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.
“I … I brought money,” said the elder Soll finally.
“Thank you,” mumbled Egert and finally put the question that had tormented him the entire walk here into words. “How is Mother?”
His father smoothed out the threadbare velvet tablecloth on the small round table.
“She is ill, extremely ill.” He lifted his haggard, watery eyes to his son. “Egert, they are saying here that time is coming to an end. If time is at an end then to hell with them, with the regiment; to hell with them and their uniform. What a regiment they are, when they … Egert, my son … My father had five sons. We only have you. You are the only one that lived. It’s already difficult for me to get up into the saddle. Getting up on the roof is also difficult. Why did you leave us? There are no grandchildren.…”
Feeling how his throat had dried up, Egert muttered into a dark corner, “I know.”
The old man sighed loudly. He bit his upper lip, chewing on his mustache. “Egert, your mother begs you. Pay your last respects, that’s all. Your mother entreats you. Let’s go home. To hell with them, with all of them. Let’s go to Kavarren. I even brought you a horse. A mare, she’s a marvel.” His father’s gaze brightened somewhat. “Raven black, very high spirited. She’s the daughter of our Tika. You loved Tika, remember?”
Egert silently passed his fingers through the flame of a candle.
“Son, let’s go today. The horses are frisky and well rested. I, of course, will get tired, but not before … Well, we could try it anyway. We could be home within a week. What do you say, Egert?”
“I can’t.” Egert would have rather damned the whole earth than to speak those words. “I cannot. How can I return like this?” His hand touched the scar.
“You think about it,” sighed his father gravely. “You think about it. You can’t ignore your mother, Egert. What kind of a son are you?”
It seemed to him that there would now be no rendezvous with Toria, and that something would fracture, would give way, would tear apart his innards. Happily, she met him on the steps as if she had been waiting for him there.
“Egert?”
He told her how his father’s hands shook when, as they said their good-byes, Egert had shifted his eyes to the side and mumbled an assurance that he would come home soon.
Mud squelched under their feet. The city had quieted; it felt as if it were abandoned. Without picking any particular route, they roamed through the streets and alleyways, and Egert talked without ceasing.
His mother was very ill. His mother was waiting for him, but how could he return bearing this curse? How could he crawl back to his father’s house bearing this cowardly brute in his soul, a brute that at any minute could turn him into the basest scoundrel? He had made a promise to himself; he had made a promise to Toria. Perhaps he was wrong? Perhaps for the sake of his mother’s serenity he should swallow yet another humiliation and return defeated, a coward? Should he fetch his shadow to her feet and burden her with another woe?
He had tried, as far as he could, to explain this to his father. He had foundered in the words, had sunk into them like an amateur fisherman in his own net, but the old man could not understand him, and Egert, exhausted, had finally said to him, “I am ill. I have to find the cure, and then…” His father was silent, and for the first time in his son’s memory, his eternally straight back slumped wearily.
Now Toria listened to all of this. Dusk was thickening; here and there the streetlamps smoked, and every shutter was shut tight. It seemed as though the houses had obstinately closed their eyes against the night, against the filth, against the foul weather. At one point it seemed to Toria that dim shadows were following them at a distance, but Egert noticed nothing. He talked and talked, and appealed to Toria as a witness: Was it possible that he really was wrong?
Trying to escape the wind, they turned into some gates and found themselves in a deserted courtyard, full of refuse. A cook stalked through the yard from a storehouse and cast them a look that was somewhat unfriendly, but more indifferent than anything else. The door slammed shut, ruthlessly grinding down clouds of steam that were breaking loose from inside. A streetlight dimly illuminated a small sign by the door: THE GOAT’S MILK. The scruffy goats stood listlessly in a narrow enclosure beneath an awning.
The streetlamp weaved in the wind, and Toria shivered, only now feeling both the wind and the damp.
“Come on, let’s go. Why are we here?”
Egert opened his mouth to repeat all his reasoning from the beginning, but he found he could say nothing. In the wan light of the streetlamp, Lieutenant Karver Ott towered before him like a dripping wet ghost.
The lieutenant looked unimpressive: during his time spent in the city his uniform had been worn constantly, and since his purse had been depleted by all the taverns he had visited, it had not been cleaned. It showed. The appearance of Bonifor and Dirk, who were standing behind him, was also not very decent. Instead of gentlemen of the guards, they now resembled bandits or highwaymen, an impression that was heightened by the fact that both rested their palms on the hilts of their swords.
Toria did not understand what was happening. She did not recognize Karver, so she thought that she and Egert had been tracked down by common thieves. She had no intention of waiting for them to demand their purses. She smiled scornfully and was about to say something scathing, but Karver forestalled her.
He recognized her, even in the muddy light of the swinging street lantern, and he could hardly keep his eyes in their sockets. “Lady! We are acquainted!” he drawled with an expression of sheer amazement. “For shame!”
Bonifor and Dirk leaned forward to see Toria a little better.
“Oh yes, Egert,” continued Karver. “You seem to have attained your goal. But what is the meaning of this, my lady?” He turned to Toria with a perfectly polite demeanor. “Have you so easily forgiven him for the base murder of your studious fiancé?”
“Who are you?” asked Toria in an icy tone. The iron undertones in her voice caused Dirk and Bonifor to wince slightly, but Karver was not the slightest bit put off.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Karver Ott, Lieutenant of the Guards of the city of Kavarren, sent here with a special commission: to bring the deserter Egert Soll back to the regiment. These are my fellow guardsmen, remarkably worthy young men. That, my lady, is who we are, definitely not the thieves of the night you seem to think us! And now allow me to ask you, just who do you think that man is, the one who is now hiding behind your back?”
Egert was not at all hiding behind Toria’s back, but he had instinctively retreated, horrified as a tenacious wave of his eternal companion, animal fear, arose in his chest. Karver’s words lashed him like a whip.
“This man,” responded Toria, undaunted, “is under the protection of the university and of my father, Dean Luayan. And Master Luayan is a mage, as you should have heard by now. And now, be so kind as to clear the way. We are leaving.”
“But, lady!” cried Karver in bewilderment, either real or feigned. “I cannot believe this. You are suc
h a distinguished individual, how could you be involved with this, this…” The lieutenant’s lips involuntarily curled in a grimace of aversion when he glanced at Egert. “I repeat, he murdered your fiancé. I think that even then in the depths of his soul he was already the thing he became just a bit later. Do you know what he became!”
“Allow us to pass.” Toria stepped forward, and Karver slowly stepped to the side.
“Please. We have no desire to bring even the slightest shadow of insult to the beautiful daughter of the dean, the gentleman mage. But this man, lady … Wouldn’t you be interested to find out what Egert Soll really is?”
Egert was silent. Gradually, he began to understand that what was happening now was, if anything, more terrible than Fagirra’s poisoned stiletto. There was nothing he could do to stop this dreadful game from playing out; Egert would have to drink this cup to its dregs.
As if responding to his thought, Karver pulled his sword out of its sheath with a subtle movement. In the light of the lantern, Egert saw the silver ribbon of the blade and his knees began buckle.
“You’ll answer for this,” spat Toria.
Karver raised his eyebrows. “For what! Am I doing something improper to the lady? My lady may stay or she may go. In the second instance she will finally see the true face of her, hmm, friend.” The tip of the impossibly long Kavarrenian sword touched Egert under the chin.
Egert felt faint. Karver’s voice continued to reach him, but it was as if it came through the roaring of a waterfall; the sound of his own blood in his ears deafened him. Vainly trying to overcome his horror, he suddenly recalled the words Toria had once spoken. The curse will be broken if you fall into a hopeless situation and yet somehow overcome it. When the path has reached its bitter end: don’t you think the Wanderer was speaking of this?
“I feel pity for you, lady,” said Karver in the meantime. “Cruel fate brought you into contact with a man who is, to put it mildly, entirely unworthy. On your knees, Egert!”
Egert reeled, and Toria caught his gaze. The curse will be broken if you fall into a hopeless situation and yet somehow overcome it. Heaven, how could he be victorious over a rock, a landslide, an avalanche that was careening down a mountainside? Egert’s soul was wailing and thrashing about. The pitiful coward died a thousand deaths, and Egert knew that within a second the vile beast would completely subdue him.
“Did you hear me, Egert?” repeated Karver calmly. “On your knees.”
Toria is here. Toria will see, then she’ll really think …
Without following the thought to its conclusion, he sank down into the slimy muck below. His knees buckled against his will, and now Karver’s frayed belt and sleek riding breeches were right in front of his eyes.
“Do you see, lady?” Karver’s reproachful voice rang out above Egert’s head. “Demand something of him now; demand anything you like. He will answer.”
Egert could not see Toria, but he felt her next to him. He sensed her pain and her striving and her rage and her confusion, and her hope.
She hopes. She does not understand that it is impossible. Impossible to overcome the strength of the curse laid on me by the Wanderer. Never.
The sword jerked in Karver’s impatient hand. “Say ‘I am the nastiest wretch in creation.’”
“Egert,” sighed Toria, and his name seemed to echo from the distance, from the bright winter day when he stood with her by the eternally blooming tree on the tomb of the First Prophet.
“I am the nastiest wretch in creation,” he gasped through parched lips.
Karver chuckled contentedly. “Do you hear that! Repeat after me, ‘I am a lady’s cowardly lapdog.’”
“Egert,” repeated Toria under her breath.
“I am a lady’s cowardly lapdog,” his lips murmured of their own accord.
Dirk and Bonifor, who had been silent until now, burst out into merry laughter.
“Repeat, Egert, ‘I am a creeping piece of shit and a sodomite.’”
“Leave him alone!” shrieked Toria, beside herself.
Karver was amazed. “Why are you so bothered? Is it because he’s a lover of men? He is definitely a bugger, we found him with his boyfriend in some tavern. But you did not know, of course?”
Her silent entreaty reached Egert. Stop this, Egert. Stop it. Break the curse.
A door slammed open wildly. The morose cook walked to the storehouse, casting a glance, as oppressively indifferent as before, at the people by the fence.
Fiddling with his blade, Karver waited until she hobbled back and slammed the heavy door; then he spun his sword right in front of the face of his victim. “Answer, scum. Are you Egert Soll?”
“Yes,” wheezed Egert.
“Are you a deserter?”
“Yes.” And then he broke out into a sweat, but no longer from fear. All he had to do to break the curse was say yes five times.
“Did you, scoundrel, murder the fiancé of this beautiful lady?”
“Yes.”
Toria was shaking. She also understood. Through his slumped back, Egert felt her feverish, frustrated anticipation.
Karver smiled expansively. “You love this lady, don’t you, Egert?”
“Yes,” he screamed out for the fourth time, feeling how hard his maddened heart was beating.
It seemed to him that he could hear Toria breathing. Glorious Heaven, help me! But the chance would come only once, and that which was foremost in his soul must become last. Did that mean that he must cast off his fear?
He jerked up his head, awaiting the fifth question; meeting his eyes, Karver involuntarily flinched, as if seeing a phantom of the former, domineering Egert Soll. Falling back a step, he searchingly examined his victim. An enormous shiver struck Egert.
Karver smiled contentedly. “Are you shivering?”
“Yes!”
He rose from his knees in a single, fluid motion. He noticed the confusion in Karver’s eyes; he felt Toria moving behind his back; he took a step forward, intending to grab the lieutenant by his skinny throat; Karver hastily raised his sword out in front of him; Egert extended his arm to turn the sharp tip aside; and in that moment an attack of nauseating, detestable terror turned his heart into a pathetic, fluttering lump.
His legs gave out, and he once again sagged to the ground. He touched his cheek with a shaking hand. The scar was still there; the rough, hardened seam was still on his cheek. The scar was in its place, as was the fear that harried his soul.
The streetlamp swayed, shrieking in its bracket. Egert felt like his knees were frozen in icy slush. From somewhere on the roof, water was dripping, drip, drip. Toria whispered something helplessly.
Karver, recovering himself, hostilely peered at him through slit eyes. “So then, that’s how it is. You will now display your love for the lady.” He abruptly turned toward his companions, “Bonifor. There is a nice little she-goat in that enclosure over there, do you see her? Her owner won’t mind if we borrow her for a little while.”
Still hoping, Egert moved his lips, repeating “yes” over and over, but Bonifor was already opening the enclosure, and Toria, not yet believing in their defeat, stared at Bonifor, Karver, and the mustachioed Dirk without understanding. The black surface of a greasy puddle gleamed like slate.
Hope twitched in his soul for the last time, and then it faded, leaving in its place a desolate, hopeless melancholy. Toria realized this and instantly lost her strength to fight back. Their eyes met.
“Leave,” he whispered. “Please leave.”
Toria remained where she was. Either she had not heard him or she had not understood or she no longer had the strength to move from the spot. Karver chuckled.
The goat, skinny and filthy, was accustomed to brutal treatment. She did not even begin to bleat when Bonifor, cursing under his breath, flipped her from his back to the ground at Karver’s feet. He proprietarily fastened a rope on the neck of the miserable animal then glanced ruefully at the bewildered Toria.
“So,
he loves you, you heard?”
Egert looked at the gray, twitching tail of the goat. There would be no miracle. There would be no miracle. Fear had already conquered both his will and his reason, he had lost himself, and he would lose Toria. The Wanderer had left no way out.
Karver seized the goat by the muzzle and turned it toward Egert. “Well, here is a partner worthy of you; here is your love. Kiss her, go on then!”
Why doesn’t Toria understand that she must leave? Everything is over; does she need to be tormented by this abhorrent scene?
The swords of Bonifor and Dirk threatened him from either side.
“Look how nice she is! A lovely creature. So kiss her!”
The stench of unwashed animal assaulted Egert’s nostrils.
“You heard him. He loves you?” Karver’s low voice reached him from a distance. “And you believed him? Look at him; he’s ready to exchange you for the first goat that comes along!”
“What do you mean for the first one that comes along?” Bonifor flared up theatrically. “She’s a charming goat, best in the pen, right, Egert?”
“You should be ashamed.” Egert hardly recognized Toria’s voice.
“We should be ashamed!” Karver, unlike Bonifor, flared up in truth. “We, and not him?”
“Leave,” implored Egert. Toria stood still. Heaven, could her legs have grown numb? The cold edge of a blade once again touched his neck.
“Come on now, Egert! I declare you man and wife, you and your darling goat. Let’s skip straight to the wedding night!”
Dirk and Bonifor, stunned by Karver’s inventiveness, turned the goat around so that her tail faced Egert.
“Get to it! It will take all of five minutes. Have at it and all will be well; you can escort your lady home. Yes, lady, are you really still reluctant to return alone?”
It started raining. The water was rippled through the matted hair of the goat. His knees were frozen solid, and Egert suddenly imagined that he was a boy, standing up to his knees in the Kava river in spring, and on the near bank unbearably yellow flowers were blooming. He stretched out, trying to pluck one.…
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