‘Naturally, the details of the secret compact with the powers of darkness are not accessible to modern researchers. However, their result is clear: after a short time, pentagrams appear on banners, on the headgear of Red Army soldiers, and on the armour of its still sparse military equipment. Each of them opened a gate into our world to a demon protector, who guarded the wearer of the pentagram from external violence. The demons received their pay, as usual, in blood. In the twentieth century alone, according to the most conservative estimates, around thirty million inhabitants of the country were sacrificed.
‘The Compact with the lords of the summoned powers quickly justified itself: the Bolsheviks seized and consolidated power, and although Lenin himself, who had been the intermediary between the two worlds, could not endure and died only fifty-four years after his birth, eaten from within by the fires of hell, his followers unhesitatingly continued his work. Soon after followed the demonization of the entire country. Schoolchildren pinned their first pentagram to their chests. Few know that, from the outset, the ritual of initiation into the Little Octobrists intended the badge’s pin to be used to pierce the child’s skin. The demon of the Little Octobrist “star” would thus taste the blood of its future host, entering into a sacral union with its host once and forever. Growing up and becoming a Pioneer, the child would receive a new pentagram, and a part of the essence of the Compact would be revealed to those experiencing insight: a gold-imprinted portrait of the Leader was wrapped in flames, in which he disappeared. Thus, the rising generation was reminded of the heroic deed of self-sacrifice. After that was the Komsomol, and finally, the way was cleared for the chosen to enter into the priestly caste, the Communist Party.
‘Myriads of summoned spirits protected everyone and everything in the Soviet state: children and adults, buildings and equipment, while the demon lords themselves took up residence in the giant ruby pentagrams on the Kremlin towers, willingly agreeing to confinement for the sake of their increased power. It was precisely from here that invisible lines of force spread over the entire country, holding it back from chaos and collapse, and subordinating its inhabitants to the will of those who occupied the Kremlin. In some sense, the entire Soviet Union was turned into one giant pentagram whose surrounding protective perimeter became its national boundary.’
Artyom tore himself away from the page and looked around. The candle had burned down and had started to smoke. Daniel was sound asleep, with his face turned to the wall. Artyom stretched, and then returned to the book.
‘The supreme test for Soviet power became the clash with National Socialist Germany. Protected by powers no less ancient or powerful than was the Soviet Union, the armour-fettered Teutons were able to penetrate deeply into our country for the second time in a thousand years. This time, their banners were inscribed with a reversed symbol of the sun, light, and prosperity. To this very day, fifty years after the Victory, tanks with pentagrams on their turrets continue in perpetual battle against tanks whose steel bears the swastika, in museum panoramas, on television screens, on sheets of graph paper torn out of school notebooks…’
The candle flickered one last time and went out. It was time to go to sleep.
If you turned your back to the monument, you could see a small section of the high wall and the silhouettes of the sharp-pointed towers in the gap between the half-ruined houses. But, as had been explained to Artyom, you couldn’t turn around and look at them. And it was also forbidden to leave the doors with the steps unattended because if something were to happen, you’d have to sound the alarm, but if you so much as peeked – that’s it, you’re done for, and the others suffer, too.
Consequently, Artyom stood still, although the desire to turn around kept eating at him. Meanwhile, he examined the monument, whose bottom had been overgrown with moss. The monument depicted a gloomy old man, sitting in a capacious armchair and leaning on an elbow. Something dripped slowly and thickly from his pitted bronze pupils onto his chest, giving the impression that the monument was crying.
It was unbearable to look at this for very long. So, Artyom went around the statue and attentively looked at the doors. Everything was tranquil, there was complete silence, and there was just the slightest sound of the wind rambling between the picked-over carcasses of buildings. The detachment had departed some time ago, but had not taken Artyom along. They ordered him to stay and stand guard, and if anything happened, to go down into the station and give warning of what happened.
Time passed slowly, and he measured it with steps, which he took around the bottom of the monument: one, two, three…
It happened when he got to five hundred: a clatter and growling broke out to his rear, behind his back, where he could not look. Something was nearby, and it could rush at Artyom at any moment. He froze, straining his ears, then dropped to the ground and pressed himself against the base of the statue, holding his weapon ready.
Now it was close at hand, apparently, on the other side of the monument. Artyom distinctly heard its husky animal breathing. Moving around the side of the statue’s base, he gradually moved closer to the sound. He tried to stop his hands from shaking and to keep his sight on the place where the creature would appear.
But the breathing and the sound of steps suddenly began to retreat. But when Artyom looked out from behind the statue to take advantage of the opportunity to fire a burst into the back of his unknown enemy, he immediately forgot about both his enemy and everything else.
The star on the Kremlin tower was clearly visible even from here. The tower itself remained only a vague silhouette in the unsteady light of a partially cloud-covered moon, but the star stood out clearly against the sky, riveting the attention of any who looked at it for a completely understandable reason. It glittered. Not believing his eyes, he took out his field binoculars.
The star burned a fierce bright-red colour, illuminating several metres of the space around it, and when Artyom looked closer, he noticed that its fire was irregular. It was as if a tempest was confined inside the giant ruby; it brightened in fits and starts, as if something inside was flowing, seething, flaring… The sight was of fantastic beauty not possible in this world, but it was poorly visible from such a distance. He had to get closer.
Shouldering his weapon, Artyom ran down the stairs, jumped over the cracked asphalt in the street, and stopped at the only corner from where he could see the whole Kremlin wall… and the towers. A red star beamed from each one of them. Hardly catching his breath, Artyom again looked through the eyepieces. The stars flared with the same seething irregular glow, and he wanted to look at them forever.
Concentrating on the closest of them, Artyom still admired its fantastic flows, until he suddenly seemed to feel as if he could distinguish the shape of whatever was moving inside, under the crystal surface.
To better make out the strange outlines, he had to get a little closer. Having forgotten about all dangers, he stopped in the middle of the open space and now kept his binoculars glued to his eyes, trying to understand what he had managed to see.
The demon lords, he remembered at last. The marshals of an army of unclean spirits that had been summoned to defend the Soviet state. The country, and the whole world as well, had fallen to pieces, but the pentagrams on the Kremlin towers had remained untouched: the governors who had entered into a compact with the demons were long dead, and there was nobody left to free them… Nobody? What about him?
I need to find the gates, he thought. I need to find a way in…
‘Get up! You have to go soon.’ Daniel shook him.
Artyom yawned and rubbed his eyes. He had just dreamed something incredibly interesting, but the dream had faded instantly, and he could not recall what he had seen. All of the lights had already been lit in the station, and he could hear the cleaning women sweeping the platform while merrily bantering.
He put on his dark glasses and shuffled off to wash up, having tossed over his shoulder a not-very-clean towel his host had given him. The toilets
were located at the same end as the bronze panel, and the line of people waiting to get in was not short. Having got in line, continuing to yawn, Artyom tried to recall at least some of the images from his dream.
The line stopped moving forward, for some reason, and the people in it started to murmur loudly. Attempting to understand what was the matter, Artyom looked around. All eyes were fixed on a bolted iron door. It was now open, and a tall man stood in the frame. Seeing him, Artyom, too, forgot why he was standing there.
It was a stalker.
He had imagined them to look exactly like this, both from his stepfather’s stories and the rumours gleaned from itinerant merchants. The stalker wore a stained protective suit, scorched in places, and a long, heavy body armour vest. His shoulders were broad; a light machine gun was casually slung over the right one, while a gleaming, oily belt of ammunition hung like a baldric from the left. He wore rough, laced boots with the pants legs tucked into the top, and there was a large canvas rucksack on his back.
The stalker took off his round special forces helmet, pulled off the rubber face piece of his gas mask, and stood there, flushed and wet, talking to the post commander about something. He was no longer young. Artyom saw grey stubble on his cheeks and chin, and silvery strands in his short black hair. Yet the man radiated power and confidence; he was completely at ease and collected, as if even here, in a quiet and cheerful station, he was ready to meet danger at any moment and not let it catch him unawares.
By now, only Artyom continued to unceremoniously examine the arrival. The people behind him in line first tried to urge him forward, and then simply started to walk around him.
‘Artyom! What’s the delay? You’ll be late if you don’t watch out!’ Daniel came up to him.
Hearing his name, the stalker turned towards Artyom, looked at him intently, and suddenly took a broad step toward him.
‘You from VDNKh?’ he asked, in a deep resonant voice.
Artyom nodded silently, and felt his knees start to shake.
‘You the one looking for Melnik?’ the stalker continued.
Artyom nodded once more.
‘I’m Melnik. You have something for me?’ The stalker looked Artyom in the eye.
Artyom hastily groped around his neck for the cord with the cylindrical case that it now felt odd to part with, as if with a talisman, and extended it to the stalker.
The stalker pulled off his leather gloves, opened the cover and carefully shook something out of the capsule into his palm. It was a small scrap of paper. A note.
‘Come with me. I couldn’t make it yesterday. Sorry. The call came when we were already on our way to the surface.’
Having said a quick goodbye and thanks to Daniel, Artyom hurried after Melnik, up the escalators that led to the passage to Arbatskaya.
‘Is there any news from Hunter?’ he asked, awkwardly, barely keeping up with the long-striding stalker.
‘Haven’t heard a thing from him. I fear you’ll have to ask your dark ones about him now,’ said Melnik, looking back over his shoulder at Artyom. ‘On the other hand, you could say there’s too much news from VDNKh.’
Artyom felt his heart start beating more forcefully.
‘What news?’ he asked, trying to suppress his worry.
‘Not much good,’ said the stalker, dryly. ‘The dark ones went on the offensive again. There was a heavy battle a week ago. Five people were killed. And it seems there are even more dark ones there now. People are starting to flee that station of yours. They can’t stand the horror, they say. So, Hunter was right when he told me something sinister was hidden there. He felt it.’
‘Who died, do you know?’ asked Artyom, frightened, trying to recollect who was supposed to stand duty that day, a week ago? What day was today? Was it Zhenka? Andrey? Please don’t let it be Zhenka…
‘I wouldn’t know. It’s not enough the undead are worming their way in there, but some kind of devilment is coming out of the tunnels around Prospect Mir, too. People lose their memory, and several people died along the tracks.’
‘What’s to be done?’
‘There’s a Council meeting today. The Brahmin elders and generals will have their say, but I doubt they’ll be able to help your station with anything. They barely defend Polis itself, and then only because nobody dares make a serious attempt on it.’
They came out onto the Arbatskaya station. Mercury lamps burned here, too, and just as at Borovitskaya, the living quarters were located in bricked-in arches. Sentries stood next to several of them, and overall, there was an uncommonly large number of soldiers here. The walls, painted white, were hung in places with army parade standards – with embroidered gold eagles – that seemed almost untouched by time. There was activity all around. Long-robed Brahmins walked about, while cleaning women washed the floor and scolded those who tried to pass over the still-wet surface. There were quite a number of people here, too, from other stations. They could be identified by their dark glasses or by the way they folded their hands together to cover their squinting eyes. Only living and administrative quarters were located on the platform; the shopping arcades and food vendors were removed to the passages.
Melnik led Artyom to the end of the platform where the office premises began, seated him on a marble bench lined with wood that had been burnished by contact with thousands of passengers, asked him to wait, and departed.
Looking at the intricate stucco work under the ceiling, Artyom thought about how Polis had lived up to his expectations. Life here really was arranged in a completely different way; people weren’t as cutthroat, exasperated, or browbeaten as at other stations. Knowledge, books, and culture seemed to play a thoroughly fundamental role. They had passed by at least five book stalls in the passage between Borovitskaya and Arbatskaya. There were even playbills posted announcing the performance of a play by Shakespeare tomorrow night and, just as at Borovitskaya, he could hear music playing somewhere.
The passage and both stations had been maintained in excellent condition. Although blotches and seepage were evident on the walls, all damage was immediately patched by repair teams, who scurried about everywhere. Out of curiosity, Artyom glanced down the tunnel, where he saw everything was in perfect order; it was dry, clean, and an electric light burned at intervals of one hundred metres as far as the eye could see. From time to time, handcars loaded with crates passed by, stopping to discharge the occasional passenger or take on a box of books that Polis sent out through the entire metro.
‘All of this might soon come to an end,’ thought Artyom, suddenly. ‘VDNKh can no longer withstand the pressure from these monsters… No wonder,’ he said to himself, recalling one night on watch, when he had to repel an attack by the dark ones, and all of the nightmares that tormented him after that fight.
Was it true that VDNKh was falling? That meant that he would no longer have a home He wondered if his friends and stepfather had managed to flee; if so, there was a chance of meeting them one day in the metro. If Melnik told him that he had completed his mission and could do nothing more, then he promised himself he’d head back home. If his station was destined to act as a lone covering force in the path of the dark ones, and if his friends and relatives were slated to die defending the station, then he’d rather be with them instead of taking refuge in this paradise. He suddenly had the urge to return home, catch sight of the row of army tents, the tea-factory… And chew the fat with Zhenka, and tell him of his adventures. It was a sure thing he wouldn’t believe half of it… If he were still alive.
‘C’mon, Artyom,’ Melnik called. ‘They want to talk to you.’
He had managed to rid himself of his protective suit and was wearing a turtleneck, a black navy fore-and-aft cap with no insignia, and pants with pockets, the same as Hunter’s. The stalker somehow reminded him of the Hunter, not by his appearance, of course, but by his behaviour. He was just as collected and resilient, and spoke in the same way, using short, telegraphic sentences.
The walls in t
he offices were lined with stained oak, and two large oil paintings hung there, opposite each other. Artyom easily recognized the Library on one of them, while the other depicted a tall building covered in white stone. The label under the picture read: ‘General Staff, Russian Federation Ministry of Defence.’
A large wooden table stood in the middle of the spacious room. About ten men sat in chairs around the table, studying Artyom. Half of them wore grey Brahmin robes; the other half, military officer uniforms. As it turned out, the officers sat under the painting of the General Staff, while the Brahmins sat under the Library painting.
A person of short stature but of commanding bearing sat solemnly at the head of the table. He wore austere glasses and had a large bald spot. He was dressed in a suit and tie, but had no tattoo to designate membership in any caste.
‘To business,’ he began, without introducing himself. ‘Tell us everything you know, including the situation with the tunnels from your station to Prospect Mit.’
Artyom proceeded to describe in detail the history of the VDNKh battle against the dark ones, then about Hunter’s mission, and finally, about his trek to Polis. When he related the events in the tunnels between Alekseevskaya, Rizhskaya, and Prospect Mir, the soldiers and Brahmins started to whisper among themselves, some incredulous, others animated, while an officer who sat in the corner diligently recording the narrative occasionally asked him to repeat what he had said.
When the discussions finally stopped, Artyom was allowed to continue his story, but his recital elicited little interest in his listeners until he got to Polyanka and its inhabitants.
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