I was looking at their eyes and their hands, and I thought that old Hwyrddyddwg had been right: their eyes and hands indeed showed their intentions. For in their eyes there was cruelty and determination, while their hands held swords. I didn’t have mine, that same sword I had offered to Iseult of the White Hands. “Well,” I thought, “tough tithies”. After all, it’s not a big deal to die fighting. It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?
I am Morholt! The one who is Decision.
“Your name, sir,” repeated Marjadoc.
“Tristan,” I said.
The chaplain appeared out of nowhere, sprang from the ground like a pukka. Groaning with the effort, he threw across the hall a huge, two-handed sword. Marjadoc leapt at me, raising his sword. For a moment both weapons were up in the air – Marjadoc’s and the one flying towards my outstretched hands. It seemed I could not move quick enough. But I could.
I cut Marjadoc under his arm, with all my strength, in a half-swing. The blade went in diagonally, as far as the line dividing the fields on his coat of arms. I turned back, letting the sword slide out. Marjadoc fell down, right under the feet of the other three who were running towards me. Anoeth tripped on the body, which meant I could easily crack his head. And I did.
Gwydolwyn and Deheu rushed at me from both sides. I stepped in between them, whirling round with the stretched sword like a spinning top. They had to back off. Their blades were a good arm’s length shorter than mine. Kneeling down, I cut Gwydolwyn on the thigh. I felt the blade grate on the bone. Deheu swung his sword and tried to get to me from the side. But he slipped on the blood and fell on one knee. His eyes were full of fear now, begging for mercy, but I found none. I didn’t even look for it. It’s impossible to parry a thrust with a two-hander delivered from a close range. If you cannot move out of its way, the blade will sink two-thirds of its length into your body until it stops on the two little iron wings placed there especially for this purpose. And it did.
Believe me or not, but none of them let out as much as a squeak. While I… I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I dropped the sword on the floor.
“Morholt!” Branwen ran and clang to me, her body shuddering with waves of terror slowly dying away.
“It’s all right now, dear. It’s all over,” I said, stroking her hair, but at the same time looking at the chaplain kneeling by the dying Gwydolwyn.
“Thank you for the sword, monk.”
The chaplain lifted his head and looked me in the eyes. Where had he sprung from? Was he here all the time? But if he was here all the time… then who was he? Who the devil was he?
“It’s all in God’s hands,” he said, and bent over the dying Gwydolwyn. “… Et lux perpetua luceat ei…”
Still, he didn’t convince me. He didn’t convince me with the first saying, nor with the second.
* * *
Then we found Iseult.
In the baths; her face pressed to the well. Clean, pedantic Iseult of the White Hands could not have done it anywhere else but on the stone floor, by the gutter meant for draining away water. Now this gutter glistened dark clotted red along its entire length.
She had opened her veins on both hands. With expertise. Along the forearms, on the inner side, and then, to make sure, on her wrists with the sign of the cross. We would not have been able to save her even if we’d found her earlier.
Her hands were even whiter than before.
And then, believe me or not, I realised that the rudderless boat was leaving the shore. Without us. Without Morholt of Ulster. Without Branwen of Cornwall. But it was not empty.
Farewell, Iseult. Farewell. For ever. Be it in Tir Na Nog, or in Avalon, the whiteness of your hands will last for centuries. For eternity.
Farewell, Iseult.
* * *
We left Carhaing before Caherdin’s arrival. We didn’t want to talk to him, or to anyone who might have been on that ship from Tintagel. For us the legend was over. We were not interested in what the minstrels were going to do with it.
The sky was overcast again; it was raining, a drizzle. Brittany, the usual stuff. There was a road ahead of us: the road through the dunes towards that rocky beach. I didn’t want to think what to do next. It didn’t matter.
“I love you, Morholt,” said Branwen without looking at me. “I love you whether you want it or not. It’s like an illness. A weariness which drains me of my free will, which pulls me into the deep. I’ve lost myself within you, Morholt, and I shall never find myself the way I was before. If you respond to my love, you too will lose yourself, you will perish, drown in the deeps and never find the old Morholt again. So think well before you give me your answer.”
The ship stood by the rocky shore. They were unloading something. Someone was shouting, cursing in Welsh, hurrying the men. The sails were being rolled. The sails…
“It’s a terrible sickness, this love,” carried on Branwen, also looking at the sails. “La maladie, as they say in the south, on the mainland. La maladie d’espoir, the sickness of hope. The selfish infatuation, bringing harm to everyone around. I love you, Morholt, selfishly, blindly. I’m not worried about the fate of others whom I may unwittingly draw into the whirl of my love, or hurt, or trample upon. Isn’t it terrible? If you respond to my love… Think well, Morholt, before you give me your answer.”
The sails…
“We are like Tristan and Iseult,” said Branwen, and her voice came dangerously close to breaking point. “La maladie… What shall become of us, Morholt? What will happen to us? Will we too be joined finally by bushes of hawthorn and briar-rose growing on our graves? Think well, Morholt, before you answer.”
I was not going to do any thinking. I suspect Branwen knew as much. I saw it in her eyes, when she turned her face towards me.
She knew we’d been sent to Carhaing to save the legend. And we did. The simplest way. By beginning a new one.
“I know how you feel, Branwen,” I said, looking at the sails, “for I feel exactly the same. It’s a terrible sickness. A terrible, incurable malady. I know how you feel. For I too have fallen ill.”
Branwen smiled, and it seemed to me that the sun had broken through the low-hanging clouds. That’s what her smile was like. Believe me or not.
“And the pox on the healthy, Branwen!”
The sails were dirty.
Or so it seemed to me.
Łódź, June 1991
Translated from the Polish by Wiesiek Powaga
ANDRZEJ SAPKOWSKI – in 1985 opened a new chapter of Polish fantasy with a prize-winning story Vedmin (The Wizard), soon followed by a whole saga featuring its main hero Gerald of Rivia. By now Sapkowki is the most popular writer of Polish fantasy and beyond, with two volumes of stories (The Wizard, 1990, The Sword of Destiny, 1992), a comic book based on one of his stories The Road without Return, and a full feature film based on his most popular creation Gerald the Wizard.
Mixing plots and conventions of different traditions in story-telling, Sapkowski uses them as an artistic material to tell stories of universal adventures of man and his heart. The Malady takes place in the magic world of uncertain ontological status. In this variation on the legend of Tristan and Isolda, the new characters written into the plot – the hero of an unknown origin, as well as the reader himself – know of and expect certain events, yet they question Destiny and work together to save the legend and keep it alive. A very interesting and mischievous literary work, which goes well beyond a mere re-telling or reconstruction of the myth.
PS/ 1998 – Andrzej Sapkowski has by now become one of the best-selling authors not just of Fantasy but of Polish fiction in general. His popularity, based on several volumes of stories and novels, and in particular the trilogy featuring the Vedmin Gerald of Rivia, has broken out beyond the confines of Fantasy fandom and entered Poland’s literary mainstream, a feat comparable to Tolkien’s Ring of the Lords or Terry Pratchet’s Discworld series. This rare achievement has been recently recognised in the form o
f the prestigious Passport Prize for the unique contribution to Polish culture, awarded to him in December 1998 by Poland’s leading weekly POLITYKA. Already translated into several European languages, his work is – sadly – still unknown on the greatest Fantasy and SF literary market.
Wiesiek Powaga
THE WITCHER
I
Later, it was said the man came from the north, from Ropers Gate. He came on foot, leading his laden horse by the bridle. It was late afternoon and the ropers’, saddlers’ and tanners’ stalls were already closed, the street empty. It was hot but the man had a black coat thrown over his shoulders. He drew attention to himself.
He stopped in front of the Old Narakort Inn, stood there for a moment, listened to the hubbub of voices. As usual, at this hour, it was full of people.
The stranger did not enter the Old Narakort. He pulled his horse further down the street to another tavern, a smaller one, called The Fox. Not enjoying the best of reputations, it was almost empty.
The innkeeper raised his head above a barrel of pickled cucumbers and measured the man with his gaze. The outsider, still in his coat, stood stiffly in front of the counter, motionless and silent.
‘What will it be?’
‘Beer,’ said the stranger. His voice was unpleasant.
The innkeeper wiped his hands on his canvas apron and filled a chipped earthenware tankard.
The stranger was not old but his hair was almost entirely white. Beneath his coat he wore a worn leather jerkin laced up at the neck and shoulders.
As he took off his coat those around him noticed that he carried a sword – not something unusual in itself, nearly every man in Wyzim carried a weapon – but no one carried a sword strapped to his back as if it were a bow or a quiver.
The stranger did not sit at the table with the few other guests. He remained standing at the counter, piercing the innkeeper with his gaze. He drew from the tankard.
‘I’m looking for a room for the night.’
‘There’s none,’ grunted the innkeeper, looking at the guest’s boots, dusty and dirty. ‘Ask at the Old Narakort.’
‘I would rather stay here.’
‘There is none.’ The innkeeper finally recognised the stranger’s accent. He was Rivian.
‘I’ll pay.’ The outsider spoke quietly, as if unsure, and the whole nasty affair began. A pockmarked beanpole of a man who, from the moment the outsider had entered had not taken his gloomy eyes from him, got up and approached the counter. Two of his companions rose behind him, no more than two paces away.
‘There’s no room to be had, you Rivian vagabond,’ rasped the pockmarked man, standing right next to the outsider. ‘We don’t need people like you in Wyzim. This is a decent town!’
The outsider took his tankard and moved away. He glanced at the innkeeper, who avoided his eyes. It did not even occur to him to defend the Rivian. After all, who liked Rivians?
‘All Rivians are thieves,’ the pock-marked man went on, his breath smelling of beer, garlic and anger. ‘Do you hear me, you bastard ?’
‘He can’t hear you. His ears are full of shit,’ said one of the men with him, and the second man cackled.
‘Pay and leave!’ yelled the pocked man.
Only now did the Rivian look at him.
‘I’ll finish my beer.’
‘We’ll give you a hand,’ the pockmarked man hissed. He knocked the tankard from the stranger’s hand and simultaneously grabbing him by the shoulder, dug his fingers into the leather strap which ran diagonally across the outsider’s chest. One of the men behind him raised a fist to strike. The outsider curled up on the spot, throwing the pockmarked man off balance. The sword hissed in its sheath and glistened briefly in the dim light. The place seethed. There was a scream, and one of the few remaining customers tumbled towards the exit. A chair fell with a crash and earthenware smacked hollowly against the floor. The innkeeper, his lips trembling, looked at the horribly slashed face of the pocked man, who, clinging with his fingers to the edge of the counter, was slowly sinking from sight. The other two were lying on the floor, one motionless, the other writhing and convulsing in a dark, spreading puddle. A woman’s hysterical scream vibrated in the air, piercing the ears as the innkeeper shuddered, caught his breath, and vomited.
The stranger retreated towards the wall, tense and alert. He held the sword in both hands, sweeping the blade through the air. No one moved. Terror, like cold mud, was clear on their faces, paralysing limbs and blocking throats.
Three guards rushed into the tavern with thuds and clangs. They must have been close by. They had truncheons wound with leather straps at the ready, but at the sight of the corpses, drew their swords. The Rivian pressed his back against the wall and, with his left hand, pulled a dagger from his boot.
‘Throw that down!’ one of the guards yelled with a trembling voice. ‘Throw that down, you thug! You’re coming with us!’
The second guard kicked aside the table between himself and the Rivian.
‘Go get the men, Treska!’ he shouted to the third guard, who had stayed closer to the door.
‘No need,’ said the stranger, lowering his sword. ‘I’ll come by myself.’
‘You’ll go, you son of a bitch, on the end of a rope!’ yelled the trembling guard. ‘Throw that sword down or I’ll smash your head in!’
The Rivian straightened. He quickly pinned his blade under his left arm and with his right hand raised towards the guards, swiftly drew a complicated sign in the air. The clout-nails which studded his tunic from his wrists to elbows flashed.
The guards drew back, shielding their faces with their arms. One of the customers sprang up while another darted to the door. The woman screamed again, wild and ear-splitting.
‘I’ll come by myself,’ repeated the stranger in his resounding, metallic voice. ‘And the three of you will go in front of me. Take me to the castellan. I don’t know the way.’
‘Yes, sir,’ mumbled the guard, dropping his head. He made towards the exit, looking around tentatively. The other two guards followed him out backwards, hastily. The stranger followed in their tracks, sheathing his sword and dagger. As they passed the tables the remaining customers hid their faces from the dangerous stranger.
II
Velerad, castellan of Wyzim, scratched his chin. He was neither superstitious nor faint-hearted but he did not relish the thought of being alone with the white-haired man. At last he made up his mind.
‘Leave,’ he ordered the guards. ‘And you, sit down. No, not there. Further away, if you please.’
The stranger sat down. He no longer carried his sword or black coat.
‘I am Velerad, castellan of Wyzim,’ said Velerad, toying with a heavy mace lying on the table. ‘And I’m listening. What do you have to say to me, you brigand, before you are thrown into the dungeon? Three killed and an attempted spell-casting; not bad, not bad at all. Men are impaled for such things in Wyzim. But I’m a just man, so I will listen to you, before you are executed. Speak.’
The Rivian unbuttoned his jerkin and pulled out a wad of white goat leather.
‘You nail this crossways, in taverns,’ he said quietly. ‘Is what’s written here true?’
‘Ah.’ Velerad grunted, looking at the runes etched into the leather. ‘So that’s it. And I didn’t guess at once. Yes, it’s true. It’s signed by Foltest, King of Temeria, Pontar and Mahakam, which makes it true. A proclamation is a proclamation, witcher, but law is law – and I take care of law and order in Wyzim. I will not allow people to be murdered! Do you understand?’
The Rivian nodded to show he understood. Velerad snorted with anger.
‘You carry the witcher’s emblem?’ The stranger reached into his jerkin once more and pulled out a round medallion on a silver chain. It pictured the head of a wolf, baring its fangs. ‘And do you have a name? Any name will do, it’s simply to make conversation easier.’
‘My name is Geralt.’
‘Geralt, then. Of Rivia I ga
ther, from your accent?’
‘Of Rivia.’
‘Right. Do you know what, Geralt? This,’ Velerad slapped the proclamation, ‘let it go. It’s a serious matter. Many have tried and failed already. This, my friend, is not the same as roughing up a couple of scoundrels.’
‘I know. This is my job, Velerad. And that proclamation offers a three thousand oren reward.’
‘Three thousand,’ Velerad scowled. ‘And the princess as a wife, or so rumour says, although gracious Foltest has not proclaimed that.’
‘I’m not interested in the princess,’ Geralt said calmly. He was sitting motionless, his hands on his knees. ‘Just in the three thousand.’
‘What times,’ sighed the castellan. ‘What foul times! Twenty years ago who would have thought, even in a drunken stupour, that such a profession as a witcher would exist? Itinerant killers of basilisks; travelling slayers of dragons and vodniks! Tell me, Geralt, are you allowed beer in your guild?’
‘Certainly.’
The Malady and Other Stories: An Andrzej Sapkowski Sampler Page 5