Vitali Sertakov

3 ON THE TRAIL OF THE GREAT DYING
The reinforced Turkish caliphate, betrayed by the ostensible convert Karamaz, prepares to attack Russia with the help of a weapon seized from the American fleet. Only a rapid counter offensive can save the homeland but there is little prospect of victory as the enemy is much stronger. The president organises a campaign to the periphery of the yellow swamps. There, in the former underground state strategic reserves, the mutants keep old preserved technology and equipment. Arthur manages to use these reserves to equip an army of twenty thousand men. For the final victory, however, he needs a further weapon. The Awakened Demon heads for a mysterious Chinese temple hidden in the bunker labyrinth of a missile base.

Arthur is having to act alone again. Getting into the Temple of the Nine Hearts is difficult enough; getting out again is almost impossible. Arthur battles against mutant sentries and solves the deadly riddle of the labyrinth. He is admitted to the temple as a novice. In order to obtain the flying snakes, the monks’ secret weapon, as his reward Arthur first has to compete against the world’s best mercenaries. Yet victory alone is not enough, he also has to sacrifice his friends.

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In the meantime the "Russian Turk" Karamaz is gathering together the most awful chemical weapon from all over the world - the remains of the (flawed) vaccine against AIDS responsible for the great dying. His allies are those once banned by the governor of St. Petersburg. The cunning leader of the Gomindan, a Chinese merchant ruler, gets in his way, however. The Chinese ruler has a map of the vaccine reserves in Shanghai. The race between Karamaz and Arthur for this chemical weapon begins.

At the same time, however, Karamaz’s mercenary armies are threatening the governments to the south. And the enemy has had a murderer infiltrate the State Hermitage. As if by a miracle, the bodyguards manage to save the president’s family and the telepaths’ children. Arthur asks Germans, Poles, Czechs and Ukrainians to help him as allies in the fight against Karamaz. He puts down a revolt in the southern states. He establishes lines of defence from the North Caucasus through to Moldavia. Victory and protection from the yellow swamps are absolutely dependent on the vaccine of which there is still a little in Moscow. Arthur needs to make peace with the lake magicians in order to reach the former capital, now transformed into a nasty primeval forest. And again he has to sacrifice more than one friend.

The German allies are able to restore an old mine sweeper. Arthur puts a crew together and sails around Europe to Sicily where the old American fleet seized by Karamaz is said to be rusting away. Their missiles have to be defused before Karamaz is able to deploy them. The odds are uneven. The enemy has a great many armed ships lying in his bay. Time for Arthur to deploy the secret Chinese weapon and release the flying snakes.

4 THE DEMON VERSUS THE CALIPHATE
The year 2143. President Arthur has initiated a heavy sea battle against Karamaz’s ships. The Chinese dragons are able to destroy the enemy fleet before falling in battle. The Russian scientists who had once reawakened Arthur in Moscow are now suddenly his prisoners. They had served the traitor Karamaz by producing zombie soldiers and drugs for him. In order to save their own lives they pass a secret on to Arthur - the Malachite Gates, a place where real jinns have been asleep for thousands of years. The president arranges an expedition immediately.

The Malachite Gates prove to be a forgotten portal from an extraterrestrial civilisation. Sometimes the gates fulfil requests from humans. Arthur is the first to slip through the gap and finds himself in a gigantic Aladdin’s lamp. In the depths of the lamp he encounters an extraterrestrial who passes vast amounts of knowledge about his faraway home on to the earthling and ... catapults the president into the future. Thanks to the extraterrestrial Arthur meets Chinese from the future – mentors from the Temple of Nine Hearts. The monks warn him of the yellow swamps crawling out of Siberia towards Europe. Only the vaccine from Shanghai can stop them. And this can only be obtained with the combined powers of Russia and China... against Japan.

The guardian of the Malachite Gates promises Arthur help. Arthur has to abandon his military expedition to Sicily in order to set off alone for the Siberian taiga. There he meets a mysterious traveller. Only the traveller seems to be able to help him in the imminent war with Arabia.

The traveller was born in the 18th century. As a visionary practising black magic he has been damned to a long life at the cost of the death of others. The magician granted each of the dying a word supposedly comprising the covenant of eternity. Purely by chance the traveller found himself in Chita on the Chinese border prior to the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic.

Arthur ends up in the taiga swamps. He survives battles with bears. He saves the wild blue-skinned buba from death. And manages to enter the former garrison town of Chita-8 where the immortal old traveller lives and the Ataman Varvara rules. The traveller heals Arthur’s wounds and Arthur invites him to travel with him to the taiga in search of the Malachite Gates. Arthur could also use him in St. Petersburg in the war against Arabia. The traveller declines, however. Arthur is not able to make it through the deceptive swamps as far as Ulan-Uda, the Buryat capital, on his own, though. The Ataman Varvara and the wild buba are prepared to accompany him on the dangerous journey. At the last moment the traveller emerges from a hiding place with well preserved traction engine and a grenade launcher. The brave party sets off for the taiga full of beasts.