“Do you?”
“No,” said Timur, abashed. “Why use milk?”
“Then don’t follow cognac with grapes!”
“Afandi, I have only known you for three minutes, but I have already tasted so much wisdom that I shall be digesting it for an entire month,” I put in, to attract the old man’s attention. “The wise Gesar sent me to Samarkand. He asked me to find his old friend, who once went by the name of Rustam. Do you happen to know Rustam?”
“Of course I do,” Afandi said with a nod. “But who’s Gesar?”
“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.”
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!”