The dwarf took the trumpet away from his crooked lips and spit slowly, with relish.
“The words have been spoken!” the Magister yelled in a penetrating voice. “The sand is flowing out of your hourglasses. The End!”
As if obeying an unspoken command, the gray figures slowly raised their arms; wide sleeves fell back, and a cold wind blew over the assemblage. It seemed to many that the wind reeked of the grave.
“The End,” The murmured chant rose up from beneath many hoods. “The End … The End…”
And smoke again began to pour out of the Tower, but this time it was black, as if the entire world were burning. The smoke obscured the Magister, the red-robed dwarf, and the wall of motionless, faceless men from the eyes of the people in the square: this spectacle was so majestic and yet sinister that a woman who stood near Egert in the crowd started rambling hysterically.
“Oh! Oh, dear people, oh! Oh, how can this be? No, no, no! It can’t be! I refuse…”
Egert turned his head toward her: the woman was pregnant and as she wailed she pressed her palms first to her wet cheeks, then to her enormous round belly.
The formation of robed men mutely disappeared through the gates of the Tower. The gates closed just as silently, and the smoke was shut off: only trickles crept out from underneath the iron doors. These black trickles writhed like harassed vipers.
Egert rushed to the dean’s side. The dean, catching sight of Toria’s inquiring glance, smile wanly. The smile was pensive and reassuring, but Toria only frowned more deeply.
The dean dropped his hand onto her shoulder. “We should go.”
The crowd dispersed. Dispirited people hid their eyes. Somewhere a frightened child sobbed, and the lips of many a woman trembled traitorously. An old man, apparently deaf, snatched at all and sundry by the sleeves, trying to find out what “these folk in capes” had said; people brushed the old man aside, some sullenly, some crossly.
A strained, unnatural laugh suddenly broke out over the crowd. “Here now, they made it up, didn’t they? It’s their little joke, right?” The man who was laughing received no support, and his laughter faded pitifully.
A crowd of students stood by the entrance to the university, right between the snake and the monkey. All eyes followed the dean, but he passed by without saying a word, walking through a path that had formed in the crowd, and the unvoiced questions of the youths were left unanswered. Egert and Toria followed after Luayan.
In the university courtyard they ran into Fox. He had installed himself on the shoulders of a sturdy youth, and, blowing out his cheeks so far they seemed about to explode, Gaetan assiduously blew into a tin trumpet and cried out dismally from time to time, “It approooooaches … Aaaaaaa…”
There came a day when another man sat down in the armchair of his teacher.
The boy had heard of Lart Legiar from Orlan many times, but his first encounter with the archmage, who appeared one day at the hut by the cliff, could have cost Luayan dearly because, immature and overconfident, he tried to test his skill against the unwelcome guest.
The vanity and pride of Luayan received a palpable blow on that day: he was forced to throw himself on the mercy of his opponent who was not only far stronger than a fourteen-year-old boy but also than many of the wisest, gray-haired mages. It was not in Lart’s nature to spare an opponent, however young he might be, but the boy capitulated and his reward was a long, initially oppressive, but subsequently fascinating conversation.
Toward the morning of a long night, the archmage Lart Legiar summoned the boy to him: it was a chance to change his fate, a chance to find a new teacher. Luayan did not miss this chance: he simply refused it. He refused it calmly and deliberately. He was not one of those who could easily exchange teachers even if being the pupil of Legiar would be an incredible honor.
Many times after he had grown up, Luayan had asked himself if it was worth it. Such fidelity to the grave of Orlan: did it cost him too dear? Abandoned at the age of fourteen in the company of wise but indifferent books, he had transformed himself into a mage, but he would never become an archmage.
The bitter taste lived within him for many years. Both to his face and behind his back, people called him “master mage,” “great magician,” and “archmage,” but not a one guessed that the already middle-aged Luayan had not progressed much in his magic from the time of his adolescence.
However, he had not wasted a single drop of the knowledge and power that he obtained under the steel wing of Orlan. He was entirely competent in the magical arts, even if he was far from the heights. He immersed himself in academia and became an unparalleled expert on history. However, two morbidly painful flames always smoldered in his soul. The first was Toria’s unhappy mother; the second was the vexing awareness of his own frustrated greatness.
Never before had he so greatly regretted those unachieved heights. Having closed the door of his study, he stood idle under the extended steel wing, trying to gather his thoughts. His reason calmly assured him that there was nothing to worry about: the wearers of the gray robes had always been fond of effects designed for spectators, and the end of time was nothing more than their most recent subterfuge, invoked to rivet the diminishing attentions of the city’s inhabitants on the Tower. Thus insisted his reason, but the presentiment of disaster strengthened, and the dean knew from experience that he should have faith in his presentiments.
He knew this feeling. It had come on especially keenly that night when he had let his dearly beloved and despised, bedeviling wife leave the house: he had let her go, insulted and piqued at her disdain, and she had met her death.
The wing stretched out over his head, commanding him to shun forbidden thoughts. He stood for a time in front of a tall cabinet. The cabinet was barred with both a lock and an enchantment, just to be on the safe side. Luayan breathed a sigh and removed both the lock and the enchantment.
A jasper casket rested on a black satin pillow; it was small, about the size of a snuffbox. The dean placed it on his palm then touched the lid, which surrendered without effort.
A medallion lay on the velvet bottom of the small chest: a delicate disk of pure gold on a gold chain. The dean was unaware that he held his breath as he put the faintly gleaming disk, covered with intricate, ornately carved recesses, on his palm. Nothing could be simpler, one would think, than to peer deep into these recesses, into rays of sunlight, but Luayan was pierced by trepidation at the mere thought of doing so. He was the guardian of this medallion, not its master.…
… When he met Lart Legiar for the second time, Luayan was a respected mage and the dean of the university.
At that time Luayan was already aware that the Third Power had vainly tried to force its way through the Doors of Creation, and that the Doorkeeper had refused to lift the bar and let it through. Whatever role Lart Legiar had played in this affair was hidden from the eyes of men, but the dean had flinched the first time he looked at his guest’s face. The great Legiar had aged, and his face was seamed with scars that had not been there before; one eye was blind and stared blankly past his host, but the other, which had escaped whatever disaster stole the first, was observant and slightly mocking.