‘Where we are, what we’re planning, what route we’re taking and whither we’re heading . . . all was uncovered with the help of scanning, detecting magic. It’s none too difficult for a mistress of magic to remotely detect and observe a person who was once well-known and close, with whom they had a long-term psychic contact which permits the creation of a matrix. But the sorcerer and sorceress of whom I speak made a mistake. They’ve revealed themselves. They made an error when counting the members of the company, and that error betrayed them. Tell them, Regis.’
‘Geralt may be right,’ Regis said slowly. ‘Like every vampire, I’m invisible to magical visual probing and scanning; that is, to a detecting spell. A vampire may be tracked using an analytical spell, from close up, but it is not possible to detect a vampire with a remote, scanning spell. The detection will report that there’s no one there. Thus only a sorcerer could be mistaken regarding us: to register four people, where there were actually five; that is, four people and one vampire.’
‘We shall exploit the sorcerers’ error,’ the Witcher continued. ‘Cahir, Angoulême and I shall ride to Belhaven to talk to the half-elf who hired assassins to kill us. We won’t ask the half-elf on whose orders he’s acting, for we know that already. We’ll ask him where the sorcerers on whose orders he is acting are. When we learn their location we’ll go there. And exact our revenge.’
Everybody was silent.
‘We stopped counting the date, so we haven’t even noticed it’s the twenty-fifth of September. Two days ago it was the night of the Equinox. The Equinox. Yes, that’s exactly the night you’re thinking about. I see your dejection, I see what your eyes are saying. We received a signal, that dreadful night, when the merchants camping beside us were keeping their courage up with aqua vitae, singing and fireworks. You probably had a less distinct sense of foreboding than Cahir and I, but you’re speculating too. You suspect. And I’m afraid your suspicions are well founded.’
The crows flying over the moorland cawed.
‘Everything indicates that Ciri is dead. She perished, two nights ago, at the Equinox. Somewhere far from here, alone amongst hostile people; strangers.
‘And all that’s left to us is vengeance. A cruel and bloody revenge, about which stories will still be told a hundred years hence. Stories which folk will be afraid to listen to after nightfall. And the hand of any who would repeat such a crime will tremble at the thought of our vengeance. We shall give a horrible example of terror! Using the ways of Mr Fulko Artevelde, wise Mr Fulko, who knows how blackguards and scoundrels should be treated. The illustration of terror we shall give will astonish even him!
‘So let us begin and may Hell assist us! Cahir, Angoulême, to horse. We ride up the Nevi, towards Belhaven. Dandelion, Milva, Regis, make for Sansretour, towards Toussaint’s borders. You won’t get lost, Gorgon will point the way. Goodbye.’
*
Ciri stroked the black cat, which had returned to the cottage in the swamp, as is customary with all cats in the world, when its love of freedom and dissolution had been undermined by cold, hunger and discomfort. Now it was lying in the girl’s lap and arching its back against her hand with a purr signifying profound bliss. The cat couldn’t have cared less about what the girl was saying.
‘It was the only time I dreamed of Geralt,’ Ciri began. ‘From the time we parted on the Isle of Thanedd, from the Tower of the Seagull, I’d never seen him in a dream. So I thought he was dead. And then suddenly came that dream, like the ones I used to have, dreams which Yennefer said were prophetic, precognitive; that they either show the past or the future. That was the day before the Equinox. In a small town whose name I don’t recall. In a cellar where Bonhart had locked me. After he’d flogged me and made me admit who I am.’
‘Did you divulge to him who you are?’ Vysogota raised his head. ‘Did you tell him everything?’
‘I paid for my cowardice,’ she swallowed, ‘with humiliation and self-contempt.’
‘Tell me about your dream.’
‘In it I saw a mountain; lofty, sheer, and sharp, like a stone knife. I saw Geralt. I heard what he was saying. Exactly. Every word, as though he were with me. I remember I wanted to call out and say it wasn’t like that at all, that none of it was true, that he’d made an awful mistake . . . That he’d got everything wrong! That it wasn’t the Equinox yet, so even if I happened to have died on the Equinox, he shouldn’t have declared me dead earlier, when I was still alive. And he shouldn’t have accused Yennefer or said such things about her . . . ’
She was silent for a time, stroking the cat and sniffing hard.
‘But I couldn’t say a word. I couldn’t even breathe . . . As though I was drowning. And I awoke. The last thing I saw, that I recall from that dream, was three riders. Geralt and two others, galloping along a ravine, with water gushing from its walls . . .’
Vysogota said nothing.
*
Had someone crept up to the shack with the sunken, moss-grown thatched roof after nightfall, had they peered through the gaps in the shutters, they would have seen a grey-bearded old man listening raptly to a story told by an ashen-haired girl in the dimly lit interior, her cheek disfigured by a nasty scar.
They would have seen a black cat lying on the girl’s lap, purring lazily, demanding to be stroked – to the delight of the mice scampering around the room.
But no one could have seen it. For the cottage with the sunken, moss-grown thatched roof was well hidden among the fog, in the boundless Pereplut Marshes, where no one dared to venture.
It is well known that when a witcher inflicts pain, suffering and death he experiences absolute ecstasy and bliss such as a devout and normal man only experiences during sexual congress with his wedded spouse, ibidem cum ejaculatio. This leads one to conclude that, also in this matter also, a witcher is a creature contrary to nature, an immoral and filthy degenerate, born of the blackest and most foul-smelling Hell, since surely only a devil could derive bliss from suffering and pain.
Anonymous, Monstrum, or a description of a witcher
CHAPTER SIX
They left the main track leading along the Nevi valley and took a short cut through the mountains. They rode as quickly as the track would allow. It was narrow and winding, hugging fantastically-shaped rocks covered in patches of colourful moss and lichen. They rode between vertical rocky cliffs, from which ragged ribbons of cascades and waterfalls tumbled. They rode through ravines and gorges, across small rickety bridges over precipices at the bottom of which streams seethed with white foam.
The angular blade of Gorgon seemed to rear up directly above their heads. The peak of Devil Mountain was not visible, but shrouded in the clouds and fog cloaking the sky. The weather – as happens in the mountains – worsened in the course of a few hours. It began to drizzle bitingly and disagreeably.
When dusk fell, the three of them nervously and impatiently looked around for a shepherd’s bothy, a tumbledown barn or even a cave. Anything that would protect them from the weather during the night.
*
‘I think it’s stopped raining,’ Angoulême said hopefully. ‘It’s only dripping from the holes in the roof now. Tomorrow, fortunately, we’ll be near Belhaven, and we can always sleep in a shed or a barn on the outskirts.’
‘Aren’t we entering the town?’
‘Out of the question. Mounted strangers on horses are conspicuous and Nightingale has plenty of informers in the town.’
‘We were thinking about using ourselves as bait—’
‘No,’ she interrupted. ‘That’s a rotten plan. The fact that we’re together will arouse suspicion. Nightingale’s a cunning bastard and news of my capture has certainly spread. And if anything alarms him, it’ll also reach the half-elf.’
‘So what do you suggest?’
‘We skirt around the town from the east, from the mouth of the Sansretour valley. There are ore mines there. I’ve a mate who works in one of them. We’ll visit him. Who knows, with a bit of luck
the visit might prove profitable.’
‘Could you speak more plainly?’
‘I’ll tell you tomorrow. In the mine. So as not to jinx it.’
Cahir threw some birch branches on the fire. It had been raining all day and no other fuel would have burned. But the birch, though wet, crackled a little and then flared up in a tall, blue flame.
‘Where are you from, Angoulême?’
‘From Cintra, Witcher. It’s a country by the sea, by the mouth of the Yaruga—’
‘I know where Cintra is.’
‘So why do you ask, if you know all that? Do I fascinate you so?’
‘A little, let’s say.’
They fell silent. The fire crackled on.
‘My mother,’ Angoulême finally said, staring into the flame, ‘was a Cintran noblewoman, from a high-ranking family, I believe. The family had a sea-cat in its coat of arms. I’d show it to you, I used to have a little medallion with that bloody sea-cat on it, from my mother, but I lost it at dice . . . That family, though – sod them and their sea-cat – disowned me, because my mother was said to have slept with some churl, a stableman, I believe, and so I was a bastard, a disgrace, an ignominious stain on their honour. They gave me away to be raised by distant relatives. Admittedly they didn’t have a cat, dog or any other fucker on their arms, but they weren’t bad to me. They sent me to school and generally didn’t beat me . . . Though they reminded me pretty often who I was. A bastard, conceived in the straw. My mother visited me maybe three or four times when I was small. Then she stopped. And to be honest, I didn’t give a shit . . . ’
‘How did you fall among criminals?’
‘You sound like an examining magistrate!’ she snorted, contorting her face grotesquely. ‘Among criminals, pshaw! Fallen from virtue, huh?’
She grunted, rummaged around in her bosom and took something out which the Witcher couldn’t see clearly.
‘One-eyed Fulko,’ she said indistinctly, rubbing something vigorously into her gum and inhaling, ‘isn’t a bad old fellow. He took what he took, but left the powder. Want a pinch, Witcher?’
‘No. I’d rather you didn’t take it either.’
‘Why?’
‘I just would.’
‘Cahir?’
‘I don’t use fisstech.’
‘Well, it’s clear I’ve landed up with a couple of goody-goodies.’ She shook her head. ‘You’ll probably start preaching that I’ll go blind, deaf and bald from this stuff, I suppose? And give birth to a crippled child?’
‘Leave it, Angoulême. And finish the story.’
The young woman sneezed loudly.
‘Very well, as you wish. Where was I . . . ? Aha. The war broke out, you know, with Nilfgaard. My relatives lost everything, had to abandon their house. They had three children of their own, and I’d become a burden to them, so they gave me away to an orphanage. It was run by the priests of some temple or other. It was a jolly place, as it happens. A bordello, a whorehouse, simple as that, for people who like their fruit tart and with white pips, get it? Young girls. And young boys too. So when I joined them I was too grown up, adult, there were no takers for me . . . ’
Quite unexpectedly she blushed with shame, visible even in the firelight.
‘Well, almost none,’ she added through clenched teeth.
‘How old were you then?’
‘Fifteen. I met one girl and five boys there, my age and a bit older. And we teamed up in no time. We knew, didn’t we, the legends and tales. About Mad Dea, about Blackbeard, about the Cassini brothers . . . We wanted to get out on the road, to taste freedom, to maraud! So what, we told ourselves, if they feed us twice a day? Does that give some lechers the right to screw us—’
‘Language, Angoulême! Keep it in moderation.’
The girl hawked noisily and spat into the campfire.
‘Prig! Very well, I’ll get to the point, because I don’t feel like talking. We found knives in the orphanage kitchen. We just had to whet them well on a stone and strop them on a belt. We made some excellent clubs from the turned legs of an oaken chair. All we needed was horses and coin, so we waited for two perverts, regular customers, old buggers of, ugh, at least forty. They came, sat down, sipped wine and waited for the priests to tie the chosen kid to a special contraption, as was customary . . . But they didn’t get their oats that day!’
‘Angoulême.’
‘All right, all right. In short: we knifed and clubbed to death those two lecherous creeps, three priests and a page; the only one not to bolt, he was guarding the horses. We roasted the temple warden’s soles until he changed his mind about giving us the key to the coffer, but we spared his life, because he was a nice old gaffer, always kind to us. And we took to the road to plunder. We had our ups and downs, won some, lost some, we gave and took some beatings. Full bellies, empty bellies. Ha, more often empty. I’ve eaten everything that crawls, anything you can fucking catch. And things that fly? I even ate a child’s kite once, because it was made of flour and water paste.’
She fell silent, then distractedly messed up her flaxen hair.
‘What’s past is past. I’ll just say this: no one who escaped with me from the orphanage is still alive. The last two, Owen and Abel, were dispatched a few days ago by Mr Fulko’s pikemen. Abel surrendered, like me, but they stuck him anyway, even though he’d thrown down his sword. They spared me. Don’t think it was out of the goodness of their hearts. They’d already spread-eagled me on a cloak, but an officer ran up and stopped their sport. And then you saved me from the scaffold . . . ’
She was silent for a time.
‘Witcher?’
‘Yes.’
‘I know how to express gratitude. So if you’d ever like to . . . ’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I’ll go and look over the horses,’ Cahir said hurriedly and rose, wrapping himself in his cloak. ‘I’ll take a walk . . . around the place . . . ’
The girl sneezed, sniffed, and cleared her throat.
‘Not a word, Angoulême,’ Geralt warned her, genuinely angry, genuinely confused, genuinely embarrassed. ‘Not another word!’
She gave a slight cough again.
‘Do you really not want me? Not even a bit?’
‘You’ve already tasted Milva’s strap, little punk. If you’re not quiet this instant, you’ll get a second helping.’
‘I won’t say another thing.’
‘Good girl.’
*
Pits and holes – shored up and lined with planks, connected by footbridges, ladders and scaffolding – gaped in a hillside covered in misshapen and twisted pine trees. Catwalks supported by crisscrossed posts protruded from the holes. People were busily pushing carts and wheelbarrows along some of the catwalks. The contents of the carts and wheelbarrows – which at first sight seemed to be dirty, stony soil – were being tipped from the catwalks into a great quadrangular trough, or rather a complex of increasingly small troughs divided up by shutters. Water, supplied from a forested hillock along gutters supported on low trestles, gushed through them, and yet more channelled it away down towards a cliff.
Angoulême dismounted and indicated to Geralt and Cahir to do likewise. Leaving their mounts by a fence, they headed towards the buildings, wading through mud beside the leaking gutters and pipes.
‘It’s an iron ore washing plant,’ Angoulême said, pointing at the equipment. ‘The ore is carted out of those mineshafts, tipped into the troughs and rinsed with water from the stream. The ore settles on the sifter, and it’s taken from there. There are tons of mines and washing plants around Belhaven. And the ore is carted down the valley to Mag Turga, where there are bloomeries and forges, because there are more forests there and you need wood for smelting—’
‘Thanks for the lesson,’ Geralt cut her off sourly. ‘I’ve seen a few mines in my lifetime; I know what’s needed for smelting. Why have we come here?’
‘To have a chat with one of my mates. The foreman here. Follow me. Ah, I
can see him! Over there, outside the joiner’s shop. Let’s go.’
‘You mean that dwarf?’
‘Yeah. He’s called Golan Drozdeck. As I said, he’s—’
‘The foreman here. You said. You didn’t say, though, what you want to chat with him about.’
‘Look at your boots.’
Geralt and Cahir obediently examined their footwear, which was covered in sludge of a strange, reddish hue.
‘The half-elf we’re seeking,’ Angoulême anticipated the question, ‘had the same crimson mud on his shoes when he was talking to Nightingale. Get it?’
‘I do now. And the dwarf?’
‘Don’t say a word to him. I’ll do the talking. He should take you for types that don’t talk, just cleave. Look tough.’
They didn’t have to make a special effort. Some of the miners who were watching quickly looked away, others froze with mouths open. The ones in their way hurriedly stood aside. Geralt guessed why. He and Cahir still had visible bruises, cuts and swellings – vivid tokens of their fight and the hiding Milva had given them. They looked like types who took pleasure from punching each other in the face, and wouldn’t need much persuasion to punch someone else.
The dwarf, Angoulême’s mate, was standing outside a building bearing the sign ‘joinery shop’ and painting something on a board made of two planed staves. He saw them coming, put down his brush and tin of paint and scowled. Then an expression of utter amazement suddenly appeared behind his paint-spattered beard.
‘Angoulême?’
‘What cheer, Drozdeck?’
‘Is it you?’ The dwarf’s hairy jaw fell open. ‘Is it really you?’
‘No. It isn’t. It’s the freshly resurrected prophet Lebioda. Ask me another, Golan. A more intelligent one, perhaps.’
‘Don’t mock, Flaxenhair. I never expected to see you again. Mulica were ’ere five days since, he says they nabbed you and stuck you on a stake in Riedbrune. He vowed it were true!’
‘Everything has its benefits,’ the girl shrugged. ‘Next time Mulica borrows some money and vows he’ll pay it back you’ll know what his vow’s worth.’
The Saga of the Witcher Page 127
