the occiput, shoulders and back. He was angry and hit hard. A fountain of blood spurted on the wall.
The first man backed away with lightning speed, making room for the next pair. These separated for the attack, slashing their swords from two directions in such a way that only one blow could be parried, the other having to meet its aim. Geralt did not parry and, whirling in a pirouette, came between them. In order not to collide, they both had to break their teamed rhythm, their rehearsed steps. One of them managed to turn in a soft, feline feint and leaped away dextrously. The other did not have time. He lost his balance and stumbled backwards. The witcher, turning in a reverse pirouette, used his momentum to slash him across the lower back. He was angry. He felt his sharp witcher’s blade sever the spine. A terrifying howl echoed down the streets. The two remaining men immediately attacked him, showering him with blows which he parried with the greatest of difficulties. He went into a pirouette and tore himself from beneath the flashing blades. But instead of leaning his back against the wall and defending himself, he attacked.
They were not expecting it, did not have time to leap away and apart. One of them countered but the witcher evaded the counterattack, spun, slashed from behind – blindly – counting on the rush of air. He was angry. He aimed low, at the belly. And hit his mark. He heard a stifled cry but did not have time to look back. The last of the thugs was already at his side, already striking a nasty sinistra with a quarte. Geralt parried at the last moment, statically, without a turn, with a quarte from dextra. The thug, making use of the impetus of the parry, unwound like a spring and slashed from a half-turn, wide and hard. Too hard. Geralt was already spinning. The killer’s blade, considerably heavier than the witcher’s, cut the air and the thug had to follow the blow. The impetus caused him to turn. Geralt slipped out of the half-turn just beside him, very close. He saw his contorted face, his horrified eyes. He was angry. He struck. Short but powerful. And sure. Right in the eyes.
He heard Shani’s terrified scream as she tried to pull herself free of Dandilion on the bridge leading to the charlatan’s house.
Rience retreated into the depths of the lane, raising and spreading
both arms in front of him, a magical light already beginning to exude from them. Geralt grasped his sword with both hands and without second thoughts ran towards him. The sorcerer’s nerves could not take it. Without completing his spell, he began to run away, yelling incomprehensibly. But Geralt understood. He knew that Rience was calling for help. Begging for help.
And help arrived. The little street blazed with a bright light and on the dilapidated, sullied walls of a house, flared the fiery oval of a portal. Rience threw himself towards it. Geralt jumped. He was furious.
Toublanc Michelet groaned and curled up, clutching his riven belly. He felt the blood draining from him, flowing rapidly through his fingers. Not far from him lay Flavius. He had still been twitching a moment ago, but now he lay motionless. Toublanc squeezed his eyelids shut, then opened them. But the owl sitting next to Flavius was clearly not a hallucination – it did not disappear. He groaned again and turned his head away.
Some wench, a young one judging by her voice, was screaming hysterically.
‘Let me go! There are wounded there! I’ve got to . . . I’m a medical student, Dandilion! Let me go, do you hear?’
‘You can’t help them,’ replied Dandilion in a dull voice. ‘Not after a witcher’s sword . . . Don’t even go there. Don’t look … I beg you, Shani, don’t look.’
Toublanc felt someone kneel next to him. He detected the scent of perfume and wet feathers. He heard a quiet, gentle, soothing voice. It was hard to make out the words, the annoying screams and sobs of the young wench interfered. Of that . . . medical student. But if it was the medical student who was yelling then who was kneeling next to him? Toublanc groaned.
‘. . . be all right. Everything will be all right.’
‘The son … of … a .. . bitch,’ he grunted. ‘Rience . . . He told us . . . An ordinary fool . . . But it . . . was a witcher . . . Caa . . . tch . . . Heee . . . elp . . . My . . . guts . . .’
‘Quiet, quiet, my son. Keep calm. It’s all right. It doesn’t hurt
any more. Isn’t that right, it doesn’t hurt? Tell me who called you up here? Who introduced you to Rience? Who recommended him? Who got you into this? Tell me, please, my son. And then everything will be all right. You’ll see, it’ll be all right. Tell me, please.’
Toublanc tasted blood in his mouth. But he did not have the strength to spit it out. His cheek pressing into the wet earth, he opened his mouth and blood poured out.
He no longer felt anything.
‘Tell me,’ the gentle voice kept repeating. ‘Tell me, my son.’
Toublanc Michelet, professional murderer since the age of fourteen, closed his eyes and smiled a bloodied smile. And whispered what he knew.
And when he opened his eyes, he saw a stiletto with a narrow blade and a tiny golden hilt.
‘Don’t be frightened,’ said the gentle voice as the point of the stiletto touched his temple. ‘This won’t hurt.’
Indeed, it did not hurt.
He caught up with the sorcerer at the last moment, just in front of the portal. Having already thrown his sword aside, his hands were free and his fingers, extended in a leap, dug into the edge of Rience’s cloak. Rience lost his balance; the tug had bent him backwards, forcing him to totter back. He struggled furiously, violently ripped the cloak from clasp to clasp and freed himself. Too late.
Geralt spun him round by hitting him in the shoulder with his right hand, then immediately struck him in the neck under the ear with his left. Rience reeled but did not fall. The witcher, jumping softly, caught up with him and forcefully dug his fist under his ribs. The sorcerer moaned and drooped over the fist. Geralt grabbed him by the front of his doublet, spun him and threw him to the ground. Pressed down by the witcher’s knee, Rience extended his arm and opened his mouth to cast a spell. Geralt clenched his fist and thumped him from above. Straight in the mouth. His lips split like blackcurrants.
‘You’ve already received a present from Yennefer,’ he uttered in a hoarse voice. ‘Now you’re getting one from me.’
He struck once more. The sorcerer’s head bounced up; blood spurted onto the witcher’s forehead and cheeks. Geralt was slightly surprised – he had not felt any pain but had, no doubt, been injured in the fight. It was his blood. He did not bother nor did he have time to look for the wound and take care of it. He unclenched his fist and walloped Rience once more. He was angry.
‘Who sent you? Who hired you?’
Rience spat blood at him. The witcher struck him yet again.
‘Who?’
The fiery oval of the portal flared more strongly; the light emanating from it flooded the entire lane. The witcher felt the power throbbing from the oval, had felt it even before his medallion had begun to oscillate violently, in warning.
Rience also felt the energy streaming from the portal, sensed help approaching. He yelled, struggling like an enormous fish. Geralt buried his knees in the sorcerer’s chest, raised his arm, forming the Sign of Aard with his fingers, and aimed at the flaming portal. It was a mistake.
No one emerged from the portal. Only power radiated from it and Rience had taken the power.
From the sorcerer’s outstretched fingers grew six-inch steel spikes. They dug into Geralt’s chest and shoulder with an audible crack. Energy exploded from the spikes. The witcher threw himself backwards in a convulsive leap. The shock was such that he felt and heard his teeth, clenched in pain, crunch and break. At least two of them.
Rience attempted to rise but immediately collapsed to his knees again and began to struggle to the portal on all fours. Geralt, catching his breath with difficulty, drew a stiletto from his boot. The sorcerer looked back, sprung up and reeled. The witcher was also reeling but he was quicker. Rience looked back again and screamed. Geralt gripped the knife. He was angry. Very angry.
Something grabbed him from behind, overpowered him, immo-
bilised him. The medallion on his neck pulsated acutely; the pain in his wounded shoulder throbbed spasmodically.
Some ten paces behind him stood Philippa Eilhart. From her raised arms emanated a dull light — two streaks, two rays. Both were touching his back, squeezing his arms with luminous pliers. He struggled, in vain. He could not move from the spot. He could only watch as Rience staggered up to the portal, which pulsated with a milky glow.
Rience, in no hurry, slowly stepped into the light of the portal, sank into it like a diver, blurred and disappeared. A second later, the oval went out, for a moment plunging the little street into impenetrable, dense, velvety blackness.
Somewhere in the lanes fighting cats yowled. Geralt looked at the blade of the sword he had picked up on his way towards the magician.
‘Why, Philippa? Why did you do it?’
The magician took a step back. She was still holding the knife which a moment earlier had penetrated Toublanc Michelet’s skull.
‘Why are you asking? You know perfectly well.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Now I know.’
‘You’re wounded, Geralt. You can’t feel the pain because you’re intoxicated with the witchers’ elixir but look how you’re bleeding. Have you calmed down sufficiently for me to safely approach and take a look at you? Bloody hell, don’t look at me like that! And don’t come near me. One more step and I’ll be forced to . . . Don’t come near me! Please! I don’t want to hurt you but if you come near—’
‘Philippa!’ shouted Dandilion, still holding the weeping Shani. ‘Have you gone mad?’
‘No,’ said the witcher with some effort. ‘She’s quite sane. And knows perfectly well what she’s doing. She knew all along what she was doing. She took advantage of us. Betrayed us. Deceived—’
‘Calm down,’ repeated Philippa Eilhart. ‘You won’t understand and you don’t have to understand. I did what I had to do. And don’t call me a traitor. Because I did this precisely so as not to
betray a cause which is greater than you can imagine. A great and important cause, so important that minor matters have to be sacrificed for it without second thoughts, if faced with such a choice. Geralt, damn it, we’re nattering and you’re standing in a pool of blood. Calm down and let Shani and me take care of you.’
‘She’s right!’ shouted Dandilion, ‘you’re wounded, damn it! Your wound has to be dressed and we’ve got to get out of here! You can argue later!’
‘You and your great cause . . .’ The witcher, ignoring the troubadour, staggered forward. ‘Your great cause, Philippa, and your choice, is a wounded man, stabbed in cold blood once he told you what you wanted to know, but what I wasn’t to find out. Your great cause is Rience, whom you allowed to escape so that he wouldn’t by any chance reveal the name of his patron. So that he can go on murdering. Your great cause is those corpses which did not have to be. Sorry, I express myself poorly. They’re not corpses, they’re minor matters!’
‘I knew you wouldn’t understand.’
‘Indeed, I don’t. I never will. But I do know what it’s about. Your great causes, your wars, your struggle to save the world . . . Your end which justifies the means . . . Prick up your ears, Philippa. Can you hear those voices, that yowling? Those are cats fighting for a great cause. For indivisible mastery over a heap of rubbish. It’s no joking matter – blood is being spilled and clumps of fur are flying. It’s war. But I care incredibly little about either of these wars, the cats’ or yours.’
‘That’s only what you imagine,’ hissed the magician. ‘All this is going to start concerning you – and sooner than you think. You’re standing before necessity and choice. You’ve got yourself mixed up in destiny, my dear, far more than you’ve bargained for. You thought you were taking a child, a little girl, into your care. You were wrong. You’ve taken in a flame which could at any moment set the world alight. Our world. Yours, mine, that of the others. And you will have to choose. Like I did. Like Triss Merigold. Choose, as your Yennefer had to. Because Yennefer has already
chosen. Your destiny is in her hands, witcher. You placed it in those hands yourself.’
The witcher staggered. Shani yelled and tore herself away from Dandilion. Geralt held her back with a gesture, stood upright and looked straight into the dark eyes of Philippa Eilhart.
‘My destiny,’ he said with effort. ‘My choice * . . I’ll tell you, Philippa, what I’ve chosen. I won’t allow you to involve Ciri in your dirty machinations. I am warning you. Whoever dares harm Ciri will end up like those four lying there. I won’t swear an oath. I have nothing by which to swear. I simply warn you. You accused me of being a bad guardian, that I don’t know how to protect the child. I will protect her. As best I can. I will kill. I will kill mercilessly . . .’
‘I believe you,’ said the magician with a smile. ‘I believe you will. But not today, Geralt. Not now. Because in a minute you’re going to faint from loss of blood. Shani, are you ready?’
No one is bom a wizard. We still know too little about genetics and the mechanisms of heredity. We sacrifice too little time and means on research. Unfortunately, we constantly try to pass on inherited magical abilities in, so to say, a natural way. Results of these pseudo-experiments can be seen all too often in town gutters and within temple walls. We see too many of them, and too frequently come across morons and women in a catatonic state, dribbling seers who soil themselves, seeresses, village oracles and miracle-workers, cretins whose minds are degenerate due to the inherited, uncontrolled Force.
These morons and cretins can also have offspring, can pass on abilities and thus degenerate further. Is anyone in a position to foresee or describe how the last link in such a chain will look?
[_ Most of us wizards lose the ability to procreate due to somatic changes and dysfunction of the pituitary gland. Some wizards -usually women - attune to magic while still maintaining efficiency of the gonads. They can conceive and give birth - and have the audacity to consider this happiness and a blessing. But I repeat: no one is born a wizard. And no one should be bom one! Conscious of the gravity of what I write, I answer the question posed at the Congress in Cidaris. I answer most emphatically: each one of us must decide what she wants to be - a wizard or a mother. _]