The Sword of Destiny (30 page)

Geralt kept his silence. Essi, too, was quiet or only responded with partial words. The witcher felt and avoided the look she cast toward him.

They crossed the Adalatte river on a ferry whose rope they had to tow themselves as the ferryman, white as a sheet and lost in a state of inebriation approaching epilepsy, could not release the mooring post that he held in both hands and responded systematically to all questions put to him with an inexpressive "beuh."

The country on the other side of the Adalatte pleased the witcher. The villagers situated along the river were for the most part circled by fences, suggesting that there would be work for him.

Earlier that afternoon, enjoying a break - they left Dandelion watching the horses while they drank - Essi approached Geralt without warning.

"Geralt," she said softly. "I... I can't stand it. It's more than I can bear."

The witcher tried to avoid her gaze, but she would not let him escape. Essi toyed with the azure pearl set in the silver flower that was suspended around her neck. Geralt regretted anew that she was not the fish-eyed monster hiding its sword beneath the water instead.

"Geralt... We must resolve this problem, mustn't we?"

She waited for his response: a word, just one, the slightest hint of a reaction. But the witcher knew that he had nothing that he could dedicate to her and did not want to lie to her. In fact, he didn't dare tell the truth for fear of hurting her.

Dandelion, ever-reliable Dandelion with his habitual tact, at last salvaged the situation by appearing suddenly.

"Yes, that's right!" he yelled, plunging a stick into the water to scatter the rushes and enormous river-nettles. "You really have to make a decision, it's about time! I don't want to watch the act you're putting on any longer! What are you waiting for from him, Doll? Something impossible? And you, Geralt, what do you expect? That Little-Eye read your thoughts like... yes, like the other one? And that she content herself with the situation you're comfortable with, where, without divulging your emotions, you are required to give neither explanation nor refusal? How long will it take you to hear? When do you plan to understand? In how many years? In the form of distant memories? Tomorrow, we part ways, by the devil! Oh, I've had enough of you two. Listen: I'll cut myself a hazel branch to fish with, and you, meanwhile, will have time for everything you have to say. Say it all! Try to come to a mutual understanding. It's not as difficult as you think. Then, by all the gods, do it. Do it with him, Doll. Do it with her, Geralt, and be good for her. And then, by the plague, either move on or..."

Dandelion turned violently on his heel, breaking a bulrush and swearing. He planned to fish until nightfall with a horse hair mounted to a hazel branch.

When he disappeared, Geralt and Essi remained motionless for a long moment, leaning against the trunk of a willow tree overlooking the stream. They were silent, hand in hand. Then the witcher began to talk at length and in a low voice; Little-Eye listened with tears in her eyes.

Then they did it.

And all was in order.

X

The next day, they organized a sort of farewell dinner. Essi and Geralt had bought a lamb in a village, already prepared. During the haggling, Dandelion made off with fresh garlic, onions, and carrots from the garden behind the house. They also stole a pot to prepare

it in, nimbly slipping it through the farrier's hedge. The witcher had to plug the holes by using the Igni sign.

The farewell dinner was held in a clearing deep in the forest. The fire crackled cheerfully. Geralt carefully turned the prepared animal, stirring the contents of the steaming pot with the stripped branch of a pine tree. Little-Eye, who knew nothing about cooking, was content to make the atmosphere agreeable by singing ribald verses with her lute.

It was a dinner party. In the morning, it was agreed that each would go his own way in search of what he already had. But unaware of that fact, ignorant of just how far the road would take them, they had decided to separate.

After eating their fill and drinking the beer that Drouhard had offered them, they talked and laughed together. Dandelion and Essi sparred in song. Geralt, lying on spruce branches with his hands behind his head, thought that he had never heard such beautiful voices and such beautiful ballads. He thought of Yennefer. He also thought of Essi. He had the feeling that...

At the end of the evening, Little-Eye sang with Dandelion the celebrated duet of Cynthia and Vertven, a marvelous love song beginning with the words: "These are not my first tears..." Geralt had the impression that even the trees leaned in to listen to the troubadours.

Then Little-Eye, who smelled of verbena, lay down next to him, pressed against his shoulder, lay her head on his chest, then sighed perhaps twice before falling into a peaceful sleep. The witcher did not sleep until much later.

Dandelion, absorbed by the glow of the fire that was going out little by little, remained seated and played a few discreet chords on his lute.

He began with a few measures that he transformed into a quiet melody. The words were born with the music, captured by it like insects in translucent amber.

The ballad recounted the story of a certain witcher and of a certain poet: the circumstances of their encounter at the seaside, amid the squalling of the gulls; their mutual love at first sight; the sincerity of their love; their indifference toward a death that could not destroy this love nor separate them.

Dandelion knew that few would believe the story told by the ballad, but he didn't care: one writes a ballad for the emotion it conveys.

Dandelion could have changed, some years later, the content of that ballad to reflect the truth. He did not. The true story was indeed moving. Who would hear, indeed, that the witcher and the poet parted and never saw each other again? That four years later, Little-Eye died of smallpox in Vizima during an epidemic? That Dandelion carried her body in his arms far from the funeral pyres burning away in the city, alone and quiet, into the forest, and buried with her, according to her wishes, two objects: her lute and the azure pearl with which she was never parted.

No, Dandelion kept the first version of his ballad, but he never sang it again. Not ever, for anyone.

In the morning, a hungry and furious werewolf took advantage of the darkness of the night that had not yet dissipated and invaded the camp; but, recognizing the voice of Dandelion, he listened for a moment to the melody before disappearing into the forest.

The Sword of Destiny

This is a fan translation of a French translation of the story from Andrzej 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.

Braenn's dialog is a very rough approximation. In the original it is a muddle of archaic

words, mistaken homonyms, etc.

I

He discovered the first body around noon.

The sight of the dead rarely shook the witcher. His gaze passed over most of them with perfect indifference. But not this time.

The boy was fifteen. He lay on his back, legs wide apart; something, on his lips, was frozen, like a grimace of terror. Geralt knew nonetheless that the child had died on the spot, that he had not suffered, that he probably didn't even see death coming. The arrow had pierced his eye and penetrated deep into the skull through the eyesocket. The fletching consisted of tiger-pheasant feathers, painted yellow and jutting above the grass.

Geralt looked around himself quickly. He found what was looking for without difficulty: a second arrow, identical, stuck in the trunk of a pine tree, about six steps back. He understood what had happened. The child had not heeded the warning: frightened by the whistle and the impact of the arrow, he had taken off running in the wrong direction. The side that the arrow told him not to go, to turn around. The lightning hiss and the poison pen, the brief impact of the point that bit into the wood. "Human! Not another step!" That was the declaration of the whistle and the impact. "Human! Begone! Go quickly from Brokilone. You have conquered the entire world, human, you have left your mark everywhere, you peddle everything in the name of modernity, an era of change, what you call progress. But we want neither you nor your progress. We don't want any of your changes. We want nothing that you bring with you." Whistle, impact. "Out of Brokilone!"

Human, out of Brokilone, thought the witcher. Even if you are fifteen, crossing the forest, driven by fear, without knowing your way. Even if you are seventy, forced to gather firewood, because your infirmity has warranted that you be chased from the cottage and deprived of food. Even if you are six, drawn by the flowers that bloom in the sun-drenched clearing. Out of Brokilone! Whistling, impact.

In the past, he thought, before shooting to kill, they gave two warnings. Three, even.

In the past, he thought, continuing on his way. In the past.

Progress...

The forest did not seem to warrant such a sinister aura. It was, in fact, terribly wild and impenetrable, but this was nothing out of the ordinary in the depths of a forest where each shaft of light, each touch of sun that the leaves and branches of the large trees allowed to filter through, was immediately exploited by dozens of young birch, alder and hornbeam, by brambles, ferns and junipers, covering with their shoots a land of brittle wood, of dry branches and rotted trunks, remains of the oldest trees at the end of their battle and their life.

There was not the heavy, ominous silence ordinarily associated with the places where these things dominated. On the contrary, Brokilone was alive. Buzzing insects, lizards rustling underfoot, beetles shining in rainbow colors, thousands of spiders crawling on canvases where droplets sparkled, woodpeckers striving against the trunks, jays chattering.

Brokilone was alive.

But the witcher could not allow himself to be complacent. He knew where he was and did not forget the boy with the pierced eye. Among the mosses and pine needles, he sometimes saw bleached bones stripped by carnivorous ants.

He continued on his way - cautiously, but swiftly. The tracks were fresh. He thought he could make the capture, stop, and return to the people that he served. He thought, despite everything, he was not too late.

Wrongly.

He would not have noticed the second body without the reflection of the sun on the sword that the dead man clutched in his hand. He was a grown man. The simplicity of his dark gray garments revealed a humble origin. With the exception of blood stains blooming from two arrows planted in his chest, his clothing was clean and new: he was not, then, a simple valet.

Geralt looked around him and found the third corpse, dressed in a leather jacket and a green tunic. The ground around the body was entirely trampled, the moss and the needles stamped down into the dirt. There could be no doubt: this man had suffered at length.

He heard a groan.

Quickly, he parted the juniper branches and saw the deep hole that they had concealed. In the hollow, a man of strong constitution was lying on the exposed roots of a pine. His hair was black, like his beard, contrasting with the terrible, even deathly pallor of his face. His light deerskin doublet was red with blood.

The witcher vaulted into the hole. The wounded man opened his eyes.

"Geralt..." he moaned. "Oh gods... I must be dreaming..."

"Freixenet?" said the witcher, surprised. "You're here?"

"I... ah..."

"Don't move." Geralt knelt next to him. "Where are you hurt? I don't see the arrow..."

"It went clean through. I broke the tip, then I took it out... Listen, Geralt..."

"Shut up," Geralt said, "because you're losing all your blood. You have a pierced lung. I need to get you out of here, damn it! What the devil were you doing in Brokilone? This is dryad territory, their sanctuary; no-one leaves alive. Don't you know that?"

"Later..." Freixenet moaned. He spat blood. "Later, I'll explain... Now, get me out of here... Ah! Damn it! Gently... ah..."

"I can't." Geralt stood, looking around. "You're too heavy..."

"Leave me," the wounded man muttered. "Leave me, it's a shame... But save her... By all the gods, save her..."

"Who?"

"The princess... ah... Find her, Geralt..."

"Keep quiet, by all the devils! I'll find something to pull you out of there."

Freixenet coughed loudly and spat again; a dense stream of blood fell from his beard. The witcher swore. He leapt out of the hole and examined his surroundings. Needing two young trees, he went to the edge of the clearing where he had noticed an alder.

Whistle, impact.

Geralt froze. The arrow shot into the trunk at head-height was fletched with a hawk feather. He looked in the direction indicated by the shaft; he knew where it was fired from. About fifty paces away there was another hole, a tree stump lifting its tangle of roots into the sky and still clinging to an enormous mass of sandy soil. Further on, there was a massive

blackthorn and the darkness was striped by the light bands of the trunks of birch trees. He saw no-one. He knew he would see nothing.

He raised both hands in the air, very gently.

"Ceddmil! Va an Eithne medth e Duen Canelll Essed Gwynbleidd!"

He heard the muffled rustling of a bowstring, then saw an arrow shot deliberately for him that he could, this time, locate: right in the sky. He lifted his gaze, stopped in his tracks and tumbled to aside. Geralt froze. The arrow was planted almost vertically in the moss, two steps from him. Almost instantly, a second arrow joined the first at an identical angle. He feared that he would never see the flight of the third.

"Medth Eithne!" he repeated. "Essed Gwynbleidd!"

"Gldeddyv vort!"

A voice like a whisper of wind responded. A voice, not an arrow. He was alive. Gently, the witcher loosened the buckle of his belt and removed his sword, holding it far from his body and then tossing it to the ground. The second dryad emerged without a sound from behind the trunk of a tree surrounded by junipers, less than ten paces from him. Although she was petite and slender, the trunk seemed thinner still. Geralt did not understand how he could have failed to notice her arrival. Her garment - a harlequin fabric combining a number of shades of green and brown, in leaves and scraps of bark, but not at all detracting from the grace of her body - had effectively camouflaged her. Her hair, tied back by a black scarf at her brow, was olive-colored, and stripes painted with walnut ink streaked her face.