And I was right – a portal opened up in the blue haze. Right there in the baggage hall, behind that hazy blue curtain. My eyes were stung by a blinding white glow and it was suddenly abnormally bright in the Twilight, even though there were still no shadows. That was a really weird sight – unbearably bright light and not a hint of a shadow.
There were two Light Ones. The Night Watch boss and an attractive young woman. An enchantress of very considerable power.
‘You are in my power,’ Gesar declared loudly, making a short, economical pass with his hands. ‘Get up!’
He was talking to the Vikings. The Light Ones hadn’t noticed me lying there closer to the portal than anyone else.
One of the Vikings said something angry and abrupt in English. Gesar replied. I regretted that I didn’t understand a single word. Then the Vikings stood up. And began obediently walking towards the portal. I was getting ready to stand up and had even got onto all fours, but when the third Viking drew level with me, the fourth abruptly withdrew deeper into the Twilight.
Gesar reacted instantly – he cast a Net over the Others and disappeared. The enchantress stayed where she was.
The remaining Vikings were pinned to the ground. And so was I – from being on all fours I was flattened back against the floor, this time face down. Like a squashed frog on a motorway. It felt as if a slab of concrete had been dropped on top of me from a passing truck – I couldn’t catch my breath or move a muscle. And damned if there wasn’t something pressing unbearably into my chest, a long, slightly curved object.
Lying with my nose pressed to the floor was not at all pleasant; I made an effort and turned my head.
My eyes met those of the Viking lying beside me.
I felt a frost more chilly than any Moscow winter.
‘You!’
‘I …’
‘You’re an Other!’
‘Yes.’
‘You serve the Darkness.’
‘Probably.’
‘Take care of it!’
‘What?’
But the Viking had already closed his eyes. The silent dialogue had only lasted a few brief moments.
Take care of what? This bloody thing that was poking me in the ribs?
Just to be sure, the enchantress dropped another concrete slab on us – the Vikings began wheezing painfully and something like a groan was torn from my chest.
And then I thought: ‘Ah, what the hell!’
I closed my eyes and focused on searching for power … and I sensed an almost inexhaustible source right there – the portal that was still open.
Well, well, how simple everything was, really! It would take no more than a few seconds to restore the power I’d expended on Strastnoi Boulevard. And the fact that it was a Light portal didn’t bother me in the least – the nature of power is always the same in any case.
I began drawing in the power of the portal. Taking it slow, so that the Light Enchantress wouldn’t immediately realise what was going on.
The first thing I tried was to shift the weight off myself slightly – I managed that okay, and I can’t say it was really too difficult. Then I enveloped the thing underneath me in a cocoon and stuck it inside my sweater, still fumbling about on the floor. It seemed to me the enchantress was beginning to feel uneasy.
I was all set to stand up, but then Gesar came back; he was radiating white light, just like any peasant’s idea of an angel. He was holding the limp, submissive Viking who had fled by the shoulder with one hand. One step, then another – and the Viking dropped like a rag doll to lie beside his comrades. But what I saw on Gesar’s face was not joy, but something else.
‘Where’s the Talon?’
He glanced briefly at the enchantress, who pulled her head back into her shoulders in alarm – I sensed her scanning all of us at once.
Oh no, my girl! You won’t break into my cocoon.
And Gesar won’t break into it either. I can tell you that for sure, from the height of the next step up the stairway.
But Gesar wasn’t wasting any time. He came straight up to me:
‘You again …’
I didn’t catch any hint of hatred in his voice. Only an infinite weariness.
I stood up and dusted my clothes off for some reason.
‘Me.’
‘You amaze me,’ Gesar confessed, drilling through me with his gaze. ‘Amaze me one more time. Give back the Talon.’
‘The Talon?’ I asked, raising my eyebrows expressively. ‘What are you talking about, colleague?’
Gesar gritted his teeth – I distinctly saw the muscles at his temples twitch.
‘Cut the comedy, Dark One. You’ve got the Talon, there’s nowhere else it can be. I can’t sense it any longer, but that doesn’t change matters. Now you’re going to give me the Talon and clear out of Moscow for good. That’s the second time I’ve told you – and let me tell you it’s the first time I’ve ever given anybody a second chance to leave in peace. The first time in very, very many years. Am I making myself clear?’
‘Nothing could be clearer,’ I growled, weighing up my own strength and deciding that it was worth going for it.
Mentally I reached out towards the enchantress, who wasn’t prepared, and drew as much power as I could from her before she realised what was happening, then added some from the portal, all as quickly as possible.
Then I opened my own portal. Directly under my own feet. And at the same time I emerged from the Twilight.
The effect would basically have been the same if I’d been standing on a manhole and the cover had suddenly disappeared. I just fell through the floor, as far as Gesar and the Others could see. Fell straight through the floor and disappeared.
I hadn’t dared to try drawing power from Gesar – something had told me it wasn’t worth tangling with him yet: you can create a cocoon that Gesar can’t see into without special preparation, you can steal energy from an enchantress who’s very probably going to be a Great Enchantress – that’s all pure childish mischief and will only work once. But it’s a bit too soon for you, Vitaly Rogoza, Dark Other, to get involved in an open fight with the chief of the Night Watch.
Just say thank you that you got away in one piece.
I said ‘thank you’ and fell straight into a snowdrift from a height of several metres. It was dark all around. Or almost dark. Just the moon overhead. With a forest stretching out on both sides.
I was in a cutting in the forest, a cutting as straight as Nikolaev’s Lenin Prospect and very wide, about fifteen metres across. There was a blank wall of forest on my right and a blank wall of forest on my left, and straight ahead, hanging above the silvery strip of untouched snow, there was the moon. Almost full.
It was beautiful, incredibly beautiful – the moonlit cutting, the night, the snow … I could have just lain there and admired it.
But I started to feel cold.
I scrambled out of the snowdrift with a struggle and looked around. The snow still looked untouched. But somewhere in the distance I could hear the distinctive hammering rhythm of the wheels of a commuter train.
Hmm. Some great magician I was. Lord of the Dark portals. I’d opened a portal all right. But I hadn’t bothered about where it would come out. And this was the result: here I was all alone in the winter forest in nothing but my sweater, without a jacket or a hat.
Furious with myself, I felt the long, hard object under my sweater, decided not to remove the cocoon yet and set off towards the moon. Across the miraculous virgin snow of the moonlit forest cutting.