Time of Contempt (14 page)

Lightning. Behind her the causeway, ahead of her a black wall of forest cutting into the sky like a saw blade. And no one there. Silence broken only by the howling of the gale. Somewhere on the marsh she could hear a frightened duck quacking.

Nobody. There is no one on the causeway. No one’s following me. It was a phantom, a nightmare. Memories from Cintra. I only imagined it.

A small light in the distance. A lighthouse. Or a fire.
It’s a farm. Hirundum. It’s close now. Only one more effort . . .

Flashes of lightning. One. Another. Yet another. Each without a thunderclap. The wind suddenly dropped. The horse neighs, tosses its head and rears up.

Against the black sky appears a milky, quickly brightening ribbon, writhing like a serpent. The wind hits the willows once more, throwing up clouds of leaves and dry grass.

The distant lights vanish. They disappear and blur in the deluge of the million blue sparks which suddenly light up the entire swamp. The horse snorts, whinnies and charges frantically across the causeway. Ciri struggles to remain in the saddle.

The vague, ghastly shapes of riders become visible in the ribbon sliding across the sky. As they come closer and closer, they can be seen ever more clearly. Buffalo horns and ragged crests sway on their helmets, and cadaverous masks show white beneath them. The riders sit on horses’ skeletons, cloaked in ragged caparisons. A fierce gale howls among the willows, blades of lightning slash the black sky. The wind moans louder and louder. No, it’s not the wind. It’s ghostly singing.

The ghastly cavalcade turns and hurtles straight at her. The hooves of the spectral horses stir up the glow of the will o’ the wisps suspended above the swamps. At the head of the cavalcade gallops the King of the Wild Hunt. A rusty helmet sways above his skull-like face, its gaping eye sockets burning with a livid flame. A ragged cloak flutters. A necklace, as empty as an old peapod, rattles against the rusty cuirass, a necklace which, it is said, once contained precious stones, which fell out during the frenzied chase across the heavens. And became stars . . .

It isn’t true! It doesn’t exist! It’s a nightmare, a phantom, an illusion! I’m only imagining this!

The King of the Wild Hunt spurs on his skeleton steed and erupts in wild, horrifying laughter.

O, Child of the Elder Blood! You belong to us! You are ours! Join our procession, join our hunt! We will race, race unto the very end, unto eternity, unto the very end of existence! You are ours, starry-eyed daughter of chaos! Join us; learn the joy of the hunt! You are ours. You are one of us! Your place is among us!

‘No!’ she cries. ‘Be gone! You are corpses!’

The King of the Wild Hunt laughs, the rotten teeth snapping above his rusted gorget. The skull’s eye sockets glitter lividly.

Yes, we are corpses. But you are death.

Ciri clung to the horse’s neck. She didn’t have to urge her horse on. Sensing the pursuing apparitions behind her, the steed thundered across the causeway at a breakneck gallop.

*

The halfling Bernie Hofmeier, a Hirundum farmer, lifted his shock of curly locks, listening to the sound of the distant thunder.

‘It’s a dangerous thing,’ he said, ‘a storm like this without any rain. Lightning will strike somewhere and then you’ve got a fire on your hands . . .’

‘A little rain would come in handy,’ sighed Dandelion, tightening up the pegs of his lute, ‘because you could cut the air with a knife . . . My shirt’s stuck to my back and the mosquitoes are biting . . . But I reckon it’ll blow over. The storm has been circling, circling, but for a while there’s been lightning somewhere in the north. Over the sea, I think.’

‘It’s hitting Thanedd,’ confirmed the halfling, ‘the highest point in the area. That tower on the island, Tor Lara, attracts lightning like nobody’s business. It looks like it’s on fire during a decent storm. It’s a wonder it doesn’t fall apart . . .’

‘It’s magic,’ said the troubadour with conviction. ‘Everything on Thanedd is magic, even the rock itself. And sorcerers aren’t afraid of thunderbolts. What am I saying? Did you know, Bernie, that they can even catch thunderbolts?’

‘Get away! You’re lying, Dandelion.’

‘May the lightning strike me—’ the poet broke off, anxiously looking up at the sky. ‘May a goose nip me if I’m lying. I’m telling you, Hofmeier, sorcerers catch thunderbolts. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Old Gorazd, the one who was killed on Sodden Hill, once caught a thunderbolt in front of my very eyes. He took a long, thin piece of metal, he hooked one end of it onto the top of his tower, and the other—’

‘You should put the other end in a bottle,’ suddenly squeaked Hofmeier’s son, who was hanging around on the veranda. He was a tiny little halfling with a thick mop of hair as curly as a ram’s fleece. ‘In a glass demijohn, like the ones Daddy makes wine in. The lightning whizzes down the wire into the demijohn—’

‘Get inside, Franklin!’ yelled the farmer. ‘Time for bed, this minute! It’ll be midnight soon and there’s work to be done tomorrow! And just you wait till I catch you, spouting off about demijohns and wires. The strap’ll be out for you! You won’t be able to sit down for the next two Sundays! Petunia, get him out of here! And bring us more beer!’

‘You’ve had quite enough,’ said Petunia Hofmeier angrily, gathering up her son from the veranda. ‘You’ve already put away a skinful.’

‘Stop nagging. Just look out for the Witcher’s coming. A guest ought to be offered hospitality.’

‘When the Witcher arrives I’ll bring some. For him.’

‘Stingy cow,’ muttered Hofmeier so that his wife didn’t hear. ‘All her kin, the Biberveldts from Knotweed Meadow, every last one of them is a tight-fisted, stingy, skinflint . . . But the Witcher’s taking his time. He went over to the ponds and disappeared. ’E’s a strange one. Did you see how he looked at the girls, at Cinia and Tangerine, when they were playing in the yard of an evening? He had a strange look about him. And now . . . I can’t help feeling he went away to be by himself. And he took shelter with me because my farm’s out of the way, far from the others. You know him best, Dandelion, you say . . .’

‘Do I know him?’ said the poet, swatting a mosquito on his neck, plucking his lute and staring at the black outlines of willows by the pond. ‘No, Bernie. I don’t know him. I don’t think anyone knows him. But something’s happening to him, I can see it. Why did he come here, to Hirundum? To be nearer the Isle of Thanedd? And yesterday, when I suggested we both ride to Gors Velen, from where you can see Thanedd, he refused without a second thought. What’s keeping him here? Did you give him some well-paid contracts?’

‘Not a chance,’ muttered the halfling. ‘To be honest, I don’t believe there was ever a monster here at all. That kid who drowned in the pond might have got cramp. But everyone started yelling that it was a drowner or a kikimora and we ought to call a witcher . . . And they promised him such a paltry purse it’s shameful. And what does he do? He’s been roaming around the causeway for three nights; he sleeps during the day or sits saying nothing, like a straw man, watching the children and the house . . . Strange. Peculiar, I’d say.’

‘And you’d be right.’

Lightning flashed, lighting up the farmyard and the farm buildings. For a moment, the ruins of the elven palace at the end of the causeway flashed white. A few seconds later, a clap of thunder rolled over the ponds. A sudden wind got up, and the trees and reeds by the pond whispered and bent. The surface of the water rippled, went dull and then ruffled up the leaves of the water lilies.

‘The storm seems to be coming towards us,’ said the farmer, looking up at the sky. ‘Perhaps the sorcerers used magic to drive it from the island. They say at least two hundred of them have turned up on Thanedd . . . What do you think, Dandelion, what will they be debating on that island of theirs? Will any good come of it?’

‘For us? I doubt it,’ said the troubadour, strumming the lute strings with his thumb. ‘Those conclaves usually mean a fashion show, lots of gossiping, and a good chance for backbiting and infighting. Arguments about whether to make magic more universal, or make it more elite. Quarrels between those who serve kings and those who prefer to bring pressure to bear on kings from afar . . .’

‘Ha,’ said Bernie Hofmeier. ‘Seems to me that during the conclave there’ll be as much thunder and lightning on Thanedd as there is during a storm.’

‘Perhaps. But of what interest is it to us?’

‘To you, none,’ said the halfling gloomily. ‘Because all you do is pluck away at your lute and screech. You look at the world around and see only rhymes and notes. But just last Sunday some horsemen trampled my cabbages and turnips. Twice. The army are chasing the Squirrels, the Squirrels are evading the army and running from them, and they both use the same road through my cabbage patch . . .’

‘Do not grieve for the cabbage when the forest is burning,’ recited the poet.

‘You, Dandelion,’ said Bernie Hofmeier, frowning at him. ‘When you come out with stuff like that I don’t know whether to cry, laugh or kick your arse. I kid you not! And I’m telling you, a wretched time has come. There are stakes and gibbets by the highways, corpses in the fields and by forest tracks. Gorblimey, the country must have looked like this in Falka’s times. And how can anyone live here? During the day, the king’s men come and threaten to put us in the stocks for helping the Squirrels; at night the elves show up, and just try turning them down! They poetically promise that we’ll see the night sky glow red. They’re so poetic you could throw up. But anyhow, with them both we’re caught between two fires . . .’

‘And are you counting on the mages’ conclave changing anything?’

‘That I am. You said yourself that two factions are battling it out among the mages. It was sometimes thus, that the sorcerers held the kings back and put an end to wars and disturbances. After all, it was the sorcerers who made peace with Nilfgaard three years since. Mebbe this time too . . .’

Bernie Hofmeier fell silent and listened carefully. Dandelion silenced the resonating strings with his hand.

The Witcher emerged from the gloom on the causeway. He walked slowly towards the house. Lightning flashed once more. By the time it thundered, the Witcher was already with them on the veranda.

‘Well, Geralt?’ asked Dandelion, by way of ending the awkward silence. ‘Did you track the fiend down?’

‘No. It isn’t a night for tracking. It’s a turbulent night. Uneasy . . . I’m tired, Dandelion.’

‘Well, sit down, relax.’

‘You misunderstood me.’

‘Indeed,’ muttered the halfling, looking at the sky and listening. ‘A turbulent night, something ill is hanging in the air . . . The animals are restless in the barn . . . And screams can be heard in that wind . . .’

‘The Wild Hunt,’ said the Witcher softly. ‘Close the shutters securely, Mr Hofmeier.’

‘The Wild Hunt?’ said Bernie, terrified. ‘Spectres?’

‘Never fear. It’ll pass by high up. It always passes by high during the summer. But the children may wake, for the Hunt brings nightmares. Better close the shutters.’

‘The Wild Hunt,’ said Dandelion, glancing anxiously upwards, ‘heralds war.’

‘Poppycock. Superstitions.’

‘Wait! A short time before the Nilfgaardian attack on Cintra—’

‘Silence!’ the Witcher gestured him to be quiet and sat up straight with a jerk, staring into the darkness.

‘What the . . . ?’

‘Horsemen.’

‘Hell,’ hissed Hofmeier, springing up from the bench. ‘At night it can only be Scoia’tael . . .’

‘A single horse,’ the Witcher interrupted, picking his sword up from the bench. ‘A single, real horse. The rest are the spectres of the Hunt . . . Damn, it can’t be . . . in the summer?’

Dandelion had also leapt to his feet but was too ashamed to run away, because neither Geralt nor Bernie was preparing to flee. The Witcher drew his sword and ran towards the causeway, and the halfling rushed after him without a second thought, armed with a pitchfork. Lightning flashed once more, and a galloping horse came into view on the causeway. Behind the horse came something vague, an irregular cloud, a whirl, a phantom, woven from the gloom and glow. Something that caused panicky fear and a revolting, gut-wrenching dread.

The Witcher yelled, lifting his sword. The rider saw him, spurred the horse on and looked back. The Witcher yelled again. The thunder boomed.

There was a flash, but it wasn’t lightning this time. Dandelion crouched by the bench and would have crawled under it had it not been too low. Bernie dropped the pitchfork. Petunia Hofmeier, who had run out of the house, shrieked.

A blinding flash materialised into a transparent sphere, and inside it loomed a shape, assuming contours and shapes at frightening speed. Dandelion recognised it at once. He knew those wild, black curls and the obsidian star on a velvet ribbon. What he didn’t know and had never seen before was the face. It was a face of rage and fury, the face of the goddess of vengeance, destruction and death.

Yennefer raised a hand and screamed a spell. Spirals shot from her hands with a hiss, showering sparks, cutting the night sky and reflecting thousands of sparkles on the surface of the ponds. The spirals penetrated the cloud that was chasing the lone rider like lances. The cloud seethed, and it seemed to Dandelion that he could hear ghastly cries, that he could see the vague, nightmarish silhouettes of spectral horses. He only saw it for a split second, because the cloud suddenly contracted, clustered up into a ball and shot upwards into the sky, lengthening and dragging a tail behind it like a comet’s as it sped away. Darkness fell, only lit by the quivering glare of the lamp being held by Petunia Hofmeier.

The rider came to a halt in the yard in front of the house, slithered down from the saddle, and took some staggering steps. Dandelion realised who it was immediately. He had never seen the slim, flaxen-haired girl before. But he knew her at once.

‘Geralt . . .’ said the girl softly. ‘Madam Yennefer . . . I’m sorry . . . I had to. You know, I mean . . .’

‘Ciri,’ said the Witcher. Yennefer took a step towards the girl, but then stopped. She said nothing.