The Time of Contempt (The Witcher #2)

by Andrzej Sapkowski

Blood on your hands, Falka, Blood on your dress. Burn, burn, Falka, and die, Die in agony for your crimes!

“Danger…” the girl said suddenly, in a strange, altered voice. “Danger comes silently. You will not hear it when it swoops down on grey feathers. I had a dream. The sand… The sand was hot from the sun.”

Danger comes silently? Grey feathers? Hot sand? The maid was probably not right in the head, he thought. You come across a lot like that these days; deranged girls spoiled by vagabonds or other ne’er-do-wells in these times of war… Yes, definitely deranged. Or possibly only sleepy, torn from her slumbers, not yet fully awake. It’s amazing the poppycock people come out with when they’re roaming around at dawn, still caught between sleep and wakefulness…

“Luned aep Hen Ichaer,” said Fenn suddenly, pushing off from the pulpit. “It would literally be not Child, but Daughter of the Elder Blood. Hmm… Elder Blood… I’ve come across that expression. I don’t remember exactly… I think it concerns some sort of elven prophecy. In some versions of Itlina’s prophecy, the older ones, it seems to me there are mentions of the Elder Blood of the Elves, or Aen Hen Ichaer. But we don’t have the complete text of that prophecy. We would have to ask the elves—”

“Geralt,” said the lawyer, closing his eyes. “What drives you? If you want to save Ciri… I wouldn’t have thought you could afford the luxury of contempt. No, that was badly expressed. You can’t afford the luxury of spurning contempt. A time of contempt is approaching, Witcher, my friend, a time of great and utter contempt. You have to adapt. What I’m proposing is a simple solution. Someone will die, so someone else can live. Someone you love will survive. A girl you don’t know, and whom you’ve never seen, will die—” “And who am I free to despise?” interrupted the Witcher. “Am I to pay for what I love with contempt for myself? No, Codringher. Leave the girl in peace; may she continue to measure cloth. Destroy her portrait. Burn it. And give me something else for the two hundred and fifty hard-earned crowns which you threw into a drawer. I need information. Yennefer and Ciri have left Ellander. I’m certain you know that. I’m certain you know where they are headed. And I’m certain you know who’s chasing them.”

“The wolf, heedless of warnings, wants to carry on hunting,” he said. “He doesn’t see he’s being hunted, and he’s heading straight for some tasty kippers hung up as bait by a real hunter.”

“If you wish. It’s not difficult to guess that Yennefer is riding to the Conclave of Mages, called at the beginning of July in Garstang on the Isle of Thanedd. She is cleverly staying on the move and not using magic, so it’s hard to locate her. A week ago she was still in Ellander, and I calculate that in three or four days she will reach the city of Gors Velen; from there Thanedd is a stone’s throw. On the way to Gors Velen she has to ride through the hamlet of Anchor. Were ...

To say I knew her would be an exaggeration. I think that, apart from the Witcher and the enchantress, no one really knew her. When I saw her for the first time she did not make a great impression on me at all, even in spite of the quite extraordinary accompanying circumstances. I have known people who said that, right away, from the very first encounter, they sensed the foretaste of death striding behind the girl. To me she seemed utterly ordinary, though I knew that ordinary she was not; for which reason I tried to discern, discover—sense—the singularity in her. But I noticed nothing and sensed nothing. Nothing that could have been a signal, a presentiment or a harbinger of those subsequent, tragic events. Events caused by her very existence. And those she caused by her actions. Dandelion, Half a Century of Poetry

To bite a witch beside a path, Some vipers did contrive. The snakes all perished one by one, The witch is still alive.

An enchantress always takes action. Wrongly or rightly; that is revealed later. But you should act, be brave, seize life by the scruff of the neck. Believe me, little one, you should only regret inactivity, indecisiveness, hesitation. You shouldn’t regret actions or decisions, even if they occasionally end in sadness and regret.

Thus do I take you, to have and to hold, for the most wondrous and terrible of times, for the best and the worst of times, by day and by night, in sickness and in health. For I love you with all my heart and swear to love you eternally, until death do us part. Traditional marriage vows

We know little about love. Love is like a pear. A pear is sweet and has a distinct shape. Try to define the shape of a pear. Dandelion, Half a Century of Poetry

O’er glistening roofs you float Through lily-strewn rivers you dive Yet one day I will know your truths If only I am still alive…

“Have you only now realised who Cirilla, Princess of Cintra, really is? The Child of the Elder Blood; the last offshoot of that bloody tree of hatred! The last branch and, on it, the last poisoned apple…” “The Elder Blood… So far back in time… Pavetta, Calanthe, Adalia, Elen, Fiona…” “And Falka.” “By the gods, but that’s impossible. Firstly, Falka had no children! Secondly, Fiona was the legitimate daughter of—” “Firstly, we know nothing about Falka’s youth. Secondly, Fenn, don’t make me laugh. You know, of course, that I’m overcome with spasms of mirth at the sound of the word ‘legitimate.’ I believe that document, because in my opinion it’s authentic and speaks the truth. Fiona, Pavetta’s great-great-grandmother, was the daughter of Falka, that monster in human form. Damn it, I don’t believe in all those insane predictions, prophecies and other poppycock, but when I now recall the Ithlinne forecasts…” “Tainted blood?” “Tainted, contaminated, accursed; it can be understood in various ways. And according to legend, if you recall, it was Falka who was accursed—because Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal had put a curse on her mother—” “Those are just stories, Codringher.” “You’re right: stories. But do you know when stories stop being stories? The moment someone begins to believe in them. And someone believes in the story of the Elder Blood. In particular, in the part that says from Falka’s blood will be born an avenger who will destroy the old world and build a new one on its ruins.”...

Had it not been for the foolish scruples of the Witcher, and his impractical principles, many subsequent events would have run their course quite differently. Many events would probably have not taken place at all. And the history of the world would have unfolded in an alternative way.

Ciri swallowed. The stone footbridge—the remains of the footbridge—was no narrower than the seesaw at Kaer Morhen, and she had landed on that dozens of times. She knew how to cushion her fall and keep her balance. The witchers’ seesaw was only four feet off the ground, however, while the stone footbridge spanned such a long drop that the slabs of the courtyard looked smaller than the palm of her hand. She jumped, landed, tottered and kept her balance by catching hold of the shattered balustrade. With sure steps, she reached the cloister. She couldn’t resist it; she turned around and showed her pursuers her middle finger, a gesture she had been taught by the dwarf Yarpen Zigrin. The man with the scar swore loudly. “Jump!” he shouted at the fair-haired elf standing on the ledge. “After her!” “You’re insane, Rience,” said the elf coldly. “Jump yourself.”

“Don’t flap your wings, little bird, or I’ll singe your feathers. Let’s have a good look at you. Let’s have a look at this chick that’s worth so much to Emhyr var Emreis, Imperator of Nilfgaard. And to Vilgefortz.”

“You will not touch me!” she screamed, drawing her sword. “You will never touch me again!” The knight moved slowly towards her, rising up like a huge, black tower. The wings on his helmet moved to and fro and whispered. “You will not escape me now, O Lion Cub of Cintra,” he said, and his cruel eyes burned in the slit of his helmet. “Not this time. This time you have nowhere to run, O reckless maiden.” “You will not touch me,” she repeated in a voice of stifled horror, her back pressed against the stone wall. “I have to. I am carrying out orders.” As he held out his hand to seize her, Ciri’s fear subsided, to be replaced by savage fury. Her tense muscles, previously frozen in terror, began to work like springs. All the moves she had learned in Kaer Morhen performed themselves, smoothly and fluidly. Ciri jumped; the knight lunged towards her but was unprepared for the pirouette which spun her effortlessly out of reach of his hands. Her sword whined and stung, striking unerringly between the plates of his armour. The knight staggered and dropped to one knee as a stream of scarlet blood spurted from beneath his spaulder. Screaming fiercely, Ciri whirled around him with another pirouette and struck the knight again, this time directly on the bell of his helmet, knocking him down onto his other knee. Fury and madness had utterly blinded her, and she saw nothing except the loathsome wings. The black feathers were strewn in all directions. One wing fell off, and the other was rest...

You mistook the stars reflected in a pond at night for the sky.

“A coward,” he declared with dignity, when he’d stopped coughing and had got his breath back, “dies a hundred times. A brave man dies but once. But Dame Fortune favours the brave and holds cowards in contempt.”

What does a man feel when he’s hit by an arrow? The impact? Pain? Or perhaps… nothing?

“War,” said the poet finally. “War, hatred and contempt. Everywhere. In everyone’s hearts.”

“Money has no fatherland, Geralt. The merchants don’t care whose rule they make their money under. And the Nilfgaardian palatine doesn’t care who he levies taxes on. Dead merchants don’t make money or pay taxes.”

“I’m an enchantress!” she cried in triumph, holding her arms up high. “Come, immortal light! I summon you! Aen’drean va, eveigh Aine!”

“They didn’t teach me how to tend wounds,” she said bitterly. “They taught me how to kill, telling me that’s how I could save people. It was one big lie, Little Horse. They deceived me.”

“I can’t help you, Little Horse,” she said in a stifled voice. “I don’t have anything…” Except magic. I’m an enchantress. She stood up and held out a hand. Nothing happened. She needed a great deal of magical energy, but there wasn’t a trace of any here. She hadn’t expected that. It astonished her. But wait, there are water veins everywhere! She took a few paces, first in one direction and then in the other. She began to walk around in a circle. She stepped backwards. Nothing. “You damned desert!” she shouted, shaking her fists. “There’s nothing in you! No water and no magic! And magic was supposed to be everywhere! That was a lie too! Everybody deceived me, everybody!” The unicorn neighed. Magic is everywhere. It’s in water, in the earth, in the air… And in fire.

When the fire was lit at the foot of the criminal’s pyre and the flames began to engulf her, she began to hurl abuse at the knights, barons, sorcerers and lord councillors gathered in the square; using such words that terror seized them all. Although at first only damp logs were placed on the pyre, in order that the she-devil would not perish quickly and would know the full agony of fire, now came the order to throw on more dry sticks and put an end to the torture as quickly as possible. However, a veritable demon had entered the accursed one; for although she was already sizzling well, she uttered no cries of anguish, but instead began to hurl even more awful abuse. “An avenger will be born of my blood,” she cried. “From my tainted Elder Blood will be born the avenger of the nations and of the world! He will avenge my torment! Death, death and vengeance to all of you and your kin!” Only this much was she able to cry out before the flame consumed her. Thus perished Falka; such was her punishment for spilling innocent blood. Roderick de Novembre, The History of the World, Volume II