‘Dandelion! Come here, look!’
Broken, the plateau ended abruptly at a right angle and fell into the sea. Beneath the surface of the water, one could distinctly see large blocks of marble, sides covered with algae, molluscs, and sea anemones waving in their aquatic element like flowers in the wind.
‘What is it? It looks like a staircase.’
‘It is a staircase,’ Dandelion whispered, impressed. ‘Yes. It's a staircase that leads to an underwater city… Just like the legendary Ys that was submerged by the waves. Have you heard the legend of the city of the abyss: Ys-on-the-Water? I'll write a beautiful ballad that will make my rivals green with envy. I must see all of this… Look, there's a sort of mosaic… Something is engraved or molded. Writing? Move over.’
‘Dandelion! Careful of the depths! You'll slip…’ ‘Of course I won't! In any case, I'm already soaked. Look, it's shallow… On the first step, the water is barely waist-deep. And it's as wide as a ballroom. Oh, damn!’
Geralt jumped instantly into the water to grab Dandelion by the neck.
‘I slipped on this shit,’ Dandelion explained breathlessly, holding between his hands a slender and flat molded shell that was cobalt blue and covered in algae. ‘They're all over the stairs. The color is beautiful, don't you think? Hey, put it in your bag: mine is already full.’
‘Get out of here now!’ the witcher roared furiously. ‘Get back on the plateau, Dandelion. This isn't a game.’
‘Quiet. Did you hear something? What was that?’
Geralt had heard. The sound came from below, from the depths of the water. It had been dull and deep, but short, fleeting, barely perceptible, like the sound of a bell.
‘A bell, by the Beard…’ murmured Dandelion, moving up to the plateau. ‘I was right, Geralt, it's the bell of Ys under the water, the bell of the city of ghosts whose sound is muffled by the elemental water. It reminds us of damnation…’
‘Shut it, okay?’
The sound came again, closer.
‘… reminds us,’ the bard continued, squeezing the tails of his coat, ‘of our terrible fate. That bell sounds like a warning…’
The witcher stopped paying attention to Dandelion's voice to focus his sixth sense. He felt something, or rather the presence of something.
‘It's a warning…’ Dandelion stuck his tongue out slightly, a sign of artistic concentration. ‘A warning that… um… we do not forget… um… um… That's it, I have it!’
The heart of the bell is deaf, it is the song of death that you hear
O death, easier to face than to forget…
The water exploded next to the witcher. Dandelion screamed. From the foam arose a bulging-eyed monster about to strike Geralt with a sharp and toothed instrument, resembling a scythe. Geralt had seized his sword as soon as the water began to swell. Whirling, he cut the loose, scaled neck of the monster. The witcher turned just in time to see another creature rise out of the water under a strange helmet and wearing something resembling a copper breastplate covered in verdigris. With a broad stroke of his sword, Geralt struck the point of the short pike wielded against him and, using his momentum, struck the toothed jaws of the icthyosaur and leapt back toward the edge of the platform with a splash.
‘Run for it, Dandelion!’
‘Give me your hand!’
‘Run, damn it!’
The next creature appeared in the waves with a hiss, a bloody sword grasped in a rough green paw. The muscles of the witcher's back gave a twitch away from the edge of the shell-studded plateau and allowed him to take position. The fish-eyed creature, however, remained motionless. The same size as Geralt, the water came up to its waist, but an imposing crest bristled on its head and the gills were wide open, giving the impression that it was larger. The grimace drawn across its toothed face resembled nothing so much as a cruel smile.
Paying no attention to the two corpses that floated in the red water, the creature brandished its sword, holding the guardless hilt in both hands. Bristling its beautiful crest and its gills, it skillfully twirled its blade through the air. Gerald heard the hiss and the hum of the weapon.
The creature took a step forward, forming a wave that crashed against the witcher. Geralt's sword whirled and hissed in response, and stepped forward, in turn, raising the challenge.
The long nimble fingers of the fish-eyed creature shifted on the hilt of the sword. The creature lowered shoulders that were protected by copper and scales, and immersed itself up to its chest, concealing its weapon below the water. The witcher gripped his sword with both hands – the right under the guard and the left near the pommel – and raised it slightly to the side, above his right shoulder. He locked eyes with the monster, but the opalescent fish eyes only offered a teardrop-shaped iris, polished and cold like metal, expressing and betraying nothing. Not even the intention of an attack.
From the depths at the bottom of the staircase came the sound of the abyssal bells, more distinctly and increasingly close.
The fish-eyed monster surged forward and brandished its sword above the water. It attacked to the side and down, much more rapidly than expected. Geralt was lucky: he had predicted that the blow would come from the right. He parried with a downward movement, twisting his body and turning the sword so that the flat of the blade blocked the sword of his adversary. At that moment, everything depended on the speed with which each of them could move from a static block to an offensive stance with a shift of the fingers on the hilt of his sword. Each of the fighters, ready to deal the decisive blow, had their weight on the right foot. Geralt knew that they were equally fast.
But the fish-eyed creature had a longer reach.
The witcher dealt a sideways blow to the haunch and, executing a sharp turn to parry his opponent's blade, easily avoided the wild and desperate swing that the monster returned out of desperation. Without making a sound, it opened its fish-mouth before disappearing beneath the red-brown haze that was suspended in the water.
‘Give me your hand, quick!’ Dandelion yelled. ‘More are swimming toward us! I see them!’
Seizing the bard's right hand, the witcher came out of the water and climbed onto the stone plateau. Behind him, a huge wave appeared.
The first sign of the tide.
They quickly fled before the rising water. Geralt turned and saw a number of other underwater creatures emerge from the sea and join in pursuit, leaping agilely on their strong legs. Without a word, he quickened his pace.
Having difficulty with the water that reached his knees, Dandelion was panting. Suddenly he stumbled and fell. Holding himself up on his trembling hands, the troubadour floundered in the kelp. Seizing his belt, the witcher pulled him out of the foaming water.
‘Run!’ he cried. ‘I'll stop them!’
‘Geralt!’
‘Run, Dandelion! The water will close the gap and we won't be able to get away! Run for your life!’
Dandelion groaned before starting to run again. The witcher followed him, hoping that the monsters would give up the pursuit. Against all of them, he didn't have a chance.
The creatures caught up at the edge of the fault, because the water strongly favored swimming while the witcher, clinging to the slippery rocks, progressed with more and more difficulty through the churning water. Geralt stopped in the basin where Dandelion had found the skull.
He stopped and turned, trying to recover his composure.
The point of his sword pierced the first in the temple and ripped through the second, which was wielding a sort of hatchet. The third fled.
The witcher tried then to hurry up the ravine, but the swirl of an explosive wave filled the chasm with a crash, tearing at the rocks and pulling him down in its undertow. Colliding with one of the sea creatures, Geralt kicked at it. Something grabbed him by the legs and dragged him toward the depths. His shoulder struck against the rock; the witcher opened his eyes just in time to see the dark outline of his attackers and two quick flashes. He parried the first with his swor
d and instinctively blocked the second with his left hand. Geralt felt a shock and pain, then the aggressive irritation of salt. He kicked off from the bottom with his feet. Swimming to the surface, he drew the Sign with his fingers. The muffled explosion pierced his eardrums. If I get through this alive, he thought, striking the water with his hands and feet, if I make it through this, I'll go see Yen Vengerberg, try to do something else… If I get out alive…
He thought he heard the sound of a trumpet or a horn.
The wave that exploded anew into the shaft threw him face-down onto a large rock. Geralt distinctly heard the horn now, and the screams of Dandelion, reaching him from all directions at once. Snorting salt water from his nose, he looked around himself, pushing the wet hair from his face.
The witcher found himself at the point where they began their excursion. Flat on his stomach on the pebbles. All around, the surf was producing white foam.
Behind him, in the ravine that had in the meantime expanded into a bay, a gray dolphin danced on the waves. The young siren was riding on its back, her celadon hair windblown. Her breasts were magnificent.
‘White-haired one!’ she sang, signaling with a hand that held a long spiral shell. ‘Are you alive?’
‘I'm alive,’ the witcher said, astonished.
The foam around him was becoming pink. The salt on his rigid left shoulder stung intensely. The sleeves of his jacket had been shredded. Blood was flowing. I got out, he thought. I made it again. But no, I will never find her.
He saw Dandelion approaching at a run over the wet rocks.
‘I've stopped them,’ sang the siren before blowing again into her conch shell. ‘But not for long! Run and don't come back, white-haired one! The sea… It's not for you!’
‘I know,’ he shouted back. ‘I know. Thank you, Sh'eenaz!’
VII
‘Dandelion,’ asked Little-Eye, using her teeth to tear the end of the bandage while she pressed the knot against the witcher's wrist. ‘Can you explain where all those shells packed under the stair came from? Drouhard's wife is doing the housework and she doesn't know what to think.’
‘Shells?’ Dandelion sounded surprised. ‘What shells? I have no idea. Perhaps ducks dropped them on their migration home?’
Geralt hid his smile in the shadows. He remembered swearing his silence to Dandelion, who spent the whole afternoon opening the shells and digging out the slimy meat. He injured his finger and tore his shirt without finding a single pearl. No surprise there, since there was no chance that they were pearl mussels. The idea of making soup was immediately rejected after opening the first mussel, the appearance of which was so repulsive and the smell so strong that they had tears in their eyes.
Little-Eye finished Geralt's bandage and sat on the side of the tub. He thanked the girl, inspecting his skillfully bandaged hands. The wound was deep and long enough to reach his elbow; the witcher suffered with each movement. The wound had been temporarily dressed by the sea, but before they could return home, it had started to bleed again. Just before the girl's arrival, Geralt had applied to his forearm an elixir to promote blood clotting and numb the pain. Essi found him in the process of trying, with Dandelion's help, to stitch the wound with fishing line. Essi cursed at them and took over dressing the wounds. Meanwhile, Dandelion recounted the story of the battle, repeating several times that he reserved the exclusive rights to the ballad of the events. Essi, of course, inundated the witcher with questions that he could not answer. She reacted very badly to what she considered an effort to hide something. She became sullen and stopped asking questions.
‘Agloval already knows everything,’ she said. ‘You were seen going home, and Drouhard's wife went to tell everyone that she had seen blood on the stairs. Everyone rushed to the rocks in hopes of seeing corpses washed ashore by the waves. They're still looking, but I understand that they've found nothing.’
‘And they will find nothing,’ the witcher said. ‘I'll pay a visit to Agloval tomorrow. Ask him, if you can, to stop people from going near the Dragon's Teeth until further notice. But take care not to say a word about this staircase and Dandelion's fantasies about the city of Ys. The treasure-hunters would flock to it in droves and we would have many more corpses on our hands…’
‘I'm not a gossip.’ Essi pouted, forcefully pushing the circlet back on her forehead. ‘If I ask you something, it's not so that I can run and disclose everything like a washerwoman.’
‘I'm sorry.’
‘I have to go out,’ Dandelion informed them. ‘I have an appointment with Akeretta. Geralt, I'm taking your jacket, because mine is still dirty and wet.’
‘Everything is wet here,’ Little-Eye remarked mockingly, giving the pile of clothes on the ground a vengeful kick with her boot. ‘How could you? We need to hang the clothesline, dry it properly… You're terrible.’
‘It will dry out well enough on its own.’
Dandelion extracted the witcher's wet jacket and admired the silver studs riveted to the sleeves.
‘Stop talking nonsense! And that, what is that? Oh no! The bag is still filled with mud and seaweed! And what is that? Ugh!’
Geralt and Dandelion looked silently at the cobalt blue shell that Essi held in both hands. They had forgotten its existence. The mold that coated it stank horribly.
‘It's a gift,’ said the troubadour, backing toward the door. ‘Tomorrow, it's your birthday, isn't it, Doll? Well, it's your present.’
‘It?’
‘It's beautiful, eh?’ Dandelion sniffed before adding quickly: ‘On behalf of Geralt. He's the one who chose it. Oh… It's getting late. Farewell…’
Little-Eye was silent for a moment after Dandelion left. The witcher looked at the foul-smelling shell, blushing with shame at the troubadour's attitude and his own.
‘You remembered my birthday?’ Essi asked, formulating each world carefully and holding the shell as far from herself as possible. ‘Really?’
‘Give me that,’ he replied sharply. Geralt got up from his mattress, protecting his bandaged hand. ‘I beg your pardon for that idiot…’
‘But no,’ she protested, seizing the small knife that was hanging from her belt. ‘It's a very beautiful shell that I want to keep as a souvenir. I just need to clean it and get rid of… whatever it contains. I'll throw it out the window for the cats.’
Something struck the floor, bouncing. Geralt widened his eyes and saw the thing in front of Essi.
It was a pearl. A perfectly opalescent and polished azure-blue pearl, big as a swollen pea.
‘By the gods…’ Little-Eye saw it in turn. ‘Geralt… a pearl!’
‘A pearl,’ he repeated, laughing. ‘You will still get a present, Essi. I'm glad.’
‘Geralt, I can't accept it. This pearl is worth at least…’
‘It's yours,’ he interrupted. ‘Even if he is an idiot, Dandelion really thought about your birthday. He kept saying that he wanted to please you. And so, fate has had its way.’
‘And you, Geralt?’
‘Me?’
‘Do you also want to please me? This pearl is so beautiful… It must be very valuable… You don't regret it?’
‘I'm glad that you're pleased. And if I regret anything… it's that there is only one. And…’
‘Yes?’
‘And that I haven't known you as long as Dandelion. I didn't know the date of your birthday. I wish I could give you gifts and make you happy… and call you Doll.’
She threw herself violently on his neck. Geralt had anticipated the movement, turning his head for a cool kiss on the cheek. He hugged her gently but with some reservation. He felt the girl's body stiffen and slowly withdraw, but no farther than the length of the arms she was always resting on her shoulders. He knew what she wanted, but he did not meet her expectations: he was not attracted to her.
Essi released him then and turned toward the dirty window, which was ajar.
‘Of course,’ she said abruptly. ‘You hardly know me. I forgot…’
/>
‘Essi,’ he replied after a moment of silence. ‘I…’
‘I hardly know you either,’ she exploded, interrupting him. ‘So what? I love you. I can't do anything about that. Not a thing.’
‘Essi!’
‘Yes, I love you, Geralt. It doesn't matter to me what you think. I loved you from the moment I saw you in the wedding hall.’
The poet bowed her head in silence.
She stood right before him; Geralt was sorry that she was not the fish-eyed creature hiding its sword under the water; with it, at least, he had a fighting chance.
‘You have nothing to say,’ she said. ‘Nothing, not a word.’
I'm tired, he thought, and terribly weak. I need to sit down; my vision is foggy; I've lost some blood; and I haven't eaten anything… I need to sit down. Damn bedroom… May it burn to the ground in a thunderstorm. No furniture; if there were at least two stupid chairs and a table we could share and converse easily and hold hands in safety. I am condemned to sit on a mattress and ask her to do the same. Nothing is more dangerous than a mattress stuffed with straw into which one sinks and has his movements too restricted to dodge…
‘Sit next to me, Essi.’
The girl joined him on the mattress, hesitantly and with some delay, far from him. Too far.