The Last Watch:

by Sergei Lukyanenko

  The confusion that had set in made it easier for us to retreat. Moreover, in the Twilight there were gaping holes in the low fence, and the next building didn’t exist at all. We ran down the deserted street as far as the crossroads and turned on to another narrow street that led to the market. It seemed that sooner or later every street here led to the market … Nodir was sobbing and swearing by turns. Afandi kept looking back, gazing in amazement at the battle raging around the empty building. It looked as if the attackers had started firing at each other in their confusion.

  The Dark Ones were holding up better. Valentina Ilinichna was walking in the centre, and they were providing perfectly competent lateral protection. I actually thought that we had already escaped pursuit. And that was an unforgivable mistake for a Higher Magician to make. Or almost unforgivable.

  After all, I had never really believed that devas existed.

  The European tradition is golems – creatures created out of clay, wood, or even metal. In Russia the wooden ones are known affectionately as pinocchios, although the last actual operational pinocchio rotted away sometime in the eighteenth century. We don’t know what their contemporaries used to call them. We were taught to create pinocchios in our classes and that was both amusing and instructive – the wooden doll that came to life could walk, perform simple work, even talk … and it crumbled into dust after only a few minutes. For a wooden golem to last even a few days, the magician has to be very powerful and very skilful, and experienced magicians don’t really have much use for dim-witted pinocchios. Bringing metal to life, making a creature of metal, is even harder: I remember that Sveta once made a walking doll out of paper clips for little Nadya, but it took exactly three steps and then froze for ever. Clay is remarkably malleable and amenable to animation – it holds the magic for a long time – but even clay golems are only made very rarely nowadays.

  In the East, though, there were devas. Or rather, it was believed that there were. Essentially, they’re golems too, only without any material basis – animated clumps of the Twilight, intertwined vortexes of Power. According to legend, creating such a deva (the Arabs usually called them genies) was regarded as an examination that a magician had to pass to be acknowledged as higher level. First you had to create the golem, then you had to subordinate it to your will. Some were eliminated at the first stage, but a far sadder fate awaited those who screwed things up at the second.

  I thought devas were creatures of legend. Or, at the very most, an extremely rare experiment that one of the greatest magicians of antiquity had managed to pull off once or twice. And even less did I imagine that devas still existed in our own times. However, the members of the local Watches seemed to believe in them

  Only they didn’t have the Power to spot a deva approaching.

  The young Dark One – I never did learn his name – screamed and started flailing his arms about, as if he was trying to fight off something invisible. He was lifted up off the ground and carried through the air until he stopped, shouting and squirming, at the height of a two-storey house. I shuddered as I watched the Dark One’s sides collapse as if from the pressure of a gigantic hand, and his clothes start to char. His scream became a feeble wheeze.

  And then a bloody streak appeared on the Dark One’s body in the form of an arc. A moment later the dead body fell to the ground, cut – or rather bitten – right through.

  ‘Shields!’ Alisher shouted.

  I didn’t increase the strength of my own shield. In the first place, I didn’t know if it would be any use to me against the deva. And in the second – I was the only one who could stand up to the creature.

  I instantly sank down to the second level of the Twilight.

  And immediately I saw the deva.

  The flexible body woven out of plumes of fire and smoke really did resemble a mythical genie. The predominant colour was grey – even the petals of flame were blackish-grey, with just the faintest hint of crimson. The deva didn’t have any legs: its torso narrowed and became a snake’s body that writhed as the deva moved along. The ground underneath it steamed, like damp laundry under an iron. The head, the arms and even the genitals that protruded absurdly from the serpentine half appeared completely human. But they were huge – the deva stood five or five and a half metres tall – and they were made of smoke and flame. The eyes blazed with a scarlet fire – the only bright detail on the deva’s body, and in the entire second level of the Twilight.

  The deva saw me too – just at the moment when it was reaching its hand out for Valentina. The monster howled in glee and came skidding towards me with surprising agility. What was this crazy fashion for reptiles? A two-headed snake in Scotland, and now a half snake, half man in Uzbekistan …

  Just as a test, I threw a fireball at the deva – it had absolutely no effect: the bundle of flames simply dissolved in the monster’s body. Then I tried a Triple Blade – the deva winced, but it didn’t slow down.

  All right, then …

  I allowed the Power to flow through my arm and created a White Sword. I was probably influenced by Murat’s final action, but it was a mistake to follow the Uzbek magician’s example – the white blade easily sliced through the deva’s body, but without causing it any harm. There was no time to ponder the reasons for this failure. The deva swung its arm back and struck out with its hand. I managed to jump back, but a cunning thrust with the tail caught me by surprise and I was sent tumbling across the ground. The deva advanced on me, laughing triumphantly, but I couldn’t get up. Strangely enough, I didn’t even feel afraid – all I felt was revulsion at the sight of the monster’s penis rising into an erection. The deva clutched his penis in one hand and began waggling it about, either masturbating or preparing to use it as a club of fire to splat me with. What was this? Was I supposed to die of a blow from some brainless monster’s dick? I didn’t try to create another white blade. I gathered Power into the palm of my hand and struck out at the deva with the sign of Thanatos.

  The deva flinched and, with his free hand, scratched his chest where the blow had landed. Thin streams of smoke curled and twisted like hairs behind his open palm. Then the deva started roaring with laughter, still clutching his male member, which had grown to the size of a baseball bat by now. The deva radiated heat – not living warmth, but hot air, the same as a blazing bonfire gives off.

  He wasn’t so brainless after all. I was far more stupid, striking with the sign of death at a being that wasn’t even alive.

  ‘Ai, you Satan, you mangy dog, vicious offspring of a sick tapeworm!’ I heard someone shout from behind the deva. Old man Afandi had somehow managed to enter the second level of the Twilight! And not only that – he had taken a firm grip of the deva’s tail and was trying to drag it away from me!

  The monster turned round slowly, as if it couldn’t believe that anyone would dare to treat it with such contempt. It stopped scratching, and raised its massive hand above the old man’s head in a clenched fist. It would drive him into the ground up to his ears!

  I sifted frantically through the clutter that had accumulated in my head. Everything to do with golems, from the first classes to the tall stories I’d heard from Semyon. The deva was just another golem. Golems could be destroyed! Golems … golems … cabbalistic golems, golems with goals and free will, golems for fun and amusement, wooden golems … the impossibility of creating a plastic golem … Olga had once told me … a skill that no one needed any more … the spell wasn’t that difficult in principle, but it took a lot of Power …

  ‘Dust and Ashes,’ I shouted, throwing out one hand towards the deva.

  Now everything depended on whether I’d made the sign correctly. The standard position widely used in magical passes, with the thumb gripped between the next two fingers, but with the little finger extended forward, parallel to the thumb. That month of training in stretching our fingers had certainly been well spent. We would be the envy of any pianist …

  The monster froze and then slowly turned round to face m
e. The red light in its eyes went out and the deva began whining shrilly, like a puppy dog when someone steps on its paw. It opened its hand and the penis fell off and shattered in a heap of sparks, like a firebrand that had flown out of a bonfire. Then the fingers on its hands started crumbling away. The deva had stopped whining now: it was sobbing, reaching its fingerless hands out towards me and shaking its blind-eyed head.

  That was how the great magicians of the East used to subdue them …

  I held the position with the sign of Dust and Ashes, allowing the Power to flow through me, on and on, for about three minutes in second-level Twilight time, until the deva was finally reduced to a handful of ash.

  ‘Cold, isn’t it?’ said Afandi, hopping up and down. He walked up to the remains of the deva, held out his hands and rubbed them together as he warmed them. Then he spat on the ash and muttered, ‘Ugh, you son of evil and father of abomination …’

  ‘Thank you, Afandi,’ I said as I got up off the frosty ground. It really was terribly cold on the second level. At least by some miracle I’d managed not to lose the bag with my things – it was still hanging on my shoulder. Although … perhaps the miracle in question was an affinity spell cast by Svetlana? ‘Thank you, Grandad. Let’s get you of this place. It’s hard for you to stay down here for very long.’

  ‘Ai, thanks, O mighty warrior,’ said Afandi, beaming. ‘You thanked me? I shall take pride in that for the rest of my pointless life! The vanquisher of a deva has praised me!’

  I took him by the elbow without saying a word and dragged him up to the first level. I’d put so much Power into destroying the deva that even I was finding it hard to stay in the Twilight.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE CHAIKHANA, OR tea hall, was gloomy and dirty. Fat bluebottles buzzed as they circled round the weak light bulbs in fly-spotted shades hanging from the ceiling. We were sitting on greasy bright-coloured cushions or small mattresses around a low table, only about fifteen centimetres high. The table was covered with a brightly patterned tablecloth, and it was dirty too.

  In Russia a café like this would have been closed down in a moment. In Europe they would have put the owner in prison. In the USA the proprietor would have been hit with an absolutely massive fine. And in Japan the boss of an establishment like this would have committed seppuku out of a sense of shame.

  But never before had I come across smells as delicious as those in this little chaikhana that was absolutely unfit for tourists.

  Once we’d got away from our pursuers we had split up. The Dark One had gone to find his colleagues and report on what had happened. Valentina Ilinichna and Nodir had set out to gather together the Light Ones who were reserve members of the Watch and to call Tashkent and request reinforcements. Alisher, Afandi and I had caught a taxi and made our way to this chaikhana beside a small market on the outskirts of Samarkand. I had already begun to suspect that there were at least a dozen markets in Samarkand, and there were certainly more than all the museums and movie theatres taken together.

  On the way I cast a masking spell on myself and became Timur’s double. For some reason young magicians think it’s a bad sign to assume the appearance of a dead man. There are all sorts of beliefs attached to this superstition, from ‘You’ll die soon’ to ‘You’ll pick up someone else’s habits.’ Anybody would think that habits were fleas that scatter after their host dies and look for someone who resembled him as closely as possible … I have never been superstitious, so I didn’t hesitate to adopt Timur’s appearance. I had to disguise myself as a local in any case. Even in this chaikhana a visitor with a European appearance would have looked as much out of place as a Papuan at the haymaking in a Russian village.

  ‘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 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 music centre standing by the wall, with huge hissing speakers and blinking coloured lights. The cassette that was playing featured some Uzbek folk music that had originally been very interesting but had been hopelessly spoiled by the pop-music rhythms introduced into it and by the quality of the music centre. 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, and in Europe 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 say: “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.

  ‘Okay, 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 …’

  ‘Grandad Afandi …’ I said. ‘Please!’

  ‘Just call me Bobo!’ said Afandi.

  ‘What does it mean?’ I asked warily.

  ‘It means ‘grandad’,’ 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. ‘Pleaase, don’t remind me of that fight. I feel very embarrassed that I couldn’t overcome the deva straight away.’

  ‘Devas!’ Afandi repeated firmly.

  ‘Deva?’ I suggested naively.

  ‘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 behaviour 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 tea and eating sweet pastries. I recognised 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 enjoying the way they tasted. There were different-coloured sugar crystals (I preferred not to think about what they had been coloured 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 c
an easily slip into a hypoglycaemic 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 realised 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 any more.’

  ‘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 became 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.