WAS THIS SPOT STILL MARKED ON THE MAPS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR? Maybe it was a battlefield well known to historians and celebrated in all the books, a place where two armies had once clashed in a bloody, murderous conflict¡ªand the juggernaut of the blitzkrieg had shuddered to a halt and been rolled back?
Or maybe it was one of our obscure, unknown fields of infamy, where the crack German units had trampled into the mud the untrained and poorly armed volunteers thrown against them? A place only remembered in the archives of the Ministry of Defense?
I didn't know my history very well, but it was probably the latter. This place was too deserted, too bleak and dead. An abandoned patch of dirt that not even the collective farms had coveted.
In our country they don't like to erect monuments on battlefields where we were defeated.
Maybe that's because our victories weren't all that slick either?
I stood on the bank of the little river and looked at the expanse of dead ground. It wasn't all that big: a strip of land between the forest and the river, about a half mile long, 6 miles wide. And not so very many people had been killed here. More likely hundreds than thousands.
But then, how could you really say that wasn't many?
The field was absolutely deserted. I couldn't see anybody with my normal vision, and a glance through the Twilight hadn't revealed anything either.
Then I picked up my shadow¡ªthe setting sun was shining from behind me¡ªand entered the Twilight.
At the first level the ground was overgrown with blue moss, but not very thickly. The usual scraggy clumps, clutching greedily at the faint echoes of human emotion.
But there was one thing that put me on my guard. The moss seemed to run in rings around one particular spot. I knew the moss could move, creeping along slowly but stubbornly moving toward its food.
And in this place there was only one possible reason for it to form into circles.
I set off through the thick gray haze. The human world was visible through it all around me, like a faded, poorly exposed black and white photograph. It was cold and cheerless¡ªI was losing energy with every second I spent here. But there was a positive side to that. Not even Arina could stay in the Twilight constantly. She could glance into the first level from the ordinary world, but even that required Power.
And right now she was in no position to be reckless and wasteful with what she had stored up over the years.
At the first level the terrain is almost unchanged. Here too I had earth under my feet, ruts and humps. But I discovered something else. I could see, or rather, sense the old weapons in the ground. Not every one, of course, only those that had actually killed. Half-decayed submachine guns, slightly better preserved rifles... There were more rifles.
About a hundred yards from Arina I hunkered down and started running in a squat. The spell Svetlana had put on me was still working, or I would soon have been out of breath. About fifty meters away, I lay down and started to crawl. The ground was damp, and I was instantly coated with mud. At least I knew that when I left the Twilight the mud would simply drop off. The blue moss began stirring, uncertain what to do¡ªmove closer to
me or crawl away from any possible danger. That was bad. Arina might realize what was agitating the moss.
And then, very close to me, only about five meters away, a head with long black hair began rising slowly into the air from the densely overgrown ground. The trench was so narrow, it looked as if Arina was emerging straight from the earth.
I froze.
But Arina wasn't looking in my direction. She rose up very slowly until she was standing erect¡ªshe seemed to be sitting on the bottom of the old trench. Then she raised her hand theatrically to shade her eyes, as if she were saluting. I realized she was looking through the Twilight.
Fortunately, not at me.
My recruits were getting close.
How beautifully they ran! Even from the Twilight their movement looked fast¡ªthey just hung in the air too long when they leapt. The wise old wolf was leading the way, with the cubs behind him.
A human being would have been frightened.
Arina laughed. She put her hands on her hips, I swear like a young peasant woman from Ukraine watching her good-for-nothing husband approach with his drinking companions. She spoke, and low, rumbling sounds began drifting through the air. She was in no hurry to enter the Twilight.
I moved back into the human world.
"... stupid loudmouths!" I heard. "Wasn't what you got last time enough for you?"
The wolves slowed to a walk and stopped about twenty yards away.
The leader stepped forward and barked, "Witch!... Talk... We have to talk."
"Talk away, gray wolf," Arina said amiably.
Igor couldn't distract the witch for long, I realized that. Any moment now she would plunge into the Twilight and take a proper look around her.
But where was Nadiushka?
"Give us... the little girl..." the wolf half-shouted, half-howled. "The Light One... is on the rampage... give us the girl... or it will... be worse for you..."
"Do you really think you can threaten me?" Arina asked in surprise. "Have you completely lost your wits. Who would give a child to wolves? Clear out while you still can!"
Strange¡ªshe seemed to be dragging things out.
"Is the child... alive?" the wolf asked in a slightly clearer voice.
"Nadenka, are you alive?" Arina asked, looking down somewhere at the ground. She stooped down, lifted my little girl out of the trench and set her on the surface.
I caught my breath. Nadenka didn't look frightened or tired at all. She seemed to be enjoying what was happening¡ªa lot more than her walks with her grandma.
But she was close to the witch, too close!
"Wolfie!" said Nadya, looking at the werewolf. She reached her little hand out to him and laughed happily.
The werewolf started wagging his tail.
It only lasted a few seconds, then Igor tensed up, his fur bristled, and once again we were watching a wild beast, not a tame dog. But even so, that moment had happened¡ªa werewolf had fawned on a little two-year-old girl, an uninitiated Other!
"Wolfie," Arina agreed. "Nadenka, look to see who else is here. Close your eyes and look. The way I taught you."
Nadiushka happily put her hands over her eyes. And began turning in my direction.
The witch was initiating her!
If Nadiushka really had learned to look through the Twilight...
My daughter turned toward me. She smiled.
"Daddy..."
The next moment I realized two things.
First¡ªArina knew perfectly well that I was nearby! The witch had been toying with me.
Second¡ªNadiushka wasn't looking through the Twilight! She had parted her fingers and looked through them.
I immediately withdrew into the Twilight. I was in such a nervous state that I plunged straight through to the second level¡ªinto that desolate cotton-wool silence and those pale-gray shadows.
Arina's aura was blazing orange and turquoise. Nadiushka's head was surrounded by a glowing, pure white halo¡ªlike a beacon beaming light into space: a potential Other! A Light One! With immense Power!
And the werewolves, who had started to run now, were bundles of red and crimson, fury and spite, hunger and fear...
"Svetlana," I shouted, leaping up. Into the gray space, into the soft silence. "Come!"
I marked the spot for the portal very simply¡ªby flinging pure Power into the Twilight, like stretching out a string of fire, a landing corridor. From me to Arina.
And at the same time I started to run, so that Nadiushka wouldn't shield Arina from me, scattering from my fingers spells that I had learned a long time ago.
Freeze¡ªa localized halt in time.
Opium¡ªsleep.
Triple Blade¡ªthe crudest and simplest of all the combat spells.
Thanatos¡ªdeath.
I had no hope any of them would work. These things could only be effective when you were facing a very weak opponent. An Other with superior powers would parry the blows, whether he was in the Twilight or the human world.
All I wanted to do was distract the witch and slow her down. Overload her defenses, which had to be based on amulets and talismans. All these fireworks were only calculated to identify a breach in those defenses.
My Freeze seemed to disappear into nowhere.
The Sleep spell ricocheted off and shot up into the sky. I hoped there weren't any airplanes overhead.
The Triple Blade struck home and the glittering blades sliced into the witch. But to her the Triple Blade was a mere scratch.
Worst of all was the summons to death. I had good reason to be fond of this piece of magic, so dangerously close to the spells of the Dark Ones. But even in the ordinary world, Arina still had time to hold out her hand, and the little bundle of gray mist that paralyzed the will and stopped the heart landed obediently on her open palm.
Arina looked at me through the Twilight, smiling. Her hand was hovering over Nadiushka's head, and the gray bundle was slowly oozing between her fingers.
I leapt toward them¡ªif I couldn't turn the blow aside, at least I could take it myself...
But Arina was already on the second level of the Twilight now, moving fast. She looked blindingly beautiful. A movement of her fingers crumpled my spell, and she casually tossed it at the wolves.
"Don't be in such a hurry..." the witch chanted in a singsong voice. In the silence of the second level her words were like thunder, and my legs betrayed me. I slumped down onto my knees only one step away from Arina and Nadiushka.
"Don't touch her!" I shouted.
"Didn't I ask you..." the witch said in a quiet voice. "Why not just help me get away... what's one old witch more or less to you?"
"I don't trust you!"
Arina nodded wearily and bitterly. "You're right not to trust me... And now what am I to do, sorcerer?"
Her hand slid across her skirt and tore a sprig of dried berries off her belt. She tossed them into the blazing white lights, black smoke billowed up¡ªand the marker for the portal disappeared.
Svetlana was too late!
"You leave me no choice, Light One..." Arina said with a grim expression. "Do you understand? I'll have to kill you, and then your daughter's no use to me anymore. What were you thinking of, with your second-level?"
At that instant a glittering white sword-blade struck Arina from behind, protruded for an instant from her chest, then drew back in obedience to some invisible hand.
"A-a-a-agh..." the witch groaned, slumping forward.
Then the gray gloom parted to let Svetlana through.
The witch seemed to have recovered from the blow already. She retreated, jigging backward and keeping her eyes fixed on Svetlana. The slit that had been burned through her dress was smoking, but she wasn't bleeding. And the look on her face seemed more like admiration than hatred.
"My, my... Great One..." Arina cackled. "Did I miscalculate then?"
Svetlana didn't answer. I could never have imagined such intense hatred in her face¡ªany man would have died if he just looked in her eyes. She was clutching a white sword in her right hand, and the fingers of her left were working the air¡ªas if she were assembling an invisible Rubik's cube.
The Twilight turned a little darker. A rainbow sphere sprang up around Nadiushka. Svetlana's next pass was for me¡ªmy body recovered the power of movement. I jumped up and started moving behind the witch. I was only a bit player in this war.
"Which level did you come from, you fidget?" the witch asked almost amiably. "Could it really be the fourth? I was keeping an eye on the third..."
I sensed that the answer was very, very important to her.
"From the fifth," Svetlana replied.
"That's really bad..." the witch muttered. "That's a mother's fury for you..." she squinted at me out of the corner of her eye, then fixed her gaze on Svetlana again. "Don't you go gossiping about what you saw down there..."
"You don't need to tell me," Svetlana said with a nod.
The witch nodded and then began working her hands very rapidly, tearing out her hair. I didn't know if Svetlana was expecting this, but I decided it would be a good idea to jump back. It was a good thing I did¡ªa black blizzard sprang up and began swirling around the witch, as if every hair had been transformed into a slim, sharp blade of black steel. Arina began advancing on Svetlana, who tossed her white sword at the witch¡ªthe blades sliced it to pieces and extinguished it, but then a transparent shield appeared, floating in the air in front of Svetlana.
I thought it must be Luzhin's Shield.
The blades shattered against the shield almost instantly, without a sound.
"Oh, Lordy..." Arina wailed. It was strange, but I didn't have the slightest doubt that she was sincere. And yet at the same time she was playing to her audience.
In other words¡ªto me.
"Surrender, you wretch," said Svetlana. "While I'll still let you¡ªsurrender!"
"But how about... how about this?" Arina declared. "Eh?"
This time she didn't reach for her amulets. She just started crooning her clumsy doggerel:
Dust to dust collect and bind, Arms and legs with power filling, Be my trusty servants willing. Or you'll be scattered to the wind.
I'd been expecting anything at all from Arina. Except this. Genuine necromancers are very rare, even among the Dark Ones.
The dead were slowly rising out of the earth!
The German soldiers of the Second World War were going back into battle!
Four skeletons dressed in tatters¡ªall their flesh had gone a long time ago and there was earth packed between their bones¡ª stood in a ring around Arina. Another came staggering blindly toward me, clumsily waving its fingerless hands¡ªthe bones had rotted clean away. The ludicrous zombie shed pieces of itself at every step. Three equally wretched monsters started toward Svetlana. One of them was even holding a black submachine gun that had lost its magazine.
"Think you can raise the Red Army?" Arina taunted Svetlana.
She shouldn't have done that¡ªSvetlana seemed to turn to stone. And then she hissed through her teeth:
"My grandfather fought in the war. Was this supposed to frighten me?..."
I didn't understand what it was she did. I would have used the Gray Prayer, but she used something from the higher levels of magic beyond my reach. The zombies crumbled into dust.
Svetlana and Arina were left staring at each other in silence.
The joking was over.
The enchantress and the witch clashed in a straightforward dual of Power.
I took advantage of the brief pause to gather my own strength. If Svetlana faltered, then I would strike...
But it was Arina who faltered.
First of all, her dress was torn off. That might possibly have had a demoralizing effect¡ªon a man.
Then the witch began aging rapidly. Her luxuriant black hair shrank to a pitiful gray tuft. Her breasts drooped and stretched, her arms and legs withered. She was like Gingema from the children's story or Gagula from the story for adults.
And there were no special effects here.
"Your name!" Svetlana shouted.
Arina didn't hesitate for long.
Her toothless mouth quivered and she mumbled, "Arina... I am in your power, sorceress..."
It was only then that Svetlana relaxed¡ªand suddenly seemed to wilt. I walked around the subdued Arina and took hold of my wife's arm.
"It's all right... I'm okay," Svetlana said with a smile. "We did it."
The old crone¡ªit was impossible to think of her as Arina¡ª gazed at us sadly.
"Will you allow her to assume her former shape?" I asked.
"Why, was she more attractive then?" said Svetlana, attempting to joke.
"She'll die of old age in a moment," I said. "She's over two hundred years old."
"Let her croak..." Svetlana muttered. She glowered at Arina. "Witch! I grant you the right to become younger!"
Arina's body rapidly straightened up and filled with life. The witch gulped at the air greedily. She looked at me. "Thank you, sorcerer..." she said.
"Let's get out of here," Svetlana ordered. "And no stupid tricks... I grant you only the right to leave the Twilight."
Now all the witch's power¡ªall that had not been stripped away with her clothes and amulets¡ªwas completely under Svetlana's control. To coin a phrase, Svetlana had her hand on the switch.
"Sorcerer..." said Arina, keeping her eyes fixed on me. "First remove the shield from your daughter. There is a grenade with the pin drawn lying under her feet. It will explode at any moment."
Svetlana cried out.
I dashed to the rainbow globe and struck it, breaking through the Sphere of Negation. Beneath it there were another two shields. I tore them away crudely, working with raw energy. From the second level of the Twilight I couldn't see anything.
I found my shadow and shot back up to the first level. Everything was clear there, not a trace of the blue moss¡ªthe raging battle had burned it away completely.
And almost immediately I saw the old "pineapple" lying under Nadiushka's foot. Arina had left it there as she plunged into the Twilight. Her insurance policy...
The pin was pulled out. Somewhere inside the grenade the fuse was burning away with agonizing slowness, and in the human world three or four seconds had already gone by...
The casualty range was 200 yards.
If it had exploded inside the shields, there would have been nothing left of Nadiushka but a bloody pulp...
I leaned down and picked up the grenade. It's very difficult to work with objects of the real world when you are in the Twilight.
At least the grenade had a distinct Twilight double¡ªthe same ribs and ridges, smeared with mud and rust...
Should I throw it away?
No.
In the Twilight it wouldn't go far. And if I took it into the human world¡ªit would explode instantly.
I couldn't think of anything better to do than slice the grenade in half¡ªas if I were trying to remove the stone from an avocado pear. Then I sliced it again into several pieces... searching for the small, glowing string of the slow fuse among the metal and explosive. My phantom knife, a blade of pure Power, chopped through the grenade like a ripe tomato.
Finally I found it¡ªa tiny little spark already creeping close to the detonator. I extinguished it with my fingers.
And then I tumbled out into the human world. Soaked and sweaty, barely able to stand, my legs were trembling so badly, shaking my hand¡ªmy burnt fingers were stinging.
"Just give a man a chance to tinker with anything mechanical," Arina said scathingly when she appeared after me. I ought to have shut her inside the shield and let her be blown to pieces! Or I could have cast a frost on her and left her frozen solid until the next day...
"Daddy, teach me how to hide like that," said Nadiushka, none the worse for her adventure. Then she spotted Arina and said indignantly, "Aunty, don't be silly! You can't walk around with no clothes on!"
"How many times have I told you not to talk to grown-ups like that!" Svetlana exclaimed. Then she grabbed hold of Nadiushka's hands and started kissing her.
A scene from a madhouse...
If my mother-in-law had been there, she'd have had a few things to say...
I sat down on the edge of the trench, longing for a smoke. And I wanted a drink. And something to eat. And a sleep. At least a smoke.
"I won't do it again," Nadya babbled. "Look, wolfie's hurt!"
It was only then that I remembered about the werewolves and looked around.
The wolf was lying on the ground with his paws twitching feebly.
"I'm sorry, sorcerer," said Arina. "I threw your death spell at the wolf. There was no time to think."
I looked at Svetlana. Thanatos doesn't necessarily mean certain death. The spell can be removed.
"I'm drained..." Svetlana said in a low voice. "I've no strength left."
"I'll save the filthy creature if you like," Arina suggested. "It's not hard for me to do."
We looked at each other.
"Why did you tell us about the grenade?" I asked.
"What good will it do me if she dies?" Arina replied indifferently.
"She'll be a Great Light One," said Svetlana. "The Greatest of all!"
"Well, let her." Arina smiled. "Maybe she'll remember her Aunty Arina, who told her about the herbs and the flowers... Don't you worry. No one will ever make her into a Dark One. She's no simple child, there was magic involved there... What shall I do with the wolf?"
"Save him," Svetlana said simply.
Arina nodded. Then suddenly she said to me, "There's a bag over there in the trench... with cigarettes and food. I prepared this hideaway a long time ago."
The witch worked on Igor for about ten minutes. First she drove away the growling cubs, who ran off to one side and tried to change back into children, but couldn't, so they lay down in the bushes. Then she started whispering something, all the while plucking first one plant, then another. She shouted at the cubs and they ran off and came back with twigs and roots in their teeth.
Svetlana and I looked at each other without speaking. Everything was perfectly clear anyway. I finished my second cigarette, rolled a third between my hands to soften it, and took a block of chocolate out of the black fabric bag. Apart from cigarettes, chocolate, and a wad of English pounds¡ªwhat a prudent witch!¡ª the bag was empty.
Somehow I'd been hoping to find the Fuaran.
"Witch," Svetlana shouted when the werewolf got to his feet, still trembling. "Come here!"
Arina came back to us, swinging her hips daintily, and not even slightly embarrassed at being naked. The werewolf lay down close to us too. He was breathing heavily, and the cubs crowded around and started licking him. Svetlana winced at the sight, then turned to look at Arina. "What are you accused of?"
"On the instructions of an unidentified Light One I modified the recipe for a potion and so ruined a joint experiment by the Inquisition, the Night Watch, and the Day Watch."
"Did you do it?"
"Yes," Arina admitted blithely.
"What for?"
"Ever since the Revolution I'd been dreaming of doing real damage to the Reds."
"Don't lie," said Svetlana, frowning. "You couldn't give a damn for the Reds or the Whites. Why did you take the risk?"
"What difference does that make, sorceress?" Arina sighed.
"A big one. And in the first place, for you."
The witch threw her head back and looked up at me, then at Svetlana. Her eyelids were trembling.
"Aunty Arina, are you feeling sad?" Nadiushka asked. Then she glanced sideways at her mother and put her hands over her own mouth.
"Yes," the witch replied.
At that moment I really, really didn't want Arina to fall into the clutches of the Inquisition.
"The experiment was supported by all the Others," Arina said. "The Dark Ones believed that the appearance of thousands of convinced communists in the leadership of the country¡ªthe bread plant's output mostly went to the Kremlin and the People's Commissariats¡ªwouldn't improve anything. On the contrary, it would only provoke hostility to the Soviets in the rest of the world. But the Light Ones believed that after a hard, but victorious war against Germany¡ªthe likelihood of that was already clear to the clairvoyants by then¡ªthe Soviet Union could become a genuinely attractive society. There was a secret report... basically, people would have built communism by 1980..."
"And made corn the basic animal-feed crop," Svetlana snorted.
"Don't talk drivel, sorceress," the witch retorted calmly. "I don't remember about any corn, but they were supposed to have built a city on the moon in the '70s. And fly to Mars, and something else. The whole of Europe would have been communist. And not under constraint either. And by now here on earth we'd have had a huge Soviet Union, a huge United States... I think Britain, Canada, and Australia were part of it... And there was China left on its own."
"So the Light Ones miscalculated?" I asked.
"No." Arina shook her head. "They didn't miscalculate. Of course, the blood would have flowed in rivers. But what came at the end of it all wouldn't have been too bad. Far better than all the regimes we have now... The Light Ones overlooked something else. If things had gone that way, then around about now people would have learned that the Others existed."
"I see," said Svetlana. Nadiushka was squirming restlessly on her knees¡ªshe was bored of sitting and she wanted to go to the "wolfie."
"And that's why the... unidentified Light One..."¡ªArina smiled¡ª"who had the wits to calculate the future more thoroughly than all the rest, came to me. We met a few times and discussed the situation. The problem was that the experiment had not just been planned by Higher Others, who could appreciate the danger of our being exposed, but also by a large number of first- and second-level magicians... even some third- and fourth-level ones. The project was extremely popular; in order to cancel it officially, full information would have had to be given to thousands of Others. There was no way that could be done."
"I understand," said Svetlana.
But I didn't understand a thing!
We conceal our existence from people because we're afraid. There are too few of us, and no magic is strong enough to guarantee our survival if a new campaign of "witch hunts" starts up. But in this wonderful, benign future that Arina said could already have happened, would we really have been in any danger?
"That's why we decided to sabotage the experiment," Arina continued. "It increased the numbers killed in the Second World War, but reduced the numbers who died in the export of revolution to Europe and Northern Africa. It came out more or less even... of course, now life in Russia's not as sweet and easy as it ought to have been. But who ever said that happiness is measured by a full belly?"
"Oh sure!" I exclaimed, unable to restrain myself. "Any teacher in a town on the Volga or miner in Ukraine will agree with you there."
"Happiness should be sought in spiritual wealth," Arina rebuked me. "And not in baths filled with bubbles or a warm privy. And at least people don't know about the Others."
I held my tongue. The woman sitting in front of us was not simply guilty¡ªshe ought to have been dragged to the tribunal on a rope and stoned along the way. A city on the moon? Okay, if we didn't have a city on the moon, we could do without it. But even our ordinary cities were barely alive, and the entire world was still wary of us...
"Poor thing," said Svetlana. "Did you suffer a lot?"
At first I thought she was mocking Arina.
The witch thought the same. "Are you sympathizing or scoffing?" she asked.
"Sympathizing," Svetlana answered.
"I don't feel sorry for the little people¡ªdon't get the wrong idea," the witch hissed. "But I do feel sorry for the country. It's my country, whatever it's like, all of it. But the way things turned
out is best. We'll carry on living, we won't die out. People will give birth to new people, they'll build cities and plough the fields."
"It wasn't the secret police you were hiding from in your hibernation," Svetlana said unexpectedly. "And not even the Inquisition. You would have talked your way out of it somehow, I can sense it... You didn't want to see what was happening to Russia after your sabotage."
Arina said nothing to that.
But Svetlana looked at me. "What are we going to do now?" she asked.
"You decide," I said, not really understanding the question.
"Where were you going to run to?" Svetlana asked.
"Siberia," Arina replied calmly. "That's the way things are done in Russia¡ªthey either exile you to Siberia, or you flee there yourself. I'll choose a nice clean little village and settle somewhere outside it. I'll earn my own living... find myself a man." She ran one hand over her magnificent breasts with a smile. "And wait for about twenty years, to see what happens. And at the same time I'll think about what to tell the Inquisition if they catch me."
"You can't get past the cordons on your own," Svetlana muttered. "And I doubt if we can get you through."
"I'll... hide her..." the werewolf coughed hoarsely. "I... owe... her..."
Arina narrowed her eyes and asked "For what, for healing you?"
"No... not for that..." the werewolf replied vaguely. "I'll lead you... through the forest... to the camp... hide you there... later you'll... get away."
"Nobody's going to..." I began. But Svetlana gently put her hand against my lips, as if she were comforting Nadiushka.
"Anton, it's the best way. It's best if Arina gets away. After all, she didn't touch Nadienka, did she?"
I started shaking my head. This was rubbish, crazy nonsense! Had the witch somehow managed to control Svetlana's mind?
"It's the best way," Svetlana repeated insistently.
Then she turned to Arina. "Witch! Swear me an oath that you will never again take the life of a human or an Other."
"I cannot swear such an oath," said Arina, with a shake of her head.
"Swear me an oath that for the next hundred years you will not take the life of a human or an Other unless they threaten your own life... and you have no other means to defend yourself," Svetlana concluded after a short pause.
"Now, that's a different matter!" Arina said and smiled. "Now I can see that our Great One has matured a bit... It's not much fun to spend a century without any teeth. But even so, I obey. May the Darkness bear me witness!"
She raised her open hand, and a small patch of Darkness appeared for a moment on her palm. All the werewolves, the adult and the cubs, began to howl.
"I return your power to you," Svetlana said before I could stop her.
And Arina disappeared.
I jumped to my feet and stood beside Svetlana. I still had a little bit of Power left... enough to strike a couple of times, but what did the witch care about blows like that...
Arina suddenly reappeared in front of us. Already dressed, I think she had even brushed her hair. Smiling.
"I could still fix you without any killing," she gloated. "I could paralyze you or make you ugly."
"You could," Svetlana agreed. "No doubt. Only what would be the point?"
For a brief moment Arina's eyes were filled with such intense melancholy that I felt my heart ache in my chest.
"There isn't any point, sorceress. Well then, goodbye. I don't remember kindnesses, but I'm not ashamed to say thank you... so thank you, Great One. It will be hard for you... now."
"I already know that," Svetlana said in a quiet voice.
Arina's gaze came to rest on me and she smiled flirtatiously. "And goodbye to you, sorcerer. Don't feel sorry for me, I don't like that. Ah... what a pity you love your wife..."
She knelt down and held her hand out to Nadiushka.
Svetlana didn't stop her!
"Goodbye, little girl," the witch said merrily. "I'm a wicked old aunty, but I wish you well. Whoever it was that sketched out your destiny was no fool... oh, no fool at all... maybe you'll succeed where we failed? Now I have a little present for you..." She glanced at Svetlana.
Svetlana nodded, to my great surprise.
Arina took hold of Nadiushka's finger. She muttered, "Shall I wish you Power? You have plenty of Power already. They've given you everything... and plenty of everything... You like flowers, don't you? Then take this gift from me¡ªhow to use flowers and herbs. That will come in handy even for a Light Enchantress."
"Goodbye, Aunty Arina," Nadiushka said in a quiet voice. "Thank you."
The witch looked at me again. I was dumbfounded, totally confused, I didn't understand a thing. Then she turned to the werewolves.
"Well then, lead on, gray wolf!" she exclaimed.
The wolf cubs went dashing after the witch and their mentor. One filthy little beast even stopped beside a bush, lifted his leg and sprayed it defiantly. Nadiushka giggled.
"Svetlana," I whispered. "They're getting away..."
"Let them go," she replied. "Let them."
Then she turned toward me.
"What's happened?" I asked, looking into her eyes. "What and when?"
"Let's go home," said Svetlana. "We... we need to have a talk, Anton. A serious talk."
How I hate those words.
They never lead to anything good.
