“A devona is a servant whom a powerful magician creates for himself.” Alisher’s voice was as steady as if he were giving a lecture. “The magician finds some halfwit who has no family and fills him with Power from the Twilight. He pumps him full of pure energy…and the result is a stupid, but very healthy man who possesses magical abilities… No, he’s not quite a man anymore. But he’s not an Other-all of his power is borrowed, inserted into him by the magician at some time. A devona serves his master faithfully, he can work miracles…but his head still doesn’t work any better than it did before. Usually the magician chooses people who are mentally retarded, or have Down syndrome-they’re not aggressive and they’re very devoted. The power inserted into them gives them good health and a long life.”

We didn’t say anything. Neither of us had expected such a frank answer from Alisher.

“The common people think a devona is possessed by spirits,” he went on. “And that’s almost true: It’s like taking an empty, cracked vessel and giving it new content. Only, instead of intelligence it is usually filled with devotion. But Gesar’s not like all the others. Not even like other Light Ones. He cured my father. Not completely…even he can’t do absolutely anything. At one time my father was a total idiot. I think he suffered from imbecility-obviously owing to some kind of organic damage to the brain. Gesar healed my father’s body, and in time he acquired normal human reason. He remembered that he had once been a complete imbecile. He knew that if Gesar didn’t fill him with fresh Power regularly, his body would reject his reason again. But he didn’t serve Gesar out of fear. He said he would give his life for Gesar because he had helped him to become aware. To become a man. And also, of course, because a mindless fool like him now had a wife and a son. He was very afraid that I would grow up an idiot. But it was all right. Only…only the people remember everything. That my father was a devona, that he had lived too long in this world, that once he was an imbecile who couldn’t even wipe his own nose-they remembered all that. My mother’s family rejected her when she left to join my father. And they didn’t acknowledge me, either. They forbade their children to play with me. I am the son of a devona. The son of a man who should have lived the life of an animal. I have nowhere to go back to. My home is here now. My job is to do what Gesar tells me to do.”

“Wow…” Semyon said quietly. “That’s a tough deal…really tough.” Then he subtly changed tack. “I remember how we drove back those counterrevolutionary bandits, the basmaches. You don’t mind me saying that, do you?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Well, maybe now they’re not bandits any longer, but national heroes…”

“When Gesar was a commissar in Turkestan, my father fought in his detachment,” Alisher said with pride.

“He fought there?” Semyon asked excitedly. “What year was that in?”

“The early twenties.”

“No, I was later…In Garm, in twenty-nine, when the basmaches broke through from abroad.”

They launched into a lively discussion of events from days of long ago. From what I understood, it seemed that Alisher’s father and Semyon had almost crossed paths: They had both fought alongside Gesar when he was on active military service in the Red Army. To be quite honest, I didn’t really understand how Gesar could have taken part in the events of the Civil War. The Great Light One couldn’t possibly have bombarded the White Guards and the basmaches with Fireballs! Apparently not all Others had been indifferent to that revolution. Some of them had taken one side or the other in the struggle. And the great Gesar and his comrades had gone dashing about the steppes of Asia to fight whoever had taken the other side.

And I also thought that now I could probably guess why Gesar and Rustam had quarreled.

Chapter 2

EARLY IN THE MORNING IS THE RIGHT TIME TO ARRIVE IN A NEW CITY. By train, on a plane-it makes no difference. The day seems to start with a brand-new leaf.

On the plane Alisher became taciturn and thoughtful again. I half-dozed almost all the way through the flight, but he looked out the window as if he could see something interesting on the distant ground, enveloped in night. Then just before we landed, when we flew out into the morning and the plane started its descent, he asked, “Anton, would you mind if we separate for a while?”

I gave the young magician a curious look. Gesar’s instructions hadn’t involved anything of the kind. And Alisher had already told me everything about his family and friends-or, rather, about the fact that he didn’t have any.

But then, it wasn’t hard to guess what a young guy who had left his homeland at the age of just over twenty might be thinking about.

“What’s her name?” I asked.

“Adolat,” he replied without trying to deny anything. “I’d like to see her. To know what happened to her.”

I nodded and asked, “Does that name mean something?”

“All names mean something. Didn’t you ask Gesar to give you knowledge of the Uzbek language?” Alisher asked in surprise.

“He didn’t suggest it,” I mumbled. But really, why hadn’t I thought of it? And how could Gesar have goofed so badly? We Others learn the major languages of the world as a matter of course-naturally, with the help of magic. Less common languages can be lodged in your mind by a more powerful and experienced magician. Gesar could have done it. Alisher couldn’t.

“That means he didn’t think you needed it,” Alisher said thoughtfully. “Interesting…”

It seemed as if Alisher couldn’t imagine Gesar making a mistake.

“Will I really need the Uzbek language?” I asked.

“It’s unlikely. Almost everyone knows Russian… And anyway, nobody would take you for an Uzbek,” Alisher said with a smile. “Adolat means ‘justice.’ A beautiful name, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I agreed.

“She’s an ordinary human being,” Alisher murmured. “But she has a good name. A Light name. We went to school together…”

The plane shuddered as the undercarriage was lowered.

“Of course, go and see her,” I said. “I think I can find the way to the Watch office on my own.”

“Don’t think it’s only because of the girl,” Alisher said, and smiled again. “I think it would be best for you to talk to the members of the local Watch yourself. You can show them Gesar’s letter and ask for their advice… And I’ll get there an hour or an hour and a half later.”

“Weren’t you on very friendly terms with your colleagues, then?” I asked quietly.

Alisher didn’t answer-and that answered my question.

I walked out of the airport terminal building, which had clearly been reconstructed recently and looked absolutely new. The only things I had with me were my carry-on bag and a small plastic bag from the duty-free shop. I stopped and looked around. The sky was a blinding blue and the heat was already building up, although it was still early in the morning. There weren’t many passengers-our flight was the first since the previous evening, and the next one wasn’t expected for about an hour. I was immediately surrounded by private taxi drivers, all offering their services in their own particular way:

“Come on, let’s go, dear man!”

“I’ll show you the whole city, you’ll see the sights for nothing!”

“Where are we going, then?”

“Get in, my car’s comfortable, it has air-conditioning!”

I shook my head and looked at an elderly Uzbek taxi driver who was waiting calmly beside an old Volga with the black-and-white checkerboard squares of a taxi stenciled on its side.

“Are you free, Father?” I asked, rather formally in deference to his age.

“A man’s free as long as he believes in his own freedom,” the taxi driver replied philosophically. He spoke Russian very well, without any accent at all. “Get in.”