The small van was lying where it had been tossed on to its side. There were two motionless bodies beside it. A third man, the machine-gunner or perhaps the driver, who had prudently stayed put in his cabin, was slowly crawling away towards the fence, dragging his useless legs behind him.
I didn’t feel any particular pity for him. He was an ordinary bandit who had been used to distract our attention from the rocket attack. He’d known what he was getting into.
Where the arbour had stood there was a small crater, strewn with white scraps of wood. The playing cards were soaring and circling above our heads – a capricious chance had tossed them up into the air instead of incinerating them.
We found Semyon right beside the van. He was inside a transparent glowing sphere that looked as if it had been carved in crystal. The sphere was slowly rolling along and Semyon, with his arms and legs held out, was turning over and over with it. His pose was such a hilarious parody of the picture The Golden Section that I giggled stupidly. Squat and short-legged, Semyon looked nothing like the muscular athlete drawn by Leonardo da Vinci.
‘A very uncomfortable spell,’ Lermont said in relief. ‘But then, it is reliable.’
The crystal sphere cracked all over and disintegrated in a cloud of steam. Semyon, who was upside down at that moment, nimbly swung round and landed on his feet. He stuck a finger in his ear and asked:
‘Do they always do that round here on Saturdays, Mr Lermont? Or is it just in honour of our arrival?’
Lermont took no notice of this simple piece of wit. He inclined his head to one side, as if he were listening to someone’s voice, and frowned. And his frown became deeper and deeper.
Then, with just a couple of gestures, he created the glowing frame of a portal in front of himself, and said:
‘Follow me, gentlemen. I am afraid all this was merely a diversion.’
I didn’t get time to ask what he intended to do about the overturned van, the demolished arbour and the crawling bandit who was already out in the street, where the neighbours could see him. A second portal opened beside the first, and Others began jumping out of it, one after another.
They weren’t simply Light Ones from the Night Watch – they were dressed in police uniforms, with bulletproof vests and helmets, and they were holding their machine pistols at the ready!
Well now, Thomas the Rhymer, aren’t you a fine one for the blather! We have underestimated technology! I can see just how badly you underestimate it…
Lermont stepped into the first portal. I hung back for a moment, waiting for Semyon, but he suddenly stopped, with his stare fixed on a gaunt man with red hair.
‘Kevin! You old fogey!’
‘Simon, you old blockhead!’ the redhead shouted in delight. ‘Where are you going? Hang on!’
They put their arms round each other and started hammering each other on the back with all the enthusiasm of those crazy rabbits in the advert for electric batteries.
‘Later, we’ll catch up on everything later,’ Semyon muttered, freeing himself from Kevin’s embraces. ‘Look, the portal’s getting cold. I brought you some wine from Sebastopol – remember it? Sparkling muscat, here!’
I spat and shook my head. What sort of thing was that to say – ‘later, later …’ In the movies any character who said that to an old friend was irrevocably doomed to die soon.
I could only be glad that we weren’t characters in an action movie.
I stepped in through the frame of the portal.
A dense white glow all around. A feeling of lightness that could only be compared with what cosmonauts experience. Mysterious paths inaccessible to human beings.
What were those others in police uniforms going to do there? Wipe clean the memories of any chance witnesses, remove all traces of the explosion, interrogate the attackers if they survived? The basic day-to-day routine work of the Watches.
But who had dared to do it? Attacking a member of a Watch was already an act of insanity. But to attack the head of a Watch, plus two foreign magicians, was absolutely unheard-of. And to use human beings to do it …
I suddenly realised quite clearly that the Frenchman I had met in the Dungeons had also been a human being. Not a Higher Magician who had concealed his true nature from me. Just an ordinary man. But incredibly cunning and cool, a brilliant actor. Not the same sort of pawn as these bandits who had been sent to their death. Perhaps it was him who had fired the rocket at us?
And then the vampire. Was it really Kostya? Had he really survived after all?
And to top everything off there were the protective amulets on the bandits, which had won them time. Vampires weren’t capable of creating amulets. That was the work of a magician, an enchantress or a witch!
Just who were we up against here? Who was trying to break into the Twilight to get his hands on Merlin’s legacy?
And was he capable of going down to the seventh level?
As always, the portal came to an end suddenly. The white glow contracted into a frame, I stepped through it – and I was immediately grabbed by the shoulder and jerked sharply down to the left, onto the floor behind the cover of an improvised barricade consisting of several overturned tables.
Just in time. A bullet went whistling over my head.
I was in the Dungeons of Scotland. In one of the first rooms.
Lermont was beside me, sheltering behind the barricade, and I had been dragged to the floor by a dark-skinned Other. Judging from the number of spells that he had ‘teed-up’ on his fingers, he was a battle magician.
Another shot rang out. The shooting was coming from the open door leading into the next room.
‘Foma, what’s happened?’ I asked, looking at him in bewilderment. ‘Why are we lying on the floor? We should put up a Shield …’
Lermont didn’t stir a finger, but a barrier appeared at the door, sealing it off. Before I even had time to feel amazed at the Scottish magician’s stupidity and delighted with my own astuteness, there was another shot, and the bullet whistled by over our heads. The barrier hadn’t held it back.
‘I beg your pardon, I was a bit hasty there …’ I muttered. ‘How about going through the Twilight?
‘The same problem as with the rocket,’ Lermont explained. ‘The bullets are enchanted down to the second level.’
‘Let’s go through the third.’
‘There’s a barrier on the third!’ Lermont reminded me. I felt ashamed and said no more.
The dark-skinned magician half-stood and hurled several spells into the corridor. I spotted Opium, Freeze and Bugaboo. The reply was another shot. With that same precise, mechanical rhythm …
‘It’s a machine!’ I said quickly. ‘Lermont, it’s the same kind of machine that fired at me!’
‘So what? It’s protected against minor spells. Do you suggest blazing away with fireballs, starting a fire and bringing the bridge down on top of us?’
No, Thomas the Rhymer wasn’t panicking or falling into despair. He was clearly trying to think of something. And he had to have some kind of plan. Only I didn’t want to hang about.
Semyon stepped out of the portal that was still hanging in midair. He immediately squatted down and scrambled towards the barrier. Yes: sometimes experience is more important than Power …
Somewhere far away, behind the walls and the doors, there was a scream that broke off on a high note.
… And sometimes fury is more important than experience.
I slipped into the Twilight.
First level. The decor seemed to have become real. The walls of plasterboard and plastic were now stone and there were dried stalks of some kind rustling under my feet. In the Twilight the interior of the building must have been constructed by human fantasy – too many people had passed this way who sincerely believed in the rules of the game and had made themselves believe in dungeons.