Last Watch

by Sergei Lukyanenko

  “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 attracting 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 naïvely.

  “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 no
thing 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.

  “Anton, you’re in Samarkand.” Edgar wasn’t asking, of course, he was stating a fact. “What’s going on there? Our people are putting up a portal from Amsterdam to Tashkent!”

  “Why Tashkent?” I asked, puzzled.

  “It’s easier. They’ve used that route at least once before,” Edgar explained. “So what’s up down there?”

  “Do you know about Edinburgh?”

  Edgar snorted derisively. Right, what a question to ask. There probably wasn’t even a single trainee in the Inquisition who hadn’t heard about the attempt to steal Merlin’s artifact. So what else should I expect from the experienced members of staff?

  I continued, “Everything indicates that it’s the same team. Only in Scotland they used paid mercenaries, but here they mesmerized local soldiers and policemen. Loaded them up with amulets and spells, charmed bullets... ”

  “I can see this is the end of my vacation,” Edgar said gloomily. “I wish you hadn’t stuck your nose into this! They pulled me back in off the beach! Because I have experience working with you!”

  “I’m very flattered,” I said acidly.

  “Is all this very serious?” Edgar asked after a pause.

  “A hundred men sent to attack both the local Watches. As we withdrew two Light Ones were killed. And then we were attacked by a deva, who bit a Dark One in half. It took me three minutes to beat it down!”

  Edgar swore and asked, “What did you beat it down with?”

  “Dust and Ashes. It was lucky I just happened to know it... .”

  “Tremendous!” Edgar said sarcastically. “By sheer chance a young Moscow magician happens to remember a spell against golems that hasn’t been used in a hundred years!”

  “Are you trying to stitch me up already?” I laughed. “Come and join me, you’ll like it here. And by the way, gather up those spells against golems. The word is that there’s another one on the loose.”

  “This is an absolute nightmare,” Edgar muttered. “I’m in Crete. Standing on the beach in my swimming trunks. My wife’s rubbing suntan lotion on my back. And they tell me to be in Amsterdam in three hours and set out immediately for Uzbekistan! What do you call that?”

  “Globalization, sir,” I answered.

  Edgar groaned into the phone. Then he said, “My wife will kill me. This is our honeymoon. She’s a witch, by the way! And they summon me to lousy Uzbekistan!”

  “Edgar, it doesn’t become you to say ‘lousy’ like that,” I said, unable to resist another jibe. “After all, we all lived in the same state once upon a time. Consider it your deferred patriotic duty.”

  But Edgar was obviously not in the mood for sarcasm or exchanging jibes. He heaved a sigh and asked, “How will I find you?”

  “Call me,” I replied simply, and cut the connection.

  “The Inquisition,” Alisher said with an understanding nod. “They’ve caught on at last. Well, they’ll certainly find a few things to do here.”

  “They could start by cleaning out their own backyard,” I said. “They’ve got someone beavering away on the inside.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Alisher, trying to intercede on behalf of the Inquisition. “It could be a retired Inquisitor.”

  “Yes? Then how did anyone find out that Gesar had sent us to Samarkand? He only informed the Inquisition!”

  “One of the traitors is a Light Healer,” Alisher reminded me.

  “Are you saying it’s a Higher Light One from our Watch? A Healer? Working for the enemy?”

  “That could be it!” Alisher said obstinately.

  “There has only ever been one higher-level Light Healer in our Watch,” I reminded him calmly. “And she’s my wife.”

  Alisher stopped short and shook his head. “I beg your pardon, Anton! I didn’t mean anything of the kind!”

  “Ai, that’s enough quarreling!” Afandi said in his old foolish voice. “The shurpa’s gone cold! And there’s nothing worse than cold shurpa. Apart from hot vodka!”

  He looked around stealthily and passed his hands over the bowls of shurpa. The cold broth started steaming again.

  “Afandi, how can we talk to Rustam?” I asked again.

  “Eat your shurpa,” the old man muttered. And he showed us how.

  I broke off a piece of a bread cake and started on my broth. What else could I do? The East is the East, they don’t like to give a straight answer here. The best diplomats in the world come from the East. They don’t say yes or no, but that doesn’t mean they abstain.

  It was only after Alisher and I had finished our shurpa that Afandi sighed and said, “Gesar was probably right. He probably can demand an answer from Rustam. One answer to one question.”

  Well, at least that was one small victory!

  “Coming right up,” I said, nodding. Of course, the question had to be formulated correctly, to exclude any possibility of an ambiguous answer. “Just a minute... .”

  “Why are you in such a hurry?” Afandi asked in surprise. “A minute, an hour, a day... Think.”

  “In principle, I’m ready,” I said.

  “So what? Who are you going to ask, Anton Gorodetsky?” Afandi laughed. “Rustam’s not here. We’ll go to see him, and then you can ask your question.”

  “Rustam’s
not here?” I asked, almost struck dumb.

  “No,” Afandi avowed firmly. “I’m sorry if anything I said might have misled you. But we’ll have to go to the Plateau of the Demons.”

  I thought I was beginning to understand how Gesar could have quarreled with Rustam. And I thought that Merlin, for all his evil deeds, must have been a very kind soul and an extremely patient Other. Because Afandi was Rustam. No crystal ball was needed to see that!

  “I’ll just be a moment... ” Afandi got up and went toward a small door in the corner of the chaikhana that had the outline of a male figure stenciled on it. It was interesting that there wasn’t any door with a female silhouette. Apparently the women of Samarkand were not in the habit of spending time in chaikhanas.

  “Well, this Rustam’s a real character,” I muttered while he was gone. “As stubborn as a mule.”

  “Anton, Afandi’s not Rustam,” Alisher said.

  “You mean you believe him?”

  “Anton, ten years ago my father recognized Rustam. At the time I didn’t think anything of it... the ancient Higher One was still alive—so what? Many of them have withdrawn from the active struggle and live unobtrusive lives among ordinary people... .”

  “So?”

  “My father knew Afandi. He must have known him for fifty years.”

  I thought about that.

  “But what exactly did your father say to you about Rustam?”

  Alisher wrinkled up his forehead. Then, speaking very precisely, as if he was reading from the page of a book, he said, “‘Today I saw a Great One, whom no one has met anywhere for seventy years. The Great Rustam, Gesar’s friend, and then his enemy. I walked past him. We recognized each other but pretended that we hadn’t seen anything. It is good that an Other as insignificant as I has never quarreled with him.’”

  “But what of it?” I asked. It was my turn to argue now. “Your father could finally have recognized Rustam, disguised as Afandi. That’s the point.”

  Alisher thought about that and admitted that, yes, it could have happened like that. But he still thought his father hadn’t meant Afandi.