Sixth Watch (35 page)

“For instance?”

“It's quite possible that you will die,” said the Tiger.

“Well, unpleasant things like that happen to people.”

“You're not an ordinary person, you're an Other. You don't have to die.”

“What else?”

“I'll die,” the Tiger said simply. “In this version of the future I die.”

“And in the other version?” I asked after a moment's pause.

“I die in that one too.”

“I see,” I said with a nod. “Then tell me the most important thing, Tiger . . .”

“Nadya dies in the reality where you decide to destroy the Sarcophagus,” said the Tiger. “In the alternative reality, she doesn't necessarily die.”

“Then why are you even bothering to ask my opinion?” I laughed.

“Because the reality in which Nadya doesn't die will bring you greater suffering,” said the Tiger, turning his eyes away. “You could come to regret that we didn't shatter the Sarcophagus in eternity.”

“That's impossible!” I shouted. “That couldn't happen. Why would it?”

“I don't know,” replied the Tiger. “I'm not certain. I'm not the Twilight, after all. And I'm sick, Anton. I'm infected with humanity, that's why I'm talking to you now. And even if I were well, reading the destinies of Great Ones and an Absolute Enchantress is fiendishly difficult.”

I groaned. I wanted to shrug the Tiger's hand off my neck and dissolve into little bubbles.

I'd never imagined I could possibly consider such a simple, cowardly way out.

“Take me to the witch,” I said. “Maybe I'll regret this, but there's nothing else I can say right now. I can't choose a future in which Nadya is killed. Let's go to the Sarcophagus.”

“All right,” said the Tiger. “I knew that already, but I had to make
sure. So let's go, you who was begotten of the Darkness. I'll take you to Arina . . .”

“What?” I shouted, then the gray gloom dissipated and I went tumbling across a cold marble floor. “Who?”

The only reply I heard was the Tiger's quiet whisper in the distance.

“Now it's up to you to persuade her.”

I got up and looked around. The Tiger wasn't there. There was only a dimly lit stone hall with a high dome above it. Arina was nowhere to be seen. I took a few steps. The air was still as fresh and cool as I remembered it.

“Arina,” I called. “It's me! Anton! Anton Gorodetsky!”

“I already guessed it wasn't Chekhov. He was a cultured man, who didn't yell like that when other people were sleeping . . .”

The witch's voice was coming from somewhere above me. I stopped and looked up.

There was a gray cocoon, twisted together out of rags and threads, nestling crookedly against the domed ceiling about three yards above my head. The cocoon trembled and a hand appeared, making a gap in the wall, and then another. Finally a head was thrust out through the gap.

“Good morning, Arina,” I said, looking at the witch. “I'm sorry I woke you.”

“You won't get away with just apologies,” said the witch. “Are you alone?”

“Yes,” I said, and paused before asking: “What's that . . . thing made of?”

“You don't need to know that,” said Arina. “Just turn away for a moment.”

I turned away and moved toward the center of the Sarcophagus, hearing rustling and crackling sounds behind me, as if Arina was rolling up her cocoon.

It was really disgusting.

Maybe it was very rational, ecologically sound, and natural to
weave a cocoon and sink into hibernation. But that's what you expect from an insect, not a human being.

Witches . . .

“I'm glad to see you, Anton,” Arina said. “You're looking good. Only a bit tired somehow . . .”

I looked around. The witch was standing behind me and the cocoon on the ceiling had disappeared. Her face was calm and peaceful. She was wearing a smart business suit with slacks (I vaguely recalled that she had arrived here in different clothes).

“How's the Minoan Sphere?” I asked. “I kept thinking about it, wondering if it would get you out of here.”

Arina ran her hand over her clothes and a little ball glinted in her hand.

“That's absurd,” she said. “Very little Power flows in here. It would have taken another twenty or thirty years for the Sphere to charge.”

“Is that why you went into hibernation?”

“Yes. But when you entered, a lot of Power burst in with you. The Sphere is charged now.”

“Don't be in any hurry to use it,” I said. “Maybe we'll leave here some other way.”

“Well now,” Arina said with a smile. “Tell me about it!”

“We've got problems.”

Arina nodded.

“So what's new?” she asked.

“What do you know about the Sixth Watch and the Two-in-One?” I asked.

Arina's face suddenly went tense and her eyes glinted viciously.

“The Sixth Watch is dead! The Two-in-One no longer exists!”

“The Watch is dead all right,” I said, nodding. “But the Two-in-One has just tried to kill my daughter twice.”

Arina stood there, shifting from one foot to the other and staring daggers at me. Then she sighed and sank down onto the floor.

“Sit down, Gorodetsky, there's no point in standing. Let's talk.”

“Haven't you done enough sitting?” I asked in amazement. “Don't you want to get out of here?”

“Yes, I do. But I don't know if I ought to,” she replied. “Sit down, will you? An hour or two won't make any difference, and I've spent years in here.”

I nodded and sat down facing her.

“What's happened? Tell me everything from the beginning,” Arina demanded.

“First a vampiress appeared. Gesar believes she's one that I once laid to rest, who has been resurrected. She bit a series of people, and the initials of their names spelled out a message: ‘Anton Gorodetsky, be ready, he awaits, it's your decision.'”

“What nonsense,” Arina muttered. “Like some Agatha Christie detective story. That's not the Two-in-One. It's not his style.”

“I didn't say it was. Whoever this vampiress might be, she turned out to be on our side. My daughter was attacked at school. Two Others who were guarding her, a Light One and a Dark One, killed the third guard, and an Inquisitor. It looked like they were possessed.”

“How did they kill him? Fire and ice?”

I nodded in relief. Arina really did know about the Two-in-One!

“Are they together?” Arina asked.

“They try to hold hands all the time,” I said cautiously

She nodded.

“Svetlana and I couldn't beat them,” I went on. “But the vampiress showed up and drove them away. It was just like an ordinary fight, only very fast . . .”

“Go on,” Arina said.

“A prophecy occurred. All the Prophets and all the Seers proclaimed the same thing at the same time: ‘It was not spilled in vain, nor burned to no purpose. The first time has come. The Two shall arise in the flesh and open the doors. Three victims, the fourth time. Five days are left to the Others. Six days are left to people. To those who stand in the way, nothing will be left. The Sixth Watch is dead,
the Fifth Power has disappeared. The Fourth has come too late. The Third Power does not believe, the Second Power is afraid, the First Power is exhausted . . .' After that we started searching for the Sixth Watch and its members.”

Arina nodded and closed her eyes.

“Do you understand what it's about?” I asked.

“How long ago was the prophecy proclaimed?”

“Four days ago.”

“So this is the last day,” said Arina. “Yes . . . I understand everything. What's happening in the world right now, Anton? What's happening to the people?”

“Everything's the same as usual,” I said. “War in the Middle East. War in Ukraine.”

“That's trivial,” said Arina, shaking her head. “But then, the balance doesn't have to be disrupted so obviously. The world can appear normal until the very last day.”

“What balance?”

“Between good and evil, of course.”

“I wouldn't say the Day Watch has gotten completely out of hand . . .”

“Good and evil have got nothing to do with the Watches!” she snapped. “You of all people should understand that. The Night Watch maintains a stance of altruism, or more precisely, active altruism by Others toward people. The Day Watch regards the welfare of people and their requirements as insignificant in comparison with the requirements of Others.”

“But that still comes down to good and evil in the end. On the day-to-day level,” I said.

“Tell that to the people who die for the exalted ideas of the Night Watch,” Arina said dismissively. “People and Others have rather different ideas about good and evil.”

“All right,” I said, “so the balance has shifted. I believe you. The world really does seem to have gone insane. But this is human business, even if people decide to start World War III.”

“What is the Twilight?” Arina asked.

“A certain rational force,” I said. “A superforce.”

Arina continued looking at me expectantly.

“Generated by human thoughts, emotions, dreams . . .”

“The Twilight doesn't have a physical body,” Arina said. “It doesn't even have a mind in the human sense of the word; it's something quite different. The consciousness of people who are alive now is the pattern of its will. The memory of people who have died is the pattern of the Twilight's memory. If the world tends toward evil, the Twilight becomes harsher. If the world tends toward good, the Twilight becomes kinder. But the Twilight doesn't like to change; homeostasis is fundamental to every living thing.”

“You mean to say there's more evil in the world now than, let's say, during World War II?” I asked, shaking my head. “I don't believe it!”

“It's not a matter of there being more. It's a matter of the balance. World wars are a monstrous atrocity, a boundless ocean of pain and fear. But they also involve great hopes, self-sacrifice, acts of mercy! A war doesn't alter the balance, it merely raises the stakes. But if the Two-in-One has come, it means the balance has shifted. It means there is evil everywhere. Quiet, calm, indifferent evil. In men and women, children and adults. When the balance changes, the Twilights starts feeling uncomfortable, it begins to resist the change. And it manifests an entity of some kind in the human world. In the simplest cases, it's Mirror Magicians, who restore the balance at a local level. If it's something more serious, then it's Absolute Others, who can give the world a new truth and change people's nature. If prophecies capable of disrupting the balance are proclaimed, the Tiger comes. But if the balance is disrupted fundamentally, then the Two-in-One appears.”

“Who is he?” I asked. “I had meetings with vampires, I know he's an ancient vampire god . . .”

“Ah, he's not the vampires' god,” Arina said with a frown. “Those ancient, toothy bloodsuckers are too ambitious. The Two-in-One is
the great balancer, the eraser, the purger. If human civilization goes off the rails, he comes and destroys it. He reduces life to the most basic, banal truths. Eating, drinking, killing, reproducing. That's what the Two-in-One does, he simplifies.”

“Well he hasn't managed it yet,” I said.

“Who told you that?” Arina asked in surprise. “He has come many times before.”

“But we're alive. People are alive. And he—”

“The Two-in-One doesn't kill all the people!” she exclaimed, gesturing abruptly. “He kills the Others, or almost all of them—to be honest I don't know exactly. ‘Five days are left to Others, six days to the people,' right? Where does it say that everyone will die?”

“Well . . .” I said embarrassed. “From the context it—”

“Not everyone,” Arina said calmly. “The overwhelming majority. Ninety-nine percent. Or 99.9 percent. And a large number of animals will die too, especially the more complex ones. Do you know why?”

I shook my head.

“Because Power will come gushing into the world. Because the Twilight can't recycle it all, it doesn't need that much. And if the Others, who use Power, who control it through the Twilight and bleed off the excess, are killed, then people will be swamped by Power. One by one, they will all acquire the ability to work magic. And then it will start. It's not even like giving a man a machine gun—this is an atom bomb. Imagine you're an ordinary man. And suddenly you find that you're able to work miracles. Only simple ones to begin with. But what are the simplest things? Burning. Blasting. Freezing. Shredding.”

“Everyone has enemies,” I said.

“Of course. And even if you don't want to harm anyone, you'll feel frightened that they want to harm you. And you'll start flinging magic about wildly, simply in order to defend yourself and your loved ones. Some will learn to do certain things, some will try to introduce rules and new laws, but people won't have enough time to learn how to handle this gift, there won't be any teachers to help them to
understand how to live as Others. There won't be any Watches. And the world will collapse.”

She paused for a moment and then went on.

“Yes, and don't forget about the animals. They generate Power too. And when magic is accessible to everyone, when there's an excess of it, the Twilight will start fulfilling
their
wishes. And animals have very simple wishes, Anton. Even simpler than people's.”

“The world will come to an end,” I said.

“Almost. It will go on until very few people are left and the survivors learn how to cope with their new powers. Until homeostasis is restored and people lose their magical abilities . . . But new Others will appear among them. They'll be primitive and weak by our standards, but in the changed world
they
will be the kings and rulers. And history will embark on a new cycle. Yet again.”