‘Certainly,’ said The Owl. ‘I’m too intelligent not to have noticed. So then, now I am to betray Ardal aep Dahy and join you, Vilgefortz? Is that what you want? But I’m not a weather vane on a tower! I support the revolution, not from opportunism but from conviction. It is necessary to put an end to the absolute tyranny and establish a constitutional monarchy. And after a democracy…’
‘A what?’
‘A government of the people. A system in which people rule. Ordinary citizens of all backgrounds, through the most worth and honorable representatives arising from fair elections…’
Rience roared with laughter. Bonhart thunderously joined him. A warm, if somewhat grating laugh came from the sorcerer Vilgefortz through the Xenophon. All three laughed until they cried.
‘Come,’ Bonhart interrupted the mirth. ‘We have not gathered here to party, but to talk business. The girl at the moment does not belong to ordinary citizens of all backgrounds, but to me. But I can sell her. What is your offer, Sir Sorcerer?’
‘Are you interested in power over the world?’
‘No.’
‘Therefore, I’ll let you,’ Vilgefortz said slowly, ‘be present at the same time, when I do what I need to, to the girl. I know this will please you more than anything else.’
Bonhart’s eyes flashed with white flame. But remained calm.
‘And more specifically?’
‘More specifically, I am willing to pay twenty times your stake. Two thousand florins. Consider, Bonhart, it is a bag of money that you will not be able to carry yourself; you will need a pack mule. That will suffice for the pension, porch, pigeons and even the vodka and whores if you keep a reasonable moderation.’
‘All right, Sir Sorcerer,’ the bounty hunter smiled, seemingly unconcerned. ‘The vodka and those whores have certainly reached my heart. Let’s make a deal. However take into account that your first offer is also reflected in this. It is true, I’d rather watch her die in an arena, but your work with a knife I am also quite curious about. Add it as a bonus.’
‘Deal.’
‘That was quick,’ The Owl said wryly. ‘Truly, Vilgefortz you have quickly and smoothly made a partnership with Bonhart. A partnership that is societas leonina. But have you not forgotten something? The council room where you sit, and around the Cintran are surrounded by armed people. My people.’
‘My dear Coroner Skellen,’ Vilgefortz voice rang from the box. ‘You insult me, thinking that in this exchange I want to hurt you. Quite the contrary. I’m going to be extremely generous. I cannot ensure your democracy. But I can promise financial assistance, logistical support and free access to information that will make you stop being a tool for the other conspirators and become a partner. They will have to reckon with you, Duke Joachim de Wett, Duke Ardal aep Dahy, Earl Broinne, Earl Darvi and all the other noble conspirators. So what if it is societas leonina? Yes if the loot is Cirilla, I will take the lion’s share of the spoils for my, as I believe, merits. Does this hurt you? At the end of the day you will have benefits that are not small. If you give me the Cintran, you can have the position of Vattier de Rideaux in your pocket. And being the head of the secret services, Stefan Skellen, you can make your various utopias, including democracy and fair elections. You see, in exchange for the thin teenager, I’ll grant you the fulfillment of the ambitions and desires of your life. Do you see?’
‘No,’ The Owl shook his head. ‘I can only hear.’
‘Rience.’
‘Yes, master?’
‘Give Mister Coroner a sample of our information. Tell him what you know of Vattier.’
‘In your unit,’ said Rience, ‘there is a spy.’
‘What?’
‘You heard. Vattier de Rideaux has a mole here. He knows everything you do. Why you do it and for whom. Vattier has gotten to one of your agents.’
He approached her slowly. She almost did not hear him.
‘Kenna.’
‘Neratin.’
‘You were open to my thoughts. There, in the council room. You know what I was thinking. So you know who I am.’
‘Listen, Neratin…’
‘No. You listen, Joanna Selbourne. Stefan Skellen betrays his country and emperor. He conspires. All who are with him will end up on the scaffold. Quartered by horses in Millennium Square.’
‘I know nothing, Neratin. I am just following orders… What do you want from me? I serve the Coroner… And who do you serve?’
‘The Empire. Lord de Rideaux.’
‘What do you want from me?’
‘You show common sense.’
‘Leave. I will not betray you; I will not say anything… but go, please. I cannot, Neratin. I am a simple woman. I do not understand these intrigues…’
What am I supposed to do? Skellen addressed me as Office Selbourne. But whom do I serve? Him? The Emperor? The Empire?
How do I decide?
Kenna leaned back against the wall of the cottage, and with a menacing growl drove away the rural brats staring at the chained up Falka.
A beautiful mess. I can feel the noose. Smell the horse shit on Millennium Square. I have no idea what will happen. But I have to enter for a moment to know her thoughts.
To know who she is.
To understand.
‘She moved closer,’ Ciri said, stroking the cat. ‘She was tall, well groomed, and very different from the rest of the gang… Even in her own way pretty. She produced respect. The two that were watching me, two simpletons who were cursing vulgarly stopped when she approached.’
Vysogota was silent.
‘Then,’ Ciri continued, ‘she bowed and looked into my eyes. At that moment I noticed something… something strange… like something hit me in the back of my head. My ears where ringing. For a moment there very clearly before my eyes… Something came into me, disgusting, slimy… I knew what it was. Yennefer had taught me about it in the temple… But I did not want to allow this woman… So I pushed at the something that was penetrating me, pushed and spat out, with all the power that I could muster. The tall woman bent and swayed as if hit by a fist and took two steps back… Blood started rushing from her nose. From both holes.’
Vysogota was silent.
‘And suddenly,’ Ciri lifted her head, ‘I realized what had happened. I suddenly felt the Power within me. I lost it there in the Korath desert, renounced it. Later I could not draw on it, I couldn’t use it. And she, this woman gave me strength; put the sword in my hand. This was my chance.’
Kenna staggered and sat down heavily in the sand, shaking her head and fumbling around on the ground like a drunk. Blood poured from her nose and spilled over her lips and chin.
‘What is…’ Andres Vierny sprang up, but suddenly he grabbed his head with both hands, opened his mouth, and from his lips came a shout. With wide eyes he stared at Stigward. The man’s nose and ears were also bleeding and his eyes were clouded. Andres fell to his knees and turned to Neratin Ceka, who stood to one side and watched calmly.
‘Nera…tin…Help…’
Ceka did not move. He watched the girl. She looked up at him and he reeled.
‘There is no need,’ he warned her quickly. ‘I’m on your side. I want to help. Stop, I’ll cut the ties… Here’s a knife, open up your collar. I will bring the horses.’
‘Ceka...’ Andres choked from his stifled larynx. ‘Traitor…’
The girl looked into his eyes again, and fell to the floor motionless. Stigward curled up into the fetal position. Kenna could still not get up, blood dripped in thick drops down her chest and abdomen.
‘Alarm!’ cried Chloe Stitz, who suddenly appeared from behind a corner of the building. ‘Alarm! Silifant! Skellen! The prisoner is escaping!’
Ciri was already in the saddle. Her sword was in her hand.
‘Yaaa! Kelpie!’
‘Alaaaarm!’
Kenna clawed at the sand. She could not get up. Nor would her feet which felt like wood, obey her. A psionic, she thought, I’ve run
into a superpsionic. This girl is ten times stronger than me… Luckily I have not been killed… How am I still even conscious?
From the surrounding houses approached a group headed by Ola Harsheim, Bert Brigden and Til Echrade, also rushing into the square were Dacre Silifant and Boreas Mun. Ciri turned and yelled and galloped towards the river. But from that way armed men were approaching as well.
Skellen and Bonhart rushed out of the council building. Bonhart held a naked sword. Neratin Ceka shouted, approaching them on his horse knocking down Skellen. From the saddle, he threw himself directly at Bonhart and held him to the ground. Rience appeared in the doorway and stared like a fool.
‘Get her!’ Skellen yelled, rising from the ground. ‘Catch her or kill her!’
‘Alive!’ Rience cried. ‘Aliiiive!’
Kenna watched as the girl move away from the palisade along the shore and change direction and headed for the gate. She saw Cabernet Turent jump into her path, she saw the sword flash and saw the crimson stream flow from Turent’s neck. Dede Vargas and Fripp the Younger also saw it. They decided not to get in the way of the girl and moved in between the cottages.
Bonhart jumped up, smashed the pommel of his sword into Neratin Ceka’s head and slashed him across the chest. He immediately jumped up after Ciri. The wounded and bleeding Neratin, still managed to grab him by the foot, only to let go when Bonhart’s sword speared through him into the sand. However, those few moments were enough.
She spurred the mare to move past Silifant and Mun. Skellen, bent like a wolf, came running from the left, waving his hand. Kenna saw something shining in flight, then saw the girl swaying in the saddle, and from her face gushed a fountain of blood. She leaned back so far that for a moment her back lay on the haunches of the mare. But before she fell, she straightened up, grabbed the saddle and held onto the horse’s neck. The black mare, galloped through the crowed of armed men and rushed straight towards the revolving gate. Behind her ran Mun, Silifant and Chloe Stitz with a crossbow.
‘We have her!’ Boreas Mun shouted triumphantly. ‘She cannot get out, no horse can jump seven feet!’
‘Do not shoot, Chloe!’
Chloe Stitz did not hear the shouted command. She stopped. She raised the crossbow to her cheek. Everyone knew that Chloe never missed.
‘You’re a dead man!’ she cried. ‘A dead man!’
Kenna saw an unknown short man run up, pick up a crossbow and shoot Chloe in the back. The bolt passed through her with an explosion of blood. Chloe fell without a sound.
The black mare galloped up to the revolving gate and threw back its head. And it jumped. It rose gracefully and flew above the gate, extending its front legs and glided like a black velvet line. The hind hooves did not even brush the upper beam.
‘Gods!’ Dacre Silifant shouted. ‘By the gods, what a horse! Worth its weight in gold!’
‘The mare for anyone who catches her!’ Skellen cried. ‘To the horses! To the horses and the chase!’
When the gate was finally open, the pursuers galloped from the village, dust rising behind them. Ahead raced Bonhart and Boreas Mun.
Kenna stood up with effort. She staggered and sat down heavily on the sand. Her feet tingled painfully.
Cabernet Turent was not moving, lying in a pool of blood with his legs and arms wide apart. Andres Vierny was trying to stand and Stigward was still unconscious.
Collapsed on the sand, Chloe Stitz looked like a small child.
Ola Harsheim and Bert Brigden brought before Skellen the short man who had killed Chloe. The Owl sighed. And shook with rage. From a shoulder strap across his chest he pulled off a second metal star, like the one her had thrown at the girl’s face a moment before.
‘Go to hell, Skellen,’ said the short man. Kenna finally remembered his name. Mekesser. Jediah Mekesser, the Gemmeran. She had met him in Rocayne.
The Owl stooped, and violently waved his hand. The six-pointed star howled through the air and stuck deep into the face of Mekesser, between the eyes and nose. He did not even scream, just began to tremble spasmodically between the embrace of Harsheim and Brigden. He trembled for a long time and his bared teeth were so ghastly that everyone turned their heads. All except the Owl.
‘Make sure you retrieve my Orion,’ Skellen said with a wave of his hand, after the body finally hung lifeless in the arms that held him. ‘And throw the carrion in the manure, along with the other carrion, the hermaphrodite. Let there be no more trace of these disgusting traitors.’
Suddenly the wind howled, and the clouds rushed overhead. Suddenly it was very dark.
The guard was changed on the walls of the citadel. The Scarra sisters were a snoring duet. Kohout pisses noisily into an empty bucket.
Kenna pulled the blanket up to her chin.
They did not find the girl. She had disappeared. She had just disappeared. Boreas Mun – incredibly – lost track of the mare after three miles. Suddenly, without warning, it grew dark; the wind bent the trees nearly to the ground. It burst into rain, the thunder roared and the lightning flashed.
Bonhart did not give up. They returned to Unicorn. They screamed at each other – Bonhart, The Owl, Rience and the fourth mysterious, scratchy, inhuman voice. They had the whole gang in the saddle; the only people who remained were those unable to ride – like me. They took with them peasants with torches, who knew the surrounding forests. They returned at dawn.
They came back with nothing. Discounting the horror they had in their eyes.
The rumors, Kenna remembered, only started a few days later. At first everyone was afraid of The Owl and Bonhart. They were so mad that it was better to stay out of their way. Even a careless word from Bert Brigden, an officer, earned him a blow from Skellen’s whip. But then he talked about what happened during the chase. The small straw unicorn suddenly grew to the size of a dragon and frightened the horses so that the riders fell to the ground, it was only by a miracle that they did not break their necks. Across the sky galloped a fiery cavalcade of skeletal ghosts mounted on skeletal horses and at their head rode the terrible king who ordered his servants to erase the traces of the hooves of the black mare with their ragged cloaks. A macabre choir of nightjars cried a blood chilling song. And they heard the terrifying howls of a ghostly Beann’shie, the messenger of death…
The wind, rain, clouds, trees and bushes in the darkness and the mysterious events, Boreas Mun spoke of, who was also there, with fear in his eyes. That was the whole story. And the nightjars? The nightjars, he added were always screaming.
And the trail, the trail of hoof prints that suddenly disappeared, as if the horse had taken flight?
The face of Boreas Mun, a tracker, who could trace a fish through water, stiffened at this question. The wind was responsible; the wind blew away all traces in the sand and leaves. There is no other explanation.
Some even believed him, Kenna recalled.
Some even believed that it was all a natural phenomenon or delusions. And even I laughed at them.
But I stopped laughing. After Dun Dare. After Dun Dare no one laughed again.
When he saw her, he drew back in fright and inhaled sharply.
She had mixed with goose fat, soot from the fire place, making a thick mass which see used to blacken her eye sockets and eyelids, extending the lines out across her temples and to her ears.
She looked like a demon.
‘From the fourth island along the banks go into the swamp forest,’ he repeated the instructions. ‘Then follow the river to the three dead trees, thence by the willow trees directly to the west. When the pines appear, along their edge is a river. You turn at the ninth fork and follow until it doesn’t twist anymore. After that you will be at village of Dun Dare, to the north there are cottages. Right behind them, at the crossroads, is a tavern.’
‘I remember. I’ll find it, don’t worry.’
‘Especially be careful at the bends in the river. Beware the places where the reeds are less frequent. Or places overgrown with
knotweed. And if you are caught out there at dusk before the pine trees, stop and camp until dawn. You must not at any cost ride through the swamp at night. It’s almost the new moon and in addition there are clouds…’
‘I know.’
‘When you come to lake country… head north through the hills. Avoid the main roads, they be full of traffic from the armies. You will then arrive at a river, a large river, which is called the Sylte, you’ll be halfway there.’
‘I know, you drew me a map.’
‘Oh, you’re right. I forgot.’
Ciri checked her saddlebags several times. Mechanically. She did not know what to say, in order to delay what had to be said.
‘I am glad that I met you,’ he said before she could. ‘Truly. Goodbye, witcheress’
‘Goodbye, hermit. Thank you for everything.’
She was sitting in her saddle and about to spur Kelpie, when he came over and grabbed her hand.
‘Ciri. Stay. Wait for winter to pass…’
‘I’ll get to the lake before the frost. And then, if you were right, I do not have to worry about winter. I’ll be teleported to Thanedd. To the school of Aretuza to Lady Rita… Vysogota… How much time does it…’
‘The Tower of the Swallow is a legend. Remember. Only a legend.’
‘I too am only a legend,’ she said bitterly. ‘From birth. Zireael, Swallow, child surprise. The chosen one. Child of destiny. Child of the Elder Blood. I have to go, Vysogota. Be in good health.’
‘Be in good health, Ciri.’
The tavern at the crossroads behind the village was empty. Cyprian Fripp the Younger and his three companions had refused access to the frightened locals and travelers. They, however, feasted and drank for days, sitting in the cold room full of smoke, which smelled like the usual stink that taverns got in winter when the windows and doors do not get opened – sweat, cats, mice, shoes, pine, birch, fat, ash, wet clothes and steaming vapor.