He had transformed with the speed of a mature shape-shifter. He was a whole head taller and much wider in the shoulders—his shirt had split and the upper button had been torn out, together with a piece of cloth. To my surprise, his skin had turned lighter, and his eyes had become bright blue. I had to remind myself that two thousand years earlier the inhabitants of this part of Asia had looked quite different from the way they did now. Nowadays a Russian will smile when someone from Central Asia tells him that his ancestors had light-brown hair and blue eyes. But there is a lot more truth in these words than modern-day Russians realize.
Rustam’s hair, however, was actually black. And of course, his Eastern origins could be seen in the features of his face.
“So you are Rustam after all,” I said, bowing my head. “Greetings, Great One! Thank you for responding to our request.”
Beside me Alisher went down on one knee, like a valorous knight in front of his lord—respectfully, but proudly.
“Afandi is not Rustam,” the ancient magician replied. His gaze was clouded, as if he were listening to someone else’s voice. “Afandi is my pupil, my friend, my guardian. I no longer live among people. My home is the Twilight. If I need to walk among mortals, I borrow his body.”
So that was it! I nodded in acknowledgment of his words and said, “You know why we have come here, Great One.”
“I do, and I would prefer not to answer Gesar’s question.”
“Gesar said that you—”
“My debt to Gesar is my debt.” A spark of fury glinted in Rustam’s eyes. “I remember our friendship and I remember our enmity. I asked him to leave the Watch. I asked him to stop the war over people. For people’s own sake. But Gesar is like this youth...” He stopped talking and looked at Alisher.
“Will you help us?” I asked.
“I will answer one question,” said Rustam. “One question. And then my debt to Gesar will be no more. Ask, but do not make any mistake.”
I almost blurted out: “Did you really know Merlin?” Oh, these sly tricks... ask one question, make three wishes...
“What is the Crown of All Things, and what is the easiest way to get it from the seventh level of the Twilight?” I asked.
A smile appeared on Rustam’s face. “You remind me of a certain man from Khorezm. A cunning merchant to whom I owed money... and I promised to grant him three wishes. He thought for a long time and said, ‘I wish to grow young again, be cured of all ailments, and become rich—that is one wish.’ No, young magician. We shall not play that game. I am not granting a wish, I am answering one question. That will be enough. Which is it that you wish to know? What the Crown of All Things is, or how to get it?”
“I really don’t want to wind up like Pandora by asking, ‘How do I open this box?’ ” I muttered.
Rustam laughed, and there was a hint of madness in his laugh.
But what else could you expect from a Light One who had dissolved into the Twilight and was living beside the enemies he had once condemned to eternal torment? He had fixed his own punishment, or penance, and it was slowly killing him.
“What is the Crown of All Things?” I asked.
“A spell that pierces through the Twilight and connects it with the human world,” Rustam responded instantly. “You made the right choice, young magician. The reply to the second question would have confused you.”
“Oh, no, if you’re answering one question, then answer fair and square!” I exclaimed. “Explain how this spell works and what it’s for!”
“Very well,” Rustam agreed with surprising readiness. “The strength of an Other lies in the ability to use the human Power flowing through all the levels of the Twilight. Our world is like an immense plain covered with tiny springs that give out Power but do not know how to use it. We Others are merely the channels into which this water flows from the hundreds and thousands of springs. We do not provide a drop of water to this world. But we know how to retain and use the water of other people. Our ability to accumulate that Power is the consequence of our ability to immerse ourselves in the Twilight, to break through the barriers between the levels and manipulate ever more powerful energies. The spell that was invented by the Great Merlin erases the barriers between our world and the levels of the Twilight. What do you think would happen as a result of that, young magician?”
“A catastrophe?” I guessed. “The Twilight world is different from ours. On the third level there are two moons...”
“Merlin thought otherwise,” Rustam said. He seemed quite carried away now that he had answered the question, and he was quite willing to talk. “Merlin believed that each level of the Twilight is something that didn’t happen to our world. A possibility that was never realized. A shadow cast on existence. He thought our world would not die, it would destroy the Twilight. Obliterate it, as the sunlight obliterates shadows. Power would flood the entire world, like the waters of the ocean. And under that layer of water, it would make no difference who had once been able to immerse himself in the Twilight and who had not. Others would lose their Power. Forever.”
“Is that true, Rustam?”
“Who can say?” Rustam asked, spreading his hands wide. “I answer your second question because I do not know the answer. Perhaps that is what would happen. People would not even notice the change, and Others would become ordinary people. But that is the simplest answer, and is the simple answer always right? Possibly catastrophe would await us. Two small moons colliding with one large one, blue moss starting to grow in the wheat fields... who can say, magician, who can say? Perhaps Others would grow weaker but still retain some of their Power. Or perhaps something absolutely inconceivable would happen. Something we cannot even begin to imagine. Merlin did not take the risk of using the spell. He invented it to amuse himself. He found it pleasant to think that he could change the entire world... but he did not intend to do it. And I think Merlin was right. It is not a good idea to touch what he has hidden in the Twilight.”
“But the Crown of All Things is already being hunted,” I said.
“That is bad,” Rustam declared imperturbably. “I would advise you to cease these attempts.”
“We’re not the ones,” I said. “It’s someone quite different. An Inquisitor, a Light One, and a Dark One who have joined forces.”
“Interesting,” Rustam said. “It is not often that a single goal brings enemies together.”
“Can you help us to stop them?”
“No.”
“But you say yourself that it is bad!”
“There is very much in the world that is bad. But usually the attempt to defeat evil engenders more evil. I advise you to do good; that is the only way to win the victory!”
Alisher snorted indignantly and even I winced at this well-meant but totally useless conclusion. I thought what a victory evil would have won if Rustam and Gesar had not used the White Mist! Perhaps I did feel pity for the incarcerated Dark Ones, but I had no doubt at all that if they had destroyed the two Light Ones standing in their way, an agonizing death would have awaited the Others and the people whom Gesar and Rustam were defending. Yes, perhaps you couldn’t defeat evil with evil. But you couldn’t increase the amount of good by using nothing but good.
“Can you at least suggest what they are trying to achieve?” I asked.
“No,” said Rustam, shaking his head. “I cannot. Erase the difference between people and Others? Why, that is stupid. In that case you ought to erase all the inequality in the world. Between rich and poor, strong and weak, men and women. It would be simpler to kill everyone.” He laughed, and I was horrified to realize yet again that the Great Magician was not entirely sane.
But I replied politely, “You are right, Great Rustam. It is a stupid goal. One Other has already tried to attain it... with the help of the book Fuaran. Only, by another means—by transforming all peop
le into Others.”
“A fine jest,” Rustam replied without any particular interest. “But I agree, these are two roads that lead to the same goal. No, young magician! It is perhaps more complicated than that.” He screwed up his eyes. “I think the Inquisitor found something in the archives. An answer to the question of what the Crown of All Things really is.”
“And?” I asked.
“And it proved to be an answer that suited everybody. Dark Ones and Light Ones and the Inquisition that maintains equilibrium. It is remarkable that such a thing has been found in the world. It even makes me feel slightly curious. But I have told you everything that I know. Merlin’s spell annihilates the differences between the levels of the Twilight.”
“You live in the Twilight yourself,” I observed. “You could suggest something! After all, if the Twilight disappears, you will die!”
“Or I shall become an ordinary man and live out the remainder of a human life,” Rustam said without any particular emotion.
“Everyone who has withdrawn into the Twilight will die!” I exclaimed. Alisher looked at me in amazement. Of course: He didn’t know that the path followed by Others ended on the seventh level of the Twilight...
“People are mortal. How are we better than them?”
“At least try to suggest something, Rustam!” I implored him. “You are wiser than I am! What could it be? What could the Inquisitor have found?”
“Ask him yourself,” said Rustam, reaching out his hand. His lips moved and a stream of blinding white light flashed past me toward the Toyota.
I could probably have spotted Edgar myself, if only I had been expecting to see him on the plateau. Or perhaps even the most thorough check would have been useless. He had not concealed himself in the Twilight or by using the common spells available to all Others. Edgar was hidden from our eyes by a magical amulet on his head that reminded me of a skullcap. It was only its size that prevented me from calling it a Hat of Invisibility. I supposed it could be a Skullcap of Invisibility, since we were in Uzbekistan after all.
I automatically raised a Shield around myself and noticed that Alisher had done the same.
Only Rustam seemed entirely unconcerned with the Inquisitor’s presence. The light he had summoned had taken Edgar by surprise—he had been sitting on the hood of the car with his legs dangling, calmly observing us. For a second it looked as if he couldn’t understand what had happened. Then the skullcap on his head started smoking and Edgar flung it to the ground with a muffled curse. That was when he realized that we could see him.
“Hi, Edgar,” I said.
He hadn’t changed a bit since the last time we’d seen each other—on the train, when we were doing battle with Kostya Saushkin. Except that now he wasn’t dressed in his signature suit and tie, but in a much freer and more comfortable style: gray linen trousers, a thin white cotton sweater, and good leather shoes with thick soles. He looked like a svelte, fashionable European. And in the Central Asian wilderness, that made him seem like either an amiable colonizer taking a brief respite from the white man’s burden, or an English spy from the time of Kipling and the Great Game that Russia and Britain had played in this part of the world.
“Hi, Anton,” said Edgar, getting down off the hood. “Just look at that... now I’ve interrupted your conversation.”
Strangely enough, he seemed embarrassed. But then, who wouldn’t be embarrassed after calling down tectonic spells on our heads? Who wouldn’t be afraid to look us in the eye?
“What have you done, Edgar?” I asked.
“It was just the way things worked out,” he said with a sigh. “Anton, I won’t even try to make excuses! I feel really awkward!”
“And did you feel awkward in Edinburgh, too,” I asked, “when you cut the watchmen’s throats? When you hired the thugs?”
“Very awkward,” Edgar said with a nod. “Especially since we didn’t manage to break through to the seventh level in any case.”
Afandi/Rustam began laughing and slapping his sides. How much of it was Rustam and how much Afandi, I couldn’t tell.
“He felt awkward!” Rustam exclaimed. “They always feel awkward, but it never means anything.”
Obviously embarrassed by this reaction from Rustam, Edgar waited until the magician had laughed his fill. I took the chance to look the Inquisitor (or perhaps I should say “former Inquisitor”?) up and down through the Twilight.
Yes, he was hung all over with amulets, like decorations on a Christmas tree. But there was something else besides the amulets. Charms: combinations of the very simplest natural components that don’t require much effort to become saturated with magic and that acquire their magical properties from light, almost imperceptible touches of Power, in the same way that saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur—almost harmless in themselves—together become gunpowder, which explodes at the slightest spark.
It was no accident that Edgar was dressed completely in cotton, linen, and leather. Natural materials have an affinity for magic. You can’t charm a nylon jacket.
And these charms that transformed his clothing into magical armor bothered me. Charms are the weapons of enchantresses and witches. Magicians rarely make use of them. There was no way I could imagine Edgar carefully impregnating his own trousers with herbal infusions.
So was this the work of another member of their criminal gang? The Light Healer? Yes, healers knew how to work with charms; I knew that very well from Svetlana.
“Edgar, you realize that I am obliged to arrest you?”
“And what if you can’t?” Edgar asked, but he didn’t wait for an answer. The fingers of his left hand began moving, weaving together a spell. I realized which one it was—and I hesitated for just an instant as I made up my mind whether to warn Rustam. Strangely enough, it was in my interest for Edgar to get what he wanted.
“Rustam, he’s working the Confession!” I shouted.
I warned him because, after all, this ancient magician with bats in the belfry was a Light One...
Edgar instantly struck with the spell, simultaneously shouting, “How can I take the Crown of All Things?”
There you go. I hadn’t needed to use my four bracelets that compelled an honest answer to any question!
We all gazed at Rustam in silence. He was slowly rubbing his chest where the spell had struck him. He raised his head, looked at Edgar with his cold blue eyes, and said, “With your hands.”
Alisher started laughing. Edgar had been caught out by the ambivalence of his presentation of the question. Even under a powerful spell Rustam had managed to give a perfectly precise and absolutely useless answer.
And then, with a slight movement of his lips, Rustam struck back. And he struck with something entirely unfamiliar to me. No fancy effects, but Edgar was shaken from side to side, and his cheeks swelled up in red blotches from slaps delivered by an invisible hand.
“Never try to put pressure on me again,” Rustam warned him when the slapping session was over. “Do you understand, Inquisitor?”
Before Edgar could decide what to say, if anything, I threw up my hand, feeling absolutely delighted that I hadn’t used my set of bracelets against Rustam, and fired off all four tongue-loosening spells against Edgar instead. The amulets on the Inquisitor’s body blazed up brightly, but they couldn’t absorb the full force of the blow.
“Who was the vampire with you in Edinburgh?” I shouted.
Edgar’s face contorted as he struggled painfully to hold back the word that was rising to his tongue. He failed.
“Saushkin!” he shouted.
Rustam laughed again and said, “Bye-bye!”
Afandi was suddenly himself again. It was as if a rubber doll had been partly deflated! He lost height, his shoulders narrowed, wrinkles appeared on his face, his eyes dimmed, and the hairs of his beard fell out and scattered.
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Edgar and I looked at each other with hatred in our eyes.
And then, without wasting any time on gathering Power or intoning spells, Edgar struck at us. A fiery rain poured down from the sky, seething and bubbling on the Shields that Alisher and I had erected. But there was no fire around Afandi, who was still confused and hadn’t yet recovered his wits—evidently one of the protective rings had been activated.
The minute that followed was full of attacks and counterattacks. Alisher wisely left me to conduct the battle, took a step backward, and fed Power to our Shields, only occasionally allowing himself a brief lunge of attacking magic.
Gesar must have involved the finest diviners in the Watch in the preparation of our equipment. After the fire came ice. A blizzard started howling through the air, tiny snowflakes with edges as sharp as razors tested the strength of our Shields and melted impotently as they approached Afandi. Before the storm of ice had even died away, Edgar struck with the Kiss of the Viper and the rocks beneath our feet were suddenly covered with drops of acid. Afandi was protected yet again. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that the old man wasn’t just doing nothing, he was weaving some weak but very intricate and unusual spell. I didn’t really expect him to be successful, but at least he was busy and not getting under our feet.
The fourth spell that Edgar used was a vacuum. I was already expecting exactly that—and when the air pressure around me started falling rapidly, I calmly carried on lashing Edgar alternately with Opium and Thanatos. Behind me Alisher was striking out with Fireballs and lumps of supercooled water from the wands. The combination of Fireballs and icy shrapnel exploding into viscous blue drops was remarkably effective: I could see the Inquisitor’s amulets, confused by the contrast, starting to lose their Power.
But there was more to all this than just the amulets. Edgar, a first-level magician, was holding out against both of us and still managing to counterattack! Either he was pumped to the maximum with Power or he had surpassed the first level. I didn’t have the time to make a thorough check of his aura.
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