“It seems to me,” breathed Egert, “that I do know a little, just a little. I have … learned. But to you, of course, it is clear: you know, what the night before an execution is like.…”
Toria, standing nearby, went cold.
The Wanderer, it seemed, was surprised. “Indeed? Well, that much is familiar to me, that is true. My, but you are a diligent student, aren’t you, Egert Soll?”
Egert shuddered at the sound of his own name. He pressed his hand to his cheek. “Can you remove this?”
“I cannot,” uttered the Wanderer, gazing into the water. “One can’t reattach a decapitated head. Only a complete child would torture a fly by trying to glue back the wing that he himself had ripped off. And some curses also possess an inverse power. You’ll have to come to resign yourself to it.”
It became quiet. The paper hat, which had all this time been roaming from shore to shore, finally became soaked through, became unglued, and gradually began to sink.
“I thought as much,” said Egert desolately. There was something in his voice that made the hairs on the back of Toria’s neck stand up.
“Egert.” She stepped toward him and caught hold of his hand. “Egert, everything will be … everything will be all right. Things will work out. Don’t … Let’s go home. Everything will … You’ll see, Egert—” But at that moment her will betrayed her, and she burst into bitter tears.
Egert, frozen in place from shock, steadily offered her his arm, and she took hold of his elbow. Slowly and silently they walked away. From behind they suddenly heard, “Wait a minute.”
Flinching, they both turned around.
The Wanderer stood, leaning against the railing, and pensively examined the toe of his own boot. He raised his head and squinted against the rising sun. “The curse does not have inverse power, and it may be cast off … in exceptional circumstances. This moment will occur just once in your life, and if you let it slip away, all hope will be forever lost. The circumstances of this moment are these.”
Lightly casting his cloak behind his back, he descended toward them, and it seemed to Egert in that instant that the Wanderer was the same age as he.
“Hear me and remember, Egert:
“When that which is foremost in your soul becomes last.
“When the path has reached its bitter end.
“When five questions are asked and you answer yes.”
The Wanderer fell silent for a moment. He added softly, “The curse will fall away of its own accord. Do not falter. It is quite easy to err, and a mistake will cost you much. Farewell, to the both of you. Don’t repeat your mistakes.…”
* * *
With narrowed eyes the acolyte watched in astonishment as the auditor Egert and the daughter of the dean, Toria, walked up the front steps of the university. Both were as pale as the dead, and they looked ready to collapse, but each was using the other’s arm for support.
PART THREE
Luayan
7
On summer days the stone courtyard, which served as both a playground and a main square, glowed with heat like the floor of an iron forge, and the air over it shimmered and wavered. The streets of the village that clung to the cliff flickered, disappeared from sight, then reappeared, changing their contours. His teacher Orlan smiled mysteriously, “Appearance. The unfamiliar is concealed within the familiar; the unknown abides in the known. No matter how you tried, you could not dig to the bottom of this well.… However, what good is the bottom to you? Drink up, and be grateful.…”
Young Luayan did not immediately understand what kind of well his teacher was speaking of. In the courtyard on the cliff there was no well: water had to be hauled up from below, and it was quite difficult.
On the other hand, it was cool in the mage’s home, even on the most scorching days, and the steel wing fastened over the entrance was an appeal for the preservation of the inhabitants from adversity, illness, and enemies. Luayan knew all too well that as long as his teacher lived, so it would be.
As long as his teacher lived …
The dean tore his gaze away from the yellow flames dancing in the fireplace: after the Day of Jubilation, true autumn days, damp and chilly, had set in. His teacher had been in the habit of lighting a fire even in the middle of summer; Orlan maintained that a fire in the fireplace promoted reflection. It is possible that he was right, but Luayan had not adopted this practice, and so in the summer his fireplace stood cold and empty.
Who knows how his destiny might have unwound if Orlan had lived even a few more years?
So many mistakes. His whole life was a repository of mistakes, and always on the eve of disaster he felt a drawing cold in his chest. Just like today.
He turned around. Toria, his daughter, was sitting on the very edge of his desk, and her face, lit by the firelight, looked severe, even harsh. From out of this face another woman gazed reproachfully at the dean: her equally young and beautiful mother. The dean rubbed his temple pensively, but the hazy foreboding did not desist; behind Toria, the bloodshot eyes of Egert Soll gleamed in the half dark.
The dean turned a log in the fireplace, and the flames flared brighter. The dean recalled how the fire in the hut by the cliff had burned just as brightly, and how two armchairs with high backs had stood facing each other, an old man sitting in one, and in the other a young boy entranced by his elder’s words. I’m getting old, he thought sarcastically. The past comes to my mind far too clearly, but where does this aching, vague presentiment of evil come from?
“Five yesses,” Egert yet again muttered from the gloom. “Someone questions me five times? And I just need to answer?”
Toria was looking at her father with demand in her eyes.
He averted his face. How could Luayan solve this riddle; where would he find the answer? He needed help now, but the only man who could help him had been lying in a stone tomb, carved into the cliff, for the past several decades.
Toria flinched and Egert whipped his head around: someone was knocking erratically on the heavy door.
The dean lifted his eyebrows in shock. “Yes?”
Gaetan’s angular face peeked warily through the crack of the partially open door; other students stood behind him, whispering tensely and then shushing each other.
“Dean Luayan,” gasped Fox, “there … in the square. Lash.”
Egert felt a wave of sepulchral cold flood his chest.
* * *
The square was, as usual, filled with people, but it was unusually silent. The Tower of Lash had flung open its perpetually shut gates, and a thick wall of heavy smoke poured out of those gates, emitting a bitter odor. Gray robes flickered in the shroud of smoke, but none of the townsfolk, dazed by this unprecedented event, could make out what was happening in the compact, umber clouds.
A group of students sliced through the crowd like a knife; Dean Luayan served as the tip of this knife. Egert held back, and Fagirra’s insinuating voice resounded in his ears: Great ordeals are approaching, ordeals that all living things must endure. You must hurry, Egert … before that which must happen, happens. You will meet it with us, and you will find salvation, whereas others will cry out in horror.
The heavy brown smoke slowed and began to flow upward toward the sky. On the spot where it had just been eddying, a motionless human ring became apparent: the acolytes of Lash stood shoulder to shoulder, close together like the sharp, pointed stakes of a wooden fence. Their hoods were pulled low and their faces, turned toward the inhabitants of the town, were concealed by the coarse cloth. Egert sheltered behind someone’s back: it seemed to him that vigilant, focused gazes were searching for him from underneath the hoods.
“What’s all this for—?” Toria began derisively, but at that very moment a drawn-out note that pulled at the soul instantly stopped the mouths of everyone who had assembled in the square.
The fiery red robe of the dwarf flashed through the gray circle of hoods; another sheaf of smoke puffed up behind backs that were still as stone
, and then, as if elevated on these clouds, the Magister rose up over the square. It is possible that Egert alone knew that this was the Magister: everyone else saw only a white sphere of disheveled silver hair, which rose like the moon over a battlement of hoods.
The square was suddenly full of whispers, rustles, and exchanged glances; the peeling sound repeated, and again a dead silence, unnatural for a crowded place, fell. The heavy smoke grudgingly drifted up into the sky, as if against its will.
Once again red flashed through the circle of hooded men, and the dwarf, carrying his instrument, also seemed to be rising up over the crowd. His thin lips moved—or did it just seem so to Egert?—and words tumbled out of the trumpet, accompanied by more heavy smoke.
“It approaches!”
Egert’s blood ran cold. Great ordeals are approaching.…
“Prepare yourself. Prepare your home. Prepare your life.”
You must hurry, Egert.…
“The Ages have flowed by. The Ages have run out. The river is not eternal. The Age has passed. It is close. Prepare yourself. The End of Time approaches!”
The square remained silent, uncomprehending.
“The End of Time…” The hollow words were punctuated by plumes of smoke, weaving over the trumpet. “The End. Lash beholds the End of all things. He is there before you. Stretch out your hand.… He is there. A week, maybe two or three … Maybe just a day, or an hour … That is all that remains until the End. Lash beholds all. Lash beholds all. The End of the World. The End of Life. The End of Time. Lash beholds…”
The dwarf took the trumpet away from his crooked lips and spit slowly, with relish.
“The words have been spoken!” the Magister yelled in a penetrating voice. “The sand is flowing out of your hourglasses. The End!”
As if obeying an unspoken command, the gray figures slowly raised their arms; wide sleeves fell back, and a cold wind blew over the assemblage. It seemed to many that the wind reeked of the grave.
“The End,” The murmured chant rose up from beneath many hoods. “The End … The End…”
And smoke again began to pour out of the Tower, but this time it was black, as if the entire world were burning. The smoke obscured the Magister, the red-robed dwarf, and the wall of motionless, faceless men from the eyes of the people in the square: this spectacle was so majestic and yet sinister that a woman who stood near Egert in the crowd started rambling hysterically.
“Oh! Oh, dear people, oh! Oh, how can this be? No, no, no! It can’t be! I refuse…”
Egert turned his head toward her: the woman was pregnant and as she wailed she pressed her palms first to her wet cheeks, then to her enormous round belly.
The formation of robed men mutely disappeared through the gates of the Tower. The gates closed just as silently, and the smoke was shut off: only trickles crept out from underneath the iron doors. These black trickles writhed like harassed vipers.
Egert rushed to the dean’s side. The dean, catching sight of Toria’s inquiring glance, smile wanly. The smile was pensive and reassuring, but Toria only frowned more deeply.
The dean dropped his hand onto her shoulder. “We should go.”
The crowd dispersed. Dispirited people hid their eyes. Somewhere a frightened child sobbed, and the lips of many a woman trembled traitorously. An old man, apparently deaf, snatched at all and sundry by the sleeves, trying to find out what “these folk in capes” had said; people brushed the old man aside, some sullenly, some crossly.
A strained, unnatural laugh suddenly broke out over the crowd. “Here now, they made it up, didn’t they? It’s their little joke, right?” The man who was laughing received no support, and his laughter faded pitifully.
A crowd of students stood by the entrance to the university, right between the snake and the monkey. All eyes followed the dean, but he passed by without saying a word, walking through a path that had formed in the crowd, and the unvoiced questions of the youths were left unanswered. Egert and Toria followed after Luayan.
In the university courtyard they ran into Fox. He had installed himself on the shoulders of a sturdy youth, and, blowing out his cheeks so far they seemed about to explode, Gaetan assiduously blew into a tin trumpet and cried out dismally from time to time, “It approooooaches … Aaaaaaa…”
* * *
There came a day when another man sat down in the armchair of his teacher.
The boy had heard of Lart Legiar from Orlan many times, but his first encounter with the archmage, who appeared one day at the hut by the cliff, could have cost Luayan dearly because, immature and overconfident, he tried to test his skill against the unwelcome guest.
The vanity and pride of Luayan received a palpable blow on that day: he was forced to throw himself on the mercy of his opponent who was not only far stronger than a fourteen-year-old boy but also than many of the wisest, gray-haired mages. It was not in Lart’s nature to spare an opponent, however young he might be, but the boy capitulated and his reward was a long, initially oppressive, but subsequently fascinating conversation.
Toward the morning of a long night, the archmage Lart Legiar summoned the boy to him: it was a chance to change his fate, a chance to find a new teacher. Luayan did not miss this chance: he simply refused it. He refused it calmly and deliberately. He was not one of those who could easily exchange teachers even if being the pupil of Legiar would be an incredible honor.
Many times after he had grown up, Luayan had asked himself if it was worth it. Such fidelity to the grave of Orlan: did it cost him too dear? Abandoned at the age of fourteen in the company of wise but indifferent books, he had transformed himself into a mage, but he would never become an archmage.
The bitter taste lived within him for many years. Both to his face and behind his back, people called him “master mage,” “great magician,” and “archmage,” but not a one guessed that the already middle-aged Luayan had not progressed much in his magic from the time of his adolescence.
However, he had not wasted a single drop of the knowledge and power that he obtained under the steel wing of Orlan. He was entirely competent in the magical arts, even if he was far from the heights. He immersed himself in academia and became an unparalleled expert on history. However, two morbidly painful flames always smoldered in his soul. The first was Toria’s unhappy mother; the second was the vexing awareness of his own frustrated greatness.
Never before had he so greatly regretted those unachieved heights. Having closed the door of his study, he stood idle under the extended steel wing, trying to gather his thoughts. His reason calmly assured him that there was nothing to worry about: the wearers of the gray robes had always been fond of effects designed for spectators, and the end of time was nothing more than their most recent subterfuge, invoked to rivet the diminishing attentions of the city’s inhabitants on the Tower. Thus insisted his reason, but the presentiment of disaster strengthened, and the dean knew from experience that he should have faith in his presentiments.
He knew this feeling. It had come on especially keenly that night when he had let his dearly beloved and despised, bedeviling wife leave the house: he had let her go, insulted and piqued at her disdain, and she had met her death.
The wing stretched out over his head, commanding him to shun forbidden thoughts. He stood for a time in front of a tall cabinet. The cabinet was barred with both a lock and an enchantment, just to be on the safe side. Luayan breathed a sigh and removed both the lock and the enchantment.
A jasper casket rested on a black satin pillow; it was small, about the size of a snuffbox. The dean placed it on his palm then touched the lid, which surrendered without effort.
A medallion lay on the velvet bottom of the small chest: a delicate disk of pure gold on a gold chain. The dean was unaware that he held his breath as he put the faintly gleaming disk, covered with intricate, ornately carved recesses, on his palm. Nothing could be simpler, one would think, than to peer deep into these recesses, into rays of sunlight, but Luayan was pier
ced by trepidation at the mere thought of doing so. He was the guardian of this medallion, not its master.…
… When he met Lart Legiar for the second time, Luayan was a respected mage and the dean of the university.
At that time Luayan was already aware that the Third Power had vainly tried to force its way through the Doors of Creation, and that the Doorkeeper had refused to lift the bar and let it through. Whatever role Lart Legiar had played in this affair was hidden from the eyes of men, but the dean had flinched the first time he looked at his guest’s face. The great Legiar had aged, and his face was seamed with scars that had not been there before; one eye was blind and stared blankly past his host, but the other, which had escaped whatever disaster stole the first, was observant and slightly mocking.
“The world remains the same,” Legiar declared in lieu of a greeting.
“But it is we who change,” responded Luayan, trying to divine the intentions of his visitor.
They looked at each other for a long moment. A multitude of questions tormented Luayan: about the strange Third Power that wished to invade the world, about the fate of the Doorkeeper, and about Legiar’s own fate, but he remained silent because he knew that he did not have the right to ask.
“No,” Legiar sighed finally. “You have not changed. You’ve hardly changed at all.”
Luayan understood what his guest meant, but he smiled pleasantly, wishing to hide from the other’s pity.
“Well, the fewer archmages there are in this world and the less frequently they encounter one another, the easier it is for us ordinary mages to live.”
Legiar cast up his eyebrows in astonishment. “You’ve checked your arrogance? The last time we met, I was sure that would be impossible. Or are you acting against your soul’s inclination?”
“It is not given to all to be great,” Luayan observed dispassionately.
“But it was given to you,” objected Legiar.
They both fell silent.
Luayan frowned as he gazed steadily, with barely perceptible reproach, right into Legiar’s undamaged eye. “I remained Orlan’s student. I think he would have understood.”
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