​Chapter 40. I Am Always Near

The Svetoch coffeehouse basked in the kind, blessed light of the State’s Sun.

Through its wide windows streamed golden light, playing across faceted glasses and bottles of white table wine, “Nadezhda-777.” In the corner, a radiola purred softly — a plump, tube-driven thing with the Committee’s crest on its grille; from the speaker, a lazy saxophone exhaled state-approved jazz.

By the window sat a lady in a pillbox hat, holding a slim cigarette in an amber holder, pretending to read the latest issue of the State Gazette, though her sharp eyes glided across the room, dutifully marking each soul within it.

In the back, two laborers from the Electro-Repair Trust silently ate cabbage kulebyakas, picking up crumbs with stiff, work-worn fingers. At the counter, an old man — likely a former professor — drank coffee from a porcelain cup marked with a golden “G.”

Everything looked orderly and serene: music, pastries, sunlight, the polite voices of clerks. Yet beneath this lacquered propriety there ran a faint tremor of unease — like a telegraph wire with an invisible finger resting on it, waiting for a signal.

The door creaked open, and the city’s hum burst into the room — the rumble of a tram line, the ring of footsteps on asphalt.

The first to cross the threshold was a young woman in dark, mirrored glasses — a new model of lenses. She did not remove them, though the light inside was soft, almost chapel-like. Her walk was unhurried, fluid — the gait of someone who does not know doubt. Her glasses immediately troubled the lady with the Gazette: in them everything reflected — the people, and the unease itself.

Two more followed — a gentleman in a worn greatcoat with a heavy gaze, and a lady in a severe gray dress of coarse wool, proud, as though she knew the value of everything around her. They stepped inside together — two facets of one inscrutable equation.

The newspaper lowered softly onto the table. The laborers froze mid-bite. The old man lifted his cup but never drank. The radiola suddenly grew louder, as if it, too, was on alert.

The girl in glasses walked toward the far wall, where the shadows smothered the golden reflections. She sat facing the room, unhurried, as if taking a throne — not a woman, but a queen in exile — and the entire café instantly recognized her right to that seat.

The lady, whose face seemed strange, as though the symmetry of God’s image had been deliberately broken, settled onto the little sofa opposite. Her right cheek — smooth as porcelain; her left — slightly drawn by a thin scar. In her heterochromatic eyes — one amber, one steel — a cold gleam flickered, she saw everyone in the manner of the State’s own surveillance.

Their companion sat last, heavily, like a man collapsing into a chair upon returning from duty. Around him, the air darkened immediately — not a shadow, but a sediment of black electricity.

The patrons, having taken in the newcomers, returned to their own business. The lady with the newspaper buried herself in the editorial about the construction of the Lunar Ring; the laborers hastily bowed their heads and resumed discussing output quotas. The old man at the counter stopped drinking and, without turning, tilted his ear slightly — old men hear everything.

The attendant appeared at the table — a young man in a spotless white shirt and narrow tie. On his chest gleamed a badge: Service Class, Second Rank. He stood as if he had just stepped down from a display window, believing earnestly that his smile was sincere.

“Coffee? Rhubarb pie?” he said in a proper, almost sing-songy tone — and then, remembering his duty, lowered his voice to a whisper: “May our merciful Sovereign keep you... Your travel papers, if you’d be so kind. Regulations are strict these days, as you know.”

The man tensed slightly, his shoulders drawing together like a beast about to lunge.

The woman tilted her head a little, her smile cooling.

The girl in the glasses didn’t move; she only placed her palms on the table — the mirrored lenses caught the clerk’s reflection, and he saw himself in them: frightened, small.

A thick, uneasy silence settled. The radiola squeaked its needle over the vinyl; the jazz coughed and faltered, and even the music understood: its shift was not the one about to begin.

“We have no papers,” Mari said calmly.

The clerk blinked. The meaning of the phrase struck him like a bayonet to the gut, only registering a moment later. His smile twitched, slid off his face. He straightened, gripping the ledger with both hands — a paper shield, his last defense.

“Then... under the Statute of Internal Tranquility I am obliged to notify the Prikaz,” he breathed out — almost a shout — and everyone flinched at the indecent sound.

The room froze.

The lady by the window slowly folded her copy of the State Gazette and reached into her lacquered handbag, where, besides a compact and a service badge, lay a ladies’ revolver. The old man at the counter set his cup onto its saucer, and it chimed like the first bell of matins.

The radiola’s needle reached the final groove and stopped, releasing a thin crackle of static — the air held its breath.

Eliza leaned forward slowly; her smile — a crooked fracture of light across her face — made the young man instinctively retreat a step.

“Try,” she said quietly.

“I... we are obliged to notify them,” he stammered, voice trembling.

“We’ll inform the Prikaz at once. A couple of minutes — and they’ll arrive. Just a routine check, ladies and gentlemen, merely... merely a formality,” he added, not believing a word of it, edging backward toward the communications post beneath the portrait of the Sovereign.

His words were addressed not so much to the trio as to the entire room — he was hunting for witnesses, for support from anyone. Everyone was on edge: only yesterday, the Broadcast had announced that foreign agents had attempted an attack on illustrious persons at court. Troubled times, war at the doorstep, and the slightest misstep could cost one’s head — on the bare grounds of a violation, for nothing more than a duty officer’s signature.

The workmen by the wall exchanged glances, their faces stiffening into masks.

The lady in the pillbox hat rose slightly, clutching her purse — something metallic clinked inside.

And then from the far table, where a young couple sat, a chair scraped. The young man shoved it back and, without a word, strode toward the State Communications Post. Tearing the heavy black receiver from its hook, he dialed the Prikaz code word — the rotary plate jingled like a tambourine.

Mari didn’t move. Her dark glasses reflected the scene without emotion or judgment.

The corner of Eliza’s mouth twitched — not a smile, but the shadow of satisfaction.

And then, from a crack in the wall between the tiled panels, something black stirred — a shadow thickening into a thread. A snake slipped out, shot across the floor like lightning, wrapped itself around the young man’s wrist, and sank its fangs into his throat.

The whole room understood — the Prikaz would not arrive in time.

The young man gurgled like a burned-out radio tube. His eyes flew open, frozen in a silent question aimed at all government institutions at once. He collapsed to the floor, clawing at his neck. His fingers scraped the skin where black veins spread — as though someone had poured ink under it. The receiver slipped from his hand and hung on its coiled cord, swaying. The line spat dry static.

A scream — short, panicked — cut through the room.

The lady in the hat froze, covering her mouth, forgetting both her pistol and her badge. The workmen recoiled from the table; one toppled a chair — the crash rolled across the café like a cannon shot.

The clerk stood petrified: his face drained white as a starched apron; the ledger slipped from his fingers and slapped onto the floor, leaving a pale stain of fear on the tiles.

“Sit down,” Eliza said evenly, almost gently — but in her voice rang the particular steel that compels obedience.

“No one leaves this place.”

The hall obeyed at once. Movement stopped, the air turned thick and still. The patrons froze where they were.

The radiola’s needle found the groove again, and warm tube jazz seeped into the silence — light and carefree.

Now the only sounds in the café were the soft sway of the old record and the dry, white crackle of the communication line.

All attention was drawn to a single spot — the table by the wall, which had become the pulpit of this small, paralyzed world.

Mari was the first to break the silence. She sat straight, like a statue of the Sovereign’s Truth carved from marble, her hands on the tabletop.

“All this has happened before,” she said evenly, without a trace of emotion. “Any world is a Pact. You can call it different things: law, system. But the essence is the same. The Pact is the world. And every Pact, every order, is always born of revolt.”

She fell silent, and the quiet grew denser. The music did not die away — it slipped into another dimension, from which it reached them as a faint echo.

“It is always made by rebels,” Mari went on in the same calm tone, as if reading an old decree. “Here is a world created by a subway shooter and a medical student. They rose up against the prison of the previous Pact and, horrified by its lifeless order, built a new one — proper and perfect. But every revolt ends in a blueprint, and every freedom in an instruction. Destroyers become architects, and freedom turns into a new Pact.”

The café, as if enchanted, listened to her words.

Mari tilted her head slightly, and the lenses of her dark glasses gathered all the dim light, turning into two black mirrors.

“By destroying Order or ordering Chaos, they think they are creating something sacred,” she continued, her quiet voice filling the silence. “But it is all just two sides of the same coin.”

She leaned forward, and the space around her obediently moved to meet her.

“They think it is their choice. Some go to Order and believe they have found salvation. Others run to Chaos and think they have found freedom. Both believe themselves free — in their own way. But both paths lead to the same end. Order accumulates tension, Chaos burns it to ash. And then — a new Pact. A new world that once again calls itself eternal.”

She touched the glass of water — lightly, almost tenderly — but did not take a sip.

“It has always been this way,” she continued. “Cities, empires, religions — all the same breath of the cycle: structure, rupture, then new structure. Chaos overturns the board so that Order can set the pieces again. They call it history, but it is not history, it is a mechanism. A wheel that turns itself. You think you are running forward, but in reality you are only returning to the source — to another turn of the same spiral.”

Eliza’s smile softened — deceptively, like fine silk hiding a blade. The smirk of a snake that has felt the rabbit trembling beneath the grass.

“Your entire philosophy is a noose,” she said with a quiet fury that made the air shiver. “And with every word you pull it tighter. So you are the Pact? You are Sophia, Achamoth — you are this fallen world?”

The question tore through the silence like a gunshot. The attendant, pale enough already, now looked as if all the air had been pumped out of him, leaving only a shell. The jazz in the corner was singing the song of a dead world that had once believed in meaning and salvation.

The old man at the counter closed his eyes; his expression said clearly — he had heard these words before, more than once.

Mari did not answer. She only smiled — just slightly, in a way that required no confirmation.

Mark leaned back in his chair. In the dark lenses of her glasses he saw his own reflection — blurred, doubled. He was not speaking to her — he was speaking to the world.

His voice came out dry, with the metallic ring of a coin being struck:

“The cycle. You call it truth. But I’ve seen something else. You’re not the truth, Mari. You’re the eternal return. And this café, this cozy little world — just another cell you built for them. These people are ready to thank you for it. They believe it’s life because you left them no choice.”

He laid his black, clawed hands on the table. The wood creaked, and that sound echoed through the stilled hall.

“But I’m no longer one of your prisoners,” he said, low. “The Pact isn’t in Chaos or in Order — it’s in the choice between them, in the transition. When you killed me, you opened the Transition, and I ended up between worlds. Eliza gave me Chaos — and I learned not to fear the dark. I am their sum. I am what your cycle never had, and I don’t belong to any of you anymore. Not their Order, not her Chaos, not your Transition. I am the Chaos of Transition.”

He leaned toward Mari, almost whispering, yet that whisper filled the café like a low-frequency hum rising from the earth’s core.

“I don’t want your eternal cycle. Your game of Order and Chaos. You’re right, everything is transition, but I’m not the door from one cell to another. I break the repetition of rupture itself. If Chaos and Order are two sides of the same coin you keep flipping, then I’m the abyss where no coin exists.”

He straightened. The light from the window flashed in his eyes — black, inhuman.

“We are not part of your cycle, Mari,” he said. “We reject it.”

He turned to Eliza, and his hand covered hers on the table. Their fingers intertwined — Chaos and Destruction making a pact of their own.

Eliza did not pull her hand away, and their union became an undeniable fact.

Mari’s dark glasses reflected their joined hands, distorting the image, turning it into a symbol. She smiled — not with her lips, but with her entire being, and in that smile there was nothing but endless, ancient acceptance.

“The greatest heresy,” she said, her voice like the rustle of pages in a book no one had opened for a thousand years. “Do you understand what you want, Abaddon? You declared war, not on me. You declared war on everyone.”

She tilted her head slightly, as if looking through the table into the core of things.

“For Order, you are an unsolvable equation, a variable that breaks their perfect code. They cannot compute you, so they must erase you. For Chaos, you are a traitor. They fight for freedom that exists only as the opposite of Order. And you want to destroy the board they play on. You take the meaning of their rebellion away. And for me...” — in her words, for an instant, there was tenderness and infinite sorrow. “For me, you are oblivion. I am the door between the cells, and you want to destroy the entire prison. Who would I be then? I don’t know.”

Eliza lifted the glass of water. The clear liquid trembled at the invisible breath of the air, and in its depth the sun was reflected — dim, like a forgotten gold ducat.

“That’s why the cycle must be broken,” she said. Unlike Mari, her voice held fury. “A new Pact is no better than the old. Every revolution is just a change of jailer. This one will die too, and there is no meaning in it. Freedom is not a cell — it’s the abyss we choose to fall into.”

The jazz from the radiola burst out for a moment and choked, unable to withstand the silence.

The gaze of every patron — the laborers, the lady in the hat, the attendant, the old man at the counter — was fixed on her. A sentence had been passed on their entire state, and they all understood it.

Her fury was beautiful — the primordial force of Chaos. But it was the same trap Mark had already fallen into. Eliza wanted to break the Pact, just like Satan. Both remained slaves to that war, antagonists defined entirely by their enemy. Mark wanted neither one nor the other.

“No,” Mark said. “Not to break it — to leave.”

His voice was strangely quiet, as if he were speaking not for himself, but for everyone who had ever lived through these cycles.

“To stop playing Order and Chaos. To step out of the game... and simply be. To create worlds not for others, but for ourselves. To obey — but only our own freedom. To obey nothing else. He who obeys himself serves no one.”

Mari did not move. Only her lips curved in the faintest smile — without joy, without mockery. It was the smile of a geologist watching a glacier shift — a process she had observed for thousands of years and would observe forever.

“Try,” she said softly. “I’m always near. I’m always with you, Mark.”

Her words were neither threat nor promise. They sounded like a law of the universe being spoken aloud.

No one in the café dared to raise their eyes. The workers in the corner studied the patterns on their plates. The lady in the hat stared at a crack in her saucer. They were trying to disappear.

The radiola, tired witness to it all, gave a crackle and fell silent forever. The conversation was over.

Mari rose from the table, pushing the chair back neatly.

“It’s time,” she said to her companions. “They have their own Sovereign and Antichrist here, their own Great War. Everything returns to its cycle.”

At that moment, the café windows were flooded with flat, blinding white light. It erased all colors, turning the houses outside into negatives.

On the horizon, slowly and inevitably, like a monstrous flower, a nuclear mushroom cloud was rising.

People stared at the window. Cigarettes burned to their filters between their fingers, newspapers lay forgotten. Their faces emptied out, and the light burned the last traces of humanity from them.

No one noticed that the table by the wall had become vacant. The three who had been sitting there vanished — as though they had never existed. The old man at the counter was gone as well.

And then the blast wave passed through, and the small provincial town ceased to exist.