Sword of Destiny (The Witcher, #0.7)

by Andrzej Sapkowski

“Borch.” The white-haired man turned around from his horse and looked into the stranger’s bright eyes. “I wouldn’t want anything left unclear between us. I’m a witcher.” “I guessed as much. But you said it as you might have said ‘I’m a leper.’” “There are those,” Geralt said slowly, “who prefer the company of lepers to that of a witcher.” “There are also those,” Three Jackdaws laughed, “who prefer sheep to girls. Ah, well, one can only sympathise with the former and the latter. I repeat my proposal.”

“There are those,” Geralt said slowly, “who prefer the company of lepers to that of a witcher.” “There are also those,” Three Jackdaws laughed, “who prefer sheep to girls.

Only in fables survives what cannot survive in nature. Only myths and fables do not know the limits of possibility.”

“He is…” the Zerrikanian, frowning, searched for the words. “He is… the most… beautiful.” The Witcher nodded. Not for the first time, the criteria by which women judged the attractiveness of men remained a mystery to him.

Not for the first time, the criteria by which women judged the attractiveness of men remained a mystery to him.

Behind the toll collector’s cottage sat a guard on a pile of dry logs, drawing a woman in the sand with the end of his halberd. It was actually a certain part of a woman, seen from an unusual perspective.

Drinking standing up, in a rush and without due reverence, does not become the nobility.”

I stood and listened and I thought to myself, I’ll have my lads knock him to the ground and I’ll piss all over his cape. But I dropped the idea, you know, because word would get around again that dwarves are nasty, that they’re aggressive, that they’re whoresons and it’s impossible to live with them in… what the hell was it?… harmonium, or whatever it is.

“What reeks so much round here?” Yarpen Zigrin asked, pretending not to see her. “Not brimstone, is it?” “No,” Boholt, glancing to the side and sniffing pointedly, “it’s musk or some other scent.” “No, it has to be…” the dwarf grimaced. “Oh! Why it’s the noble Madam Yennefer! Welcome, welcome.”

“May I be infested by ticks, if I haven’t been treating you better than the air. I’ve been known, for example, to spoil the air, which there’s no way I’d dare to do in your presence.”

“I believe you, why not?” she finally said. “Men like to meet their former lovers, like to relive memories. They like to imagine that erstwhile erotic ecstasies give them some kind of perpetual ownership of their partner. It enhances their self-importance. You are no exception. In spite of everything.”

“Nevertheless,” he smiled, “you’re right, Yennefer. The sight of you makes me feel wonderful. In other words, I’m glad to see you.”

“Yen,” he held his hands out to her. “Don’t call me that!” she hissed furiously,

“What did you think, Geralt? That we’d have a nice, cheerful gossip, that we’d reminisce about the old days? That perhaps at the end of our chat we’d get onto a wagon and make love on the sheep-skins, just like that, for old times’ sake? Did you?” Geralt, not certain if the sorceress was magically reading his mind or had only guessed right, kept silent, smiling wryly.

“Be quiet! I gave you more than I’ve ever given any other man, you scoundrel. I don’t know, myself, why I gave it to you. And you… Oh, no, my dear. I’m not a slut or an elf-woman met by chance in the forest, who can be discarded in the morning, walked out on without being woken, with a posy of violets left on the table. Who can be made a mockery of. Beware! Utter a single word and you will regret it!”

He looked up at the dark blue sky above the black, serrated saw blade of the mountain peaks. He felt like bursting out laughing. He did not know why.

He do be loving her.

“Dragons aren’t man’s enemies,” Geralt broke in. The sorceress looked at him and smiled. But only with her lips. “In that matter,” she said, “leave the judging to us humans. Your role, Witcher, is not to judge. It’s to get a job done.”

So take up bearing children, my dear; it’s the most natural pursuit for you. It will occupy the time you are currently fruitlessly wasting on dreaming up nonsense. Farewell.”

This is why Yennefer wants the dragon… because she is unable to have children due to her transformations.

Geralt, having glanced at Yennefer’s pale, furiously twisted face, began to feel sorry for him in advance. He knew what this was about. Yennefer, like most sorceresses, was barren. But unlike most sorceresses she bemoaned the fact and reacted with genuine rage at the mention of it. Dorregaray certainly knew that. But he probably did not know how vengeful she was.

“Never fear,” he smiled. “We—and I mean witchers and servile golems—always act sensibly. Since the limits within which we operate are clearly and explicitly demarcated.”

“I’m riding with them because I’m a servile golem. Because I’m a wisp of oakum blown by the wind along the highway. Tell me, where should I go? And for what? At least here some people have gathered with whom I have something to talk about. People who don’t break off their conversations when I approach. People who, though they may not like me, say it to my face, and don’t throw stones from behind a fence. I’m riding with them for the same reason I rode with you to the log drivers’ inn. Because it’s all the same to me. I don’t have a goal to head towards. I don’t have a destination at the end of the road.”

“There’s a destination at the end of every road. Everybody has one. Even you, although you like to think you’re somehow different.”

“The Holy Book says,” Eyck said, now yelling loudly, “that the serpent, the foul dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, will come forth from the abyss! And on his back will sit a woman in purple and scarlet, and a golden goblet will be in her hand, and on her forehead will be written the sign of all and ultimate whoredom!” “I know her!” Dandelion said, delighted. “It’s Cilia, the wife of the Alderman of Sommerhalder!”

The Witcher smiled sadly and touched the obsidian star on Yennefer’s neck with his index finger. “It’s too late, Yen. We aren’t hanging now. It’s stopped mattering to me. In spite of everything.”

“I have no intention of so doing. In fact I plan to compose the Ballad of the Two Tits. Please don’t interfere.”

He looked into her eyes, which were warm. As they used to be. He lowered his head and kissed her lips; hot, soft and willing. As they used to be.

“Forgive me my frankness and forthrightness, Yennefer. It is written all over your faces, I don’t even have to try to read your thoughts. You were made for each other, you and the Witcher. But nothing will come of it. Nothing. I’m sorry.” “I know,” Yennefer blanched slightly. “I know, Villentretenmerth. But I would also like to believe there are no limits of possibility. Or at least I would like to believe that they are still very far away.”

A star fell, a brief flash of lightning illuminating the black firmament, flecked with unmoving dots of light. The Witcher made no wish.

He entwined his fingers in her hair, her lilac-and-gooseberry perfumed hair.

“Sleep,” she whispered. “Sleep, Witcher.”

She also possessed a very expertly stuffed unicorn, on whose back she liked to make love. Geralt was of the opinion that if there existed a place less suitable for having sex it was probably only the back of a live unicorn.

“Ah,” the sorcerer said slowly. “Very well. As you wish. She made love with me this morning. Draw your own conclusions, you have the right. I already have.” The silence lasted a long time. Geralt desperately searched for words. He found none. None at all.

I don’t bear a grudge against you, Yen, I’m not reproaching you, am I? I know you can’t be judged by ordinary standards. And the fact that I’m saddened… the fact that I know I’m losing you… is cellular memory. The atavistic remnants of feelings in a mutant purged of emotion—”

Yes, I was stripped of feelings. But not utterly. Whoever did it made a botch of it, Yen.”

“My answer would just be a word. A word which doesn’t express a feeling, doesn’t express an emotion, because I’m bereft of them. A word which would be nothing but the sound made when you strike a cold, empty skull.”

“Truth,” the kestrel said, “is a shard of ice.”

He speeded up. He knew that a black kestrel, wet from the rain, holding a letter in its curved beak, was waiting for him on the bed-head. He wanted to read the letter as soon as possible. Even though he knew what was in it.

I, dear sir, am a poet and a musician, and music soothes the savage breast.

What a hideous smile I have, Geralt thought, reaching for his sword. What a hideous face I have. And how hideously I squint. So is that what I look like? Damn.

“You gave dwarves, halflings, gnomes and even elves,” the doppler continued, twisting his mouth in an insolent, Dandelion smile, “the modest possibility of assimilation. Why should I be any worse off? Why am I denied that right?

“Yes, as I said,” Tellico continued calmly. “I’m going. And you, Geralt, will not even try to stop me. Because I, Geralt, knew your thoughts for a moment. Including the ones you don’t want to admit to, the ones you even hide from yourself. Because to stop me you’d have to kill me. And the thought of killing me in cold blood fills you with disgust. Doesn’t it?” The Witcher said nothing.

He liked the scent of verbena, although the scent of verbena was not the scent of lilac and gooseberry.

“Of course. You wrongfully thought, Geralt, that Little Eye was interested in you out of morbid, downright perverted curiosity, that she looks at you as though you were a queer fish, a two-headed calf or a salamander in a menagerie. And you immediately became annoyed, gave her a rude, undeserved reprimand at the first opportunity, struck back at a blow she hadn’t dealt. I witnessed it, after all. I didn’t witness the further course of events, of course, but I noticed your flight from the room and saw her glowing cheeks when you returned. Yes, Geralt. I’m alerting you to a mistake, and you have already made it. You wanted to take revenge on her for—in your opinion—her morbid curiosity. You decided to exploit that curiosity.”

“You’re sensitive,” she said softly. “Deep in your angst-filled soul. Your stony face and cold voice don’t deceive me. You are sensitive, and your sensitivity makes you fear that whatever you are going to face with sword in hand may have its own arguments, may have the moral advantage over you…”

“Essi,” he interrupted her again. “I don’t want you to pick up false notions about me. I’m not a knight errant.” “You aren’t a cold and unthinking killer either.”

Behind him, in the gorge—now a narrow bay—a large grey dolphin danced on the waves. On its back, tossing her wet, willow-green hair, sat the mermaid. She still had beautiful breasts.

I don’t feel anything, he noticed with horror, nothing, not the smallest emotion. That fact that I will embrace her is a deliberate, measured response, not a spontaneous one. I’ll hug her, for I feel as though I ought to, not because I want to. I feel nothing.

Why, it doesn’t matter, because Essi smells of verbena, not lilac and gooseberry, doesn’t have cool, electrifying skin. Essi’s hair is not a black tornado of gleaming curls, Essi’s eyes are gorgeous, soft, warm and cornflower blue; they don’t blaze with a cold, unemotional, deep violet. Essi will fall asleep afterwards, turn her head away, open her mouth slightly, Essi will not smile in triumph. For Essi… Essi is not Yennefer. And that is why I cannot. I cannot find that little sacrifice inside myself.

And what kind of love would it be if the one who loves were not capable of a little sacrifice?”

And then, by the Gods, they did it, she and he. And everything was all right.