Marina Dyachenko - The Scar

He went limp, like a disemboweled carcass. It was all in vain; any further effort on his part was fruitless, and further repetitions of the scene would only be despicable and ludicrous. Egert Soll, the premier lover in town, was doomed to failure.

Dilia began to laugh mockingly.

Egert sprang up, scooped his clothes up into his arms, and dashed to the window. Along the way, he lost half his wardrobe, knocked the tray with wine and fruit onto the floor, and overturned a table. Flying up onto the windowsill, his heart failed him at the sight of the height of the second story, but it was already too late; he could no longer stop himself. Flying through the window with a burst of speed, the magnificent Egert Soll tumbled into a flower bed like a stone, destroying the rhododendrons and earning the eternal damnation of the gardener. Dressing as he fled, getting tangled in a heap of sleeves and trousers, weeping from shame and pain, Egert rushed toward his home, and it was lucky that there were still a few hours left until dawn and no one saw the renowned lieutenant in such a pitiful state.

When they returned to the city, the first thing the guards did was inquire after the health of Lieutenant Soll. With a bitter smile, a pale, haggard Egert assured the messengers who arrived at his house that he was on the mend.

Gossip about his failure with Dilia became the property of wicked tongues the very next day; it was passed on with relish and satisfaction, but in their heart of hearts no one really believed it. They thought it more likely that the infamous captain’s wife was getting revenge for a lovers’ quarrel.

Egert could only find comfort in solitude. He spent days on end either locked away in his room or roaming the deserted streets. It was during one of these rambles that a simple and horrifying thought occurred to him for the first time: What if what was happening to him was not a happenstance or a momentary indisposition? What if this neurosis dragged out even longer, for months, years, forever?

Egert temporarily freed himself from mustering and patrols, he diligently avoided the company of his comrades, it terrified him to think of visiting a woman, and his forgotten sword stood in the corner of his room like a disciplined child. The sighs of the elder Soll could be heard around the entire house. He understood as well as his son that Egert could not go on like this: he either had to get better or leave the regiment.

From time to time, Egert’s mother would appear at the door to her son’s room. Having stood there a few minutes, she would slowly make her way back to her own room. One time, however, encountering Egert in his sitting room, she did not remain silent as usual, but cautiously grasped the collar of his shirt.

“My son, what is wrong with you?” Raising herself up on her toes, she laid a hand on his forehead as if checking him for fever.

The last time she had asked him about anything was about five years ago. He had long ago gotten out of the habit of talking with his mother, and he had forgotten the touch of her tiny, dry fingers on his brow.

“Egert, what happened?”

At a loss, he could not squeeze out a single word.

From that time onward, he began to avoid his mother as well. His solitary outings became bleaker and bleaker until, one day, not even knowing how he got there, Egert stumbled upon the town cemetery.

He had not visited the cemetery since he was a child; fortunately for him, all his relatives and friends were still alive. Egert had never understood why people would want to visit this abode of the dead. Now, passing through the boundary hedge, a shudder coursed through him and he stopped. The cemetery seemed strange to him, frightening, as if it did not belong in this world.

The crippled caretaker peered out of his little hut and then disappeared. Egert shivered. He wanted to leave, but instead he slowly made his way along the paths that wound among the memorials.

The graves of the richer folk were marked with marble while those of the poorer, with granite: small statues, hewn from stone, topped both kinds. Almost all of them depicted forlorn, weary birds perching on the gravestones, according to the tradition of Kavarren.

Egert walked on and on; he had long ago started to feel ill at ease, but he kept reading the partially effaced inscriptions on the headstones as though he were enchanted. It started to rain. The drops flowed along the stone beaks and drooping wings of the birds, and little rivulets ran through the lifeless claws that hooked into the headstones. The day had passed into a gray fog, and from out of that veil, limp marble eagles lurched toward Egert; tiny swallows with raised wings and cranes with lowered necks loomed and then passed. Entire families reposed in these vast enclosures. On one headstone, two nestling doves sat motionlessly. On another, a small, haggard wren bowed its head limply, and the inscription on the stone, inundated with water, compelled Egert to pause:

I shall take wing once more.

Water streamed over Egert’s face. Exhausted, he decided to leave. As he approached the exit, a gray, moist vapor began to rise from the ground.

At the very edge of the cemetery, he stopped.

To the side of the path loomed a fresh grave without a monument, covered with a slick, granite slab. Letters bled through the puddles on the gray slab: DINAR DARRAN.

That was it. No other words, no symbols, no message. But perhaps this is an entirely different person, thought Egert anxiously. Maybe this is another Dinar.

Scarcely aware that his feet were moving, he drew nearer to the grave. Dinar Darran. A carriage by the entrance to the Noble Sword and a girl of strange, perfect beauty. A curved line drawn right in front of Egert’s boots and the formless red splotches on her face: “Dinar!”

Egert flinched. Toria’s voice rang so clearly in his ears, like the crash of shattered glass: “Dinar? Dinar? Dinar!”

A tired stone bird would never alight on this grave.

The caretaker once again leaned out of his hut, staring at Egert in alert astonishment.

Egert turned away from the grave and fled from the cemetery as fast as he could.

Far from Kavarren, in a dark and empty alley, a poor man sat still as a statue. The smell of rotten fish coming from the river was thick in the air.

Steps echoed down the lane, and a young fellow of about seventeen, fat-cheeked and plump as a roll, came into view. Clearly he was lost; it seemed that someone sent him in a wrong direction. After reaching the place where the poor man was seated, the fellow slowed down:

“Hmmm…”

He was confused … or was frightened; there, in the alley, it was quiet and desolate.

“Sir, could you tell me … where I can find the tavern called the One-Eyed Fly?”

The beggar stretched out his palm. The man hesitatingly took out a small coin, put it back, and took out a smaller one: “Here, send your blessings for my mother, she—”

The poor man suddenly caught the wrist of the young fellow in a viselike grip. A beefy fellow appeared behind the back of the unlucky passerby and wound a thick hemp cord tight on his pink neck. The man wheezed.

“Freeze! Guards!”

The young man who was more dead than alive struggled, and suddenly no one was holding him. The rope, which had been stuck around his throat, came loose, the darkness in front of his eyes cleared away, and the man found himself on all fours. Coughing, he removed the rope and realized he was alive, he had been saved.

Footsteps ran away down the alley. The man started to flee from this terrible place, and he almost bumped into a man wearing a gray hooded robe.

“Oh…” From the fire right into the flame; the man with fat cheeks startled back, without knowing where to go.