Introducing the Witcher

by Andrzej Sapkowski

  ‘Do you mean to fight with a sword?’

  ‘Does that surprise you? After all, you do. Come on, have at you.’

  ‘Why, Istredd? Why with swords and not with magic?’

  The sorcerer blanched and his mouth twitched anxiously.

  ‘Have at you, I said!’ he shouted. ‘This is not the time for questions; that time has passed! Now is the time for deeds!’

  ‘I want to know,’ Geralt said slowly. ‘I want to know why with swords. I want to know why you have a black kestrel and where it came from. I have the right to know. I have the right to know the truth, Istredd.’

  ‘The truth?’ the sorcerer repeated bitterly. ‘Yes, perhaps you have. Perhaps you have. Our rights are equal. The kestrel, you ask? It came at dawn, wet from the rain. It brought a letter. A very short one, I know it by heart. “Farewell, Val. Forgive me. There are gifts which one may not accept, and there is nothing in me I could repay you with. And that is the truth, Val. Truth is a shard of ice”. Well, Geralt? Are you satisfied? Have you availed yourself of your right?’

  The Witcher slowly nodded.

  ‘Good,’ Istredd said. ‘Now I shall avail myself of mine. Because I don’t acknowledge that letter. Without her, I cannot . . . I prefer to . . . Have at you, dammit!’

  He crouched over and drew his sword with a swift, lithe movement, demonstrating his expertise. The kestrel cried.

  The Witcher stood motionless, his arms hanging at his sides.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ the sorcerer barked.

  Geralt slowly raised his head, looked at him for a moment and then turned on his heel.

  ‘No, Istredd,’ he said quietly. ‘Farewell.’

  ‘What do you bloody mean?’

  Geralt stopped.

  ‘Istredd,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Don’t drag other people into your suicide. If you must, hang yourself in the stable from your reins.’

  ‘Geralt!’ the sorcerer screamed, and his voice suddenly cracked, jarring the ear with a false, wrong note. ‘I’m not giving up! She won’t run away from me! I’ll follow her to Vengerberg, I’ll follow her to the end of the world. I’ll find her! I’ll never give her up! Know that!’

  ‘Farewell, Istredd.’

  He walked off into the alley, without turning back at all. He walked, paying no attention to the people quickly getting out of his way, or to the hurried slamming of doors and shutters. He did not notice anybody or anything.

  He was thinking about the letter waiting for him in the inn.

  He speeded up. He knew that a black kestrel, wet from the rain, holding a letter in its curved beak, was waiting for him on the bedhead. He wanted to read the letter as soon as possible.

  Even though he knew what was in it.

  ETERNAL FLAME

  I

  ‘You pig! You plague-stricken warbler! You trickster!’

  Geralt, his interest piqued, led his mare around the corner of the alleyway. Before he located the source of the screams, a deep, stickily glassy clink joined them. A large jar of cherry preserve, thought the Witcher. A jar of cherry preserve makes that noise when you throw it at somebody from a great height or with great force. He remembered it well. When he lived with Yennefer she would occasionally throw jars of preserve at him in anger. Jars she had received from clients. Yennefer had no idea how to make preserve – her magic was fallible in that respect.

  A large group of onlookers had formed around the corner, outside a narrow, pink-painted cottage. A young, fair-haired woman in a nightdress was standing on a tiny balcony decorated with flowers, just beneath the steep eaves of the roof. Bending a plump, fleshy arm, visible beneath the frills of her nightdress, the woman hurled down a chipped flowerpot.

  A slim man in a plum bonnet with a white feather jumped aside like a scalded cat, and the flowerpot crashed onto the ground just in front of him, shattering into pieces.

  ‘Please, Vespula!’ the man in the bonnet shouted, ‘Don’t lend credence to the gossip! I was faithful to you, may I perish if it is not true!’

  ‘You bastard! You son of the Devil! You wretch!’ the plump blonde yelled and went back into the house, no doubt in search of further missiles.

  ‘Hey, Dandelion,’ called the Witcher, leading his resisting and snorting mare onto the battlefield. ‘How are you? What’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing special,’ said the troubadour, grinning. ‘The usual. Greetings, Geralt. What are you doing here? Bloody hell, look out!’

  A tin cup whistled through the air and bounced off the cobbles with a clang. Dandelion picked it up, looked at it and threw it in the gutter.

  ‘Take those rags,’ the blonde woman screamed, the frills on her plump breasts swaying gracefully, ‘and get out of my sight! Don’t set foot here again, you bastard!’

  ‘These aren’t mine,’ Dandelion said in astonishment, taking a pair of men’s trousers with odd-coloured legs from the ground. ‘I’ve never had trousers like these in my life.’

  ‘Get out! I don’t want to see you anymore! You . . . you . . . Do you know what you’re like in bed? Pathetic! Pathetic, do you hear! Do you hear, everybody?’

  Another flowerpot whistled down, a dried stalk that had grown out of it flapping. Dandelion barely managed to dodge. Following the flowerpot, a copper cauldron of at least two and a half gallons came spinning down. The crowd of onlookers standing a safe distance away from the cannonade reeled with laughter. The more active and unprincipled jokers among them applauded and incited the blonde to further action.

  ‘She doesn’t have a crossbow in the house, does she?’ the Witcher asked anxiously.

  ‘It can’t be ruled out,’ said the poet, lifting his head up towards the balcony. ‘She has a load of junk in there. Did you see those trousers?’

  ‘Perhaps we ought to get out of here? You can come back when she calms down.’

  ‘Hell no,’ Dandelion grimaced. ‘I shall never go back to a house from which calumny and copper pots are showered on me. I consider this fickle relationship over. Let’s just wait till she throws my . . . Oh, mother, no! Vespula! My lute!’

  He lunged forward, arms outstretched, stumbled, fell and caught the instrument at the last moment, just above the cobbles. The lute spoke plaintively and melodiously.

  ‘Phew,’ sighed the bard, springing up, ‘I’ve got it. It’s fine, Geralt, we can go now. Admittedly my cloak with the marten collar is still there, but too bad, let it be my grievance. Knowing her she won’t throw the cloak down.’

  ‘You lying sloven!’ the blonde screamed and spat copiously from the balcony. ‘You vagrant! You croaking pheasant!’

  ‘What’s the matter with her? What have you been up to, Dandelion?’

  ‘Nothing unusual,’ the troubadour shrugged. ‘She demands monogamy, like they all do, and then throws another man’s trousers at a fellow. Did you hear what she was screaming about me? By the Gods, I also know some women who decline their favours more prettily than she gives hers, but I don’t shout about it from the rooftops. Let’s go.’

  ‘Where do you suggest we go?’

  ‘Are you serious? The temple of the Eternal Fire? Let’s drop into the Spear Blade. I have to calm my nerves.’

  Without protest, the Witcher led his mare after Dandelion, who had headed off briskly into a narrow lane. The troubadour tightened the pegs of his lute as he strode, strummed the strings to test them, and played a deep, resounding chord.

  The air bears autumn’s cool scent

  Our words seized by an icy gust

  Your tears have my heart rent

  But all is gone and part we must.

  He broke off, waving cheerfully at two maids who were passing, carrying baskets of vegetables. The girls giggled.

  ‘What brings you to Novigrad, Geralt?’

  ‘Fitting out. A harness, some tackle. And a new jacket.’ The Witcher pulled down the creaking, fresh-smelling leather. ‘How do you like it, Dandelion?’

  ‘You don’t keep up with the fashion,�
�� the bard grimaced, brushing a chicken feather from his gleaming, cornflower-blue kaftan with puffed sleeves and a serrated collar. ‘Oh, I’m glad we’ve met. Here in Novigrad, the capital of the world, the centre and cradle of culture. Here a cultured man can live life to the full.’

  ‘Let’s live it one lane further on,’ suggested Geralt, glancing at a tramp who had squatted down and was defecating, eyes bulging, in an alleyway.

  ‘Your constant sarcasm is becoming annoying,’ Dandelion said, grimacing again. ‘Novigrad, I tell you, is the capital of the world. Almost thirty thousand dwellers, Geralt, not counting travellers; just imagine! Brick houses, cobbled main streets, a seaport, stores, shops, four watermills, slaughterhouses, sawmills, a large manufactory making beautiful slippers, and every conceivable guild and trade. A mint, eight banks and nineteen pawnbrokers. A castle and guardhouse to take the breath away. And diversions: a scaffold, a gallows with a drop, thirty-five taverns, a theatre, a menagerie, a market and a dozen whorehouses. And I can’t remember how many temples, but plenty. Oh, and the women, Geralt; bathed, coiffured and fragrant; those satins, velvets and silks, those whalebones and ribbons . . . Oh, Geralt! The rhymes pour out by themselves:

  Around your house, now white from frost

  Sparkles ice on the pond and marsh

  Your longing eyes grieve what is lost

  But naught can change this parting harsh . . .

  ‘A new ballad?’

  ‘Aye. I’ll call it Winter. But it’s not ready yet, I can’t finish it. Vespula’s made me completely jittery and the rhymes won’t come together. Ah, Geralt, I forgot to ask, how is it with you and Yennefer?’

  ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘No you bloody don’t. Is it far to this tavern?’

  ‘Just round the corner. Ah, here we are. Can you see the sign?’

  ‘Yes, I can.’

  ‘My sincere and humble greetings!’ Dandelion flashed a smile at the wench sweeping the steps. ‘Has anyone ever told you, my lady, that you are gorgeous?’

  The wench flushed and gripped her broom tightly. For a moment Geralt thought she would whack the troubadour with the handle. He was mistaken. The wench smiled engagingly and fluttered her eyelashes. Dandelion, as usual, paid absolutely no attention.

  ‘Greetings to one and all! Good day!’ he bellowed, entering the tavern and plucking the lute strings hard with his thumb. ‘Master Dandelion, the most renowned poet in this land, has visited your tawdry establishment, landlord! For he has a will to drink beer! Do you mark the honour I do you, swindler?’

  ‘I do,’ said the innkeeper morosely, leaning forward over the bar. ‘I’m content to see you, minstrel, sir. I see that your word is indeed your bond. After all, you promised to stop by first thing to pay for yesterday’s exploits. And I – just imagine – presumed you were lying, as usual. I swear I am ashamed.’

  ‘There is no need to feel shame, my good man,’ the troubadour said light-heartedly, ‘for I have no money. We shall converse about that later.’

  ‘No,’ the innkeeper said coldly. ‘We shall converse about it right away. Your credit has finished, my lord poet. No one befools me twice in a row.’

  Dandelion hung up his lute on a hook protruding from the wall, sat down at a table, took off his bonnet and pensively stroked the egret’s feather pinned to it.

  ‘Do you have any funds, Geralt?’ he asked with hope in his voice.

  ‘No, I don’t. Everything I had went on the jacket.’

  ‘That is ill, that is ill,’ Dandelion sighed. ‘There’s not a bloody soul to stand a round. Innkeeper, why is it so empty here today?’

  ‘It’s too early for ordinary drinkers. And the journeymen masons who are repairing the temple have already been and returned to the scaffolding, taking their master with them.’

  ‘And there’s no one, no one at all?’

  ‘No one aside from the honourable merchant Biberveldt, who is breaking his fast in the large snug.’

  ‘Dainty’s here?’ Dandelion said, pleased. ‘You should have said at once. Come to the snug, Geralt. Do you know the halfling, Dainty Biberveldt?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Never mind. You can make his acquaintance. Ah!’ the troubadour called, heading towards the snug. ‘I smell from the east a whiff and hint of onion soup, pleasing to my nostrils. Peekaboo! It’s us! Surprise!’

  A chubby-cheeked, curly-haired halfling in a pistachio-green waistcoat was sitting at the table in the centre of the chamber, beside a post decorated with garlands of garlic and bunches of herbs. In his left hand he held a wooden spoon and in his right an earthenware bowl. At the sight of Dandelion and Geralt, the halfling froze and opened his mouth, and his large nut-brown eyes widened in fear.

  ‘What cheer, Dainty?’ Dandelion said, blithely waving his bonnet. The halfling did not move or close his mouth. His hand, Geralt noticed, was trembling a little, and the long strips of boiled onion hanging from the spoon were swinging like a pendulum.

  ‘Gggreetings . . . gggreetings, Dandelion,’ he stammered and swallowed loudly.

  ‘Do you have the hiccoughs? Would you like me to frighten you? Look out: your wife’s been seen on the turnpike! She’ll be here soon. Gardenia Biberveldt in person! Ha, ha, ha!’

  ‘You really are an ass, Dandelion,’ the halfling said reproachfully.

  Dandelion laughed brightly again, simultaneously playing two complicated chords on his lute.

  ‘Well you have an exceptionally stupid expression on your face, and you’re goggling at us as though we had horns and tails. Perhaps you’re afraid of the Witcher? What? Perhaps you think halfling season has begun? Perhaps—’

  ‘Stop it,’ Geralt snapped, unable to stay quiet, and walked over to the table. ‘Forgive us, friend. Dandelion has experienced a serious personal tragedy, and he still hasn’t got over it. He’s trying to mask his sorrow, dejection and disgrace by being witty.’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ the halfling said, finally slurping up the contents of the spoon. ‘Let me guess. Vespula has finally thrown you out on your ear? What, Dandelion?’

  ‘I don’t engage in conversations on sensitive subjects with individuals who drink and gorge themselves while their friends stand,’ the troubadour said, and then sat down without waiting. The halfling scooped up a spoon of soup and licked off the threads of cheese hanging from it.

  ‘Right you are,’ he said glumly. ‘So, be my guests. Sit you down, and help yourselves. Would you like some onion potage?’

  ‘In principle I don’t dine at such an early hour,’ Dandelion said, putting on airs, ‘but very well. Just not on an empty stomach. I say, landlord! Beer, if you please! And swiftly!’

  A lass with an impressive, thick plait reaching her hips brought them mugs and bowls of soup. Geralt, observing her round, downy face, thought that she would have a pretty mouth if she remembered to keep it closed.

  ‘Forest dryad!’ Dandelion cried, seizing the girl’s arm and kissing her on her open palm. ‘Sylph! Fairy! O, Divine creature, with eyes like azure lakes! Thou art as exquisite as the morn, and the shape of thy parted lips are enticingly . . .’

  ‘Give him some beer, quick,’ Dainty groaned. ‘Or it’ll end in disaster.’

  ‘No, it won’t, no, it won’t,’ the bard assured him. ‘Right, Geralt? You’d be hard pressed to find more composed men than we two. I, dear sir, am a poet and a musician, and music soothes the savage breast. And the Witcher here present is menacing only to monsters. I present Geralt of Rivia, the terror of strigas, werewolves and sundry vileness. You’ve surely heard of Geralt, Dainty?’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ the halfling said, glowering suspiciously at the Witcher. ‘What . . . What brings you to Novigrad, sir? Have some dreadful monsters been sighted here? Have you been . . . hem, hem . . . commissioned?’

  ‘No,’ smiled the Witcher, ‘I’m here for my own amusement.’

  ‘Oh,’ Dainty said, nervously wriggling his hirsute feet, which were dang
ling half a cubit above the floor, ‘that’s good . . .’

  ‘What’s good?’ Dandelion asked, swallowing a spoonful of soup and sipping some beer. ‘Do you plan to support us, Biberveldt? In our amusements, I mean? Excellent. We intend to get tipsy, here, in the Spear Blade. And then we plan to repair to the Passiflora, a very dear and high-class den of iniquity, where we may treat ourselves to a half-blood she-elf, and who knows, maybe even a pure-blood she-elf. Nonetheless, we need a sponsor.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Someone to pay the bills.’

  ‘As I thought,’ Dainty muttered. ‘I’m sorry. Firstly, I’ve arranged several business meetings. Secondly, I don’t have the funds to sponsor such diversions. Thirdly, they only admit humans to the Passiflora.’

  ‘What are we, then, short-eared owls? Oh, I understand? They don’t admit halflings. That’s true. You’re right, Dainty. This is Novigrad. The capital of the world.’

  ‘Right then . . .’ the halfling said, still looking at the Witcher and twisting his mouth strangely. ‘I’ll be off. I’m due to be—’

  The door to the chamber opened with a bang and in rushed . . .

  Dainty Biberveldt.

  ‘O, ye Gods!’ Dandelion yelled.

  The halfling standing in the doorway in no way differed from the halfling sitting at the table, if one were to disregard the fact that the one at the table was clean and the one in the doorway was dirty, dishevelled and haggard.

  ‘Got you, you bitch’s tail!’ the dirty halfling roared, lunging at the table. ‘You thief!’

  His clean twin leaped to his feet, overturning his stool and knocking the dishes from the table. Geralt reacted instinctively and very quickly. Seizing his scabbarded sword from the table, he lashed Biberveldt on the nape of his neck with the heavy belt. The halfling tumbled onto the floor, rolled over, dived between Dandelion’s legs and scrambled towards the door on all fours, his arms and legs suddenly lengthening like a spider’s. Seeing this the dirty Dainty Biberveldt swore, howled and jumped out of the way, slamming his back into the wooden wall. Geralt threw aside the scabbard and kicked the stool out of the way, darting after him. The clean Dainty Biberveldt – now utterly dissimilar apart from the colour of his waistcoat – cleared the threshold like a grasshopper and hurtled into the common bar, colliding with the lass with the half-open mouth. Seeing his long limbs and melted, grotesque physiognomy, the lass opened her mouth to its full extent and uttered an ear-splitting scream. Geralt, taking advantage of the loss of momentum caused by the collision, caught up with the creature in the centre of the chamber and knocked it to the ground with a deft kick behind the knee.