say anything. I was remembering a cartoon film that my little Nadya was very fond of. About the young King Arthur. About the funny, forgetful magician Merlin. I imagined the sequel, about how Arthur, egged on by Merlin, orders wailing, screaming infants who can't understand what's going on to be loaded into an old, useless ship...
So this was the symbol of purity and nobility? The much-vaunted King Arthur of glorious legend?
'Not much like that fine young boy in the warm-hearted Disney cartoon, is it?' Lermont asked, as if he had read my thoughts. 'Or like that eccentric magician who took him under his wing? But you mustn't blame Arthur. It was his destiny. That was the kind of teacher he had.'
'How did Mordred survive?' I asked.
Lermont's eyes glinted ironically.
'That's hard to say. How did the boy Arthur become heir to the throne? Perhaps Mordred didn't survive. But there were people who told some boy that he was Arthur's son and his father had tried to kill him when he was a baby. What does it matter who he really was by birth? The important thing was who he thought he was.'
'Is he still alive?'
'Mordred? Of course not. He was only a human being. And so was Arthur. He departed this world a long time ago.'
'And Merlin?'
'He withdrew into the Twilight for ever...' Lermont said, with a nod. 'But Merlin was a genuinely great magician. I think he was the greatest magician of all time. I think,' he said with a sideways glance at Semyon, 'that Merlin was a zero-point magician.'
I nodded. I understood that. A magical 'temperature' of zero. Merlin didn't contribute a single drop to the streams of Power that permeate the world, he had absolutely none of it. And that was precisely why he was a great magician. He absorbed the Power of others, the Power that was diffused in space - and used it to work miracles.
No other magician so powerful had been born in the world since then.
But one such enchantress had been born. My daughter, Nadya.
'Merlin didn't leave many artefacts,' Lermont continued. 'He created them playfully, as if it cost him no effort at all. Excalibur, of course. Merlin's cloak. Merlin's chalice. Merlin's crystal. Merlin's staff.'
'He didn't bother himself too much about finding names for them, then?' Semyon said, with a laugh. Then he suddenly fell silent.
'Merlin's Rune?' I asked.
Lermont shook his head.
'Merlin's Rune is only a key, kept in Merlin's grave, twenty-two miles from... from what is believed to be the grave of Thomas the Rhymer. Naturally, Merlin himself is not in the grave, but some traces of the great magician are preserved there. You may think me sentimental, but I often visit my own grave. Although I have never liked going to Merlin's. I simply relied on the protective spells. But that was a mistake. The grave has been robbed.'
'I thought Merlin's grave was in Brittany,' said Semyon.
'No, it lies to the south of Edinburgh. Near the little town of Peebles, at the confluence of the Tweed and the Powsel. It's not very far from here.'
'And what does this Rune consist of?' I asked.
'A stone. Charged to the hilt with magic and scratched all over with almost illegible signs. Merlin's Rune...' Lermont hesitated and looked round us all, but continued nonetheless ' . . is the key, or rather, the main part of the key that allows access to a hiding place that Merlin once set up on the bottom of a lake. The lake has vanished long ago, but the hiding place, of course, is still there.'
'A hiding place in the Twilight?' I asked.
'Yes.'
'Fifth level?'
Lermont sighed.
'I could get down to the fifth level myself, my young friend. Or I could call in Geser. Or Andrew. Higher Ones can be found who arc capable of reaching the fifth level. But this hiding place was made by Merlin. Its right down at the very bottom. Which means its on the seventh level.'
'Oh, my sainted aunt!' Semyon exclaimed in delight. 'The seventh! So the seventh level does exist! It's not a fairy tale, then?'
'It exists all right. Only I don't know anybody alive on this planet who is capable of getting there...' Lermont shrugged and spread his hands wide.
'What about the key? And the Rune?'
'As for the Rune ... I've read the inscription ?it gives instruc tions on how to get past a sentinel on the fifth level. But after that you have to go further. I can't do that.'