The Saga of the Witcher

by Andrzej Sapkowski

  There was a cross on the door of one of the shacks painted in whitewash. Black smoke left a trail in the air behind the roof. The child was still crying, somebody shouted in the distance, somebody closer coughed and wheezed. A dog howled.

  Ciri felt her hand itching. She looked down.

  Her hand was flecked with the black dots of fleas, like caraway seeds.

  She screamed at the top of her voice. Shaking all over in horror and revulsion, she began to brush herself off, waving her arms wildly. Kelpie, alarmed, burst into a gallop, and Ciri almost fell off. Squeezing the mare’s sides with her thighs she combed and ran her fingers through her hair, she shook her jacket and blouse. Kelpie galloped into a smoke-enveloped alleyway. Ciri screamed with terror.

  She rode through hell, through an inferno, through the most nightmarish of nightmares. Among houses marked with white crosses. Among smouldering piles of rags. Among the dead lying singly and those who lay in heaps, one upon the other. And among living, ragged, half-naked spectres with cheeks sunken from pain, grovelling through dung, screaming in a language she didn’t understand, stretching out towards her bony arms, covered in horrible, bloody pustules . . .

  Run! Run from here!

  Even in the black nothingness, in the oblivion of the archipelago of places, Ciri could still smell that smoke and stench in her nostrils.

  *

  The next place was also a port. There was also a quay here, with a piled canal busy with cogs, launches and other craft, and above them a forest of masts. But here, in this place, above the masts, seagulls were cheerfully screeching, and it stank in a normal, familiar way: of wet wood, pitch, sea water, and also fish in all its three basic varieties: fresh, rotten and fried.

  Two men were arguing on the deck of a cog, shouting over each other in raised voices. She understood what they were saying. It was about the price of herrings.

  Not far away was a tavern. The odour of mustiness and beer, and the sound of voices, clanking and laughter belched from the open door. Someone roared out a filthy song, the same verse the whole time:

  Luned, v’ard t’elaine arse

  Aen a meath ail aen sparse!

  She knew where she was. Before she had even read on the stern of one of the galleys: Evall Muire. And its home port. Baccalá. She knew where she was.

  In Nilfgaard.

  She fled before anyone could pay more close attention to her.

  But before she managed to dive into nothingness, a flea, the last of the ones that had crawled all over her in the previous place, that had survived the journey in time and space nestled in a fold of her jacket, leaped a great flea leap onto the wharf.

  That same evening the flea settled into the mangy coat of a rat, an old male, the veteran of many rat fights, testified to by one ear chewed off right by its skull. That same evening the flea and the rat embarked on a ship. And the next morning set sail on a voyage. On a barge; old, neglected and very dirty.

  The barge was called Catriona. That name was to pass into history. But no one knew that then.

  *

  The next place – difficult though it was to believe – was a truly astonishingly idyllic scene. A thatched tavern grown over with wild vines, ivy and sweet peas stood among hollyhocks by a peaceful, lazy river flowing among willows, alders and oaks bent over the water, right beside a bridge connecting the banks with its elegant, stone arch. A sign with gilded letters on it swung over the porch. The letters were completely foreign to Ciri. But there was quite a well-executed picture of a cat, so she assumed it was The Black Cat tavern.

  The scent of food drifting from the tavern was simply captivating. Ciri did not ponder for long. She straightened her sword on her back and entered.

  It was empty inside. Only one of the tables was occupied, by three men with the appearance of peasants. They didn’t even look at her. Ciri sat down in the corner with her back to the wall.

  The innkeeper, a corpulent woman in a perfectly clean apron and horned cap, approached and asked about something. Her voice sounded jangling, but melodic. Ciri pointed a finger at her open mouth, patted herself on the stomach, after which she cut off one of the silver buttons on her jacket and laid it on the table. Seeing a strange glance, she set to cutting off another button, but the woman stopped her with a gesture and a hissing, though nicely ringing, word.

  The value of a button turned out to be a bowl of thick vegetable soup, an earthenware pot of beans and smoked bacon, bread and a jug of watered-down wine. Ciri thought she’d probably burst into tears at the first spoonful. But she controlled herself. She ate slowly. Delighting in the food.

  The innkeeper came over, jingling questioningly, and laid her cheek on her pressed-together hands. Would she stay the night?

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Ciri. ‘Perhaps. In any case, thank you for the offer.’

  The woman smiled and went out into the kitchen.

  Ciri unfastened her belt and rested her back against the wall. She wondered what to do next. The place – particularly compared to the last few – was pleasant, and encouraged her to stay longer. She knew, though, that excessive trust could be dangerous, and lack of vigilance fatal.

  A black cat, exactly like the one on the inn sign, appeared from nowhere and rubbed against her calf, arching its back. She stroked it, and the cat gently butted her palm, sat down and began licking the fur on its breast. Ciri gazed into space, her sight drifting elsewhere…

  She saw Jarre sitting by the fireplace in a circle of some unattractive looking scruffs. They were all knocking over small vessels containing a red liquid.

  ‘Jarre?’

  ‘That’s what you should do,’ said the boy, looking into the flames of the fire. ‘I read about it in The History of Wars, a work written by Marshal Pelligram. You should do that when the motherland is in need.’

  ‘What should you do? Spill blood?’

  ‘Yes. Precisely. The motherland is calling. And partly for personal reasons.’

  ‘Ciri, don’t sleep in the saddle,’ says Yennefer. ‘We’re almost there.’

  There are large crosses painted in whitewash on the houses of the town they are arriving in, on all the doors and gates. Thick, reeking smoke, smoke is billowing from pyres with corpses burning on them. Yennefer seems not to notice it.

  ‘I have to make myself beautiful.’

  A small mirror is floating in front of her face, over the horse’s ears. A comb is dancing in the air, tugging through her black curls. Yennefer is using witchcraft, she doesn’t use her hands at all, because . . .

  Because her hands are a mass of clotted blood.

  ‘Mummy! What have they done to you?’

  ‘Stand up, girl,’ says Coën. ‘Master your pain, get up and onto the comb! Otherwise fear will seize you. Do you want to be dying of fear all your life?’

  His yellow eyes shine unpleasantly. He yawns. His pointed teeth flash white. It’s not Coën at all. It’s the cat. The black cat . . .

  A column of soldiers many miles long are marching. A forest of spears and standards sways and undulates over them. Jarre also marches, he has a round helmet on his head, and a pike on his shoulder so long he has to clutch it tightly in both hands, otherwise it would overbalance him. The drums growl, and the soldiers’ song booms and rumbles. Crows caw above the column. A mass of crows . . .

  A lake shore. On the beach whitecaps of whipped up foam, rotten reeds washed up. An island on the lake. A tower. Toothed battlements, a keep thickened by the protrusions of machicolations. Over the tower, in the darkening blue of the sky, the moon shines, as bright as a gold sovereign chopped in half. Two women wrapped in furs sit on the terrace. A man in a boat . . .

  A looking glass and a tapestry.

  Ciri jerks her head up. Eredin Bréacc Glas is sitting opposite, on the other side of the table.

  ‘You can’t not know,’ he says, showing his even teeth in a smile, ‘that you’re only delaying the inevitable. You belong to us and we’ll catch you.’

  ‘
Like hell!’

  ‘You will return to us. You will roam a little around places and times, then you’ll reach the Spiral and we’ll catch you in it. You will never return to your world or time. It’s too late, in any case. There’s nothing for you to return to. The people you knew died long ago. Their graves are overgrown and have caved in. Their names have been forgotten. Your name also.’

  ‘You’re lying! I don’t believe you!’

  ‘Your beliefs are your private matter. I repeat, you’ll soon reach the Spiral, and I’ll be waiting there for you. You desire that secretly, don’t you, me elaine luned?’

  ‘You’ve got to be talking rubbish!’

  ‘We Aen Elle sense things like that. You were fascinated by me, you desired me and feared that desire. You desired me and you still desire me, Zireael. Me. My hands. My touch . . .’

  Feeling a touch, she leaped up, knocking over a cup, which was fortunately empty. She reached for her sword, but calmed down almost at once. She was in The Black Cat inn, she must have dropped off, dozing on the table. The hand that had touched her hair belonged to the portly innkeeper. Ciri wasn’t fond of that kind of familiarity, but kindness and goodness simply radiated from the woman, which she couldn’t pay back with brusqueness. She let herself be stroked on the head, and listened to the melodic, jingling speech with a smile. She was weary.

  ‘I must ride,’ she said at last.

  The woman smiled, jingling melodiously. How does it happen, thought Ciri, what can it be ascribed to, that in all worlds, places and times, in all languages and dialects that one word always sounds comprehensible? And always similar?

  ‘Yes. I must ride to my mamma. My mamma is waiting for me.’

  The innkeeper led her out into the courtyard. Before she found herself in the saddle, the innkeeper suddenly hugged Ciri hard, pressing her against her plump breast.

  ‘Goodbye. Thank you for having me. Forward, Kelpie.’

  She rode straight for the arched bridge over the tranquil river. When the mare’s horseshoes rang on the stones, she looked around. The woman was still standing outside the inn.

  Concentration, fists at her temples. A buzzing in her ears, as though from the inside of a conch. A flash. And abruptly soft and black nothingness.

  ‘Bonne chance, ma fille!’ Thérèse Lapin, the innkeeper of the tavern Au Chat Noir in Pont-sur-Yonne cried after her by the highway running from Melun to Auxerre. ‘Have a pleasant journey!’

  *

  Concentration, fists at her temples. A buzzing in her ears, as though from the inside of a conch. A flash. And abruptly soft and black nothingness.

  A place. A lake. An island. The moon like a sovereign hacked in half, its light lies down on the water in a luminous streak. In the streak a boat, on it a man with a fishing rod . . .

  On the terrace of the tower . . . Two women?

  *

  Condwiramurs couldn’t bear it and screamed in amazement, immediately covering her mouth with her hand. The Fisher King dropped the anchor with a splash, swore gruffly, and then opened his mouth and froze like that. Nimue didn’t even twitch.

  The surface of the lake, bisected by a streak of moonlight, vibrated and rippled as though having been struck by a gale. The night air above the lake ruptured, like a smashed stained-glass window cracks. A black horse emerged from the crack. With a rider on its back.

  Nimue calmly held out her hands, chanting a spell. The tapestry hanging on the stand suddenly burst into flames, lighting up in an extravaganza of tiny multi-coloured lights. The tiny lights reflected in the oval of the looking glass, danced, teemed in the glass like coloured bees and suddenly flowed out like a rainbow-coloured apparition, a widening streak, making everything as bright as day.

  The black mare reared up and neighed wildly. Nimue spread wide her arms violently, and screamed a formula. Condwiramurs, seeing the image forming and growing in the air, focused intently. The image gained in clarity at once. It became a portal. A gate beyond which was visible . . .

  A plateau full of shipwrecks. A castle embedded in the sharp rocks of a cliff, towering over the black looking glass of a mountain lake . . .

  ‘This way!’ Nimue screamed piercingly. ‘This is the way you must take! Ciri, daughter of Pavetta! Enter the portal, take the road leading to your encounter with destiny. May the wheel of time close! May the serpent Ouroboros sink its teeth into its own tail!

  ‘Roam no more! Hurry, hurry to help your friends! This is the right way, O, witcher girl.’

  The mare whinnied again, flailed the air with its hooves once more. The girl in the saddle turned her head, looking now at them, now at the image called up by the tapestry and the looking glass. She brushed her hair aside, and Condwiramurs saw the ugly scar on her cheek.

  ‘Trust me, Ciri!’ cried Nimue. ‘For you know me! You saw me once!’

  ‘I remember,’ they heard. ‘I trust you. Thank you.’

  They saw the mare spurred on and running with a light and dancing step into the brightness of the portal. Before the image became blurred and dispersed, they saw the ashen-haired girl wave a hand, turned towards them in the saddle.

  And then everything vanished. The surface of the lake slowly calmed, the streak of moonlight became smooth again.

  It was so quiet they felt they could hear the Fisher King’s wheezing breath.

  Holding back the tears welling up in her eyes, Condwiramurs hugged Nimue tightly. She felt the little sorceress tremble. They remained in an embrace for some time. Without a word. Then they both turned around towards the place where the Gate of the Worlds had vanished.

  ‘Good luck, witcher girl!’ they cried in unison. ‘Good luck!’

  Close by that field where the fierce battle took place, where almost the whole force of the North clashed with almost the entire might of the Nilfgaardian invader, were two fishing villages. Old Bottoms and Brenna. Because, however, Brenna was burned down to the ground at that time, it caught on at first to call it the ‘Battle of Old Bottoms’. Today, nonetheless, no one says anything other than the ‘Battle of Brenna’, and there are two reasons for that. Primo, after being rebuilt Brenna is today a large and prosperous settlement, while Old Bottoms did not resist the ravages of time and all trace of it was covered over by nettles, couch grass and burdock. Secundo, somehow that name did not befit that famous, memorable and, at the same time, tragic battle. For, just ask yourself: here was a battle in which more than thirty thousand men laid down their lives, and if Bottoms was not enough, they had to be Old as well.

  Thus in all the historical and military literature it became customary only to write the Battle of Brenna – both in the North, and in Nilfgaardian sources, of which, nota bene, there are many more than ours.

  The Venerable Jarre of Ellander the Elder.

  Annales seu Cronicae Incliti Regni Temeriae

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘Cadet Fitz-Oesterlen, fail. Please sit down. I wish to draw your attention to the fact that lack of knowledge about famous and important battles from the history of our fatherland is embarrassing for every patriot and good citizen, but in the case of a future officer is simply a scandal. I shall take the liberty of making one more small observation, Cadet Fitz-Oesterlen. For twenty years, that is since I’ve been a lecturer at this institution, I don’t recall a diploma exam in which a question about the Battle of Brenna hasn’t come up. Thus, ignorance in this regard virtually rules out any chances of a career in the army. Well, but if one is a baron, one doesn’t have to be an officer, one can try one’s luck in politics. Or in diplomacy. Which I sincerely wish for you, Cadet Fitz-Oesterlen. And let’s return to Brenna, gentlemen. Cadet Puttkammer!’

  ‘Present!’

  ‘Please come to the map. And continue. From the point where eloquence gave up on the lord baron.’

  ‘Yes sir. The reason Field Marshal Menno Coehoorn decided to execute a manoeuvre and a rapid march westwards were the reports from reconnaissance informing that the army of the Nordlings was coming to the r
elief of the besieged fortress of Mayena. The marshal decided to cut off the Nordlings’ progress and force them into a decisive battle. To this end he divided the forces of the Centre Army Group. He left some of his men at Mayena, and set off at a rapid march with the rest of his troops—’

  ‘Cadet Puttkammer! You aren’t a novelist. You’re to be an officer! What kind of expression is: “the rest of his troops”? Please give me the exact ordre de bataille of Marshal Coehoorn’s strike force. Using military terminology!’

  ‘Yes, Captain. Field Marshal Coehoorn had two armies under his command: The 4th Horse Army, commanded by Major General Markus Braibant, our school’s patron—’

  ‘Very good, Cadet Puttkammer.’

  ‘Damn toady,’ hissed Cadet Fitz—Oesterlen from his desk.

  ‘—and the 3rd Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Rhetz de Mellis-Stoke. The 4th Horse Army consisted of, numbering over twenty thousand soldiers: the Venendal Division, the Magne Division, the Frundsberg Division, the 2nd Vicovarian Brigade, the 3rd Daerlanian Brigade and the Nauzicaa and Vrihedd Divisions. The 3rd Army consisted of: the Alba Division, the Deithwen Division and . . . hmmm . . . and the . . .’

  *

  ‘The Ard Feainn Division,’ stated Julia ‘Pretty Kitty’ Abatemarco. ‘If you haven’t ballsed anything up, of course. They definitely had a large silver sun on their gonfalon?’

  ‘Yes, Colonel,’ stated the reconnaissance commander firmly. ‘Without doubt, they did!’

  ‘Ard Feainn,’ murmured Pretty Kitty. ‘Hmmm . . . Interesting. That would mean that not only the horse army but also part of the 3rd are coming for us in those columns you supposedly saw. No, sir! Nothing on faith alone! I have to see it with my own eyes. Captain, during my absence you command the company. I order you to send a liaison officer to Colonel Pangratt—’