Time of Contempt (26 page)

‘What happened to the girl and to Yennefer?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the sorceress, coughing and spitting blood. She was breathing very shallowly and with obvious difficulty. ‘I passed out after one of the explosions. The one with the scar and his elves overpowered me. Terranova beat me black and blue and then threw me out of a window.’

‘It isn’t just your leg, Keira. You’ve got some broken ribs.’

‘Don’t leave me.’

‘I have to. I’ll come back for you.’

‘Yeah, right.’

At first, there was only shimmering chaos, the pulsing of shadows, a confusion of dark and light, and a choir of incoherent voices emerging from the abyss. Suddenly the voices became stronger and, from all around, the screaming and the roaring exploded. The brightness amongst the darkness became a fire consuming the tapestries, seeming to shoot streams of sparks from the walls, the balustrades and the columns supporting the ceiling.

Ciri choked on the smoke and realised it was no longer a dream.

She tried to stand, propping herself up on her arms. Her hand came to rest on something wet, and she looked down. She was kneeling in a pool of blood. Beside her lay a motionless body. The body of an elf. She knew at once.

‘Get up.’

Yennefer was standing beside her. She was holding a dagger.

‘Mistress Yennefer . . . Where are we? I don’t remember . . .’

The enchantress seized her by the hand.

‘I’m with you, Ciri.’

‘Where are we? Why is everything on fire? Who’s that . . . lying there?’

‘I told you once, a long time ago, that chaos is reaching out to seize you. Do you remember? No, you probably don’t. That elf reached out to get you. I had to kill him using a knife, as his paymasters are just waiting for one of us to reveal ourselves by using magic. And it will happen, but not yet . . . Are you totally conscious?’

‘Those sorcerers . . .’ whispered Ciri. ‘The ones in the great hall . . . What did I say to them? And why did I say it? I didn’t want to at all . . . But I couldn’t stop myself! Why? Why, Mistress Yennefer?’

‘Be quiet, my ugly little duckling. I made a mistake. No one’s perfect.’

A roar and a terrifying scream resounded from below.

‘Come on. Quickly. There’s no time.’

They ran along the corridor. The smoke became thicker and thicker. It choked them, blinded them. The walls shook from the explosion.

‘Ciri.’ Yennefer stopped at a junction in the corridors and squeezed the girl’s hand tightly. ‘Listen to me now. Listen carefully. I have to stay here. Do you see those stairs? Go down them . . .’

‘No! Don’t leave me all alone!’

‘I have to. I repeat: go down those stairs. To the very bottom. There’ll be a door and, beyond it a long corridor. At the end of the corridor is a stable and a single, saddled horse. Only one. Lead it out and mount it. It’s a trained horse; it serves messengers riding to Loxia. It knows the way; just spur it on. When you get to Loxia find Margarita. She will look after you. Don’t let her out of your sight—’

‘Mistress Yennefer! No! I don’t want to be alone!’

‘Ciri,’ said the enchantress softly. ‘I once told you that everything I do is for your own good. Trust me. Trust me, I beg you. Now run for it.’

Ciri was already on the steps when she heard Yennefer’s voice one more. The enchantress was standing beside a column, resting her forehead against it.

‘I love you, my daughter,’ she said indistinctly. ‘Run.’

They trapped her halfway down the stairs. At the bottom there were two elves with squirrels’ tails in their hats and, at the top, a man dressed in black. Without thinking, Ciri jumped over the banisters and fled down a side corridor. They ran after her. She was quicker and would have escaped them with ease had the corridor not ended in a window.

She looked through the window. A stone ledge – about two spans wide – ran along the wall. Ciri swung a leg over the windowsill and climbed out. She moved away from the window and pressed her back to the wall. The sea glistened in the distance.

One of the elves leaned out through the window. He had very fair hair and green eyes and wore a silk kerchief around his neck. Ciri moved quickly along the ledge towards the next window. But the man dressed in black was looking out of it. His eyes were dark and intense, and he had a reddish mark on his cheek.

‘We’ve got you, wench!’

She looked down. She could see a courtyard far below her. There was a narrow bridge linking two cloisters above the courtyard, about ten feet below the ledge she was standing on. Except it was not a bridge. It was the remains of a bridge. A narrow, stone footbridge with the remains of a shattered balustrade.

‘What are you waiting for?’ shouted the one with the scar. ‘Get out there and grab her!’

The fair-haired elf stepped gingerly out onto the ledge, pressing his back against the wall. He reached out to grab her. He was getting closer.

Ciri swallowed. The stone footbridge – the remains of the footbridge – was no narrower than the seesaw at Kaer Morhen, and she had landed on that dozens of times. She knew how to cushion her fall and keep her balance. The witchers’ seesaw was only four feet off the ground, however, while the stone footbridge spanned such a long drop that the slabs of the courtyard looked smaller than the palm of her hand.

She jumped, landed, tottered and kept her balance by catching hold of the shattered balustrade. With sure steps, she reached the cloister. She couldn’t resist it; she turned around and showed her pursuers her middle finger, a gesture she had been taught by the dwarf Yarpen Zigrin. The man with the scar swore loudly.

‘Jump!’ he shouted at the fair-haired elf standing on the ledge. ‘After her!’

‘You’re insane, Rience,’ said the elf coldly. ‘Jump yourself.’

As usual, her luck didn’t last. She was caught as she ran down from the cloister and slipped behind a wall into a blackthorn bush. She was caught and held fast in an extremely strong grip by a short, podgy man with a swollen nose and a scarred lip.

‘Got you,’ he hissed. ‘Got you, poppet!’

Ciri struggled and howled because the hands gripping her shoulders transfixed her with a sudden paroxysm of overwhelming pain. The man chuckled.

‘Don’t flap your wings, little bird, or I’ll singe your feathers. Let’s have a good look at you. Let’s have a look at this chick that’s worth so much to Emhyr var Emreis, Imperator of Nilfgaard. And to Vilgefortz.’

Ciri stopped trying to escape. The short man licked his scarred lip.

‘Interesting,’ he hissed again, leaning over towards her. ‘They say you’re so precious, but I wouldn’t even give a brass farthing for you. How appearances deceive. Ha! My treasure! What if, not Vilgefortz, not Rience, not that gallant in the feathered helmet, but old Terranova gave you to Emhyr as a present? Would Emhyr look kindly on old Terranova? What do you say to that, little clairvoyant? You can see the future, after all!’

His breath stank unbearably. Ciri turned her head away, grimacing. He misread the movement.

‘Don’t snap your beak at me, little bird! I’m not afraid of little birds. But should I be, perhaps? Well, false soothsayer? Bogus oracle? Should I be afraid of little birds?’

‘You ought to be,’ whispered Ciri, feeling giddy, a sudden cold sensation overcoming her.

Terranova laughed, throwing his head back. His laugh became a howl of pain. A huge, grey owl had swooped down noiselessly and sunk its talons into his eyes. The sorcerer released Ciri, tore the owl off with a desperate movement and then fell to his knees, clutching his face. Blood poured between his fingers. Ciri screamed and stepped back. Terranova removed his bloodied, mucus-covered fingers from his face and began to chant a spell in a wild, cracked voice. He was not quick enough. A vague shape appeared behind his back, and a witcher’s blade whistled in the air and severed his neck at the base of his skull.

‘Geralt!’

‘Ciri.’

‘This isn’t the time for tenderness,’ said the owl from the top of the wall, transforming into a dark-haired woman. ‘Flee! The squirrels will be here soon!’

Ciri freed herself from Geralt’s arms and looked up in astonishment. The owl-woman sitting on top of the wall looked ghastly. She was blackened, ragged and smeared in ash and blood.

‘You little monster,’ said the owl-woman, looking down at her. ‘For your inopportune augury I ought to . . . But I made your Witcher a promise, and I always keep my promises. I couldn’t give you Rience, Geralt. In exchange I’m giving you her. Alive. Flee, both of you!’

Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach was furious. He had seen the girl he had been ordered to capture, but only for a moment. Then, before he had been able to act, the insane sorcerers unleashed such an inferno in Garstang that no action was possible. Cahir lost his bearings among the smoke and flames, blindly stumbling along corridors, running up and down stairs and through cloisters, and cursing Vilgefortz, Rience, himself and the entire world.

He happened upon an elf who told him the girl had been seen outside the palace, fleeing along the road to Aretuza. And then fortune smiled upon Cahir. The Scoia’tael found a saddled horse in the stable.

‘Run, Ciri, run. They’re close. I’ll stop them, you run. Fast as you can! Just like you used to on the assault course!’

‘Are you abandoning me too?’

‘I’ll be right behind you. But don’t look back!’

‘Give me my sword, Geralt.’

He looked at her. Ciri stepped back involuntarily. She had never seen him with an expression like that before.

‘If you had a sword, you might have to kill with it. Can you do it?’

‘I don’t know. Give me my sword.’

‘Run. And don’t look back.’

Horses’ hooves thudded on the road. Ciri looked back. And she froze, paralysed with fear.

She was being pursued by a black knight in a helmet decorated with raptor wings. The wings whooshed, and the black cloak streamed behind him. Horseshoes sent up sparks from the cobblestones.

She was unable to move.

The black horse burst through the roadside bushes, and the knight shouted loudly. Cintra was in that cry. The night, slaughter, blood and conflagration were in that cry. Ciri overcame her overwhelming fear and darted away. She leapt over a hedge and plunged into a small courtyard with a fountain. There was no way out; it was encircled by smooth, high walls. She could hear the horse snorting behind her. She turned, stumbled backwards and shuddered as she felt a hard, unyielding wall behind her. She was trapped.

The bird of prey flapped its wings, taking flight. The black knight urged his horse on and jumped the hedge separating him from the courtyard. Hooves thudded on the slabs, and the horse slipped, skidded and sat back on its haunches. The knight swayed in the saddle and toppled over. The horse regained its footing but the knight fell off, his armour clattering on the stones. He was on his feet immediately, though, and quickly trapped Ciri, who was pinned into a corner.

‘You will not touch me!’ she screamed, drawing her sword. ‘You will never touch me again!’

The knight moved slowly towards her, rising up like a huge, black tower. The wings on his helmet moved to and fro and whispered.

‘You will not escape me now, o Lion Cub of Cintra,’ he said, and his cruel eyes burned in the slit of his helmet. ‘Not this time. This time you have nowhere to run, o reckless maiden.’

‘You will not touch me,’ she repeated in a voice of stifled horror, her back pressed against the stone wall.

‘I have to. I am carrying out orders.’

As he held out his hand to seize her, Ciri’s fear subsided, to be replaced by savage fury. Her tense muscles, previously frozen in terror, began to work like springs. All the moves she had learned in Kaer Morhen performed themselves, smoothly and fluidly. Ciri jumped; the knight lunged towards her but was unprepared for the pirouette which spun her effortlessly out of reach of his hands. Her sword whined and stung, striking unerringly between the plates of his armour. The knight staggered and dropped to one knee as a stream of scarlet blood spurted from beneath his spaulder. Screaming fiercely, Ciri whirled around him with another pirouette and struck the knight again, this time directly on the bell of his helmet, knocking him down onto his other knee. Fury and madness had utterly blinded her, and she saw nothing except the loathsome wings. The black feathers were strewn in all directions. One wing fell off, and the other was resting on the bloodied spaulder. The knight, still vainly trying to get up from his knees, tried to seize her sword in his armoured glove and grunted painfully as the witcher blade slashed through the chainmail sleeve into his hand. The next blow knocked off his helmet, and Ciri jumped back to gather momentum for the last, mortal blow.

She did not strike.

There was no black helmet, no raptor’s wings, whose whistling had tormented her in her nightmares. There was no black knight of Cintra. There was a pale, dark-haired young man with stupefyingly blue eyes and a mouth distorted in a grimace of fear, kneeling in a pool of blood. The black knight of Cintra had fallen beneath the blows of her sword, had ceased to exist. Only hacked-up feathers remained of the forbidding wings. The terrified, cowering young man bleeding profusely was no one. She did not know him; she had never seen him before. He meant nothing to her. She wasn’t afraid of him, nor did she hate him. And neither did she want to kill him.

She threw her sword onto the ground.

She turned around, hearing the cries of the Scoia’tael approaching fast from Garstang. She knew that in a moment they would trap her in the courtyard. She knew they would catch up with her on the road. She had to be quicker than them. She ran over to the black horse, which was clattering its horseshoes on the paved ground, and urged it into a gallop with a cry, leaping into the saddle in full flight.

‘Leave me . . .’ groaned Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach, pushing away the elves who were trying to lift him up with his good hand. ‘I’m fine. It’s just a scratch . . . After her. Get the girl . . .’

One of the elves screamed, and blood spurted into Cahir’s face. Another Scoia’tael reeled and fell to his knees, his fingers clutching his mutilated belly. The remaining elves leapt back and scattered all around the courtyard, swords flashing.