Last Watch

by Сергей Лукьяненков

  “He’s the fifth member of our Watch.” Valentina Ilinichna seemed a little embarrassed. “Well, you understand-seventh-level. He mostly takes care of the office and grounds. But he might just be able to help.”

  “I’m almost certain he will,” I said with a nod, remembering what Nadya had said. “But where is he?”

  “He should be here soon.”

  There was nothing else I could do. I nodded again and walked toward the so-called simple table.

  Murat got back half an hour later, carrying several full bags, and some of their contents immediately migrated to the table. He carried the rest into the small kitchen attached to the main premises of the Watch. My culinary knowledge was sufficient for me to realize that pilaf was about to be made.

  And meanwhile we drank the cognac, which unexpectedly turned out to be quite good, and I tried the fruits. Valentina Ilinichna let Nodir lead the conversation. And I politely listened to the history of the Uzbek Watches from ancient mythological times to Tamburlaine, and from Tamburlaine to our own time. I won’t lie-the Light Ones here had not always lived in perfect harmony with the Dark Ones. There were plenty of grim, bloody, and terrible events. But I got the feeling that the flare-ups of hostility between the Watches in Uzbekistan were governed by laws that I knew absolutely nothing about. People could fight wars and kill one another while the Watches maintained a polite neutrality. But during Khrushchev’s time and the early years of Brezhnev’s rule, Light Ones and Dark Ones had fought one another with incredible ferocity. Three Higher Magicians had been killed at that time-two from the Day Watch and one from the Night Watch. And that war had also decimated the ranks of first-and second-level Others.

  Then everything had gone quiet, as if the stagnation of the eighties also extended to the Others. And since then relations between Dark Ones and Light Ones had consisted of a rather halfhearted standoff-more jibes and taunts than genuine enmity.

  “Alisher didn’t like that,” Timur observed. “Is he still in Moscow?”

  I nodded, delighted by this opportune change of subject. “Yes. He’s in our Watch.”

  “How is he getting on?” Nodir asked politely. “We heard he’s already fourth-level.”

  “Practically third,” I said. “But he can tell you himself. He flew down with me, but he decided to visit some friends first.”

  The members of the Watch were clearly not pleased by this news. Timur and Nodir both looked not exactly annoyed, but uncomfortable. Valentina Ilinichna shook her head.

  “Have I said something to upset you?” I asked. The bottle we had drunk together encouraged me to speak frankly. “Do explain to me what the problem is. Why do you feel this way about Alisher? Is it because his father was a devona?”

  The members of the Watch exchanged glances.

  “It’s not a question of who his father was,” Valentina Ilinichna said at last. “Alisher is a good boy. But he’s…very categorical.”

  “Really?”

  “Perhaps he has changed in Moscow,” Timur suggested, “but Alisher always wanted to fight. He was born in the wrong time.”

  I thought about that. Of course, in our Watch, Alisher had always preferred to work on the streets. Patrols, confrontations, arrests-there wasn’t much that happened without him being involved…

  “Well…that’s a bit more natural in Moscow,” I said. “It’s a big city, life is more stressful. But Alisher misses his homeland a lot.”

  “But we’re glad Alisher’s here, of course we are!” Valentina Ilinichna said, changing her tune. “It’s been such a long time since we saw him. Hasn’t it, boys?”

  The “boys” agreed with feigned enthusiasm. Even Murat went so far as to declare from the kitchen that he had really missed Alisher.

  “Will Afandi be here soon?” I asked, turning the conversation away from an awkward subject.

  “Yes, indeed,” said Valentina Ilinichna, concerned. “It’s after two already…”

  “He’s been here for a long time,” Murat commented from the kitchen again. “He’s wandering around the yard with a broom. I can see him through the window. He probably decided we’d ask him to cook the pilaf…”

  Nodir walked across quickly to the door and called out, “Afandi, what are you doing?”

  “Sweeping the yard,” the fifth member of the Samarkand Watch replied with a dignified air. To judge from his voice, not only had he been born three hundred years earlier, his body was far from young too.

  Nodir turned back to us and shrugged apologetically. He called again, “Afandi, come in, we have a guest!”

  “I know we have a guest. That’s why I’m sweeping!”

  “Afandi, the guest is already in the house. Why are you cleaning outside?”

  “Eh, Nodir! Don’t you teach me how to receive guests! When the guest is still outside, everybody cleans and tidies the house. But if the guest is in the house, you have to clean outside!”

  “Have it your own way, Afandi.” Nodir laughed. “You know best, of course. But meanwhile we’re going to eat grapes and drink cognac.”

  “Wait, Nodir!” Afandi replied agitatedly. “It would be disrespectful to the guest not to dine at the same table with him!”

  A moment later Afandi was standing in the doorway. He looked absolutely ridiculous: a pair of sneakers with the laces unfastened on his feet, a pair of blue jeans held up with a Soviet Army belt, and a white nylon shirt with big, broad buttons. Nylon is a durable material. The shirt was probably twenty or thirty years old. Afandi himself was a clean-shaven old man (the scraps of newspaper stuck to the cuts on his chin suggested that this cost him a serious effort) with a balding head, appearing to be about sixty years old. He cast an approving glance at the table, leaned his broom against the doorpost, and skipped briskly across to me.

  “Hello, respected guest. May your Power increase like the fervor of a man undressing a woman! May it rise to the second level and even the first!”

  “Afandi, our guest is a Higher Magician,” Valentina Ilinichna said. “Why do you wish him the second level?”

  “Quiet, woman!” said Afandi, letting go of my hand and taking a seat at the table. “Do you not see how quickly my wish has come true and even been exceeded?”

  The members of the Watch laughed, but without the slightest malice. Afandi-I scanned his aura and discovered that the old man was on the very lowest level of Power-was regarded as the jester of the Samarkand Watch. But he was a well-loved jester; they would forgive him any foolish nonsense and never let him come to any harm.

  “Thank you for the kind words, Father,” I said. “Your wishes really do come true with remarkable speed.”

  The old man nodded as he threw half a peach into his mouth with evident enthusiasm. His teeth were excellent-he might not take much care of his overall appearance, but he obviously attached great importance to that particular part of his body.

  “They’re all young whippersnappers here,” he muttered. “I’m sure they haven’t even welcomed you properly. What’s your name, dear man?”

  “Anton.”

  “My name’s Afandi. That means a sage,” said the old man, looking around sternly at the other members of the Watch. “If it weren’t for my wisdom, the powers of Darkness-may they wither in agony and burn in hell-would long ago have drunk their sweet little brains and chewed up their big stringy livers!”

  Nodir and Timur chortled.

  “I understand why our livers are stringy,” said Nodir, pouring the cognac. “But why are our brains sweet?”

  “Because wisdom is bitter, but foolishness and ignorance are sweet!” Afandi declared, washing his peach down with a glass of cognac. “Hey! Hey, you fool, what do you think you’re doing?”

  “What?” said Timur, who was about to follow his cognac with a few grapes. He looked at Afandi quizzically.

  “You can’t follow cognac with grapes!”

  “Why?”

  “It’s the same thing as boiling a kid in its mother’s milk!”

>   “Afandi, only Jews don’t boil young goat meat in milk!”

  “Do you?”

  “No,” said Timur, abashed. “Why use milk?”

  “Then don’t follow cognac with grapes!”

  “Afandi, I have only known you for three minutes, but I have already tasted so much wisdom that I shall be digesting it for an entire month,” I put in, to attract the old man’s attention. “The wise Gesar sent me to Samarkand. He asked me to find his old friend, who once went by the name of Rustam. Do you happen to know Rustam?”

  “Of course I do,” Afandi said with a nod. “But who’s Gesar?”

  “Afandi!” Valentina Ilinichna exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. “You must have heard of the Great Gesar!”

  “Gesar,” the old man mused. “Gesar, Gesar…Wasn’t he the Light Magician who worked as a night-soil man in Binkent?”

  “Afandi! How can you confuse the Great Gesar with some night-soil man?” Valentina Ilinichna was shocked.

  “Ah, Gesar!” said Afandi, nodding. “Yes, yes, yes! At Oldjibai, the vanquisher of Soton, Lubson, and Gubkar. Who doesn’t know old man Gesar?”

  “But who knows old man Rustam?” I butted in again, before Afandi could start reciting Gesar’s great and glorious deeds.

  “I do,” Afandi declared proudly.

  “Please, don’t exaggerate, Afandi,” Timur said. “Our guest really needs to meet Rustam.”

  “That’s not easy,” said Afandi, suddenly shedding all his buffoonery. “Rustam has cut himself off from people. He was seen in Samarkand ten years ago, but since then no one has spoken to Rustam, no one…”

  “How do you know about Rustam, Afandi?” I couldn’t resist asking. If it wasn’t for what my daughter had said, I would have believed the old man was simply stringing me along.

  “It was a long time ago,” Afandi said with a sigh. “In Samarkand there was an old man, a complete fool, just like these young whippersnappers. One day he was walking through the town, complaining that he didn’t have anything to eat. And suddenly a mighty hero, a batyr, with eyes that glowed and a high, wise forehead, came out to meet him. He looked at the old man and said, ‘Granddad, why are you so sad? Do you really not know the power that is concealed within you? You are a Boshkacha! An Other!’ The batyr touched the old man with his hand, and the old man acquired power and wisdom. And the batyr said, ‘Know that the Great Rustam himself has been your teacher.’ That was what happened two hundred and fifty years ago!”

  As far as I could tell, the members of the Watch were as astonished by this story as I was. Murat froze absolutely still in the doorway of the kitchen and Timur spilled the cognac he was just about to pour into the glasses.

  “Afandi, were you initiated by Rustam?” Valentina Ilinichna asked.

  “I’ll tell everything to a person wise enough,” Afandi answered, taking his glass from Timur. “But you can tell a stupid person a hundred times, and he won’t understand a thing.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us this story before?” Timur asked.

  “There was no reason to.”

  “Afandi, a pupil can always call his teacher,” I said.

  “That is true,” Afandi confirmed pompously.

  “I need to meet Rustam.”

  Afandi sighed and gave me a cunning look. “But does Rustam need to meet you?”

  How sick I was of that florid Eastern style! Did they really talk to one another that way in their daily lives? “My wife, have you warmed a bread cake for me?”-” Oh, my husband, will not my warm embraces take the place of your bread cake?”

  I realized I was on the verge of giving way and saying something unworthy of a guest who had been met with such great hospitality. But fortunately there was a quiet knock at the door and Alisher walked in.

  I didn’t like the look on his face at all. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Alisher looking sad. After all, he could have discovered that his school sweetheart had married, had five children, gotten fat, and completely forgotten about him-more than enough reason for feeling sad.

  But Alisher was alarmed about something.

  “Hi,” he said to his former colleagues, as if he had left them only yesterday. “We’ve got problems.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Right outside the fence.”

  Chapter 3

  AFTER EDINBURGH I OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN EXPECTING SOMETHING like this.

  But instead I had relaxed. The streets smothered in greenery, the splashing of the water in the irrigation ditches, the noisy Eastern market and the severe outlines of the domes of the mosque, the Dark Ones on the other side of the wall, and the overwhelming hospitality of the Light Ones…it was all so completely different from Scotland. I thought the only problem I’d have to deal with would be finding the old magician; I wasn’t expecting any more cunning tricks involving human beings.

  The building was surrounded by about a hundred men. I could see militiamen among them, and well-equipped soldiers from the Special Forces, and young soldiers-skinny, pimply kids-awkwardly clutching automatic weapons. All sorts of forces had been brought together to capture us. Everything that had been close at hand.

  That wasn’t a problem. Even without my help, Alisher could brainwash a hundred or two hundred attackers. Unfortunately, every man in the cordon was protected by magic spells.

  Every Other is capable of shielding himself and others against the influence of magic. He doesn’t even have to be at a very high level in order to apply protective spells to a hundred people. To put it simply, magic that is controlled by reason is more like a knife than a grenade launcher. And what you need to protect yourself against it is not the heavy armor plate of a tank, but a light bulletproof vest made of Kevlar. By striking with raw Power in the form of a Fireball, a White Lance, or a Wall of Flame, I could burn out an entire city block. And equally powerful amulets and spells would be required to protect anyone against the strike. But in order to subordinate the attackers to my will and scatter them, first I would have to strip each one of them of his protection. And that was far from simple. There are dozens of different kinds of Shields, and I didn’t know which kind had been used. Most likely (at least, this is what I would have done) each individual Shield was made up of two or three spells chosen at random. One soldier, for instance, has the Shield of Magic and the Sphere of Calm. Another has the Sphere of Denial, the Crust of Ice, and the Barrier of Will.

  Just try finding the right approach for each one! And from a distance!

  “They followed me,” Alisher explained while I, protected by my own Sphere of Denial, stood at the window and studied the warriors who had surrounded us. “I don’t know how, but they followed me all the way from the airport. I kept having the feeling I was being followed, but I couldn’t spot anything. And then, when I was leaving my acquaintance’s house…they tried to arrest me. About twenty men. Not a single Other. I tried to shield myself from them, but they could see me!”

  They could see me, too. Not all of them, but a few soldiers had clearly spotted me, despite the magic. That meant that they had been charged with search spells as well as protective spells. Glance of the Heart, Clear Gaze, True Vision-the magical arsenal is quite extensive. Light Ones and Dark Ones have been thinking up ways to deceive one another for thousands of years.

  And now it had all been turned against us.

  “How did you get away from them?” I asked, moving away from the window.

  “Through the Twilight. Only”-Alisher hesitated-“they were waiting for me there, too. There was someone keeping watch on the second level… I got out as fast as I could.”

  “Who was it on watch? A Light One? A Dark One?”

  Alisher gulped and smiled awkwardly. “I think it was a deva.”

  “Nonsense,” I exclaimed, suppressing the urge to swear. “Devas don’t exist.”

  “They don’t exist in Moscow, but we have them here,” Timur stated with absolute certainty. He followed my gaze to the door that led to the Da
rk Ones. “Anton, believe me, it’s not them! They have no reason to attack us, and to involve people as well! The Inquisition would have their heads!”

  I nodded. I wasn’t even thinking of suspecting the Samarkand Day Watch.

  “Get in touch with the top management in Tashkent. Tell them to stop these men!”

  “How?” asked Timur, puzzled.

  “By human methods! Phone calls to the ministers of defense and internal affairs! And get on to the Inquisition, quick!”

  “What shall I say?” Valentina Ilinichna asked, taking out an old cell phone.

  “Tell them we have a critical situation here. An alpha-prime violation of the Great Treaty. The provision of information concerning Others to human beings, the involvement of human beings in confrontations between the Watches, the illegal use of magic, the illegal dissemination of magic, violation of the agreement on the separation of powers…in brief, violations of clauses one, six, eight, eleven, and fourteen of the basic Appendix to the Treaty. I think that will be enough.”

  Valentina Ilinichna was already making the call. I looked out the window again. The soldiers were waiting, sitting on the fence. What were the walls made of here? If they really were compressed reeds, which is how they looked, bullets would go straight through them…

  “Ah, what beautiful words!” Afandi suddenly exclaimed. He was still sitting at the table and chewing energetically on a piece of sausage. His glass was full, and the cognac bottle on the table was empty. ‘A violation of the basic Appendix’! That makes everything clear all right, clear as day. Keep giving the orders, Commander!”

  I turned away from Afandi. It was just my luck-the person all my hopes rested on was as halfwitted as the devona before he met Gesar.

  “Time to be going, lads,” I said. “I’m sorry things turned out this way.”

  “Anton, can you disperse them?” Nodir asked with timid hope in his voice.

  “I can kill them, no problem. But not disperse them.”

  Someone began hammering on the door that led to the Dark Ones’ office. Timur walked over, asked something, and opened it. The two Dark Ones who were on duty there came running in. Judging from their bewildered expressions, they had only just discovered the cordon and were desperate for explanations.