Сергей Лукьяненков - Last Watch

“Edgar, you don’t know anything for certain,” I said. “You can’t know anything. This is nothing but guesswork. What if the different levels really do fuse with our world? That will be a catastrophe!”

“We know that the departed Others want this,” Edgar said firmly.

“All based on a single phrase spoken by an enchantress in the thirteenth century?”

“She was Merlin’s mistress. She knew for certain.”

I didn’t go on arguing.

What could I oppose to their faith? Nothing. Faith can only be opposed by another faith, not by facts, let alone hypotheses.

“Edgar, if I knew definitely that the Crown would bring back the departed Others, then I would help you. But I’m not sure it will.” I turned onto the Leningrad Chaussee. “That’s the first thing.”

“Carry on,” Edgar said politely.

“But even if I wanted to help you, the guard on the artifact in Edinburgh has been strengthened. Everyone knows that you’ll go back in there again. And I think they’ve already figured out what magic you stole from the repository and how much, so your amulets won’t come as a surprise any longer. We won’t get through that easily. That’s the second thing.”

“Believe me, I did a thorough job,” Edgar said proudly. “Right now in the Inquisition they have no idea of what they had, what they didn’t have, and how much is left. The Inquisition is a very highly bureaucratic structure, which is probably the inevitable fate of any supranational organization, whether it’s human or ours. It will be hard, but we’ll get through. Even if you don’t help us…I expect it’s almost impossible to make you kill Light Ones.”

“We should have taken the girl. Then he would have helped us,” Gennady rumbled from behind me.

“Calm down,” Edgar told him. “What kind of monster are you anyway? You should be more humane, Gennady!”

“I was humane when I was alive,” said the vampire. “And I held out until they killed Kostya. And until Polina left me. I can’t take any more!”

“But even so, we have to try to overcome our differences of opinion, since we’re going to be on the same team-for a little while, at least,” Edgar stated reasonably. “Avoid insults, don’t threaten his family…there’s no point. Is that all you have to say, Anton?”

“No, there’s one more little comment. I can’t get through to the seventh level. When I got to the sixth, I was hyped up, the adrenaline was flowing. But the next barrier is too strong for me to break through. And the Watches have also evaluated the strength of the barrier-no input of Power from outside will help.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not a case of Power as such! There’s more of it pouring down the vortex above the Dungeons of Scotland than you could possibly use. But you have to work with it, pass it through yourself. And what if you do supply Power artificially? Pump it out of people, out of artifacts…what then? You can’t keep raising the voltage in the mains forever, the wires will melt! What’s needed is a superconductor, do you understand? And that superconductor is a zero-point Other, someone who produces absolutely no magical energy!”

“Oh, these technical explanations,” Edgar sighed. “Gennady, did you understand that?”

“I did. I told you-”

“All right, be quiet. Anton, I understand that you can’t jump over your own head. And neither can I…”

“Edgar, when did you become a Higher One?” I asked.

The former Inquisitor laughed. “Just recently. Don’t pay any attention to that.”

“OK, so you removed Gennady’s registration seal,” I said, thinking out loud. “That’s fine, I know they taught you fancier tricks than that in the Inquisition. But you can only raise your level of Power with the Fuaran. The book was burnt up…”

“Don’t try to blind me with science,” Edgar said. “Tell it to Gennady, he likes that stuff. Nobody’s expecting any miracles from you. What’s expected is a bit of savvy. Find the way around the barrier.”

“I’m sure Thomas the Rhymer has been searching for that for hundreds of years.”

“But he didn’t have a wife and a daughter sitting on a nuclear bomb all set to blow,” said Edgar, glancing at his watch. “We’re on time. Well done. You’re a good driver. And now listen-don’t drive into the parking lot, we don’t want to leave any unnecessary tracks. There’s a young guy waiting for us at the entrance to the departures hall. Give him the keys. He has been paid to drive your car to a parking lot and pay for three days. When you come back, you can pick it up.”

“If you come back,” Gennady growled.

“I’m sorry, but I think I know his chances are better than you believe,” Edgar snapped. “So, we’ll slip through passport control quickly, and you won’t try to attract the attention of the Others at customs. A Light One wouldn’t want any unnecessary casualties, right? We’ll get on the plane and you’ll have a cup of coffee, even a sip of brandy is permissible. And you’ll think. Think hard. So hard that I can hear your brains creaking. And it will be very good if by the time we reach Edinburgh you already know how to get the Crown of All Things. Because we don’t have any time to spare. Only twelve hours until the bomb goes off.”

“You bastard,” I said.

“No, I’m a highly effective personnel manager,” Edgar said with a smile.

THERE ARE SOME WORDS THAT CAN SEND A MAN INTO A TRANCE WITHOUT using any magic.

For example: “Tell me something funny.” Even if you’ve just watched the finale of Test Your Wits on TV, read the latest Terry Pratchett book, and dug up ten really funny, fresh jokes on the Internet-that will all fly right out of your head in an instant.

The words “Sit and think” are pretty effective too. They immediately remind me of an algebra test or some quarterly essay at school, and the weary face of the teacher who no longer expects anything good from his pupils.

This time we were flying directly to Edinburgh, on Aeroflot. If this had been a standard assignment, I wouldn’t have minded at all. I liked what I’d seen of Scotland. And it was particularly nice that Edgar, of course, had taken seats in business class. Three infuriated people, who between them could obviously have bought the Boeing 767 we had been flying in, were left fuming at check-in when their tickets proved to be invalid. I didn’t say anything, but I felt hope beginning to warm my chest. Most human problems with double bookings or invalid tickets are actually caused by the machinations of certain light-fingered Others-most often Dark Ones, but sometimes Light Ones too. That’s why all such incidents are investigated by the Watches. Well, in theory all of them, but in practice only the ones that cause serious scandals. In this case it looked as if a really large-scale scandal was in the offing…

But I was afraid that the investigation still wouldn’t be as prompt as I needed it to be. Especially right then, when everyone all the way across Moscow was hunting for Saushkin.

The customs post at departures had also been reinforced. Instead of two Others on duty, there were four-in such cases parity is strictly observed. I had been hoping that perhaps they might use some of our lads for the reinforcements and they would spot me, but all of the Others were from outer Moscow, not the city. And before check-in, Edgar had given us false passports and applied high-quality masks that fourth-and fifth-level Others wouldn’t be able to penetrate. So I walked past my colleagues under the name of Alexander Peterson, resident of St. Petersburg. Gennady became Konstantin Arbenin, but what Edgar called himself, I didn’t hear.

Once I was on the plane and the flight attendant had brought the coffee and cognac that Edgar had promised, I realized that I had completely lost the game. Every now and then the furry noose around my neck, which had attracted glances of puzzlement at customs, squeezed a little bit tighter, or scratched at my skin with its tiny little claws…or teeth. Just about the only thing it didn’t do was purr while it waited for me to use any magic. I even remembered what the thing was called: Schrodinger’s Cat. Evidently because nobody had ever been able to decide whether this piece of trash was alive or dead. In the Inquisition they used Schrodinger’s Cat for transporting the most dangerous criminals. The lousy son of a bitch had never failed. And by the way, unless I was getting things confused, it was the only one of its kind. Edgar had stolen some truly unique artifacts.