The Scar (47 page)

Not one of those who then spilled out onto the streets and squares had ever seen a festival like it. Strangers embraced and cried on each other’s shoulders; they cried from the joy of suddenly granted life, such sweet life, to which many of them had already said their good-byes. Yesterday they were the dead, but today they were drunk on the awareness that tomorrow would bring a new day, and beyond that there would be another one, and spring would come, and children would be born. Laughing women in bedraggled clothing joyfully bestowed their favors on those whom they loved, and they loved everyone, even the cripples and the beggars and the tramps, and the guards, youths, and elders. Fourteen-year-old boys became men right on the street, but then lost their happy ladies as they disappeared into the crowd, shrieking with laughter. The frantic, insane festival of people driven mad with joy led to a few fatalities—someone drowned in a canal, someone was trampled by the crowd—but the deaths passed unheeded because on that day in the streets of the city, the people believed in eternal life.

The Tower of Lash indifferently beheld the frantic dancing of the survivors. As before, its doors and walls were sealed tight, and not a single wisp of smoke rose over the gabled roof. The hysterical merrymaking gradually abated, and then whispers began to crawl throughout the city.

The End of Time: Would it happen or had it already been prevented? Where had the Plague come from? Why had it come? Why had it left? What did the sealed walls of the abode of Lash withhold? Why did the robe-wearers not partake in the common doom, skulking behind their walls, and what would happen now? People whispered to one another, looking at the Tower, some warily, some balefully; sometimes voices would rise up, asserting that it was the acolytes of Lash who had invited this disaster with all their talk of the End of Time. It was even whispered that they had loosed the Plague on the city and then sheltered behind strong walls; it was said that the archmage, the former dean of the university, had disappeared to parts unknown on the very day the Plague ended, and that now his daughter accused the robe-wearers of all the deaths. The townsfolk were agitated; they exchanged glances with one another, not wanting to believe. The Tower did not rush to contradict the rumors that were stirring up the city, and the glances that were cast toward it became ever more sullen. Contrary to the remonstrances of the mayor, an assault with crowbars and pickaxes was already planned when the stone works that barred the doors crashed down, broken through from the inside.

Egert, who at that moment was in the library, flinched, feeling a solid thud that shook the earth. From the window he could see quite clearly how the crowd besieging the Tower fell back as if repelled by a gust of wind.

In the black breach stood a hunched gray figure with disheveled hair as white as the moon.

Less than half the soldiers of Lash remained among the living. The bodies of the deceased robe-wearers lay in front of the Tower; they lay in long rows, and wide hoods concealed the dead faces to their chins. The living acolytes stood just as motionless as their dead comrades, and their hoods fell over their faces just as low, and the wind pulled at the clothing of both the living and the dead with the same sluggishness.

Egert did not hear the Magister’s speech; fear kept him from approaching. The crowd listened in silence. In the flood of the Magister’s voice, in the most passionate section of his speech, Egert did hear a brief “Lash!” The people shuddered, involuntarily lowering their heads. Then the Magister fell silent, and the crowd slowly dispersed, docile and hushed, as if lost in solving the riddle presented by the Magister.

*   *   *

Several weeks passed. The surviving students rejoiced when they met one another on the steps of the university, but after boisterous embraces and greetings an uneasy silence usually followed: inquiring about the fate of their friends, far too often they received the most grievous of all possible news. However that may be, the university soon came back to life. The news of the dean’s death was transmitted in a whisper, and many shuddered at hearing it, but many also grieved, and therefore reached out to Toria, wishing to share her grief.

The headmaster expressed his condolences to Toria. She accepted them with reserved dignity. Her father’s study became her own, and she spent many hours under the steel wing, reviewing Luayan’s papers, especially his manuscript. The Amulet of the Prophet, at the request of Egert, was hidden in a place known only to her: Egert did not want to know the secret, and Toria, biting her lips, respected his wish.

Meeting Toria in the corridors, the students greeted her with almost the same respect with which they had previously greeted the dean. Egert always trailed behind her, and everyone already knew that immediately after the period of mourning he would become her husband. No one took it into his head to be astonished at her choice; they all silently recognized that Egert had the right to this distinction.

One day the heiress of Luayan gathered the students in the Grand Auditorium. After an hour, the university turned into a seething cauldron because Toria, ascending to the rostrum for the first time, calmly and simply informed them all of the truth about the crimes of the acolytes of Lash.

Tempers inflamed and boiled over; one suggested they take to the streets, one called for the destruction of Lash, and one brought Fox to mind: he was right, the poor fellow; he had no love for the robed men; he would have shown them! The headmaster, blanching to the top of his shiny bald head, was scarcely able to keep his pupils from revolt.

Toria was called to the headmaster’s study, and the conversation went on for a long time. Egert saw how bewildered the headmaster seemed when, standing in the doorway to his office, he shook his bald head at Toria.

“I don’t think … I don’t think, my child, that what you said should become public knowledge. And then there really is no proof, and … I should hardly think … Desist, I beg you, from untimely accusations. It’s not worth it. That is…”

The headmaster talked and talked, but Toria had already left, holding her head unusually low.

“He’s afraid,” she said with bitterness, closing the door of her father’s study behind herself and Egert. “He doesn’t want to believe. No, he doesn’t believe, when all’s said and done. He thinks I’m frantic with grief. And in the city people now think that the acolytes of Lash stopped the End of Time with their incessant ceremonies, rituals, and prayers to their Spirit. They are already gathering money for a new memorial to Lash. How can this be?”

“I don’t understand,” Egert said helplessly. “There were so many corpses among their soldiers. What did they hope to accomplish?”

Toria smiled dismally. “Do you remember what my father said? ‘They are obstinate, spiteful children, setting fire to their home, sure in their faith that the blaze they play with will not harm them.’”

She abruptly stopped short, as if her throat were compressed by a grasping claw of a bird. Recollections about her father were beyond her strength. Turning her back on Egert, she was silent for a long time, and her trembling palm absently stroked the pages of the open manuscript.

Egert could hardly restrain himself from rushing to her with consolation, but right now that might be inopportune. He simply watched her silently, and together with compassion for Toria’s grief and his habitual fear for his own hide, another, stronger feeling grew in his soul.

“Tor,” he said as carefully as he could. “I know that you will not like what I am about to say, but I agree with the words of our headmaster: it is not worth it, and there is no point in getting mixed up with the acolytes of Lash. They are very dangerous. That’s all there is to it, now you can berate me.”

She turned around slowly. Her lips, squeezed tight, paled, and the look in her narrowed eyes forced Egert to step back.

He wanted to explain that he was motivated not only by his fear, that the memory of Luayan was as priceless to him as it was to Toria, that his murderers were no less abhorrent to him, but the Order of Lash was full of madmen who would stop at nothing, and in resolving to be in conflict with them, Toria was standing on the razor’s edge, and for him, Egert, there was nothing more valuable in the world than her life. But as Toria seethed silently, her eyes conveyed a chilly reproach, and beneath that gaze Egert could not gather all his disordered thoughts into a coherent speech.

“I will not berate you,” she said so distantly that Egert became frightened. “The curse is speaking for you. But since when has its cowardly voice become so similar to your own?”

A pause hung, long and painful, and Egert recalled that day when the heavy book in the hands of Toria beat at his face.

“I had so hoped for the support of the headmaster,” Toria finally said, and her voice shook. “The support of only the students is too little.… But how can it be—” She considered something and did not continue right away. “—that although I find support, it is not from you!”

Egert wanted to get down on his knees before her, but instead he walked up to her and said directly into her unrelenting dry eyes, “Think of me what you will. Judge me how you wish, but the curse is not the cause here; no one cursed me to be afraid for you! But I…” And again he faltered, although he very much needed to tell her how frightful and monstrous the thought of losing her was, losing her now, when it was just the two of them amid a hostile world; and how painful it was to be aware that he was in no condition to protect the most precious, most beloved thing he had. He needed to clothe all this in words, but his pitiful efforts were futile.

She turned her back, not even waiting for him to continue. Looking at her unnaturally straight spine, he feared that a rift had opened up between them, that this conversation could never be forgotten, and that he needed to save Toria and save himself. He realized this last and as before remained silent because she was right, because he was a coward, not a man, and therefore not her equal.

Steps sounded in the corridor, not normal, measured steps, but strange and hasty. Egert heard the incoherent voice of the headmaster and raised his head in surprise. Toria turned around slowly; someone knocked on the door, at first hesitantly, as if frightened, then sharply and demandingly, even rudely. Egert was sure that never in the entire time of its existence had the door to the dean’s study received such treatment.

Toria raised her eyebrows coolly. “What’s this all about?”

“In the name of the law!” dryly carried from beyond the door.

And immediately the voice of the headmaster, nervous and muddled, rang out, “Gentlemen, there has been some kind of misunderstanding. This is a cathedral of academia! You cannot come in here with weapons, gentlemen!”

The door shook with new blows, and with each of them Egert’s soul felt as if it were being hammered out on an anvil. He clenched his jaw, silently praying, Heaven help me conduct myself with dignity!

Toria sneered disdainfully. She threw up the hook that latched the door and rose to her full height in the doorway. Cursing himself, Egert retreated to a dark corner. Invisible from without, he spied from behind Toria’s back the red-and-white uniforms, the bloodless pate of the headmaster, the crowd of nervous students, and the angular, composed face of an officer with a ceremonial whip clutched in his fist: the sign that at the present moment he was fulfilling the will of the law.

“This is my father’s study,” Toria said coldly. “No one is allowed to break down this door, and no one is allowed to enter here without my permission. Is that acceptable to you, gentlemen?”

The officer raised his whip. “Then you acknowledge that you are the daughter of Dean Luayan?”

“I will say it a thousand times, and a thousand times know that it is an honor.”

The officer nodded, as if Toria’s answer gave him pleasure. “In that case, we invite the lady to come with us.”

Egert felt streams of cold sweat running down his back. Why did the most horrible, most incredible things, appropriate only in nightmares, always happen in his life?

Toria pulled her head up even higher, even though it seemed impossible that it could go any higher. “You invite me? Why on earth should I go, and what if I refuse?”

The officer again nodded, again contentedly, as if he had only been waiting for a similar question. “We are acting on the behalf of the city magistrate.” In support of his words he shook his ornamental whip. “We are empowered to compel the lady if she refuses to come with us of her own free will.”

Egert wanted Toria to look to him, even though it was inconceivable.

What could be simpler than for her to look back in search of help, support, protection? But from the very first he knew that she would not turn to him, because there was no point in awaiting protection from Egert, and if she looked into his suffering, guilt-ridden, haggard eyes, she would experience neither comfort nor hope. He knew this and all the same he silently implored her to turn to him, and it actually seemed that she was about to do so, but then she froze, having turned only halfway.

“Gentlemen,” interrupted the headmaster, and Egert saw now how his utterly ancient head wobbled on his thin neck. “Gentlemen, this is unbelievable. Never before has anyone been arrested within these walls. This is a sanctuary! This is a refuge for the spirit. Gentlemen, you are committing a sacrilege! I will go to the mayor!”

“Don’t worry, headmaster,” said Toria, as if pondering. “I am of the opinion that this misunderstanding will soon be worked out and—”

Breaking off, she turned to the officer.

“Well, I understand that you will not stop short of force, gentlemen, and I do not desire that these hallowed halls should be further desecrated by violence. I will go.” She stepped forward and quickly shut the door to the study behind her, as if wishing by this last action to shield Egert from outside eyes.

The door was shut. Egert stood in his corner, clawing his fingernails into his palms, listening as the clatter of boots, the whispering of the distraught students, and the lamentations of the headmaster receded along the corridor.