Last Watch

by Sergei Lukyanenko

  “Afandi!” Valentina Ilinichna exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. “You must have heard of the Great Gesar!”

  “Gesar,” the old man mused. “Gesar, Gesar... Wasn’t he the Light Magician who worked as a night-soil man in Binkent?”

  “Afandi! How can you confuse the Great Gesar with some night-soil man?” Valentina Ilinichna was shocked.

  “Ah, Gesar!” said Afandi, nodding. “Yes, yes, yes! At Oldjibai, the vanquisher of Soton, Lubson, and Gubkar. Who doesn’t know old man Gesar?”

  “But who knows old man Rustam?” I butted in again, before Afandi could start reciting Gesar’s great and glorious deeds.

  “I do,” Afandi declared proudly.

  “Please, don’t exaggerate, Afandi,” Timur said. “Our guest really needs to meet Rustam.”

  “That’s not easy,” said Afandi, suddenly shedding all his buffoonery. “Rustam has cut himself off from people. He was seen in Samarkand ten years ago, but since then no one has spoken to Rustam, no one... .”

  “How do you know about Rustam, Afandi?” I couldn’t resist asking. If it wasn’t for what my daughter had said, I would have believed the old man was simply stringing me along.

  “It was a long time ago,” Afandi said with a sigh. “In Samarkand there was an old man, a complete fool, just like these young whippersnappers. One day he was walking through the town, complaining that he didn’t have anything to eat. And suddenly a mighty hero, a batyr, with eyes that glowed and a high, wise forehead, came out to meet him. He looked at the old man and said, ‘Granddad, why are you so sad? Do you really not know the power that is concealed within you? You are a Boshkacha! An Other!’ The batyr touched the old man with his hand, and the old man acquired power and wisdom. And the batyr said, ‘Know that the Great Rustam himself has been your teacher.’ That was what happened two hundred and fifty years ago!”

  As far as I could tell, the members of the Watch were as astonished by this story as I was. Murat froze absolutely still in the doorway of the kitchen and Timur spilled the cognac he was just about to pour into the glasses.

  “Afandi, were you initiated by Rustam?” Valentina Ilinichna asked.

  “I’ll tell everything to a person wise enough,” Afandi answered, taking his glass from Timur. “But you can tell a stupid person a hundred times, and he won’t understand a thing.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us this story before?” Timur asked.

  “There was no reason to.”

  “Afandi, a pupil can always call his teacher,” I said.

  “That is true,” Afandi confirmed pompously.

  “I need to meet Rustam.”

  Afandi sighed and gave me a cunning look. “But does Rustam need to meet you?”

  How sick I was of that florid Eastern style! Did they really talk to one another that way in their daily lives? “My wife, have you warmed a bread cake for me?”—” Oh, my husband, will not my warm embraces take the place of your bread cake?”

  I realized I was on the verge of giving way and saying something unworthy of a guest who had been met with such great hospitality. But fortunately there was a quiet knock at the door and Alisher walked in.

  I didn’t like the look on his face at all. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Alisher looking sad. After all, he could have discovered that his school sweetheart had married, had five children, gotten fat, and completely forgotten about him—more than enough reason for feeling sad.

  But Alisher was alarmed about something.

  “Hi,” he said to his former colleagues, as if he had left them only yesterday. “We’ve got problems.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Right outside the fence.”

  .

  .

  A COMMON ENEMY

  Chapter 3

  After Edinburgh i ought to have been expecting something like this.

  But instead I had relaxed. The streets smothered in greenery, the splashing of the water in the irrigation ditches, the noisy Eastern market and the severe outlines of the domes of the mosque, the Dark Ones on the other side of the wall, and the overwhelming hospitality of the Light Ones... it was all so completely different from Scotland. I thought the only problem I’d have to deal with would be finding the old magician; I wasn’t expecting any more cunning tricks involving human beings.

  The building was surrounded by about a hundred men. I could see militiamen among them, and well-equipped soldiers from the Special Forces, and young soldiers—skinny, pimply kids—awkwardly clutching automatic weapons. All sorts of forces had been brought together to capture us. Everything that had been close at hand.

  That wasn’t a problem. Even without my help, Alisher could brainwash a hundred or two hundred attackers. Unfortunately, every man in the cordon was protected by magic spells.

  Every Other is capable of shielding himself and others against the influence of magic. He doesn’t even have to be at a very high level in order to apply protective spells to a hundred people. To put it simply, magic that is controlled by reason is more like a knife than a grenade launcher. And what you need to protect yourself against it is not the heavy armor plate of a tank, but a light bulletproof vest made of Kevlar. By striking with raw Power in the form of a Fireball, a White Lance, or a Wall of Flame, I could burn out an entire city block. And equally powerful amulets and spells would be required to protect anyone against the strike. But in order to subordinate the attackers to my will and scatter them, first I would have to strip each one of them of his protection. And that was far from simple. There are dozens of different kinds of Shields, and I didn’t know which kind had been used. Most likely (at least, this is what I would have done) each individual Shield was made up of two or three spells chosen at random. One soldier, for instance, has the Shield of Magic and the Sphere of Calm. Another has the Sphere of Denial, the Crust of Ice, and the Barrier of Will.

  Just try finding the right approach for each one! And from a distance!

  “They followed me,” Alisher explained while I, protected by my own Sphere of Denial, stood at the window and studied the warriors who had surrounded us. “I don’t know how, but they followed me all the way from the airport. I kept having the feeling I was being followed, but I couldn’t spot anything. And then, when I was leaving my acquaintance’s house... they tried to arrest me. About twenty men. Not a single Other. I tried to shield myself from them, but they could see me!”

  They could see me, too. Not all of them, but a few soldiers had clearly spotted me, despite the magic. That meant that they had been charged with search spells as well as protective spells. Glance of the Heart, Clear Gaze, True Vision—the magical arsenal is quite extensive. Light Ones and Dark Ones have been thinking up ways to deceive one another for thousands of years.

  And now it had all been turned against us.

  “How did you get away from them?” I asked, moving away from the window.

  “Through the Twilight. Only”—Alisher hesitated—“they were waiting for me there, too. There was someone keeping watch on the second level... I got out as fast as I could.”

  “Who was it on watch? A Light One? A Dark One?”

  Alisher gulped and smiled awkwardly. “I think it was a deva.”

  “Nonsense,” I exclaimed, suppressing the urge to swear. “Devas don’t exist.”

  “They don’t exist in Moscow, but we have them here,” Timur stated with absolute certainty. He followed my gaze to the door that led to the Dark Ones. “Anton, believe me, it’s not them! They have no reason to attack us, and to involve people as well! The Inquisition would have their heads!”

  I nodded. I wasn’t even thinking of suspecting the Samarkand Day Watch.

  “Get in touch with the top management in Tashkent. Tell them to stop these men!”

  “How?” asked Timur, p
uzzled.

  “By human methods! Phone calls to the ministers of defense and internal affairs! And get on to the Inquisition, quick!”

  “What shall I say?” Valentina Ilinichna asked, taking out an old cell phone.

  “Tell them we have a critical situation here. An alpha-prime violation of the Great Treaty. The provision of information concerning Others to human beings, the involvement of human beings in confrontations between the Watches, the illegal use of magic, the illegal dissemination of magic, violation of the agreement on the separation of powers... in brief, violations of clauses one, six, eight, eleven, and fourteen of the basic Appendix to the Treaty. I think that will be enough.”

  Valentina Ilinichna was already making the call. I looked out the window again. The soldiers were waiting, sitting on the fence. What were the walls made of here? If they really were compressed reeds, which is how they looked, bullets would go straight through them... .

  “Ah, what beautiful words!” Afandi suddenly exclaimed. He was still sitting at the table and chewing energetically on a piece of sausage. His glass was full, and the cognac bottle on the table was empty. ‘A violation of the basic Appendix’! That makes everything clear all right, clear as day. Keep giving the orders, Commander!”

  I turned away from Afandi. It was just my luck—the person all my hopes rested on was as halfwitted as the devona before he met Gesar.

  “Time to be going, lads,” I said. “I’m sorry things turned out this way.”

  “Anton, can you disperse them?” Nodir asked with timid hope in his voice.

  “I can kill them, no problem. But not disperse them.”

  Someone began hammering on the door that led to the Dark Ones’ office. Timur walked over, asked something, and opened it. The two Dark Ones who were on duty there came running in. Judging from their bewildered expressions, they had only just discovered the cordon and were desperate for explanations.

  “What are you doing, Light One?” howled the one who was a bit older. “Why did you bring these men here?”

  “Quiet,” I said, raising my hand. “Shut up!”

  He had enough sense to do as I said. “This situation comes under point one of the Appendix to the Great Treaty,” I said and Afandi grunted loudly. I gave him an angry sideways glance, but the old man had just swallowed an entire glass of cognac, and now he was breathing rapidly and pressing his hand to his mouth. I continued, “In this situation, under the terms of the Convention of Prague, as the most powerful magician here, I assume general command of all Others here present. All Others here present!”

  The young Dark One looked at his elder, who frowned, but nodded and said, “We await your orders, Higher One.”

  “Total evacuation of the Watches,” I said. “All documents and artifacts to be destroyed. Get to it.”

  “How are we going to get out?” the young Dark One asked. “Put up Shields?”

  I shook my head. ”I’m afraid they have charmed bullets. We have to leave via the Twilight.”

  “Oh, Afandi has been in the Twilight!” the old man declared loudly. “Afandi can walk in the Twilight!”

  “Afandi, you will go with me and Alisher,” I ordered. “The others—”

  Alisher looked at me in alarm and moved his lips soundlessly: “The deva...”

  “The others will cover us,” I ordered.

  “Why should we?” the young Dark One protested. “We—”

  I waved my hand, and the Dark One squirmed and squealed in agony, pressing his hands against his stomach.

  “Because I order it,” I explained, removing the pain. “Because I am a Higher Magician and you are fifth-level. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” Appallingly enough, there wasn’t even a hint of indignation in the Dark One’s voice. He had tried to throw his weight about, been punished, and accepted my right to command because I was more powerful. Later, of course, he would write a whole bunch of complaints to the Inquisition. But for now he would obey.

  Meanwhile the other Watch members were destroying their offices. The older Dark One was working alone, but he seemed to have everything under control, the destruction spells having been applied to the safe in advance—there was smoke pouring out of the keyhole. And they had been applied to all the documents, too—the ones on the desk were curling up, turning yellow, and crumbling to pieces. The Light Ones were burning everything by hand, and they were doing it with real enthusiasm. I watched as Timur drove a deftly rolled Fireball straight through the metal wall of the safe and it exploded inside.

  “They’ve gone very quiet,” Alisher said anxiously, glancing out of the window. “They’ll see the smoke any minute... .”

  They saw it, all right. A voice with a strong accent addressed us in Russian through a megaphone: “Terrorists! Lay down your weapons and leave the building one at a time! You are surrounded! If you do not comply, we will storm the building!”

  “What crazy nonsense!” Valentina Ilinichna exclaimed indignantly. “Terrorists, would you believe it!”

  A second later Alisher leaped back from the window and the glass shattered with a tinkling sound. A small metal cylinder fell to the floor, spinning around its axis.

  “Let’s leave!” I shouted, diving into the Twilight. After the heat of Samarkand, the coolness of the first level was actually quite pleasant.

  That very moment the gray gloom around me was lit up brightly. I didn’t even want to think about how blinding the flash must have been in the human world. Fortunately, from down there in the Twilight I couldn’t hear the earsplitting screech.

  I’d never thought that the Special Services’ light-and-sound grenades could be so devastating against Others. Only Valentina Ilinichna had managed to withdraw into the Twilight with me—in here she looked like a slim young woman no more than thirty years old.

  The other Watch members were still blundering helplessly around the office. Some were rubbing at their eyes, some were holding their ears. A light-and-sound grenade blinds you for ten to twenty seconds, so they couldn’t withdraw into the Twilight.

  “Help the boys!” I shouted to Valentina, and rushed to the doors. I flung them open in the Twilight, not the ordinary world, and looked outside.

  Yes, of course, they were already storming us. Clumsily and stupidly, en masse—there were dozens of Special Services men running toward the entrance, and the soldiers on the other side of the fence had started firing at the windows. The assault was uncoordinated, as it always is whenever somebody gets the clever idea of creating a joint unit of militiamen, common soldiers, and Special Services. I saw one of the Special Services men throw his hands up in the air and fall: He had taken a bullet in the back. He probably wouldn’t have anything worse than bruising; the troops in the assault wave were wearing bulletproof vests.

  But the fact that several marksmen started aiming their shots directly at me was very bad news. That was either Clear Gaze or True Vision. Which was very, very serious indeed. And the bullets really were charmed to the maximum. Not only did they exist in the real world and the first level of the Twilight at the same time, they were packed with deadly magic!

  I ducked. Fortunately, our enemies had not been accelerated and the advantage of speed remained with me. I waved my hand, allowing the Power to flow from my fingertips. A rain of fire fell on the earth and a wall of smoke and flame sprang up in front of the attackers. Right now, lads, are you ready to jump into the fire?

  They weren’t. They stopped (one was moving too fast and he stuck his face into the flames and jumped back with a howl), then they drew back and started raising their automatic rifles.

  Naturally, I didn’t wait for them to fire. I burst back into the house, on the way reducing the dubious Night Watch sign to cinders with a Fireball. The adrenaline was coursing through my veins.

  War games? All right, then, let’s p
lay war games!

  I hung the Absolute Lock spell on the door (actually there are two of these spells, but the other one wouldn’t have had any effect if it was applied to an inanimate object). I hung a light Shield right across the walls, one that would hold against automatic fire for about five minutes. Of course, the attackers would notice that something was wrong. But there was no way that we could leave secretly now.

  The two Dark Ones entered the Twilight one after the other. They had been standing with their backs to the grenade when it exploded. The older one was about to strike the window with something, but I caught hold of his arm. “What have you got there?”

  He bared his long, crooked teeth in a grin. Well, well, an ordinary weak Dark Magician, but what a jaw he had sprouted now!

  “They’ll shit themselves. Just a little bit.”

  “Go ahead,” I agreed. “Only, not here. Cover your side!”

  Timur entered the Twilight, followed by Alisher, who was dragging Murat after him. Only Nodir was still rubbing his eyes, unable to recover his senses: He had been blinded worst of all.

  “Alisher, let’s get Afandi!” I shouted.

  We walked over to the old man, who was still sitting at the table, trying to suck on the mouth of a fresh bottle of cognac.

  “On the count of two,” I said. “One, two...”

  We leaped out of the Twilight, grabbed Afandi under the arms, and lifted him off his chair. With my free hand I managed to grab the bag with all my personal items and throw the strap across my shoulder. The bursts of automatic fire thundered in my ears and the bullets jangled as they ricocheted off the Shield, the crimson flames flickering outside the windows. With a deft movement, the old man managed to get one suck at the bottle—just at the moment when we dragged him into the Twilight.

  “Ai!” he exclaimed in disappointment. The bottle was left behind in the normal world, and Afandi’s hand closed on emptiness. “Ai, the drink’s disappearing.”

  “Granddad, we haven’t got any time for drink,” Alisher told him with incredible patience. “Enemies have attacked us, we’re leaving!”