The Saga of the Witcher

by Andrzej Sapkowski

  ‘She does,’ Ciri swallowed again. ‘She likes everything.’

  ‘With a bit of meat? With some grease? With scratchings?’

  ‘Mhm.’

  ‘And it don’t look,’ Gramps shot her an appraising glance, ‘that miss has lately tasted meat and scratchings often, oh no. You’re skinny, miss, skinny. Skin and bones! Hey, hey! And what’s that? Behind your back, miss?’

  Ciri looked around, taken in by the oldest and most primitive trick in the book. A terrible blow of the gnarled stick caught her right in the temple. Her reflexes helped only in that she raised her arm, and her hand partly cushioned a blow capable of smashing her skull like an egg. But in any case, Ciri ended up on the ground, stunned, bewildered and completely disorientated.

  Gramps, grinning, leaped at her and struck her again with the stick. Ciri once again managed to shield her head with her hands, with the result that both flopped down inertly. The left one was definitely injured, the metacarpals probably shattered.

  Gramps, leaping forward, attacked from the other side and whacked her in the stomach with his stick. She screamed, curling up into a ball. Then he stooped on her like a hawk, turned her over face downwards and pinned her down with his knees. Ciri tensed up, kicked back hard, missing, then delivered a vicious blow with her elbow, this time hitting the target. Gramps roared furiously and smashed her in the back of the head with his fist, so powerfully she lurched face-first into the sand. He seized her by the hair on her nape and pressed her mouth and nose against the ground. She felt herself suffocating. The old man kneeled on her, still pressing her head against the ground, tore the sword from her back and cast it aside. Then he began to fiddle with his trousers. He found the buckle and unfastened it. Ciri howled, choking and spitting sand. He pushed her down harder, immobilising her, entangling her hair in his fist. He tore her trousers off her with a powerful tug.

  ‘Hey, hey,’ he mumbled, wheezing. ‘And hasn’t Gramps got a nice bit of stuff. Ooh, ooh, Gramps hasn’t had one like this for a long, long time.’

  Ciri, feeling the repulsive touch of his dry, claw-like hand, yelled with her mouth full of sand and pine needles.

  ‘Lie still, miss,’ she heard him slavering, kneading her buttocks. ‘Gramps isn’t as young as he was, not right away, slowly . . . But never fear, Gramps will do what’s to be done. Hey, hey! And then Gramps will eat his fill, hey, his fill! Lavishly—’

  He broke off, roared, and squealed.

  Feeling that his grip had eased off, Ciri kicked, jerked and leaped up like a spring. And saw what had happened.

  Kelpie, creeping up noiselessly, had seized Forest Gramps in her teeth by his queue and almost lifted him into the air. The old man howled and squealed, struggled, kicked and wriggled his legs, finally managing to tear himself free, leaving the long, grey lock of hair in the mare’s teeth. He tried to grab his stick, but Ciri kicked it out of range of his hands. She was about to treat him to another kick where he deserved it, but her movements were hindered by her trousers being halfway down her thighs. Gramps made good use of the time it took her to pull them up one-handed. He was by the stump in a few bounds and jerked the axe from it, driving the determined Kelpie away with a swing. He roared, stuck out his awful teeth and attacked Ciri, raising the axe to strike.

  ‘Gramps is going to fuck you, miss!’ he howled wildly. ‘Even if Gramps has to chop you up into pieces first. It’s all the same to Gramps if you’re in one piece, or in portions.’

  She thought she’d cope with him easily. After all he was a decrepit old geezer.

  She was very much mistaken.

  In spite of his enormous slippers he jumped like a spinning top, hopped like a rabbit, and swung the axe with the bent handle like a butcher. After the dark and sharpened blade had literally grazed her several times Ciri realised that the only thing that could save her was to run away.

  But she was rescued by a coincidence. Stepping back, she knocked her foot against her sword. She picked it up in a flash.

  ‘Drop the axe,’ she panted, drawing Swallow from the scabbard with a hiss. ‘Drop the axe onto the ground, you lecherous old man. Then, who knows, perhaps I’ll spare your life. And not cut you into pieces.’

  He stopped. He was panting and wheezing, and his beard was disgustingly covered in saliva. He didn’t drop his weapon, though. She saw savage fury in his eyes.

  ‘Very well!’ she swung her sword in a hissing moulinet. ‘Make my day!’

  For a moment he looked at her, as though not understanding, then he stuck out his teeth, goggled, roared and lunged at her. Ciri had had enough of fooling around. She dodged him with a swift half-turn and cut from below across both his raised arms, above the elbows. Gramps released the axe from his bloodied hands, but immediately jumped at her again. She leaped aside and slashed him in the nape of the neck. More out of mercy than need; he would soon have bled to death from his two severed brachial arteries.

  He lay, fighting unbelievably hard not to give up his life, still writhing like a worm in spite of his cloven vertebrae. Ciri stood over him. The last grains of sand were still grating in her teeth. She spat them out straight onto his back. He was dead before she finished spitting.

  *

  The strange construction in front of the cottage resembling a gallows was equipped with iron hooks and a block and tackle. The table and chopping block were worn smooth, sticky with grease and reeked horribly.

  Like a shambles.

  In the kitchen, Ciri found a cauldron of the pearl barley he had offered her, swimming in grease, full of pieces of meat and mushrooms. She was very hungry, but something told her not to eat it. She only drank some water from a wooden pail and nibbled a small, wrinkled apple.

  Behind the shack she found a cellar with steps, deep and cool. In the cellar stood pots of lard. Something was hanging from the ceiling. The remains of a side of meat.

  She ran out of the cellar, stumbling on the steps, as though devils were pursuing her. Then fell over in some nettles, jumped up, and ran tottering over to the cottage, grabbing with both hands one of the stilts supporting it. Although she had almost nothing in her stomach, she vomited very spasmodically for a very long time.

  The side of meat hanging in the cellar belonged to a child.

  *

  Led by the strong smell, she found a water-filled hollow in the forest, into which the prudent Forest Gramps would throw scraps of what it wasn’t possible to eat. Looking at the skulls, ribs and pelvises sticking out of the ooze, Ciri realised with horror that she was only alive thanks to the ghastly old man’s lecherousness, only owing to the fact that he had felt like frolicking. Had his hunger been more powerful than his despicable sexual urges he would have hit her treacherously with the axe, not the stick. Suspended by the legs from the wooden gallows he would have disembowelled and skinned her, dressed and divided her on the table, chopped her up on the chopping block . . .

  Although she was unsteady on her feet from giddiness, and her left hand was swollen and pain was shooting through it, she dragged the corpse to the hollow in the forest and pushed it into the stinking slime, among the bones of his victims. She returned, covered up the entrance to the cellar with branches and twigs, and the yard and entire smallholding with brushwood. Then she meticulously set fire to it all from four sides.

  She only rode away once it had thoroughly caught fire, when the fire was raging and roaring satisfactorily. When she was certain that no rain showers would interfere with all traces of that place being obliterated.

  *

  Her hand wasn’t in such bad shape. It was swollen, indeed, it hurt awfully, but probably no bones were broken.

  As evening approached only one moon indeed rose. But somehow, strangely, Ciri didn’t feel like considering this world hers.

  Nor staying in it longer than need be.

  *

  ‘It’ll be a good night tonight,’ murmured Nimue. ‘I can sense it.’

  Condwiramurs sighed.

  The horizon bla
zed gold and red. There was a stripe of the same colour on the lake, from the horizon to the island.

  They sat in armchairs on the terrace, with the looking glass in the ebony frame and the tapestry depicting the old castle hugging a rock wall behind them, looking at themselves in the mountain lake.

  How many evenings, thought Condwiramurs, how many evenings have we sat like this until dusk has fallen and later, in the dark? Without any results? Just talking?

  It was getting cool. The sorceress and the novice covered themselves with furs. From the lake they heard the creaking of the rowlocks of Fisher King’s boat, but they couldn’t see it – it was obscured by the brilliance of the sunset.

  ‘I quite often dream,’ Condwiramurs returned to their interrupted conversation, ‘that I’m in an icy wasteland, where there’s nothing but the white of the snow and mounds of ice, glistening in the sun. And there’s a silence, a silence ringing in the ears. An unnatural silence. The silence of death.’

  Nimue nodded, as though to indicate she knew what was meant. But she didn’t comment.

  ‘Suddenly,’ continued the novice, ‘suddenly I feel I can hear something. That I feel the ice tremble beneath my feet. I kneel down, rake aside the snow. The ice is as transparent as glass, as in some clear, mountain lakes, when the pebbles at the bottom and the fish swimming can be seen through a layer two yards thick. In my dream I can also see, although the layer of ice is dozens or perhaps hundreds of yards thick. It doesn’t stop me seeing . . . and hearing . . . people calling for help. At the bottom, deep beneath the ice . . . is a frozen world.’

  Nimue didn’t comment this time either.

  ‘Of course I know what the source of that dream is,’ continued the novice. ‘Ithlinne’s Prophecy, the infamous White Frost, the Time of Frost and the Wolfish Blizzard. The world dying among the snows and ice, in order, as the prophecy says, to be born again centuries later. Cleansed and better.’

  ‘I believe deeply,’ said Nimue softly, ‘that the world will be born again. Whether into something better, not particularly.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘Didn’t I mishear? Nimue, the White Frost has already been prophesied thousands of times. Every time the winter is severe it’s been said that it has come. Right now even children don’t believe that any winter is capable of endangering the world.’

  ‘Well, well. Children don’t believe. But I, just imagine, do.’

  ‘Based on any rational premises?’ asked Condwiramurs with a slight sneer. ‘Or only on a mystical faith in the infallibility of elven predictions?’

  Nimue said nothing for a long while, picking at the fur she was draped in.

  ‘The earth,’ she finally began in a slightly sermonising tone, ‘has a spherical shape and orbits the sun. Do you agree with that? Or perhaps you belong to one of those fashionable sects that try to prove something utterly different.’

  ‘No. I don’t. I accept heliocentrism and I agree with the theory of the spherical shape of the earth.’

  ‘Excellent. You are sure then to agree with the fact that the vertical axis of the globe is tilted at an angle, and the path of the earth around the sun doesn’t have the shape of a regular circle, but is elliptical?’

  ‘I learned about it. But I’m not an astronomer, so—’

  ‘You don’t have to be an astronomer, it’s enough to think logically. The earth circles the sun in an elliptical-shaped orbit, and so during its revolution sometimes it’s closer and sometimes further away. The further the earth is from the sun, the colder it is on it; that must be logical. And the less the world’s axis deviates from the perpendicular the less light reaches the northern hemisphere.’

  ‘That’s also logical.’

  ‘Both those factors, I mean the ellipticalness of the orbit and the degree of tilt of the world’s axis, are subject to changes. As can be observed, cyclical ones. The ellipse may be more or less elliptical, that is stretched out and elongated, and the earth’s axis may be less or more tilted. Extreme conditions, as far as climate is concerned, are caused by a simultaneous occurrence of the two phenomena: the maximum elongation of the ellipse and only an insignificant deviation of the axis from the vertical. The earth orbiting the sun receives very little light and heat at the aphelium, and the polar regions are additionally harmed by the disadvantageous angle of tilt of the axis.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Less light in the northern hemisphere means the snow lies longer. White and shining snow reflects sunlight, the temperature falls even more. The snow lies even longer because of that, it doesn’t melt at all in greater and greater stretches or only melts for a short time. The more snow and the longer it lies, the greater the white and shining reflective surface . . .’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘The snow’s falling, it’s falling and falling and there’s more and more of it. So observe that masses of warm air drift with the sea currents from the south, which condense over the frozen northern land. The warm air condenses and falls as snow. The greater the temperature differences, the heavier the falls. The heavier the falls, the more white snow that doesn’t melt for a long time. And the colder it is. The greater the temperature difference and the more abundant the condensation of the masses of air . . .’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘The snow cover becomes heavy enough to become compacted ice. A glacier. On which, as we now know, snow continues to fall, pressing it down even more. The glacier grows, it’s not only thicker and thicker, but it spreads outwards, covering greater and greater expanses. White expanses . . .’

  ‘Reflecting the sun’s rays,’ Condwiramurs nodded. ‘Becoming colder, colder and even colder. The White Frost prophesied by Ithlinne. But is a cataclysm possible? Is there really a danger that the ice that has lain in the north forever will all of a sudden flow south, crushing, compressing and covering everything? How fast does the ice cap spread at the pole? A few inches annually?’

  ‘As you surely know,’ said Nimue, eyes fixed on the lake, ‘the only port in the Gulf of Praxeda that doesn’t freeze is Pont Vanis.’

  ‘Yes. I am aware.’

  ‘Enriching your knowledge: a hundred years ago none of the Gulf’s ports used to freeze. A hundred years ago – there are numerous accounts of it – cucumbers and pumpkins used to grow in Talgar, and sunflowers and lupins were cultivated in Caingorn. They aren’t cultivated now, since their growth is impossible; it’s simply too cold there. And did you know there were once vineyards in Kaedwen? The wines from those vines probably weren’t the best, because it appears from the surviving documents that they were very cheap. But local poets sung their praises anyway. Today vines don’t grow in Kaedwen at all. Because today’s winters, unlike the former ones, bring hard frosts, and a hard frost kills vines. It doesn’t just retard growth, it simply kills. Destroys.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Yes,’ Nimue reflected. ‘What more is there to add? Perhaps that it snows in Talgar in the middle of November and drifts south at a speed of more than fifty miles a day. That at the end of December and the beginning of January snowstorms occur by the Alba, where still a hundred years ago snow was a sensation? And that every child knows that the snows melt and the lakes thaw in April in our region, don’t they? And every child wonders why that month is called April – the Opening. Didn’t it surprise you?’

  ‘Not especially,’ admitted Condwiramurs. ‘Anyway at home in Vicovaro we didn’t say April, but Falsebloom. Or in the elven: Birke. But I understand what you’re implying. The name of the month comes from ancient times when everything really did bloom in April . . .’

  ‘Those distant times are all a hundred, a hundred and twenty years ago. That’s virtually yesterday, girl. Ithlinne was absolutely right. Her prophecy will be fulfilled. The world will perish beneath a layer of ice. Civilisation will perish through the fault of the Destroyer, who could have, who had the opportunity, to open a path to hope. It is known from legend
that she didn’t.’

  ‘For reasons that the legend doesn’t explain. Or explains with the help of a vague and naive moral.’

  ‘That’s true. But the fact remains a fact. The White Frost is a fact. The civilisation of the northern hemisphere is doomed to extinction. It will vanish beneath the ice of a spreading glacier, beneath permanent pack ice and snow. There’s no need to panic, though, because it’ll take some time before it happens.’

  The sun had completely set and the blinding glare had disappeared from the surface of the lake. Now a streak of softer, paler light lay down on the water. The moon rose over Inis Vitre, as bright as a gold sovereign chopped in half.

  ‘How long?’ Condwiramurs asked. ‘How long, according to you, will it take? I mean, how much time do we have?’

  ‘A good deal.’

  ‘How much, Nimue?’

  ‘Some three thousand years.’

  On the lake, the Fisher King banged his oar down in the boat and swore. Condwiramurs sighed loudly.

  ‘You’ve reassured me a little,’ she said after a while. ‘But only a little.’

  *

  The next place was one of the foulest Ciri had visited. It certainly appeared in the top ranking and at the top of that ranking.

  It was a port, a port channel. She saw boats and galleys by jetties and posts, saw a forest of masts, saw sails, sagging heavily in the still air. Smoke, clouds of stinking smoke, were creeping and hanging all around.

  Smoke also rose from behind crooked shacks by the channel. The loud, broken crying of a child could be heard from there.

  Kelpie snorted, jerking her head sharply, and stepped back, banging her hooves on the cobbles. Ciri glanced down and noticed some dead rats. They were lying everywhere. Dead rodents contorted in agony with pale, pink paws.

  Something’s not right here, she thought, feeling horror gripping her. Something’s wrong here. Get out of here. Run from here as quickly as possible.

  A man in a gaping shirt was sitting under hanging nets and lines, his head resting on his shoulder. A few paces away lay another. They didn’t look as if they were asleep. They didn’t even twitch when Kelpie’s horseshoes clattered on the stones right next to them. Ciri bowed her head, riding under the rags hanging from washing lines and giving off an acrid odour of filth.