She was indeed afraid. The night floated through the room, warmth radiated from the just-extinguished fireplace, and from Toria’s soul radiated a fondness and an almost childlike gratitude toward the man who understood everything without words.
He drew her to himself tenderly. “Don’t worry. Everything will be just as you wish, just as you say. Tor, what is it, why are you crying again?”
She suddenly recalled a dragonfly that had flown into her room when she was a child. Heavy and green, with dark eyes like round teardrops, it had rustled in the corner, chafing against the wall with its lacy wings. It flew up to the ceiling and fell almost to the very floor. “Beyond stupid,” her mother said with a laugh. “Catch it and let it loose outside.”
Where does this memory come from, and why?
Toria caught the dragonfly. Carefully, afraid to clench her hand too tight, she carried the poor thing out into the yard and let it go, following its flight with her gaze. For a long time afterwards she still felt the light tickling of the dragonfly’s wings and tiny feet on her palm.
She breathed nervously. This is happening today; this is happening right now. So many fears and hopes, so many dreams … This stood before her, waiting, and she would change; she would become a different person; she was afraid, but how could she be otherwise: this was inevitable, like the rising of the sun.
Egert again understood her without words. His joy communicated itself to her, drowning out her fear. From out of the darkness she heard her own happy laughter, which was immediately followed by a confused thought: Was it appropriate to laugh? Images of the dragonfly’s wings, lights beyond the river, snow sparkling in the sun all flashed before her eyes, and just as she lost herself in a new delirium, she had time to think, Now.
8
On a black, winter evening, Dean Luayan interrupted his usual work.
Ink was drying on an unfinished page, and a quill was poised in the dean’s motionless hand, but he sat, frozen behind his desk, unable to tear his gaze from a candle that was guttering in a candelabrum.
Beyond the window, the wet wind of a protracted thaw raged; in the fireplace, the fire burned in an even, hospitable manner. The dean sat, widening his eyes that were watery from strain. An impenetrable, nocturnal horror watched him from the flame, and the same horror rose to meet the dean from the depths of his soul.
The presentiment of a mage, even one who has not achieved the level of archmage, does not occur without reason. Now disaster was approaching so near that the dean’s hair stirred from its breath. Right now, already now perhaps, it was too late to salvage anything.
The Amulet!
He jumped up. The incantation that secured the safe released immediately, but the lock resisted for a long time, disobeying his shaking hands. Finally opening the jasper casket, Luayan, who had never been shortsighted, squinted his eyes.
The medallion was uncorrupted. Not a single spot of rust disfigured the gold disk. The medallion was clean, but the dean still gasped from the stench of impending doom.
Not trusting himself, he once again examined the medallion. Then he hid it, and lurching, he rushed to the door.
“Toria! Tor!”
He knew that she was nearby in her room because he had called upon her earlier for help, but now she appeared almost instantly, and she was almost as pale as he was himself: evidently, something in his voice had terrified her. “Father?”
Behind her he could distinguish the silhouette of Egert Soll. In the last few days the two of them had become inseparable. Heaven help them.
“Toria, and you, Egert, get me water from five sources. I will tell you which, and where they are. Take my lantern; it will not go out even under the strongest wind. You, Toria, put on your cloak. Quickly.”
If they wanted to ask him what was going on, they either could not or decided not to. The dean did not seem himself; Toria flinched upon meeting his gaze. Without saying a word, she took the five vials, which were attached to a belt. Egert swept her cloak over her shoulders, and as he did so she felt the affectionate, encouraging touch of his palm. A rotten winter without frost howled beyond the walls. Egert raised the burning lantern up high, Toria took hold of his arm, and they set out into the winter night.
As in a ritual, they crept from source to source: in all there were five. Thrice they had to gather the water from a pipe walled in stone, once from a small well in a courtyard, and once from the iron muzzle of a snake in an abandoned fountain. The five vials were full, the belt they were in weighed down Egert’s shoulder, and Toria’s cloak was soaked through when, staggering from exhaustion, they stepped back over the threshold of the dean’s study. Usually gloomy, on this night it was full of light. Rows of candles crowded on the desk, on the floor, were molded to the walls; the tongues of flame jumped and waved when the door opened, as if greeting the two who entered.
In the middle of the room stood a strangely shaped object with birdlike claws at the bottom; on top, three more claws supported a round, silver basin.
Obeying the impatient gesture of the dean, Egert retreated into the farthest corner and sat there, right on the floor. Toria arranged herself nearby on a low taboret.
The tongues of flame elongated more and more; their length was unnatural, strange to the eyes. The dean stood over the silver basin and poured each of the vials into it. His hands moved slowly upward; his lips, firmly set, did not move, but to Egert it seemed—though perhaps it was his fear that made it so—that in the stillness of the study, in the howling of the wind beyond the windows he heard sharp words that clawed at his hearing. The ceiling, on which patterns of shadows fused and then decayed, seemed choked with swarms of insects.
Something knocked against the window from outside. Egert, taut as a bowstring, shook convulsively. Toria rested her hand on his shoulder without looking at him.
The dean’s lips twisted, as if from strain. The flames of the candles stretched painfully and then diminished, regaining their usual shape. Standing motionless for a second longer, the dean whispered under his breath, “Draw near.”
It was as if the waters in the basin had never existed. There, where their surface should have been, rested a mirror, as silver and vivid as mercury. The Mirror of Waters, thought Egert as he stood transfixed.
“Why can’t we see anything?” Toria asked in a whisper.
Egert was almost resentful. For him, the mirror itself seemed miracle enough. However, at that very moment the silver haze shimmered, darkened, and then it was no longer a haze, but night, and a wind, the same wind that blew beyond the windows, whipped the branches of naked trees, and drew sparks torches, first one, then two, then three. Without trying to decipher the image, Egert marveled only that here in this small circular mirror something strange and secret was being reflected, something that was taking place who knows where. Entranced by the magic and by his own participation in the secret, he came to his senses only when he heard Toria cry out in a resonant voice, “Lash!”
That single, short word sobered Egert like a slap in the face. Obscure figures prowled in the mirror, and even in the meager light of the few torches, it was possible to distinguish hoods, some pulled low over the eyes and some flung down onto the shoulders. An entire troop of soldiers of Lash was for some reason swarming about in the night, permitting the wind to torment and harass the hems of their long robes.
“Where is that?” Toria asked, fearful.
“Silence!” Luayan gasped through clenched teeth. “It will be lost!”
The image faded, crusted over by a dirty, milky-white film, then turned back into the silver, waxen haze, and only in the extreme depths of that haze did a muted spark continue to gleam.
“What an evil day,” muttered Luayan, as if marveling to himself. “What a wicked night.”
Stretching out his hands, he spread his palms over the mirror and Egert, unable to move, saw how the web of his veins, his tendons and his blood vessels protruded through his skin.
The mirror wavered and darke
ned again. The dean withdrew his hands as if they were burned, and Egert was once again able to make out the night, the men, and the torches. The flames had become larger, and they all moved in a strange procession; the hooded men stood in a circle, rhythmically and regularly bending their backs as though bowing. Were they counting off the bows?
“Egert,” asked Toria in a low voice, “are they performing some kind of ritual? Do you know which?”
Egert silently shook his head; this allusion to his old complicity with Lash, however unwitting, however invalid, felt like a severe rebuke. Toria realized she had hurt him and guiltily squeezed his hand. The dean cast a swift sidelong glance at them both and again bent over the basin.
At times the figures disappeared into the darkness, at times they loomed close, but the image was never completely clear; it comprised fragments, wisps, separate details: a boot in wet clay, the soggy hem of a robe. Once Egert flinched, recognizing the disheveled silver mane of the Magister. Now and then the silver, waxen mist rose up, and then the dean gritted his teeth and extended his palms over the mirror, but the haze never dissipated immediately: it was as if it was reluctant to depart, as though it was in collusion with the hooded men.
“Where are they, Father?” Toria kept asking. “Where is that? What are they doing?”
The dean only gnawed at his lips, time after time recovering the elusive, faithless image.
Toward dawn all three were exhausted, then the mirror, exhausted as well, finally submitted entirely, bowing to the will of the dean, and the silver fog receded. The night that was concealed in the silver basin also receded; the image grayed, the flames of the reflected torches faded, and all three of them, bending over the mirror, simultaneously unraveled the riddle of the seemingly ceremonial bows.
Drawn up around a tall hill—Egert recognized it as the place from which he and Toria had admired the river and the city—the hooded men, armed with spades, were tirelessly digging into the ground. Black piles of earth towered here and there, as though marking the path of an enormous mole, and in places yellow objects showed through the dirt. Egert leaned forward, unconsciously widening his eyes: the objects were yellowed bones and skulls, undoubtedly human, undoubtedly old, and the earth was creeping out of their vacant sockets.
“That’s,” Toria exclaimed panicked voice, “that’s that hill! That’s—”
The mirror shattered. Water surged up in all directions. Dean Luayan, always imperturbable and unemotional, beat at the water with his palm, churning it up into splashes with all his might.
“Ah! I overlooked it! Damn it! I let it pass by! I ignored it!”
The candles, which had burned all night without guttering even once, were extinguished as if by a gust of wind. Blinking his half-blinded eyes, Egert could not immediately discern the grief-twisted face of Luayan in the dawn’s pale light.
“I overlooked it. It’s my fault. They are lunatics, scum; they are not waiting for the end of time: they are summoning it! They have already summoned it.”
“That hill,” Toria repeated in horror. The dean grabbed his head with his hands, which were still dripping water.
“That hill, Egert … That is where the victims of that monstrosity, the Black Plague, were buried; there is its lair, smothered by dirt, kept concealed from the people. The Black Plague once ravaged the city and provinces, and it will devastate the earth, if it is not stopped. Lart Legiar stopped the Black Plague before. Lart Legiar did it, but that was many decades ago. Now there is no one. Now…”
The dean groaned through clenched teeth. He gasped, turned his back on them, and walked to the window.
“But, Dean Luayan,” whispered Egert, barely coping with his trembling. “Dean Luayan, you are an archmage. You will protect the city and…”
The dean turned around. His expression caused Egert to bite his tongue.
“I am a historian,” said the dean desolately. “I am a scholar. But I have never been an archmage and I never will become one. I’ve remained a pupil, an apprentice. I’m not an archmage! Don’t be shocked, Toria. And don’t look so mournful, Egert. I have made do with what I have: intellect and knowledge have made me worthy of the title of mage, but I am no archmage!”
For some time quiet enveloped the study; then, nearer and farther, quieter and louder, one after the other, catching fear from one another, dogs began to howl around the city.
* * *
Who could have guessed that so many rats huddled underneath the city?
The streets teemed with their grayish brown backs; the dogs fled upon hearing the drumming patter of their tiny paws and the rustle of hundreds of leathery tails. The rats rushed about; they squeaked and ground their sharp teeth; they crowded in doorways until heavy stones crashed into the walls next to them, thrown by hands made inaccurate by trembling. Especially brave men armed with heavy canes went out into the streets and beat them, pummeled them, whaling away at their pink, whiskered snouts that bristled with yellow teeth.
On that day the shops did not open and the factories did not produce. A universal terror hung over the city like an oppressive curtain, and the rats ruled the streets. Cowering in their homes with the shutters tightly fastened, the people feared to speak aloud: many that day had the feeling that an intent, glacial, scrutinizing gaze prowled through the streets of the city, peering under the cracks of doors.
The Plague watched the city for two more days, and on the third day it showed itself.
The calm of the vacant streets ceased. Within a few hours the exhalation of the Plague tore open useless shutters and doors, releasing lamentations to Heaven, moans and wailing. The first to fall sick that morning were the first to die that night, and those who had brought them water soon took to their beds, suffering from thirst and lacerated by boils, without any hope of salvation.
The quarantine cordon that was set up at the city gates did not last long. People, seeing hope only in escape, knocked it down, throwing themselves on pikes and swords, sobbing, pleading, hectoring; a portion of the guards drew back in the wake of the fugitives, and before long the Plague descended upon the outskirts, the surrounding towns, the villages, the lonely farmsteads. Astonished wolves found easy meat lying amid the fields and then died in agony because the Plague would not spare even wolves.
Complying with the disordered commands of the mayor, the guards patrolled the streets, remaining loyal to their duty. Bundled up in layers of sackcloth garments, armed with curved pitchforks that resembled malformed bird claws, they moved steadily from house to house, and high wagons sided with wooden slats rattled through the streets behind them, weighed down by the multitude of bodies. The next day they no longer gathered the corpses, and entire homes were transformed into charnel houses, waiting for a merciful hand to throw a lit torch into an open window.
The Tower of Lash shut itself off from the Plague in a thick cloud of fragrant smoke. A horde of people, awaiting salvation, besieged the tabernacle of the Sacred Spirit day and night, but the windows and doors were secured from within and the thinnest cracks, where even the blade of a knife could not enter, were meticulously sealed up and closed. But the strange smoke still rose inexplicably, and people inhaled it in the hope that the sharp, harsh odor of it would defend them against death.
“Idiots,” the dean said bitterly. “Imbeciles. They think to hide themselves and thereby save themselves; they hope the smoke will keep it at bay! They are obstinate, spiteful children, setting fire to their home, sure in their faith that the blaze they play with will not harm them. The end of time for the world, but not for Lash … They are fools. Wicked fools.”
The first wave of the Plague ebbed after three days. Many of those who survived imagined that they were marked by a special good fortune and, possibly, that they abided under the protection of Lash. The deserted streets were subjected to the efficient incursion of looters. Ravaging the wine cellars and household stores of their neighbors, the enterprising family men boasted of their loot to their wives and children, an
d young lads gave their surviving girlfriends bracelets plucked from dead wrists. They all intended to live for a long time, but the Black Plague began its second feast, starting with them and with their kinsmen.
The dean forbade the students to leave the university, but the power of his prohibition proved insufficient to hold within the thick walls young men, each of whom had family or fiancées somewhere in the city, the outskirts, or some distant town. At the beginning the students rushed to Luayan for help and salvation, but he locked himself in his study and did not wish to see anyone. The hopes of the youths gave way to bewilderment, then to resentment, then to despair: they left the university one after another, complaining bitterly about mages who shirked mere mortals at the very time when their help was most needed. Egert gritted his teeth when he overheard curses addressed toward the dean who had left the students to the mercy of fate. It was difficult for him to wrap his mind around the thought that Luayan was not all-powerful, but it was even more difficult to perceive that the dean’s behavior looked like betrayal.
It was no easier for Toria. For the first time in her life her father was not by her side as they faced hard times, but by himself, in solitude, and her awareness of this was for her far more onerous than all the troubles of the epidemic. Egert kept close to her at all times; fear, obtrusive as a toothache, his chronic fear for his own hide paled now before the thought of what fate might bring to Toria, recently discovered by him as if by a miracle, and what it might bring to her father, the university, the city—and to the city of Kavarren.
Kavarren was far away. Kavarren, hopefully, would remain unharmed. Kavarren would have time to set up cordons, to institute a strict quarantine. Kavarren would defend itself. But in a dream that recurred every night, Egert saw the same thing: howling dogs in front of the Noble Sword, smoke ranging along the deserted streets, mountains of corpses on the embankment, the barred gates with their emblem grown dim from soot …
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