" I asked in a quiet voice. Just for a moment it seemed Natasha was going to get furious and she looked at me indignantly... then suddenly she sighed: "Uh-huh... you too?"
I nodded without speaking. The girl hesitated for a second and asked, "Were you with him until morning?"
I didn't lie to her, especially since there was no one else there. I just asked, "Did you follow me?"
"I felt afraid in the night," the girl said quietly. "I woke up. I was having such horrible dreams... I came to you, but you weren't in your room."
"Until the morning," I confessed. "I like him very much, Natasha."
"Were you making love?" she asked in a businesslike tone of voice.
I wagged my finger at her: "Natasha!"
She wasn't embarrassed at all. On the contrary, she lowered her voice and told me, as if I were her bosom friend, "I can't get anywhere with mine. I told him that if he tried to kiss me, I'd punch him in the eye, and he said, "As if I wanted to!" Why are boys so stupid?"
"He'll kiss you," I promised her. And I thought to myself: I'll do my best to make sure he does.
After all, what could possibly be simpler? The next day I would have my powers back, and the boy with ginger hair and freckles would follow Natasha around, gazing at her with eyes filled with genuine love. Why shouldn't I give my best donor a little happiness?
"What were you dreaming about?" I asked.
"Something horrible," the girl answered briefly. "I can't honestly remember. But it was something really, really horrible!"
"About your younger brother?" I asked.
Natasha wrinkled up her forehead. Then she replied: "I don't remember... But how did you know I have a younger brother?"
I smiled mysteriously and stretched out on the sand. Everything was all right. The dream had been extracted completely.
That evening I realized I just couldn't stand it any longer. I found Galina and asked her to keep an eye on my girls for a couple of hours. There was a strange look in her eyes. No, it wasn't hurt, although she'd obviously understood everything, and she'd had designs on Igor herself. And it wasn't anger. It was more like the sad look of a dog who has been punished unjustly.
"Of course, Alisa," she said.
That's the trouble with these so-called good people. Spit in their faces, thwart their desires, trample on them¡ªand they put up with it.
But then, of course, it is very convenient.
I set off toward the fourth brigade's small house. Along the way I frightened two little boys in the bushes¡ªthey were smoking shards of glass on a little fire of disposable plastic cups. Actually, to say I frightened them is putting it rather strongly. The kids frowned and tensed up, but they didn't stop what they were doing.
"Tomorrow they'll give everyone special pieces of glass," I said amicably. "But you'll cut yourselves with those."
"There aren't enough of the special ones," one of the kids objected reasonably. "We'll smoke some for ourselves¡ªthe cups make great smoke."
"And we'll stick Band-Aids round the edges," the second one added. "And they'll be just fine."
I smiled, nodded to them, and went on. I liked the kids' attitude. Proud and independent. The right attitude.
I was already getting close to the summer house and I could hear the sounds of a guitar when I saw Makar. The kid was standing by a tree, as if he weren't really hiding, but so that he couldn't be seen from the direction of the house. Just standing there looking at Igor, who was sitting in the middle of his boys. When Makar heard my steps, he turned around sharply, started... and lowered his eyes.
"It's not good to spy on people, Makar."
He stood there, chewing on his lip. I wondered what he'd been planning to do. Play some nasty trick on Igor? Challenge him to a duel? Or had he just clenched his fists in helpless fury as he looked at the grown man who'd been making love to the woman he liked the evening before? You stupid, stupid boy. You ought to be looking at girls your own age, not at enchanting grown-up witches with long legs.
"You'll have it all, Makar," I said softly. "Girls, and a night beside the sea, and..."
He raised his head and looked at me derisively, even rather condescendingly. No I won't, his eyes seemed to say. There won't be any sea, there won't be any beautiful naked woman by the edge of the foaming sea. It will all be quite different¡ªcheap wine in a tiny room in some dirty hostel; a girl who could be anybody's after her second glass; a sweaty body turned flabby before its time and a whisper hoarse from smoking: "Where do you think you're sticking that thing, you greenhorn!"
I knew that, as an experienced and cynical witch. And he knew it, this chance visitor to Artek, this short-term guest in "the realm of friendship and love." And there was no point in us pretending with each other.
"I'm sorry, Makar," I said and patted him affectionately on the cheek. "But I really like him very much. You grow up strong and clever, and you'll have every..."
He turned and ran away, an almost grown-up boy who didn't want to waste even a minute of his brief happy summer, who didn't sleep at nights and invented a different, happy life for himself.
But what could I do? The Day Watch has no need for human servants. There are enough werewolves, vampires, and other small timers. I would check Makar, of course. He would make a magnificent Dark One. But the chances were very, very slim that the boy had the natural gifts of an Other...
My girls were probably just perfectly ordinary people too.
And the chances were just as slim that Igor had the gifts of an Other.
Maybe that was for the best? If he were human, then we could be together. Zabulon couldn't give a damn about a petty detail like his girl having a human husband. But he would never tolerate a husband who was an Other...
I looked down thoughtfully at my feet as I walked out of the trees toward the little house. Igor was sitting on the terrace, tuning his guitar. There were only two of his boys there with him¡ª the "campfire monitor" Alyoshka and a plump, sickly looking child I didn't think had been at the campfire.
Igor looked at me and smiled. The boys spoke, greeting me, but we didn't say anything to each other¡ªwe read everything in each other's eyes. The memory of that night, and the promise of the next one... and the ones after that...
But there was a hint of confusion and anguish in Igor's eyes too. As if there were something making him feel very sad. My darling... if only you know how great my sadness is... and how difficult it is for me to smile...
I don't care if you don't have the gifts of an Other, Igor. I don't care if my colleagues laugh at me. I'll put up with it. And you'll never know anything about Zabulon. Or about the Watch either. And you'll be amazed at your own success, at the way your career develops, your magnificent health¡ªI'll give you all that!
Igor strummed his guitar strings, gave his boys an affectionate look, and started to sing:
I'm afraid of babies, I'm afraid of the dead, I feel my own face with my fingers.
And I turn cold with horror inside¡ª
Am I really the same as all these people?
These people who live above me,
These people who live below me,
Who snore on the other side of the wall,
Who live underneath the ground...
What wouldn't I give for a pair of wings,
What wouldn't I give for a third eye,
For a hand with fourteen fingers on it!
I need a different gas to breathe!
Their tears are salty, their laughter is harsh,
They never have enough for everyone.
They love seeing their faces in fresh newspapers,
But next day the papers are flushed away.
These people who give birth to children,
These people who suffer from pain,
These people who shoot at people,
But can't eat their food without salt.
What wouldn't they give for a pair of wings,
What wouldn't they give for a third eye,
For a hand with fourteen fingers on it¡ª
They need a different gas to breathe.
Something cold and sticky stirred inside me. A terrible, dreary, hopeless feeling...
That was our song. This was like our song... far too much like a song for the Others.
I could feel the emotions of the boys sitting beside him. I was almost a normal Other now and felt as if I'd be able to summon the Twilight any moment. It was like when we were having sex the night before¡ªthat gathering momentum on a swing, that balancing on a razor's edge, that waiting for the explosion, the chasm beneath my feet... There were streams of Power flowing all around¡ªstill too coarse for me, not the light broth from children's nightmares, just the fat-cheeked boy's de-pression because he was missing his parents: He had some problem with his heart, he didn't play much with the other boys, he followed Igor around more or less the same way as Olechka stuck to me.
It wasn't light broth.
But it was still almost exactly what I needed...
I can't wait any longer!
I swayed forward, reached out and took hold of the boy's shoulder, drawing in his blank sadness, and the sudden surge of energy almost made me throw up. But then the world turned cool and gray, my shadow fell across the worn floorboards of the veranda like a black chasm, and I fell into it, into the Twilight, just in time to see...
... to see Igor drawing in Power from the boy Alyoshka who was pressing against him¡ªa thin lilac stream of Power: the expectation of pranks and adventures, delights and discoveries, joys and frights¡ªthe entire bouquet of feelings and emotions of a healthy, happy child, content with the world and with himself...
A Light bouquet.
Light Power.
The dark unto the Dark Ones.
The light unto the Light Ones.
I stood up, still half in the real world, half in the Twilight, to face Igor, who was also standing up, to face the lover that I loved, a Light magician of the Moscow Night Watch.
To face my enemy.
I heard him shout: "No!"
And I heard my own voice shout: "Don't!"
The very first thought that had come into my head proved to be wrong. No, Igor hadn't been working against me, playing out some insidious plans of the Night Watch. He had lost his Power¡ªexactly as I had. He hadn't seen my aura, he couldn't have had any idea that he was looking at a witch.
He had fallen in love with me. With his eyes closed. Exactly as I had with him.
The world was gray and dreary. It was the cold world of the Twilight that makes us what we are¡ªPower-hungry¡ªbut also helps us to find that Power. No sounds, no colors. The leaves frozen still on the trees, the frozen figures of the two boys, the guitar suspended in midair¡ªIgor had let go of it as he entered the Twilight. Thousands of icy little needles pricked my skin, drawing out of me the energy I had only just acquired, drawing me down into the Twilight forever... but I was an Other again and I could draw Power from the world around me. I reached forward and scraped out every last little drop of everything dark that there was in the fat boy. I no longer had any problems absorbing Power. I no longer had to focus on what I was doing and how. It was all easy and familiar.
And Igor did the same thing with Alyoshka. Maybe a bit less skillfully¡ªthe Light Ones only rarely harvest Power from people directly. They're shackled by their own stupid restrictions, but he drank in all of the boy's joy, and I felt an unnatural joy for my beloved, for my enemy, for a Light Other who had just acquired Power...
"Alisa..."
"Igor..."
He was suffering. It was far harder for him than for me. The Light Ones spend all their lives chasing illusions. They're filled with false hopes and don't know how to survive a heavy blow, but he was handling it and I was handling it too... I was... I was...
"How absurd," he whispered and shook his head sharply¡ªa strange gesture in this gloomy haze, in the Twilight. "You... you're a witch..."
I felt him reach out to my mind¡ªnot deep into it, just to the very surface, simply trying to make sure... or hoping to be proved wrong... and I didn't try to resist. I just reached out in reply.
And I laughed¡ªat the unbearable pain.
South Butovo.
Edgar standing against the Light magicians.
We were feeding Edgar with Power, and the Light Ones were being fed by the magicians in their second line.
Including Igor.
I recognized his aura, remembered his Power profile. Things like that are never forgotten.
And he recognized me...
Of course, I didn't know him by sight and I'd never heard his name. But why should an ordinary patrol witch know all one thousand agents of the Moscow Night Watch? All those magicians, wizards, enchanters, shape-shifters... When we needed to know, they gave us a specific briefing. The way they had for Anton Gorodetsky, when we'd followed him on Zabulon's secret instructions a year and a half earlier and managed to catch him committing an illegal intervention... And there were some you just couldn't help remembering... like Tiger Cub, for instance.
But I'd never known about Igor. A third-level Light magician. Probably a bit more powerful than me, although it was hard to compare the powers of a natural magician and a witch. My beloved, my lover, my enemy...
My fate...
"What made you do it?" Igor asked. "Alisa... why did you do it?"
"What do you mean why?" I almost shouted out, but I stopped myself because I realized he wouldn't believe me. He would never believe that what had happened was mere coincidence¡ªjust a stupid and tragic accident¡ªthat there hadn't been any evil intent, that a cruel twist of fate had brought us together in the moment of our weakness, when we could not recognize each other, could not sense our enemy... at the very moment when all we could do and all we wanted to do was to love.
How can we say why anything in this world happens? Why am I a Dark One? Why is he a Light One? After all, both of these are mixed together in all of us¡ªat the beginning...
Igor could have been my friend and colleague, a Dark One...
And I... probably... could have become a Light One. And then I wouldn't have been taught by a wise witch, but a wise enchantress... and I wouldn't have paid my enemies back in kind, but sentimentally set them on "the true road"... by turning the other cheek... and I would have delighted in every pompous piece of their stupid nonsense.
I only realized that I was crying when the world started spinning around me. You must never cry in the Twilight¡ª everybody knows that. The more emotion we allow ourselves to show, the more eagerly the Twilight drains our Power. And to lose your powers in the Twilight means to stay in it forever.
I tried to draw Power from my donor, the fat boy, but he was already drained; I reached toward Alyoshka, but he was absolutely neutral, squeezed dry by Igor. I couldn't draw energy from Igor and I didn't want to anyway, and everyone else was too far away, and the world was spinning... how stupid...
My knees struck against the ground and I even had the stupid thought that I would stain my skirt, although no dirt from the Twilight ever stays with us in the real world.
An instant later Igor hurled a charge of energy at me.
No, not to finish me off. To save me.
It was alien, Light Power. But it passed through him and then was given to me.
And Power is always Power.
I stood up, breathing heavily, as exhausted as during that night of our senseless, impossible love. Igor had helped me to hold out in the Twilight, but he didn't reach out his hand.
He was crying now. He was in a bad way too. "How could you do it?" he whispered.
"It was an accident, Igor!" I took a step toward him and held out my arms, as if I could hope for something. "Igor, it was an accident!"
He jumped away from me as if I were a leper, with the light, elegant movement of a magician who is used to working in the Twilight.
Fighting in the Twilight. Killing in the Twilight.
"Accidents like that don't happen," he said, spitting the words out. "You're... you're filthy scum... you witch... You..."
He froze as he absorbed the remaining traces of my magic. "You take Power from children!"
I couldn't stop myself from answering. "And you, what are you doing here, Light One?" My tongue almost refused to obey me. It was impossible, unthinkable to call him that, but he really was a Light One, and the abuse had become a simple statement of fact. "What are you doing here if not grazing on little human children?"
"Light cannot be removed." He shook his head. "What is taken returns a hundredfold. You take Darkness, and the Darkness grows. I take Light and it comes again."
"Tell that to the boy Alyoshka, who'll be miserable the whole evening!" I shouted. "Make him feel better by saying his joy will return!"
"I shall have other things to do, witch! Saving the children you have driven into the Darkness!"
"Console them," I said indifferently. Everything in the world seemed to be covered with a crust of ice. "That's your job... my darling."
What am I doing?
He'll only be convinced that I knew everything in advance, that the Day Watch planned a cunning operation, that he has been cruelly mocked and deceived, that everything that has happened between us was only a cunning pretense...
"Witch..." Igor said contemptuously. "You will leave this place. Do you understand?"
I very nearly answered him: "Gladly!" After all, what joy was there left for me in this summer, this sea, this abundance of Power? I could restore myself little by little; the important part of the work was already done.
"You can leave," I said. "I have permission for a vacation and the use of human energy. You can ask your own organization... But do you have permission... darling?"
What are you doing, you fool? What are you doing, my love? What am I doing?
What am I doing? I am a Dark One. I am a witch. I am beyond human morality, and I have no intention of playing petty childish games with those primitive organisms known as people. I came here to rest, and that's what I'm doing! And you, what are you doing? If you really do love me? And you do, I know! I can see it right now, and you can see it too... if you want to ...
Because love stands above Darkness and Light.
Because love is not sex or a shared faith, or "the joint maintenance of a household and the upbringing of children."
Because love is also Power.
And Light and Darkness, people and Others, morality and law, the Ten Commandments and the Great Treaty have damn all to do with it.
And I love you anyway, you bastard, you skunk, you Light son of a bitch, you good-hearted blockhead, you reliable cretin! I love you anyway! Even though only three days ago we stood against each other and dreamed of only one thing: destroying the enemy. Even though we are separated by an abyss that nobody can ever bridge!
Don't you understand, I love you!
And everything I say is only to protect myself, my words are my tears, but you don't see them, you don't want to see them...
Oh, come to me, it doesn't matter where¡ªin the Twilight, where no one can see us, or in front of the astonished boys. Take me in your arm: and we will cry together, and there'll be no need for words, and I'll clear out and go back to Zabulon in Moscow, back
to Lemesheva's smug tutelage... or do you want me to leave the Day Watch? Do you? I wouldn't stop being a Dark One. That's not in my power, and I don't want to do it, but I will withdraw from the endless war between Darkness and Light. I will simply live and not even take anything from the ordinary, little people, even if you don't want to be with me. I don't even ask that, only leave me the memory of our love for each other!
Simply come to me.
No, do not reply to my words!
I am a Dark One!
I cannot be any different!
I love only myself in this world!
But now you are a part of me. The greatest part. The most important part. And if I have to¡ª/ will kill part of myself, and that means I will kill all of myself.
But don't do this!
You are a Light One!
You sacrifice your entire lives, you protect people and stand up for each other... oh, try to look at me in the same way, even if I am a witch, even if I am your enemy! You know that sometimes you can... understand. The way Anton Gorodetsky understood... when he gathered such immense Power for one purpose¡ªand never made use of it. I can only admire Anton as a worthy enemy, but I love you, I love you, I love you! Oh, why won't you understand what I'm saying and take a step toward me, you scum that I love, my darling rat, my only enemy, my beloved idiot!
"Idiot," I shouted.
And Igor's face contorted in such monstrous torment that I understood everything.
Light and Darkness.
Good and Evil.
They're nothing but words.
Only we speak different languages and we just can't understand each other¡ªeven if we're trying to say the same thing.
"Leave, or I'll destroy you."
And with those words he left the Twilight. His body became blurred and indistinct and immediately reappeared in the human world, beside the two boys on vacation at Artek. And I rushed after him, tearing myself out of my shadow¡ªif only it were as simple as that to escape from myself, from my nature, from my fate!
I was even in time to see what Igor did as he emerged from the Twilight: He caught the guitar that had almost touched the floor, threw a paranjah¡ªI don't know what the Light Ones call it¡ªover his face that was contorted in pain, and brought the boys out of their trance. He must have put them into a stupor when he entered the Twilight so that they wouldn't be frightened by the camp leaders' sudden disappearance...
What was that you said, little Natasha?
Reliable?
Yes, he's reliable.
"It's time for you to go, Alisa," Igor said. "What do we say, boys?"
Only I could see his real face now. Full of grief, nothing but grief...
"Goodbye," said the fat boy.
"Ciao," said Alyoshka.
My legs felt like cotton wool. I tore myself away from the railings of the veranda that I was leaning on... and took a step.
"Goodbye now," said Igor.
It was dark.
It was good that it was dark.
I didn't have to waste any energy on a paranjah. I didn't have to pretend to be happy. I just had to be careful with my voice. The weak light coming from the window didn't matter.
"And then they divided into Light Ones and Dark Ones," I said. "And the Light Ones believed that they should teach others to tear their lives to pieces. That the most important thing was to give, even if those who took were not worthy of it. But the Dark Ones believed that they should simply live. That everyone deserves what he has taken from life, and nothing more."
They didn't say anything, my stupid little girls... these human children¡ªI hadn't found a single Other among them, Dark or Light. Not a single enchantress, or witch, or even vampire...
"Good night, girls," I said. "Sweet dreams, or even better¡ª no dreams at all..."
"Good night, Alisa..."
So many voices. I was rather surprised. It wasn't even a fairy story, it was a fable that every Other knew, Dark Ones and Light Ones. But they hadn't gone to sleep... they had listened.
I was already halfway out of the door when Natasha's voice asked, "When the eclipse happens¡ªwill it be frightening?"
"No," I said. "It's not frightening at all. Just a little bit sad."
In my room I picked up my cell phone yet again and dialed Zabulon's number.
"The number you have dialed is temporarily unavailable..."
Where can you be, Zabulon, if your famous Iridium isn't receiving my call? Where are you, where?
I don't love you, Zabulon. And I probably never did love you. I think I've only just realized what love is. But you do love me! We were together and we were happy. You gave me this whole world and... please answer! You're my chief, you're my teacher, you're my lover, so tell me¡ªwhat should I do now? When I'm left face-to-face with my enemy... and my beloved? Run? Fight? Die? What should I do, Zabulon?
I entered the Twilight.
The shadows of the children's dreams flickered all around me. A banquet... those streams of energy. Light and dark. Fears and sorrows, misery and resentment. I could see right through the whole Azure section. There was the boy, Dimka, feeling of-fended in his sleep because his friends hadn't called him to drink some of their lemonade. There was the tireless little girl, Irochka, who was nicknamed the Energizer, whining quietly into her pillow because someone had stolen her inflatable ring for swimming... And there was my faithful energy donor Natasha¡ªshe'd lost her little brother in the strange, dark back alleys of a dream and now she was running, crying as she tried to find him...
I don't want to gather Power. I don't want to prepare for battle. I don't want anything.
"Zabulon!" I shouted into the shimmering gray gloom. "I call to you! Zabulon..."
No answer.
It was easier for Aunt Polly to get an answer from Tom Sawyer with his hand stuck in the jar of jam than for me to get through to Zabulon...
"Zabulon..." I repeated.
This isn't the way I imagined this night... nothing like it.
Igor...Igor...
What are you doing now? Gathering Power? Consulting with the all-wise Gesar? Or are you sitting staring dully into the mirror... like me...
Mirror, mirror... can you tell my fortune?
I'm not very good at fortune-telling, hut sometimes I have managed to see the future ...
No.
I don't want to.
I know there's nothing good there.
They reached the beach when the eclipse had already begun. My girls were squealing and grabbing the pieces of dark glass from each other. They couldn't understand why I didn't ask for a piece. Oh girls, girls... what difference does the blinding light of the sun make to me? I can look the sun full in the face and not blink.
The boys of the fourth brigade were jumping around Igor, hurrying him on. They couldn't understand why their beloved camp leader wasn't going faster. They couldn't understand why he'd led them to the beach by such a long, roundabout route.
But I understood.
Through the Twilight I could see the faint flashes of Power being gathered.
What are you doing, Igor ... my beloved enemy...
At each step the smile faded on one more face. Now a ten-year-old fidgety nuisance was no longer feeling happy about making up with his friend. Now an eleven-year-old fidget had forgotten about the black shell he found on the seashore. Now the serious man of fifteen years had stopped thinking about the date he was promised this evening.
Igor was walking through Artek in the same way that Anton Gorodetsky had once walked through the streets of Moscow.
And I, who was his primordial enemy, wanted to shout out, "What are you doing?"
Anton didn't outwit Zabulon because he gathered more Power than everybody else. Zabulon was still more powerful.
Anton knew how to use it properly...
Will you?
I don't want you to win. I love only myself. But what am I to do if you have become the greater part of me? Transfixed my life like a bolt of lightning?
Igor was collecting everything. Every last drop of Light energy around him. He was breaking all the laws and agreements and staking everything on a single throw of the dice¡ªincluding his own life. And not just because he was burning with desire to protect the little human children from the evil witch.
He didn't want to live either. But, unlike me, he was prepared to live for others. If that was the way it had to be.
The last one he drew Power from was Makar.
I'd been feeling the boy looking at me for a long time. With the miserable, longing gaze of a boy in love with a grown-up woman. Miserable, and filled with the sadness of farewell.
It wasn't the kind of sadness that we Dark Ones can use. It was a bright sadness.
Igor drank it all up.
He had transgressed all the boundaries. And I couldn't even respond in the same way¡ªI was bound by the promise I had given to Zabulon, bound by my old misdemeanor.
And also by the insane hope that he would do the right thing. That my enemy would win his victory, but I wouldn't lose either.
Up in the sky the bright disk of the sun was slowly dying. The children were already tired of staring at it through their pieces of glass. They were wallowing in the sea under the strange spectral light that reminded the two Others on the beach of the Twilight.
I turned to Igor and caught his eye.
"Leave," his lips whispered silently. "Leave, or I will kill you."
"Kill me," I answered silently.
I am a Dark One.
I will not leave.
What is he going to do, this enemy of mine? Attack me? Despite my legal right to be here? Call in the Yalta division of the Night Watch? He must already have consulted with them... and he knows there are no charges that can be brought against me.
Igor took a step closer.
"By the Light and the Darkness, I challenge you..." his lips whispered.
I shuddered.
I hadn't been expecting this. Not this.
"Beyond Light and Darkness, you and I, one against one, to the end."
He had challenged me to a duel.
It's an old custom that came into being with the Great Treaty between the Light Ones and the Dark Ones. A custom that is hardly ever used. Because the victor has to answer to the Inquisition. Because a duel only takes place when there is no legitimate basis for conflict, when the Watches have no le-gal competence to intervene, when emotions speak louder than reason.
"And may the Light be my witness."
Nobody else could have seen the tiny petal of white fire that flared up for an instant on Igor's open palm. He himself started when he saw it. The higher powers rarely respond to appeals from simple Watch agents...
"Igor, I love you..."
His face quivered as if I had struck it. He didn't believe me. He couldn't believe me.
"Do you accept my challenge, witch?"
Yes, I can refuse. Go back to Moscow, humiliated but secure, with the stigma of having refused a challenge... every lousy werewolf would spit as I walked past...
Or I could try to kill Igor. Gather so much Power that I could stand up to him...
"May the Darkness be my witness..." I said, opening my hand. And a tiny scrap of Darkness quivered on my palm.
"Choose," said Igor.
I shook my head. I wasn't going to choose the place, the time, or the type of duel.
Why can't you understand me? Why?
"Then the choice is mine. Now. In the sea. The press."
His eyes are dark. An eclipse isn't frightening¡ªit's only something cutting off the light.
The sea was unnaturally warm. Maybe because the air had turned cold, as if it were already evening? All that was left of the sun was a narrow crescent at the top of the disk¡ªnow even a human being could look at it without blinking.
I swam through the warm water without looking back at the shore, where no one had noticed the two camp leaders slip into the sea without paying any attention to the jellyfish that hurried out of their way.
I remembered the first time I ever went to the sea. I was still very little. I still didn't know that I didn't belong to the human race, that fate had decided I would be an Other. I was staying at Alushta with my dad, and he was teaching me to swim... I remembered the feeling of delight when the water first submitted to my will...
And I remember how strong the waves were in the sea. Very strong. Or was it just that all waves looked huge to me then? My dad was holding me in his arms, he was jumping up and down in the waves, making me laugh. It was such fun... and I shouted that I could swim across the sea, and my dad said of course I could...
You'll be really hurt, Dad.
And it won't be easy for Mom, either.
The shore, full of delighted children and contented adults, had been left far behind. I didn't even feel the start of the press. It just got harder to swim. The water just stopped supporting me. There was suddenly a weight on my shoulders.
A very simple spell. Nothing fancy. Power against Power.
Dad, I really did believe I could swim across the sea...
I extended a defensive canopy above myself and it took the invisible weight off my shoulders. And once again I whispered, "Zabulon, I appeal to you..."
The strength that I had managed to gather was rapidly melting away. Igor struck again and again, battering my defenses mercilessly.
"Yes, Alisa."
He has responded after all! He has answered me! Just in time, as always!
"Zabulon, I'm in trouble!"
"I knew already. I'm very sorry."
I didn't realize immediately what those words "I knew" meant. And that impersonal tone, and the feeling that there was no Power on its way... He always used to share his Power with me, even when I didn't really need it that badly...
"Zabulon, am I going to die?"
"I'm afraid so."
My defensive canopy was dissolving, and I still couldn't make sense of what was happening. He could intervene! Even from a distance! A small part of his strength would be enough for me to resist the pressure and fight out a draw.
"Zabulon, you said that love is a great power!"
"Have you not been convinced of that? Goodbye, my little girl."
It was only then that I understood everything.
Just as my strength melted away and I felt the invisible pressure on my shoulders again, forcing me down into the warm, twilit depths.
"Igor!" I shouted, but the splashing of the water drowned out my voice.
He was swimming about fifty meters away, not even looking in my direction. He was crying, but the sea has no place for tears.
And I was being dragged down, down into the dark abyss.
How could it have happened... how?
I tried to gather Power from the beach. But there was almost no Darkness there for me to take. That sweet delight and those cries of joy were of no use to me.
Only a hundred meters behind Igor and myself, the young teenager who had fallen so hopelessly in love with me was vainly trying to lie on the waves and relax the leg that was contorted by cramps. Somehow he must have noticed us going into the water and swum after us, this proud boy called Makar, who had already realized that he couldn't swim back to the shore now.
Love is a great power... how stupid you all are, you boys, when you fall in love ...
There's Makar, floundering about as his panic grows... I can take his fear and prolong my own agony for a minute or two...
And there's Igor, swimming in the sea: not seeing anything, not hearing anything, not sensing anything around him, not thinking about anything except that I have killed his love. The stupid Light
magician doesn't know that there are no winners in duels, especially when the duel has been carefully prepared by Zabulon...
"Igor..." I whispered as I sank, feeling the pressure force me down, down to the dark, dark seabed.
Forgive me, Dad... I can't swim across this sea...