The Sword of Destiny (28 page)

He thought he heard the sound of a trumpet or a horn.

The wave that exploded anew into the shaft threw him face-down onto a large rock. Geralt distinctly heard the horn now, and the screams of Dandelion, reaching him from all directions at once. Snorting salt water from his nose, he looked around himself, pushing the wet hair from his face.

The witcher found himself at the point where they began their excursion. Flat on his stomach on the pebbles. All around, the surf was producing white foam.

Behind him, in the ravine that had in the meantime expanded into a bay, a gray

dolphin danced on the waves. The young siren was riding on its back, her celadon hair windblown. Her breasts were magnificent.

"White-haired one!" she sang, signaling with a hand that held a long spiral shell. "Are you alive?"

"I'm alive," the witcher said, astonished.

The foam around him was becoming pink. The salt on his rigid left shoulder stung intensely. The sleeves of his jacket had been shredded. Blood was flowing. / got out, he thought. / made it again. But no, I will never find her.

He saw Dandelion approaching at a run over the wet rocks.

"I've stopped them," sang the siren before blowing again into her conch shell. "But not for long! Run and don't come back, white-haired one! The sea... It's not for you!"

"I know," he shouted back. "I know. Thank you, Sh'eenaz!"

VII

"Dandelion," asked Little-Eye, using her teeth to tear the end of the bandage while she pressed the knot against the witcher's wrist. "Can you explain where all those shells packed under the stair came from? Drouhard's wife is doing the housework and she doesn't know what to think."

"Shells?" Dandelion sounded surprised. "What shells? I have no idea. Perhaps ducks dropped them on their migration home?"

Geralt hid his smile in the shadows. He remembered swearing his silence to Dandelion, who spent the whole afternoon opening the shells and digging out the slimy meat. He injured his finger and tore his shirt without finding a single pearl. No surprise there, since there was no chance that they were pearl mussels. The idea of making soup was immediately rejected after opening the first mussel, the appearance of which was so repulsive and the smell so strong that they had tears in their eyes.

Little-Eye finished Geralt's bandage and sat on the side of the tub. He thanked the girl, inspecting his skillfully bandaged hands. The wound was deep and long enough to reach his elbow; the witcher suffered with each movement. The wound had been temporarily dressed by the sea, but before they could return home, it had started to bleed again. Just before the girl's arrival, Geralt had applied to his forearm an elixir to promote blood clotting and numb the pain. Essi found him in the process of trying, with Dandelion's help, to stitch the wound with fishing line. Essi cursed at them and took over dressing the wounds. Meanwhile, Dandelion recounted the story of the battle, repeating several times that he reserved the exclusive rights to the ballad of the events. Essi, of course, inundated the witcher with questions that he could not answer. She reacted very badly to what she considered an effort to hide something. She became sullen and stopped asking questions.

"Agloval already knows everything," she said. "You were seen going home, and Drouhard's wife went to tell everyone that she had seen blood on the stairs. Everyone rushed to the rocks in hopes of seeing corpses washed ashore by the waves. They're still looking, but I understand that they've found nothing."

"And they will find nothing," the witcher said. "I'll pay a visit to Agloval tomorrow. Ask him, if you can, to stop people from going near the Dragon's Teeth until further notice. But take care not to say a word about this staircase and Dandelion's fantasies about the city of Ys. The treasure-hunters would flock to it in droves and we would have many more corpses on our hands..."

"I'm not a gossip." Essi pouted, forcefully pushing the circlet back on her forehead.

"If I ask you something, it's not so that I can run and disclose everything like a washerwoman."

"I'm sorry."

"I have to go out," Dandelion informed them. "I have an appointment with Akeretta. Geralt, I'm taking your jacket, because mine is still dirty and wet."

"Everything is wet here," Little-Eye remarked mockingly, giving the pile of clothes on the ground a vengeful kick with her boot. "How could you? We need to hang the clothesline, dry it properly... You're terrible."

"It will dry out well enough on its own."

Dandelion extracted the witcher's wet jacket and admired the silver studs riveted to the sleeves.

"Stop talking nonsense! And that, what is that? Oh no! The bag is still filled with mud and seaweed! And what is that? Ugh!"

Geralt and Dandelion looked silently at the cobalt blue shell that Essi held in both hands. They had forgotten its existence. The mold that coated it stank horribly.

"It's a gift," said the troubadour, backing toward the door. "Tomorrow, it's your birthday, isn't it, Doll? Well, it's your present."

"It?"

"It's beautiful, eh?" Dandelion sniffed before adding quickly: "On behalf of Geralt. He's the one who chose it. Oh... It's getting late. Farewell..."

Little-Eye was silent for a moment after Dandelion left. The witcher looked at the foul-smelling shell, blushing with shame at the troubadour's attitude and his own.

"You remembered my birthday?" Essi asked, formulating each world carefully and holding the shell as far from herself as possible. "Really?"

"Give me that," he replied sharply. Geralt got up from his mattress, protecting his bandaged hand. "I beg your pardon for that idiot..."

"But no," she protested, seizing the small knife that was hanging from her belt. "It's a very beautiful shell that I want to keep as a souvenir. I just need to clean it and get rid of... whatever it contains. I'll throw it out the window for the cats."

Something struck the floor, bouncing. Geralt widened his eyes and saw the thing in front of Essi.

It was a pearl. A perfectly opalescent and polished azure-blue pearl, big as a swollen pea.

"By the gods..." Little-Eye saw it in turn. "Geralt... a pearl!"

"A pearl," he repeated, laughing. "You will still get a present, Essi. I'm glad."

"Geralt, I can't accept it. This pearl is worth at least..."

"It's yours," he interrupted. "Even if he is an idiot, Dandelion really thought about your birthday. He kept saying that he wanted to please you. And so, fate has had its way."

"And you, Geralt?"

"Me?"

"Do you also want to please me? This pearl is so beautiful... It must be very valuable... You don't regret it?"

"I'm glad that you're pleased. And if I regret anything... it's that there is only one. And..."

"Yes?"

"And that I haven't known you as long as Dandelion. I didn't know the date of your birthday. I wish I could give you gifts and make you happy... and call you Doll."

She threw herself violently on his neck. Geralt had anticipated the movement, turning his head for a cool kiss on the cheek. He hugged her gently but with some reservation. He felt the girl's body stiffen and slowly withdraw, but no farther than the length of the arms she was

always resting on her shoulders. He knew what she wanted, but he did not meet her expectations: he was not attracted to her.

Essi released him then and turned toward the dirty window, which was ajar.

"Of course," she said abruptly. "You hardly know me. I forgot..."

"Essi," he replied after a moment of silence. "I..."

"I hardly know you either," she exploded, interrupting him. "So what? I love you. I can't do anything about that. Not a thing."

"Essi!"

"Yes, I love you, Geralt. It doesn't matter to me what you think. I loved you from the moment I saw you in the wedding hall."

The poet bowed her head in silence.

She stood right before him; Geralt was sorry that she was not the fish-eyed creature hiding its sword under the water; with it, at least, he had a fighting chance.

"You have nothing to say," she said. "Nothing, not a word."

I'm tired, he thought, and terribly weak. I need to sit down; my vision is foggy; I've lost some blood; and I haven't eaten anything... I need to sit down. Damn bedroom... May it burn to the ground in a thunderstorm. No furniture; if there were at least two stupid chairs and a table we could share and converse easily and hold hands in safety. I am condemned to sit on a mattress and ask her to do the same. Nothing is more dangerous than a mattress stuffed with straw into which one sinks and has his movements too restricted to dodge...

"Sit next to me, Essi."

The girl joined him on the mattress, hesitantly and with some delay, far from him. Too far.

"When I heard," she murmured, breaking the silence, "that Dandelion dragged you back covered in blood, I left the house like a madwoman; I was in shock, I ran blindly. And then... you know what I thought? That it was magic; that you had secretly cast a spell; that you had charmed me with unfair means; your sign, your wOlf s-head medallion, your evil eye. That's what I thought, but I didn't stop running, because I knew then that I accepted... that I surrendered to the influence of your power. But the reality proved to be even worse. You didn't cast anything of the sort, Geralt; you didn't use any spell to seduce me. Why? Why haven't you bewitched me?"

The witcher was silent.

"If it was nothing but magic," she continued, "the situation would be simple and easy to resolve. I would submit, happily, to your power. But then... then I... I don't know what is happening to me..."

By the devil, he thought, if, when she is with me, Yennefer feels exactly what I'm feeling now, I sympathize with her plight. I'll never be surprised by her reactions; I'll never hate them... never.

I expected of Yennefer - as is expected of me now - that the impossible be achieved: something even more impossible than the liaison between Agloval and Sh 'eenaz. Yennefer had the deep conviction that a little dedication was not enough; and that our situation called for a sacrifice over and over again, without any guarantee that it would be enough. No, I will no longer blame Yennefer for being unable and unwilling to give me a little bit of attention. I know now that the smallest trace is as heavy as gold.

"Geralt," moaned Little-Eye, laying her head on his shoulder. "I am so ashamed of my powerlessness: a sort of supernatural fever, preventing me from breathing freely..."

Geralt continued to hold his silence.

"I always thought that it was a sublime and wonderful state of mind; dignified even in disappointment. But love is only vegetative, Geralt, horribly and banally vegetative. It's the state of someone who succumbs to illness, who takes poison. Because, like the one who is

poisoned, the lover is desperate to get any antidote. At all. Even humiliation."

"Essi, I beg you."

"I feel humiliated by the object of my desires, and shamefully condemned to suffer in silence. I am ashamed to have embarrassed you, but I could not do otherwise. Helpless before the fate that afflicts me, it is as if I am sick; completely subject to an external grace. Diseases have always horrified me; they cause feebleness, confusion and loneliness. The disease is that we may go into remission."

Geralt did not open his mouth.

"I should," she moaned again, "be grateful that you don't try to take advantage of the situation. But this is not the case. I am ashamed of that too. I hate your silence and your eyes dilated with fear. I hate you... for your silence, your sincerity, your... Her too, I hate her, the sorceress; I would gladly settle things with her using my knife... I hate her. Order me to leave, Geralt, because I can't bring myself to do that on my own, and yet that is what I want: to leave, go to the town, go to the hostel. I want revenge on you for the shame I feel, my humiliation... I'll take the first opportunity..."

Damn, he thought, hearing her voice sink like a ball of rags tumbling down a staircase. She will start to cry, for sure. Then what, plague take it, what will I do?

Essi's hunched shoulders trembled like a leaf. The girl turned her head to weep without sobbing in a strangely silent and peaceful way.

I feel nothing at all, he thought with terror. Not the slightest emotion. If I hold her in my arms now, it will be a premeditated gesture, calculated, without spontaneity. I'm going to embrace her, not because I have any desire to, but because I feel that it's necessary. I don't feel any emotion.

When he embraced her shoulders, she stopped crying and dried her tears, shaking her head sharply. She turned so that he would not see her face and then her head fell heavily onto Geralt's chest.

A little dedication, he thought, it would only take a little... It would calm her down: an embrace, a kiss, a hug... She wants nothing more... And even if it is not enough, what's the difference? A little dedication and attention: she is beautiful and worthy of that much... If she wants more... It will calm her down. Making love gently, peacefully, in silence. But me... It's all the same to me, because Essi smells of verbena, not of lilac and gooseberry; she doesn't have cold and electrifying skin; Essi's hair is not a black tornado of shiny curls; Essi's eyes are beautiful, sweet, hot and blue, but they are no deep purple, cold and dispassionate. Essi will fall asleep afterward, will turn her face and part her lips; Essi will not smile in triumph. Because Essi...

Essi is not Yennefer.

That's why I can't grant her even a little dedication.

"Please, Essi, don't cry."

"Yes..." She moved away from him very slowly. "Yes... I understand. It can't be helped."

They sat in silence, seated beside one another on the bench of hay. Night was falling.

"Geralt," she said suddenly, in a voice that trembled. "Perhaps... as with this shell, this strange gift... we could find a pearl in our relationship? Later? After a while?"

"I see this pearl," he finally said with effort, "set in silver, a flower of finely-chiseled silver petals. I see it hanging around your neck on a chain, worn as I wear this medallion. It will be your talisman, Essi. A talisman that will protect you from every kind of evil."