“You can’t let me leave this room,” said Egert in horror. “I could tell them everything.”
The dean caught the compassionate glance that Toria directed at Egert, thought for a moment, and then shook his head. “It is within my power to make you forget what you have seen. Just as your friend Gaetan forgot about a certain event, to which he was a chance witness. It’s possible, but I will not do it, Egert. You must walk your path until the bitter end. Fight for your liberty.” The dean leaned toward the medallion with these last words, as if invoking it.
“But what if the Order finds out about it?” Toria’s voice was high.
“I do not fear Lash,” replied the dean vaguely.
The flames in the fireplace blazed up even more vigorously, and the medallion in Luayan’s palm cast spots of light onto the ceiling.
“It is completely faultless,” said the dean in an undertone. Both Egert and Toria looked at him in wonder.
“What?”
“It’s clean,” explained the dean. “The gold does not have a spot of rust. Not a speck. If we really were on the eve of great ordeal, then … It senses danger threatening the world, and it rusts as an indicator. So it was half a century ago when the Third Power stood at the Doors. I was a young boy then, but I remember that forebodings tormented me, and the medallion, so they say, was completely covered in rust. Now it is clean, as though there were no threat. But somehow I know that this is not so!” Swallowing a bitter taste that burst forth in his mouth, the dean returned the medallion to the safe in utter silence.
“Do you think Lash is the threat?” Toria asked in a whisper.
The dean tossed another log into the fireplace. Egert jumped back to avoid the scattering sparks.
“I don’t know,” the dean confessed unwillingly. “The Order of Lash undoubtedly has some sort of connection to it, but the thing that threatens us the most, that is something else entirely. Or someone else entirely.”
Winter arrived in the space of a single night.
Upon awaking in the early morning, Egert saw that the gray, damp ceiling of the cramped room had turned as white and frosted as the hem of a wedding gown. Neither the wind, nor footsteps, nor the clamor of wheels could be heard from the square: snow was drifting down to earth in solemn silence.
According to tradition, all lectures were canceled on the day of the first snow. When he learned of this custom, Egert rejoiced far more than he would have otherwise.
Merriment was soon in full swing in the university courtyard. Under the leadership of Fox, the peaceful student body suddenly transformed into a horde of soldiers. A dazzlingly white snow fort was hastily constructed and soon snow battles were raging. Egert entered into the melee with pleasure.
Before long, however, the battle somehow devolved into a fight of the one against the many, with Egert taking the role of lone defender against the horde of students, like some hero of antiquity; it seemed he did not have two hands, but ten, and every snowball he threw hit its mark, dusting an opponent’s flushed face with crumbs of snow. Attacked from all sides, he dived under hostile missiles and they collided over his head, sprinkling his fair hair with snow. Despairing of striking a moving target, especially one that moved the way Egert did, his opponents were about to engage in hand-to-hand combat, planning to tumble their invincible adversary into a snowbank, when Egert suddenly noticed that Toria was observing the skirmish.
Fox and his comrades immediately faded into the background; Toria leisurely bent down, scooped up some snow, and rolled it into a ball. Then, swinging her arm back, she threw it and hit Egert in the forehead.
He walked over to her, wiping slush from his face. Toria looked at his wet face seriously, without the slightest shadow of a smile.
“Today is the first snow. I want to show you something.” Without saying another word, she turned around and walked away. Egert moved off after her, as if he were tethered to her with a leash.
Snow lay everywhere. It covered the university steps, and it had settled on the heads of the iron snake and wooden monkey, creating two large, wintery snowcaps.
“Is it in the city?” Egert asked worriedly. “I wouldn’t want to run into Fagirra.”
“Do you really think he’d come anywhere near you when I’m around?” Toria smiled.
The city was submerged in silence; instead of the thunder of carts, sleighs crept noiselessly through the streets, and the wide tracks left by their runners seemed as brittle as porcelain. Snow tumbled and fell, covering the shoulders of pedestrians, speckling astonished black dogs with white, concealing all refuse and dirt from the eyes.
“The first snow,” said Egert. “It’s a pity that it will melt.”
“Not at all,” replied Toria. “Every thaw is like a short spring. It’d best thaw, or else…”
She wanted to say that the smooth surface of the snow reminded her of the pure, white shrouds used to cover the dead, but she did not. She did not want Egert to think that she was always so gloomy. Winter really was beautifuclass="underline" it was not to blame for the fact that it was possible to freeze to death in a snowbank, just like her mother.
Red-breasted robins with white snowflakes on their backs were sitting on girders attached to walls, looking like the guards in their bright uniforms; and presently the guards themselves strolled by, with their tall pikes and their red-and-white uniforms, shivering just like the robins.
“Are you cold?” asked Egert.
She tucked her hands deeper into her old muff. “No. Are you?”
He was not wearing a hat. The snow fell right on his hair and did not melt. “I never get cold. My father raised me as a soldier, and soldiers must be able to endure anything, not least of all cold.” Egert grinned.
They passed through the city gates; the wet snow formed grinning jaws on the serpents and dragons that were welded there. Sleds were sweeping along the road. Toria turned confidently and led Egert to the very shore of the river.
Just like frosted glass, the surface of the water was covered in a skin of ice, thick and dull by the shores, thin and latticed toward the center. A narrow stream remained free in the middle; it ran dark and smooth, and on the very edge of the ice stood an unkindness of black ravens, strutting about and displaying their magnificence.
“We’ll walk along the riverbank,” said Toria. “Look around; there should be a footpath.”
The footpath was buried under the snow. Egert walked in front and Toria tried to place her light shoes in the deep tracks of his boots. Thus they walked for quite a long time. The snow finally stopped falling, and the sun began to peek through jagged holes in the clouds.
Toria squinted, blinded: how white, how sparkling the world suddenly seemed! Egert turned his face back to her. Snowflakes gleamed brightly in his hair.
“Is it much farther?”
She smiled, almost not understanding the question. At that moment words seemed to her like an unnecessary addition to the snowy, sun-drenched splendor of this extraordinary day.
Egert understood, and hesitantly, as if asking for permission, he smiled in answer.
They walked on side by side: the footpath had emerged onto a hill where the snow was no longer so deep. Toria held one hand in the warm depths of her muff, and the other leaned on the arm of her companion. Egert pressed his elbow firmly to his side so that her hand, sheltered in the folds of his sleeve, would not freeze.
They paused for a short while, looking back at the river and the city. Wisps of smoke stood over the city walls in dove-colored columns.
“I’ve never been here,” admitted Egert in wonder. “It’s so beautiful.”
Toria smiled briefly. “It is a memorable place. There is an old graveyard here. After the Black Plague, they buried everyone who had died here, in one pit. It is said that the hill became three times taller from all the dead bodies. Since then this place has been considered speciaclass="underline" some say it is blessed; some say it is cursed. Children sometimes leave a lock of their hair on the summit so that a wish will come true. Sorcerers from the villages come here in pilgrimage. But in general…” Toria faltered. “Father does not like this place. He says … But what have we to be afraid of? It’s such beautiful white day.”