‘I promised him…’ Artyom sighed. ‘We had an agreement…’

‘My friend!’ the unfamiliar man said frowning. ‘I’m starting to lose my patience. My rules don’t tell me to help the dead when there’re enough living people that need help. I am returning to Sukharevskaya. I’m getting rheumatism from spending a long time in this tunnel. If you want to see your companion as soon as possible I advise you to stay here. The rats and the other lovely creatures will help you with that. And if you are concerned about the legal aspect of the question, then the contract is considered terminated if there is no objection from the other party.’

‘But I can’t just leave him here!’ Artyom quietly tried to convince his rescuer. ‘This was a living being. Leave him to the rats?’

‘This, by the looks of it, was indeed a living person,’ the man responded, inspecting the body sceptically. ‘But now it is definitely a dead person and that isn’t the same thing. OK, if you want, we can return here and you can make a cremation bonfire or whatever it is that you do in such circumstances. Now, get up!’ he ordered and Artyom got to his feet reluctantly.

Despite his protests, the stranger decisively pulled the rucksack off Bourbon’s back and threw it over his shoulder and, supporting Artyom, he quickly walked forward. At first Artyom had a hard time walking but it was as if with each step the old man was giving Artyom injections of his ebullient energy. The pain in his feet subsided, and his rational mind returned gradually. He was looking intently into the face of his rescuer. By the looks of him, the man was over fifty, but he looked surprisingly fresh and robust. His arms, which were supporting Artyom, were firm and didn’t once tremble with fatigue the whole way back. His short hair was turning grey and his little, sculpted beard surprised Artyom – the man looked too well groomed for the metro, especially given the godforsaken place where it seemed this man lived.

‘What happened with you, friend?’ the unfamiliar man asked Artyom. ‘It doesn’t look like an attack, but more like he was poisoned… And I really want to hope that it’s not what I think it is,’ he added, not going into what exactly it was that he feared.

‘No… He died by himself,’ Artyom said, not having the strength to explain the circumstances of Bourbon’s death, which he himself was only just starting to get his head around. ‘It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later.’

The tunnel suddenly widened and they appeared to have arrived at the station. Something seemed strange to Artyom here, something unusual and a few seconds later he understood what it was.

‘It’s what – dark here?’ he asked his companion in dismay.

‘There’s no authorities here,’ the man replied. ‘So there’s no one to provide light for the people. That’s why whoever needs light has to get it himself. Some can, some can’t. But don’t be afraid. Luckily I’m acquainted with the top ranks,’ and he quickly climbed onto the platform and held out a hand to Artyom.

They turned into the first archway and went into a hall. There was only one long passage, a colonnade with arches on both sides, and the usual iron walls, the stalled escalators. Barely lighted by weak little fires, and most of it plunged in darkness, Sukharevskaya was an oppressive vision and very sad. Crowds of people swarmed around the fires, some were sleeping on the floor, and strange half-bent figures in rags wandered from fire to fire. They were all clustered in the middle of the hall as far from the tunnels as they could be.

The bonfire to which the stranger led Artyom was noticeably brighter than the rest of them and it was located in the centre of the platform.

‘One day this station will burn to the ground,’ Artyom thought aloud, looking despondently at the hall.

‘In four hundred and twenty days,’ his companion said calmly. ‘So, it’s best you leave before then. In any case, that’s what I plan to do.’

‘How do you know?’ Artyom asked and froze, remembering in a flash all that he had heard about magicians and psychics and scrutinizing the face of his companion – looking for the markings of unearthly knowledge.

‘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 accumulated 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 assignation 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.

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. 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 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.