Valentina Ilinihcna was already making the call. I looked out of the window again. The soldiers were waiting, sitting on the picket fence. What were the walls made of here? If they really were compressed reeds, bullets would go straight through them…
‘Ah, what beautiful words!’ Afandi suddenly exclaimed. He was still sitting at the table and chewing with relish on a piece of sausage. His glass was full, and the cognac bottle on the table was empty. ‘A violation of the Basic Appendix! That makes everything clear all right, clear as day. Keep giving the orders, Commander!’
I turned away from Afandi. It was just my luck – the person all my hopes rested on was as half-witted as the devona before he met Geser …
‘Time to be going, lads,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry things turned out this way.’
‘Anton, can you disperse them?’ Nodir asked, with timid hope in his voice.
‘I can kill them, no problem. But not disperse them.’
Someone began hammering on the door that led to the Dark Ones’ office. Timur walked over, asked something and opened it. The two Dark Ones who were on duty there came running in. Judging from their bewildered expressions, they had only just discovered the cordon and were desperate for explanations.
‘What are you doing, Light One?’ howled the one who was a bit older. ‘Why did you bring these men here?’
‘Quiet,’ I said, raising my hand. ‘Shut up!’
He had enough wits to do as I said.
‘This situation comes under point one of the Appendix to the Great Treaty,’ I said and Afandi grunted loudly. I gave him an angry sideways glance, but the old man had just swallowed an entire glass of cognac, and now he was breathing rapidly and pressing his hand to his mouth. I continued: ‘In this situation, under the terms of the Convention of Prague, as the most powerful magician here, I assume general command of all Others here present. All Others here present!’
The young Dark One looked at his elder, who frowned, nodded and said:
‘We await your orders, Higher One.’
‘Total evacuation of the Watches,’ I said. ‘All documents and artefacts to be destroyed. Get to it.’
‘How are we going to get out?’ the young Dark One asked. ‘Put up shields?’
I shook my head.
‘I’m afraid they have charmed bullets. We have to leave via the Twilight.’
‘Oh, Afandi has been in the Twilight!’ the old man declared loudly. ‘Afandi can walk in the Twilight!’
‘Afandi, you will go with me and Alisher,’ I ordered. ‘The others …’
Alisher looked at me in alarm and moved his lips soundlessly.
‘The deva …’
‘The others will cover us,’ I ordered.
‘Why should we?’ the young Dark One protested. ‘We—’
I waved my hand, and the Dark One squirmed and squealed in agony, pressing his hands against his stomach.
‘Because I order it,’ I explained, removing the pain. ‘Because I am a Higher Magician and you are fifth level. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’ Appallingly enough, there wasn’t even a hint of indignation in the Dark One’s voice. He had tried to throw his weight about, been punished and accepted my right to command because I was more powerful. Later, of course, he would write a whole bunch of complaints to the Inquisition. But for now he would obey.
Meanwhile the other Watch members were destroying their offices. The older Dark One was working alone, but he seemed to have everything under control. The destruction spells had been applied to the safe in advance – there was smoke pouring out of the keyhole – and they had been applied to all the documents too: the ones on the desk were curling up, turning yellow and crumbling to pieces. The Light Ones were burning everything by hand, and they were doing it with real enthusiasm: I watched as Timur drove a deftly rolled fireball straight through the metal wall of the safe and it exploded inside.
‘They’ve gone very quiet,’ Alisher said anxiously, glancing out of the window. ‘They’ll see the smoke any minute …’
They saw it all right. A voice with a strong accent addressed us in Russian through a megaphone:
‘Terrorists! Lay down your weapons and leave the building one at a time! You are surrounded! If you do not comply, we will storm the building!’
‘What crazy nonsense …’ Valentina Ilinichna exclaimed indignantly. ‘Terrorists – would you believe it!’
A second later Alisher leapt back from the window and the glass shattered with a tinkling sound. A small metal cylinder fell to the floor, spinning around its axis.
‘Let’s leave!’ I shouted, diving into the Twilight. After the heat of Samarkand, the coolness of the first level was actually quite pleasant.
That very moment the grey gloom around me was lit up brightly. I didn’t even want to think about how blinding the flash must have been in the human world. Fortunately, from down there in the Twilight I couldn’t hear the ear-splitting screech.
I’d never thought that the Special Services’ light-and-sound grenades could be so devastating against Others. Only Valentina Ilinichna had managed to withdraw into the Twilight with me – in here she looked like a slim young woman no more than thirty years old.
The other Watch members were blundering helplessly around the room. Some were rubbing at their eyes, some were holding their ears. A light-and-sound grenade blinds you for ten to twenty seconds, so they couldn’t withdraw into the Twilight.
‘Help the boys!’ I shouted to Valentina and rushed to the doors. I flung them open in the Twilight, not the ordinary world, and looked outside.
Yes, of course, they were already storming us. Clumsily and stupidly, en masse – there were dozens of Special Services men running towards the entrance, and the soldiers on the other side of the fence had started firing at the windows. The assault was uncoordinated, as it always is whenever somebody gets the clever idea of creating a joint unit of militiamen, common soldiers and Special Services. I saw one of the Special Services men throw his hands up and fall – he had taken a bullet in the back. But he probably wouldn’t have anything worse than bruising – the troops in the assault wave were wearing bulletproof vests.
But the fact that several marksmen started aiming their shots at me was very bad news. That was either Clear Gaze or True Vision. Which was very, very serious indeed. And the bullets really were charmed up to the hilt. Not only did they exist in the real world and the first level of the Twilight at the same time, they were packed with deadly magic!
I ducked – fortunately, our enemies had not been accelerated and the advantage of speed remained with me. I waved my hand, allowing the Power to flow from my fingertips. A rain of fire fell on the earth and a wall of smoke and flame sprang up in front of the attackers. Right – now, lads, are you ready to jump into the fire?
They weren’t. They stopped (one was moving too fast and he stuck his face into the flames and jumped back with a howl), then they drew back and started raising their automatic rifles.
Naturally, I didn’t wait for them to fire. I burst back into the house, on the way reducing the dubious Night Watch sign to cinders with a fireball. The adrenalin was coursing through my veins.
War games? All right, then, let’s play war games!
Hang the Absolute Lock spell on the door (actually there are two of these spells, but the other one wouldn’t have had any effect if it was applied to an inanimate object). Hang a Light Shield right across the walls, one that would hold against automatic fire for about five minutes. Of course, the attackers would notice that something was wrong. But there was no way that we could leave secretly now.