Feeling enormous relief, the young man hurried after him. Catching up to Khan in ten paces, Artyom asked him in an emotional voice:
‘But why did you do that and why didn’t you tell me? You told me yourself that it didn’t matter if he stayed in the tunnel or if he was brought to the station.’
‘For me it doesn’t matter at all.’ Khan shrugged his shoulders. ‘But to you it was important. I know that your journey has a purpose and that your path is long and difficult. I don’t understand what your mission is but its burden will be too heavy for you alone so I decided to help you a bit.’ He looked over at Artyom with a smile.
When they had returned to the fire and sat down on the creased tarpaulin, Artyom couldn’t help but ask:
‘What did you mean when you mentioned my mission? Did I say something in my sleep?’
‘No, my friend, you were silent as you slept. But I had a vision and in it I was asked to help by a person who shares part of my name. I was warned of your arrival, and that’s why I went out to meet you and picked you up, when you were crawling along with your friend’s corpse.’
‘That’s why?’ Artyom looked at him distrustfully. ‘I thought it was because you heard shots . . .’
‘I heard the shots, there was a loud echo here. But you don’t really think that I would go into the tunnel every time I hear a shot? I would have come to the end of my life’s path a lot sooner and completely ignominiously if I had done so. But this was an exception.’
‘And what about the person who shares part of your name?’
‘I can’t say who that is, I’ve never seen him before and have never spoken with him but you know him. You ought to understand this yourself. I’ve only seen him once and even then not in real life but I immediately felt his colossal strength. He commanded me to help a youth who would come from the northern tunnel and your image stood before me. This was all a dream, but the feeling that it was real was so great that when I woke up I couldn’t make out the difference between dream and reality. This powerful man with a bright shaved head, dressed all in white . . . You know him?’
At this point Artyom shook and it was as if everything was swimming before him, and the image that Khan was describing was clear in his mind. The man who shared half a name with his rescuer . . . was Hunter! Khan, Hun . . . Artyom had had a similar vision: when he couldn’t decide whether to embark on this journey, he saw Hunter but not in the long black raincoat which he’d worn at VDNKh on that memorable day, but in the formless snowy-white garments.
‘Yes. I know this man,’ Artyom said, looking at Khan in a totally new way.
‘He invaded my dreams and I usually never forgive that. But everything was different with him,’ Khan said distractedly. ‘He needed my help just as you did, and he didn’t order me to do it, didn’t ask me to submit to his will but it was more like he was asking me persistently. He wasn’t able to crawl inside and wander through someone else’s thoughts, but he was having a hard time, a very hard time. He was thinking about you in desperation and needed a helping hand, a shoulder to lean on. I extended a hand to him and gave him my shoulder. I went to meet you.’
Artyom was buried in thoughts that were seething and floating up to his consciousness one after the other and dissolving, never making it into words, and then sinking back down to the depths of his mind. His tongue was stiff and the young man took a long time to conjure up even a word. Could this man have really known of his arrival beforehand? Could Hunter have somehow warned him? Was Hunter alive or had he been turned into a bodyless shadow? He was going to have to believe in this nightmarish and delirious story of the netherworld that had been described by Khan - but it was easier and more pleasant to tell himself that the man was just crazy. But the most important thing was that this man knew about the task that faced him - he had called it a ‘mission’ and though he was probably having a hard time figuring out what it was, he had understood its importance and gravity.
‘Where are you going?’ Khan asked Artyom quietly, calmly looking him in the eye as though he was reading his thoughts. ‘Tell me where your path lies and I will help you make your next step towards your goal if it is within my power. He asked me to do that.’
‘Polis,’ Artyom exhaled. ‘I need to get to Polis.’
‘And how do you intend to get there from this godforsaken station?’ Khan inquired. ‘My friend, you should have gone up to the Ring from Prospect Mir to Kurskaya or to Kievskaya.’
‘The Hansa are there and I don’t know anyone there so I wouldn’t be able to get through. And anyway, now I can’t return to Prospect Mir. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to stand another journey through that tunnel. I was thinking of getting to Turgenevskaya. I looked at an old map and it says that there’s a passage there to Sretensky Bulvar. There’s a half-built tunnel there and you can get to Trubnaya through it.’ Artyom took the charred map out of his pocket. ‘From Trubnaya there’s a passage to Tsvetnoi Bulvar, I saw it on the map and from there, if everything is fine, you can get to Polis directly.’
‘No,’ Khan said sadly, shaking his head. ‘You won’t get to Polis via that route. The map is lying. They printed them way before everything happened. They describe metro lines that were never fully built, they describe stations that have collapsed, burying hundreds of innocents and they don’t say anything about the frightening dangers that are hidden along the way and will make most itineraries impossible. Your map is as stupid and naive as a three-year-old child. Give it to me.’ He held out his hand.
Artyom obediently gave him the piece of paper. Khan immediately screwed up the map and threw it into the fire. Artyom thought that this was a bit excessive but had decided not to argue about it, when Khan said:
‘And now show me the map that you found in your friend’s rucksack.’
Rummaging through his things, Artyom found the map but he wasn’t in a rush to give it to Khan, thinking about the unfortunate fate that may lie ahead of it. He didn’t want to be left without any map. Khan noticed his trepidation and hurried to reassure him:
‘I won’t do anything to it, don’t worry. And trust me, I never do anything without a reason. You might have the impression that some of my actions have no point and are even a little crazy. But there is a point. You just don’t get it, because your perception and understanding of the world is limited. You are only at the beginning of your path. You are too young to really know some things.’
Artyom gave Khan Bourbon’s map - he didn’t have the strength to object. It was a yellowed piece of card the size of a postcard and it had pretty sparkling balls on it and the words ‘Happy New Year 2007!’
‘It’s very heavy,’ Khan said hoarsely, and Artyom turned his attention to Khan’s palm which held the piece of card. It suddenly fell to the ground as though the card weighed more than a kilo. A second ago, Artyom hadn’t noticed anything heavy about it when he held it in his hand. Paper is paper.
‘This map is much wiser than yours,’ Khan said. ‘It contains such knowledge that I don’t believe that it belonged to the person who was travelling with you. It’s not even that it is marked up with all these notations and signs, although they probably say a lot. No, it has something about it . . .’
His words broke off sharply.
Artyom looked up and peered at Khan. Khan’s forehead was carved with deep wrinkles, and the dying fire appeared to flash in his eyes. His face had changed so much that Artyom was frightened and wanted to get out of the station as soon as possible, to go anywhere, even back through the terrible tunnel that he had managed to get through with such difficulty.
‘Give it back to me.’ Khan wasn’t asking but was rather giving an order. ‘I will give you another one and you won’t know the difference. And I’ll throw in anything else you want,’ he continued.
‘Take it, it’s yours.’ Artyom easily yielded it, lightly spitting as he uttered the words of agreement.
Khan suddenly moved away from the fire so that his face was in the shadows. Artyo
m guessed that he was trying to take control of himself and didn’t want him to be witness to his inner struggle.
‘You see, my friend.’ His voice resounded in the darkness, sort of weakly and indecisively, without the power and will it had possessed just a moment before. ‘That’s not a map. I mean, that’s not simply a map. It’s a Guide to the metro. Yes, yes, there’s no doubt that’s what it is. The person who holds it can get across the whole metro in two days because this map is . . . alive or something. It will tell you itself where to go and how to go, it will warn you of dangers . . . That is, it will lead you on your way. That’s why it’s called a Guide,’ Khan moved towards to the fire again, ‘with a capital letter. I’ve heard of them. There are only a few of them in the whole metro and this may be the last one. It’s the legacy of one of the most powerful magicians of the last era.’
‘The one who sits at the deepest point in the metro?’ Artyom decided to flash some knowledge at Khan but immediately stopped short. Khan’s face went dark.
‘Never speak lightly about things you don’t know anything about! You don’t know what happens at the deepest point in the metro - and even I only know a little, and God forbid we ever find out. But I can swear to you that whatever happened there dramatically differs from whatever you heard from your friends. So don’t repeat other people’s idle imaginings because one day you’ll have to pay for it. And it has nothing to do with the Guide.’
‘Well, anyway,’ Artyom hurried to assure him, not wanting to miss a chance to switch the conversation to a less dangerous tack, ‘you can keep the Guide for yourself. After all, I don’t know how to use it. And then I’m so grateful to you for rescuing me that even giving you this map doesn’t seem to repay the favour.’
‘That’s true,’ the wrinkles on Khan’s face smoothed out, and his voice became soft again. ‘You won’t know how to use it for a long while yet. So if you give it to me, we’ll be quits. I have a normal map of the metro lines and if you want I can copy the markings of the Guide onto it and you can have it instead. And then . . .’ He fumbled in his bags. ‘I can offer you this thing,’ and he brought out a strangely shaped flashlight. ‘It doesn’t need batteries. It’s made so that you just charge it like this manually - can you see the two little knobs? You have to press them with your fingers and they manufacture the current themselves and the flashlight shines. It’s not too bright of course but there are sometimes situations when this beam seems brighter than the mercury lamps at Polis . . . It has saved me many times, and I hope that it will prove useful. Take it, it’s yours. Take it, take it, the trade isn’t fair anyway - it’s me who owes you and not the reverse.’
In Artyom’s opinion, the exchange was actually unusually advantageous. What did he need with a map with mystical properties, if he was deaf to its voice? He would have thrown it away anyway, after turning it over again and again and vainly attempting to read the curlicues painted on it.
‘So now, the route which you sketched out won’t take you anywhere except into an abyss.’ Khan continued the interrupted conversation, holding the map with great care in his hands. ‘Here you go, take my old one and follow it.’ He held out a tiny map, printed on the other side of an old pocket calendar. ‘You were talking about the passage from Turgenevskaya to Sretensky Bulvar? Don’t tell me you don’t know the evil reputation of this station and the long tunnel that goes from here to Kitai Gorod?’
‘Well, I have been told that you mustn’t go into it alone, that it’s only safe to go through in a caravan, and I was thinking to go in a caravan until Turgenevskaya and then to run off from them into the transfer passage - they’re not going to run after me after all . . .’ Artyom answered, feeling vague thoughts swarming in his head.
‘There isn’t a transfer passage there. The arches are walled up. You didn’t know that?’
How could he have forgotten! Of course, he had been told about this before but it had flown out of his head . . . The Reds were frightened of the demons in that tunnel and they walled up the only way to Turgenevskaya.
‘But is there no other passage there?’ he asked carefully.
‘No, and the map is silent about it. The passage to lines that are actually constructed doesn’t begin at Turgenevskaya. But even if the passage did exist I’m not sure that you have enough courage to separate from the group and go into it. Especially if you listen to the latest rumours about that lovely little place while you’re waiting to join the caravan.’
‘So what should I do?’ Artyom asked despondently, scrutinizing the little calendar.
‘It’s possible to get to Kitai Gorod. Oh, now that’s a curious station, and the morals there are very amusing - but there, at least, you won’t disappear without a trace in such a way that your closest friends wonder to themselves if you ever existed at all. At Turgenevskaya that can happen . . . From Kitai Gorod, follow me now,’ he was tracing a finger on the map, ‘it’s only two stations to Pushkinskaya, and there there’s a passage to Chekhovskaya, and another one there, and then you’re at Polis. That would be shorter than the route which you were planning.’
Artyom was moving his lips, counting the stations and transfers on each route. However he counted though, the route that Khan suggested was much shorter and less dangerous and it wasn’t clear why Artyom hadn’t thought of it himself. So there was no choice left.
‘You’re right,’ he said finally. ‘And how often do caravans go there?’
‘I’m afraid not often. And there is one small but annoying detail: in order to go into the southern tunnel to Kitai Gorod, you have to come to our little half-station from the north,’ and he pointed at the damned tunnel which Artyom had only barely made it out of. ‘Basically, the last caravan to the south left a while ago now, and we’re hoping that there’s another group planning on coming through soon. Talk to some people, ask around, but don’t talk too much. There’re some cutthroats around here and they can’t be trusted . . . OK, I’ll go with you so you don’t get into anything stupid,’ he added after thinking it over.
Artyom was going to put on his rucksack when Khan stopped him with a gesture: ‘Don’t worry about your things. People are so scared of me here that no riff-raff would dare even look at my lair. And while you’re here, you’re under my protection.’
Artyom left his rucksack by the fire but he took his machine gun with him anyway, not wanting to be separated from his new treasure, and he hurried to follow Khan who was walking in a leisurely fashion towards the fires that were burning on the other side of the hall. He noticed with surprise how under-nourished tramps, wrapped in stinking rags scuttled away from them as they passed and Artyom thought that people really were probably afraid of Khan here. He wondered why . . .
The first fire swam by but Khan didn’t slow his pace. It was a very tiny little fire, barely burning, and there were two figures sitting next to it, tightly pressed to each other, a man and a woman. They were whispering quietly in an unknown language, and their whispers dispersed, not quite reaching Artyom’s ears. Artyom was so fascinated that he almost turned his head. He could hardly resist looking at this pair.
In front of them was another fire, a big, bright one and a whole camp of people were settled around it. Fierce looking peasant types were sitting there, warming their hands. Loud laughter thundered and the air was so torn with the sound of noisy arguing that Artyom became a bit scared and slowed his pace. But Khan calmly and confidently walked up to the seated men, greeted them and sat down by the fire so that Artyom could do nothing else but follow his example and sit down next to him.
‘. . . He’s looking at himself and sees that he has the same rash on his hands, and something is swelling and hard and really painful in his armpits. Imagine the horror, fuck’s sake . . . Different people behave in different ways. Some shoot themselves straight away, some go crazy and start throwing themselves at other people trying to hug them so they won’t die alone. Some run into the tunnel beyond the Ring to the backwaters so they won’t infect other pe
ople . . . There are all sorts of people. So this guy, as soon as he sees all this, asks his doctor: is there any chance I can get better? The doctor tells him straight: none. After the appearance of this rash you have about two weeks to live. And the battalion commander, I see, is already quietly taking his Makarov out of its holster just in case the guy starts to get violent . . .’ The man speaking was a thin old guy with a bristly chin in a quilted jacket with a voice faltering out genuine anxiety as he looked at the grey watery eyes around him.
And though Artyom did not understand what it was all about, the spirit with which the story was told and the pregnant silence among the recently riotous group made him shudder and ask Khan quietly about it in order not to draw any attention to himself.
‘What’s he talking about?’
‘The plague,’ Khan answered heavily. ‘It’s started.’
Those words emitted the stench of decomposed bodies and the greasy smoke of cremation fires and echoes of alarm bells and the howl of manual sirens.
At VDNKh and its surroundings there had never been an epidemic; rats as carriers of infection were destroyed, and there were also several good doctors at the station. Artyom had only read in books about fatal infectious diseases. He came across some of them when he was very young and they had left a deep trace in his memory and long inhabited the world of his childhood dreams and fears. Therefore when he heard the word ‘plague’ he felt a cold sweat on his back and a little faint. He didn’t ask Khan anything more, but listened with an unhealthy attention to the story of the thin man in the quilted coat.
‘But Ryzhii wasn’t that type, he wasn’t a psycho. He stood there silently for a minute and says: “Give me some cartridges and I’ll go. I can’t stay here with you anymore.” I heard the battalion commander sigh with relief straight away. It was clear: there’s little joy in shooting one of your own even if he’s sick. They gave Ryzhii two horns. And he went to the north-east, beyond Aviamotornaya. And we didn’t see him again. But the battalion commander asks our doctor afterwards about how long it takes the disease to act. The doctor says the incubation period is a week. If nothing appears a week after contact with it then you’re not infected. So the battalion commander then decides: we’ll leave the station and stay there for a week and then we’ll see. We can’t be inside the Ring, basically - if the infection penetrates the Ring then the whole metro will die. And so they stayed away for a whole week. They didn’t even go up to each other - because how could we know who was infected among us. So there was this other guy, who we called Cup because he really liked to drink. Everyone kept away from him since he’d hung out with Rizhii a lot. When he approached anyone they would run to the other end of the station. Some guy even pointed his barrel at him, telling him to, like, push off. When Cup ran out of water, the guys shared with him of course - but they did it by putting it on the floor and then walking away and no one got near. After a week he went missing. Then people were saying different things, some were even telling lies and saying that some beast had dragged him off but the tunnels there are quiet and clean. I personally think that he noticed a rash on himself and his armpits were hurting so he ran off. And no one else from our forces was infected and we waited a little longer and then the battalion commander checked everyone himself. Everyone was healthy.’
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