This was a familiar street. The wizard had walked along it a couple of times, searching through the side alleys, but he hadn't found the slightest hint of the Academy.
Amon stopped and cursed. He decided to return to the inn and force the servant to show him the way—through threats, beatings, anything! The Chaos Space Marine had a wide array of methods at his disposal.
The wizard turned back—passing by shops, carts, donkeys, and teahouses. He roughly shoved people aside who were wandering in the colorful stream.
"Watch where you're going, fool!" yelled a fat man, judging by the pouches on his belt—a money changer whom Amon shoved in the back, sending him sprawling into a vegetable stall.
Amon turned angrily, and the money changer choked on his scream. Seeing a warrior towering over him by two heads, with a heavy sword and a merciless gaze, the money changer suddenly decided against arguing.
"Mm, sorry, sir..." muttered the fat man, cautiously backing away. "My mistake, sir... got confused, mixed up..."
Amon silently looked over his head. The money changer suddenly bowed low and quickly retreated into the crowd. The wizard didn't chase after him. Behind the stall, there was a narrow passage, and beyond it—an open space.
"Finally!" Amon exclaimed in frustration and squeezed through sideways. Soon, the wizard realized he hadn't been mistaken.
The square was securely hidden by the back facades of houses. In the center stood a massive, low building with squat towers.
"Not bad," Amon muttered, impressed by the architecture of the Academy. "Primitive, but clever. Firebags and open space..."
The Academy didn't resemble a castle from a backward world. More like a sturdy, stable bunker.
Amon walked toward his goal, glancing around.
The square was completely empty. Dust devils swirled above the cracked granite. Judging by the depressions, there had once been fountains here, but now they were dry, and sand gathered at the bottom. Copper statues dimmed sadly; the tops of staffs had lost their stones.
Amon circled the Academy, found an archway. He knocked on the iron door with a frightening face at the center. First politely. After a couple of minutes—stronger. After ten—he kicked it with all his might. Nothing happened.
'Maybe there's a specific ritual?' Amon thought. 'In any case, I don't know it.'
He took a step back and kicked the door with a spin. Plaster fell off, the gates hummed low as if being broken with a battering ram, and at that moment, the monster's face came to life. Startled, the Space Marine almost drew his sword.
"Who are you and why have you come?!" roared the face, fiercely turning its iron eyes and playing with its cheek muscles.
Amon calmed down. Apparently, this trick was meant to scare off strangers. And it worked! The face played with every muscle; the metal moved smoothly, like flesh.
"Not bad," the wizard thought, respecting the quality of the trick. "Clever!"
"My name is Amon, and I have come for knowledge!" the Space Marine declared without hesitation.
The face grinned.
"Why do you want knowledge?!"
"Knowledge for the sake of knowledge!" This question almost left Amon speechless.
It seemed like the answer was correct, because the face softened, pressed into the gates, and then split in half.
Amon stepped into the musty twilight. A man appeared before him—middle-aged, with a staff as tall as himself and a gold-embroidered robe.
At first glance, he could tell something was wrong. The mage looked at him with dead eyes, the skin around his eyes wrinkled in a web of creases. He leaned weakly on the staff, like an old man on a cane, and looked more like a beaten dog than a proud sage who had mastered the powers of magic.
"You have come for knowledge, stranger," the mage said tiredly. "But here, you won't find any."
"Why?" Amon asked in surprise. The trick with the door had impressed him, and now he was sure that the Academy would teach him something. "If it's about money, I think we can come to an agreement."
The mage weakly shook his head.
"I'm afraid that even all the gold in the world won't help us. Emir, may his life be long and peaceful," the last words he spoke in a low voice, as if through difficulty, "Never changes his mind. Especially when it's the right one, for our lord never makes mistakes."
"You speak in riddles," Amon replied. "And I don't understand you."
The wizard was silent for a long time, staring at the floor.
"Riddles..." the wizard murmured thoughtfully, "I wonder, did the one who invented the first riddle know that it can be not only a question, but also an answer?"
Now it was Amon's turn to ponder.
Was it a test to check his intellect? Then what did the Emir have to do with it? Was the mage raising the price? Impossible. Amon hadn't made his first bid yet, so such a conversation was pointless.
A riddle holding an answer inside. Something he really wanted to say aloud but couldn't because there was a stranger before the wizard, strange, incomprehensible, and all the more unpredictable because of it. The desire to open up and the caution fought within the wizard, hunched over with deep wrinkles around his wary eyes.
The stranger could be both friend and foe, which would put an end to this vague story. Or was it vague? The Emir... The Emperor. A tyrant remains a tyrant, whether in shining golden armor or a rich brocade robe. And only two feelings drive him—thirst for greater power and fear of losing what he has.
'History repeated itself,' Amon thought gloomily, 'But not on the scale of planets, rather in the petty towns that proudly call themselves states.'
This conclusion ran through his frozen soul, breaking the thick ice of cold-bloodedness.
Old wounds hadn't gone away. The pain from them still tortured him, just like in the first days. Even serving Chaos hadn't completely rid him of old views. On the edge of his consciousness, a flash passed that he was losing control, just like on the "Dark Truth" when the defeated Templar had found his weak spot.
"The man who invented riddles surely knew this," Amon slowly said, barely holding back sadness and anger. "He was very clever, that man. But I'm not so simple, wizard. At first, I thought your words were a test to see if I was worthy to move forward, but I see I was wrong. No one has ever given me a test with dead eyes, slumped shoulders, and a hunched back! And no one has ever hinted at an answer, burning from within, hoping I'd say the right words!"
The wizard lifted his gaze. Anger flared more strongly in Amon's soul.
"I walked on broken cobblestones," he said. "Past uncleaned statues, past sleeping fountains. The square around the Academy is empty and deserted. This isn't a square, wizard, this is wasteland!"
Amon excitedly loomed over the wizard.
"You're still here. And in other cities, no one knows about your miserable state. Here's the first part of my answer: whatever happens to you, it didn't happen yesterday, but it didn't happen many years ago either!"
"When I was looking for the Academy, no one wanted to show me the way," the Space Marine continued heatedly. "I found the path myself. People turned their eyes, spat, and gold had no power over them. Why? Now I understand. Here's the second part of my answer to your riddle: people hate you. Fiercely, madly, cowardly. Cowardly—because we speak to you in the cool silence, not in the blazing square, under the roar of the crowd gathered around the execution block!"
Visions of burning books and fallen scholars rose before his eyes. Amon's face twisted in a grimace of hatred.