Introducing the Witcher

by Andrzej Sapkowski

  Gold coins jingled. The innkeeper opened his gap-toothed mouth to the limit.

  ‘That is not an advance,’ Three Jackdaws announced, ‘it is a bonus. And now hurry off to the kitchen, good fellow.’

  It was warm in the snug. Geralt unbuckled his belt, took off his tunic and rolled up his shirtsleeves.

  ‘I see,’ he said, ‘that you aren’t troubled by a shortage of funds. Do you live on the privileges of a knightly estate?’

  ‘Partially,’ Three Jackdaws smiled, without offering further details.

  They dealt quickly with the elvers and a quarter of the keg. Neither of the two Zerrikanians stinted on the beer, and soon were both in visible good humour. They were whispering something to each other. Véa, the taller one, suddenly burst out in throaty laughter.

  ‘Are the warriors versed in the Common Speech?’ Geralt asked quietly, sneaking a sideways glance at them.

  ‘Poorly. And they are not garrulous. For which they deserve credit. How do you find the soup, Geralt?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Let us drink.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Geralt,’ Three Jackdaws began, putting aside his spoon and hiccoughing in a dignified manner, ‘I wish to return, for a moment, to the conversation we had on the road. I understand that you, a witcher, wander from one end of the world to the other, and should you come across a monster along the way, you kill it. And you earn money doing that. Does that describe the witcher’s trade?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘And does it ever happen that someone specifically summons you somewhere? On a special commission, let’s say. Then what? You go and carry it out?’

  ‘That depends on who asks me and why.’

  ‘And for how much?’

  ‘That too,’ the Witcher shrugged. ‘Prices are going up, and one has to live, as a sorceress acquaintance of mine used to say.’

  ‘Quite a selective approach; very practical, I’d say. But at the root of it lies some idea, Geralt. The conflict between the forces of Order and the forces of Chaos, as a sorcerer acquaintance of mine used to say. I imagine that you carry out your mission, defending people from Evil, always and everywhere. Without distinction. You stand on a clearly defined side of the palisade.’

  ‘The forces of Order, the forces of Chaos. Awfully high-flown words, Borch. You desperately want to position me on one side of the palisade in a conflict, which is generally thought to be perennial, began long before us and will endure long after we’ve gone. On which side does the farrier, shoeing horses, stand? Or our innkeeper, hurrying here with a cauldron of lamb? What, in your opinion, defines the border between Chaos and Order?’

  ‘A very simple thing,’ said Three Jackdaws, and looked him straight in the eye. ‘That which represents Chaos is menace, is the aggressive side. While Order is the side being threatened, in need of protection. In need of a defender. But let us drink. And make a start on the lamb.’

  ‘Rightly said.’

  The Zerrikanians, watching their figures, were taking a break from eating, time they spent drinking more quickly. Véa, leaning over on her companion’s shoulder, whispered something again, brushing the table top with her plait. Téa, the shorter of the two, laughed loudly, cheerfully narrowing her tattooed eyelids.

  ‘Yes,’ Borch said, picking a bone clean. ‘Let us continue our talk, if you will. I understand you aren’t keen on being placed on either side. You do your job.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘But you cannot escape the conflict between Chaos and Order. Although it was your comparison, you are not a farrier. I’ve seen you work. You go down into a dungeon among some ruins and come out with a slaughtered basilisk. There is, comrade, a difference between shoeing horses and killing basilisks. You said that if the payment is fair, you’ll hurry to the end of the world and dispatch the monster you’re asked to. Let’s say a fierce dragon is wreaking havoc on a—’

  ‘Bad example,’ Geralt interrupted. ‘You see, right away you’ve mixed up Chaos and Order. Because I do not kill dragons; and they, without doubt, represent Chaos.’

  ‘How so?’ Three Jackdaws licked his fingers. ‘Well, I never! After all, among all monsters, dragons are probably the most bestial, the cruellest and fiercest. The most revolting of reptiles. They attack people, breathe fire and carry off, you know, virgins. There’s no shortage of tales like that. It can’t be that you, a witcher, don’t have a few dragons on your trophy list.’

  ‘I don’t hunt dragons,’ Geralt said dryly. ‘I hunt forktails, for sure. And dracolizards. And flying drakes. But not true dragons; the green, the black or the red. Take note, please.’

  ‘You astonish me,’ Three Jackdaws said. ‘Very well, I’ve taken note. In any case, that’s enough about dragons for the moment, I see something red on the horizon and it is surely our crayfish. Let us drink!’

  Their teeth crunched through the red shells, and they sucked out the white flesh. The salt water, stinging painfully, trickled down over their wrists. Borch poured the beer, by now scraping the ladle across the bottom of the keg. The Zerrikanians were even more cheerful, the two of them looking around the inn and smiling ominously. The Witcher was convinced they were searching out an opportunity for a brawl. Three Jackdaws must also have noticed, because he suddenly shook a crayfish he was holding by the tail at them. The women giggled and Téa pouted her lips for a kiss and winked. Combined with her tattooed face, this made for a gruesome sight.

  ‘They are as savage as wildcats,’ Three Jackdaws murmured to Geralt. ‘They need watching. With them, comrade, suddenly – before you know it – the floor’s covered in guts. But they’re worth every penny. If you knew what they’re capable of . . . ’

  ‘I know,’ Geralt nodded. ‘You couldn’t find a better escort. Zerrikanians are born warriors, trained to fight from childhood.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that.’ Borch spat a crayfish claw onto the table. ‘I meant what they’re like in bed.’

  Geralt glanced anxiously at the women. They both smiled. Véa reached for the dish with a swift, almost imperceptible movement. Looking at the Witcher through narrowed eyes, she bit open a shell with a crack. Her lips glistened with the salt water. Three Jackdaws belched loudly.

  ‘And so, Geralt,’ he said. ‘You don’t hunt dragons; neither green nor any other colour. I’ve made a note of it. And why, may I ask, only those three colours?’

  ‘Four, to be precise.’

  ‘You mentioned three.’

  ‘Dragons interest you, Borch. For any particular reason?’

  ‘No. Pure curiosity.’

  ‘Aha. Well, about those colours: it’s customary to define true dragons like that, although they are not precise terms. Green dragons, the most common, are actually greyish, like ordinary dracolizards. Red dragons are in fact reddish or brick-red. It’s customary to call the large dark brown ones “black”. White dragons are the rarest. I’ve never seen one. They occur in the distant North. Reputedly.’

  ‘Interesting. And do you know what other dragons I’ve also heard about?’

  ‘I do,’ Geralt sipped his beer. ‘The same ones I’ve heard about. Golden dragons. There are no such creatures.’

  ‘On what grounds do you claim that? Because you’ve never seen one? Apparently, you haven’t seen a white one either.’

  ‘That’s not the point. Beyond the seas, in Ofir and Zangvebar, there are white horses with black stripes. I haven’t seen them, but I know they exist. But golden dragons are mythical creatures. Fabled. Like the phoenix, let’s say. There are no phoenixes or golden dragons.’

  Véa, leaning on her elbows, looked at him curiously.

  ‘You must know what you’re talking about, you’re a witcher,’ Borch ladled beer from the keg, ‘but I think that every myth, every fable, must have some roots. Something lies among those roots.’

  ‘It does,’ Geralt confirmed. ‘Most often a dream, a wish, a desire, a yearning. Faith that there are no limits to possibility. And occa
sionally chance.’

  ‘Precisely, chance. Perhaps there once was a golden dragon, an accidental, unique mutation?’

  ‘If there were, it met the fate of all mutants.’ The Witcher turned his head away. ‘It differed too much to endure.’

  ‘Ha,’ Three Jackdaws said, ‘now you are denying the laws of nature, Geralt. My sorcerer acquaintance was wont to say that every being has its own continuation in nature and survives in some way or another. The end of one is the beginning of another, there are no limits to possibility; or at least nature doesn’t know any.’

  ‘Your sorcerer acquaintance was a great optimist. But he failed to take one thing into consideration: a mistake committed by nature. Or by those who trifle with it. Golden dragons and other similar mutants, were they to exist, couldn’t survive. For a very natural limit of possibilities prevents it.’

  ‘What limit is that?’

  ‘Mutants,’ the muscles in Geralt’s jaw twitched violently, ‘mutants are sterile, Borch. Only in fables survives what cannot survive in nature. Only myths and fables do not know the limits of possibility.’

  Three Jackdaws said nothing. Geralt looked at the Zerrikanians, at their faces, suddenly grown serious. Véa unexpectedly leant over towards him and put a hard, muscular arm around his neck. He felt her lips, wet from beer, on his cheek.

  ‘They like you,’ Three Jackdaws said slowly. ‘Well, I’ll be damned, they like you.’

  ‘What’s strange about that?’ the Witcher smiled sadly.

  ‘Nothing. But we must drink to it. Innkeeper. Another keg!’

  ‘Take it easy. A pitcher at most.’

  ‘Two pitchers!’ Three Jackdaws yelled. ‘Téa, I have to go out for a while.’

  The Zerrikanian stood up, took her sabre from the bench and swept the room with a wistful gaze. Although previously, as the Witcher had observed, several pairs of eyes had lit up greedily at the sight of Borch’s bulging purse, no one seemed in a hurry to go after him as he staggered slightly towards the door to the courtyard. Téa shrugged, following her employer.

  ‘What is your real name?’ Geralt asked the one who had remained at the table. Véa flashed her white teeth. Her blouse was very loosely laced, almost to the limits of possibility. The Witcher had no doubt it was intentionally provocative.

  ‘Alvéaenerle.’

  ‘Pretty.’ The Witcher was sure the Zerrikanian would purse her lips and wink at him. He was not mistaken.

  ‘Véa?’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘Why do you ride with Borch? You, free warriors? Would you mind telling me?’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘Mm, what?’

  ‘He is . . . ’ the Zerrikanian, frowning, searched for the words. ‘He is . . . the most . . . beautiful.’

  The Witcher nodded. Not for the first time, the criteria by which women judged the attractiveness of men remained a mystery to him.

  Three Jackdaws lurched back into the snug fastening his trousers, and issued loud instructions to the innkeeper. Téa, walking two steps behind him, feigning boredom, looked around the inn, and the merchants and log drivers carefully avoided her gaze. Véa was sucking the contents from another crayfish, and continually throwing the Witcher meaningful glances.

  ‘I’ve ordered us an eel each, baked this time,’ Three Jackdaws sat down heavily, his unfastened belt clinking. ‘I struggled with those crayfish and seem to have worked up an appetite. And I’ve organised a bed for you, Geralt. There’s no sense in you roaming around tonight. We can still amuse ourselves. Here’s to you, girls!’

  ‘Vessekheal,’ Véa said, saluting him with her beaker. Téa winked and stretched; and her bosom, contrary to Geralt’s expectations, did not split the front of her blouse.

  ‘Let’s make merry!’ Three Jackdaws leant across the table and slapped Téa on the backside. ‘Let’s make merry, Witcher. Hey, landlord! Over here!’

  The innkeeper scuttled briskly over, wiping his hands on his apron.

  ‘Could you lay your hands on a tub? The kind you launder clothes in, sturdy and large?’

  ‘How large, sir?’

  ‘For four people.’

  ‘For . . . four . . . ’ the innkeeper opened his mouth.

  ‘For four,’ Three Jackdaws confirmed, drawing a full purse from his pocket.

  ‘I could.’ The innkeeper licked his lips.

  ‘Splendid,’ Borch laughed. ‘Have it carried upstairs to my room and filled with hot water. With all speed, comrade. And have beer brought there too. Three pitchers.’

  The Zerrikanians giggled and winked at the same time.

  ‘Which one do you prefer?’ Three Jackdaws asked. ‘Eh? Geralt?’

  The Witcher scratched the back of his head.

  ‘I know it’s difficult to choose,’ said Three Jackdaws, understandingly. ‘I occasionally have difficulty myself. Never mind, we’ll give it some thought in the tub. Hey, girls. Help me up the stairs!’

  III

  There was a barrier on the bridge. The way was barred by a long, solid beam set on wooden trestles. In front and behind it stood halberdiers in studded leather coats and mail hoods. A purple banner bearing the emblem of a silver gryphon fluttered lazily above the barrier.

  ‘What the devil?’ Three Jackdaws said in surprise, approaching at a walk. ‘Is there no way through?’

  ‘Got a safe-conduct?’ the nearest halberdier asked, without taking the stick he was chewing, either from hunger or to kill time, from his mouth.

  ‘Safe-conduct? What is it, the plague? Or war, perhaps? On whose orders do you obstruct the way?’

  ‘Those of King Niedamir, Lord of Caingorn,’ the guardsman replied, shifting the stick to the other side of his mouth and pointing at the banner. ‘Without a safe-conduct you can’t go up.’

  ‘Some sort of idiocy,’ Geralt said in a tired voice. ‘This isn’t Caingorn, but Barefield’s territory. Barefield, not Caingorn, levies tolls from the bridges on the Braa. What has Niedamir to do with it?’

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ the guard said, spitting out his stick. ‘Not my business. I’m here to check safe-conducts. If you want, talk to our decurion.’

  ‘And where might he be?’

  ‘He’s basking in the sun over there, behind the toll collector’s lodgings,’ the halberdier said, looking not at Geralt but at the naked thighs of the Zerrikanians, who were stretching languidly in their saddles.

  Behind the toll collector’s cottage sat a guard on a pile of dry logs, drawing a woman in the sand with the end of his halberd. It was actually a certain part of a woman, seen from an unusual perspective. Beside him, a slim man with a fanciful plum bonnet pulled down over his eyes, adorned with a silver buckle and a long, twitching heron’s feather, was reclining, gently plucking the strings of a lute.

  Geralt knew that bonnet and that feather, which were famed from the Buina to the Yaruga, known in manor houses, fortresses, inns, taverns and whorehouses. Particularly whorehouses.

  ‘Dandelion!’

  ‘Geralt the Witcher!’ A pair of cheerful cornflower-blue eyes shone from under the bonnet, now shoved back on his head. ‘Well, I never! You’re here too? You don’t have a safe-conduct by any chance?’

  ‘What’s everyone’s problem with this safe-conduct?’ The Witcher dismounted. ‘What’s happening here, Dandelion? We wanted to cross the Braa, myself and this knight, Borch Three Jackdaws, and our escort. And we cannot, it appears.’

  ‘I can’t either,’ Dandelion stood up, took off his bonnet and bowed to the Zerrikanians with exaggerated courtesy. ‘They don’t want to let me cross either. This decurion here won’t let me, Dandelion, the most celebrated minstrel and poet within a thousand miles, through, although he’s also an artist, as you can see.’

  ‘I won’t let anyone cross without a safe-conduct,’ the decurion said resolutely, at which he completed his drawing with a final detail, prodding the end of his halberd shaft in the sand.

  ‘No matter,’ the Witcher said. ‘We’ll ride along the lef
t bank. The road to Hengfors is longer that way, but needs must.’

  ‘To Hengfors?’ the bard said, surprised. ‘Aren’t you following Niedamir, Geralt? And the dragon?’

  ‘What dragon?’ Three Jackdaws asked with interest.

  ‘You don’t know? You really don’t know? Oh, I shall have to tell you everything, gentlemen. I’m waiting here, in any case; perhaps someone who knows me will come with a safe-conduct and let me join them. Please be seated.’

  ‘Just a moment,’ Three Jackdaws said. ‘The sun is almost a quarter to the noontide and I have an awful thirst. We cannot talk on an empty stomach. Téa, Véa, head back to the town at a trot and buy a keg.’

  ‘I like the cut of your jib, sire . . . ’

  ‘Borch, also known as Three Jackdaws.’

  ‘Dandelion, also known as the Unparalleled. By certain girls.’

  ‘Talk, Dandelion,’ the Witcher said impatiently. ‘We aren’t going to loiter around here till evening.’

  The bard seized the fingerboard of his lute and plucked the strings vigorously.

  ‘How would you prefer it, in verse or in normal speech?’

  ‘Normal speech.’

  ‘As you please,’ Dandelion said, not putting his lute down. ‘Listen then, noble gentlemen, to what occurred a week ago near the free town of Barefield. ‘Twas thus, that at the crack of dawn, when the rising sun had barely tinged pink the shrouds of mist hanging pendent above the meadows—’

  ‘It was supposed to be normal speech,’ Geralt reminded him.

  ‘Isn’t it? Very well, very well. I understand. Concise, without metaphors. A dragon alighted on the pastures outside Barefield.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ the Witcher said. ‘It doesn’t seem very likely to me. No one has seen a dragon in these parts for years. Wasn’t it just a common or garden dracolizard? Dracolizard specimens can occasionally be as large as—’

  ‘Don’t insult me, Witcher. I know what I’m talking about. I saw it. As luck would have it I was at the market in Barefield and saw it all with my own eyes. The ballad’s composed, but you didn’t want—’

  ‘Go on. Was it big?’

  ‘The length of three horses. No taller than a horse at the withers, but much fatter. Sand grey.’