More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“I’ll come by myself,” repeated the stranger in his resounding, metallic voice. “And the three of you will go in front of me. Take me to the castellan. I don’t know the way.”
I’m sorry, Geralt, if you have a different opinion of wizards. No doubt you do, in your profession, but to me they are swindlers and fools. You witchers inspire greater confidence in men. At least you are more straightforward.” Geralt smiled, but didn’t comment.
I’m afraid I’ll never know whether you are going there to save my daughter, or to kill her. But I agree to it. I have to agree. Do you know why?” Geralt did not reply. “Because I think,” said the king, “I think that she is suffering. Am I not right?” 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.
He drew his sword, traced circles with it in the air, and skirted the striga, taking care that the movement of his sword was not in rhythm with his steps. The striga did not jump. She approached slowly, following the bright streak of the blade with her eyes.
It had taken a long time, he thought, before this dance on the edge of an abyss, this mad, macabre ballet of a fight, had achieved the desired effect, allowed him to psychically become one with his opponent, to reach the underlayers of concentrated will which permeated the striga. The evil, twisted will from which the striga was born. The witcher shivered at the memory of taking on that evil to redirect it, as if in a mirror, against the monster. Never before had he come across such a concentration of hatred and murderous frenzy, not even from basilisks, who enjoyed a ferocious reputation for
...more
hey geralt what's with the psychic fusion with the monster. what's goin on here
“Geralt? Before I go, tell me: why did you try to bite her to death? Eh? Geralt?” The witcher was asleep.
I’m not a fanatic. 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.”
“What’s that around your neck, dear guest?” “Have a look.” The creature took the medallion in his paw, lifted it up to his eyes, tightening the chain around Geralt’s neck a little. “The animal has an unpleasant expression. What is it?” “My guild’s badge.” “Ah, you make muzzles, no doubt.
Beneath the dust and spiderwebs, a nondescript man with a bloated, sad, spotty face and watery eyes looked down from the painting. Geralt, who was no stranger to the way portrait painters tended to flatter their clients, nodded.
The monster raised his head; his eyes shone like a cat’s. “My portrait is hung beyond the candlelight. I can see it, but I’m not human. At least, not at the moment. A human, looking at my portrait, would get up, go closer and, no doubt, have to take the candlestick with him. You didn’t do that, so the conclusion is simple. But I’m asking you plainly: are you human?” Geralt didn’t lower his eyes. “If that’s the way you put it,” he answered after a moment’s silence, “then, not quite.”
What do you think, witcher, which one of us has a better chance if it comes to biting each other’s throats?” Geralt, steadying the carafe’s pewter stopper with his thumb, poured himself some wine, took a sip and leaned back into his chair. He was watching the monster with a smile. An exceptionally ugly one.
“Well, Fenne quickly tried to make me forget my worries. She was a jolly girl, I tell you. Do you know what she thought up? We’d both frighten unwanted guests. Imagine: a guest like that enters the courtyard, looks around, and then, with a roar, I charge at him on all fours with Fenne, completely naked, sitting on my back and blowing my grandfather’s hunting horn!”
Every move he made, every step, was part of his nature: hard-learned, automatic and lethally sure. Three quick steps, and the third, like a hundred such steps before, finished on the left leg with a strong, firm stamp. A twist of his torso and a sharp, forceful cut. He saw her eyes. Nothing could change now. He heard the voice. Nothing. He yelled, to drown the word which she was repeating. Nothing could change. He cut. He struck decisively, like hundreds of times before, with the center of the blade, and immediately, following the rhythm of the movement, took a fourth step and half a turn. The
...more
Everyone knows what Eltibald and the Council of Wizards had in mind at the time. You took advantage of a madman’s ravings to strengthen your own authority. To break up alliances, ruin marriage allegiances, stir up dynasties. In a word: to tangle the strings of crowned puppets even more.
Oh, Stregobor, it would be great if the cruelty of rulers could be explained away by mutations or curses.” “Listen, Geralt—” “No. You won’t win me over with your reasons nor convince me that Eltibald wasn’t a murdering madman, so let’s get back to the monster threatening you.
I don’t like the story. But I’ll hear you out.” “Without interrupting with spiteful comments?” “That I can’t promise.”
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. Time for me to go. We’ll see each other tomorrow.”
There was something very strange in Renfri’s voice—something associated with the red reflection of fire on blades, the wailing of people being murdered, the whinnying of horses and the smell of blood.
“I stole rather than starve to death. I killed to avoid being killed myself. I was locked in prisons which stank of urine, never knowing if they would hang me in the morning, or just flog me and release me. And through it all, my stepmother and your sorcerer were hard on my heels, with their poisons and assassins and spells. And you want me to reveal my magnanimity? To forgive him royally? I’ll tear his head off, royally, first.”
“I pity you,” she said slowly, gazing at the medallion. “You claim a lesser evil doesn’t exist. You’re standing on a flagstone running with blood, alone and so very lonely because you can’t choose, but you had to. And you’ll never know, you’ll never be sure, if you were right… And your reward will be a stoning, and a bad word. I pity you…”
“‘I am what I am. Choose. Either me, or a lesser.’ You’re supposed to know what it means.”
“Renfri,” he repeated. “Go. If we cross blades, I—I won’t be able—” “I know,” she said. “But I, I can’t do anything else. I just can’t. We are what we are, you and I.”
Someone the witcher didn’t know found the hilt of his sword and drew it. “Touch a single hair of her head,” said the person the witcher didn’t know, “touch her head and yours will go flying to the flagstones.”
“Kings,” continued Calanthe, “divide people into two categories—those they order around, and those they buy—because they adhere to the old and banal truth that everyone can be bought. Everyone. It’s only a question of price.
When hit, you give a note which shows you’re fashioned of pure steel, unlike these men molded from bird shit.
The voivode with the hard-to-remember name, who must have heard something about the affairs and problems of Fourhorn, politely asked whether the mares were foaling well. Geralt answered yes, much better than the stallions. He wasn’t sure if the joke had been well taken, but the voivode didn’t ask any more questions.
“Would somebody care to explain what that was?” asked Marshal Vissegerd, crawling from beneath a fallen tapestry. “No,” said the witcher.
“Didn’t you know, witcher, that a virgin, that is one who’s untouched, wouldn’t be able to use the Force?” “To hell with her virginity,” muttered Geralt. “Where did she get such a gift anyway? Neither Calanthe nor Roegner—”
why?
“To hell with destiny, oaths and irony.” Duny grimaced. “I love Pavetta and she loves me; that’s all that counts. You can’t stand in the way of our happiness.”
In order to become a witcher, you have to be born in the shadow of destiny, and very few are born like that. That’s why there are so few of us. We’re growing old, dying, without anyone to pass our knowledge, our gifts, on to. We lack successors. And this world is full of Evil which waits for the day none of us are left.
“My deepest respects, venerable mother,” he whined stupidly.
I ask around for work. Certainly it’s there, but what work? To catch a rusalka for one man, a nymph for another, a dryad for a third… They’ve gone completely mad—the villages are teeming with girls but they want humanoids.
monster girl appreciators in my dark fantasy?
“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.”
Uk! Uk! Uk! You want to joke, do you? Here are some jokes for you! Here are your balls!
The winner dictates the conditions. I propose a race from here to the old willow on the dyke.” “I don’t know where the dyke is, or the old willow.” “I wouldn’t suggest the race if you knew. I like competitions but I don’t like losing.”
“Nell’ea,” he contested. “T’en pavienn, Aen Seidhe.” “Did you hear?” The elf turned to her companion, the tall Seidhe who, not bothering to check Geralt’s knots, was strumming away at Dandelion’s lute with an expression of indifference on his long face. “Did you hear, Vanadain? The ape-man can talk! He can even be impertinent!”
To you, the earth pays a bloody tribute. It bestowed gifts on us. You tear the earth’s treasures from it by force. For us, the earth gave birth and blossomed because it loved us. Well, no love lasts forever. But we still want to survive.
Why don’t you humans finally realize that your domination of the world is as natural and repellant as lice multiplying in a sheepskin coat? You could propose we cohabit with lice and get the same reaction—and I’d listen to the lice as attentively if they, in return for our acknowledgment of their supremacy, were to agree to allow common use of the coat.
“After some consideration,” added the Seidhe, “I’ve come to the conclusion that you were right. When you pitied us. So goodbye. Goodbye until we meet again, on the day when we descend into the valleys to die honorably. We’ll look out for you then, Toruviel and I. Don’t let us down.”
A heavy smell of sour wine, candles and overripe fruit hung in the air. And something else, that brought to mind a mixture of the scents of lilac and gooseberries.
grasping a faun—engraved on the pole—by a piece of anatomy well adapted to being grasped.
“Geralt,” she interrupted sharply, “I climbed out of bed for you and I didn’t intend to do that before the chime of midday. I’m prepared to do without breakfast. Do you know why? Because you brought me the apple juice. You were in a hurry, your head was troubled with your friend’s suffering, you forced your way in here, and yet you thought of a thirsty woman.
“It’s almost as though you thought a scorpion were prettier than a spider,” he said, “because it’s got such a lovely tail. Be careful, Geralt.
The young sorceress would become attractive because the prestige of her profession demanded it. 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.
sometimes I get the grim reminder these books were written by a man
“Don’t struggle, my little witcher.” She smiled spitefully. “It’s pointless. You’ve got a strong will and quite a bit of resistance to magic but you can’t contend with me and my spell. And don’t act out a farce for me; don’t try to charm me with your hard and insolent masculinity. You are the only one to think you’re insolent and hard. You’d do anything for me in order to save your friend, even without spells at that. You’d pay any price. You’d lick my boots. And maybe something else, too, if I unexpectedly wished to amuse myself.”
My accounts in Rinde could be settled by anyone, including Chireadan. But you’re the one who’s going to do it because you have to pay me. For your insolence, for the cold way you look at me, for the eyes which fish for every detail, for your stony face and sarcastic tone of voice. For thinking that you could stand face-to-face with Yennefer of Vengerberg and believe her to be full of self-admiration and arrogance, a calculating witch, while staring at her soapy tits. Pay up, Geralt of Rivia!
Geralt threw himself after her, catching her hair and belt with a practiced move. Yennefer, also having gained practice, landed him a blow with her elbow. The sudden move split her dress at the armpit, revealing a shapely breast. An oyster flew from her torn dress. They both fell into the nothingness of the portal.
??? why???
to avoid being hit by her forehead, thrust his face into the sorceress’s cleavage
works every time. also why is this being written LMAO
There’ll be only splinters left of that house! 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.
