Then I picked up my shadow-the setting sun was shining from behind me-and entered the Twilight.

At the first level the ground was overgrown with blue moss, but not very thickly. The usual scraggy clumps, clutching greedily at the faint echoes of human emotion.

But there was one thing that put me on my guard. The moss seemed to run in rings around one particular spot. I knew the moss could move, creeping along slowly but stubbornly moving toward its food.

And in this place there was only one possible reason for it to form into circles.

I set off through the thick gray haze. The human world was visible through it all around me, like a faded, poorly exposed black and white photograph. It was cold and cheerless-I was losing energy with every second I spent here. But there was a positive side to that. Not even Arina could stay in the Twilight constantly. She could glance into the first level from the ordinary world, but even that required Power.

And right now she was in no position to be reckless and wasteful with what she had stored up over the years.

At the first level the terrain is almost unchanged. Here too I had earth under my feet, ruts and humps. But I discovered something else. I could see, or rather, sense the old weapons in the ground. Not every one, of course, only those that had actually killed. Half-decayed submachine guns, slightly better preserved rifles… There were more rifles.

About a hundred yards from Arina I hunkered down and started running in a squat. The spell Svetlana had put on me was still working, or I would soon have been out of breath. About fifty meters away, I lay down and started to crawl. The ground was damp, and I was instantly coated with mud. At least I knew that when I left the Twilight the mud would simply drop off. The blue moss began stirring, uncertain what to do-move closer to me or crawl away from any possible danger. That was bad. Arina might realize what was agitating the moss.

And then, very close to me, only about five meters away, a head with long black hair began rising slowly into the air from the densely overgrown ground. The trench was so narrow, it looked as if Arina was emerging straight from the earth.

I froze.

But Arina wasn't looking in my direction. She rose up very slowly until she was standing erect-she seemed to be sitting on the bottom of the old trench. Then she raised her hand theatrically to shade her eyes, as if she were saluting. I realized she was looking through the Twilight.

Fortunately, not at me.

My recruits were getting close.

How beautifully they ran! Even from the Twilight their movement looked fast-they just hung in the air too long when they leapt. The wise old wolf was leading the way, with the cubs behind him.

A human being would have been frightened.

Arina laughed. She put her hands on her hips, I swear like a young peasant woman from Ukraine watching her good-for-nothing husband approach with his drinking companions. She spoke, and low, rumbling sounds began drifting through the air. She was in no hurry to enter the Twilight.

I moved back into the human world.

"… stupid loudmouths!" I heard. "Wasn't what you got last time enough for you?"

The wolves slowed to a walk and stopped about twenty yards away.

The leader stepped forward and barked, "Witch!… Talk… We have to talk."

"Talk away, gray wolf," Arina said amiably.

Igor couldn't distract the witch for long, I realized that. Any moment now she would plunge into the Twilight and take a proper look around her.

But where was Nadiushka?

"Give us… the little girl…" the wolf half-shouted, half-howled. "The Light One… is on the rampage… give us the girl… or it will… be worse for you…"

"Do you really think you can threaten me?" Arina asked in surprise. "Have you completely lost your wits. Who would give a child to wolves? Clear out while you still can!"

Strange-she seemed to be dragging things out.

"Is the child… alive?" the wolf asked in a slightly clearer voice.

"Nadenka, are you alive?" Arina asked, looking down somewhere at the ground. She stooped down, lifted my little girl out of the trench and set her on the surface.

I caught my breath. Nadenka didn't look frightened or tired at all. She seemed to be enjoying what was happening-a lot more than her walks with her grandma.

But she was close to the witch, too close!

"Wolfie!" said Nadya, looking at the werewolf. She reached her little hand out to him and laughed happily.

The werewolf started wagging his tail.

It only lasted a few seconds, then Igor tensed up, his fur bristled, and once again we were watching a wild beast, not a tame dog. But even so, that moment had happened-a werewolf had fawned on a little two-year-old girl, an uninitiated Other!

"Wolfie," Arina agreed. "Nadenka, look to see who else is here. Close your eyes and look. The way I taught you."

Nadiushka happily put her hands over her eyes. And began turning in my direction.

The witch was initiating her!

If Nadiushka really had learned to look through the Twilight…

My daughter turned toward me. She smiled.

"Daddy…"

The next moment I realized two things.

First-Arina knew perfectly well that I was nearby! The witch had been toying with me.

Second-Nadiushka wasn't looking through the Twilight! She had parted her fingers and looked through them.

I immediately withdrew into the Twilight. I was in such a nervous state that I plunged straight through to the second level-into that desolate cotton-wool silence and those pale-gray shadows.

Arina's aura was blazing orange and turquoise. Nadiushka's head was surrounded by a glowing, pure white halo-like a beacon beaming light into space: a potential Other! A Light One! With immense Power!

And the werewolves, who had started to run now, were bundles of red and crimson, fury and spite, hunger and fear…

"Svetlana," I shouted, leaping up. Into the gray space, into the soft silence. "Come!"

I marked the spot for the portal very simply-by flinging pure Power into the Twilight, like stretching out a string of fire, a landing corridor. From me to Arina.

And at the same time I started to run, so that Nadiushka wouldn't shield Arina from me, scattering from my fingers spells that I had learned a long time ago.

Freeze-a localized halt in time.

Opium-sleep.

Triple Blade-the crudest and simplest of all the combat spells.

Thanatos-death.

I had no hope any of them would work. These things could only be effective when you were facing a very weak opponent. An Other with superior powers would parry the blows, whether he was in the Twilight or the human world.

All I wanted to do was distract the witch and slow her down. Overload her defenses, which had to be based on amulets and talismans. All these fireworks were only calculated to identify a breach in those defenses.

My Freeze seemed to disappear into nowhere.

The Sleep spell ricocheted off and shot up into the sky. I hoped there weren't any airplanes overhead. The Triple Blade struck home and the glittering blades sliced into the witch. But to her the Triple Blade was a mere scratch.

Worst of all was the summons to death. I had good reason to be fond of this piece of magic, so dangerously close to the spells of the Dark Ones. But even in the ordinary world, Arina still had time to hold out her hand, and the little bundle of gray mist that paralyzed the will and stopped the heart landed obediently on her open palm.

Arina looked at me through the Twilight, smiling. Her hand was hovering over Nadiushka's head, and the gray bundle was slowly oozing between her fingers.

I leapt toward them-if I couldn't turn the blow aside, at least I could take it myself…

But Arina was already on the second level of the Twilight now, moving fast. She looked blindingly beautiful. A movement of her fingers crumpled my spell, and she casually tossed it at the wolves.