The Twilight Watch (41 page)

But ordinary people managed to live, didn't they? And they
lived with the blind and the paralysed. Because, after all, freedom
was not the most important thing. Freedom was the excuse used
by scoundrels and fools. When they said 'freedom', they weren't
thinking about other people's freedom, only about their own limitations.

And even Kostya, who was neither a fool nor a scoundrel, had
been torn on the same hook that had caught the lips of revolutionaries
of every breed – from Spartacus to Trotsky, from
Robespierre to Che Guevara, from Emelyan Pugachev to the nameless
suicide bomber.

Surely I would have been caught on it myself? Ten or even five
years earlier?

If someone had told me: 'You can change everything at a single
stroke – and for the better'?

Perhaps I'd been lucky.

At least with the people around me, who always shook their
heads doubtfully at the words 'freedom and equality'.

The portal opened up in front of me – a blue prism with
glowing filaments, a glittering, faceted membrane . . .

I parted the filaments with my hands and entered.

T
HE PROBLEM WITH
portals is that there's no way to prepare
yourself for what's at the other end. In this sense a train is ideal.
You go into your compartment, change your trousers for tracksuit
bottoms and your shoes for rubber sandals, take out your food
and drink and get to know your travelling companions – if you
happen to be travelling on your own, that is. The wheels drum
on the rails, the platform slips past. And that's it, you're on your
way. You're a different person. You share intimate experiences with
strangers, you argue about politics, although you swore you never
would again, you drink the dubious vodka bought at one of the
stops. You're neither here nor there. You're on your way. You're on
your own little quest, and there's a little of Frodo Baggins in you,
and a bit of Paganel, a tiny drop of Robinson Crusoe and a
smidgeon of Radishchev. Maybe your journey will last a few hours,
or a few days. It's a big country slipping past the windows of your
compartment. You're not there. You're not here. You're a traveller.

A plane is different. Still, you prepare yourself for the journey.
You buy a ticket, get up at dawn, jump into a taxi and drive
to the airport. The wheels measure out the kilometres, but
you're already looking up at the sky, in your mind you're already
there, in the plane. The nervous hassle of the airport lounge, instant
coffee in the buffet, the baggage check, the security check and – if
you're leaving the country – the customs and the duty free shop, all
the small joys of travel before the narrow seats in the plane, the roar
of the turbines and the optimistic gabble of the air hostess: 'The
emergency exits are located . . .' And then the ground has already
fallen away, the seatbelt signs have been switched off, the smokers
have sneaked off guiltily to the toilets and the hostesses have considerately
ignored them, the meal in the plastic trays is handed out –
for some reason in planes everyone stuffs themselves. It's not exactly
a journey. It's a relocation. But you still see the cities and rivers
drifting past and leaf through a guidebook or check the bookings
for your business trip, wondering about the best way to handle the
negotiations, or the best way to enjoy a ten-day tourist trip to
hospitable Turkey or Spain or Croatia. And you're on your way.

But a portal is a shock. A portal is a sudden change of scenery,
a revolving stage in a theatre. You're here, then you're there. No
journey.

And no time to think about anything either.

I tumbled out of the portal. One foot struck a tiled floor, the
other went straight into a toilet.

At least it was a perfectly clean toilet. I pulled my foot back
out, wincing with pain as I did so.

I was in a tiny cubicle with a little lamp, a grille on the ceiling
and a roll of toilet paper on a holder. A fine portal this was!
Somehow I'd been expecting Kostya to run his portal straight to
the launch pad, close to the foot of the rocket.

I opened the door, still in pain, and peeped cautiously through
the crack. The washroom seemed to be empty. Not a sound, apart
from a tap running in one of the basins . . .

Then I was struck hard in the back and thrown bodily out of
the cubicle, pushing the door open with my head on the way. I
rolled over onto my back and flung my hand up, ready to strike.

Las was standing in the cubicle with his arms out to the sides,
holding onto the walls, and gazing around with a crazy expression
on his face.

'What are you doing?' I growled. 'Why did you follow me?'

'You told me to follow you,' said Las, offended. 'Big-shot magician!'

I got up. It was pointless arguing.

'I need to stop a crazed vampire,' I said. 'The most powerful
magician in the world at the present time. It's . . . it's going to get
pretty dangerous around here . . .'

'Are we at Baikonur then?' Las asked, not frightened in the
least. 'Now that's what I call magic, that's great! But did we really
have to teleport through the drains?'

I just waved a hand at him despairingly. Then I focused intently
on what I could hear inside me. Yes, Gesar was somewhere close
by, and Zabulon . . . and Svetlana . . . and hundreds, thousands of
Others. They were waiting.

They were counting on me.

'How can I help?' Las asked. 'Maybe I could look for some
aspen stakes? By the way, they make matches out of genuine aspen,
did you know that? I always wondered why it had to be aspen,
does it really burn better than anything else? But now I realise
it's for fighting vampires. Sharpen a dozen matches . . .'

I looked at Las.

He spread his arms apologetically.

'All right, all right . . . I'm only trying to be helpful.'

I walked across to the door of the washroom and looked out.
A long corridor, daylight lamps, no windows. At the end was a
man in uniform with a pistol on his belt. A guard? Yes, there had
to be security guards here. Even these days.

Only why was the guard frozen in such a stiff, awkward pose?

I went out into the corridor and moved towards the soldier. I
called quietly:

'Excuse me, do you mind if I ask you something?'

The guard didn't mind. He was staring into space – and smiling.
A young man, not yet thirty. Absolutely rigid. And very pale.

I pressed my fingers against his carotid artery – I could just
barely feel the pulse. The bite marks were almost invisible, there
were just a few small drops of blood on the collar. Kostya must
have been drained after that exit he'd made. He'd been in need
of refreshment, and there hadn't been any cats around . . .

But if the soldier was still alive, there was a chance he would
make it.

I took his pistol out of the holster – it looked like he must
have been reaching for it when the vampire's command made him
freeze – and carefully laid him out on the floor. Let him rest. Then
I turned round.

Of course, Las had followed me. And now he was gazing at the
motionless soldier.

'Can you use a gun?' I asked.

'I'll give it a try.'

'If you have to, aim for the head and the heart. If you hit him,
it might just slow him down.'

Naturally, I was under no illusions. Even if Las emptied the
entire clip into Kostya, which was unlikely enough, bullets wouldn't
stop a Higher Vampire. But at least it gave Las something to do.

I just hoped he wouldn't get the jitters and shoot me in the
back.

Finding Kostya wasn't hard, even without using magic. We came
across another three men – a guard and two civilians – who were
in a trance and had been bitten. Kostya must have been moving
in that vampire style that becomes too fast for the eye to follow,
when feeding takes no more than ten seconds.

'Will they become vampires now?' Las asked me.

'Only if he wanted them to. And they agreed.'

'I didn't think there was any choice.'

'There's always a choice,' I said, opening yet another door.

I realised we'd arrived.

It was a spacious, brightly lit hall, full of people. At least twenty
men. The cosmonauts were here – our captain, and the American,
and the space tourist, a German chocolate manufacturer.

They were all in a state of blissful trance. Apart from two
technicians in white coats, that is, whose eyes were vacant, but
whose hands were moving with their customary skill as they
helped Kostya put on a spacesuit. It wasn't an easy job – flight
suits are made to measure, and Kostya was a bit taller than the
German.

The unfortunate tourist, stripped naked – Kostya hadn't even
been worried about putting on his underwear – was sitting at one
side, sucking on his index finger.

'I've only got two or three minutes,' Kostya said cheerfully. 'So
don't try to stop me, Anton. Get in my way and I'll kill you.'

My appearance was no surprise to him, of course.

'They won't let the rocket take off,' I said. 'What were you
expecting? The Higher Ones know what you're planning.'

'They'll let it go, they have no choice,' Kostya replied calmly.
'The air defence cover here is pretty good, you can take my word
for it. And the cosmodrome's head of security has just given all
the necessary instructions. Are you trying to tell me they'll launch
a ballistic missile strike?'

'Yes.'

'You're bluffing,' Kostya replied coolly. 'A strike by the Chinese
or the Americans is out of the question. That would start a world
war. Our rockets aren't targeted on Baikonur. They won't let planes
with tactical warheads get close. You've no way out. Lie back, relax
and enjoy.'

Maybe he was right.

Or perhaps the Great Ones did have a plan to incinerate Baikonur
with a nuclear strike – and not start a world war.

That wasn't important.

The important thing was that Kostya had made up his own
mind that he wouldn't be stopped. That now they would take him
out and put him in the rocket . . . and what then?

What would he be able to do, sitting in a metal barrel, when
the portals of a dozen Higher Magicians opened on the launch
pad? When they instantly purged the brains of the head of security
and those who had to press the start button and destroyed
him with a portable nuclear missile or by activating some secret
satellite with an x-ray laser?

He wouldn't be able to do a thing!

A space ship isn't a car – you can't just steal it and
drive it away. A space launch is the coordinated effort of a thousand people,
and at every stage all it needs is for one little button to be pressed to
make sure the ship never reaches orbit.

Even if Kostya was a stupid fool, he was a Higher One now,
he should be reading the probability lines to foresee what would
happen – he must realise that he'd be stopped.

That meant . . .

That meant all of it – the cosmodrome, the rocket, the people
whose minds he'd taken over or put to sleep – all of it was a
blind, a bluff. Saratov airport all over again.

He didn't need a rocket! Just as he hadn't needed a plane!

He was going to open a portal straight into space.

So why had he come dashing to Baikonur? For the spacesuit?
Nonsense. Zvyozdny would have been much nearer, and somehow
or other he could have found a functional spacesuit the right size
there.

So it wasn't just for the spacesuit . . .

'I need to read the incantations,' Kostya said. 'To smear the blood
on the page. You can't do that in a vacuum.'

He got up and pushed the technicians aside. They stood obediently
to attention.

'I'll have to open a portal to the space station. For that I need
to know its precise position. And even so mistakes are possible . . .
maybe even inevitable.'

I couldn't sense him reading my thoughts, but he clearly was.

'You got everything right, Anton. I'm ready to depart for the
station at any second. Before all of you can do anything about it.
And even if Gesar and Zabulon turn themselves inside out, you
won't have enough Power. I'm as powerful as it's possible to be,
get it? Absolute Power! There is nowhere higher to go! Gesar
dreamed that your daughter would be the first enchantress to do
that . . .' Kostya laughed. 'But look – I'm the first!'

'Enchantress?' I asked, allowing myself a smile.

'Absolute Magician,' Kostya snapped. 'And that's why you can't
beat me. You can't gather enough Power, do you understand? I
am absolute!'

'You're an absolute zero,' I said. 'You're an absolute vampire.'

'Vampire, magician . . . what's the difference? I'm an absolute
Other.'

'You're right, there is no difference. We all live off human Power.
And you're not the most powerful of all – you're the weakest.
You're an absolute vacuum, sucking in Power that isn't yours.'

'So be it.' Kostya wasn't going to argue. 'That doesn't change a
thing, Anton. You can't stop me, and I'm going to carry out my
plan.'

He paused for a second, then said:

'And still you won't join me . . .What's going on in your head?'

I didn't answer. I drew in Power.

From Gesar and Zabulon, from Dark Ones and Light Ones,
from the Good and the Evil. Somewhere far away those I loved
and those I hated were all giving me their Power. And right then
it made no difference to me if that Power was Light or Dark. We
were all in the same boat now – in the same small boat out in
space, adrift in the absolute void . . .

'Go on, strike,' Kostya said contemptuously. 'You won't take me
by surprise again.'

'Strike,' Gesar whispered. 'Strike with the "white mist".'

The knowledge of what the 'white mist' was came creeping
into me together with the Light power. The knowledge was terrible,
frightening – even Gesar himself had only ever used the spell
once, and afterwards he'd sworn never to use it again . . .

'Strike!' Zabulon advised me. 'Better use "shades of the rulers".'

The knowledge of 'shades of the rulers' slid into me together
with the Dark power. The knowledge was even more horrifying
– not even Zabulon had ever dared raise those shadows from the
fifth level of the Twilight . . .

'Strike!' said Edgar. 'Use the "sarcophagus of the ages". Only
the "sarcophagus of the ages"!'

The knowledge of what the 'sarcophagus of the ages' was flooded
into me with the Power of the Inquisitors. The knowledge was
utterly spine-chilling – the one who used the spell remained in
the sarcophagus with his victim forever, until the universe came
to an end.

'What if I put a hole in his spacesuit?' asked Las, standing in
the doorway with his pistol.

An absolute Other.

An absolute zero.

The most powerful of all, the weakest of all . . .

I gathered together all the power I had been given – and put
it into a seventh-degree spell, one of the very simplest, one every
Other can manage.