The Scar (40 page)

“Is it in the city?” Egert asked worriedly. “I wouldn’t want to run into Fagirra.”

“Do you really think he’d come anywhere near you when I’m around?” Toria smiled.

The city was submerged in silence; instead of the thunder of carts, sleighs crept noiselessly through the streets, and the wide tracks left by their runners seemed as brittle as porcelain. Snow tumbled and fell, covering the shoulders of pedestrians, speckling astonished black dogs with white, concealing all refuse and dirt from the eyes.

“The first snow,” said Egert. “It’s a pity that it will melt.”

“Not at all,” replied Toria. “Every thaw is like a short spring. It’d best thaw, or else…”

She wanted to say that the smooth surface of the snow reminded her of the pure, white shrouds used to cover the dead, but she did not. She did not want Egert to think that she was always so gloomy. Winter really was beautiful: it was not to blame for the fact that it was possible to freeze to death in a snowbank, just like her mother.

Red-breasted robins with white snowflakes on their backs were sitting on girders attached to walls, looking like the guards in their bright uniforms; and presently the guards themselves strolled by, with their tall pikes and their red-and-white uniforms, shivering just like the robins.

“Are you cold?” asked Egert.

She tucked her hands deeper into her old muff. “No. Are you?”

He was not wearing a hat. The snow fell right on his hair and did not melt. “I never get cold. My father raised me as a soldier, and soldiers must be able to endure anything, not least of all cold.” Egert grinned.

They passed through the city gates; the wet snow formed grinning jaws on the serpents and dragons that were welded there. Sleds were sweeping along the road. Toria turned confidently and led Egert to the very shore of the river.

Just like frosted glass, the surface of the water was covered in a skin of ice, thick and dull by the shores, thin and latticed toward the center. A narrow stream remained free in the middle; it ran dark and smooth, and on the very edge of the ice stood an unkindness of black ravens, strutting about and displaying their magnificence.

“We’ll walk along the riverbank,” said Toria. “Look around; there should be a footpath.”

The footpath was buried under the snow. Egert walked in front and Toria tried to place her light shoes in the deep tracks of his boots. Thus they walked for quite a long time. The snow finally stopped falling, and the sun began to peek through jagged holes in the clouds.

Toria squinted, blinded: how white, how sparkling the world suddenly seemed! Egert turned his face back to her. Snowflakes gleamed brightly in his hair.

“Is it much farther?”

She smiled, almost not understanding the question. At that moment words seemed to her like an unnecessary addition to the snowy, sun-drenched splendor of this extraordinary day.

Egert understood, and hesitantly, as if asking for permission, he smiled in answer.

They walked on side by side: the footpath had emerged onto a hill where the snow was no longer so deep. Toria held one hand in the warm depths of her muff, and the other leaned on the arm of her companion. Egert pressed his elbow firmly to his side so that her hand, sheltered in the folds of his sleeve, would not freeze.

They paused for a short while, looking back at the river and the city. Wisps of smoke stood over the city walls in dove-colored columns.

“I’ve never been here,” admitted Egert in wonder. “It’s so beautiful.”

Toria smiled briefly. “It is a memorable place. There is an old graveyard here. After the Black Plague, they buried everyone who had died here, in one pit. It is said that the hill became three times taller from all the dead bodies. Since then this place has been considered special: some say it is blessed; some say it is cursed. Children sometimes leave a lock of their hair on the summit so that a wish will come true. Sorcerers from the villages come here in pilgrimage. But in general…” Toria faltered. “Father does not like this place. He says … But what have we to be afraid of? It’s such beautiful white day.”

They stood on the summit of the hill for almost an hour and Toria, pointing with her frozen hand first at the river, then at a snow-covered ribbon of road, then at the close gray horizon, spoke of the centuries that had passed over the earth; of the belligerent hordes that had descended on the city all at once from three sides; of the deep moat, of which now only a small furrow, invisible under the snow, remained; of the unassailable defenses, erected at the cost of many lives. The hill, upon which Egert and Toria were now standing, was a remainder of a fortification that had been worn away by time. Egert, listening attentively, suggested that the enemy hordes were all cavalry, and furthermore that they were extremely numerous.

“How do you know that?” wondered Toria. “Did you read it?”

Egert, ducking his head, confessed his complete and utter ignorance: no, he had not read it, but from the placement of the defenses, as Toria had described them, it should be clear to anyone that they were not built to defend against foot soldiers, but against a vast quantity of mounted enemies.

For some time Toria was silent, wondering. Egert stood next to her, also silent, and their long blue shadows merged on the lustrous mantle of snow.

“If you watch the horizon for a while,” Toria suddenly said quietly, “if you do not take your eyes from it for a very long time, then you begin to imagine that the sea is beneath us. The blue sea surges beneath us, and we are standing on the shore, on a cliff.…”

Egert started. “Have you seen the sea?”

Toria began to laugh merrily. “Oh, yes. I was quite young, but I remember it well. I was—” She suddenly became sad and lowered her eyes. “—I was eight years old. My father and I traveled all over the world so as not to grieve too hard over Mama.”

The wind swept over the snow, picked up a handful of scintillating white powder, and played with it, strewing it about before letting it drop and moving on to pick up another handful. Egert did not know if his distressing ability to sense others’ pain had returned or not, but the instantaneous desire to protect and comfort Toria deprived him of both his reason and his reticence: Toria’s shoulders drooped, and then for the first time his hands dared to sink down onto them.

She was a head shorter than him. Next to him she seemed like an adolescent, almost a child; through her warm shawl and thin coat he felt how her narrow shoulders flinched under his touch and then froze. Then, desiring for all he was worth to console her and yet mortally afraid of offending her, he cautiously drew Toria toward himself.

Their blue shadows paused on the snow, merged into one; both were afraid to move, lest they startle the other. The city beyond the walls remained impassive, and the frozen river gleamed coldly. Only the wind showed any sign of impatience; it hovered like a dog around their legs, foundered in the hem of Toria’s skirt, and sprinkled Egert’s boots with sprays of snow.

“You will see the sea,” said Toria in a whisper.

Egert was silent. He had known scores of different women in his brief life so far, but he suddenly felt himself inexperienced, a clueless boy, a silly puppy: thus does the apprentice of a jeweler tout his own skill while polishing glass, and thus does he sweat from fear the first time he receives in his hand a precious stone of unheard-of rarity.

“On the shore of the southern sea there is never any snow. There is warm sand there, and white surf.…” Toria spoke as if in a dream.

Glorious Heaven, he was afraid to let go of her; he was afraid that all this was an illusion; he was so afraid to lose her. And truly, he had no right to her. Can you really lose that which does not belong to you? And did not the shadow of Dinar stand between them?

Toria shivered, as if sensing his thought, but she did not move away.

Over their heads the cloud patterns changed, twisted, their sides burned by the sun like loaves in an oven. Hearing how Egert’s distraught heart beat under his jacket, Toria, with almost superstitious horror, suddenly realized that she was happy. She very rarely managed to catch herself in this feeling; her nostrils flared, breathing in the smell of the snow, the fresh wind, and Egert’s skin, and they wanted to raise her up on her toes so that they could reach Egert’s face.

She had never caught the scent of Dinar. It was unthinkable, but she had no memory of how his heart beat. Embracing him, she had experienced a companionable tenderness, but what was that childish fondness compared to this delightful stupor, when the very thought of moving was terrible, when she hardly dared to breathe?

What is this? she thought, panicking. Betrayal? Betrayal of the memory of Dinar?

Their dark blue shadow slowly crawled across the snow like the hand of an enormous clock. A snowflake, round and flat as a grindstone, settled on Egert’s shoulder right in front of Toria’s nose. The sun hid behind a cloud, and the shadow on the snow faded.

“We should go,” whispered Toria. “We need to—I promised to show you.”

They descended the slope in silence. The river here was twisting, skirting around a small spit of land that resembled a peninsula. The earth here apparently found tall pine trees entirely to its liking: they grew in great, massed circles, and their boughs, weighed down with snow, looked like old, sagging mustaches.

They walked, wending their way through tree trunks, now and again brushing the snow from a branch: then the magnificent boughs, liberated, would rush upward, violating the consistency of the winter landscape. Finally Toria stopped and glanced back at Egert as if inviting him to look.

Right in front of them towered a stone structure, like the remnant of an ancient foundation, covered with snow. Yellow, porous stone intertwined with gray, smooth stone: Egert had never before seen anything like it. Most extraordinary was the stunted, thin-trunked tree, which was clinging to the stonework by its roots as if growing right out of the stone. Even though it was the middle of winter, the tree remained green; not a single snowflake fell on the narrow leaves, and here and there between them, round petals glowed a pale red, seeming unreal, as if they had been cut from cloth. But they were real: Egert assured himself of this when he touched one and it left a small amount of black pollen on the tip of his finger.

“This is a tomb,” said Toria, trying to conceal the storm raging in her soul behind a businesslike tone. “It’s several thousand years old. An ancient mage rests here, perhaps the First Prophet himself. But then again, perhaps not. This tree blossoms year-round, but never bears even a single fruit. It is rumored that it too is several millennia old. It’s miraculous, isn’t it?”

The magical tree was not more miraculous than the strange connection that was now invisibly growing between Toria and Egert. He wanted to ask her about it, but he did not. They both stood, gazing at the ancient sepulcher, which in turn was a witness to their silence. The snow-covered pine trees also remained silent: austerely, but without condemnation.

Dusk was falling as they returned home. The cold had intensified and near the city gates they found it necessary to stop for a while to warm their hands over a fire. The guard, with a face that was copper from the flames and shining with sweat, threw more firewood and kindling, collected that day from peasants entering the city, onto the blaze: in winter it was the custom to collect the toll in kind.

Watching the flames dance in Toria’s motionless pupils, Egert found within himself the courage to bend toward her ear. “I will break the curse. I will recover my courage. I will do it for the sake of … you know. I swear.”

She slowly lowered her eyelids, cloaking the sparks that danced in her eyes.

*   *   *

The first snow melted, covering the streets, porches, and intersections with shining filth; a cold wind howled through the days, and worry crawled back into the hearts of the townsfolk who had been slightly calmed by the snow. The Tower of Lash ominously elevated its fragrant smoke up to the sky: “Soon!” A few more students disappeared from the university, and the rowdy evenings at the One-Eyed Fly ended of their own accord. Dean Luayan became the focal point of a universal gravitation, as it were: people sidled up to him, hoping to gain some measure of composure. Complete strangers from the city came to see him. They stood for hours on the grand porch of the university, hoping to see the archmage, seeking his help and reassurance. Luayan avoided long conversations, but he never rewarded the petitioners with anger or annoyance. His conscience would not allow him to appease them, and his reason would not let him frighten them, so he regaled his visitors with monotonous, philosophical parables that did not relate in any way to the reason they had come.

The frightened people still came and went, regardless of the dean’s efforts to put them off. Egert was not the least bit surprised to see a worn-out old man with an extremely straight back and spurs on his boots standing one morning on the steps between the serpent and the monkey. Nodding his head in welcome, he was about to walk by, but the old man smiled painfully and stepped forward to intercept him.

Egert recognized his father only after several seconds. The elder Soll had miraculously begun to resemble the portrait that hung in his study in Kavarren: a portrait of Egert’s grandfather, painted when he was already quite advanced in years, gray haired, with a drooping mustache and rugged wrinkles on his face. Recalling the portrait, Egert recognized his father, and he was astounded at how quickly old age had descended upon him.

Silently, accompanied only by the dull jingling of spurs, father and son walked to the small hotel where the elder Soll was staying. The old man hammered with his flint and stone for a long time before lighting the candles in the candelabrum. A servant brought in wine and glasses. Sitting in a creaking armchair, Egert watched with pain in his heart as his father tried to gather his thoughts. But he could not gather them; he wanted to start a conversation but could not find the words. Egert would have happily helped him, but his own tongue was also helpless and mute.