for an idiot like me. So that I wouldn't get hung up about being stuck for ever at my basic second grade of power.

And Nadiushka was an Other too. I'd never have to go through the horror suffered by 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 better.

But here I was playing at spies, like a little child. Worrying myself sick about succeeding in my mission, instead of dropping in on my friendly neighbour 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 café would see the money and the empty glasses and remember a couple of ordinary-looking guys drinking beer there.

CHAPTER 5

I SPENT HALF a day doing things that were strictly off limits and no use to anyone. Kostya would probably have pulled a wry face and informed me what he thought of my naïvity.

First I went back to Assol to change into jeans and a simple shirt, and then I set off in the direction of the nearest normal courtyard – towards the dreary, nine-storey prefabricated buildings. There, to my delight, I discovered a football pitch, with senior-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 Cup had been, to put it mildly, an inglorious one for our team, it had still had a positive effect. In the few courtyards that still survived, the spirit that had seemed 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 Cup material either.

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

But I didn't take offence 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 footballers – Baikal fizzy drink. 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 realisation 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, I walked as far as the river beach and 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 realised, was that in my place any Dark Magician could have done exactly the same thing. Maybe not one of the really young ones still into pleasures previously out of reach, 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.

And he would have scampered round that pitch, yelling and kicking the ball, and hissing at the teenagers' clumsy attempts to swear: 'Hey, watch your lip, kid!' And afterwards he would have gone to the beach, and splashed about in the muddy water, and laid on the grass, looking up at the sky . . .

Where was it, that dividing line? Okay, with the lower Dark Ones, everything was clear. They were non-life. They had to kill in order to survive. And there was nothing any verbal gymnastics could do about that. They were Evil.

But where was the real boundary?

And why did it sometimes seem on the part of dissolving? Like now, at a time when the only problem was one single human being who wanted to become an Other? Just one, that was all! But just look at the resources that had been thrown into the search. Dark Ones, Light Ones, the Inquisition