The dean’s study was enormous, only a bit smaller than the Grand Auditorium. The sunlight sank down into the shadowy corners of the room: velvet curtains covered the windows like heavy eyelids over inflamed, sleepless eyes, immersing the room in twilight.
“Take a look around, Egert. You’re probably curious, so take a look.”
In the middle of the study was a writing desk with a three-armed, bronze candelabrum on top; next to the desk, two armchairs with tall, carved backs stood facing each other; and beyond the desk, on a smooth, stark wall, the extended wing of a bird, forged from steel, gleamed wanly.
“That is a memento of my teacher. He was called Orlan. I’ll tell you about him later.”
Treading carefully, Egert moved along the walls. His pale face, deformed by the scar, was reflected in a slightly frosted glass globe with a sputtering candle inside it. Next to the odd lamp, a crowd of silver figurines stood on a rickety circular table: figurines of people, animals, and huge, dreadful insects. Made with uncommon skill, all the figurines seemed to be staring at the same exact spot. Egert followed the gazes of the silver creatures, which were fixed on the spike of a fabric needle, protruding from a shapeless mass of pine resin.
“You may look, but you may not touch, yes?”
Heaven above, Egert would sooner bite off his fingers than risk letting them touch the stuffed carcasses of giant rats fettered with real chains. The exposed teeth of these long dead rodents seemed still moist with sticky saliva.
Two massive cabinets, as austere and forbidding as guards, were fastened with two pendulous locks. Shelves stretched out along the walls; undoubtedly these held special books, books of magic. Egert shuddered. Dense, black, silky fur grew on the spine of one of these tomes.
Egert no longer desired to look around. Backing away, he awkwardly looked at the dean.
The dean unhurriedly pulled back the edge of one of the curtains, bathing the study in daylight. He sat down in one of the wooden armchairs. “Well, Egert. The time has come for us to have a little chat.”
Obeying the dean’s extended hand, Egert walked over on shaky legs and crouched on the edge of the other armchair. He could see an azure patch of sky in the corner of the window freed from the curtain.
“Some time ago,” the dean began leisurely, “not all that long ago if one judges by the immensity of history, but not at all recently if one judges by the length of a human life, a certain man lived. He was young and prosperous, and he was a mage by the grace of Heaven. As the years went by, he would have become a mage of unprecedented power, had not an unexpected and oppressive rupture occurred in his fate.”
The dean paused, as if offering Egert the chance to discern some latent meaning in his words. Egert clutched the wooden armrests with his fingers.
“Thus it happened,” continued the dean, “that in his overconfidence and hubris he transgressed the line that separates a trifle from treachery, and he grievously outraged his friends. For his transgression he suffered what might be considered an excessively harsh punishment: he was deprived of the appearance of a man for three years and parted from his gift of magic for all time. But that gift had been a part of his soul, his consciousness, his individuality. And so, abased and renounced, bereft of everything he held dear, he set out on the path of experience.”
The dean fell silent, as though he were waiting for Egert to take up the tale and finish it for him, but Egert said nothing, trying to understand what connection the dean’s story had to his own destiny.
The dean gave a small, ironic smile. “Yes, Egert, the path of experience. That was his path, and he walked it to its end. You also stand on a similar path, Soll, but your route is different, and no one knows what awaits you at its end. But you must realize that the man I just told you about never killed anyone.”
It felt as if a hot iron pierced Egert and swept through his body; however, there was not a shadow of blame or reproach in the dean’s tranquil voice. The azure sky in the gleaming gap of the window turned black for a second, and a thought slipped through the abyss of his consciousness: That’s it, the most important thing; everything else pales in comparison to that … killing. Perhaps the time had come to settle accounts; after all, Toria was the dean’s daughter and Dinar would have been his son-in-law.
“But,” he spat out, “I really didn’t want to. It was an honorable duel. I didn’t mean to kill him, Dean Luayan. Before all this…”
He faltered, thinking better of what he’d been about to say, but the mage glanced at him, the question in his eyes, and Egert found it necessary to continue.
“I’ve killed before in duels. Twice, both times fairly. All the people, who died by my sword, they all had kinsmen and friends, but even their kin agreed that death during a duel is not a disgrace and that those who survive aren’t murderers.”
The dean said nothing. He stood up as if thinking, and walked along the shelves of books, all the while tracing his fingers along their frayed spines. Drawing his head down into his shoulders, Egert watched him, waiting for whatever might happen next: lightning from the dean’s outstretched hand or an incantation that would turn him into a frog.
The mage finally turned round. He asked severely, “Imagine that you do finally meet the Wanderer, Soll. What will you say to him? The very same words that I just heard?”
Egert lowered his head even more. He admitted sincerely, “I don’t know what I would say to him. I had hoped that you might teach me. But…”
He ceased talking because any words he might say would devolve into despicable, inane blather. He would have liked to say that he knew very well that the dean had reason to despise the killer of the student named Dinar, and that it was conceivable that the mercy he had shown to Egert was only a respite before the inevitable punishment. He would have liked to explain that he was sensible to the fact that the father of Toria was in no way obliged to help him in his dealings with the Wanderer; quite the opposite: the dean had a right to regard the curse of cowardice as appropriate. It was only just that Egert should carry the scar on his face until the end of his days. And, finally, Egert would have liked to confess how intensely, albeit hopelessly, he nonetheless reckoned on the dean’s help.
He would have liked to say all of this, but his tongue lay in his mouth, sluggish and lacking the will to speak, like a lifeless fish.
The dean walked over to the desk and threw open the lid of a massive writing set. Egert glimpsed a grotesquely shaped inkwell, a sand box with a bronze bead on the lid, a pile of many-colored quills, and a pair of penknives.
The dean smiled ironically. “It was not mere chance that caused me to talk about the mage who was deprived of his gift. It is possible, Egert, that knowledge of his fate may help you in some way. But it is also possible that it may not.” The dean took an especially long quill out of the pile, inspected it lovingly, and started sharpening it with one of the penknives. “Half a century ago, Egert, I was a young boy, living in the foothills. My mother, my father, and all my kin perished during the Black Plague, and my teacher, Orlan, became the most important man in my life. His small house clung to the side of a cliff like a bird’s nest, and I was a chick in that nest. But then one day my teacher looked into the Mirror of Waters. You see, Egert, a mage who has attained a certain level of power can gather the water from five different springs and perform a conjuration over it, creating the Mirror of Waters, in which he may see that which is hidden from mere sight. My teacher looked into the Mirror, and then he died: his heart burst. I have never been able to discover what or who he saw then. I found myself alone, just thirteen years old. Having buried Orlan according to custom, I did not rush to seek a new teacher, regardless of how young I was. And after some time had passed, I too took it upon myself to create the Mirror of Waters. The Mirror remained dark for a long time, and I was ready to despair, when the surface of the water brightened and I saw—” The dean laid the sharpened quill to the side and took up a new one. “—I saw a man, unknown to me, who stood in front of the immense, wrought iron Doors. The vision lasted only a few moments, but I had time to discern that the rusty bar was partially removed. Egert, have you ever heard of the Doors of Creation?”