The Witcher

THE LESSER EVIL II

The tower, built from smoothly hewn blocks of granite and crowned by tooth-like battlements, was impressive, dominating the broken tiles of homesteads and dipping-roofed thatched cottages.

'He's renovated it, I see,' remarked Geralt. 'With spells, or did he have you working at it?'

'Spells, chiefly.'

'What's he like, this Irion?'

'Decent. He helps people. But he's a recluse, doesn't say much. He rarely leaves the tower.'

On the door, which was adorned with a rosace inlaid with pale wood, hung a huge knocker in the shape of a flat bulging-eyed fish-head holding a brass ring in its toothed jaws. Caldemeyn, obviously well-versed with the workings of its mechanics, approached, cleared his throat and recited:

'Alderman Caldemeyn greets you with a case for Master Irion. With him greets you, Witcher Geralt, with respect to the same case.'

For a long moment nothing happened, then finally the fish-head moved its toothed mandibles and belched a cloud of steam.

'Master Irion is not receiving. Leave, my good people.'

Caldemeyn waddled on the spot and looked at Geralt. The witcher shrugged. Carrypebble picked his nose with serious concentration.

'Master Irion is not receiving,' the knocker repeated metallically. 'Go, my good—'

'I'm not a good person,' Geralt broke in loudly. 'I'm a witcher That thing on the donkey is a kikimora, and I killed it not far

from town. It is the duty of every resident wizard to look after the safety of the neighbourhood. Master Irion does not have to honour me with conversation, does not have to receive me, if that is his will. But let him examine the kikimora and draw his own conclusions. Carrypebble, unstrap the kikimora and throw it down by the door.'

'Geralt,' the alderman said quietly. 'You're going to leave but I'm going to have to—'

'Let's go, Caldemeyn. Carrypebble, take that finger out of your nose and do as I said.'

'One moment,' the knocker said in an entirely different tone. 'Geralt, is that really you?'

The witcher swore quietly.

'I'm losing patience. Yes, it's really me. So what?'

'Come up to the door,' said the knocker, puffing out a small cloud of steam. 'Alone. I'll let you in.'

'What about the kikimora?'

'To hell with it. I want to talk to you, Geralt. Just you. Forgive me, Alderman.'

'What's it to me, Master Irion?' Caldemeyn waved the matter aside. 'Take care, Geralt. We'll see each other later. Carrypebble! Into the cesspool with the monster!'

As you command.'

The witcher approached the inlaid door, which opened a little bit - just enough for him to squeeze through - and then slammed shut, leaving him in complete darkness.

'Hey!' he shouted, not hiding his anger.

'Just a moment,' answered a strangely familiar voice.

The feeling was so unexpected that the witcher staggered and stretched out his hand, looking for support. He didn't find any.

The orchard was blossoming with white and pink, and smelled of rain. The sky was split by the many-coloured arc of a rainbow, which bound the crowns of the trees to the distant, blue chain of mountains. The house nestled in the orchard, tiny and modest, was drowning in hollyhocks. Geralt looked down and discovered that he was up to his knees in thyme.

'Well, come on, Geralt,' said the voice. 'I'm in front of the house.'

He entered the orchard, walking through the trees. He noticed a movement to his left and looked round. A fair-haired girl, entirely n***d, was walking along a row of shrubs carrying a basket full of apples. The witcher solemnly promised himself that nothing would surprise him anymore.

'At last. Greetings, witcher.'

'Stregobor!' Geralt was surprised.

During his life, the witcher had met thieves who looked like town councillors, councillors who looked like beggars, harlots who looked like princesses, princesses who looked like calving cows and kings who looked like thieves. But Stregobor always looked as, according to every rule and notion, a wizard should look. He was tall, thin and stooping, with enormous bushy grey eyebrows and a long, crooked nose. To top it off, he wore a black, trailing robe with improbably wide sleeves, and wielded a long staff capped with a crystal knob. None of the wizards Geralt knew looked like Stregobor. Most surprising of all was that Stregobor was, indeed, a wizard.

They sat in wicker chairs at a white marble-topped table on a porch surrounded by hollyhocks. The n***d blonde with the apple basket approached, smiled, turned and, swaying her hips, returned to the orchard.

'Is that an illusion, too?' asked Geralt, watching the sway.

'It is. Like everything here. But it is, my friend, a first-class illusion. The flowers smell, you can eat the apples, the bee can sting you, and she,' the wizard indicated the blonde, 'you can—'

'Maybe later.'

'Quite right. What are you doing here, Geralt? Are you still toiling away, killing the last representatives of dying species for money? How much did you get for the kikimora?

Nothing, I guess, or you wouldn't have come here. And to think that there are people who don't believe in destiny. Unless you knew about me. Did you?'

'No, I didn't. It's the last place I could have expected you. If my memory serves me correctly you used to live in a similar tower in Kovir.'

'A great deal has changed since then.' 'Such as your name. Apparently, you're Master Irion now.' 'That's the name of the man who created this tower. He died about two hundred years ago, and I thought it right to honour him in some way since I occupied his abode. I'm living here. Most of the inhabitants live off the sea and, as you know, my speciality, apart from illusions, is weather. Sometimes I'll calm a storm, sometimes conjure one up, sometimes drive schools of whiting and cod closer to the shores with the westerly wind. I can survive. That is,' he added, miserably, 'I could.'

'How come 'I could'? Why the change of name?' 'Destiny has many faces. Mine is beautiful on the outside and hideous on the inside. She has stretched her b****y talons towards me—'

'You've not changed a bit, Stregobor.' Geralt grimaced. 'You're talking nonsense while making wise and meaningful faces. Can't you speak normally?'

'I can,' sighed the wizard. 'I can if that makes you happy. I made it all the way here, hiding and running from a monstrous being that wants to murder me. My escape proved in vain - it found me. In all probability, it's going to try to kill me tomorrow, or at the latest, the day after.'

'Aha,' said the witcher, dispassionately. 'Now I understand.' 'My facing death doesn't impress you much, does it?' 'Stregobor,' said Geralt, 'that's the way of the world. One sees all sorts of things when one travels. Two peasants kill each other over a field which, the following day, will be trampled flat by two counts and their retinues trying to kill each other off. Men hang from trees at the roadside, brigands s***h merchants' throats. At every step in town you trip over corpses in the gutters. In palaces they stab each other with daggers, and somebody falls under the table at a banquet every minute, blue from poisoning. I'm used to it. So why should a death threat impress me, and one directed at you at that?'

'One directed at me at that,' Stregobor repeated with a sneer. 'And I considered you a friend. Counted on your help.'

'Our last meeting,' said Geralt, 'was in the court of King Idi of Kovir. I'd come to be paid for killing the amphisboena which had been terrorising the neighbourhood. You and your compatriot Zavist vied with each other to call me a charlatan, a thoughtless murdering machine and a scavenger. Consequently not only didn'l Idi pay me a penny, he gave me twelve hours to leave Kovir and, since his hourglass was broken, I barely made it. And now you say you're counting on my help. You say a monster's after you. What are you afraid of, Stregobor? If it catches up with you, tell it you like monsters, that you protect them and make sure no witcher scavenger ever troubles their peace. Indeed, if the monster disembowels and devours you, it'll prove terribly ungrateful.'

The wizard turned his head away silently. Geralt laughed. 'Don't get all puffed up like a frog, magician. Tell me what's threatening you. We'll see what can be done.'

'Have you heard of the Curse of the Black Sun?'

'But of course. Except that it was called the Mania of Mad Eltibald after the wizard who started the lark and caused dozens of girls from good, even noble, families to be murdered or imprisoned in towers. They were supposed to have been possessed by demons, cursed, contaminated by the Black Sun, because that's what, in your pompous jargon, you called the most ordinary eclipse in the world.'

'Eltibald wasn't mad at all. He deciphered the writing on Dauk menhirs, on tombstones in the Wozgor necropolises, and examined the legends and traditions of weretots. All of them spoke of the eclipse in no uncertain terms. The Black Sun was to announce the imminent return of Lilit, still honoured in the East under the name of Niya, and the extermination of the human race. Lilit 's path was to be prepared by 'sixty women wearing gold crown.s, who would fill the river valleys with blood'.'

'Nonsense,' said the witcher. And what's more, it doesn't rhyme. All decent predictions rhyme. Everyone knows what Elti-bald and the Council of Wizards had in mind at the time.

You took advantage of a madman's ravings to strengthen your own authority. To break up alliances, ruin marriage allegiances, stir up dynasties. In a word: to tangle the strings of crowned puppets even more. And here you are lecturing me about predictions, which any old storyteller at the marketplace would be ashamed of.'

'You can have your reservations about Eltibald's theories, about how the predictions were interpreted. But you can't challenge the fact that there have been horrendous mutations among girls born just after the eclipse.'

'And why not? I've heard quite the opposite.'

'I was present when they did an autopsy on one of them,' said the wizard. 'Geralt, what we found inside the skull and marrow could not be described. Some sort of red sponge. The internal organs were all mixed up, some were missing completely. Everything was covered in moving cilia, bluish-pink shreds. The heart was six-chambered, with two chambers practically atrophied. What do you say to that?'

'I've seen people with eagles' talons instead of hands, people with a wolf's fangs. People with additional joints, additional organs and additional senses. All of which were the effects of your messing about with magic'

'You've seen all sorts of mutations, you say.' The magician raised his head. 'And how many of them have you slaughtered for money, in keeping with your witcher's calling? Well? Because one can have a wolf's fangs and go no further than baring them at the trollops in taverns, or one can have a wolf's nature, too, and attack children. And that's just how it was with the girls who were born after the eclipse. Their outright insane tendency to cruelty, aggression, sudden bursts of anger and an unbridled temperament, were noted.'

'You can say that about any woman,' sneered Geralt. 'What are you drivelling on about?

You're asking me how many mutants I've killed. Why aren't you interested in how many I've extricated from spells, freed from curses? I, a witcher despised by you. And what have you done, you mighty magicians?'

'A higher magic was used. Ours and that of the priests, in various temples. All attempts ended in the girls' deaths.'

'That speaks badly of you, not the girls. And so we've now got the first corpses. I take it the only autopsies were done on them?'

'No. Don't look at me like that, you know very, well that there were more corpses, too. It was initially decided to eliminate all of them. We got rid of a few . . . autopsies were done on all of them. One of them was even vivisectioned.'

And you sons-of-bitches have the nerve to criticise witchers? Oh, Stregobor, the day will come when people will learn, and get the better of you.'

'I don't think a day like that will come soon,' said the wizard caustically. 'Don't forget that we were acting in the people's defence. The mutant girls would have drowned entire countries in blood.'

'So say you magicians, turning your noses up, so high and mighty with your auras of infallibility. While we're on the subject, surely you're not going to tell me that in your hunt for these so-called mutants you haven't once made a mistake?'

All right,' said Stregobor after a long silence. 'I'll be honest, although for my own sake I shouldn't. We did make a mistake -more than one. Picking them out was extremely difficult.

And that's why we stopped , . . getting rid of them, and started isolating them instead.'

'Your famous towers,' snorted the witcher.

'Our towers. But that was another mistake. We underestimated them. Many escaped. Then some mad fashion to free imprisoned beauties took hold of princes, especially the younger ones, who didn't have much to do and still less to lose. Most of them, fortunately, twisted their necks—'

As far as I know, those imprisoned in the towers died quickly. It's been said you must have helped them somewhat.'

'That's a lie. But it is true that they quickly fell into apathy, refused to eat . . . What is interesting is that shortly before they died they showed signs of the gift of clairvoyance.

Further proof of mutation.'

'Your proofs are becoming ever less convincing. Do you have any more?'

'I do. Silvena, the lady of Narok, whom we never managed to get close to because she gained power so quickly. Terrible things are happening in Narok now. Fialka, Evermir's daughter, escaped her tower using a home-made rope and is now terrorising North Velhad. Bernika of Talgar was freed by an i***t prince. Now he's sitting in a dungeon, blinded, and the most common feature of the Talgar landscape is a set of gallows. There are other examples, too.'

'Of course there are,' said the witcher. 'In Yamurlak, for instance, old man Abrad reigns. He's got scrofula, not a single tooth in his head, was probably born some hundred years before this eclipse, and can't fall asleep unless someone's being tortured to death in his presence. He's wiped out all his relatives and emptied half of the country in crazy - how did you put it? —

attacks of anger. There are also traces of a rampant temperament. Apparently he was nicknamed Abrad Jack-up-the-Skirt in his youth. Oh, stregoor, it would be great if the cruelty of rulers could be explained away by mutations or curses.'

'Listen, Geralt—'

'No. You won't win me over with your reasons nor convince me that Eltibad wasn't a murdering madman, so let's get back to the monster threatening you. You'd better understand that, after the introduction you've given me, I don't like the story. But I'll hear you out.'

'Without interrupting with spiteful comments?'

'That I can't promise.'

'Oh well,' Stregobor slipped his hands into the sleeves of his robe, 'then it'll only take longer.

Well, the story begins in Creyden, a small principality in the north. The wife of Fredefalk, the Prince of Creyden, was Aridea, a wise, educated woman. She had many exceptional adepts of the magical arts in her family and - through inheritance, no doubt - she came into possession of a rare and powerful artefact. One of Nehalenia's Mirrors. They're chiefly used by prophets and oracles because they predict the future

accurately, albeit intricately. Aridea quite often turned to the Mirror—'

'With the usual question, I take it,' interrupted Geralt. ''Who is the fairest of them all?' I know; all Nehalenia's Mirrors are either polite or broken.'

'You're wrong. Aridea was more interested in her country's fate. And the Mirror answered her questions by predicting a horrible death for her and for a great number of others by the hand, or fault, of Fredefalk's daughter from his first marriage. Aridea ensured this news reached the Council, and the Council sent me to Creyden. I don't have to add that Fredefalk's first-born daughter was born shortly after the eclipse. I was quite discreet for a little while. She managed to t*****e a canary and two puppies during that time, and also gouged out a servant's eye with the handle of a comb. I carried out a few tests using curses, and most of them confirmed that the little one was a mutant. I went to Aridea with the news because Fredefalk's daughter meant the world to him. Aridea, as I said, wasn't stupid—'

'Of course,' Geralt interrupted again, 'and no doubt she wasn't head-over-heels in love with her stepdaughter. She preferred her own children to inherit the throne. I can guess what followed.

How come nobody throttled her? And you, too, while they were at it.'

Stregobor sighed, raised his eyes to heaven, where the rainbow was still shimmering colourfully and picturesquely.

'I wanted to isolate her, but Aridea decided otherwise. She sent the little one out into the forest with a hired thug, a trapper. We found him later in the undergrowth . . . without any trousers, so it wasn't hard to recreate the turn of events. She had dug a brooch-pin into his brain, through his ear, no doubt while his attention was on entirely different matters.'

'If you think I feel sorry for him,' muttered Geralt, 'then you're wrong.'

We organised a manhunt,' continued Stregobor, 'but all traces of the little one had disappeared. I had to leave Creyden in a hurry because Fredefalk was beginning to suspect something,

Then, four years later I received news from Aridea. She'd tracked down the little one, who was living in Mahakam with seven gnomes whom she'd managed to convince it was more profitable to rob merchants on the roads than to pollute their lungs with dust from the mines.

She was known as Shrike because she liked to impale the people she caught on a sharp pole while they were still alive. Several times Aridea hired assassins, but none of them returned.

Well, then it became hard to find anyone to try - Shrike had already become quite famous.

She'd learnt to use a sword so well there was hardly a man who could defy her. I was summoned, and arrived in Creyden secretly, only to learn that someone had poisoned Aridea.

It was generally believed that it was the work of Fredefalk, who had found himself a younger, more robust mistress - but I think it was Renfri.'

'Renfri?'

'That's what she was called. I said she'd poisoned Aridea. Shortly afterwards Prince Fredefalk died in a strange hunting accident, and Aridea's eldest son disappeared without a word. That must have been the little one's doing, too. I say 'little' but she was seventeen by then. And she was pretty well-developed.

'Meanwhile,' the wizard picked up after a moment's break, 'she and her gnomes had become the terror of the whole of Mahakam. Until, one day, they argued about something, I don't know what -sharing out the loot, or whose turn it was to spend the night with her - anyway, they slaughtered each other with knives. Only Shrike survived. Only her. And I was in the neighbourhood at the time. We met face to face: she recognised me in a flash and knew the part I'd played in Creyden. I tell you, Geralt, I had barely managed to utter a curse - and my hands were shaking like anything - when that wildcat flew at me with a sword. I turned her into a neat slab of mountain crystal, six ells by nine. When she fell into a lethargy I threw the slab into the gnomes' mine and brought the tunnels down on it.'

'Shabby work,' commented Geralt. 'That spell could have been reversed. Couldn't you have burnt her to cinders? You know so many nice spells, after all.'

'No. It s not my speciality. But you're right, I did make a hash of it. Some i***t prince found her, spent a fortune on a counter-curse, reversed the spell and triumphantly took her home to some out-of-the-way kingdom in the east. His father, an old brigand, proved to have more sense. He gave his son a hiding, and questioned Shrike about the treasures which she and the gnomes had seized and which she'd hidden. His mistake was to allow his elder son to assist him when he had her stretched out, n***d, on the executioner's bench. Somehow, the following day, that same eldest son — now an orphan bereft of siblings - was ruling the kingdom, and Shrike had taken over the office of first favourite.'

'Meaning she can't be ugly.'

'That's a matter of taste. She wasn't a favourite for long. Up until the first coup d'etat at the palace, to give it a grand name -it was more like a barn. It soon became clear that she hadn't forgotten about me. She tried to assassinate me three times in Kovir. I decided not to risk a fourth attempt and to wait her out in Pontar. Again, she found me. This time I escaped to Angren, but she found me there too. I don't know how she does it, I cover my traces well. It must be a feature of her mutation.'

'What stopped you from casting another spell to turn her into crystal? Scruples?'

'No. I don't have any of those. She had become resistant to magic'

'That's impossible.'

'It's not. It's enough to have the right artefact or aura. Or this could also be associated with her mutation, which is progressing. I escaped from Angren and hid here, in Arcsea, in Blaviken.

I've lived in peace for a year, but she's tracked me down again.'

'How do you know? Is she already in town?'

'Yes. I saw her in the crystal ball.' The wizard raised his wand. 'She's not alone. She's leading a g**g, which shows that she's brewing something serious. Geralt, I don't have anywhere else to run. I don't know where I could hide. The fact that you've arrived here exactly at this time can't be a coincidence. It's fate.'

The witcher raised his eyebrows. 'What's on your mind?'

'Surely it's obvious. You're going to kill her.'

'I'm not a hired thug, Stregobor.'

'You're not a thug, agreed.'

'I kill monsters for money. Beasts which endanger people. Horrors conjured up by spells and sorceries cast by the likes of you. Not people.'

'She's not human. She's exactly a monster: a mutant, a cursed mutant. You brought a kikimora here. Shrike's worse than a kikimora. A kikimora kills because it's hungry, but Shrike does it for pleasure. Kill her and I'll pay you whatever sum you ask. Within reason, of course.'

'I've already told you. I consider the story about mutations and Lilit's curse to be nonsense.

The girl has her reasons for settling her account with you, and I'm not going to get mixed up in it. Turn to the alderman, to the town guards. You're the town wizard, you're protected by municipal law.'

'I spit on the law, the alderman and his help!' exploded Stregobor. 'I don't need defence, I need you to kill her! Nobody's going to get into this tower - I'm completely safe here. But what's that to me? I don't intend to spend the rest of my days here, and Shrike's not going to give up while I'm alive. Am I to sit here, in this tower, and wait for death?'

'They did. Do you know what, magician? You should have left that hunt for the girls to other, more powerful, wizards. You should have foreseen the consequences.'

'Please, Geralt.'

'No, Stregobor.'

The sorcerer was silent. The unreal sun in its unreal sky hadn't moved towards the zenith but the witcher knew it was already dusk in Blaviken. He felt hungry.

'Geralt,' said Stregobor, 'when we were listening to Eltibald, many of us had doubts. But we decided to accept the lesser evil. Now I ask you to make a similar choice.'

'Evil is evil, Stregobor,' said the witcher seriously as he got up. 'Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are

negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life.

But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all. Time for me to go. We'll see each other tomorrow.'

'Maybe,' said the wizard. 'If you get here in time.'