Introducing the Witcher

by Andrzej Sapkowski

  ‘Beltane!’ screamed a short, young woman right in Geralt’s ear. Pulling him by the sleeve, she forced him to turn around among the procession encircling them. She cavorted by him, fluttering her skirt and shaking her hair, which was full of flowers. He let her spin him in the dance and whirled around, nimbly avoiding the other couples.

  ‘Beltane! May Day Eve!’

  Besides them there was a struggle, a squealing and the nervous laugh of another young woman, feigning a fight and resistance, being carried off by a young man into the darkness, beyond the circle of light. The procession, hooting, snaked between the burning pyres. Someone stumbled and fell, breaking the chain of hands, rending the procession apart into smaller groups.

  The young woman, looking at Geralt from under the leaves decorating her brow, came closer and pressed herself urgently against him, encircling him with her arms and panting. He grabbed her more roughly than he had intended and felt the hot dampness of her body, perceptible on his hands through the thin linen pressing against her back. She raised her head. Her eyes were closed and her teeth flashed from beneath her raised, twisted upper lip. She smelled of sweat and sweet grass, smoke and lust.

  Why not? he thought, crumpling her dress and kneading her back with his hands, enjoying the damp, steaming warmth on his fingers. The woman was not his type. She was too small and too plump – under his hand he felt the line where the too-tight bodice of her dress was cutting into her body, dividing her back into two distinctly perceptible curves, where he should not have been able to feel them. Why not? he thought, on a night like this, after all . . . It means nothing.

  Beltane . . . Fires as far as the horizon. Beltane, May Day Eve.

  The nearest pyre devoured the dry, outstretched pine branches being thrown onto it with a crack, erupted in a golden flash, lighting everything up. The young woman’s eyes opened wide, looking up into his face. He heard her suck air in, felt her tense up and violently push her hands against his chest. He released her at once. She hesitated. Tilted her trunk away to the length of her almost straightened arms, but she did not peel her hips away from his thighs. She lowered her head, then withdrew her hands and drew away, looking to the side.

  They stood motionless for a moment until the returning procession barged into them, shook and jostled them again. The young woman quickly turned and fled, clumsily trying to join the dancers. She looked back. Just once.

  Beltane . . .

  What am I doing here?

  A star shone in the dark, sparkling, drawing his gaze. The medallion around the Witcher’s neck vibrated. Geralt involuntarily dilated his pupils, his vision effortlessly penetrating the obscurity.

  She was not a peasant woman. Peasant women did not wear black velvet cloaks. Peasant women – carried or dragged into the bushes by men – screamed, giggled, squirmed and tensed their bodies like trout being pulled out of the water. None of them gave the impression that it was they who were leading their tall, fair-haired swains with gaping shirts into the gloom.

  Peasant women never wore velvet ribbons or diamond-encrusted stars of obsidian around their necks.

  ‘Yennefer.’

  Wide-open, violet eyes blazing in a pale, triangular face.

  ‘Geralt . . .’

  She released the hand of the fair-haired cherub whose breast was shiny as a sheet of copper with sweat. The lad staggered, tottered, fell to his knees, rolled his head, looked around and blinked. He stood up slowly, glanced at them uncomprehending and embarrassed, and then lurched off towards the bonfires. The sorceress did not even glance at him. She looked intently at the Witcher, and her hand tightly clenched the edge of her cloak.

  ‘Nice to see you,’ he said easily. He immediately sensed the tension which had formed between them falling away.

  ‘Indeed,’ she smiled. He seemed to detect something affected in the smile, but he could not be certain. ‘Quite a pleasant surprise, I don’t deny. What are you doing here, Geralt? Oh . . . Excuse me, forgive my indiscretion. Of course, we’re doing the same thing. It’s Beltane, after all. Only you caught me, so to speak, in flagrante delicto.’

  ‘I interrupted you.’

  ‘I’ll survive,’ she laughed. ‘The night is young. I’ll enchant another if the fancy takes me.’

  ‘Pity I’m unable to do that,’ he said trying hard to affect indifference. ‘A moment ago a girl saw my eyes in the light and fled.’

  ‘At dawn,’ she said, smiling more and more falsely, ‘when they really let themselves go, they won’t pay any attention. You’ll find another, just you wait . . .’

  ‘Yen—’ The rest of the words stuck in his throat. They looked at one another for a long, long time, and the red reflection of fire flickered on their faces. Yennefer suddenly sighed, veiling her eyes with her eyelashes.

  ‘Geralt, no. Don’t let’s start—’

  ‘It’s Beltane,’ he interrupted. ‘Have you forgotten?’

  She moved slowly closer, placed her hands on his arms, and slowly and cautiously snuggled against him, touching his chest with her forehead. He stroked her raven-black hair, strewn in locks coiled like snakes.

  ‘Believe me,’ she whispered, lifting her head. ‘I wouldn’t think twice, if it were only to be . . . But it’s senseless. Everything will start again and finish like last time. It would be senseless if we were to—’

  ‘Does everything have to make sense? It’s Beltane.’

  ‘Beltane,’ she turned her head. ‘What of it? Something drew us to these bonfires, to these people enjoying themselves. We meant to dance, abandon ourselves, get a little intoxicated and take advantage of the annual loosening of morals which is inextricably linked to the celebration of the endless natural cycle. And, prithee, we run right into each other after . . . How long has passed since . . . A year?’

  ‘One year, two months and eighteen days.’

  ‘How touching. Was that deliberate?’

  ‘It was. Yen—’

  ‘Geralt,’ she interrupted, suddenly moving away and tossing her head. ‘Let me make things perfectly clear. I don’t want to.’

  He nodded to indicate that was sufficiently clear.

  Yennefer threw her cloak back over one shoulder. Beneath her cloak she had on a very thin, white blouse and a black skirt girdled with a belt of silver links.

  ‘I don’t want,’ she repeated, ‘to start again. And the thought of doing with you . . . what I meant to do with that young blond boy . . . According to the same rules . . . The thought, Geralt, seems to me somewhat improper. An affront to both of us. Do you understand?’

  He nodded once more. She looked at him from beneath lowered eyelashes.

  ‘Will you go?’

  ‘No.’

  She was silent for a moment, fidgeting nervously.

  ‘Are you angry?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Right, come on, let’s sit down somewhere, away from this hubbub, let’s talk for a while. Because, as you can see, I’m glad we’ve met. Truly. Let’s sit together for a while. Alright?’

  ‘Let us, Yen.’

  They headed off into the gloom, far onto the moors, towards the black wall of trees, avoiding couples locked in embraces. They had to go a long way in order to find a secluded spot. A dry hilltop marked by a juniper bush, as slender as a cypress.

  The sorceress unfastened the brooch from her cloak, shook it out and spread it on the ground. He sat down beside her. He wanted to embrace her very much, but contrariness stopped him. Yennefer tidied up her deeply unbuttoned blouse, looked at him penetratingly, sighed and embraced him. He might have expected it. She had to make an effort to read his mind, but sensed his intentions involuntarily.

  They said nothing.

  ‘Oh, dammit,’ she suddenly said, pulling away. She raised her hand and cried out a spell. Red and green spheres flew above their heads, breaking up high in the air, forming colourful, fluffy flowers. Laughter and joyous cries drifted up from the bonfires.

  ‘Beltane . . . ’ she said bitterly. �
��May Day Eve . . . The cycle repeats. Let them enjoy themselves . . . if they can.’

  There were other sorcerers in the vicinity. In the distance, three orange lightning bolts shot into the sky and away over by the forest a veritable geyser of rainbow-coloured, whirling meteors exploded. The people by the bonfires gave awe-struck gasps and cried out. Geralt, tense, stroked Yennefer’s curls and breathed in the scent of lilac and gooseberry they gave off. If I desire her too intensely, he thought, she’ll sense it and she’ll be put off. Her hackles will rise, she’ll bristle and spurn me. I’ll ask her calmly how she’s doing . . .

  ‘Nothing to report,’ she said, and something in her voice quavered. ‘Nothing worth mentioning.’

  ‘Don’t do that to me, Yen. Don’t read me. It unsettles me.’

  ‘Forgive me. It’s automatic. And what’s new with you, Geralt?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing worth mentioning.’

  They said nothing.

  ‘Beltane!’ she suddenly snapped, and he felt the arm she was pressing against his chest stiffen and tauten. ‘They’re enjoying themselves. They’re celebrating the eternal cycle of nature regenerating itself. And us? What are we doing here? We, relicts, doomed to obliteration, to extinction and oblivion? Nature is born again, the cycle repeats itself. But not for us, Geralt. We cannot reproduce ourselves. We were deprived of that potential. We were given the ability to do extraordinary things with nature, occasionally literally against her. And at the same time what is most natural and simple in nature was taken from us. What if we live longer than them? After our winter will come the spring, and we shall not be reborn; what finishes will finish along with us. But both you and I are drawn to those bonfires, though our presence here is a wicked, blasphemous mockery of this world.’

  He was silent. He didn’t like it when she fell into a mood like this, the origin of which he knew only too well. Once again, he thought, once again it’s beginning to torment her. There was a time when it seemed she had forgotten, that she had become reconciled to it like the others. He embraced her, hugged her, rocked her very gently like a child. She let him. It didn’t surprise him. He knew she needed it.

  ‘You know, Geralt,’ she suddenly said, now composed. ‘I miss your silence the most.’

  He touched her hair and ear with his mouth. I desire you, Yen, he thought, I desire you, but you know that. You know that, don’t you, Yen?

  ‘Yes, I do,’ she whispered.

  ‘Yen . . .’

  She sighed again.

  ‘Just today,’ she said, looking at him with eyes wide open. ‘Just this night, which will soon slip away. Let it be our Beltane. We shall part in the morning. Don’t expect any more; I cannot, I could not . . . Forgive me. If I have hurt you, kiss me and go away.’

  ‘If I kiss you I won’t go away.’

  ‘I was counting on that.’

  She tilted her head. He touched her parted lips with his own. Tentatively. First the upper, then the lower. He entwined his fingers in her winding locks, touched her ear, her diamond earring, her neck. Yennefer, returning the kiss, clung to him, and her nimble fingers quickly and surely unfastened the buckles of his jacket.

  She fell back onto her cloak, spread out on the soft moss. He pressed his mouth to her breast and felt the nipple harden and press against the very fine stuff of her blouse. She was breathing shallowly.

  ‘Yen . . .’

  ‘Don’t say anything . . . Please . . .’

  The touch of her naked, smooth, cool skin electrified his fingers and his palms. A shiver down his back being pricked by her fingernails. From the bonfires screams, singing, a whistle; a far, distant cloud of sparks in purple smoke. Caresses and touches. He touching her. She touching him. A shiver. And impatience. The gliding skin of her slim thighs gripping his hips, drawing closed like a clasp.

  Beltane!

  Breathing, riven into gasps. Flashes beneath their eyelids, the scent of lilac and gooseberry. The May Queen and May King? A blasphemous mockery? Oblivion?

  Beltane! May Day Eve!

  A moan. Hers? His? Black curls on his eyes, on his mouth. Intertwined fingers, quivering hands. A cry. Hers? Black eyelashes. A moan. His?

  Silence. All eternity in the silence.

  Beltane . . . Fires all the way to the horizon . . .

  ‘Yen?’

  ‘Oh, Geralt . . .’

  ‘Yen . . . Are you weeping?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yen . . .’

  ‘I promised myself . . . I promised . . .’

  ‘Don’t say anything. There’s no need. Aren’t you cold?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now I’m warmer.’

  The sky grew lighter at an alarming rate, the contours of the black wall of trees becoming more prominent, the distinct, serrated line of the treetops emerging from the shapeless gloom. The blue foretoken of dawn creeping up from behind it spread along the horizon, extinguishing the lamps of the stars. It had grown cooler. He hugged her more tightly and covered her with his cloak.

  ‘Geralt?’

  ‘Mhm?’

  ‘It’ll soon be dawn.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Have I hurt you?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Will it begin again?’

  ‘It never ended.’

  ‘Please . . . You make me feel . . .’

  ‘Don’t say anything. Everything is all right.’

  The smell of smoke creeping among the heather. The scent of lilac and gooseberry.

  ‘Geralt?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you remember when we met in the Owl Mountains? And that golden dragon . . . What was he called?’

  ‘Three Jackdaws. Yes, I do.’

  ‘He told us . . .’

  ‘I remember, Yen.’

  She kissed him where the neck becomes the collarbone and then nuzzled her head in, tickling him with her hair.

  ‘We’re made for each other,’ she whispered. ‘Perhaps we’re destined for each other? But nothing will come of it. It’s a pity, but when dawn breaks, we shall part. It cannot be any other way. We have to part so as not to hurt one another. We two, destined for each other. Created for each other. Pity. The one or ones who created us for each other ought to have made more of an effort. Destiny alone is insufficient, it’s too little. Something more is needed. Forgive me. I had to tell you.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I knew it was senseless for us to make love.’

  ‘You’re wrong. It wasn’t. In spite of everything.’

  ‘Ride to Cintra, Geralt.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ride to Cintra. Ride there and this time don’t give up. Don’t do what you did then . . . When you were there . . .’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I know everything about you. Have you forgotten? Ride to Cintra, go there as fast as you can. Fell times are approaching, Geralt. Very fell. You cannot be late . . .’

  ‘Yen . . .’

  ‘Please don’t say anything.’

  It was cooler. Cooler and cooler. And lighter and lighter.

  ‘Don’t go yet. Let’s wait until the dawn . . .’

  ‘Yes, let’s.’

  IV

  ‘Don’t move, sir. I must change your dressing. The wound is getting messy and your leg is swelling something terrible. Ye Gods, it looks hideous . . . We must find a doctor as fast as we can . . .’

  ‘Fuck the doctor,’ the Witcher groaned. ‘Hand me the chest, Yurga. Yes, that flacon there . . . Pour it straight onto the wound. Oh, bloody hell! It’s nothing, nothing, keep pouring . . . Oooow! Right. Bandage it up well and cover me . . .’

  ‘It’s swollen, sir, the whole thigh. And you’re burning with fever—’

  ‘Fuck the fever. Yurga?’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘I forgot to thank you . . .’

  ‘It’s not you who should be doing the thanking, sir, but me. You saved my life, you suffered an injur
y in my defence. And me? What did I do? I bandaged a wounded man, who’d fainted away, and put him on my cart and didn’t leave him to expire. It’s an ordinary matter, Witcher, sir.’

  ‘It’s not so ordinary, Yurga. I’ve been left . . . in similar situations . . . Like a dog . . .’

  The merchant, lowering his head, said nothing.

  ‘Well, what can I say, it’s a base world,’ he finally muttered. ‘But that’s no reason for us all to become despicable. What we need is kindness. My father taught me that and I teach it to my sons.’

  The Witcher was silent, and observed the branches of the trees above the road, sliding past as the cart went on. His thigh throbbed. He felt no pain.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘We’ve forded the River Trava, now we’re in the Groundcherry Forests. It’s no longer Temeria, but Sodden. You were asleep when we crossed the border, when the customs officers were rummaging in the cart. I’ll tell you, though, they were astonished by you. But their senior officer knew you and ordered us through without delay.’

  ‘He knew me?’

  ‘Aye, there’s no doubt. He called you Geralt. That’s what he said; Geralt of Rivia. Is that your name?’

  ‘It is . . .’

  ‘And he promised to send a man ahead with the tidings that a doctor is needed. And I gave him a little something so as he wouldn’t forget.’

  ‘Thank you, Yurga.’

  ‘No, Witcher, sir. I’ve already said, it’s me as thanks you. And not just that. I’m also in your debt. We have an agreement . . . What is it, sir? Are you feeling faint?’

  ‘Yurga . . . The flacon with the green seal . . .’

  ‘Sir . . . You’ll start . . . You were calling out dreadfully in your sleep . . .’