The Sword of Destiny (36 page)

"Child of Old Blood," she continued, "choose. Do you prefer to stay in Brokilone or follow the path of destiny?"

The witcher's head turned incredulously. Ciri breathed more rapidly. Her cheeks took on color. But nothing more. Nothing.

"I want to follow the path of destiny," said the little girl, looking the dryad straight in the eye.

"Let it be so, then," replied Eithne, her voice cold and dry.

Braenn sighed heavily.

"I want to be alone," concluded Eithne, turning her back on them. "I ask you to leave."

Braenn took Ciri and touched Geralt's shoulder, but he rejected the young dryad's hand.

"Thank you, Eithne," he said.

The dryad turned slowly.

"Why are you thanking me?"

"For the providence," he joked. "For your decision. Because it wasn't the Water of Brokilone, was it? Destiny wanted Ciri to return home and it's you, Eithne, who played the role of providence. I thank you."

"You know almost nothing of providence," she replied bitterly. "You know very little, witcher. Very little really. You don't understand the larger picture. You thank me? You thank me for the role I played? For the bargain? For the artifice, deceit, deception? You thank me because the sword of destiny is, you think, made of wood plated with gold? So pursue your logic to its conclusion: do not thank me, but expose me. Expose your arguments, prove to me your reasons, show me your true face. Show me how the human truth triumphs, the common sense by the grace of which, you believe, you control the world. Here is the Water of Brokilone, there remains a little. Will you allow yourself to try it, conqueror of the world?"

Geralt, troubled by her words, hesitated only a moment. The Water of Brokilone, even if authentic, would have no effect on him. The witcher was in effect completely resistant to toxic tannins and hallucinogenic liquids. Had it been possible that it was the Water of Brokilone? Ciri had drunk it and nothing had happened. He took the chalice in both hands and fixed his eyes with the dryad's.

The ground gave way under his feet without warning, as if the world had fallen on his back. The mighty oak spun and shook. Feeling around with difficulty using his numbed hands, he managed to open his eyes, but it was as difficult as moving the marble slab of a tomb. Eithne's eyes, shining like mercury. And other eyes, emerald green. No, not as clear. Like spring grass. The medallion suspended around his neck rang and vibrated.

"Gwynbleidd," he heard, "look carefully. No, closing your eyes will help with nothing. Look, look at your destiny.

"Do you remember?"

He saw a sudden explosion of light piercing a curtain of smoke; large and massive candelabra dripping with wax; stone walls; steep stairs; a little girl with green eyes and ashen hair coming down the steps, wearing a tiara encrusted with artistically carved gems and dressed in a blue dress with a silver train that was supported by a page above, dressed in scarlet.

"Do you remember?"

His own voice that said... that said:

"I will return in six years... "

An arbor, the heat, the smell of flowers, the heavy and monotonous hum of bees. Himself, kneeling, offering a rose to a woman whose ashen curls were scattered beneath a narrow golden band. On the fingers on the hand that took the rose, rings of emeralds and large green cabochons.

"Return, " said the woman. "Return if you change your mind. Your destiny will be waiting for you."

I never went back, he thought. / never went back to... Where?

Ashen hair. Green eyes.

Again, his own voice in the darkness, into the uncertainty where everything disappears. There are only fires, fires on the horizon. A whirlwind of sparks and purple smoke. Belleteyn! Night of May. Through the clouds of smoke, violet eyes, dark, burning in a pale and triangular face veiled beneath a tangle of black curls, watching.

Yennefer!

"It is too little. "

The thin lips appear to twist. A tear runs down her pale cheek. Very quickly, faster and faster, like a drop of paraffin along a candle.

"It's too little. There must be something more. "

"Yennefer!"

"Nothingness against nothingness," announced the apparition, speaking with the voice of Eithne. "The nothingness and emptiness that exist in you, conqueror of the world, you who are not even capable of seducing the woman you love and who leaves and flees with destiny in the palm of his hand. The sword of destiny has two edges. You are one of them. But what is the other, White Wolf?"

"There is no destiny." His own voice. "There is none. It does not exist. Only death is predestined for us."

"That's right,''' responds the woman with ashen hair and a mysterious smile. "That's right, Geralt.'"

The woman is wearing silver armor, bloody, twisted, punctured by the blows of halberds. A trickle of blood runs from the corner of her lips that smile horribly and without reason.

"You make a mockery of destiny, " she said. "You mock her, you toy with her. The sword of destiny has two edges. You are one of them. The other... is it death? But it is we who die. We die because of you. Death cannot catch you. It is content with us. It follows you step by step, White Wolf, and it is others who are dying. Because of you. Do you remember me? "

"Ca... Calanthe!"

"You can save him." It's the voice of Eithne that pierces the spoke screen: "You can save him, Child of Old Blood. Before he disappears into the nothingness that he loves in the black forest that knows no borders."

Eyes, green as spring grass. A touch. Voices crying out in an incomprehensible chorus. Faces.

He sees nothing more and then falls into the abyss, the void, darkness. The voice of Eithne is what he hears last:

"Let it be so."

VII

"Geralt, wake up! Wake up, please!"

The witcher opened his eyes and saw the sun: a golden ducat outlined distinctly in the sky, perched above the crown of trees, beyond the curtain of morning mist. He was lying on wet, spongy moss. A root dug into his back.

Ciri knelt beside him, tugging on the edge of his jacket.

"Plague..." he bellowed. He looked around. "Where am I? Where do I find myself?"

"I don't know either," she replied. "I woke up a moment ago, here, next to you, horribly frozen. I don't remember... You know, eh? It's magic!"

"No doubt you're right." Geralt sat, dislodging the pine needles that had been stuffed into his collar. "No doubt you're right, Ciri. The Water of Brokilone, name to name... It seems that the dryads have amused themselves at our expense."

He stood, lifted the sword that was lying nearby and buckled his belt around his waist.

"Ciri?"

"Yes?"

"You too, you were amused at my expense."

"Me?"

"You are the daughter of Pavetta, the granddaughter of Calanthe of Cintra. You knew from the beginning who I was..."

"No," she responded, blushing. "Not at first. It's you who disenchanted my papa, isn't

it?"

"Not really." He shook his head. "It was your mother... with the help of your grandmother. I only helped them."

"But Nanny said... She said that I was the subject of destiny. Because I was the surprise. The child-surprise, Geralt?"

"Ciri." He looked into her eyes, nodding and smiling. "You can believe me: you are the biggest surprise I have ever met."

"Ah!" The girl's face cleared. "Then it's true! I am the subject of destiny. Nanny predicted that a witcher would come, that he would have white hair and that he would take me with him. Grandmother cried... How will it be? Where are you taking me, tell me?"

"Home, to Cintra."

"Really? I thought that..."

"You will think on the road. Let's go, Ciri, we must leave Brokilone. This is not a safe place."

"But I'm not afraid!"

"Me, I'm afraid."

"Grandmother said that witchers aren't afraid of anything."

"Your grandmother was exaggerating. On our way, Ciri. I think I knoow where we..." He examined the sun. "Hmm... Let's take the chance... Let's go that way."

"No." Ciri wrinkled her nose and pointed in the opposite direction. "That way. There."

"How do you know?"

"I know, that's all," she responded, shrugging. She put him under her emerald gaze, astonished and helpless. "How... I don't know."

Pavetta's daughter, he thought. The child... The Child of Old Blood? It's possible that she inherited this gift from her mother.

"Ciri..." He unbuttoned his shirt and took out his medallion. "Touch it."

"Oh!" She opened her mouth wide. "It's a terrible wolf. It has fangs..."

"Touch."

"Oh!"

The witcher smiled, feeling the violent vibration of the medallion and the waves traveling up the silver chain.

"It moved," Ciri murmured. "It moved!"

"I know. Come on, Ciri. You'll guide us."

"It's magic, isn't it?"

"Of course."

As predicted, the little girl sensed the way forward. In what manner? This, he did not know. Quickly, more quickly than he would have thought, they came to a path that led them to the crossing of three roads. This was the border of Brokilone, at least as was recognized by humans. He remembered that only Eithne did not consider this the case.

Ciri bit her lip, wrinkled her nose and paused, seeing the sandy roads torn by hooves and wagon wheels. Oriented at last, Geralt could be free of the girl's uncertain suggestions. He took the road east toward Brugge. Ciri, always worried, looked at the road west.

"That way leads to Castle Nastrog," he teased. "You miss Kistrin?"

The girl grumbled, catching up to Geralt. She turned again nonetheless, several times.

"What is it, Ciri?"

"I don't know," she murmured. "This isn't the right path, Geralt."

"Why? We're going to Brugge, home of King Venzlav who lives in a splendid castle where we will visit the baths and where we will sleep on feather beds..."

"It's not the right path," she repeated. "No."

"It's a fact: I've seen the best. Stop brooding, Ciri. Let's go quickly."

They turned a corner surrounded by bushes. Ciri was right...

The soldiers encircled them suddenly, rapidly, on all sides. They wore conical helmets, coats of mail and dark gray tunics sporting the black and gold of Verden. They remained at a distance without drawing their weapons.

"Where do you come from, where are you going?" someone yelled to Geralt, a squat man with spidery legs in a wide stance, wearing a worn green uniform.

His face was tanned and wrinkled like a prune. His bow and his white-fletched arrows rose above his head.

"We come from the Scorched Earth," lied the witcher, holding Ciri's hand fast. "I go home, to Brugge. What is this about?"

"Service of the King," the tanned man replied more politely, having noticed the sword on Geralt's back. "We..."

"Bring him here, Jughans!" cried someone who was farther back on the road.

The soldiers parted.

"Don't look, Ciri," Geralt breathed. "Turn around. Don't look."

A fallen tree blocked the path, cluttering it with branches. The cut and broken base of the trunk, bristling with long shards of white wood, lay in the thicket bordering the path. In front of the tree stood a cart covered by a tarp. Riddled with arrows, entangled in the yoke and the reins, small long-haired horses were lying on the ground, showing their yellow teeth. One of them still lived. It snorted heavily, continuing to kick.

There were also dead bodies scattered on the bloodstained sand, clinging to the sides of the cart or tangled in the cart wheels.

Two soldiers, then a third, emerged slowly from the ranks of armed men gathered around the cart. There were about a dozen, motionless, holding their horses.

"What happened?" asked the witcher. He tried, for Ciri's sake, to hide the scene of the massacre with his body.

A squinting soldier wearing a short mail coat and high boots watched attentively, scraping his unshaven chin with a rasping sound. On his left forearm he wore the worn and weathered cuff of an archer.

"An attack," he said simply. "Fairies of the woods killing merchants. We are in charge of the investigation."

"Fairies would take out merchants?"

"You see for yourself," said the squinting soldier, motioning with his arm, "they are riddled with arrows, veritable hedgehogs... On the highway! These creatures of the woods are becoming more and more zealous. Soon it will no longer be possible to enter the forest or even come near."

"And you," ventured the witcher, blinking, "who are you?"

"The troops of Ervyyll, the decurions of Nastrog. We served under the command of Baron Freixenet, but the Baron fell to Brokilone."

Ciri opened her mouth, but Geralt signaled for her to be silent, shaking her hand.

"Blood for blood, I say!" growled the squint-eyed soldier's companion, a giant with a doublet trimmed in copper. "Blood for blood! This is not tolerable. First Freixenet and the Princess of Cintra, now these merchants. By all the gods, vengeance, vengeance I tell you! Otherwise, you will see tomorrow, and the day after, they will kill humans on the steps of their own homes!"

"Brick speaks well," continued the squint-eyed soldier. "Doesn't he? And you, brother, I ask you: where are you from?"

"From Brugge," lied the witcher.

"And this little one, your daughter?"

Geralt shook Ciri's hand again.

"My daughter."

"From Brugge..." Brick frowned. "I tell you, brother, that it's your king, Venzlav, who emboldens the monsters. He is not the ally of our Ervyll or of Viraxas of Kerack. If we were fighting on three fronts, we could finally be rid of that breed..."

"How did the massacre happen?" Geralt asked slowly. "Does anyone know? Has a merchant survived?"

"There are no witnesses," said the squint-eyed soldier. "But we know what happened. Junghans, the ranger, read the traces like a book. Tell him, Junghans..."

"Yeah," said the tanned one. "It happened like this: the merchants were rolling down the highway. They stumbled on the downed tree. See, master, the pine felled in the middle of the road is freshly cut. In the brush, there are traces. You see? And when the merchants came down to move the tree, they were fired on from three different sides. From there, the bushes, where there are twisted birch. And there, there are traces. Arrows, see, it's the work of fairies: fletchings glued with resin, the feathers covered in sap...