Time of Contempt (The Witcher) (38 page)

She was now fully awake. She licked her cracked lips and cleared her throat involuntarily. The horse jumped and ran some distance away, its hooves grating over the loose stones. It moved very
strangely, and its coat was also unusual – neither dun nor grey. Perhaps the effect was just an illusion, created by the sunlight shining behind it.

The horse snorted and took a few steps towards her. Now she could see it better. Well enough to notice, in addition to its uncharacteristic coat colour, the strange peculiarities in its build:
the small head, the extremely slender neck, the very thin pasterns and the long, thick tail. The horse stood and looked at her, holding its muzzle in profile. Ciri let out a quiet sigh.

A horn, at least two spans long, protruded from the horse’s domed forehead.

An impossible impossibility
, thought Ciri, coming to her senses and gathering her thoughts.
There are no unicorns in the world; they’ve died out. There wasn’t even a
unicorn in the witcher’s tome in Kaer Morhen! I’ve only read about them in
The Book of Myths
in the temple
. . .
Oh, and there was an illustration of a unicorn in that
Physiologus
I looked through in Mr Giancardi’s bank . . . But the unicorn in that illustration was more like a goat than a horse. It had shaggy fetlocks and a goat’s beard, and its
horn must have been two ells long . . .

She was astonished that she could remember everything so well; incidents that seemed to have happened hundreds of years before. Suddenly her head spun and pain twisted her insides. She groaned
and curled up in a ball. The unicorn snorted and took a step towards her, then stopped and raised its head high. Ciri suddenly recalled what the books had said about unicorns.

‘Please come closer . . .’ she croaked, trying to sit up. ‘You may, because I am . . .’

The unicorn snorted, leapt backwards and galloped away, waving its tail vigorously. But after a moment it stopped, tossed its head, pawed the ground with a hoof and whinnied loudly.

‘That’s not true!’ she whined in despair. ‘Jarre only kissed me once and that doesn’t count! Come back!’

The effort of speaking blurred her vision and she slumped down onto the rock. When she finally managed to raise her head, the unicorn was once more close by. Looking at her inquisitively, it
lowered its head and snorted softly.

‘Don’t be afraid of me . . .’ she whispered. ‘You don’t have to . . . You can see I’m dying . . .’

The unicorn neighed, shaking its head. Ciri fainted.

When she awoke again she was alone. Aching, stiff, thirsty, hungry, and all alone. The unicorn had been a mirage, an illusion, a dream. And had vanished like a dream. She
understood that, accepted it, but still felt regret and despair as though the creature really had existed, had been with her and had abandoned her. Just like everyone had abandoned her.

She tried to stand but could not. She rested her face on the rocks. Very slowly, she reached to one side and felt the hilt of her dagger.

Blood is a liquid. I have to drink.

She heard the clatter of hooves and a snorting.

‘You’ve come back . . .’ she whispered, raising her head. ‘Have you really come back?’

The unicorn snorted loudly. She saw its hooves, close by. Right beside her. They were wet. They were literally dripping with water.

Hope gave her strength, filled her with euphoria. The unicorn led and Ciri followed him, still not certain if she was in a dream. When exhaustion overcame her she fell to all
fours. And then crawled.

The unicorn led her among some rocks to a shallow ravine with a sandy bottom. Ciri used the last of her strength to crawl, but she kept going. Because the sand was wet.

The unicorn stopped above a hollow which was visible in the sand, whinnied and pawed powerfully with his hoof; once, twice, three times. She understood. She crawled closer, helping him. She
burrowed, breaking her fingernails, digging, pushing the sand aside. She may have sobbed as she did so, but she wasn’t certain. When a muddy liquid appeared at the bottom of the hollow, she
pressed her mouth to it at once, lapping up the water muddy with sand, so voraciously that the liquid disappeared. It took immense effort for Ciri to control herself. She used the dagger to dig
deeper, then sat up and waited. She felt the sand crunching between her teeth and trembled with impatience, but waited until the hollow filled with water again. And then she drank. She drank
long.

The third time, she let the water settle somewhat and then drank about four sand-free, sludgy mouthfuls. And then she remembered the unicorn.

‘You must be thirsty too, little horse,’ she said. ‘But you can’t drink mud. No horse ever drank mud.’

The unicorn neighed.

Ciri deepened the hollow, reinforcing the sides with stones.

‘Wait, little horse. Let it settle a little . . .’

‘Little Horse’ snorted, stamped his hooves and turned his head away.

‘Don’t be cross. Drink.’

The unicorn cautiously brought its muzzle towards the water.

‘Drink, Little Horse. It isn’t a dream. It’s real water.’

At first Ciri tarried, not wanting to move away from the spring. She had just invented a new way of drinking by pressing a handkerchief she had soaked in the deepened hollow to
her mouth, which allowed her to filter out most of the sand and mud. But the unicorn kept insisting; neighing, stamping, running away and returning again. He was calling her to start walking and
was indicating the way. After long consideration, Ciri did as he suggested. The animal was right. It was time to go, to go towards the mountains, to get out of the desert. She set off after the
unicorn, looking around and making a precise mental note of the spring’s location. She didn’t want to lose her way, should she ever have to return there.

They travelled together throughout the day. The unicorn, who now answered to Little Horse, led the way. He was a strange little horse. He bit and chewed dry stalks which no normal horse or even
a starving goat would have touched. And when he caught a column of large ants wandering among the rocks, he began to eat them too. At first Ciri looked on in astonishment, but then joined in the
feast herself. She was hungry.

The ants were dreadfully sour, but possibly because of that they didn’t make her nauseous. Aside from that, the ants were in plentiful supply and she was able to get her stiff jaws moving
again. The unicorn ate the ants whole while she contented herself with their abdomens, spitting out hard pieces of their chitinous carapaces.

They went on. The unicorn discovered several clumps of yellowed thistles and ate them with relish. This time Ciri did not join him. But when Little Horse found some lizard’s eggs in the
sand, she ate and he watched her. They continued on their way. Ciri noticed a clump of thistles and pointed them out to Little Horse. After a while, Little Horse drew her attention to a huge, black
scorpion with a long tail, which must have measured a span and a half. Ciri trampled the hideous creature. Seeing that she was not interested in eating the scorpion, the unicorn ate it himself, and
soon after pointed out another lizard’s nest.

It was, it turned out, quite an effective collaboration.

They walked on.

The mountain range was getting closer and closer.

When it was very dark, the unicorn stopped. He slept standing up. Ciri, who was familiar with horses, initially tried to persuade him to lie down; she would have been able to sleep lying on him
and benefit from his warmth. But it came to nothing. Little Horse grew cross and walked away, remaining aloof. He refused to behave in the classical way, as described in the learned books; he
clearly did not have the slightest intention of resting his head in her lap. Ciri was full of doubts. She even wondered if the books were lying about unicorns and virgins, but there was also
another possibility. The unicorn was clearly a foal and, as a young animal, may not have known anything about virgins. She rejected the possibility of Little Horse being able to sense, or take
seriously, those few strange dreams she had once had. Who would ever take dreams seriously?

He was somewhat of a disappointment to her. They had been wandering for two days and nights, but he had not found any more water, even though he had been searching for it.
Several times he stopped, twisted his head, moved his horn around, and then trotted off, rummaging in rocky clefts or rooting about in the sand with his hooves. He found ants and he found
ants’ eggs and larvae. He found a lizard’s nest. He found a colourful snake, which he deftly trampled to death. But he did not find any water.

Ciri noticed that the unicorn roamed around; he didn’t keep to a straight course. She came to the reasonable conclusion that the creature did not live in the desert at all. He had strayed
there. Just as she had.

*

The ants, which they were beginning to find in abundance, contained some sour juice, but Ciri began to think more and more seriously about returning to the spring. Should they
go even further and not find any water, her strength might not hold out. The heat was still terrible and the march exhausting.

She was just about to explain as much to Little Horse when he suddenly gave a long-drawn-out neigh, waved his tail and galloped off between some jagged rocks. Ciri followed him, eating
ants’ bodies as she walked.

The considerable expanse between the rocks was occupied by a wide sandy hollow. There was a distinct dip in the centre.

‘Ha!’ said Ciri, pleased. ‘You’re a clever pony, Little Horse. You’ve found another spring. There’s got to be water in there!’

The unicorn gave a long snort, circling the hollow at a gentle trot. Ciri came closer. The hollow was large; at least twenty feet wide. It described a precise, regular circle resembling a
funnel, as regular as if someone had pressed a gigantic egg into the sand. Ciri suddenly realised that such a regular shape could not have come about by accident. But by then it was too late.

Something moved at the bottom of the crater and Ciri was hit in the face by a sudden shower of sand and small stones. She leapt back, lost her balance and realised she was sliding downwards. The
fountains of stones that were shooting out weren’t only hitting her – they were also striking the edges of the pit, and the edges were crumbling in waves and sliding towards the bottom.
She screamed and floundered like a drowning swimmer, vainly trying to find a foothold. She realised immediately that sudden movements only worsened her situation, making the sand subside more
quickly. She turned over on her back, dug in with her heels, and spread her arms out wide. The sand at the bottom shifted and undulated, and she saw some brown, hooked pincers, at least a yard
long, emerging from it. She screamed again, this time much louder.

The hail of stones suddenly stopped raining down on her, flying instead towards the opposite edge of the pit. The unicorn reared, neighing frenziedly, and the edge collapsed beneath him. He
tried to struggle free from the shifting sand, but in vain; he was getting more and more bogged down and slipping more and more quickly towards the bottom. The dreadful pincers snapped violently.
The unicorn neighed in despair, and thrashed around, helplessly striking the slipping sand with his forehooves. His back legs were completely stuck. When he had slid to the very bottom of the pit,
he was caught by the horrible pincers of the creature which was concealed in the centre.

Hearing a frenzied wail of agony, Ciri screamed and charged downwards, wresting her dagger from its sheath. When she reached the bottom, she realised her mistake. The monster was hidden deep,
and the dagger thrusts didn’t even touch it through the layers of sand. On top of that the unicorn, held fast in the monstrous pincers and being dragged into the sandy trap, was frantic with
pain and squealing, blindly pounding away with its forehooves and risking fracturing its limbs.

Witcher dances and tricks were useless here. But there was one quite simple spell. Ciri summoned the Power and struck using telekinesis.

A cloud of sand flew up into the air, uncovering the hidden monster, which had latched itself onto the squealing unicorn’s thigh. Ciri yelled in horror. She had never seen anything so
revolting in her entire life; not in illustrations, nor in any witcher books. She would have been incapable of imagining anything so hideous.

The monster was a dirty grey colour, plump and pot-bellied like a blood-gorged louse, and the narrow segments of its barrel-shaped torso were covered with sparse bristles. It appeared not to
have any legs, but its pincers were almost the same length as its entire body.

Deprived of its sandy refuge the creature immediately released the unicorn and began to bury itself with a rapid, urgent wriggling of its bloated body. It performed this manoeuvre extremely
ably, and the unicorn, struggling to escape from the trap, helped it by pushing mounds of sand downwards. Ciri was seized by fury and the lust for revenge. She threw herself at the monstrosity, now
barely visible beneath the sand, and thrust her dagger into its domed back.

She attacked it from behind, prudently keeping away from the snapping pincers, which, it transpired, the monster was able to extend quite far backwards. She stabbed again, and the creature
continued to bury itself at astonishing speed. But it was not burying itself in the sand to escape. It was doing so to attack. It only had to wriggle twice more in order to cover itself completely.
Once hidden, it violently propelled out waves of stones, burying Ciri up to mid-thigh. She struggled to free herself and lunged backwards, but there was nowhere to escape; she was still in a crater
of loose sand, where each movement pulled her downwards. The sand at the bottom bulged in a wave, which glided towards her, and from the wave emerged the clashing, cruelly hooked pincers.

She was rescued by Little Horse. Slipping down to the bottom of the crater, he used his hooves to strike the bulge of sand which betrayed the presence of the monster hidden just beneath the
surface. The savage kicks uncovered the grey back and the unicorn lowered its head and stabbed the monster with its horn, striking at the precise point where the head, with its flailing pincers,
was attached to the potbellied thorax. Seeing that the pincers of the monster, now pinned against the ground, were helplessly raking the sand, Ciri leapt forward and thrust the dagger deep into its
wriggling body. She jerked the blade out and struck again. And again. The unicorn shook its horn free and drove its forehooves down powerfully onto the barrel-shaped body.