The magistrate’s hoarse voice seemed deafening to Egert, like the bellowing of a herd being led to slaughter.
“That’s not true,” he whispered, for at that moment even the fear in his soul was stunned. “That’s not true. The acolytes of Lash dug up the den of the Plague: it is they who summoned it, and the dean stopped it at the cost of his own life. I saw it, I…”
Fear recovered from its shock and called out. It swept over his mouth and snapped it shut; it poured streams of clammy sweat over his body and flung him into a merciless, fevered trembling.
“Slander against Lash,” observed the magistrate, “is absolutely forbidden, and the first offense is punishable by a public whipping.”
Silence fell and for several long minutes Egert’s inflamed imagination presented him with a picture of the whip, the crowd, and the executioner. Stinging welts seemed to be already burning on his back.
The magistrate sighed. Something caught in his throat then burst forth, as if tearing through a pustule. “However, I understand your situation. You are not completely the master of yourself and are not responsible for your own words; therefore, I will pretend that I did not hear them. It is likely that the trial will take place as soon as the interrogation of the prisoner is finished. As for you, Soll, I do not have any basis for detaining you, but the prosecutor wants to ask you a few questions.”
The magistrate stretched out his hand toward a small bell on the table. Without waiting for the ring, a squat guard appeared from behind a curtain that until this moment had been invisible to Egert. Rubbing at his sore thighs, Egert stepped beyond the concealed portiere.
Wood lice skittered along the damp walls. In the light of torches braced to the walls, the shadow of Egert’s escort thrashed about like an enormous moth. Listening to the sound of his own footsteps, Egert agonized, thinking of Toria.
They interrogated her and will interrogate her again. About what? She … Heaven, would they really dare torture a woman!
Then in the echoing silence of the corridor a distant scream, muffled by stone walls, seemed to hover in the air around him. He could not restrain himself from groaning. The guard escorting him looked back in surprise.
A keyed turned in a concealed door. The guard forced Egert through the door, slightly nudging him in the back. The dark, narrow room looked exactly like a cell, and Egert was sure that he had been brought right into the prison. But then the torch being brought in by the guard illuminated a tall armchair in the corner and a man sitting in that chair. Without surprise and even without an increase in his fear, Egert recognized Fagirra.
Placing the torch in a bracket, the guard bowed low and left. The tramp of his boots receded down the corridor.
Fagirra did not move. His hood rested on his shoulders, and it seemed to Egert that decades had passed since they last met: so much horror had happened since that time. Fagirra had aged suddenly. He no longer possessed his previous youthful appearance. Egert was struck by the thought that the true age of Fagirra was revealed to him only now.
Several minutes passed before the robed man sighed noisily and stood up, ceding the only chair in the room to Egert. “Take a seat, Egert. I can see that you are hardly able to keep on your feet.”
“I’ll stand,” replied Egert dully.
Fagirra shook his head seriously. “No, Egert, you will not stand. You yourself understand this. Your pride and your cowardice will tear you asunder, but something tells me that your cowardice will prove stronger. You can, of course, lament this fact without end, torment and castigate yourself, or you can simply sit down and listen to what a man who sympathizes with you has to say. Because I do sympathize with you, Egert, and I have from the very beginning.”
“You are the prosecutor,” Egert declared at the dark corner; he declared, not asking, but simply expressing his certainty. “The prosecutor in the trial against Toria. I should have expected it.”
“Yes,” Fagirra confirmed dolefully. “I am the prosecutor, and you will be the witness.”
Egert leaned against the wall, feeling how each of his muscles came into contact with the cold stronghold; then he bent his knees and sat, pressing his back against the wall. “Fagirra,” he said wearily, “did you see the Plague? I don’t know what happened there, behind the walls of the Tower, but the city … If only you could have seen…”
Fagirra paced around the narrow room. Egert watched as his well-made boots, hidden down to their ankles by his robe, stepped across the floor.
“Egert.” Fagirra stopped. “Did anyone you know die?”
“A friend of mine died,” responded Egert desolately. “And my teacher perished.”
“Yes.” Fagirra resumed his pacing. “I understand. As for me, Egert, six members of my family died: my mother, my brother, my sisters, and my nieces. They lived in the outskirts and all died in the course of one day.”
Egert was silent. He understood immediately that Fagirra was not lying; the robed man’s voice had shifted in an unnatural and strange way.
“I didn’t know that acolytes of Lash had families,” he said hoarsely.
“According to you,” Fagirra laughed bitterly, “the acolytes of Lash grow off trees, like pears?”
For some time the only sounds in the room were the crackling of the torch and the soft tread of Fagirra’s boots along the stone floor.
“I apologize,” Egert said finally.
Fagirra smirked without stopping his pacing. “You weren’t there in the Tower when all the entrances were sealed, when the Plague began, and there was nowhere to put the corpses.”
“You yourselves…,” Egert said in a whisper. “You yourselves willed it.”
Fagirra broke into a rough grin. “It is not for you to judge our designs.”
“But it was madness!”
“Yes, because the Magister is a madman!” Fagirra emitted a dry, sharp laugh. “He is a madman, but the Order, well, the Order is not composed of only the Magister. The Magister’s time is passing, but the Order remains, the Secret remains.” Here Fagirra’s voice slid into overt sarcasm. “And the Power that is bound to it also remains.” He became serious again. “You can’t understand, Egert. You are not a lover of power.”
“It is you who is a lover of power,” clarified Egert under his breath.
Fagirra nodded. “Yes. Do you know who will be the next Magister?”
“I know,” Egert replied dully, and it was quiet again for some time. Then somewhere in the dungeons below, iron rattled, and it seemed to Egert that once again he heard vague, distant screams. He felt chilled to the bone, but quiet reigned throughout the courthouse as before. It was possible that the terrible sounds were born from Egert’s afflicted imagination.
“Listen to me,” he said in despair. “Power is all well and good, but you know the truth no less than I do. You know where the Plague came from, and who defeated it. We owe our lives to Dean Luayan: you and I, the magistrate, the guards, the mayor, the townsfolk. The man gave us back our lives. Why do you wish to punish his innocent daughter?”
“Luayan was even stronger than I thought.” Fagirra stopped, squinting in the light of the torch. “He truly was an archmage.”
These words, spoken so simply and without reservation, compelled Egert to lean forward. “So you admit it?”
Fagirra shrugged his shoulders. “Only a madman, like the Magister, would wish to deny it.”
Egert clasped his sweaty palms together in desperation. “For Heaven’s sake, tell me what you want to accuse Toria of?”
Fagirra looked into Egert’s beseeching face, sighed, and sat down next to him on the stone floor, leaning his back against the wall. Somewhere in the distance, in the bowels of the building, an iron door clanged.
“You’ll return home,” said Fagirra without any expression on his face. “You have a decrepit father and an ill mother in a little town called Kavarren.”
“What do you want to accuse Toria of?” Egert repeated, almost soundlessly.
�
�Yes, she is beautiful. She is too beautiful, Egert. She will bring you misery. She was the reason, albeit indirectly, for the death of her first fiancé, that man you—”
“How do you—?”
“—that man you killed. She is not like other women; there is something in her.… A gift, I would call it a gift, Egert. An exceptional woman. I understand what you are feeling right now.”
“She is innocent,” Egert spoke into Fagirra’s eyes, which were twinkling in the gloom. “What do you accuse her of?”
Fagirra averted his eyes. “Of necromantic acts that resulted in the Plague.”
The walls did not collapse, and the earth did not tremble. The flame continued to wreath the resinous top of the torch, and the silver threads that adorned the empty armchair in the corner gleamed.
“I don’t understand,” Egert said helplessly. But he had understood, and immediately.
Fagirra sighed. “So try to understand. There are some things that are more valuable than mere life and simple, worldly justice. A sacrifice is always innocent, otherwise how is he or she a sacrifice? A sacrifice is always better than the crowd surrounding the altar.”
“Fagirra,” said Egert in a whisper. “Don’t do this.”
His companion shook his head dejectedly. “I understand. But I have no other alternative. Someone must carry the punishment for the Plague.”
“The guilty should.”
“Toria is guilty. She is a malevolent sorceress, the daughter of Dean Luayan,” Fagirra responded levelly. “And think on this, Egert. It is within my power to make you an accomplice, but you are no more than a witness. Do you realize how close you’ve come to the abyss in these last few days?”
Egert clenched his teeth, waiting for a dreary wave of fear.
Fagirra touched his knee with his hand. “But you are just a witness, Egert. And your testimony will carry weight because you love the defendant, but for the sake of truth you must repudiate your love.”
“For the sake of truth?”
Fagirra stood; a long, dark shadow grew on the wall. He walked over to the armchair and leaned his elbows on the backrest. In the torchlight he seemed like an old man.
“What awaits her?” Egert’s unruly lips asked.
Fagirra raised his eyes. “Why do you want to know how she will die? Return to your Kavarren immediately after the judgment. I don’t think you’ll be all that happy, but time draws in even such wounds.”
“I will not be a witness against Toria!” bellowed Egert before the fear had a chance to squeeze shut his jaw.
Fagirra shook his head. He shook his head, thinking about something, then nodded to Egert. “Get up. Come with me.”
At first his numbed legs refused to work; Egert stood on the second attempt. Fagirra drew a jangling ring of keys from the depths of his robe. A narrow iron door stood in a dark corner, and beyond it a steep, winding staircase led below.
A short, broad-shouldered man in baggy clothes was picking his teeth with a lath. The appearance of Fagirra and Egert caught him unawares, and he almost swallowed his toothpick as he sprang forward to meet the robed man. Taking the torch from Fagirra’s hand, he walked in front of them, cringing, while Egert tried to remember where he had seen him before. Egert’s speculations came to an end when their escort obsequiously flung open a squat door with a meshed window.
Two or three torches burned here already, and in their light Egert could see ugly torture devices, which could only have been conceived by a fiend of hell, staring at him from their places on the stone walls.
He halted, instantly feeling weak. Fagirra supported him with an exact, efficient movement, firmly taking his arm just above the elbow. Instruments untouched by rust, kept in full readiness, hung on hooks and lay on shelves in heaps: pliers and drills, knee splitters and thumbscrews, boards studded with spikes, cat o’ nine tails, and other abominable things, from which Egert quickly averted his eyes. Among the instruments of torture crouched a brazier, full of banked coals. Nearby stood a three-legged stool and an armchair with a high back, exactly the same as the one left behind in that small, empty cell. Egert’s darting eyes discerned a worn wooden trundle with dangling loops of chain that rested on a short raised platform.
He now remembered where he had seen the broad-shouldered master of the torture devices. On the Day of Jubilation he had ascended the scaffold together with the magistrate and the convicted men. Then, an ax had been in his hand, and he had held it just as unpretentiously as he now routinely and expertly blew on the coals in the brazier.
“Egert,” Fagirra asked quietly, still holding him by his arm, “where is that gold bauble located: the medallion that belongs to the dean?”
The coals changed from black to crimson; the executioner would have made an excellent fire-stoker. Egert began to wheeze, trying to utter even one word.
“You remember, I once asked you about his safe. Our people searched the dean’s study and found nothing. Where is the medallion now, do you know?”
Egert said nothing, but on the edges of his consciousness, befuddled by terror, thoughts smoldered. Sacrilege. The study, the steel wing … they profaned it. Dean Luayan, where are you?
“Egert.” Fagirra peered into his eyes. “I am very interested in the answer to this question. Believe me, the screams of the tortured afford me no pleasure. Where is it?”
“I don’t know,” said Egert soundlessly, but the robed man read his words from his lips.
He slowly and eloquently shifted his gaze from Egert to the executioner and from the executioner to the brazier. Then he sighed, rubbing the corner of his mouth. “You’re not lying to me, Egert, are you? I would not believe any other man, but you, well … It’s too bad, but if you really don’t know.” Fagirra lowered his hand. “Toria knows, doesn’t she?”
Egert nearly fell. Not knowing what he was doing, he tried to sit down on the trundle with the chains and staggered back. Fagirra gently pushed him into the armchair, and Egert, unable to keep his feet, slammed the back of his head against its high wooden back. His hands clawed at the armrests with a deathlike grip.
The executioner looked inquiringly at Fagirra, who snapped at him wearily, “Wait a minute!”
He pulled the three-legged stool over in front of Egert and sat down, carpeting the floor with the folds of his robe.
“I repeat: I sympathize with you, Egert. I’ll keep no secrets from you. The law describes a punishment for the refusal to testify or for false witness: Those who commit this crime are immediately chastened by having their lying tongues ripped out. Show him the pliers.” He turned to the executioner.
Measuring Egert with the gaze of an experienced tailor, the executioner darted to a corner and pulled from a clattering pile an instrument that, in his opinion, would do the trick. Grease glistened on the curved blades of the pliers. The executioner was masterful and precise in his work, and he had even adapted the long handles of the pliers for a special use: they were as sharp as two enormous awls.
Egert squeezed his eyes and lips shut.
“That won’t help,” sighed Fagirra in the darkness that was closing in around Egert. “It will do you no good to be childish. This is life, Egert. All sorts of things happen, regardless of whether or not you shut your eyes. Fine, don’t look. It isn’t really necessary. The trial will convene, in all likelihood, the day after tomorrow. We will keep an eye on you, and make sure you come to it. I don’t have to tell you that it is not a good idea to run away, do I? No, you understand. And after this is all over, if you need some money for the road to Kavarren, I will lend it to you. You can return it to me when you get there. Are we clear?”
Egert tried to remember Toria’s laughing face, but he could not.
* * *
The city, crippled by the Plague, once again wanted to live.
Heirs appeared from both far and near, laying claim to the deserted and properly ransacked houses, factories, and shops. Quarrels and lawsuits sprang up like mushrooms. The guilds, substantially th
inned out, retreated from their time-honored rules and admitted apprentices who had not yet completed their studies into their ranks. Both cheerful and spiteful provincials flooded the city gates from dawn till dusk. They were generally ambitious youths who desired to rise quickly above the crowd: that is, to get rich and marry an aristocrat. The aristocrats also returned; once again the clatter of hooves and wheels resounded along the cobblestones, sedans carried by liveried servants swayed through the streets, and children reappeared. Both rosy-cheeked babes in the arms of wet nurses and dirty gutter trash exulted in the clean, white snow that finally fell.
Liveliness reigned in the city during the day, but not one night passed by without the moans and tears of nightmares and sorrowful memories. Madmen, who had lost their reason in the days of the Plague, roamed around the burned houses. They were pitied and feared even by the homeless dogs. Families had been culled, and their losses were unbearable; therefore the city rioted when the voice of the town crier, hoarse from the cold, informed them of the upcoming trial.
After a single night not one window remained intact in the entire university. Those townspeople who did not believe in the heinous crime of the dean and his daughter scolded their neighbors and family members under their breath, alleging their innocence with a single damning argument: It could not be! The majority doubted the logic of this argument, twisted their lips, and shrugged their shoulders: Mages, who knows what they are capable of? Common folk could never understand these mages, and after all, the Plague had to have come from somewhere. Let all sorcerers be damned.
Fighting broke out in the square: a small group of students grappled tooth and nail with a mass of embittered craftsmen. Blood was shed, and only the rough intervention of the guards put an end to the brawl. The students, bloodied and baring their teeth, retreated behind the walls of the university, chased by flying stones.
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