On finding oneself in the dark, the great Fouchй teaches us, one should screw one’s eyes tight shut and count to thirty to give the pupils time to contract, and then one’s vision will be capable of discerning the most insignificant source of light. In order to be quite certain, Erast Fandorin counted to forty before opening his eyes, and indeed there was a ray of light filtering through from somewhere. Extending ahead of him the hand clutching the now useless Herstal, he took a step forward, then another, then a third. In front of him he saw a door standing slightly ajar, a faint beam of light emerging from the gap. The baroness could only be in there. Fandorin stepped decisively toward the glowing beam and pushed the door hard.
His gaze fell on a small room with shelves covering the walls. In the middle of the room stood a desk on which a candle, burning in a bronze candlestick, illuminated the face of Lady Astair, tracing its lines in shadows.
“Come in, my boy,” she said calmly. “I have been expecting you.”
Erast Fandorin stepped inside and the door suddenly slammed shut behind him. With a shudder he turned around and saw that the door had no hinge and no handle.
“Come a little closer,” her ladyship said in a quiet voice. “I wish to take a closer look at your face, because it is the face of fate. You are a pebble that was lying on my road, the pebble over which I was fated to stumble.”
Stung by this comparison, Fandorin moved closer to the desk and noticed a smooth metal casket lying in front of the baroness.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“We ‘ll come to that shortly. What have you done with Gebhardt?”
“He’s dead. It’s his own fault—he shouldn’t have argued with a bullet,” Fandorin replied rather coarsely, trying not to think about the fact that he had killed two people in a matter of minutes.
“That is a great loss for mankind. He was a strange man, obsessive, but a truly great scientist. So now there is one Azazel less.”
“What is Azazel?” Fandorin blurted out. “And what has that demon got to do with your orphans?”
“Azazel is no demon, my boy. He is a great symbol of the savior and enlightener of mankind. The Lord God created this world, created men and left them to their own devices. But men are so weak and so blind, they transformed God’s world into hell. Mankind would have perished long ago if it were not for those outstanding individuals who have appeared among them from time to time. They are not demons and not gods. I call them hero civilisateur. Thanks to each of them, mankind has taken a leap forward. Prometheus gave us fire. Moses gave us the concept of the law. Christ gave us a moral core. But the most precious of these heroes was the Judaic Azazel, who taught man a sense of his own dignity. It is said in the Book of Enoch: “He was moved by love for man and revealed unto him secrets learned in the heavens.” He gave man a mirror, so that man could see behind himself—that is, so that he had a memory and could remember his past. Thanks to Azazel a man is able to practice arts and crafts and defend his home. Thanks to Azazel woman was transformed from a submissive bearer of children into an equal human being possessing the freedom to choose—whether to be ugly or beautiful, whether to be a mother or an Amazon, to live for the sake of her family or the whole of mankind. God merely dealt man his cards, but Azazel teaches him how to play to win. Every one of my charges is an Azazel, although not all of them know it.”
“How do you mean ‘not all of them’?” Fandorin interrupted.
“Only a few are initiated into the secret goal, only the most faithful and incorruptible,” her ladyship explained. “It is they who undertake all the dirty work, so that the rest of my children might remain unsullied. Azazel is my advance guard, destined gradually, little by little, to lay hold of the wheel that steers the rudder of the world. Oh, how our planet will blossom when it is led by my Azazels! And it could have happened so soon—in a mere twenty years…The other alumni of the Astair Houses, uninitiated into the secret of Azazel, simply make their own way through life, bringing inestimable benefit to mankind. I merely follow their successes, rejoicing in their achievements, and I know that if the need should arise, not one of them will refuse to help their mother. Ah, what will become of them without me? What will become of the world? But no matter, Azazel lives on. He will carry my work to its conclusion.”
Erast Fandorin interjected indignantly, “I’ve seen your Azazels, your ‘faithful and incorruptible’ devotees! Morbid and Franz, Andrew and that other one with the eyes of a fish, who killed Akhtyrtsev! Are these your vanguard, my lady? Are these the most worthy?”
“Not these alone. But these also. Do you not remember, my friend, I told you that not every one of my children is able to find his way in the modern world, because his gift has remained stranded in the distant past or will be required only in the distant future? Well then, it is pupils such as these who make the most faithful and devoted executors. Some of my children are the brain, others are the hands. But the man who eliminated Akhtyrtsev is not one of my children. He is a temporary ally of ours.”
The baroness’s fingers absentmindedly caressed the polished surface of the casket, and as if by accident pressed a small round button.
“That is all, my dear young man. You and I have two minutes left. We shall depart this life together. Unfortunately, I cannot let you live. You would cause harm to my children.”
“What is that thing?” cried Erast Fandorin, seizing hold of the casket, which proved to be quite heavy. “A bomb?”
“Yes,” said Lady Astair with a smile of commiseration. “A clockwork mechanism. The invention of one of my talented boys. There are thirty-second boxes, two-hour boxes, even twelve-hour boxes. It is impossible to open the box and stop the mechanism. This bomb is set for one hundred and twenty seconds. I shall perish together with my archive. My life is over now, but what I have achieved is not so very little. My cause will be continued and people will yet remember me with a kind word.”
Erast Fandorin attempted to pick the button out with his nails, but it was useless. Then he rushed to the door and began feeling all over it and hammering on it with his fists. The blood throbbed in his ears, counting out the pulse of time.
“Lizanka!” the doomed Fandorin groaned in his despair. “My lady! I do not wish to die! I am young! I am in love!”
Lady Astair gazed at him compassionately. Some kind of struggle was obviously taking place within her. “Promise me that you will not make hunting down my children the goal of your life,” she said in a quiet voice, looking into Fandorin’s eyes.
“I swear it!” he exclaimed, willing at that moment to promise anything.
After an agonizing pause that lasted an eternity, her ladyship gave a gentle, motherly smile.
“Very well, my boy. Have your life. But hurry, you have forty seconds.”
She reached under the desk and the copper door squeaked as it swung open into the room.
Casting a final glance at the figure of the gray-haired woman sitting motionless in the flickering candlelight, Fandorin launched himself along the dark corridor in immense bounds. His momentum flung him hard against the wall, then he scrambled up the stairs on all fours, straightened up, and crossed the study in two great leaps.