*
Vysogota returned to his cottage in a foul mood, dejected, taciturn – even angry. The reason was a conversation with a peasant, who had rowed over in a dugout canoe to collect some pelts. Perhaps for the last time before the spring, said the peasant. The weather’s getting worse by the day. The rain and wind are so bad I’m afraid to venture onto the water. Ice on the puddles in the morning, blizzards are nigh, and after that frosts. The river will rise and flood at any time, then it’s away with the dugout and out with the sleigh. But even a sleigh’s no use on Pereplut, naught but bogs far as the eye can see . . .
The peasant was right. Towards the evening it became overcast and white flakes fell from the dark blue sky. A stiff, easterly wind flattened the dry reeds, whipping up white crests over the surface of the wetland. It had become piercingly, bitterly cold.
The day after tomorrow, thought Vysogota, is the feast of Samhain. According to the elven calendar it’ll be the New Year in three days. According to the human calendar we’ll have to wait another two months.
Kelpie, Ciri’s black mare, stamped and snorted in the barn.
When he entered the cottage, he found Ciri rummaging around in his chests. He let her; even encouraged her. Firstly, it was quite a new activity – after riding Kelpie and leafing through books. Secondly, there were plenty of his daughters’ things in the chests, and the girl needed warm clothing. Several changes of clothing, for in the cold and damp it took many days before the laundry finally dried.
Ciri was selecting, trying on, putting aside and discarding various items of clothing. Vysogota was sitting at the table. He ate two boiled potatoes and a chicken wing. In silence.
‘Good workmanship.’ She showed him some objects he hadn’t seen in years and had even forgotten he had. ‘Did these also belong to your daughter? Was it a hobby of hers?’
‘Yes, she loved it. She couldn’t wait for the winter.’
‘Can I take them?’
‘Take what you want,’ he shrugged. ‘They’re of no use to me. If they’ll come in handy and if the boots fit . . . But are you packing, Ciri? Are you preparing to go?’
She fixed her eyes on the pile of clothing.
‘Yes, Vysogota,’ she said after a brief silence. ‘I’ve decided. Because you see . . . There’s no time to lose.’
‘Your dreams.’
‘Yes,’ she admitted, a moment later. ‘I saw very unpleasant things in my dreams. I’m not certain if they’ve taken place, or are yet to happen. I have no idea if I can prevent it . . . But I must go. You see, once I felt aggrieved that the people closest to me didn’t come to my aid. Left me at the mercy of fate . . . But now I think they’re the ones that need my help. I have to go.’
‘Winter’s coming.’
‘That’s precisely why I must go. If I stay I’ll be stuck here until spring . . . until the spring I’ll be fretting in idleness and uncertainty, plagued by nightmares. I have to go, right now, to try to find the Tower of the Swallow. That teleporter. You worked out it’ll take me a fortnight to reach the lake. I’d be there before the November full moon . . .’
‘You can’t leave your hideout now,’ he said with effort. ‘Not now. They’ll capture you. Ciri . . . Your pursuers . . . they are very close. You cannot now—’
She threw a blouse down onto the floor and sprang up.
‘You’ve learned something,’ she said sharply. ‘From the peasant who took the pelts. Tell me.’
‘Ciri—’
‘Tell me, please!’
He told her. He was later to regret it.
*
‘The devil must have sent them, good sir hermit,’ mumbled the peasant, breaking off from counting the pelts. ‘Must of been the devil. They’ve been galloping through the forests since the Equinox, searching for some maid. Frightening folk, yelling and threatening, but always riding on, never tarrying long enough to do too much harm. But now they’ve thought up summat new: in some villages and settlements they’ve left some, what were it . . . Sent trees. They ain’t no trees, good sir, sent or otherwise, just simply three or four good-for-nothing scoundrels, naught but trouble. They say they’re going to lie in wait the whole winter, to see if the maid they’re hunting doesn’t creep out of some hidey-hole and venture into the village. Then that tree’s s’pposed to nab ‘er.’
‘Are they in your village too?’
The peasant’s face darkened and he ground his teeth.
‘Not in our village. We was lucky. But in Dun Dare, half a day from us, there’s four. They’re quartered in the inn. Scoundrels, good sir hermit, damned scoundrels, rogues. They took their pleasure with the village wenches, and when the menfolk stood up to them, they killed them, good sir, without mercy. Killed them dead . . .’
‘They killed people?’
‘Two. The headman and one other. And is there a punishment for such ne’er-do-wells, good sir? And is there a law? There’s no punishment or law! A carter who came to Dun Dare with his wife and daughter, he said that years ago there used to be witchers in the world, so they say . . . They dealt with every kind of villainy. We ought to send a witcher to Dun Dare, he’d give those rascals short shrift . . .’
‘Witchers killed monsters, not people.’
‘They’re knaves, good sir hermit, not people, naught but knaves from hell. A witcher’s what needed for them, no more, no less . . . Well, time I were going, good sir hermit . . . Ooo, winter’s coming! Soon it’ll be away with the dugout and out with the sleigh . . . And what them knaves from Dun Dare need, good sir, is a witcher . . .’
*
‘Oh, that’s right,’ Ciri repeated through clenched teeth. ‘Oh, absolutely right. A witcher what’s they need . . . Or a witcher girl. Four, is it? In Dun Dare, are they? And where is bloody Dun Dare? Upstream? Would I get there across the tussocks?’
‘By the Gods, Ciri,’ Vysogota said in terror. ‘You can’t seriously be thinking—’
‘Don’t swear by the gods, if you don’t believe in them. And I know you don’t.’
‘Let’s leave my views out of this! Ciri, what infernal ideas are you hatching? How can you even—’
‘Now you leave my convictions alone, Vysogota. I know what I have to do! I’m a witcher!’
‘You’re an unstable young person!’ he exploded. ‘You’re a child who’s been through traumatic experiences; a damaged child on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And more than that, you’re sick with a craving for revenge! Blinded by a lust for retribution! Don’t you understand that?’
‘I understand it better than you!’ she yelled. ‘Because you have no idea what it means to be hurt! You have no idea about revenge, for no one has ever truly wronged you!’
She rushed out of the cottage. A bitterly cold draught briefly blew through the hallway and the main room before she slammed the door shut. Soon after he heard neighing and the pounding of hooves.
Agitated, he banged the plate down onto the table. Let her go, he thought angrily, let her shake off the anger. It wasn’t as if he was afraid for her, she’d ridden often enough among the bogs, by day and night; she knew the paths, causeways, tussocks and meadows. If, though, she did get lost, she’d only have to let go of the reins – her black Kelpie knew the way home to the goat’s barn.
Some time after, when it was already very dark, he went out and hung the lantern on a post. He stood by the fence and listened out for the clatter of hooves or the splash of water. But the wind and the rustling of the reeds muffled all sound. The lantern on the post swayed crazily until it finally went out.
And then he heard it. From far away. No, not from the direction Ciri had ridden towards. But on the other side. From the bogs. A savage, inhuman, long-drawn-out, plaintive cry. A howl.
A moment of silence.
And again. A beann’shie.
An elven phantom. The harbinger of death.
Vysogota trembled, from cold and from fear. He quickly headed back towards the cottage, muttering and humming under his breath,
so as not to hear it, not to hear it at all, because he must not hear it.
Kelpie emerged from the darkness before he managed to relight the lantern.
‘Go into the cottage,’ Ciri said, gently and softly. ‘And don’t leave. It’s a foul night.’
*
They bickered again over supper.
‘You seem to know a great deal about the problems of good and evil!’
‘Because I do! And not from scholarly books, either!’
‘No, of course. You know it all from experience. From practice. For you’ve acquired plenty of experience in your long sixteen years of life.’
‘I’ve gained enough. Quite enough!’
‘Congratulations. My learned friend.’
‘You can sneer,’ she clenched her teeth, ‘without having any idea how much evil you’ve done to the world, you aged scholars, you theoreticians with your books, with your centuries-old experience of reading moral treatises so diligently you didn’t even have time to look out of the window to see what the world was really like. You philosophers, artificially shoring up artificial philosophies in order to earn salaries at universities. And since not a soul would pay you for the ugly truth about the world, you invented ethics and morality; nice, optimistic sciences. Except they’re fallacious and deceitful!’
‘There’s nothing more deceitful than a half-baked judgement, miss! Than a hasty and incautious conclusion!’
‘You didn’t find a remedy for evil! But I, a callow witcher, have! An infallible remedy!’
He didn’t respond, but his face must have betrayed him, because Ciri leaped up from the table.
‘Do you think I’m talking nonsense? Making wild claims?’
‘I think,’ he calmly replied, ‘you’re speaking in anger. I think you’re planning your revenge in anger. And I strongly urge you to calm down.’
‘I am calm. And revenge? Answer me: why not? Why should I eschew revenge? In the name of what? Higher reasons? And what’s higher than an order of things where evil deeds are punished? To you, O philosopher and ethicist, revenge is an improper deed, reprehensible, unethical and ultimately unlawful. And I ask: where is the punishment for evil? Who should attest it, adjudge it and inflict it? The gods you don’t believe in? The great demiurge-creator you’ve decided to replace the Gods with? Or perhaps the law? Perhaps Nilfgaardian justice, imperial judgements, prefects? You naive old man!’
‘And so it’s an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth? Blood for blood? And for that blood, more blood? A sea of blood? Do you want to drown the world in blood? O naive, damaged girl! Is that how you mean to fight evil, little witcher?’
‘Yes. Just like that! For I know what Evil fears. Not your ethics, Vysogota, not sermons, not moral treatises about a worthy life. Evil fears pain, impairment, suffering, death, the end! When wounded, Evil howls with pain like a dog! It rolls around on the floor and squeals, watching the blood spurt from its veins and arteries, seeing its bones stick out of stumps, seeing its guts crawl from its belly, sensing that with the cold, death is approaching. Then and only then does Evil’s hair stand on end and Evil finally yell: “Mercy! I repent of my sins! I’ll be good and decent now, I swear! Just save me, staunch the blood, don’t let me perish ignominiously!”
‘Yes, O hermit. That’s how you fight Evil! If Evil wants to do you harm, inflict pain on you – anticipate it, ideally when Evil isn’t expecting it. If, though, you didn’t manage to anticipate Evil, if you were harmed by Evil, then pay it back! Catch it, ideally when it has forgotten, when it feels safe. Pay it back twofold. Threefold. An eye for an eye? No! Both eyes for an eye! A tooth for a tooth? No! All its teeth for a tooth! Pay Evil back! Make it howl with pain, so its eyeballs burst from its howling. And then, looking down at the floor, you may confidently say: what’s lying there won’t harm anybody any longer, it won’t threaten anyone. For how can it threaten anyone without any eyes? If it has no hands? How can it do any harm when its guts are trailing over the sand, and the gore is soaking into it?’
‘And you,’ the hermit said slowly, ‘stand with your bloodied sword in hand, and look at the blood soaking into the sand. And you have the audacity to think that the age-old dilemma has been solved, the philosophers’ dream has been attained. You think the nature of Evil has been transformed?’
‘I do,’ she said defiantly. ‘Because what’s lying on the ground with blood gushing from it is no longer Evil. Perhaps it isn’t yet Good, but it certainly isn’t Evil anymore!’
‘They say,’ Vysogota said slowly, ‘that nature abhors a vacuum. Whatever is lying on the ground, bleeding profusely, whatever died from your sword, is no longer Evil. What is it then? Have you ever thought about that?’
‘No. I’m a witcher! When they were teaching me, I swore I would act against Evil. Always. And without thinking . . .
‘Because when you start thinking,’ she added hollowly, ‘killing stops making sense. Revenge stops making sense. And you can’t let that happen.’
He shook his head, but she gestured to him to stop arguing.
‘It’s time I finished my story, Vysogota. I’ve been unfolding it for you for thirty nights, from the Equinox to Samhain. But I haven’t told you everything. Before I leave, you have to learn what happened on the day of the Equinox in the village called Unicorn.’
*
She groaned when he pulled her from the saddle. The hip he had kicked her in the day before was hurting.
He tugged on the chain attached to the collar and pulled her towards a light-coloured building.
Several armed men were standing in the doorway. And one tall woman.
‘Bonhart,’ said one of the men, slim and brown-haired, with a thin face, holding a brass-tipped knout. ‘It has to be said that you’re full of surprises.’
‘Greetings, Skellen.’
The man addressed as Skellen looked her straight in the eye for some time. She trembled under his gaze.
‘Well?’ he addressed Bonhart again. ‘Will you explain at once, or perhaps bit by bit?’
‘I don’t like explaining things in the courtyard, for you get a mouthful of flies. May we go inside?’
‘By all means.’
Bonhart yanked the chain.
Another man was waiting in the main room. He was dishevelled and pale, and was probably the cook, because he was busy cleaning traces of flour and cream from his clothing. His eyes lit up at the sight of Ciri. He came closer.
He wasn’t the cook.
She recognised him at once, remembered those hideous eyes and the ugly mark on his face. He was the one who had pursued her on Thanedd with the Squirrels. She’d escaped him by jumping out of a window, and he had ordered the elves to jump after her. What had that elf called him? Rence?
‘Well, well!’ he said mordantly, jabbing a finger hard and painfully into her breast. ‘Miss Ciri! We haven’t seen each other since Thanedd. I’ve been looking for you a long, long time, miss. And I’ve finally found you!’
‘I don’t know, sir, who you are,’ Bonhart said coldly. ‘But what you’ve claimed to find is actually mine, so keep your mitts off, if you value your fingers.’
‘My name’s Rience.’ The sorcerer’s eyes flashed unpleasantly. ‘Kindly condescend to commit that to memory, Mr Bounty Hunter, sir. And who I am will be soon be revealed. Whom the maid belongs to will also soon be revealed. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For now I only want to give her my regards and make a pledge. You don’t have anything against that, I trust?’
‘You are free to trust.’
Rience approached Ciri and looked into her eyes from close up.
‘Your guardian, the hag Yennefer,’ he said slowly and scornfully, ‘once fell into disfavour with me. And so when I got my hands on her, I, Rience, taught her pain. With these hands, with these fingers. And I promised her that should you fall into my hands, princess, I would also teach you pain. With these hands, with these fingers . . .’
‘Risky,’ Bonhart said softly. ‘You’r
e taking a great risk, Mr Rience, or whatever your name is, bothering my little girl and threatening her. She is vengeful, liable to hold it against you. I repeat: keep your hands, fingers and all other parts of your body well away from her.’
‘Enough.’ Skellen cut them off, without taking his curious eyes off Ciri. ‘Stop it, Bonhart. And you too, Rience, calm yourself. I’ve shown you mercy, but I may change my mind and order you bound to the table legs again. Sit down, both of you. Let’s talk like cultured people. Just the three of us and no one else. For we have, it seems to me, much to talk about. But for now we’ll put the subject of our conversations under guard. Mr Silifant!’
‘Just guard her well.’ Bonhart handed Silifant the end of the chain. ‘Guard her with your life.’
*
Kenna stayed on the sidelines. Granted, she wanted to observe the wench, whom everybody had recently been talking about, but she felt a strange aversion to pushing in amongst the small crowd surrounding Harsheim and Silifant, who were taking the mysterious captive over to a post in the courtyard.
Everybody was crowding around, jostling, peering. They were even trying to touch her, shove her, pull her. The girl trod stiffly, limping slightly, but held her head high. He’s beaten her, thought Kenna. But he didn’t break her.
‘So she must be Falka . . .’
‘The maid’s barely grown!’
‘A maid, huh? A cut-throat!’
‘I heard she slayed six men, the brute, in the arena in Claremont . . .’
‘And before that? How many others? The she-devil . . .’
‘She-wolf!’
‘And the mare, what a mare, look. A horse of marvellous blood . . . And here, by Bonhart’s saddle flap, what a sword . . . Ah . . . a marvel!’
‘Leave it alone!’ Dacre Silifant growled. ‘Don’t touch! Get your hands off other people’s things. Don’t touch the girl either; don’t paw her, don’t hinder or insult her! Show some charity. We know not if we shan’t be executing her before dawn. May she at least know peace until that time.’
‘If the wench is to go to her death,’ grinned Cyprian Fripp the younger, ‘perhaps we could sweeten the remainder of her life and satiate her well? Throw her on the hay and bed her?’
The Saga of the Witcher Page 145
