The Scar (52 page)

The life of the city’s executioner, his gray, dull life, ended in an instant. Clutching at the hilt that protruded from his back, the poor soul lay down on the dais at the feet of his recent victim. Toria stepped backwards and Egert met her eyes.

Why has this happened to her? Blood, terror: why this? Poor girl.

He ran again, and she darted forward to meet him. He was already stretching out his hand when he saw that she was staring at something behind his back. He turned just in time: Fagirra was already there, his teeth bared in his crooked mouth and his stiletto raised high.

No, Toria, don’t be afraid. Never be afraid.

He managed to avoid the first attack, but the fencing master was strong and tenacious.

The stiletto almost grazed Egert’s hand a second time.

A weapon! Heaven, send me a sword, even a kitchen knife!

He stumbled and barely managed to keep to his feet. He could not let the stiletto get near Toria. One scratch would be enough; one scratch from the sharp tip, gleaming with a dark drop of poison, would be sufficient to kill her.

The pliers clanked under his feet. He felt their weight in his hands as he flung them up in front of his body to defend himself and Toria. Just as he heaved them up, Fagirra launched into a violent, frantic attack.

Egert did not want Toria to see this. He took a step back and put his arm around her shoulders and his palm over her eyes.

Fagirra was still standing. The pliers protruded from his chest, and the wide-open iron beak snarled at Egert with impotent menace. Egert knew that the bloodstained handles peered out of Fagirra’s back. The death agony of the robed man was terrible, and Egert pressed Toria into his arms, striving not to touch her painful welts.

Her face, half-hidden by his hand, seemed mysterious, as if it were under a mask. Her lips quivered like they were about to smile, her eyelashes fluttered against his palm, and for some reason he recalled the touch of a dragonfly’s wings.

It felt like the passage of time altered; his hand tentatively raised itself to his face, and his fingers wonderingly explored his cheek. They did not find the scar.

Incredible things were happening in the hall. The students were fighting and denouncing the robed men, tearing off their hoods.

Egert did not notice. The roar of the crowd receded then disappeared completely, as if he had gone deaf. His vision split in some strange manner; casting his eyes over the pandemonium, he saw only the tall old man with his wrinkled face.

The Wanderer slowly turned and walked toward the exit, slicing through the crowd the way a knife slices through water. He turned slightly at the threshold, and Egert saw his crystal-clear eyes close slightly, as if saying farewell.

*   *   *

The world is dissected by the horizon, and all roads rush toward its edge. They scatter beneath your legs like mice, and it is difficult to know if you are setting off on your path or if you have already returned.…

*   *   *

The crowd roared.

Outside, people rushed into the courthouse from the square, desiring to see the witness with their own eyes and to understand what had happened. Inside the courtroom, tensions were very high.

“Silence!” shouted the judge, and suddenly he dived under the table. The man in the gray hooded robe roared in horror, forcing the bloodstained stump of a hand against his chest. The students, overwhelmed by their own courage, pressed on the barrier of guards.

“I am the witness!” Egert shouted, his voice ringing over the noise in the courtroom. “Did you hear that? I am the witness, and I am telling you: The servants of Lash caused the Plague! Toria is innocent, she told the truth! Dean Luayan saved us all! Do not dare to accuse his daughter!”

The ring of guards pressed on the platform. People in red-and-white uniforms watched what was happening: The witness just killed two people in front of the court and the public.

Meanwhile the fight continued out in the hall, but the hooded disciples of Lash, used to discipline, became an army within few seconds. Daggers and stilettos arose from under the sleeves of gray robes. The students still screamed out threats and curses—but they retreated, pressed by a powerful gray wall. They were unarmed—only the boldest managed to snatch a candlestick or a fragment of a bench.

“Here are the criminals!” Egert moved forward. “Hold the Servants of Lash!”

People crowded around the platform, and the guards were unable to push them away. The people saw what happened, just as the guards did, and if no one felt sorry about the city executor, the terrible loss of Lash’s servant shocked and frightened everyone.

Egert tried to protect Toria: “She is innocent! Step back, everybody!”

An officer who survived the Plague and whose hair had become gray overnight moved forward, holding his naked sword: “Surrender, you murderer. The court will announce the verdict.”

The students were encircled by exposed blades like cattle in a slaughterhouse. The citizens, who only yesterday threw stones at the university, did not hurry to help them.

“Surrender,” the officer repeated grimly.

“You are not my enemy.” Egert looked into his eyes. “The Servants of Lash are the murderers! Here they are, arrest them in the name of the city!”

The officer ignored Soll: “Arrest him.”

The guards started to move in from three sides. For a second, Soll thought that he was observing the world with his ears, his skin, with the entire surface of his body; he saw Toria, frozen in horror, the corpse of Fagirra on the floor, the robed men with stilettos, students with broken noses, the judge on his knees crawling to the curtain. He saw the narrow door, behind which the sky turned blue and the crowd was roiling. He saw fear in the eyes of the guards approaching him … fear … but mixed with hope.

The guards moved toward him with ropes.

Egert smiled gently and took a step forward. He dived under their arms, tripping somebody’s foot, gripping sombody’s wrist wrapped in a leather glove, and pulled it over. He dropped this yielding body under the feet of his pursuers. Without looking, he struck the face of the guard who approached him from the rear with his elbow and managed to catch the sword of another guard after butting him with the top of his head. Someone in a red-and-white uniform tried to stop him—to his own dismay; Egert got hold of a second sword and jumped away.

The crowd in the courtroom made way for him in panic as he rushed toward the wall of gray robes.

The Servants of Lash backed up for a split second as death rushed upon them, death with a bloodred face and wild, fair hair. One of Lash’s men moved too slowly and Egert stabbed him in the face. The others inched forward, short blades glimmering, their eyes swollen and insane.

Their enemy, enormous and bleeding, with two swords in his muscled hands, faced them unafraid.

“What did the Magister promise you? That you would remain alive, even after the city was destroyed by the Plague?”

And both his blades started to move like fish thrown out of the water onto the ground. The two swords looked like human creatures; they were extremely angry, they wanted fire and blood. But the Servants of Lash overcame their initial confusion. Two swords were confronted by two dozen blades, with many more behind those.

The whole scene was sparkling. Two acolytes leapt forward to attack and one of Egert’s swords knocked away a dagger; with the other hand he repulsed the other’s strike. And Egert, swift as a lion, swung his claws, one after the other, and there were two howling bodies on the floor.

“Did you hope to hide yourself behind your walls?”

The fighters in gray robes scattered in a semicircle. Soll was in the center of their ring and he was swinging as a reckless wasp with two stings. The air was howling, and the courtroom hadn’t witnessed such a scene for centuries.

“When you were digging into the hill…”

Strikes, sparks, howls.

“… did the Magister tell you that Lash would protect you?”

Strike. Gnashing. Ringing.

A dagger whizzed by his ear like a bullet. From the corner of his eye Egert noticed another one flying toward him—and at the last moment he bent down and let the death pass him. A follower of Lash behind him groaned—the knife deep into his shoulder.

Egert bellowed: “So let Lash protect you now!”

And he rushed into the attack, one man against dozens of skilled soldiers.

“For Luayan!” A heavy-built man in a gray robe fell, gripping his chest. “For Toria!” Another was skewered and fell down to the feet of his fellows. “Let’s punish them!” A chopped-off hand flew in the air. “Let’s punish them!”

“For Fox!” young voices chanted like a choir. The judge’s heavy armchair, raised by three students, fell on the gray-robed heads.

“For the city! For the suburbs! For what you have done! You wanted power? You wanted worship? You shall have it!”

Encircled and forced to defend himself, Soll managed to force Lash’s soldiers back. And then a strange thing happened: Lash’s army, which had always seemed to be solid, unbreakable, and faceless, hesitated, their confidence broken. The hoods of many of them had been swept off their heads during the frantic battle … and now their faces appeared; the faceless robes of Lash turned into people.

Frightened. Embittered … even ashamed. For years they had inhaled the heavy incense of their rituals. They had admired Fagirra, thought him to be eternal … and now he was dead. They had idealized their Magister and now they were doubtful about him. Young, old, bald, mustachioed, squint-eyed, pale, it seemed they saw one another for the first time. It seemed they saw the people around them for the first time.

One of Lash’s followers screamed, “We cannot abandon the Magister! We must do what Lash wills!”

“The will of Lash!” chanted the frenzied voices.

“The End of Times will come!” A plump fellow with sagging cheeks shouted at the top of his voice, and Egert suddenly recognized him: the clerk’s shy son only recently was a student. “Lash will hide the believers!”

“His will…”

With renewed energy, they rushed into the attack again.

“Lash!”

“Lash!”

“This is the will of Lash!”

But their will and their confidence had been broken, and the students beat them down everywhere, with Egert Soll, once a coward, at the forefront of the fighting.

“Watch out, Soll!” someone shouted from the crowd.

Egert ducked, and a knife whistled above his head; he moved to the right, and another slashed down where he’d just been standing. Twirling around, as if in a dance, he repulsed two blades at a time—from the top and from the bottom, he struck the young servant’s chest with his foot, forcing him to drop his weapon, he twisted around and saw his other adversary running away. It was the clerk’s son running out of the courtroom—limping and trying to strip off his robe and hood.

“Hold him!”

Two or three students started to chase him. Soll realized that the ring of enemies around him was gone: someone motionlessly lay on the floor, someone turned moaning, someone stepped back, someone tried to hide. The battle was over.

Egert found Toria with his eyes. She remained standing where he’d left her—motionless, frozen, her face white. He nodded to her, encouraging and calming. He looked around; the room was still crowded, and strangely quiet. The city dwellers stood shoulder to shoulder—the ones who cursed Toria and her father, those who broke windows at the university. There were many strong men among them; Lash’s servants were mixed in this crowd. The silence was more terrible than any roar: only puffing, moans, and rare curses, and shoe soles on the worn stones.

Students supported their wounded fellows. Almost all of them were covered in blood.

Suddenly a commotion started at the doors. All heads turned simultaneously. The guards were marching in, swords raised. There was a great number of them, all heavily armed; the crowd made room for them.

The gray-haired officer who had tried to arrest Egert stopped. Egert silently waited; would the guards dare to wound or even to kill random witnesses? His heart worked as a metronome, pacing the rhyme and time of the forthcoming fight.

Even the wounded ceased to moan. Egert looked into the eyes of the officer; strange, now there was no fear in the eyes of the guard. There was something new, what Egert did not understand. The officer straightened up and slowly raised his blade, saluting. The other guards repeated his motion like shadows. For several seconds none said a word.

Egert could hardly stand on his feet. He crossed the room, and the crowd respectfully made way for him; he went up to Toria, and took her tightly under her arm, letting his swords drop.

She leaned on him, pressing him but holding her back upright. People silently looked at them; the guards in red-and-white uniforms stood several steps away, as if expecting something.

“Arrest the servants of Lash,” Egert said in a hoarse voice. “Don’t let anyone in a hood leave. Gather them here for questioning. Do not use force: let them talk. Don’t let anyone out, but the main thing is to find the Magister!”

The crowd stirred. The officer of the guards nodded to his people and he looked again into Soll’s eyes: “Yes, Captain.”

*   *   *

Spring came.

Climbing up the hill would have cost Toria too much effort; she was weakened from her lingering wounds. He carried her, treading firmly across the dampened loam, and not once did his legs slip.

On the summit of the hill was a grave, covered by the unfolded steel wing as by a hand. They stood, bowing their heads. Clouds shifted above, white on blue. Neither Egert nor Toria needed to speak about the man who now slept forever beneath the wing: even without that, he abided with them.

They stood, nestled against each other, just as they had on that distant winter day, except that their entwined shadow lay not on sparkling, clean snow, but on moist, black earth, overgrown with the first grass of spring. Egert flared his nostrils, catching the strong smell of green life, and he could not decide if it was the scent of Toria or the aroma of bulbs fighting their way to the surface.