Last Watch

by Сергей Лукьяненков

  I was far more concerned about another point. Edgar had been involved in the business with the Fuaran. He had been in contact with Kostya Saushkin.

  And that brought me back to that unfortunate youth, Victor Prokhorov. The boy Vitya, who had been friends with the boy Kostya…

  Again and again everything pointed to Kostya Saushkin. What if he had managed to survive somehow? If he’d used his final scraps of Power to erect some kind of vampire Shield around himself and lived long enough to set up a portal and disappear from his burning space suit? And then he’d gotten in touch with Edgar?

  No, it was impossible, of course. The Inquisition had checked the matter very carefully. But what if Edgar had already been playing a double game, even then? And he had falsified the results of the investigation?

  But even so, it still didn’t add up. Why would he save a vampire he had just been hunting? Save him and then conspire with him? What could Kostya do for him? Without the Fuaran-nothing! And the book had been destroyed, that was absolutely certain. It had been observed just as carefully as Kostya. And its destruction had been confirmed by magical means. The discharge of energy when such a powerful and ancient artifact is destroyed is quite impossible to confuse with anything else.

  Basically, there was no way that Edgar could have saved Kostya-that was the first conclusion. And he didn’t have any need to save him-that was the second.

  But even so, even so…

  Alisher stopped the jeep and switched off the engine. The silence that fell was deafening.

  “I think we’re here,” he said. He stroked the steering wheel and added: “A good little car. I didn’t think we’d make it.”

  I turned back toward Afandi, but he was no longer asleep. He was looking at the freakish stone figures scattered about in front of us, with his lips tightly pressed together.

  “Still standing there,” I said.

  Afandi glanced at me in genuine fright.

  “I know about it,” I explained.

  “It was a bad business,” Afandi said with a sigh. “Ugly. Not worthy of a Light One.”

  “Afandi, are you Rustam?”

  Afandi shook his head. “No, Anton. I’m not Rustam. I’m his pupil.”

  He opened the door and climbed out of the car. After pausing for a second, he murmured, “I am not Rustam, but I will be Rustam…”

  Alisher and I glanced at each other and got out of the car too.

  It was quiet and cool-it’s always cool in the mountains at night, even in summer. And it was just starting to get light. The plateau that I knew from Gesar’s memories had hardly changed at all. Except perhaps that the outlines of the stone figures had been softened by the wind and the rare showers of rain: They were less clearly defined, but were still recognizable. A group of magicians with their hands raised in invocatory spells, a werewolf, a magician running…

  I started to shiver.

  “What is this…,” Alisher whispered. “What happened here?”

  He reached into his pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

  “Give me one too,” I said.

  We lit up. The air around us was so pure that the sharp smell of tobacco seemed like a memory of home, a reminder of the smog of the city.

  “These…were they people?” Alisher asked, pointing to the blocks of stone.

  “Others,” I told him.

  “And they…”

  “They didn’t die. They turned to stone. Lost all their external senses. But their reason remained, attached to the lumps of rock.” I looked at Afandi, but he was still standing there, pensively examining the field of the ancient battle, or watching the eastern horizon, where the sky had turned slightly pink.

  Then I looked at the plateau through the Twilight.

  The sight was genuinely bloodcurdling.

  What Gesar had seen two thousand years ago had made him feel fear and revulsion. But what I saw now made me feel pity and pain.

  Almost all the Dark Ones who had been turned to stone by the White Mist were insane. Their reason had not been able to withstand being incarcerated in total isolation from any sense organs. The fluttering colored auras around the stones blazed with the brown and reddish-green fire of madness. If I try to think of something to compare this sight with, it looked like hundreds of total lunatics whirling around on the spot-or rather, standing there absolutely motionless, screaming, giggling, groaning, weeping, muttering, drooling, scratching their faces, or trying to poke their own eyes out.

  There were only a few auras that retained some remnants of reason. Their owners were either distinguished by quite incredible willpower, or they were blazing with the thirst for revenge. There was not much madness in them, but they were overflowing with fury, hatred, and the desire to annihilate everyone and everything.

  I stopped looking through the Twilight and looked at Alisher instead. The young magician was still smoking, and he hadn’t noticed that his cigarette had already burned down to the filter. He only dropped the butt when it scorched his fingers. And then he said, “The Dark Ones got what they deserved.”

  “Don’t you feel any pity for them?” I asked.

  “They abuse our pity.”

  “But if you have no pity in you, how do we differ from them?”

  “In our color,” said Alisher. He looked at Afandi and asked, “Where should we seek the Great Rustam, Afandi?”

  “You have found him, Light One with a heart of stone,” Afandi replied in a quiet voice. And he turned to face us.

  He had transformed with the speed of a mature shape-shifter. He was a whole head taller and much wider in the shoulders-his shirt had split and the upper button had been torn out, together with a piece of cloth. To my surprise, his skin had turned lighter, and his eyes had become bright blue. I had to remind myself that two thousand years earlier the inhabitants of this part of Asia had looked quite different from the way they did now. Nowadays a Russian will smile when someone from Central Asia tells him that his ancestors had light-brown hair and blue eyes. But there is a lot more truth in these words than modern-day Russians realize.

  Rustam’s hair, however, was actually black. And of course, his Eastern origins could be seen in the features of his face.

  “So you are Rustam after all,” I said, bowing my head. “Greetings, Great One! Thank you for responding to our request.”

  Beside me Alisher went down on one knee, like a valorous knight in front of his lord-respectfully, but proudly.

  “Afandi is not Rustam,” the ancient magician replied. His gaze was clouded, as if he were listening to someone else’s voice. “Afandi is my pupil, my friend, my guardian. I no longer live among people. My home is the Twilight. If I need to walk among mortals, I borrow his body.”

  So that was it! I nodded in acknowledgment of his words and said, “You know why we have come here, Great One.”

  “I do, and I would prefer not to answer Gesar’s question.”

  “Gesar said that you-”

  “My debt to Gesar is my debt.” A spark of fury glinted in Rustam’s eyes. “I remember our friendship and I remember our enmity. I asked him to leave the Watch. I asked him to stop the war over people. For people’s own sake. But Gesar is like this youth…” He stopped talking and looked at Alisher.

  “Will you help us?” I asked.

  “I will answer one question,” said Rustam. “One question. And then my debt to Gesar will be no more. Ask, but do not make any mistake.”

  I almost blurted out: “Did you really know Merlin?” Oh, these sly tricks…ask one question, make three wishes…

  “What is the Crown of All Things, and what is the easiest way to get it from the seventh level of the Twilight?” I asked.

  A smile appeared on Rustam’s face. “You remind me of a certain man from Khorezm. A cunning merchant to whom I owed money…and I promised to grant him three wishes. He thought for a long time and said, ‘I wish to grow young again, be cured of all ailments, and become rich-that is one wish.�
�� No, young magician. We shall not play that game. I am not granting a wish, I am answering one question. That will be enough. Which is it that you wish to know? What the Crown of All Things is, or how to get it?”

  “I really don’t want to wind up like Pandora by asking, ‘How do I open this box?’” I muttered.

  Rustam laughed, and there was a hint of madness in his laugh.

  But what else could you expect from a Light One who had dissolved into the Twilight and was living beside the enemies he had once condemned to eternal torment? He had fixed his own punishment, or penance, and it was slowly killing him.

  “What is the Crown of All Things?” I asked.

  “A spell that pierces through the Twilight and connects it with the human world,” Rustam responded instantly. “You made the right choice, young magician. The reply to the second question would have confused you.”

  “Oh, no, if you’re answering one question, then answer fair and square!” I exclaimed. “Explain how this spell works and what it’s for!”

  “Very well,” Rustam agreed with surprising readiness. “The strength of an Other lies in the ability to use the human Power flowing through all the levels of the Twilight. Our world is like an immense plain covered with tiny springs that give out Power but do not know how to use it. We Others are merely the channels into which this water flows from the hundreds and thousands of springs. We do not provide a drop of water to this world. But we know how to retain and use the water of other people. Our ability to accumulate that Power is the consequence of our ability to immerse ourselves in the Twilight, to break through the barriers between the levels and manipulate ever more powerful energies. The spell that was invented by the Great Merlin erases the barriers between our world and the levels of the Twilight. What do you think would happen as a result of that, young magician?”

  “A catastrophe?” I guessed. “The Twilight world is different from ours. On the third level there are two moons…”

  “Merlin thought otherwise,” Rustam said. He seemed quite carried away now that he had answered the question, and he was quite willing to talk. “Merlin believed that each level of the Twilight is something that didn’t happen to our world. A possibility that was never realized. A shadow cast on existence. He thought our world would not die, it would destroy the Twilight. Obliterate it, as the sunlight obliterates shadows. Power would flood the entire world, like the waters of the ocean. And under that layer of water, it would make no difference who had once been able to immerse himself in the Twilight and who had not. Others would lose their Power. Forever.”

  “Is that true, Rustam?”

  “Who can say?” Rustam asked, spreading his hands wide. “I answer your second question because I do not know the answer. Perhaps that is what would happen. People would not even notice the change, and Others would become ordinary people. But that is the simplest answer, and is the simple answer always right? Possibly catastrophe would await us. Two small moons colliding with one large one, blue moss starting to grow in the wheat fields…who can say, magician, who can say? Perhaps Others would grow weaker but still retain some of their Power. Or perhaps something absolutely inconceivable would happen. Something we cannot even begin to imagine. Merlin did not take the risk of using the spell. He invented it to amuse himself. He found it pleasant to think that he could change the entire world…but he did not intend to do it. And I think Merlin was right. It is not a good idea to touch what he has hidden in the Twilight.”

  “But the Crown of All Things is already being hunted,” I said.

  “That is bad,” Rustam declared imperturbably. “I would advise you to cease these attempts.”

  “We’re not the ones,” I said. “It’s someone quite different. An Inquisitor, a Light One, and a Dark One who have joined forces.”

  “Interesting,” Rustam said. “It is not often that a single goal brings enemies together.”

  “Can you help us to stop them?”

  “No.”

  “But you say yourself that it is bad!”

  “There is very much in the world that is bad. But usually the attempt to defeat evil engenders more evil. I advise you to do good; that is the only way to win the victory!”

  Alisher snorted indignantly and even I winced at this well-meant but totally useless conclusion. I thought what a victory evil would have won if Rustam and Gesar had not used the White Mist! Perhaps I did feel pity for the incarcerated Dark Ones, but I had no doubt at all that if they had destroyed the two Light Ones standing in their way, an agonizing death would have awaited the Others and the people whom Gesar and Rustam were defending. Yes, perhaps you couldn’t defeat evil with evil. But you couldn’t increase the amount of good by using nothing but good.

  “Can you at least suggest what they are trying to achieve?” I asked.

  “No,” said Rustam, shaking his head. “I cannot. Erase the difference between people and Others? Why, that is stupid. In that case you ought to erase all the inequality in the world. Between rich and poor, strong and weak, men and women. It would be simpler to kill everyone.” He laughed, and I was horrified to realize yet again that the Great Magician was not entirely sane.

  But I replied politely, “You are right, Great Rustam. It is a stupid goal. One Other has already tried to attain it…with the help of the book Fuaran. Only, by another means-by transforming all people into Others.”

  “A fine jest,” Rustam replied without any particular interest. “But I agree, these are two roads that lead to the same goal. No, young magician! It is perhaps more complicated than that.” He screwed up his eyes. “I think the Inquisitor found something in the archives. An answer to the question of what the Crown of All Things really is.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “And it proved to be an answer that suited everybody. Dark Ones and Light Ones and the Inquisition that maintains equilibrium. It is remarkable that such a thing has been found in the world. It even makes me feel slightly curious. But I have told you everything that I know. Merlin’s spell annihilates the differences between the levels of the Twilight.”

  “You live in the Twilight yourself,” I observed. “You could suggest something! After all, if the Twilight disappears, you will die!”

  “Or I shall become an ordinary man and live out the remainder of a human life,” Rustam said without any particular emotion.

  “Everyone who has withdrawn into the Twilight will die!” I exclaimed. Alisher looked at me in amazement. Of course: He didn’t know that the path followed by Others ended on the seventh level of the Twilight…

  “People are mortal. How are we better than them?”

  “At least try to suggest something, Rustam!” I implored him. “You are wiser than I am! What could it be? What could the Inquisitor have found?”

  “Ask him yourself,” said Rustam, reaching out his hand. His lips moved and a stream of blinding white light flashed past me toward the Toyota.

  I could probably have spotted Edgar myself, if only I had been expecting to see him on the plateau. Or perhaps even the most thorough check would have been useless. He had not concealed himself in the Twilight or by using the common spells available to all Others. Edgar was hidden from our eyes by a magical amulet on his head that reminded me of a skullcap. It was only its size that prevented me from calling it a Hat of Invisibility. I supposed it could be a Skullcap of Invisibility, since we were in Uzbekistan after all.

  I automatically raised a Shield around myself and noticed that Alisher had done the same.

  Only Rustam seemed entirely unconcerned with the Inquisitor’s presence. The light he had summoned had taken Edgar by surprise-he had been sitting on the hood of the car with his legs dangling, calmly observing us. For a second it looked as if he couldn’t understand what had happened. Then the skullcap on his head started smoking and Edgar flung it to the ground with a muffled curse. That was when he realized that we could see him.

  “Hi, Edgar,” I said.

  He hadn’t changed a bit s
ince the last time we’d seen each other-on the train, when we were doing battle with Kostya Saushkin. Except that now he wasn’t dressed in his signature suit and tie, but in a much freer and more comfortable style: gray linen trousers, a thin white cotton sweater, and good leather shoes with thick soles. He looked like a svelte, fashionable European. And in the Central Asian wilderness, that made him seem like either an amiable colonizer taking a brief respite from the white man’s burden, or an English spy from the time of Kipling and the Great Game that Russia and Britain had played in this part of the world.

  “Hi, Anton,” said Edgar, getting down off the hood. “Just look at that…now I’ve interrupted your conversation.”

  Strangely enough, he seemed embarrassed. But then, who wouldn’t be embarrassed after calling down tectonic spells on our heads? Who wouldn’t be afraid to look us in the eye?

  “What have you done, Edgar?” I asked.

  “It was just the way things worked out,” he said with a sigh. “Anton, I won’t even try to make excuses! I feel really awkward!”

  “And did you feel awkward in Edinburgh, too,” I asked, “when you cut the watchmen’s throats? When you hired the thugs?”

  “Very awkward,” Edgar said with a nod. “Especially since we didn’t manage to break through to the seventh level in any case.”

  Afandi/Rustam began laughing and slapping his sides. How much of it was Rustam and how much Afandi, I couldn’t tell.

  “He felt awkward!” Rustam exclaimed. “They always feel awkward, but it never means anything.”

  Obviously embarrassed by this reaction from Rustam, Edgar waited until the magician had laughed his fill. I took the chance to look the Inquisitor (or perhaps I should say “former Inquisitor”?) up and down through the Twilight.