Stephen Hulin

by Andrzej Sapkowski

  ‘I fish when I have taste for fish. I always carry rope with me.’

  Pinety was silent for a long time.

  ‘Rope,’ he said with a weird voice. ‘A piece of twine, weighted with a piece of lead. With multiple hooks. That you put worms onto?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘Nothing. I shouldn't have asked.’

  ***

  He was heading toward Pine Copse, yet another village of coalmen, when the forest suddenly fell silent. The jays went mute, like a cut with a knife the shrieks of a magpie stopped, suddenly a woodpecker stopped tapping. The forest froze in horror.

  Geralt hurried his mare into gallop.

  Death is our eternal companion, it is always to our left, at an arm's length. [...] Death is the only wise adviser that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you're about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you're wrong; that nothing really matters outside its touch. Your death will tell you, "I haven't touched you yet."

  Carlos Castaneda, Journey to Ixtlan

  Chapter Eleven

  The charcoal pile at Pine Copse was built in a neighboring clearing, coalmen used wood waste left by the clearing of the forest. Production had started recently here, from the top of the pile, like from a volcano crater, emerged a pillar of smoke, yellowish and smelling strongly. The smell of smoke did not cover the smell of death hanging over the clearing.

  Geralt jumped down from his horse. And took out his sword.

  The first body, headless and without both feet he saw right next to the pile, blood stained dirt covering the pile. A bit further lay three further bodies, massacred beyond recognition. Blood soaked into the receptive forest sand, leaving blackening stains.

  Closer to the clearing center and the fire pit encircled by stones lay two other bodies - a man and woman. The man had his throat torn, ripped so much that the vertebrae could be seen. The woman lay with the upper part of her body in the fire, in ashes, coated with porridge from an overturned cauldron.

  A bit further, near pile of wood, lay a child, a boy, perhaps five years old. He was torn in halves. Someone - or rather something – had grabbed him by both legs and torn him asunder.

  He saw the next body, this one with a ripped belly and the intestines pulled out. For the full length - that is about a fathom of large intestine plus more than three fathoms of small intestine. The intestines ran in a straight pale blue-pink line spread towards shack made from pine branches, and vanished inside.

  Inside, on a primitive pallet lay on his belly, a lean man. It was obvious on sight that he didn't fit in. His rich clothes were covered with blood, completely soaked. But the witcher didn't see any gushing, squirting nor leaking from any major blood vessels.

  He recognized him despite his face being covered with drying blood. It was the long haired, lean and slightly effeminate dandy, Sorel Degerlund, he had been present during the audience with Ortolan. He had also then worn a braided cape and an embroidered doublet, like the other wizards, he sat among the others behind the table and looked at the witcher with badly hidden antipathy. And now he was lying, unconscious, totally covered with blood, and around his wrist was wound human intestine. Pulled from the belly of the dead body lying not even ten paces away.

  The witcher swallowed saliva. Kill him, he thought, while he's unconscious? That's what Pinety and Tzara expect? Kill the energumen? Eliminate the goet, toying with the summoning of demons.

  He was woken from his reverie by a moan. Sorel Degerlund was returning to consciousness. He lifted his head, moaned, and fell back on the pallet. He lifted himself, and looked around with a misty look. He saw the witcher, and opened his mouth. He looked at his stomach covered with blood. Lifted his hand. And saw what he was holding. And began to scream.

  Geralt looked at his sword, at Dandelion's recent purchase with the gold-plated cross guard. He stared from time to time at the sorcerer's thin neck. And at a vain bulging there.

  Sorel Degerlund threw the intestine from his hand. He stopped screaming, and started moaning and shivering. He stood up, first in a crouch, then upright. He run out of the shack, screamed and began running away. The witcher grabbed his collar, stopped him in place and thrust him to his knees.

  ‘What... happened,’ mumbled Degerlund, still shivering. ‘What happ... what happened here?’

  ‘I think you know what.’

  Wizard swallowed audibly.

  ‘How did I... How did I get here? Nothing... I remember nothing... I remember nothing. Nothing!’

  ‘Yeah, like I believe you.’

  ‘An invocation...,’ Degerlund grabbed his face. ‘I invoked. He appeared. In a pentagram, in the circle... And he entered. Entered into me.’

  ‘It was not first time, right?’

  Degerlund cried. A bit theatrically, Gerald could not resist such an impression. He regretted not surprising the energumen, before the demon abandoned him. Regret was not very rational, he knew how dangerous a confrontation with a demon could be, he should be glad that he had avoided it. But he wasn’t. Because know he didn’t know what to do.

  Why me, he thought. Why not Frans Torquil with his unit. The Constable would not have any doubts nor scruples. A wizard covered with blood and with intestines in his hand would instantly earn a noose around his neck, and would dangle from the first branch found in no time. Torquil would not be stopped by hesitation or doubts. Torquil would not think about a fact that an effeminate and lean looking wizard would in no way be able to kill so cruelly so many people, and in a time so short that the bloodied cloth did not dry or became stiff. That he would not be able to tear child asunder with his bare hands. No - Torquil would have no dilemmas.

  But I do.

  Pinety and Tzara were sure that I would not.

  ‘Don't kill me...’ moaned Degerlund. ‘Don't kill me, witcher... I will never again... Never again...’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘I swear, that I'll never...’

  ‘Shut up. Are you conscious enough to use magic? To call the wizards from Rissberg?’

  ‘I have a sigil... I can... I can teleport to Rissberg.’

  ‘Not alone. With me. No tricks. Don't stand, stay on your knees.’

  ‘I have to stand up. And you... If the teleportation is to succeed you have to stand close to me. Very close.’

  ‘What? What are you waiting for, take the amulet out already.’

  ‘It's not an amulet. I said - it’s a sigil.’

  Degerlund undid his bloodied doublet and shirt. On his chest he had a tattoo, two circles crossing. The circles were spotted with dots of varying size. It looked a bit like a scheme of the planetary orbits that Geralt had once seen at the university in Oxenfurt.

  The sorcerer pronounced a melodic incantation. The circles began to shine with a blue light and the dots a red one. They started to spin.

  ‘Now. Stand close.’

  ‘Close enough?’

  ‘Still closer. Simply hug me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hug me, embrace me.’

  Degerlund's voice changed. His eyes, full of tears a scant moment before, began to shine wryly, and his lips twisted in a smirk.

  ‘Yes, yes, that's good. Strongly and tenderly. Like I was your Yennefer.’

  Geralt understood what's going on. But he failed to push Degerlund away, or hit him on the head with pommel of his sword, or slash his neck with his blade. He just didn't manage to.

  His eyes flashed with an opalescent shine.

  In split second he was drowned in a black void. In bitter cold, in silence, with a lack of form and lack of time.

  ***

  Their landing was hard, like floor made of stone plates had jumped to meet them. The impact separated them. Geralt did not even manage to get a good look. He smelt an intense stench, the stink of filth mixed with musk. Huge and strong arms caught him by the armpits and
neck, thick fingers closed effortlessly over biceps, thumbs hard as iron painfully pushed at his nerves, at his arm plexus.

  He went numb, and dropped his sword from a powerless hand.

  In front of him he saw a hunchback with a nasty face covered in ulcers, with his skull covered in tufts of stiff hair. The hunchback stood his bandy legs wide apart and was aiming a huge crossbow at him, or rather an arbalest with two steel prods, placed one above the other. Both four-sided arrow-heads were at least two inches broad and sharp as razors.

  Sorel Degerlund stood in front of him.

  ‘As you surely noticed,’ he said, ‘we are not at Rissberg. You’ve ended up at my retreat and hermitage. A place in which I do my experiments along with my master, experiments that are not known at Rissberg. I am, as you likely know Sorel Albert Amador Degerlund, magister magicus. I'm the one, although you don't know it yet, the one that will bring you pain and death.’

  The fake fear, and played panic had vanished like they were blown by the wind, vanished to all appearances. Everything there, at the coalmen clearing was make-believe. In front of Geralt, who drooped in the paralyzing grip of gnarled hands, there stood an absolutely different Sorel Degerlund. A Sorel Degerlund triumphing, full of pride and arrogance. A Sorel Degerlund grinning with a malicious sneer. A sneer that brought forth thoughts of centipedes crawling through the slits below doors. About dug up graves. About white worms wiggling in carrion. About a fat horsefly moving its legs in a bowl of soup.

  The sorcerer approached. In his hand he was carrying a steel syringe with a long needle.

  ‘I’ve cheated you like a child, there on the clearing,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘You proved to be naive like a child. Witcher Geralt of Rivia! Although your instinct was right you did not kill, because you were not sure. Because you are a good witcher and a good man Tell me, witcher, who are the good people? Those people that fate left without chance or advantage of being bad. Or those that had that chance, but were too stupid to use it. It's not important to which group you belong. You let yourself be outwitted, you fell into a trap and I guarantee that you will not leave it alive.’

  He lifted the syringe. Geralt felt a prick, and instantly after a burning pain. The pain was piercing and darkened his sight, tensing his whole body, the pain was so awful that he was barely able to stop himself from screaming. His heart began to race, which was a particularly bad experience as his normal heart rate was a fourth of that of normal humans. His vision worsened, the world around him began to spin, smear and flow.

  He was dragged. The shine of magical balls danced over crude walls and ceilings. One of the walls was covered in bloodstains, full of hanging weapons, he saw broad curved scimitars, great sickles, guisarmes, axes and morning stars. All of them having traces of blood. That's what was used in Yews, Arches and Rogowizna, he thought consciously. Those were the tools used to massacre the coalmen in Pine Copse.

  He went completely limp, ceased to feel anything, he no longer felt the crushing pressure of the arms holding him.

  ‘Buueh-hhhrrr-eeeehhh-bueeeeh! Bueeh-heeh!’

  He didn't realise at first that what he heard was joyous cackle. Those that were dragging him were obviously amused by his situation.

  The hunchback with crossbow walking in front was whistling.

  Geralt was near to fainting.

  He was brutally seated in an armchair with a high support. He at last could see those that had dragged him here, all this time crushing his armpits with huge arms.

  He remembered the huge ogre-dwarf Mikita, Pyral Pratt's bodyguard. Those two showed some semblance, they could be close family. They were of similar a height, they stank similar, just like Mikita they had no neck, similarly their tusks, like boar's stuck out from under lower lips. Mikita was however bearded and bald, those two had no beards, and their monkey heads where covered in a black bristle, and the top of their egg-like heads were decorated by something that looked like shaggy oakum. Their eyes where small and bloody, ears were huge, pointed and horribly hairy.

  Their clothes were stained with blood. And their breath stank like they had been feeding exclusively on garlic, shit and dead fish for many days.

  ‘Bueeeeeh! Bueeh-heeh-heeh!’

  ‘Bue, Bang, enough laughing, get to work, both of you. Pashtor, leave. But be near.’

  Both giants left, clapping their huge feet. The hunchback called Pashtor hurried after them.

  In the witcher’s field of view Sorel Degerlund appeared. Changed, washed, with his hair brushed and effeminate. He pulled up a chair and sat opposite to witcher, having behind his back a table full of books and grimoires. He stared at the witcher, smiling unpleasantly. At the same time he toyed with a medallion on a golden chain that he was winding around his finger.

  ‘I’ve treated you,’ he said without emotion, ‘with an extract of venom from a white scorpion. Nasty, isn't it? You can't move your hands, nor legs, or even a finger. You can't blink, nor swallow. Shortly uncontrollable movements of eyeballs and distorted vision will begin. Then you will fill your muscles spasm, really strong spasms, they probably will rip apart your intercostal ligaments. You will not be able to control the gnashing of your teeth, a few of them will be shattered, that’s for sure. There will be salivation, and then problems with breathing. If I do not give you antidote you will suffocate. But don't worry. I will give it to you. You will live. For now .But I think that soon you will regret that. I will explain what is going on. We have time. But for now I'd like to look at you going blue.’

  ‘I observed you,’ he continued after a while, ‘then, on the last day of June, there at the audience. You showed off your arrogance. In front of us, people that you can't hold a candle to. You were amused and excited by this play with fire. I decided then that I would show you that playing with fire causes burns, and intruding upon mages and magic has equally painful consequences. You will come to know it soon.’

  Geralt wanted to move, but couldn't. His limbs, and whole body were limp and senseless. In his fingers and toes he felt an unpleasant tingle, his face was completely numb, his lips felt like they were laced up. His vision had grown worse and worse, his sight was obscured by some murky slime that also glued his eyelids together.

  Degerlund put one leg over the other, and waved the medallion. There was a sign on it, an emblem, in blue enamel. Geralt was unable to recognize it. His sight was worsening – the wizard was not lying, his sight problems were becoming stronger.

  ‘The thing is,’ continued Degerlund without enthusiasm, ‘that I plan to climb high in the sorcerer's hierarchy. In those plans I rely on Ortolan, known to you from your visit at Rissberg and unforgettable audience.’

  Geralt had feeling that his was tongue swelling to fill his whole mouth. He feared that this was not only a feeling. White scorpion venom was deadly. He himself had never before come into contact with it, he didn't know what reaction a witcher's organism will be. He was seriously afraid, fighting with the toxin destroying him. The situation did not look good. Help, it seemed, was not to be expected.

  ‘A few years ago,’ Sorel Degerlund continued, ‘I became the assistant to Ortolan, for this position I was designated by the Chapter and approved by the Rissberg research team. I was to - just like my predecessors - spy on Ortolan, and sabotage his more threatening ideas. This position I owed not only to my talent, but also my beauty and personal charm. The Chapter assigned to Ortolan such assistants as he liked.’

  ‘You may be unaware of it, but in the time of Ortolan's youth among wizards misogyny was common, and there was a fashion for manly friendship, which often changed into something more, sometimes much more. And the young pupil or adept, it happened, had no choice, he had to listen to the elders in this matter. Some of them didn't like this much, but they were standing it as a part of the trade. And some of them came to like it. And among them was, as you surely guessed Ortolan. A boy that was befitted by his bird nickname, after experiences with his teacher he became as
poets say an enthusiast and adherent of noble manly friendships and noble manly love. In prose this thing is - as you know - called shorter and more earthy.’

  A large black cat with his tail bristling like a brush brushed against the wizard’s thigh, purring loudly. Degerlund picked up the cat, stroked it and waved the medallion in front of it. The cat casually patted the medallion with its paw. Then it turned away to announce that it's bored with this game, and began licking the fur on his chest.

  ‘As you surely noticed,’ continued the sorcerer, ‘I'm extraordinary beautiful, women sometimes call me ephebe. Women I like, but in principle I have and never had anything against pederasty. On one condition that is - it has to further my career.’

  ‘My manly affection with Ortolan did not need much sacrifice, the old man is long past the age in which he can, and age the in which he want to. But I made an effort to make people think differently. For people to think that he lost his mind for me. That there is nothing in this world that Ortolan would not do for his lover. That I know his ciphers, that I have access to his books and secret notes. That he gifts artifacts and amulets to me, and that he never showed anyone. And that he teaches me forbidden spells. Including goetia. And if the great people of Rissberg ignored me, now they respected me, I’ve grown in their eyes. They believed that I do what they dreamed about doing. And that I'm successful at that.’

  ‘Do you know what transhumanism is? What is speciation? Radiative speciation? Introgression? No? You have nothing to be ashamed of. I don't know either. But everyone thinks that I do. That under Ortolan’s eye and auspices I’ve research on perfecting humanity. Make the condition of man better, eliminate illnesses and disabilities, and eliminate ageing. Blah, blah, blah. That's the goal and task of magic. To go the way of the great masters of old, Malaspina, Alzur and Idarran. Master of hybridizing, mutation and genetic modifications.’