‘That’s not all,’ said the bleating voice, which could only be the sylvan devil. ‘Look at this, Galarr. It looks like beans but it’s completely white. And the size of it! And this, this is called oilseed. They make oil from it.’
Geralt squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. No, it wasn’t a dream. The devil and Galarr, whoever he was, were using the Old Language, the language of elves. But the words corn, beans, and oilseed were in the common tongue.
‘And this? What’s this?’ asked Galarr.
‘Flaxseed. Flax, you know? You make shirts from flax. It’s much cheaper than silk, and more hardwearing. It’s quite a complicated process as far as I know but I’ll find out the ins and outs.’
‘As long as it takes root, this flax of yours; as long as it doesn’t go to waste like the turnip,’ grumbled Galarr, in the same strange Volapuk. ‘Try to get some new turnip seedlings, Torque.’
‘Have no fear,’ bleated the sylvan. ‘There’s no problem with that here. Everything grows like hell. I’ll get you some, don’t worry.’
‘And one more thing,’ said Galarr. ‘Finally find out what that three-field system of theirs is all about.’
The witcher carefully raised his head and tried to turn round.
‘Geralt . . .’ he heard a whisper. ‘Are you awake?’
‘Dandilion . . .’ he whispered back. ‘Where are we . . .? What’s happening?’
Dandilion only grunted quietly. Geralt had had enough. He cursed, tensed himself and turned on to his side.
In the middle of the glade stood the sylvan devil with – as he now knew – the sweet name of Torque. He was busy loading sacks, bags and packs on to the horses. He was being helped by a slim, tall man who could only be Galarr. The latter, hearing the witcher move, turned around. His hair was black with a distinct hint of dark blue. He had sharp features, big, bright eyes and pointed ears.
Galarr was an elf. An elf from the mountains. A pure-blooded Aen Seidhe, a representative of the Old People.
Galarr wasn’t alone. Six more sat at the edge of the glade. One was busy emptying Dandilion’s packs, another strummed the troubadour’s lute. The remainder, gathered around an untied sack, were greedily devouring turnips and raw carrots.
‘Vanadain, Toruviel,’ said Galarr, indicating the prisoners with a nod of his head. ‘Vedrai! Enn’le!’
Torque jumped up and bleated. ‘No, Galarr ! No! Filavandrel has forbidden it! Have you forgotten?’
‘No, I haven’t forgotten.’ Galarr threw two tied sacks across the horse’s back. ‘But we have to check if they haven’t loosened the knots.’
‘What do you want from us?’ the troubadour moaned as one of the elves knocked him to the ground with his knee and checked the knots. ‘Why are you holding us prisoners? What do you want? I’m Dandilion, a poe—’
Geralt heard the sound of a blow. He turned round, twisted his head.
The elf standing over Dandilion had black eyes and raven hair, which fell luxuriantly over her shoulders, except for two thin plaits braided at her temples. She was wearing a short leather camisole over a loose shirt of green satin, and tight woollen leggings tucked into riding boots. Her hips were wrapped around with a coloured shawl which reached halfway down her thighs.
‘Que glosse?’ she asked, looking at the witcher and playing with the hilt of the long dagger in her belt. ‘Que l’en pavienn, ell’ea?’
‘Nell’ea,’ he contested. ‘T’en pavienn, Aen Seidhe.’
‘Did you hear?’ The elf turned to her companion, the tall Seidhe who, not bothering to check Geralt’s knots, was strumming away at Dandilion’s lute with an expression of indifference on his long face. ‘Did you hear, Vanadain? The ape-man can talk! He can even be impertinent!’
Seidhe shrugged, making the feathers decorating his jacket rustle. ‘All the more reason to gag him, Toruviel.’
The elf leant over Geralt. She had long lashes, an unnaturally pale complexion and parched, cracked lips. She wore a necklace of carved golden birch pieces on a thong, wrapped around her neck several times.
‘Well, say something else, ape-man,’ she hissed. ‘We’ll see what your throat, so used to barking, is capable of.’
‘What’s this? Do you need an excuse to hit a bound man?’ The witcher turned over on his back with an effort and spat out the sand. ‘Hit me without any excuses. I’ve seen how you like it. Let off some steam.’
The elf straightened. ‘I’ve already let off some steam on you, while your hands were free,’ she said. ‘I rode you down and swiped you on the head. And I’ll also finish you off when the time comes.’
He didn’t answer.
‘I’d much rather stab you from close-up, looking you in the eyes,’ continued the elf. ‘But you stink most hideously, human, so I’ll shoot you.’
‘As you wish.’ The witcher shrugged, as far as the knots let him. ‘Do as you like, noble Aen Seidhe. You shouldn’t miss a tied-up, motionless target.’
The elf stood over him, legs spread, and leant down, flashing her teeth.
‘No, I shouldn’t,’ she hissed. ‘I hit whatever I want. But you can be sure you won’t die from the first arrow. Or the second. I’ll try to make sure you can feel yourself dying.’
‘Don’t come so close,’ he grimaced, pretending to be repulsed. ‘You stink most hideously, Aen Seidhe.’
The elf jumped back, rocked on her narrow hips and forcefully kicked him in the thigh. Geralt drew his legs in and curled up, knowing where she was aiming next. He succeeded, and got her boot in the hip, so hard his teeth rattled.
The tall elf standing next to her echoed each kick with a sharp chord on the lute.
‘Leave him, Toruviel!’ bleated the sylvan. ‘Have you gone mad? Galarr, tell her to stop!’
‘Thaesse!’ shrieked Toruviel, and kicked the witcher again. The tall Seidhe tore so violently at the strings that one snapped with a protracted whine.
‘Enough of that! Enough, for gods’ sake!’ Dandilion yelled fretfully, wriggling and tumbling in the ropes. ‘Why are you bullying him, you stupid whore? Leave us alone! And you leave my lute alone, all right?’
Toruviel turned to him with an angry grimace on her cracked lips. ‘Musician!’ she growled. ‘A human, yet a musician! A lutenist! ’
Without a word, she pulled the instrument from the tall elf’s hand, forcefully smashed the lute against the pine and threw the remains, tangled in the strings, on Dandilion’s chest.
‘Play on a cow’s horn, you savage, not a lute.’
The poet turned as white as death, his lips quivered. Geralt, feeling cold fury rising up somewhere within him, drew Toruviel’s eyes with his own.
‘What are you staring at?’ hissed the elf, leaning over. ‘Filthy ape-man! Do you want me to gouge out those insect eyes of yours?’
Her necklace hung down just above him. The witcher tensed, lunged, and caught the necklace in his teeth, tugging powerfully, curling his legs in and turning on his side.
Toruviel lost her balance and fell on top of him.
Geralt wriggled in the ropes like a fish, crushed the elf beneath him, tossed his head back with such force that the vertebrae in his neck cracked and, with all his might, butted her in the face with his forehead. Toruviel howled and struggled.
They pulled him off her brutally and, tugging at his clothes and hair, lifted him. One of them struck him; he felt rings cut the skin over his cheekbone and the forest danced and swam in front of his eyes. He saw Toruviel lurch to her knees, blood pouring from her nose and mouth. The elf wrenched the dagger from its sheath but gave a sob, hunched over, grasped her face and dropped her head between her knees.
The tall elf in the jacket adorned with colourful feathers took the dagger from her hand and approached the witcher. He smiled as he raised the blade. Geralt saw him through a red haze; blood from his forehead, which he’d cut against Toruviel’s teeth, poured into his eye-sockets.
‘No!’ bleated Torque, running up to the elf and han
ging on to his arm. ‘Don’t kill him! No!’
‘Voe’rle, Vanadain,’ a sonorous voice suddenly commanded. ‘Quess aen? Caelm, evellienn! Galarr!’
Geralt turned his head as far as the fist clutching his hair permitted.
The horse which had just reached the glade was as white as snow, its mane long, soft and silky as a woman’s hair. The hair of the rider sitting in the sumptuous saddle was identical in colour, pulled back at the forehead by a bandana studded with sapphires.
Torque, bleating now and then, ran up to the horse, caught hold of the stirrup and showered the white-haired elf with a torrent of words. The Seidhe interrupted him with an authoritative gesture and jumped down from his saddle. He approached Toruviel, who was being supported by two elves, and carefully removed the bloodied handkerchief from her face. Toruviel gave a heartrending groan. The Seidhe shook his head and approached the witcher. His burning black eyes, shining like stars in his pale face, had dark rings beneath them, as if he had not slept for several nights in a row.
‘You stink even when bound,’ he said quietly in unaccented common tongue. ‘Like a basilisk. I’ll draw my conclusions from that.’
‘Toruviel started it,’ bleated the devil. ‘She kicked him when he was tied up, as if she’d lost her mind—’
With a gesture the elf ordered him to be quiet. At his command the other Seidhe dragged the witcher and Dandilion under the pine tree and fastened them to the trunk with belts. Then they all knelt by the prostrate Toruviel, sheltering her. After a moment Geralt heard her yell and fight in their arms.
‘I didn’t want this,’ said the sylvan, still standing next to them. ‘I didn’t, human. I didn’t know they’d arrive just when we—When they stunned you and tied your companion up, I asked them to leave you there, in the hops. But—’
‘They couldn’t leave any witnesses,’ muttered the witcher.
‘Surely they won’t kill us, will they?’ groaned Dandilion. ‘Surely they won’t . . .’
Torque said nothing, wiggling his soft nose.
‘Bloody hell.’ The poet groaned. ‘They’re going to kill us? What’s all this about, Geralt? What did we witness?’
‘Our sylvan friend is on a special mission in the Valley of Flowers. Am I right, Torque? At the elves’ request he’s stealing seeds, seedlings, knowledge about farming . . . What else, devil?’
‘Whatever I can,’ bleated Torque. ‘Everything they need. And show me something they don’t need. They’re starving in the mountains, especially in winter. And they know nothing about farming. And before they’ve learned to domesticate game or poultry, and to cultivate what they can in their plots of land . . . They haven’t got the time, human.’
‘I don’t care a shit about their time. What have I done to them?’ groaned Dandilion. ‘What wrong have I done them?’
‘Think carefully,’ said the white-haired elf, approaching without a sound, ‘and maybe you can answer the question yourself.’
‘He’s simply taking revenge for all the wrong that man has done the elves.’ The witcher smiled wryly. ‘It’s all the same to him who he takes his revenge on. Don’t be deluded by his noble bearing and elaborate speech, Dandilion. He’s no different than the black-eyes who knocked us down. He has to unload his powerless hatred on somebody.’
The elf picked up Dandilion’s shattered lute. For a moment, he looked at the ruined instrument in silence, and finally threw it into the bushes.
‘If I wanted to give vent to hatred or a desire for revenge,’ he said, playing with a pair of soft white leather gloves, ‘I’d storm the valley at night, burn down the village and kill the villagers. Childishly simple. They don’t even put out a guard. They don’t see or hear us when they come to the forest. Can there be anything simpler, anything easier, than a swift, silent arrow from behind a tree? But we’re not hunting you. It is you, man with strange eyes, who is hunting our friend, the sylvan Torque.’
‘Eeeeee, that’s exaggerating,’ bleated the devil. ‘What hunt? We were having a bit of fun—’
‘It is you humans who hate anything that differs from you, be it only by the shape of its ears,’ the elf went on calmly, paying no attention to the sylvan. ‘That’s why you took our land from us, drove us from our homes, forced us into the savage mountains. You took our Dol Blathanna, the Valley of Flowers. I am Filavandrel aen Fidhail of Silver Towers, of the Feleaorn family from White Ships. Now, exiled and hounded to the edge of the world, I am Filavandrel of the Edge of the World.’
‘The world is huge,’ muttered the witcher. ‘We can find room. There’s enough space.’
‘The world is huge,’ repeated the elf. ‘That’s true, human. But you have changed this world. At first, you used force to change it. You treated it as you treat anything that falls into your hands. Now it looks as if the world has started to fit in with you. It’s given way to you. It’s given in.’
Geralt didn’t reply.
‘Torque spoke the truth,’ continued Filavandrel. ‘Yes, we are starving. Yes, we are threatened with annihilation. The sun shines differently, the air is different, water is not as it used to be. The things we used to eat, made use of, are dying, diminishing, deteriorating. We never cultivated the land. Unlike you humans we never tore at it with hoes and ploughs. To you, the earth pays a bloody tribute. It bestowed gifts on us. You tear the earth’s treasures from it by force. For us, the earth gave birth and blossomed because it loved us. Well, no love lasts forever. But we still want to survive.’
‘Instead of stealing grain, you can buy it. As much as you need. You still have a great many things that humans consider valuable. You can trade.’
Filavandrel smiled contemptuously. ‘With you? Never.’
Geralt frowned, breaking up the dried blood on his cheek. ‘The devil with you then, and your arrogance and contempt. By refusing to cohabit you’re condemning yourselves to annihilation. To cohabit, to come to an understanding, that’s your only chance.’
Filavandrel leaned forwards, his eyes blazing.
‘Cohabit on your terms?’ he asked in a changed, yet still calm, voice. ‘Acknowledging your sovereignty? Losing our identity? Cohabit as what? Slaves? Pariahs? Cohabit with you from beyond the walls you’ve built to fence yourselves away in towns? Cohabit with your women and hang for it? Or look on at what half-blood children must live with? Why are you avoiding my eyes, strange human? How do you find cohabiting with neighbours from whom, after all, you do differ somewhat?’
‘I manage.’ The witcher looked him straight in the eyes. ‘I manage because I have to. Because I’ve no other way out. Because I’ve overcome the vanity and pride of being different. I’ve understood that they are a pitiful defence against being different. Because I’ve understood that the sun shines differently when something changes, but I’m not the axis of those changes. The sun shines differently, but it will continue to shine, and jumping at it with a hoe isn’t going to do anything. We’ve got to accept facts, elf. That’s what we’ve got to learn.’
‘That’s what you want, isn’t it?’ With his wrist Filavandrel wiped away the sweat above his white brows. ‘Is that what you want to impose on others? The conviction that your time has come, your human era and age, and that what you’re doing to other races is as natural as the rising and the setting of the sun? That everybody has to come to terms with it, to accept it? And you accuse me of vanity? And what are the views you’re proclaiming? Why don’t you humans finally realise that your domination of the world is as natural and repellant as lice multiplying in a sheepskin coat? You could propose we cohabit with lice and get the same reaction – and I’d listen to the lice as attentively if they, in return for our acknowledgment of their supremacy, were to agree to allow common use of the coat.’
‘So don’t waste time discussing it with such an unpleasant insect, elf,’ said the witcher, barely able to control his voice. ‘I’m surprised you want to arouse a feeling of guilt and repentance in such a louse as me. You’re pitiful, Filavandrel. You
’re embittered, hungry for revenge and conscious of your own powerlessness. Go on, thrust the sword into me. Revenge yourself on the whole human race. You’ll see what relief that’ll bring you. First kick me in the balls or the teeth, like Toruviel.’
Filavandrel turned his head.
‘Toruviel is sick,’ he said.
‘I know that disease and its symptoms.’ Geralt spat over his shoulder. ‘The treatment I gave her ought to help.’
‘This conversation is senseless,’ Filavandrel stepped away. ‘I’m sorry we’ve got to kill you. Revenge has nothing to do with it, it’s purely practical. Torque has to carry on with his task and no one can suspect who he’s doing it for. We can’t afford to go to war with you, and we won’t be taken in by trade and exchange. We’re not so naïve that we don’t know your merchants are just outposts of your way of life. We know what follows them. And what sort of cohabitation they bring.’
‘Elf,’ Dandilion, who had remained silent until now, said quietly, ‘I’ve got friends. People who’ll pay ransom for us. In the form of provisions, if you like, or any form. Think about it. After all, those stolen seeds aren’t going to save you—’
‘Nothing will save them anymore,’ Geralt interrupted him. ‘Don’t grovel, Dandilion, don’t beg him. It’s pointless and pitiful.’
‘For someone who has lived such a short time,’ Filavandrel forced a smile, ‘you show an astounding disdain for death, human.’
‘Your mother gives birth to you only once and only once do you die,’ the witcher said calmly. ‘An appropriate philosophy for a louse, don’t you agree? And your longevity? I pity you, Filavandrel.’
The elf raised his eyebrows.
‘Why?’
‘You’re pathetic, with your little stolen sacks of seeds on pack horses, with your handful of grain, that tiny crumb thanks to which you plan to survive. And with that mission of yours which is supposed to turn your thoughts from imminent annihilation. Because you know this is the end. Nothing will sprout or yield crops on the plateaux, nothing will save you now. But you live long, and you will live very long in arrogant isolation, fewer and fewer of you, growing weaker and weaker, more and more bitter. And you know what’ll happen then, Filavandrel. You know that desperate young men with the eyes of hundred-year-old men and withered, barren and sick girls like Toruviel will lead those who can still hold a sword and bow in their hands, down into the valleys. You’ll come down into the blossoming valleys to meet death, wanting to die honourably, in battle, and not in sick beds of misery, where anaemia, tuberculosis and scurvy will send you. Then, long-living Aen Seidhe, you’ll remember me. You’ll remember that I pitied you. And you’ll understand that I was right.’
Introducing the Witcher Page 21
