‘No,’ he agreed calmly. ‘I’m not, although there are some who think differently. For it isn’t my sensitivity and personal qualities that place me higher, but the vain and arrogant pride of a professional convinced of his value. A specialist, in whom it was instilled that the code of his profession and cold routine is more legitimate than emotion, that they protect him against making a mistake, which could be made should he become entangled in the dilemmas of Good and Evil, of Order and Chaos. No, Essi. It’s not I that am sensitive, but you. After all, your profession demands that, doesn’t it? It’s you who became alarmed by the thought that an apparently pleasant mermaid attacked the pearl divers in an act of desperate revenge after being insulted. You immediately look for an excuse for the mermaid, extenuating circumstances; you balk at the thought that a witcher, hired by the duke, will murder an exquisite mermaid just because she dared to yield to emotion. But the Witcher, Essi, is free of such dilemmas. And of emotion. Even if it turns out that it was the mermaid, the Witcher won’t kill the mermaid, because the code forbids him. The code solves the dilemma for the Witcher.’
Little Eye looked at him, abruptly lifting up her head.
‘All dilemmas?’ she asked quickly.
She knows about Yennefer, he thought. She knows. Dandelion, you bloody gossip . . .
They looked at one another.
What is concealed in your deep blue eyes, Essi? Curiosity? Fascination with otherness? What are the dark sides of your talent, Little Eye?
‘I apologise,’ she said. ‘The question was foolish. And naive. It hinted that I believed what you were saying. Let’s go back. That wind chills to the marrow. Look how rough the sea is.’
‘It is. Do you know what’s fascinating, Essi?’
‘What?’
‘I was certain the rock where Agloval met his mermaid was nearer the shore and bigger. And now it’s not visible.’
‘It’s the tide,’ Essi said shortly. ‘The water will soon reach all the way to the cliff.’
‘All that way?’
‘Yes. The water rises and falls here considerably, well over ten cubits, because here in the strait and the mouth of the river there are so-called tidal echoes, as the sailors call them.’
Geralt looked towards the headland, at the Dragons Fangs, biting into a roaring, foaming breaker.
‘Essi,’ he asked. ‘And when the tide starts going out?’
‘What?’
‘How far back does the sea go?’
‘But what . . . ? Ah, I get it. Yes, you’re right. It goes back to the line of the shelf.’
‘The line of the what?’
‘Well, it’s like a shelf – flat shallows – forming the seabed, which ends with a lip at the edge of the deep waters.’
‘And the Dragons Fangs . . .’
‘Are right on that lip.’
‘And they are reachable by wading? How long would I have?’
‘I don’t know,’ Little Eye frowned. ‘You’d have to ask the locals. But I don’t think it would be a good idea. Look, there are rocks between the land and the Fangs, the entire shore is scored with bays and fjords. When the tide starts going out, gorges and basins full of water are formed there. I don’t know if—’
From the direction of the sea and the barely visible rocks came a splash. And a loud, melodic cry.
‘White Hair!’ the mermaid called, gracefully leaping over the crest of a wave, threshing the water with short, elegant strokes of her tail.
‘Sh’eenaz!’ he called back, waving a hand.
The mermaid swam over to the rocks, stood erect in the foaming, green water and used both hands to fling back her hair, at the same time revealing her torso with all its charms. Geralt glanced at Essi. The girl blushed slightly and with an expression of regret and embarrassment on her face looked for a moment at her own charms, which barely protruded beneath her dress.
‘Where is my man?’ Sh’eenaz sang, swimming closer. ‘He was meant to have come.’
‘He did. He waited for three hours and then left.’
‘He left?’ the mermaid said in a high trill of astonishment. ‘He didn’t wait? He could not endure three meagre hours? Just as I thought. Not a scrap of sacrifice! Not a scrap! Despicable, despicable, despicable! And what are you doing here, White Hair? Did you come here for a walk with your beloved? You’d make a pretty couple, were you not marred by your legs.’
‘She is not my beloved. We barely know each other.’
‘Yes?’ Sh’eenaz said in astonishment. ‘Pity. You suit each other, you look lovely together. Who is it?’
‘I’m Essi Daven, poet,’ Little Eye sang with an accent and melody beside which the Witcher’s voice sounded like the cawing of a crow. ‘Nice to meet you, Sh’eenaz.’
The mermaid slapped her hands on the water and laughed brightly.
‘How gorgeous!’ she cried. ‘You know our tongue! Upon my word, you astonish me, you humans. Verily, not nearly as much divides us as people say.’
The Witcher was no less astonished than the mermaid, although he might have guessed that the educated and well-read Essi would know the Elder Speech better than him. It was the language of the elves, a euphonious version of which was used by mermaids, sea witches and nereids. It also ought to have been clear to him that the melodiousness and complicated intonation pattern of the mermaids’ speech, which for him was a handicap, made it easier for Little Eye.
‘Sh’eenaz!’ he called. ‘A few things divide us, nevertheless, and what occasionally divides us is spilled blood! Who . . . who killed the pearl divers, over there, by the two rocks? Tell me!’
The mermaid dived down, churning the water. A moment later she spurted back out onto the surface again, and her pretty little face was contracted and drawn into an ugly grimace.
‘Don’t you dare!’ she screamed, piercingly shrilly. ‘Don’t you dare go near the steps! It is not for you! Don’t fall foul of them! It is not for you!’
‘What? What isn’t for us?’
‘Not for you!’ Sh’eenaz yelled, falling onto her back on the waves.
Splashes of water shot high up. For just a moment longer they saw her forked, finned tail flapping over the waves. Then she vanished under the water.
Little Eye tidied her hair, which had been ruffled by the wind. She stood motionless with her head bowed.
‘I didn’t know,’ Geralt said, clearing his throat, ‘that you knew the Elder Speech so well, Essi.’
‘You couldn’t have known,’ she said with a distinct bitterness in her voice. ‘After all . . . after all, you barely know me.’
VI
‘Geralt,’ Dandelion said, looking around and sniffing like a hound. ‘It stinks terribly here, don’t you think?’
‘Does it?’ the Witcher sniffed. ‘I’ve been in places where it smelled worse. It’s only the smell of the sea.’
The bard turned his head away and spat between two rocks. The water bubbled in the rocky clefts, foaming and soughing, exposing gorges full of sea-worn pebbles.
‘Look how nicely it’s dried out, Geralt. Where has the water gone? What is it with those bloody tides? Where do they come from? Haven’t you ever thought about it?’
‘No. I’ve had other concerns.’
‘I think,’ Dandelion said, trembling slightly, ‘that down there in the depths, at the very bottom of this bloody ocean, crouches a huge monster, a fat, scaly beast, a toad with horns on its vile head. And from time to time it draws water into its belly, and with the water everything that lives and can be eaten: fish, seals, turtles – everything. And then, having devoured its prey, it pukes up the water and we have the tide. What do you think about that?’
‘I think you’re a fool. Yennefer once told me that the moon causes the tides.’
Dandelion cackled.
‘What bloody rubbish! What does the moon have to do with the sea? Only dogs howl at the moon. She was having you on, Geralt, that little liar of yours, she put one over on you. Not for the first time
either, I’d say.’
The Witcher did not comment. He looked at the boulders glistening with water in the ravines exposed by the tide. The water was still exploding and foaming in them, but it looked as though they would get through.
‘Very well, let’s get to work,’ he said, standing and adjusting his sword on his back. ‘We can’t wait any longer, or we won’t make it back before the tide comes in. Do you still insist on coming with me?’
‘Yes. Subjects for ballads aren’t fir cones, you don’t find them under a tree. Aside from that, it’s Poppet’s birthday tomorrow.’
‘I don’t see the link.’
‘Pity. There exists the custom among we – normal – people of giving one another presents on birthdays. I can’t afford to buy her anything. So I shall find something for her on the seabed.’
‘A herring? Or a cuttlefish?’
‘Dolt. I’ll find some amber, perhaps a seahorse, or maybe a pretty conch. The point is it’s a symbol, a sign of concern and affection. I like Little Eye and I want to please her. Don’t you understand? I thought not. Let’s go. You first, because there might be a monster down there.’
‘Right.’ The Witcher slid down from the cliff onto the slippery rocks, covered with algae. ‘I’ll go first, in order to protect you if needs be. As a sign of my concern and affection. Just remember, if I shout, run like hell and don’t get tangled up in my sword. We aren’t going to gather seahorses. We’re going to deal with a monster that murders people.’
They set off downwards, into the rifts of the exposed seabed, in some places wading through the water still swirling in the rocky vents. They splashed around in hollows lined with sand and bladder wrack. To make matters worse it began to rain, so they were soon soaked from head to foot. Dandelion kept stopping and digging around in the pebbles and tangles of seaweed.
‘Oh, look, Geralt, a little fish. It’s all red, by the Devil. And here, look, a little eel. And this? What is it? It looks like a great big, transparent flea. And this . . . Oh, mother! Geraaalt!’
The Witcher turned around at once, with his hand on his sword.
It was a human skull, white, worn smooth by the rocks, jammed into a rocky crevice, full of sand. But not only sand. Dandelion, seeing a lugworm writhing in the eye socket, shuddered and made an unpleasant noise. The Witcher shrugged and headed towards the rocky plain exposed by the sea, in the direction of the two jagged reefs, known as the Dragons Fangs, which now looked like mountains. He moved cautiously. The seabed was strewn with sea cucumbers, shells and piles of bladder wrack. Large jellyfish swayed and brittle stars whirled in the rock pools and hollows. Small crabs, as colourful as hummingbirds, fled from them, creeping sideways, their legs scurrying busily.
Geralt noticed a corpse some way off, wedged between the rocks. The drowned man’s chest could be seen moving beneath his shirt and the seaweed, though in principle there was no longer anything to move it. It was teeming with crabs, outside and inside. The body could not have been in the water longer than a day, but the crabs had picked it so clean it was pointless examining it closer. The Witcher changed direction without a word, giving the corpse a wide berth. Dandelion did not notice anything.
‘Why, but it stinks of rot here,’ he swore, trying to catch up with Geralt. He spat and shook water from his bonnet. ‘And it’s tipping down and I’m cold. I’ll catch a chill and lose my bloody voice . . .’
‘Stop moaning. If you want to go back you know the way.’
Right beyond the base of the Dragons Fangs stretched out a flat, rocky shelf, and beyond it was deep water, the calmly rippling sea. The limit of the tide.
‘Ha, Geralt,’ Dandelion said, looking around. ‘I think that monster of yours had enough sense to withdraw to the high sea with the tide. And I guess you thought it’d be lazing about here somewhere, waiting for you to hack it to pieces?’
‘Be quiet.’
The Witcher approached the edge of the shelf and knelt down, cautiously resting his hands on the sharp shells clinging to the rocks. He could not see anything. The water was dark, and the surface was cloudy, dulled by the drizzle.
Dandelion searched the recesses of the reefs, kicking the more aggressive crabs from his legs, examining and feeling the dripping rocks bearded with sagging seaweed and specked with coarse colonies of crustaceans and molluscs.
‘Hey, Geralt!’
‘What?’
‘Look at those shells. They’re pearl oysters, aren’t they?’
‘No.’
‘Know anything about them?’
‘No.’
‘So keep your opinions to yourself until you do know something. They are pearl oysters, I’m certain. I’ll start collecting pearls, at least there’ll be some profit from this expedition, not just a cold. Shall I begin, Geralt?’
‘Go ahead. The monster attacks pearl divers. Pearl collectors probably fall into the same category.’
‘Am I to be bait?’
‘Start collecting. Take the bigger ones, because if you don’t find any pearls we can make soup out of them.’
‘Forget it. I’ll just collect pearls; fuck the shells. Dammit . . . Bitch . . . How do you . . . bloody . . . open it? Do you have a knife, Geralt?’
‘Haven’t you even brought a knife?’
‘I’m a poet, not some knifer. Oh, to hell with it, I’ll put them in a bag and we’ll get the pearls out later. Hey, you! Scram!’
He kicked off a crab, which flew over Geralt’s head and splashed into the water. The Witcher walked slowly along the edge of the shelf, eyes fixed on the black, impenetrable water. He heard the rhythmic tapping of the stone Dandelion was using to dislodge the shells from the rock.
‘Dandelion! Come and look!’
The jagged, cracked shelf suddenly ended in a level, sharp edge, which fell downwards at an acute angle. Immense, angular, regular blocks of white marble, overgrown with seaweed, molluscs and sea anemones swaying in the water like flowers in the breeze, could clearly be seen beneath the surface of the water.
‘What is it? They look like – like steps.’
‘Because they are steps,’ Dandelion whispered in awe. ‘Ooo, they’re steps leading to an underwater city. To the legendary Ys, which was swallowed up by the sea. Have you heard the legend of the city of the chasm, about Ys-Beneath-The-Waves? I shall write such a ballad the competition won’t know what’s hit them. I have to see it up close . . . Look, there’s some kind of mosaic, something is engraved or carved there . . . Some kind of writing? Move away, Geralt.’
‘Dandelion! That’s a trench! You’ll slip off . . .’
‘Never mind. I’m wet anyway. See, it’s shallow here, barely waist-deep on this first step. And as wide as a ballroom. Oh, bloody hell . . .’
Geralt jumped very quickly into the water and grabbed the bard, who had fallen in up to his neck.
‘I tripped on that shit,’ Dandelion said, gasping for air, recovering himself and lifting a large, flat mollusc dripping water from its cobalt blue shell, overgrown with threads of algae. ‘There’s loads of these on the steps. It’s a pretty colour, don’t you think? Grab it and shove it into your bag, mine’s already full.’
‘Get out of there,’ the Witcher snapped, annoyed. ‘Get back on the shelf this minute, Dandelion. This isn’t a game.’
‘Quiet. Did you hear that? What was it?’
Geralt heard it. The sound was coming from below, from under the water. Dull and deep, although simultaneously faint, soft, brief, broken off. The sound of a bell.
‘It’s a bloody bell,’ Dandelion whispered, clambering out onto the shelf. ‘I was right, Geralt. It’s the bell of the sunken Ys, the bell of the city of monsters muffled by the weight of the depths. It’s the damned reminding us . . .’
‘Will you shut up?’
The sound repeated. Considerably closer.
‘. . . reminding us,’ the bard continued, squeezing out the soaking tail of his jerkin, ‘of its dreadful fate. That bell is a warning . . .’
>
The Witcher stopped paying attention to Dandelion’s voice and concentrated on his other senses. He sensed. He sensed something.
‘It’s a warning,’ Dandelion said, sticking the tip of his tongue out, as was his custom when he was concentrating. ‘A warning, because . . . hmm . . . So we would not forget . . . hmm . . . hmmm . . . I’ve got it!
‘The heart of the bell sounds softly, it sings a song of death
Of death, which can be born more easily than oblivion . . .’
The water right next to the Witcher exploded. Dandelion screamed. The goggle-eyed monster emerging from the foam aimed a broad, serrated, scythe-like blade at Geralt. Geralt’s sword was already in his hand, from the moment the water had begun to swell, so now he merely twisted confidently at the hips and slashed the monster across its drooping, scaly dewlap. He immediately turned the other way, where another creature was churning up the water. It was wearing a bizarre helmet and something resembling a suit of armour made of tarnished copper. The Witcher parried the blade of the short spear being thrust towards him with a broad sweep of his sword and with the momentum the parry gave him struck across the ichthyoid-reptilian toothy muzzle. He leapt aside towards the edge of the shelf, splashing water.
‘Fly, Dandelion!’
‘Give me your hand!’
‘Fly, dammit!’
Another creature emerged from the water, the curved sword whistling in its rough green hands. The Witcher thrust his back against the edge of the shellfish-covered rock, assumed a fighting position, but the fish-eyed creature did not approach. It was the same height as Geralt. The water also reached to its waist, but the impressively puffed-up comb on its head and its dilated gills gave the impression of greater size. The grimace distorting the broad maw armed with teeth was deceptively similar to a cruel smile.
The creature, paying no attention to the two twitching bodies floating in the red water, raised its sword, gripping the long hilt without a cross guard in both hands. Puffing up its comb and gills even more, it deftly spun the blade in the air. Geralt heard the light blade hiss and whirr.
The creature took a pace forward, sending a wave towards the Witcher. Geralt took a swing and whirled his sword in response. And also took a step, taking up the challenge.
Introducing the Witcher Page 52
