ARINA WAS SITTING ON A CHAIR, WITH HER HANDS RESTING MODESTLY ON her knees. She wasn't smiling any more¡ªand in general she was as meek as a lamb.
"Can we manage without any more hocus-pocus from now on?" I enquired as I emerged into the real world. My back was wet and my legs were trembling slightly.
"Can I stay in this form, watchman?" Arina asked in a low voice.
"What for?" I asked, unable to resist taking petty revenge. "I've already seen the real you."
"Who's to say what's real in this world?" Arina said pensively. "It all depends on your point of view... Regard my request as simple female caprice, Light One."
"And the attempt to enchant me¡ªwas that a caprice too?"
Arina shot a bright, defiant glance at me and said, "Yes. I realize that my Twilight appearance... but here and now, this is what I am. And I have all the human feelings. Including the desire to please."
"All right, stay like that," I growled. "I can't say I'm exactly dreaming of a repeat performance... Remove the illusion from the magical objects."
"As you wish, Light One." Arina ran her hand over her hair, adjusting the style.
And the little house changed just a bit.
Now instead of the teapot, there was a small birchwood tub standing on the table, with steam still rising from it. The TV was still there, but the wire no longer ran to a nonexistent power-socket; instead it was stuck into a large brownish tomato.
"Ingenious," I remarked, nodding at the TV. "And how often do you have to change the vegetables?"
"Tomatoes¡ªevery day," the witch said with a shrug. "A head of cabbage works for two or three days."
I'd never seen such an ingenious way of producing electric power before. Sure, it was possible in theory... but in practice...
Anyway, I was more interested in the books in the bookcase. I walked over and took out the first small volume that came to hand, a slim one in a paper cover.
Hawthorn and Its Practical Use in Everyday Witchcraft.
The book had been printed on something like a rotary printer. Published the previous year. It even gave the print run¡ª 200 copies. And it even had an ISBN number! But the publishing house was unfamiliar: TP Ltd.
"A genuine botanical text... Do you people really print your own books?" I asked admiringly.
"Sometimes," the witch said modestly. "You can't copy everything out by hand..."
"Copying by hand isn't the worst of it," I remarked. "Sometimes things are written in blood..."
And I took the Kassagar Garsarra down from the shelf.
"In my own blood, mind," Arina said laconically. "No abominations."
"This book itself is an abomination," I remarked. "Well now, well now... 'Setting people against each other without excessive effort...'"
"Why are you trying to incriminate me?" Arina asked, irritated now. "Those are all academic editions. Antiques. I haven't stirred up trouble for anybody."
"Really?" I said, leafing through the book. " 'Soothing kidney ailments, driving out dropsy...' Okay, we'll let you have that."
"You wouldn't accuse anyone who was reading de Sade of planning to torture someone, would you?" Arina snapped. "That's our history. All sorts of different spells. Not divided into destructive and positive ones."
I cleared my throat. Basically she was right. The fact that there were all sorts of different magical recipes collected together in the book didn't constitute a crime in itself. And then there were things like this: "How to relieve the pain of a woman in childbirth without harming the child." But right there beside it was "Killing the fetus without harming the woman" and "Killing the fetus together with the woman."
Everything the way it always was with the Dark Ones.
But despite these foul recipes and the recent attempt to enchant me, there was something I liked about Arina. In the first place, there was the way she'd dealt with the children. There was no doubt that a smart old witch could easily have found some monstrous use for then. And then... there was something melancholy and lonely about her¡ªdespite all her power, her valuable library, and attractive human form.
"What have I done wrong?" Arina asked peevishly. "Come on, don't string it out, sorcerer."
"Are you registered?" I asked.
"Why, am I a vampire or a werewolf?" Arina asked in reply. "Now he wants to put a seal on me... the very idea..."
"No one's talking about a seal," I reassured her. "It's just that all magicians of the first level and higher are obliged to inform the district center of their place of residence. So that their movements will not be interpreted as hostile actions..."
"I'm not an enchantress¡ªI'm a witch!"
"Magicians, enchantresses, and Others of equivalent power..." I recited wearily. "You are on the territory of the Moscow Watch. You were obliged to inform us."
"There was never any of that before," the witch muttered. "The foremost sorcerers told each other about themselves, the vampires and werewolves were registered... and everybody left us alone."
That sounded strange...
"When was 'before?'" I asked.
"In '31," the witch said reluctantly.
"You've been living here since 1931?" I said, unable to believe my ears. "Arina..."
"I've been living here for two years. And before that..." She frowned. "It doesn't matter where I was before that. I didn't hear about the new laws."
Maybe she was actually telling the truth. It sometimes happens like that with old Others, especially those who don't work in the Watches. They hide themselves away somewhere in the middle of nowhere, way out in the taiga or the forest, and sit there for decades at a time, until the boredom just gets too much.
"And two years ago you decided to move here?" I asked, trying to get things straight.
"Yes. What would an old fool like me want with the city?" Arina laughed. "I just sit here and watch TV, read books. Catching up on what I've missed. I found an old friend of mine... she sends me books from Moscow."
"Well, all right," I said. "Then it's just the normal procedure. Have you got a sheet of paper?"
"Yes?"
"Write a statement. Your name, where you're from, year of birth, year of initiation, if you've ever served in a Watch, what level of powers you possess."
Arina obediently took out a piece of paper and a pencil. I frowned, but I didn't offer her a ballpoint pen. She could write it with a goose quill if she wanted.
"When was the last time you registered or made your location known to the official agencies of the Watches in any other way... Where you have been since then."
"I won't write it," said Arina, putting here pencil down. "All this newfangled paper-scribbling... Whose business is it where I've been warming my old bones?"
"Arina, stop talking like an old peasant woman," I told her. "You were speaking perfectly normal before."
"I was in disguise," Arina declared without batting an eyelid. "Oh, all right. But you drop that bureaucratic tone as well."
She rapidly covered the entire sheet with close, neat handwriting. Then handed it to me.
She wasn't as old as I'd been expecting. Less than two hundred years. Her mother had been a peasant woman, her father was unknown, there were no Others among her relatives. She had been initiated as a girl of eleven by a Dark Magician or, as Arina stubbornly referred to him, a sorcerer. Someone not local, German in origin. At the same time he had deflowered and abused her, which for some reason she found necessary to indicate, adding "the lascivious wretch." Ah... there was the reason. This "German" had taken the little girl as his servant and student¡ªin every respect. And he had evidently not been too bright or too gentle¡ªby the age of thirteen the little girl had acquired enough power to vanquish her mentor in a fair duel and dematerialize him. And he, by the way, was a fourth-level magician. After that she had come under the surveillance of the Watches of that time. But she had no other criminal acts in her record¡ªif her statement could be believed, that is. She didn't like cities. She had lived in villages and made her living by using petty witchcraft.
After the Revolution, several attempts had been made to reeducate her... the peasants had realized she was a witch and decided to set the security police onto her. Mausers and magic, would you believe it? Magic had won out, but things couldn't go on like that forever. In 1931, Arina...
I looked up at the witch and asked, "Seriously?"
"I went into hibernation," Arina said calmly. "I realized the red plague was going to last a long time. For a number of reasons I could choose to sleep for six, eighteen, or sixty years. We witches
always have to take a lot of conditions into account. Six years or eighteen was too short for the communists. I went to sleep for sixty years."
She hesitated, and then confessed, "It was here that I slept. I protected my hut as securely as I could, so that no human being or Other could come close...
Now I understood. Those were bad times. Others were killed almost as often as ordinary people. It wasn't too hard to go missing.
"And you didn't tell anyone you were sleeping here?" I asked. "None of your friends..."
Arina laughed. "If I'd told anyone, you wouldn't be here talking to me, Light One."
"Why?"
She nodded toward the bookcase. "That's my entire fortune. And it's a substantial one."
I folded up the statement and put it in my pocket. Then I said, "It is. But there's still one rare book I didn't spot there."
"Which one?" the witch asked in surprise.
"Fuaran."
Arina snorted. "Such a big boy, and you believe in fairy stories... There is no such book."
"Aha. And the little girl made up that title all on her own."
"I didn't clear her memory," Arina sighed. "Tell me, after that, what's the point in doing good deeds?"
"Where's the book?" I asked sharply.
"Third shelf down, fourth volume from the left," Arina said irritably. "Did you leave your eyes at home?"
I walked across to the bookcase and leaned down.
Fuaranl
Written in big gold letters on black leather. I took the book out and looked triumphantly at the witch.
Arina was smiling.
I looked at the title on the front cover¡ªFuaran¡ªFantasy or Fact? The word "Fuaran" was in large print, the others were smaller.
I looked at the spine... Now I saw it. The smaller letters had faded and crumbled away.
"A rare book," Arina admitted. "Thirteen copies were printed in St. Petersburg in 1913, at the printing works of His Imperial Highness. Printed properly, at night when the moon was full. I don't know how many of them have survived..."
Could a frightened little girl only have seen the word printed in big letters?
Of course she could.
"What's going to happen to me now?" Arina asked woefully. "What rights do I have?"
I sighed, sat down at the table, and leafed through the phony Fuaran. It was an interesting book, no doubt about it... .
"Nothing's going to happen to you," I told her. "You helped the children. The Night Watch is grateful to you for that."
"Why do people wrong each other for no reason," the witch muttered. "You're only harming yourself..."
"In view of that fact, and also the special circumstances of your life..." I rummaged in my memory, trying to recall the paragraphs, the footnotes, and the comments. "In view of all of this, you will not suffer any punishment. There's just one question: What is your level of Power?"
"I already wrote the answer¡ªT don't know,'" Arina answered calmly. "What instrument can you measure that with?"
"At least approximately?"
"When I went to sleep, I was on the first rank," the witch admitted with a certain pride. "But now I've probably moved beyond all the ranks."
That had to be right. That was why I hadn't been able to penetrate her illusion.
"Do you intend to work in the Day Watch?"
"What can they show me I haven't seen before?" Arina asked indignantly. "Especially since Zabulon's worked his way up to the top, hasn't he?"
"Yes, he has," I confirmed. "Why does that surprise you? Surely you don't think he isn't powerful enough?"
"He was never short of Power," Arina said, frowning. "Only he abandons his own people far too easily. His girlfriends... he never lived with any of them for more than ten years¡ªsomething always happened... and the stupid young fools still kept leaping into his bed anyway. And he really hates Ukrainians and Lithuanians. When there's dirty work to be done, he calls in a brigade from Ukraine and gets them to do it for him. If someone has to take a risk, then a Lithuanian will be at the top of the list... I thought he wouldn't last in the job with habits like that." Arina suddenly laughed. "Well, obviously he's become an expert at dodging danger. Good for him."
"Yes, good for him," I said sourly. "Well then, if you're not going to work in the Day Watch structures, and you continue to live as an ordinary civilian, you are granted the right to perform certain magical actions... for personal purposes. Each year¡ªtwelve seventh-level interventions, six sixth-level interventions, three fifth-level interventions, and one fourth-level intervention. Every two years¡ªone third-level intervention. Every four years¡ªone second-level intervention."
I stopped.
"And first-level interventions?" Arina enquired.
"The maximum level of power permitted to Others not in service with the Watches is limited to their previous level," I commented spitefully. "If you undergo an examination and are registered as a witch beyond classification, then once every sixteen years you will be granted the right to use first-level magic. By arrangement with the Watches and the Inquisition, naturally. First-level magic is a very serious business."
The witch smirked. It was a strange kind of smirk, just like an old woman's, and it looked unpleasant on that beautiful young face.
"I'll get by without the first-level one way or another. If I understand correctly, the limitations only apply to magic directed against people?"
"Against people and Others," I confirmed. "You can do whatever you like with yourself and inanimate objects."
"Well, thanks for that, at least," Arina said. "You know, I'm sorry I tried to enchant you, Light One. You don't seem too bad. Almost like us."
That dubious compliment made me cringe.
"One more question," I said. "Who were those werewolves?"
Arina paused. Then she asked, "Why, has the law been changed?"
"What law?" I asked, trying to play the fool.
"The old law. A Dark One is not obliged to inform on a Dark One. Or a Light One on a Light One..."
"There is such a law," I admitted.
"Well then¡ªyou catch the werewolves yourself. They may be bloodthirsty fools, but I won't give them away."
She said it firmly and confidently, and I had nothing to pressure her with. She hadn't assisted the werewolves, on the contrary.
"As for the magical acts directed against me..." I thought for a moment. "Never mind, I forgive you for that."
"Just like that?" the witch asked, surprised.
"just like that. I'm pleased I was able to resist them."
The witch snorted. "You think you resisted them, all on your own... Your wife's an enchantress. Do you think I'm blind and I can't tell that? She put a spell on you. So that no woman can seduce you."
"That's a lie," I replied calmly.
"Yes, it is," the witch admitted. "Well done. Enchantment's got nothing to do with it¡ªit's just that you love her. Well, my greetings to your wife, and your daughter. If you happen to meet Zabulon, tell him he always was an ass and he still is."
"With pleasure," I promised. Well, good for the old witch! She wasn't afraid to badmouth Zabulon. "And what shall I tell Gesar?"
"I'm not sending him any greetings," Arina said contemptuously. "What business could a village idiot like me have with great Tibetan magicians!"
I stood there, looking at this strange woman¡ªso beautiful in her human form, so repulsive in her true shape. A witch, a mighty witch. But I couldn't say she was spiteful or malicious¡ªshe was a jumble of just about everything.
"Don't you get miserable here on your own, grandma?" I asked.
"Are you trying to insult me?" Arina asked in response.
"Not in the least. I have learned a few things, after all."
Arina nodded, but she didn't answer me.
"You didn't want to seduce me at all, and you don't have any desires of the flesh left," I went on. "It's not the same for witches as for enchantresses. You're an old woman and you feel like an old woman¡ªyou couldn't give a damn about men. But then, you could carry on as an old woman for another thousand years. So you were only trying to seduce me out of sporting interest."
In the blink of an eye Arina was transformed. Turned into a neat, clean old woman with ruddy cheeks and a slight stoop, bright, lively eyes, a mouth with only a few teeth missing, and tidily arranged gray hair.
"Is that better?" she asked.
"Yes, I suppose so," I said, feeling slightly sad. After all, her previous form had been very attractive.
"I used to be like this... a hundred years ago," said the witch. "And I was the way you first saw me... once. And I was so lovely at sixteen. Ah, Light One, what a happy, beautiful girl I used to be. Even if I was a witch... Do you know why and how we age?"
"I heard something about it once," I admitted.
"It's the price for moving up in rank." Once again she used the old-fashioned word that had been completely displaced in recent years by the term "level," from computer games. "A witch can stay young in body. Only then you'll be stuck on third level forever. We're more closely linked with nature, and nature doesn't like falsehood. Do you understand?"
"I understand," I said.
Arina nodded. "Well then, Light One... be glad that your wife's an enchantress. You've dealt fairly to me, I won't deny that. Would a present be all right?"
"No," I said and shook my head. "I'm on duty. And a present from a witch..."
"I understand. I don't want to give you a present. It's for your wife."
That set me back. Arina hobbled spryly across to a trunk bound with strips of iron (standing where there had been an ordinary chest of drawers before), opened the lid, and put her hands inside. A moment later she came back to me, holding a small ivory comb.
"Take it, watchman. With no spite or dark intent, not for sorrow or for care. Make me a shadow if I lie, may I be scattered in the air."
"What is it?" I asked.
"A charm." Arina wrinkled up her forehead. "What do they call them nowadays... an artifact."
"But what's it for?"
"Don't you have enough Power to see?" Arina asked slyly. "Your wife will understand. And what do you want explanations for, Light One? I'll just lie, you won't know why. If I lie, you'll believe me. You're not as powerful as I am¡ªyou know that."
I bit my tongue and said nothing. After all... I'd paid her a couple of insults. And now I'd been given the answer I deserved.
"Take it, don't be afraid," Arina repeated. "Baba Yaga might be wicked, but she helps fine young heroes."
What was my problem, really?
"It would be better if you handed over the werewolves," I said, taking the comb. "I accept your present only as an intermediary, and this gift does not impose any obligations on anyone."
"A cunning young fellow," Arina chuckled. "But as for the wolves... I'm sorry. You understand, I know you do. I won't give them away. By the way, you can take the book. Borrow it, to check. You have that right, don't you?"
It was only then I realized I was still holding Fuaran¡ªFantasy or Fact? in my left hand.
"For expert examination, temporarily, within the terms of my rights as a Watchman," I said glumly.
The old harridan could lead me by the nose. If she hadn't wanted me to, I wouldn't have noticed the book I'd accidentally purloined until I got home. And she would have had a perfect right to complain to the Watches about the theft of a valuable "wonder."
When I left the house, I saw the night was already pitch-black, and I had at least two or three hours of staggering through the forest ahead of me.
But the moment I stepped down from the porch, a ghostly blue light appeared in the air ahead of me. I sighed and cast a glance at the little house, with the electric light glowing brightly in its windows. Arina hadn't come out to show me the way. The blue light danced invitingly in the air.
I followed it.
And five minutes later I heard the lazy yapping of dogs.
Then only ten minutes after that, I reached the outskirts of the village.
The most annoying thing about it all was that not once in all that time did I sense the slightest trace of magic.