The Tower of Swallows (The Witcher, #4)

by Andrzej Sapkowski

However, the satisfaction of the surgeon was spoiled by the sight of Ciri, in sombre silence, contemplating the scar in the looking glass held at various angles and trying vainly to cover it by pulling her hair over her cheek. The scar disfigured her. It was simply a fact. Nothing could be done. Pretending that it was different could not help in any way.

If someone were to have quietly crept up that night to the remote cottage in the midst of the swamp with its sunken, moss-grown thatched roof, were they to have peered through the slits in the shutters, in the dimly-lit interior they would have seen a grey-bearded old man in a sheepskin coat and an ashen-haired girl with her face disfigured by a scar on her cheek. They would have seen the girl racked with sobs, choking on tears in the arms of the old man, while he tried to calm her, awkwardly and mechanically stroking and patting her trembling shoulders. But it was not possible. No one could have seen it. The cottage was well concealed amidst the marshes. In a wilderness ever covered in mist, where no one dared to venture.

Which consisted of myself, i.e. the undersigned; and also the Witcher, Geralt; the vampire, Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy; the archer, Maria Barring, known as Milva; and Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach, a Nilfgaardian, who liked stubbornly to maintain that he was not such.

“Very well, Illustrious Judge.” “Address us as ‘Your Honour.’

“As on all Viroleda blades, the traditional inscription: ‘Draw me not without reason; sheath me not without honour.’ Ha!

I swore to myself that the law would rule on my turf. At any cost, and using any methods, per fas et nefas. For the law is not jurisprudence, not a weighty tome full of articles, not philosophical treatises, not peevish nonsense about justice, not hackneyed platitudes about morality and ethics. The law means safe paths and highways. It means backstreets one can walk along even after sundown. It means inns and taverns one can leave to visit the privy, leaving one’s purse on the table and one’s wife beside it. The law is the sleep of people certain they’ll be woken by the crowing of the rooster and not the crashing of burning roof timbers! And for those who break the law: the noose, the axe, the stake and the red-hot iron! Punishments which deter others.

Those that break the law should be caught and punished. Using all available means and methods… Eh, witcher? Is the disapproval written on your countenance a reaction to the intention or the methods? The methods, I think! For it’s easy to criticise methods, but we would all prefer to live in a safe world, wouldn’t we? Go on, answer!”

For, after all, the result of all great crackdowns on miscreants is always that the miscreants enter the ranks of the guardians of public order en masse. Your vision is a world of bribery, blackmail and entrapment, a world of turning imperial evidence and false witnesses. A world of snoopers and coerced confessions. Informing and the fear of being informed upon. And inevitably the day will come in your world when the flesh of the wrong person will be torn with pincers, when an innocent person is hanged or impaled. And then it will be a world of crime.

“Too bad,” he said a moment later, looking into the flaminika’s cornflower-blue eyes. “I’m no longer a witcher. I’ve stopped being a witcher. I’ve learned that now. On Thanedd, in the Tower of the Seagull. In Brokilon. On the bridge on the Yaruga. In the cave beneath Gorgon. And here, in Myrkvid Forest. No, I’m not a witcher now. So I’ll have to learn to manage without my medallion.”

And I ask: where is the punishment for evil? Who should attest it, adjudge it and inflict it? The gods you don’t believe in? The great demiurge-creator you’ve decided to replace the Gods with? Or perhaps the law? Perhaps Nilfgaardian justice, imperial judgements, prefects? You naive old man!”

Evil fears pain, impairment, suffering, death, the end! When wounded, Evil howls with pain like a dog! It rolls around on the floor and squeals, watching the blood spurt from its veins and arteries, seeing its bones stick out of stumps, seeing its guts crawl from its belly, sensing that with the cold, death is approaching. Then and only then does Evil’s hair stand on end and Evil finally yell: ‘Mercy! I repent of my sins! I’ll be good and decent now, I swear! Just save me, staunch the blood, don’t let me perish ignominiously!’

If I support the idea of revolution, it’s from conviction and principle. Autocratic tyranny ought to be finished, a constitutional monarchy introduced, and after that democracy…” “What?” “The power of the people. A system where the people will rule. The citizenry of all states, through the most worthy and honest representatives chosen in an honest election…” Rience roared with laughter. Bonhart laughed wildly. The xenogloss of the mage Vilgefortz laughed heartily, if somewhat screechingly. All three of them laughed and guffawed, weeping great tears.

“The Tower of the Swallow is a legend. Remember, it’s just a legend.” “I’m just a legend,” she said bitterly. “Have been since my birth. Zireael, the Swallow, the Unexpected Child. The Chosen One. The Child of Destiny. The Child of the Elder Blood. I’m going, Vysogota. Farewell.” “Farewell, Ciri.”