“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 people 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?