Watching the flames dance in Toria’s motionless pupils, Egert found within himself the courage to bend toward her ear. “I will break the curse. I will recover my courage. I will do it for the sake of … you know. I swear.”
She slowly lowered her eyelids, cloaking the sparks that danced in her eyes.
The first snow melted, covering the streets, porches, and intersections with shining filth; a cold wind howled through the days, and worry crawled back into the hearts of the townsfolk who had been slightly calmed by the snow. The Tower of Lash ominously elevated its fragrant smoke up to the sky: “Soon!” A few more students disappeared from the university, and the rowdy evenings at the One-Eyed Fly ended of their own accord. Dean Luayan became the focal point of a universal gravitation, as it were: people sidled up to him, hoping to gain some measure of composure. Complete strangers from the city came to see him. They stood for hours on the grand porch of the university, hoping to see the archmage, seeking his help and reassurance. Luayan avoided long conversations, but he never rewarded the petitioners with anger or annoyance. His conscience would not allow him to appease them, and his reason would not let him frighten them, so he regaled his visitors with monotonous, philosophical parables that did not relate in any way to the reason they had come.
The frightened people still came and went, regardless of the dean’s efforts to put them off. Egert was not the least bit surprised to see a worn-out old man with an extremely straight back and spurs on his boots standing one morning on the steps between the serpent and the monkey. Nodding his head in welcome, he was about to walk by, but the old man smiled painfully and stepped forward to intercept him.
Egert recognized his father only after several seconds. The elder Soll had miraculously begun to resemble the portrait that hung in his study in Kavarren: a portrait of Egert’s grandfather, painted when he was already quite advanced in years, gray haired, with a drooping mustache and rugged wrinkles on his face. Recalling the portrait, Egert recognized his father, and he was astounded at how quickly old age had descended upon him.
Silently, accompanied only by the dull jingling of spurs, father and son walked to the small hotel where the elder Soll was staying. The old man hammered with his flint and stone for a long time before lighting the candles in the candelabrum. A servant brought in wine and glasses. Sitting in a creaking armchair, Egert watched with pain in his heart as his father tried to gather his thoughts. But he could not gather them; he wanted to start a conversation but could not find the words. Egert would have happily helped him, but his own tongue was also helpless and mute.
“I … I brought money,” said the elder Soll finally.
“Thank you,” mumbled Egert and finally put the question that had tormented him the entire walk here into words. “How is Mother?”
His father smoothed out the threadbare velvet tablecloth on the small round table.
“She is ill, extremely ill.” He lifted his haggard, watery eyes to his son. “Egert, they are saying here that time is coming to an end. If time is at an end then to hell with them, with the regiment; to hell with them and their uniform. What a regiment they are, when they … Egert, my son … My father had five sons. We only have you. You are the only one that lived. It’s already difficult for me to get up into the saddle. Getting up on the roof is also difficult. Why did you leave us? There are no grandchildren.…”
Feeling how his throat had dried up, Egert muttered into a dark corner, “I know.”
The old man sighed loudly. He bit his upper lip, chewing on his mustache. “Egert, your mother begs you. Pay your last respects, that’s all. Your mother entreats you. Let’s go home. To hell with them, with all of them. Let’s go to Kavarren. I even brought you a horse. A mare, she’s a marvel.” His father’s gaze brightened somewhat. “Raven black, very high spirited. She’s the daughter of our Tika. You loved Tika, remember?”
Egert silently passed his fingers through the flame of a candle.
“Son, let’s go today. The horses are frisky and well rested. I, of course, will get tired, but not before … Well, we could try it anyway. We could be home within a week. What do you say, Egert?”
“I can’t.” Egert would have rather damned the whole earth than to speak those words. “I cannot. How can I return like this?” His hand touched the scar.
“You think about it,” sighed his father gravely. “You think about it. You can’t ignore your mother, Egert. What kind of a son are you?”
It seemed to him that there would now be no rendezvous with Toria, and that something would fracture, would give way, would tear apart his innards. Happily, she met him on the steps as if she had been waiting for him there.
“Egert?”
He told her how his father’s hands shook when, as they said their good-byes, Egert had shifted his eyes to the side and mumbled an assurance that he would come home soon.
Mud squelched under their feet. The city had quieted; it felt as if it were abandoned. Without picking any particular route, they roamed through the streets and alleyways, and Egert talked without ceasing.
His mother was very ill. His mother was waiting for him, but how could he return bearing this curse? How could he crawl back to his father’s house bearing this cowardly brute in his soul, a brute that at any minute could turn him into the basest scoundrel? He had made a promise to himself; he had made a promise to Toria. Perhaps he was wrong? Perhaps for the sake of his mother’s serenity he should swallow yet another humiliation and return defeated, a coward? Should he fetch his shadow to her feet and burden her with another woe?
He had tried, as far as he could, to explain this to his father. He had foundered in the words, had sunk into them like an amateur fisherman in his own net, but the old man could not understand him, and Egert, exhausted, had finally said to him, “I am ill. I have to find the cure, and then…” His father was silent, and for the first time in his son’s memory, his eternally straight back slumped wearily.
Now Toria listened to all of this. Dusk was thickening; here and there the streetlamps smoked, and every shutter was shut tight. It seemed as though the houses had obstinately closed their eyes against the night, against the filth, against the foul weather. At one point it seemed to Toria that dim shadows were following them at a distance, but Egert noticed nothing. He talked and talked, and appealed to Toria as a witness: Was it possible that he really was wrong?
Trying to escape the wind, they turned into some gates and found themselves in a deserted courtyard, full of refuse. A cook stalked through the yard from a storehouse and cast them a look that was somewhat unfriendly, but more indifferent than anything else. The door slammed shut, ruthlessly grinding down clouds of steam that were breaking loose from inside. A streetlight dimly illuminated a small sign by the door: THE GOAT’S MILK. The scruffy goats stood listlessly in a narrow enclosure beneath an awning.
The streetlamp weaved in the wind, and Toria shivered, only now feeling both the wind and the damp.
“Come on, let’s go. Why are we here?”
Egert opened his mouth to repeat all his reasoning from the beginning, but he found he could say nothing. In the wan light of the streetlamp, Lieutenant Karver Ott towered before him like a dripping wet ghost.
The lieutenant looked unimpressive: during his time spent in the city his uniform had been worn constantly, and since his purse had been depleted by all the taverns he had visited, it had not been cleaned. It showed. The appearance of Bonifor and Dirk, who were standing behind him, was also not very decent. Instead of gentlemen of the guards, they now resembled bandits or highwaymen, an impression that was heightened by the fact that both rested their palms on the hilts of their swords.