Last Watch

by Sergei Lukyanenko

  “Except that we produce less Power than we consume,” I said. “We can’t live without people.”

  “I thought about that, too,” said Edgar, brightening up. “We could have—Hey, don’t slow down! Take the left lane, it’s free now... So, I’ve thought about that subject. I picture the ideal society as something close to the medieval model. People living a simple, healthy, uncomplicated life, working in the open air, pursuing the arts and crafts. No centralized states would be needed—a feudal system with barons and nominal kings would be quite good enough. And we Others would live partly separately and partly among the people. Without hiding from them! And everyone would know about us. Of course, under this arrangement even people could challenge a magician or a vampire. Let them! There has to be an effective mechanism of natural selection to weed out the weak and excessively cruel Others. A world like that would be far more pleasant than the one we have now—for Others and people. Have you never read any fantasy?”

  “What?”

  “Haven’t you read any of those books? Lord of the Rings? Conan? A Wizard of Earthsea? Harry Potter?”

  “I’ve read a few,” I said. “Some are a bit naïve, but some are interesting. Quite passable as escapist literature, even for us.”

  “And it’s far more popular with people than science fiction,” Edgar said confidently. “That’s the paradox, people aren’t interested in reading about settling on Mars or flying to the stars—all the things that people really can achieve, but Others can’t. But they dream about becoming magicians, rushing into battle with a big sharp sword... If only they knew what the wounds from a real sword look like!... What does all this mean? That a medieval world in which magic exists is the one most attractive to people!”

  “Well, yes,” I said. “Of course. Because no one thinks about how delightful it is to relieve yourself into a cesspit when it’s twenty degrees below freezing, or the stench those pits give out when it’s ninety degrees in the shade. Because the heroes in the books don’t get head colds, indigestion, appendicitis, or malaria, and if they do, there’s a Light Healer right there on hand. Because everyone sees himself sitting on the throne, wearing a magician’s cloak, or, at the very least, in the retinue of a brave and jolly baron. Not out in a parched field with a wooden hoe in his hands, watching the baron’s retinue ride off after they’ve just trampled his pitiful harvest, half of which belongs to the brave and jolly baron anyway.”

  “That’s a different matter,” Edgar said peaceably. “There are pluses and minuses to everything. But there wouldn’t be any advertising, politicians, lawyers, genetically modified food...”

  “It’s time you joined Greenpeace. Your world would have lots of children who were jinxed in their mothers’ wombs. And even more perfectly normal children dying during birth because of incorrect presentation or lack of medicines. Edgar, are you really planning to throw the world back into the Middle Ages?”

  Edgar sighed.

  “No, Anton. That’s a very, very unlikely outcome. I can tell you honestly that’s what I’m hoping for, but the chances aren’t great.”

  “I’m thinking very seriously about turning the wheel and crashing into a pillar,” I said. “See that pedestrian bridge over the ring road? It has these very tempting concrete pillars...”

  “We wouldn’t be hurt,” Edgar replied. “And I don’t think you would be either. You’ve got a good car: air bags, safety belts... you could survive. Don’t be silly. If you want to kill yourself, try working a bit of magic.”

  “What did you dig up in the archives? What are you hoping for?”

  “Don’t tell him,” Gennady said morosely. But his words seemed to have the opposite effect from what he intended. After all, Edgar was a primordial Dark One, used to regarding vampires with disdain. Even his allies.

  “The Inquisition has always taken a great interest in artifacts that lie out of its reach,” Edgar said. “And particularly in the artifacts created by Merlin... for perfectly understandable reasons. Not much was known about the Crown of All Things. Only that it was in Scotland and was potentially one of the most powerful magical objects in existence. If not the most powerful. But it was believed that no information about the Crown existed. Fortunately, several years ago the Inquisition began compiling a comprehensive catalogue and putting everything in the computer system. This included translating into electronic form the results of medieval interrogations of witches and reports by agents and scholars that had been forgotten by everybody. I searched for everything to do with Merlin and discovered a few lines that had been forgotten for a long, long time. A certain thirteenth-century Light Enchantress, first-level... let’s say that she came into possession of information above and beyond her rank... This enchantress was questioned about a dust-up in Glasgow, which was still a small provincial town at the time. And during the interrogation, she mentioned the ‘last artifact’ created by Merlin. They asked her to say what this artifact did and she replied, to translate literally, ‘The Crown is what all the Others who have left us dream about, what they wait for in the Twilight, what will bring them happiness and restore their freedom.’ Nobody attached any significance to her words at the time, and they just lay in the archives for centuries. Until that sheet of parchment was put into a scanner and I started a search with the key word ‘Merlin.’ ”

  “And I assume that this information is no longer in the Inquisition’s database?” I queried.

  Edgar just laughed.

  “You want to bring dead Others back to life?”

  “Departed,” Gennady hissed. “Departed, but not dead!”

  “It’s not that simple,” said Edgar. “We think that the Crown of All Things will fuse the Twilight world and the human world, eliminating the barriers between the levels. At present the departed ones cannot—or cannot effectively—return to our world, and we are not strong enough to stay in the lower levels of the Twilight for any length of time, but the Crown will change all that. Our departed ones will be with us.”

  “Edgar, you don’t know anything for certain,” I said. “You can’t know anything. This is nothing but guesswork. What if the different levels really do fuse with our world? That will be a catastrophe!”

  “We know that the departed Others want this,” Edgar said firmly.

  “All based on a single phrase spoken by an enchantress in the thirteenth century?”

  “She was Merlin’s mistress. She knew for certain.”

  I didn’t go on arguing.

  What could I oppose to their faith? Nothing. Faith can only be opposed by another faith, not by facts, let alone hypotheses.

  “Edgar, if I knew definitely that the Crown would bring back the departed Others, then I would help you. But I’m not sure it will.” I turned onto the Leningrad Chaussee. “That’s the first thing.”

  “Carry on,” Edgar said politely.

  “But even if I wanted to help you, the guard on the artifact in Edinburgh has been strengthened. Everyone knows that you’ll go back in there again. And I think they’ve already figured out what magic you stole from the repository and how much, so your amulets won’t come as a surprise any longer. We won’t get through that easily. That’s the second thing.”

  “Believe me, I did a thorough job,” Edgar said proudly. “Right now in the Inquisition they have no idea of what they had, what they didn’t have, and how much is left. The Inquisition is a very highly bureaucratic structure, which is probably the inevitable fate of any supranational organization, whether it’s human or ours. It will be hard, but we’ll get through. Even if you don’t help us... I expect it’s almost impossible to make you kill Light Ones.”

  “We should have taken the girl. Then he would have helped us,” Gennady rumbled from behind me.

  “Calm down,” Edgar told him. “What kind of monster are you anyway? You should be more humane, Gennady!”

 
; “I was humane when I was alive,” said the vampire. “And I held out until they killed Kostya. And until Polina left me. I can’t take any more!”

  “But even so, we have to try to overcome our differences of opinion, since we’re going to be on the same team—for a little while, at least,” Edgar stated reasonably. “Avoid insults, don’t threaten his family... there’s no point. Is that all you have to say, Anton?”

  “No, there’s one more little comment. I can’t get through to the seventh level. When I got to the sixth, I was hyped up, the adrenaline was flowing. But the next barrier is too strong for me to break through. And the Watches have also evaluated the strength of the barrier—no input of Power from outside will help.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s not a case of Power as such! There’s more of it pouring down the vortex above the Dungeons of Scotland than you could possibly use. But you have to work with it, pass it through yourself. And what if you do supply Power artificially? Pump it out of people, out of artifacts... what then? You can’t keep raising the voltage in the mains forever, the wires will melt! What’s needed is a superconductor, do you understand? And that superconductor is a zero-point Other, someone who produces absolutely no magical energy!”

  “Oh, these technical explanations,” Edgar sighed. “Gennady, did you understand that?”

  “I did. I told you—”

  “All right, be quiet. Anton, I understand that you can’t jump over your own head. And neither can I...”

  “Edgar, when did you become a Higher One?” I asked.

  The former Inquisitor laughed. “Just recently. Don’t pay any attention to that.”

  “OK, so you removed Gennady’s registration seal,” I said, thinking out loud. “That’s fine, I know they taught you fancier tricks than that in the Inquisition. But you can only raise your level of Power with the Fuaran. The book was burnt up...”

  “Don’t try to blind me with science,” Edgar said. “Tell it to Gennady, he likes that stuff. Nobody’s expecting any miracles from you. What’s expected is a bit of savvy. Find the way around the barrier.”

  “I’m sure Thomas the Rhymer has been searching for that for hundreds of years.”

  “But he didn’t have a wife and a daughter sitting on a nuclear bomb all set to blow,” said Edgar, glancing at his watch. “We’re on time. Well done. You’re a good driver. And now listen—don’t drive into the parking lot, we don’t want to leave any unnecessary tracks. There’s a young guy waiting for us at the entrance to the departures hall. Give him the keys. He has been paid to drive your car to a parking lot and pay for three days. When you come back, you can pick it up.”

  “If you come back,” Gennady growled.

  “I’m sorry, but I think I know his chances are better than you believe,” Edgar snapped. “So, we’ll slip through passport control quickly, and you won’t try to attract the attention of the Others at customs. A Light One wouldn’t want any unnecessary casualties, right? We’ll get on the plane and you’ll have a cup of coffee, even a sip of brandy is permissible. And you’ll think. Think hard. So hard that I can hear your brains creaking. And it will be very good if by the time we reach Edinburgh you already know how to get the Crown of All Things. Because we don’t have any time to spare. Only twelve hours until the bomb goes off.”

  “You bastard,” I said.

  “No, I’m a highly effective personnel manager,” Edgar said with a smile.

  .

  .

  A COMMON DESTINY

  Chapter 4

  There are some words that can send a man into a trance without using any magic.

  For example: “Tell me something funny.” Even if you’ve just watched the finale of Test Your Wits on TV, read the latest Terry Pratchett book, and dug up ten really funny, fresh jokes on the Internet—that will all fly right out of your head in an instant.

  The words “Sit and think” are pretty effective too. They immediately remind me of an algebra test or some quarterly essay at school, and the weary face of the teacher who no longer expects anything good from his pupils.

  This time we were flying directly to Edinburgh, on Aeroflot. If this had been a standard assignment, I wouldn’t have minded at all. I liked what I’d seen of Scotland. And it was particularly nice that Edgar, of course, had taken seats in business class. Three infuriated people, who between them could obviously have bought the Boeing 767 we had been flying in, were left fuming at check-in when their tickets proved to be invalid. I didn’t say anything, but I felt hope beginning to warm my chest. Most human problems with double bookings or invalid tickets are actually caused by the machinations of certain light-fingered Others—most often Dark Ones, but sometimes Light Ones too. That’s why all such incidents are investigated by the Watches. Well, in theory all of them, but in practice only the ones that cause serious scandals. In this case it looked as if a really large-scale scandal was in the offing...

  But I was afraid that the investigation still wouldn’t be as prompt as I needed it to be. Especially right then, when everyone all the way across Moscow was hunting for Saushkin.

  The customs post at departures had also been reinforced. Instead of two Others on duty, there were four—in such cases parity is strictly observed. I had been hoping that perhaps they might use some of our lads for the reinforcements and they would spot me, but all of the Others were from outer Moscow, not the city. And before check-in, Edgar had given us false passports and applied high-quality masks that fourth-and fifth-level Others wouldn’t be able to penetrate. So I walked past my colleagues under the name of Alexander Peterson, resident of St. Petersburg. Gennady became Konstantin Arbenin, but what Edgar called himself, I didn’t hear.

  Once I was on the plane and the flight attendant had brought the coffee and cognac that Edgar had promised, I realized that I had completely lost the game. Every now and then the furry noose around my neck, which had attracted glances of puzzlement at customs, squeezed a little bit tighter, or scratched at my skin with its tiny little claws... or teeth. Just about the only thing it didn’t do was purr while it waited for me to use any magic. I even remembered what the thing was called: Schrödinger’s Cat. Evidently because nobody had ever been able to decide whether this piece of trash was alive or dead. In the Inquisition they used Schrödinger’s Cat for transporting the most dangerous criminals. The lousy son of a bitch had never failed. And by the way, unless I was getting things confused, it was the only one of its kind. Edgar had stolen some truly unique artifacts.

  “Drink your coffee,” Edgar said amiably. I had been put in the window seat, with Gennady beside me. Edgar sat behind us, and he made sure there was no one in the seat next to him: The perplexed but unresisting passenger was moved to somewhere in economy class, with showers of apologies and promises of countless bonuses in compensation. All in all, Aeroflot made a quite remarkably pleasant impression. No worse than the Western carriers, or even a bit better. It was just a pity I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the flight. I was in the wrong company for that.

  I drank coffee and brandy by turns, watching out the window as the plane taxied onto the runway. Edgar whispered something behind my back—and the roar of the engines disappeared. A Sphere of Silence. Well, it made sense: Now no one would bother us, and no one would hear us. It was a good thing that, unlike the wizard Khottabych in the flying carpet fairy tale, Edgar had other ways of combating the noise apart from stopping the engines...

  Proceed, if you are as strong as I;

  Or go back, if you are as wise as I.

  Merlin was mocking. Of course he was—mocking the hapless treasure hunters. But he still believed that he had to give a hint. That was in the unwritten rules of the game in those days. So there had to be a way.

  Proceed—go back. Forward—backward...

  Perhaps you had to pump up the momentum by swinging
backward and forward, like trying to free a car that’s stuck in the mud—an art completely forgotten by the masses in this era of automatic transmissions. Reach the sixth level, jump back out, then back to the sixth and take a run straight through...

  Absolute drivel. I had just barely managed to get as far as the sixth level once, pausing to catch my breath after every breakthrough. Even assuming that I could jump straight out of the depths of the Twilight like Gesar, I still wouldn’t be able to pump up my speed like that.

  I started to go over it again from the beginning.

  The Crown of All Things is here concealed. Only one step is left.

  That was all clear enough. The inscription was on the sixth level. The Crown of All Things was hidden on the seventh. The cunning Merlin had left the signpost where only the most powerful and skillful magician could reach it... it felt really good that I had managed to get there!

  But we weren’t told anything special in this line. It was a kind of preamble. An introduction. We could only hope that Thomas the Rhymer’s translation was adequate... but then it ought to be, coming from a great bard and an ancestor of Lermontov.

  But this is a legacy for the strong or the wise—

  This was more or less clear too. Merlin had left the decision on whether to use the artifact up to those who would be his equal. In power or wisdom—it didn’t matter which.

  You shall receive all and nothing, when you are able to take it.

  Right now, this was a bit more interesting. It looked as though Merlin believed that using the Crown might cause a global catastrophe. You shall receive all and nothing—or you shall receive everything, but not for yourself.