Authors: Sergei Lukyanenko
I suddenly felt sorry for him. Incredibly sorry. Perhaps for the first time in a thousand years the Great Magician, the Most Light Gesar, destroyer of monsters and guardian of states, had been forced to tell the entire truth. Not the beautiful and exalted truth that he was used to telling.
'Don't, don't. I know!' I shouted.
But the Great Magician shook his head.
'Everything I've done was dedicated to that purpose. To force the senior levels to repeal Olga's punishment completely. To force them to restore her powers and allow her to pick up the chalk of Destiny once again. She had to become my equal. Otherwise our love was doomed. And I love her, Anton.'
Svetlana laughed. Very, very quietly. I thought she was going to slap the boss's face, but I suppose I still didn't understand her completely. Svetlana went down on her knees in front of Gesar and kissed his right hand.
The magician trembled. He seemed for a moment to have lost his infinite powers: the protective dome began shuddering and dissolving. Once more we were deafened by the roar of the hurricane.
'Are we going to change the destiny of the world again?' I asked. 'Apart from our own little personal concerns?'
He nodded and asked in return:
'Why, don't you like the idea?'
'No.'
'Well, Anton, you can't always be a winner. I haven't, and you won't be either.'
'I know that,' I said. 'Of course I know it, Gesar. But still, it would be nice.'
January–August 1998
Moscow
T
HE ENTRANCE DID
not inspire respect. The coded lock was broken and not working, the floor was littered with the trampled butts of cheap cigarettes. Inside the lift the walls were covered with illiterate graffiti, in which the word 'Spartak' figured as often as the usual crude obscenities; the plastic buttons had been burned through with cigarettes and painstakingly plugged with chewing-gum that was now rock-hard.
The door into the apartment on the fourth floor was a good match for the entrance: some hideous old kind of Soviet artificial leather, cheap aluminium numbers barely held up by their crookedly inserted screws.
Natasha hesitated for a moment before she pressed the doorbell. She must be insane to hope for anything from a place like this. If you were so crazy or desperate that you decided to try magic, you could just open the newspaper, switch on the TV or listen to the radio. There were serious spiritualist salons, experienced mediums with internationally recognised diplomas ... It was all still a con, of course. But at least you'd be in pleasant surroundings, with pleasant people, not like this last resort for hopeless losers.
She rang the bell anyway. She didn't want to waste the time she'd spent on the journey.
For a few moments it seemed that the apartment was empty. Then she heard hasty footsteps, the steps of someone in a hurry whose worn slippers are slipping off their feet as they shuffle along. For a brief instant the tiny spy-hole went dark, then the lock grated and the door opened.
'Oh, Natasha, is it? Come in, come in . . .'
She had never liked people who spoke too familiarly from the very first meeting. There ought to be a little more formality at first.
But the woman who had opened the door was already pulling her into the apartment, clutching her unceremoniously by the hand, and with an expression of such sincere hospitality on her ageing, brightly made-up face that Natasha didn't feel strong enough to object.
'My friend told me that you . . .' Natasha began.
'I don't know, I don't know about that, my dear,' said her hostess, waving her hands in the air. 'Oh, don't take your shoes off, I was just going to clean the place up . . . oh, all right then, I'll try to find you a pair of slippers.'
Natasha looked around, concealing her disgust with difficulty.
The hall wasn't so very small, but it was crammed incredibly full. The light bulb hanging from the ceiling was dull, maybe thirty watts at best, but even that couldn't conceal the general squalor. The hallstand was heaped high with clothes, including a musquash winter coat to feed the moths. The lino of the small area of floor that could be seen was an indistinct grey colour. Natasha's hostess must have been planning her cleaning session for a long time.
'Your name's Natasha, isn't it, my daughter? Mine's Dasha.'
Dasha was fifteen or twenty years older than her. At least. She could have been Natasha's mother, but with a mother like that you'd want to hang yourself ... A pudgy figure, with dirty, dull hair and bright nail varnish peeling from her fingernails, wearing a washed-out house coat and crumbling slippers on her bare feet. Her toenails glittered with nail varnish too. God, how vulgar!
'Are you a seer?' Natasha asked. And in her own mind she cried: 'What a fool I am.'
Dasha nodded. She bent down and extracted a pair of rubber slippers from a tangled heap of footwear. The most idiotic kind of slippers ever invented – with all those rubber prongs sticking out on the inside. A Yogi's dream. Some of them had fallen off long before, but that didn't make the slippers look any more comfortable.
'Put them on!' Dasha suggested joyfully.
As if hypnotised, Natasha took off her sandals and put on the slippers. Goodbye, tights. She was bound to end up with a couple of ladders. Even in her famous Omsa tights with their famous Lycra. Everything in this world was a swindle invented by cunning fools. And for some reason intelligent people always fell for it.
'Yes, I'm a seer,' Dasha declared as she attentively supervised the donning of the slippers. 'I got it from my grandma. And my mum too. They were all seers, they all helped people, it runs in our family . . . Come through into the kitchen, Natasha, I haven't tidied up the rooms yet . . .'
Still cursing herself for being so stupid, Natasha went into the kitchen, which fulfilled all her expectations. A heap of dirty dishes in the sink and a filthy table – as they appeared, a cockroach crawled lazily off the table-top and round under it. A sticky floor. The windows had obviously not been spring-cleaned and the ceiling was fly-spotted.
'Sit down.' Dasha deftly pulled out a stool from under the table and moved it over to the place of honour – between the table and the fridge, a convulsively twitching Saratov.
'Thank you, I'll stand.' Natasha had made her mind up definitely not to sit down. The stool inspired even less confidence than the table or the floor. 'Dasha . . . That's Darya?'
'Yes, Darya.'
'Darya, I really only wanted to find out . . .'
The woman shrugged. She flicked the switch on the electric kettle – probably the only object in the kitchen that didn't look as if it had been retrieved from a rubbish tip. She looked at Natasha.
'Find out? There's nothing to find out. Everything's just as clear as can be.'
For a moment Natasha had an unpleasant, oppressive sensation, as if there wasn't enough light in the kitchen. Everything went grey, the agonised rumbling of the refrigerator and the traffic outside on the avenue fell silent. She wiped the icy perspiration from her forehead. It was the heat. The summer, the heat, the long journey in the metro, the crush in the trolleybus . . .Why hadn't she taken a taxi? She'd sent away the driver with the car – well, she'd been embarrassed to give anyone even a hint of where she was going and why . . . but why hadn't she taken a taxi?
'Your husband's left you, Natashenka,' Darya said affectionately. 'Two weeks ago. Left all of a sudden, packed, threw his things into a suitcase and just upped and left you. Without any quarrels, without any arguments. He left the apartment, left the car. And he went to the other woman, that pretty young bitch with black eyebrows . . . but you're not old yet, my daughter.'
This time Natasha didn't even react to the words 'my daughter'. She was trying desperately to remember what she'd told her friend and what she hadn't. She didn't think she'd mentioned black eyebrows. Although the girl really did have dark skin, and black hair . . . Natasha was again overcome by a wild, blind fury.
'And I know why he left, Natashenka . . . Forgive me for calling you my daughter, you're a strong woman, used to making up your own mind about things, but you're all like my own daughters to me . . .You didn't have any children, Natasha. Did you?'
'No,' Natasha whispered.
'But why not, my dear?' the seer asked, shaking her head reproachfully. 'He wants a daughter, right?'
'Yes, a daughter . . .'
'Then why didn't you have one?' Darya asked with a shrug. 'I've got five children. Two of them went into the army, the eldest. One daughter's married, she's nursing her baby now, the other's studying. And the youngest, the wild one . . .' She waved her hand through the air. 'Sit down, why don't you . . .'
Natasha reluctantly lowered herself onto the stool, holding her handbag firmly on her knees. Trying to seize the initiative, she said:
'It's just the way life worked out. Well ... I would have had a child for him, but you can't ruin your career for that.'
'That's true too.' The seer didn't try to argue. She rubbed her face with her hands. 'It's your choice . . . Right then, you want to bring him back? But why did he leave? The other woman's already carrying his child . . . and she made a real effort too. Listening to him, and sympathising with him, and getting up to all sorts of tricks in bed . . .You had a good man, the kind every woman wants to get. Do you want to bring him back? Even now?'
Natasha pursed her lips.
'Yes.'
The seer sighed.
'We
can
bring him back . . . we
can . .
.' Her tone of voice had changed subtly, become firm and emphatic.'. . . only it won't be easy. Just bringing him back isn't all that hard, it's keeping him that's the problem!'
'I want to anyway.'
'All of us, my daughter, have our own magic inside us.' Darya leaned forward across the table. Her eyes seemed to be drilling right through Natasha. 'Simple, ancient female magic. With all your ambitions, you've completely forgotten about it, and that's a mistake. But never mind. I'll help you. Only we'll have to do everything in three stages.'
She knocked gently on the table.
'The first thing ... I'll give you a love potion. This is not a great sin . . . The potion will bring your man back home. It will bring him back, but it won't keep him there.'
Natasha nodded uncertainly. The idea of dividing the spell into 'three stages' seemed inappropriate somehow – especially coming from this woman in this apartment . . .
'The second thing . . .Your rival's child must never be born. If it is, you won't be able to keep your man. So you'll have to commit a great sin, destroy an innocent child in the womb . . .'
'What do you mean?' Natasha said, shuddering. 'I'm not going to end up in court!'
'I'm not talking about poison, Natashenka. I'll make a pass with my hands' – and the seer did just that with her open palms – 'and then clap them . . . And the job's done, the sin's committed. No courts involved.'
Natasha said nothing.
'Only I won't take that sin on myself,' said Darya, crossing herself hurriedly. 'I'll help you if you like, but then
you'll
have to answer to God!'
Evidently taking silence as consent, she continued:
'The third thing . . .You'll have a child yourself. I'll help with that too. You'll have a beautiful, clever daughter who'll be a support to you and a joy to your husband. Then all your troubles will be over.'
'Are you serious about all this?' Natasha asked in a quiet voice. 'You can really do all this . . . ?'
'I'll tell you how it is,' said Darya, standing up. 'You say "yes", and it will all happen. Your husband will come back tomorrow and the day after tomorrow your rival will miscarry. And I won't take any money from you until you get pregnant. But afterwards I will – and I'll take a lot, I tell you that now, I swear by Christ the Lord.'
Natasha gave a crooked smile.
'And what if I cheat you and don't bring you the money? After everything's already happened . . .'
She stopped short. The seer was looking at her sternly, saying nothing. With an air of gentle sympathy, like a mother looking at a foolish daughter . . .
'You won't cheat me, Natashenka. Just think about it for a moment and you'll realise it's not even worth trying.'
Natasha swallowed hard. She tried to make a joke of it:
'So it's cash on delivery?'
'Ah, my little businesswoman,' Darya said ironically. 'Who's going to love you, so practical and clever? A woman should always have some foolishness in her . . . Ah, yes . . . cash on delivery. Delivery of all three items.'
'How much?'
'Five.'
'You want
five?'
Natasha burst out and broke off. 'I thought it was going to be a lot less than that.'
'If you just want to get your husband back, that will be cheaper. Only then, after a while, he'll go away again. But I'm offering you real help, a certain cure.'
'I want to do it,' Natasha said with a nod. What was happening felt slightly unreal. So that was all there was to it, just a clap of the hands – and the unborn child would disappear? Another clap – and she would bear her beloved idiot husband a child of her own?
'Do you take the sin upon yourself?' the seer asked insistently.
'What sin is there in that?' Natasha retorted, her irritation suddenly breaking through. 'Every woman's committed that sin at least once! And perhaps there isn't anything there anyway!'
The seer pondered, as if listening to something. She nodded her head.
'There is . . . And I think it's definitely a daughter.'
'I'll take it,' said Natasha, still irritated. 'I'll take all the sins on myself, any you like. Do we have a deal?'
The seer looked at her sternly, disapprovingly: 'That's not right, my daughter . . . All the sins. Who knows what sins I might decide to hand over to you? My own, somebody else's . . . and then you would have to answer to God.'
'We'd sort it out somehow.'
Darya sighed:
'Oh, these young people are so foolish. Do you think He wastes his time rummaging about in people's sins? Every sin leaves its own trace, and the judgement fits the trace . . . But all right, don't be afraid. I won't make you answerable for anybody else's sins.'
'I'm not afraid.'
The seer didn't seem to be listening to her any more. She was sitting there as if she was listening alertly to something else. Then she shrugged:
'All right . . . let's get the job done. Give me your hand!'
Natasha held out her right hand uncertainly, keeping a worried eye on her diamond ring. It didn't come off her finger very easily, but . . .
'Oh!'
The seer had pricked her little finger so quickly and deftly that Natasha hadn't felt a thing. She froze, dumbfounded, watching the red drop welling up. As if this was all perfectly routine, Darya dropped the medical needle onto a dirty plate encrusted with old borscht. The needle was flat, with a sharp little point – the kind they use to take blood in laboratories.
'Don't be afraid, everything's sterile, the needles are disposable.'
'What do you think you're doing?' Natasha tried to pull her hand away, but Darya shifted her grip with a surprisingly powerful and precise movement.
'Stop, you idiot! Or I'll have to prick you again!'
She took a small chemist's bottle of dark-brown glass out of her pocket. The label had been washed off, but poorly, the first letters were still visible: 'Tinc . . .'. She deftly twisted out the cork, set the bottle down and shook Natasha's little finger over it. The drop of blood fell into the bottle.