‘They’re not really in the game. They’re the players, but we’re interested in the pieces. Look at how things changed with Svetlana’s appearance.’
‘It depends what piece we decide she is,’ Anton said cautiously. ‘Right now she’s a first-grade enchantress … or rather, she was.’
‘And what does that mean? Just look how many magicians there are at about the same level as her.’
‘She’s a pawn,’ said Anton, surprised at his own words. ‘Svetlana’s no more than a pawn, for years to come yet. While she nurtures her power, learns to control her abilities, acquires experience. She’s more powerful than me, or she was. But I’d have been able to handle her if I’d been on the other side.’
‘Precisely, Anton,’ said Igor, deftly pouring himself a glass from the second bottle of vodka – the first was already standing empty under the table. ‘Precisely! Svetlana made the Night Watch significantly more powerful. And in the future she could certainly reach the same grade as Gesar. But that’s a matter of decades, or even centuries.’
‘Then why all this activity by the Dark Ones? They almost violated the Treaty, simply in order to get Svetlana out of the game.’
‘Think,’ said Igor, glancing into Anton’s eyes. ‘Let’s take the chess analogy all the way.’
‘A pawn that reaches the far side of the board …’
‘… becomes any other piece.’
Anton shrugged.
‘Igor, that’s obvious anyway. We’re all pawns, but some of us have a chance to become queens. Svetlana has. You don’t, I don’t, Semyon doesn’t … but it’s a long way to the far edge of the board, and the Dark Ones don’t need to be in such a hurry to eliminate Svetlana!’
‘The Chalk of Destiny,’ said Igor.
‘What about it? Gesar wanted to use Egor, the boy without any destiny, to make him into …’
‘Into what?’
Anton shrugged:
‘A prophet, a philosopher, a poet, a magician … I don’t know. Someone who would lead humanity towards the Light. Or perhaps a Mirror? Another Mirror, like Vitaly Rogoza, only he would be on our side?’
‘But Svetlana didn’t want to interfere,’ Igor said with a nod. ‘The boy Egor was left with just his own destiny.’
‘But then …’ Anton began and stopped short. He didn’t know if he had the right to tell Igor the truth he had uncovered, even under the protection of the amulet.
‘But then Olga rewrote someone’s destiny with the other half of the Chalk,’ Igor said with a laugh. ‘That’s an open secret already. What’s important thing is that the operation was successful. Svetlana didn’t do it, but Olga did. And incidentally Gesar managed to have Olga rehabilitated.’
‘Incidentally?’ Anton queried, shaking his head. ‘Okay let’s say incidentally. But that’s the second level of the truth. I’m sure there’s a third level too.’
‘The third level is the person whose destiny Olga rewrote. As soon as Zabulon heard she’d been rehabilitated, he realised he’d been duped. Taken in by a simple diversionary manoeuvre. And the Dark Ones started to investigate. They checked poor Egor a dozen times – in case the Book of Destiny had been rewritten twice for him.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I was keeping an eye on the boy. Gesar told me to – it was obvious the Dark Ones would start looking for a trick.’
‘And?’
‘There were no tricks with Egor. It wasn’t his destiny that was rewritten.’
‘Then whose was it?’
Igor looked into Anton’s eyes without saying anything. As if he didn’t have the right to say it himself.
‘Svetlana’s?’ Anton exclaimed in sudden realisation. And he suddenly thought that in his place any Dark One would have squealed: ‘Mine?’
‘It looks like it. A brilliant and elegant move. There was such an ocean of Power raging around her that it was impossible for anyone to notice what was being done with her Book of Destiny. And the Dark Ones can’t check her Book of Destiny – that would be as good as a declaration of war.’
‘Gesar wants to accelerate Svetlana’s transformation into a Great Enchantress?’
‘Out of the question. That would be a violation of the Treaty. Dig a bit deeper.’
Anton looked at the circles on the paper. He took a felt-tip pen and drew a bright scarlet line upwards from Svetlana, ending in another circle. An empty circle.
‘Yes,’ said Igor. ‘Precisely You know what time this is now, don’t you?’
‘The end of the millennium.’
‘Two thousand years since the birth of Jesus Christ,’ Igor said with a laugh.
‘Ieshua was a supreme Light Magician,’ said Anton. ‘I don’t even know if we can call him a magician … he was the Light itself. But … Gesar wants a second coming of the Messiah?’
‘You said it, not me,’ Igor replied. ‘Let’s drink … to the Light.’
Anton drank a full glass in total bewilderment. He shook his head.
‘No, but this … Igor, this is playing with the pure powers. With the foundations of the universe! How could he take the risk?’
‘Anton, I’m certain that’s the way it has all been planned. Judge for yourself – there’s a boom in religious faith everywhere, one way or another everybody’s expecting either the end of the world or the second coming … but then, they’re the same thing.’
‘Not everybody,’ Anton protested. ‘Don’t exaggerate.’
‘Not everybody, but enough for the level of human expectation to start reshaping reality. And if you could just help things along a bit, if you could rewrite someone’s destiny … Gesar went for broke. Gesar wants to add someone new to our ranks, an Other so powerful that none of the Dark Ones will be able to match him. Not Zabulon, not a certain modest Californian farmer, not the owner of a small hotel in Spain, and not a popular Japanese singer … no one.’
‘That might be true,’ Anton admitted. ‘But Svetlana’s lost her power now, and for a long time.’
‘And what of it? Does that prevent her from having a child?’
‘Stop,’ said Anton, waving his hands in warning. ‘Now we’re getting ahead of ourselves! We can believe any hypothesis, but let’s look at everything else that’s happened first. The Mirror, for instance.’
‘The Mirror …’ Igor frowned. ‘A Mirror is created by the Twilight. Zabulon couldn’t make use of him directly, but he certainly could bring those stupid sect-members to Moscow with that artefact of theirs and feed Rogoza with power. And the reason for that is obvious – to destroy Svetlana.’
‘Rogoza didn’t destroy her! He only drained her, but then that’s …’
‘One of us didn’t play the game the way Zabulon had planned it,’ Igor replied. ‘Someone didn’t make the move that would have led to the Mirror totally destroying Svetlana, as an individual. Maybe what saved her was the fact that Tiger Cub and Andrei had already died? A Mirror isn’t exactly a Dark Other, and isn’t directly involved in the confrontation between the Watches. You see, maybe he was expecting another blow of some kind? From you, for instance. From Gesar. But the blow never came, and he didn’t strike back with all his strength.’
‘Then explain to me, Igor – why did Zabulon set you and Alisa up?’
‘That was an accident,’ Igor muttered. ‘I told you, Alisa—’
‘Okay so she didn’t know! But Zabulon knew, believe me! And he sent her to her death, he exchanged one piece for another. Why?’
‘I wish I knew,’ said Igor with a shrug.
CHAPTER 5
RAIVO BEGAN walking round the hotel room, gesticulating with atypical fervour.