Сергей Лукьяненков - Last Watch

“Drink your coffee,” Edgar said amiably. I had been put in the window seat, with Gennady beside me. Edgar sat behind us, and he made sure there was no one in the seat next to him: The perplexed but unresisting passenger was moved to somewhere in economy class, with showers of apologies and promises of countless bonuses in compensation. All in all, Aeroflot made a quite remarkably pleasant impression. No worse than the Western carriers, or even a bit better. It was just a pity I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the flight. I was in the wrong company for that.

I drank coffee and brandy by turns, watching out the window as the plane taxied onto the runway. Edgar whispered something behind my back-and the roar of the engines disappeared. A Sphere of Silence. Well, it made sense: Now no one would bother us, and no one would hear us. It was a good thing that, unlike the wizard Khottabych in the flying carpet fairy tale, Edgar had other ways of combating the noise apart from stopping the engines…

Proceed, if you are as strong as I;

Or go back, if you are as wise as I.

Merlin was mocking. Of course he was-mocking the hapless treasure hunters. But he still believed that he had to give a hint. That was in the unwritten rules of the game in those days. So there had to be a way.

Proceed-go back. Forward-backward…

Perhaps you had to pump up the momentum by swinging backward and forward, like trying to free a car that’s stuck in the mud-an art completely forgotten by the masses in this era of automatic transmissions. Reach the sixth level, jump back out, then back to the sixth and take a run straight through…

Absolute drivel. I had just barely managed to get as far as the sixth level once, pausing to catch my breath after every breakthrough. Even assuming that I could jump straight out of the depths of the Twilight like Gesar, I still wouldn’t be able to pump up my speed like that.

I started to go over it again from the beginning.

The Crown of All Things is here concealed. Only one step is left.

That was all clear enough. The inscription was on the sixth level. The Crown of All Things was hidden on the seventh. The cunning Merlin had left the signpost where only the most powerful and skillful magician could reach it…it felt really good that I had managed to get there!

But we weren’t told anything special in this line. It was a kind of preamble. An introduction. We could only hope that Thomas the Rhymer’s translation was adequate…but then it ought to be, coming from a great bard and an ancestor of Lermontov.

But this is a legacy for the strong or the wise-

This was more or less clear too. Merlin had left the decision on whether to use the artifact up to those who would be his equal. In power or wisdom-it didn’t matter which.

You shall receive all and nothing, when you are able to take it.

Right now, this was a bit more interesting. It looked as though Merlin believed that using the Crown might cause a global catastrophe. You shall receive all and nothing-or you shall receive everything, but not for yourself.

Or was I being like Edgar and Gennady, only seeing what I wanted to see?

What if you shall receive all and nothing meant that the whole world would be in your power, but it would be destroyed?

I didn’t know. I couldn’t understand. If only I could have read it in the original…

“Edgar, I have to make one phone call,” I said.

“What?” Edgar chortled. “Who to, Gesar? We’ve already been warned to switch our phones off.”

“Do you want me to produce a result? I have to ask Foma Lermont about something.”

Edgar didn’t hesitate for long. He closed his eyes, then nodded.

“Call. You have three minutes before we start to take off. But remember, I’m listening very carefully.”

It was a good thing I hadn’t erased Lermont’s number… I took out my phone and called. One ring, two…

“Anton?”

There was a clear note of curiosity in Lermont’s voice.

“How does that third line go? You translated it as ‘You shall receive all and nothing, when you are able to take it,’ remember? What’s the point here: ‘You shall receive everything and lose everything’ or ‘You shall receive everything, but you don’t need it’?”

Thomas grunted and recited the line in Old English. “‘With it thou shalt acquire all-and nothing shalt thou get…’”

Well, thanks a bunch for not saying it in Welsh…

“That means?” I asked, determined to get it clear.

“It means that if you get it, you will receive something that you personally don’t need, although it is very important-global, universal.”

“Thank you, Foma!”

“Brainstorming?” Lermont inquired. “Good luck. We’re not wasting our time here either, we’re working-”

I cut the connection. I wondered if Edgar and Gennady had heard our conversation and was suddenly surprised to realize that I was enthralled by the task. Despite the noose on my neck. Despite the blackmail. Despite the vampire and the crazed Inquisitor sitting there with me. I wanted to understand. I wanted to solve Merlin’s riddle. I could never be as powerful as him, but maybe I could at least rival him intellectually.

I wanted to believe I could.

Proceed, if you are as strong as I;

Or go back, if you are as wise as I.

Right. We’d come back to that phrase. The meaning was more or less clear. The strong could proceed and attain the goal following Merlin’s route. The wise would go back and choose the other way around.

Beginning and end, head and tail, all is fused in one.

That was probably just flowery speech. Alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. Head and tail? Maybe that was a hint at the golem on the fifth level of the Twilight.

Maybe this line had to be thought about seriously after all.

In the Crown of All Things. Thus are life and death inseparable.

This bit probably referred to the application of the spell. Life and death are inseparable. The Others who have withdrawn into the Twilight will come to life again, return to our world… I wondered if that was what they wanted? I’d almost had to drag Thomas the Rhymer out of there, he’d wanted to stay so much, to taste the joys of the magical heaven.

I imagined the resurrected Kostya yelling at his father, “Did I ask you to resurrect me?” Was that a possibility?

I didn’t know. I couldn’t understand a thing. Oh, but Thomas could hardly be right. He was caught in the trap of his own dream, just as Edgar and Gennady were blinded by theirs. That inhabitant of the Twilight who had managed to reach the first level, and had even saved me, you could say, by showing me the way to the Dark Ones’ headquarters such a long time ago, hadn’t looked very happy with things. I wondered who he was and why he had helped me. How had he ever found out about what was happening from down there in the spectral Twilight depths of creation?

Questions, questions, and no answers to them!

Beginning and end, head and tail, all is fused in one.

There seemed to be something in this, though. Head and tail-that was the bit that I couldn’t get out of my mind. Whose head was fused with his tail down there? That is, if I didn’t take the golem-monster with teeth in both tails seriously as a candidate.

But why not take it almost seriously?

Not for me, of course. For our own dear Last Watch.

So, let’s suppose the Crown of All Things was concealed in the body of this miserable two-headed beast. Somewhere in the middle, where one part ended and the other began. Where head and tail were indistinguishable…Go back-that is, to the fifth level, and you’ll find it there!

Well, that sounded very convincing. If I could say it with a straight face. They didn’t have the Rune, and Edgar wasn’t likely to be able to get it. Just let them try to destroy a golem created by Merlin!