Last Watch

Chapter 4

THE CHAIKHANA, OR TEA HOUSE, WAS GLOOMY AND DIRTY. FAT BLUE-BOTTLES buzzed as they circled around the weak lightbulbs in fly-spotted shades hanging from the ceiling. We were sitting on greasy, bright-colored cushions around a low table, only about fifteen centimeters high. The table was covered with a brightly patterned tablecloth, and it was dirty too.

In Russia a cafe like this would have been closed down in a moment. In Europe they would have put the owner in prison. In the USA the proprietor would have been hit with an absolutely massive fine. And in Japan the boss of an establishment like this would have committed seppuku out of a sense of shame.

But never before had I come across smells as delicious as those in this little chaikhana that was absolutely unfit for tourists.

Once we got away from our pursuers, we had split up. The Dark One had gone to find his colleagues and report on what had happened. Valentina Ilinichna and Nodir had set out to gather the Light Ones who were reserve members of the Watch and to call Tashkent and request reinforcements. Alisher, Afandi, and I had caught a taxi and made our way to this chaikhana beside a small market on the outskirts of Samarkand. I had already begun to suspect that there were at least a dozen markets in Samarkand, and certainly more than all the museums and movie theaters taken together.

On the way I cast a masking spell on myself and became Timur’s double. For some reason young magicians think it’s a bad omen to assume the appearance of a dead man. There are all sorts of beliefs attached to this superstition, from “you’ll die soon” to “you’ll pick up someone else’s habits.” Anybody would think that habits were fleas that scatter after their host dies and look for someone who resembled him as closely as possible… I have never been superstitious, so I didn’t hesitate to adopt Timur’s appearance. I had to disguise myself as a local in any case. Even in this chaikhana a visitor with a European appearance would have looked as much out of place as a Papuan at the haymaking in a Russian village.

“The food here is very good,” Alisher explained in a low voice after he had ordered. Since I didn’t know a word of Uzbek, I had kept quiet while the young boy waiter was with us. Fortunately, so had Afandi: He only croaked every now and then as he rubbed his bald patch and glanced proudly at me. The meaning of that glance was quite clear: “We showed that deva what for, eh?” I nodded amiably in reply.

“I believe you,” I said. There was a massive Chinese stereo system standing by the wall, with huge, hissing speakers and blinking colored lights. The cassette that was playing was some Uzbek folk music that originally would have been very interesting, but was hopelessly spoiled by the pop-music rhythms that had been introduced into it and the quality of the stereo. But at least the volume was set so high that I could speak Russian with no worries about attracting glances of surprise from the people nearby. “It certainly smells delicious. Only, I’m sorry, but it is rather dirty in here.”

“That’s not dirt,” Alisher replied. “At least, it’s not that kind of dirt. You know, when people come to Russia from Western Europe, they frown too at how dirty it is everywhere! But it’s not dirty because no one ever cleans anywhere! In Russia the soil is different and there’s more ground erosion. That fills the air with dust and it settles everywhere. Wash the sidewalk with soap in Europe, and it will stay clean for three days. But in Russia you can lick it clean with your tongue, and the dust will settle again in an hour. In Asia, there’s even more dust, so the Europeans and the Russians think, ‘Dirt, ignorance, savagery!’ But that’s not true! It’s just the way the land is. But when you find good smells in Asia, that’s not the dirt. In Asia you have to trust your nose, not your eyes!”

“That’s interesting,” I said. “I never thought about it like that before. That must be why people in the East have narrow eyes and big noses, then?”

Alisher gave me a bleak look. Then he forced a laugh. “OK, that’s one to you. It’s funny. But that really is what I think, Anton. In the East, everything’s different.”

“Even the Others,” I said with a nod. “Alisher, I didn’t believe in the deva. I’m sorry.”

“You know, from your description, it wasn’t the same one who followed me,” Alisher said in a serious voice. “He wasn’t so tall, but he was very agile. He had legs. More like a monkey with horns.”

“Curses on them, foul belches of creation, creatures of feckless magicians!” Afandi put in. “Anton and I defeated that licentious, depraved deva! You should have seen the battle, Alisher! Although a young boy shouldn’t really watch pornography…”

“Granddad Afandi,” I said. “Please!”

“Just call me Bobo!” said Afandi.

“What does it mean?” I asked warily.

“It means ‘granddad,’” said the old man, slapping me on the shoulder. “You and I defeated those devas, and now you’re my grandson!”

“Afandi-Bobo,” I said. “Please, don’t remind me of that fight. I feel very embarrassed that I couldn’t overcome the deva straightaway.”

“Devas!” Afandi repeated firmly.

“Deva?” I suggested naively.

“Devas! There were two of them. The big one was holding the little one in his hand and waving him about, left and right, left and right!”

Afandi got halfway to his feet and gave a very graphic demonstration of the behavior of the “devas.”

“Hai, great warrior Afandi,” Alisher said quickly. “There were two of them. Anton was so afraid, he didn’t notice the second one. Sit down, they’re bringing our tea.”

We spent ten minutes drinking our tea with sweet pastries. I recognized halva, Turkish delight, and something like baklava. All the other sweet miracles of the East were new to me. But that didn’t stop me from enjoying the way they tasted. There were different colored sugar crystals (I preferred not to think about what they had been colored with); skeins of very fine, very sweet threads; something that looked like halva, only it was white; and dried fruit. They were all delicious. And they were all very sweet, which was particularly important for us. A serious loss of Power always leaves you with a yearning for something sweet. Even though we operate with Power that isn’t our own and simply redistribute it in space, it’s not easy by any means. Your blood-sugar level falls so low that you can easily slip into a hypoglycemic coma. And if that happens in the Twilight, it will take a miracle to save you.

“Next there’ll be shurpa broth and pilaf,” Alisher said, pouring himself a fifth bowl of green tea. “The food here is simple. But it’s the real thing.”

He paused, and I realized what he was thinking.

“They died in battle. The way watchmen are supposed to die,” I said.

“It was our battle,” Alisher declared in a low voice.

“It is our common battle. Even for the Dark Ones. We have to find Rustam, and no one is going to stop us. But I feel sorry for Murat… He killed those men, and then he couldn’t live anymore.”

“I could have,” Alisher said morosely.

“And so could I,” I admitted. We looked at each other with understanding.

“Humans against Others.” Alisher sighed. “I can’t believe it! It’s a nightmare! They were all enchanted; that’s a job for a Higher One.”

“At least three Higher Ones,” I said. “A Dark One, a Light One, and an Inquisitor. A vampire, a healer, and a Battle Magician.”

“The end of time has arrived,” said Afandi, shaking his head. “I never thought the Light, the Dark, and the Fear would all join together…”

I glanced at him quickly and just managed to catch the brief instant before the stupid expression reappeared on his face.

“You’re not nearly as stupid as you pretend, Afandi,” I said quietly. “Why do you act like some senile old man?”

Afandi smiled for a few seconds, then grew more serious and said, “It’s best for a weak magician to appear like a fool, Anton. Only a powerful one can afford to be clever.”

“You’re not so very weak, Afandi. You entered the second level and stayed there for five minutes. Do you know some cunning trick?”

“Rustam had a lot of secrets, Anton.”

I carried on looking at Afandi for a long time, but the old man’s face remained absolutely impassive. Then I glanced at Alisher. He was looking thoughtful.

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

I was sure that 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 is 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 dimwitted old man…

But if that were true, 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 quarreled, 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 gray 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 is 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 even a single trainee in the Inquisition who hadn’t heard about the attempt to steal Merlin’s artifact. So what else should I expect from the experienced members of staff?

I continued, “Everything indicates that it’s the same team. Only in Scotland they used paid mercenaries, but here they mesmerized 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 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, gather up 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 me to be in Amsterdam in three hours and set out immediately for Uzbekistan! What do you call that?”

“Globalization, 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 an 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 on behalf of 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 quarreling!” Afandi said in his old foolish 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, almost struck dumb.

“No,” Afandi avowed 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 quarreled 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 toward a small door in the corner of the chaikhana that had the outline of a male figure stenciled 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 recognized 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 recognized each other but pretended that we hadn’t seen anything. It is good that an Other as insignificant as I has never quarreled with him.’”

“But what of it?” I asked. It was my turn to argue now. “Your father could finally have recognized 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? Just 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 garden-variety 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 realize it.”

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…

I felt my heart 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…

“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 kilometers…”

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-gray 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 discern who it is. But then his defense 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 realize 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 Masters.” 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 make 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, along with 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-gray 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 wine-skins filled with Power. And the more that this filthy human rabble-driven together under the banner of the Dark by cruel rulers or the thirst for gain-feels hate and fear, the stronger are the Dark Magicians walking among 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 by the name of 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 mold 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 that 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 toward 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 gray 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 colors, 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 colors 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 are also 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…

There is not a trace left of the humans. The Twilight has swallowed them, digested them, and reduced them to nothing.

Rustam and I are shaking. We have torn and bloodied each other’s skin with our nails. Well, we had been thinking for a long time of becoming blood brothers.

“Merlin said that Others would be cast out on the final level of the Twilight, the seventh…,” Rustam says in a quiet voice. “He was wrong. But this is not a bad result either…This battle will live down through the ages… It is a glorious battle.”

“Look,” I say to him. “Look, my brother.”

Rustam looks-not with his eyes, but in the way that we Others know how to look. And he turns pale.

This battle will not live down through the ages. We shall never glory in it.

To kill the enemy is valorous. To condemn him to torment is infamous. To condemn him to eternal torment is eternal infamy.

They are still alive. Turned to stone. Deprived of movement and Power, touch, vision, hearing, and all the senses granted to men and Others.

But they are alive and they will remain alive-until the stone is reduced to sand, and perhaps even longer than that.

We can see their auras quivering with life. We can see their amazement, fear, fury.

We shall not glory in this battle.

We shall not talk about it.

And we shall never again pronounce the prickly, alien words that summon up the White Mist…

Why was I looking up at Alisher? And what was the ceiling doing there behind his head?

“Are you back with us, Anton?”

I lifted myself up on my elbows and looked around.

The East is subtle. The East can be sensitive. Everyone in the chaikhana had pretended that they hadn’t seen me faint. They had left Alisher to get on with bringing me around.

“The White Mist,” I said.

“All right, all right,” said Alisher, nodding. He was seriously alarmed. “I made a mistake, not haze but mist. I’m sorry. But what reason is there to faint?”

“Rustam and Gesar used the White Mist,” I said. “And three years ago…anyway, Gesar taught me that spell. He taught me it very thoroughly. Shared his memories. Anyway…now I can remember how it all was.”

“Is it really so very grim?” Alisher asked.

“Yes, very. I don’t want to go to that place.”

“But it was all a long time ago,” Alisher said reassuringly. “It’s all over now, it’s been forgotten for ages…”

“If only…,” I said, but I didn’t try to explain. If Alisher was unlucky enough, he would see it and understand for himself. Because we would have to go to the Plateau of the Demons in any case. The Rustam in my borrowed memories was nothing at all like Afandi.

Just at that moment Afandi came back from the toilet. He sat down on his cushion, looked at me, and asked, “Decided to take a rest, did you? It’s too soon for resting, we’ll have a rest after the pilaf.”

“I’m not so sure,” I muttered as I sat down.

“Ah, what a fine thing civilization is!” Afandi went on, as if he hadn’t heard me. “You’re both young, you don’t know what blessings civilization has brought to the world.”

“Was the lightbulb in there actually working, then?” I murmured. “Alisher, ask that waiter to get a move on with the pilaf, will you?”

Alisher frowned. “You’re in a hurry…”

He got up, but just at that moment a young man appeared with a large dish. Naturally, one plate for everyone, just as it should be…reddish, crumbly rice, orange carrots, a generous amount of meat, a whole head of garlic on the top.

“I told you the food here was good,” Alisher said delightedly.

But I looked at the man who had brought the pilaf and wondered where the young boy had gone. And why this waiter was acting so nervous.

I took a handful of rice and raised it to my face. Then I looked at the waiter. He started nodding and smiling eagerly.

“Mutton in garlic sauce,” I said.

“What sauce?” Alisher asked in amazement.

“I was just remembering the wise Holmes and the naive Watson,” I replied, no longer concerned that my Russian might seem out of place. “The garlic is to cover the smell of the arsenic. You told me yourself-in the East you have to trust your nose, not your eyes. My dear fellow, have a little pilaf with us!”

The waiter shook his head and slowly backed away. Out of curiosity I took a look at him through the Twilight. The predominant colors in his aura were yellow and green. Fear. He was no professional killer. And he had brought the poisoned pilaf himself, instead of his younger brother, because he was afraid for him. It’s amazing what abominable things people will do out of love for their nearest and dearest.

Basically, it was all pure improvisation. Some filthy substance with arsenic had been found in the chaikhana, some kind of rat poison. And someone had given the order to feed us poisoned pilaf. It’s not possible to kill a powerful Other that way, but they could easily have weakened and distracted us.

“I’ll make lagman noodles out of you,” I promised the waiter. “And feed them to your little brother. Is the chaikhana being watched?”

“I…I don’t know…” The waiter had realized that, despite the way I looked, he ought to speak Russian. “I don’t know. They ordered me to do it!”

“Get out!” I said, standing up. “There won’t be any tip.”

The waiter dashed for the door of the kitchen. And the customers started leaving the chaikhana, deciding to take the opportunity not to pay. What had frightened him so badly? What I said, or the way I said it?

“Anton, don’t burn a hole in your trousers,” said Alisher.

I looked down-there was a hissing Fireball spinning in my hand. I had gotten so furious that the spell had slipped off the tips of my fingers into the launch stage.

“I ought to burn down this nest of vipers, just to teach them a lesson,” I hissed through my teeth.

Alisher didn’t say anything. He smiled awkwardly and frowned by turns. I understood exactly what he wanted to say. That these people were not to blame. They had been ordered to do it, and they couldn’t refuse. That this modest chaikhana was all that they had. That it fed two or three large families with little children and old grandparents. But he didn’t say anything, because in this case I had a right to start a little fire. A man who tries to poison three Light Magicians deserves to be shown what’s what, to teach him and other people a lesson. We’re Light Ones, not saints…

“The shurpa was good…,” Alisher said quietly.

“Let’s leave via the Twilight,” I said, transforming the Fireball into a thin plume of flame and directing it at the dish of pilaf. The rice and meat were reduced to glowing ashes, together with the arsenic. “I don’t want to show myself in the doorway. These bastards work too quickly.”

Alisher nodded gratefully and got up, stamped on the embers in the dish, and emptied two teapots on it just to be sure.

“The green tea was good too,” I said. “Listen, the tea looks pretty ordinary. Pretty poor stuff, to be honest. But it tastes really good!”

“The important thing is to brew it right,” Alisher replied, relieved by the change of subject. “When a teapot is fifty years old and it hasn’t ever been washed…” He paused, but when he didn’t see an expression of disgust on my face, he went on. “That’s the ingenious part! This clever crust forms on the inside-tannins, essential oils, flavonoids…”

“Are there really flavonoids in tea?” I asked in surprise, hanging my bag over my shoulder again. I’d almost forgotten it. The underwear wouldn’t have mattered, but the bag also contained the selection of battle amulets that Gesar had given me, not to mention five thick wads of dollars!

“Well, maybe I’m confusing things…” Alisher admitted. “But it’s the crust that does it; it’s like brewing tea inside a shell of tea…”

Taking Afandi under the arms in the way that was already a habit, we entered the Twilight. The cunning old man didn’t argue. On the contrary, he pulled up his legs and dangled between us, giggling repulsively and crying out, “Hup! Hup!” I thought that if, despite what Gesar’s memories told me, Afandi really was Rustam, I wouldn’t let his age prevent me from giving him an earful of good old vernacular.