“Neither do I,” she answered in an uneasy voice. “But it wasn’t your vision. That image was meant for me. I have no idea what it could mean either. But I have a strange feeling there’s nothing good in it.”
The thunder fell silent. The storm moved away. Inland.
“Charlatanism, all that divination of hers,” repeated Dandelion, adjusting the pegs on his lute. “Fraudulent visions for the naive. The power of suggestion, nothing more. You were thinking about swords, so you saw swords. What else do you think you saw? A march of corpses? A terrible wave? A rock with a bizarre shape? Meaning what?”
“Something like a huge key.” The Witcher pondered. “Or a two-and-a-half heraldic cross …”
The troubadour fell into pensive mood. And then dipped his finger into his beer. And drew something on the table top.
“Similar to that?”
“Oh. Very similar.”
“Damn!” Dandelion plucked the strings, attracting the attention of the entire tavern. “And blast! Ha-ha, Geralt, my friend! How many times have you got me out of trouble? How many times have you helped me? Rendered me a favour? Without even counting them! Well, now it’s my turn. Perhaps I’ll help you recover your famed weapons.”
“Eh?”
Dandelion stood up.
“Madam Lytta Neyd, your newest conquest, unto whom I hereby return her honour as an outstanding diviner and unrivalled clairvoyant, has indicated—in her divination—a place I know. In an obvious, clear way, leaving no room for doubt. We’re going to see Ferrant. At once. He’ll have to arrange an audience for us, using his shadowy connections. And issue you with a pass to leave the city, by the official gate, in order to avoid a confrontation with those harpies from the guardhouse. We’re going on a little outing. And actually not too far from here.”
“Where to?”
“I recognised the rock in your vision. Something experts call a mogote. And local residents the ‘Gryphon.’ A distinctive point, simply a signpost leading to the home of the person who may in fact know something about your swords. The place we’re heading for bears the name Ravelin. Does that ring a bell?”
It is not only the execution and the excellence of the craft that determine the quality of a witcher’s sword. As with mysterious elven or gnomish blades, whose secret has been lost, the mysterious power of a witcher’s sword is bound to the hand and skill of the witcher wielding it. And, forsooth, owing to that magic’s mysteries it is greatly potent against the Dark Powers.
Pandolfo Forteguerra, A Treatise on Edged Weapons
I shall reveal one secret to you. About witcher swords. It’s poppycock that they have some kind of secret power. And that they are supposedly wonderful weapons. That there are no better ones. It’s all fiction, invented for the sake of appearances. I know this from a quite certain source.
Dandelion, Half a Century of Poetry
CHAPTER EIGHT
They recognised the rock called the Gryphon at once. It was visible a long way off.
The place they were aiming for was located more or less halfway along the route from Kerack to Cidaris, some way from the road linking the two cities which wound among forests and rocky wildernesses. The journey took them some time; time they killed with idle chatter. Mainly contributed by Dandelion.
“Common knowledge claims that swords used by witchers have magical properties,” said the poet. “Passing over the fabrications about sexual impotence, there must be some truth in it. Your swords aren’t ordinary. Would you like to comment?”
Geralt reined in his mare. Bored by the protracted stay in the stables, Roach’s urge to gallop was growing.
“Yes, I would. Our swords aren’t ordinary swords.”
“It’s claimed that the magical power of your witcher weaponry, fatal to the monsters you fight, resides in the steel from which they are forged,” said Dandelion, pretending not to hear the mockery. “From the very metal, that is the ores found in meteorites fallen from the sky. How so? Meteorites aren’t magical, after all, they’re a natural phenomenon, accounted for by science. Where’s that magic to come from?”
Geralt looked at the sky darkening from the north. It looked like another storm was gathering. And that they could expect a soaking.
“As far as I recall,” he said, answering a question with a question, “you have studied all seven liberal arts?”
“And I graduated summa cum laude.”
“You attended the lectures of Professor Lindenbrog as part of the astronomy course within the Quadrivium?”
“Old Lindenbrog, known as Fiddle-Faddle?” laughed Dandelion. “Why of course! I can still see him scratching his backside and tapping his pointer on maps and globes, wittering on monotonously. De sphaera mundi, errr, subdividitur into four Elementary Parts. The Earthly Part, the Aqueous, the Aerial and the Igneous. Earth and Water form the globe, which is surrounded on all sides, errr, by Air, or Aer. Over the Air, errr, stretches the Aether, Fiery Air or Fire. Above the Fire, meanwhile, are the Subtle Sidereal Heavens, known as the Firmamentum, which is spherical in character. On that is located the Errant Siderea, or wandering stars, and Fixa Siderea, or fixed stars …”
“I don’t know what to admire more; your talent for mimicry or your memory,” Geralt snorted. “Returning, meanwhile, to the issue of interest to us: meteorites, which our good Fiddle-Faddle termed falling stars, Siderea Cadens, or something like that, break off from the firmament and fall downwards, to burrow into our good old earth. Along the way, meanwhile, they penetrate all the other planes, that is the elemental planes, as well as the para-elemental planes, for such are also said to exist. The elements and para-elements are imbued, as is known, with powerful energy, the source of all magic and supernatural force, and the meteorite penetrating them absorbs and retains that energy. Steel smelted from a meteorite—and also blades forged from such steel—contains a great deal of such elements. It’s magical. The entire sword is magical. Quod erat demonstrandum. Do you understand?”
“Certainly.”
“So forget it. Because it’s poppycock.”
“What?”
“Poppycock. Fabrication. You don’t find meteorites under every bush. More than half the swords used by witchers were made from steel from magnetic ores. I used them myself. They are as good as the ones that fell from the sky when it comes to the siderites penetrating the elements. There is absolutely no difference. But keep it to yourself, Dandelion, please. Don’t tell anyone.”
“What? I’m to stay silent? You can’t demand that! What’s the point of knowing something if you can’t show off the knowledge?”
“Please. I’d prefer to be thought of as a supernatural creature armed with a supernatural weapon. They hire me to be that and pay me to be that. Normality, meanwhile, is the same as banality, and banality is cheap. So I ask you to keep your trap shut. Promise?”
“Have it your way. I promise.”
They recognised the rock called the Gryphon at once; it was visible a long way off.
Indeed, with a little imagination, it could be interpreted as a gryphon’s head set on a long neck. However—as Dandelion observed—it more resembled the fingerboard of a lute or another stringed instrument.
The Gryphon, as it turned out, was an inselberg dominating a gigantic crater. The crater—Geralt recalled the story—was called the Elven Fortress, because of its fairly regular shape, which suggested the ruins of an ancient building, with walls, towers, bastions and all the rest. There had never been any fortress there, elven or other. The shapes of the crater were a work of nature—a fascinating work, admittedly.
“Down there.” Dandelion pointed, standing up in his stirrups. “Do you see? That’s our destination. Ravelin.”
And the name was particularly apt, as the inselberg described the astonishingly regular shape of a large triangle, extending out from the Elven Fortress like a bastion. A building resembling a fort rose up inside the triangle. Surrounded by something like a walled, fortified camp.
G
eralt recalled the rumours circulating about Ravelin. And about the person who dwelt there.
They turned off the road.
There were several entrances beyond the first wall, all guarded by sentries armed to the teeth, easily identifiable as mercenaries by their multicoloured and diverse apparel. They were stopped at the first guard post. Although Dandelion loudly referred to a previously arranged audience and emphatically stressed his good relations with the commanders, they were ordered to dismount and wait. For quite a long time. Geralt was becoming somewhat impatient, when finally a bruiser resembling a galley slave appeared and told them to follow him. It soon turned out that he was leading them by a circuitous route to the back of the complex, from the centre of which they could hear a hubbub and the sound of music.
They crossed a drawbridge. Just beyond it lay a man, semi-conscious and groping around himself. His face was bloodied and so puffy that his eyes were almost completely hidden beneath the swelling. He was breathing heavily and each breath blew bloody bubbles from his smashed nose. The bruiser leading them didn’t pay any attention to the man on the ground, so Geralt and Dandelion pretended not to see anything either. They were in a place where it didn’t behove them to display excess curiosity. It was recommended not to stick one’s nose into Ravelin’s affairs. In Ravelin, so the story went, a nose thus stuck usually parted company with its owner and remained where it had been stuck.
The bruiser led them through a kitchen, where cooks were bustling around hectically. Cauldrons bubbled and Geralt noticed crabs, lobsters and crayfishes cooking in them. Conger eels squirmed in vats, and clams and mussels simmered in large pots. Meat sizzled in huge frying pans. Servants seized trays and bowls full of cooked food to carry them away down corridors.
The next rooms were filled—for a change—with the scent of women’s perfume and cosmetics. Over a dozen women in various stages of déshabillé, including total undress, were touching up their make-up before a row of mirrors, jabbering away ceaselessly. Here, also, Geralt and Dandelion maintained inscrutable expressions and didn’t let their eyes wander inordinately.
In the next room, they were subjected to a thorough body search. The characters carrying this out were severe of appearance, professional of manner and resolute of action. A dagger was confiscated from Geralt. Dandelion, who never carried any weapons, was relieved of a comb and a corkscrew. But—after a moment’s thought—he was allowed to keep his lute.
“There are chairs in front of His Excellency,” they were finally instructed. “Sit down on them. Sit down and do not stand up until His Excellency commands. His Excellency is not to be interrupted when he speaks. You are not to speak until His Excellency gives a sign that you may. And now enter. Through this door.”
“His Excellency?” muttered Geralt.
“He was once a priest,” the poet muttered back. “But don’t worry, he never assumed much of a priestly manner. His subordinates have to address him somehow, and he can’t bear to be called ‘boss.’ We don’t have to use his title.”
When they entered, their way was immediately barred by something. That something was as big as a mountain and smelled strongly of musk.
“Wotcha, Mikita,” Dandelion greeted the mountain.
The giant addressed as Mikita, clearly the bodyguard of His Excellency the boss, was a half-breed, the result of a cross between an ogre and a dwarf. The result was a bald dwarf with a height of well over seven feet, quite without a neck, sporting a curly beard, with teeth protruding like a wild boar’s and arms reaching down to his knees. It was rare to see such a cross: the two species, as could be observed, were quite at variance genetically; something like Mikita couldn’t have arisen naturally. It couldn’t have happened without the help of extremely powerful magic. Forbidden magic, incidentally. Rumour had it that plenty of sorcerers ignored the ban. Proof of those rumours’ veracity was standing before Geralt.
They sat down on two wicker chairs, in accordance with the prevailing protocol. Geralt looked around. Two scantily dressed young women were pleasuring each other on a large chaise longue in the furthest corner of the chamber. Watching them, while feeding a dog at the same time, was a small, inconspicuous, hunched and unremarkable man in a loose, flowery embroidered robe and a fez with a tassel. Having fed the dog the last piece of lobster, the man wiped his hands and turned around.
“Greetings, Dandelion,” he said, sitting down in front of them on something deceptively similar to a throne, though it was made of wicker. “Good day, Master Geralt of Rivia.”
His Excellency, Pyral Pratt, considered—not without reason—the head of organised crime in the entire region, looked like a retired silk merchant. He wouldn’t have looked out of place at a retired silk merchants’ picnic and wouldn’t have been singled out as an imposter. At least not from a distance. A closer look would have revealed in Pyral Pratt what other silk merchants didn’t have. An old, faded scar on his cheekbone: a mark left by a knife. The ugly and ominous grimace of his thin mouth. A pair of bright, yellowish eyes, as unmoving as a python’s.
No one broke the silence for a long time. Music drifted in from somewhere outside, and a hubbub could be heard.
“I’m very pleased to see you and greet you both,” Pyral Pratt said finally. An old and unquenched love for cheap, crudely distilled alcohol could clearly be heard in his voice.
“I’m particularly glad to welcome you, singer.” His Excellency smiled at Dandelion. “We haven’t seen you since my granddaughter’s wedding, which you graced with a performance. And I was just thinking about you, because my next granddaughter is in a hurry to get married. I trust that this time you won’t refuse again, for old time’s sake. Well? Will you sing at the wedding? I won’t have to keep asking you like last time? I won’t be forced to … convince you?”
“I’ll sing, I’ll sing,” Dandelion, blanching slightly, hurried to assure him.
“And today you dropped in to ask about my health, I imagine?” continued Pratt. “Well, it’s shitty, this health of mine.”
Dandelion and Geralt made no comment. The ogre-dwarf reeked of musk. Pyral Pratt sighed heavily.
“I’ve gone down with stomach ulcers and food phobia,” he announced, “so the delights of the table aren’t for me now. I’ve been diagnosed with a sick liver and ordered not to drink. I’ve got a herniated disc, which affects in equal measure both my cervical and lumbar vertebrae and has ruled out hunting and other extreme sports from my pastimes. Medicaments and treatments eat up a great deal of my money, which I formerly used to spend on gambling. My john thomas, admittedly, let’s say, still rises but how much effort it takes to keep it up! The whole thing bores me before it gives me pleasure … So what’s left? Eh?”
“Politics?”
Pyral Pratt laughed so much the tassel on his fez shook.
“Well done, Dandelion. Apt, as ever. Politics, oh yes, that’s something for me now. At first I wasn’t favourably disposed to the matter. I thought rather to earn a living from harlotry and invest in bawdy houses. I moved among politicians and came to know countless of them. And became convinced it’d be better to give up on whores, for whores at least have their honour and some sort of principles. On the other hand, though, it’s better to govern from the town hall than from a brothel. And one would like to run, if not the country, as they say, then at least the county. The old adage goes, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em …”
He broke off and glanced at the chaise longue, craning his neck.
“Don’t sham, girls!” he yelled. “Don’t put it on! More gusto! Hmm … Where was I?”
“Politics.”
“Ah yes. But leaving politics aside, you, Witcher, have had your famous swords stolen. Isn’t it owing to that matter that I have the honour of welcoming you?”
“For that matter, indeed.”
“Someone stole your swords.” Pratt nodded. “A painful loss, methinks? Painful, no doubt. And irretrievable. Ha, I’ve always said that Kerack’s crawling with thieves. Gi
ve the people there one chance and they’ll swipe anything that isn’t nailed down, it’s well known. And they always carry a crowbar with them in case they chance on anything nailed down.
“The investigation, I trust, continues?” he went on a moment later. “Ferrant de Lettenhove taking action? Stare truth in the eyes, though, gentlemen. You can’t expect miracles from Ferrant. No offence, Dandelion, but your relative would be a better accountant than an investigator. With him it’s nothing but books, legal codes, articles, rules. Well, that and evidence, evidence and once again that evidence of his. Like that story about the goat and the cabbage. Know it? They once locked a goat in a barn with a head of cabbage. In the morning, there wasn’t a trace of it and the goat was shitting green. But there was no evidence or witnesses, so they dismissed the case, causa finita. I wouldn’t like to be a prophet of doom, Witcher Geralt, but the case of your swords’ theft may end up likewise.”
Geralt didn’t comment this time, either.
“The first sword is steel.” Pyral Pratt rubbed his chin with a beringed hand. “Siderite steel, iron ore from a meteorite. Forged in Mahakam, in the dwarven hammer works. Total length forty and a half inches, the blade alone twenty-seven and one quarter. Splendid balance, the weight of the blade is precisely equal to the weight of the hilt, the entire weapon certainly weighs less than forty ounces. The execution of the hilt and cross guard is simple, but elegant.
“And the second sword, of a similar length and weight, is silver. Partially, of course. A steel tang fitted with silver, also the edges are steel, since pure silver is too soft to be sharpened effectively. On the cross guard and along the entire length of the blade there are runic signs and glyphs considered by my experts indecipherable, but undoubtedly magical.”
“A precise description.” Geralt was stony-faced. “As though you’d seen the swords.”
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