The Scar (39 page)

Egert buried his face in his hands.

For a long time Toria looked at the unkempt, disordered waves of his blond hair, at his shoulders, impressively wide but hunched and shaking like a child’s; then she rested her narrow palm on one of them.

Egert froze.

As persuasively as she could, Toria said, “You are not responsible for the deeds of others. You are simply ill and you need to find a cure. And we will find it.”

She spoke reluctantly, like a doctor assuring a patient who is near death and covered in sores of his imminent recovery. The tense shoulder shuddered under her hand as if it was relaxing slightly; the change was barely perceptible, but in the next moment she sensed all the confusion of Egert’s feelings: hope, gratitude, and the desire to believe. Then, still holding her hand against his warm shoulder, she wished with suddenly awakened compassion that her belabored words would prove to be true.

The door swung open with a crash. Holding a pair of dilapidated notebooks at his side, Fox, grinning widely, burst into the room.

His honey-colored eyes dwelled on Egert who sat, hanging his head, on the edge of the bed and on Toria whose hand was resting on his shoulder. For several moments nothing happened, and then in an instant Gaetan’s angular face was pierced with surprise: his eyes became as round as plums, his mouth swept open in a round hole, and muttering an indistinct apology, Fox leapt away without even trying to pick up his books, which had crashed to the floor.

Toria did not remove her hand. Waiting until the Gaetan’s clatter faded in the corridor, she said earnestly, “This is what I think. The curse will be broken if you fall into a hopeless situation and yet somehow overcome it. When the path has been reached its bitter end: don’t you think the Wanderer was speaking of this?”

Egert did not answer.

*   *   *

After a few days the rain changed into clear, fair weather. Squinting in the cool autumn sunlight, the townspeople were somewhat cheered. “Time is not even thinking of ending,” said neighbors to each other, stepping out onto their little porches in the morning, “On the contrary, time is on the loose.…”

The Tower of Lash loomed over the square like an admonitory finger: it even seemed that it had recently shriveled and dried up just like a geriatric digit. It was as if a bald spot had appeared in the square around the Tower: everyone tried to travel around the sinister building, all the more so since smoke rose from the windows ever thicker, the dismal sound rang out ever more often, and passersby who happened to be in the square late at night assured their acquaintances that they heard a dull, subterranean rumble rising up from its depths.

The city authorities were silent and apparently had no plans regarding the Order of Lash. Among the students it was considered good form to address witty remarks and taunts to the Order of Lash: Fox recalled for this purpose his old, foolish nanny, who had frightened four of the apothecary’s sons in sequence with one and the same bogeyman, and yet none of them were ever devoured by him. Lessons continued as if nothing had happened, and only a few bewildered youths, using various excuses, left the university for home.

“Father is worried,” Toria said one day.

They were sitting in the library late one evening. A single candle was guttering on the book cart.

“He tries not to give that impression, but I know him. Lash alarms him.”

The candle was dissolving into droplets of wax.

“Lash,” Egert repeated, barely audibly. “That time, in Kavarren … You were searching for manuscripts. Didn’t you say that the Order of Lash was founded by some lunatic mage?”

“The Sacred Spirit,” whispered Toria. “It is said that that mage became the Sacred Spirit after his death. But it is an absolute mystery. Father asked Dinar to research him, but we found nothing, absolutely nothing. An abyss of time has passed since he died. All the manuscripts that concern the history of Lash have either been lost or ruined, as if someone intentionally destroyed them.”

“They speak of a secret.” Egert smiled bleakly. “They are quite capable of keeping it.”

Toria was silent for a moment. Then she confided reluctantly, “They importuned my father. They offered … I don’t know what they offered. Cooperation? Money? Power? But he was always dismissive of them. And now he is worried. He is expecting … Even he doesn’t know what he is expecting.”

Egert was amazed. “Really? But mages can comprehend, I mean, they should be able to access any secret, even the future, shouldn’t they?”

It seemed to Toria that there was doubt of her father’s magical ability in these words. Nettled, she jerked up her head. “What do you know! Yes, my father sees many things that we would not be able to understand, but he is not a prophet!”

Egert thought it might be best to hold his peace. He did not want to get into an argument and besides, he did not like to display his ignorance. Toria regretted her outburst and apologetically muttered, “You see, the future is open to Prophets. They are mages who have a special gift, and they are also the masters of the Amulet. The Amulet came into the world at the hands of the very first Prophet, and ever since it has passed from master to disciple.” Toria had become agitated and could not find the proper words.

“From father to son?” asked Egert avidly.

“No. The Prophets are not connected by ties of blood. There can be only one Prophet in the world at a time. When he dies, the Amulet itself searches for his successor. Objects also have the ability to search, and the Amulet is much more than a mere object. It is unimaginably ancient. Truthfully speaking, I don’t even know what sort of object it is.” Toria drew a breath.

Egert raised his head; books gazed at him from the shelves, and it seemed to him that a wind from this lurking depository of magic touched his face. He had wanted desperately to speak with Toria about the world of magicians for so long now, and it suddenly seemed all the more risky to scare off this usually forbidden yet terribly interesting topic. He asked cautiously, “So, where is the Prophet right now? The man who carries the Amulet, where is he right now, this second?”

Toria frowned. “There is no Prophet right now. The last one died about fifty years ago, and since then…” She sighed. “That’s how it is. The new Prophet probably hasn’t even been born yet.”

Egert was silent for a moment, not knowing if he had the right to question her further; curiosity, however, proved to be stronger than apprehension and so, just as cautiously, he asked, “And what then does this Amulet do in the meantime? Is it traveling or waiting or hiding from people?”

“It is lying in my father’s safe,” Toria blurted out and in the same breath bit her tongue.

A minute or two passed by. Egert stared at the girl with round, deeply horrified eyes. “Why did you tell me that?”

Toria understood quite well that she had made a mistake, but she attempted to bring the conversation back to idle chatter. “And what of it, really?” she asked, nervously smoothing the folds of her skirt against her knees. “It’s not like you’re planning to announce it to one and all, now, is it?”

Egert turned away. Toria understood full well what he meant, and he knew that she understood.

*   *   *

Adjusting the blazing logs in the fireplace with a poker, Dean Luayan examined them both from the corner of his eye.

Toria’s resemblance to her deceased mother frightened him at times: he was afraid that along with her beauty, the exquisite beauty of a marble statue, Toria might also have inherited the tragic instability and cruel luck of her mother. When he consented to the marriage of his daughter to Dinar, he had sincerely hoped that everything would be different for Toria, but the disaster that followed dispelled his hopes. Toria was far too like her mother to be happy. The dean’s heart contracted whenever he saw that proud, perpetually solitary figure, dressed eternally in black, haunting the twilight of the library.

Now Toria was sitting on a low stool, her knees gathered up under her chin, bristling like a wet sparrow, vexed at her own foolishness: She had said too much, and she was no talker! Her face, even with a grimace of annoyance, was delicate and feminine, and the dean suddenly realized that the changes he had been noticing in his daughter recently were gaining strength.

Egert stood next to her, almost touching her shoulder with his hand, but not quite; Toria had not allowed even Dinar, who had been her fiancé, to stand so close to her. After his death everything had become worse: perpetually shrouded in the transparent shell of her own grief, of her own mysterious internal life, the severe daughter of Luayan had scared off other young people, even from afar. They scattered like a pile of autumn leaves in her wake, taking her detachment and alienation for contempt and pride. Now the murderer of Dinar was standing next to her, and Luayan, peeking over his shoulder at the two of them, was astonished to observe in his daughter an abundance of small, previously inconceivable changes.

She had become more feminine. She had certainly become more feminine, and the lines of her beautiful lips were softer, even now when she was scowling. She seemed profoundly aware that Egert was standing next to her, a man she would have gladly destroyed not all that long ago!

Having caught fire, the dry logs crackled. The dean forced himself to reenter the conversation.

“It’s all my fault,” said Toria in a penitential voice. “Curse my tongue!”

The dean cast a sidelong, censorious glance at her. “Be wary of curses.” Then, having contemplated his next action for a moment, he walked up to one of the tall cabinets and unlocked the door.

“Father…” Toria’s voice faltered.

The dean extracted the jade casket from the safe, flicked open the lid, and took from the black satin pillow an object that quietly jingled on a yellow chain. “Here it is, Egert. Take a look; it’s all right.”

A gold disk with ornate fissures in the center lay on his palm: a medallion on a chain.

“This is the Amulet of the Prophet, an inconceivably valuable object, hidden in secret.”

“You can’t let me leave this room,” said Egert in horror. “I could tell them everything.”

The dean caught the compassionate glance that Toria directed at Egert, thought for a moment, and then shook his head. “It is within my power to make you forget what you have seen. Just as your friend Gaetan forgot about a certain event, to which he was a chance witness. It’s possible, but I will not do it, Egert. You must walk your path until the bitter end. Fight for your liberty.” The dean leaned toward the medallion with these last words, as if invoking it.

“But what if the Order finds out about it?” Toria’s voice was high.

“I do not fear Lash,” replied the dean vaguely.

The flames in the fireplace blazed up even more vigorously, and the medallion in Luayan’s palm cast spots of light onto the ceiling.

“It is completely faultless,” said the dean in an undertone. Both Egert and Toria looked at him in wonder.

“What?”

“It’s clean,” explained the dean. “The gold does not have a spot of rust. Not a speck. If we really were on the eve of great ordeal, then … It senses danger threatening the world, and it rusts as an indicator. So it was half a century ago when the Third Power stood at the Doors. I was a young boy then, but I remember that forebodings tormented me, and the medallion, so they say, was completely covered in rust. Now it is clean, as though there were no threat. But somehow I know that this is not so!” Swallowing a bitter taste that burst forth in his mouth, the dean returned the medallion to the safe in utter silence.

“Do you think Lash is the threat?” Toria asked in a whisper.

The dean tossed another log into the fireplace. Egert jumped back to avoid the scattering sparks.

“I don’t know,” the dean confessed unwillingly. “The Order of Lash undoubtedly has some sort of connection to it, but the thing that threatens us the most, that is something else entirely. Or someone else entirely.”

*   *   *

Winter arrived in the space of a single night.

Upon awaking in the early morning, Egert saw that the gray, damp ceiling of the cramped room had turned as white and frosted as the hem of a wedding gown. Neither the wind, nor footsteps, nor the clamor of wheels could be heard from the square: snow was drifting down to earth in solemn silence.

According to tradition, all lectures were canceled on the day of the first snow. When he learned of this custom, Egert rejoiced far more than he would have otherwise.

Merriment was soon in full swing in the university courtyard. Under the leadership of Fox, the peaceful student body suddenly transformed into a horde of soldiers. A dazzlingly white snow fort was hastily constructed and soon snow battles were raging. Egert entered into the melee with pleasure.

Before long, however, the battle somehow devolved into a fight of the one against the many, with Egert taking the role of lone defender against the horde of students, like some hero of antiquity; it seemed he did not have two hands, but ten, and every snowball he threw hit its mark, dusting an opponent’s flushed face with crumbs of snow. Attacked from all sides, he dived under hostile missiles and they collided over his head, sprinkling his fair hair with snow. Despairing of striking a moving target, especially one that moved the way Egert did, his opponents were about to engage in hand-to-hand combat, planning to tumble their invincible adversary into a snowbank, when Egert suddenly noticed that Toria was observing the skirmish.

Fox and his comrades immediately faded into the background; Toria leisurely bent down, scooped up some snow, and rolled it into a ball. Then, swinging her arm back, she threw it and hit Egert in the forehead.

He walked over to her, wiping slush from his face. Toria looked at his wet face seriously, without the slightest shadow of a smile.

“Today is the first snow. I want to show you something.” Without saying another word, she turned around and walked away. Egert moved off after her, as if he were tethered to her with a leash.

Snow lay everywhere. It covered the university steps, and it had settled on the heads of the iron snake and wooden monkey, creating two large, wintery snowcaps.