The Twilight Watch (22 page)

'It's no worse than your job in the Day Watch,' I laughed. 'Okay,
at ease.'

Edgar was satisfied with that and didn't drag things out any longer.

'Arina is a powerful and respected witch . . . within their narrow
circles. You know how it is, Anton, every group has its own hierarchy.
Gesar can mock Witiezslav as much as he likes, but as far as vampires
are concerned, he's the most powerful there is. Arina occupies a
similar sort of position among the witches. An extremely high one.'

I nodded. My new acquaintance was clearly no simple witch.

'The Day Watch asked her to work for them more than once,'
Edgar continued. 'Just as insistently as your side fought for Svetlana
. . . please don't take offence, Anton.'

I wasn't offended in the slightest . . .

'The witch refused point-blank. Okay, that's her right. Especially
as she did collaborate on a temporary basis in certain situations.
But early last century, shortly after the socialist revolution, an
unpleasant event took place . . .'

He paused. As we entered the forest, I set off with rather ostentatious
confidence, and Edgar followed. Looking absurd in his city
suit, the Dark Magician clambered fearlessly through the bushes
and the gullies. He didn't even loosen his tie . . .

'At the time the Watches were fighting for the right to conduct
a social experiment,' Edgar told me. 'Communism, as you know,
was invented by the Light Ones . . .'

'And subverted by the Dark Ones,' I couldn't resist adding.

'Oh, come on, Anton,' Edgar said resentfully. 'We didn't subvert
anything. People chose for themselves what kind of society to
build. Anyway, Arina was asked to collaborate. She agreed to carry
out . . . a certain mission. The interests of the Dark Ones and the
Light Ones were involved, as well as the witch's. Both sides were
in agreement over the . . . mission. They were both counting on
winning out in the end. The Inquisition was keeping an eye on
things, but there was no reason to intervene. It was all happening
with the agreement of both Watches.'

This was interesting. What kind of mission could it have been,
if it was approved equally by Dark Ones and Light Ones?

'Arina carried out her mission brilliantly,' Edgar continued. 'She
was even awarded special privileges from the Watches. If I'm not
mistaken, the Light Ones granted her the right to use second-degree
magic.'

This was serious stuff. I nodded and took note of the information.

'But after a while the Inquisition began having doubts about
the legality of Arina's actions,' Edgar said drily. 'The suspicion arose
that in the course of her work she had fallen under the influence
of one of the sides and acted in its interests.'

'And that side was?'

'The Light Ones,' Edgar said sombrely. 'A witch, helping the
Light ones – incredible, isn't it? That's why it took so long for
them to get round to suspecting her, but the circumstantial evidence
of treachery was just too strong . . . The Inquisition summoned
Arina . . . for an interview. And then she just disappeared. The
search for her went on for some time, but in those days – you
know the way things were . . .'

'What was it she did?' I asked, not really expecting an answer.

Edgar sighed and replied:

'Intervened in the minds of human beings . . . Total remoralisation.'

I gulped. What interest could Dark Ones have in that?

'Surprised?' Edgar growled. 'Do you have a clear idea of what
remoralisation actually is?'

'I've carried one out. On myself.'

Edgar gaped at me, dumbstruck, for a few seconds and then
nodded:

'Ah . . . yes, of course. Then you won't need much explanation.
Remoralisation is a relative process, not an absolute one. Whatever
you might say, there is no absolute standard of morality in the
world. So remoralisation makes a person act absolutely ethically,
but only within the limits of his own basic morality. To put it
crudely, a cannibal in the jungle who doesn't think eating his
enemy is a crime will calmly continue with his dinner. But he
won't do anything that his morality forbids.'

'I'm aware of that,' I said.

'Well then, this remoralisation wasn't entirely relative. The
communist ideology was implanted in people's minds . . . you've
probably heard about many of them, but the names aren't important
for purposes of the case.'

'The moral code of the builder of communism,' I said with a
wry laugh.

'That hadn't been invented yet,' Edgar replied very seriously.
'But let's say something very similar. These people started to behave
entirely in accordance with the idealised model of communist
ethics.'

'I can understand the interest of the Night Watch in all this,' I
said. 'The principles of communism are certainly attractive . . . But
where did the Dark Ones' interest lie?'

'The Dark Ones wished to demonstrate that imposing a nonviable
system of ethics would not produce anything good. That
the victims of the experiment would either go insane, or be killed,
or start acting contrary to their remoralisation.'

I nodded. What an experiment! Never mind those Nazi medics
who mutilated people's bodies. It was souls that had gone under
the knife here . . .

'Are you outraged by the Light Ones' behaviour?' Edgar asked
suggestively.

'No.' I shook my head. 'I'm sure they didn't mean to harm
anyone. They hoped the experiment would lead to the building
of a new, happy society.'

'Were you ever a member of the Communist Party?' Edgar
asked with a grin.

'I was only a Young Pioneer. Look, I get the idea of the experiment.
But why did they bring in a witch to do it?'

'In this case it was far more efficient to use witchcraft than
magic,' Edgar explained. 'The experiment was aimed at thousands
of people of every possible age and social group. Can you imagine
the forces that magicians would have needed to assemble? A witch
was able to do it all by using potions.'

'Did she put them in the water supply, or what?'

'In bread. They got her a job in a bread-making plant,' Edgar
laughed. 'She actually proposed a new, more efficient way of baking
bread – with the addition of various herbs. And she even won a
special bonus for it.'

'I see. And what was Arina's interest in all this?'

Edgar snorted. He jumped nimbly over a fallen tree and looked
into my eyes.

'Do you have to ask, Anton? Who wouldn't like to fool about
with magic as powerful as that? And she even had permission from
the Watches and the Inquisition!'

'I suppose so . . .' I muttered. 'So, there was an experiment . . .
And the result?'

'As should have been expected,' Edgar said, his eyes glinting
with irony. 'Some of them went insane, took to drink or killed
themselves. Some were repressed – for over-zealous devotion to
their ideals. And some found ways to get round the remoralisation.'

'The Dark Ones were proved right?' I asked, so stunned that I
stopped dead in my tracks. 'But even so the Inquisition considers
that the witch corrupted the spell, acting on instructions from the
Light Ones?'

Edgar nodded.

'That's raving lunacy,' I said, walking on. 'Utter nonsense! The
Dark Ones effectively proved their point. And you say the Light
Ones were to blame!'

'Not all the Light Ones,' Edgar replied imperturbably. 'One
particular individual . . . maybe a small group. Why they did it, I
don't know. But the Inquisition is dissatisfied. The objectivity of
the experiment was compromised, the balance of power was undermined,
some kind of long-term, obscure intrigue was launched . . .'

'Aha,' I said with a nod. 'If there's intriguing involved, let's put
it all down to Gesar.'

'I didn't mention any names,' Edgar said quickly. 'I don't know
any. And allow me to remind you that at that time the highly
respected Gesar was working in Central Asia, so it would be absurd
to charge him with anything . . .'

He sighed – perhaps remembering recent events at the Assol
complex?

'But you want to find out the truth?' I asked.

'Absolutely!' Edgar said. 'Thousands of people were forcibly
turned to the Light – that is a crime against the Day Watch. All
those people came to harm – that is a crime against the Night
Watch. The social experiment authorised by the Inquisition was
disrupted – that is a crime . . .'

'I get the idea,' I interrupted. 'I must say, I find this story extremely
unsavoury.'

'You'll help me to uncover the truth?' Edgar asked. And he
smiled.

'Yes,' I said, with no hesitation. 'It's a crime.'

We shook hands.

'Do we have to tramp much further?' the Inquisitor asked.

I looked round and was glad to recognise the familiar features
of the clearing where I'd seen that amazing bed of mushrooms
the day before.

Today, however, there wasn't a single mushroom left.

'We're almost there,' I reassured the Dark Magician. 'Let's just
hope the lady of the house is at home . . .'

A
RINA WAS BREWING
a potion – just as any self-respecting witch
should – in her little house in the forest. Standing by the stove
with the oven-fork in her hands, holding a cast-iron pot that was
giving off clouds of greenish fumes. And muttering:

Spindle tree, white furze – a pinch,
Rocky cliff sand – quite a sprinkling
Heather branch and skeleton of finch
Pustule squeezings – just an inkling.

Edgar and I went in and stood by the door, but the witch didn't
seem to notice us. She carried on standing with her back to us,
shaking the pot and chanting:

More white furze and spindle tree,
Three tail feathers from an eagle . . .

Edgar cleared his throat and continued:

Kneecaps of a bumble bee,
And the collar off my beagle?

Arina started violently and exclaimed:

'Oh, good heavens above!'

It sounded perfectly natural . . . but somehow I knew for sure
that the witch had been expecting us.

'Hello, Arina,' Edgar said without expression. 'Inquisition. Please
stop working your spells.'

Arina deftly thrust the pot into the stove and only then turned
round. This time she looked about forty – a sturdy, full-fleshed,
beautiful countrywoman. And very annoyed. She put her hands
on her hips and exclaimed peevishly:

'And hello to you, Mr Inquisitor! Why are you interfering with
the spell? Am I supposed to catch the finches and pluck the eagle's
feathers all over again?'

'Your ditties are no more than a way of remembering the
amounts of the various ingredients and the right sequence of
actions,' Edgar replied, unmoved. 'You'd already finished brewing
the light footfall potion, my words could not possibly have interfered
with it. Sit down, Arina. Why not take the weight off your
feet?'

'How's that supposed to improve things?' Arina replied sullenly
and walked across to the table. She sat down and wiped her hands
on her apron with its pattern of daisies and cornflowers. Then she
glanced sideways at me.

'Good morning, Arina,' I said. 'Edgar asked me to act as his
guide. You don't mind, do you?'

'If I did mind, you'd have ended up in the swamp!' Arina answered
in a slightly offended tone. 'Well, I'm listening, Mr Inquisitor
Edgar. What business is it that brings you here?'

Edgar sat down facing Arina. He reached under the flap of his
jacket and pulled out a leather folder. How had he managed to
fit that under there?

'You were sent a summons, Arina,' the Inquisitor said in a soft
voice. 'Did you receive it?'

The witch started thinking. Edgar opened his folder and showed
her a narrow strip of yellow paper.

'1931!' the witch gasped. 'Oh, all those years ago . . .No, I never
received it. I've already explained to the gentleman from the Night
Watch that I went to sleep. The Secret Police were trying to frame
me . . .'

'The Secret Police are not exactly the most terrible thing in
the life of an Other,' said Edgar. 'Very far from it, in fact . . . So,
you received the summons . . .'

'I didn't receive it,' Arina said quickly.

'You didn't receive it,' Edgar corrected himself. 'Well, let's accept
that. The messenger never came back . . . I suppose anything
could have happened to a civilian employee in the bleak Moscow
forests.'

Arina said nothing.

I stood by the door, watching. I was curious. An Inquisitor's job
is like any watchman's but there was something special about this
situation. A Dark Magician interrogating a Dark Witch. And one
who was far more powerful than him, a fact that Edgar couldn't
fail to appreciate.

But he had the Inquisition standing behind him. And when
you're faced with that, you can't count on any help from your
'own' Watch.

'Let us consider that you have now received the summons,'
Edgar went on. 'I have been instructed to conduct a preliminary
interview with you before any final decisions are taken
. . . so . . .'

He took out another piece of paper, glanced at it and asked:

'In the month of March, 1931, were you working at the First
Moscow Bread Combine?'

'I was,' Arina said, and nodded.

'For what purpose?'

Arina looked at me.

'He has been informed,' said Edgar. 'Answer the question.'

'I was approached by the leaders of the Night Watch and the
Day Watch of Moscow,' Arina said with a sigh. 'The Others wished
to know how people would behave if they tried to live in strict
conformity with communist ideals. Since both Watches wanted
the same thing, and the Inquisition supported their request, I agreed.
I never have liked cities, they're always . . .'

'Please stick to the point,' Edgar told her.

'I carried out the task,' Arina said, finishing her story in a rush.
'I brewed the potion, and it was added to the fine white bread
for two weeks. That's all! I was thanked by the two Watches, I left
my job at the factory and went home. And then the Secret Police
started going absolutely . . .'

'You can write about your difficult relations with the organs of
state security in your memoirs!' Edgar suddenly barked. 'What
interests me is why you altered the formula.'

Arina slowly got to her feet. Her eyes glittered with fury and
her voice thundered as loud as if she were King Kong's mate:

'Remember, this, young man! Arina has never made any mistakes
in her spells! Never!'

Edgar remained unimpressed.

'I didn't say you made a mistake. You deliberately altered the
formula. And as a result . . .' He paused dramatically.

'What, as a result?' Arina asked, outraged. 'They checked the
potion when it was ready. The effect was exactly what was required.'

'As a result, the potion took effect immediately,' said Edgar. 'The
Night Watch has never been a collection of fools and idealists. The
Light Ones realised that all ten thousand experimental subjects
would be doomed if they made an instant switch to communist
morality. The potion was supposed to take effect gradually, so that
the remoralisation would peak at full power ten years later, in the
spring of 1941.'

'That's right,' Arina said soberly. 'And that's the way it was made.'

'The potion had an almost instantaneous effect,' said Edgar. 'We
couldn't work out what was happening at first, but after a year
the number of experimental subjects had been reduced by half.
Less than a hundred of them survived until 1941 – the ones who
managed to overcome the remoralisation . . . to demonstrate moral
flexibility.'

'Oh, what a terrible thing,' Arina exclaimed, throwing her hands
up in the air. 'How awful . . . I feel so sorry for those poor people
. . .' She sat down. Then looked across at me and asked: 'Well, Light
One, do you think I was working for the Dark Ones too?'

If she was lying, it was very convincing. I shrugged.

'Everything was done correctly,' Arina said, remaining stubborn.
'The basic ingredients were mixed into the flour . . . do you know
how difficult it was in those years to carry out any subversive
activity? The retardant in the potion was plain sugar . . .' Suddenly
she flung her hands up and stared at Edgar triumphantly. 'That's
what went wrong! Those were hungry years, the workers at the
combine stole the sugar . . . That's why it worked too fast . . .'

'An interesting theory,' said Edgar, shuffling his papers.

'I'm not to blame for any of this,' Arina declared firmly. 'The
plan for the operation was agreed. If the wise men of the Watches
failed to think of a simple thing like that, then whose fault is
it?'

'That would be all very well,' said Edgar, lifting up another sheet
of paper. 'Except that you conducted the first experiment on the
workers at the bakery. Here's your report, recognise it? After that,
they couldn't have stolen the sugar. So there's only one explanation
– you deliberately sabotaged the operation.'

'Why don't we consider some other explanations?' Arina asked
plaintively. 'For instance . . .'

'For instance – your friend Louisa's report,' Edgar suggested.
'About how, during the operation, she happened by chance to see
you in the company of an unidentified Light Magician near the
stand at the race track. About how you argued and haggled, until
eventually the Light One handed you some kind of package, and
you nodded and shook hands. Louisa even heard the words: 'I'll
do it, and in less than a year . . .' Let me remind you that for the
duration of the experiment you were forbidden to have any
contact with Others. Weren't you?'

'Yes,' said Arina, bowing her head. 'Is Lushka still alive?'

'Unfortunately not,' said Edgar. 'But her testimony was recorded
and witnessed.'

'A pity . . .' Arina murmured. She didn't say why it was a pity
exactly. But it wasn't too hard to guess that Louisa was fortunate
not to be around any longer.

'Can you explain which Light One you met with, what you
promised to do and what you received from him?'

Arina raised her head and smiled bitterly at me. She said:

'What a muddle . . . I'm always getting in a muddle . . . over
little things. Like that kettle . . .'

'Arina, I am obliged to deliver you for further questioning,' said
Edgar. 'In the name of the Inquisition . . .'

'Try it, second-ranker,' Arina said derisively.

And she disappeared.

'She's withdrawn into the Twilight!' I shouted, tearing myself away
from the wall and looking round for my shadow. But Edgar delayed
for a second, making sure that the witch hadn't averted our eyes.

We appeared at the first level almost simultaneously. I was a
little wary of looking at Edgar – what would the Twilight world
transform him into?

It wasn't too bad, he'd hardly changed at all. His hair had just
thinned out a bit.

'Deeper!' I waved my hand insistently. Edgar moved his head,
raised his open hand to his face – and his palm seemed to suck
all of him in.

Impressive. Inquisitors' gimmicks.

At the second level, where the house turned into a log hut, we
stopped and looked at each other. Of course, Arina wasn't there.

'She's gone down to the third level . . .' Edgar whispered. His
hair had now completely disappeared and his skull had stretched
out, like a duck's egg. Even so, he still looked almost human.

'Can you do it?' I asked.

'I managed it once,' Edgar answered honestly. Our breath turned
to steam. It didn't feel all that cold yet, but there was an insidious
chill in the air . . .

'And I managed it once,' I admitted.

We hesitated, like overconfident swimmers who have suddenly
realised that the river in front of them is too turbulent and too
cold. And neither of us dared take the first step.

'Anton, will you help?' Edgar asked eventually.

I nodded. Why else had I come dashing into the Twilight?

'Let's go,' said the Inquisitor, gazing down intently at his feet.

A few moments later we stepped into the third level – a place
where only first-grade magicians were supposed to go.

The witch wasn't there.

'Well, that's inventive,' Edgar whispered. The house of branches
really was impressive. 'Anton, she built this herself . . . she can stay
down here for a long time.'

Slowly – the space around us resisted sudden movements – I
walked over to the wall, parted the branches and looked out.

It was nothing like the human world.

There were glittering clouds drifting across the sky – like steel
filings suspended in glycerine. Instead of the sun there was a broad
cloud of crimson flame way up high – the only spot of colour in
the hazy grey gloom. On all sides, as far as the horizon, there were
low, contorted trees, the same ones the witch had used to build
her house. But then, were they really trees? There were no leaves,
just a fantastic tangle of branches . . .

'Anton, she's gone deeper. She's beyond classification,' Edgar said
behind me. I turned and looked at the magician. Dark-grey skin,
a bald, elongated skull, sunken eyes . . . But still human eyes. 'How
do I look?' Edgar asked and bared his teeth in a smile. I wished
he hadn't – his teeth were sharp cones, like a shark's.

'Not great,' I admitted. 'I suppose I don't look any better?'

'It's only an appearance,' Edgar replied casually. 'Are you holding
up okay?'

I was. My second immersion in the lower depths of the Twilight
was going more smoothly.

'We have to go to the fourth level,' said Edgar. His eyes were
human, but with a fanatical gleam.

'Are you beyond classification then?' I asked him. 'Edgar, it's
hard for me even to go back!'

'We can combine our powers, watchman!'

'How?' I was perplexed. Both the Dark Ones and the Light
Ones have the concept of a 'Circle of Power'. But it's a dangerous
thing, and it requires at least three or four Others . . . and anyway,
how could we combine Light Power and Dark Power?

'That's my problem!' said Edgar, and began shaking his head
about. 'Anton, she'll get away! She'll get away on the fourth level!
Trust me!'

'A Dark One?'

'An Inquisitor,' the magician barked. 'I'm an Inquisitor, do you
understand? Anton, trust me, I ord . . .' Edgar stopped short and
then continued in a different tone: 'I'm asking you, please!'

I don't know what made me do it. The excitement of the hunt?
The desire to catch a witch who had destroyed thousands of people's
lives? The way the Inquisitor asked?

Or maybe a simple desire to see the fourth level? The most
mysterious depths of the Twilight, which even Gesar visited only
rarely, and where Svetlana had never been?
'What do I do?' I asked.

Edgar's face lit up. He reached out his hand – the fingers ended
in blunt, hooked claws – and said:

'In the name of the Treaty, by the equilibrium that I maintain,
I summon the Light and the Dark . . . and request power . . . in
the name of the Dark!'