Sergei Lukyanenko - The New Watch

But even that’s not the most important thing.

People may be glad that their child is an Other.

They may genuinely love the child and not allow even a single drop of envy into their hearts.

This usually means that we’re dealing with a good, loving family.

But then the most difficult part starts.

‘Daughter, your grandmother’s seriously ill… but you could help her, couldn’t you?’

She could. A seventh-level intervention. A trifling matter, of course… but it disrupts the balance between the Watches.

‘Son, life’s getting really hard nowadays… Could you drop into my office? There’s a man there, and it depends on him whether they give me a raise or not… could you have a word with him?’

He could. It’s only a sixth-or seventh-level intervention. And it undermines the morals of a young Other.

‘What the hell are the bastards doing now! This law will destroy our entire education system!’

There isn’t even any need to say anything. The good, honest Other child gazes at the glistening features of the functionary on the TV screen. And involuntarily wishes him ill.

An inferno vortex swells up above the wise bureaucratic head. And not the kind that they accumulate every day from ordinary human curses – they can answer for those themselves, with their drug-addict children, booby-trapped automobiles, spy cameras in the bathhouse – but a genuine, really serious vortex. One that will stir up such a stink that the Inquisition will intervene to make peace between the Watches and determine who’s to blame and what one side owes the other.

Therefore the best, in fact the only way is to explain to someone, no matter how big or little they might be: ‘You are not human. You are an Other. It’s not better or worse… it’s different. The misfortunes and problems of ordinary people are nothing to do with you any longer, and you have nothing to do with them. You’ll have plenty of misfortunes and problems of your own.’

Sometimes it takes a while, but eventually everyone understands.

And as for the parents… they learn that their talented child is now going to study in a special school in addition to the ordinary one. A special school for physics and chemistry, or for art. Or else attend a macramé club five times a week. It doesn’t matter in the slightest what they think, because they will accept any lie and never try to discover the truth. There was a time when I thought that even this was cruel. Then I realised that it wasn’t cruelty, but firmness. Benign firmness.

… What is genuinely cruel is to initiate an Other who is in love, or who is loved with all the ardour of human passion. And to explain that, no, he probably will not be able to rejuvenate or extend the life of the object of his love… that he must never tell her anything… That must be like living as a spy who has been planted in an enemy country. Except that Others are not spies, and the lovers generally separate. Even if the Other is content to love a human being and can reconcile himself to remaining silent and watching as old age stealthily advances – even so, day after day, year after year, life itself pulls them further and further apart. Interests, tastes and habits change. And love dies.

That’s why those people who decline the chance to be initiated, and so remain human, probably act wisely. Stupidly, but wisely…

‘I won’t be able to tell mummy anything?’ asked Kesha.

‘Not a thing,’ Gesar confirmed.

‘But Hermione…’ said Kesha, glancing at Gesar from under his eyebrows, ‘…that’s Harry Potter’s friend…’

‘I know,’ Gesar said approvingly.

‘She told her parents.’

‘But afterwards, remember, she had to erase their memories,’ Gesar remarked gently. ‘Believe me, it’s best not to say anything at all.’

Yes, after J. K. Rowling’s books the job has become much easier. Children grasp the basic idea without even a blink now, only the absence of Hogwart’s is a serious disappointment for them. Gesar claims that Rowling was commissioned to write her books by the London Watch or, rather, both Watches, and the decision to let her have a strictly controlled amount of information was taken by the Inquisition. Maybe it’s true. Or maybe he’s just joking. For Light Others the ability to joke easily compensates for the impossibility of lying.

‘But I’ll still go to ordinary school?’ Kesha asked, just to make sure, and clearly hoping to hear the answer ‘no’.

‘Of course,’ said Gesar. ‘Ignorant magicians are no good to anyone. You’ll go to our school after your lessons in the ordinary one. But right now… right now you’ll have to live with us for a little while, in the Night Watch. There are rooms there for the staff, they’ll give you one, with a big TV, a games console…’

‘The Internet,’ Olga added.

Kesha turned slightly pale – at ten years old, fright at the prospect of finding yourself somewhere without mummy is far stronger than any joy at the ability to cast spells. But he asked quite firmly: ‘And mummy will let me?’

‘Of course,’ said Olga, nodding. ‘We’ll persuade her. And it’s not for long. A few days… perhaps a week. Then you’ll come back home.’

Zabulon smiled sarcastically, but didn’t say anything. Somehow he didn’t seem in any hurry to leave – apparently he couldn’t get enough of the sight of a genuine Prophet. He and I were standing off to one side, but Gesar and Olga were sitting on the sofa, one on each side of Kesha, singing a duet in praise of the advantages of life as an Other. After the serious fright that Semyon had suffered before we arrived, he was drinking tea in the kitchen with Olga Yurievna. Nothing so very terrible had actually happened to him while we were on our way there. He simply discovered that he’d lost the ability to communicate with anyone by magical means, that he couldn’t probe the surrounding space or divine the future for even a minute ahead. And there was also the sense of impending danger that had been growing with every second. Semyon didn’t know anything about the ‘tiger’ but he had realised that this was no ordinary skirmish between the Watches, that it was something far more serious than that. So he had been standing there with some kind of spell cocked and ready to fire, waiting to see who would reach him first…

‘It’s interesting that I’m a wizard,’ Kesha said indecisively. ‘But… do I have to be one? Can’t I stay human?’

Gesar and Olga exchanged glances over the boy’s head. Zabulon cleared his throat.

‘Yes, you can,’ Gesar admitted, ‘if you want to. Do you want to?’

‘No,’ Kesha said firmly. ‘I just wondered.’

When the catty neighbour had called the boy a dumpling, she’d been pretty close to the truth. He was flabby and round-faced, like Doughnut in the book about Dunno. The skin on his face was lumpy, the way it usually is in older people but only very rarely in children. Parents who have children like that usually say in an apologetic tone: ‘You know, he’s very clever and good-natured.’

As for being good-natured, I didn’t know, although the boy’s aura was good, unambiguously Light. There was nothing there for Zabulon. But as for him being bright – that seemed to be true enough.

‘Is it all because of the plane?’ Kesha continued with his questioning. ‘Because I got frightened?’

‘Yes,’ Gesar said, with a nod. ‘The plane really could have crashed. And Anton’ – Gesar nodded in my direction – ‘realised that you’re a Prophet.’

‘And he saved the plane?’ the boy asked.

‘As you can see, the plane didn’t crash,’ said Gesar, avoiding a direct answer.

‘So I can only predict things? Is that all?’ Kesha asked with evident disappointment.