"Don't be in such a hurry…" the witch chanted in a singsong voice. In the silence of the second level her words were like thunder, and my legs betrayed me. I slumped down onto my knees only one step away from Arina and Nadiushka.

"Don't touch her!" I shouted.

"Didn't I ask you…" the witch said in a quiet voice. "Why not just help me get away… what's one old witch more or less to you?"

"I don't trust you!"

Arina nodded wearily and bitterly. "You're right not to trust me… And now what am I to do, sorcerer?"

Her hand slid across her skirt and tore a sprig of dried berries off her belt. She tossed them into the blazing white lights, black smoke billowed up-and the marker for the portal disappeared.

Svetlana was too late!

"You leave me no choice, Light One…" Arina said with a grim expression. "Do you understand? I'll have to kill you, and then your daughter's no use to me anymore. What were you thinking of, with your second-level?"

At that instant a glittering white sword-blade struck Arina from behind, protruded for an instant from her chest, then drew back in obedience to some invisible hand.

"A-a-a-agh…" the witch groaned, slumping forward.

Then the gray gloom parted to let Svetlana through.

The witch seemed to have recovered from the blow already. She retreated, jigging backward and keeping her eyes fixed on Svetlana. The slit that had been burned through her dress was smoking, but she wasn't bleeding. And the look on her face seemed more like admiration than hatred.

"My, my… Great One…" Arina cackled. "Did I miscalculate then?"

Svetlana didn't answer. I could never have imagined such intense hatred in her face-any man would have died if he just looked in her eyes. She was clutching a white sword in her right hand, and the fingers of her left were working the air-as if she were assembling an invisible Rubik's cube.

The Twilight turned a little darker. A rainbow sphere sprang up around Nadiushka. Svetlana's next pass was for me-my body recovered the power of movement. I jumped up and started moving behind the witch. I was only a bit player in this war.

"Which level did you come from, you fidget?" the witch asked almost amiably. "Could it really be the fourth? I was keeping an eye on the third…"

I sensed that the answer was very, very important to her.

"From the fifth," Svetlana replied.

"That's really bad…" the witch muttered. "That's a mother's fury for you…" she squinted at me out of the corner of her eye, then fixed her gaze on Svetlana again. "Don't you go gossiping about what you saw down there…"

"You don't need to tell me," Svetlana said with a nod.

The witch nodded and then began working her hands very rapidly, tearing out her hair. I didn't know if Svetlana was expecting this, but I decided it would be a good idea to jump back. It was a good thing I did-a black blizzard sprang up and began swirling around the witch, as if every hair had been transformed into a slim, sharp blade of black steel. Arina began advancing on Svetlana, who tossed her white sword at the witch-the blades sliced it to pieces and extinguished it, but then a transparent shield appeared, floating in the air in front of Svetlana.

I thought it must be Luzhin's Shield.

The blades shattered against the shield almost instantly, without a sound.

"Oh, Lordy…" Arina wailed. It was strange, but I didn't have the slightest doubt that she was sincere. And yet at the same time she was playing to her audience.

In other words-to me.

"Surrender, you wretch," said Svetlana. "While I'll still let you-surrender!"

"But how about… how about this?" Arina declared. "Eh?"

This time she didn't reach for her amulets. She just started crooning her clumsy doggerel:

Dust to dust collect and bind,

Arms and legs with power filling,

Be my trusty servants willing.

Or you'll be scattered to the wind.

I'd been expecting anything at all from Arina. Except this. Genuine necromancers are very rare, even among the Dark Ones.

The dead were slowly rising out of the earth!

The German soldiers of the Second World War were going back into battle!

Four skeletons dressed in tatters-all their flesh had gone a long time ago and there was earth packed between their bones- stood in a ring around Arina. Another came staggering blindly toward me, clumsily waving its fingerless hands-the bones had rotted clean away. The ludicrous zombie shed pieces of itself at every step. Three equally wretched monsters started toward Svetlana. One of them was even holding a black submachine gun that had lost its magazine.

"Think you can raise the Red Army?" Arina taunted Svetlana.

She shouldn't have done that-Svetlana seemed to turn to stone. And then she hissed through her teeth:

"My grandfather fought in the war. Was this supposed to frighten me?…"

I didn't understand what it was she did. I would have used the Gray Prayer, but she used something from the higher levels of magic beyond my reach. The zombies crumbled into dust.

Svetlana and Arina were left staring at each other in silence.

The joking was over.

The enchantress and the witch clashed in a straightforward duel of Power.

I took advantage of the brief pause to gather my own strength. If Svetlana faltered, then I would strike…

But it was Arina who faltered.

First of all, her dress was torn off. That might possibly have had a demoralizing effect-on a man.

Then the witch began aging rapidly. Her luxuriant black hair shrank to a pitiful gray tuft. Her breasts drooped and stretched, her arms and legs withered. She was like Gingema from the children's story or Gagula from the story for adults.

And there were no special effects here.

"Your name!" Svetlana shouted.

Arina didn't hesitate for long.

Her toothless mouth quivered and she mumbled, "Arina… I am in your power, sorceress…"

It was only then that Svetlana relaxed-and suddenly seemed to wilt. I walked around the subdued Arina and took hold of my wife's arm.

"It's all right… I'm okay," Svetlana said with a smile. "We did it."

The old crone-it was impossible to think of her as Arina- gazed at us sadly.

"Will you allow her to assume her former shape?" I asked.

"Why, was she more attractive then?" said Svetlana, attempting to joke.

"She'll die of old age in a moment," I said. "She's over two hundred years old."

"Let her croak…" Svetlana muttered. She glowered at Arina. "Witch! I grant you the right to become younger!"

Arina's body rapidly straightened up and filled with life. The witch gulped at the air greedily. She looked at me. "Thank you, sorcerer…" she said.

"Let's get out of here," Svetlana ordered. "And no stupid tricks… I grant you only the right to leave the Twilight."

Now all the witch's power-all that had not been stripped away with her clothes and amulets-was completely under Svetlana's control. To coin a phrase, Svetlana had her hand on the switch.

"Sorcerer…" said Arina, keeping her eyes fixed on me. "First remove the shield from your daughter. There is a grenade with the pin drawn lying under her feet. It will explode at any moment."

Svetlana cried out.

I dashed to the rainbow globe and struck it, breaking through the Sphere of Negation. Beneath it there were another two shields. I tore them away crudely, working with raw energy. From the second level of the Twilight I couldn't see anything.

I found my shadow and shot back up to the first level. Everything was clear there, not a trace of the blue moss-the raging battle had burned it away completely.

And almost immediately I saw the old "pineapple" lying under Nadiushka's foot. Arina had left it there as she plunged into the Twilight. Her insurance policy…