The Last Wish (The Witcher, #0.5)

by Andrzej Sapkowski

The witcher fixed his penetrating eyes on the king. He didn’t confirm it, didn’t nod, didn’t make the slightest gesture, but Foltest knew. He knew the answer.

The wave of sound hit the witcher like a battering ram, depriving him of breath, crushing his ribs, piercing his ears and brain with thorns of pain.

There are fewer and fewer monsters? And I? What am I? Who’s shouting? The birds? The woman in a sheepskin jacket and blue dress? The roses from Nazair? How quiet! How empty. What emptiness. Within me.

“Nonsense,” said the witcher. “And what’s more, it doesn’t rhyme. All decent predictions rhyme.

“That was the end of the princess,” she continued. “The dress grew torn, the cambric grew grubby. And then there was dirt, hunger, stench, stink and abuse. Selling myself to any old bum for a bowl of soup or a roof over my head. Do you know what my hair was like? Silk. And it reached a good foot below my hips. I had it cut right to the scalp with sheep-shears when I caught lice. It’s never grown back properly.”

Renfri lowered her head, but only for a moment. Her eyes flashed. “Fine. I’m supposed to be cursed. Contaminated in my mother’s womb. I’m supposed to be…” “Yes?” “A monster.” “And are you?” For a fleeting moment she looked helpless, shattered. And very sad. “I don’t know, Geralt,” she whispered, and then her features hardened again. “Because how am I to know, dammit? When I cut my finger, I bleed. I bleed every month, too. I get a bellyache when I overeat, and a hangover when I get drunk. When I’m happy I sing and I swear when I’m sad. When I hate someone I kill them and when—But enough of this! Your answer, witcher.”

“Geralt,” she said, “did Stregobor ask you to kill me?” “Yes. He believed it was the lesser evil.” “Can I believe you refused him, as you have me?” “You can.” “Why?” “Because I don’t believe in a lesser evil.”

Some sort of woodwork was going on in the yard and the sharp, resinous smell was penetrating the room.

“Geralt.” “Yes.” He stopped on the threshold. “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 color, by the smell.”

The result was pseudo-pretty women with the angry and cold eyes of ugly girls. Girls who couldn’t forget their ugliness had been covered by the mask of magic only for the prestige of their profession.

Once, years ago, when a little snot-faced brat following his studies in Kaer Morhen, the Witchers’ Settlement, he and a friend, Eskel, had captured a huge forest bumblebee and tied it to a jug with a thread. They were in fits of laughter watching the antics of the tied bumblebee, until Vesemir, their tutor, caught them at it and tanned their hides with a leather strap. The djinn, circling above the roof of Errdil’s tavern, behaved exactly like that bumblebee.

“Oh, well,” said the priest, hiding behind the mayor’s heavy oak table. “It’s your last wish, so I’ll tell you. It means… Hmm… Hmm… essentially… get out of here and go fuck yourself!” Geralt entered the nothingness, where cold stifled the laughter which was shaking him.

ohmygod second readthrough i just realized geralt's first wish was for the djinn to literally fuck himself PLEASE

Mr. Errdil, what are you laughing at? It’s your house. What makes you so amused?” “I had that wreck insured for a massive sum!” “Does the policy cover magical and supernatural events?” “Of course.” “That’s wise, Mr. Elf. Very wise. Congratulations.

But he suddenly knew the truth. He knew it. He knew what she used to be. What she remembered, what she couldn’t forget, what she lived with. Who she really was before she had become a sorceress. Her cold, penetrating, angry and wise eyes were those of a hunchback. He was horrified. No, not of the truth. He was horrified that she would read his thoughts, find out what he had guessed. That she would never forgive him for it. He deadened that thought within himself, killed it, threw it from his memory forever, without trace, feeling, as he did so, enormous relief. Feeling that—

The witcher suddenly understood what it was he wanted. And he made his wish.

She leaned over him, touched him. He felt her hair, smelling of lilac and gooseberries, brush his face and he suddenly knew that he’d never forget that scent, that soft touch, knew that he’d never be able to compare it to any other scent or touch. Yennefer kissed him and he understood that he’d never desire any lips other than hers, so soft and moist, sweet with lipstick. He knew that, from that moment, only she would exist, her neck, shoulders and breasts freed from her black dress, her delicate, cool skin, which couldn’t be compared to any other he had ever touched. He gazed into her violet eyes, the most beautiful eyes in the world, eyes which he feared would become… Everything. He knew.