“Hey, Egert!” He heard the astonishment behind him.
Still smiling, Egert turned toward the door. On the threshold stood Fox, his eyes round, amazed, and then he too grinned from ear to ear.
“This gold locket is known as the Amulet of the Prophet. It possesses tremendous magical power; this is none other than the door between the worlds.…”
A white hand with clean nails and a tattoo on the wrist turned the page over. On the yellow sheet there was a rough sketch of the locket on the chain. The hand of the artist must have been shaking when it was drawn—the amulet resembled a deformed flower or an exotic fruit.
“It may well be that the Doors of Creation are just a shadow of this amulet.… No one knows. For the inexperienced person it is mortally dangerous.…”
Fagirra sighed. Magicians always surrounded their craft with dark secrets. Secrets and fear: people must fear magicians and must feel inferior to them. The Order of Lash used the same methods. Why, why did the old mage refuse to collaborate? Everything would be simpler.
He sighed again and looked up—the sunlight was glowing from the only window.
It is known that our world is an island of life among the black spaces of death. It is known that there is a monster, called the Third Power, outside. It comes and stops on the threshold, and it cannot enter, until someone unlocks the door for it.… Then the end will come to our world: it will burn, it will rot, it will be turned inside out … inside out. Only the Doorkeeper—the one who admits the Third Power to us—will acquire authority, might, and the delicious happiness of vengeance.… It is known that when the Third Power is on the threshold, the amulet rusts.
These words, rewritten in rough handwriting, gave him a strange feeling. The university was a strange place: even the most thoroughly kept secret sooner or later ended up in someone’s notes.…
Fagirra reclined in the armchair and smiled.
It was not possible to conceal the special attention that Dean Luayan paid to Egert Soll from the son of the apothecary. It declared itself in the generous permission to avail himself of one of the dean’s private books. Fox had already been dying of curiosity for several days, but he was accustomed to regarding the dean with respect and caution, so he refrained from peeking inside the book without permission or from asking Egert a direct question about it. Watching as Egert spent night and day over the yellowed pages, surely replete with magic, Fox was pierced by a certain respect for Egert; therefore, and moreover because he was simply a nice boy, Gaetan rejoiced at the change in Egert’s mood and his consent, finally, to go out into the city.
Fox paused at the grand entrance to the university, unable to deny himself the pleasure of patting the wooden monkey on its rump. Buffed smooth by hundreds of hands, the monkey’s bottom gleamed as though it were varnished. Egert plucked up his courage and followed Gaetan’s example.
This unceremonious gesture gave Egert a bit more self-assurance. The night was warm, soft, and full of smells and sounds: not sharp, like during the day, but muted, diffused in the velvety-smooth haze of the approaching darkness. The sky had faded, but the arrival of night was still far away. Egert walked with his head thrown back, feeling the wind in his hair and the unfamiliar, almost completely forgotten sensation of joyful calm running through his entire body.
Meeting a loud group of students, Egert saw some familiar faces; Fox wasted nearly half an hour shaking their hands. They went on together. Egert tried to keep close to Fox while carefully observing his protective rituals. He squeezed his right hand into a fist, and in his left he clutched a button.
For starters they went to a tavern: a tiny place with a single, high table in the center, and with a cage hung from the ceiling that housed a fleshy, phlegmatic rabbit. For some reason the establishment was called At the Rabbit Hole, and the merry students drained their glasses of wine: a sour wine, in the opinion of the former gourmand Lord Soll, but the swill brought Egert greater pleasure than all the elegant wines he had previously drunk.
They streamed out into the street in a cheerful group. Slightly the worse for drink, Egert relaxed so much that he forgot about his defensive rituals. Fox paraded in front as leader and guide. Two nimble wenches were fished out of some alley, and the group continued on its way, accompanied by their constant yelps and rowdy giggles.
The next tavern on their journey was simply called Quench, and they stayed there even longer than at the last. Egert’s wine slopped out of his glass, dripping all over his collar, and the two girls, unerringly homing in on the tallest and most handsome lad in the crowd of students, swam around Egert like a pair of nimble fingerlings around a worm skewered on a hook.
Irrepressible, the mass of students set out for another establishment. Noticing a light in the first-story window of a house, Fox grabbed the nearest girl with unexpected strength for his puny body and dexterously lifted her up; piling her full skirt onto her back, he pressed her exposed backside to the glass of the window. The wild scream that was immediately emitted from the other side of the window caused the students to laugh so hard that their eyes were watering and they were clutching their stomachs. Gathering the girl up under his arm, Fox led his company onward, not waiting for the enraged inhabitant of the insulted house to leap out into the street.
They were all pleased with the joke. Seizing in turns first one girl then the other, Fox repeated it again and again with the help of his comrades. One time they had to flee for safety because the owner took it into his head to set his dogs loose. Those minutes of running were especially unpleasant for Egert: the usual terror called forth a coldness in his belly and a weakness in his legs, but the pursuit soon fell off, and Fox so hilariously mimicked the impotent rage of the townsman that Egert ceased being afraid.
The tavern Sweet Fancy was not honored with a visit: it seemed to Egert that the gray figures that were sitting in a corner, wallowing in their hooded robes, disconcerted the happy company. In all there were only two or three of the acolytes of Lash, but the students, without discussing it amongst themselves, left the tavern as soon as they saw them. Egert hurried after everyone, a bit regretful, but he had no real cause for regret because the next tavern, the One-Eyed Fly, proved to be above all praise.
This establishment served as a meeting place for all four generations of students. As if in imitation of the Grand Auditorium, benches and long tables covered the entire room, and in a corner there was a stand that bore a certain resemblance to the rostrum. Squeezing in, as usual, at the end of a bench, Egert listened attentively to the endless stanzas of indecent songs: Fox, and all the others, knew many of them. First blushing like a girl and then roaring with laughter, Egert finally managed to sing along with the chorus, “Oh, oh, oh! Do not speak, my dear, don’t say a word! Oh, my soul is fire, but the door is squeaking: it hasn’t been oiled!”
They returned home in deep darkness. Egert held Fox’s sleeve so as not to lose his way. They were both respectably drunk; stumbling into their room, first of all Fox demanded that the flame be lit; then he let the clasp of his cloak fall to the floor, sat on his bed, and wearily announced that his life was as dry and rough as a dog’s tongue. Sympathizing with his friend and desiring to do him a service, Egert went down on all fours to search for the missing clasp. Clenching a candle in his teeth and peering under his own bed, he noticed a dusty object looming right by the wall.