Last Watch

by Сергей Лукьяненков

  The deva saw me too-just at the moment when it was reaching its hand out for Valentina. The monster howled in glee and came skidding toward me with surprising agility. What was this crazy reptile trend? A two-headed snake golem in Scotland, and now a half-snake, half-man deva in Uzbekistan.

  Just as a test, I threw a Fireball at the deva. It had absolutely no effect; the bundle of flames simply dissolved in the monster’s body. Then I tried a Triple Blade. The deva winced, but it didn’t slow down.

  All right, then…

  I allowed the Power to flow through my arm and created a White Sword. I was probably influenced by Murat’s final action, but it was a mistake to follow the Uzbek magician’s example: The white blade easily sliced through the deva’s body, but without causing it any harm. There was no time to ponder the reasons for this failure. The deva swung its arm back and struck out with its hand. I managed to jump back, but a cunning thrust with the tail caught me by surprise and I was sent tumbling across the ground. The deva advanced on me, laughing triumphantly, but I couldn’t get up. Strangely enough, I didn’t even feel afraid. All I felt was revulsion at the sight of the monster’s penis rising into an erection. The deva clutched his penis in one hand and began waggling it about, either masturbating or preparing to use it to pummel me with. What was this? Was I supposed to die of a blow from some brainless monster’s dick? I didn’t try to create another White Sword. I gathered Power into the palm of my hand and struck out at the deva with the sign of Thanatos.

  The deva flinched and scratched his chest with his free hand where the blow had landed. Thin streams of smoke curled and twisted like hairs behind his open palm. Then the deva started roaring with laughter, still clutching his male member, which had grown to the size of a baseball bat by this point. The deva radiated heat-not living warmth, but hot air, the same as a blazing bonfire gives off.

  He wasn’t so brainless after all. I was far more stupid, striking with the sign of death at a being that wasn’t even alive.

  “Ai, you Satan, you mangy dog, vicious offspring of a sick tapeworm!” I heard someone shout from behind the deva. Old man Afandi had somehow managed to enter the second level of the Twilight! And not only that-he had taken a firm grip of the deva’s tail and was trying to drag it away from me!

  The monster turned around slowly, as if it couldn’t believe that anyone would dare to treat it with such contempt. It stopped scratching and raised its massive hand above the old man’s head in a clenched fist. It would drive him into the ground up to his ears!

  I frantically sifted through the clutter that had accumulated in my head. Everything to do with golems, from the first classes to the tall tales I’d heard from Semyon. The deva was just another golem. Golems could be destroyed! Golem…golems…cabbalistic golems, golems with goals and free will, golems for fun and amusement, wooden golems…the impossibility of creating a plastic golem…Olga had once told me…a skill that no one needed anymore…the spell wasn’t that difficult in principle, but it took a lot of Power…

  “Dust and Ashes,” I shouted, throwing out one hand toward the deva.

  Now everything depended on whether I’d made the sign correctly. The standard position widely used in magical passes, with the thumb gripped between the next two fingers, but with the little finger extended forward, parallel to the thumb. That month of training in stretching our fingers had certainly been well spent. We would be the envy of any pianist…

  The monster froze and then slowly turned around to face me. The red light in its eyes went out and the deva began whining shrilly like a puppy dog whose paw has been stepped on. The deva opened its hand and the penis fell off and shattered in a heap of sparks, like a firebrand that has flown out of a bonfire. Then the fingers on its hands started crumbling away. The deva had stopped whining now; it was sobbing, reaching its fingerless hands out toward me and shaking its head with the blind eyes.

  That was how the great magicians of the East used to subdue them…

  I held the position with the sign of Dust and Ashes, allowing the Power to flow through me, on and on, for about three minutes in second-level Twilight time, until the deva was finally reduced to a handful of ash.

  “Cold, isn’t it?” said Afandi, hopping up and down. He walked up to the remains of the deva, held out his hands, and rubbed them together as he warmed them. Then he spat on the ash and muttered, “Ugh, you son of evil and father of abomination…”

  “Thank you, Afandi,” I said as I got up off the frosty ground. It really was terribly cold on the second level. At least by some miracle I’d managed not to lose the bag with my things-it was still hanging on my shoulder. Although…perhaps the miracle in question was an affinity spell cast on the bag by Svetlana? “Thank you, Granddad. Let’s get you out of this place. It’s hard for you to stay down here for very long.”

  “Ai, thanks, O mighty warrior,” said Afandi, beaming. “You thanked me? I shall take pride in that for the rest of my pointless life! The vanquisher of a deva has praised me!”

  I took him by the elbow without saying a word and dragged him up to the first level. I’d put so much Power into destroying the deva that even I was finding it hard to stay in the Twilight.

  Chapter 4

  THE CHAIKHANA, OR TEA HOUSE, WAS GLOOMY AND DIRTY. FAT BLUE-BOTTLES buzzed as they circled around the weak lightbulbs in fly-spotted shades hanging from the ceiling. We were sitting on greasy, bright-colored cushions around a low table, only about fifteen centimeters high. The table was covered with a brightly patterned tablecloth, and it was dirty too.

  In Russia a cafe like this would have been closed down in a moment. In Europe they would have put the owner in prison. In the USA the proprietor would have been hit with an absolutely massive fine. And in Japan the boss of an establishment like this would have committed seppuku out of a sense of shame.

  But never before had I come across smells as delicious as those in this little chaikhana that was absolutely unfit for tourists.

  Once we got away from our pursuers, we had split up. The Dark One had gone to find his colleagues and report on what had happened. Valentina Ilinichna and Nodir had set out to gather the Light Ones who were reserve members of the Watch and to call Tashkent and request reinforcements. Alisher, Afandi, and I had caught a taxi and made our way to this chaikhana beside a small market on the outskirts of Samarkand. I had already begun to suspect that there were at least a dozen markets in Samarkand, and certainly more than all the museums and movie theaters taken together.

  On the way I cast a masking spell on myself and became Timur’s double. For some reason young magicians think it’s a bad omen to assume the appearance of a dead man. There are all sorts of beliefs attached to this superstition, from “you’ll die soon” to “you’ll pick up someone else’s habits.” Anybody would think that habits were fleas that scatter after their host dies and look for someone who resembled him as closely as possible… I have never been superstitious, so I didn’t hesitate to adopt Timur’s appearance. I had to disguise myself as a local in any case. Even in this chaikhana a visitor with a European appearance would have looked as much out of place as a Papuan at the haymaking in a Russian village.

  “The food here is very good,” Alisher explained in a low voice after he had ordered. Since I didn’t know a word of Uzbek, I had kept quiet while the young boy waiter was with us. Fortunately, so had Afandi: He only croaked every now and then as he rubbed his bald patch and glanced proudly at me. The meaning of that glance was quite clear: “We showed that deva what for, eh?” I nodded amiably in reply.

  “I believe you,” I said. There was a massive Chinese stereo system standing by the wall, with huge, hissing speakers and blinking colored lights. The cassette that was playing was some Uzbek folk music that originally would have been very interesting, but was hopelessly spoiled by the pop-music rhythms that had been introduced into it and the quality of the stereo. But at least the volume was set so high that I could speak Russian with no worries about attrac
ting glances of surprise from the people nearby. “It certainly smells delicious. Only, I’m sorry, but it is rather dirty in here.”

  “That’s not dirt,” Alisher replied. “At least, it’s not that kind of dirt. You know, when people come to Russia from Western Europe, they frown too at how dirty it is everywhere! But it’s not dirty because no one ever cleans anywhere! In Russia the soil is different and there’s more ground erosion. That fills the air with dust and it settles everywhere. Wash the sidewalk with soap in Europe, and it will stay clean for three days. But in Russia you can lick it clean with your tongue, and the dust will settle again in an hour. In Asia, there’s even more dust, so the Europeans and the Russians think, ‘Dirt, ignorance, savagery!’ But that’s not true! It’s just the way the land is. But when you find good smells in Asia, that’s not the dirt. In Asia you have to trust your nose, not your eyes!”

  “That’s interesting,” I said. “I never thought about it like that before. That must be why people in the East have narrow eyes and big noses, then?”

  Alisher gave me a bleak look. Then he forced a laugh. “OK, that’s one to you. It’s funny. But that really is what I think, Anton. In the East, everything’s different.”

  “Even the Others,” I said with a nod. “Alisher, I didn’t believe in the deva. I’m sorry.”

  “You know, from your description, it wasn’t the same one who followed me,” Alisher said in a serious voice. “He wasn’t so tall, but he was very agile. He had legs. More like a monkey with horns.”

  “Curses on them, foul belches of creation, creatures of feckless magicians!” Afandi put in. “Anton and I defeated that licentious, depraved deva! You should have seen the battle, Alisher! Although a young boy shouldn’t really watch pornography…”

  “Granddad Afandi,” I said. “Please!”

  “Just call me Bobo!” said Afandi.

  “What does it mean?” I asked warily.

  “It means ‘granddad,’” said the old man, slapping me on the shoulder. “You and I defeated those devas, and now you’re my grandson!”

  “Afandi-Bobo,” I said. “Please, don’t remind me of that fight. I feel very embarrassed that I couldn’t overcome the deva straightaway.”

  “Devas!” Afandi repeated firmly.

  “Deva?” I suggested naively.

  “Devas! There were two of them. The big one was holding the little one in his hand and waving him about, left and right, left and right!”

  Afandi got halfway to his feet and gave a very graphic demonstration of the behavior of the “devas.”

  “Hai, great warrior Afandi,” Alisher said quickly. “There were two of them. Anton was so afraid, he didn’t notice the second one. Sit down, they’re bringing our tea.”

  We spent ten minutes drinking our tea with sweet pastries. I recognized halva, Turkish delight, and something like baklava. All the other sweet miracles of the East were new to me. But that didn’t stop me from enjoying the way they tasted. There were different colored sugar crystals (I preferred not to think about what they had been colored with); skeins of very fine, very sweet threads; something that looked like halva, only it was white; and dried fruit. They were all delicious. And they were all very sweet, which was particularly important for us. A serious loss of Power always leaves you with a yearning for something sweet. Even though we operate with Power that isn’t our own and simply redistribute it in space, it’s not easy by any means. Your blood-sugar level falls so low that you can easily slip into a hypoglycemic coma. And if that happens in the Twilight, it will take a miracle to save you.

  “Next there’ll be shurpa broth and pilaf,” Alisher said, pouring himself a fifth bowl of green tea. “The food here is simple. But it’s the real thing.”

  He paused, and I realized what he was thinking.

  “They died in battle. The way watchmen are supposed to die,” I said.

  “It was our battle,” Alisher declared in a low voice.

  “It is our common battle. Even for the Dark Ones. We have to find Rustam, and no one is going to stop us. But I feel sorry for Murat… He killed those men, and then he couldn’t live anymore.”

  “I could have,” Alisher said morosely.

  “And so could I,” I admitted. We looked at each other with understanding.

  “Humans against Others.” Alisher sighed. “I can’t believe it! It’s a nightmare! They were all enchanted; that’s a job for a Higher One.”

  “At least three Higher Ones,” I said. “A Dark One, a Light One, and an Inquisitor. A vampire, a healer, and a Battle Magician.”

  “The end of time has arrived,” said Afandi, shaking his head. “I never thought the Light, the Dark, and the Fear would all join together…”

  I glanced at him quickly and just managed to catch the brief instant before the stupid expression reappeared on his face.

  “You’re not nearly as stupid as you pretend, Afandi,” I said quietly. “Why do you act like some senile old man?”

  Afandi smiled for a few seconds, then grew more serious and said, “It’s best for a weak magician to appear like a fool, Anton. Only a powerful one can afford to be clever.”

  “You’re not so very weak, Afandi. You entered the second level and stayed there for five minutes. Do you know some cunning trick?”

  “Rustam had a lot of secrets, Anton.”

  I carried on looking at Afandi for a long time, but the old man’s face remained absolutely impassive. Then I glanced at Alisher. He was looking thoughtful.

  I wondered if he and I were thinking the same thing.

  I was sure that we were.

  Was Afandi Rustam? Was the simple-minded old man who had meekly cleaned a provincial Watch’s office for decades one of the oldest magicians in the world?

  Anything was possible. Absolutely anything at all. They say that the passing years change every Other’s character and he becomes less complicated: A single dominant character trait overshadows everything else. The cunning Gesar had wanted intrigues, and he is still intriguing to this very day. Foma Lermont, who dreamed of a quiet and comfortable life, was now tending his garden and working as an entrepreneur. And if Rustam’s dominant character trait was secretiveness, after living so long he could quite easily have become totally paranoid and disguised himself as a weak and dimwitted old man…

  But if that were true, he wouldn’t open up to us, even if I told him what I suspected. He would laugh in my face and sing an old song about his teacher… After all, he hadn’t actually said that Rustam initiated him! He had told the story in the third person: Rustam, a foolish old man, an initiation. We were the ones who had set Afandi in the role of the foolish old man!

  I looked at Afandi again, with my inflamed imagination ready to see cunning and morbid secretiveness and even malice in his gaze.

  “Afandi, I have to talk to Rustam,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “It’s very important. Gesar sent me to Samarkand, he asked me to seek out Rustam and ask for his advice, in the name of their old friendship. Advice and nothing more!”

  “It’s a fine thing, old friendship,” Afandi said, nodding. “Very fine! When it exists. But I heard that Rustam and Gesar quarreled, that Rustam spat after Gesar as he walked away and said he never wanted to see him on Uzbek ground again. And Gesar laughed out loud and said that in that case, Rustam would have to put out his own eyes. At the bottom of a bottle of fine old wine there can be a bitter sediment, and the older the wine, the more bitter the sediment gets. In the same way an old friendship can produce very, very great pain and resentment!”

  “You’re right, Afandi,” I said. “You’re right about everything. But Gesar said one other thing. He saved Rustam’s life. Seven times. And Rustam saved his life. Six times.”

  The waiter brought our shurpa, and we stopped talking. But even after the young lad had gone away, Afandi sat there with his lips firmly clamped shut. And the expression on his face suggested that he was figuring something out in his head.

  Alisher and
I exchanged glances and he nodded very slightly.

  “Tell me, Anton,” Afandi said eventually. “If your friend was distressed when the woman he loved left him…so distressed that he decided to leave this world…and you came to him and stayed with him for a month, drinking wine from morning until night, making him go to visit friends and telling him how many other beautiful women there are…is that saving his life?”

  “I think that depends on whether the friend really was prepared to leave this life because of love,” I said cautiously. “Every man who has ever gone through something like that has felt that there was nothing left to live for. But only very, very rarely have they ever killed themselves. Unless, of course, they were foolish, beardless young boys.”

  Afandi said nothing again for a while.

  And then, as if it had been waiting for the pause, my phone rang.

  I took it out, certain that the caller was either Gesar, who had been informed about what had happened, or Svetlana, who had sensed that something was wrong. But there was no number or name on the display. It was simply glowing with an even gray light.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Anton?” It was a familiar voice, with a slight Baltic accent.

  “Edgar?” I exclaimed in delight. No normal Other would ever be glad to get a call from an Inquisitor. Especially if that Inquisitor is a former Dark Magician. But this was a highly unusual situation. Better Edgar than someone I didn’t know, some zealous devotee of equilibrium hung from head to toe with amulets and ready to suspect anyone and everyone of being a criminal.