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You’ve a right to believe that we’re governed by Nature and the Force hidden within her. You can think that the gods, including my Melitele, are merely a personification of this power invented for simpletons so they can understand it better, accept its existence. According to you, that power is blind. But for me, Geralt, faith allows you to expect what my goddess personifies from nature: order, law, goodness. And hope.’
‘Because it would be the first proof I’ve ever heard of that a lack of faith has any kind of power at all.’
During his life, the witcher had met thieves who looked like town councillors, councillors who looked like beggars, harlots who looked like princesses, princesses who looked like calving cows and kings who looked like thieves.
‘Evil is evil, Stregobor,’ said the witcher seriously as he got up. ‘Lesser, greater, middling, it’s all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I’m not a pious hermit, I haven’t done only good in my life. But if I’m to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.
‘As you can see, I carry two. Every witcher does. It’s said, spitefully, the silver one is for monsters and the iron for humans. But that’s wrong. As there are monsters which can be struck down only with a silver blade, so there are those for whom iron is lethal.
manticore, wyvern, fogler, aeschna, ilyocoris, chimera, leshy, vampire, ghoul, graveir, were-wolf, giant scorpion, striga, black annis, kikimora, vypper .
‘Unclear tasks,’ said the witcher dryly, ‘can’t be clearly executed.’
‘People,’ Geralt turned his head, ‘like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves. When they get blind-drunk, cheat, steal, beat their wives, starve an old woman, when they kill a trapped fox with an axe or riddle the last existing unicorn with arrows, they like to think that the Bane entering cottages at daybreak is more monstrous than they are. They feel better then. They find it easier to live.’
And something else, that brought to mind a mixture of the scents of lilac and gooseberries.
‘Make use of the opportunity to have a bath yourself. I can not only guess the age and breed of your horse, but also its colour, by the smell.’
