Lightly casting his cloak behind his back, he descended toward them, and it seemed to Egert in that instant that the Wanderer was the same age as he.
“Hear me and remember, Egert:
“When that which is foremost in your soul becomes last.
“When the path has reached its bitter end.
“When five questions are asked and you answer yes.”
The Wanderer fell silent for a moment. He added softly, “The curse will fall away of its own accord. Do not falter. It is quite easy to err, and a mistake will cost you much. Farewell, to the both of you. Don’t repeat your mistakes.…”
With narrowed eyes the acolyte watched in astonishment as the auditor Egert and the daughter of the dean, Toria, walked up the front steps of the university. Both were as pale as the dead, and they looked ready to collapse, but each was using the other’s arm for support.
PART THREE
Luayan
7
On summer days the stone courtyard, which served as both a playground and a main square, glowed with heat like the floor of an iron forge, and the air over it shimmered and wavered. The streets of the village that clung to the cliff flickered, disappeared from sight, then reappeared, changing their contours. His teacher Orlan smiled mysteriously, “Appearance. The unfamiliar is concealed within the familiar; the unknown abides in the known. No matter how you tried, you could not dig to the bottom of this well.… However, what good is the bottom to you? Drink up, and be grateful.…”
Young Luayan did not immediately understand what kind of well his teacher was speaking of. In the courtyard on the cliff there was no welclass="underline" water had to be hauled up from below, and it was quite difficult.
On the other hand, it was cool in the mage’s home, even on the most scorching days, and the steel wing fastened over the entrance was an appeal for the preservation of the inhabitants from adversity, illness, and enemies. Luayan knew all too well that as long as his teacher lived, so it would be.
As long as his teacher lived …
The dean tore his gaze away from the yellow flames dancing in the fireplace: after the Day of Jubilation, true autumn days, damp and chilly, had set in. His teacher had been in the habit of lighting a fire even in the middle of summer; Orlan maintained that a fire in the fireplace promoted reflection. It is possible that he was right, but Luayan had not adopted this practice, and so in the summer his fireplace stood cold and empty.
Who knows how his destiny might have unwound if Orlan had lived even a few more years?
So many mistakes. His whole life was a repository of mistakes, and always on the eve of disaster he felt a drawing cold in his chest. Just like today.
He turned around. Toria, his daughter, was sitting on the very edge of his desk, and her face, lit by the firelight, looked severe, even harsh. From out of this face another woman gazed reproachfully at the dean: her equally young and beautiful mother. The dean rubbed his temple pensively, but the hazy foreboding did not desist; behind Toria, the bloodshot eyes of Egert Soll gleamed in the half dark.
The dean turned a log in the fireplace, and the flames flared brighter. The dean recalled how the fire in the hut by the cliff had burned just as brightly, and how two armchairs with high backs had stood facing each other, an old man sitting in one, and in the other a young boy entranced by his elder’s words. I’m getting old, he thought sarcastically. The past comes to my mind far too clearly, but where does this aching, vague presentiment of evil come from?
“Five yesses,” Egert yet again muttered from the gloom. “Someone questions me five times? And I just need to answer?”
Toria was looking at her father with demand in her eyes.
He averted his face. How could Luayan solve this riddle; where would he find the answer? He needed help now, but the only man who could help him had been lying in a stone tomb, carved into the cliff, for the past several decades.
Toria flinched and Egert whipped his head around: someone was knocking erratically on the heavy door.
The dean lifted his eyebrows in shock. “Yes?”
Gaetan’s angular face peeked warily through the crack of the partially open door; other students stood behind him, whispering tensely and then shushing each other.
“Dean Luayan,” gasped Fox, “there … in the square. Lash.”
Egert felt a wave of sepulchral cold flood his chest.
The square was, as usual, filled with people, but it was unusually silent. The Tower of Lash had flung open its perpetually shut gates, and a thick wall of heavy smoke poured out of those gates, emitting a bitter odor. Gray robes flickered in the shroud of smoke, but none of the townsfolk, dazed by this unprecedented event, could make out what was happening in the compact, umber clouds.
A group of students sliced through the crowd like a knife; Dean Luayan served as the tip of this knife. Egert held back, and Fagirra’s insinuating voice resounded in his ears: Great ordeals are approaching, ordeals that all living things must endure. You must hurry, Egert … before that which must happen, happens. You will meet it with us, and you will find salvation, whereas others will cry out in horror.
The heavy brown smoke slowed and began to flow upward toward the sky. On the spot where it had just been eddying, a motionless human ring became apparent: the acolytes of Lash stood shoulder to shoulder, close together like the sharp, pointed stakes of a wooden fence. Their hoods were pulled low and their faces, turned toward the inhabitants of the town, were concealed by the coarse cloth. Egert sheltered behind someone’s back: it seemed to him that vigilant, focused gazes were searching for him from underneath the hoods.
“What’s all this for—?” Toria began derisively, but at that very moment a drawn-out note that pulled at the soul instantly stopped the mouths of everyone who had assembled in the square.
The fiery red robe of the dwarf flashed through the gray circle of hoods; another sheaf of smoke puffed up behind backs that were still as stone, and then, as if elevated on these clouds, the Magister rose up over the square. It is possible that Egert alone knew that this was the Magister: everyone else saw only a white sphere of disheveled silver hair, which rose like the moon over a battlement of hoods.
The square was suddenly full of whispers, rustles, and exchanged glances; the peeling sound repeated, and again a dead silence, unnatural for a crowded place, fell. The heavy smoke grudgingly drifted up into the sky, as if against its will.
Once again red flashed through the circle of hooded men, and the dwarf, carrying his instrument, also seemed to be rising up over the crowd. His thin lips moved—or did it just seem so to Egert?—and words tumbled out of the trumpet, accompanied by more heavy smoke.
“It approaches!”
Egert’s blood ran cold. Great ordeals are approaching.…
“Prepare yourself. Prepare your home. Prepare your life.”
You must hurry, Egert.…
“The Ages have flowed by. The Ages have run out. The river is not eternal. The Age has passed. It is close. Prepare yourself. The End of Time approaches!”
The square remained silent, uncomprehending.
“The End of Time…” The hollow words were punctuated by plumes of smoke, weaving over the trumpet. “The End. Lash beholds the End of all things. He is there before you. Stretch out your hand.… He is there. A week, maybe two or three … Maybe just a day, or an hour … That is all that remains until the End. Lash beholds all. Lash beholds all. The End of the World. The End of Life. The End of Time. Lash beholds…”