t was another two hours before I got a chance to talk with Olga alone. The merrymaking that had seemed so forced to Svetlana had already moved outside. Semyon was in charge of the barbecue, handing out kebabs to everyone who wanted them¡ªthey seemed to me to cook with a speed that definitely hinted at the use of magic. There were two crates of dry wine standing in the shade nearby.

Olga was having a friendly chat with Ilya, both holding kebab skewers and a glass of wine. It was a shame to interrupt the idyll, but...

"Olya, I need to have a word with you," I said, going across to them. Svetlana was completely engrossed in an argument with Tiger Cub¡ªthe girls were having a passionate discussion about the Watch's traditional New Year Carnival, which they'd moved on to from the subject of the hot weather. The moment was just right.

"Excuse me, Ilya," said Olga with a shrug. "We'll come back to this, okay? I find your views on the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union very interesting. Even though you're not right."

Ilya smiled exultantly and walked away.

"Ask away, Anton," Olga said to me in exactly the same tone.

"Do you know what I'm going to ask?"

"I think I can guess."

I glanced around. There was no one near us. It was still that brief moment at the beginning of a summerhouse picnic when people want to eat and drink, before their stomachs and their heads both start to feel heavy.

"What's in store for Svetlana?"

"It's not easy to read the future. Especially the future of Great Magicians and Sorceresses..."

"Don't avoid the issue, partner," I said, looking into her eyes. "Stop it. We worked together, didn't we? We were partners? When your punishment was still in force and you didn't even have that body. And your punishment was just."

The blood drained from Olga's face.

"What do you know about my offense?"

"Everything."

"How?"

"I work with the data, after all."

"You don't have high enough clearance. And what happened to me has never been entered into the electronic archive."

"Circumstantial evidence, Olya. You've seen ripples running out across water, haven't you? The stone might be lying on the bottom already, deep in the silt, but the circles still keep on going. Eroding the banks, casting up garbage and foam, even overturning boats if the stone was really big. Let's just say I've spent a long time standing on the bank, Olya. Standing and watching the waves wearing it away."

"You're bluffing."

"No. Olga, what happens to Sveta next, after this? What stage of the training?"

The sorceress looked at me, completely forgetting her cold kebab and half-empty glass. I struck another blow.

"You've been through that stage, haven't you?"

"Yes." It looked like she was going to open up. "I have. But I was prepared for it more slowly."

"So what's the great hurry with Sveta?"

"Nobody was expecting another Great Sorceress to be born this century. Gesar had to improvise, make things up as he went along."

"Is that why they let you have your old form back? Not just for doing a good job?"

"You say you understand everything!" said Olga, her eyes glinting angrily. "So what's the point of tormenting me?"

"Are you monitoring her training? On the basis of your own experience?"

"Yes. Satisfied?"

"Olga, we're on the same side of the barricades," I whispered.

"Then don't stop your comrades from doing their jobs."

"Olga, what's the ultimate goal? What was it you couldn't do? What is it Sveta has to do?"

"You..." she said, genuinely confused now. "Anton, you were bluffing!"

I didn't answer.

"You don't know anything! Ripples on the water! You don't even know which way to look to see them!"

"Maybe so. But I got the important thing right, didn't I?"

Olga looked at me and bit her lip. Then she nodded.

"You did. A straight answer to a straight question. But I'm not going to explain anything. You shouldn't even know about it. It doesn't concern you."

"That's where you're wrong."

"None of us wish Sveta any harm," Olga said sharply. "Is that clear?"

"We don't know how to wish anyone harm. It's just that sometimes our Good is no different from Evil."

"Anton, let's stop right there. I have no right to answer your questions. And we shouldn't spoil this surprise vacation for the others."

"Just how much of a surprise is it?" I asked suggestively. "Well, Olya?"

But she'd already pulled herself together, and her expression remained impenetrable. Much too impenetrable for a question like that.

"You've found out too much already." Her voice was louder; it had assumed its former tone of authority.

"Olya, we've never been sent off on vacation at the same time. Not even for one day. Why has Gesar sent all the Light Ones out of Moscow?"

"Not all."

"Polina Vasilievna and Andrei don't count. You know perfectly well they're just office workers. Moscow's been left without a single Watch operative!"

"The Dark Ones have gone quiet too."

"So what?"

"Anton, that's enough."

I nodded, realizing I wouldn't be able to squeeze another word out of her.

"Okay, Olya. Six months ago we were on equal terms, even if it was only by accident. Now we're obviously not. I'm sorry. This is clearly a situation for someone with more experience."

Olga nodded. It was so unexpected I could hardly believe my eyes.

"You've finally got the idea."

Was she kidding me? Or did she really believe I'd decided not to interfere?

"I'm pretty quick on the uptake," I said. I looked at Svetlana. She was chatting happily with Tolik about something or other.

"Are you angry with me?" Olga asked.

I touched her hand, smiled, and went into the house. I wanted to do something. I wanted to do something as badly as a genie who's been let out of his bottle for the first time in a thousand years. Anything at all: Raise up castles, lay waste cities, program in Basic, or embroider in cross-stitch.

I opened the door without touching it, by pushing it through the Twilight. I don't know why I did it. I don't often do things like that, just sometimes when I've drunk a lot, or when I get really angry. The first reason didn't fit here.

There was no one in the living room. Why would anyone want to sit inside, when outside there were hot kebabs, cold wine, and more than enough beach chairs positioned under the trees?

I flopped down into an armchair. Picked up my glass¡ªor Sveta's¡ªfrom the low table and filled it with cognac, then downed it in one, as if it were cheap vodka, not fifteen-year-old Prazdnichny. Poured myself another glass.

That was when Tiger Cub came in.

"Don't mind, do you?" I asked.

"Of course not." The sorceress sat down beside me. "Anton, has something upset you?"

"Just ignore me."

"Have you had a fight with Sveta?"

I shook my head.

"That's not the problem."

"Anton, have I done something wrong? Aren't the guys having a good time?"

I stared at her in genuine amazement.

"Tiger Cub, don't be stupid! Everything's just great. Everyone's enjoying themselves."

"And you?"

I'd never seen the shape-shifting sorceress look so uncertain of herself. Were they having a good time or weren't they¡ªyou can't please everyone.

"They're moving ahead with Svetlana's training," I said.

"What for?" the young woman asked with a slight frown.

"I don't know. For something that Olga couldn't do. For something very dangerous and very important at the same time."

"That's good." She reached for a glass, poured herself some cognac, and took a sip.

"Good?"

"Sure. That they're training her, giving her direction." Tiger Cub looked around, trying to find something, then frowned and looked at the music center by the wall. "That remote's always going missing," she said.

The music center lit up and Queen started to play "It's a Kind of Magic." I was impressed by how casually she did it. Controlling electronic circuits at a distance isn't a simple trick; it's not like drilling holes in a wall just by looking at it or keeping the mosquitoes away with fireballs.

"How long did you train to work in the Watch?" I asked.

"I started at around seven years old. At sixteen, I was already involved in field operations."

"Nine years! And it's easier for you¡ªyour magic's natural. They're planning to turn Svetlana into a Great Sorceress in six months or a year!"

"That's tough going," the young woman agreed. "Do you think the boss is wrong?"

I shrugged. To say the boss was wrong would have been about as stupid as denying that the sun rises in the east in the morning. He'd been learning how not to make mistakes for hundreds¡ªeven thousands¡ªof years. Gesar might act harshly, even cruelly. He might provoke the Dark Ones and leave the Light Ones to carry on alone. He might do anything at all. Except make a mistake.

"I think he's overestimating Sveta's strength."

"Come off it! The boss calculates everything."

"I know he calculates everything. He plays the old game very well."

"And he wishes Sveta well," the sorceress added stubbornly. "Do you understand that? In his own way, maybe. You would have acted differently; so would I, or Semyon, or Olga. Any one of us would have done things differently. But he's in charge of the Watch. And he has every right to be."

"So he knows best?" I asked.

"Yes."

"And what about freedom?" I asked, pouring myself another glass. I didn't really need it; my head was already starting to hum. "Freedom?"

"You talk like the Dark Ones do," the young woman snorted.

"I prefer to think they talk like I do."

"It's all very simple, Anton." Tiger Cub leaned down over me and looked in my eyes. She smelled of cognac and something else, a light floral smell. It wasn't likely to be perfume: shape-shifters don't like anything that is scented. "You love her."

"Sure, I love her. That's no news to anyone."

"You know she'll soon be on a higher level of power than you?"

"If she isn't already." I didn't mention it, but I remembered how easily Sveta had sensed the magical screens in the walls.

"She'll go way beyond you. Her powers will totally dwarf yours. Her problems will seem incomprehensible to you; they'll seem weird. Stay with her and you'll start feeling like a useful parasite, a gigolo; you'll start clutching at the past."

"Yes." I nodded and was surprised to notice my glass was already empty. My hostess watched me closely as I filled it again. "So I won't stay. I don't need that."

"But there isn't anything else on offer."

I'd never suspected that she could be so hard. I'd hadn't expected her to be so worried about whether everyone liked her hospitality and her home, and I hadn't expected to hear this bitter truth from her either.

"I know."

"If you know that, Anton, there's only one reason you're feeling so outraged about the boss dragging Sveta upward so fast."

"My time will soon be gone," I said. "It's sand running through my fingers, rain falling from the sky."

"Your time? Yours and hers, Anton."

"It was never ours, never."

"Why?"

It was a good question. Why? I shrugged.

"You know, there are some animals that don't reproduce in captivity."

"There you go again!" the young woman exclaimed indignantly. "What captivity? You should be glad for her. Svetlana will be the pride of the Light Ones. You were the first one to discover her; you were the one who saved her."

"For what? One more battle with Darkness? An unnecessary battle?"

"Anton, now you're talking just like a Dark One yourself. You love her! So don't demand or expect anything in return. That's the way of the Light!"

"Love begins where Darkness and Light end."

Tiger Cub was so indignant she couldn't even answer that. She shook her head sadly and said reluctantly:

"You can at least promise..."

"That depends on what."

"To be sensible. To trust your senior colleagues."

"I promise halfway."

Tiger Cub sighed and then said reluctantly:

"Listen, Anton, you probably think I don't understand you at all. But it's not true. I didn't want to be a shape-shifting magician. I had healing powers, and pretty serious ones."

"Really?" I looked at her in amazement. I'd never have thought it.

"Yes, I did," the young woman confirmed casually. "But when I had to choose which side of my powers to develop, the boss called me in. We sat and talked over tea and cakes. We talked very seriously, like grown people, although I was only a little girl, younger than Yulia is now. About what the Light needed and who the Watch needed, what I could achieve. And we decided that I should develop my combat powers, even at the expense of everything else. I didn't much like the idea at first. Do you know how painful it is when you change?"

"Into a tiger?"

"No, changing into a tiger's okay; the hard part's changing back. But I stuck with it. Because I believed the boss, because I realized it was the right thing to do."

"And now?"

"Now I'm happy," the young woman declared passionately. "When I see what I would have lost, what I would have been doing with my time. Herbs and spells, fiddling with distorted psychic fields, neutralizing black vortices, mixing up charms..."

"Blood, pain, fear, death," I said in the same tone. "Doing battle on two or three levels of reality simultaneously. Dodging the fire, tasting the blood, going through hell and high water."

"That's war."

"Yes, probably. But why do you have to be the one in the front line?"

"Someone has to be, don't they? And then, after all, I wouldn't have had a house like this." Tiger Cub waved her hand around the living room. "You know yourself you can't earn much from healing. If you heal with all your power, it just means someone else keeps killing people."

"This is a nice place," I agreed. "But how often are you here?"

"Whenever I can be."

"I guess that's not very often. You take shift after shift; you're always where the action's hottest."

"That's my path."

I nodded. What business was it of mine? I said:

"You're right. I suppose I must be tired. That's why I'm talking such nonsense."

Tiger Cub looked at me suspiciously, surprised I'd given in so quickly.

"I need to sit here with my glass for a while," I added. "Get totally drunk all on my own, fall asleep under the table, and wake up with a splitting headache. Then I'll feel better."

"Go on, then," the sorceress said, with a slightly nervous note in her voice. "What did we come here for? The bar's open; you can choose whatever you like. We can go and join the others. Or I could stay and keep you company."

"No, I'd be better off on my own," I said, slapping my hand against the pot-bellied bottle. "In absolute misery with no food to go with the drink and no company. Look in before you go for a swim. Just in case I'm still capable of moving."

"Okay."

She smiled and went out. I was left all alone¡ªunless the bottle of Armenian cognac counted as company. Sometimes it helps to believe it does.

She was a fine girl. They were all fine and wonderful, my friends and colleagues at the Watch. I could hear their voices through the music of Queen, and I liked that. I got along really well with some of them and not so well with others. But I had no enemies here and I never would have. We were a close team, we always would be, and there was only one way we could ever lose each other.

So why was I so unhappy about what was going on? I was the only one¡ªOlga and Tiger Cub approved of the boss's plan, and if I asked the others, they'd all feel the same way.

Maybe I really wasn't being objective?

Probably.

I took a sip of cognac and then peeped through the Twilight, trying to locate the pale lights of alien, unintelligent life in the living room.

I discovered three mosquitoes, two flies, and one spider, right up in a corner under the ceiling.

I shuffled my fingers and made a tiny fireball, two millimeters across. I took aim at the spider¡ªa fixed target is best for practicing on¡ªand sent the fireball on its way.

There was nothing immoral about my behavior. We're not Buddhists, at least most of the Others in Russia aren't. We eat meat, we kill flies and mosquitoes, we poison cockroaches: If you're too lazy to learn new frightening spells every month, the insects quickly develop immunity to your magic.

Nothing immoral. It was just funny; it was the proverbial "using a fireball to kill a mosquito." A favorite game with children of all ages when they're studying in the Watch's courses. I think the Dark Ones probably do the same, except that they don't distinguish between a fly and a sparrow, a mosquito and a dog.

I fried the spider with my first shot. And the drowsy mosquitoes weren't any problem, either.

I celebrated each victory with a glass of cognac, clinking my glass against the obliging bottle. Then I started trying to kill the flies, but either I already had too much alcohol in my blood or the flies were much better at sensing the little ball of fire approaching. I wasted four shots on the first one, but even though I missed, at least I managed to disperse the first three in time. I got the second fly with my sixth shot, and in the process I managed to zap two balls of lightning into the glass of the cabinet standing against the wall.

"Sorry about that," I said repentantly, downing my cognac. I got up and the room suddenly swayed. I went over to the cabinet, which contained swords hanging on a background of black velvet. At first glance I thought they looked German, fifteenth or sixteenth century. The lighting was switched off, and I didn't try to determine their age more precisely. There were little craters in the glass, but at least I hadn't hit the swords.

I thought for a while about how to put things right and couldn't come up with anything better than putting the glass that had been scattered around the living room back where it had come from. It cost me more effort than if I'd dematerialized all the glass and then recreated it.

After that I went into the bar. I didn't feel like any more cognac, but a bottle of Mexican coffee liqueur looked like a good compromise between the desire to get drunk and the desire to perk myself up. Coffee and alcohol, all in the same bottle.

When I turned back around I saw Semyon sitting in my chair.

"They've all gone to the lake," the magician told me.

"I'll be right there," I promised, walking toward him. "Right there."

"Put the bottle down," Semyon advised me.

"What for?" I asked. But I put it down.

Semyon looked hard into my eyes. My barriers didn't go up, and when I realized it was a trick it was too late. I tried to look away, but I couldn't.

"You bastard," I gasped, doubling over.

"Down the corridor on the right!" Semyon shouted after me. His eyes were still boring into my back; the invisible connecting thread was still trailing after me.

I reached the toilet. Five minutes later my tormentor caught up with me.

"Feeling better?"

"Yes," I said, breathing heavily. I got up off my knees and stuck my head into the sink. Semyon opened the faucet without saying anything and slapped me on the back.

"Relax. We started with basic folk remedies, but now..."

A wave of heat ran through my body. I groaned, but I didn't complain anymore. The dull stupefaction was long gone already, and now the final toxins came flying out of me.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Helping your liver out. Have some water and you'll feel better."

It helped all right.

Five minutes later I walked out of the toilet, sweaty and wet, but absolutely sober. I even tried to protest at the violation of my rights.

"What did you interfere for? I wanted to get drunk and I did."

"You young people," said Semyon, shaking his head reproachfully. "He wanted to get drunk? Who gets drunk on cognac? Especially after wine? And especially that quick, half a liter in half an hour. There was this time Sasha Kuprin and I decided to get drunk..."

"Which Sasha's that?"

"You know the one, the writer. Only he wasn't a writer then. We got loaded the right way, the civilized way, totally smashed, complete with dancing on the tables, shooting into the ceiling, and wild debauchery."

"Was he an Other then?"

"Sasha? No, but he was a good man. We drank a quarter of a bucket, and we got the grammar school girls tipsy on champagne."

I slumped down onto the couch. I looked at the empty bottle and gulped, starting to feel sick again.

"A quarter of a bucket; you must have got really drunk?"

"Of course we got drunk!" Semyon said. "It's okay to get drunk, Anton. If you need to real bad. Only you have to get drunk on vodka. Cognac and wine¡ªthat's all for the heart."

"So what's vodka for?"

"For the soul. If it's hurting real bad."

He looked at me in gentle reproach, a funny little magician with a cunning face, with his own funny little memories about great people and great battles.

"I was wrong," I admitted. "Thanks for your help."

"No problem, my man. I once sobered up another Anton three times in the same evening, when he needed to drink without getting drunk; it was work."

"Another Anton? Chekhov?" I asked in astonishment.

"No, don't be stupid. It was another Anton, one of us. He was killed in the Far East, when the samurai..." Semyon flipped his hand through the air and stopped. Then he said almost affectionately. "Don't you be in such a hurry. We'll do things the civilized way this evening. Right now we've got to catch up with the others. Let's go, Anton."

I followed Semyon meekly out of the house. And I saw Sveta. She was sitting on a lounger, already wearing her bathing suit and bright-colored skirt, or rather a strip of cloth around her hips.

"Are you okay?" she asked, looking at me in surprise.

"Absolutely. The kebabs just didn't agree with me."

Svetlana stared hard at me. But apparently the dark flush on my face and my wet hair were the only signs I'd gotten drunk so quickly.

"You should have your pancreas checked out."

"Everything's okay," Semyon put in rapidly. "Believe me, I studied healing too. It was the heat, the sour wine, the fatty kebabs¡ªnothing more to it. What he needs now is a swim, and in the cool of the evening we'll polish off a bottle together. That's all the treatment he needs."

Sveta got up, walked up to me, and looked into my eyes sympathetically.

"Maybe we should just sit here for a while? I'll make some strong tea."

Yes, probably. It would be good. Just to sit here. The two of us. And drink tea. Talk or not say a word. That didn't matter. Look at her sometimes or not even look. Just hear her breathing¡ªor stop up my ears. Simply know that we're together. Just the two of us, and not the entire Night Watch team. Together because we want to be, not because of some plan hatched up by Gesar.

Had I really forgotten how to smile?

I shook my head, twisting my stubborn face into a cowardly smile.

"Let's go. I'm not a doddery old veteran of the magic wars yet. Let's go, Sveta."

Semyon had already gone on ahead, but somehow I could tell that he winked. In approval.

The night didn't bring any real coolness, but at least it took the edge off the heat. From about six or seven the company split up into little groups. The indefatigable Ignat stayed down by the lake with Lena and, strangely enough, Olga. Tiger Cub and Yulia went off to wander through the forest. The others were scattered around the house and the surrounding yard.

Semyon and I occupied the large balcony on the second floor. It was cozy in there; with its comfortable wicker furniture, the breeze blows through¡ªthe perfect place for hot weather.

"Number one," said Semyon, taking a bottle of Smirnovskaya vodka out of a plastic bag with an advertisement for "Dannon kids'" yogurt.

"Do you recommend that?" I asked doubtfully. I didn't regard myself as a great specialist on vodka.

"I've been drinking it for more than a hundred years. And it used to be far worse than it is now, believe me."

He took two plain glasses out of the bag, a two-liter jar with little pickles floating in brine under its flat tin lid, and a large container of sauerkraut.

"What about something to drink with it?" I asked.

"You don't drink anything else with vodka, my boy," said Semyon, shaking his head. "Only with the fake stuff."

"There's always something new to learn."

"You'll learn this lesson soon enough. And there's no need to worry about the vodka, Chernogolovka village is in the territory I patrol. I know this wizard who works in the distillery there, small-fry, not particularly nasty. He gets me the right stuff."

"An exchange of petty favors," I commented.

"No exchange. I pay him money, all honest and above board. It's our private business, nothing to do with the Watches."

Semyon deftly twisted the cap off the bottle and poured us half a glass each. His bag had been standing on the veranda all day, but the vodka was still cold.

"To good health?" I suggested.

"Too soon for that. To us."

When he'd sobered me up, he must have done a thorough job and not just removed the alcohol from my bloodstream, but all the metabolic by-products as well. I drank the half-glass without even shuddering and was amazed to discover that vodka could taste good after the heat of a summer day, not only after a winter frost.

"Well, now," said Semyon with a grunt of satisfaction, settling down more comfortably. "We should drop a hint to Tiger Cub that a pair of rocking chairs would be good up here."

He took out his appalling Yavas and lit up. When he spotted the expression of annoyance on my face he said:

"I'm going to continue smoking them anyway. I'm a patriot, I love my country."

"I'm a patriot too, I love my health," I retorted.

Semyon chuckled.

"There was one time this foreigner I knew invited me to go around to his place," he began.

"A long time ago?" I asked, playing along.

"Not really, last year. He invited me around so I could teach him how to drink Russian-style. He was staying in the Penta hotel. So I picked up a casual girlfriend of mine and her brother¡ªhe was just back from prison camp, with nowhere to go¡ªand off we went."

I imagined what the group must have looked like and shook my head.

"And they let you in?"

"Yes."

"You used magic?"

"No, my foreign friend used money. He'd laid in plenty of vodka and snacks; we started drinking on April thirtieth and finished on May second. We didn't let the maids in and we never turned the television off."

Looking at Semyon in his crumpled, Russian-made check shirt, scruffy Turkish jeans, and battered Czech sandals, I could easily imagine him drinking beer poured out of a three-liter metal keg. But it was hard to imagine him in the Penta.

"You monsters," I said in horror.

"Why? My friend was very pleased. He said now he understood what real Russian drunkenness was all about."

"What is it about?"

"It's about waking up in the morning with everything around you looking gray. Gray sky, gray sun, gray city, gray people, gray thoughts. And the only way out is to have another drink. Then you feel better. Then the colors come back."

"That was an interesting foreigner you found yourself."

"Sure was!"

Semyon poured the vodka again¡ªthis time filling the glasses a bit less full. Then he thought about it and filled them right up to the top.

"Let's drink, my man. Here's to not having to drink in order to see the blue sky, the yellow sun, and all the colors of the city. Let's drink to that. We go in and out of the Twilight, and we see that the other side of the world isn't what everyone else thinks it is. But then, there's probably more than one other side. Here's to bright colors!"

I downed half my glass, totally dumbfounded.

"Don't blow it, kid," Semyon said without changing his tone of voice.

I drained my glass and followed the vodka with a handful of sweet-and-sour cabbage.

I asked him:

"Semyon, why do you act like this? Why do you need to shock people with this image of yours?"

"Those are very clever words; I don't understand them."

"But really?"

"It's easier this way, Antoshka. Everyone looks after himself the best way he can. This is my way."

"What should I do, Semyon?" I asked, without explaining what I meant.

"Do what you ought to do."

"And what if I don't want to do what I ought to do? If our bright, radiant truth and our watchman's oath and our wonderful good intentions stick in my throat?"

"There's one thing you've got to understand, Anton," said the magician, crunching on a pickle. "You should have realized it ages ago, but you've been tucked away with those machines of yours. Our Light truth may be big and bright, but it's made up of lots and lots of little truths. And Gesar may have a forehead a meter wide and the kind of experience you could never even dream of. But he also has hemorrhoids that were healed by magic, an Oedipus complex, and a habit of reconfiguring old schemes that worked in the past to make them look new. Those are just some examples; I don't really know what his oddities are; he's the boss, after all."

He took out another cigarette, and this time I didn't object.

"Anton, I'll tell you what the problem is. You're a young guy, you join the Watch, and you're delighted with yourself. At last the whole world is divided up into black and white! Your dream for humanity has come true; now you can tell who's good and who's bad. So get this. That's not the way it is. Not at all. Once we all used to be together. The Dark Ones and the Light Ones. We used to sit around our campfire in the cave and look through the Twilight to see where the nearest pasture was with a woolly mammoth grazing on it, sing and dance, shoot sparks out of our fingers, zap the other tribes with fireballs. And let's say there were two brothers, both Others. Maybe when the first one went into the Twilight he was feeling well-fed; maybe he'd just made love for the first time. But for the other one it was different. Some green bamboo had given him a bellyache; his woman had turned him down because she claimed she had a headache and was tired from scraping animal skins. And that's how it started. One leads everyone to the mammoth and he's satisfied. The other demands a piece of the trunk and the chief's daughter into the bargain. That's how we got divided up into Dark Ones and Light Ones, into good and evil. Pretty basic stuff, isn't it? It's what we teach all the little Other children. But who ever told you it had all stopped?"

Semyon leaned toward me so abruptly that his chair cracked.

"That's the way it was, it still is, and it always will be. Forever, Antoshka. There isn't any end to it. Today if anyone runs riots and sets off through a crowd, doing good without permission, we dematerialize him. Into the Twilight with him; he's a hysterical psychopath; he's disturbing the balance¡ªinto the Twilight. But what's going to happen tomorrow? In a hundred years? In a thousand? Who can see that far? You, me, Gesar?"

"So what do I do?"

"Do you have a truth of your own, Anton? Tell me, do you? Are you certain of it? Then believe in it, not in my truth, not in Gesar's. Believe in it and fight for it. If you have enough courage. If the idea doesn't make you shudder. What's bad about Dark freedom is not just that it's freedom from others. That's another explanation for little children. Dark freedom is first and foremost freedom from yourself, from your own conscience and your own soul. The moment you can't feel any pain in your chest¡ªcall for help. Only by then it'll be too late."

He paused to reach into the plastic bag and took out another bottle of vodka. He sighed:

"Number two. I have a feeling we're not going to get drunk after all. We won't make it. And as for Olga and what she said..."

How did he always manage to hear everything?

"She's not envious because Svetlana might be able to do something she didn't do. And not because Svetka still has everything ahead of her while Olga, frankly speaking, has it all behind her at this stage. She envies Sveta because you love her and you're there for her and you'd like to stop her. Even though you can't do a thing about it. Gesar could have, but he didn't want to. You can't, but you want to. Maybe in the end there's no difference, but it still gets to her. It tears at her soul, no matter how old she might be."

"Do you know what they're preparing Svetlana for?"

"Yes," said Semyon, splashing more vodka into the glasses.

"What is it?"

"I can't answer that. I gave a written pledge. Do you want me to take my shirt off, so you can see the sign of chastising fire on my back? If I say a word I'll go up in flames with this chair, and the ashes will fit in a cigarette pack. So I'm sorry, Anton. Don't try to squeeze it out of me."

"Thanks," I said. "Let's drink. Maybe we will get smashed after all? I certainly need it."

"I can see that," Semyon agreed. "Let's get to it."