The Lady of the Lake

by Andrzej Sapkowski

  ‘You were the Lady of the Lake,’ he nodded his head very seriously. ‘Why have you come here, girl?’

  ‘Why? For Yennefer. And my destiny.’

  ‘Rather for your death,’ he whispered. ‘This is the castle Stygga. In your place, I would quickly flee. Perhaps there is still time.’

  She looked at him again. Boreas realized what that look meant.

  Stefan Skellen appeared. He looked at the girl for a long time with his arms crossed. Finally he gestured vigorously for her to follow him. She went without a word, escorted on all sides my armed men.

  ‘A strange girl,’ Boreas said through clenched teeth, shivering.

  ‘Fortunately, she’s not our problem,’ Dacre Silifant said scathingly. ‘I’m surprised you talked to her. That witch killed Vargas and Fripp and Ola Harsheim...’

  ‘The Owl killed Ola Harsheim,’ Boreas cut him off, ‘not here. She spared our lives on the ice, but she could have slaughtered us all like puppies. All of us. Even the Owl.’

  ‘Look at her,’ Dacre spat on the cobblestones. ‘She’ll be rewarded for her mercy, by the sorcerer and Bonhart. You’ll see, Boreas, what they’ll do to her. Remove all her skin while she is alive, in thin strips.’

  ‘That’s certain,’ Boreas grumbled. ‘Because they are scoundrels. And we are no better, because we are in their service.’

  ‘Did we have any other choice? No.’

  Suddenly, one of Skellen’s mercenaries screamed, then another. Someone cursed and sighed. Another pointed silently.

  On the battlements, the corbels, the roofs, towers, parapets, gutters and gargoyles were covered as far as the eye could see in black birds. Quietly, without a squawk they came from the wrecked shipyard and now quietly, without a sound, sat and waited.

  ‘They sense death,’ muttered one of the mercenaries.

  ‘And carrion,’ added another.

  ‘We had no choice,’ Silifant repeated mechanically looking at Boreas.

  Boreas looked at the birds.

  ‘Maybe it’s time,’ he replied quietly, ‘to find one.’

  They climbed a wide stair case with three landings, passing a row of statues set in niches along a corridor, past a gallery and that surrounded a hall. Ciri walked boldly, without fear, neither frightened by the weapons or the escort. She lied when she said she did not remember the faces of the people from the frozen lake. She remembered. She remembered how Stefan Skellen, the one who was now leading her through the gloomy corridors of the castle, shivered and chattered his teeth on the ice.

  Now, when he looked back at her his eyes searing, she felt that he was still afraid. She sighed with relief.

  They entered a hall, high pillars supported the ribbed vault and large chandeliers hung from the roof like giant spiders. Ciri saw who was waiting there for her, Fear dug into her bowls like an iceberg, clenching it into a fist and twisting.

  Bonhart in three steps was in front of her. With both hands he grabbed her blouse, lifted her off the ground and pulled her in tightly before his pale, fish eyes.

  ‘Hell, he wheezed, ‘must be really terrible if you prefer me.’

  She did not answer. She smelt alcohol on his breath.

  ‘Or maybe hell did not want you, you little beast. The devil’s tower spit you out, in disgust after tasting your poison.’

  He pulled her closer. She turned away from his face in disgust.

  ‘You’re afraid,’ he gurgled. ‘Rightly afraid. Here is the end of your journey. You’ll not get away. Here in this castle, we will release the blood from your veins.’

  ‘Finished, Mister Bonhart?’

  She immediately recognized the voice that spoke. It was Vilgefortz, the wizard with whom she had met twice on the island of Thanedd. The first time while he was a prisoner in chains, and again when he followed her to the Tower of the Gulls. Then on the island, he had been very handsome. Now his face had changed, something had made him deformed and awful.

  ‘Excuse me, Mister Bonhart,’ the sorcerer did not move from his throne-like chair, ‘it is I, the lord of castle Stygga who should assume the pleasant task of welcoming our guest, the maiden Cirilla of Cintra, Pavetta’s daughter, Calanthe’s granddaughter and descendant of Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal. Be welcome. Come closer, please.’

  The last words were not spoken under a mask of courtesy and ridicule. They were only threat and order. Ciri immediately felt that she would not be able to resist this command. She felt fear. Terrible fear.

  ‘Closer,’ hissed Vilgefortz.

  Now she could see what had happened to his face. The left eye was significantly smaller than the right, blinking and squinting in a wrinkled eye socket. His gaze was terrible.

  ‘The posture of the brave with a trace of fear in her face,’ the wizard said, cocking his head. ‘You have my appreciation. If your courage does not come from stupidity. Immediately dispel any fantasies. As Bonhart has said, there is no escape. Either by teleport or with your special abilities.’

  She knew he was right. Earlier, she had told herself that even in the last moment she could run and hide among the times and places. Now she knew that this hope was just an illusion, a fantasy. The castle vibrated with hostile, alien magic, magic that penetrated her like a parasite crawling in her belly and her brain. There was nothing she could do. She was in the enemies hands. Powerless.

  It cannot be helped, she thought, I knew what I was doing. I knew why I had to come here. The other reasons were just false hope. Whatever will happen, will happen.

  ‘Good,’ said Vilgefortz. ‘A proper assessment of the situation. Whatever will happen, will happen. More precisely – It will be, as I decide. I wonder if you can guess, what I will decide.’

  She tried to answer, but before she could overcome the resistance in her shrunken and dried throat, Vilgefortz probed her thoughts and again and interrupted.

  ‘Of course you do, Lady of the Worlds. Lady of time and space. Yes, yes, my wonderful, I am not surprised by your visit. I know where you ran away to from the lake, and know what you have done. I know how you got here. The only thing I don’t know is if your journey was long. Or the number of experiences delivered.’

  Again with a malicious smile her cut her off.

  ‘Oh, no need to respond. I know it was very interesting and exciting. I’m anxious to try it also. You do not know how I envy that talent of yours. I’ll need you to share it with me, my wonderful. Yes, “need” is the right word. Until you share with me your talent, I will not let you out of my hands.

  Ciri finally realized that it was not only fear gripping her throat. The sorcerer magically throttled and strangled her. He mocked her and humiliated her, before the eyes of his followers.

  ‘Free... Yennefer,’ she managed to get out, coughing with the effort. ‘Free her... And you can do whatever you want with me.’

  Bonhart burst out laughing, Stefan Skellen also started to laugh dryly. Vilgefortz poke at the corner of his macabre eye with his little finger.

  ‘You cannot be so foolish as to think that, and so you will do what I want. Your offer is pathetic, so pathetic and ridiculous.’

  ‘You need me...’ she lifted her head, though it cost her a lot of strength. ‘To have a child with me. Everybody wants that, you do too. Yes, I am in your power, I came here on my own... You did not catch me, though you chased me halfway around the world. I came here on my own and I give myself to you. For Yennefer. For her life. Does this seem ridiculous? Then try to take me by force, take me the hard way... You’ll see how fast you lose the urge to laugh.’

  Bonhart stood beside her in a jump, threatening her with a whip. Vilgefortz nodded almost imperceptibly, and slightly movement of his hand, but it was enough to knock the whip from the hand of the bounty hunter, and he stumbled like he had been hit by a wagon full of coal.

  ‘Mister Bonhart,’ Vilgefortz said, rubbing his fingers. ‘I noticed you still have difficulty adapting to the duties of being my guest. Try to remember that my guests my destroy furnitur
e and artwork, steal small valuables and dirty the carpets and facility chambers. They cannot beat or rape other guests. The last, at least until the host has finished beating and raping and signs that you can begin. From what I’ve just said, you should be able to draw the right conclusions. As to you Ciri, I’ll help you. You delivered yourself to me humbly and think that I’ll do everything you please. And you think this is an extremely generous offer. You are wrong, because it is I who will do what I please with you. For example, I would, by way of revenge for Thanedd, like to take at least one of your eyes, but I cannot, because I’m afraid that you would not survive.’

  Now or never, Ciri thought. She turned around and drew her sword, Swallow. Suddenly, the whole room began to spin, she fell and badly hit her knees. She lowered her forehead, almost touching the floor, struggling with the emetic reflex. The sword slipped from her numb fingers.

  Someone picked it up.

  ‘Now,’ Vilgefortz drawled, leaning his chin on his folded hands as if in prayer. ‘Where was I? Oh, yes, right, your offer. Life and freedom for your Yennefer... For what? For you voluntary surrender, willingly, without violence and coercion? I’m sorry, Ciri. What I need to do to you, without violence and coercion I simply cannot do.’

  He watched with interest as the girl coughed, wheezed and spat thick saliva to prevent vomiting.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he continued. ‘That’s what I’ll do with you, you’ll never surrender willingly, I assure you. And that is why your offer is not only pathetic and ridiculous, but also worthless. For this reason, I reject it. Grab her and take her to the lab!’

  The Laboratory was not much different from the one that Ciri knew of at the temple of Melitele in Ellander. It was brightly lit, clean, equipped with long tables with metal plates and shelves full of glass – flasks, test tubes, retorts, bowls and all sorts of other gadgets.

  As in Ellander it also smelled strongly of alcohol, ether, formalin and something else, something that inspired terror. Even there, in the friendly temple, opposite the friendly priestess Nenneke and Yennefer, Ciri felt fear in the laboratory. And there, in Ellander, no one dragged her into the lab by violence; nobody held her arms in an iron grip. There, in Ellander, was no steel chair, whose shape was sadistically quite obvious. There were no white-dressed and clean-shaven-headed types, no Bonhart, no Skellen, excitedly licking his lips. Nor were there Vilgefortz, with one good eye and one unnaturally small and terribly busy.

  Vilgefortz turned away from the table where he had been arranging terrible instruments for a long time.

  ‘You see, my wonderful,’ he began, approaching her, ‘you are for me the key to power and dominance. Not only in this world, which is doomed anyway, but over all worlds. Over the myriad of places and times that arose after the conjunction. Surely you understand, because you yourself visited some of these places and times.’

  Slowly he rolled up his sleeves and continued.

  ‘I’m ashamed to admit, but I’m terribly attracted to power. It’s trivial, I know, but I want to be a ruler. A Sovereign, before who all will fall on this face and glorify him only because he exists, and worship as a god, if he deign to save their world from destruction – even if it is done on a whim. Oh, Ciri, my heart rejoices when I think about how I will generously reward the faithful and how I will cruelly punish the disobedient and rebellious. Whole generations will pray to me and beg me for pardon, mercy and forgiveness. Generations of whole worlds. Listen, Ciri. Do you hear those prayers? Protect us from famine, plague, fire, was and your wrath, O Almighty Vilgefortz...’

  He wiggled his fingers in front of her eyes and suddenly grabbed her face violently. Ciri cried out and tried to escape, but he held her firmly. Her lips trembled. Vilgefortz saw this.

  ‘Child of Destiny,’ he laughed and from the corners of his mouth dripped foam. ‘Aen Hen Ichaer, the Elder Blood... is now all mine!’

  He straightened abruptly and wiped his mouth.

  ‘Fools and mystics,’ he said in his usual calm tone, ‘tried to find the secret of your existence in ancient legends and prophecies, in your genealogy they searched for the origins of your gene – a legacy of their ancestors. They have confused the night sky with the stars reflected on the surface of the water. The mystics believed that the gene would continue to develop, thanks to the evolution of new possibilities and achieve greater power in your child or in your child’s child. And around you grew a magical aura enveloping you in clouds of smoke from incense. They truth is, however, trivial, one might say organic – the important thing here is your blood. But in the literal sense, not the figurative sense of the word.’

  He raised a glass syringe from the table about a half foot long. It ended in a thin, slightly curved point. Ciri felt her mouth go dry. The sorcerer examined the instrument in the light of a lamp.

  ‘My assistance will help you undress and get you settled in the chair...Yes, that chair which you have been so curiously eyeing. You will have to remain for sometime in a rather uncomfortable position, until I use this tool to inseminate you. It will not be so bad, during the whole procedure you’ll be under the influence of powerful elixirs that I will be injecting to ensure the proper implantation of the egg and to prevent an ectopic pregnancy. Don’t worry, I’ve had experience, I’ve done it a hundred times. You may be a child of the Elder Blood, but I do not suppose that your fallopian tubes are somehow anatomically different from the tubes of ordinary girls.’

  Vilgefortz talked and talked, obviously relishing in his own words.

  ‘And now for the most important thing, you may be upset, you may be happy, but know that your child will not be born. Who knows, maybe it would have been a great chosen one

  with extraordinary abilities, the savior of the world and the king of all the nations. However, no one can guarantee this and besides I do not intent to wait that long. I need blood. More specifically, placental blood. Once you have developed a placenta, I’ll remove it. The rest of my plans and intentions, as you can understand, do not concern you, so there is no use in giving you useless information.’

  He made a theatrical pause. Ciri could not stop her lips from trembling.

  ‘And now,’ the wizard gestured with a flourish, ‘I invite you to your chair, princess.’

  ‘It would be worth it,’ Bonhart sneered under his grey moustache, ‘to see the look on that bitch, Yennefer’s face. She deserves it.’

  ‘Of course,’ Vilgefortz wiped bubbly foam from his lips again. ‘Fertilization is a sacred, noble and solemn affair, in which the family should assist. And Yennefer is something like a mother to her. In all primitive cultures, mothers of the bride are present at this ritual. Quickly bring Yennefer here!’

  ‘With regard to the fertilization,’ Bonhart said bending over Ciri, who the sorcerer’s minions had already started to undress, ‘would it not be possible to do it the old, proven way, Lord Vilgefortz? In accordance with nature?’

  Skellen snorted and shook his head. Vilgefortz frowned.

  ‘No,’ he said frostily. ‘It is not, Bonhart.’

  Ciri, as if only now realizing the seriousness of the situation, cried shrilly. Once, twice.

  ‘Well, well,’ the sorcerer clicked. ‘With head held high and a direct gaze you entered the lion’s den, my dear, and now you are afraid of a thin glass tube. That’s a shame.’

  Ciri ignored his admonitions and screamed until the laboratory glassware rattled.

  And suddenly the whole of castle Stygga responded with cries of alarm.

  ‘Woe to us,’ said Zadarlik scrapping a spear through the manure between the stones in the courtyard. ‘Woe, woe.’

  He looked at his companions, but none of the guards were saying anything. Nor was Boreas Mun, who had stayed with the guards at the gate. By his own will, because he had not been ordered to stay. He could have gone with the Owl like Silifant, could have seen with his own eyes what was going to happen to the Lady of the Lake and what fate awaited her. But he preferred to stay in the yard, in the open, a
way from the rooms and halls of the keep, where they had led the girl. He was sure her screams wouldn’t reach here.

  ‘Those black birds are an evil sign,’ Zadarlik pointed to the jackdaws sitting on the walls and roofs. ‘I get a bad feeling from the girl who came in on the black mare. This is ugly business serving the Owl, I tell you. Rumor has it that the Owl is no longer the imperial coroner, but an outlaw like us. That the Emperor has sentenced him to death. And when he is picked up, woe to all who are with him. Woe to us.’

  ‘Ay, ay,’ said a second guard, a bearded man in a hat decorated with feathers. ‘The stake awaits us! Not even the gods can stand before the imperial wrath.’

  ‘Do not worry,’ a third guard casually waved his hand, who had only come to castle Stygga recently with the last group of mercenaries. ‘The Emperor will not care about us, he has other worries. There is talk of a battle somewhere in the north. The Nordlings killed the Imperials, bled them properly.’

  ‘In such a case,’ said another, ‘it is good after all that we hold to the sorcerer and the Owl. Our kind are always better off with someone who has the upper hand.’

  ‘Sure,’ said the newcomer. ‘The Owl is the future. And we’ll go up with him.’

  ‘You idiot,’ said Zadarlik. ‘Do you have sawdust in your head?’

  The black birds took flight. The flapping and squawking were deafening. They darkened the sky and began to circle the castle.

  ‘What the devil?’ yelled one of the guards.

  ‘Open the gate please.’

  Boreas Mun suddenly noticed a strong smell of herbs – mint, sage and thyme. He swallowed and shook his head. He closed his eyes and opened them again. In vain. A skinny man, who looked like grizzled-looking tax collector, stood by his side and did not disappear. He stood smiling with his mouth closed. Boreas felt his hair standing on end, nearly lifting his cap.

  ‘Open the gate, please,’ repeated the smiling man. ‘Immediately. Believe me; it will be better for you.’

  Zadarlik dropped his spear which clattered on the ground. He stood frozen, his lips moving wordlessly. His eyes were empty. The others headed for the gate. They walked like unnaturally stiff puppets. They lifted the latch and opened both doors. Into the courtyard rode four riders.