Hard to Be a God

Prologue

The black stock of Anka’s crossbow was made of plastic, while the strings were chrome steel, operated by a single motion of a noiselessly sliding lever. Anton didn’t trust newfangled technology; he had an old-fashioned arbalest in the style of Marshal Totz (King Pitz the First), overlaid with black copper, with a cable of ox sinew wound around a little wheel. And Pashka had taken a pneumatic rifle. Since he was lazy and lacked the mechanical aptitude to work crossbows, he thought they were childish.

They landed on the north shore, where the gnarled roots of the giant pines jutted out of the sandy yellow cliff. Anka let go of the rudder and looked around. The sun was already over the forest, and everything was blue, green, and yellow—the blue fog above the lake, the dark green pine trees, and the yellow shore on the other side. And the sky above it all was a pale, clear blue.

“There’s nothing there,” Pashka said.

The kids sat leaning over the side of the boat, looking into the water. “A huge pike,” Anton said confidently.

“With fins this big?” Pashka asked.

Anton didn’t reply. Anka also took a look, but saw only her own reflection.

“Be good to take a swim,” said Pashka, plunging his arm into the water up to his elbow. “It’s cold,” he reported.

Anton clambered to the front and jumped onto the shore. The boat swayed. Anton grabbed its side and looked expectantly at Pashka. Then Pashka stood up, put the oar behind his neck like a yoke, and wriggling his lower body, sang:

Anton silently jerked the boat.

“Hey, hey!” Pashka shouted, grabbing at the sides.

“Why deep-fried?” Anka asked.

“Dunno,” answered Pashka. They climbed out of the boat. “Sounds good, huh? Schools of deep-fried sharks!”

They hauled the boat onto the shore. Their feet sank into the damp sand, full of dried needles and pinecones. The boat was heavy and slippery, but they managed to drag it out all the way to the stern, then stopped, breathing hard.

“I crushed my foot,” said Pashka, fixing his red bandanna. He always made sure that his bandanna was tied precisely over his right ear, in the fashion of the hook-nosed Irukanian pirates. “Life ain’t worth a dime,” he declared.

Anka was intently sucking on her finger.

“A splinter?” Anton asked.

“No. A scratch. One of you two has real claws…”

“Let me have a look.”

She showed him.

“Yes,” said Anton. “A wound. Well, what should we do?”

“Hoist the boat onto our shoulders and walk along the shore,” Pashka suggested.

“So why did we get out?” Anton asked.

“Any idiot could manage in the boat,” Pashka explained. “But on the shore, there are reeds—that’s one. Cliffs—that’s two. And ponds—that’s three. And the ponds are full of carp, and catfish.”

“Schools of deep-fried catfish,” said Anton.

“You ever dive into a pond?”

“Sure”.

“Never seen you do it. Must have missed it somehow.”

“Lots of things you haven’t seen.”

Anka turned her back to them, raised her crossbow, and shot at a pine tree about twenty paces away. Bits of tree bark rained down.

“Nice,” said Pashka, and immediately fired his rifle. He had aimed at Anka’s bolt, but he missed. “Didn’t hold my breath,” he explained.

“And if you had?” asked Anton. He was looking at Anka.

Anka pulled the bowstring lever. She had excellent muscles—Anton enjoyed watching the little hard ball of her biceps roll under her tanned skin. She took very careful aim and fired another bolt. It pierced the tree trunk right below the first with a crack. “We shouldn’t be doing that,” she said, lowering her crossbow.

“Doing what?” Anton asked.

“Hurting the tree, that’s what. Some kid was shooting at a tree with a bow yesterday, so I made him pull the arrows out with his teeth.”

“Pashka,” said Anton. “Go on, you have good teeth.”

“One of my teeth makes me whistle,” he retorted.

“Forget it,” said Anka. “Let’s do something.”

“I don’t feel like climbing cliffs,” Anton said.

“Me neither. Let’s go straight.”

“Go where?” Pashka asked.

“Wherever.”

“Well?” said Anton.

“That means the saiva,” Pashka said. “Let’s go to the Forgotten Highway. Remember, Toshka?”

“Of course!” Anton replied.

“You see, Anechka—” Pashka began.

“Don’t you call me Anechka,” Anka said sharply. She couldn’t stand it when people called her anything other than Anka.

Anton took careful note of her preference. He quickly said, “The Forgotten Highway. No one drives on it. And it’s not on the map. And we have no idea where it goes.”

“And you’ve been there?”

“Once. But we didn’t have the time to explore.”

“A road from nowhere to nowhither,” declared the recovered Pashka.

“That’s amazing!” Anka said. Her eyes became like black slits. “Let’s go. Will we make it by night?”

“Come on! We’ll make it by noon.”

They climbed up the cliff. When he got to the top, Pashka turned around. He saw the blue lake with the yellowish bald patches of the sandbars, the boat lying on the sand, and large ripples spreading in the calm, oily water by the shore—probably a splash from that same pike. And Pashka was filled with the vague elation he always felt when he and Anton had run away from boarding school and a day of total independence lay ahead—full of undiscovered places, wild strawberries, hot deserted meadows, gray lizards, and ice-cold water from unexpected springs. And as always, he wanted to whoop and leap up high in the air, and he immediately did so, and Anton looked at him, laughing, and Pashka saw that Anton’s eyes expressed complete understanding. And Anka put two fingers in her mouth and gave a wild whistle, and they entered the forest.

It was a forest of sparse pines; their feet kept slipping on the fallen needles. The slanting rays of the sun fell between the straight trunks, and the ground was dappled with golden spots. It smelled of tar, the lake, and wild strawberries; unseen birds screeched somewhere in the sky.

Anka was walking in front, holding the crossbow underneath her arm, occasionally bending down to pick the blood-red wild strawberries, so shiny they looked varnished. Anton followed with the good old-fashioned arbalest of Marshal Totz on his shoulder. The quiver with the good old-fashioned bolts slapped heavily against his behind. He walked and glanced at Anka’s neck—tanned, almost black, with protruding vertebrae. Once in a while he’d look around, searching for Pashka, but Pashka was nowhere to be found—except that from time to time, first to his right, then to his left, a red bandanna would flash in the sun. Anton pictured Pashka silently gliding between the pine trees, his rifle at the ready, his thin, predatory face with the peeling nose stretched out in front of him. Pashka was stealing through the saiva, and the saiva meant business. The saiva will call, my friend—and you have to respond in time, thought Anton. He was about to duck down, but Anka was in front of him and she might turn around. It’d be ridiculous.

Anka turned around and asked, “You left quietly?”

Anton shrugged. “Who leaves loudly?”

“Actually, I might have been noisy,” Anka said anxiously. “I dropped a basin—then, suddenly, there were footsteps in the hall. Must have been old maid Katya—she’s on duty today. I had to jump into the flower bed. What do you think, Toshka, what kind of flowers grow in there?”

Anton furrowed his brow. “Underneath your window? No idea. Why?”

“Very hardy flowers. ‘No wind can bend them, no storm can fell them.’ People have jumped in there for years, but they couldn’t care less.”

“That’s interesting,” Anton said with an air of deep thought. He remembered that underneath his window there was also a flower bed with flowers “no wind can bend, no storm can fell.” But he had never paid any attention.

Anka stopped, waited for him, and offered him a handful of wild strawberries. Anton carefully took three berries. “Have some more,” said Anka.

“Thanks,” said Anton. “I like taking them one by one. Old maid Katya isn’t too bad, right?”

“Depends on your point of view,” said Anka. “When someone tells you every night that your feet are either dirty or dusty…” She stopped talking. It was wonderful walking alone in the forest with her like this, shoulder to shoulder, bare elbows touching, glancing over occasionally to take in how pretty she was, how agile, and how amazingly friendly. How her eyes were big and gray, with black eyelashes.

“Yeah,” said Anton, stretching out his hand to brush aside a cobweb that gleamed in the sun. “I bet her feet are never dusty. If you’re carried over puddles, you sure won’t get covered in dust…”

“Who’s been carrying her?”

“Henry from the weather station. You know, the big blond one.”

“Really?”

“What’s the big deal? Everyone knows that they’re in love.”

They stopped talking again. Anton took a look at Anka. Her eyes were like black slits. “Since when?” she asked.

“Oh, one moonlit night,” Anton answered cautiously. “Just don’t tell anyone.”

Anka chuckled. “No one made you talk, Toshka,” she said. “Want some wild strawberries?”

Anton mechanically scooped berries from her stained little palm and stuffed them into his mouth. I don’t like gossips, he thought. I can’t stand blabbermouths. He suddenly found an argument. “You’ll be carried in someone’s arms yourself someday,” he said. “How would you like if it people started gossiping about it?”

“What makes you think I’m going to gossip?” Anka said, sounding distracted. “I don’t like gossips myself.”

“Listen, what are you up to?”

“Nothing in particular.” Anka shrugged. A minute later she confided, “You know, I’m awfully sick of having to wash my feet twice every single night.”

Poor old maid Katya, thought Anton. A fate worse than the saiva.

They came out onto the trail. It sloped down, and the forest kept getting darker and darker. It was overgrown with ferns and tall, damp grass. The pine trunks were covered in moss and the foam of white lichen. But the saiva meant business. A hoarse, utterly inhuman voice suddenly roared, “Stop! Drop your weapons—you, noble don, and you, doña!”

When the saiva calls, you have to respond in time. In a single precise motion, Anton knocked Anka into the ferns to the left, threw himself into the ferns to the right, then rolled over and lay in wait behind a rotten tree stump. The hoarse echo was still reverberating through the pine trunks, but the trail was already empty. There was silence.

Anton, lying on his side, was spinning the little wheel to draw the bowstrings. A shot rang out, and some debris fell on him. The raspy, inhuman voice informed them, “The don was struck in the heel!”

Anton moaned and grabbed his foot.

“Not in that one, the other one,” the voice corrected.

You could hear Pashka giggle. Anton carefully peered out from behind the stump, but he couldn’t see a thing in the thick green gloom.

At this instant, there was a piercing whistle and a sound like a tree falling. “Ow!” Pashka gave a strangled cry. “Mercy! Mercy! Don’t kill me!”

Anton immediately jumped up. Pashka was backing up out of the ferns toward him. His arms were above his head. They heard Anka’s voice: “Anton, do you see him?”

“I see him,” Anton answered appreciatively. “Don’t turn around!” he yelled at Pashka. “Hands behind your head!”

Pashka obediently put his hands behind his head and announced, “I’ll never talk.”

“What are we supposed to do with him, Toshka?” Anka asked.

“You’ll see,” said Anton, and took a comfortable seat on the stump, resting his crossbow on his knees. “Your name!” he barked in the voice of Hexa the Irukanian.

Pashka expressed contempt and defiance with his back. Anton fired. A heavy bolt pierced the branch above Pashka’s head with a crack.

“Whoa!” said Anka.

“My name is Bon Locusta,” Pashka admitted reluctantly. “And here, it seems, will he die—‘for I only am left, and they seek my life.’”

“A well-known rapist and murderer,” Anton explained. “But he does nothing for free. Who sent you?”

“I was sent by Don Satarina the Ruthless,” Pashka lied.

Anton said scornfully, “This hand cut the thread of Don Satarina’s foul life two years ago in the Territory of Heavy Swords.”

“Should I stick a bolt in him?” offered Anka.

“I completely forgot,” Pashka said hastily. “Actually, I was sent by Arata the Beautiful. He promised me a hundred gold pieces for your heads.”

Anton slapped his knees. “What a liar!” he exclaimed. “Like Arata would ever get involved with a villain like you!”

“Maybe I should stick a bolt in him after all?” Anka asked bloodthirstily.

Anton laughed demonically.

“By the way,” said Pashka, “your right heel has been shot off. It’s time for you to bleed to death.”

“No way!” Anton objected. “For one thing, I’ve been constantly chewing on white tree bark, and for another, two beautiful barbarians have already dressed my wounds.”

The ferns rustled, and Anka came out onto the trail. Her cheek was scratched, and her knees were smeared with dirt and grass. “It’s time to dump him into the swamp,” she announced. “When an enemy doesn’t surrender, he’s destroyed.”

Pashka lowered his arms. “You know, you don’t play by the rules,” he said to Anton. “You always make Hexa seem like a good man.”

“A lot you know!” said Anton, coming out onto the trail as well. “The saiva means business, you dirty mercenary.”

Anka gave Pashka back his rifle. “Do you always let loose at each other like that?” she asked enviously.

“Of course!” Pashka said in surprise. “What, are we supposed to yell ‘Boom-boom’? ‘Bang-bang’? The game needs an element of risk!”

Anton said nonchalantly, “For example, we often play William Tell.”

“We take turns,” Pashka caught on. “One day the apple’s on my head, the next day it’s on his.”

Anka scrutinized them. “Oh yeah?” she said slowly. “I’d like to see that.”

“We’d love to,” Anton said slyly. “Too bad we don’t have an apple.”

Pashka was grinning widely. Then Anka tore the pirate bandanna off his head and quickly rolled it into a long bundle. “The apple is just a convention,” she said. “Here’s an excellent target. Go on, play William Tell.”

Anton took the red bundle and examined it carefully. He looked at Anka—her eyes were like slits. And Pashka was enjoying himself—he was having fun. Anton handed him the bundle. “‘At thirty paces I can manage to hit a card without fail,’” he recited evenly. “‘I mean, of course, with a pistol that I am used to.’”

“‘Really?’” said Anka. She then turned to Pashka: “‘And you, my dear, could you hit a card at thirty paces?’”

Pashka was placing the bundle onto his head. “‘Some day we will try,’” he said, smirking. “‘In my time, I did not shoot badly.’”

Anton turned around and walked down the trail, counting the steps out loud: “Fifteen… sixteen… seventeen…”

Pashka said something—Anton didn’t catch it—and Anka laughed loudly. A little too loudly.

“Thirty,” Anton said and turned around.

At thirty paces, Pashka looked incredibly small. The red triangle of the bundle was perched on top of his head like a dunce cap. Pashka was smirking. He was still playing around. Anton bent down and started slowly drawing the bowstrings.

“Bless you, my father William!” Pashka called out. “And thank you for everything, no matter what happens.”

Anton nocked the bolt and stood up. Pashka and Anka were looking at him. They were standing side by side. The trail was like a dark, damp corridor between tall green walls. Anton raised the crossbow. The weapon of Marshal Totz had become extraordinarily heavy. My hands are shaking, thought Anton. That’s not good. He remembered how in the winter Pashka and he had spent a whole hour throwing snowballs at the cast iron pinecone on the fence post. They threw from twenty paces, from fifteen, and from ten—but they just couldn’t hit it. And then, when they were already bored and were leaving, Pashka carelessly, without looking, threw the last snowball and hit it. Anton pressed the stock of the crossbow into his shoulder with all his strength. Anka is too close, he thought. He wanted to call to her to step away but realized that it’d be silly.

Higher. Even higher… Higher still… He was suddenly seized with the certainty that even if he turned his back to them, the heavy bolt would still sink right into the bridge of Pashka’s nose, between his cheerful green eyes. He opened his eyes and looked at Pashka. Pashka was no longer grinning. And Anka was very slowly raising a hand with her fingers spread, and her face was tense and very grown-up. Then Anton raised the crossbow even higher and pressed the trigger. He didn’t see where the bolt went.

“I missed,” he said very loudly.

Walking on unbending legs, he started down the trail. Pashka wiped his face with the red bundle, shook it, unfolded it, and started tying it around his head. Anka bent down and picked up her crossbow. If she hits me over the head with that thing, Anton thought, I’ll thank her. But Anka didn’t even look at him.

She turned toward Pashka and asked, “Shall we go?”

“One second,” Pashka said. He looked at Anton and silently tapped his forehead with a bent finger.

“And you really got scared,” Anton said.

Pashka tapped his forehead with a finger again and followed Anka. Anton trudged behind them and tried to suppress his doubts.

What did I do wrong, exactly? he thought dully. Why are they so mad? Well, Pashka I understand—he got scared. Except I don’t know who was more frightened, William the father or Tell the son. But what about Anka? She must have gotten scared for Pashka. But what could I have done? Look at me, trailing behind them like a cousin. I should just take off. I’ll turn left here, there’s an interesting swamp that direction. Maybe I’ll catch an owl. But he didn’t even slow down. That means it’s for life, he thought. He had read that it very often happened like this.

They came out onto the abandoned road even sooner than expected. The sun was high; it was hot. The pine needles prickled under Anton’s collar. The road was concrete, made of two rows of cracked, grayish-red slabs. Thick dry grass grew in the interstices. The side of the road was full of dusty burrs. Beetles were buzzing, and one of them insolently slammed right into Anton’s forehead. It was quiet and languid.

“Look!” said Pashka.

A round tin disk, covered with peeling paint, hung in the middle of a rusty wire stretched across the road. It seemed to show a yellow rectangle on a red background.

“What is it?” Anka asked, without any particular interest.

“A road sign,” Pashka said. “Says not to go there.”

“Do not enter,” Anton confirmed.

“Why is it here?” Anka asked.

“It means you can’t go that way,” Pashka said.

“So why the road?”

Pashka shrugged his shoulders. “It’s a very old highway,” he said.

“An anisotropic highway,” declared Anton. Anka was standing with her back to him. “It only goes one way.”

“The wisdom of our forefathers,” Pashka said pensively. “You drive and drive for a hundred miles, then suddenly—boom!—a do-not-enter sign. You can’t go straight, but there’s no one to ask for directions.”

“Imagine what could be beyond the sign!” said Anka. She looked around. They were surrounded by many miles of empty forest, and there was no one to ask what could be beyond the sign. “What if it doesn’t even say do not enter?” she asked. “The paint is mostly peeled off…”

Then Anton took careful aim and fired. It would have been fantastic if the bolt had shot through the wire and the sign had fallen at Anka’s feet. But the bolt hit the top of the sign, piercing the rusty tin, and the only thing that fell was dried paint.

“Idiot,” said Anka, without turning around.

This was the first word she had addressed to Anton after the game of William Tell. Anton smiled crookedly. “‘And enterprises of great pitch and moment,’” he recited. “‘With this regard their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action.’”

Good old Pashka shouted, “Guys, a car has driven this way! Since the thunderstorm! Here’s the flattened grass! And here…”

Lucky Pashka, thought Anton. He started examining the marks on the road and also saw the flattened grass and the black stripe left by the treads when the car had braked before a pothole.

“Aha!” said Pashka. “He came from past the sign!”

That was completely obvious, but Anton objected: “No way, he was going the other direction.”

Pashka raised his astonished eyes at him. “Have you gone blind?”

“He was going the other direction,” Anton repeated stubbornly. “Let’s follow him.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Pashka was outraged. “For one thing, no respectable driver would go the wrong way past a do-not-enter sign. For another, just look: here’s the pothole, here are the tracks of the brakes… So which way was he going?”

“Who cares about respectable! I’m not respectable myself, and I’m going past the sign.”

Pashka exploded. “Do what you want!” he said, stuttering slightly. “Moron. The heat’s gone to your head!”

Anton turned around and, staring fixedly in front of him, went past the sign. The only thing he wanted was to come across a blown-up bridge and to have to fight his way through to the other side. What do I care about some respectable guy! he thought. They can do what they want—Anka and her Pashenka. He remembered how Anka had cut Pavel down when he called her Anechka, and he felt a bit better. He looked back.

He saw Pashka right away: Bon Locusta, bent in two, following the receding tracks of the mysterious car. The rusty disk above the road swayed gently, and the blue sky flickered through the hole in the disk. And Anka was sitting by the roadside, her elbows propped on her knees and her chin on her clenched fists.

On their way back, it was already dusk. The boys were rowing, and Anka was at the rudder. A red moon was rising over the black forest, and frogs were croaking incessantly.

“We planned the outing so well,” Anka said sadly. “You two!”

The boys were silent. Then Pashka asked quietly, “Toshka, what was there, beyond the sign?”

“A blown-up bridge,” answered Anton. “And the skeleton of a fascist, chained to a machine gun.” He thought a moment and added, “The machine gun had sunk into the ground.”

“Hmm,” Pashka said. “It happens. And guess what? I helped that guy fix his car.”