Time of Contempt

by Andrzej Sapkowski

‘Lydia remained in the gallery. The two of us went out onto the terrace. And he enjoyed himself at my expense.’

  ‘This way, Geralt, if you would. Step only on the dark slabs, please.’

  The sea roared below, and the Isle of Thanedd stood in the white foam of the breakers. The waves broke against the walls of Loxia, directly beneath them. Loxia sparkled with lights, as did Aretuza. The stone block of Garstang towering above them was black and lifeless, however.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ said the sorcerer, following the Witcher’s gaze, ‘the members of the Chapter and the Council will don their traditional robes: the flowing black cloaks and pointed hats known to you from ancient prints. We will also arm ourselves with long wands and staffs, thus resembling the wizards and witches parents frighten children with. That is the tradition. We will go up to Garstang in the company of several other delegates. And there, in a specially prepared chamber, we will debate. The other delegates will await our return and our decisions in Aretuza.’

  ‘Are the smaller meetings in Garstang, behind closed doors, also traditional?’

  ‘But of course. It’s a long tradition and one which has come about through practical considerations. Gatherings of mages are known to be tempestuous and have led to very frank exchanges of views. During one of them, ball lightning damaged Nina Fioravanti’s coiffure and dress. Nina reinforced the walls of Garstang with an incredibly powerful aura and an anti-magic blockade, which took her a year to prepare. From that day on, no spells have worked in Garstang and the discussions have proceeded altogether more peacefully. Particularly when it is remembered to remove all bladed weapons from the delegates.’

  ‘I see. And that solitary tower on the very summit above Garstang. What is it? Some kind of important building?’

  ‘It is Tor Lara, the Tower of Gulls. A ruin. Is it important? It probably is.’

  ‘Probably?’

  The sorcerer leaned on the banisters.

  ‘According to elvish tradition, Tor Lara is connected by a portal to the mysterious, still undiscovered Tor Zireael, the Tower of Swallows.’

  ‘According to tradition? You haven’t managed to find the portal? I don’t believe you.’

  ‘You are right not to. We discovered the portal, but it was necessary to block it. There were protests. Everyone was itching to conduct experiments; everyone wanted the fame of being the first to discover Tor Zireael, the mythical seat of elven mages and sages. But the portal is irreversibly warped and transports people chaotically. There were casualties, so it was blocked up. Let’s go, Geralt, it’s getting cold. Carefully. Only walk on the dark slabs.’

  ‘Why only the dark ones?’

  ‘These buildings are in ruins. Damp, erosion, strong winds, the salt air; they all have a disastrous effect on the walls. Repairs would cost too much, so we make use of illusion instead of workmen. Prestige, you understand.’

  ‘It doesn’t apply to everything.’

  The sorcerer waved a hand and the terrace vanished. They were standing over a precipice, over an abyss bristling far below with the teeth of rocks jutting from the foam. They were standing on a narrow belt of dark slabs, stretched like a tightrope between the rocky ledge of Aretuza and the pillar holding up the terrace.

  Geralt had difficulty keeping his balance. Had he been a man and not a witcher, he would have failed. But even he was rattled. His sudden movement could not have escaped the attention of the sorcerer, and his reaction must also have been visible. The wind rocked him on the narrow footbridge, and the abyss called to him with a sinister roaring of the waves.

  ‘You’re afraid of death,’ noted Vilgefortz with a smile. ‘You are afraid, after all.’

  The ragdoll looked at them with button eyes.

  ‘He tricked you,’ murmured Yennefer, cuddling up to the Witcher. ‘There was no danger. He’s sure to have protected you and himself with a levitational field. He wouldn’t have taken the risk . . . What happened then?’

  ‘We went to another wing of Aretuza. He led me to a large chamber, which was probably the office of one of the teachers, or even the rectoress. We sat by a table with an hourglass on it. The sand was trickling through it. I could smell the fragrance of Lydia’s perfume and knew she had been in the chamber before us . . .’

  ‘And Vilgefortz?’

  ‘He asked me a question.’

  ‘Why didn’t you become a sorcerer, Geralt? Weren’t you ever attracted by the Art? Be honest.’

  ‘I will. I was.’

  ‘Why, then, didn’t you follow the voice of that attraction?’

  ‘I decided it would be wiser to follow the voice of good sense.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Years of practice in the witcher’s trade have taught me not to bite off more than I can chew. Do you know, Vilgefortz, I once knew a dwarf who, as a child, dreamed of being an elf. What do you think; would he have become one had he followed the voice of attraction?’

  ‘Is that supposed to be a comparison? A parallel? If so, it’s utterly ill-judged. A dwarf could not become an elf. Not without having an elf for its mother.’

  Geralt remained silent for a long time.

  ‘I get it,’ he finally said. ‘I should have guessed. You’ve been having a root around in my life history. To what purpose, if you don’t mind?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ smiled the sorcerer faintly. ‘I’m dreaming of a painting in the Gallery of Glory. The two of us seated at a table and on a brass plaque the title: Vilgefortz of Roggeveen entering into a pact with Geralt of Rivia.’

  ‘That would be an allegory,’ said the Witcher, ‘with the title: Knowledge Triumphing Over Ignorance. I’d prefer a more realistic painting, entitled: In Which Vilgefortz Explains To Geralt What This Is All About.’

  Vilgefortz brought the tips of his fingers together in front of his mouth.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you forgotten? The painting I’m dreaming about hangs in the Gallery of Glory, where future generations, who know perfectly well what it’s all about, what event is depicted in the picture, can look at it. On the canvas, Vilgefortz and Geralt are negotiating and concluding an agreement, as a result of which Geralt, following the voice – not of some kind of attraction or predilection, but a genuine vocation – finally joined the ranks of mages. This brings to an end his erstwhile and not particularly sensible existence, which has no future whatsoever.’

  ‘Just think,’ said the Witcher after a lengthy silence, ‘that not so long ago I believed that nothing more could astonish me. Believe me, Vilgefortz, I’ll remember this banquet and this pageant of incredible events for a long time. Worthy of a painting, indeed. The title would be: Geralt Leaving the Isle of Thanedd, Shaking with Laughter.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said the sorcerer, leaning forward a little. ‘You lost me with the floweriness of your discourse, so liberally sprinkled with sophisticated words.’

  ‘The causes of the misunderstanding are clear to me. We differ too much to understand each other. You are a mighty sorcerer from the Chapter, who has achieved oneness with nature. I’m a wanderer, a witcher, a mutant, who travels the world and slays monsters for money –’

  ‘That floweriness,’ interrupted the sorcerer, ‘has been supplanted by banality.’

  ‘– We differ too greatly,’ said Geralt, not allowing himself to be interrupted, ‘and the minor fact that my mother was, by accident, a sorceress, is unable to erase that difference. But just out of curiosity: who was your mother?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Vilgefortz calmly. The Witcher immediately fell silent.

  ‘Druids from the Kovir Circle,’ said the sorcerer a moment later, ‘found me in a gutter in Lan Exeter. They took me in and raised me. To be a druid, of course. Do you know what a druid is? It’s a kind of mutant, a wanderer, who travels the world and bows to sacred oaks.’

  The Witcher said nothing.

  ‘And later,’ continued Vilgefortz, ‘my gifts revealed themselves during certain
druidical rituals. Gifts which clearly and undeniably pointed to my origins. I was begat by two people, evidently unplanned, and at least one of them was a sorcerer.’

  Geralt said nothing.

  ‘The person who discovered my modest abilities was, of course, a sorcerer, whom I met by accident,’ continued Vilgefortz calmly. ‘He offered me a tremendous gift: the chance of an education and of self-improvement, with a view to joining the Brotherhood of Sorcerers.’

  ‘And you,’ said the Witcher softly, ‘accepted the offer.’

  ‘No,’ said Vilgefortz, his voice becoming increasingly cold and unpleasant. ‘I rejected it in a rude – even boorish – way. I unloaded all my anger on the old fool. I wanted him to feel guilty; he and his entire magical fraternity. Guilty, naturally, for the gutter in Lan Exeter; guilty that one or two detestable conjurers – bastards without hearts or human feelings – had thrown me into that gutter at birth, and not before, when I wouldn’t have survived. The sorcerer, it goes without saying, didn’t understand; wasn’t concerned by what I told him. He shrugged and went on his way, by doing so branding himself and his fellows with the stigma of insensitive, arrogant, whoresons, worthy of the greatest contempt.’

  Geralt said nothing.

  ‘I’d had a gutful of druids,’ said Vilgefortz. ‘So I gave up my sacred oak groves and set off into the world. I did a variety of things. I’m still ashamed of some of them. I finally became a mercenary. My life after that unfolded, as you might imagine, predictably. Victorious soldier, defeated soldier, marauder, robber, rapist, murderer, and finally a fugitive fleeing the noose. I fled to the ends of the world. And there, at the end of the world, I met a woman. A sorceress.’

  ‘Be careful,’ whispered the Witcher, and his eyes narrowed. ‘Be careful, Vilgefortz, that the similarities you’re desperately searching for don’t lead you too far.’

  ‘The similarities are over,’ said the sorcerer without lowering his gaze, ‘since I couldn’t cope with the feelings I felt for that woman. I couldn’t understand her feelings, and she didn’t try to help me with them. I left her. Because she was promiscuous, arrogant, spiteful, unfeeling and cold. Because it was impossible to dominate her, and her domination of me was humiliating. I left her because I knew she was only interested in me because my intelligence, personality and fascinating mystery obscured the fact that I wasn’t a sorcerer, and it was usually only sorcerers she would honour with more than one night. I left her because . . . because she was like my mother. I suddenly understood that what I felt for her was not love at all, but a feeling which was considerably more complicated, more powerful but more difficult to classify: a mixture of fear, regret, fury, pangs of conscience and the need for expiation, a sense of guilt, loss, and hurt. A perverse need for suffering and atonement. What I felt for that woman was hate.’

  Geralt remained silent. Vilgefortz was looking to one side.

  ‘I left her,’ he said after a while. ‘And then I couldn’t live with the emptiness which engulfed me. And I suddenly understood it wasn’t the absence of a woman that causes that emptiness, but the lack of everything I had been feeling. It’s a paradox, isn’t it? I imagine I don’t need to finish; you can guess what happened next. I became a sorcerer. Out of hatred. And only then did I understand how stupid I was. I mistook stars reflected in a pond at night for those in the sky.’

  ‘As you rightly observed, the parallels between us aren’t completely parallel,’ murmured Geralt. ‘In spite of appearances, we have little in common, Vilgefortz. What did you want to prove by telling me your story? That the road to wizardly excellence, although winding and difficult, is available to anyone? Even – excuse my parallel – to bastards or foundlings, wanderers or witchers—’

  ‘No,’ the sorcerer interrupted. ‘I didn’t mean to prove this road is open to all, because that’s obvious and was proved long ago. Neither was there a need to prove that certain people simply have no other path.’

  ‘And so,’ smiled the Witcher, ‘I have no choice? I have to enter into a pact with you, a pact which should someday become the subject of a painting, and become a sorcerer? On account of genetics alone? Give me a break. I know a little about the theory of heredity. My father, as I discovered with no little difficulty, was a wanderer, a churl, a troublemaker and a swashbuckler. My genes on the spear side may be dominant over the genes on the distaff side. The fact that I can swash a buckler pretty well seems to confirm that.’

  ‘Indeed,’ the sorcerer derisively smiled. ‘The hourglass has almost run its course, and I, Vilgefortz of Roggeveen, master of magic, member of the Chapter, am still discoursing – not unpleasantly – with a churl and swashbuckler, the son of a churl, a swashbuckler and a wanderer. We are talking of matters which, as everyone knows, are typical fireside debate subjects beloved of churlish swashbucklers. Subjects like genetics, for example. How do you even know that word, my swashbuckling friend? From the temple school in Ellander, where they teach the pupils to read and write just twenty-four runes? Whatever induced you to read books in which words like that and other, similar ones can be found? Where did you perfect your rhetoric and eloquence? And why did you do it? To converse with vampires? Oh, my genetic wanderer, upon whom Tissaia de Vries deigned to smile. Oh, my Witcher, my swashbuckler, who fascinates Philippa Eilhart so much her hands tremble. At the recollection of whom Triss Merigold blushes crimson. Not to mention the effect you have on Yennefer of Vengerberg.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s as well you aren’t going to mention her. Indeed, so little sand remains in the hourglass I can almost count the grains. Don’t paint any more pictures, Vilgefortz. Tell me what this is all about. Tell me using simple words. Imagine we’re sitting by the fire, two wanderers, roasting a piglet which we just stole, trying and failing to get drunk on birch juice. Just a simple question. Answer it. As one wanderer to another.’

  ‘What is the simple question?’

  ‘What kind of pact are you proposing? What agreement are we to conclude? Why do you want me in your pot? In this cauldron, which, it seems to me, is starting to boil? What else is hanging in the air here – apart from candelabras?’

  ‘Hmm,’ the sorcerer pondered, or pretended to. ‘The question is not simple, but I’ll try to answer it. But not as a wanderer to a wanderer. I’ll answer . . . as one hired swashbuckler to another, similar, swashbuckler.’

  ‘Suits me.’

  ‘Then listen, comrade swashbuckler. Quite a nasty scrap is brewing. A bloody fight for life or death, with no mercy shown. One side will triumph, and the other will be pecked apart by ravens. I put it to you, comrade: join the side with the better chance. Join us. Forget the others, spit on them with utter contempt, because they don’t stand a chance. What’s the point of perishing with them? No, no, comrade, don’t scowl at me. I know what you want to say. You want to say you’re neutral. That you don’t give a shit about any of them, that you’ll simply sit out the slaughter, hunkered down in Kaer Morhen, hidden in the mountains. That’s a bad idea, comrade. Everything you love will be with us. If you don’t join us, you’ll lose everything. And then you’ll be consumed by emptiness, nothingness and hatred. You’ll be destroyed by the approaching time of contempt. So be sensible and join the right side when the time comes to choose. And it will come. Trust me.’

  ‘It’s incredible,’ the Witcher smiled hideously, ‘how much my neutrality outrages everybody. How it makes me subject to offers of pacts and agreements, offers of collaboration, lectures about the necessity to make choices and join the right side. Let’s put an end to this conversation, Vilgefortz. You’re wasting your time. I’m not an equal partner for you in this game. I can’t see any chance of the two of us ending up in a painting in the Gallery of Glory. Particularly not in a battle scene.’

  The sorcerer said nothing.

  ‘Set out on your chessboard,’ said Geralt, ‘the kings, queens, elephants and rooks, and don’t worry about me, because I mean as much on your chessboard as the dust on it. It’s not my game. You say I’l
l have to choose? I say you’re wrong. I won’t choose. I’ll respond to events. I’ll adapt to what others choose. That’s what I’ve always done.’

  ‘You’re a fatalist.’

  ‘That’s right. Although that’s yet another word I ought not to know. I repeat: it’s not my game.’

  ‘Really?’ said Vilgefortz, leaning across the table. ‘In this game, Witcher, on the chessboard, stands a black horse. It’s tied to you by bonds of destiny. For good or ill. You know who I’m talking about, don’t you? And I’m sure you don’t want to lose her, do you? Just know there’s only one way not to lose her.’

  The Witcher’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘What do you want from that child?’

  ‘There’s only one way for you to find out.’

  ‘I’m warning you. I won’t let anyone harm her—’

  ‘There’s only one way you could prevent that. I offered you that option, Geralt of Rivia. Think over my offer. You have the entire night. Think, as you look up at the sky. At the stars. And don’t mistake them with their reflection in a pond. The sand has run out.’

  ‘I’m afraid for Ciri, Yen.’

  ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Trust me,’ she said, hugging him. ‘Trust me, please. Don’t worry about Vilgefortz. He’s a wily old fox. He wanted to trick you, to provoke you. And he was partly successful. But it’s not important. Ciri is in my care, and she’ll be safe in Aretuza. She’ll be able to develop her abilities here, and no one will interfere with that. No one. But forget about her becoming a witcher. She has other talents. And she’s destined for other work. You can trust me.’

  ‘I trust you.’

  ‘That’s significant progress. And don’t worry about Vilgefortz. Tomorrow will explain many matters and solve many problems.’

  Tomorrow, he thought. She’s hiding something from me. And I’m afraid to ask what. Codringher was right. I’ve got mixed up in a dreadful mess, but now there’s no way out. I have to wait and see what tomorrow – which is supposed to explain everything – will bring. I have to trust her. I know something’s going to happen. I’ll wait. And adapt to the situation.