The Last Watch:

by Sergei Lukyanenko

  I wondered if he and I were thinking the same thing.

  I was sure we were.

  Was Afandi Rustam? Was the simple-minded old man who had meekly cleaned a provincial Watch’s office for decades one of the oldest magicians in the world?

  Anything was possible. Absolutely anything at all. They say that the passing years change every Other’s character and he becomes less complicated: a single dominant character trait overshadows everything else. The cunning Gesar had wanted intrigues, and he was still intriguing to this very day. Foma Lermont, who dreamed of a quiet and comfortable life, was now tending his garden and working as an entrepreneur. And if Rustam’s dominant character trait was secretiveness, after living so long he could quite easily have become totally paranoid and disguised himself as a weak and dim-witted old man …

  But if that was so, he wouldn’t open up to us, even if I told him what I suspected. He would laugh in my face and sing an old song about his teacher … After all, he hadn’t actually said that Rustam initiated him! He had told the story in the third person: Rustam, a foolish old man, an initiation. We were the ones who had set Afandi in the role of the foolish old man!

  I looked at Afandi again, with my inflamed imagination ready to see cunning and morbid secretiveness and even malice in his gaze.

  ‘Afandi, I have to talk to Rustam,’ I said, choosing my words carefully. ‘It’s very important. Gesar sent me to Samarkand, he asked me to seek out Rustam and ask for his advice, in the name of their old friendship. Advice and nothing more!’

  ‘It’s a fine thing, old friendship,’ Afandi said, nodding. ‘Very fine! When it exists. But I heard that Rustam and Gesar quarrelled, that Rustam spat after Gesar as he walked away and said he never wanted to see him on Uzbek ground again. And Gesar laughed out loud and said that in that case Rustam would have to put out his own eyes. At the bottom of a bottle of fine old wine there can be a bitter sediment, and the older the wine, the more bitter the sediment gets. In the same way an old friendship can produce very, very great pain and resentment!’

  ‘You’re right, Afandi,’ I said. ‘You’re right about everything. But Gesar said one other thing. He saved Rustam’s life. Seven times. And Rustam saved his life. Six times.’

  The waiter brought our shurpa, and we stopped talking. But even after the young lad had gone away Afandi sat there with his lips firmly clamped shut. And the expression on his face suggested that he was figuring something out in his head.

  Alisher and I exchanged glances and he nodded very slightly.

  ‘Tell me, Anton,’ Afandi said eventually. ‘If your friend was distressed when the woman he loved left him – so distressed that he decided to leave this world – and you came to him and stayed with him for a month, drinking wine from morning until night, making him go to visit friends and telling him how many other beautiful women there are … is that saving his life?’

  ‘I think that depends on whether the friend really was prepared to leave this life because of love,’ I said cautiously. ‘Every man who has ever gone through something like that has felt that there was nothing left to live for. But only very, very rarely have they ever killed themselves. Unless, of course, they were foolish, beardless young boys.’

  Afandi said nothing again for a while.

  And then, as if it had been waiting for the pause, my phone rang.

  I took it out, certain that the caller was either Gesar, who had been informed about what had happened, or Svetlana, who had sensed that something was wrong. But there was no number or name on the display. It was simply glowing with an even grey light.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  ‘Anton?’ It was a familiar voice, with a slight Baltic accent.

  ‘Edgar?’ I exclaimed in delight. No normal Other would ever be glad to get a call from an Inquisitor. Especially if that Inquisitor was a former Dark Magician. But this was a highly unusual situation. Better Edgar than someone I didn’t know, some zealous devotee of equilibrium hung from head to toe with amulets and ready to suspect anyone and everyone of being a criminal.

  ‘Anton, you’re in Samarkand.’ Edgar wasn’t asking, of course, he was stating a fact. ‘What’s going on there? Our people are putting up a portal from Amsterdam to Tashkent!’

  ‘Why Tashkent?’ I asked, puzzled.

  ‘It’s easier. They’ve used that route at least once before,’ Edgar explained. ‘So what’s up down there?’

  ‘Do you know about Edinburgh?’

  Edgar snorted derisively. Right, what a question to ask. There probably wasn’t one single trainee in the Inquisition who hadn’t heard about the attempt to steal Merlin’s artefact. So what could I expect from the experienced members of staff?

  ‘Everything indicates that it’s the same team. Only in Scotland they used paid mercenaries, but here they mesmerised local soldiers and policemen. Loaded them up with amulets and spells, charmed bullets …’

  ‘I can see this is the end of my vacation,’ Edgar said gloomily. ‘I wish you hadn’t stuck your nose into this! They pulled me back in off the beach! Because I have experience of working with you!’

  ‘I’m very flattered,’ I said acidly.

  ‘Is all this very serious?’ Edgar asked after a pause.

  ‘A hundred men sent to attack both the local Watches. As we withdrew two Light Ones were killed. And then we were attacked by a deva, who bit a Dark One in half. It took me three minutes to beat it down!’

  Edgar swore and asked:

  ‘What did you beat it down with?’

  ‘Dust and Ashes. It was lucky I just happened to know it …’

  ‘Tremendous!’ Edgar said sarcastically. ‘By sheer chance a young Moscow magician happens to remember a spell against golems that hasn’t been used in a hundred years!’

  ‘Are you trying to stitch me up already?’ I laughed. ‘Come and join me, you’ll like it here. And by the way, swot up on those spells against golems – the word is that there’s another one on the loose.’

  ‘This is an absolute nightmare …’ Edgar muttered. ‘I’m in Crete. Standing on the beach in my swimming trunks. My wife’s rubbing suntan lotion on my back. And they tell to be in Amsterdam in three hours and set out immediately for Uzbekistan! What do you call that?’

  ‘Globalisation, sir,’ I answered.

  Edgar groaned into the phone. Then he said:

  ‘My wife will kill me. This is our honeymoon. She’s a witch, by the way! And they summon me to lousy Uzbekistan!’

  ‘Edgar, it doesn’t become you to say “lousy” like that,’ I said, unable to resist another jibe. ‘After all, we all lived in the same state once upon a time. Consider it your deferred patriotic duty.’

  But Edgar was obviously not in the mood for sarcasm or exchanging jibes. He heaved a sigh and asked:

  ‘How will I find you?’

  ‘Call me,’ I replied simply, and cut the connection.

  ‘The Inquisition,’ Alisher said with a understanding nod. ‘They’ve caught on at last. Well, they’ll certainly find a few things to do here.’

  ‘They could start by cleaning out their own backyard,’ I said. ‘They’ve got someone beavering away on the inside.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Alisher, trying to intercede for the Inquisition. ‘It could be a retired Inquisitor.’

  ‘Yes? Then how did anyone find out that Gesar had sent us to Samarkand? He only informed the Inquisition!’

  ‘One of the traitors is a Light Healer,’ Alisher reminded me.

  ‘Are you saying it’s a Higher Light One from our Watch? A Healer? Working for the enemy?’

  ‘That could be it!’ Alisher said obstinately.

  ‘There has only ever been one Higher-level Light Healer in our Watch,’ I reminded him calmly. ‘And she’s my wife.’

  Alisher stopped short and shook his head.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Anton! I didn’t mean anything of the kind!’

  ‘Ai, that’s enough quarrelling!’ Afandi said in his fooli
sh old voice. ‘The shurpa’s gone cold! And there’s nothing worse than cold shurpa. Apart from hot vodka!’

  He looked around stealthily and passed his hands over the bowls of shurpa. The cold broth started steaming again

  ‘Afandi, how can we talk to Rustam?’ I asked again.

  ‘Eat your shurpa,’ the old man muttered. And he showed us how.

  I broke off a piece of a bread cake and started on my broth. What else could I do? The East is the East, they don’t like to give a straight answer here. The best diplomats in the world come from the East. They don’t say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but that doesn’t mean they abstain …

  It was only after Alisher and I had finished our shurpa that Afandi sighed and said:

  ‘Gesar was probably right. He probably can demand an answer from Rustam. One answer to one question.’

  Well, at least that was one small victory!

  ‘Coming right up,’ I said, nodding. Of course, the question had to be formulated correctly, to exclude any possibility of an ambiguous answer. ‘Just a minute …’

  ‘Why are you in such a hurry?’ Afandi asked in surprise. ‘A minute, an hour, a day … Think.’

  ‘In principle, I’m ready,’ I said.

  ‘So what? Who are you going to ask, Anton Gorodetsky?’ Afandi laughed. ‘Rustam’s not here. We’ll go to see him, and then you can ask your question.’

  ‘Rustam’s not here?’ I asked, struck almost dumb.

  ‘No,’ Afandi replied firmly. ‘I’m sorry if anything I said might have misled you. But we’ll have to go to the Plateau of the Demons.’

  I thought I was beginning to understand how Gesar could have quarrelled with Rustam. And I thought that Merlin, for all his evil deeds, must have been a very kind soul and an extremely patient Other. Because Afandi was Rustam. No crystal ball was needed to see that!

  ‘I’ll just be a moment …’ Afandi got up and went towards a small door in the corner of the chaikhana that had the outline of a male figure stencilled on it. It was interesting that there wasn’t any door with a female silhouette. Apparently the women of Samarkand were not in the habit of spending time in chaikhanas.

  ‘Well, this Rustam’s a real character,’ I muttered while he was gone. ‘As stubborn as a mule.’

  ‘Anton, Afandi’s not Rustam,’ Alisher said.

  ‘You mean you believe him?’

  ‘Anton, ten years ago my father recognised Rustam. At the time I didn’t think anything of it – the ancient Higher One was still alive, so what? Many of them have withdrawn from the active struggle and live unobtrusive lives among ordinary people …’

  ‘So?’

  ‘My father knew Afandi. He must have known him for fifty years.’ I thought about that.

  ‘But what exactly did your father say to you about Rustam?’

  Alisher wrinkled up his forehead. Then, speaking very precisely, as if he was reading from the page of a book, he said:

  ‘Today I saw a Great One, whom no one has met anywhere for seventy years. The Great Rustam, Gesar’s friend, and then his enemy. I walked past him. We recognised each other, but pretended that we hadn’t seen anything. It is good that an Other as insignificant as I has never quarrelled with him.’

  ‘But what of it?’ I asked – it was my turn to argue now. ‘Your father could finally have recognised Rustam, disguised as Afandi. That’s the point.’

  Alisher thought about that and admitted that yes, it could have happened like that. But he still thought his father hadn’t meant Afandi.

  ‘But anyway, that doesn’t get us anywhere,’ I said, gesturing impatiently. ‘You can see how obstinate he is. We’ll have to go to the Plateau of the Demons with him … By the way, what is that? Only don’t tell me that in the East there are demons who live on some plateau!’

  Alisher laughed.

  ‘Demons are the Twilight forms of Dark Magicians whose human nature has been distorted by Power, the Twilight and the Dark. They teach us that in one of our very first lessons. No, the Plateau of the Demons is a human name. It’s a mountainous area where there are boulders that have fantastic shapes – just like petrified demons. People don’t like to go there. That is, only the tourists go …’

  ‘Tourists aren’t people,’ I agreed. ‘So it’s just common or garden superstition?’

  ‘No, it’s not all superstition,’ Alisher said in a more serious voice. ‘There was a battle there. A big battle between Dark Ones and Light Ones, almost two thousand years ago. There were more Dark Ones, they were winning … and then the Great White Magician Rustam used a terrible spell. Nobody has ever used the White Haze in battle again since then. The Dark Ones were turned to stone. And they didn’t dissolve into the Twilight, but tumbled out into the ordinary world, just as they were – stone demons. What people say is true, only they don’t realise it.’

  I felt my heart suddenly seared by a cold, clammy, repulsive memory. I was standing facing Kostya Saushkin. And from far away Gesar’s voice was whispering in my head … 1

  ‘The White Mist,’ I said. ‘The spell is called ‘the White Mist’. Only Higher Magicians can work it: it requires total concentration and the bleeding of all Power from within a radius of three kilometres …’

  It was as if Alisher’s words had broken open some lock in my memory. And the door of a closet had creaked open to reveal an ancient skeleton, with its teeth bared in a bony grin …

  Gesar had not simply given me bare knowledge. He had transferred an entire piece of his memory. A generous gift.

  … The stone burns your feet through the soft leather shoes, because the stone is red-hot, and even the spells applied to your clothes lose their effect. And up ahead someone’s body is smoking, half sunk into the softened stone. Not all of our comrades’ charms have withstood the Hammer of Fate.

  ‘Gesar!’ a broad-shouldered man shouts in my ear. His short black beard has turned frizzy in the heat, his red-and-white clothes are dusted with black ash. Lacy black-and-grey flakes are falling on us from above, crumbling into dust as they fall. ‘Gesar, we have to decide!’

  I say nothing. I look at the smoking body and try to recognise who it is. But then his defence finally collapses, and the body explodes into a column of greasy ashes that shoots up into the sky. The streams of dispersing Power waft the ashes about and for a moment they assume the spectral form of a human figure. I realise what it is that is falling on us, and a lump rises in my throat.

  ‘Gesar, they’re trying to raise the Shade of the Rulers.’ The voice of the magician dressed in red and white is full of panic and horror. ‘Gesar!’

  ‘I’m ready, Rustam,’ I say. I reach out my hand to him. Magicians do not often work spells in pairs, but we have been through a lot together. And it’s easier for two to do it. Easier to take the decision. Because there are hundreds of Dark Ones and tens of thousands of men in front of us.

  And behind us there are only a hundred people who have put their trust in us and about ten apprentice magicians.

  It’s not easy to convince yourself that a hundred and ten are worth more than a hundred and ten thousand.

  But I look at the black-and-grey ash, and suddenly I feel better. I tell myself what powerful and benign individuals will always tell themselves in a situation like this, in a hundred, a thousand, or two thousand years.

  These are not people facing me!

  These are raging beasts!

  The Power flows through me, the Power floods my veins with an effervescent broth, emerging onto my skin as bloody perspiration. There is so much Power all around: flowing out of the dead Others; dissipating from the spells that have been pronounced; flooding out of the men running into the attack. The Dark Ones knew what they were doing when they brought an entire army with them. Others do not fear the weapons of men, but the arms waving swords, the screaming mouths set in fierce grins and the eyes craving death belong to living wineskins filled with Power. And the more this filthy human rabble – driven together under the banner of the Da
rk by cruel rulers or the thirst for gain – hates and fears, the stronger are the Dark Magicians walking amongst them.

  But we have one spell in reserve, a spell that has never yet been uttered beneath this sun. It was brought back by Rustam from an island far away in the north, where it was invented by a cunning Light One called Merlin: but even he, who stood so dangerously close to the Dark, had been horrified by it …

  The White Mist.

  Rustam pronounces strange, coarse-sounding words. I repeat them after him, without even trying to understand their meaning. The words are important, but they are only the hand of the potter, giving shape to the clay, shaping the clay mould into which the molten metal will be poured, creating bronze manacles that allow no freedom to the hands. There are words at the beginning and end, words provide the form and the direction, but it is Power that decides everything.

  Power and Will.

  I can no longer hold back the force that is pulsing within me, ready to tear my pitiful human body apart with every beat of my heart. I open my mouth at the same time as Rustam. I shout, but I shout without words.

  The time for words is over.

  The White Mist surges out of our mouths in a murky, billowing wave – and it rolls on towards the advancing army and the circle of Dark Magicians, who are weaving the cobweb of their spell … no less terrifying, but slower … just a little bit slower. The grey shadows that are just beginning to rise out of the stone are swept aside by the White Mist.

  And then the White Mist reaches the Others and the human warriors.

  The world in front of us loses its colours, but not in the same way that this happens in the Twilight. The world turns white, but it is the whiteness of death, not life, a displacement of colours that is as sterile as their absence. The Twilight shudders and collapses, layer upon layer adhering to each other, pulling the men screaming in pain and the Others struck dumb by fear in between its icy millstones.

  And the world congeals.

  The white gloom disperses. The ash falling from the sky is still there. The red-hot ground beneath our feet is still there. And there too are the petrified figures of the Others – freakish and bizarre, often entirely unlike human forms. They have been turned to granite and sandstone, coarsened and warped. A shape-shifter who was transforming into a tiger, a vampire who had fallen to the ground, magicians with their hands raised in a vain attempt to protect themselves …