The Saga of the Witcher

by Andrzej Sapkowski

‘I’d say so.’

  ‘Seneschal Guthlaf will carry out each of your relevant instructions. But Yennefer, issue them quickly. Make haste. I’ve received fresh tidings.’

  ‘Dammit, I was afraid of that. Do they know where I am?’

  ‘No, not yet. I was warned, though, that you may appear on Skellige and was ordered to imprison you immediately. I was also ordered to take prisoners on my expeditions and extract information from them, even if it was only scraps concerning you and your sojourn in Nilfgaard or in the provinces. Yennefer, hurry. If they tracked you and caught you here, on Skellige, I would find myself in a somewhat difficult situation.’

  ‘I’ll do everything in my power. Including whatever it takes to avoid compromising you. Don’t worry.’

  Crach grinned.

  ‘I said somewhat. I’m not afraid of them. Not of kings, nor of sorcerers. They can’t do anything to me, because they need me. And I was bound to help you by a feudal oath. Yes, yes, you heard right. I’m still formally a vassal of the Cintran crown. And Cirilla has formal rights to that crown. By representing Cirilla, by being her sole guardian, you have the formal right to give me orders, demand obedience and servitudes.’

  ‘Casuistic sophistries.’

  ‘Well certainly,’ he snorted. ‘I will shout as much myself, in a booming voice, if in spite of everything it turns out Emhyr var Emreis really has forced the girl to marry. Also if – by the help of some legal loopholes and flourishes – Ciri has been deprived of the right to the throne and someone else has been named as a substitute heir, including that lummox Vissegerd. Then I’ll announce my obedience and declare my feudal oath forthwith.’

  ‘But if,’ Yennefer squinted, ‘in spite of everything, it turns out that Ciri is dead?’

  ‘She’s alive,’ Crach said firmly. ‘I know that for certain.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You won’t want to give it credence.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘The blood of the queens of Cintra,’ Crach began, ‘is uncannily bound to the sea. When one of the women of that blood dies the sea falls into sheer madness. It’s said that Ard Skellig bewails the daughters of Riannon. For the storm is so strong then that the waves striking from the west squeeze through crevices and caverns to the east side and suddenly salt brooks gush from the rock. And the entire island shudders. Simple folk say “See how Ard Skellig sobs. Someone has died again. Riannon’s blood has died. The Elder Blood”.’

  Yennefer was silent.

  ‘It’s not a fairy tale,’ Crach continued. ‘I’ve seen it for myself, with my own eyes. Three times. Following the death of Adalia the Soothsayer, following the death of Calanthe . . . And following the death of Pavetta, Ciri’s mother.’

  ‘Pavetta,’ Yennefer observed, ‘actually perished during a storm, so it’s hard to speak—’

  ‘Pavetta,’ Crach interrupted, still deep in thought, ‘did not perish during a storm. The storm began after her death. The sea reacted as it always does to the death of one of the Cintran bloodline. I’ve investigated that matter long enough. And am certain of what I know.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘The ship Pavetta and Duny were sailing on vanished over the infamous Sedna Abyss. It wasn’t the first ship to vanish there. You no doubt know that.’

  ‘Fairy tales. Ships meet with disasters, it’s a natural thing—’

  ‘On Skellige,’ he interrupted quite firmly, ‘we know enough about ships and sailing to be able to distinguish between natural and unnatural disasters. Ships go down unnaturally over the Sedna Abyss. And not accidentally. That includes the ship Pavetta and Duny were sailing on.’

  ‘I’m not arguing.’ The sorceress sighed. ‘Anyway, does that have any meaning to us? After almost fifteen years?’

  ‘It does to me.’ The yarl pursed his lips. ‘I shall unravel the case. It’s only a matter of time. I’ll find out. . . I’ll find an explanation. I’ll find an explanation to all the enigmas. Including the one from the slaughter of Cintra . . .’

  ‘What enigma would that be?’

  ‘When the Nilfgaardians invaded Cintra,’ he muttered, looking her in the eyes, ‘Calanthe ordered Ciri spirited out of the town. But the town was already aflame, Black Cloaks were everywhere, the chances of getting out of the siege were faint. The queen was advised against such a risky business, and it was suggested that Ciri formally capitulate before the hetmans of Nilfgaard, thus saving her life and the Cintran state. In the blazing streets she would surely and senselessly have died at the hands of the soldierly mob. But the Lioness . . . Do you know what, according to eye witnesses, she said?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘“It would be better for the girl’s blood to flow over the cobbles of Cintra than for it to be defiled.” Defiled by what?’

  ‘Marriage to Emperor Emhyr. A filthy Nilfgaardian. Yarl, it’s late. I begin tomorrow at dawn . . . I shall inform you of my progress.’

  ‘I’m counting on it. Goodnight, Yenna . . . Hmmm . . .’

  ‘What, Crach?’

  ‘You wouldn’t by any chance, hmmm, fancy . . .’

  ‘No, yarl. Let bygones be bygones. Goodnight.’

  *

  ‘Well, well.’ Crach an Craite received his guest with a tilt of his head. ‘Triss Merigold in person. What a stunning dress. And the fur . . . chinchilla, isn’t it? I would ask what brings you to Skellige . . . If I didn’t know. But I do.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Triss smiled seductively and neatened her gorgeous chestnut hair. ‘It’s wonderful that you know, yarl. It will save us the introduction and the preliminary explanations, and allow us to get to business right away.’

  ‘What business?’ Crach crossed his arms on his chest and glared at the sorceress. ‘What ought to precede introductions, what explanations are you counting on? Who do you represent, Triss? In whose name have you come here? King Foltest, whom you served, released you from service with banishment. Although you weren’t at fault, he banished you from Temeria. Philippa Eilhart, I’ve heard, who, along with Dijkstra, is presently ruling de facto in Redania, has taken you under her wing. I see that you’re repaying for the asylum as well as you can. You don’t even flinch at assuming the role of secret agent in order to track down your old friend.’

  ‘You wrong me, yarl.’

  ‘I humbly beg your pardon. If I’m in error. Am I?’

  They were silent for a long while, eyeing each other up mistrustfully. Triss finally snorted, swore and stamped a high heel.

  ‘Oh, to hell with it! Let’s stop leading each other by the nose! What difference does it make now, who’s serving whom, who’s siding with whom, who’s keeping faith with whom and with what motives? Yennefer’s dead. It’s still not known where or in whose grasp Ciri is . . . What’s the point of playing at secrets? I didn’t sail here as a spy, Crach. I came on my own initiative, as a private individual. Driven by concern for Ciri.’

  ‘Everyone is concerned about Ciri. Lucky girl.’

  Triss’s eyes flashed.

  ‘I wouldn’t sneer at that. Particularly in your place.’

  ‘I beg your pardon.’

  They said nothing, looking out of the window at the red sun setting beyond the wooded peaks of Spikeroog.

  ‘Triss Merigold.’

  ‘Yes, O yarl.’

  ‘I invite you to supper. Ah, the cook told me to ask if all sorceresses disdain finely cooked seafood?’

  *

  Triss did not disdain seafood. On the contrary, she ate twice as much as she had intended and now began to worry about her waistline – about the twenty-two inches she was so proud of. She decided to ease her digestion with some white wine, the celebrated Est Est of Toussaint. Like Crach, she drank from a horn.

  ‘And so,’ she took up the conversation, ‘Yennefer showed up here on the nineteenth of August, falling spectacularly from the sky into some fishing nets. You, as a faithful vassal of Cintra, granted her asylum. Helped her to build a megascope . . . With whom and about what she talked,
you of course don’t know.’

  Crach an Craite drank deeply from the horn and suppressed a burp.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he smiled craftily. ‘Of course I don’t know. How could I, a poor and simple sailor, know anything about the doings of mighty sorceresses?’

  *

  Sigrdrifa, the priestess of Modron Freyja, let her head drop low, as though Crach an Craite’s question had burdened her with a thousand-pound weight.

  ‘She trusted me, yarl,’ she muttered barely audibly. ‘She didn’t demand of me the swearing of an oath of silence, but she naturally cared about discretion. I really don’t know whether—’

  ‘Modron Sigrdrifa,’ Crach an Craite interrupted gravely, ‘I’m not asking you to act as an informer. Like you, I support Yennefer, like you I desire to find and rescue Ciri. Why, I took Bloedgeas, a blood oath! Whereas regarding Yennefer, concern for her motivates me. She’s an extremely proud woman. Even when taking a very great risk, she doesn’t stoop to making requests. Therefore it will be necessary – I can’t rule it out – to come to her aid unasked. In order to do that I need information.’

  Sigrdrifa cleared her throat. She wore an uneasy expression. And when she began to speak, her voice slightly quavered.

  ‘She built that machine of hers . . . In essence it’s not a machine at all, because there’s no mechanism, just two looking glasses, a black velvet curtain, a box, two lenses, four lamps, well and Brisingamen, of course . . . When she utters the spell, the light from the two lamps falls—’

  ‘Let’s leave out the details. Who did she communicate with?’

  ‘She spoke to several persons. With sorcerers . . . Yarl, I didn’t hear everything, but what I heard . . . Among them are truly wicked people. None wanted to help disinterestedly . . . They demanded money . . . They all demanded money . . .’

  ‘I know,’ Crach muttered. ‘The bank informed me of the money orders she issued. A pretty, oh, a pretty penny my oath is costing me! But money comes and goes. What I spent on Yennefer and Ciri, I shall make good in the Nilfgaardian provinces. But go on, O mother Sigrdrifa.’

  ‘Yennefer,’ the priestess lowered her head, ‘blackmailed some of them. She gave them to understand she was in possession of compromising information and in the event of cooperation being declined she would reveal it to the whole world . . . Yarl . . . She’s a clever and essentially good woman . . . But she doesn’t have any scruples. She is ruthless. And merciless.’

  ‘Indeed, as I know. But I don’t want to know the details of the blackmail, and I advise you to forget about them as quickly as you can. It’s dangerous knowledge. Outsiders shouldn’t meddle with fire like that.’

  ‘I know, yarl. I owe you obedience . . . And I believe that your ends justify your means. No one shall learn anything from me. Neither a friend in a convivial chat, nor a foe torturing me.’

  ‘Good, Modron Sigrdrifa. Very good . . . What did Yennefer’s questions concern, do you recall?’

  ‘I didn’t always overhear nor understand everything, yarl. They were using jargon that was difficult to grasp . . . There was often talk of a Vilgefortz . . .’

  ‘Of course.’ Crach audibly ground his teeth. The priestess glanced at him fearfully.

  ‘They also spoke a lot about elves and about Knowing Ones,’ she continued. ‘And about magical portals. There was also mention of the Sedna Abyss . . . But mainly, it seems to me, it concerned towers.’

  ‘Towers?’

  ‘Yes. Two. The Tower of the Gull and the Tower of the Swallow.’

  *

  ‘As I supposed,’ Triss said, ‘Yennefer began by obtaining the secret report of Radcliffe’s commission, which investigated the case of the events on Thanedd. I don’t know what news of this affair has reached you here, on Skellige . . . Have you heard of the teleporter in the Tower of the Seagull? And about Radcliffe’s commission?’

  Crach an Craite glanced suspiciously at the sorceress.

  ‘Neither politics nor culture reach the islands,’ he grimaced. ‘We’re backward.’

  ‘The Radcliffe commission –’ Triss did not deign to pay attention either to his tone, nor his expression ‘– examined in detail teleportational trails leading from Thanedd. The portal on the island, Tor Lara, while it existed, negated all teleportational magic within a considerable radius. But, as you certainly know, the Tower of the Gull exploded and disintegrated, making teleportation possible. Most of the participants in the events on Thanedd got off the island using portals they opened.’

  ‘As a matter of fact –’ the yarl smiled ‘– you, for example, flew straight to Brokilon. With the Witcher on your back.’

  ‘Well, I never.’ Triss looked him in the eye. ‘Politics don’t reach here, culture doesn’t reach here, but rumours do. But let’s leave that for now, we’ll return to the work of the Radcliffe commission. The commission’s task was to determine precisely who teleported from Thanedd and whence. They used so-called synopses – spells capable of reconstructing an image of past events – and then collated the uncovered teleportational tracks with the directions they led to, as a result ascribing them to the specific individuals who had opened the portals. They were successful in practically all cases. Save one. One teleportational trail led nowhere. To be precise, into the sea. To the Sedna Abyss.’

  ‘Someone,’ the yarl guessed at once, ‘teleported onto a ship waiting in a previously agreed location. I just wonder why they went so far . . . And to such a notorious place. Well, but if a battle axe is hovering over your neck . . .’

  ‘Exactly. The commission also thought of that. And voiced the following conclusion: it was Vilgefortz, who having captured Ciri and having his other escape route cut off, took advantage of a reserve exit – he teleported with the girl to the Sedna Abyss, onto a Nilfgaardian ship waiting there. That, according to the commission, explains the fact that Ciri was presented at the imperial court in Loc Grim on the tenth of July, barely ten days after the events on Thanedd.’

  ‘Well, yes.’ the yarl squinted. ‘That would explain a lot. On condition, naturally, that the commission wasn’t mistaken.’

  ‘Indeed.’ The sorceress withstood his gaze and even afforded herself a mocking smirk. ‘Naturally, a double – and not the real Ciri – could just as easily have been presented in Loc Grim. That may also explain a lot. It doesn’t, though, explain one occurrence that the Radcliffe commission established. So bizarre that in the report’s first version it was passed over as too improbable. In the report’s second – and strictly confidential – version that occurrence was nonetheless presented. As a hypothesis.’

  ‘I’ve been all ears for some time, Triss.’

  ‘The commission’s hypothesis reads: the teleporter in the Tower of the Gull was active, was functioning. Someone passed through it and the energy of the passage was so powerful the teleporter exploded and was destroyed.’

  ‘Yennefer,’ Triss continued a moment later, ‘must have found out about it. What the Radcliffe commission uncovered. What was included in the confidential report. That is, there’s a chance . . . the slightest chance . . . that Ciri managed to pass safely through the Tor Lara portal. That she eluded Nilfgaard and Vilgefortz . . .’

  ‘Where is she then?’

  ‘I’d like to know that too.’

  *

  It was dreadfully dark; the moon, hidden behind banks of cloud, gave no light at all. But in comparison to the previous nights there was almost no wind and for that reason it was not so cold. The dugout only rocked gently on the slightly rippling water. It smelled like a swamp. Of decaying weed. And eel slime.

  Somewhere by the bank a beaver slapped its tail on the water, startling both of them. Ciri was certain that Vysogota had been dozing and the beaver had woken him.

  ‘Go on with the story,’ she said, wiping her nose with a clean part of her sleeve not yet covered in slime. ‘Don’t sleep. When you doze off my eyelids droop too. Then the current will take us and we’ll wake up on the sea! Go on about those telep
orters!’

  ‘When you escaped from Thanedd,’ the hermit continued, ‘you passed through the portal of the Tower of the Gull, Tor Lara. And Geoffrey Monck, probably the greatest authority in the field of teleportation, the author of the work entitled The Magic of the Elder Folk, which is the opus magnum of knowledge about elven teleporters, writes that the Tor Lara portal leads to the Tower of the Swallow, Tor Zireael—’

  ‘The teleport from Thanedd was warped,’ Ciri interrupted. ‘Perhaps, long ago, before it broke, it led to some swallow or other. But now it leads to a desert. That’s what we call a chaotic portal. I learned about it.’

  ‘I – just imagine – did too,’ the old man snorted. ‘I recall much of that wisdom. Which is why your story amazes me so much . . . Some parts of it. Particularly the ones that concern teleportation . . .’

  ‘Could you speak more plainly?’

  ‘I could, Ciri. I could. But now it’s high time we hauled in the net. It sure to be full of eels. Ready?’

  ‘Ready.’ Ciri spat on her hands and took hold of the gaff. Vysogota grasped the cord speeding past in the water.

  ‘Let’s haul it in. One, two . . . three! And into the boat! Grab them, Ciri, grab them! Into the basket before they escape!’

  *

  It was the second night they had rowed the dugout to the river’s boggy tributary, set nets and traps for the eels heading in great numbers towards the sea. They returned to the cottage well after midnight, smeared in slime from head to toe, wet and tired as hell.

  But they didn’t go to bed at once. The haul earmarked for barter had to be put in crates and sealed securely – should the eels find the smallest crack there wouldn’t be a single one left the next morning. After the work was done Vysogota skinned two or three fat eels, chopped them into steaks, coated them in flour and fried them in a huge frying pan. Then they ate and talked.

  ‘You see, Ciri, one thing still nags at me. I can’t forget that right after your recovery we couldn’t agree about the dates, even though the wound on your cheek constituted the most precise of possible calendars. The cut couldn’t have been more than ten hours old, while you insisted that they’d wounded you four days earlier. Though I was certain it came down to a simple mistake, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I kept asking myself the question: what happened to those four lost days?’