Sixth Watch (37 page)

“I can't! The Twilight's boiling!” she exclaimed despairingly. “Everything's swirling about . . .”

I could also sense that something was wrong with the Twilight, without having to glance into it. The ground under my feet started shuddering. Ghostly purple lights appeared on the mountaintops. A low, intense humming sound filled the air.

The Twilight was fighting with itself. Its two incarnations were grappling in mortal combat: the Two-in-One, the ancient destroyer of civilizations, and the Tiger, their ancient protector. Both immensely powerful. Both remorseless.

But the Tiger had only one indisputable right—to ensure that we didn't die today. To protect the prophecy that had been proclaimed.

“Let's run for it, Nadya,” I said. “Come on . . . this wrestling is bound to end badly.”

“Dad, we won't get away,” my daughter said, taking hold of my hand. And then she said something I had never heard her say, even when she was a child: “Dad, I'm afraid . . .”

There was a blinding flash, a bright streak of fire and ice, as if something had exploded deep in the tangle of fighting bodies. They fell apart, with the Two-in-One flying off in one direction and the Tiger in the other.

But the Two-in-One got up, and the Tiger just lay there.

The Two-in-One looked at me with his only remaining eye—one of Denis's. The knife was still protruding from the eye socket beside it. Alexei's face had been reduced to bloody mush and his head was spinning about wildly.

“You're all—” wheezed the Two-in-One.

At that very moment a Sno-Cat came rumbling across the road on its caterpillar tracks. Its blinking lights and beepers had been switched off and its scoop was lowered.

The vehicle crashed into the Two-in-One, toppling him over and crushing him. It then started spinning around on the spot, pulping the human flesh with its tracks. The Two-in-One howled in two voices and fell silent.

Nadya and I just stood there, dumbstruck.

The Sno-Cat came to a halt and its engine cut out. The door of the cabin opened and Arina clambered out and jumped down onto the snow.

“I thought you'd run away,” I said.

“You can't run away from destiny, silly,” Arina replied.

I walked up to the Sno-Cat and looked at a hand protruding from under a caterpillar track. The hand twitched, as if it could sense my gaze, and it grabbed at the frozen ground. The vehicle jerked upward and the maimed, half-crushed Two-in-One started creeping out from under a machine that weighed tons.

“You never know when to stop, you brute,” said Arina, leaning down over the Two-in-One, who had already crept halfway out. She was holding the Shoot—no longer a flowering bush, but a wooden
phallus again. Only now, without its pot, the Shoot looked less obscene, at least from one side—and from that side it looked like a wooden dagger.

Arina raised it over her head and swung it down hard and fast, piercing the body of the Two-in-One. The mutilated monster suddenly disappeared without a trace and the dagger, stuck in the ground, darkened as it clad itself in bark and grew a single, thin sprout.

“You killed him!” I said. “You killed him!”

“The Two-in-One's not that easy to kill,” Arina said regretfully. “I stopped him for a while.”

“And where is he?”

“He withdrew into the Twilight,” said Arina. “To lick his wounds.”

“Dad!” Nadya shrieked.

I went dashing to my daughter. She was kneeling beside the Tiger, who was stirring feebly, trying to sit up. I leaned down and held out my hand to help him to his feet.

“How does it look?” the Tiger asked, turning toward me.

It looked appalling—half of the Tiger's head was missing. It had been sliced off neatly from the top down to one ear, leaving a surface with a smooth, glassy crust. Or perhaps the wound was filled with glass.

“I'd say you're dead.”

“What a good thing I'm not human,” said the Tiger, thrusting his hand into the gap for a moment. Then he shrugged and asked: “Have you got any cigarettes?”

“Won't that be bad for you?” I asked, trying not to look at the fearsome wound. I rummaged in my pockets—I'd put those cigarettes that the Tiger gave me in one of them . . .

“Nothing's bad for me any longer,” the Tiger replied calmly. “I've only got two minutes left to live.”

“And what then?” asked Nadya, bewildered.

“Then I'll withdraw into the Twilight, little girl,” said the Tiger. “I broke the rules.”

“No you didn't!” I said. “You were protecting the prophecy! Performing your own function!”

“That's splitting hairs,” the Tiger said. Taking the pack from me, he pulled out a cigarette, stuck it in his mouth, and it lit up. “It worked though,” he said. “Unfortunately, midnight arrived while we were fighting. After that I didn't have any right to stop the Two-in-One from killing you.”

“But you stopped him anyway!” Nadya exclaimed.

“That's right,” the Tiger said with a nod. “Let's just say I got carried away.”

“Is there anything we can do?” I asked. “Can we help? You're not a human being . . .”

“That's just the problem. The Twilight has cut me off. Turned off the Power, if you like.”

The Tiger blew out a jet of smoke and looked up at the clear night sky. “You're lucky. You have the stars. Someday human beings will stop killing each other with the Two-in-One's help and reach the stars.”

“I can give you Power!” Nadya shouted. “I'm an Absolute Other! How much do you need, Tiger?”

The Tiger looked at my daughter and I thought I sensed a rapid, unspoken dialogue between them. Nadya lowered her eyes.

“Don't be sad,” said the Tiger. “I told you, I'm not human at all. I won't even die like you do. Don't be sad. You have to cope with
him
. And you have Arina now; she seems to know what to do.”

“Tiger,” I said. The final seconds of his life were draining away, but I had to ask this. “Remember what you called me at the Sarcophagus? You were wrong. I'm a Light One.”

“I didn't say you were a Dark One.” The Tiger laughed. “Ask Zabulon. He'll explain.”

The Tiger stretched, dropped his cigarette, and ground it out thoroughly with his foot. He raised his head and looked up at the sky again with a smile.

Then he sank down and sat on the ground.

Of course he wasn't human, but he died like a man, in every sense of the word. Unlike the Two-in-One, his body remained lying there. The glassy flesh darkened and started bleeding.

I hugged Nadya and held her close, then looked at Arina, who had come over to us.

“Take out the Minoan Sphere,” I told her.

“Where to?” the witch asked in a quiet voice.

“The Day Watch office. To Zabulon.”

Arina froze with the Sphere in her hands.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. And don't try to run away, you'll be ashamed for the rest of your life.”

“As if there was much of that life left . . .” Arina muttered.

Oh, how they gaped at her!

Our two Great Higher Ones: Gesar and Zabulon. The Son of Tibet and the Son of Judea. The Light One and the Dark One.

She sat there modestly, opposite them, wearing a business suit that looked surprisingly appropriate in Zabulon's office. The witch Arina: the head of the Conclave of Witches.

Zabulon was still in his incredibly maniacal mood. It wasn't obvious at first glance, but then he kissed Arina ceremoniously on the hand and complimented her in French.

“Comme vous êtes charmante!”

“Ah, you old rogue,” Arina replied flirtatiously.

Gesar said nothing, but sat there glaring at the witch, while she studiously ignored him.

Olga sat in the corner of the office, breathing smoke from her cigarette into an expensive Japanese air purifier and watching Gesar intently. Arina cast a fleeting glance at her before speaking again.

“Stop that now, Boris. I forgave you a long time ago.”

Gesar turned as red as if he was about to have an apoplectic fit, but still didn't say anything.

Svetlana simply sat at one side with her arms around Nadya. She
hadn't asked any questions when we appeared in Zabulon's office; she'd just taken her daughter and hugged her.

Maybe she already knew everything anyway. Maybe they'd been tracking us and had seen it all.

I couldn't care less if they had.

“I promised Arina that she wouldn't be harmed, that her freedom would not be restricted, and that she would not be forced to do anything she found offensive,” I said. “She has promised to tell us everything she knows about the Two-in-One and the Sixth Watch.”

“We've discovered a thing or two as well,” Gesar said reluctantly. “A thing or two . . . Go on, Arina.”

“The Two-in-One is the purger of human civilization,” said Arina. “To be more precise, when the human race violates the age-old balance between good and evil, the Twilight starts suffering. So when the equilibrium is disrupted, the Twilight tries to restore it. And since the Twilight reflects the moral and ethical condition of humankind, it is biased toward evil and the methods it uses are not the kindest. It sends the Two-in-One, who purges.”

“How?” Gesar asked.

“In the simplest way possible, from the Twilight's point of view. The Two-in-One kills the Others. Either all of them or at least the overwhelming majority—I don't think he really needs to drag the final vampire out of his coffin or the final shape-shifter out of his burrow. In normal circumstances, we Others maintain the balance of Power; we use up the excess. Which means that people aren't able to make use of magic, which spares them the temptation of dangerous toys.”

“If we die, then the people will kill each other,” Gesar said pensively.

“Yes. The vestiges of civilization that remain are very simple, but strangely enough the balance between good and evil is restored.”

“What's so strange about that?” Zabulon exclaimed gleefully. “It's not evil to smack your neighbor over the head with a club, make him
work in your field, and make his wife warm your bed. That's normal, natural behavior. Basic practicality. Animals are also beyond good and evil—when a wolf kills a hare, it doesn't feel any hatred. Evil is when you convince your neighbor that he ought to work in your field, give his wife to you, and sing your praises at the same time.”

“Thank you, we get the idea,” Gesar told him in an icy voice.

“The Two-in-One was the first emanation of the Twilight, the first agent of its will,” Arina continued. “He concluded the very first, most ancient covenant between the Twilight and the Others. We Others maintain the equilibrium between good and evil, allowing the Twilight to lead a calm and comfortable existence. But if evil becomes dominant, the Two-in-One comes and makes us pay the bill. And now that time has arrived.”

“And what if good becomes dominant?” Nadya asked quietly.

“Unfortunately, my girl, that has never happened,” Arina replied. I thought I caught a note of genuine compassion in her voice. “At least, it has never happened on a global scale. Although we have tried to make it happen, of course. Throughout history, new religions have been invented, new ethical principles, new variations on the social contract . . .”

“Communism was a stupid idea though,” said Zabulon, keeping his voice low to avoid an unnecessary argument.

“Are you sure the time is here?” Gesar asked Arina, ignoring Zabulon. “But why am I asking? He wouldn't have appeared otherwise . . . Why do you know about this? Why don't we know? Why is there nothing in the archives of the Inquisition? Who cleaned out every last mention of the Sixth Watch and the Two-in-One?”

“Do you really not understand, Gesar?” Arina asked. “Honestly and truly?”

Olga stubbed out her cigarette with an abrupt movement and got up.

“We cleaned it all out. Isn't that right, witch?”

“Of course,” said Arina. “It was a secret, naturally, but there was
the Watch of Six, which kept the secret, and there were documents in the archives. And the Higher Ones knew, including you and Zabulon.”

“I have already reached that conclusion by logical deduction!” Zabulon added. “If there is information that I am obliged to know, but I don't know it, then the only possible explanation is that I made myself forget it. I couldn't have been influenced from the outside. Discard the impossible and the improbable must be true.”

“Thank you, we appreciate your opinion,” said Gesar. “When did this happen? Who was involved?”

“The full membership of the Sixth Watch. And all the Higher Others knew.”

“Why was it done?” Gesar asked.

“It was 1914,” Arina stated simply. “A hundred years ago. You began an experiment, with a world war and a revolution in Russia. We all know that the scientist influences the results of the experiment, if he knows basically what is happening. You wanted to turn humankind toward the good and you were afraid that your knowledge of the Two-in-One would prevent you from doing what . . . what was necessary.”

“Who is ‘you'?” Gesar asked indignantly. “Is that me? Or Zabulon?”

“You and Zabulon, among others. Essentially all the Great Ones were involved, but it was you and Zabulon who insisted on holding the experiment in Russia. And at the very last moment, by the way! France was the favorite, with Germany and Great Britain hot on its heels. The United States was excluded from the start—their previous experiment with the Civil War was considered a failure. But you insisted that Russia must be the guinea pig.”

“Me and my patriotism,” Gesar grunted.

“Well, you could call it that,” Arina replied sarcastically. “What you actually said was: ‘It's a savage country, it won't be any great loss.'”

Zabulon laughed and slapped his hands down on the desk.