‘As a matter of fact I am.’ He opened his eyes wide. ‘Inordinately.’
She sighed and shrugged.
‘I entered the tower long ago,’ she said, trying to stay calm. ‘I happened upon another world. You were waiting for me, sitting and playing the pipes. You were even astonished at how long I’d delayed my arrival. You called me by my name, and only afterwards began that “Lady of the Lake” nonsense. Then you vanished without a word of explanation. Leaving me in prison. Call it what you like. I call it spiteful and malicious contempt.’
‘Zireael, it’s only been eight days.’
‘Ah,’ she scowled. ‘You mean I’m lucky? Because it might have been eight weeks? Or eight months? Or eight . . .’
She fell silent.
‘You’ve strayed far from Lara Dorren,’ he said softly. ‘You’ve lost your inheritance, you’ve lost the bond with your blood. No wonder the women don’t understand you, nor you them. You don’t just talk differently, you think differently. With quite different frames of reference. What is eight days or eight weeks? Time means nothing.’
‘Very well!’ she screamed in anger. ‘I agree I’m not a wise elf, I’m a stupid human. To me time does mean something. I count the days, I even count the hours. And I’ve reckoned that many of both the first and the second have passed. I don’t want anything from you now, I’ll make do without explanations, it doesn’t bother me why it’s spring here, why there are unicorns here, and different constellations in the night sky. I’m not at all interested how you know my name and how you knew I’d turn up here. I only want one thing. To return home. To my world. To people! People who think like me! Using the same frames of reference!’
‘You’ll return to them. In some time.’
‘I want to go now!’ she yelled. ‘Not in some time! For time here is an eternity! What right do you have to hold me here? Why can’t I leave this place? I came here myself! Of my own will! You don’t have any right!’
‘You came here yourself,’ he calmly confirmed. ‘But not of your own will. You were led here by destiny, helped a little by us. For you have been long awaited. Very long. Even according to our reckoning.’
‘I don’t understand any of that.’
‘We’ve waited long.’ He paid no attention to her. ‘Fearing but one thing: whether you’d be able to enter here. You were. You proved your blood, your lineage. And that means that your place is here, not among the Dh’oine. You are the daughter of Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal.’
‘I am Pavetta’s daughter! I don’t even know who your Lara is!’
He snorted, but very slightly, almost imperceptibly.
‘In that case,’ he said, ‘it’d be best if I explained to you who “my” Lara is. Since time is short, I’d prefer to begin the explanations en route. But why, for the sake of a foolish demonstration you’ve almost run the mare into the ground—’
‘Into the ground? Ha! You don’t yet know how much that mare can endure. Where are we going?’
‘If you permit I’ll also explain that en route.’
*
Ciri halted Kelpie, who was now wheezing, recognising that a breakneck gallop was senseless and of no use at all.
Avallac’h hadn’t lied. Here, on open ground, on meadows and moors dotted with menhirs, the same force was active as around Tor Zireael. You could try riding at full speed in any direction, but after a furlong or so an invisible force made you ride around in a circle.
Ciri patted the wheezing Kelpie on her neck, and looked at the small group of elves who rode at an easy pace. A moment earlier, when Avallac’h had finally told her what they wanted from her, she had launched into a gallop, to escape from them, to leave them as far as possible behind her – they and their impudent, unthinkable task.
Now, though, they were in front of her again. At a distance of more or less a furlong.
Avallac’h hadn’t lied. There was no escape.
The only good thing the gallop had brought was that it had cooled her head, chilled her rage. She was now much calmer. But nonetheless she was still shaking with anger.
What a mess I’m in, she thought. Why did I go into the Tower?
She shuddered, thinking back. Recalling Bonhart riding after her across the ice on his grey horse, muzzle foaming.
She shuddered even more intensely. And calmed down.
I’m alive, she thought, looking around. It’s not the end of the battle. Death will end the fight, everything else only interrupts it. They taught me that at Kaer Morhen.
She urged Kelpie to a walk and then, seeing the mare was gamely raising her head, to a trot. She rode down an avenue of menhirs. The grass and heather reached her stirrups.
She quite quickly caught up with Avallac’h and the three elf-women. The Sage, smiling slightly, turned his aquamarine eyes enquiringly on her.
‘Please, Avallac’h.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Tell me it was a dismal joke.’
Something like a shadow passed over his face.
‘I’m not accustomed to joking,’ he said. ‘And since you consider it a joke, I’ll take the liberty repeating it with due gravity: we want to have your child, O Swallow, daughter of Lara Dorren. Only when you bear it will we permit you to leave here, to return to your world. The choice, naturally, is yours. I presume your reckless dash helped you to reach a decision. What is your answer?’
‘My answer is no,’ she replied firmly. ‘Categorically and absolutely no. I don’t agree and that’s that.’
‘Tough luck,’ he shrugged. ‘I admit I am disappointed. But why, it’s your choice.’
‘How can you demand something like that at all?’ she cried in a trembling voice. ‘How could you dare? By what right?’
He looked at her calmly. Ciri also felt the gaze of the elf-women on her.
‘I believe,’ he said, ‘that I told you the story of your family in detail. You seemed to understand. Thus your question astonishes me. We have the right to demand, and we can, O Swallow. Your father, Cregennan, took a child from us. You will give us one back. You will repay the debt. It seems just and logical to me.’
‘My father . . . I don’t remember my father, but he was called Duny. Not Cregennan. I’ve already told you!’
‘And I replied that those few ridiculous human generations are meaningless to us.’
‘But I don’t want to!’ yelled Ciri so loudly that the mare skittered beneath her. ‘I don’t want to, understand? I don’t waaaant tooooooo! The thought of a bloody parasite being implanted in me is sickening. I feel nauseous when I think that that parasite will grow inside me, that—’
She broke off, seeing the faces of the elf-women. Two of them expressed boundless astonishment. The third boundless odium. Avallac’h coughed meaningfully.
‘Let’s ride on a little and talk in private,’ he said coolly. ‘Your views, O Swallow, are a little too radical to be expressed in front of witnesses.’
She did as he asked. They rode on silence for a long while.
‘I’ll escape from you.’ Ciri spoke first. ‘You won’t keep me here against my will. I escaped from the Isle of Thanedd, I escaped from the Trappers and the Nilfgaardians, I escaped from Bonhart and Tawny Owl. And I’ll escape from you. I’ll find a way to outwit your witchcraft.’
‘I thought,’ he replied a moment later, ‘that you cared more about your friends. About Yennefer. And Geralt.’
‘You know about that?’ she gasped in amazement. ‘Well, yes. True. You are a Knowing One! So you ought to know I’m thinking about them. There, in my world, they’re in danger now, at this moment. And yet you want to imprison me here . . . Well, for at least nine months. You see for yourself I don’t have a choice. I understand it’s important for you – a child, that Elder Blood – but I cannot. I simply cannot.’
The elf said nothing for a while. He rode so close he was touching her knee.
‘The choice, as I said, belongs to you. You ought, however, to know something. It would be dishonest to conceal if from you. You c
an’t escape from here, O Swallow. So if you refuse to cooperate you will stay here forever, and will never see your friends or your world again.’
‘That’s despicable blackmail!’
‘If, though,’ he continued, unconcerned by her yelling, ‘you agree to what we ask, we’ll prove to you that time is meaningless.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Time passes differently here than there. If you do us this favour, we shall return the favour. We shall enable you to regain the time you will lose among us here. Among the Folk of the Alder.’
She said nothing, her eyes fixed on Kelpie’s black mane. Use delaying tactics, she thought. As Vesemir said in Kaer Morhen when they’re about to hang you, ask for a glass of water. You never know what might happen before they bring it.
One of the elf-women suddenly screamed and whistled.
Avallac’h’s horse neighed, and danced on the spot. The elf brought it under control and shouted something to the elf-women. Ciri saw one of them draw a bow from a leather quiver hanging from her saddle. She stood up in the stirrups and shielded her eyes with a hand.
‘Keep calm,’ said Avallac’h sharply. Ciri gasped.
Some unicorns were galloping over the moor about two hundred paces from them. An entire herd, at least thirty head.
Ciri had seen unicorns before. Sometimes, particularly at dawn, they came up to the lake at the foot of the Tower of the Swallow. They had never let her approach them, though. But had vanished like ghosts.
The leader of the herd was a great stallion with a strange, reddish coat. He suddenly stopped, neighed piercingly and reared up. He trotted on his hind hooves, waving his fore hooves in the air in a way that would have been absolutely impossible for any horse.
Ciri noted in amazement that Avallac’h and the three elf-women were humming, singing in chorus some strange, monotonous tune.
Who are you?
She shook her head.
Who are you? The question sounded again in her skull, pounded in her temples. The elves’ song suddenly rose a tone in pitch. The ruddy unicorn neighed and the entire herd answered in kind. The earth trembled as they galloped away.
The song of Avallac’h and the elf-women broke off. Ciri saw the Knowing One furtively wiping the sweat from his brow. The elf glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, understanding that she had seen.
‘Not everything here is as pretty as it looks,’ he said dryly. ‘Not everything.’
‘Are you afraid of unicorns? But they’re wise and friendly.’
He didn’t answer.
‘I heard,’ she went on, ‘that elves and unicorns loved one another.’
He turned his head.
‘Then accept,’ he said coldly, ‘that what you saw was a lovers’ tiff.’
She didn’t ask any more questions.
She had enough of her own concerns.
*
The tops of the hills were decorated by cromlechs and dolmens. The sight of them reminded Ciri of the stone near Ellander, beside which Yennefer taught her what magic is. That was so long ago, she thought. Ages . . .
One of the elf-women shouted again. Ciri glanced to where she was pointing. Before she had time to note that the herd being led by the ruddy stallion had returned, the second elf-woman shouted. She stood up in the stirrups.
Another herd emerged from the opposite side, from behind a hill. The unicorn leading it was bluish-grey and dappled.
Avallac’h quickly said a few words. It was the ellylon language that Ciri found so difficult, but she understood, particularly since the elf-women reached for their bows in unison. Avallac’h turned his face towards Ciri, and she felt a buzzing growing in her head. It was a buzzing quite similar to what a conch shell emits when pressed to the ear. But much stronger.
‘Do not resist,’ she heard a voice. ‘Do not fight. I must leap, I must transport you to another place. You are in mortal danger.’
A whistle and a long, drawn-out cry reached them from far away. And a moment later the earth shuddered under iron-shod hooves.
Riders emerged from behind the hill. An entire troop.
The horses were wearing caparisons, the riders crested helmets, and the cloaks around their shoulders fluttered in the gallop. Their vermilion-amaranth-crimson colour brought to mind the glow of a fire in the sky illuminated by the blaze of the setting sun.
A whistling and a cry. The horsemen raced towards them en masse.
Before they had ridden half a furlong the unicorns had vanished. They disappeared, leaving a cloud of dust behind them.
*
The riders’ leader, a black-haired elf, sat on a dark bay stallion as huge as a dragon. It was adorned, like all the horses in the troop, in a caparison embroidered with dragon’s scales, and wore on its head a truly demonic horned bucranium. Like all the elves, the black-haired one wore beneath his cloak of a myriad shades of red a mail shirt made of unbelievably tiny rings, thanks to which it fit his body snugly, like knitted woollen cloth.
‘Avallac’h,’ he said, saluting.
‘Eredin.’
‘You owe me a favour. You will pay it back when I demand it.’
‘I’ll pay it back when you demand it.’
The black-haired elf dismounted. Avallac’h also dismounted, gesturing to Ciri to do the same. They walked up the hill between white rocks with peculiar shapes covered in spindle and dwarf shrubs of flowering myrtle.
Ciri looked at them. They were of equal height, meaning they were both extremely tall. But Avallac’h’s face was gentle, while the black-haired elf’s face brought to mind a bird of prey. Fair and black, she thought. Good and evil. Light and dark . . .
‘Zireael, let me introduce you to Eredin Bréacc Glas.’
‘I’m pleased to meet you.’ The elf bowed and Ciri returned the bow. Not very gracefully.
‘How did you know,’ Avallac’h asked, ‘that we were in danger?’
‘I had no idea.’ The elf scrutinised Ciri. ‘We patrol the plain, for news has got out that the one-horns have become anxious and aggressive. No one knows why. I mean, now I know why. It’s because of her, naturally.’
Avallac’h neither confirmed nor denied it. Meanwhile, Ciri countered the black-haired elf’s gaze with a haughty expression. For a moment they looked at each other, neither of them wanting to be the first to look away.
‘So that’s the supposed Elder Blood,’ remarked the elf. ‘Aen Hen Ichaer. The inheritance of Shiadhal and Lara Dorren? One isn’t inclined to believe it. For it’s simply a young Dh’oine. A human female.’
Avallac’h said nothing. His face was motionless and indifferent.
‘I assume you aren’t mistaken,’ the black-haired elf continued. ‘Why, I take it for granted, for you, as rumour has it, never err. Hidden deep in this creature is the Lara gene. Yes, when one examines her more closely, one can see certain traits testifying to the young one’s lineage. She indeed has something in her eyes that brings to mind Lara Dorren. Doesn’t she, Avallac’h? Who, if not you, is more entitled to judge?’
Avallac’h didn’t speak this time either. But Ciri noticed a faint blush on his pale face. She was very surprised. And pondered it.
‘Summing up—’ the black-haired elf grimaced ‘—there is something precious, something beautiful, in this little Dh’oine female. I see it. And I have the impression I’ve seen a gold nugget in a pile of compost.’
Ciri’s eyes flashed furiously. Avallac’h slowly turned his head.
‘You talk just like a human, Eredin,’ he said slowly.
Eredin Bréacc Glas bared his teeth in a smile. Ciri had seen teeth like that before: very white, very small and very inhuman, as straight as a die, and lacking canines. She’d seen teeth like that on the dead elves lying in a row in the courtyard of the Kaedwen watchtower. She had delighted in teeth like that on Iskra. But the teeth in Iskra’s smile looked pretty, while on Eredin they were ghastly.
‘Does this lass,’ he said, ‘who is trying hard to
kill me with her stare, already know the reason she’s here?’
‘Indeed.’
‘And is prepared to cooperate?’
‘Not completely.’
‘Not completely,’ he repeated. ‘Ha, that’s not good. Since the nature of the cooperation demands that it be complete. It’s simply not possible if it’s less than complete. And, because we are separated from Tir ná Lia by half a day’s ride, it’d be worth knowing where we stand.’
‘Why be impatient?’ Avallac’h pouted his lips slightly. ‘What can we gain by haste?’
‘Eternity.’ Eredin Bréacc Glas became serious. Something shone briefly in his green eyes. ‘But that’s your speciality, Avallac’h. Your speciality and your responsibility.’
‘You have spoken.’
‘Indeed I have. And now forgive me, but duty calls. I’ll leave you an escort, for safety. I advise you to overnight here, on this hill. If you set off tomorrow at daybreak, you’ll be in Tir ná Lia at the right time. Va faill. Aha, one more thing.’
He leaned over, broke and then tore off a twig of flowering myrtle. He brought it close to his face, then handed it to Ciri.
‘My apologies,’ he said briefly, ‘for the hasty words. Va faill, luned.’
He walked away quickly and a moment later the earth shuddered beneath hooves, as he rode off with the entire troop.
‘Just don’t tell me,’ she growled, ‘that I would have to . . . That it’s him . . . If it’s him, then I’ll never, ever.’
‘No,’ Avallac’h slowly corrected her. ‘It’s not him. Be calm.’
Ciri brought the myrtle up to her face. In order for him not to see the excitement and fascination that had seized her.
‘I am calm.’
*
The dry thistles and heather of the steppe were replaced by lush green grass and damp ferns. The marshy ground was yellow and violet with buttercups and lupins. Soon they saw a river, which although it was crystal clear had a brown tinge. It smelled of peat.
Avallac’h was playing various lively tunes on his pipes. Ciri, glum, was thinking intensely.
The Saga of the Witcher Page 169
