Basically, it was all pure improvisation. Some filthy substance with arsenic had been found in the chaikhana, some kind of rat poison. And someone had given the order to feed us poisoned pilaf. It's not possible to kill a powerful Other that way, but they could easily have weakened and distracted us.
'I'll make lagman noodles out of you,' I promised the waiter. 'And feed them to your little brother. Is the chaikhana being watched?'
'I... I don't know...' The waiter had realised that, despite the way I looked, he ought to speak Russian. 'I don't know, they ordered me to do it!'
'Get out!' I said, standing up. 'There won't be any tip.'
The waiter dashed for the door of the kitchen. And the customers started leaving the chaikhana, deciding to take the opportunity not to pay. What had frightened them so badly? What I said, or the way I said it?
'Anton, don't burn a hole in your trousers,' said Alisher.
I looked down ?there was a hissing fireball spinning in my hand. I had got so furious that the spell had slipped off the tips of my fingers into the launch stage.
'I ought to burn down this nest of vipers, just to teach them a lesson,' I hissed through my teeth.
Alisher didn't say anything. He smiled awkwardly and frowned by turns. I understood exactly what he wanted to say. That these people were not to blame. They had been ordered to do it, and they couldn't refuse. That this modest chaikhana was all that they had. That it fed two or three large families with little children and old grandparents. But he didn't say anything, because in this case I had a right to start a little fire. A man who tries to poison three Light Magicians deserves to be shown what's what, to teach him and other people a lesson. We're Light Ones, not saints ...
'The shurpa was good...' Alisher said quietly.
'Let's leave via the Twilight,' I said, transforming the fireball into a thin plume of flame and directing it at the dish of pilaf. The rice and meat were reduced to glowing ashes, together with the arsenic. 'I don't want to show myself in the doorway. These bastards work too quickly'
Alisher nodded gratefully and got up, stamped on the embers in the dish and emptied two teapots on them just to be sure.
'The green tea was good too,' I agreed. 'Listen, the tea looks pretty ordinary. Pretty poor stuff, to be honest. But it tastes really good!'
'The important thing is to brew it right,' Alisher replied, relieved by the change of subject. 'When a teapot is fifty years old and it hasn't been washed once...' He paused, but when he didn't see an expression of disgust on my face, he went on. 'That's the cunning part! This clever crust forms on the inside ?tannins, essential oils, flavonoids...'
'Are there really flavonoids in tea?' I asked in surprise, hanging the bag over my shoulder again. I'd almost forgotten it. The underwear wouldn't have mattered, but the bag also contained the selection of battle amulets that Geser had given me and five thick wads of dollars!
'Well, maybe I'm confusing things...'Alisher admitted. 'But it's the crust that does it, it's like brewing tea inside a shell of tea...'
Taking Afandi under the arms in the way that had already become a habit, we entered the Twilight. The cunning old man didn't argue: on the contrary, he pulled up his legs and dangled between us, giggling repulsively and crying out: 'Hup! Hup!' I thought that if, despite what Geser's memories told me, Afandi really was Rustam, I wouldn't let his age prevent me from giving him an earful of good old vernacular.
Part Two CHAPTER 6
WE DROVE ON to the Plateau of Demons at half past three in the morning. On the way we passed an aul, a tiny settlement in the mountains - less than ten small clay-walled houses set back a little way from the road. There was a bonfire on the only small street, with people crowding round it ?ten or twenty of them, no more than that. The recent earthquake had evidently fright ened the inhabitants of the aul and they were afraid to spend the night in their houses.
Alisher was still driving. I was dozing on the back seat and thinking about Edgar.
What had made him go against the Watches and the Inquisition? Why had he broken every possible taboo and involved human beings in his machinations?