warmth, but hot air, the same as a blazing bonfire gives off.
He wasn't so brainless after all. I was far more stupid, striking with the sign of death at a being that wasn't even alive.
'Ai, you Satan, you mangy dog, vicious offspring of a sick tape worm!' I heard someone shout from behind the deva. Old man Afandi had somehow managed to enter the second level of the Twilight! And not only that - he had taken a firm grip of the deva's tail and was trying to drag it away from me!
The monster turned round slowly, as if it couldn't believe that anyone would dare to treat it with such contempt. It stopped scratching, and raised its massive hand above the old man's head in a clenched fist. It would drive him into the ground up to his ears!
I sifted frantically through the clutter that had accumulated in my head. Everything to do with golems, from the first classes to the tall stories I'd heard from Semyon. The deva was just another golem. Golems could be destroyed! Golems... golems... cabbal istic golems, golems with goals and free will, golems for fun and amusement, wooden golems... the impossibility of creating a plastic golem... Olga had once told me ... a skill that no one needed any more... the spell wasn't that difficult in principle, but it took a lot of Power...
'Dust and Ashes' I shouted, throwing out one hand towards the deva.
Now everything depended on whether I'd made the sign correctly. The standard position widely used in magical passes, with the thumb gripped between the next two fingers, but with the little finger extended forward, parallel to the thumb. That month of training in stretching our fingers had certainly been well spent. We would be the envy of any pianist...
The monster froze and then slowly turned round to face me. The red light in its eyes went out and the deva began whining shrilly, like a puppy dog when someone steps on its paw. It opened its hand and the penis fell off and shattered in a heap of sparks, like a firebrand that had flown out of a bonfire. Then the fingers on its hands started crumbling away. The deva had stopped whining now: it was sobbing, reaching its fingerless hands out towards me and shaking its blind-eyed head.
That was how the great magicians of the East used to subdue them...
I held the position with the sign of Dust and Ashes, allowing the Power to flow through me, on and on, for about three minutes in second-level Twilight time, until the deva was finally reduced to a handful of ash.
'Cold, isn't it?' said Afandi, hopping up and down. He walked up to the remains of the deva, held out his hands and rubbed them together as he warmed them. Then he spat on the ash and muttered, 'Ugh, you son of evil and father of abomination...'
'Thank you, Afandi,' I said as I got up off the frosty ground. It really was terribly cold on the second level. At least by some miracle I'd managed not to lose the bag with my things ?it was still hanging on my shoulder. Although... perhaps the miracle in question was an affinity spell cast by Svetlana? 'Thank you, Grandad. Let's get you of this place. It's hard for you to stay down here for very long.'
'Ai, thanks, O mighty warrior,' said Afandi, beaming. 'You thanked me? I shall take pride in that for the rest of my pointless life! The vanquisher of a deva has praised me!'
I took him by the elbow without saying a word and dragged him up to the first level. I'd put so much Power into destroying the deva that even I was finding it hard to stay in the Twilight.
Part Two CHAPTER 4
THE CHAIKHANA, OR tea hall, was gloomy and dirty. Fat bluebottles buzzed as they circled round the weak light bulbs in fly-spotted shades hanging from the ceiling. We were sitting on greasy bright-coloured cushions or small mattresses around a low table, only about fifteen centimetres high. The table was covered with a brightly patterned tablecloth, and it was dirty too.
In Russia a cafe like this would have been closed down in a moment. In Europe they would have put the owner in prison. In the USA the proprietor would have been hit with an absolutely massive fine. And in Japan the boss of an establishment like this would have committed seppuku out of a sense of