“The world remains the same,” Legiar declared in lieu of a greeting.
“But it is we who change,” responded Luayan, trying to divine the intentions of his visitor.
They looked at each other for a long moment. A multitude of questions tormented Luayan: about the strange Third Power that wished to invade the world, about the fate of the Doorkeeper, and about Legiar’s own fate, but he remained silent because he knew that he did not have the right to ask.
“No,” Legiar sighed finally. “You have not changed. You’ve hardly changed at all.”
Luayan understood what his guest meant, but he smiled pleasantly, wishing to hide from the other’s pity.
“Well, the fewer archmages there are in this world and the less frequently they encounter one another, the easier it is for us ordinary mages to live.”
Legiar cast up his eyebrows in astonishment. “You’ve checked your arrogance? The last time we met, I was sure that would be impossible. Or are you acting against your soul’s inclination?”
“It is not given to all to be great,” Luayan observed dispassionately.
“But it was given to you,” objected Legiar.
They both fell silent.
Luayan frowned as he gazed steadily, with barely perceptible reproach, right into Legiar’s undamaged eye. “I remained Orlan’s student. I think he would have understood.”
The one-eyed man sneered. “‘He would have understood.…’ From that I take it that you think I don’t understand?”
It became quiet again. Legiar perused the densely packed shelves, studying the titles with interest. Luayan did not rush him; he waited patiently for the continuation of their conversation.
“You have done well.” Legiar turned back, blowing book dust from his fingers. “You have done well in your studies. But I have come to you, not as a scholar, not as a dean, and not even as a mage: I have come to you as the student of Orlan.”
Luayan gazed, without breaking away, at the intent, narrow pupil that was fixed on him. His guest’s dead eye was like a round piece of ice.
“As the student of Orlan, look.” On Legiar’s palm lay a gold disk with elaborate indentations in the center; a gold chain hung down between his fingers, and a bright yellow arc of light ran across the darkened ceiling.
“This is the Amulet of the Prophet,” Legiar resumed hollowly. “The strength of the Amulet is well known, but no one knows all its properties. Ever since its master, the Prophet Orwin, perished, it has been dormant. It must now search for a new master, a new prophet. The person who puts it on gains the ability to look into the future, but this can happen only if the medallion itself has chosen him. The medallion will simply kill the vainglorious or foolish man who tries to make use of it without the right to do so: gold knows no mercy. I cannot keep it with me; I am not its master. I cannot deliver it into the hands of any of the archmages, for then doubt, suspicion, and envy would gnaw at me until finally … The medallion does not belong in the hands of anyone who is not a mage, however, so what am I to do?”
Legiar narrowed his eyes: the sighted eye collapsed into a slit, but the dead one acquired a strange, almost crafty expression.
“I have brought the medallion to you, Luayan. You are the student of Orlan. Vanity and pride were alien to him. He was wise, far wiser than all who live today. He was only your mentor for a short while, but he is in you; he is, I see it. I would have brought the medallion to him, but he is dead, so you must take it. Treasure and preserve it.”
Luayan took the gold disk in the palm of his hand. The medallion seemed warm, like a living creature. “What should I do with it?”
Legiar smiled slightly. “Nothing. Hide it. Keep it safe. It selects its own master; don’t try to assist it. Glance at it every once in a while to see whether there is any rust on it. Yes, I know, it is gold, not iron. Rust on the Amulet augurs peril for the living world: thus did the First Prophet proclaim, and as Heaven has witnessed, the elder was right.” The corner of Legiar’s long mouth mournfully crooked down.
As he was leaving, he turned on the threshold.
“You see, I am old.… Many of us are now old and those who should have taken our places … did not. You are happy in your university. And somewhere yet another frustrated hope roams the earth: the former Doorkeeper; even I don’t know who or where he is now. Guard the medallion … and farewell.”
He left, and Luayan never saw him again, but his life’s work sprang from this memorable meeting: a history of the deeds of the archmages.
The medallion lay comfortably in his hand. The dean raised it to his eyes, inspecting it as closely as he could: there was no rust. Not a dot, not a speck. However, the presentiment of misfortune ripened and matured like an apple, like an abscess.
Half a week had passed by after the Tower’s declaration of the End of Time. Several times a day the Tower of Lash emitted its howl, which chilled the blood coursing through the veins of the city’s inhabitants; thick smoke reluctantly drifted up into the sky from the grilled windows of the Tower, but not a single robed man appeared on the streets of the city. The townspeople were tormented with anxiety.
The consumption of spirits increased tenfold in the city: the idea that intoxication expels unwelcome thoughts and blunts fear was, apparently, well known to men other than Egert Soll. Wives waited for their husbands in anxiety and alarm, and when their husbands returned home on all fours or creeping on their bellies, their first, slurred words were assurances that time would not end. The neighborhoods of craftsmen and merchants gradually fell under the sway of too much drink, while in the aristocratic areas of the city decorum reigned for the time being. Even there, however, one might encounter a tipsy lackey or a coachman who had gotten so drunk that he toppled from his perch. The high windows of the wealthy houses were thickly curtained, so who knows what really went on behind the cover of those curtains, so dense that they did not even let air through. Many of the inhabitants who had relatives in the villages and outskirts considered it best to pay them a long visit; all day carts and wagons loaded with household goods wheeled out of the city gates one after another.
The taverns flourished: the proprietors of alehouses and pubs passed off swill that had long been stagnating in barrels as first-class wine. But even though people drank nervously in the majority of such establishments, only wishing to drown out their fear, in the student tavern, the One-Eyed Fly, genuine and unconstrained merrymaking prevailed.
Fox was a colossal success: ten times a night he imitated first the hooded acolytes, then the Magister, then the dwarf with the trumpet; in Fox’s performance, the uncanny, prolonged sound that was emitted by this instrument was transformed into a noise of ridiculous lewdness. The students applauded, sprawled out on the benches. Only Egert did not take part in the general merriment.
Hunching, as usual, in a corner, barely able to squeeze his long legs underneath the bench, Egert scratched at the tabletop with the tip of a blunt knife. His lips moved soundlessly, repeating the word “yes” over and over, and the glass of wine that stood in front of him on the table remained almost untouched.
When the path has reached its bitter end. When that which is foremost in your soul becomes last. What, after all, was foremost in his soul? Could it be his perpetual terror? Then in order to dispose of the curse, he must first dispose of his fear, but this was a closed circle: so as not to be afraid, he just had to cease being afraid. But if there were something that stood before all else in his soul, and it was not fear, then what was it?
Egert sighed. He was going around in circles like a horse harnessed to a thresher; the key to his soul was either cowardice or his desire to get rid of it: no third option entered his head.