The Last Watch (15 page)

‘It's not possible,' I whispered. Gesar's story had flabbergasted me so completely that I wasn't even amazed by the untypically colourful way he'd told it. Waving his briefcase about and laughing? Yes, more than likely. If there are children living on your stairwell in the apartment building you're bound to stumble over their briefcases, hear them laughing and step in little patches of chewing gum. But who remembers the faces … ?

‘Anton, it's true. The only vampire Victor ever knew was Kostya Saushkin.'

‘But Gesar, Kostya was killed.'
³

‘Yes, I know,' said Gesar. ‘At least, that's what we all thought.'

‘He couldn't have survived,' I said. ‘There's no way he could have. Three hundred kilometres above the Earth. There isn't any Power there. He burned up in the atmosphere. He burned up, you understand, Gesar? Burned up!'

‘Stop shouting,' Gesar told me calmly. ‘Yes, he burned up. We watched his spacesuit on radar right to the very end. But what we don't know, Anton, is if Kostya Saushkin was still in that spacesuit. The altitude was quite different by then. We have to think. We have to calculate.'

He cut off the call. I looked at Semyon, who shook his head sadly.

‘I heard, Anton.'

‘Well?'

‘If you haven't seen the body, don't be in a hurry to bury it.'

* * *

Foma Lermont lived in the suburbs. In a quiet, wealthy district of cosy cottages and well-tended gardens. The head of the Edinburgh Night Watch met us in his own garden. He was sitting in a wooden arbour entwined with ivy, setting out a game of patience on a coffee table. In his crumpled grey trousers and polo shirt he looked like a typically placid gentleman of pre-pension age. Surround him with a crowd of grandsons and granddaughters and he would have been the elderly head of a large family. When Semyon and I arrived, Lermont politely got to his feet and greeted us. Then he swept the cards up into a heap and muttered:

‘It's not working out …'

‘Foma, I think the time has come for straight talking,' I said, and glanced at Semyon. ‘You don't object if my friend is present?'

‘Not at all. Gesar has vouched for him.'

‘Foma, today I got a call from Zabulon of the Moscow Day Watch.'

‘I know who Zabulon is.'

‘He told me … he
asked
me to ask you when was the last time you visited your neighbour in the grave.'

‘Last night,' Lermont replied in a low voice.

‘And Gesar … he asked about the Rune. Merlin's Rune.'

‘The Rune's not in the grave,' Lermont said. He looked across at Semyon and asked, ‘What do you know about Merlin?'

‘There was a magician of that name,' said Semyon, scratching the back of his head. ‘A Great Light Magician. A long time ago.'

Lermont looked at me and asked:

‘How about you?'

‘I always thought Merlin was a mythological character,' I replied honestly.

‘You're both half right,' Lermont said, smiling. ‘The Great Light Magician Merlin really is a mythological character. The real Merlin was … not so nice. Yes, of course, he did help the young Arthur
to
draw the sword out of the stone and become king. Although Arthur had no right to the throne at all … that's just between you and me. Merlin was not a thoroughly black-hearted villain. He simply used any means available to achieve his ends. If he needed to put a king who would listen to him on the throne, then he did. If the king had to inspire respect and love in his subjects – and of course he had to, why suffer unnecessary complications? – then he educated the king to be noble and high-minded. And the king could have his own royal toys to play with: a beautiful round table and brave knights. And did you know that Arthur's ruin at the hands of a child born on a certain day was predicted even before Mordred was born? And do you know what the noble Arthur did?'

‘I'm afraid to imagine.'

Lermont laughed. And then he recited off by heart:

‘“Meanwhile did King Arthur order to be brought to him all the infants born to noble ladies and noble lords on the first day of May, for Merlin had revealed to King Arthur that the one who would destroy him and all his lands had been born into the world on the first day of May. And therefore did he order them all to be sent to him on pain of death, and many sons of lords and knights were sent to the king. Mordred was also sent to him by the wife of King Lot. He did put them all in a ship and launched it to sea, and some were four weeks from birth, and some younger still. And by the will of fate the ship was driven ashore where a castle stood, and shattered, and they were almost all killed, only Mordred was cast up by a wave and picked up by a good man and raised until he did reach the age of fourteen years from birth, and then he brought him to the court, as is told hereafter, at the end of the book
Morte d'Arthur
.

‘“And many lords and barons of Arthur's kingdom were outraged that their children had been taken away and killed, but they laid
the
blame for this more on Merlin than on Arthur. And either out of fear or out of love, they did keep the peace.”'

‘A worthy successor to the good King Herod,' Semyon murmured.

I didn't say anything. I was remembering a cartoon film that my little Nadya was very fond of. About the young King Arthur. About the funny, forgetful magician Merlin. I imagined the sequel, about how Arthur, egged on by Merlin, orders wailing, screaming infants who can't understand what's going on to be loaded into an old, useless ship …

So this was the symbol of purity and nobility? The much-vaunted King Arthur of glorious legend?

‘Not much like that fine young boy in the warm-hearted Disney cartoon, is it?' Lermont asked, as if he had read my thoughts. ‘Or like that eccentric magician who took him under his wing? But you mustn't blame Arthur. It was his destiny. That was the kind of teacher he had.'

‘How did Mordred survive?' I asked.

Lermont's eyes glinted ironically.

‘That's hard to say. How did the boy Arthur become heir to the throne? Perhaps Mordred didn't survive. But there were people who told some boy that he was Arthur's son and his father had tried to kill him when he was a baby. What does it matter who he really was by birth? The important thing was who he thought he was.'

‘Is he still alive?'

‘Mordred? Of course not. He was only a human being. And so was Arthur. He departed this world a long time ago.'

‘And Merlin?'

‘He withdrew into the Twilight for ever …' Lermont said, with a nod. ‘But Merlin was a genuinely great magician. I think he was the greatest magician of all time. I think,' he said with a sideways glance at Semyon, ‘that Merlin was a
zero-point
magician.'

I nodded. I understood that. A magical ‘temperature' of zero. Merlin didn't contribute a single drop to the streams of Power that permeate the world, he had absolutely none of it. And that was precisely why he was a great magician. He absorbed the Power of others, the Power that was diffused in space – and used it to work miracles.

No other magician so powerful had been born in the world since then.

But one such enchantress had been born. My daughter, Nadya.

‘Merlin didn't leave many artefacts,' Lermont continued. ‘He created them playfully, as if it cost him no effort at all. Excalibur, of course. Merlin's cloak. Merlin's chalice. Merlin's crystal. Merlin's staff.'

‘He didn't bother himself too much about finding names for them, then?' Semyon said, with a laugh. Then he suddenly fell silent.

‘Merlin's Rune?' I asked.

Lermont shook his head.

‘Merlin's Rune is only a key, kept in Merlin's grave, twenty-two miles from … from what is believed to be the grave of Thomas the Rhymer. Naturally, Merlin himself is not in the grave, but some traces of the great magician are preserved there. You may think me sentimental, but I often visit my own grave. Although I have never liked going to Merlin's. I simply relied on the protective spells. But that was a mistake. The grave has been robbed.'

‘I thought Merlin's grave was in Brittany,' said Semyon.

‘No, it lies to the south of Edinburgh. Near the little town of Peebles, at the confluence of the Tweed and the Powsel. It's not very far from here.'

‘And what does this Rune consist of?' I asked.

‘A stone. Charged to the hilt with magic and scratched all over
with
almost illegible signs. Merlin's Rune …' Lermont hesitated and looked round us all, but continued nonetheless ‘… is the key, or rather, the main part of the key that allows access to a hiding place that Merlin once set up on the bottom of a lake. The lake has vanished long ago, but the hiding place, of course, is still there.'

‘A hiding place in the Twilight?' I asked.

‘Yes.'

‘Fifth level?'

Lermont sighed.

‘I could get down to the fifth level myself, my young friend. Or I could call in Gesar. Or Andrew. Higher Ones can be found who are capable of reaching the fifth level. But this hiding place was made by Merlin. It's right down at the very bottom. Which means it's on the seventh level.'

‘Oh, my sainted aunt!' Semyon exclaimed in delight. ‘The seventh! So the seventh level
does
exist! It's not a fairy tale, then?'

‘It exists all right. Only I don't know anybody alive on this planet who is capable of getting there …' Lermont shrugged and spread his hands wide.

‘What about the key? And the Rune?'

‘As for the Rune … I've read the inscription – it gives instructions on how to get past a sentinel on the fifth level. But after that you have to go further. I can't do that.'

‘Have you at least tried?' I asked.

‘What for?' Lermont asked, throwing his hands up. ‘Why go down into the Twilight for Merlin's heritage? Anton, you must have some idea now of what he was like … do you think there's anything good down there?'

I shrugged.

‘The hiding place is believed to contain the Crown of All Things,' said Lermont. ‘Sounds tempting, doesn't it? But somehow I think that the Crown of All Things is really the End of All Things.'

Semyon opened his mouth to say something, but then changed his mind.

‘And what are the other parts of the key?' I asked. ‘Merlin's Crystal Mace? Or perhaps Merlin's Old Shoe?'

Lermont shook his head.

‘That's the most unpleasant part of the story. You've already realised that Power goes pouring down out of our world to the lowest level of the Twilight from the spot above the hiding place, haven't you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well then, if you try to enter the Twilight when you're inside the Dungeons you can only get as far as the third level. After that there's a barrier, a whirlpool of Power. It's simultaneously a load that holds the hiding place down at the bottom of creation and a defence against the curious.'

‘Not too many of the curious would even be able to get down to the third level …' Semyon mumbled, scratching the back of his head. ‘Sorry, I'll keep quiet!'

‘Well, Merlin's Rune won't help you get past the third level,' Foma went on. ‘I was certain that no one, apart from me, knew the secret, and I only discovered it by chance when there was an accident beside the bridge: a young woman fell and ruptured an artery on a sharp metal rod …'

‘Blood,' I said.

‘Yes,' Foma said. ‘If someone dies from loss of blood, then the Twilight is temporarily saturated with energy. The whirlpool on the third level calms down and you can get past it and go on deeper.'

‘Does the person have to die?' I asked.

‘I don't know. I haven't checked, as you can understand. Preserved blood is no use, we know that for certain. That's why the killing in the Dungeons put me on my guard. But the protective spells
on
Merlin's grave hadn't been touched. No one had approached the grave, no one had tried to open it. And I relaxed, I put it all down to coincidence. But last night I decided to go to the grave.'

‘And you found it had been opened using a remote-controlled device?' I said. ‘Right? Something like those robots they use at nuclear power stations. ‘

‘How did you know?' Lermont asked.

‘Yesterday someone shot at me with that,' I said, nodding towards the tripod with the rifle, which Semyon had leaned against the outside of the arbour. ‘An automatic radio-controlled shooting device.'

Lermont glanced at the weapon without the slightest interest. He smiled bitterly.

‘We've got old, Anton. We pride ourselves on having got old … Gesar, Al-Ashaf, Rustam, Giovanni, me – all the other ancient ones who remember the world without electricity, steam trains and gunpowder. The oldest magicians who know the most and are almost the most powerful. We have underestimated the new generation. Rockets, robots, telephones …' He chewed on his lips and looked at his neat little house, with the same melancholy expression that I had sometimes seen in Gesar's eyes.

It's probably that melancholy look that allows me to forgive Gesar for everything he does in his job as head of the Night Watch.

‘One of the young generation,' Foma went on. ‘One of the young generation, who know how to use technology and are not afraid of it.'

‘I think I know who it is,' I whispered. ‘Kostya Saushkin.'

‘The Higher Vampire who took the
Fuaran
?' Lermont asked with a frown. ‘I know that story. But he was destroyed!'

‘Nobody saw the body,' I said. ‘In any case, he wouldn't be afraid to go down after Merlin's legacy. And he'd use technology without
the
slightest hesitation. And as well as that, he must hate me. Enough to try to shoot me. It was my fault! I sent him off to die. He survived – and decided to take his revenge.'