The Scar

by Sergey Dyachenko

  * * *

  On the following day, Toria climbed up her stepladder, peered into the lecture hall through the small round window, and did not see Egert Soll among the students.

  Having run her eyes over the rows of students more than once, Toria frowned. The absence of Egert piqued her: after all, her father was on the rostrum! Climbing down, she thought for some time while observing the free and easy games of the library’s mouser; then, feeling querulous, she set off for the annex.

  She perfectly remembered the way to this room even though Dinar had not been fond of her visiting there: undoubtedly he was ashamed of the small room. She visited just the same and perched on the edge of his desk while the poor fellow scurried about, gathering up stray items and wiping the dust off the windowsill with his palm.…

  Calling Dinar to mind, Toria sighed. She walked up to the familiar door, suddenly unsure of herself. All was quiet beyond the door, and it seemed likely to her that there was no one in the room. How stupid I look, thought Toria, and knocking once, she entered.

  Egert was sitting at the desk, his head gravely lowered; Toria noted in passing the sheet of paper lying in front of him and the quill stained with ink. Turning his head around to greet his guest, Egert flinched; the inkpot, grazed by his hand, teetered and overturned.

  For a minute or two they were distracted by silently and intently wiping up puddles of ink from the tabletop and floor. Toria’s gaze involuntarily fell on the pages, full of writing, much of it crossed out, and without even realizing what she was doing, she read in Egert’s bloated, clumsy handwriting: and then we shall manage to remember all, and all that was … She hastened to avert her gaze; noticing this, Egert smiled wearily.

  “I’ve never been one for writing letters.”

  “There is a lecture now,” she remarked dryly.

  “Yes,” Egert sighed, “but I really need, especially today, to write a letter to … to a certain woman.”

  The autumn wind gathered strength beyond the windows; it howled and slammed into the loose shutters. Toria suddenly realized that it was damp in the room and chilly, and almost completely dark.

  Egert turned away from her “Yes. I finally decided to write to my mother.”

  The wind tossed a fallen maple leaf—yellow as the sun—against the window; sticking there for a second, the yellow leaf tore away and flew farther on, dancing playfully in the wind.

  “I didn’t know that you had a mother,” said Toria quietly and almost immediately became confused. “That is, I didn’t know she was alive.”

  Egert cast his eyes to the ground. “Yes.”

  “That’s good,” mumbled Toria, unable to think of anything better to say.

  Egert smiled, but the smile came out bitter. “Yes. The thing is, I am not a very good son. That’s for sure.”

  Beyond the window the wind gusted particularly strenuously. A draft swirled through the room, proprietarily rustling through the papers on the desk.

  “Somehow it seems to me…” Toria unexpectedly found herself speaking. “It seems to me that a son, even one who has gotten into trouble, would be loved regardless. Perhaps even more intensely…”

  Egert glanced up at her quickly, and his face brightened. “Really?”

  For some unknown reason Toria recalled a young boy, a stranger to her, weeping over a dead sparrow: she was fourteen years old, and she went up to him and explained in all seriousness that the bird needed to be left alone, for only then would the Sparrow King appear and bring his loyal subject back to life. Widening his tear-filled eyes, the little boy had asked her then with that same abrupt, sincere hope, “Really?”

  Toria smiled at her recollection. “Really.”

  Rain started drumming against the hazy window.

  Whenever Toria returned home with yet another hole in her stockings, her mother, silently shaking her head, took her wooden needlework box down from a shelf. Toria peered covetously into its mysterious depths: there among a tangle of wool and silk thread, brilliantly lustrous pearl buttons gleamed at her like eyes. Her mother extracted a needle from the box and set to work, occasionally biting off a thread with her sharp, white teeth. Soon in the place where the misshapen little hole had been, a red bug with black spots appeared; after several weeks had passed, Toria’s new stockings were always embroidered with an entire swarm of red bugs, both small and large. She liked to imagine that they would come alive and crawl over her knees, tickling her with their little feelers.

  And if her mother were still alive? What if her father had not let her go, what if he had locked her up, locked the door and fastened it with an enchantment?

  Father and daughter had lived together for many years, and in all that time she could not remember a single other woman with him. Not one.

  The Tower of Lash launched into its mournful howl. Toria winced peevishly and in the same breath frowned, seeing how Egert’s face changed. It must be difficult to live in constant fear.

  “It’s nothing,” she said briskly. “Don’t listen to it. Don’t listen. Only undertakers believe in this nonsense about the end of time: they’re hoping to make some money.” She smiled at her awkward joke, but Egert did not stop frowning. A painful-looking fold loomed between his eyebrows.

  The sound came again, even more plaintive, with a hysterical sob at the end. Toria saw that Egert’s lips were starting to quiver; flinching, he hastily turned his back to her. Egert silently tried to compose himself, and Toria, who was also uncomfortable, had to witness this mute struggle.

  For a long moment she considered if she should tactfully retire or if, on the contrary, it would be best to pretend that nothing was happening. The Tower finally fell silent, but Egert was overcome with the shakes and had to hold his twitching jaw with his hand to still it. Without saying a word, Toria went out into the corridor, filled an iron mug from the water fountain, and brought it to Egert.

  He gulped it down and started choking. His pale face became engorged with blood; tears welled up in his eyes. Desiring to help, Toria clapped him on the back one or two times. His shirt was as damp as if it had just been pulled out of a laundry basin.

  “Everything will be all right,” she mumbled, suddenly overcome with shyness. “Listen to me: There won’t be an ‘end of time.’ Don’t be afraid.”

  Then he drew a deep breath and suddenly told her everything: he told her about Fagirra, about the Magister, about the ceremony in the Tower, about their promises and threats and about his secret errand. Toria heard him out without interjecting a single word, but when he got to the last encounter with the disguised acolyte, Egert fell silent.

  “That’s all?” Toria looked him in the eyes.

  “That’s all.” He averted his eyes.

  A few moments passed in silence.

  “You don’t trust me?” Toria asked softly.

  He laughed: it was a strange question after all that had been said!

  “Tell me, right to the end.” Toria drew her eyebrows down.

  So he told her about the poisoned stiletto.

  The ensuing silence lasted for about ten minutes.

  Finally, Toria raised her head. “So, you didn’t tell him anything?”

  “I don’t know anything,” Egert explained wearily. “But if I had known, I would have reported it all to that dear soul.”

  “No!” said Toria as though she was shocked at the very possibility of such an idea. “No, you wouldn’t have told him.…” But at the end her voice lost its confidence.

  “You yourself have seen what I’ve become,” uttered Egert peevishly. “I am no longer myself. I’m a wretched, cowardly animal.”

  “But can’t you … try to overcome it?” asked Toria cautiously. “Try to keep yourself from being afraid?”

  “Try to keep yourself from blinking,” Egert suggested, shrugging.

  Toria tried. For some time she heartily looked out the window with wide-open eyes as if she were engaged in a staring contest, but then her eyelids twitched and, ignoring th
e command of her reason, fluttered.

  “There you have it.” Egert’s gaze was fixed on the floor. “I am a slave. I’m a total slave to the curse. All I think about is what is first in my soul, and what is last, and who will question me five times, so that I might answer ‘yes’ five times.”

  Toria rubbed her temple, exactly like her father. “I cannot believe it. What if you were forced to do something completely impossible? Wouldn’t you be able to resist?”

  Egert smiled crookedly. “If I had a knife at my throat…”

  “But really you … you’re not a bad man…,” she muttered without confidence.

  He was silent. An enormous, impudent raven was strutting ceremoniously through the wet university courtyard like a judge.

  Egert exhaled deeply, seeing a scaffold in his mind’s eye. Stuttering, he told her about the girl in the carriage and the highwaymen who had intercepted that carriage on the road.

  Another long silence followed. Egert expected Toria to simply get to her feet and leave, but she did not.

  “And if,” she asked finally, her voice unsteady, “if it had been … there … if that had been me?”

  Egert buried his face in his hands.

  For a long time Toria looked at the unkempt, disordered waves of his blond hair, at his shoulders, impressively wide but hunched and shaking like a child’s; then she rested her narrow palm on one of them.

  Egert froze.

  As persuasively as she could, Toria said, “You are not responsible for the deeds of others. You are simply ill and you need to find a cure. And we will find it.”

  She spoke reluctantly, like a doctor assuring a patient who is near death and covered in sores of his imminent recovery. The tense shoulder shuddered under her hand as if it was relaxing slightly; the change was barely perceptible, but in the next moment she sensed all the confusion of Egert’s feelings: hope, gratitude, and the desire to believe. Then, still holding her hand against his warm shoulder, she wished with suddenly awakened compassion that her belabored words would prove to be true.

  The door swung open with a crash. Holding a pair of dilapidated notebooks at his side, Fox, grinning widely, burst into the room.

  His honey-colored eyes dwelled on Egert who sat, hanging his head, on the edge of the bed and on Toria whose hand was resting on his shoulder. For several moments nothing happened, and then in an instant Gaetan’s angular face was pierced with surprise: his eyes became as round as plums, his mouth swept open in a round hole, and muttering an indistinct apology, Fox leapt away without even trying to pick up his books, which had crashed to the floor.

  Toria did not remove her hand. Waiting until the Gaetan’s clatter faded in the corridor, she said earnestly, “This is what I think. The curse will be broken if you fall into a hopeless situation and yet somehow overcome it. When the path has been reached its bitter end: don’t you think the Wanderer was speaking of this?”

  Egert did not answer.

  * * *

  After a few days the rain changed into clear, fair weather. Squinting in the cool autumn sunlight, the townspeople were somewhat cheered. “Time is not even thinking of ending,” said neighbors to each other, stepping out onto their little porches in the morning, “On the contrary, time is on the loose.…”

  The Tower of Lash loomed over the square like an admonitory finger: it even seemed that it had recently shriveled and dried up just like a geriatric digit. It was as if a bald spot had appeared in the square around the Tower: everyone tried to travel around the sinister building, all the more so since smoke rose from the windows ever thicker, the dismal sound rang out ever more often, and passersby who happened to be in the square late at night assured their acquaintances that they heard a dull, subterranean rumble rising up from its depths.

  The city authorities were silent and apparently had no plans regarding the Order of Lash. Among the students it was considered good form to address witty remarks and taunts to the Order of Lash: Fox recalled for this purpose his old, foolish nanny, who had frightened four of the apothecary’s sons in sequence with one and the same bogeyman, and yet none of them were ever devoured by him. Lessons continued as if nothing had happened, and only a few bewildered youths, using various excuses, left the university for home.

  “Father is worried,” Toria said one day.

  They were sitting in the library late one evening. A single candle was guttering on the book cart.

  “He tries not to give that impression, but I know him. Lash alarms him.”

  The candle was dissolving into droplets of wax.

  “Lash,” Egert repeated, barely audibly. “That time, in Kavarren … You were searching for manuscripts. Didn’t you say that the Order of Lash was founded by some lunatic mage?”

  “The Sacred Spirit,” whispered Toria. “It is said that that mage became the Sacred Spirit after his death. But it is an absolute mystery. Father asked Dinar to research him, but we found nothing, absolutely nothing. An abyss of time has passed since he died. All the manuscripts that concern the history of Lash have either been lost or ruined, as if someone intentionally destroyed them.”

  “They speak of a secret.” Egert smiled bleakly. “They are quite capable of keeping it.”

  Toria was silent for a moment. Then she confided reluctantly, “They importuned my father. They offered … I don’t know what they offered. Cooperation? Money? Power? But he was always dismissive of them. And now he is worried. He is expecting … Even he doesn’t know what he is expecting.”

  Egert was amazed. “Really? But mages can comprehend, I mean, they should be able to access any secret, even the future, shouldn’t they?”

  It seemed to Toria that there was doubt of her father’s magical ability in these words. Nettled, she jerked up her head. “What do you know! Yes, my father sees many things that we would not be able to understand, but he is not a prophet!”

  Egert thought it might be best to hold his peace. He did not want to get into an argument and besides, he did not like to display his ignorance. Toria regretted her outburst and apologetically muttered, “You see, the future is open to Prophets. They are mages who have a special gift, and they are also the masters of the Amulet. The Amulet came into the world at the hands of the very first Prophet, and ever since it has passed from master to disciple.” Toria had become agitated and could not find the proper words.

  “From father to son?” asked Egert avidly.

  “No. The Prophets are not connected by ties of blood. There can be only one Prophet in the world at a time. When he dies, the Amulet itself searches for his successor. Objects also have the ability to search, and the Amulet is much more than a mere object. It is unimaginably ancient. Truthfully speaking, I don’t even know what sort of object it is.” Toria drew a breath.

  Egert raised his head; books gazed at him from the shelves, and it seemed to him that a wind from this lurking depository of magic touched his face. He had wanted desperately to speak with Toria about the world of magicians for so long now, and it suddenly seemed all the more risky to scare off this usually forbidden yet terribly interesting topic. He asked cautiously, “So, where is the Prophet right now? The man who carries the Amulet, where is he right now, this second?”

  Toria frowned. “There is no Prophet right now. The last one died about fifty years ago, and since then…” She sighed. “That’s how it is. The new Prophet probably hasn’t even been born yet.”

  Egert was silent for a moment, not knowing if he had the right to question her further; curiosity, however, proved to be stronger than apprehension and so, just as cautiously, he asked, “And what then does this Amulet do in the meantime? Is it traveling or waiting or hiding from people?”

  “It is lying in my father’s safe,” Toria blurted out and in the same breath bit her tongue.

  A minute or two passed by. Egert stared at the girl with round, deeply horrified eyes. “Why did you tell me that?”

  Toria understood quite well that she had made a mistake, but she
attempted to bring the conversation back to idle chatter. “And what of it, really?” she asked, nervously smoothing the folds of her skirt against her knees. “It’s not like you’re planning to announce it to one and all, now, is it?”

  Egert turned away. Toria understood full well what he meant, and he knew that she understood.

  * * *

  Adjusting the blazing logs in the fireplace with a poker, Dean Luayan examined them both from the corner of his eye.

  Toria’s resemblance to her deceased mother frightened him at times: he was afraid that along with her beauty, the exquisite beauty of a marble statue, Toria might also have inherited the tragic instability and cruel luck of her mother. When he consented to the marriage of his daughter to Dinar, he had sincerely hoped that everything would be different for Toria, but the disaster that followed dispelled his hopes. Toria was far too like her mother to be happy. The dean’s heart contracted whenever he saw that proud, perpetually solitary figure, dressed eternally in black, haunting the twilight of the library.

  Now Toria was sitting on a low stool, her knees gathered up under her chin, bristling like a wet sparrow, vexed at her own foolishness: She had said too much, and she was no talker! Her face, even with a grimace of annoyance, was delicate and feminine, and the dean suddenly realized that the changes he had been noticing in his daughter recently were gaining strength.

  Egert stood next to her, almost touching her shoulder with his hand, but not quite; Toria had not allowed even Dinar, who had been her fiancé, to stand so close to her. After his death everything had become worse: perpetually shrouded in the transparent shell of her own grief, of her own mysterious internal life, the severe daughter of Luayan had scared off other young people, even from afar. They scattered like a pile of autumn leaves in her wake, taking her detachment and alienation for contempt and pride. Now the murderer of Dinar was standing next to her, and Luayan, peeking over his shoulder at the two of them, was astonished to observe in his daughter an abundance of small, previously inconceivable changes.