Edgar and I looked at each other with hatred in our eyes.
And then, without wasting any time on gathering Power or intoning spells, Edgar struck at us. A fiery rain poured down from the sky, seething and bubbling on the Shields that Alisher and I had erected. But there was no fire around Afandi, who was still confused and hadn’t yet recovered his wits – evidently one of the protective rings had been activated.
The minute that followed was full of attacks and counterattacks. Alisher wisely left me to conduct the battle, took a step backwards and fed Power to our Shields, only occasionally allowing himself a brief lunge of attacking magic.
Geser must have involved the finest diviners in the Watch in the preparation of our equipment. After the fire came ice. A blizzard started howling through the air: tiny snowflakes with edges as sharp as razors tested the strength of our Shields and melted impotently as they approached Afandi. Before the storm of ice had even died away, Edgar struck with the Kiss of the Viper and the rocks under our feet were covered with drops of acid. Afandi was protected yet again. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that the old man wasn’t just doing nothing, he was weaving some weak, but very cunning and unusual spell. I didn’t really expect him to be successful, but at least he was busy and not getting under our feet.
The fourth spell that Edgar used was a vacuum. I was already expecting exactly that – and when the air pressure around me started falling rapidly I calmly carried on lashing Edgar alternately with Opium and Thanatos. Behind me Alisher was striking out with fireballs and lumps of super-cooled water from the wands. The combination of fireballs and icy shrapnel exploding into viscous blue drops was remarkably effective – I could see the Inquisitor’s amulets, confused by the contrast, starting to lose their Power.
But there was more to all this than just the amulets. Edgar, a first-level magician was holding out against both of us and still managing to counter-attack! Either he was pumped right up to the hilt with Power, or he had surpassed the first level. I didn’t have the time to make a thorough check on his aura.
The failure of the vacuum seemed to dent Edgar’s fervour. It was such a rare spell that our readiness for it bewildered the Inquisitor. He began to back away slowly, circling round the charred Toyota that was smoking from acid and covered in hoar frost. He got snagged on an icicle that had smashed through the car’s door and almost felclass="underline" as he waved his arms about to keep his balance he almost let my Opium through.
‘Edgar, surrender!’ I shouted. ‘Don’t make us kill you!’
Those words stung the Inquisitor to fury. He paused for a second, and then took a strange pendant off his belt – a bundle of small grey feathers tied together with string, like a small twig broom. He tossed it into the air.
The feathers turned into a flock of birds like overgrown sparrows, but with beaks that glittered like bronze. There were twenty or thirty of them – and they came dashing straight for me, manoeuvring like super-modern re-entry vehicles, the pride and joy of the generals in the rocket forces.
The ‘chicken god’ hanging round my neck broke and fell off its chain. And the flock of birds began fluttering about aimlessly in the air. They didn’t try to approach Edgar, but they couldn’t attack me – and they carried on fluttering about like that until Edgar swore and waved his hand to make them disappear.
Afandi too cast his spell and seemed to break through Edgar’s defences. But there was no visible effect on the Dark Magician. He carried on backing away, occasionally counter-attacking. There was a glow on his chest that kept getting brighter and brighter all the time – an amulet hidden under his clothes had been activated and was preparing to respond. For an instant I even thought that Edgar had equipped himself with a suicide spell, Shahid or Gastello, which would take us to the grave along with him.
‘More Power to the Shields!’ I ordered, and Alisher gave it everything he had, powering up the Shields around us and one around Afandi.
But Edgar was clearly not in the mood for a dramatic suicide. He launched one more brief attack and then pressed his hands to his chest, where the amulet was glowing. The blue lines of a portal sprang up around him – the magician took a rapid step forward and disappeared.
‘He’s hopped it,’ Alisher said. He sat down on the rocks and immediately swore and jumped back to his feet, his trousers smoking. The Kiss of the Viper was still working.
I stood there, feeling completely drained. Afandi stood beside me, laughing.
‘What did you throw at him?’ I asked.
‘The next seventy-seven times he lies down with a woman he will suffer shameful failure!’ Afandi explained triumphantly. ‘And no one will be able to remove the spell.’
‘Very witty,’ I said. ‘Very eastern.’
With a few brief spells I cleared away the traces of magic from the ground under our feet. The drops of acid had raised bubbles in the stone, like rising dough.
Saushkin!
So it was Saushkin!
EPILOGUE
GESER DIDN’T ANSWER straight away. In fact, to be quite honest, it was more than two minutes before he answered.
‘Anton, do you think you could …’
‘No, I couldn’t,’ I said.
The sky above me was gradually growing brighter. The strangely large southern stars were fading. I took another swig of cola out of my bottle and added:
‘Thanks for the amulets. They were all spot on. But now pull us out of here. If one more psychopath comes along …’
‘Anton.’ Geser’s voice sounded a bit softer now. ‘What happened?’
‘I had a heated conversation with Edgar.’
Geser paused and asked:
‘Is he still alive?’
‘He is. He left via a portal. But first he spent a long time trying to finish us all off.’
‘Has our friend the Inquisitor completely lost his mind?’
‘Possibly.’
Geser hummed something into the phone and I suddenly realised the boss was trying to think of the best way to use this information when he talked to Zabulon. Of how he could most humiliate Zabulon with this story about his former colleague.
‘Geser, we’re very tired.’
‘A helicopter will come to get you,’ Geser said. ‘Putting up a portal would be very difficult. Wait for a while, I’ll get in touch with Tashkent. Are you … at Rustam’s place?’
‘We’re on the plateau where you used the White Mist against the Dark Ones.’
It’s not often that I manage to embarrass Geser – I couldn’t afford to let the chance slip.
‘The helicopter will be there soon,’ Geser said after a pause. ‘Did you talk to Rustam?’
‘Yes.’
‘And did he answer?’
‘Yes. But not all the questions.’
Geser gave a sigh of relief.
‘Well, at least he told you something … You didn’t have to – er – prevail upon him?’
‘No. I discharged all four bracelets into Edgar.’
‘You did?’ asked Geser, growing more cheerful with every word I said. ‘And what did you find out?’
‘The name of the vampire who’s working with Edgar.’
‘Well?’ Geser said after a moment’s pause. ‘Who is it?’
‘Saushkin.’
‘That’s impossible!’ Geser barked. ‘Absolute nonsense!’
‘Then the spells failed.’
‘My spells couldn’t have failed. But you could have missed,’ Geser said in a slightly softer voice. ‘Anton, we’ll have to do without … unnecessary delicacy. When you get here, I’ll show you something that I didn’t want to show you.’