“Yes, that’s what I heard,” Alisher said, nodding.
“So Gennady had a talk with his wife. She was a human being. She knew her husband was a vampire... there are families like that. But he hadn’t killed anyone, he was a very law-abiding vampire, she loved him... Anyway, he bit her. Initiated her. Their plan was for the mother to initiate the son. But she was still metamorphosing, and the baby started dying. Gennady bit him, too, and Kostya got well. That is, he died, of course. Died as a human being. But he recovered from his pneumonia. The doctor started running around, crowing that it was all due to her remarkable talent. Gennady once admitted to me that he almost went for her throat when she started hinting that the right thing to do would be to reward her for the miraculous recovery.”
Alisher was silent for a while. Then he said, “All the same, they’re vampires. It would have been better if the boy had died.”
“Well, he did die,” I said. I suddenly found this conversation disgusting. Kostya had been a very normal child, except that once a week he had to drink preserved blood. He loved playing football, reading fairy tales and science fiction, and then he had decided to study biology, so that he could analyze the nature of vampirism and teach vampires how to manage without human blood.
But Alisher wouldn’t understand me. He was a true watchman. A genuine Light One. But I tried to understand even the Dark Ones. Even vampires. To understand and forgive... or at least understand. Forgiving was the hardest thing. Sometimes forgiving was the hardest thing in the whole world.
The telephone in my pocket rang and I took it out. Aha. An even gray glow.
“Hi, Edgar,” I said.
After a short pause Edgar asked, “Has your phone identified my number?”
“No, I guessed.”
“You’re powerful,” Edgar replied in a strange voice. “Anton, I’m already in Samarkand. Where are all of you?”
“All of us?”
“You, Alisher, and Afandi.” The Inquisitor clearly hadn’t wasted the last hour or so. “Well, you’ve created a fine mess here...”
“We have?” I protested, outraged.
“All right, maybe not just you,” Edgar acknowledged. “But you too. Why did you take the car from the director of the market?”
“We didn’t take it, we bought it. In accordance with the clauses concerning the need to confiscate means of transport in an emergency. Shall I recite the relevant paragraphs?”
“Anton, cool it,” Edgar said quickly. “No one’s accusing you of anything. But the situation really is pretty bleak. To cover it up, we’ll have to put out a story about the elimination of a large gang of terrorists. And you know how we hate disguising our own... our own failures as human crimes.”
“Edgar, I understand you,” I said. “But what has this got to do with us? I have personal business with an Other who doesn’t serve in the Watches. I flew here unofficially and I have a perfect right to move around the country.”
“By virtue of the emergency situation, only with the knowledge and under the surveillance of a member of a Watch,” Edgar corrected me.
“Well, Afandi’s with us.”
Edgar sighed. I thought I heard someone say something in the background.
“OK, Anton. Deal with your personal business... which the Inquisition will have to deal with afterward. Only, don’t go driving through the mountains at night, you’ll end up at the bottom of a precipice.”
To be honest, I was actually touched by his concern.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll rest until morning.”
“OK, Anton,” Edgar repeated. After a pause he muttered rather awkwardly, “It was good talking to you... despite everything.”
I put the phone away and said, “He’s strange, that Edgar. He was strange as a Dark One, too. But when he became an Inquisitor, he changed completely.”
“You know, I think that sooner or later you’ll end up as an Inquisitor yourself,” Alisher said in a very humdrum voice.
I thought about what he’d said and shook my head. “No, there’s no way. My wife and daughter are Higher Light Ones. They don’t take guys like that into the Inquisition.”
“I’m very glad that’s the case,” Alisher said seriously. “Well, then, shall we go?”
And at that very moment the mountains shook. Gently at first, as if the strength of the rocks was being tested. Then more and more powerfully.
“An earthquake!” Afandi howled, waking up instantly. “Out of the car!”
When he wanted, he could be very serious indeed. We jumped out of the jeep, walked a bit higher up the track, and froze. The mountains were shuddering. Small stones began slithering down the slope and showering onto us. Alisher and I automatically erected a joint protective dome. Afandi did his bit too—he set one hand above his eyes and started surveying the night in search of unknown danger.
And he actually spotted something.
“Look over there!” he shouted, jumping up and down and reaching out his hand. “That way! That way!”
We turned around, keeping the Shield above our heads: The rocks bounced off it with a clatter. We followed Afandi’s gaze and enhanced our night vision (actually, after the stimulation I’d given him, Alisher didn’t really need to do that).
And we saw the next mountain, covered with thick forest, being reduced to rubble.
It looked as if mighty hammer blows were being struck from within the mountain crest. The mountain was repeatedly jolted and waterfalls of small stones, avalanches of boulders, and entire groves of trees showered down off it, rapidly filling up the ravines. In a few minutes the kilometer-high peak was transformed into a plateau of crushed stone and woodchips from the shattered tree trunks.
Then I got the idea of looking at the mountain through the Twilight.
And I saw a vortex of Power spinning above the disaster zone.
It was either the vortex of a curse that had been put on the place or some special kind of spell that caused an earthquake. I didn’t know which. But there was no doubt at all that the catastrophe had been caused by magic.
“They missed,” said Alisher. “Anton... did you talk to Edgar?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure the Inquisition doesn’t have any beefs to settle with you?”
I gulped to swallow the lump that had risen in my throat. Beefs with the Inquisition were very, very bad news.
“The Inquisition wouldn’t have missed... ,” I began, and then broke off. I took out my cell phone and looked at it through the Twilight. Inside its cocoon of plastic, metal, and silicon, the SIM card was pulsating with a blue light. Typical behavior for a working amulet.
“I think I know what happened,” I said, keying in a number. “And I don’t think it had anything to do with the Inquisition.”
“Hello, Anton,” Gesar said, as if I hadn’t woken him. But then, it was still evening in Moscow.
“Gesar, I need to have a word with someone from the European tribunal. Immediately.”
“With one of the Masters?” Gesar asked.
“Well, not the assistant night watchman!”
“Wait a moment,” Gesar said calmly. “And don’t cut the call off afterward.”
I had to wait for about three minutes. All that time we stood there, watching the vortex of Power calming down. The sight was like something out of a fairy tale. That earthquake had probably used up the energy of some ancient and powerful amulet. Like the ones they held in the special vaults at the Inquisition.
“My name is Eric,” I heard a strong, confident voice say. “What can I do for you, Light One?”
“Mr. Eric,” I said, without bothering to inquire what position he held in the Inquisition—they really don’t like revealing their hierarchy. “At the moment I am close to the city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan
. We have an emergency on our hands. Could you tell me if the Inquisition sent its staff member Edgar here?”
“Edgar?” Eric asked thoughtfully. “Which one?”
“To be quite honest, I never knew his surname,” I admitted. “A former member of the Moscow Day Watch, he moved to the Inquisition after the trial of Igor Teplov in Prague... .”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Eric said more brightly. “Edgar. Of course. No, we haven’t sent him to Samarkand.”
“Then who have you sent?”
“I don’t know if you are aware of the fact, Anton,” Eric said with undisguised irony, “but the European Bureau deals with Europe. And also with Russia, owing to its ambivalent geographic location. We don’t have either the resources or the desire to take on events in Asia, where the country of Uzbekistan is located. You need to contact the Asian Bureau, which at the moment is located in Beijing. Shall I give you the number?”
“No, thank you,” I replied. “And where is Edgar now?”
“On leave. For”—there was a brief pause—“for a month already. Is there anything else?”
“A word of advice,” I said, unable to restrain myself. “Check where Inquisitor Edgar was during the events in Edinburgh that you already know about.”
“Just a moment, Anton,” said Eric, finally losing his cool. “Are you trying to tell me—”
“That’s all I have to say,” I blurted into the phone.
Gesar who, of course, had listened to every single word of the conversation, immediately cut Eric off and said, “Congratulations, Anton. We’ve figured out who one of the three is. You’ve figured it out.”
“Thanks for the SIM card,” I replied. “If it hadn’t distorted my location signal, I’d already be dead.”
“It’s actually intended to make your voice sound convincing when you talk to people on the phone,” said Gesar. “The location malfunction is a side effect. I just can’t seem to get rid of it. All right, carry on the good work! We’ll get straight on to Edgar.”
I looked at the phone pensively, then cut the connection and put it in my pocket. Had Gesar been joking about making my voice sound convincing, or was it the truth?
“Edgar,” Alisher said in a satisfied voice. “So it was Edgar! I knew Dark Ones couldn’t be trusted. Not even Inquisitors.”
.
.
A COMMON ENEMY
Chapter 6
We drove onto the plateau of the demons at half past three in the morning. On the way we passed an aul, a tiny settlement in the mountains—fewer than ten small clay-walled houses set back a little way from the road. There was a bonfire on the only small street, with people crowding around it—ten or twenty of them, no more than that. The earthquake had evidently frightened the inhabitants of the aul and they were afraid to spend the night in their houses.
Alisher was still driving. I was alternately dozing on the backseat and thinking about Edgar.
What had made him go against the Watches and the Inquisition? Why had he broken every possible taboo and involved human beings in his machinations?
I couldn’t understand it. Edgar was a careerist, like all Dark Ones, of course he was. He could kill if necessary. He could do absolutely anything at all, Dark Ones had no moral prohibitions. But to do something that set him in opposition to all Others—that could only be explained by insanity or a thirst for Power. And then, Edgar had so much Baltic restraint and reserve. Spending decades crawling up the career ladder was easy. But staking everything on a single throw of the dice?
What had he found out about the Crown of All Things? What information had he dug up in the archives of the Inquisition? Who else had he managed to involve? The Dark vampire and the Light Healer—who were they? Where were they from? Why had they conspired with an Inquisitor? What goals could a Dark One, a Light One, and an Inquisitor have in common?
But then, the goal wasn’t too hard to figure out. The goal was always one and the same: Power. Power in all its forms. You could say that we Light Ones were different. That we didn’t need Power for Power’s sake, but only in order to help people. And that was probably true. But we still needed Power. Every Other is familiar with that sweet temptation, that delicious sensation of his own strength: the vampire, sucking on a young girl’s throat; the healer, saving a dying child with a wave of his hand. What difference did it make what it was for? Every Other would find a way to apply the might that he acquired.
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.
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