The Tower of the Swallow Read online

  So our company was on the road again, and the already lengthy list of people who had something against us had become even longer. Geralt of Rivia, the knight without fear and without reproach, left the ranks of knighthood before his accolade was notarized and before the heraldic coat of arms he had devised was patented. Cahir aep Ceallach – who had already fought with, and deserted, armies on both sides of the Great War between the Northern Kingdoms and Nilfgaard – had earned himself death sentences in absentia from both. The rest of us were in no better positions – the noose is the noose, and it is ultimately not a big difference, the only difference is for what – for defilement of chivalry, desertion, or that you have given a military-mule the name of Draakul.

  It should not surprise you then, reader, that we displayed truly titanic efforts to increase and maximize the distance between us and the Corps of Queen Meve.

  With the borrowed horses, we rode south to Yaruga and crossed over to the left bank. Certainly not only to put the river between us and the Queen with her guerrillas, but because the solitude of Transriver was far less dangerous than the war-captured Angren. And so we logically travelled to the Druids of Caed Dhu on the left bank instead of on the right. Paradoxically – because the left bank of the Yaruga already belonged to the enemy, The Empire of Nilfgaard. The father of the concept to travel the left bank was the witcher Geralt, who, after resigning from the brotherhood of knightly braggarts, had recovered a considerable extent of his rational, logical thinking and his usual caution. The future showed that the witcher's plan was momentous and strongly influenced the fate of the whole expedition. More about that later.

  When we arrived at the Yaruga, Nilfgaardians were already swarming over the reconstructed bridge at Red Binduga. They were marching to continue their offensive in Angren – and then on to Temeria, Mahakam and the devil knows where or what else the Nilfgaardian General Staff had planned. There could be no question of crossing the river during the march, we had to keep hidden and wait until the troops were gone. Two whole days we sat in a willow thicket by the river, cultivating rheumatism and feeding the mosquitoes. To add to the unhappiness, the weather took a turn for the worse. It was drizzling, there was a disgusting wind, and it was so cold that our teeth chattered. I cannot remember such a cold September, even though I have many of those months in my memory. It was then, dear reader, that I rummaged through the equipment that we had borrowed from the Lyrian camp, found a pencil and paper, and began – to kill time and forget the inconveniences – to write down and eternalize some of our adventures.

  The depressing rainy weather and the forced idleness spoiled the mood and provoked dark thoughts to arise in us. Especially in the witcher. Geralt had earlier acquired the habit of calculating the days he had been separated from Ciri – and every day that he was not travelling, as he said, separated them more and more. Well, in the wet willows, in the cold and the rain, the witcher grew darker and more grim by the hour. I also noticed that he was limping badly, and if he believed that no one can see or hear him, he cursed and hissed in pain. You must know, dear reader, that Geralt's bone had been shattered during the conference of mages on Thanedd. The fractures had mended and healed, thanks to the magical efforts of the Dryads of Brokilon Forest, but clearly still presented difficulties. So the witcher suffered, as they say, both physical and emotional pain, and he was so furious that he preferred to be ignored.

  And again dreams began to haunt him. On the ninth of September – the morning, because he had stood guard all night and had not slept until then – he terrorized us all, for he jumped up with a cry and drew the sword. He looked like he was about to go berserk, but luckily he caught himself immediately.

  He walked away, and came back soon after with surly face, proposing no more and no less than to immediately dissolve the company and to go on alone himself, because somewhere a terrible event had happened and time was short. He said it would be dangerous and he would not force anyone to take responsibility for anyone else. He spoke and grumbled so bleakly and without conviction that no one wanted to discuss it with him.

  The usually eloquent vampire dismissed him with a shrug, Milva spat, and Cahir dryly recalled that he had already attempted to travel alone, but, in regards the risk, said that he who wears the sword should not complain about the belt. And then they all fell silent and focused their attention on the significant writer of these lines, no doubt expecting that I would take the opportunity to return home. I need not add that they were very mistaken.

  The event, however, led us to make an end to our miasma, and provided the impetus for a bold act – crossing the Yaruga. I confess that I worried about the operation – the plan called for, namely, crossing the river at night while swimming, or, as Milva and Cahir put it, ‘being towed by the horse's cocks’. Even if they were speaking metaphorically – and I suspect that they were – I could not imagine myself on such a crossing on my gelding Pegasus, on whose cock I would have to rely. Swimming, generally speaking, was not and is not my particular strength. If Mother Nature had intended that I swim, she would have, over the course of evolution, equipped me with webbed fingers and toes. The same thing was true of Pegasus.

  My fears proved unfounded – at least when it came to be towed by a horse's cock. We crossed over a different way. Who knows, perhaps it was even more insane. In a truly bold way – on the reconstructed bridge at Red Binduga, right under the eyes of Nilfgaardian guards and patrols. It turns out that the operation only appeared to be insane insolence and a deadly game of chance, when in fact, everything went like clockwork. Following the infantry lines across the bridge was a caravan of transport wagons, cattle herds, and all sorts of people, including people in plain clothes, with whom our company blended right in, unnoticed. And so on the tenth day of September we rode across to the left bank of the Yaruga. Only once were we questioned by a sentry, who Cahir, with a domineering frown, bluffed with the threat of some imperial service, underscoring his words with the traditional military and always effective salutation of ‘son of a bitch’. Before anyone arrived to investigate us, we were already on the left bank of the Yaruga, deep in the forests of Transriver – where there was only one highway, leading south. To us, neither the direction of the highway nor the number of Nilfgaardians travelling on it was convenient.

  At the first camp in the woods of Transriver, I also had a strange dream – unlike Geralt I dreamed not of Ciri, but of the sorceress Yennefer. The dream was strange, worrisome – Yennefer was dressed, as usual, in black and white and flew through the air over a dark, small, mountain castle, while other sorceresses underneath her shook their fists at her and shouted insults. Yennefer waved the long sleeves of her dress and flew away like a black albatross, out into a boundless sea, opposite the rising sun. From that moment on, the dream became a nightmare. Upon awakening, the details had vanished from my memory. They remained only as unclear images with little meaning, but those images were monstrous – torture, screams, pain, fear, death... In a word: horror.

  I kept my dream from Geralt. I did not say a word. As it later turned out, I was right.

  ‘Yennefer, she was called! Yennefer of Vengerberg. A powerful and famous sorceress! May I fall down dead on the spot if I lie!’

  Triss Merigold started and turned around, trying to see through the crowd and the blue smoke that filled the main hall of the tavern. Finally she got up from the table, leaving behind, with some regret, the fillet of sole with anchovy paste, a local specialty and true delicacy. She wasn't visiting the taverns and inns Bremervoord to eat delicacies, but to gather information. She also had to pay attention to her schedule.

  The circle of people she had to push her way through was already densely crowded – in Bremervoord people loved stories and took advantage of every opportunity to hear a new one. And the many sailors who came here never disappointed – they always had a fresh repertoire of anecdotes and yarns. Of course, they were fictitious for the most part, but that didn't matter. A story is a story. It has its own
rules.

  The woman who was telling the story – and had mentioned Yennefer – was a fisherwoman from the Skellig Islands. She was stocky and broad-shouldered, wore her hair cropped short , and was dressed, like her four companions, in a whale skin vest that was so worn that it gleamed.

  ‘It was the morning of the nineteenth day of August, after the second night of the full moon,’ the woman from the islands put the mug to her lips while telling her story. Her hand, Triss noticed, was the color of old bricks, and her bare, gnarled, muscle-laced arm probably measured twenty inches in circumference. Triss had a waist circumference of twenty-two inches.

  ‘At first light,’ said the fisherwoman as she cast a look at the faces of her audience, ‘we drove our barge into the sound between Ard Skellig and Spikeroog, on the oyster bed where we usually deploy our salmon nets. We were in a hurry because the western sky was mighty dark and it looked like a storm was brewing. We needed to take the salmon from the nets as quickly as possible, or else – you know how it is, when you can finally run out after a storm is finished and the only things in the nets are eroded heads, the entire catch is over.’

  The audience, mostly residents of Bremervoord and Cidaris, people who lived by the sea and whose existence depended on it, nodded and murmured sympathetically. Triss usually only took salmon in the form of slices to her mouth, but she nodded and murmured too, so she would not attract attention. She was here incognito, on a secret mission.

  ‘We had arrived,’ continued the fisherwoman, after she had emptied her pitcher and gestured that one of the listeners should buy her a second. ‘We had arrived and was just about haul in the nets and catches when Gudrun, the daughter of Sturli, shouts out loud! And points a finger to starboard! We look back and see something black fly through the air, but it’s not a bird! For a moment my heart stopped, because I immediately thought, this is a Wyvern or a small Slyzard, which, of course, are sometimes known to fly to Spikeroog, especially in winter and particularly on the west wind. But now the black thing splashes into the water! And sends up a four foot wave: Whoosh! Right into our nets. It’s caught in a net in the water and wriggling like a seal, because it took all we all had, everyone who was there, and we were eight women! It took all of our power to jerk and bang it onto the deck! And only then did we unlock our mouths! Because it was a woman! In a black dress, with hair as black as a crow. Rolled into the net between two salmon, one of which, as I sit here, was twenty-four and a half pounds!’

  The fisherwoman from the Skellig Islands blew the froth from a new pitcher and took a swig. None of the listeners said or expressed disbelief, although even the oldest people could not remember a salmon of so impressive weight ever having been caught.

  ‘The Black Hair in the nets,’ continued the woman from the islands, ‘coughs, spits water, and pulls the net, and Gudrun, nervous because she is pregnant, starts screaming, ‘A Kelpie! A Kelpie! A Mermaid!’, but any fool could see this was no kelpie, for a kelpie would have long since torn the net, and how could such a monster have been drawn onto the boat! And a mermaid it was not, because it had no fish tail, and mermaids always have fish tails! And then she fell from the sky into the sea, and who has ever seen a kelpie or a mermaid that flies in the sky? But Skadi, the daughter of Una, who can't think for herself, also starts crying, ‘A Kelpie!’, and already she reaches for a boat hook! And starts swinging the boat hook at the nets! But from the net, there is a blue flash, and there Skadi flies off squealing! Boat hook to the left, Skadi to the right, I will drop dead if I lie, she does three somersaults and smacks her but into the deck! Ha, as it turned out, it was a sorceress in the net, as bad as a medusa, a scorpion or an electric eel! And then the witch is on the defensive and also begins to scream and curse at us! And the net hisses and smokes and everything stinks because it's so magical! We see that this is no fun...’

  The woman from the islands emptied her pitcher and immediately started on the next.

  ‘That it's no fun’ – she belched loudly, wiping her nose and mouth with the back of her hand – ‘a magician, and we have her caught in the nets! I'll note that this magic, as I sit here, is already beginning to rock the barge. So there was no hesitation! Britta, the daughter of Karen, has grabbed the net with a boat hook, and I grabbed an oar and start to give it to her! Give it to her! Give it to her!’

  The beer foamed up and spilled out onto the table, and a couple of pitchers toppled to the ground. The audience wiped their cheeks and brows, but no one said a word of complaint or reproach. A story is a story. It has its own rules.

  ‘Then the witch understood who she was dealing with.’ The fisherwoman thumped herself in her large chest, looking around defiantly. ‘Not to be trifled with, the women of Skellige is! She says that she surrenders to us and promises she will release any enchantments or spells. And she says to call her by her name: Yennefer of Vengerberg.’

  The audience began to murmur. Hardly two months had passed since the events on Thanedd Island, and they still remembered the names of the Nilfgaard-bought traitors. Especially the famous Yennefer.

  ‘We had her,’ the woman from the islands continued, ‘brought her from Ard Skellig to Kaer Trolde, to the earl Crach an Craite. Since then I have not seen her. The earl was away on a trip, it is said, and when he came back the magician was severely received, but later he treated her politely and kindly. Hmmm... But I've just been waiting for a vengeful surprise for me from the sorceress, cause I walloped her one with the oar. I thought she might blacken me to the Earl. But no. She didn't speak a word of complaint that I know of. A decent woman. Later, when she killed herself, I even felt sorry for her...’

  ‘Yennefer is no longer alive?’ called Triss who, in her fright, forgot her secret mission and the fact that she was supposed to be incognito. ‘Yennefer of Vengerberg is no longer alive?’

  ‘Well, she lives no longer.’ The fisherwoman drank her beer. ‘She's as dead as a mackerel. She killed herself with her own magic, when she was performing magic tricks. It was only recently, on the last day of August, just before the new moon. But that's a whole different story...’

  ‘Dandelion! Do not sleep in the saddle!’

  ‘I am not sleeping! I am thinking creatively!’

  Thus we rode, dear reader, through the forests of Transriver, to the east, towards Caed Dhu, in search of the druids that could help us find Ciri. Why we behaved so terribly, I will tell. First, however, I want to write, in the interest of historical truth, about our company – and its individual members.

  The vampire Regis was about four hundred years old. If he was not lying, this meant that he was the oldest of us all. Of course, it could be an ordinary swindle, for who among us would be able to verify it? But I preferred to believe that our vampire was telling the truth, because he had also told us that he had irrevocably abandoned the practice of drinking human blood – and thanks to this statement, we slept a little easier at night. Initially I noticed that Milva and Cahir tended to timidly rub their necks after waking, but they stopped that quickly. Regis was – or seemed to be – a vampire of absolute honor. He had vowed he would not suck blood, therefore he sucked none.

  However, he had his weaknesses, and I do not mean those that grew out of his vampiric nature. Regis was an intellectual and demonstrated this often. He had the unnerving habit of announcing allegations and truths with the tone and air of a prophet, to which we soon stopped responding, because the announced allegations either actually were true, or at least seemed to be sound, or they were unable to be verified, which amounted to the same thing. Regis's most unbearable mannerism was that he would answer a question before the questioner had finished with the formulation of his question – or sometimes even before the questioner had begun the formulation. I've always held this supposed evidence of high intelligence is instead evidence of rudeness and arrogance, properties that fit well in the university environment or circles at court, but are difficult to endure from a companion with whom you spend the day riding stirrup to stirru
p, and the nights sleeping in the same camp. Thanks to Milva, however, no one got seriously upset by this. In contrast to Geralt and Cahir, who seemed to be prompted to adopt the style of the vampire and even to compete with him in this regard, the archer Milva enacted a simple and unpretentious solution. The third time she noticed him answer her in the middle of a question, she swore at him vigorously, using words and descriptions that could even drive an old trooper to blush with shame. And, wonder of wonders, it helped – the vampire laid aside the enervating style in a jiffy. The lesson learned was that the most effective defense against an attempt of intellectual dominance is to make the intellectual who wants to dominate, properly let out the pig.

  I have the impression that Milva was having difficulty coping with her tragic accident and loss. I write: I have the impression, as I am aware that I, as a man, may have no idea what such an accident and such a loss means for a woman. Although I am a poet and a man of the pen, even my trained and experienced imagination fails here, and I cannot do anything about it.