“True.” Geralt smiled. “But, Dandilion, I could never resist the temptation of having a look at something that doesn't exist.”
III
“One thing is certain,” muttered the witcher, sweeping his eyes over the tangled jungle of hemp spreading before them. “This devil is not stupid.”
“How did you deduce that?” Dandilion was curious. “From the fact that he's sitting in an impenetrable thicket? Any old hare has enough brains for that.”
“It's a question of the special qualities of hemp. A field of this size emits a strong aura against magic. Most spells will be useless here. And there, look, do you see those poles? Those are hops—their pollen has the same effect. It's not mere chance. The rascal senses the aura and knows he's safe here.”
Dandilion coughed and adjusted his breeches. “I’m curious.” He scratched his forehead beneath his hat. “How are you going to go about it, Geralt? I’ve never seen you work. I take it you know a thing or two about catching devils—I’m trying to recall some ballads. There was one about a devil and a woman. Rude, but amusing. The woman, you see—”
“Spare me, Dandilion.”
“As you wish. I only wanted to be helpful, that's all. And you shouldn't scorn ancient songs. There's wisdom in them, accumulated over generations. There's a ballad about a farmhand called Slow, who—”
“Stop wittering. We have to earn our board and lodging.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Rummage around a bit in the hemp.”
“That's original,” snorted the troubadour. “Though not too refined.”
“And you, how would you go about it?”
“Intelligently.” Dandilion sniffed. “Craftily. With a hounding, for example. I’d chase the devil out of the thicket, chase him on horseback, in the open field, and lasso him. What do you think of that?”
“Interesting. Who knows, maybe it could be done, if you took part—because at least two of us are needed for an enterprise like that. But we're not going hunting yet. I want to find out what this thing is, this devil. That's why I’m going to rummage about in the hemp.”
“Hey!” The bard had only just noticed. “You haven't brought your sword!”
“What for? I know some ballads about devils, too. Neither the woman nor Slow the farmhand used a sword.”
“Hmm…” Dandilion looked around. “Do we have to squeeze through the very middle of this thicket?”
“You don't have to. You can go back to the village and wait for me.”
“Oh, no,” protested the poet. “And miss a chance like this? I want to see a devil too, see if he's as terrible as they claim. I was asking if we have to force our way through the hemp when there's a path.”
“Quite right.” Geralt shaded his eyes with his hand. “There is a path. So let's use it.”
“And what if it's the devil's path?”
“All the better. We won't have to walk too far.”
“Do you know, Geralt,” babbled the bard, following the witcher along the narrow, uneven path among the hemp. “I always thought the devil was just a metaphor invented for cursing: ‘go to the devil’, ‘to the devil with it’, ‘may the devil.’ Lowlanders say: ‘The devils are bringing us guests,’ while dwarves have ‘Duvvel hoael’ when they get something wrong, and call poor-blooded livestock devvelsheyss. And in the Old Language, there's a saying, ‘A d'yaebl aep arse,’ which means—”
“I know what it means. You're babbling, Dandilion.”
Dandilion stopped talking, took off the hat decorated with a heron's feather, fanned himself with it and wiped his sweaty brow. The humid, stifling heat, intensified by the smell of grass and weeds in blossom, dominated the thicket. The path curved a little and, just beyond the bend, ended in a small clearing which had been stamped in the weeds.
“Look, Dandilion.”
In the very center of the clearing lay a large, flat stone, and on it stood several clay bowls. An almost burnt-out tallow candle was set among the bowls. Geralt saw some grains of corn and broad beans among the unrecognizable pips and seeds stuck in the flakes of melted fat.
“As I suspected,” he muttered. “They're bringing him offerings.”
“That's just it,” said the poet, indicating the candle. “And they burn a tallow candle for the devil. But they're feeding him seeds, I see, as if he were a finch. Plague, what a bloody pigsty. Everything here is all sticky with honey and birch tar. What—“The bard's next words were drowned by a loud, sinister bleating. Something rustled and stamped in the hemp; then the strangest creature Geralt had ever seen emerged from the thicket.
The creature was about half a rod tall with bulging eyes and a goat's horns and beard. The mouth, a soft, busy slit, also brought a chewing goat to mind. Its nether regions were covered with long, thick, dark-red hair right down to the cleft hooves. The devil had a long tail ending in a brush-like tassel which wagged energetically.
“Uk! Uk!” barked the monster, stamping his hooves. “What do you want here? Leave! Leave or I’ll ram you down. Uk! Uk!”
“Has anyone ever kicked your arse, little goat?” Dandilion couldn't stop himself.
“Uk! Uk! Beeeeee!” bleated the goathorn in agreement, or denial, or simply bleating for the sake of it.
“Shut up, Dandilion,” growled the witcher. “Not a word.”
“Blebleblebeeeee!” The creature gurgled furiously, his lips parting wide to expose yellow horse-like teeth. “Uk! Uk! Bleubeeeeubleuuuuubleeeeeeee!”
“Most certainly”—nodded Dandilion—“you can take the barrel-organ and bell when you go home—”
“Stop it, damn you,” hissed Geralt. “Keep your stupid jokes to yourself—”
“Jokes!” roared the goathorn loudly and leapt up. “Jokes? New jokers have come, have they? They've brought iron balls, have they? I’ll give you iron balls, you scoundrels, you. Uk! Uk! Uk! You want to joke, do you? Here are some jokes for you! Here are your balls!”
The creature sprang up and gave a sudden swipe with his hand. Dandilion howled and sat down hard on the path, clasping his forehead. The creature bleated and aimed again. Something whizzed past Geralt's ear.
“Here are your balls! Brrreee!”
An iron ball, an inch in diameter, thwacked the witcher in the shoulder and the next hit Dandilion in the knee. The poet cursed foully and scrambled away, Geralt running after him as balls whizzed above his head.
“Uk! Uk!” screamed the goathorn, leaping up and down. “I’ll give you balls! You shitty jokers!”
Another ball whizzed through the air. Dandilion cursed even more foully as he grabbed the back of his head. Geralt threw himself to one side, among the hemp, but didn't avoid the ball that hit him in the shoulder. The goathorn's aim was true and he appeared to have an endless supply of balls. The witcher, stumbling through the thicket, heard yet another triumphant bleat from the victorious goathorn, followed by the whistle of a flying ball, a curse and the patter of Dandilion's feet scurrying away along the path.
And then silence fell.
IV
“Well, well, Geralt.” Dandilion held a horseshoe he'd cooled in a bucket to his forehead. “That's not what I expected. A horned freak with a goatee like a shaggy billy goat, and he chased you away like some upstart. And I got it in the head. Look at that bump!”
“That's the sixth time you've shown it to me. And it's no more interesting now than it was the first time.”
“How charming. And I thought I’d be safe with you!”
“I didn't ask you to traipse after me in the hemp, and I did ask you to keep that foul tongue of yours quiet. You didn't listen, so now you can suffer. In silence, please, because they're just coming.”
Nettly and Dhun walked into the dayroom. Behind them hobbled a gray-haired old woman, twisted as a pretzel, led by a fair-haired and painfully thin teenage girl.
“Honorable Dhun, honorable Nettly,” the witcher began without introduction. “I asked you, before I left, whether you yoursel
ves had already tried to do something with that devil of yours. You told me you hadn't *done anything. I’ve grounds to think otherwise. I await your explanation.”
The villagers murmured among themselves, after which Dhun coughed into his fist and took a step forward. “Ye be right, sir. Asking forgiveness. We lied—it be guilt devours us. We wanted to outwit the deovel ourselves, for him to go away—”
“By what means?”
“Here in this Valley,” said Dhun slowly, “there be monsters in the past. Flying dragons, earth myriapodans, were-brawls, ghosts, gigantous spiders and various vipers. And all the times we be searching in our great booke for a way to deal with all that vermin.”
“What great book?”
“Show the booke, old woman. Booke, I say. The great booke! I’ll be on the boil in a minute! Deaf as a doorknob, she be! Lille, tell the old woman to show the booke!”
The girl tore the huge book from the taloned fingers of the old woman and handed it to the witcher.
“In this here great booke,” continued Dhun, “which be in our family clan for time immemorial, be ways to deal with every monster, spell and wonder in the world that has been, is, or will be.”
Geralt turned the heavy, thick, greasy, dust-encrusted volume in his hands. The girl was still standing in front of him, wringing her apron in her hands. She was older than he had initially thought—her delicate figure had deceived him, so different from the robust build of the other girls in the village.
He lay the book down on the table and turned its heavy wooden cover. “Take a look at this, Dandilion.”
“The first Runes,” the bard worked out, peering over his shoulder, the horseshoe still pressed to his forehead. “The writing used before the modern alphabet. Still based on elfin runes and dwarves’ ideograms. A funny sentence construction, but that's how they spoke then. Interesting etchings and illuminations. It's not often you get to see something like this, Geralt, and if you do, it's in libraries belonging to temples and not villages at the edge of the world. By all the gods, where did you get that from, dear peasants? Surely you're not going to try to convince me that you can read this? Woman? Can you read the First Runes? Can you read any runes?”
“Whaaaat?”
The fair-haired girl moved closer to the woman and whispered something into her ear.
“Read?” The crony revealed her toothless gums in a smile. “Me? No, sweetheart. ‘Tis a skill I’ve ne'er mastered.”
“Explain to me,” said Geralt coldly, turning to Dhun and Nettly, “how do you use the book if you can't read runes?”
“Always the oldest woman knows what stands written in the booke,” said Dhun gloomily. “And what she knows, she teaches some young one, when ‘tis time for her to turn to earth. Heed ye, yerselves, how ‘tis time for our old woman. So our old woman has taken Lille in and she be teaching her. But for now, ‘tis the old woman knows best.”
“The old witch and the young witch,” muttered Dandilion.
“The old woman knows the whole book by heart?” Geralt asked with disbelief. “Is that right, Grandma?”
“Nae the whole, oh nae,” answered the woman, again through Lille, “only what stands written by the picture.”
“Ah.” Geralt opened the book at random. The picture on the torn page depicted a dappled pig with horns in the shape of a lyre. “Well then—what's written here?”
The old woman smacked her lips, took a careful look at the etching, then shut her eyes.
“The horned aurochs or Taurus,” she recited, “erroneously called bison by ignoramuses. It hath horns and useth them to ram—”
“Enough. Very good, indeed.” The witcher turned several sticky pages. “And here?”
“Cloud sprites and wind sprites be varied. Some rain pour, some wind roar, and others hurl their thunder. Harvests to protect from them, takest thou a knife of iron, new, of a mouse's droppings a half ounce, of a gray heron's fat—”
“Good, well done. Hmm…And here? What's this?”
The etching showed a disheveled monstrosity with enormous eyes and even larger teeth, riding a horse. In its right hand, the monstrous being wielded a substantial sword, in its left, a bag of money.
“A witchman,” mumbled the woman. “Called by some a witcher. To summon him is most dangerous, albeit one must; for when against the monster and the vermin there be no aid, the witchman can contrive. But careful one must be—”
“Enough,” muttered Geralt. “Enough, Grandma. Thank you.”
“No, no,” protested Dandilion with a malicious smile. “How does it go on? What a greatly interesting book! Go on, Granny, go on.”
“Eeee…But careful one must be to touch not the witchman, for thus the mange can one acquire. And lasses do from him hide away, for lustful the witchman is above all measure—”
“Quite correct, spot on,” laughed the poet, and Lille, so it seemed to Geralt, smiled almost imperceptibly.
“—though the witchman greatly covetous and greedy for gold be,” mumbled the old woman, half-closing her eyes, “giveth ye not such a one more than: for a drowner, one silver penny or three halves; for a werecat, silver pennies two; for a plumard, silver pennies—”
“Those were the days,” muttered the witcher. “Thank you, Grandma. And now show us where it speaks of the devil and what the book says about devils. This time ‘tis grateful I’d be to heareth more, for to learn the ways and meanes ye did use to deal with him most curious am I.”
“Careful, Geralt,” chuckled Dandilion. “You're starting to fall into their jargon. It's an infectious mannerism.”
The woman, controlling her shaking hands with difficulty, turned several pages. The witcher and the poet leaned over the table. The etching did, in effect, show the ball-thrower: horned, hairy, tailed and smiling maliciously.
“The deovel,” recited the woman. “Also called ‘willower’ or ‘sylvan.’ For livestock and domestic fowl, a tiresome and great pest is he. Be it your will to chase him from your hamlet, takest thou—”
“Well, well,” murmured Dandilion.
“—takest thou of nuts, one fistful,” continued the woman, running her finger along the parchment. “Next, takest thou of iron balls a second fistful. Of honey an utricle, of birch tar a second. Of gray soap a firkin; of soft cheese another. There where the deovel dwelleth, goest thou when ‘tis night. Commenceth then to eat the nuts. Anon, the deovel who hath great greed, will hasten and ask if they are tasty indeed. Givest to him then the balls of iron—”
“Damn you,” murmured Dandilion. “Pox take—”
“Quiet,” said Geralt. “Well, Grandma. Go on.”
“…having broken his teeth he will be attentive as thou eatest the honey. Of said honey will he himself desire. Givest him of birch tar, then yourself eateth soft cheese. Soon, hearest thou, will the deovel grumbleth and tumbleth, but makest of it as naught. Yet if the deovel desireth soft cheese, givest him soap. For soap the deovel withstandeth not—”
“You got to the soap?” interrupted Geralt with a stony expression, turning toward Dhun and Nettly.
“In no way,” groaned Nettly. “If only we had got to the balls. But he gave us what for when he bit a ball—”
“And who told you to give him so many?” Dandilion was enraged. “It stands written in the book, one fistful to take. Yet ye gaveth of balls a sackful! Ye furnished him with ammunition for two years, the fools ye be!”
“Careful.” The witcher smiled. “You're starting to fall into their jargon. It's infectious.”
“Thank you.”
Geralt suddenly raised his head and looked into the eyes of the girl standing by the woman. Lille didn't lower her eyes. They were pale and wildly blue. “Why are you bringing the devil offerings in the form of grain?” he asked sharply. “After all, it's obvious that he's a typical herbivore.”
Lille didn't answer.
“I asked you a question, girl. Don't be frightened, you won't get the mange by talking to me.”
??
?Don't ask her anything, sir,” said Nettly, with obvious unease in his voice. “Lille…She…She be strange. She won't answer you; don't force her.”
Geralt kept looking into Lille's eyes, and Lille still met his gaze. He felt a shiver run down his back and creep along his shoulders.
“Why didn't you attack the devil with stancheons and pitchforks.” He raised his voice. “Why didn't you set a trap for him? If you'd wanted to, his goat's head would already be spiked on a pole to frighten crows away. You warned me not to kill him. Why? You forbade it, didn't you, Lille?”
Dhun got up from the bench. His head almost touched the beams.
“Leave, lass,” he growled. “Take the old woman and leave.”
“Who is she, honorable Dhun?” the witcher demanded as the door closed behind Lille and the woman. “Who is that girl? Why does she enjoy more respect from you than that bloody book?”
“It be nae yer business.” Dhun looked at him, and there was no friendliness in his eyes. “Persecute wise women in your own town, burn stakes in yer own land. There has been none of it here, nor will there be.”
“You didn't understand me,” said the witcher coldly.
“Because I did nae try,” growled Dhun.
“Pnoticed,” Geralt said through his teeth, making no effort to be cordial. “But be so gracious as to understand something, honorable Dhun. We have no agreement. I haven't committed myself to you in any way. You have no reason to believe that you've bought yourself a witcher who, for a silver penny or three halves, will do what you can't do yourselves. Or don't want to do. Or aren't allowed to. No, honorable Dhun. You have not bought yourself a witcher yet, and I don't think you'll succeed in doing so. Not with your reluctance to understand.”
Dhun remained silent, measuring Geralt with a gloomy stare.
Nettly cleared his throat and wriggled on the bench, shuffling his rag sandals on the dirt floor, then suddenly straightened up.
“Witcher, sir,” he said. “Do nae be enraged. We will tell ye, what and how. Dhun?”