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FATE, WHICH OUR MAGICIANS CLAIM DOES NOT EXIST, WAS KIND TO ME

In the Assol’s vestibule (well, you couldn’t call that spacious hall an entrance) I saw the old woman that the va by the elevator, gazing pensively at the buttons

I glanced at the old woht and realized that she was totally confused, aluards were no help here¡ªon the outside the old woman seemed entirely calm and collected I realized she was an "elderly lady"¡ªnot an ordinary old Russian woman at all I set off decisively toward her

"Excuse me, can I be of any help?" I asked

The elderly lady cast lance of senile suspicion, otten where I live," she confessed "Do you happen to know?"

"The eleventh floor," I said "Allow ray curls with the delicate pink skin showing through thehty years old," said the old woman "I remember that it’s painful to remember it But I do"

I took the lady by the arm and led her toward the elevator One of the security ed

co entlenized her own door and even quickened her step in delight The apartnificently refurbished and furnished, and there was a lively girl about twenty years old striding to and fro in the hallway and co into a phone "Yes, I’ve looked downstairs! She slipped out again"

The girl was absolutely delighted e showed up Only I’ concern werewomen don’t take servants’ jobs in hoood

"Mashenka, bring us soirl’s cackling She probably had no illusions either "In the large roo obediently to the kitchen, but not before she had sainst otten really bad My name’s Ta e rooe With old furniture froner’s work The walls were covered with black-and-white photographs¡ªat first I even took then But then I realized that the blindingly beautiful young wo helmet, was my elderly lady

"I bombed the Fritzes," the lady said modestly as she sat down at a round table covered with a maroon velvet tablecloth with tassels "Look, Kalinin himself presented me with that medal"

Absolutely du the former flyer

Even in the best cases people like that live out their final days in old state dachas or in s But in an elite residential complex¡ªno way! She had dropped boold reserves back hoht the aparthts "A big apart here it all seems familiar, like it’s mine, but I don’t rerandson, what could I say? Of course, transferring an expensive apartrand it later was a very clever way to do things But in any case it was a good deed Only the servant should have been chosen with irl obsessed with the profitable capital investure, but rather an elderly, reliable nurse

The old woman looked pensively out the"I’d be better off in those houses, the little ones I’many h with letters bearing the eye-catching sta The addressees included such figures as the old Soviet Union figurehead Kalinin, and Generalissimus Joseph Stalin, and Comrade Khrushchev, and even "Dear Leonid Ilich Brezhnev"

Our more recent national leaders had clearly not been retained in the old woman’s meuess what kind of letter the old woman had posted three days earlier

"I can’t bear having nothing to do," the old woned to the schools, the flying colleges so I could tell the young people what our life was like"

I took a look at her through the Twilight anyway, and I almost exclaimed out loud

The old flyer was a potential Other¡ªmaybe not a very powerful one, but it was absolutely clear

Only, to initiate her at that age I couldn’t ihty? The stress of it would kill her She’d just fade away into the Twilight, an insane, insubstantial shadow

You can’t check everyone Not even in Moscohere there are so nize our brothers and sisters too late

The girl Ta a tray set with dishes of biscuits and candy, a teapot, and beautiful old cups She set the dishes down on the table withouta sound

But the old wo, still perched on her chair as firot up carefully and nodded to Ta You keep a closer watch on her¡ªyou know she forgets where she lives"

"But I never takeher eyelids "I’d never"

I checked her too No Other abilities at all

An ordinary young woman Even quite kind in her own fashion

"Does she often write letters?" I asked with the faintest of sn of absolution, Ta too "All the time! To Stalin, and Brezhnev Isn’t that hilarious?"

I didn’t argue with her

Of all the cafes and restaurants that Assol was cra was the cafe in the supermarket A very nice cafe, on the second-floor mezzanine above the checkouts, with an excellent view of the entire hall of the superood place to drink a nice cup of coffee,

out your route for a pleasant stroll as you bought the groceries¡ª doing your "shopping": that terrible word, that licise, like a tick boring into its helpless prey

That here I hadnot to feel horrified by the prices Then I bought a double espresso and a pack of cigarettes¡ªwhich I only sine I was a detective

Who had sent the letter?

The renegade Other or the Other’s human client?

It didn’t look like there was any advantage in it for either of the to forestall the initiation was just too ether

Think, head, think! You’ve come across ade Other We have his client The letter was sent to the Watches and to the Inquisition So the letter was ent, well-informed Other

Then the question was: What for?

And I already had the answer: In order not to go through with this initiation In order to deliver the client into our hands and not go through with the promise

That meant it wasn’t a matter of money In some incomprehensible fashion the unknown client had acquired a hold over the Other A hold so terrible and absolute that he could de he wanted An Other could never ad held that kind of power over hiht’s arette, took a sip of coffee, and slued there

It was beginning to coe to a hu, even if he was rich, influential, intelligent

There was only one possibility, and I didn’t like it one little bit Our ade Other could have found hiolden fish in the fairytale He could have given a hurant him or her any wish at all After all, the fish in the story hadn’t expected the crazy old woman¡ªthat reminded me, about the old woman: I had to inform Gesar that I had discovered a potential Other¡ªthat the crazy old woman would want to becohtpart

A vaive a daive their word and then take it back again And they’d tear the huhts

So it was a Light Magician who had made the rash promise

Could that really happen?

It could

Easily We were all a bit naive¡ªKostya had been right about that Our human weaknesses made us vulnerable¡ªwe could be trapped by our sense of guilt, all sorts of romantic notions

So the traitor was in our ranks He had given his word¡ªI wouldn’t try to figure out why just yet He was caught in a trap If a Light Magician refused to carry out his promise, he would dematerialize

Stop! There was another curious point here I could pro he wanted" But if I was asked to do the impossible well, I didn’t knohat exactly, not sonant, or forbidden, but precisely iuish the sun, for instance, or turn a huive? That it was iht, and there wouldn’t be any reason for me to dematerialize Andelsethe stock eneral¡ªthe usual human pleasures that a powerful Other can provide

But the renegade Other had panicked He’d panicked badly enough to set both Watches and the Inquisition on his "master" at the same ti into the Twilight forever

Thatinto an Other

That meant the impossible was possible The means existed Not known to many, but they did exist

I suddenly felt uneasy

The traitor was one of our oldest and ician beyond classification, not necessarily someone who held a really ireatest secrets

For soht of Seician who so Fire was applied to his body

"I’m well into my second century"

Maybe

He knew a lot of things

Who else did?

There was a whole bunch of old, experienced ot on with living in Moscoatched TV, drank beer, went to soccer matches

I didn’t know them, that was the proble didn’t want to get involved in the endless war between the Watches

And who could I turn to for advice? Who could I expound a? But potentially they were on the list of suspects themselves

No, I didn’t believe they could have blundered After the rough deal she’d had fro Gesar¡ªwould never affe like that They wouldn’tAnd Semyon couldn’t do it either Se of the word I couldn’t believe he would slip up like this

That ues who had blundered

Anyway, hoould I look putting forward an accusation like that? "I think the guilty party is one of us A Light One Most likely Sea Or even you, Gesar"

How could I carry on going to work after that? Hoould I be able to look my comrades in the face?

No, I couldn’t come out with suspicions like that I had to know for sure

Somehow it felt aard to call the waitress over I walked to the counter and asked her to ainst the railings and looked down

Below uitarist, collector of alish toilet, was standing beside a small open pool full of live lobsters Las’s face reflected the intense workings of his thought Finally he laughed and pushed his trolley toward the checkout

I pricked up my ears

Las unhurriedly set out hisbelt, with a bottle of Czech absinthe towering over everything else As he was paying, he said, "You know, that pool of lobsters you have over there"

The girl at the checkout s that there was a pool and there were live lobsters swio remarkably ith absinthe, kefir, and frozen pelmeni

"Well," Las continued imperturbably, "I just saw one lobster clie and hide under those refrigerators over there"

The girl started blinking rapidly Alady appeared at the checkout After listening to the terrible tale of the escape, they rushed over to the refrigerators

Las finished paying, glancing back into the hall every now and then

The pursuit of the nonexistent lobster was in full swing The cleaning lady was poking heraround her I heard one of them say: "Drive it this way, toward me! I can almost see it already!"

Las moved toward the exit with a smile of quiet joy on his face