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September 18 - October 1, 2024
“You’re acting like a child, Geralt. You don’t hang exposed spies—you make use of them. You stuff them with disinformation and try to make double agents out of them—”
The pox was raging across the country, and the king’s death surprised no one.”
She wrecked the first marital project when the girl was ten and the second when she was thirteen. The aristocracy demanded that Pavetta’s fifteenth birthday would be her last as a maiden.
Tell them the Wolf bit them. The White Wolf. And add that they should keep glancing over their shoulders. One day they’ll look back and see the Wolf.”
“I have some expenses, Molnar. And should I take something from my account at the Vivaldi Bank, someone is bound to drown again, so…”
Summon Fabio, and look lively!”
He’ll give his name to a cape, to the very furthest point of an as-yet unnamed continent.
“I consider that of no importance,” said the enchantress, shrugging. “All the attractive men of a certain age and who interest me are married. I can’t help that. Lars loved me and, I would add, loved me for quite some time… Ah, what can I say? He wanted too much. He jeopardised my freedom, and the thought of monogamy makes me sick.
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.
Yes, we are corpses. But you are death.
“May a goose nip me if I’m lying. I’m telling you, Hofmeier, sorcerers catch thunderbolts. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Old Gorazd, the one who was killed on Sodden Hill, once caught a thunderbolt in front of my very eyes. He took a long, thin piece of metal, he hooked one end of it onto the top of his tower, and the other—”
“Those conclaves usually mean a fashion show, lots of gossiping, and a good chance for backbiting and infighting. Arguments about whether to make magic more universal, or make it more elite. Quarrels between those who serve kings and those who prefer to bring pressure to bear on kings from afar…”
During the day, the king’s men come and threaten to put us in the stocks for helping the Squirrels; at night the elves show up, and just try turning them down! They poetically promise that we’ll see the night sky glow red. They’re so poetic you could throw up. But anyhow, with them both we’re caught between two fires…”
“Never fear. It’ll pass by high up. It always passes by high during the summer. But the children may wake, for the Hunt brings nightmares. Better close the shutters.”
What he didn’t know and had never seen before was the face. It was a face of rage and fury, the face of the goddess of vengeance, destruction and death.
“They carried you into the house together. Their hands were touching. They sat by your bed almost until morning but they didn’t say a word to each other. They’ve only decided to talk now. There, on the causeway, by the pond. And you’ve decided to eavesdrop on what they’re saying…
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
smoothing down the short, black, silver-braided, narrow-waisted tunic Yennefer had dressed him in. Tunics like that—the latest fashion—were called doublets.
But he didn’t give up. He continued to complain. He simply felt like moaning.
After the compulsory air kisses or unpleasantly weak handshakes, after the insincere smiles and even less sincere, although well-concocted, compliments, followed a brief and tediously banal conversation about nothing.
“Thank you,” she murmured, guiding him towards the tables once again. “But without such excessive ostentation, if you don’t mind.” “Do you mages always take sincerity for ostentation? Is that why you don’t believe in sincerity, even when you read it in someone’s mind?” “Yes. That is why.”
“Oh heavens, oh heavens,” sighed Yennefer, stretching and throwing a thigh over the Witcher’s. “Oh heavens, oh heavens. I haven’t made love for so long… For so very long.” Geralt disentangled his fingers from her curls without responding. Firstly, her statement might have been a trap; he was afraid there might be a hook hidden in the bait. Secondly, he didn’t want to wipe away with words the taste of her delight, which was still on his lips. “I haven’t made love to a man who declared his love to me and to whom I declared my love for a very long time,” she murmured a moment later, when it was
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The landscape depicts the meeting between Cregennan of Lod and Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal, the legendary lovers, torn apart and destroyed by the time of contempt. He was a sorcerer and she was an elf, one of the elite of Aen Saevherne, or the Knowing Ones. What might have been the beginning of reconciliation was transformed into tragedy.”
“According to elvish tradition, Tor Lara is connected by a portal to the mysterious, still undiscovered Tor Zireael, the Tower of Swallows.”
Where did you perfect your rhetoric and eloquence? And why did you do it? To converse with vampires? Oh, my genetic wanderer, upon whom Tissaia de Vries deigned to smile. Oh, my Witcher, my swashbuckler, who fascinates Philippa Eilhart so much her hands tremble. At the recollection of whom Triss Merigold blushes crimson. Not to mention the effect you have on Yennefer of Vengerberg.”
“Say something.” “I wouldn’t like to lose you, Yen.” “But you have me.” “The night will end.” “Everything ends.” No, he thought. I don’t want it to be like that. I’m tired. Too tired to accept the perspective of endings which are beginnings, and starting everything over again. I’d like… “Don’t talk,” she said, quickly placing her fingers on his lips. “Don’t tell me what you’d like and what you desire. Because it might turn out I won’t be able to fulfil your desires, and that causes me pain.” “What do you desire, Yen? What do you dream about?” “Only about achievable things.” “And about me?” “I
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But do you know when stories stop being stories? The moment someone begins to believe in them.
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.
Did you know you still smell of her perfume?
You ask who is preparing a war? Nilfgaard. They intend to attack and destroy us. But Emhyr var Emreis remembers Sodden Hill and has decided to protect himself by removing the mages from the game first.
“King Vizimir,” interrupted the fair-haired medium in an unemotional voice, “was murdered yesterday evening. Stabbed by an assassin. Redania no longer has a king.”
“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.”
“Our brothers greeted us, they greeted us with breaaad and salt…” sang one of the bards, trying out his lyrics. “They greeted their saviours and liberators, they greeted them with breaaad and salt… Hey, Hrafhir, think up a clever rhyme for ‘salt.’”
“And if you rape any women, do it on the quiet. Out of sight,” he finished a moment later.
Temeria and Kaedwen will respect our rule in Dol Blathanna, but only if we officially condemn the Squirrels’ aggression and distance ourselves from them.” “Those children are dying, Daisy. They are dying every day, perishing in an unequal contest. As a direct result of these secret pacts with Emhyr, humans will attack the commandos and crush them.
The enchantress glanced at the letter lying on the table. At the letter addressed to ordinary people. The fact that most ordinary people couldn’t read was of no significance.
Tissaia de Vries sat down on the chair by the table, blew out a candle, straightened the quill lying across the letter one more time and severed the arteries in both wrists.
Being a wise creature, the unicorn indubitably knows that remaining too long in the state of maidenhood is suspicious and counter to the natural order.
They were children of the time of contempt. And they had nothing but contempt for others. For them, only force mattered. Skill at wielding weapons, which they quickly acquired on the high roads. Resoluteness. Swift horses and sharp swords.
