'The mother heart-python is unsettled,' he answered, smiling. 'OK, that's all, you must have a sleep, and then we'll introduce ourselves and have a talk.'

With these last words, Artyom suddenly was overcome by monstrous fatigue, which had acc.u.mulated in the tunnel before Rizhskaya, in his nightmares, in the recent tests of his will. Artyom had no more strength to resist and he got down onto a piece of tarpaulin that was spread near the fire and put his rucksack under his head and fell into a long, deep and dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER 6.

The Rights of the Strong

The ceiling was so sooty that there wasn't a trace left of the whitewash that had once been applied to it. Artyom looked dully at it, not knowing quite where he was.

'You're awake?' he heard a familiar voice, forcing the scatterings of thoughts to build a picture of yesterday's (was it yesterday?) events. It all seemed unreal to him now. Opaque, like fog, the wall of sleep had separated actuality from recollections.

'Good evening,' Artyom said to the man who had found him. He was sitting on the other side of the fire, and Artyom could see him through the flames. There was a mysterious, even mystical quality to the man's face.

'Now we can introduce ourselves to each other. I have a regular name, similar to all the other people that surround you in your life. It's too long and it says nothing about me. But I am the latest incarnation of Genghis Khan, and so you can call me Khan. It's shorter.'

'Genghis Khan?' Artyom looked at the man disbelievingly. Artyom didn't believe in reincarnation.

'My friend!' Khan objected as though insulted. 'You don't need to look into my eyes and at my behaviour with such obvious suspicion. I have been incarnated in various other and more easily acceptable forms too. But Genghis Khan remains the most significant stage along my path even though I don't remember anything from that life, unfortunately.'

'So why Khan and not Genghis?' Artyom pushed further. 'Khan isn't a surname after all, it's just an professional a.s.signation if I remember correctly.'

'It brings up unnecessary reference, not to mention Genghis Aitmatov,' his companion said reluctantly and incomprehensibly. 'And by the way, I don't consider it my duty to explain the origins of my name to whoever asks. What's your name?'

'I'm Artyom and I don't know who I was in a previous life. Maybe my name was also a little more resounding back then,' said Artyom.

'Nice to meet you,' Khan said, obviously completely satisfied with his answer. 'I hope you will share my modest meal,' he added, lifting and hanging a battered metal kettle over the fire - it was just like the ones they had at the northern patrol of VDNKh. VDNKh.

Artyom stood up and put his hand in his rucksack and pulled out a stick of sausage, which he'd acquired on his way from VDNKh. VDNKh. He cut off several pieces with his penknife and put them on a clean rag that was also inside his rucksack. He cut off several pieces with his penknife and put them on a clean rag that was also inside his rucksack.

'Here.' He extended it towards his new acquaintance. 'To go with tea.'

Khan's tea was VDNKh VDNKh tea, which Artyom recognized. Sipping the tea from an enamelled metal mug, he silently recalled the events of the day before. His host, obviously, was also thinking his own thoughts, and he didn't bother Artyom. tea, which Artyom recognized. Sipping the tea from an enamelled metal mug, he silently recalled the events of the day before. His host, obviously, was also thinking his own thoughts, and he didn't bother Artyom.

The madness lashing at the world from the broken pipes seemed to have a different effect on everyone. Artyom was able to hear it simply as a deafening noise that didn't let you concentrate, a noise which killed your thoughts, but spared your mind itself, whereas Bourbon simply couldn't stand the powerful attack and died. Artyom hadn't expected that the noise could actually kill someone, otherwise he would never had agreed to take one step into that black tunnel between Prospect Mir and Sukharevskaya.

This time the noise had snuck up surrept.i.tiously, at first dulling the senses. Artyom was now sure that all usual sounds had been muted and the noise itself had been inaudible at first, but then it froze the flow of thoughts so they were suddenly covered with the h.o.a.rfrost of weakness and, finally, it delivered its crushing blow.

And why hadn't he immediately noticed that Bourbon had suddenly started talking in terms that he couldn't possibly have known, even if he had read lots of apocalyptical prophecies? The noise went deeper into Bourbon, as if bewitching him, and a strange intoxication had taken hold. Artyom himself had been thinking all sorts of rubbish about the fact that he mustn't go silent, that they had to keep talking, but it hadn't occurred to him to try to figure out what was going on. Something had been interfering . . .

He wanted to throw all that had happened out of his consciousness, to forget it all. It was impossible to get his head around it. In all his years at VDNKh VDNKh he had only heard about such things. It had been easier to think that anything he'd heard was just not possible in this world. Artyom shook his head and looked from side to side again. he had only heard about such things. It had been easier to think that anything he'd heard was just not possible in this world. Artyom shook his head and looked from side to side again.

The same suffocating twilight filled the s.p.a.ce. Artyom thought that it had probably never been light here, and that it could only get darker - when the fuel reserves for the fire ended. The clock above the entrance to the tunnel had stopped ticking a long time ago since there was no one who took care of such things. Artyom wondered why Khan had said 'good evening' to him, because according to his calculations it should be morning or midday.

'Is it really evening?' he asked Khan, puzzled.

'It's evening for me,' Khan replied pensively.

'What do you mean?' Artyom didn't understand.

'See, Artyom, you obviously come from a station where the clock works and you all look at it in awe, comparing the time on your wrist watch to the red numbers above the tunnel entrance. For you, time is the same for everyone, just like light. Well, here it's the opposite: nothing is anyone else's business. No one is obliged to make sure there's light for all the people who have made their way here. Go up to anybody here and suggest just that and it will seem absurd to them. Whoever needs light has to bring it here with them. It's the same with time: whoever needs to know the time, whoever is afraid of chaos, needs to bring their own time with them. Everyone keeps some time here. Their own time. And it's different for everybody and it depends on their calculations, but they're all equally right, and each person believes in their own time, and subordinates their life to its rhythms. For me it's evening right now, for you it's morning - and what? People like you are so careful about storing up the hours you spend wandering, just as ancient peoples kept pieces of glowing coal in smouldering crucibles, hoping to resurrect fire from them. But there are others who lost their piece of coal, maybe even threw it away. You know, in the metro, it is basically always night-time and it makes no sense to keep track of time here so painstakingly. Explode your hours and you'll see how time will transform - it's very interesting. It changes - you won't even recognize it. It will cease to be fragmented, broken into the sections of hours, minutes and seconds. Time is like mercury: scatter it and it will grow together again, it will again find its own integrity and indeterminacy. People tamed it, shackled it into pocket-watches and stop-watches - and for those that hold time on a chain, time flows evenly. But try to free it and you will see: it flows differently for different people, for some it is slow and viscous, counted in the inhalations and exhalations of smoked cigarettes, for others it races along, and they can only measure it in past lives. You think it's morning now? There is a great likelihood that you are right: there's a roughly twenty five percent likelihood. Nevertheless, this morning of yours has no sense to it, since it's up there on the surface and there's no life up there anymore. Well, there're no more people, anyway. Does what occurs above have value for those who never go there? No. So when I say "good evening" to you, if you like, you can answer "good morning." There's no time in this station, except perhaps one and it's very strange: now it is the four hundred and nineteenth day and I'm counting backwards.'

He went silent, sipping on his hot tea and Artyom thought it was funny when he remembered that at VDNKh VDNKh the station clock was treated as a holy thing and any failure of it immediately put anyone nearby under the hot hand of blame. The authorities would be astonished to learn that time doesn't exist, that the thought of it had just been lost! What Khan had just described reminded Artyom of a funny thing that he had been surprised by repeatedly as he grew up. the station clock was treated as a holy thing and any failure of it immediately put anyone nearby under the hot hand of blame. The authorities would be astonished to learn that time doesn't exist, that the thought of it had just been lost! What Khan had just described reminded Artyom of a funny thing that he had been surprised by repeatedly as he grew up.

'They say that before, when trains used to run, in the wagons they used to announce "Be careful of the closing doors, the next stop is x,y,z, and the next platform will appear on your left or right," ' he said. 'Is that true?'

'Does it seem strange to you?' Khan raised his eyebrows.

'How could they tell which side the platform would be on? If I'm coming from the south to the north then the platform is on the right. If I'm coming from the north to the south then it's on the left. And the seats on the train were against the walls of the train if I remember right. So for the pa.s.sengers, the platforms were either in front of them or behind them - half of them on one side and the other half on the other with different perspectives.'

'You're right.' Khan answered respectfully. 'Basically the train drivers were only speaking for themselves because they travelled in a compartment at the front and for them right was absolute right and left was absolute left. So they must have mostly been saying it for their own benefit. So in principle they might as well have said nothing. But I have heard these words since I was a child and I was so used to them that I had never stopped to consider them.'

Some time pa.s.sed and then he said, 'You promised to tell me what happened to your friend.'

Artyom paused for a moment, wondering if he should tell this man about the mysterious circ.u.mstances surrounding the death of Bourbon; about the noise that he had heard twice now in the last twenty-four hours; about its destructive influence on human reason; about his sufferings and thoughts when he could hear the melody of the tunnel . . . And he decided that if there was anyone worth telling it all to, then it would be the person who sincerely considered himself to be the latest incarnation of Genghis Khan and and for whom time doesn't exist. So he started to lay out his misadventure in a muddled, anxious way without observing the sequence of events, attempting to convey the various sensations he felt rather than the facts.

'It's the voices of the dead,' Khan said quietly after Artyom had completed his narrative.

'What?' Artyom asked, surprised.

'You heard the voices of the dead. You were saying that at the beginning it sounded like a whisper or a rustle? Yes, that's them.'

'Which dead?' Artyom didn't quite understand.

'All the people who have been killed in the metro since the beginning. This, basically, explains why I am the last incarnation of Genghis Khan. There won't be any more incarnations. Everyone has come to their end, my friend. I don't know quite how this has happened but this time humanity has overdone it. There's now no more heaven and no more h.e.l.l. There isn't purgatory either. After the soul flies out from the body - I hope you at least believe in the immortal soul? Well, it has no refuge anymore. How many megatons and bevatons does it take to disperse the noosphere? It was as real as this kettle. And whatever you say, we weren't sparing of ourselves. We destroyed both heaven and h.e.l.l. We now happen to live in this strange world, in a world where after death the soul must remain right where it is. You understand me? You will die but your tormented soul won't get reincarnated anymore and, seeing as there is no more heaven, your soul won't get any peace and quiet. It is doomed to remain where you lived your entire life, in the metro. Maybe I can't give you the exact theosophic explanation for why this is but I know one thing for sure: in our world the soul stays in the metro after death . . . It will rush around under the arches of these underground tunnels until the end of time because there isn't anywhere for it to go. The metro combines material life with the hypostases of the other world. Now Eden and the Netherworld are here, together. We live amidst the souls of the dead, they surround us in a full circle - all those that were crushed by trains, shot, strangled, burnt, eaten by monsters, those who died strange deaths, about which no living being knows anything and won't ever be able to imagine. Long ago I struggled to figure out where they would go, why their presence isn't felt every day, why you don't feel a light and cold gaze coming from the darkness . . . You are familiar with tunnel horror? I thought before that the dead blindly followed us through tunnels, step by step, hiding in the darkness as soon as we turn to look. Eyes are useless. You won't see the dead with them. But the ants that run along your spine, the hair standing on end, the chill which shakes our bodies - they are all witness to the invisible pursuit. That's what I thought before. But now your story has explained much to me. Somehow they get into the pipes, into the communication lines . . . Sometime a long time ago, before my father and even my grandfather was born, in the city of the dead, which lies above us, there was a little river. People who lived there knew how to lock this river and to direct it into pipes under the earth where it probably flows until today. And it looks like this time someone's buried the River Styx itself in these pipes . . . Your friend was speaking not in his own words - no, it wasn't him. Those were the voices of the dead. He was hearing them in his head and repeating them and then they absorbed him.'

Artyom stared at Khan and could not avert his gaze from the man's face for the duration of his monologue. Indistinct shadows skittered across Khan's face and his eyes were flaring with some internal fire . . . Towards the end of the story, Artyom was almost sure that Khan was mad, that the voices in the pipes had whispered something to him too. And though Khan had saved him from death, and shown him such hospitality, the thought of staying with him for any length of time was uncomfortable and unpleasant. He needed to think about how to move on, through the most evil of all the tunnels in the metro, about which he had heard much - from Sukhareveskaya to Turgenevskaya and farther.

'So, you'll have to forgive me for my little lie,' Khan added after a short pause. 'Your friend's soul didn't go up to the creator, it won't reincarnate and come back in a new form. It joined the other unhappy ones, in the pipes.'

These words reminded Artyom that he had planned to go back for Bourbon's body, in order to bring it to the station. Bourbon had said that he had friends here, friends who would take Artyom back if they arrived successfully. This reminded him of the rucksack, which Artyom had not yet opened and in which, apart from Artyom's machine gun, there might be something useful.

But to take it over was somehow frightening and superst.i.tions of all kinds climbed into Artyom's head and he decided to open it only slightly and to peek into it without touching or moving anything.

'You don't need to be afraid of it,' Khan said to Artyom unexpectedly as though he could feel his trepidation. 'The thing is now yours.'

'I think what you did is called looting,' Artyom said quietly.

'You don't need to be afraid of retribution, he won't reincarnate,' said Khan, not replying to what Artyom said but to what was flitting about in Artyom's head. 'I think that when they get taken into the pipes, the dead lose themselves and they become part of a whole, their will is dissolved into the will of the rest of them, and reason dries up. There's no more individual. But if you're afraid of the living and not the dead . . . Well, then drag this bag into the middle of the station and empty its contents onto the floor. Then no one will accuse you of thieving, and your conscience can be clean. But you tried to save the guy and he would be grateful to you for that. Consider that this bag is his repayment to you for what you did.'

He was speaking so authoritatively and with such conviction that Artyom gained the courage to put his hand into the pack and he started to take things out of it and lay them on the tarpaulin to see them in the light of the fire. There were four extra cartridges for Bourbon's gun, in addition to the two that he had taken out when he gave the gun to Artyom. It was surprising that the trader had such an impressive a.r.s.enal. Artyom carefully wrapped up five of the cartridges he found in their cloth and put them into his rucksack and he put one in the Kalashnikov. The weapon was in excellent condition: thoroughly oiled and looked after. The lock moved smoothly, giving off a dull click when pushed and the safety catch was a bit stiff. All this indicated that the gun was practically new. The handle fitted comfortably into his hand and its shank was well polished. The weapon gave off a feeling of reliability and encouraged calmness and confidence. Artyom immediately decided that if he were to take any one thing from Bourbon it would be this gun.

The 7.62 cartridges that Bourbon had promised him for his 'hoe' weren't there. It wasn't clear how Bourbon had been planning to pay Artyom. Artyom thought about it and came to the conclusion that it may be that Bourbon hadn't been planning to give him a thing but, having pa.s.sed through the dangerous part, he would sling a shot into the back of Artyom's head and throw him down a shaft and think no more of it. And if anyone had asked him about Artyom's whereabouts then he would have any number of answers: anything can happen in the metro and well, the boy agreed himself to come along.

Apart from various rags, a map of the metro imprinted with notations that only its dead owner would understand, and a hundred grammes of weed, he found a few pieces of smoked meat in plastic bags and a notebook at the bottom of the rucksack. Artyom didn't read the book and he was disappointed in the rest of the stuff. In the depths of his soul, he had hoped to find something mysterious, maybe something precious - the reason that Bourbon was so intent on getting through the tunnel to Sukharevskaya. He decided that Bourbon was a messenger or maybe a smuggler or something of the kind. This, at least, explained his determination to get through the d.a.m.n tunnel at any price and his readiness to be generous. But since there was not much left in the rucksack after he'd pulled out the last pair of linen pieces, Artyom decided that the reason for his insistence had to have been something else. Artyom wracked his brains for a long while about what Bourbon needed at Sukharevskaya but he couldn't think of anything plausible.

Then he remembered that he had left the poor man in the middle of the tunnel, left him to the rats, even though he had planned to go back and do something about the body. True, he had only a vague idea of how to give the trader his final honours and what to do with the corpse. Burn it? But you needed strong nerves for that, and the suffocating smoke and the stink of the burning meat and burning hair was sure to filter through to the station, and then he wouldn't be able to avoid unpleasantness. Dragging the body to the station would be heavy and awful. It's one thing to pull a man along by the wrists if you think he's alive and you're pushing away all thoughts of the fact that he is not breathing and has no pulse, but it's another thing to pull along a corpse. So what, then? Just like Bourbon lied to him about his payment, he might have been lying about his friends here at the station. Then Artyom, having dragged the body back here, might just be putting himself in a worse situation.

'So what do you do here with those that die?' Artyom asked Khan after a long bout of thinking.

'What do you mean, my friend?' Khan answered a question with a question. 'Are you talking about the souls of the deceased or about their perished bodies?'

'About the corpses,' Artyom growled. He was becoming fed up with his talk of the netherworld.

'There are two tunnels that go from Prospect Mir to Sukharevskaya, ' Khan said and Artyom thought to himself that trains went in two directions so they always needed two tunnels. So why would Bourbon, knowing about the second tunnel, want to go towards his fate? Was there an even greater danger hiding in the second tunnel? 'But you can only go through it alone,' the man continued, 'because in the second tunnel, near our station, the ground sags, the floor has collapsed and now there's some kind of deep ravine where, according to local legend, a whole train fell through the ground. If you stand on one end of this ravine, it doesn't matter which, then you can't see the other end, and the light of even the strongest flashlight won't illuminate the depths. And so all sorts of blockheads say that it's a bottomless abyss. This ravine is our cemetery. We put all our corpses in there.'

Artyom started to feel ill when he realized that he would have to go back to the place where Khan had picked him up, to drag Bourbon's rat-gnawed body to the station and then to the ravine in the second tunnel. He tried to convince himself that throwing the corpse into the ravine was the same, in essence, as throwing it into a tunnel because you couldn't call either one a burial. But just when he was ready to believe that leaving everything as it was was the best solution to the situation, Bourbon's face appeared in front of his eyes with amazing clarity saying, 'I've died.' Artyom immediately was drenched with sweat. He got up with difficulty, put his new machine gun on his shoulder and said: 'OK, I'm off. I promised him. We had an agreement. I need to.' And with that he started to walk down the hall with stiff legs and onto the iron stairs which led down to the tunnel from the platform.

It was necessary to turn on his flashlight even before he went down the stairs. Thundering down the stairs, Artyom stopped dead for a moment, not wanting to step any further. A heavy air blew a rotting smell in his face, and for an instant his muscles refused to obey him. He tried to force himself to take another step. When he overcame his fear and repulsion and started to walk on, a heavy palm was placed on his shoulder. He cried out in surprise and turned around sharply, his chest tight, understanding that he wouldn't have time to grab the machine gun from his shoulder, he wouldn't have time for anything . . .

It was Khan.

'Don't be scared,' he said to Artyom to calm him. 'I was just testing you. You don't need to go. Your friend's body isn't there anymore.'

Artyom stared at him uncomprehendingly.

'While you were sleeping, I completed the funeral rite. You have no reason to go. The tunnel is empty.' And, turning his back to Artyom, Khan wandered back toward the arches.

Feeling enormous relief, the young man hurried after him. Catching up to Khan in ten paces, Artyom asked him in an emotional voice: 'But why did you do that and why didn't you tell me? You told me yourself that it didn't matter if he stayed in the tunnel or if he was brought to the station.'

'For me it doesn't matter at all.' Khan shrugged his shoulders. 'But to you it was important. I know that your journey has a purpose and that your path is long and difficult. I don't understand what your mission is but its burden will be too heavy for you alone so I decided to help you a bit.' He looked over at Artyom with a smile.

When they had returned to the fire and sat down on the creased tarpaulin, Artyom couldn't help but ask: 'What did you mean when you mentioned my mission? Did I say something in my sleep?'

'No, my friend, you were silent as you slept. But I had a vision and in it I was asked to help by a person who shares part of my name. I was warned of your arrival, and that's why I went out to meet you and picked you up, when you were crawling along with your friend's corpse.'

'That's why?' Artyom looked at him distrustfully. 'I thought it was because you heard shots . . .'

'I heard the shots, there was a loud echo here. But you don't really think that I would go into the tunnel every time I hear a shot? I would have come to the end of my life's path a lot sooner and completely ignominiously if I had done so. But this was an exception.'

'And what about the person who shares part of your name?'

'I can't say who that is, I've never seen him before and have never spoken with him but you know him. You ought to understand this yourself. I've only seen him once and even then not in real life but I immediately felt his colossal strength. He commanded me to help a youth who would come from the northern tunnel and your image stood before me. This was all a dream, but the feeling that it was real was so great that when I woke up I couldn't make out the difference between dream and reality. This powerful man with a bright shaved head, dressed all in white . . . You know him?'

At this point Artyom shook and it was as if everything was swimming before him, and the image that Khan was describing was clear in his mind. The man who shared half a name with his rescuer . . . was Hunter! Khan, Hun . . . Artyom had had a similar vision: when he couldn't decide whether to embark on this journey, he saw Hunter but not in the long black raincoat which he'd worn at VDNKh VDNKh on that memorable day, but in the formless snowy-white garments. on that memorable day, but in the formless snowy-white garments.

'Yes. I know this man,' Artyom said, looking at Khan in a totally new way.

'He invaded my dreams and I usually never forgive that. But everything was different with him,' Khan said distractedly. 'He needed my help just as you did, and he didn't order me to do it, didn't ask me to submit to his will but it was more like he was asking me persistently. He wasn't able to crawl inside and wander through someone else's thoughts, but he was having a hard time, a very hard time. He was thinking about you in desperation and needed a helping hand, a shoulder to lean on. I extended a hand to him and gave him my shoulder. I went to meet you.'

Artyom was buried in thoughts that were seething and floating up to his consciousness one after the other and dissolving, never making it into words, and then sinking back down to the depths of his mind. His tongue was stiff and the young man took a long time to conjure up even a word. Could this man have really known of his arrival beforehand? Could Hunter have somehow warned him? Was Hunter alive or had he been turned into a bodyless shadow? He was going to have to believe in this nightmarish and delirious story of the netherworld that had been described by Khan - but it was easier and more pleasant to tell himself that the man was just crazy. But the most important thing was that this man knew about the task that faced him - he had called it a 'mission' and though he was probably having a hard time figuring out what it was, he had understood its importance and gravity.

'Where are you going?' Khan asked Artyom quietly, calmly looking him in the eye as though he was reading his thoughts. 'Tell me where your path lies and I will help you make your next step towards your goal if it is within my power. He asked me to do that.'

'Polis,' Artyom exhaled. 'I need to get to Polis.'

'And how do you intend to get there from this G.o.dforsaken station?' Khan inquired. 'My friend, you should have gone up to the Ring from Prospect Mir to Kurskaya or to Kievskaya.'

'The Hansa are there and I don't know anyone there so I wouldn't be able to get through. And anyway, now I can't return to Prospect Mir. I'm afraid that I won't be able to stand another journey through that tunnel. I was thinking of getting to Turgenevskaya. I looked at an old map and it says that there's a pa.s.sage there to Sretensky Bulvar. There's a half-built tunnel there and you can get to Trubnaya through it.' Artyom took the charred map out of his pocket. 'From Trubnaya there's a pa.s.sage to Tsvetnoi Bulvar, I saw it on the map and from there, if everything is fine, you can get to Polis directly.'

'No,' Khan said sadly, shaking his head. 'You won't get to Polis via that route. The map is lying. They printed them way before everything happened. They describe metro lines that were never fully built, they describe stations that have collapsed, burying hundreds of innocents and they don't say anything about the frightening dangers that are hidden along the way and will make most itineraries impossible. Your map is as stupid and naive as a three-year-old child. Give it to me.' He held out his hand.

Artyom obediently gave him the piece of paper. Khan immediately screwed up the map and threw it into the fire. Artyom thought that this was a bit excessive but had decided not to argue about it, when Khan said: 'And now show me the map that you found in your friend's rucksack.'

Rummaging through his things, Artyom found the map but he wasn't in a rush to give it to Khan, thinking about the unfortunate fate that may lie ahead of it. He didn't want to be left without any map. Khan noticed his trepidation and hurried to rea.s.sure him: 'I won't do anything to it, don't worry. And trust me, I never do anything without a reason. You might have the impression that some of my actions have no point and are even a little crazy. But there is a point. You just don't get it, because your perception and understanding of the world is limited. You are only at the beginning of your path. You are too young to really know some things.'

Artyom gave Khan Bourbon's map - he didn't have the strength to object. It was a yellowed piece of card the size of a postcard and it had pretty sparkling b.a.l.l.s on it and the words 'Happy New Year 2007!'

'It's very heavy,' Khan said hoa.r.s.ely, and Artyom turned his attention to Khan's palm which held the piece of card. It suddenly fell to the ground as though the card weighed more than a kilo. A second ago, Artyom hadn't noticed anything heavy about it when he held it in his hand. Paper is paper.

'This map is much wiser than yours,' Khan said. 'It contains such knowledge that I don't believe that it belonged to the person who was travelling with you. It's not even that it is marked up with all these notations and signs, although they probably say a lot. No, it has something about it . . .'

His words broke off sharply.

Artyom looked up and peered at Khan. Khan's forehead was carved with deep wrinkles, and the dying fire appeared to flash in his eyes. His face had changed so much that Artyom was frightened and wanted to get out of the station as soon as possible, to go anywhere, even back through the terrible tunnel that he had managed to get through with such difficulty.

'Give it back to me.' Khan wasn't asking but was rather giving an order. 'I will give you another one and you won't know the difference. And I'll throw in anything else you want,' he continued.

'Take it, it's yours.' Artyom easily yielded it, lightly spitting as he uttered the words of agreement.

Khan suddenly moved away from the fire so that his face was in the shadows. Artyom guessed that he was trying to take control of himself and didn't want him to be witness to his inner struggle.

'You see, my friend.' His voice resounded in the darkness, sort of weakly and indecisively, without the power and will it had possessed just a moment before. 'That's not a map. I mean, that's not simply a map. It's a Guide to the metro. Yes, yes, there's no doubt that's what it is. The person who holds it can get across the whole metro in two days because this map is . . . alive or something. It will tell you itself where to go and how to go, it will warn you of dangers . . . That is, it will lead you on your way. That's why it's called a Guide,' Khan moved towards to the fire again, 'with a capital letter. I've heard of them. There are only a few of them in the whole metro and this may be the last one. It's the legacy of one of the most powerful magicians of the last era.'

'The one who sits at the deepest point in the metro?' Artyom decided to flash some knowledge at Khan but immediately stopped short. Khan's face went dark.

'Never speak lightly about things you don't know anything about! You don't know what happens at the deepest point in the metro - and even I only know a little, and G.o.d forbid we ever find out. But I can swear to you that whatever happened there dramatically differs from whatever you heard from your friends. So don't repeat other people's idle imaginings because one day you'll have to pay for it. And it has nothing to do with the Guide.'

'Well, anyway,' Artyom hurried to a.s.sure him, not wanting to miss a chance to switch the conversation to a less dangerous tack, 'you can keep the Guide for yourself. After all, I don't know how to use it. And then I'm so grateful to you for rescuing me that even giving you this map doesn't seem to repay the favour.'

'That's true,' the wrinkles on Khan's face smoothed out, and his voice became soft again. 'You won't know how to use it for a long while yet. So if you give it to me, we'll be quits. I have a normal map of the metro lines and if you want I can copy the markings of the Guide onto it and you can have it instead. And then . . .' He fumbled in his bags. 'I can offer you this thing,' and he brought out a strangely shaped flashlight. 'It doesn't need batteries. It's made so that you just charge it like this manually - can you see the two little k.n.o.bs? You have to press them with your fingers and they manufacture the current themselves and the flashlight shines. It's not too bright of course but there are sometimes situations when this beam seems brighter than the mercury lamps at Polis . . . It has saved me many times, and I hope that it will prove useful. Take it, it's yours. Take it, take it, the trade isn't fair anyway - it's me who owes you and not the reverse.'

In Artyom's opinion, the exchange was actually unusually advantageous. What did he need with a map with mystical properties, if he was deaf to its voice? He would have thrown it away anyway, after turning it over again and again and vainly attempting to read the curlicues painted on it.

'So now, the route which you sketched out won't take you anywhere except into an abyss.' Khan continued the interrupted conversation, holding the map with great care in his hands. 'Here you go, take my old one and follow it.' He held out a tiny map, printed on the other side of an old pocket calendar. 'You were talking about the pa.s.sage from Turgenevskaya to Sretensky Bulvar? Don't tell me you don't know the evil reputation of this station and the long tunnel that goes from here to Kitai Gorod?' Gorod?'

'Well, I have been told that you mustn't go into it alone, that it's only safe to go through in a caravan, and I was thinking to go in a caravan until Turgenevskaya and then to run off from them into the transfer pa.s.sage - they're not going to run after me after all . . .' Artyom answered, feeling vague thoughts swarming in his head.

'There isn't a transfer pa.s.sage there. The arches are walled up. You didn't know that?'

How could he have forgotten! Of course, he had been told about this before but it had flown out of his head . . . The Reds were frightened of the demons in that tunnel and they walled up the only way to Turgenevskaya.