I was lashed by an icy wind—and I fell through to the fifth level of the Twilight.
And landed facedown in green grass.
There was a cold, fitful wind blowing. The sunlight filtered through the purple clouds, as heavy as snow clouds, that were drifting across the sky. The rolling plain, covered with tall, prickly grass, extended all the way to the horizon. Somewhere in the distance there was thunder rumbling and lightning flashing—flashing the wrong way, from the earth up into the sky, up into those purple clouds.
I stood up and swallowed hard—my ears were blocked. The usual oppressive sensation of the Twilight—the creeping weariness, the desire to get back out into the real world as quickly as possible—had disappeared. The fifth layer turned out to be energetically balanced. But when my eyes had adjusted and I looked more closely, it was obvious that the colors around me lacked real vitality. The grass was green, but pale. The clouds were more dove-gray than purple. Even the flashes of lightning were strangely subdued; they didn’t sear the retinas of my eyes.
But even so... it looked as if it was possible to live here.
I looked around me. And I saw the Guard in the flattened grass.
It was a golem—a creature made of clay and brought to life by magic. A rare sort of thing; nobody has made them for a long, long time. A golem was a medieval robot that they sometimes put to work, but more often they were created to guard things.
Only the classic golem looked like a clay man, and he was brought to life by means of runes inserted in a special opening (when it came to this detail, the magicians’ sense of humor usually plumbed the depths).
But the golem in front of me was a snake. Something like a clay anaconda ten meters long, as thick as the torso of a grown man, with two rapaciously grinning heads—one at each end of its body. Its skin was reddish-gray, like a badly fired brick. The golem’s eyes were open, and it was the eyes that frightened me most of all. They were absolutely human.
But then, why shouldn’t they be, if the golem had been made by Merlin?
Exactly halfway along the snake’s trunk there was a slim section with a small hollow in it, about the size of an open hand. And lying in that hollow was a square, gray stone, covered with half-effaced Celtic writing.
Yes, a strange golem: The Rune didn’t bring it to life, it killed it.
Or rather, it rendered the snake motionless—if the baleful glint in its eyes was anything to go by.
I looked around again. There was no one there apart from me and the motionless golem. The grave-robber had already gone deeper.
Right, then!
I summoned the battle spells up out of my memory—all the most powerful things that I had learned and had sufficient Power for—and teed them up for rapid use. I had to be ready to go into battle at any moment. Provided, of course, that I managed to get any deeper...
“Wait, Anton!”
Three figures materialized out of the blue—Lermont, Semyon, and a black man I didn’t know. Lermont was literally dragging Semyon and the black man after him, holding them by the arms. Oh, he was powerful, all right!
“What a lovely place!” Semyon said in delight, gazing around. “Ooh... So this is where...”
He spotted the golem and stopped. Then he walked across and gave it a cautious kick. He shook his head. “Ooh... what a massive beast... . Did you bring it down, Anton?”
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple to bring down,” I said, pointing to the Rune. Then, turning to Foma, I said, “Shall we move on?”
“Can you manage it?”
“I’ll give it a try.”
Lermont shook his head doubtfully. He glanced at his subordinate and said, “You can’t go any further. I brought you along because of this... ugly brute. But there’s no way you can go on. Wait for as long as you can and then go back.” Lermont heaved a deep sigh—and dissolved into thin air.
I took a step forward.
Nothing.
Another step. And another, and another.
“It’s not working, then?” Semyon asked sympathetically.
What was this? I’d broken through to the fifth level, and it was absolutely calm here, but I couldn’t get any lower!
A step. Another step. Where’s that shadow?
“Anton... ,” said Semyon, shaking me by the shoulder. “Anton, stop. You’re just wasting your strength.”
“I’ll get through,” I whispered. “I have to...”
“You don’t have to do anything. Lermont’s got the experience. He’ll handle everything.”
I shook my head from side to side, trying to relax. I’d gotten to this level using my anger... maybe I could get to the next one if I was calm, peaceful? All I was facing was a kind of watershed: a thin film of surface tension between worlds, a borderline beyond which the vital Power began to increase. The first level was practically dead, dried out, sterile. The second was a little more alive. The third and fourth already began to resemble our world. The fifth... the fifth was almost fit to live in. There were already colors here and although it was cold, it wasn’t so cold that you would freeze. Grass grew here, there was rain and strange, violent storms. What would there be on the sixth level? I had to understand the place I was trying to break into. Was it a glacial world, a dying world? A place where it would be hard to breathe, difficult to walk or talk?
No. The sixth level wouldn’t be like that. It would be even more colorful than the fifth. Even more alive. Even closer to the real world.
I nodded along with my thoughts...
And stepped from the fifth level to the sixth.
It was night there. Perhaps not a summer night, but it was still warm. I couldn’t see a single star in the sky above my head, but there was a moon. Not a strip of gray dust in the sky, like on the first level. Not the three tiny colored moons that shone on the second level. An absolutely normal moon, perfectly familiar to the human eye.
But not a single star. The stars are not for Others.
Under the white spotlight of the moon, the world seemed completely real. The trees were real, alive, with leaves that rustled in the wind. There was a smell of grass and burning... . I suddenly realized that this was the first time I had ever smelled anything in the Twilight. No doubt, if I chewed on a grass stalk, I would actually taste the bitter juice... .
But what was burning?
I turned around and saw Lermont. But I didn’t see him as a stout, middle-aged gentleman. I saw him in his Twilight form.
Thomas the Rhymer had become a white-haired giant almost three meters tall. His skin radiated a murky white light. He was grabbing bunches of white and blue light out of the air, mixing them together in his gigantic hands as if he was making snowballs, and throwing them off into the far distance. I followed the trajectory: The hissing bundles of flame went flying over the flat plain, sweeping aside the rare trees in their path, and fizzled out in a dark cloud that was moving rapidly away. Burning trees marked the shots that had missed.
“Foma!” I shouted. “I’m here!”
The giant mixed up a truly immense sphere in his hands and grunted as he hurled it after the dark cloud. He turned around.
He had an amazing face. Kind and harsh, beautiful and frightening, all at the same time.
“The young magician has passed the barriers,” Thomas rumbled. “The young magician has hastened to come to our aid... .”
He was a little bit crazy just at that moment—like all Others who take on their deep Twilight forms in the heat of battle.
Thomas covered the distance between us in just a few steps. It seemed to me that the very ground shook under his feet.
“They didn’t manage it, my friend... .” The ancient bard lowered a hand as big as a shovel onto my shoulder and spoke in the third person as if he meant someone else. “They only got as far a
s the sixth level. Thomas drove them away, he did. Thomas drove them away, like cowardly little puppy dogs.”
Lermont leaned his face down to me and whispered confidentially, “But only because his enemies didn’t fight. They’d been here long enough to realize that they couldn’t get to the seventh level of the Twilight.”
“How many of them were there, Thomas?”
“Three, my friend, three. The right number.”
“Did you get a look at them?”
“Only a short one,” Thomas said with a shake of his head. “You can’t read an aura properly here, but Thomas managed. A Dark Other—an undead vampire. A Light Other—a sorcerer-healer. An Inquisitor Other—a Battle Magician. Three came together for the legacy of Merlin. Three almost got through. Three Higher Others. But even Higher Ones cannot get through to the seventh level of the Twilight.”
“A Dark One, a Light One, and an Inquisitor,” I asked in amazement, “all together?”
“The legacy of Merlin is enticing to all. Even Light Ones. Why else do you think, young magician, that Thomas wished to keep your arrival secret from his Watch?”
“Are they all men?” I asked.
“All men. All women. How should Thomas know? Thomas didn’t touch them. Thomas just saw a little bit of their auras.”
“Thomas, we have to go,” I said, looking into the giant’s eyes. “Thomas, it’s time to go back. Time to go home.”
“Why?” the giant asked in surprise. “It’s good here, young magician. You can live here. A magical land, a kingdom of fairies and magicians... . Thomas can settle here, Thomas can find his haven—”
“Thomas Lermont, you are the head of a Night Watch! The whole of Scotland is under your protection! Witches, vampires, ghouls... you’re not going to let them all run riot, are you?”
Thomas said nothing, and for a moment I thought he would refuse to go, that he really had found the fairy kingdom to which, legend said, Thomas the Rhymer had withdrawn seven hundred years earlier.
Of course, the Dark Ones wouldn’t have run riot. Help would have come—from England, from Ireland, from Wales. And Light Ones would have been found in Europe and America to come to the aid of the orphaned Scottish Watch.
But would Lermont’s disappearance be the final drop that triggered Egor’s transformation into a Mirror Magician?
“Let’s go, my young friend,” Lermont said. “You’re right, you’re right, and I am in too much of a hurry... it is not yet time... . But listen, young magician! Listen to the ringing of the silence, to the singing of the crickets in the grass, to the night birds beating the air with their wings... .”
Either he made me hear it or it was all real, but through the giant’s noisy breathing I heard the silence and the sounds.
“See how hotly the fire blazes, how the silvery leaves catch the moonlight, how dark the grass is beneath our feet... ,” Lermont whispered. “You could live here...”
And I saw.
“Not many Others have been here when they were still alive,” Lermont said, and sighed. “We only come here after we die, do you understand? We come here forever... .”
I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. I remembered the members of our Watch who had died: Igor, Tiger Cub, Andrei...
“Did you know that? Did you know that earlier?”
“All Higher Ones who have managed to reach the fifth level know it,” Thomas said in a sad voice. “But this knowledge is too dangerous, young magician.”
“Why?”
“It is not good to know what awaits you after death. Thomas knows—and it is a burden to him. Thomas wishes to come here. Far away from cruel and greedy people. Far away from human evil and human good. It is so sweet... to live in a world of Others... .”
“Live?”
“Live, young magician... . Here even vampires have no need of blood. Here everything is different, otherwise. Everything is the way it should be. Here is the real world... on the fifth and sixth levels, and the seventh—the very greatest. Here the towers of wise men studying the world of creation soar up to the heavens; cities full of Light and Dark seethe with vital life; unicorns roam through virgin forests and dragons guard their mountain caves. We shall come here... I sooner, and you later... and our friends will come out to greet us. I shall also be glad to greet you, young magician... .”
A gigantic arm hugged me around the shoulders as if I were a child. Foma heaved a deep, heavy sigh and continued, “But it is not yet time. Not yet time. If I had been able to reach the seventh level... I would not have come back. But my Power is not sufficient for that. And yours will not be either, young magician... .”
“I’m in no hurry for the time being,” I muttered. “I have...”
What did I have? A wife and daughter? They were Others, Higher Others. We could all depart together. For the cities of Light and Dark... where our fallen friends were happy together, where no one remembered about those stupid little human people...
I shuddered. Was I dreaming, or had I become taller too? Or had Lermont started to shrink?
“Foma, let’s get going!”
“Wait. Look at this!”
A white light had started dancing above our heads. Foma reached out his hand and pointed to a slab of transparent red stone hidden in the grass under our feet. What was this, a ruby the size of a large tea tray?
I squatted down, ran my hand across the smooth surface, and looked at the lines and dashes of Celtic runes.
“What’s written here, Foma?”
“Merlin wrote that,” Lermont said with a thoughtful note in his voice. “Merlin wrote that it is the keyhole and the final key, both at the same time. It says here in Coelbren”—he paused—“if we say it in high style... then...”
“Say it in any style!” I exclaimed, feeling the time slipping away.
The Crown of All Things is here concealed. Only one step is left.
But this is a legacy for the strong or the wise—
Foma spoke in a strange voice, one that was higher and more tuneful. And at the first words he spoke, the letters carved in the stone started to glow, as if someone had lit up a powerful lamp underneath it. One after another the letters were transformed into slim columns of light, shooting up into the sky.
You shall receive all and nothing, when you are able to take it.
Proceed, if you are as strong as I;
Or go back, if you are as wise as I.
Beginning and end, head and tail, all is fused in one
In the Crown of All Things. Thus are life and death inseparable.
The final letter flared into white brilliance just as Lermont spoke the final word.
“I hate karaoke,” I said. “What does all this mean?”
“Thomas knows no more than you do, young magician,” said the giant, clutching me in his arms. “And now, let’s be leaving!”
I thought Lermont was going to step straight into the real world. But no, he went to the fifth level first and waved to Semyon and the black guy.
“Leave!” he shouted.
They didn’t have to be asked twice. Then Lermont winked at me, leaned down over the golem, and jerked Merlin’s Rune out of the snake’s body.
The beast’s eyes flashed in fury, its trunk swirled up into the air, and both of its mouths opened wide in unison.
But we were already out of the Guard’s reach. In the ordinary human world. In a room full of dead bodies.
The once-more overweight, aging Lermont put me down and collapsed on the floor. His face was covered with sweat. There were even beads of it hanging on the ends of his mustache.
We were surrounded by a familiar bustle—Light Others were taking prints of auras, studying the bodies, collecting small pieces of flesh and drops of blood for analysis. When I arrived, and Semyon arrived stra
ight after me, we were immediately met with wary glances, and I felt the probes of spells slipping over my body. When they discovered that we were Light Ones, and high-ranking, the watchmen withdrew their probes in embarrassment.
I saw Bruce off to one side. The Master of vampires no longer looked like a walking corpse, the rosy bloom having returned to his cheeks. He was squatting in the corner, drinking something from a glass. I didn’t try to see exactly what it was.
“Well, I never!” said Semyon, shaking his head. He looked absolutely happy. “I never even imagined I’d see the fifth level someday, like the Great Gesar or Thomas the Rhymer. Oh... now I can die happy!”
He winked at me.
“I’ll sew your mouth shut,” Lermont declared in a very familiar tone of voice. “The fifth level of the Twilight is no subject for idle talk.”
“Aha,” Semyon agreed quickly. “It’s just my stupid way of nattering.”
“Foma...” I reached out one hand to help the magician up. “Thank you... for coming back. And for showing me—Thank you for that.”
“Let’s go,” said Foma, walking quickly through to the next room and the mooring, where the metal boat was swaying on the dark water. I followed him. Lermont hung an umbrella of silence over us and the noise immediately died away. “Did you want to ask something?”
“Yes. Who are they?”
“I don’t know.” Foma took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat off his face. “Several attempts have already been made to reach the legacy of Merlin. But I’m not certain it was these Others who tried. The last attempt was more than a century ago. And in particular, no one has ever made such wide use of humans before... . This is all very serious, Anton. But we’ve been lucky—Merlin has puzzled everybody with the third key.”
“What does that poem mean?”
“It’s a riddle. In those days they were very fond of riddles, Anton. It was considered good form to give your opponent a chance to beat you. Even if it was only the bare ghost of a chance.”
“One thing is clear: Apart from simply going head-on, trying to break through into the seventh level, there’s an alternative route,” I said.
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