The roar she gave was louder than all the previous ones. Even the plaster crumbled from the ceiling.
The striga sprang up, shaking with uncontrolled anger and lust for murder. Geralt waited. He drew his sword, traced circles with it in the air, and skirted the striga, taking care that the movement of his sword was not in rhythm with his steps. The striga did not jump. She approached slowly, following the bright streak of the blade with her eyes.
Geralt stopped abruptly, froze with his sword raised. The striga, disconcerted, also stopped. The witcher traced a slow semi-circle with the blade, took a step in the striga's direction. Then another. Then he leapt, feigning a whirling movement with his sword above her head.
The striga curled up, retreated in a zigzag. Geralt was close again, the blade shimmering in his hand. His eyes lit up with an ominous glow, a hoarse roar tore through his clenched teeth. The striga backed away, pushed by the power of concentrated hatred, anger and violence which emanated from the attacking man and struck her in waves, penetrating her mind and body. Terrified and pained by feelings unknown to her she let out a thin, shaking squeak, turned on the spot and ran off in a desperate, crazy escape down the dark tangle of the palace's corridors.
Geralt stood quivering in the middle of the hall. Alone. It had taken a long time, he thought, before this dance on the edge of an abyss, this mad, macabre ballet of a fight, had achieved the desired effect, allowed him to psychically become one with his opponent, to reach the underlayers of concentrated will which permeated the striga. The evil, twisted will from which the striga was born. The witcher shivered at the memory of taking on that evil to redirect it, as if in a mirror, against the monster. Never before had he come across such a concentration of hatred and murderous frenzy, not even from basilisks, who enjoyed a ferocious reputation for it.
All the better, he thought as he walked toward the crypt entrance and the blackness that spread from it like an enormous puddle. All the better, all the stronger, was the blow received by the striga. This would give him a little more time until the beast recovered from the shock. The witcher doubted whether he could repeat such an effort. The elixirs were weakening and it was still a long time until dawn. But the striga could not return to her crypt before first light, or all his trouble would come to nothing.
He went down the stairs. The crypt was not large; there was room for three stone sarcophagi. The slab covering the first was half pushed aside. Geralt pulled the third vial from beneath his tunic, quickly drank its contents, climbed into the tomb and stretched out in it. As he had expected, it was a double tomb—for mother and daughter.
He had only just pulled the cover closed when he heard the striga's roar again. He lay on his back next to Adda's mummified corpse and traced the Sign of Yrden on the inside of the slab. He laid his sword on his chest, stood a tiny hourglass filled with phosphorescent sand next to it and crossed his arms. He no longer heard the striga's screams as she searched the palace. He had gradually stopped hearing anything as the true-love and celandine began to work.
VII
When Geralt opened his eyes, the sand had passed through the hourglass, which meant his sleep had been even longer than he had intended. He pricked up his ears, and heard nothing. His senses were now functioning normally.
He took hold of his sword and, murmuring an incantation, ran his hand across the lid of the sarcophagus. He then moved the slab slightly, a couple of inches.
Silence.
He pushed the lid further, sat, holding his weapon at the ready, and lifted his head above the tomb. The crypt was dark but the witcher knew that outside dawn was breaking. He struck a light, lit a miniature lamp and lifted it, throwing strange shadows across the walls of the crypt.
It was empty.
He scrambled from the sarcophagus, aching, numb, cold. And then he saw her. She was lying on her back next to the tomb, naked and unconscious.
She was rather ugly. Slim with small pointed breasts, and dirty. Her hair—flaxen-red—reached almost to her waist. Standing the lamp on the slab, he knelt beside her and leaned over. Her lips were pale and her face was bloody where he had hit her cheekbone. Geralt removed his gloves, put his sword aside and, without any fuss, drew up her top lip with his finger. Her teeth were normal. He reached for her hand, which was buried in her tangled hair. Before he took it he saw her open eyes. Too late.
She swiped him across the neck with her talons, cutting him deeply. Blood splashed onto her face. She howled, striking him in the eyes with her other hand. He fell on her, grabbing her by the wrists, nailing her to the floor. She gnashed her teeth—which were now too short—in front of his face. He butted her in the face with his forehead and pinned her down harder. She had lost her former strength; she could only writhe beneath him, howling, spitting out blood—his blood—which was pouring over her mouth. His blood was draining away quickly. There was no time. The witcher cursed and bit her hard on the neck, just below the ear. He dug his teeth in and clenched them until her inhuman howling became a thin, despairing scream and then a choking sob—the cry of a hurt fourteen-year-old girl.
He let her go when she stopped moving, got to his knees, tore a piece of canvas from his sleeve pocket and pressed it to his neck. He felt for his sword, held the blade to the unconscious girl's throat, and leaned over her hand. The nails were dirty, broken, bloodied but…normal. Completely normal.
The witcher got up with difficulty. The sticky-wet grayness of early morning was flooding in through the crypt's entrance. He made a move toward the stairs but staggered and sat down heavily on the floor. Blood was pouring through the drenched canvas onto his hands, running down his sleeve. He unfastened his tunic, slit his shirt, tore and ripped rags from it and tied them around his neck, knowing that he didn't have much time, that he would soon faint…
He succeeded. And fainted.
In Wyzim, beyond the lake, a cock, ruffling his feathers in the cold damp, crowed hoarsely for the third time.
VIII
He saw the whitened walls and beamed ceiling of the small chamber above the guardroom. He moved his head, grimacing with pain, and moaned. His neck was bandaged, thickly, thoroughly, professionally.
“Lie still, witcher,” said Velerad. “Lie, do not move.”
“My…sword…”
“Yes, yes. Of course, what is most important is your witcher's silver sword. It's here, don't worry. Both the sword and your little trunk. And the three thousand orens. Yes, yes, don't utter a word. It is I who am an old fool and you the wise witcher. Foltest has been repeating it over and over for the last two days.”
“Two—”
“Oh yes, two. She slit your neck open quite thoroughly. One could see everything you have inside there. You lost a great deal of blood. Fortunately we hurried to the palace straight after the third crowing of the cock. Nobody slept in Wyzim that night. It was impossible; you made a terrible noise. Does my talking tire you?”
“The prin…cess?”
“The princess is like a princess. Thin. And somewhat dull-witted. She weeps incessantly and wets her bed. But Foltest says this will change. I don't think it'll change for the worse, do you, Geralt?”
The witcher closed his eyes.
“Good. I take my leave now. Rest.” Velerad got up. “Geralt? Before I go, tell me: why did you try to bite her to death? Eh? Geralt?”
The witcher was asleep.
THE VOICE OF REASON
2
I
“Geralt.”
He raised his head, torn from sleep. The sun was already high and forced blinding golden rays through the shutters, penetrating the chamber with tentacles of light. The witcher shaded his eyes with his hand in an unnecessary, instinctive reflex which he had never managed to shake off—all he needed to do, after all, was narrow his pupils into vertical slits.
“It's late,” said Nenneke, opening the shutters. “You've slept in. Off with you, Iola.”
The girl sat up suddenly and leaned out of bed to take her
mantle from the floor. Geralt felt a trickle of cool saliva on his shoulder, where her lips had been a moment ago.
“Wait…” he said hesitantly. She looked at him, quickly turned away.
She had changed. There was nothing of the water nymph in her anymore, nothing of the luminous, chamomile-scented apparition she had been at dawn. Her eyes were blue, not black. And she had freckles—on her nose, her neckline, her shoulders. They weren't unattractive; they suited her complexion and reddish hair. But he hadn't seen them at dawn, when she had been his dream. With shame he realized he felt resentment toward her, resentment that she hadn't remained a dream, and that he would never forgive himself for it.
“Wait,” he repeated. “Iola…I wanted—”
“Don't speak to her, Geralt,” said Nenneke. “She won't answer you anyway. Off with you, Iola.”
Wrapped in her mantle, the girl pattered toward the door, her bare feet slapping the floor—troubled, flushed, awkward. No longer reminding him, in any way, of—
Yennefer.
“Nenneke,” he said, reaching for his shirt. “I hope you're not annoyed that—You won't punish her, will you?”
“Fool,” the priestess snorted. “You've forgotten where you are. This is neither a hermitage nor a convent. It's Melitele's temple. Our goddess doesn't forbid our priestesses anything. Almost.”
“You forbade me to talk to her.”
“I didn't forbid you. But I know it's pointless. Iola doesn't speak.”
“What?”
“She doesn't speak. She's taken a vow. It's a sort of sacrifice through which…Oh, what's the point of explaining; you wouldn't understand anyway. You wouldn't even try to understand. I know your views on religion. No, don't get dressed yet. I want to check your neck.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and skillfully unwound the linen bandages wrapped thickly around the witcher's neck. He grimaced in pain.
As soon as he had arrived in Ellander, Nenneke had removed the painfully thick stitches of shoemaker's twine with which they had stitched him in Wyzim, opened the wound and dressed it again. The results were clear: he had arrived at the temple almost cured, if perhaps a little stiff. Now he was sick again, and in pain. But he didn't protest. He'd known the priestess for years and knew how great was her knowledge of healing, how rich and comprehensive her pharmacy was. A course of treatment at Melitele's temple could do nothing but good.
Nenneke felt the wound, washed it and began to curse. He already knew this routine by heart. She had started on the very first day, and had never failed to moan when she saw the marks left by the princess of Wyzim's talons.
“It's terrible! To let yourself be slashed like this by an ordinary striga. Muscles, tendons—she only just missed your carotid artery! Great Melitele! Geralt, what's happening to you? How did she get so close to you? What did you want with her? To mount her?”
He didn't answer, and smiled faintly.
“Don't grin like an idiot.” The priestess rose and took a bag of dressings from the chest of drawers. Despite her weight and low stature, she moved swiftly and gracefully. “There's nothing funny about it. You're losing your reflexes, Geralt.”
“You're exaggerating.”
“I’m not exaggerating at all.” Nenneke spread a greenish mush smelling sharply of eucalyptus over the wound. “You shouldn't have allowed yourself to get wounded, but you did, and very seriously at that. Fatally even. And even with your exceptional powers of regeneration it'll be months before your neck is fully mobile again. I warn you, don't test your strength by fighting an agile opponent during that time.”
“Thank you for the warning. Perhaps you could give me some advice, too: how am I supposed to live in the meantime? Rally a few girls, buy a cart and organize a traveling house of ill-repute?”
Nenneke shrugged, bandaging his neck with quick, deft movements. “Am I supposed to give you advice and teach you how to live? Am I your mother or something? Right, that's done. You can get dressed. Breakfast's waiting for you in the refectory. Hurry up or you'll have to make it yourself. I don't intend to keep the girls in the kitchen to midday.”
“Where will I find you later? In the sanctuary?”
“No.” Nenneke got up. “Not in the sanctuary. You're a welcome guest here, witcher, but don't hang around in the sanctuary. Go for a walk, and I’ll find you myself.”
“Fine.”
II
Geralt strolled—for the fourth time—along the poplar alley which led from the gate to the dwellings by the sanctuary and main temple block, which merged into the sheer rock. After brief consideration he decided against returning to shelter, and turned toward the gardens and outbuildings. Umpteen priestesses, clad in gray working garments, were toiling away, weeding the beds and feeding the birds in the henhouses. The majority of them were young or very young, virtually children. Some greeted him with a nod or a smile in passing. He answered their greetings but didn't recognize any of them. Although he often visited the temple—once or even twice a year—he never saw more than three or four faces he knew. The girls came and went—becoming oracles in other temples, midwives and healers specializing in women's and children's diseases, wandering druids, teachers or governesses. But there was never a shortage of priestesses, arriving from all over, even the remotest regions. Melitele's temple in Ellander was well-known and enjoyed well-earned fame.
The cult of Melitele was one of the oldest and, in its day, one of the most widespread cults from time immemorial. Practically every pre-human race and every primordial nomadic human tribe honored a goddess of harvest and fertility, a guardian of farmers and gardeners, a patroness of love and marriage. Many of these religions merged into the cult of Melitele.
Time, which was quite pitiless toward other religions and cults, effectively isolating them in forgotten, rarely visited little temples and oratories buried among urban buildings, had proved merciful to Melitele. She did not lack either followers or sponsors. In explaining the popularity of the goddess, learned men who studied this phenomenon used to hark back to the pre-cults of the Great Mother, Mother Nature, and pointed to the links with nature's cycle, with the rebirth of life and other grandiloquently named phenomena. Geralt's friend, the troubadour Dandilion, who enjoyed a reputation as a specialist in every possible field, looked for simpler explanations. Melitele's cult, he deduced, was a typical woman's cult. Melitele was, after all, the patroness of fertility and birth; she was the guardian of midwives. And a woman in labor has to scream. Apart from the usual cries—usually promising never to give herself to any bloody man ever again in her life—a woman in labor has to call upon some godhead for help, and Melitele was perfect. And since women gave birth, give birth and will continue to give birth, the goddess Melitele, the poet proved, did not have to fear for her popularity.
“Geralt.”
“Nenneke. I was looking for you.”
“Me?” The priestess looked at him mockingly. “Not Iola?”
“Iola, too,” he admitted. “Does that bother you?”
“Right now, yes. I don't want you to get in her way and distract her. She's got to get herself ready and pray if something's to come of this trance.”
“I’ve already told you,” he said coldly, “I don't want any trance. I don't think a trance will help me in any way.”
“While I”—Nenneke winced—“don't think a trance will harm you in any way.”
“I can't be hypnotized. I have immunity. I’m afraid for Iola. It might be too great an effort for a medium.”
“Iola isn't a medium or a mentally ill soothsayer. That child enjoys the goddess's favor. Don't pull silly faces, if you please. As I said, your view on religion is known to me, it's never particularly bothered me and, no doubt, it won't bother me in the future. I’m not a fanatic. You've a right to believe that we're governed by Nature and the Force hidden within her. You can think that the gods, including my Melitele, are merely a personification of this power invented for simpletons so they can understand it bette
r, accept its existence. According to you, that power is blind. But for me, Geralt, faith allows you to expect what my goddess personifies from nature: order, law, goodness. And hope.”
“I know.”
“If you know that, then why your reservations about the trance? What are you afraid of? That I’ll make you bow your head to a statue and sing canticles? Geralt, we'll simply sit together for a while—you, me and Iola—and see if the girl's talents will let her see into the vortex of power surrounding you. Maybe we'll discover something worth knowing. And maybe we won't discover anything. Maybe the power and fate surrounding you won't choose to reveal themselves to us, will remain hidden and incomprehensible. I don't know. But why shouldn't we try?”
“Because there's no point. I’m not surrounded by any vortex or fate. And if I were, why the hell would I delve into it?”
“Geralt, you're sick.”
“Injured, you mean.”
“I know what I mean. There's something not quite right with you. I can sense that. After all, I have known you ever since you were a youngster. When I met you, you came up to my waist. And now I feel that you're spinning around in some damned whirlpool, tangled up in a slowly tightening noose. I want to know what's happening. But I can't do it myself. I have to count on Iola's gifts.”
“You want to delve too deeply. Why the metaphysics? I’ll confide in you, if you like. I’ll fill your evenings with tales of ever more astounding events from the past few years. Get a keg of beer so my throat doesn't dry up and we can start today. But I fear I’ll bore you because you won't find any nooses or vortexes there. Just a witcher's ordinary tales.”
“I’ll willingly listen to them. But a trance, I repeat, would do no harm.”