Сергей Лукьяненко - Day Watch

"Yes," said Edgar, trying to speak amicably and politely, so that the Light One wouldn't blow his top over some imaginary insult or get suspicious for no reason. "Czech beer in Moscow and Czech beer in Prague are two different things."

Gorodetsky nodded. "Yes. Especially when you compare it with bottled beer. Czech beer in bottles is the corpse of real beer in a glass coffin."

Edgar smiled in agreement with the comparison and remarked, "Somehow the rest of Eastern Europe seems to have lost the talent for brewing beer."

"Even Estonia?" Anton asked.

Edgar shrugged. These Light Ones could never let slip a chance for a jibe… "Our beer's good. But it's not exceptional. Pretty much like in Russia."

Anton frowned, as if he'd just remembered the taste of the beer back home. But he said something quite different: "I was in Hungary this summer. I drank Hungarian beer, Dreher… almost the only kind they have."

"And?"

"I'd have been better off drinking sour Baltika."

Edgar laughed. Even when he strained his memory a bit, he couldn't remember a single type of Hungarian beer. But then, if Anton thought so poorly of it, it was better not to remember. Anton was a good judge of beer, an excellent judge, in fact. The Light Ones were fond of the pleasures of the flesh-you had to give them that.

"And these… valiant warriors… drinking their slops from back home," said Anton, nodding toward the Americans. "Peacemakers… Goering's aces…"

Both Edgar and Anton had finished their peceno veprevo koleno long ago. They'd both drunk enough beer to set their eyes aglow and their voices were growing louder and more relaxed.

"Why Goering?" Edgar asked in surprise. "They're not krauts, they're Americans."

Anton explained patiently, as if he were talking to a child. "Aces of the US Air Force doesn't sound right. Do you know any short, snappy term for the US Air Force?"

"No, I don't."

"All right, then. They can be Clinton 's aces. At least the Germans knew they were fighting airmen like themselves, but this crowd has dropped bombs on villages where the only defense is a Second World War antiaircraft gun… And they get medals for it, too. But you just try asking them if there's anything in their lives they regard as sacred. They still think they were the ones who liberated Prague."

"Sacred?" Edgar echoed with a laugh. "Why would they need anything sacred? They're soldiers."

"You know, Other, it seems to me that even soldiers should still be human beings first and foremost. And human beings need something sacred to cherish in their souls."

"First you need to have a soul. The sacred bit comes later. Oh! Now we can ask one of them."

One of the American airmen, a guy with rosy cheeks in a uniform glittering with braid and various kinds of trimmings, was trying to squeeze past their table. A fresh strawberries and cream complexion, the pride of Texas or Oklahoma. He was probably on his way back from the restroom.

"Excuse me, officer! Do you mind if I ask you a question?" Edgar said to him in good English. "Is there anything in your life that you regard as sacred? Anything at all?"

The American stopped as if he'd stumbled over something.

His instinct told him that a soldier of the very finest nation in the world had to rise to the challenge and give a worthy reply. He thought, his face reflecting the painful workings of his mind until suddenly it lit up. Inspiration. A smile of pride spread across his face.

"Anything sacred? Of course there is! The Chicago Bulls…"

"It's like a game of chess, you get it?" Edgar explained. "The bosses are just moving their helpless pieces-that's you and me- around the board."

The waiter's face grew longer and longer the more beer Anton and Edgar drank. The number of those big glass mugs he'd brought to this table would have been enough to get the entire American air squadron drunk, and the Chicago Bulls as well. But the two Russians just carried on sitting there, even though it was obvious they were finding it harder and harder to control their tongues.

"Take you and me, for instance," Edgar went on. "You're going to be the defender in this trial. I'm going to be the prosecutor. But we still don't carry any real weight. We're just figures on the board. If it suits them, they'll throw us into the thick of it. If it suits them, they'll set us aside for better times. If they want to, they'll exchange us. After all, what is this trial, really? It's a song and dance over a trivial exchange of pieces. Your Igor's been swapped for our Alisa. And that's all. They just set them on each other, like two spiders in a jar, and took them off the board. In the name of higher goals that are beyond us."

"No, you're wrong," Anton said sternly, wagging his finger at Edgar. "Gesar had no idea that Igor would run into Alisa. It was one of Zabulon's intrigues."

"And how can you be so sure of that?" Edgar asked derisively. "Are you so strong you can read Gesar's soul like an open book? As far as I know, the head of the Light Ones isn't too fond of letting his subordinates in on his fundamental plans either. It's the high politics of the higher powers!" he said very loudly and insistently.

Anton really wanted to object. But unfortunately he didn't have any convincing arguments.

"Or take that latest clash in Moscow University. Zabulon used you-I'm sorry, you probably don't like to hear me say that, but now that we've started… Anyway, Zabulon used you. Zabulon! Your sworn enemy."

"He didn't use me." Anton hesitated, but then went on anyway. "He tried to use me. And I tried to use the situation to our advantage. You understand-after all, this is war."

"Okay, so you tried to use the situation too," Edgar agreed dismissively. "Let's assume that… But Gesar did nothing- nothing!-to protect you. Why should he try to keep his pawns safe? It's wasteful and pointless."

"You treat your pawns even worse," Anton remarked morosely. "You don't even regard the lower Others-the vampires and shape-shifters-as equals. They're just canon fodder."

"But they are canon fodder, Anton. They're less valuable than us magicians. And anyway, it's pointless for you and me to talk about things and try to understand. We're puppets. Nothing but puppets. And we don't have a chance to become puppet masters, because for that you need the abilities of a Gesar or a Zabulon, and that kind of ability doesn't come along very often. And anyway, the places at the chessboards are already taken. None of the players will give his place away to a mere piece- not even to a queen or a king."

Anton drained his large mug sullenly and put it back down on the glass stand with the restaurant's logo.

He was no longer the same young magician who had gone out into the field for the first time to track down a poaching vampire. He had changed, even in the short time that had passed. Since that first mission he'd had plenty of opportunities to observe just how much Darkness there was in the Light. He was actually rather impressed by the gloomy position adopted by the Dark magician Edgar-they were only grains caught between the mill wheels as the big players settled accounts with each other, so the best thing to do was drink your beer and keep quiet. And once again Anton thought that sometimes the Dark Ones, with their apparent simplicity, were more human than the Light Ones, with their struggle for exalted ideals.

"But even so, you're wrong, Edgar," he said eventually. "There's one fundamental difference about us. We live for others. We serve, we don't rule."

"That's what all the human leaders have said," Edgar replied, obligingly falling into the trap. "The Party is the servant of the people, remember?"

"But there's one thing that distinguishes us from human leaders," said Anton, looking Edgar in the eye. "Dematerialization. You understand? A Light One cannot choose the path of evil. If he realizes that he has increased the amount of evil in the world, he withdraws into the Twilight. Disappears. And it's happened plenty of times, whenever a Light One has made a mistake or given way even slightly to the influence of the Darkness."