Karver smiled contentedly. “Are you shivering?”
“Yes!”
He rose from his knees in a single, fluid motion. He noticed the confusion in Karver’s eyes; he felt Toria moving behind his back; he took a step forward, intending to grab the lieutenant by his skinny throat; Karver hastily raised his sword out in front of him; Egert extended his arm to turn the sharp tip aside; and in that moment an attack of nauseating, detestable terror turned his heart into a pathetic, fluttering lump.
His legs gave out, and he once again sagged to the ground. He touched his cheek with a shaking hand. The scar was still there; the rough, hardened seam was still on his cheek. The scar was in its place, as was the fear that harried his soul.
The streetlamp swayed, shrieking in its bracket. Egert felt like his knees were frozen in icy slush. From somewhere on the roof, water was dripping, drip, drip. Toria whispered something helplessly.
Karver, recovering himself, hostilely peered at him through slit eyes. “So then, that’s how it is. You will now display your love for the lady.” He abruptly turned toward his companions, “Bonifor. There is a nice little she-goat in that enclosure over there, do you see her? Her owner won’t mind if we borrow her for a little while.”
Still hoping, Egert moved his lips, repeating “yes” over and over, but Bonifor was already opening the enclosure, and Toria, not yet believing in their defeat, stared at Bonifor, Karver, and the mustachioed Dirk without understanding. The black surface of a greasy puddle gleamed like slate.
Hope twitched in his soul for the last time, and then it faded, leaving in its place a desolate, hopeless melancholy. Toria realized this and instantly lost her strength to fight back. Their eyes met.
“Leave,” he whispered. “Please leave.”
Toria remained where she was. Either she had not heard him or she had not understood or she no longer had the strength to move from the spot. Karver chuckled.
The goat, skinny and filthy, was accustomed to brutal treatment. She did not even begin to bleat when Bonifor, cursing under his breath, flipped her from his back to the ground at Karver’s feet. He proprietarily fastened a rope on the neck of the miserable animal then glanced ruefully at the bewildered Toria.
“So, he loves you, you heard?”
Egert looked at the gray, twitching tail of the goat. There would be no miracle. There would be no miracle. Fear had already conquered both his will and his reason, he had lost himself, and he would lose Toria. The Wanderer had left no way out.
Karver seized the goat by the muzzle and turned it toward Egert. “Well, here is a partner worthy of you; here is your love. Kiss her, go on then!”
Why doesn’t Toria understand that she must leave? Everything is over; does she need to be tormented by this abhorrent scene?
The swords of Bonifor and Dirk threatened him from either side.
“Look how nice she is! A lovely creature. So kiss her!”
The stench of unwashed animal assaulted Egert’s nostrils.
“You heard him. He loves you?” Karver’s low voice reached him from a distance. “And you believed him? Look at him; he’s ready to exchange you for the first goat that comes along!”
“What do you mean for the first one that comes along?” Bonifor flared up theatrically. “She’s a charming goat, best in the pen, right, Egert?”
“You should be ashamed.” Egert hardly recognized Toria’s voice.
“We should be ashamed!” Karver, unlike Bonifor, flared up in truth. “We, and not him?”
“Leave,” implored Egert. Toria stood still. Heaven, could her legs have grown numb? The cold edge of a blade once again touched his neck.
“Come on now, Egert! I declare you man and wife, you and your darling goat. Let’s skip straight to the wedding night!”
Dirk and Bonifor, stunned by Karver’s inventiveness, turned the goat around so that her tail faced Egert.
“Get to it! It will take all of five minutes. Have at it and all will be well; you can escort your lady home. Yes, lady, are you really still reluctant to return alone?”
It started raining. The water was rippled through the matted hair of the goat. His knees were frozen solid, and Egert suddenly imagined that he was a boy, standing up to his knees in the Kava river in spring, and on the near bank unbearably yellow flowers were blooming. He stretched out, trying to pluck one.…
He winced from pain. Karver had put his blade to Egert’s ear. “What are you thinking about? A sharp sword can cut off an ear, a finger, whatever is desired. Or has it happened already! It is true that students are castrated, isn’t it, lady?”
Fear had taken away from Egert the ability to think or feel. From Karver’s words he understood only that Toria was still here, and reproachfully, with almost childish hurt, he thought, Why?
The shrieking, black streetlamp swung in the wind. The night seemed to Toria like a viscous wad of tar. The sticky air blocked her larynx and it was impossible to draw in the breath for words or a shout. Undoubtedly, she should call for help, drub her fists on doors and shutters, run to her father in the end, but shock deprived her of the ability to struggle; it turned her into a mute, impotent witness.
The goat moved hesitantly. Bonifor cut short her attempt to escape, squeezing her head between his knees.
Karver brought his sword up under the chin of his victim. “Well, Egert? Unfasten your belt!”
Then the darkness thickened, compressed Egert from all sides, squeezed his head and chest, filled his ears like a cork and plugged his throat, not letting the tiniest bubble of air into his lungs. For a second it seemed to him that he was buried alive, that there was neither top nor bottom, that the earth was pressing, pressing …
Then everything became lighter, and with his last glimmer of consciousness, Egert understood that he was dying. Thank Heaven. He was simply dying, gently and without torments. The damned Wanderer had overlooked something; there was something he had not taken into account! Egert could not conquer his fear, but he also could not transgress this boundary. He could not, and so here was death. Thank Heaven.
He smoothly keeled over. His face crashed into the dirt, which turned out to be as warm and soft as a feather bed. How easy. The black lantern keeled over, the black sky keeled over, and Karver yelled and waved his little sword. Let him: Egert was not here, he was no longer here. Finally.
The three guards leaned over the prostrate man. The miserable goat, bounding away, began to bleat keenly and mournfully.
“Egert! Hey, Egert! Quit pretending. Hey!”
Toria darted forward, hurling first Dirk to one side and then Bonifor to the other with a glance. Egert was lying on his side. His face, detached and stiff, now fell into shadow, now again was snatched from the darkness by the light of the swaying streetlamp.
“And now you will answer for this,” Toria said with surprising calmness. “You will answer for everything. You have murdered him, you scum!”
“But lady,” mumbled Bonifor in confusion. Dirk moved backwards, and Karver thrust his sword into its sheath.
“We didn’t even lay a finger on him. What is it that you think we are guilty of!”
“You will answer,” promised Toria through her teeth. “My father will hunt you down and put you in the ground far from your wretched Kavarren, at the world’s edge.”
Dirk kept stepping back farther and farther. Bonifor, looking sideways first at the lifeless Egert, then at Toria, followed his example. Karver, it seemed, had lost his courage.
“You have never seen a real mage before,” continued Toria in a voice that was not her own, but somehow strange and metallic. “But you will instantly recognize my father when he appears before you!”