The word broke free from his mouth and, nearly broken from exhaustion, he closed his eyes with a clear conscience, giving himself over to the lacerations of his fear.
The word boomed out in the silent hall like an explosion from a gun turret.
The students screamed victoriously, the crowd began to clamor, Fagirra snapped something sharply, and Toria, sitting stunned on her bench, exuded horror at the thought that the curse on Egert was now eternal and unbreakable. He perceived this and shuddered, his hands stretched out toward his mouth as if wishing to beat back the word that had just flown out, but he realized with relief that it was impossible to withdraw what had been said, however much the fear tried to turn him inside out. Reeling, he looked out into the hall, at the Wanderer, and his look contained something akin to a challenge.
And then the Wanderer, who alone had remained impassive in the excited crowd, permitted himself to smile.
The world lurched in front of Egert’s eyes; it swam, it faded as if it were being burned away. He felt a pure, placid calm. He wanted to close his eyes and bask in the incredible tranquillity, but then the world returned; it collapsed in on him with the noise of the crowd and the shouts of the guards. Colors returned to it, and never in his life had Egert Soll seen such vivid colors.
… Who are all these people? Who is that man, hiding his face under a hood? How dare they restrain that woman … Toria!
The dais quivered. Egert realized that he was already running; someone in red and white flew off to the side in fear, sheltering behind a pike. The executioner’s stool fell on its side awkwardly, like a dead rat, and the iron pliers tumbled out of the sack.
It seemed to Egert that he was moving slowly, like a fly bogged down in honey. Distorted faces flickered on the edge of his vision, shouts clamored on the edge of his hearing. Someone shouted, “Seize him!” Someone shouted, “Leave him be!” The students bellowed and the clerk hammered on his table, and the pale face of Toria moved ever closer. Ever closer were her eyes, flung open so wide that her curved eyelashes dented the skin of her eyelids and her enlarged pupils absorbed the light without sparkling; ever closer were her half-open, dry lips, her bitten, swollen lips. Egert ran for an eternity. The dais shuddered under his boots; someone stood in his path, but he flew off, swept away. Egert ran, and blood flowed over his cheek, over his lips, over his chin, dripping down onto his shirt: in the place of the scar now blazed an open wound.
And then his feet tripped over an outstretched sword sheath and he fell, losing sight of Toria’s face, splaying out his elbows. The edge of the dais flashed before his eyes, then the high, dark ceiling, and from somewhere above him boomed the words, “Do you remember the punishment for false witness?”
He saw veins pounding in a temple; twitching, bloodless lips; and dark fissures in the corner of a mouth: it was the face of the man who had tortured Toria. In Fagirra’s hands was a short sword, the weapon of the guards, and its tip was pointed directly at Egert’s stomach.
Toria. He felt her weaken from intolerable terror; he felt the adamant arms of the executioner wrapped around her. A reddish black mist condensed in his eyes.
Dive. Flip. His body had not known battle for two years, and he waited for it to disobey him, but he felt only ecstatic joy from his muscles, like the joy of a dog freed from its chain.
Toria is struggling in someone’s arms! Who would dare touch her?
He struck out, almost without looking, and the guard who had run up to him doubled over. His sword was about to fall out of his hands, but it did not fall, because Egert intercepted the heavy hilt. It was a short sword, an unfamiliar weapon, but his hand flew up, and to Egert’s amazement he heard the clash of metal on metal and saw sparks fly. Fagirra’s rabid, crazed eyes were right in front of him.
Toria jerked in her captor’s hands. She was so close. Egert felt how the hands restraining her barbarically reopened the wounds left behind by torture, but she did not notice the pain. She emanated waves of fear for him, for Egert.
The swords crossed again. Fagirra opened his mouth halfway, his weapon again darted up, and then Egert, despising the barrier separating him from Toria, lunged into a counterattack.
It seems he yelled something. It seems someone in a gray robe dared to approach him from behind, Toria’s fear surged, and in the next second a bloodied thing fell heavily onto the dais, a thing that looked like a hand clutching a dagger. The tiny gibbet was swept away from the table, and the manikin slid out of the noose for the first time in many years. Then Fagirra’s sword flew out into the howling crowd, and Fagirra himself stumbled and fell; for a split second Egert looked down into his clouding eyes.
“Egert!”
Grubby hands were ruthlessly dragging her away. Egert bellowed indignantly and the short sword, won from an unknown guard, was already in flight.
The life of the city’s executioner, his gray, dull life, ended in an instant. Clutching at the hilt that protruded from his back, the poor soul lay down on the dais at the feet of his recent victim. Toria stepped backwards and Egert met her eyes.
Why has this happened to her? Blood, terror: why this? Poor girl.
He ran again, and she darted forward to meet him. He was already stretching out his hand when he saw that she was staring at something behind his back. He turned just in time: Fagirra was already there, his teeth bared in his crooked mouth and his stiletto raised high.
No, Toria, don’t be afraid. Never be afraid.
He managed to avoid the first attack, but the fencing master was strong and tenacious.
The stiletto almost grazed Egert’s hand a second time.
A weapon! Heaven, send me a sword, even a kitchen knife!
He stumbled and barely managed to keep to his feet. He could not let the stiletto get near Toria. One scratch would be enough; one scratch from the sharp tip, gleaming with a dark drop of poison, would be sufficient to kill her.
The pliers clanked under his feet. He felt their weight in his hands as he flung them up in front of his body to defend himself and Toria. Just as he heaved them up, Fagirra launched into a violent, frantic attack.
Egert did not want Toria to see this. He took a step back and put his arm around her shoulders and his palm over her eyes.
Fagirra was still standing. The pliers protruded from his chest, and the wide-open iron beak snarled at Egert with impotent menace. Egert knew that the bloodstained handles peered out of Fagirra’s back. The death agony of the robed man was terrible, and Egert pressed Toria into his arms, striving not to touch her painful welts.
Her face, half-hidden by his hand, seemed mysterious, as if it were under a mask. Her lips quivered like they were about to smile, her eyelashes fluttered against his palm, and for some reason he recalled the touch of a dragonfly’s wings.
It felt like the passage of time altered; his hand tentatively raised itself to his face, and his fingers wonderingly explored his cheek. They did not find the scar.
Incredible things were happening in the hall. The students were fighting and denouncing the robed men, tearing off their hoods.
Egert did not notice. The roar of the crowd receded then disappeared completely, as if he had gone deaf. His vision split in some strange manner; casting his eyes over the pandemonium, he saw only the tall old man with his wrinkled face.
The Wanderer slowly turned and walked toward the exit, slicing through the crowd the way a knife slices through water. He turned slightly at the threshold, and Egert saw his crystal-clear eyes close slightly, as if saying farewell.
The world is dissected by the horizon, and all roads rush toward its edge. They scatter beneath your legs like mice, and it is difficult to know if you are setting off on your path or if you have already returned.…