“But you suspected someone had paid me to kill you. Who would have?”
“A scoundrel who wanted the contents of my cellar but didn't have any more daughters,” Nivellen said emphatically. “Human greed knows no limits.”
“And nobody else?”
“And nobody else.”
They both remained silent, gazing at the nervous flicker of the candle flames.
“Nivellen,” said the witcher suddenly, “are you alone now?”
“Witcher,” answered the monster after a moment's hesitation, “I think that, in principle, I ought to insult you, take you by the neck and throw you down the stairs. Do you know why? Because you treat me like a dimwit. I noticed how you've been cocking your ears and glancing at the door. You know perfectly well that I don't live alone. Am I right?”
“You are. I’m sorry.”
“Pox on your apologies. Have you seen her?”
“Yes. In the forest, by the gate. Is she why merchants and daughters have been leaving here empty-handed for some time?”
“So you know about that too? Yes, she's the reason.”
“Do you mind if I ask whether—”
“Yes, I do mind.”
Silence again.
“Oh well, it's up to you,” the witcher finally said, getting up. “Thanks for your hospitality, dear host. Time I was on my way.”
“Quite right.” Nivellen also got up. “For certain reasons, I can't offer you a room in the manor for the night, and I don't encourage you to spend the night in these woods. Ever since the area's been deserted, it's been bad at night here. You ought to get back to the highway before dusk.”
“I’ll bear that in mind, Nivellen. Are you sure you don't need my help?”
The monster looked at him askance. “You think you could help me? You'd be able to lift this from me?”
“I wasn't only thinking about that sort of help.”
“You didn't answer my question. Although…you probably did. You wouldn't be able to.”
Geralt looked him straight in the eyes. “You had some bad luck,” he said. “Of all the temples in Gelibol and the Nimnar Valley, you picked the Church of Coram Agh Tera, the Lionheaded Spider. In order to lift the curse thrown by the priestess of Coram Agh Tera, you need knowledge and powers which I don't possess.”
“And who does?”
“So you are interested after all? You said things were fine as they are.”
“As they are, yes. But not as they might be. I’m afraid that—”
“What are you afraid of?”
The monster stopped at the door to the room and turned. “I’ve had enough of your questions, witcher, which you keep asking instead of answering mine. Obviously, you've got to be asked in the right way. Listen. For some time now I’ve had hideous dreams. Maybe the word ‘monstrous’ would be more accurate. Am I right to be afraid? Briefly, please.”
“Have you ever had muddy feet after waking from such a dream? Conifer needles in your sheets?”
“No.”
“And have—”
“No. Briefly, please.”
“You're rightly afraid.”
“Can anything be done about it? Briefly, please.”
“No.”
“Finally. Let's go. I’ll see you out.”
In the courtyard, as Geralt was adjusting the saddlebags, Nivellen stroked the mare's nostrils and patted her neck. Roach, pleased with the caress, lowered her head.
“Animals like me,” boasted the monster. “And I like them, too. My cat, Glutton, ran away at the beginning but she came back later. For a long time, she was the only living creature who kept me company in my misfortune. Vereena, too—” He broke off with a grimace.
Geralt smiled. “Does she like cats too?”
“Birds.” Nivellen bared his teeth. “I gave myself away, pox on it. But what's the harm. She isn't another merchant's daughter, Geralt, or another attempt to find a grain of truth in old folk tales. It's serious. We love each other. If you laugh, I’ll sock you one.”
Geralt didn't laugh. “You know your Vereena,” he said, “is probably a rusalka?”
“I suspected as much. Slim. Dark. She rarely speaks, and in a language I don't know. She doesn't eat human food. She disappears into the forest for days on end, then comes back. Is that typical?”
“More or less.” The witcher tightened Roach's girth-strap. “No doubt you think she wouldn't return if you were to become human?”
“I’m sure of it. You know how frightened rusalkas are of people. Hardly anybody's seen a rusalka from up close. But Vereena and I…Pox on it! Take care, Geralt.”
“Take care, Nivellen.” The witcher prodded the mare in the side with his heel and made toward the gate. The monster shuffled along at his side.
“Geralt?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not as stupid as you think. You came here following the tracks of one of the merchants who'd been here lately. Has something happened to one of them?”
“Yes.”
“The last was here three days ago. With his daughter, not one of the prettiest, by the way. I commanded the house to close all its doors and shutters and give no sign of life. They wandered around the courtyard and left. The girl picked a rose from my aunt's rosebush and pinned it to her dress. Look for them somewhere else. But be careful; this is a horrible area. I told you that the forest isn't the safest of places at night. Ugly things are heard and seen.”
“Thanks, Nivellen. I’ll remember about you. Who knows, maybe I’ll find someone who—”
“Maybe yes. And maybe no. It's my problem, Geralt, my life and my punishment. I’ve learned to put up with it. I’ve got used to it. If it gets worse, I’ll get used to that too. And if it gets far worse, don't look for anybody. Come here yourself and put an end to it. As a witcher. Take care, Geralt.”
Nivellen turned and marched briskly toward the manor. He didn't look round again.
III
The area was deserted, wild and ominously inhospitable. Geralt didn't return to the highway before dusk; he didn't want to take a roundabout route, so he took a shortcut through the forest. He spent the night on the bare summit of a high hill, his sword on his knees, beside a tiny campfire into which, every now and then, he threw wisps of monkshood. In the middle of the night he noticed the glow of a fire far away in the valley; he heard mad howling and singing and a sound which could only have been the screaming of a tortured woman. When dawn had barely broken, he made his way there to find nothing but a trampled glade and charred bones in still-warm ashes. Something sitting in the crown of an enormous oak shrieked and hissed. It could have been a harpy, or an ordinary wildcat. The witcher didn't stop to check.
IV
About midday, while Roach was drinking at a spring, the mare neighed piercingly and backed away, baring her yellow teeth and chewing her bit. Geralt calmed her with the Sign. Then he noticed a regular ring formed by the caps of reddish mushrooms peering from the moss.
“You're becoming a real hysteric, Roach,” he said. “This is just an ordinary devil's ring. What's the fuss?”
The mare snorted, turning her head toward him. The witcher rubbed his forehead, frowned and grew thoughtful. Then he leapt into the saddle, turned the horse around and started back, following his own tracks.
“Animals like me,” he muttered. “Sorry, Roach. It turns out you've got more brains than me!”
V
The mare flattened her ears against her skull and snorted, throwing up earth with her hooves; she didn't want to go. Geralt didn't calm her with the Sign; he jumped from the saddle and threw the reins over the horse's head. He no longer had his old sword in its lizard-skin sheath on his back; its place was filled with a shining, beautiful weapon with a cruciform and slender, well-weighted hilt, ending in a spherical pommel made of white metal.
This time the gate didn't open for him. It was already open, just as he had left it.
He heard singing. He didn't understand the words; he c
ouldn't even identify the language. He didn't need to—the witcher felt and understood the very nature, the essence, of this quiet, piercing song which flowed through the veins in a wave of nauseous, overpowering menace.
The singing broke off abruptly, and then he saw her.
She was clinging to the back of the dolphin in the dried-up fountain, embracing the moss-overgrown stone with her tiny hands, so pale they seemed transparent. Beneath her storm of tangled black hair shone huge, wide-open eyes the color of anthracite.
Geralt slowly drew closer, his step soft and springy, tracing a semi-circle from the wall and blue rosebush. The creature glued to the dolphin's back followed him with her eyes, turning her petite face with an expression of longing, and full of charm. He could still hear her song, even though her thin, pale lips were held tight and not the slightest sound emerged from them.
The witcher halted at a distance of ten paces. His sword, slowly drawn from its black enameled sheath, glistened and glowed above his head.
“It's silver,” he said. “This blade is silver.”
The pale little face did not flinch; the anthracite eyes did not change expression.
“You're so like a rusalka,” the witcher continued calmly, “that you could deceive anyone. All the more as you're a rare bird, black-haired one. But horses are never mistaken. They recognize creatures like you instinctively and perfectly. What are you? I think you're a moola, or an alpor. An ordinary vampire couldn't come out in the sun.”
The corners of the pale lips quivered and turned up a little.
“Nivellen attracted you with that shape of his, didn't he? You evoked his dreams. I can guess what sort of dreams they were, and I pity him.”
The creature didn't move.
“You like birds,” continued the witcher. “But that doesn't stop you biting the necks of people of both sexes, does it? You and Nivellen, indeed! A beautiful couple you'd make, a monster and a vampire, rulers of a ‘ forest castle. You'd dominate the whole area in a flash. You, eternally thirsty for blood, and he, your guardian, a murderer at your service, a blind tool. But first he had to become a true monster, not a human being in a monster's mask.”
The huge black eyes narrowed.
“Where is he, black-haired one? You were singing, so you've drunk some blood. You've taken the ultimate measure, which means you haven't managed to enslave his mind. Am I right?”
The black-tressed head nodded slightly, almost imperceptibly, and the corners of the mouth turned up even more. The tiny little face took on an eerie expression.
“No doubt you consider yourself the lady of this manor now?”
A nod, this time clearer.
“Are you a moola?”
A slow shake of the head. The hiss which reverberated through his bones could only have come from the pale, ghastly, smiling lips, although the witcher didn't see them move.
“Alpor?”
Denial.
The witcher backed away and clasped the hilt of his sword tighter. “That means you're—”
The corners of the lips started to turn up higher and higher; the lips flew open…
“A bruxa!” the witcher shouted, throwing himself toward the fountain.
From behind the pale lips glistened white, spiky fangs. The vampire jumped up, arched her back like a leopard and screamed.
The wave of sound hit the witcher like a battering ram, depriving him of breath, crushing his ribs, piercing his ears and brain with thorns of pain. Flying backward, he just managed to cross his wrists in the Sign of Heliotrop. The spell cushioned some of his impact with the wall but even so, the world grew dark and the remainder of his breath burst from his lungs in a groan.
On the dolphin's back, in the stone circle of the dried-up fountain where a dainty girl in a white dress had sat just a moment ago, an enormous black bat flattened its glossy body, opening its long, narrow jaws wide, revealing rows of needle-like white teeth. The membranous wings spread and flapped silently, and the creature charged at the witcher like an arrow fired from a crossbow.
Geralt, with the metallic taste of blood in his mouth, shouted a spell and threw his hand, fingers spread in the Sign of Quen, out in front of him. The bat, hissing, turned abruptly, then chuckled and veered up into the air before diving down vertically, straight at the nape of the witcher's neck. Geralt jumped aside, slashed, and missed. The bat, smoothly, gracefully drew in a wing, circled around him and attacked anew, opening its eyeless, toothed snout wide. Geralt waited, sword held with both hands, always pointed in the creature's direction. At the last moment, he jumped—not to the side but forward, dealing a swinging cut which made the air howl.
He missed. It was so unexpected that he lost his rhythm and dodged a fraction of a second too late. He felt the beast's talons tear his cheek, and a damp velvety wing slapped against his neck. He curled up on the spot, transferred the weight of his body to his right leg and slashed backward sharply, missing the amazingly agile creature again.
The bat beat its wings, soared up and glided toward the fountain. As the crooked claws scraped against the stone casing, the monstrous, slobbering snout was already blurring, morphing, disappearing, although the pale little lips which were taking its place couldn't quite hide the murderous fangs.
The bruxa howled piercingly, modulating her voice into a macabre tune, glared at the witcher with eyes full of hatred, and screamed again.
The sound wave was so powerful it broke through the Sign. Black and red circles spun in Geralt's eyes; his temples and the crown of his head throbbed. Through the pain drilling in his ears, he began to hear voices wailing and moaning, the sound of flute and oboe, the rustle of a gale. The skin on his face grew numb and cold. He fell to one knee and shook his head.
The black bat floated toward him silently, opening its toothy jaws. Geralt, still stunned by the scream, reacted instinctively. He jumped up and, in a flash, matching the tempo of his movements to the speed of the monster's flight, took three steps forward, dodged, turned a semi-circle and then, quick as a thought, delivered a two-handed blow. The blade met with no resistance…almost no resistance. He heard a scream, but this time it was a scream of pain, caused by the touch of silver.
The wailing bruxa was morphing on the dolphin's back. On her white dress, slightly above her left breast, a red stain was visible beneath a slash no longer than a little finger. The witcher ground his teeth—the cut, which should have sundered the beast in two, had been nothing but a scratch.
“Shout, vampire,” he growled, wiping the blood from his cheek. “Scream your guts out. Lose your strength. And then I’ll slash your pretty little head off!”
You. You will be the first to grow weak, Sorcerer. I will kill you.
The bruxa's lips didn't move, but the witcher heard the words clearly; they resounded in his mind, echoing and reverberating as if underwater.
“We shall see,” he muttered through his teeth as he walked, bent over, in the direction of the fountain.
I will kill you. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you.
“We shall see.”
“Vereena!” Nivellen, his head hanging low and both hands clinging to the doorframe, stumbled from the mansion. He staggered toward the fountain, waving his paws unsteadily. Blood stained the cuff of his tunic.
“Vereena!” he roared again.
The bruxa jerked her head in his direction. Geralt, raising his sword to strike, jumped toward her, but the vampire's reaction was much faster. A sharp scream and another sound wave knocked the witcher from his feet. He tumbled onto his back and scraped against the gravel of the path. The bruxa arched and tensed to jump, her fangs flashing like daggers. Nivellen, spreading his paws like a bear, tried to grab her but she screamed straight into his face, throwing him back against the wooden scaffolding under the wall, which broke with a sharp crash and buried him beneath a stack of timber.
Geralt was already on his feet, running, tracing a semi-circle around the courtyard, trying to draw the bruxa's attention away from
Nivellen. The vampire, fluttering her white dress, scurried straight at him, light as a butterfly, barely touching the ground. She was no longer screaming, no longer trying to morph. The witcher knew she was tired, and that she was still lethal. Behind Geralt's back, Nivellen was clattering under the scaffolding, roaring.
Geralt leapt to the left, executing a short moulinet with his sword to confuse the bruxa gliding toward him—white and black, windblown, terrible. He'd underestimated her. She screamed. He didn't make the Sign in time, flew backward until he thumped against the wall. The pain in his spine shot all the way to the tips of his fingers, paralyzed his shoulders, cut him down at the legs. He fell to his knees. The bruxa, wailing melodiously, jumped toward him.
“Vereena!” roared Nivellen.
She turned—and Nivellen forced the sharp broken end of a three-meter-long pole between her breasts. She didn't shout. She only sighed.
The witcher shook, hearing this sigh.
They stood there: Nivellen, on widespread legs, was wielding the pole in both hands, one end firmly secured under his arm.
The bruxa, like a white butterfly on a pin, hung on the other end of the stake, clutching it with both hands. The vampire exhaled excruciatingly and suddenly pressed herself hard against the stake.
Geralt watched a red stain bloom on her back, on the white dress through which the broken tip emerged in a geyser of blood: hideous, almost obscene. Nivellen screamed, took one step back, then another, retreating from her, but he didn't let go of the pole and dragged the bruxa behind him. One more step and he leaned back against the mansion. The end of the pole scraped against the wall.