Сергей Лукьяненков - Last Watch

“Thank you for coming,” the old man said. And he smiled.

Before I answered, I looked around me.

Daytime. A blue sky with white fluffy clouds and a sun. A meadow of green grass, birds twittering in the trees.

An ancient, gray-haired old man standing in front of me. His clothes had probably never been white-the coarse, grayish sackcloth had only appeared to be white at first glance. And he was barefoot, too…but the cumulative effect was not one of a pastoral, sentimental closeness to nature. He was simply a man who went barefoot, who didn’t think it was worth wasting time on making shoes.

“I greet you, Great One,” I said, bowing my head. “It is an honor for me…to see the Great Merlin.”

The old man looked into my face curiously. As if this wasn’t the first time he had seen me, but he’d never had a chance to look at me properly before.

“An honor? How much do you know of my life, Light One?”

“I know about some things,” I said with a shrug. “I know about the ship with the little children.”

“And even so it is ‘an honor’?”

“It seems to me that you have already paid for many things. And in addition, for millions of people you are a wise defender of good and justice. That also counts for something.”

“There were only nine of them…,” Merlin muttered. “Legends-they always exaggerate. The bad things, and the good things…”

“But they did exist.”

“They did,” Merlin confirmed. “Why do you think that I have already paid? Do you not like the heaven that awaits Others after death?”

Instead of answering I bent down and plucked a stalk of grass. I put it in my mouth and bit it. The juice was bitter…only not quite bitter enough. I squinted and looked at the sun. It was shining in the sky, but its light was not blinding. I clapped my hands-the sound was very slightly muted. I breathed in, filling my lungs with air-the air was fresh…and yet there was something lacking in it. It left a slight musty odor, like the one in Saushkin’s apartment…

“Everything here is not quite genuine,” I said. “It lacks life.”

“Well done,” said Merlin, nodding. “Many do not notice that straightaway. Many live here for years, or centuries, before they realize that they have been deceived.”

“Can’t you get used to it?” I asked.

Merlin smiled. “No. It is impossible to get used to this.”

“Remember the joke about the fake Christmas tree decorations, Anton?” someone asked from behind me. I looked around.

Tiger Cub was standing just five steps away.

There were many of them. Very many of them, standing there and listening to my conversation with Merlin. Igor Teplov and Alisa Donnikova-they were together, holding each other by the hand, but there was no happiness in their faces. The girl werewolf Galya was hiding her eyes. Murat from the Samarkand Watch gave me an embarrassed wave. A Dark One I had once killed by throwing him off the Ostankino Television Tower looked at me with no malice or resentment in his eyes.

There were so many. The trees prevented me from seeing just how many of them were standing there. If not for the forest, the Others would have stretched all the way back to the horizon. They had let the ones I had known come through to the front.

“Yes, Tiger Cub, I remember,” I said.

I didn’t feel any more fear or anger. Only sadness-a calm, weary sadness.

“They look so real,” Tiger Cub said and smiled. “But they bring no joy at all…”

“You’re looking good,” I muttered, for the sake of saying something at least.

Tiger Cub pensively examined her tiger-skin cape. She nodded. “I made an effort. For the sake of this meeting.”

“Hi, Igor!” I said. “Hi, Alisa!”

They nodded. Then Alisa said, “Good for you, Anton. You’re powerful. But don’t get too bigheaded, Light One! Merlin himself has been helping you.”

I looked around at the old man.

“Sometimes,” Merlin admitted tactfully. “Well…besides that outlandish tower escapade of yours. And then when you were fighting that werewolf in the forest…And only just a little bit…”

I wasn’t listening to him any longer. I was gazing around, trying to find the one whose words were most important of all to me.

Kostya pushed aside the Other he had been standing behind and came forward toward me. Of everyone there, he probably looked the best and the most absurd at the same time: He was wearing a tattered space suit that had once been white, but was now blackened and burned through in several places.

“Hello, neighbor,” he said.

“Hi, Kostya,” I replied. “I…I’ve been wanting to say something to you for a long time: Forgive me.”

He frowned. “Will you drop those Light affectations of yours…What is there to forgive?…We fought honestly, and you won honestly. Everything’s fine. I ought to have realized that you weren’t erecting the Shield because you were afraid…”

“Even so,” I said. “You know that I hate my job. I’ve turned into a small screw…a tiny part of a machine that gives no quarter and shows no mercy!”

“And how else could it be, between us?” Kostya suddenly smiled. “Drop that…And you…forgive my father. If you can. He never used to be like that.”

I nodded. “I’ll try. I really will.”

“Tell him that Mom and I are waiting for him.” Kostya paused and then added firmly, “Here.”

“I’ll tell him,” I promised, trying to spot Polina in the crowd.

Kostya suddenly took a step forward, shook my hand awkwardly-and stepped away again.

And in that brief instant when our hands touched, I felt his cold hand turn warm, saw his skin flush pink and his eyes gleam once again. Kostya stood there swaying, looking at his hand.

But my hand was seared by an icy chill…

The ranks of Others shuddered. Slowly, involuntarily, they began moving toward me. There was hunger and envy in their eyes-in all of their eyes, even Tiger Cub’s, even Igor’s. Even Murat’s…

“Stop!” Merlin shouted. He darted forward and stood between me and the withdrawn Others, raising his hands high in the air. I noticed that he carefully skirted around me to avoid touching me.

“Stop, you mad fools! A few minutes of life…that is not what we want, not what we have been waiting for!”

They stopped and looked at one another with embarrassment. Then they moved back. But the hungry fire was still blazing in their eyes.

“Leave now, Anton,” Merlin said. “You understand everything and you know what you have to do. Go!”

“I can’t get through. The Last Watch is up there,” I said. “Unless your golem has stopped them…”

Merlin looked straight through me at something. Then he sighed. “The golem is dead. Both golems are dead. A pity, I used to go up to the fifth level sometimes and play with the snake. But it was sad and lonely too.”

“Can you take me through?” I asked.

Merlin shook his head. “Not many of us are capable of going up to the fifth level. Only a very few can reach the first level, and even so we are powerless there.”

“I won’t be able to get past them,” I said. “And I can’t go straight forward to the seventh level either.”

We smiled at each other.

“You will be helped,” Merlin said. “Only, do everything right, I beg of you.”

I nodded.

I didn’t know if it would work. All I could do was try.

The next moment the air around me started to vibrate as if something seething with a huge excess of Power had broken through the Twilight. What levels, what distances? What did these mean in the face of this Power resonating in awareness of its own self?

Little Nadya stepped down onto the grass. She waved her arms about but couldn’t keep her balance and plopped down onto her bottom, looking up at me.