‘It’s very heavy,’ Khan said hoarsely, and Artyom turned his attention to Khan’s palm which held the piece of card. It suddenly fell to the ground as though the card weighed more than a kilo. A second ago, Artyom hadn’t noticed anything heavy about it when he held it in his hand. Paper is paper.

‘This map is much wiser than yours,’ Khan said. ‘It contains such knowledge that I don’t believe that it belonged to the person who was travelling with you. It’s not even that it is marked up with all these notations and signs, although they probably say a lot. No, it has something about it…’

His words broke off sharply.

Artyom looked up and peered at Khan. Khan’s forehead was carved with deep wrinkles, and the dying fire appeared to flash in his eyes. His face had changed so much that Artyom was frightened and wanted to get out of the station as soon as possible, to go anywhere, even back through the terrible tunnel that he had managed to get through with such difficulty.

‘Give it back to me.’ Khan wasn’t asking but was rather giving an order. ‘I will give you another one and you won’t know the difference. And I’ll throw in anything else you want,’ he continued.

‘Take it, it’s yours.’ Artyom easily yielded it, lightly spitting as he uttered the words of agreement.

Khan suddenly moved away from the fire so that his face was in the shadows. Artyom guessed that he was trying to take control of himself and didn’t want him to be witness to his inner struggle.

‘You see, my friend.’ His voice resounded in the darkness, sort of weakly and indecisively, without the power and will it had possessed just a moment before. ‘That’s not a map. I mean, that’s not simply a map. It’s a Guide to the metro. Yes, yes, there’s no doubt that’s what it is. The person who holds it can get across the whole metro in two days because this map is… alive or something. It will tell you itself where to go and how to go, it will warn you of dangers… That is, it will lead you on your way. That’s why it’s called a Guide,’ Khan moved towards to the fire again, ‘with a capital letter. I’ve heard of them. There are only a few of them in the whole metro and this may be the last one. It’s the legacy of one of the most powerful magicians of the last era.’

‘The one who sits at the deepest point in the metro?’ Artyom decided to flash some knowledge at Khan but immediately stopped short. Khan’s face went dark.

‘Never speak lightly about things you don’t know anything about! You don’t know what happens at the deepest point in the metro – and even I only know a little, and God forbid we ever find out. But I can swear to you that whatever happened there dramatically differs from whatever you heard from your friends. So don’t repeat other people’s idle imaginings because one day you’ll have to pay for it. And it has nothing to do with the Guide.’

‘Well, anyway,’ Artyom hurried to assure him, not wanting to miss a chance to switch the conversation to a less dangerous tack, ‘you can keep the Guide for yourself. After all, I don’t know how to use it. And then I’m so grateful to you for rescuing me that even giving you this map doesn’t seem to repay the favour.’

‘That’s true,’ the wrinkles on Khan’s face smoothed out, and his voice became soft again. ‘You won’t know how to use it for a long while yet. So if you give it to me, we’ll be quits. I have a normal map of the metro lines and if you want I can copy the markings of the Guide onto it and you can have it instead. And then…’ He fumbled in his bags. ‘I can offer you this thing,’ and he brought out a strangely shaped flashlight. ‘It doesn’t need batteries. It’s made so that you just charge it like this manually – can you see the two little knobs? You have to press them with your fingers and they manufacture the current themselves and the flashlight shines. It’s not too bright of course but there are sometimes situations when this beam seems brighter than the mercury lamps at Polis… It has saved me many times, and I hope that it will prove useful. Take it, it’s yours. Take it, take it, the trade isn’t fair anyway – it’s me who owes you and not the reverse.’

In Artyom’s opinion, the exchange was actually unusually advantageous. What did he need with a map with mystical properties, if he was deaf to its voice? He would have thrown it away anyway, after turning it over again and again and vainly attempting to read the curlicues painted on it.

‘So now, the route which you sketched out won’t take you anywhere except into an abyss.’ Khan continued the interrupted conversation, holding the map with great care in his hands. ‘Here you go, take my old one and follow it.’ He held out a tiny map, printed on the other side of an old pocket calendar. ‘You were talking about the passage from Turgenevskaya to Sretensky Bulvar? Don’t tell me you don’t know the evil reputation of this station and the long tunnel that goes from here to Kitai Gorod?’

‘Well, I have been told that you mustn’t go into it alone, that it’s only safe to go through in a caravan, and I was thinking to go in a caravan until Turgenevskaya and then to run off from them into the transfer passage – they’re not going to run after me after all…’ Artyom answered, feeling vague thoughts swarming in his head.

‘There isn’t a transfer passage there. The arches are walled up. You didn’t know that?’

How could he have forgotten! Of course, he had been told about this before but it had flown out of his head… The Reds were frightened of the demons in that tunnel and they walled up the only way to Turgenevskaya.

‘But is there no other passage there?’ he asked carefully.

‘No, and the map is silent about it. The passage to lines that are actually constructed doesn’t begin at Turgenevskaya. But even if the passage did exist I’m not sure that you have enough courage to separate from the group and go into it. Especially if you listen to the latest rumours about that lovely little place while you’re waiting to join the caravan.’

‘So what should I do?’ Artyom asked despondently, scrutinizing the little calendar.

‘It’s possible to get to Kitai Gorod. Oh, now that’s a curious station, and the morals there are very amusing – but there, at least, you won’t disappear without a trace in such a way that your closest friends wonder to themselves if you ever existed at all. At Turgenevskaya that can happen… From Kitai Gorod, follow me now,’ he was tracing a finger on the map, ‘it’s only two stations to Pushkinskaya, and there there’s a passage to Chekhovskaya, and another one there, and then you’re at Polis. That would be shorter than the route which you were planning.’

Artyom was moving his lips, counting the stations and transfers on each route. However he counted though, the route that Khan suggested was much shorter and less dangerous and it wasn’t clear why Artyom hadn’t thought of it himself. So there was no choice left.

‘You’re right,’ he said finally. ‘And how often do caravans go there?’

‘I’m afraid not often. And there is one small but annoying detail: in order to go into the southern tunnel to Kitai Gorod, you have to come to our little half-station from the north,’ and he pointed at the damned tunnel which Artyom had only barely made it out of. ‘Basically, the last caravan to the south left a while ago now, and we’re hoping that there’s another group planning on coming through soon. Talk to some people, ask around, but don’t talk too much. There’re some cutthroats around here and they can’t be trusted… OK, I’ll go with you so you don’t get into anything stupid,’ he added after thinking it over.

Artyom was going to put on his rucksack when Khan stopped him with a gesture: ‘Don’t worry about your things. People are so scared of me here that no riff-raff would dare even look at my lair. And while you’re here, you’re under my protection.’

Artyom left his rucksack by the fire but he took his machine gun with him anyway, not wanting to be separated from his new treasure, and he hurried to follow Khan who was walking in a leisurely fashion towards the fires that were burning on the other side of the hall. He noticed with surprise how under-nourished tramps, wrapped in stinking rags scuttled away from them as they passed and Artyom thought that people really were probably afraid of Khan here. He wondered why…