The Scar (21 page)

Egert had laughed that day: all too well did Toria remember that laughter and the regard of his narrowed, condescending eyes; all too well did she remember that painfully long, fatal game he had played with Dinar; all too well did she remember the black tip of the blade that stuck out of the back of her beloved, and the pool of blood on the wet sand.

The dean waited patiently while his daughter gathered her thoughts.

“I understand,” said Toria finally, “that he intrigues you as an exhibit or an artifact, as a man who has been marked by the Wanderer and as the bearer of his curse. But for me, he is nothing more than an executioner whose hand has been cut off. And so, the fact that he now lives there, in the annex, and walks along the same corridors as Dinar once did, that, on top of everything else—” She winced, screwing up her face as if she tasted something rotten. She fell silent. She twirled a lock of hair in her fingers then absently pushed it back into the rest of her hair. The lock immediately broke free again.

“It is unpleasant for you, I know,” said her father softly. “It is offensive and painful. But please believe me, it has to be so. Believe me, trust me, and endure it, please.”

Toria tugged pensively at the disobedient curl; then, stretching out her hand, she took a knife from the table and, just as pensively, cut off the annoying lock of hair.

*   *   *

She was used to trusting her father completely and in everything. People and animals trusted her father; even snakes trusted her father: she had first witnessed this trust as a young girl, when her father had induced an adder to come out of a haystack where the village boys had been playing. The adder itself was quite terrified; Luayan, who at that time was not yet a dean, sharply scolded the peasant who, horror-stricken, wished to kill the adder; then he tucked the snake into one of his large pockets and thus carried it away into the forest. Toria walked alongside him and was not the slightest bit afraid: to her it was clearer than clear that everything her father did was correct and that he could never house danger within himself. Setting the snake down in a swath of grass, her father took a long time roughly explaining something to it: young Toria thought he was probably teaching it that it should not bite people. The snake did not dare to slither away without having received the express permission of her father. When Toria excitedly told her mother about all of this, her mother simply frowned and pursed her lips: her mother, unlike everyone else, did not trust her father completely.

Toria had trouble remembering the vague arguments that occasionally bedeviled the small family. It is possible that her father, looking ahead, tried to ensure that his daughter remembered only what was good about her mother; nevertheless, Toria recalled every detail of the disastrous winter evening that had taken her mother away from her.

It was only much later that she began to understand what was meant by that single word—
he
—that was uttered by her father first derisively, then furiously, and finally desolately; in the mouth of her mother, that word always sounded the same, like a challenge. That evening, having argued with her husband, Toria’s mother was planning to go to him, but then, for the first time after a long period of dismissive sufferance of his wife’s indiscretion, Luayan rebelled.

That is to say that it appeared that he rebelled: in truth, he felt or simply knew what would happen next. He implored, then threatened, and then locked his wife in a room, but she raged at him and threw such words into his face that Toria, trembling with dread in her bed behind the curtains, was steeped in tears of terror and distress. At some point Luayan’s forbearance broke down, and he allowed his wife to leave; he simply allowed her to leave. The slamming door almost came off its hinges, so powerful was that parting blow.

“I couldn’t bear listening to her,” the dean bitterly said to his grown daughter many years later. “I couldn’t bear…”

Toria, aware of the pain and guilt her father felt, firmly pressed her face to his chest.

Luayan did not sleep that entire night: young Toria, awakening from time to time, saw the lamp burning on the table and her father pacing around the room. Toward morning, without saying a word, he dressed and rushed outside as if he was hurrying to help someone, but it was too late. Even mages cannot quicken the dead, and Toria’s mother was already dead when her husband freed her from a high snowdrift on the forest road.

“I couldn’t bear listening to her. I was blinded by pride and resentment, but what was the use of taking offense at that woman?”

“You are not responsible,” insisted Toria.

But her father averted his face. “I am responsible.”

*   *   *

Fox returned after midnight.

At first muted giggles and unintelligible chatter could be heard below the window; then someone began to sing a mournful song, which was almost immediately cut short by a gasp, as if the singer had received a friendly punch on the back.

A brief silence followed, which was then exchanged for rustles in the corridor; the door squeaked open, and Fox stumbled into the room in complete darkness.

The wooden bed groaned under the weight of his gaunt body. Fabric rustled, and first one boot and then the other fell onto the floor. Fox stretched and yawned contentedly, recalling, apparently, tonight’s adventure and the complete success of his gigantic cucumber. Already drifting off into sleep, he suddenly heard Egert say softly, “Gaetan.”

Fox’s bed squeaked. Surprised, he turned over onto his side. “And why is it that you’re not sleeping, eh?” The diffuse good-natured quality of his voice betrayed just how much wine he had drunk.

“Gaetan,” Egert repeated with a sigh. “Tell me what you know about the dean.”

The room became quiet, very quiet; somewhere in the distance a cricket chirped. A shutter banged, and once again there was silence.

“You’re such an idiot, Egert,” said Fox, his voice already different, more sober. “You’ve found a wonderful topic for the early hours of the morning.” He paused, sniffed angrily, and then added testily, “And anyway, you’d know better. After all, it seems you know each other.”

“So it seems,” whispered Egert.

“Well, there you go. Now sleep.” The bed under Fox fairly screamed, so adamantly did he turn his face to the wall.

A moth was fluttering against the glass; the drumming of its tiny wings broke off and then came to life with renewed vigor. It did not matter if he closed his eyes or kept them wide open: the pervasive dark was as thick as wax, and it seemed to crawl over his eyes. Egert quieted, but as always in the dark, he felt very ill at ease.

Gaetan’s bed came alive again, but the squeak was cut short as it reached its highest pitch. “And what are you to the dean, anyway?” Fox asked the darkness in a hissing whisper. “What does he have to do with you? And what do you have to do with him? Well?”

Egert pulled his blanket up to his chin. Addressing himself to the invisible ceiling, he said, “He promised to help me. And I … I don’t know. I’m afraid of him. And then, she still…”

“She? Who’s she?” promptly asked the darkness.

“She is Toria.” Egert’s lips unwillingly formed the name.

“Toria?” asked Fox apprehensively and yet at the same time wistfully. He sighed loudly and sorrowfully said, “Forget about it.”

The night watchmen called to one another far away in the city.

“Does he teach her sorcery?” Egert asked, his heart fluttering.

Fox once again crossly turned over in bed. “You were born a fool, and you’ll die a fool. He doesn’t teach magic to anyone! It’s not arithmetic or shoe-making.”

The silence settled in once again, broken only by the rustle of the moth and the angry huffing of Fox.

“But he is a mage, right?” asked Egert, overcoming his involuntary timidity. “He’s an archmage, right? That’s why I…”

He wanted to say that that was why he came to the city, to meet the archmage, about whom he had heard on the roads and in the inns along the way; he wanted to say this, but he faltered, afraid to betray himself more than he should. Fortunately, Fox did not notice. His bed gave yet another squeak.

“I—,” began Egert again, but Fox unexpectedly interrupted him.

The voice of the freckled boy sounded unusually serious, even a bit emotional. “This is my second year in the university. And all I can tell you is that Dean Luayan, he’s … it’s possible that he’s not entirely human.” He took a breath. “But he’s never worked evil on anyone. No one in the world knows history better than he does, that’s for sure. Only, you’re right to fear him, Egert. One day—you can’t go gossiping about this to anyone—I saw it myself, Egert! An old crone with a drum came to the square. She was a beggar; she drummed and asked for alms. People talked about her, said it was better to keep your distance. But I decided to go take a look at her. I was curious. I was near her when I saw the dean coming. He caught up to the crone, and she suddenly turned around and glared. I was standing to the side, I tell you, but that glare nearly killed me. But the crone stopped drumming; it just spluttered out. She whispered something, and even though I couldn’t make out the exact words, they scraped like nails against a chalkboard. Well, then the dean also said something to her.… It was such a word.… It resounded in my ears for three days. Then he dragged her away, not with his hands, but as if with an invisible rope. And I, a fool, dragged myself after him, although my knees were shaking. They turned into a breezeway and the crone … There, where the crone had stood, I swear, was a viper, a heavy, slimy viper, coiled, its jaws open wide toward the dean, and then he raised his hand and from that hand…”

Strangely, Fox stopped short and fell silent.

Egert lay still, trying, without much success, to keep himself from shaking nervously. “Well?” he forced out finally.

Fox moved. He stood. He groped for the tinderbox on the table with his hands.

“Well!” moaned Egert.

“Well,” Fox echoed dully, striking a spark. “The dean asked: ‘What is it that you need?’ And the snake hissed, ‘The auditor Egert Soll at my mercy.’”

A single candle flared up. Egert, covered in sweat, spit in disgust and at the same time breathed a sigh of relief: he was lying, the cursed joker that he was, he was lying. Probably.

Fox was standing in the middle of the room with the candle, and the black shadows on the walls were quivering: Gaetan’s hand was shaking slightly.

*   *   *

Both of them pretended to be sleeping until the dawn broke. In the morning, after spending a few long minutes inspecting the slanting scar on his cheek through the bristles of his beard, Egert forced himself to set out for the lecture.

Dean Luayan descended from his study a bit earlier than usual that day. Seeing him at the end of the corridor, Egert cringed into a dark, dank recess in the wall. Without noticing Egert, or perhaps just giving the impression that he did not notice him, the dean walked by. Just at the moment when he was passing Egert, Fox caught up to him.

Egert could not see him; he could only hear the unusually timid, confused voice of Gaetan: it seemed that he was asking forgiveness for something. “My cursed tongue…” came to Egert’s ears. “I myself don’t know how! I swear to Heaven, from now on I’ll be as silent as a fish!”

The dean said something soft and soothing in answer. Fox’s voice became more cheerful; as he walked away, his heels clicked on the floor.

The dean stood for a moment in thought; then he turned, and pausing in front of the alcove, he looked to the side and called out quietly, “Egert.”

*   *   *

The dean’s study was enormous, only a bit smaller than the Grand Auditorium. The sunlight sank down into the shadowy corners of the room: velvet curtains covered the windows like heavy eyelids over inflamed, sleepless eyes, immersing the room in twilight.

“Take a look around, Egert. You’re probably curious, so take a look.”

In the middle of the study was a writing desk with a three-armed, bronze candelabrum on top; next to the desk, two armchairs with tall, carved backs stood facing each other; and beyond the desk, on a smooth, stark wall, the extended wing of a bird, forged from steel, gleamed wanly.

“That is a memento of my teacher. He was called Orlan. I’ll tell you about him later.”

Treading carefully, Egert moved along the walls. His pale face, deformed by the scar, was reflected in a slightly frosted glass globe with a sputtering candle inside it. Next to the odd lamp, a crowd of silver figurines stood on a rickety circular table: figurines of people, animals, and huge, dreadful insects. Made with uncommon skill, all the figurines seemed to be staring at the same exact spot. Egert followed the gazes of the silver creatures, which were fixed on the spike of a fabric needle, protruding from a shapeless mass of pine resin.

“You may look, but you may not touch, yes?”

Heaven above, Egert would sooner bite off his fingers than risk letting them touch the stuffed carcasses of giant rats fettered with real chains. The exposed teeth of these long dead rodents seemed still moist with sticky saliva.

Two massive cabinets, as austere and forbidding as guards, were fastened with two pendulous locks. Shelves stretched out along the walls; undoubtedly these held special books, books of magic. Egert shuddered. Dense, black, silky fur grew on the spine of one of these tomes.

Egert no longer desired to look around. Backing away, he awkwardly looked at the dean.

The dean unhurriedly pulled back the edge of one of the curtains, bathing the study in daylight. He sat down in one of the wooden armchairs. “Well, Egert. The time has come for us to have a little chat.”

Obeying the dean’s extended hand, Egert walked over on shaky legs and crouched on the edge of the other armchair. He could see an azure patch of sky in the corner of the window freed from the curtain.

“Some time ago,” the dean began leisurely, “not all that long ago if one judges by the immensity of history, but not at all recently if one judges by the length of a human life, a certain man lived. He was young and prosperous, and he was a mage by the grace of Heaven. As the years went by, he would have become a mage of unprecedented power, had not an unexpected and oppressive rupture occurred in his fate.”