‘Drop the subject, Regis,’ Geralt interrupted.
‘Of course, I apologise. Warned by Angoulême about the approaching brigands, we crossed the marches of Toussaint without delay. Milva, admittedly, wasn’t overjoyed, and was spoiling to turn tail and bring you both aid. I managed to dissuade her. And Dandelion, astonishingly, rather than enjoy the asylum afforded by the borders of the duchy, clearly had his heart in his mouth . . . You don’t by any chance know what he fears so in Toussaint?’
‘I don’t, but I can guess,’ Geralt replied sourly. ‘It wouldn’t be the first place where our dear friend the bard has been up to no good. He has settled down now somewhat, for he moves in decent society, but nothing was sacred to him in his youth. Only urchins and women who had climbed to the tops of tall trees were safe from him. Husbands regularly held grudges against the troubadour for unknown reasons. There is doubtless a man in Toussaint for whom the sight of Dandelion will bring back memories . . . But these are essentially trifling matters. Let’s return to the facts. What of our pursuers? I hope—’
‘I don’t think,’ Regis smiled, ‘that they followed us into Toussaint. The border is teeming with errant knights, who are extremely bored and hankering for a fight. Furthermore, we and a group of pilgrims we bumped into on the border ended up in the sacred grove of Myrkvid. And that place is fearsome. Even the pilgrims and infirm people who make for Myrkvid from the most distant corners to be healed stop in the settlement near the forest edge, not daring to go deeper. There are rumours that any who dare enter the sacred oak groves end up burned over a slow flame in the Wicker Hag.’
Geralt inhaled.
‘You mean—’
‘Of course,’ the vampire interjected again. ‘The druids are in the grove of Myrkvid. The ones who were previously in Caed Dhu, Angren, later journeyed to Loch Monduirn, and finally to Myrkvid in Toussaint. We were fated to find them. Did I say we were? I don’t recall.’
Geralt sighed deeply. Cahir, riding at his back, also sighed.
‘That friend of yours, is he among those druids?’
The vampire smiled once more.
‘Not he, but she,’ he explained. ‘Indeed, she is. She has even been promoted. She leads the entire Circle.’
‘Is she the hierophantess?’
‘She is the flaminika. That’s the highest druidic title when borne by a woman. Only men may be hierophants.’
‘True, I’d forgotten. So am I to understand that Milva and the rest—’
‘Are now in the care of the flaminika and her Circle.’ The vampire – as was his custom – answered the question while it was being asked, after which he set about answering a question not yet asked.
‘I, however, hurried to meet you. For a mysterious thing occurred. The flaminika – to whom I began to present our case – didn’t let me complete it. She said she knew everything. That she had been anticipating our arrival for some time—’
‘Really?’
‘I couldn’t hide my disbelief either.’ The vampire reined in the mule, stood up in his stirrups and looked around.
‘Are you seeking somebody or something?’ asked Cahir.
‘I’m no longer searching, I’ve found it. Let’s sit down.’
‘I’d prefer to—’
‘Let’s sit down. I’ll explain everything.’
They had to raise their voices to be able to converse over the roar of a waterfall tumbling from a considerable height down the vertical wall of a rocky precipice. Down below, where the waterfall had hollowed out a largish lake, a black cave mouth gaped in the rock. The Witcher stared at it.
‘Yes, right there,’ Regis confirmed the Witcher’s suspicion. ‘I rode here to meet you, for I was instructed to direct you there. You will have to enter that cave. I told you, the druids knew about you, knew about Ciri, knew about our mission. And they learned about it from someone who lives down there. That person – if one is to believe the druidess – wishes to talk to you.’
‘“If one is to believe the druidess”,’ Geralt repeated sneeringly. ‘I’ve been in these parts before. I know what dwells in the deep caves beneath Devil Mountain. There are various denizens there. But it’s impossible to talk to the vast majority of them, except with a sword. What else did your druidess say? What else am I to believe?’
‘She gave me clearly to understand –’ the vampire’s black eyes bored into Geralt ‘– that she isn’t generally fond of individuals who destroy and kill flora and fauna, and of witchers in particular. I explained that at the present moment you are a more of a titular witcher. That you absolutely don’t pester flora or fauna, as long as the aforementioned doesn’t pester you. The flaminika, you ought to know, is an extremely shrewd woman, and noted that you have abandoned witcherhood, not as a result of ideological changes, but because you were compelled to by circumstances. I know very well, she said, that misfortune has befallen a person close to the Witcher. The Witcher was thus forced to abandon witcherhood and go to her rescue . . . ’
Geralt didn’t comment, but his gaze was expressive enough to make the vampire hurry to explain.
‘She declared, and I quote: “The Witcher-who-is-not-a-witcher will prove he is capable of humility and sacrifice. He will enter the sombre mouth of the earth. Unarmed. Having laid down all weapons, all sharp iron. All sharp thoughts. All aggression, fury, anger and arrogance. He will enter in humility. And then in the abyss, the humble not-witcher will find answers to the questions which torment him. He will find answers to many questions. But should the Witcher remain a witcher, he will find nothing”.’
Geralt spat towards the waterfall and the cave.
‘It’s a game,’ he declared. ‘A jest! A prank! Soothsaying, sacrifice, mysterious encounters in caverns, answers to questions . . . You can only encounter such hackneyed devices from ragged wandering storytellers. Somebody’s mocking me. At best. And if it’s not mockery—’
‘I would not call it mockery under any circumstances,’ Regis said firmly. ‘None at all, Geralt of Rivia.’
‘What, then, is it? One of those notorious druidic peculiarities?’
‘We shan’t know,’ Cahir chipped in, ‘until we find out. Come on, Geralt, we’ll enter together—’
‘No.’ The vampire shook his head. ‘The flaminika was categorical in this respect. The Witcher must enter alone. Without a weapon. Give me your sword. I shall look after it during your absence.’
‘To hell with that—’ Geralt began, but Regis interrupted his flow of words with a rapid gesture.
‘Give me your sword.’ He held out a hand. ‘And if you have any other weapons leave them with me too. Remember the flaminika’s words. No aggression. Sacrifice. Humility.’
‘Do you know who I will encounter down there? Who . . . or what . . . is waiting for me in that cave?’
‘No, I don’t. Various creatures inhabit the subterranean corridors beneath Gorgon.’
‘I may be struck down!’
The vampire softly cleared his throat.
‘That cannot be ruled out,’ he said gravely. ‘But you must take that risk. I know you will, of course.’
*
Geralt was not disappointed – as he had expected, the entrance to the cave was filled with an impressive heap of skulls, ribs, tibulas and other bones. There was no stench of putrefaction, however. The mortal remains were clearly ancient and functioned as decorations intended to scare away intruders.
At least so he thought.
He entered the darkness and the bones crunched and grated beneath his feet.
His vision quickly adjusted to the gloom.
He was in a gigantic cave, a rocky cavern whose dimensions the eye was unable to take in, for its proportions broke up and vanished in the forest of stalactites suspended from the ceiling in striking festoons. Stalagmites, stocky and squat at the base, becoming slender towards the top, rose white and pink from the colourful, shimmering gravel glistening with water on the cave floor. Some of their points reached well above t
he Witcher’s head. Some of them were fused with stalactites, forming columns of stalagnates. No one called out. The only audible sounds were from the water, which echoed as it splashed and dripped.
He walked on, slowly, straight ahead, into the gloom, between the columns of stone. He knew he was being watched.
He felt the lack of the sword on his back intensely, importunately and distinctly – like the lack of his recently knocked-out tooth.
He slowed.
What a moment earlier he had taken as rounded boulders lying at the foot of some stalagmites now goggled great, glowing eyes at him. Great maws opened and conical fangs flashed in the matted mass of grey and brown shaggy, dust-covered hair.
Barbegazis.
He walked slowly, and stepped cautiously. Barbegazis of all sizes were everywhere. They lay in his way, with no intention of yielding. Though they had behaved extremely peacefully until that moment, he was nonetheless uncertain as to what would happen if he trod on one of them.
The stalagnates were like a forest, so there was no way of walking straight; he had to weave around them. Above, water dripped from the ceiling bristling with needles of stalactites.
The barbegazis – more and more of them were appearing – accompanied him as he walked, waddling and rolling over the cave floor. He could hear their monotonous babbling and puffing. He smelled their pungent, sour scent.
He had to stop. In his way, between two stalagmites, in a place he couldn’t pass around, lay a large echinops, bristling with masses of long spines. Geralt swallowed. He knew only too well that the echinops was capable of shooting its spines a distance of ten feet. The spines had a peculiar property – once stuck into the body they broke off and the sharp tips penetrated and worked they way in deeper and deeper until they finally reached a sensitive organ.
‘Stupid witcher,’ he heard in the gloom. ‘Cowardly witcher! He’s frit, ha, ha!’
The voice sounded odd and weird, but Geralt had heard similar voices many times. Creatures not accustomed to communicating using articulated speech spoke like that, they accented and intoned strangely, drawing out the syllables unnaturally.
‘Stupid witcher! Stupid witcher!’
He refrained from comment. He bit his lip and carefully moved past the echinops. The monster’s spines swayed like a sea anemone’s tentacles. But only for a moment, then the echinops stopped moving and once again seemed nothing more than a clump of bog grass.
Two immense barbegazis waddled across his path, jabbering and growling. From the ceiling came the flapping of webbed wings and a hissing cackle, unerringly signalling the presence of vampyrodes and vespertyls.
‘He’s come here, a murderer, a killer! A witcher!’ The same voice which had spoken previously reverberated in the gloom. ‘He’s come down here! He dared! But he has no sword, the killer. So how means he to kill? With his gaze? Ha, ha!’
‘Or maybe,’ came a second voice, with even more unnatural articulation, ‘we kill him? Haaaa?’ The barbegazis babbled in a noisy chorus. One of them, as large as a mature pumpkin, rolled closer and closer and snapped its teeth right by Geralt’s heels. The Witcher stifled the curse pressing itself against his lips and walked on. Water dripped from the stalactites, jingling with a silvery echo.
Something seized his leg. He refrained from pushing it roughly away.
The strange creature was small, not much larger than a Pekinese dog. It resembled a Pekinese a little, too. At least, its face did. The rest of it was like a small monkey. Geralt had no idea what it was. He had never seen anything like it.
‘Wi-tcha!’ sang the almost-Pekinese, in a high-pitched voice, but quite distinctly, clutching Geralt’s boot. ‘Wi-tch-tcha. Ba-stard!’
‘Get off,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘Get off my boot or I’ll kick your arse.’
The barbegazis babbled louder, more urgently and menacingly. Something lowed in the darkness. Geralt didn’t know what it was. It sounded like a cow, but the Witcher bet it wasn’t.
‘Wi-tcha, the ba-stard.’
‘Let go of my boot,’ he repeated, fighting to control himself. ‘I came here unarmed, in peace. You’re bothering me—’
He broke off and choked on a wave of repellent fetor, making his eyes water and his hair curl. The strange Pekinese-like creature digging into his calf goggled and defecated right on his boot. The hideous stink was accompanied by even more hideous noises.
He swore appropriately to the situation and shoved the aggressive creature away with his foot. Much more gently than he should have. But what he was expecting happened anyway.
‘He kicked the little one!’ something roared in the darkness, above the literally thunderous jabbering and howling of the barbegazis. ‘He kicked the little one! He harmed something smaller than himself!’
The nearest barbegazis rolled right over to his feet. He felt the gnarled and steely claws grabbing and immobilising him. He didn’t fight back; he was resigned to his fate. He wiped his befouled boot on the fur of the largest and most aggressive one. He sat down, tugged by his clothes.
Something large descended a stalagnate, jumping down onto the cave floor. He knew at once what it was. A knocker. Stocky, pot-bellied, hairy, bow-legged, at least two yards across the shoulders, with an even broader ruddy beard. The knocker’s approach was heralded by the ground shaking, as though not a knocker but a Shire horse was approaching. Each of the monster’s callused and wide feet were – however ridiculous it sounds – a foot and a half long.
The knocker leaned over him and its breath smelled of vodka. The rascals distil hooch here, Geralt thought mechanically.
‘You hit someone smaller than you, witcher,’ the knocker said, breathing his foul breath into Geralt’s face. ‘You harmed a small, gentle, innocent creature without cause. We knew you couldn’t be trusted. You’re aggressive. You have the instincts of a murderer. How many of our kind have you killed, you scoundrel?’
He didn’t deign to answer.
‘Ooooh!’ The knocker breathed alcohol fumes harder. ‘I’ve dreamed of this since I was a child! Since I was a child! My dream has finally come true. Look to the left.’
Like an idiot he looked. And was punched in the teeth with a right hook so hard he saw an intense brightness.
‘Oooooh!’ The knocker bared huge crooked teeth from the mass of his reeking beard. ‘I’ve dreamed of this since I was a child! Look to the right.’
‘Enough.’ A loud and sonorous order resounded from somewhere in the depths of the cave. ‘Enough of this fun and games. Let him go, please.’
Geralt spat blood from his cut lip. He cleaned his boot in a small stream of water flowing down the rock. The almost-Pekinese grinned at him sneeringly, but from a safe distance. The knocker also grinned, massaging its fist.
‘Go, witcher,’ it growled. ‘Go to him, since he summons you. I shall wait. For you will have to return this way, after all.’
*
The cave he entered was – astonishingly – full of light. Through openings in the ceiling, bristling with stalactites, shone criss-crossing columns of brightness, drawing from the rocks and dripstone formations a kaleidoscope of brilliance and colour. Furthermore, a magical ball blazing with light – amplified by reflections in the quartz on the walls – was suspended in the air. In spite of all this illumination the end of the cave faded into the gloom, and black darkness loomed in the vista of the colonnade of stalagnates.
An immense cave painting was in the process of being created on the wall, which nature had seemingly prepared for that purpose. The painter was a fair-haired elf dressed in a paint-smudged mantle. His head seemed to be ringed by a luminous halo in the magical-natural brilliance.
‘Sit down,’ said the elf, without wresting his gaze away from the painting. He gestured to a boulder with a wave of his brush. ‘They didn’t harm you, did they?’
‘No. Not really.’
‘You’ll have to forgive them.’
‘Indeed. I will.’
‘The
y’re a bit like children. They were awfully glad you were coming.’
‘I noticed.’
Only then did the elf glance at him.
‘Sit down,’ he repeated. ‘I shall be at your disposal shortly. I’m just finishing.’
What the elf was finishing was a stylised animal, probably a bison. For the moment only its outline was complete – from its splendid horns to its equally magnificent tail. Geralt sat down on the boulder indicated and swore to be patient and meek – to the bounds of his abilities.
The elf, softly whistling through clenched teeth, dipped his brush into a bowl of paint and coloured his bison purple with swift flourishes. After a moment’s thought he painted tiger stripes on the animal’s side.
Geralt watched in silence.
Finally the elf took a step back, admiring the fresco which now depicted an entire hunting scene. The striped purple bison was being pursued in wild leaps by skinny human figures with bows and spears, painted with careless brushstrokes.
‘What’s it meant to be?’ asked Geralt, unable to contain himself.
The elf glanced at him in passing, sticking the clean end of the brush in his mouth.
‘It is,’ he declared, ‘a prehistoric painting executed by the primitive people who lived in this cave thousands of years ago and who mainly lived by hunting the purple bison, which became extinct long ago. Some of the prehistoric hunters were artists and felt a profound artistic need to immortalise what was in their hearts.’
‘Fascinating.’
‘It most certainly is,’ the elf agreed. ‘Your scholars have roamed through caves like this for ages, searching for traces of primitive man. And whenever they find something like this they are inordinately fascinated. For it is proof that you aren’t strangers in this land and in this world. Proof that your forebears have lived here for centuries; thus proof that this world belongs to their heirs. Why, every race has the right to some roots. Even your – human – race, whose roots should be sought in the treetops, after all. Ha, an amusing quip, don’t you think? Worthy of an epigram. Are you fond of light poetry? What do you think I ought to add to the painting?’
The Saga of the Witcher Page 131
