"Do cattle actually eat hemp?" I asked, intrigued despite myself.

"Ah, who'd let them? The peasant Besputnov used to make rope out of that hemp. And he used the rope to lead his cows around. And the hex went through it that way. A cunning hoodoo, slow and thorough. And not a single registered Other for a hundred miles around. I moved into the little village and started searching for the evildoer…"

"Did they really work that thoroughly back then?" I asked, amazed. "Sending in a watchman for the sake of some peasant and his cattle?"

Semyon smiled. "I did all sorts of work back then. This peasant's son was an Other, and he asked us to step in to help his father-he almost made himself a noose out of that rope… So anyway, I moved in, all on my own, got myself some property, even started cozying up to a certain little widow lady. But at the same time I was searching, and I realized I was on the trail of an ancient witch, very well disguised, not a member of any Watches and not registered anywhere. It was really fascinating, just imagine. A witch who was two or three hundred years old. She had accumulated as much power as a first-level magician. And there I was playing at Nat Pinkerton… detecting… I felt ashamed somehow to call in the Higher Magicians to help. And gradually, bit by bit, I turned up clues, and put together a list of suspects. One of them was actually the young widow I found so attractive…"

"Well?" I asked, entranced. Semyon certainly liked to stretch the truth a bit, but this story seemed like the real thing.

"That's all there is," Semyon sighed. "There was a rebellion in Petrograd. Then the revolution. So you can imagine, there were more important things to deal with than cunning witches. Human blood was flowing in rivers. I was recalled. I wanted to go back and find the old hag, but I never had the time. And then they flooded the entire village and everybody was resettled. Maybe that witch isn't even alive anymore."

"Frustrating," I said.

Semyon nodded. "And I've got an entire wagonload of stories like that. So there's no need for you to go working overtime on this one."

"If you were a Dark One," I admitted, "I'd definitely think you were trying to divert suspicion from yourself."

Semyon just smiled. "I'm not a Dark One, Anton. As you know perfectly well."

"And you don't know anything about the initiation of human beings," I sighed. "And I was really hoping…"

Semyon turned serious. "Anton, let me tell you something. The girl I loved more than anything in the whole world died in nineteen twenty-one. She died of old age."

I looked at him, but didn't dare risk a smile. Semyon wasn't joking.

"If I'd known how to make her an Other…" Semyon whispered, gazing off into the distance. "If I'd only known… I revealed myself to her. I did everything for her. She was never ill. At the age of seventy, she looked thirty at the most. Even in hungry St. Petersburg she never wanted for anything, the permits she had used to strike Red Army men dumb… I had her credentials signed by Lenin himself. But I couldn't give her my length of life. That's not in our power." He looked into my eyes somberly. "If I'd known how to initiate Lubov Petrovna, I wouldn't have asked anybody's permission. I'd have gone through anything. I'd have dematerialized myself-but I'd have made her into an Other…"

Semyon stood up and sighed. "But now, to be quite honest, it doesn't matter to me. Whether people can be transformed into Others or not simply doesn't concern me. And it shouldn't concern you either. Your wife's an Other. Your daughter's an Other. All that happiness for one person? Gesar himself can't even dream of anything like it."

He walked out, but I sat on at the table for a while, finishing up my beer. The owner of the cafe-who was also the waiter, and the chef, and the barman-never even looked in my direction. When Semyon came in, he had hung a magical screen around the table.

What had I been thinking of, really?

There were two Inquisitors beavering away. The talented vampire Kostya was circling the Assol complex in the form of a bat. They'd figure it out. They were bound to discover who had wanted to become an Other. And they'd either find the individual who had sent the letters, or they wouldn't.

What difference did that make to me?

The woman I loved was an Other. And more than that, she had voluntarily abandoned her work in the Watch, a brilliant career as a Great Enchantress. All for an idiot like me, so that I wouldn't get hung up about being stuck forever at my second level of Power…

And Nadiushka was an Other too. I'd never have to go through the horror of an Other whose child grows up, grows old, and dies. Sooner or later we would reveal Nadienka's true nature to her. She would want to be a Great One, no doubt about it. And she would be the very Greatest. Maybe she would even do something to make this imperfect world a bit better.

But here I was playing at spies, like a little kid. Worrying myself sick about succeeding in my mission, instead of dropping in on my jolly neighbor in the evening or relaxing-strictly for purposes of camouflage-in the casino.

I got up, put the money on the table, and walked out. In an hour or two the screen would disperse, the owner of the cafe would see the money and the empty glasses, and remember a couple of ordinary-looking guys drinking beer there.

I SPENT HALF A DAY DOING THINGS THAT WERE STRICTLY OFF-LIMITS AND no use to anyone. The vampire Kostya would probably have pulled a wry face and informed me what he thought of my naivete.

First I went back to the Assol complex to change into jeans and a simple shirt, and then I set off in the direction of the nearest normal courtyard-toward the dreary, nine-story prefabricated buildings. There, to my delight, I discovered a soccer field, with high-school-age loafers kicking a ball around on it. There were a few young men there as well, in fact. Even though the recently concluded world championship had been, to put it mildly, an inglorious one for our team, it still had a positive effect. In the few surviving courtyards, the competitive spirit that seemed to have been lost was reviving.

I was put on a team, the side that had only one adult-with an impressive paunch, but extremely agile and frisky. I'm not a very good player, but these guys weren't world championship material either.

For about an hour I ran around on the dusty, trampled earth, yelling and shooting at the goal made out of rotten wire mesh, even scoring a few times. Once a huge tenth-grade hulk deftly dumped me on the ground and gave me an amiable smile.

But I didn't take offense or get upset. When the game tailed off-of its own accord, somehow-I went into the nearest shop, bought some mineral water and beer and, for the very youngest soccer players, Baikal soda pop. Of course, they would have preferred Coca-Cola, but it's time we stopped drinking that foreign poison.

The only thing bothering me was the realization that excessive generosity would arouse all kinds of suspicions, so I had to be moderate in my good deeds.

After saying goodbye to the players on "my" side and the other, I walked as far as the beach, and really enjoyed a swim in the water that was dirty, but cool. The pompous palace spires of the Assol complex towered up into the sky on one side.

Well let them… I didn't care.

The funniest thing of all, I realized, was that in my place any Dark Magician could have done exactly the same thing. Not one of the really young ones still into pleasures that had been out of reach before, like fresh oysters and expensive prostitutes. But a Dark One who had already lived a bit and come to understand that everything in the world was nothing but vanity, the vanity of vanities, in fact.