“The Tridam ultimatum,” whispered the witcher. “Renfri—”
“What?”
“Caldemeyn, the marketplace.”
“What?”
“She's deceived us. They're not leaving. They'll force Stregobor out of his tower as they forced the Baron of Tridam's hand. Or they'll force me to…They're going to start murdering people at the market; it's a real trap!”
“By all the gods—Where are you going? Sit down!”
Marilka, terrified by the shouting, huddled, keening, in the corner of the kitchen.
“I told you!” Libushe shouted, pointing to the witcher. “I said he only brings trouble!”
“Silence, woman! Geralt? Sit down!”
“We have to stop them. Right now, before people go to the market. And call the guards. As the gang leaves the inn, seize them and hold them.”
“Be reasonable. We can't. We can't touch a hair of their heads if they've done nothing wrong. They'll defend themselves and there'll be bloodshed. They're professionals; they'll slaughter my people, and it'll be my head for it if word gets to Audoen. I’ll gather the guards, go to the market and keep an eye on them there—”
“That won't achieve anything, Caldemeyn. If the crowd's already in the square, you can't prevent panic and slaughter. Renfri has to be stopped right now, while the marketplace is empty.”
“It's illegal. I can't permit it. It's only a rumor the half-elf was at Tridam. You could be wrong, and Audoen would flay me alive.”
“We have to take the lesser evil!”
“Geralt, I forbid it! As Alderman, I forbid it! Leave your sword! Stop!”
Marilka was screaming, her hands pressed over her mouth.
VI
Shading his eyes with his hand, Civril watched the sun emerge from behind the trees. The marketplace was coming to life. Wagons and carts rumbled past and the first vendors were already filling their stalls. A hammer was banging, a cock crowing and seagulls screeched loudly overhead.
“Looks like a lovely day,” Fifteen said pensively.
Civril looked at him askance but didn't say anything.
“The horses all right, Tavik?” asked Nohorn, pulling on his gloves.
“Saddled and ready. But, there's still not many of them in the marketplace.”
“There'll be more.”
“We should eat.”
“Later.”
“Dead right. You'll have time later. And an appetite.”
“Look,” said Fifteen suddenly.
The witcher was approaching from the main street, walking between stalls, coming straight toward them.
“Renfri was right,” Civril said. “Give me the crossbow, Nohorn.” He hunched over and, holding the strap down with his foot, pulled the string back. He placed the bolt carefully in the groove as the witcher continued to approach. Civril raised the crossbow.
“Not one step closer, witcher!”
Geralt stopped about forty paces from the group.
“Where's Renfri?”
The half-blood's pretty face contorted. “At the tower. She's making the sorcerer an offer he can't refuse. But she knew you would come. She left a message for you.”
“Speak.”
“I am what I am. Choose. Either me, or a lesser.’ You're supposed to know what it means.”
The witcher nodded, raised his hand above his right shoulder, and drew his sword. The blade traced a glistening arc above his head. Walking slowly, he made his way toward the group.
Civril laughed nastily, ominously.
“Renfri said this would happen, witcher, and left us something special to give you. Right between the eyes.”
The witcher kept walking, and the half-elf raised the crossbow to his cheek. It grew very quiet.
The bowstring hummed, the witcher's sword flashed and the bolt flew upward with a metallic whine, spinning in the air until it clattered against the roof and rumbled into the gutter.
“He deflected it…” groaned Fifteen. “Deflected it in flight—”
“As one,” ordered Civril. Blades hissed as they were drawn from sheaths, the group pressed shoulder to shoulder, bristling with blades.
The witcher came on faster; his fluid walk became a run—not straight at the group quivering with swords, but circling it in a tightening spiral.
As Geralt circled the group, Tavik's nerve failed. He rushed the witcher, the twins following him.
“Don't disperse!” Civril roared, shaking his head and losing sight of the witcher. He swore and jumped aside, seeing the group fall apart, scattering around the market stalls.
Tavik went first. He was chasing the witcher when he saw Geralt running in the opposite direction, toward him. He skidded, trying to stop, but the witcher shot past before he could raise his sword. Tavik felt a hard blow just above his hip, fell to his knees and, when he saw his hip, started screaming.
The twins simultaneously attacked the black, blurred shape rushing toward them, mistimed their attack and collided with each other as Geralt slashed Vyr across the chest and Nimir in the temple, leaving one twin to stagger, head down, into a vegetable stall, and the other to spin in place and fall limply into the gutter.
The marketplace boiled with vendors running away, stalls clattering to the ground and screams rising in the dusty air. Tavik tried to stumble to his trembling legs and fell painfully to the ground.
“From the left, Fifteen!” Nohorn roared, running in a semi-circle to approach the witcher from behind.
Fifteen spun. But not quickly enough. He bore a thrust through the stomach, prepared to strike and was struck again in the neck, just below his ear. He took four unsteady steps and collapsed into a fish cart, which rolled away beneath him. Sliding over the slippery cargo, Fifteen fell onto the flagstones, silver with scales.
Civril and Nohorn struck simultaneously from both sides, the elf with a high sweeping cut, Nohorn from a kneeling position, low and flat. The witcher caught both, two metallic clangs merging into one. Civril leapt aside and tripped, catching himself against a stall as Nohorn warded off a blow so powerful it threw him backward to his knees. Leaping up, he parried too slowly, taking a gash in the face parallel to his old scar.
Civril bounced off the stall, jumping over Nohorn as he fell, missed the witcher and jumped away. The thrust was so sharp, so precise, he didn't feel it; his legs only gave way when he tried to attack again. The sword fell from his hand, the tendons severed above the elbow. Civril fell to his knees and shook his head, trying and failing to rise. His head dropped, and among the shattered stalls and market wares, the scattered fish and cabbages, his body stilled in the center of a growing red puddle.
Renfri entered the marketplace.
She approached slowly with a soft, feline step, avoiding the carts and stalls. The crowd in the streets and by the houses, which had been humming like a hornet's nest, grew silent. Geralt stood motionless, his sword in his lowered hand. Renfri came to within ten paces and stopped, close enough to see that, under her jacket, she wore a short coat of chain mail, barely covering her hips.
“You've made your choice,” she said slowly. “Are you sure it's the right one?”
“This won't be another Tridam,” Geralt said with an effort.
“It wouldn't have been. Stregobor laughed in my face. He said I could butcher Blaviken and the neighboring villages and he wouldn't leave his tower. And he won't let anyone in, not even you. Why are you looking at me like that? Yes, I deceived you. I’ll deceive anyone if I have to; why should you be special?”
“Get out of here, Renfri.”
She laughed. “No, Geralt.” She drew her sword, quickly and nimbly.
“Renfri.”
“No. You made a choice. Now it's my turn.” With one sharp move, she tore the skirt from her hips and spun it in the air, wrapping the material around her forearm. Geralt retreated and raised his hand, arranging his fingers in the Sign.
Renfri laughed hoarsely. “It doesn't affect me. Only the sword will.�
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“Renfri,” he repeated. “Go. If we cross blades, I—I won't be able—”
“I know,” she said. “But I, I can't do anything else. I just can't. We are what we are, you and I.”
She moved toward him with a light, swaying step, her sword glinting in her right hand, her skirt dragging along the ground from her left.
She leapt, the skirt fluttered in the air and, veiled in its tracks, the sword flashed in a short, sparing cut. Geralt jumped away; the cloth didn't even brush him, and Renfri's blade slid over his diagonal parry. He attacked instinctively, spinning their blades, trying to knock her weapon aside. It was a mistake. She deflected his blade and slashed, aiming for his face. He barely parried and pirouetted away, dodging her dancing blade and jumping aside again. She fell on him, threw the skirt into his eyes and slashed flatly from short range, spinning. Spinning with her, he avoided the blow. She knew the trick and turned with him, their bodies so close he could feel the touch of her breath as she ran the edge across his chest. He felt a twinge of pain, ignored it. He turned again, in the opposite direction, deflected the blade flying toward his temple, made a swift feint and attacked. Renfri sprang away as if to strike from above as Geralt lunged and swiftly slashed her exposed thigh and groin from below with the very tip of his sword.
She didn't cry out. Falling to her side, she dropped her sword and clutched her thigh. Blood poured through her fingers in a bright stream over her decorated belt, elk-leather boots, and onto the dirty flagstones. The clamor of the swaying crowd, crammed in the streets, grew as they saw blood.
Geralt put up his sword.
“Don't go…” she moaned, curling up in a ball.
He didn't reply.
“I’m…cold…”
He said nothing. Renfri moaned again, curling up tighter as her blood flowed into the cracks between the stones.
“Geralt…Hold me…”
The witcher remained silent.
She turned her head, resting her cheek on the flagstones and was still. A fine dagger, hidden beneath her body until now, slipped from her numb fingers.
After a long moment, the witcher raised his head, hearing Stregobor's staff tapping against the flagstones. The wizard was approaching quickly, avoiding the corpses.
“What slaughter,” he panted. “I saw it, Geralt. I saw it all in my crystal ball…”
He came closer, bent over. In his trailing black robe, supported by his staff, he looked old.
“It's incredible.” He shook his head. “Shrike's dead.”
Geralt didn't reply.
“Well, Geralt.” The wizard straightened himself. “Fetch a cart and we'll take her to the tower for an autopsy.”
He looked at the witcher and, not getting any answer, leaned over the body.
Someone the witcher didn't know found the hilt of his sword and drew it. “Touch a single hair of her head,” said the person the witcher didn't know, “touch her head and yours will go flying to the flagstones.”
“Have you gone mad? You're wounded, in shock! An autopsy's the only way we can confirm—”
“Don't touch her!”
Stregobor, seeing the raised blade, jumped aside and waved his staff. “All right!” he shouted. “As you wish! But you'll never know! You'll never be sure! Never, do you hear, witcher?”
“Be gone.”
“As you wish.” The wizard turned away, his staff hitting the flagstones. “I’m returning to Kovir. I’m not staying in this hole another day. Come with me rather than rot here. These people don't know anything, they've only seen you killing. And you kill nastily, Geralt. Well, are you coming?”
Geralt didn't reply; he wasn't looking at him. He put his sword away. Stregobor shrugged and walked away, his staff tapping rhythmically against the ground.
A stone came flying from the crowd and clattered against the flagstones. A second followed, whizzing past just above Geralt's shoulder. The witcher, holding himself straight, raised both hands and made a swift gesture with them. The crowd heaved; the stones came flying more thickly but the Sign, protecting him behind an invisible oval shield, pushed them aside.
“Enough!” yelled Caldemeyn. “Bloody hell, enough of that!”
The crowd roared like a surge of breakers but the stones stopped flying. The witcher stood, motionless.
The alderman approached him.
“Is this,” he said, with a broad gesture indicating the motionless bodies strewn across the square, “how your lesser evil looks? Is this what you believed necessary?”
“Yes,” replied Geralt slowly, with an effort.
“Is your wound serious?”
“No.”
“In that case, get out of here.”
“Yes,” said the witcher. He stood a moment longer, avoiding the alderman's eyes. Then he turned away slowly, very slowly.
“Geralt.”
The witcher looked round.
“Don't come back,” said Caldemeyn. “Never come back.”
THE VOICE OF REASON
4
“Let's talk, Iola.
“I need this conversation. They say silence is golden. Maybe it is, although I’m not sure it's worth that much. It has its price certainly; you have to pay for it.
“It's easier for you. Yes it is, don't deny it. You're silent through choice; you've made it a sacrifice to your goddess. I don't believe in Melitele, don't believe in the existence of other gods either, but I respect your choice, your sacrifice. Your belief. Because your faith and sacrifice, the price you're paying for your silence, will make you a better, a greater being. Or, at least, it could. But my faithlessness can do nothing. It's powerless.
“You ask what I believe in, in that case.
“I believe in the sword.
“As you can see, I carry two. Every witcher does. It's said, spitefully, the silver one is for monsters and the iron for humans. But that's wrong. As there are monsters which can be struck down only with a silver blade, so there are those for whom iron is lethal. And, Iola, not just any iron, it must come from a meteorite. What is a meteorite, you ask? It's a falling star. You must have seen them—short, luminous streaks in the night. You've probably made a wish on one. Perhaps it was one more reason for you to believe in the gods. For me, a meteorite is nothing more than a bit of metal, primed by the sun and its fall, metal to make swords.
“Yes, of course you can take my sword. Feel how light it—No! Don't touch the edge; you'll cut yourself. It's sharper than a razor. It has to be.
“I train in every spare moment. I don't dare lose my skill. I’ve come here—this furthest corner of the temple garden—to limber up, to rid my muscles of that hideous, loathsome numbness which has come over me, this coldness flowing through me. And you found me here. Funny, for a few days I was trying to find you. I wanted—
“I need to talk, Iola. Let's sit down for a moment.
“You don't know me at all, do you?
“I’m called Geralt. Geralt of—No. Only Geralt. Geralt of nowhere. I’m a witcher.
“My home is Kaer Morhen, Witcher's Settlement. It's…It was a fortress. Not much remains of it.
“Kaer Morhen…That's where the likes of me were produced. It's not done anymore; no one lives in Kaer Morhen now. No one but Vesemir. Who's Vesemir? My father. Why are you so surprised? What's so strange about it? Everyone's got a father, and mine is Vesemir. And so what if he's not my real father? I didn't know him, or my mother. I don't even know if they're still alive, and I don't much care.
“Yes, Kaer Morhen. I underwent the usual mutation there, through the Trial of Grasses, and then hormones, herbs, viral infections. And then through them all again. And again, to the bitter end. Apparently, I took the changes unusually well; I was only ill briefly. I was considered to be an exceptionally resilient brat…and was chosen for more complicated experiments as a result. They were worse. Much worse. But, as you see, I survived. The only one to live out of all those chosen for further trials. My hair's been white ever since.
Total loss of pigmentation. A side effect, as they say. A trifle.
“Then they taught me various things until the day when I left Kaer Morhen and took to the road. I’d earned my medallion, the Sign of the Wolf's School. I had two swords: silver and iron, and my conviction, enthusiasm, incentive and…faith. Faith that I was needed in a world full of monsters and beasts, to protect the innocent. As I left Kaer Morhen, I dreamed of meeting my first monster. I couldn't wait to stand eye to eye with him. And the moment arrived.
“My first monster, Iola, was bald and had exceptionally rotten teeth. I came across him on the highway where, with some fellow monsters, deserters, he'd stopped a peasant's cart and pulled out a little girl, maybe thirteen years old. His companions held her father while the bald man tore off her dress, yelling it was time for her to meet a real man. I rode up and said the time had come for him, too—I thought I was very witty. The bald monster released the girl and threw himself at me with an axe. He was slow but tough. I hit him twice—not clean cuts, but spectacular, and only then did he fall. His gang ran away when they saw what a witcher's sword could do to a man….
“Am I boring you, Iola?
“I need this. I really do need it.
“Where was I? My first noble deed. You see, they'd told me again and again in Kaer Morhen not to get involved in such incidents, not to play at being knight errant or uphold the law. Not to show off, but to work for money. And I joined this fight like an idiot, not fifty miles from the mountains. And do you know why? I wanted the girl, sobbing with gratitude, to kiss her savior on the hands, and her father to thank me on his knees. In reality her father fled with his attackers, and the girl, drenched in the bald man's blood, threw up, became hysterical and fainted in fear when I approached her. Since then, I’ve only very rarely interfered in such matters.
“I did my job. I quickly learned how. I’d ride up to village enclosures or town pickets and wait. If they spat, cursed and threw stones, I rode away. If someone came out to give me a commission, I’d carry it out.
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