IV
Sneaking with difficulty through the crowd, Geralt headed directly toward a stall laden with copper dishes, pots and pans reflecting the red light of the sun at the end of the day. Behind the stall stood a dwarf with a red beard, dressed in an olive-green hood and heavy sealskin boots. On the dwarf's face there was a certain surliness: he gave the impression that he could at any moment spit on the customer busy browsing the merchandise. The customer drowned the dwarf in a flood of incoherent words, waving her bust and shaking her golden curls.
The customer was none other than Vespula, whom Geralt already knew from his role in the bombardment. Without waiting to be recognized, the witcher melted back into the crowd.
The west bazaar hummed with energy: crossing such a crowd resembled nothing so much as a stroll through hawthorn bushes. The sleeves and pant legs were continuously, at any given moment, being tugged: by children who had been lost by their mothers when they went into tents to drag out husbands too tempted by alcohol and refreshment; spies from the guard tower; traveling salesmen offering caps of invisibility, aphrodisiacs, and erotic scenes carved in cedar wood. Geralt soon stopped smiling to swear and elbow his way through.
He heard the sound of a lute, followed by a rippling laugh in a familiar timbre. These sounds were coming from a stall as colorful as a storybook, adorned with the sign ‘Miracles, amulets and fishing bait.’
‘Has anyone ever told you that you're extremely pretty?’ Dandelion called, perched on the counter and cheerfully swinging his dangling legs. ‘No? But that's impossible! But this is a city of the blind! Come, good people! Who wants to hear a love song? Whosoever wants to be moved and spiritually enriched has only to toss a coin into my hat. What is that you threw me, asshole? Those copper coins, you can keep for the beggars. Don't insult an artist with copper! I may eventually forgive you, but art never will!’
‘Dandelion,’ Geralt said, approaching. ‘I thought we separated to find the doppler, but I find you organizing a concert. You're not ashamed to sing in the market like an old beggar?’
‘Ashamed?’ the bard echoed, shocked. ‘What's important is that one sings, not where one sings. Besides, I'm hungry. The stall's proprietor promised me lunch. As for the doppler, look for it yourself. Me, I'm not made for pursuit, for fighting and settling scores. I'm a poet.’
‘You'd be better off not drawing attention to yourself, poet, because your girlfriend is in the area. You could be in trouble.’
‘My girlfriend?’ Dandelion groaned nervously. ‘Which one? I have several.’
Brandishing a copper pan, Vespula forged a path through the crowd with the velocity of a charging aurochs. Dandelion tumbled from the stall to make his escape, hopping nimbly over the baskets of carrots. Vespula turned to the witcher, her nostrils flaring with fury. Geralt flattened himself against the rigid wall of the storefront behind him.
‘Geralt!’ Dainty Biberveldt cried from the churning crowd, blundering into Vespula. ‘Quickly, quickly! I saw it! Over there, he ran away!’
‘I'll find you, you degenerate!’ shouted Vespula, regaining her balance. ‘I will settle the score with the whole herd of swine! What a group you are! A crook, a tattered vagabond and a hairy-footed midget! You won't soon forget me!’
‘Over here, Geralt!’ Dainty hollered, bowling over a group of students engaged in a shell game in his path. ‘There, he slipped between the carts! Block the way to the left! Hurry!’
They hastened in pursuit, surrounded by the curses of the customers and merchants they jostled. Geralt miraculously managed to evade a kid who got tangled in his legs. He bounded over him, but hurtled into two barrels of herring. The fishmonger, furious, flung at his back the live eel whose qualities he had been praising to his customers.
They spotted the doppler, who was trying to hide in a sheep pen.
‘The other side!’ Dainty shouted. ‘Get the other side, Geralt!’
The doppler, still visible in his green vest, dashed along the side of the fence like an arrow. It was obvious that he had not transformed so that he could continue to take advantage of the halfling's agility, which no-one could match. Except, of course, another halfling. Or a witcher.
Geralt saw the doppler suddenly change direction, raising a cloud of dust, and slip through a hole in the fence erected around the large tent, home to slaughterhouses and butchers. Dainty spotted it too. He hopped the fence and found himself trapped in the middle of a herd of bleating sheep. He lost time. Geralt veered and threw himself on the doppler's trail between the boards of the fence. He heard then the crackle of a tearing garment. Under his second arm, the jacket became very loose.
The witcher stopped dead to swear and spit. And swear again.
Dainty ran after the doppler toward the tent. Cries, the sound of blows, profanity and a frightful din could be heard within.
The witcher swore a third time with particular vulgarity. He gritted his teeth, raising his right hand and aiming the Aard sign directly toward the tent. It swelled like a sail in a tempest. From within came an inhuman howling, the sound of hooves and bellowing oxen. The tent collapsed.
The doppler managed to crawl out from under the canvas to flee to the side of a smaller tent, most likely serving as the cold room. Geralt turned his hand instinctively toward the fugitive and touched the Sign to his back. The doppler collapsed to the ground as if struck by lightning, but recovered immediately, reaching the side of the tent in a few bounds and disappearing, with the witcher always on his heels.
Under the tent, it reeked of meat. The darkness was oppressive.
Tellico Lunngrevink Letort was standing there, motionless and out of breath, clinging to a pig carcass suspended from a pole. The tent had no other exit; the canvas was solidly and tightly secured to the ground.
‘It's a pleasure to see you again, mimic,’ Geralt said coldly.
The doppler's breath was loud and heavy.
‘Leave me alone,’ he managed at last. ‘Why are you chasing me, witcher?’
‘Tellico,’ Geralt replied, ‘you ask some stupid questions. To come into possession of Biberveldt's horses and appearance, you knocked him out and left him flat broke. You continue to profit from his personality and you're surprised by the trouble it brings you? Devil only knows what you're planning, but I intend to oppose it one way or another. I don't want to kill you or hand you over to the authorities. You must leave this city. I will be particularly vigilant.’
‘And if I refuse?’
‘Then I'm the one who'll leave, with a wheelbarrow and a sack.’
The doppler swelled suddenly, then thinned just as suddenly and began to grow. His curly chestnut hair blanched and lengthened to reach his shoulders. The halfling's green vest shone like oil and became a black leather. Silver studs appeared on the shoulders and the sleeves. His chubby and ruddy face tapered and grew pale.
Above his right shoulder appeared the hilt of a sword.
‘Don't come any closer,’ called the second witcher, snorting and smiling. ‘Don't come any closer, Geralt. I won't allow you to touch me.’
What a horrible smile, thought Geralt, wanting to seize his sword. I really have a dreadful mouth. My eyes blink appallingly. Is that really the spitting image of me? By the plague.
At the same moment, the doppler's hand and the witcher's touched the hilts of their respective weapons. The two swords were drawn from their sheaths. Both witchers simultaneously executed two small, quick steps: the first forward, the second to the side. Both swung their swords with a hiss like a propeller.
They froze in that position.
‘You can't defeat me,’ growled the doppler, ‘because I've become you, Geralt.’
‘You're mistaken, Tellico,’ the witcher replied in a low voice. ‘Throw down your sword and take Biberveldt's form again. Otherwise, you'll regret it. I promise you.’
‘I'm you,’ the doppler repeated. ‘You will never have the advantage over me. You can't defeat me, because I'm you!’
‘You have no idea what it means to be me, mimic.’
Tellico lowered the arm that was holding his sword.
‘I am you,’ he repeated.
‘No,’ the witcher replied. ‘You know why? Because you're a nice little doppler. A doppler who could have killed Biberveldt and buried his body in the weeds, ensuring that he would never be unmasked, not even by the halfling's wife, the famous Gardénia Biberveldt. But you didn't kill him, Tellico, because that's not in your nature. You are indeed nothing but a nice little doppler whose friends nicknamed him Dudu. Whatever appearance you borrow, you always remain the same. You only know how to copy what is good in us, because the parts that are bad, you don't understand. That is what you are, doppler.’
Tellico backed up until his back was flattened against the canvas side of the tent.
‘That's why you're going to turn back into Biberveldt and offer your paws for me to bind. You're not capable of resisting me, because there is part of me that you weren't able to copy. You know that very well, Dudu. For a moment you had access to my thoughts.’
‘You're right, Geralt,’ he said indistinctly, because his lips were changing shape. ‘I had access to your thoughts. For a short time, it's true, but it was enough. Do you know what I'll do now?’
The witcher's leather jacket took on a bluebonnet luster. The doppler smiled, adjusted his olive-colored hat adorned with an egret's plume and hung his lute on his shoulder. The lute that, just a moment before, had been a sword.
‘I'll tell you what I'll do now, witcher,’ he said, laughing Dandelion's loud and rippling laugh. ‘I'll be on my way and lose myself in the crowd, where I'll discreetly transform into someone else, even a beggar. I'd rather be a beggar in Novigrad than a doppler in the barren wilderness. Novigrad owes me a debt, Geralt. The construction of this city destroyed the environment where we could live in our natural surroundings. We were exterminated, hunted like mad dogs. I am one of the few who survived. Once, when wolves attacked me, I transformed into a wolf and ran with the pack for weeks. In this way I survived. I do the same thing today, because I do not want to wander in the woods and spend the winter under tree stumps; I no longer want to feel constant hunger; I no longer want to serve without respite as an archery target. Here, in Novigrad, it's warm, there's food, one can work for a living and people very rarely hunt each other with bows. Novigrad offers me a pack of wolves. I join it to survive, you understand?’
Geralt acknowledged this with a nod of his head.
‘You've reached an accord with the dwarves, the halflings, the gnomes and elves; even,’ he continued, his lips stretching into Dandelion's insolent smile, ‘a modest degree of integration. What makes me worse than them? Why am I refused the right? What must I do to live in this city? Transform myself into a doe-eyed elf, with long legs and silken hair? Huh? How is an elf better than me? At the sight of an elf, you stare at her legs, but me, when you look at me, you want to vomit? You order me to clear off, you want to banish me, but I'll survive. I know how. In the wolf pack, I ran, howled and bit my confederates for a female's favors. As an inhabitant of Novigrad, I'll trade, weave wicker baskets, beg or steal. As part of your society, I'll do the ordinary things that people do in your society. Who knows, perhaps I'll be able to get married?’
The witcher remained silent.
‘As I said,’ Tellico continued calmly, ‘I'm going. And you, Geralt, you won't even try to stop me. You won't lift eveb a single finger, because I pierced your thoughts for an instant, Geralt – including those whose existence you refuse to admit, those that you hide from yourself. To stop me, you would have to kill me, but the idea of cutting me down in cold blood fills you with horror. Am I wrong?’
The witcher still did not answer.
Tellico adjusted the strap of his lute again and started toward the exit after turning his back on Geralt. He walked with a resolute gait, but the witcher noticed that his neck stiffened and his shoulders hunched, waiting for the hiss of the blade. Geralt sheathed his sword. The doppler stopped midway and turned to look at him.
‘Goodbye, Geralt,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’
‘Goodbye, Dudu,’ the witcher replied. ‘Good luck.’
The doppler turned in the direction of the crowded bazaar with the same confident, lighthearted and swinging gait as Dandelion. Just like the troubadour, he raised his right hand and waved energetically, smiling broadly at the nearby girls. Geralt followed slowly in his steps. Slowly.
Tellico grasped his lute, walking and, having slowed his pace, played two chords, a prelude to strumming out a melody already known to Geralt. Turning, he sang lightly, like Dandelion:
When the spring comes along with the rain
the sun will warm us both.
That's the way it must be, for we burn
with fire eternal like hope.
‘Repeat that for Dandelion if you can remember it,’ he called. ‘This ballad should be titled The Eternal Fire. Goodbye, witcher!’
‘Hey!’ he heard suddenly. ‘Lousy crook!’
Startled, Tellico turned. Vespula appeared from behind a stall, her bust rising and falling violently, and gave him an ominous look.
‘Ogling girls, you traitor?’ she hissed, moving with increasing agitation. ‘Serenading them, scoundrel?’
Tellico doffed his cap and bowed, giving her a broad smile, just as Dandelion would.
‘Vespula, my dear,’ he said attentively, ‘how happy I am to see you. Forgive me, my sweet. I'm in your debt…’
‘You are… you are…’ she interrupted loudly. ‘And as you're in my debt, it's time to pay! Here!’
The enormous copper pan flashed in the sun before striking the doppler's head, making a deep resonant sound. With a stupid grin frozen on his face, Tellico stiffened and fell, folding his arms. His form suddenly began to change, to melt and lose all true similarity. Witnessing the scene, the witcher grabbed a large rug from a stall and hurried toward him. Having unrolled the rug on the ground, he slipped the doppler onto it with two little kicks and conscientiously wrapped him in the carpet.
Sitting on the bundle, Geralt wiped his brow with his sleeve. Vespula looked at him menacingly, shaking the pan in her fist. A crowd amassed around the two of them.
‘He's ill,’ said the witcher, forcing a smile. ‘It's for his own good. Don't crowd, good people. The poor man needs air.’
‘Didn't you hear?’ Chapelle asked with quiet authhority, making his way into the throng. ‘I suggest you to return to your activities! These assemblies are forbidden under penalty of law!’
The crowd dispersed around him to reveal Dandelion, who had been attracted, with no particular urgency, by the notes of the lute. At the sight of him, Vespula gave a terrible cry before throwing down her pan and fleeing the square at a run.
‘What happened to her?’ asked Dandelion. ‘Did she see a devil?’
Geralt got up from the rolled rug, which was beginning to wriggle slightly. Chapelle approached it slowly. He was alone. His personal guard was never visible.
‘In your place, master Chapelle, I would not go any farther,’ Geralt said in a low voice.
‘Oh yes?’
Chapelle looked at him coolly, his lips thinning.
‘If I were you, master Chapelle, I would pretend to have seen nothing.’
‘Yes, clearly,’ Chapelle replied, ‘but you are not me.’
Dainty Biberveldt, breathless and sweaty, emerged from behind the tent. He stopped short at the sight of Chapelle and began to whistle, his hands behind his back, pretending to admire the roof of the warehouse.
Chapelle came close to Geralt. The witcher remained motionless without blinking or flinching. Their eyes met for a moment, then Chapelle leaned over the bundle:
‘Dudu,’ he said, addressing Dandelion's cordovan shoes where they protruded from the rolled and misshapen carpet. ‘Copy Biberveldt, quickly.’
‘How?’ Dainty cried, looking away from the warehouse. ‘What?’
‘Silence,’ Chapelle
insisted. ‘So Dudu, how are you?’
‘That's…’ replied a stifled groan from inside the rug. ‘That's… That's…’
The cordovan shoes protruding from the carpet lost their consistency, dematerializing to transform into the barefoot and hairy feet of the halfling.
‘Get out of there, Dudu,’ said Chapelle. ‘And you, Dainty, keep quiet. To these people, all halflings look alike, don't they?’
Dainty grumbled indistinctly. Geralt stared at Chapelle, blinking suspiciously. The official straightened up and turned: the last curious onlookers on the periphery decamped on the spot in a clamor of footsteps that faded into the distance.
Dainty Biberveldt the Second extricated himself and emerged from the carpet, sneezing. He sat down, wiping his nose and eyes. Dandelion leaned against a chest that was resting on its side and strummed his lute with an intrigued expression on his face.
‘Who is it? Who do you think, Dainty?’ Chapelle asked gently. ‘It's a strong resemblance, don't you think?’
‘It's my cousin,’ Dainty said in a whisper, and smiled widely. ‘A very close relation: Dudu Biberveldt from the Persicaires prairie, a genius of commerce. I've just decided to…’
‘Yes, Dainty?’
‘I've decided to make him my representative in Novigrad. What do you think, cousin?’
‘Thank you very much, cousin,’ responded the very close relation, the hero of the Biberveldt clan, the genius of commerce, with a wide smile.
Chapelle smiled too.
‘Your dream of living in the big city has come true,’ Geralt murmured. ‘What are you looking for in the city, Dudu… and you, Chapelle?’
‘If you had lived in the headlands,’ Chapelle replied, ‘eating roots, soaking wet and shivering in the cold, then you would know… We too want something from life, Geralt. We are no worse than you.’
‘That's a fact,’ Geralt commented, nodding. ‘You're not. You may even be better. What happened to the real Chapelle?’
‘He kicked the bucket,’ Chapelle the Second said under his breath. ‘It was two months ago: apoplexy. May the earth above his resting place weigh lightly on him and may the Eternal Fire illuminate his path. I was nearby when it happened… No-one noticed… Geralt? You won't…’
Andrzej Sapkowski - [Witcher] Page 18