Marina Dyachenko - The Scar

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?

“Egert,” asked Toria in a low voice, “are they performing some kind of ritual? Do you know which?”

Egert silently shook his head; this allusion to his old complicity with Lash, however unwitting, however invalid, felt like a severe rebuke. Toria realized she had hurt him and guiltily squeezed his hand. The dean cast a swift sidelong glance at them both and again bent over the basin.

At times the figures disappeared into the darkness, at times they loomed close, but the image was never completely clear; it comprised fragments, wisps, separate details: a boot in wet clay, the soggy hem of a robe. Once Egert flinched, recognizing the disheveled silver mane of the Magister. Now and then the silver, waxen mist rose up, and then the dean gritted his teeth and extended his palms over the mirror, but the haze never dissipated immediately: it was as if it was reluctant to depart, as though it was in collusion with the hooded men.

“Where are they, Father?” Toria kept asking. “Where is that? What are they doing?”

The dean only gnawed at his lips, time after time recovering the elusive, faithless image.

Toward dawn all three were exhausted, then the mirror, exhausted as well, finally submitted entirely, bowing to the will of the dean, and the silver fog receded. The night that was concealed in the silver basin also receded; the image grayed, the flames of the reflected torches faded, and all three of them, bending over the mirror, simultaneously unraveled the riddle of the seemingly ceremonial bows.

Drawn up around a tall hill—Egert recognized it as the place from which he and Toria had admired the river and the city—the hooded men, armed with spades, were tirelessly digging into the ground. Black piles of earth towered here and there, as though marking the path of an enormous mole, and in places yellow objects showed through the dirt. Egert leaned forward, unconsciously widening his eyes: the objects were yellowed bones and skulls, undoubtedly human, undoubtedly old, and the earth was creeping out of their vacant sockets.

“That’s,” Toria exclaimed panicked voice, “that’s that hill! That’s—”

The mirror shattered. Water surged up in all directions. Dean Luayan, always imperturbable and unemotional, beat at the water with his palm, churning it up into splashes with all his might.

“Ah! I overlooked it! Damn it! I let it pass by! I ignored it!”

The candles, which had burned all night without guttering even once, were extinguished as if by a gust of wind. Blinking his half-blinded eyes, Egert could not immediately discern the grief-twisted face of Luayan in the dawn’s pale light.

“I overlooked it. It’s my fault. They are lunatics, scum; they are not waiting for the end of time: they are summoning it! They have already summoned it.”

“That hill,” Toria repeated in horror. The dean grabbed his head with his hands, which were still dripping water.

“That hill, Egert … That is where the victims of that monstrosity, the Black Plague, were buried; there is its lair, smothered by dirt, kept concealed from the people. The Black Plague once ravaged the city and provinces, and it will devastate the earth, if it is not stopped. Lart Legiar stopped the Black Plague before. Lart Legiar did it, but that was many decades ago. Now there is no one. Now…”

The dean groaned through clenched teeth. He gasped, turned his back on them, and walked to the window.

“But, Dean Luayan,” whispered Egert, barely coping with his trembling. “Dean Luayan, you are an archmage. You will protect the city and…”