ties.
What had he been trying to tell me?
Why all the panic?
I switched on the light, lay down on the mattress and looked
at the pale grey rectangles of the windows.
'If he becomes a genuine Other . . .'
How did Others appear in the world? No one knew. 'A random
mutation', Las had called it – a perfectly adequate term. You were
born a human being, you lived an ordinary life . . . until one of
the Others sensed your ability to enter the Twilight and pump
power out of it. After that you were 'guided'. Lovingly, carefully
coaxed into the required spiritual condition, so that in a moment
of powerful emotional agitation you would look at your shadow,
and see it in a different way. See it lying there like a black rag,
like a curtain you could pull up over yourself and then draw aside
to enter another world.
The world of the Others.
The Twilight.
And the state you were in when you first found yourself in the
Twilight – joyful and benign or miserable and angry – determined
who you would be. What kind of power you would go on to
draw from the Twilight . . . the Twilight that drinks power from
ordinary people.
'If he becomes a genuine Other . . .'
There was always the possibility of coercive initiation. But only
through the loss of true life and transformation into a walking
corpse. A human being could become a vampire or a werewolf,
and he would be forced to maintain his existence by taking the
lives of human beings. So there was a route for the Dark Ones
. . . but one that even they weren't particularly fond of.
Only what if it really was possible to become a magician?
What if there was a way for any human being to be transformed
into an Other? To acquire long – very long – life and
exceptional abilities. There was no doubt many people would want
to do it.
And we wouldn't be against it either. There were so many fine
people living in the world who were worthy of being Light Others.
Only the Dark Ones would start building up their ranks too . . .
Suddenly it struck me. It was no disaster that someone had
revealed our secrets to a human being. It was no disaster that information
could leak out. It was no disaster that the traitor knew the
address of the Inquisition.
But this was a new twist in the spiral of endless war.
For centuries the Light Ones and Dark Ones had been shackled
by the Treaty. We had the right to search for Others among human
beings, even the right to nudge them in the right direction. But
we were obliged to sift through tons of sand in our search for
grains of gold. The balance was maintained.
Then suddenly here was a chance to transform thousands,
millions of people into Others!
A football team wins the Cup Final – and a wave of magic
surges across tens of thousands of exultant people, transforming
them into Light Others.
And at the same moment the Day Watch issues a command to
the fans of the team that has lost – and they're transformed into
Dark Others.
That was what Kostya had had in mind. The immense temptation
to shift the balance of power in your own favour at a single
stroke. Of course, the consequences would be clear, both to the Dark
Ones and us Light Ones. Of course, the two sides would adopt new
amendments to the Treaty and restrict the initiation of human beings
within acceptable limits. After all, the USA and the USSR had
managed to keep their nuclear arms race within bounds . . .
I closed my eyes and shook my head. Semyon had once told
me that the arms race was halted by the creation of the ultimate
weapon. Two thermonuclear devices – that was all that was required
– each of which could trigger a self-sustaining reaction of nuclear
fusion. The American one was installed somewhere in Texas, the
Russian one in Siberia. It was enough to explode either one of
them – and the entire planet would be transformed into a ball of
flame.
Only, of course, that state of affairs didn't suit us, so the weapon
that was never meant to be used could never be activated. But
the
What had he been trying to tell me?
Why all the panic?
I switched on the light, lay down on the mattress and looked
at the pale grey rectangles of the windows.
'If he becomes a genuine Other . . .'
How did Others appear in the world? No one knew. 'A random
mutation', Las had called it – a perfectly adequate term. You were
born a human being, you lived an ordinary life . . . until one of
the Others sensed your ability to enter the Twilight and pump
power out of it. After that you were 'guided'. Lovingly, carefully
coaxed into the required spiritual condition, so that in a moment
of powerful emotional agitation you would look at your shadow,
and see it in a different way. See it lying there like a black rag,
like a curtain you could pull up over yourself and then draw aside
to enter another world.
The world of the Others.
The Twilight.
And the state you were in when you first found yourself in the
Twilight – joyful and benign or miserable and angry – determined
who you would be. What kind of power you would go on to
draw from the Twilight . . . the Twilight that drinks power from
ordinary people.
'If he becomes a genuine Other . . .'
There was always the possibility of coercive initiation. But only
through the loss of true life and transformation into a walking
corpse. A human being could become a vampire or a werewolf,
and he would be forced to maintain his existence by taking the
lives of human beings. So there was a route for the Dark Ones
. . . but one that even they weren't particularly fond of.
Only what if it really was possible to become a magician?
What if there was a way for any human being to be transformed
into an Other? To acquire long – very long – life and
exceptional abilities. There was no doubt many people would want
to do it.
And we wouldn't be against it either. There were so many fine
people living in the world who were worthy of being Light Others.
Only the Dark Ones would start building up their ranks too . . .
Suddenly it struck me. It was no disaster that someone had
revealed our secrets to a human being. It was no disaster that information
could leak out. It was no disaster that the traitor knew the
address of the Inquisition.
But this was a new twist in the spiral of endless war.
For centuries the Light Ones and Dark Ones had been shackled
by the Treaty. We had the right to search for Others among human
beings, even the right to nudge them in the right direction. But
we were obliged to sift through tons of sand in our search for
grains of gold. The balance was maintained.
Then suddenly here was a chance to transform thousands,
millions of people into Others!
A football team wins the Cup Final – and a wave of magic
surges across tens of thousands of exultant people, transforming
them into Light Others.
And at the same moment the Day Watch issues a command to
the fans of the team that has lost – and they're transformed into
Dark Others.
That was what Kostya had had in mind. The immense temptation
to shift the balance of power in your own favour at a single
stroke. Of course, the consequences would be clear, both to the Dark
Ones and us Light Ones. Of course, the two sides would adopt new
amendments to the Treaty and restrict the initiation of human beings
within acceptable limits. After all, the USA and the USSR had
managed to keep their nuclear arms race within bounds . . .
I closed my eyes and shook my head. Semyon had once told
me that the arms race was halted by the creation of the ultimate
weapon. Two thermonuclear devices – that was all that was required
– each of which could trigger a self-sustaining reaction of nuclear
fusion. The American one was installed somewhere in Texas, the
Russian one in Siberia. It was enough to explode either one of
them – and the entire planet would be transformed into a ball of
flame.
Only, of course, that state of affairs didn't suit us, so the weapon
that was never meant to be used could never be activated. But
the
Similar Books
