‘I do not countenance the possibility of your refusing.’
‘Why not? Would this strange request be nothing but a warning preceding the lightning bolt or some other cheerful spell? Or is this request to be supported by some weighty arguments? Or a sum which would stupefy an avaricious witcher? How much do you intend to pay me to get out of the path leading to your happiness?’
The sorcerer stopped tapping the skull, placed his hand on it and clenched his fingers around it. Geralt noticed his knuckles whitening.
‘I did not mean to insult you with an offer of that kind,’ he said. ‘I had no intention of doing so. But . . . if . . . Geralt, I am a sorcerer, and not the worst. I wouldn’t dream of feigning omnipotence here, but I could grant many of your wishes, should you wish to voice them. Some of them as easily as this.’
He waved a hand, carelessly, as though chasing away a mosquito. The space above the table suddenly teemed with fabulously coloured Apollo butterflies.
‘My wish, Istredd,’ the Witcher drawled, shooing away the insects fluttering in front of his face, ‘is for you to stop pushing in between me and Yennefer. I don’t care much about the propositions you’re offering her. You could have proposed to her when she was with you. Long ago. Because then was then, and now is now. Now she’s with me. You want me to get out of the way, make things easy for you? I decline. Not only will I not help you, but I’ll hinder you, as well as my modest abilities allow. As you see, I’m your equal in candour.’
‘You have no right to refuse me. Not you.’
‘What do you take me for, Istredd?’
The sorcerer looked him in the eye and leaned across the table.
‘A fleeting romance. A passing fascination, at best a whim, an adventure, of which Yenna has had hundreds, because Yenna loves to play with emotions; she’s impulsive and unpredictable in her whims. That’s what I take you for, since having exchanged a few words with you I’ve rejected the theory that she treats you entirely as an object. And, believe me, that happens with her quite often.’
‘You misunderstood the question.’
‘You’re mistaken; I didn’t. But I’m intentionally talking solely about Yenna’s emotions. For you are a witcher and you cannot experience any emotions. You do not want to agree to my request, because you think she matters to you, you think she . . . Geralt, you’re only with her because she wants it, and you’ll only be with her as long as she wants it. And what you feel is a projection of her emotions, the interest she shows in you. By all the demons of the Netherworld, Geralt, you aren’t a child; you know what you are. You’re a mutant. Don’t understand me wrongly. I don’t say it to insult you or show you contempt. I merely state a fact. You’re a mutant, and one of the basic traits of your mutation is utter insensitivity to emotions. You were created like that, in order to do your job. Do you understand? You cannot feel anything. What you take for emotion is cellular, somatic memory, if you know what those words mean.’
‘It so happens I do.’
‘All the better. Then listen. I’m asking you for something which I can ask of a witcher, but which I couldn’t ask of a man. I am being frank with a witcher; with a man I couldn’t afford to be frank. Geralt, I want to give Yenna understanding and stability, affection and happiness. Could you, hand on heart, pledge the same? No, you couldn’t. Those are meaningless words to you. You trail after Yenna like a child, enjoying the momentary affection she shows you. Like a stray cat that everyone throws stones at, you purr, contented, because here is someone who’s not afraid to stroke you. Do you understand what I mean? Oh, I know you understand. You aren’t a fool, that’s plain. You see yourself that you have no right to refuse me if I ask politely.’
‘I have the same right to refuse as you have to ask,’ Geralt drawled, ‘and in the process they cancel each other out. So we return to the starting point, and that point is this: Yen, clearly not caring about my mutation and its consequences, is with me right now. You proposed to her, that’s your right. She said she’d think it over? That’s her right. Do you have the impression I’m hindering her in taking a decision? That she’s hesitating? That I’m the cause of her hesitation? Well, that’s my right. If she’s hesitating, she clearly has reason for doing so. I must be giving her something, though perhaps the word is absent from the witcher dictionary.’
‘Listen—’
‘No. You listen to me. She used to be with you, you say? Who knows, perhaps it wasn’t me but you who was the fleeting romance, a caprice, a victim of those uncontrolled emotions so typical of her. Istredd, I cannot even rule out her treatment of you as completely objectionable. That, my dear sorcerer, cannot be ruled out just on the basis of a conversation. In this case, it seems to me, the object may be more relevant than eloquence.’
Istredd did not even flinch, he did not even clench his jaw. Geralt admired his self-control. Nonetheless the lengthening silence seemed to indicate that the blow had struck home.
‘You’re playing with words,’ the sorcerer said finally. ‘You’re becoming intoxicated with them. You try to substitute words for normal, human feelings, which you do not have. Your words don’t express feelings, they are only sounds, like those that skull emits when you tap it. For you are just as empty as this skull. You have no right—’
‘Enough,’ Geralt interrupted harshly, perhaps even a little too harshly. ‘Stop stubbornly denying me rights. I’ve had enough of it, do you hear? I told you our rights are equal. No, dammit, mine are greater.’
‘Really?’ the sorcerer said, paling somewhat, which caused Geralt unspeakable pleasure. ‘For what reason?’
The Witcher wondered for a moment and decided to finish him off.
‘For the reason,’ he shot back, ‘that last night she made love with me, and not with you.’
Istredd pulled the skull closer to himself and stroked it. His hand, to Geralt’s dismay, did not even twitch.
‘Does that, in your opinion, give you any rights?’
‘Only one. The right to draw a few conclusions.’
‘Ah,’ the sorcerer said slowly. ‘Very well. As you wish. She made love with me this morning. Draw your own conclusions, you have the right. I already have.’
The silence lasted a long time. Geralt desperately searched for words. He found none. None at all.
‘This conversation is pointless,’ he finally said, getting up, angry at himself, because it sounded blunt and stupid. ‘I’m going.’
‘Go to hell,’ Istredd said, equally bluntly, not looking at him.
V
When she entered he was lying on the bed fully dressed, with his hands under his head.
He pretended to be looking at the ceiling. He looked at her.
Yennefer slowly closed the door behind her. She was ravishing.
How ravishing she is, he thought. Everything about her is ravishing. And menacing. Those colours of hers; that contrast of black and white. Beauty and menace. Her raven-black, natural curls. Her cheekbones, pronounced, emphasising a wrinkle, which her smile – if she deigned to smile – created beside her mouth, wonderfully narrow and pale beneath her lipstick. Her eyebrows, wonderfully irregular, when she washed off the kohl that outlined them during the day. Her nose, exquisitely too long. Her delicate hands, wonderfully nervous, restless and adroit. Her waist, willowy and slender, emphasised by an excessively tightened belt. Slim legs, setting in motion the flowing shapes of her black skirt. Ravishing.
She sat down at the table without a word, resting her chin on clasped hands.
‘Very well, let’s begin,’ she said. ‘This growing, dramatic silence is too banal for me. Let’s sort this out. Get out of bed and stop staring at the ceiling looking upset. The situation is idiotic enough and there’s no point making it any more idiotic. Get up, I said.’
He got up obediently, without hesitation, and sat astride the stool opposite her. She did not avoid his gaze. He might have expected that.
‘As I said, let’s sort it out and sort it out quickly. In
order not to put you in an awkward situation, I’ll answer any questions at once. You don’t even have to ask them. Yes, it’s true that when I came with you to Aedd Gynvael I was coming to meet Istredd and I knew I would go to bed with him. I didn’t expect it to come out, that you’d boast about it to each other. I know how you feel now and I’m sorry about that. But no, I don’t feel guilty.’
He said nothing.
Yennefer shook her head, her shining, black locks cascading from her shoulders.
‘Geralt, say something.’
‘He . . .’ The Witcher cleared his throat, ‘he calls you Yenna.’
‘Yes,’ she said, not lowering her eyes, ‘and I call him Val. It’s his first name. Istredd is a nickname. I’ve known him for years. He’s very dear to me. Don’t look at me like that. You’re also dear to me. And that’s the whole problem.’
‘Are you considering accepting his proposal?’
‘For your information, I am. I told you, we’ve known each other for years. For . . . many years. We share common interests, goals and ambitions. We understand each other wordlessly. He can give me support, and – who knows – perhaps there’ll come a day when I’ll need it. And above all . . . he . . . he loves me. I think.’
‘I won’t stand in your way, Yen.’
She tossed her head and her violet eyes flashed with blue fire.
‘In my way? Don’t you understand anything, you idiot? If you’d been in my way, if you were bothering me, I’d have got rid of the obstacle in the blink of an eye, I’d have teleported you to the end of Cape Bremervoord or transported you to the land of Hann in a whirlwind. With a bit of effort I’d have embedded you in a piece of quartz and put you in the garden in a bed of peonies. I could have purged your brain such that you would have forgotten who I was and what my name was. I could have done all that had I felt like it. But I could also have simply said: “It was agreeable, farewell”. I could have quietly taken flight, as you once did when you fled my house in Vengerberg.’
‘Don’t shout, Yen, don’t be aggressive. And don’t drag up that story from Vengerberg, we swore not to go back to it, after all. I don’t bear a grudge against you, Yen, I’m not reproaching you, am I? I know you can’t be judged by ordinary standards. And the fact that I’m saddened . . . the fact that I know I’m losing you . . . is cellular memory. The atavistic remnants of feelings in a mutant purged of emotion—’
‘I can’t stand it when you talk like that!’ she exploded. ‘I can’t bear it when you use that word. Don’t ever use it again in my presence. Never!’
‘Does it change the fact? After all, I am a mutant.’
‘There is no fact. Don’t utter that word in front of me.’
The black kestrel sitting on the stag’s antlers flapped its wings and scratched the perch with its talons. Geralt glanced at the bird, at its motionless, yellow eye. Once again, Yennefer rested her chin on clasped hands.
‘Yen.’
‘Yes, Geralt.’
‘You promised to answer my questions. Questions I don’t even have to ask. One remains; the most important. The one I’ve never asked you. Which I’ve been afraid to ask. Answer it.’
‘I’m incapable of it, Geralt,’ she said firmly.
‘I don’t believe you, Yen. I know you too well.’
‘No one can know a sorceress well.’
‘Answer my question, Yen.’
‘My answer is: I don’t know. But what kind of answer is that?’
They were silent. The din from the street had diminished, calmed down.
The sun setting in the west blazed through the slits of the shutters and pierced the chamber with slanting beams of light.
‘Aedd Gynvael,’ the Witcher muttered. ‘A shard of ice . . . I felt it. I knew this town . . . was hostile to me. Evil.’
‘Aedd Gynvael,’ she repeated slowly. ‘The sleigh of the Elf Queen. Why? Why, Geralt?’
‘I’m travelling with you, Yen, because the harness of my sleigh got entangled, caught up in your runners. And a blizzard is all around me. And a frost. It’s cold.’
‘Warmth would melt the shard of ice in you, the shard I stabbed you with,’ she whispered. ‘Then the spell would be broken and you would see me as I really am.’
‘Then lash your white horses, Yen. May they race north, where a thaw never sets in. I hope it never sets in. I want to get to your ice castle as quickly as I can.’
‘That castle doesn’t exist,’ Yennefer said, her mouth twitching. She grimaced. ‘It’s a symbol. And our sleigh ride is the pursuit of a dream which is unattainable. For I, the Elf Queen, desire warmth. That is my secret. Which is why, every year, my sleigh carries me amidst a blizzard through some little town and every year someone dazzled by my spell gets their harness caught in my runners. Every year. Every year someone new. Endlessly. Because the warmth I so desire at the same time blights the spell, blights the magic and the charm. My sweetheart, stabbed with that little icy star, suddenly becomes an ordinary nobody. And I become, in his thawed out eyes, no better than all the other . . . mortal women . . .’
‘And from under the unblemished whiteness emerges spring,’ he said. ‘Emerges Aedd Gynvael, an ugly little town with a beautiful name. Aedd Gynvael and its muck heap, that enormous, stinking pile of garbage which I have to enter, because they pay me to, because I was created to enter filth which fills other people with disgust and revulsion. I was deprived of the ability to feel so I wouldn’t be able to feel how dreadfully vile is that vileness, so I wouldn’t retreat from it, wouldn’t run horror-stricken from it. Yes, I was stripped of feelings. But not utterly. Whoever did it made a botch of it, Yen.’
They were silent. The black kestrel rustled its feathers, unfurling and folding its wings.
‘Geralt . . .’
‘Yes, Yen.’
‘Now you answer my question. The question I’ve never asked you. The one I’ve always feared. I won’t ask you it this time, either, but answer it. Because . . . because I greatly desire to hear your answer. It’s the one word, the only word you’ve never told me. Utter it, Geralt. Please.’
‘I cannot, Yen.’
‘Why not?’
‘You don’t know?’ he smiled sadly. ‘My answer would just be a word. A word which doesn’t express a feeling, doesn’t express an emotion, because I’m bereft of them. A word which would be nothing but the sound made when you strike a cold, empty skull.’
She looked at him in silence. Her eyes, wide open, assumed an ardent violet colour. ‘No, Geralt,’ she said, ‘that’s not the truth. Or perhaps it is, but not the whole truth. You aren’t bereft of feeling. Now I see it. Now I know you . . .’
She was silent.
‘Complete the sentence, Yen. You’ve decided. Don’t lie. I know you. I can see it in your eyes.’
She did not lower her eyes. He knew.
‘Yen,’ he whispered.
‘Give me your hand,’ she said.
She took his hand between hers and at once he felt a tingling and the pulsing of blood in the veins of his forearm. Yennefer whispered a spell in a serene, measured voice, but he saw the beads of sweat which the effort caused to stipple her pale forehead, saw her pupils dilate in pain.
Releasing his arm, she extended her hands, and moved them, smoothing an invisible shape with tender strokes, slowly, from top to bottom. The air between her fingers began to congeal and become turbid, swell and pulsate like smoke.
He watched in fascination. Creational magic – considered the most elevated accomplishment among sorcerers – always fascinated him, much more than illusions or transformational magic. Yes, Istredd was right, he thought. In comparison with this kind of magic my Signs just look ridiculous.
The form of a bird, as black as coal, slowly materialised between Yennefer’s hands, which were trembling with effort. The sorceress’ fingers gently stroked the ruffled feathers, the small, flattened head and curved beak. One more hypnotically fluid, delicate movement and a black kestrel, turning its head, cri
ed loudly. Its twin, still sitting motionless on the antlers, gave an answering cry.
‘Two kestrels,’ Geralt said softly. ‘Two black kestrels, created by magic. I presume you need them both.’
‘You presume right,’ she said with effort. ‘I need them both. I was wrong to believe one would suffice. How wrong I was, Geralt. To what an error the vanity of the Ice Queen, convinced of her omnipotence, has brought me. For there are some . . . things . . . which there is no way of obtaining, even by magic. And there are gifts which may not be accepted, if one is unable to . . . reciprocate them . . . with something equally precious. Otherwise such a gift will slip through the fingers, melt like a shard of ice gripped in the hand. Then only regret, the sense of loss and hurt will remain . . .’
‘Yen—’
‘I am a sorceress, Geralt . . . The power over matter which I possess is a gift. A reciprocated gift. For it I paid . . . with everything I possessed. Nothing remained.’
He said nothing. The sorceress wiped her forehead with a trembling hand.
‘I was mistaken,’ she repeated. ‘But I shall correct my mistake. Emotions and feelings . . .’
She touched the black kestrel’s head. The bird fluffed up its feathers and silently opened its curved beak.
‘Emotions, whims and lies, fascinations and games. Feelings and their absence. Gifts, which may not be accepted. Lies and truth. What is truth? The negation of lies? Or the statement of a fact? And if the fact is a lie, what then is the truth? Who is full of feelings which torment him, and who is the empty carapace of a cold skull? Who? What is truth, Geralt? What is the essence of truth?’
‘I don’t know, Yen. Tell me.’
‘No,’ she said and lowered her eyes. For the first time. He had never seen her do that before. Never.
Introducing the Witcher Page 41
