Verily, I say unto you, the age of the sword and the ax cometh: the
age of lupine blizzard. The Time of White Chill and of White Light cometh;
the Time of Madness and the Time of Spite; Tedd Deire dh - the Time of
Doom. The world shall perish amongst frosts, and shall be reborn together
with the new sun. It shall be reborn from the Elder Blood, from Hen
Ichaer, from the seed that hath been sown. The seed that shall not spring,
but shall burst into a flame.
Ess'tuath esse! So shall it be! Behold the omens! And I shall tell
you what omens these shall be - first the Earth shall drown in Aen Seidhe,
the Blood of Elves...
Aen Ithlinnespeath
a prophecy of Ithlinne Aegli aep Aevenien
Chapter One
The city was on fire.
The narrow streets leading towards the moat, towards the first
terrace were belching smoke and heat, flames were devouring the tightly
huddled thatched roofs of houses, their tongues licking at the walls of
the castle. In the west, a growing din could be heard from the direction
of the harbour gate - the sounds of fierce fight and the dull booming of a
battering ram reverberating in the walls.
The invaders took them unawares, having crashed through the barricade
defended by only few soldiers, burghers armed with halberds and the guild
crossbowmen. Black-clad horses cleared the obstacle as if flying spectres:
the bright sparkling blades wreaked havoc on the escaping defenders.
Ciri felt the knight suddenly set spurs to the horse. She heard him
scream. 'Hold on,' he shouted. 'Hold on!'
Other knights bearing the colours of Cintra overtook them and went
into combat with the Nilfgaarders at full speed. Ciri caught a momentary
glimpse of that with the corner of her eye - a wild whirl of azure-or and
sable cruppers amongst the clangour of armour, Thundering peals of swords
against shields, horses neighing...
Shouts. No, not shouts. Screams.
'Hold on!'
Fear. Every wobble, every tug, every jump of the horse painfully
pulls on the hands clinging on the rein. The legs in an agonising
contraction fail to find support, the eyes shed tears from the smoke. The
arm girdling her constricts her, it squeezes, painfully pressing on the
ribs. All around her shouts increase. What must be done to a man to make
him shout like that?
Fear. Benumbing, paralysing, suffocating fear.
And again clangour of iron, snorting of horses. The houses around are
dancing, the windows spitting fire are suddenly in a place previously
taken by a muddy street bestrewn with corpses and showered with the
abandoned belongings of the fugitives. The knight behind her back suddenly
runs into an uncanny spell of wheezing cough. Blood gushes on the hands
holding fast to the rein. Screams. Arrows whistle.
(...)
(...)
Most humbly am I notifying Your Lordship that a villaine of the name
of Nazaryan, having been sentenced for an assault on a royal sheriff,
confessed what follows: on the day of the June new moon, acting on the
orders of a certain Ryens, together with his accomplices: an elven cur
Schirr and Grits participated in the murder of the iurists, Codringher &
Fenn, in the city of Dorian. There, Grits being defunct, Shirr the Cur
murdered both the iurists and set fire to their house. The villaine
Nazaryan blames everything on the said Schirr , denies having committed
the murder himself, but that must be for the fear of Tyburn tree. What may
be of interest to Your Lordship, is that before committing the cryme on
the iurists, the said villaines, Schirr and Grits were tailing a hexer, a
certain Gerald of Rivia. And the aforementioned hexer had his secret
affairs with Codringher the iurist. What the matter was is not to the
knowing of the villaine Nazaryan, for neither the aforementioned Ryens nor
the elven cur Schirr let him into the confidence. But when a report on
these contacts was revealed to Ryens, he ordered to have the iurists
annihilated.
Further the villaine Nazaryan confessed that his accomplice Schirr
had stolen certain documents from the house of the iurists, which were
submitted to Ryens in Carreras, to the inn Under the Sly Fox. The tenor of
the conversation between Schirr and Ryens is not known to Nazaryan, but
the next day all the three felons made for Brugge and there, on the fourth
day after the new moon, they indulged themselves into the abduction of a
young maid from a house of red bricke, on the door of whose a brass pair
of scissors was nailed. Ryens intoxicated the maiden with a magic potion;
then the villaines of Schirr and Nazaryan in a great hurry took her in a
carriage to Verden, to the stronghold of Nastrog. And now cometh the pith
of the matter, which I address to Your Lordship's most careful attention:
the villaines handed the maid they had carried off to the Nilfgaard
commander of the stronghold, making him sure that the kidnapped was known
as Ciri of Cintra. The commander, as the villaine Nazaryan confessed, was
much content and excited with the discovery.
I am dispatching a courier to Your Lordship with this letter in
greatest discretion. An exact report from the audition I shall sent as
well, however, as soon as the scribe copies it anew. I am most humbly
requesting Your Lordship for instructions concerning the villaine
Nazaryan. Shall he be flogged so that he remembers the story in greater
detail, or shall he be hanged as your wish may be.
Yours obedient and respectful servant etc., etc.
With a sweeping gesture, Vascoigne signed the report, placed his seal
and called for a messenger.
Dijkstra was acquainted with the contents of the report the same
evening. Filippa Eilhart next midday.
By the time the horse bearing the hexer and Buttercup/Pink came into
view over the river bank overgrown with alders, Milva and Cahir had been
greatly worried. They had already heard the echoes of the battle: the
waters of the Ina carried the sounds far.
Helping the poet out of the saddle, Milva saw Geralt stiffen at the
sight of the Nilfgaarder. Still, she did not manage to say a word, and nor
did the hexer, as Buttercup was sadly moaning, swooning and fainting. They
laid him on the sand, placing a rolled cloak under his head. Milva was
just about to exchange the impromptu dressing of the wound when she felt
someone touch her arm and caught the familiar scent of wormwood, aniseed
and other herbs. Regis, as was his custom, turned up from nowhere, nobody
knew how or where from an.
'Hold on,' he said, reaching into his vast bag for medical
receptacles and instruments. 'Let me do it.'
When the itinerant barber-surgeon was tearing the dressing off the
wound, Buttercup moaned in pain.
'Take it easy,' said Regis, cleansing the wound. 'It's a trifle. A
little blood. Only a little blood... Your blood's got a nice aroma, poet.'
And then the hexer behaved in a way Milva couldn't expect; he came up
to his horse and drew a long Nilfgaard sword from the scabbard fastened
under the flanchard.
'Leave him,' he snarled, standing over the barber-surgeon.
'This blood's got a nice aroma,' repeated Regis paying no attention
to the hexer. 'I cannot get in it the smell of infection, which could have
lamentable results in a head wound. Neither the artery nor the vein has
been injured... And now it will sting a little.'
Buttercup moaned and breathed in with a force. The sword in the
hexer's hand glistened, and flashed with the light reflecting from the
river.
'I shall put on a few seams,' said Regis, still paying no attention
either to the hexer, or to his sword. 'Be brave, Buttercup.'
And Buttercup was brave.
'I'm about to finish,' Regis took to bandaging. "It will have healed
by the time you need your looks, as the common folk say. Your wound
becomes a poet, Buttercup. While you stride like a war hero, a noble
bandage round your forehead, the hearts of young maidens looking and you
will soften like wax. Indeed a poetical wound. Much unlike a shot in the
belly. Ripped liver, torn kidneys and intestine, with their matter and
faeces outpouring, outpouring, peritonitis. Well, it's ready. Now, Geralt,
I am at your service. '
When he got up the hexer placed his sword against his throat. With a
motion so swift that it escaped the eye.
'Back off,' he barked to Milva. Regis did not even wince though the
point of the sword was delicately resting on his throat. The bowmaiden
stopped her breath, seeing how the barber's eyes begin burning in the dark
with a strange feline light.
'Go on,' said Regis calmly, 'stab.'
'Geralt,' Buttercup, already quite conscious, stammered from the
ground. 'Have you gone totally crazy? He saved us from the gallows... He
dressed my noddle...'
'He saved the girl and us in the camp,' Milva reminded quietly.
'Silence! You do not know who he is.'
The barber did not move. And, to her dismay, Milva suddenly noticed
what she should have noticed much earlier.
Regis did not cast a shadow.
'Verily.' he said slowly. 'You do not know who I am. And the time has
come for you to know. My name is Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy. I
have lived in this world for four hundred twenty-eight years, counting it
your way, and six hundred forty two, following the way of the elves. I am
a descendant of shipwrecks, the hapless creatures marooned among you after
the cataclysm you call the Conjunction of the Spheres. I am believed, to
put it mildly, to be a monster. A bloodthirsty beast. And now I have
chanced upon a hexer, one who professionally exterminates the likes of me.
That is all. '
'And it's enough.' Geralt lowered his sword. 'Or too much. Be off
with you, Emiel Regis Something Somehow. Run for it.
'It cannot be,' jeered Regis. 'Will you let me go? Me, posing a
danger for humans? A Hexer should jump at any chance of exterminating such
dangers.'
'Beat it. Go away and make it fast.'
'Into what faraway lands am I to leave?' asked Regis slowly. 'After
all you are a hexer. You know about me. Once you are through with your
problem, when what you are to settle will have been settled, you will
presumably return to this area. You know my home, you know my hangouts,
you know my affairs. Will you hunt me?
'It is not out of question. If there is a prize. I am a hexer.'
'I wish you luck,' Regis buttoned his bag and unfolded his cloak.
"Farewell. Still, one more thing. How high would the prize for my head
have be to make you bother? How do you rate me?'
'Damn high.'
'You are tickling my vanity. Could you be more specific?'
'Fuck off, Regis.'
'This moment. But name my price before. Please.'
'For an ordinary vampire I charged an equivalent of a good riding
horse. And you are not ordinary.'
'How much?'
'I doubt,' the voice of the hexer was cold as ice. 'I doubt anyone
could afford it.'
'I understand and I thank you,' the vampire smiled, this time baring
the teeth. Seeing that Milva and Cahir backed and Buttercup suppressed a
cry of fear.
'Farewell. Good luck.'
'Fare thee well, Regis. Same to you.
Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy smoothened his cloak, cast it
around himself sweepingly and vanished. Just vanished.
* * *
'Now,' Geralt turned back, the unsheathed blade still in his hand,
'time for you, Nilfgaarder...'
'Nay,' interrupted Milva with anger. 'I'm weary of that all. Mount!
Let's get away from here! The river carries shouting and before we have
time to wink, we've got someone jumping down on our throats!'
'I shall not go in his company.'
'Then go alone!' shouted she wryly. 'Go your way! 'I'm weary of all
your whims, hexer! You've chased/forced Regis away, though he saved your
life, but that's your business. But Cahir saved mine, then he's a
companion to me! Yet be he your enemy, then turn thee back to Armery. On
your way! There're your friends and the loosely noose awaiting you!'
'Don't shout.'
'Then don't stand here as if planted. Help put Buttercup on the
gelding.'
'Did you save our horses? The Fry as well?'
'He did,' Milva pointed towards Cahir with her head. 'Come! Hit the
road!'
* * *
They forded the Ina. They were going along the right bank, along the
river, across shallow alluvial sands, and dried riverbeds, through
osieries, swamps and marshes resounding with the croak of frogs, quacking
of unseen mallards and green-winged teals. The day exploded with the red
sun, reflecting blindingly on the surfaces of little lakes, overgrown with
water lilies, and they turned towards the place where one of the numerous
distributaries of the Ina debouching into the Jaruga. Now they were
travelling through murky and sombre forests, where trees grew straight out
of mires green with duckweed.
Milva led the pack, riding side by side with the hexer, all the time
retelling him under her breath Cahir's story. Geralt was silent as the
grave, did not - even once - look back, or look at the Nilfgaarder, who
was riding at the back, helping the poet. Buttercup moaned a bit, swore a
bit and complained about the headache, but he was brave and did not hinder
the passage. Recovery of Pegasus and the lute strapped to the saddle
highly improved his mood.
At around midday they rode out again into the sunny levees behind
which stretched the vast plain over the Great Jaruga. They trekked through
the old river beds, waded through the fords and swamps. And they reached
an isle - a dry hummock amidst the marshes and bog grass spreading among
the numerous branches of the river. The isle was overgrown with bushes and
wicker, there were also a few trees growing on it: bare, withered and
white from cormorant guano.
Milva was the first to detect among the bulrush a boat which must
have been shoved there by the current. She was also the first to locate,
among the wickers, a perfect clearing for a rest.
They stopped and the hexer decided it was time for a talk with the
Nilfgaarder. Eye to Eye.
* * *
'I let you live on Thanedd. I pitied you, you disgrace. The worst
mistake I've ever made in my life. This morning I let go a vampire elder I
had at the point of my sword, who must have had more than one human life
weighted on his conscience. I should have killed him. But I did not think
about him, for there is one thought driving my mind: to tan the hide of
those who have wronged Ciri. I swore that those who have wronged her will
pay for that in blood.'
Cahir remained silent.
'Your discoveries and findings Milva told me about change nothing.
Only one thing is evident from those: you failed to kidnap Ciri from
Thanedd, though you tried hard. So now, you're crawling behind me, so that
I could lead you to her again. So that you could lay your filthy hands on
her again, for then your Emperor may save your life and may not send you
up the gibbet.'
Cahir remained silent. Geralt felt indisposed. terribly indisposed.
'She screamed by night because of you,' he barked. 'In her eyes, in the
eyes of that child you grew up into a horror. While you have always been
only a tool, only a miserable servant of your Emperor. I do not know what
you had done to her to become her nightmare. And it is worst that I do not
understand why, in spite of all that, I cannot kill you. I do not
understand what keeps me off doing that.'
'Maybe,' said Cahir silently, 'the fact that, against all appearance
and likelihood we have got something in common, you and me?'
'I wonder, what?'
'Just like you, I want to save Ciri. Just like you, I do not care
when someone feels surprised and dumbfounded by that. Just like you, I do
not intend to justify my reasons to anyone.'
'Is that all?'
'No.'
'Than I'm all ears.'
'Ciri,' the Nilfgaarder began slowly, 'is riding on horseback across
a dusty village. With six young people. Among those people, there is a
girl with short-cut hair. Ciri is dancing on table in a barn and she is
happy...'
'Milva told you my dreams.'
'No. she told me nothing. Don't you believe me?'
'No.'
Cahir's head sank and he dug in the sand with the heel of his boot.
'I forgot,' he said, 'that you cannot believe me, you cannot trust
me. I understand it. And yet you dreamt, just like me, yet another dream.
The dream you have never told to anyone. For I doubt that you would like
to tell it to anyone.
* * *
One may say that Servadio was simply lucky. He reached Loredo without
no intention of tracking a anyone in particular. But the village was
called Brigand Dig not without a cause. Loredo lay by the Footpad Trail,
and brigands and thieves from all the areas lying over the Upper Velda
swarmed here and met to sell or swap their spoils, make provisions, rest
and to enjoy themselves in their exclusive highwayman company. The village
had been burned a few times, though its few permanent and throngs of
temporary inhabitants got used to rebuilding it. They lived off the
bandits; and they lived well-off indeed. Yet, for infiltrators and snouts
in the like of Servadio, Loredo always offered a chance of coming by
tidings worth a few florins for the prefect.
Now Servadio hoped for more than a few, For the Rats were entering
the village.
Giselher with Spark and Kayleigh on both sides were at the head,
followed by Mistle and the new, grey-haired one, called Falka. Asse and
Reef were riding at the back leading some definitely stolen horses to the
market. They were tired and covered with dust, but they sat jauntily in
their saddles, and willingly answered the greetings of their companions
and friends staying in Loredo. Having jumped off their horses, they
accepted the beer proffered, and without a moment's delay they proceeded
to noisy bargaining and haggling with the tradesmen and fences. All but
Mistle and the new, grey-haired one, carrying her sword across the back.
They went among the stalls, which as usually filled all the fair. Loredo
had its fairs, when its bandit-trap offer was especially rich. Today was
just another of these days.
Servadio followed the girls cautiously. To earn he had to report, and
to report he had to eavesdrop.
The girls inspected colourful kerchiefs, corals, embroidered blouses,
caparisons and ornamented headstalls for horses. They were browsing
through the goods, buying nothing. Most of the time Mistle held her hand
on the arm of the stranger girl.
The snout carefully moved closer, pretending to scrutinise the thongs
and belts at the saddler's stall. The girls were talking, but quietly.
Unable to understand anything, he was still too afraid to approach closer.
They might notice and become suspicious.
There were sugar mice sold on one of the stalls. The girls came up to
it, Mistle bought two sticks wrapped up in snowy sweetness, and presented
one to the grey-haired. She nibbled at it delicately. A little white puff
stayed on her lip. Mistle removed it with an attentive, caressing
movement. The grey-haired one opened widely her emerald eyes, and smiled,
playfully cocking her head. Servadio felt a shudder, and iciness cascading
from the nape of his neck between his shoulder blades. He recalled the
rumours he had heard about the two bandits.
He intended to take a French leave, for it was evident that he would
overhear nothing and spy nothing. The girls were talking about nothing
important and close at hand, where the elders of the robber bands
gathered, Giselher, Kayleigh and the others were boisterously arguing,
bargaining and shouting, every now and then sticking their mugs under the
tap of the cask. They might provide Servadio with more information. One of
the Rats could just blunder and give him a hint - just half a hint about
the plans of the gang, or at least their route or goal. If he were able to
overhear and carry the message on time to prefect's soldiers or to agents
of Nilfgaard, taking a live interest in the Rats, the prize would be
clearly his. If, consequently, the prefect could - relying on his
information - waylay the Rats successfully, Servadio could count on a
liberal surge of cash. I'd buy me wife a sheepskin, he thought frenziedly.
Some pretties for the children, and some toys... And for himself...
The girls were walking along the stalls, licking and nibbling at
their sugar mice. Suddenly, Servadio realised that the girls were being
watched. Fingers were pointed at them, too. He knew the pointers: the
thieves and horse rustlers from the gang of Pinta a.k.a. Tailjerk.
The thieves exchanged a couple of remarks loud enough to be a
challenge and took to chuckling. Mistle's eyes went narrow, she put her
hand on the arm of the grey-haired one.
'Doves!' sneered one of Tailjerk's thieves, a brawny guy with a
handlebar moustache looking as if made of oakum. 'We'll see'em billing and
cooing soon!'
Servadio saw the grey-haired one shudder and Mistle's fingers clasp
her shoulder. The choir of thieves cackled with laughter. But the one with
oakum moustache was either too drunk or totally devoid of imagination.
'Ain't mabbe one of ya in need of a man?' and he came closer, making
obscene and unambiguous gestures. 'I believe the likes of you should be
well humped, and that way ya'll be cured of your perverse tastes Ho! I'm
talking to you, you...'.
He did not manage to touch her. The grey-haired one recoiled like an
attacking adder, a sword flashed and struck before the dropped sugar mouse
had time to touch the ground. The moustache owner swirled, gobbled like a
turkey, blood spewed from the slashed neck in a long stream. The girls
recoiled again, advanced in two dance-like steps, hewed at the man one
more time: a gush of gore reached the stalls, the carcass collapsed and
this instant the sand around it turned rusty. Someone yelled. Another
thief bent down to produce a knife out of his bootleg, but at the very
moment he fell down, having been hit by Giselher with the iron-covered
butt of his scourge.
'One deadman's enough!' growled the Chief Rat. 'The guy here's gotta
blame himself, he knew not who he was advancing'! Back off, Falka!'
It was only now that the grey-haired one lowered her sword. Giselher
raised his purse and shook it.
'According to the ordinance of our brotherhood I am paying for the
slain. Honestly, by weight: a pound of sterling silver for each pound of
this tacky cadaver. And that shall settle everything! I'm right, ain't I,
comrades? Hey Pinta, what'll ya say?'
Spark, Kayleigh, Reef and Asse stood behind their chief, their faces
sheer stone, hands on the hilts of their swords.
'Honestly,' the words came from one of the Tailjerk's band: a short
bandy-shanked man in a leather spencer. 'You're right, Giselher. That's
the end to the quarrel.
Servadio swallowed, trying to merge into the crowd. Suddenly he
realised his eagerness to busy-body by the Rats was not worth a penny, nor
did he feel like tailing the grey-haired one, who was also called Falka.
Suddenly he decided that the prize promised by the prefect was not at all
as high as he thought it to have been.
Falka calmly put her sword into the scabbard and looked around.
Servadio was stupefied, seeing her tiny face suddenly change and contort.
'My sugar mouse,' she wailed sorrowfully, looking at her kickshaw,
wallowing in the grubby sand. 'I let go my sugar mouse...' Mistle embraced
her. 'I'll buy you a new one.'
Translation by Piotr Krasnowolski
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