The Tower of Swallows

by Andrzej Sapkowski

  ‘I would. I know the power of legend.’

  The fjord protected them a little from the wind and the sail fluttered.

  ‘Sound the horn,’ Crach ordered his crew. ‘We’re reaching the shore. We ought to inform the pious ladies that we’re paying them a visit.’

  The building–located at the head of a long, stone staircase–looked like a gigantic hedgehog, so overgrown was it by moss, ivy and bushes. Yennefer observed that not just bushes, but even small trees, were growing on the roof.

  ‘This is the temple,’ Crach confirmed. ‘The grove surrounding it is called Hindar and is also a place of worship. It’s here that people gather the sacred mistletoe, and on Skellige, as you know, people garnish and decorate everything with it, from a newborn’s cradle to a grave… Have a care, the steps are slippery… The moss, ha-ha, is almost choking religion… Let me take your arm… As ever, that same perfume… Yenna…’

  ‘Crach. Please. Let bygones be bygones.’

  ‘I beg your pardon. Let’s go on.’

  Several silent young priestesses were waiting outside the temple. The yarl greeted them courteously and expressed a wish to talk to their superior, whom he called Modron Sigrdrifa. They went inside, to a space lit by shafts of light shining from stained-glass windows set high up. One of them was shining on the altar.

  ‘By a hundred sea devils,’ Crach an Craite muttered. ‘I’d forgotten how large Brisingamen was. I haven’t been here since I was a child… You could probably buy all the shipyards in Cidaris with it. Along with the labourers and the annual output.’

  The yarl was exaggerating. But not by much.

  A statue of Modron Freyja, the Great Mother, in her typical maternal aspect–a woman in flowing robes revealing her advanced state of pregnancy, which the sculptor had accented inordinately–towered above the modest marble altar, above figures of cats and falcons, above a stone basin for votive offerings. She stood with bowed head and facial features hidden by a scarf. Over the goddess’ arms, which were folded on her chest, was a diamond, one element of a gold necklace. The diamond was tinged slightly blue, like the clearest water. It was large.

  A hundred and fifty carats, or so.

  ‘It wouldn’t even need cutting,’ Yennefer whispered. ‘It’s a rosette, exactly what I need. Facets perfect for diffracting light…’

  ‘That means we’re lucky.’

  ‘I doubt it. The priestesses will soon appear, and I, being a heathen, will be sworn at and ejected.’

  ‘Are you exaggerating?’

  ‘Not in the slightest.’

  ‘Welcome, yarl, to the temple of the Mother. And I welcome you too, O honourable Yennefer of Vengerberg.’

  Crach an Craite bowed.

  ‘Greetings, esteemed mother Sigrdrifa.’

  The priestess was tall, almost as tall as Crach–which meant she was a head taller than Yennefer. She had fair hair and pale eyes, and an oval, none too pretty and none too feminine, face.

  I’ve seen her somewhere before, thought Yennefer. Not so long ago. Where?

  ‘On the steps of Kaer Trolde, leading to the harbour,’ the priestess recalled with a smile. ‘When the longboats were coming in from the sound. I stood over you as you helped a pregnant woman who was about to miscarry. On your knees, worrying not at all about your very costly camlet dress. I saw it. And I shall never more pay heed to tales of cold-hearted and calculated sorceresses.’

  Yennefer coughed softly and lowered her head in a bow.

  ‘You are standing before the altar of the Mother, Yennefer. May her grace fall on you.’

  ‘Esteemed mother, I… I wish humbly to ask you…’

  ‘Say nothing. Yarl, you are no doubt very busy. Leave us alone, here, on Hindarsfjall. We will manage to come to an agreement. We are women. It is unimportant what we are engaged in, or who we are: we always serve she who is the Virgin, the Mother and the Crone. Kneel beside me, Yennefer. Lower your head before the Mother.’

  ‘Take Brisingamen from the goddess’ neck?’ Sigrdrifa repeated, and there was more disbelief than righteous indignation in her voice. ‘No, Yennefer. It is quite impossible. The point is not even that I would not dare… Even if I did, Brisingamen cannot be removed. The necklace has no clasp. It is permanently bonded to the statue.’

  Yennefer stayed silent for a long while, calmly eyeing up the priestess.

  ‘Had I known,’ she said coldly, ‘I would have set sail at once for Ard Skellig with the yarl. No, no, by no means do I regard the time spent talking to you as wasted. But I have very little of it. Very little indeed. Your kindness and warmth beguiled me somewhat, I confess—’

  ‘I am well-disposed towards you,’ Sigrdrifa interrupted unemotionally. ‘I also support your plans, with all my heart. I knew Ciri, I liked the child, and her fate moves me. I admire you for the determination with which you hope to go to the girl’s rescue. I shall grant your every wish. But not Brisingamen, Yennefer. Not Brisingamen. Do not ask for that.’

  ‘Sigrdrifa, in order to go to Ciri’s rescue, I urgently need some information. Without it I’ll be helpless. I can only acquire the knowledge I need through telecommunication. In order to communicate at a distance, I must construct a magical artefact–a megascope–using magic.’

  ‘A device something like your notorious crystal balls?’

  ‘Considerably more complex. Crystal balls only permit telecommunication with another correlated crystal ball. Even the local dwarven bank has a crystal ball for talking to another at headquarters. A megascope has somewhat greater capabilities… But why theorise? Without the diamond nothing will come of it anyhow. Well, I shall say farewell…’

  ‘Don’t hurry so.’

  Sigrdrifa stood up and passed through the nave, stopping before the altar and the statue of Modron Freyja.

  ‘The goddess,’ she said, ‘is also the patron of soothsayers. Clairvoyants. Telepaths. As symbolised by her sacred animals: the cat, which sees and hears, itself unseen, and the falcon, which sees from above. And by the jewel of the goddess: Brisingamen, the necklace of clairvoyance. Why build some looking and listening device, Yennefer? Wouldn’t it be simpler to ask the goddess for help?’

  Yennefer stopped herself from swearing at the last moment. After all, it was a place of worship.

  ‘The time for evening prayers is approaching,’ Sigrdrifa continued. ‘I shall devote myself to meditation along with the other priestesses. I shall ask the goddess for help for Ciri. For Ciri, who was here many times, in this temple, and looked at Brisingamen around the neck of the Great Mother many times. Sacrifice one more hour or two of your precious time, Yennefer. Stay here, with us, for the time of worship. Support me as I pray. With your thoughts and presence.’

  ‘Sigrdrifa…’

  ‘Please. Do it for me. And for Ciri.’

  The jewel Brisingamen. On the goddess’ neck.

  She stifled a yawn. Had there only been some singing, she thought, some incantations, some mystery… Some mystic folklore… It would have been less boring, she wouldn’t be feeling so drowsy. But they were simply kneeling, with bowed heads. Motionless, soundless.

  But they’re capable, when they want to, of using the Power, at times just as well as we sorceresses. It’s still a mystery how they do it. Without any preparations, any learning, any studies… Just prayer and meditation. Divination? Some kind of autohypnosis? That’s what Tissaia de Vries claims… They absorb energy unconsciously, in a trance, and they acquire the ability to transform it into something like our spells. They transform energy, treating it as a gift and favour of the godhead. Faith gives them strength.

  Why have we sorceresses never succeeded with anything like that?

  Ought I to try? Using the atmosphere and aura of this place? I could enter a trance myself, couldn’t I? If only by gazing at the diamond… Brisingamen… Intensively thinking about how marvellously it would function in my megascope…

  Brisingamen… shining like the morning star, there, in the gloom, in the smo
ke of incense and smouldering candles…

  ‘Yennefer.’

  She jerked her head up.

  It was dark in the temple. It smelled strongly of smoke.

  ‘Did I fall asleep? Forgive me…’

  ‘There’s nothing to forgive. Come with me.’

  Outside, the night sky burned with a twinkling luminosity that changed like the colours in a kaleidoscope. The northern lights? Yennefer rubbed her eyes in amazement. The aurora borealis? In August?

  ‘How much are you capable of sacrificing, Yennefer?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Are you prepared to sacrifice yourself? Your priceless magic?’

  ‘Sigrdrifa,’ she said with anger, ‘don’t try your sublime tricks on me. I’m ninety-four years old. But treat that, please, as a confessional secret. I’m only confiding in you so you’ll understand I can’t be treated like a child.’

  ‘You didn’t answer my question.’

  ‘And I don’t mean to. For it’s the mysticism I don’t accept. I fell asleep during your worship. It wearied and bored me. Because I don’t believe in your goddess.’

  Sigrdrifa turned away and Yennefer took a very deep breath in spite of herself.

  ‘Your disbelief is not very flattering to me,’ said a woman with eyes filled with molten gold. ‘But does your disbelief change anything?’

  All Yennefer could do was to breathe out.

  ‘The time will come,’ said the golden-eyed woman, ‘when absolutely no one, including children, will believe in sorceresses. I tell you that with deliberate spite. By way of revenge. Let us leave.’

  ‘No…’ Yennefer finally managed. ‘No! I won’t go anywhere. Enough of this! It’s an enthrallment or hypnosis. An illusion! A trance! I have developed defence mechanisms… I can dispel all this with one charm, just like that! Dammit…’

  The golden-eyed woman came closer. The diamond in her necklace burned like the morning star.

  ‘Your speech is slowly ceasing to serve as communication,’ she said. ‘It is becoming art for art’s sake. The more incomprehensible it is, the more profound and wise it is considered. In sooth, I preferred you when you could only say “Ugh” and “Ooh”. Come.’

  ‘This is an illusion, a trance… I won’t go anywhere!’

  ‘I don’t want to force you. It would be a disgrace. For you’re an intelligent and proud girl, you have character.’

  A plain. A sea of grass. A moor. A boulder, jutting from the heather like the back of a crouching predator.

  ‘You desired my jewel, Yennefer. I cannot give it to you without first making sure of a few things. I want to check what is deep inside you. Therefore I have brought you here, to this place of Power and Might from time immemorial. Your priceless magic is apparently everywhere. Apparently it’s sufficient to merely hold out one’s hand. Are you afraid to hold it out?’

  Yennefer couldn’t utter a sound from her tight throat.

  ‘Are, then, Chaos, art and learning,’ said the woman, whose name could not be uttered, ‘according to you, the Powers capable of changing the world? A curse, a blessing and progress? And aren’t they by any chance Faith? Love? Sacrifice?

  ‘Do you hear? The cock Kambi is crowing. The waves are breaking against the shore, waves pushed by Naglfar’s prow. The horn of Hemdall sounds as he stands facing his enemies on the rainbow-coloured arch of Bifrost. The White Frost is nigh, a gale and a blizzard are nigh… The earth trembles from the writhing movements of the Serpent…

  ‘The wolf devours the sun. The moon turns black. There is only coldness and darkness. Hatred, vengeance and blood…

  ‘Whose side will you be on, Yennefer? Will you be on the east or the west side of Bifrost? Will you be with Hemdall or against him?

  ‘The cock Kambi is crowing.

  ‘Decide, Yennefer. Choose. Only for this reason were you restored to life: that you might make a choice at the right moment.

  ‘Light or Darkness?’

  ‘Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, Order and Chaos? They are but symbols; in reality no such polarity exists! Brightness and Gloom are in each of us, a little of one and a little of the other. This conversation is pointless. Pointless. I will not come over to mysticism. To you and Sigrdrifa, the Wolf is devouring the Sun. To me it’s an eclipse. And may it remain that way.’

  Remain? What?

  She felt her head spinning, felt some horrendous force twisting her arms, wrenching the joints in her shoulders and elbows, racking her vertebrae as though she were being tortured. She screamed in pain, thrashed around and opened her eyes. No, it wasn’t a dream. It couldn’t be a dream. She was on a tree, hanging arms akimbo from the boughs of a gigantic ash. High above her a falcon circled. Below her, on the ground, in the gloom, she heard the hiss of snakes, the rustling of scales rubbing against each other.

  Something moved beside her. A squirrel ran across her tautened and aching shoulders.

  ‘Are you ready?’ asked the squirrel. ‘Are you ready to offer your sacrifice? What are you prepared to sacrifice?’

  ‘I have nothing!’ The pain blinded and paralysed her. ‘And even if I had, I don’t believe in such a sacrifice! I don’t want to suffer for millions! I don’t want to suffer at all! For no one and in no one’s stead!’

  ‘No one wants to suffer. But yet it is our lot. And some suffer more. Not necessarily by choice. The point is not the bearing of suffering. The point is how it is borne.’

  Janka! Dear Janka!

  Take this hunchbacked monstrosity from me! I don’t want to look at it!

  She’s your daughter as much as she is mine.

  Indeed? The children I have sired are normal.

  How dare you… How dare you suggest…

  It was in your elven family that there were witches. It was you that aborted your first pregnancy. It was because of that. You have tainted elven blood and a tainted womb, woman. That’s why you give birth to monsters.

  It is an ill-fated child… Such was the will of the gods! She’s your daughter as much as she is mine! What was I to do? Smother her? Not tie the birth cord? What am I to do now? Take her to the forest and leave her? What do you want from me, by the Gods?

  Daddy! Mummy!

  Get away, you freak.

  How dare you! How dare you strike a child! Stop! Where are you going? Where? To her, are you? To her!

  Yes, woman. I’m a man. I’m free to sate my lust where and when I want, as is my natural right. And I loathe you. You and the fruit of your degenerate womb. Don’t wait with supper. I won’t be back tonight.

  Mummy…

  Why are you weeping?

  Why are you beating me and pushing me away? I was good, wasn’t I?

  Mummy! Dear Mummy!

  ‘Are you capable of forgiveness?’

  ‘I forgave long ago.’

  ‘Having first satisfied your lust for vengeance.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you regret it?’

  ‘No.’

  Pain, searing pain in her mutilated hands and fingers.

  ‘Yes, I’m guilty. Is that what you want to hear? A confession and remorse? You want to hear Yennefer of Vengerberg grovel and abase herself? No, I won’t give you that pleasure. I admit my guilt and await my punishment. But you will not hear my remorse!’

  The pain reached the limits of what a person can withstand.

  ‘You blame me for the betrayed, the deceived, the abused, you blame me for those who died–because of me–from their own hand, from my hand… For once having raised a hand against myself? You can see I had my reasons! And I regret nothing! Even if I could turn back time… I regret nothing!’

  The falcon alighted on her shoulder.

  The Tower of the Swallow. The Tower of the Swallow. Hurry to the Tower of the Swallow.

  O Daughter.

  The cock Kambi crows.

  Ciri on a black mare, at a gallop, her ashen hair tousled by the wind. Blood sprays from her face, a vivid, intense red. The black mare s
oars like a bird, smoothly gliding over the top rail of a high gate. Ciri sways in the saddle, but doesn’t fall off…

  Ciri amidst the night, amidst a stony, sandy wilderness, with a raised arm. A glowing ball explodes from her hand… A unicorn churning up gravel with its hoof… Many unicorns… Fire… Fire…

  Geralt on a bridge. In combat. Amidst fire. A flame reflected in his sword blade.

  Fringilla Vigo, her green eyes wide open in sexual ecstasy, her close-cropped head on an open book, on the frontispiece… Part of the title is visible: Remarks on Inevitable Death…

  Geralt’s eyes reflected in Fringilla’s.

  A chasm. Smoke. Steps leading downwards. Steps that must be descended. Something is ending. Tedd Deireadh, the Time of the End, is nigh…

  Darkness. Dampness. The dreadful cold of stone walls. The cold of iron on wrists, on ankles. Pain pulsing in mutilated hands, shooting down crushed fingers…

  Ciri takes her by the hand. A long, dark corridor, stone columns, perhaps statues… Darkness. In it, whispers soft as the soughing of the wind.

  A door. Endless doors with gigantic, heavy leaves open before them without a murmur. And finally, in the impenetrable darkness, a door which does not open by itself. Which it is forbidden to open.

  If you are afraid, turn back.

  It is forbidden to open this door. You know that.

  I do.

  But yet you are leading me there.

  If you are afraid, turn back. There is still time to turn back. It is not yet too late.

  And you?

  For me it is.

  The cock Kambi is crowing.

  Tedd Deireadh has come.

  The aurora borealis.

  Dawn.

  ‘Yennefer. Wake up.’

  She jerked her head up. She glanced down at her hands. She had both of them. Intact.

  ‘Sigrdrifa? I fell asleep…’

  ‘Come.’

  ‘Where to?’ she whispered. ‘Where to this time?’