I turned round, and saw Lermont. But I didn't see him as a stout middle-aged gentleman. I saw him in his Twilight form.
Thomas the Rhymer had become a white-haired giant almost three metres tall. His skin radiated a murky white light. He was grabbing bunches of white and blue light out of the air, mixing them together in his gigantic hands as if he was making snow balls, and throwing them off into the far distance. I followed the trajectory ?the hissing bundles of flame went flying over the flat plain, sweeping aside the rare trees in their path, and fizzled out in a dark cloud that was moving rapidly away. Burning trees marked the shots that had missed.
'Foma!' I shouted. 'I'm here!'
The giant mixed up a truly immense sphere in his hands and grunted as he hurled it after the dark cloud. He turned round.
He had an amazing face. Kind and harsh, beautiful and fright ening, all at the same time.
'The young magician has passed the barriers, 'Thomas rumbled. 'The young magician has hastened to come to our aid...'
He was little bit crazy just at that moment ?like all Others who take on their deep Twilight forms in the heat of battle
Thomas covered the distance between us in just a few steps. It seemed to me that the very ground shook under his feet.
'They didn't manage it, my friend...'The ancient bard lowered a hand as big as a shovel onto my shoulder. 'They only got as far as the sixth level. Thomas drove them away, he did. Thomas drove them away, like cowardly little puppy dogs.'
Lermont leaned his face down to me and whispered confiden tially:
'But only because his enemies didn't fight. They'd been here long enough to realise that they couldn't get to the seventh level of the Twilight.'
'How many of them were there, Thomas?'
'Three, my friend, three. The right number.'
'Did you get a look at them?'
'Only a short one,' Thomas said with a shake of his head. 'You can't read an aura properly here, but Thomas managed. A Dark Other ?an undead vampire. A Light Other ?a sorcerer-healer. An Inquisitor Other ?a battle magician. Three came together for the legacy of Merlin. Three almost got through. Three Higher Others. But even Higher Ones cannot get though to the seventh level of the Twilight.'
'A Dark One, a Light One and an Inquisitor?' I asked in amazement. 'All together?'
'The legacy of Merlin is enticing to all. Even Light Ones. Why else do you think, young magician, that Thomas wished to keep your arrival secret from his Watch?'
'Are they all men?' I asked.
'All men. All women. How should Thomas know? Thomas didn't touch them. Thomas just saw a little bit of their auras.'
'Thomas, we have to go,' I said, looking into the giant's eyes. ' Thomas, it's time to go back. Time to go home.'
' Why?' the giant asked in surprise. 'It's good here, young magi cian. You can live here. A magical land, a kingdom of fairies and magicians... Thomas can settle here, Thomas can find his haven...'
Thomas Lermont, you are the head of a Night Watch! The whole of Scotland is under your protection! Witches, vampires, ghouls ?you're not going to let them all run riot, are you?'
Thomas said nothing, and for a moment I thought he would refuse to go, that he really had found the fairy kingdom to which, legend said, he had withdrawn four hundred years earlier.
Of course, the Dark Ones wouldn't have run riot. Help would have come ?from England, from Ireland, from Wales. And Light Ones would have been found in Europe and America to come to the aid of the orphaned Scottish Watch.
But would Lermont's disappearance be the final drop that trig gered Egor's transformation into a Mirror Magician?
'Let's go, my young friend,' Lermont said. 'You're right, you're right, and I am in too much of a hurry ... it is not yet time... But listen, young magician! Listen to the ringing of the silence, to the singing of the crickets in the grass, to the night birds beating the air with their wings...'
Either he made me hear it, or it was all real, but through the giant's noisy breathing I heard the silence and the sounds.
'See how hotly the fire blazes, how the silvery leaves catch the moonlight, how dark the grass is beneath our feet... ' Lermont whispered. 'You could live here...'
And I saw.
'Not many Others have been here when they were still