Free The Scar by Marina Dyachenko, Sergey Dyachenko

those horrible tales of the elders, about which he had laughed when he was still an adolescent. In his dream he saw a strange creature in a blackened, shapeless garment mounting the terraced steps of his house, its face muffled with rags blackened with pitch. In the hands of this visitant there was a tool that resembled a pitchfork, with extremely long, inverted tines; it was like an enormous bird claw, clutched tight with spasms. The manor was empty. The visitant climbed to the drawing room, where the lid of the harpsichord was thrown up, the candles were burnt down to their stubs, and Egert’s mother sat with her hands resting on the keys: yellow, desiccated, dead hands. The visitant lifted up his pitchfork, and Mother toppled to the side like a wooden figurine. The pitch-covered creature raked the dead body with his tool like a gardener rakes up last year’s leaves.
    Egert could not remain in the dark for a second longer: Don’t remember that dream, forget, forget! He lit a candle; then, burning himself, he lit another. The portrait gathered shape out of the darkness: a blond boy in the lap of a woman. Egert froze for a second, peering into the face of his young mother, as if begging for protection like a child. A cricket sang somewhere nearby; the dead hours of night stood beyond the window. Egert clutched the candelabrum to his chest and stepped closer to the portrait, and in the twinkling of an eye, the face of the woman in the portrait twitched with a dreadful malice, turned blue, broke into a grin.…
    With a scream he awoke for a second time, this time in truth. Beyond the windows was the same old night, deep, sultry, and clammy.
    He lit the candles with trembling hands. Shuffling his bare feet, he drifted around the room from corner to corner, clutching his shivering shoulders with his hands. What if this were yet another dream? What if he was doomed until the end of his years to live in ghastly dreams and to awake only to exchange one nightmare for another? What would happen tomorrow? What dreams would tomorrow bring?
    Dawn found him lying in his couch, doubled up, haggard, and trembling.
    *   *   *
     
    A few days later, it was his turn to do his duty on night patrol. He rejoiced; since that unforgettable dream, the very sight of his bed was disagreeable to him. It was far better to spend the night in the saddle with his weapons at hand than to struggle against the treacherous desire to leave the candles burning until morning!
    There were five of them on guard: Egert who, as a lieutenant, was the leader of the patrol; Karver; Lagan; and two very young guards, about sixteen years old.
    The patrol was a traditional part of the nighttime existence of Kavarren. Any shopkeeper would declare without pride that he slept more peacefully when he could hear the clip-clop of hooves and the voices of the sentries beneath his windows. There was rarely anything serious to attend to; there were just not enough nocturnal thieves, and those who did decide to thieve went about their work quietly and apprehensively: the gentlemen of the guards were very serious about their task.
    Having received, as was usual, parting words from their captain, the guards set out. Egert and Karver rode in front, and behind them rode Lagan and the two younglings, Ol and Bonifor. Having taken a turn through the streets that surrounded the Town Hall, they made their way toward the city gates. One after another, the lights in the windows went out. The rasps of latching dead bolts and the clatters of shutters swinging shut could be heard from all around. The tavern by the gate was wide awake; the cavalcade hovered in front of the wide oak doors, trying to decide whether or not to stop in for a minute and visit the landlady who ruled over the lovely Ita and Feta. In the end, duty triumphed over temptation and the patrol was about to continue on its way when a drunk, lurching, stumbled out of the doors of the tavern.
    In the darkness and in his