The Twilight Watch (34 page)

'No, I refuse,' I said, as if I was pronouncing an oath, as if I
was holding up a shield against the invisible enemy – against
myself. 'I refuse! You have . . . no power . . . over me . . . Anton
Gorodetsky!'

On the other side of two doors and four thick panes of glass,
Kostya turned and gave me a puzzled look. Had he heard? Or
was he simply wondering why I'd stopped?

I forced a smile, opened the door and stepped into the rumbling
concertina of the short bridge connecting the two carriages.

The chief conductor's carriage really was a classy place. Clean rugs
on the floor; a carpet runner in the corridor; white curtains; and
soft mattresses that didn't remind you of the one stuffed with
corncobs in
Uncle Tom's Cabin.

'Who's sleeping up top, and who's down below?' Edgar asked
briskly.

'It's all the same to me,' Kostya replied.

'I'd rather be up top,' I said.

'Me too,' said Edgar with a nod. 'That's agreed then.'

There was a polite knock at the door.

'Yes!' The Inquisitor didn't even turn his head.

It was the chief conductor, carrying a tray with a nickel-plated
kettle full of hot water, a pot with strongly brewed tea, a coffee
pot, cups, some wafer biscuits and even a carton of cream. He was
a big, strapping, serious-looking man, with a bushy moustache and
a uniform that was a perfect fit.

But the expression on his face was as dull and stupid as a newborn
puppy's.

'Enjoy your tea, dear guests.'

Clear enough. He was under the influence of the amulet as
well. The fact that Edgar was a Dark One did have some effect
on his methods, after all.

'Thank you. Inform us of everyone who got on in Moscow
and gets off along the way, my dear man,' said Edgar, taking the
tray. 'Especially those who get off before they reach their stop.'

'It will be done, Your Honour!' The chief conductor nodded.

Kostya giggled.

I waited until the poor man had gone out, and asked:

'Why "Your Honour"?'

'How should I know?' Edgar said with a shrug. 'The amulet
induces people to accept instructions. But who they see me as –
an auditor, the girl they love, a well-known actor or Generalissimus
Stalin – that's their problem. This guy must have been reading too
much Akunin. Or watching old movies.'

Kostya chortled again.

'There's nothing funny about it,' Edgar said angrily. 'And nothing
terrible either. It's the least harmful way of manipulating the
human psyche. Half the stories about how someone gave
Yakubovich a lift in his car or let Gorbachev through to the front
of the queue are the result of suggestions just like this.'

'That's not what I was laughing at,' Kostya explained. 'I imagined
you in a white army officer's uniform . . . chief. You looked
impressive.'

'You go ahead and laugh . . .' said Edgar, pouring himself some
coffee. 'How's the compass doing?'

I put the note on the table without speaking. A Twilight image
appeared in the air above it – the round casing of a compass, a
lazily spinning pointer.

I poured myself some tea and took a sip. It tasted good. Brewed
to perfection, just as it should be for 'His Honour'.

'He's on the train, the scum . . .' Edgar sighed. 'Gentlemen, I'm
not going to conceal the alternatives from you. Either we catch
the perpetrator, or the train will be destroyed. Together with all
the passengers.'

'How?' Kostya asked laconically.

'There are various possibilities. A gas main explodes beside the
train, a fighter plane accidentally launches an air-to-ground missile
. . . if absolutely necessary, the rocket will have a nuclear warhead.'

'Edgar!' I really wanted to believe he was overdramatising. 'There
are at least five hundred passengers on this train!'

'Rather more than that,' the Inquisitor corrected me.

'We can't do that!'

'We can't let the book go. We can't allow an unprincipled Other
to create his own private guard and start restyling the world to
suit himself.'

'But we don't know what he wants!'

'We know he killed an Inquisitor without hesitation. We know
he is immensely powerful and is pursuing some goal unknown to
us. What's he after in Central Asia, Gorodetsky?'

I shrugged.

'There are several ancient centres of power there,' Edgar muttered.
'A certain number of artefacts that disappeared without trace, a
certain number of regions with weak political control . . . And
what else?'

'A billion Chinese,' Kostya suddenly put in.

The Dark Ones stared at each other.

'You're out of your mind . . .' Edgar said hesitantly.

'More than a billion,' Kostya replied derisively. 'What if he's
planning to make a dash through Kazakhstan to China? Now that
would be an army! A billion Others! And then there's India . . .'

'Don't be ridiculous,' Edgar said dismissively. 'Not even an idiot
would try that. Where are we going to get Power from, when a
third of the population is turned into Others?'

'But maybe he is an idiot,' Kostya persisted.

'That's why we're prepared to take extreme measures,' Edgar
snapped.

He was serious. Without the slightest doubt that we really could
kill these spell-bound conductors, chubby-cheeked businessmen
and poor people travelling in the carriages with open seating. If
we had to, we had to. Farmers who destroyed animals with foot-and-
mouth disease suffered too.

I didn't feel like drinking tea any more. I got up and walked
out of the compartment. Edgar watched me go with an understanding
but by no means sympathetic glance.

The carriage was settling down as the passengers prepared for
sleep. The doors of some compartments were still open, there were
people still loitering in the corridor, waiting for the washroom to
be free. I heard glasses clinking somewhere, but most of the passengers
were too exhausted after Moscow.

I thought languidly that what the laws of melodrama required
now was for little children with the innocent faces of angels to
come dashing along the corridor. Just to drive home the true
monstrosity of Edgar's plan . . .

There weren't any little children. Instead a fat man in faded
tracksuit bottoms and a baggy T-shirt stuck his head out of one
of the compartments. He had a red, steaming face that was already
comfortably bloated by strong drink. The man looked listlessly
straight through me, hiccupped and disappeared again.

My hands automatically reached for my minidisc player. I stuck
in the earphones, put in a disc at random and pressed my face
against the window. I see nothing, I hear nothing. And obviously
I'm not going to say anything.

I heard a gentle, lyrical melody, and a voice started singing delicately:

You'll have no time to dash for the bushes
When the sawn-off mows you down
There is no beauty more beautiful
Than the visions of morphine withdrawal . . .

Yes, it was Las, my acquaintance from the Assol complex. The
disc he'd given me as a present. I laughed and turned the volume
up. It was exactly what I needed.

The devil-kids will return to the stars,
And they'll smelt our blood into iron,
There is no beauty more beautiful
Than the visions of morphine withdrawal . . .

My God! . . . It was more punk than any of the punks. Not
even Shnur with his obscenities . . .

A hand slapped me on the shoulder.

'Edgar, everyone has his own way of relaxing,' I muttered.

Someone poked me lightly under the ribs.

I turned round.

And froze.

There, standing in front of me, was Las. Smiling happily, jigging
in time to the music – I must have turned the volume up too high.

'Hey, but that's great!' he exclaimed enthusiastically the moment
I pulled out the earphones. 'You're walking through the carriage,
not bothering anyone, and there's someone listening to your songs!
What are you doing here, Anton?'

'Travelling . . .' It was the only word I could get out as I switched
off the player.

'Oh, really?' Las commented in delight. 'I'd never have guessed!
Where are you travelling to?'

'Alma-Ata.'

'You ought to call it "Almaty".' Las admonished me. 'Okay, let's
continue the conversation. Why aren't you flying?'

'Why aren't you?' I asked, finally realising that all this was rather
like an interrogation.

'Because I'm
aerophobic
,' Las said proudly. 'If I really have to fly,
a litre of whisky gives me some faith in the laws of aerodynamics.
But that's for emergencies only, for getting to Japan, or the States
. . . the trains don't go there, you know.'

'You travelling on business?'

'On holiday,' Las said with a grin. 'Couldn't go to Turkey or
the Canaries, now, could I? Are you on a business trip?'

'Uhuh.' I nodded. 'I'm planning to start selling kumis and shubat
in Moscow.'

'What's shubat?' Las asked.

'You know . . . kefir made from camel's milk.'

'Great,' Las said approvingly. 'You travelling alone?'

'With friends.'

'Let's go to my compartment. It's empty. I haven't got any
shubat, but I can offer you kumis.'

Was it a trap?

I looked at Las through the Twilight. Stared as hard as I could.

Not the slightest indication of an Other.

He was either a human being . . . or an Other of absolutely
unimaginable Power. Capable of disguising himself at every level
of the Twilight.

Could this be a stroke of luck? Was this really him, standing
there in front of me, the mysterious thief of the
Fuaran
?

'Okay, I'll just go and get something,' I said and smiled.

'I've got everything we need!' Las protested. 'Bring your friends
along too. I'm in the next car down, compartment two.'

'They've already gone to bed,' I lied clumsily. 'Hang on, just a
moment . . .'

It was a good thing Las was standing on one side and couldn't
see who was in the compartment. I opened the door slightly and
slipped in there – no doubt giving him the idea that there was a
half-naked girl inside.

'What's happened?' Edgar asked, looking at me intently.

'There's a guy from Assol here on the train,' I said quickly. 'You
remember, the musician, he was a suspect, but he didn't seem like
an Other . . . He's inviting us to his compartment for a drink.'

An excited expression appeared on Edgar's face. Kostya even
jumped to his feet and exclaimed:

'Let's take him now. While he's here . . .'

'Wait.' Edgar shook his head. 'Let's not be in such a hurry . . .
you never know, it might not be him. Anton, take this.'

I took the small glass flask, which was bound with copper or
bronze wire. It looked terribly old. There was a dark-brown liquid
splashing around inside it.

'What's that?'

'Perfectly ordinary twenty-year-old armagnac. But the flask is
trickier. Only an Other can open it.' Edgar laughed. 'It's just a
trinket really. Some ancient magician put the same spell on all his
bottles, so the servants couldn't steal anything. If your friend can
open it, then he's an Other.'

'I can't sense any magic . . .' I said, turning the flask over in my
hands.

'That's the point,' Edgar said smugly. 'A simple and reliable test.'

I nodded.

'And here's a simple snack to go with it.' Edgar reached into
the inside pocket of his raincoat and took out a triangular bar of
Toblerone. 'Right, get on with it. Wait. Which compartment is it?'

'The sleeper car, compartment two.'

'We'll keep an eye on it,' Edgar promised. He got halfway to
his feet and switched off the light in the compartment. 'Kostya,
get under the blanket, we're already asleep.'

So a couple of seconds later, when I went out into the corridor
with the flask and the chocolate, my companions really were lying
peacefully under their blankets.

But in any case, Las was considerate enough not to try to peep
in through the open door – he must have genuinely got the wrong
idea.

'Cognac?' Las asked, with a glance at the flask I was holding.

'Better. Twenty-year-old armagnac.'

'Good stuff,' Las agreed. 'There are lots of folk who don't even
know that word.'

'Maybe,' I agreed, following Las into the next carriage.

'Uhuh. Serious types, wheeler-dealers, they handle millions, but
apart from White Horse whisky and Napoleon brandy they haven't
got a clue about civilised drinking. I've always found the narrow
cultural outlook of the political and economic elite astonishing.
Tell me, why did the Mercedes six hundred become our symbol
of affluence? You're talking to this serious, intelligent guy and he
suddenly comes out with: "They dented my Merc, I had to drive
a five hundred for a week!" And he has this expression in his eyes,
the submission of the ascetic who's been reduced to a five hundred,
and the pride of the big-shot who owns a six hundred! I used to
think that until the New Russians switched to the Bentleys and
Jaguars that they ought to drive, the country would never come
to anything. But then they did change, and it made no difference.
You can still see the red club jackets under the Versace shirts . . .
And there's another example . . . A fine designer they chose to
turn into a cult . . .'

I followed Las into the cosy compartment. There were only two
bunk beds, plus a little corner table with its top covering a triangular
washbasin, and a little fold-down seat.

'There's actually less space than in a normal compartment,' I
observed.

'Yes, but then the air conditioning works. And there's a washbasin
. . . which comes in handy in many circumstances . . .'

Las pulled an aluminium suitcase out from under one bunk and
started rummaging in it. A moment later a one-litre plastic bottle
appeared on the table. I picked it up and looked at the label. It
really was kumis.