“Hold him!”
Two or three students started to chase him. Soll realized that the ring of enemies around him was gone: someone motionlessly lay on the floor, someone turned moaning, someone stepped back, someone tried to hide. The battle was over.
Egert found Toria with his eyes. She remained standing where he’d left her—motionless, frozen, her face white. He nodded to her, encouraging and calming. He looked around; the room was still crowded, and strangely quiet. The city dwellers stood shoulder to shoulder—the ones who cursed Toria and her father, those who broke windows at the university. There were many strong men among them; Lash’s servants were mixed in this crowd. The silence was more terrible than any roar: only puffing, moans, and rare curses, and shoe soles on the worn stones.
Students supported their wounded fellows. Almost all of them were covered in blood.
Suddenly a commotion started at the doors. All heads turned simultaneously. The guards were marching in, swords raised. There was a great number of them, all heavily armed; the crowd made room for them.
The gray-haired officer who had tried to arrest Egert stopped. Egert silently waited; would the guards dare to wound or even to kill random witnesses? His heart worked as a metronome, pacing the rhyme and time of the forthcoming fight.
Even the wounded ceased to moan. Egert looked into the eyes of the officer; strange, now there was no fear in the eyes of the guard. There was something new, what Egert did not understand. The officer straightened up and slowly raised his blade, saluting. The other guards repeated his motion like shadows. For several seconds none said a word.
Egert could hardly stand on his feet. He crossed the room, and the crowd respectfully made way for him; he went up to Toria, and took her tightly under her arm, letting his swords drop.
She leaned on him, pressing him but holding her back upright. People silently looked at them; the guards in red-and-white uniforms stood several steps away, as if expecting something.
“Arrest the servants of Lash,” Egert said in a hoarse voice. “Don’t let anyone in a hood leave. Gather them here for questioning. Do not use force: let them talk. Don’t let anyone out, but the main thing is to find the Magister!”
The crowd stirred. The officer of the guards nodded to his people and he looked again into Soll’s eyes: “Yes, Captain.”
Spring came.
Climbing up the hill would have cost Toria too much effort; she was weakened from her lingering wounds. He carried her, treading firmly across the dampened loam, and not once did his legs slip.
On the summit of the hill was a grave, covered by the unfolded steel wing as by a hand. They stood, bowing their heads. Clouds shifted above, white on blue. Neither Egert nor Toria needed to speak about the man who now slept forever beneath the wing: even without that, he abided with them.
They stood, nestled against each other, just as they had on that distant winter day, except that their entwined shadow lay not on sparkling, clean snow, but on moist, black earth, overgrown with the first grass of spring. Egert flared his nostrils, catching the strong smell of green life, and he could not decide if it was the scent of Toria or the aroma of bulbs fighting their way to the surface.
A bright, gold disk on a chain hung from her hand as if Toria wanted to show her father that his bequest was intact.
Far, far away, in Kavarren, an old man read a letter to his wife, and the old woman listened to him, having sat up in bed for the first time in many days. The letter was signed by the burgomaster and the Guard’s chief; in it Egert Soll was called a hero and a savior of the city. The elderly man cried, tears fell from his chin, and the woman understood that she wouldn’t die soon.
Egert and Toria stood on a hill. Far below lay the black, swollen river, and from out the city gates wound the road, empty except for a single black speck slowly moving toward the horizon. They felt no need to talk about the man who was traveling away from them either; both held him in their memory, and so they simply gazed at the distance into which the Wanderer disappeared.
The world is preserved by the mother of all roads. She looks after the faithful traveler, relieving his solitude. The dust of the road covers the hem of a cloak, the dust of the constellations covers the curtain of the night sky, and the wind blows both the clouds toward first light and sheets hung up to dry with the same eagerness.
It is no misfortune if the soul is scorched by the sun; it is far more disastrous if a raging fire devastates the soul. It is no misfortune if you do not know where you are going; it is far worse when there is no longer anywhere to go. He who stands on the path of experience cannot step away from it, even when it has come to its end.
For the path is without end.
About the Authors
Sergey and Marina Dyachenko have received numerous prestigious literary awards for their novels and short stories. They were honored as the European Science Fiction Society’s Best Writers of Europe at Eurocon 2005. Marina and Sergey are married and live in Kiev.
This book was translated by Elinor Huntington, who studied Russian literature at Barnard College and UCLA. She currently lives in Los Angeles.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.
THE SCAR
English translation copyright © 2012 by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko
Originally published as ШРАМ in 1997 by ACT in Moscow
Copyright © 1997 by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko
All rights reserved.
A Tor Book
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Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Diachenko, Serhii, 1945–
[Shram. English]
The scar / Sergey Dyachenko and Marina Dyachenko. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7653-2993-6
I. Diachenko, Marina. II. Title.
PG3949.14.I15S3313 2012
891.73'5—dc23
2011025177
e-ISBN 9781429996624
First Edition: February 2012