Where does this memory come from, and why?
Toria caught the dragonfly. Carefully, afraid to clench her hand too tight, she carried the poor thing out into the yard and let it go, following its flight with her gaze. For a long time afterwards she still felt the light tickling of the dragonfly’s wings and tiny feet on her palm.
She breathed nervously. This is happening today; this is happening right now. So many fears and hopes, so many dreams … This stood before her, waiting, and she would change; she would become a different person; she was afraid, but how could she be otherwise: this was inevitable, like the rising of the sun.
Egert again understood her without words. His joy communicated itself to her, drowning out her fear. From out of the darkness she heard her own happy laughter, which was immediately followed by a confused thought: Was it appropriate to laugh? Images of the dragonfly’s wings, lights beyond the river, snow sparkling in the sun all flashed before her eyes, and just as she lost herself in a new delirium, she had time to think, Now.
8
On a black, winter evening, Dean Luayan interrupted his usual work.
Ink was drying on an unfinished page, and a quill was poised in the dean’s motionless hand, but he sat, frozen behind his desk, unable to tear his gaze from a candle that was guttering in a candelabrum.
Beyond the window, the wet wind of a protracted thaw raged; in the fireplace, the fire burned in an even, hospitable manner. The dean sat, widening his eyes that were watery from strain. An impenetrable, nocturnal horror watched him from the flame, and the same horror rose to meet the dean from the depths of his soul.
The presentiment of a mage, even one who has not achieved the level of archmage, does not occur without reason. Now disaster was approaching so near that the dean’s hair stirred from its breath. Right now, already now perhaps, it was too late to salvage anything.
The Amulet!
He jumped up. The incantation that secured the safe released immediately, but the lock resisted for a long time, disobeying his shaking hands. Finally opening the jasper casket, Luayan, who had never been shortsighted, squinted his eyes.
The medallion was uncorrupted. Not a single spot of rust disfigured the gold disk. The medallion was clean, but the dean still gasped from the stench of impending doom.
Not trusting himself, he once again examined the medallion. Then he hid it, and lurching, he rushed to the door.
“Toria! Tor!”
He knew that she was nearby in her room because he had called upon her earlier for help, but now she appeared almost instantly, and she was almost as pale as he was himself: evidently, something in his voice had terrified her. “Father?”
Behind her he could distinguish the silhouette of Egert Soll. In the last few days the two of them had become inseparable. Heaven help them.
“Toria, and you, Egert, get me water from five sources. I will tell you which, and where they are. Take my lantern; it will not go out even under the strongest wind. You, Toria, put on your cloak. Quickly.”
If they wanted to ask him what was going on, they either could not or decided not to. The dean did not seem himself; Toria flinched upon meeting his gaze. Without saying a word, she took the five vials, which were attached to a belt. Egert swept her cloak over her shoulders, and as he did so she felt the affectionate, encouraging touch of his palm. A rotten winter without frost howled beyond the walls. Egert raised the burning lantern up high, Toria took hold of his arm, and they set out into the winter night.
As in a ritual, they crept from source to source: in all there were five. Thrice they had to gather the water from a pipe walled in stone, once from a small well in a courtyard, and once from the iron muzzle of a snake in an abandoned fountain. The five vials were full, the belt they were in weighed down Egert’s shoulder, and Toria’s cloak was soaked through when, staggering from exhaustion, they stepped back over the threshold of the dean’s study. Usually gloomy, on this night it was full of light. Rows of candles crowded on the desk, on the floor, were molded to the walls; the tongues of flame jumped and waved when the door opened, as if greeting the two who entered.
In the middle of the room stood a strangely shaped object with birdlike claws at the bottom; on top, three more claws supported a round, silver basin.
Obeying the impatient gesture of the dean, Egert retreated into the farthest corner and sat there, right on the floor. Toria arranged herself nearby on a low taboret.
The tongues of flame elongated more and more; their length was unnatural, strange to the eyes. The dean stood over the silver basin and poured each of the vials into it. His hands moved slowly upward; his lips, firmly set, did not move, but to Egert it seemed—though perhaps it was his fear that made it so—that in the stillness of the study, in the howling of the wind beyond the windows he heard sharp words that clawed at his hearing. The ceiling, on which patterns of shadows fused and then decayed, seemed choked with swarms of insects.
Something knocked against the window from outside. Egert, taut as a bowstring, shook convulsively. Toria rested her hand on his shoulder without looking at him.
The dean’s lips twisted, as if from strain. The flames of the candles stretched painfully and then diminished, regaining their usual shape. Standing motionless for a second longer, the dean whispered under his breath, “Draw near.”
It was as if the waters in the basin had never existed. There, where their surface should have been, rested a mirror, as silver and vivid as mercury. The Mirror of Waters, thought Egert as he stood transfixed.
“Why can’t we see anything?” Toria asked in a whisper.
Egert was almost resentful. For him, the mirror itself seemed miracle enough. However, at that very moment the silver haze shimmered, darkened, and then it was no longer a haze, but night, and a wind, the same wind that blew beyond the windows, whipped the branches of naked trees, and drew sparks torches, first one, then two, then three. Without trying to decipher the image, Egert marveled only that here in this small circular mirror something strange and secret was being reflected, something that was taking place who knows where. Entranced by the magic and by his own participation in the secret, he came to his senses only when he heard Toria cry out in a resonant voice, “Lash!”
That single, short word sobered Egert like a slap in the face. Obscure figures prowled in the mirror, and even in the meager light of the few torches, it was possible to distinguish hoods, some pulled low over the eyes and some flung down onto the shoulders. An entire troop of soldiers of Lash was for some reason swarming about in the night, permitting the wind to torment and harass the hems of their long robes.
“Where is that?” Toria asked, fearful.
“Silence!” Luayan gasped through clenched teeth. “It will be lost!”
The image faded, crusted over by a dirty, milky-white film, then turned back into the silver, waxen haze, and only in the extreme depths of that haze did a muted spark continue to gleam.
“What an evil day,” muttered Luayan, as if marveling to himself. “What a wicked night.”
Stretching out his hands, he spread his palms over the mirror and Egert, unable to move, saw how the web of his veins, his tendons and his blood vessels protruded through his skin.
The mirror wavered and darkened again. The dean withdrew his hands as if they were burned, and Egert was once again able to make out the night, the men, and the torches. The flames had become larger, and they all moved in a strange procession; the hooded men stood in a circle, rhythmically and regularly bending their backs as though bowing. Were they counting off the bows?