The Sword of Destiny (38 page)

The druid watched him insistently.

"You know, however, that you can never have a child of your own."

"I know."

"And you renounce her?"

"I renounce her. Do I not have the right?"

"You have the right," Mousesack responded. "And how. But it's risky. There is an old saying that the sword of destiny..."

"... has two edges," finished Geralt. "I know."

"Then do as you think is right." The druid turned his head and spat. "And to think that I was ready to risk my neck for you..."

"You?"

"Yes. Unlike you, I believe in destiny. And I know that it is dangerous to toy with a double-edged sword. Don't play games, Geralt. Take the opportunity that has been given to you. Make the link with Ciri into a normal relationship between guardian and child. Otherwise... This link could manifest in other ways. More terrible. Negative and destructive. I want to protect you, you and the little one. If you wanted to take her, I would not be opposed. I would take the risk of explaining everything to Calanthe."

"How do you know that Ciri would be willing to follow me? Have you had a premonition?"

"No," Mousesack responded seriously. "I know because she fell asleep when you held her tight in your arms, and because she whispers your name in a dream and her hand seeks yours."

"That's enough." Geralt stood. "I should move on. Farewell, bearded one. All my respects to Calanthe. For Ciri's escapades, invent something."

"Your escape is illusory, Geralt."

"My escape from destiny?"

The witcher tightened the straps of a recovered horse.

"No," the druid responded, watching the little girl: "from her."

The witcher nodded and then vaulted into the saddle. Mousesack remained seated, motionless, using a stick to stir the dying fire.

Geralt went slowly through the heather that reached his stirrups, in the main slope of the valley, toward the black forest.

"Geralt!"

He turned. CM stood at the top of the hill, the little figure with ashen hair looking defeated.

"Don't go!"

He waved his hand.

"Don't go!" she screamed with less strength. "Don't go!"

I must, he thought. I must, Ciri. Because... I'm leaving forever.

"Don't think that you'll get away so easily!" she cried. "Don't even think it! You can't run away! I am part of your destiny, you hear?"

There is no destiny, he thought. It doesn't exist. The only thing that is predestined for us all is death. The second side of the sword with two edges is death. The first is me. The second is the death that follows me step by step. I cannot, I have no right to expose you to it, Ciri.

"I am your destiny!"

He heard more cries from the top of the hill, but with less strength and more desperation.

With a kick, he urged his horse on and plunged into the damp forest, black and cold as the abyss, in the familiar shadow and benevolent unending darkness.

Something More

This is a fan translation of a French translation of the story from Andrze} Sapkowski's The Sword of Destiny (L'Epee de la Providence). / am not a native or even a strong French speaker but I hope that the result is sufficiently readable for my fellow Anglophones who may be trying to read Blood of Elves and wondering who the hell Ciri is. Here you go.

I

When the hooves struck the planks of the bridge, Yurga didn't even raise his head. He stifled a scream, dropped the binding from the wheel that he was trying to reattach and crawled under the cart as quickly as possible. In tears, digging his back into the rough coat of mud and manure that covered the underside of the vehicle's floor, he was screaming intermittently and trembling with fear.

The horse slowly approached the cart. Yurga noticed how cautiously and delicately the hooves moved on the beams that were moldy and rotted through.

"Get out of there," said the unseen rider.

Yurga hissed through his teeth, regathering his wits. The horse snorted and stamped a hoof.

"Easy, Roach," said the rider. Yurga heard the man patting the neck of his horse. "Come out, friend. I won't do you any harm."

The merchant did not believe the stranger's words. There was nevertheless something in the voice that was reassuring and intriguing, although the tone was not pleasant. Muttering prayers to several gods at once, Yurga at last stuck his head cautiously out from under the carriage.

The rider had hair as white as milk, held back by a leather headband, and a black wool coat that fell onto the rump of his chestnut mare. He did not look at Yurga. Leaning on his saddle, he looked at the wheel of the cart and the axle stuck in the split boards of the bridge. He suddenly lifted his head, touching the merchant with his gaze in the process of impassively observing the vegetation that pushed through the banks of the ravine.

Yurga extricated himself with difficulty, grumbling. He wiped his nose on the back of his hand, smearing his face with wood tar from the axle. The rider darted him a somber and attentive look, sharp and cutting as a harpoon. Yurga remained silent.

"The two of us will not be able to free it," the stranger finally said, indicating the stuck wheel. "You're traveling alone?"

"There are three of us, lord," Yurga stammered. "My servants have fled, the cowards..."

"Not surprising," responded the rider, looking down at the bottom of the ravine beneath the bridge. "Not at all surprising. I think you should do the same. There is still time."

Yurga's eyes did not follow the stranger's gaze to the skulls, ribs, and shins scattered among the stones, visible through the burdock and nettles growing on the dry riverbed. The merchant feared that those black eyesockets, beautiful smiling teeth, and all the broken bones would cause him to break down completely, and what remained of his courage would burst like a fish's swim bladder. Then he would flee along the road, stifling his screams, as the driver and the valet had just an hour earlier.

"But what are you waiting for?" asked the rider in a low voice, turning his horse. "Twilight? It will be too late. They will take you as soon as night falls. Perhaps even earlier. Go, mount your horse, come with me. Get out of here as fast as possible."

"And the cart, sir?" Yurga yelled at the top of his lungs, surprising himself with the intensity of his shout, not knowing whether it was fear, despair, or anger that caused it. "The merchandise! A whole year of work! I'd rather die! I won't leave any of it behind!"

"It seems to me that you don't yet know where fate has led you, friend," the stranger said quietly, gesturing with his hand toward the horrible cemetery stretching beneath the bridge. "You don't want to leave the cart here, you say? I tell you that when twilight falls, not even the treasures of King Dezmod will be able to save you. Stop thinking about your damn cart. The devil with your idea to take a shortcut across such a marvelous country. Do you know what massacres have taken place here since the end of the war?"

Yurga indicated his ignorance.

"You don't know," replied the stranger, shaking his head, "but you see what lies below! It's difficult not to notice. They are exactly those who tried to take a shortcut. And you, you say you don't want to leave your cart behind. What does it contain, your famous cart? I'm curious to know."

Yurga did not answer. While looking at the rider from below, he was torn between "oakum" and "old rags."

The rider didn't appear particularly interested in his response. He calmed the chestnut mare who was tossing her head nervously.

"Lord..." the merchant stammered at last. "Help me. Save me. I would be grateful until the end of my days... Don't let me... I'll give you what you want, anything you desire... Save me, lord!"

The stranger turned his head abruptly, keeping both hands on the pommel of the saddle.

"What did you say?"

Yurga, mouth agape, was silent.

"You will give me what I want, repeat it."

Yurga swallowed and closed his mouth. He regretted that he had not thought twice before speaking. His head spun with the most fantastic conjectures concerning the price that the strange traveler could exact. Everything. Even the privilege of a particular trade once a month with his young wife, Chrisididae, did not seem so terrible compared with the loss of his cart, and no doubt much less macabre than becoming a bleached skeleton at the bottom of the ravine. The merchant's atavism quickly bowed to the considerations of the situation. The rider didn't look like a tramp, a vagabond, or a marauder, as many as there were since the end of the war. Neither was he a prince, a councellor, or one of those little knights with a high opinion of themselves who liked to extract money from their neighbors. Yurga estimated his worth at close to twenty gold coins. His commercial nature nevertheless prevented him from offering a price.

He limited himself to speaking indiscriminately of "eternal gratitude."

"I asked you," the stranger repeated calmly, waiting for the silent merchant, "if you

will give me what I want."

He had to speak. Yurga swallowed hard, nodding his head. Against expectations, the stranger did not look triumphant; he did not even seem especially pleased with the success of his negotiation. He spat into the ravine, leaning on his horse.

"But what am I doing?" he said sadly. "Aren't I making a mistake? Either I try to get you out of here. I won't deny that this adventure could be fatal for one or both of us. If we succeed then you, in return..."

Yurga tensed, ready to cry.

"You give me," the rider in the black coat said quickly, "the thing that you did not expect to find on returning home. Do you swear?"

Yurga nodded his head, stammering.

"Good," grinned the stranger. "Now move over. It's best if you hide under the cart again. The sun is setting."

He got down from his horse and took off his coat. The merchant noticed the sword that the stranger carried on a shoulder strap and the harness that crossed his chest. He had the feeling that he had heard talk before of people who carried their weapons in this way. The black leather jacket cut at the waist and the long gauntlets studded with silver could indicate that the stranger was from Novigrad or its area. The fashion for such garments was popular among the youth lately, but the stranger was no longer a young man.

The rider turned after unloading his horse; the medallion suspended on his chest by a silver chain began to shudder; he held in his arms a small iron mug and a long, tied bundle covered in skins.

"Still not under the cart?" he asked, approaching.

Yurga noticed the wolf with bared fangs depicted by the medallion.

"Would you be... a witcher, sir?"

The stranger shrugged his shoulders.

"That's right. A witcher. And now, hide under the other side of the cart. Don't come out and keep your mouth shut. I need to be alone for a moment."

Yurga complied. He crouched near the wheel, hiding underneath the tarp. He preferred not to see what the stranger was doing on the other side of the cart, and wanted to see the bones lying at the bottom of the ravine even less. He looked instead at his shoes and the star-shaped specks of green moss covering the rotten planks of the bridge.

A witcher.

The sun disappeared.

He heard footsteps.

The stranger came out slowly, very slowly, from behind the cart and moved to the center of the bridge. Yurga saw his back. He noticed that his sword was not the same one he had before. It was a beautiful weapon: the hilt, the guard, and the iron embellishments on the scabbard shone like stars. Even at dusk, they glowed.

The golden and purple glow covering the forest faded.

"Sir..."

The stranger turned. Yurga managed to suppress a scream.

The stranger's face was white, white and porous as fresh cheese under his clothes. And his eyes... Oh gods... The terror screamed through Yurga. His eyes...

"Behind the cart, quickly," the stranger ordered in a low voice.

It was not the same voice that he had heard earlier. The merchant suddenly felt the pressure of his overfull bladder.

The stranger turned and walked over the bridge.

A witcher.

The horse tethered to the ladder of the cart groaned and neighed, striking the planks

with its hooves.

A mosquito hummed over Yurga's ear. The merchant did not even move to swat it. A second mosquito arrived. Entire clouds of mosquitoes were concentrated in the brush on the opposite side of the ravine.

They were screaming.

Yurga saw, clenching his teeth painfully, that they were not mosquitoes.

In the increasingly dense twilight, small misshapen silhouettes, horrible, no taller than an ell, thin as skeletons, were overtaking the other side of the ravine. They moved onto the bridge with a bizarre gait like a heron's, lifting their swollen knees very high in abrupt movements. Bilious eyes bulged from flat and wrinkled faces. Their small frog-like mouths sported tiny pearly fangs. They approached, hissing.

The stranger, still as a statue in the center of the bridge, suddenly lifted his right hand with his fingers positioned strangely. The monstrous dwarves retreated, hissing, before quickly resuming their approach, faster and faster, raising their long, grasping, stick-thin limbs.

From the left came the sound of claws: a new monster appeared suddenly from under the bridge; the others pounced, in stupefying leaps. The stranger turned. The new sword flashed. The head of the creature that climbed from the bridge flew six feet into the air, trailing a garland of blood behind it. The white-haired man bounded into the group that remained. He struck, whirling his sword right and left. The monsters hurled themselves at him from all sides, screaming, flailing their limbs; the sword, bright and sharp as a razor, did not discourage them. Yurga huddled against the cart.

Something fell at his feet, covered in blood. It was a long bony leg with four claws, scaled like a hen's.

The merchant screamed.

He felt a stealthy presence next to him. He curled up as if to disappear under the carriage. The ghastly thing then fell upon his neck: the large clawed leg gripped him at his temple and his cheek. Yurga closed his eyes. He tore himself away from the monster, screaming and slashing at the body; he found himself in the middle of the bridge, surrounded by corpses lying on the planks. The battle raged. The merchant saw nothing except the raging tumult and confusion from which emerged, from time to time, an arc of silver light.