Take a walk around Prague..."

"I'm trying to understand," Anton whispered. "Honestly, I'm trying. Alisa Donnikova was a perfectly ordinary witch.

No better and no worse than all the rest. A clever, beautiful, cruel witch. Who left evil and pain in her wake wherever she went. How can you love her?"

"She was different with me," Igor replied. "A nervous and unhappy girl who really wanted to love someone. Who had fallen in love for the first time. A girl who, unfortunately for us, the Dark Ones spotted before we did. And for her initiation they chose a moment when there was more Darkness in her soul than Light. That's not too difficult to do with teenage girls-you know yourself. And after that it was all very simple. The Twilight drained all the goodness out of her. The Twilight turned her into what she became."

"It's not Alisa herself that you love," said Anton, failing to notice that he was speaking about Donnikova in the present tense. "What you love is her idealized... no, her alternative image! The Alisa that never existed!"

"She certainly doesn't exist now. But you're still wrong, Anton. I love her the way she became when she lost her powers as an Other. When she was freed for just a moment from that sticky gray cobweb. Tell me, have you never had to forgive somebody?"

"Yes, I have," Anton replied after a pause. "But not for something like that."

"You've been lucky, Antoshka."

Igor poured more vodka.

"Then tell me this..." Anton wasn't trying to spare Igor's feelings, but he still found it hard to get the words out.

"Why did you kill her?"

"Because she was a witch," Igor said very calmly. "Because she caused evil and pain. Because 'a member of the Night Watch always protects people against Dark Ones everywhere, in any country, regardless of his personal att.i.tude to the situation." Have you never wondered about why the Regulations include that specific phrase?

About our personal att.i.tude to the situation? It ought to read 'personal att.i.tude to the Dark Ones," but that sounds rather pitiful. So they used a eum... euph..."

"Euphemism," Anton prompted him.

"A euphemism." Igor laughed. "Exactly. Remember when we caught the girl vampire on the roof? You were about to fire at her point-blank, but then your vampire neighbor turned up. And you lowered your gun."

"I was wrong," Anton said with a shrug. "She had to be tried. That was why I stopped."

"No, Anton. You would have shot her. And any other vampire who came running to help the criminal. But you were facing a vampire who was your friend, or at least one that you knew. And you stopped. But imagine if the choice had been between shooting and letting the criminal escape."

"I would have shot her," Anton said abruptly. "And Kostya too. There wouldn't have been any choice. I'd have felt very bad about it, I agree, but I..."

"And what if it hadn't just been someone you knew well, but the woman you loved? A human woman or an Other enchantress from either side?"

"I would have shot..." Anton whispered. "I would have shot anyway."

"And then what?"

"I wouldn't have allowed such a situation to arise. I just wouldn't have allowed it!"

"Of course. The very i.e. of loving never enters our heads if we see the aura of Darkness. It's the same for the Dark Ones if they see the aura of Light. But we were caught by surprise, Anton. We'd lost all our powers. And we didn't have a choice..."

"Tell me, Igor..." Anton paused and took a breath. The vodka hadn't done the trick, and even though the conversation was certainly intimate, it wasn't bringing any relief. "Tell me, why didn't you just throw Alisa out of the camp? Why didn't you ask Gesar for help and advice? That way you would have protected people and at the same time..."

"She wouldn't have gone," Igor said sharply. "After all, she had legitimate reason to be there at Artek. You know what's the most terrible thing about this whole business, Anton? Zabulon extracted the right for her to restore herself from Gesar in exchange for the same right for a third-level magician! Me, that is! Do you see how everything was all tied up together?"

"But are you sure she wouldn't have gone away?" Anton asked.

Igor lifted up his gla.s.s without speaking. For the first time that evening they clinked gla.s.ses, but no toast was proposed. "No, Anton, I'm not sure. That's the terrible thing, I'm not sure. I told her... I ordered her to clear out.

But that was the very first moment, when we'd only just realized who was who. When my brain still hadn't kicked in, I was running on pure adrenaline..."

"If she loved you," said Anton, "she would have gone. You just needed to find the right words..."

"Probably. But who can say for certain now?"

"Igor, I'm really sorry," Anton whispered. "I don't feel sorry for the witch Alisa, of course... don't even ask me. I can't shed even a single tear for her. But I feel terribly sorry for you. And I really want you to stay with us. To get through this and not let it destroy you."

"I've got nothing left to live for, Anton," said Igor with a guilty shrug. "You understand, nothing! You know, I probably fell in love for the first time in my life too. I had a wife once. I became an Other in 1945... I came back from the front, a young captain with a chest full of medals, and not a single scratch on me... and I'd been lucky in general. It was only later I realized it was my latent abilities as an Other that had kept me safe. And then I learned the truth about the Watches... It was a new war, you understand? And an absolutely just one, it couldn't have been more just. I didn't really know how to do anything except fight, and now I realized I'd found myself a job for life. For a very long life. And that I wouldn't have to face any of those human afflictions and annoying illnesses, those lines for food... you can't even imagine what perfectly ordinary hunger is like, Anton, what genuinely black bread tastes like, or genuinely bad vodka... what it feels like the first time you laugh in the fat, well-fed face of a special agent from SMERSH and yawn lazily in response to his question: "Why did you spend two months on enemy territory if the bridge was blown up on the third day after you parachuted in?"

Igor was beginning to get carried away now. He was speaking quickly and furiously... not at all the way the young magician from the Night Watch usually spoke...

"I came back and I looked at my Vilena, my little Lenochka-Vilenochka, so young and beautiful. She used to write me letters every day, honestly, and what letters they were! I saw how glad she was that I'd come back-I wasn't hurt, I wasn't crippled, and I was a hero as well. Very few women were so fortunate then. But she was very afraid that her envious b.i.t.c.hes of neighbors would tell me about all the men she'd had during those four years, that my officer's warrant wasn't the only reason she'd been getting by quite comfortably... even now you don't understand half of what I'm saying, do you? But I suddenly saw it. All of it at once. The longer I looked at her, the more I saw. All the details. And not only all her men-from lousy speculators to others like me, soldiers who hopped over the hospital fence and went absent without leave... And the way she whispered to one colonel, "He's probably been rotting in the ground for ages...'-I heard that too... And by the way, that colonel turned out to be a real man. He got up off the bed, slapped her across the face, got dressed, and walked out."

Igor poured himself some vodka and drank it quickly, without waiting for Anton, then filled the gla.s.ses again. He said, "That's when I became what I am. When I left my home, with my medals jangling and Vilena roaring, "It's all lies what they told you, the b.i.t.c.hes, I was faithful to you!" I walked along the street, with something burning away in my soul. It was May, Anton. May 1945. Immediately after Germany capitulated, Gesar pulled me back from the front and told me: "From now on your front line is here, Captain Teplov." And back then people were... they were different, Anton. Their faces were all shining! There were plenty of foul Dark creatures around, I won't deny it, but there was a lot of Light as well. And as I walked along the street the little kids darted round me, looking at my chest full of medals, arguing about which one was for what. Men shook my hand and invited me to take a drink with them. Girls came running up to me... and kissed me. Kissed me like their own boyfriends, who hadn't come back yet, or had already been killed. Like their own fathers, like their own brothers. Sometimes they cried, kissed me, and went on their way. Do you understand me? No, how could you... You worry about our country too, you think how bad everything is right now, what a lousy hole we're all in... You suffer because the Light Ones won't all get together to help Russia. Only you don't know what it's like to be in a real hole, Anton. But we do!"

Igor drained his gla.s.s again. Anton raised his gla.s.s without speaking and nodded in support of the toast that had not been spoken aloud.

"That was when I became what I am," Igor repeated. "A magician. A field agent. Eternally young. Who loves everybody... and n.o.body. I'd already made up my mind that I would never fall in love. Never. Girlfriends were one thing, love was something quite different. I couldn't love a human being, because human beings were weak. I couldn't love an Other, because any Other was either an enemy or a comrade-in-arms. That was the principle I adopted for my life, Antoshka. And I stuck to it as closely as I could. It seemed like I was still the same young man who came back from the front, who still had plenty of time to think about falling in love. It's one thing to take a whirl with a girl on the dance floor..." he said, and laughed quietly, "or leap about in cool threads under the ultraviolet light at the discotheque... what difference does it make if it's jazz, rock, or trash, what length the skirt is and what the stockings are made of... It's all good. It's the way things ought to be. Have you seen that American cartoon, about Peter Pan? Well, I became like him. Only not a stupid little boy, but a stupid young man. And I felt just fine for a long time. Supposedly I've outlived the time granted to a man, and it would be a sin to complainI haven't had any helpless old age or other problems. So don't you torment yourself unnecessarily, Anton."

Anton sat there with his head in his hands, not speaking. It was as if he'd opened a door and seen something behind it... not something taboo, and not something shameful either... Just something that had absolutely nothing to do with him. And he realized that behind every door, if-may the Light forbid!-he was able to open it, he would see something equally alien and... personal.

"I've reached the end of my road, Anton," Igor said almost tenderly. "Don't be so sad. I understand that you came here hoping to shake me up, to get all this nonsense out of my head, to carry out your instructions. Only it won't work. Like a fool, I really did fall in love with a Dark One. I killed her. And it turns out I killed myself too."

Anton didn't say anything. It was all pointless. He was overwhelmed by someone else's anguish, someone else's grief. Instead of simply bringing a parcel to a sick friend, here he was sitting with him at his own wake...

"Anton, don't go away today," Igor said. "I won't sleep anyway... soon I'll catch up on my sleep forever. To be honest, I've got another three bottles of vodka in the refrigerator. And there's a restaurant five floors down."

"Then we'll fall asleep at the table."

"We'll be okay, we're Others. We can take it. I want to talk. To cry on someone's shoulder. I've started feeling afraid of the dark. Can you believe that?"

"Yes."

Igor nodded. "Thanks. I've got my guitar here, we can sing something. Or I'll sing. You know, singing for yourself is just the same as... well, you understand. And apart from that..."

Anton looked at Igor-his voice had suddenly become more focused. Stronger.

"I'm a watchman, after all. I haven't forgotten that, you can be quite sure. And it seems to me that in all this mess, I'm no more than a p.a.w.n... no, probably not a p.a.w.n... A rook who has taken one of the other side's pieces and occupied a square in the line of fire. Only unlike the other pieces, I can think. I hope you haven't forgotten how to do that, either. I don't care about myself anymore, Anton. But I do care who wins this game. Let's think together."

"Where do we begin?" Anton asked, feeling amazed at himself. Surely he hadn't accepted what Igor had said and agreed to think of him as a piece who had already been removed from the board... or who at least was already doomed as the invisible player reached out his hand for him...

"With Svetlana. With the Chalk of Destiny," said Igor, watching carefully to see how Anton's face changed. He laughed smugly. "Well, have I guessed right? You've been having the same thoughts?"

"And so has Gesar..." Anton whispered.

"Gesar's a clever one," Igor agreed. "But we're no fools, are we? Anyway, why don't we try thinking with our heads and not our hands for once?"

"Okay, let's try," Anton said with a nod. "Only..."

He fumbled in his pocket for the amulet that Gesar had given him. He crushed the little ball in his hand and felt the bone needles p.r.i.c.k his skin. There was never any gain without pain... He said: "Now for twelve hours no one will be able to see us or hear us."

"Are you sure?" Igor asked. "Won't the absence of information alert the Inquisition?"

"There won't be any absence," said Anton. "As far as I understand it, if they have any observational devices here, or if they've cast any tracking spells-they'll provide false information. It's a quality scam."

"Gesar's a clever one," Igor repeated with a smile.

Edgar sat by the window, smoking and slowly sipping a gla.s.s of flat champagne. It still tasted good.

His girlfriend was sleeping peacefully in the next room, satisfied and happy. She had turned out to be a fine girl. A German student with some Scandinavian blood, reasonably pa.s.sionate and reasonably cheerful. But a bit too fanciful in s.e.x for Edgar's taste. Unlike most of his colleagues, Edgar was very conservative in such matters. He didn't take part in orgies, he didn't have underage girlfriends, and out of all the possibilities he preferred the cla.s.sic missionary position.

But there was no denying that in that position he had achieved perfection.

Edgar stretched sweetly and carefully opened the window. He stood up and breathed in the cold, frosty air. The new day had begun and perhaps the Tribunal would give its verdict that very evening. Then he'd be able to relax and enjoy the festive season, without worrying about all these intrigues.

But who was behind this intrigue, after all... the Day Watch or the Night Watch?

And most important of all-what role had been a.s.signed to him?

Could Yury's hint really be right, was he supposed to be sacrificed, just like Alisa?

"Here, look..." Igor spread out a large sheet of paper on the table and took a pack of felt-tip pens out of his pocket. "I've already drawn a few diagrams... and some things fit together. This is Svetlana."

Anton looked thoughtfully at the circle drawn with a thick yellow line and said, "It doesn't look much like her."

Igor laughed. "All right... very witty. But look at the way things shape up. We and the Dark Ones had a balance, a precarious one, but still a balance... Here are the magicians with first-to third-level powers on our side... here are their equivalents on the Dark Side... Both the ones in active service and the others who can easily be mobilized."

The paper was quickly covered with small circles. Then Igor divided the sheet in two with a sweeping gesture. At the top of one side he wrote "Gesar," and at the top of the other, "Zabulon." He explained: "They're not really in the game. They're the players, but we're interested in the pieces. Look at how things changed with Svetlana's appearance."

"It depends what piece we decide she is," Anton said cautiously. "Right now she's a first-level enchantress... or rather, she was."

"And what does that mean? Just look how many magicians there are at about the same level as her."

"She's a p.a.w.n," said Anton, feeling surprised at his own words. "Svetlana's no more than a p.a.w.n for years and years to come! While she nurtures her Power, learns to control her abilities, acquires experience... She's more powerful than me... or she was. But I'd have been able to handle her if I'd been on the other side."

"Precisely, Anton," said Igor, deftly pouring himself a gla.s.s from the second bottle of vodka-the first was already standing empty under the table. "Precisely! Svetlana made the Night Watch significantly more powerful. And in the future she could easily reach the same level as Gesar. But that's a matter of decades, or even hundreds of years."

"Then why all this activity by the Dark Ones? They almost violated the Treaty, simply in order to get Svetlana out of the game."

"Think," said Igor, glancing into Anton's eyes. "Let's take the chess a.n.a.logy all the way..."

"A p.a.w.n that reaches the far side of the board..."

"... becomes any other piece."

Anton shrugged. "Igor, that's obvious anyway. We're all p.a.w.ns, but some of us have a chance to become queens.

Svetlana has. You don't, I don't, Semyon doesn't... but it's a long way to the far e.g. of the board, and the Dark Ones don't need to be in such a hurry to eliminate Svetlana."

"The Chalk of Destiny," said Igor.

"What about it? Gesar wanted to use Egor, the boy without any destiny to make him into..."

"Into what?"

Anton shrugged. "A prophet, a philosopher, a poet, a magician... I don't know. Someone who would lead humanity toward the Light. Or perhaps a Mirror? Another Mirror, like Vi-taly Rogoza, only he would be on our side?"

"But Svetlana didn't want to interfere," Igor said with a nod. "The boy Egor was left with just his own destiny."

"But then..." Anton began and stopped short. He didn't know if he had the right to tell Igor the truth he had discovered, even under the protection of the amulet.

"But then Olga rewrote someone's destiny with the other half of the Chalk," Igor said with a laugh. "That's an open secret already. The important thing is that the operation was successful anyway. Svetlana didn't do it, but Olga did. And incidentally Gesar managed to have Olga rehabilitated."

"Incidentally?" Anton queried, shaking his head. "Okay, let's say incidentally... But that's the second layer of the truth. I'm sure there's a third layer too."

"The third layer is the person whose destiny Olga rewrote. As soon as Zabulon heard she'd been rehabilitated, he realized he'd been duped. Taken in by a simple diversionary maneuver. And the Dark Ones started looking. They checked poor Egor a dozen times-in case the Book of Destiny had been rewritten twice for him..."

"And how do you know that?"

"I was keeping an eye on the boy. Gesar told me to-it was obvious the Dark Ones would start looking for a trick."

"And?"

"No, there were no tricks with Egor. It wasn't his destiny that was rewritten."

"Then whose was it?"

Igor looked into Anton's eyes without saying anything. As if he didn't have the right to say it himself.

"Svetlana's?" Anton exclaimed in sudden realization. And he suddenly thought that in his place any Dark One would have squealed, "Mine?"

"It looks like it. A brilliant and elegant move. There was such an ocean of Power raging around her that it was impossible for anyone to notice what was being done with her Book of Destiny. And the Dark Ones can't check her Book of Destiny-that would be as good as a declaration of war."

"Gesar wants to accelerate Svetlana's transformation into a Great Enchantress?"

"Out of the question. That's a violation of the Treaty. Dig a bit deeper."

Anton looked at the circles on the paper. He took a felt-tip pen and drew a bright scarlet line upward from Svetlana, then another circle where it ended. An empty circle.

"Yes," said Igor. "Precisely. You know what time this is now, don't you?"

"The end of the millennium..."

"Two thousand years since the birth of Jesus Christ;" Igor said with a laugh.