One day the heiress of Luayan gathered the students in the Grand Auditorium. After an hour, the university turned into a seething cauldron because Toria, ascending to the rostrum for the first time, calmly and simply informed them all of the truth about the crimes of the acolytes of Lash.
Tempers inflamed and boiled over; one suggested they take to the streets, one called for the destruction of Lash, and one brought Fox to mind: he was right, the poor fellow; he had no love for the robed men; he would have shown them! The headmaster, blanching to the top of his shiny bald head, was scarcely able to keep his pupils from revolt.
Toria was called to the headmaster’s study, and the conversation went on for a long time. Egert saw how bewildered the headmaster seemed when, standing in the doorway to his office, he shook his bald head at Toria.
“I don’t think … I don’t think, my child, that what you said should become public knowledge. And then there really is no proof, and … I should hardly think … Desist, I beg you, from untimely accusations. It’s not worth it. That is…”
The headmaster talked and talked, but Toria had already left, holding her head unusually low.
“He’s afraid,” she said with bitterness, closing the door of her father’s study behind herself and Egert. “He doesn’t want to believe. No, he doesn’t believe, when all’s said and done. He thinks I’m frantic with grief. And in the city people now think that the acolytes of Lash stopped the End of Time with their incessant ceremonies, rituals, and prayers to their Spirit. They are already gathering money for a new memorial to Lash. How can this be?”
“I don’t understand,” Egert said helplessly. “There were so many corpses among their soldiers. What did they hope to accomplish?”
Toria smiled dismally. “Do you remember what my father said? ‘They are obstinate, spiteful children, setting fire to their home, sure in their faith that the blaze they play with will not harm them.’”
She abruptly stopped short, as if her throat were compressed by a grasping claw of a bird. Recollections about her father were beyond her strength. Turning her back on Egert, she was silent for a long time, and her trembling palm absently stroked the pages of the open manuscript.
Egert could hardly restrain himself from rushing to her with consolation, but right now that might be inopportune. He simply watched her silently, and together with compassion for Toria’s grief and his habitual fear for his own hide, another, stronger feeling grew in his soul.
“Tor,” he said as carefully as he could. “I know that you will not like what I am about to say, but I agree with the words of our headmaster: it is not worth it, and there is no point in getting mixed up with the acolytes of Lash. They are very dangerous. That’s all there is to it, now you can berate me.”
She turned around slowly. Her lips, squeezed tight, paled, and the look in her narrowed eyes forced Egert to step back.
He wanted to explain that he was motivated not only by his fear, that the memory of Luayan was as priceless to him as it was to Toria, that his murderers were no less abhorrent to him, but the Order of Lash was full of madmen who would stop at nothing, and in resolving to be in conflict with them, Toria was standing on the razor’s edge, and for him, Egert, there was nothing more valuable in the world than her life. But as Toria seethed silently, her eyes conveyed a chilly reproach, and beneath that gaze Egert could not gather all his disordered thoughts into a coherent speech.
“I will not berate you,” she said so distantly that Egert became frightened. “The curse is speaking for you. But since when has its cowardly voice become so similar to your own?”
A pause hung, long and painful, and Egert recalled that day when the heavy book in the hands of Toria beat at his face.
“I had so hoped for the support of the headmaster,” Toria finally said, and her voice shook. “The support of only the students is too little.… But how can it be—” She considered something and did not continue right away. “—that although I find support, it is not from you!”
Egert wanted to get down on his knees before her, but instead he walked up to her and said directly into her unrelenting dry eyes, “Think of me what you will. Judge me how you wish, but the curse is not the cause here; no one cursed me to be afraid for you! But I…” And again he faltered, although he very much needed to tell her how frightful and monstrous the thought of losing her was, losing her now, when it was just the two of them amid a hostile world; and how painful it was to be aware that he was in no condition to protect the most precious, most beloved thing he had. He needed to clothe all this in words, but his pitiful efforts were futile.
She turned her back, not even waiting for him to continue. Looking at her unnaturally straight spine, he feared that a rift had opened up between them, that this conversation could never be forgotten, and that he needed to save Toria and save himself. He realized this last and as before remained silent because she was right, because he was a coward, not a man, and therefore not her equal.
Steps sounded in the corridor, not normal, measured steps, but strange and hasty. Egert heard the incoherent voice of the headmaster and raised his head in surprise. Toria turned around slowly; someone knocked on the door, at first hesitantly, as if frightened, then sharply and demandingly, even rudely. Egert was sure that never in the entire time of its existence had the door to the dean’s study received such treatment.
Toria raised her eyebrows coolly. “What’s this all about?”
“In the name of the law!” dryly carried from beyond the door.
And immediately the voice of the headmaster, nervous and muddled, rang out, “Gentlemen, there has been some kind of misunderstanding. This is a cathedral of academia! You cannot come in here with weapons, gentlemen!”
The door shook with new blows, and with each of them Egert’s soul felt as if it were being hammered out on an anvil. He clenched his jaw, silently praying, Heaven help me conduct myself with dignity!
Toria sneered disdainfully. She threw up the hook that latched the door and rose to her full height in the doorway. Cursing himself, Egert retreated to a dark corner. Invisible from without, he spied from behind Toria’s back the red-and-white uniforms, the bloodless pate of the headmaster, the crowd of nervous students, and the angular, composed face of an officer with a ceremonial whip clutched in his fist: the sign that at the present moment he was fulfilling the will of the law.
“This is my father’s study,” Toria said coldly. “No one is allowed to break down this door, and no one is allowed to enter here without my permission. Is that acceptable to you, gentlemen?”
The officer raised his whip. “Then you acknowledge that you are the daughter of Dean Luayan?”
“I will say it a thousand times, and a thousand times know that it is an honor.”
The officer nodded, as if Toria’s answer gave him pleasure. “In that case, we invite the lady to come with us.”
Egert felt streams of cold sweat running down his back. Why did the most horrible, most incredible things, appropriate only in nightmares, always happen in his life?
Toria pulled her head up even higher, even though it seemed impossible that it could go any higher. “You invite me? Why on earth should I go, and what if I refuse?”
The officer again nodded, again contentedly, as if he had only been waiting for a similar question. “We are acting on the behalf of the city magistrate.” In support of his words he shook his ornamental whip. “We are empowered to compel the lady if she refuses to come with us of her own free will.”
Egert wanted Toria to look to him, even though it was inconceivable.
What could be simpler than for her to look back in search of help, support, protection? But from the very first he knew that she would not turn to him, because there was no point in awaiting protection from Egert, and if she looked into his suffering, guilt-ridden, haggard eyes, she would experience neither comfort nor hope. He knew this and all the same he silently implored her to turn to him, and it actually seemed that she was a
bout to do so, but then she froze, having turned only halfway.
“Gentlemen,” interrupted the headmaster, and Egert saw now how his utterly ancient head wobbled on his thin neck. “Gentlemen, this is unbelievable. Never before has anyone been arrested within these walls. This is a sanctuary! This is a refuge for the spirit. Gentlemen, you are committing a sacrilege! I will go to the mayor!”
“Don’t worry, headmaster,” said Toria, as if pondering. “I am of the opinion that this misunderstanding will soon be worked out and—”
Breaking off, she turned to the officer.
“Well, I understand that you will not stop short of force, gentlemen, and I do not desire that these hallowed halls should be further desecrated by violence. I will go.” She stepped forward and quickly shut the door to the study behind her, as if wishing by this last action to shield Egert from outside eyes.
The door was shut. Egert stood in his corner, clawing his fingernails into his palms, listening as the clatter of boots, the whispering of the distraught students, and the lamentations of the headmaster receded along the corridor.
* * *
The courthouse was a very grave, very ponderous, very awkward structure that stood on the square. Egert had accustomed himself to avoid the iron doors, carved with the inscription DREAD JUSTICE! He knew at least ten paths that bypassed them because the round black pedestal with the small gibbet, where a manikin dangled in a noose, seemed frightful and loathsome to him.
A wet snow was falling. It seemed dirty gray to Egert, like cotton packed in a wound. His overshoes stuck in the slush, and water trickled in streams past the lamppost that Egert was using as a refuge. Trembling from head to toe, shifting from foot to foot, he stared at the closed doors until his eyes hurt, initially deceiving himself with a foolish hope: that the iron maw would spring open and release Toria.
The flock of students, which had at first gathered around him in a crowd, gradually dispersed; downcast, subdued, they wandered off without looking at one another. Various people went in and out of the courthouse: bureaucrats, haughty and self-important or solicitous and preoccupied; guards with javelins; petitioners with their heads drawn down to their shoulders. Blowing on his cold fingers, he wondered, Had they accused Toria of anything? What might they accuse her of? Who could help them now if even a visit from the headmaster to the mayor came to naught?
He spent a long night full of fear on the square, illuminated by the barely gleaming light of the streetlamp and by the ominous reflections in the windows of the cheerless building. Dawn broke late, and in the pale morning Egert saw acolytes of Lash entering the iron doors.
There were four of them, and all of them looked like Fagirra. The doors closed behind them, and Egert hunkered down by his post, wearied from fear, anxiety, and despair.
The accusation, of course, originated with the acolytes. Fagirra’s words spilled out of Egert’s distant memory, “The city magistrate heeds the advice of the Magister.” Yes, but the Order of Lash is not the court! Perhaps I’ll be able to explain to the magistrate, to open his eyes. It is likely that the Black Plague has also robbed him of those close to him, for the Plague respected neither rank nor office.
A group of guards hurriedly exited the iron doors. Egert thought he recognized the officer who arrested Toria among them. Pitilessly tramping down the slushy snow with their boots, the guards rushed away, and Egert berated himself for his foolish suspicion: that they once again headed for the university.
If only the dean were alive. If only you were alive, Luayan. How can they dare? And now Toria has no one to turn to except for …
He pressed his cheek to the cold, wet lamppost, waiting for the whip of fear at the idea of going up to those iron doors, of passing by that executed manikin, of stepping over that threshold. But then, Toria had already stepped over it.
He spent a long time convincing himself that there was nothing frightening in what he planned to do. He simply had to enter the courthouse, and then he would leave right after he had seen the magistrate. He needed to convince him. The magistrate was not Lash. But Toria was already there, and Egert might get to see her.
This thought decided him. Immediately recalling his protective rituals, interweaving the fingers of one hand and clutching a button in the other, he moved toward the iron doors following an intricate, winding route.
He would never have summoned the courage to seize hold of the door handle, but fortunately or unfortunately the door opened in front of him, producing a scribe with a bland expression. There was nothing else for Egert to do but step forward into the unknown.
The unknown turned out to be a low semicircular room with many doors, empty desks in the middle, and a bored guard by the entryway. The guard did not so much as glance at Egert as he entered, but a flabby young clerk, who was absentmindedly tracing the point of his rusty penknife along the tabletop, nodded inquiringly but without any special interest.
“Shut the door behind you.”
The door swung shut firmly without Egert’s help, like the door of a cage. The chain attached to the dead bolt clanged.
“What’s your business?” the clerk asked. His expression, sleepy and entirely ordinary, comforted Egert slightly. The first person he encountered in this formidable institution seemed no more sinister than a shopkeeper. Gathering up his courage, squeezing his button for all he was worth, Egert forced out, “The daughter of Dean Luayan, of the university, was arrested yesterday. I…” He faltered, not knowing what to say further.
The clerk, in the meantime, had brightened. “Name?”
“Whose?” Egert asked foolishly.
“Yours.” The clerk, evidently, had long ago become accustomed to the obtuseness of petitioners.
“Egert Soll,” said Egert after a pause.
The cloudy eyes of the clerk flashed. “Soll? The auditor?”
Unpleasantly startled by the clerk’s knowledge of him, Egert nodded reluctantly.
The clerk scratched his cheek with the tip of his knife. “I think … yes. Wait just a moment, Soll. I will announce you.” And sliding out from behind his desk, the bureaucrat dived into one of the side corridors.
Instead of being glad, once again Egert became frightened, more intensely than before, so that his knees were shaking. His legs took a step toward the doors. The somnolent guard looked at him, and his hand settled absently onto his pikestaff. Egert froze. A second guard, who unhurriedly walked out of the very corridor down which the clerk had disappeared, examined Egert critically, like a cook examines a carcass that has just been brought back from market.
The clerk, peering out an entirely different door, beckoned to Egert with a crooked finger. “Come with me, Soll.”
So, submissive as a lost boy, Egert followed the clerk toward his fate. He crossed the path of four of the robed men in the corridor. The familiar, harsh odor wafted toward Egert, and it repulsed him so much, he felt he might vomit; not one of the soldiers of Lash lifted his hood, but Egert felt their cold, intent gazes on his back.
* * *
Crooked folds hung over the face of the magistrate, submerging his small eyes, sunken in flesh. Egert glanced into them once and immediately lowered his eyes, examining the smooth floor with marble veins, onto which water flowed from his soaked shoes. The magistrate studied him. Without raising his head, Egert could feel the weighty gaze eating into his skin.
“We expected to see you sooner, Soll.” The strained voice of the magistrate was scarcely audible; it seemed that every word cost him effort. “We expected you. After all, wasn’t it the daughter of Dean Luayan, your wife, who was arrested?”
Egert flinched. The magistrate had to wait quite a long time for his answer.
“Well, we are going to get married. That is, we plan to.” Having whispered this despicable phrase, Egert was pierced by an abhorrence of himself, as if, by informing the magistrate of this simple truth, he had somehow betrayed Toria.
“That’s one and the same,” sighed the magistrate. “Jus
tice is counting on you, Soll. You will appear as the chief witness in court.”
Egert raised his head. “A witness? Of what?”
Brisk voices and the stomping of boots could be heard from beyond the door; then a clerk emerged from behind a curtain and began whispering something quickly into the ear of the magistrate.
“Tell them that the command has been revoked.” The magistrate’s voice soughed like snakeskin on dry stone. “He’s already here.”
Egert’s strained nerves unerringly ascertained that the magistrate was talking about him. He recalled the guards that set out for the university, and he licked parched lips that had lost all sensation.
“You have nothing to be afraid of.” The magistrate smiled, observing him. “You are nothing more than a witness. A valuable witness, inasmuch as you were close to the family of the old necromancer. Isn’t that so?”
Egert felt his ashen cheeks become hot and red. Referring to Dean Luayan as an old necromancer went beyond all bounds of disrespect, but then fear swallowed this spasm of indignation like a bog swallows a stone tossed into the mire.
The magistrate spoke dispassionately. “Just one virtue is required of a witness: to speak the truth. You know how grievously the Plague cost the city. You know that it did not appear on its own.”
Egert’s skin felt stretched.
“The Plague did not appear on its own,” continued the magistrate in his rasping voice. “The old necromancer and his daughter used their magic to summon it from out of the earth, from the gloom where it should have stayed hidden for generations. The Sacred Spirit Lash foretold the End of Time, but his acolytes were able to stop the assault and overwhelm the necromancer with ceaseless prayers and ceremonies. The city has been saved, but there are so many victims, Soll, so many victims. You must agree that the perpetrators of this crime should answer before the law; the families of the slain require it, and justice itself requires it.”