Laboratorium, hidden in the vaults of Kaer Morhen, with its dusty demi-Johns of elixirs, the alembics, ovens and retorts . . . None of the witchers knew how to use them. The mutagenic elixirs had been concocted by some renegade wizard in the distant past and then perfected over the years by the wizard’s successors, who had, over the years, magically controlled the process of Changes to which children were subjected. And at a vital moment the chain had snapped. There was no more magical knowledge or power. The witchers had the herbs and Grasses, they had the Laboratorium. They knew the recipe. But they had no wizard.
Who knows, she thought, perhaps they have tried ? Have they given children concoctions prepared without the use of magic?
She shuddered at the thought of what might have happened to those children.
And now they want to mutate the girl but can’t. And that might mean . . . They may ask me to help. And then I’ll see something no living wizard has seen, I’ll learn something no living wizard has learned. Their famous Grasses and herbs, the secret virus cultures, the renowned, mysterious recipes . . .
And I will be the one to give the child a number of elixirs, who will watch the Changes of mutation, who will watch, with my own eyes . . .
Watch the ashen-haired child die.
Oh, no. Triss shuddered again. Never. Not at such a price.
Besides, she thought, I’ve probably got excited too soon again. That’s probably not what this is about. We talked over supper, gossiped about this and that. I tried to guide the conversation to the Child Surprise several times to no avail. They changed the subject at once.
She had watched them. Vesemir had been tense and troubled; Geralt uneasy, Lambert and Eskel falsely merry and talkative, Coen so natural as to be unnatural. The only one who had been sincere and open was Ciri, rosy-cheeked from the cold, dishevelled, happy and devilishly voracious. They had eaten beer potage, thick with croutons and cheese, and Ciri had been surprised they had not served mushrooms as well. They had drunk cider, but the girl had been given water and was clearly both astonished and revolted by it.
‘Where’s the salad?’ she had yelled, and Lambert had rebuked her sharply and ordered her to take her elbows off the table.
Mushrooms and salad. In December?
Of course, thought Triss. They’re feeding her those legendary cave saprophytes – a mountain plant unknown to science – giving her the famous infusions of their mysterious herbs to drink. The girl is developing quickly, is acquiring a witcher’s infernal fitness. Naturally, without the mutation, without the risk, without the hormonal upheaval. But the magician must not know this. It is to be kept a secret from the magician. They aren’t going to tell me anything; they aren’t going to show me anything.
I saw how that girl ran. I saw how she danced on the beam with her sword, agile and swift, full of a dancer’s near-feline grace, moving like an acrobat. I must, she thought, I absolutely must see her body, see how she’s developing under the influence of whatever it is they’re feeding her. And what if I managed to steal samples of these ‘mushrooms’ and ‘salads’ and take them away? Well, well . . .
And trust? I don’t give a fig for your trust, witchers. There’s cancer out there in the world, smallpox, tetanus and leukaemia, there are allergies, there’s cot death. And you’re keeping your ‘mushrooms’, which could perhaps be distilled and turned into life-saving medicines, hidden away from the world. You’re keeping them a secret even from me, and others to whom you declare your friendship, respect and trust. Even I’m forbidden to see not just the Laboratorium, but even the bloody mushrooms!
So why did you bring me here? Me, a magician?
Magic!
Triss giggled. Ha, she thought, witchers, I’ve got you! Ciri scared you just as she did me. She ‘withdrew’ into a daydream, started to prophesy, gave out an aura which, after all, you can sense almost as well as I can. She automatically reached for something psy-chokinetically, or bent a pewter spoon with her will as she stared at it during lunch. She answered questions you only thought, and maybe even some which you were afraid to ask yourselves. And you felt fear. You realised that your Surprise is more surprising than you had imagined.
You realised that you have the Source in Kaer Morhen.
And that, you can’t manage without a magician.
And you don’t have a single friendly magician, not a single one you could trust. Apart from me and . . .
And Yennefer.
The wind howled, banged the shutter and swelled the tapestry. Triss rolled on to her back and, lost in thought, started to bite her thumb nail.
Geralt had not invited Yennefer. He had invited her. Does that mean . . . ?
Who knows. Maybe. But if it’s as I think then why . . . ?
Why . . .?
‘Why hasn’t he come to me?’ she shouted quietly into the darkness, angry and aroused.
She was answered by the wind howling amidst the ruins.
The morning was sunny but devilishly cold. Triss woke chilled through and through, without having had enough sleep, but finally assured and decided.
She was the last to go down to the hall. She accepted the tribute of gazes which rewarded her efforts – she had changed her travel clothes for an attractive but simple dress and had skilfully applied magical scents and non-magical but incredibly expensive cosmetics. She ate her porridge chatting with the witchers about unimportant and trivial matters.
‘Water again?’ muttered Ciri suddenly, peering into her tumbler. ‘My teeth go numb when I drink water! I want some juice! That blue one!’
‘Don’t slouch,’ said Lambert, stealing a glance at Triss from the corner of his eye. ‘And don’t wipe your mouth with your sleeve! Finish your food; it’s time for training. The days are getting shorter.’
‘Geralt.’ Triss finished her porridge. ‘Ciri fell on the Trail yesterday. Nothing serious, but it was because of that jester’s outfit she wears. It all fits so badly, and it hinders her movements.’
Vesemir cleared his throat and turned his eyes away. Aha,
thought the enchantress, so it’s your work, master of the sword. Predictable enough, Ciri’s short tunic does look as if it has been cut out with a knife and sewn together with an arrow-head.
‘The days are, indeed, getting shorter,’ she continued, not waiting for a comment. ‘But we’re going to make today shorter still. Ciri, have you finished? Come with me, if you please. We shall make some vital adjustments to your uniform.’
‘She’s been running around in this for a year, Merigold,’ said Lambert angrily. ‘And everything was fine until . . .’
“... until a woman arrived who can’t bear to look at clothes in poor taste which don’t fit? You’re right, Lambert. But a woman has arrived, and the old order’s collapsed; a time of great change has arrived. Come on, Ciri.’
The girl hesitated, looked at Geralt. Geralt nodded his agreement and smiled. Pleasantly. Just as he had smiled in the past when, when . . .
Triss turned her eyes away. His smile was not for her.
Ciri’s little room was a faithful replica of the witchers’ quarters. It was, like theirs, devoid of almost all fittings and furniture. There was practically nothing there beside a few planks nailed together to form a bed, a stool and a trunk. Witchers decorated the walls and doors of their quarters with the skins of animals they killed when hunting – stags, lynx, wolves and even wolverines. On the door of Ciri’s little room, however, hung the skin of an enormous rat with a hideous scaly tail. Triss fought back her desire to tear the stinking abomination down and throw it out of the window.
The girl, standing by the bed, stared at her expectantly.
‘We’ll try,’ said the enchantress, ‘to make this . . . sheath fit a little better. I’ve always had a knack for cutting and sewing so I ought to be able to manage this goatskin, too. And you, little witcher-girl, have you ever had a needle in your hand? Have you been taught anything other than making holes with a sword in sacks of straw?’
‘When I was in Transriver, in Kagen, I had to spin,’ muttered Ciri unwillingly. ‘They didn’t give me any sewing because I only
spoilt the linen and wasted thread; they had to undo everything. The spinning was terribly boring – yuk!’
‘True,’ giggled Triss. ‘It’s hard to find anything more boring. I hated spinning, too.’
‘And did you have to? I did because . . . But you’re a wi— magician. You can conjure anything up! That amazing dress . . . did you conjure it up?’
‘No.’ Triss smiled. ‘Nor did I sew it myself. I’m not that talented.’
‘And my clothes, how are you going to make them? Conjure them up?’
‘There’s no need. A magic needle is enough, one which we shall charm into working more vigorously. And if there’s a need . . .’
Triss slowly ran her hand across the torn hole in the sleeve of Ciri’s jacket, murmuring a spell while stimulating an amulet to work. Not a trace remained of the hole. Ciri squealed with joy.
‘That’s magic! I’m going to have a magical jacket! Wow!’
‘Only until I make you an ordinary – but good – one. Right, now take all that off, young lady, and change into something else. These aren’t your only clothes, surely?’
Ciri shook her head, lifted the lid of the trunk and showed her a faded loose dress, a dark grey tunic, a linen shirt and a woollen blouse resembling a penitent’s sack.
‘This is mine,’ she said. ‘This is what I came in. But I don’t wear it now. It’s woman’s stuff.’
‘I understand.’ Triss grimaced mockingly. ‘Woman’s or not, for the time being you’ll have to change into it. Well, get on with it, get undressed. Let me help you . . . Damn it! What’s this? Ciri?’
The girl’s shoulders were covered in massive bruises, suffused with blood. Most of them had already turned yellow; some were fresh.
What the hell is this?’ the magician repeated angrily. Who beat you like this?’
‘This?’ Ciri looked at her shoulders as if surprised by the number of bruises. ‘Oh, this . . . That was the windmill. I was too slow.’
What windmill? Bloody hell!’
‘The windmill,’ repeated Ciri, raising her huge eyes to look up at the magician. ‘It’s a sort of . . . Well . . . I’m using it to learn to dodge while attacking. It’s got these paws made of sticks and it turns and waves the paws. You have to jump very quickly and dodge. You have to learn a lefrex. If you haven’t got the lefrex the windmill wallops you with a stick. At the beginning, the windmill gave me a really terribly horrible thrashing. But now—’
‘Take the leggings and shirt off. Oh, sweet gods! Dear girl! Can you really walk? Run?’
Both hips and her left thigh were black and blue with haematomas and swellings. Ciri shuddered and hissed, pulling away from the magician’s hand. Triss swore viciously in Dwarvish, using inexpressibly foul language.
‘Was that the windmill, too?’ she asked, trying to remain calm.
‘This? No. This, this was the windmill.’ Ciri pointed indifferently to an impressive bruise below her left knee, covering her shin. ‘And these other ones . . . They were the pendulum. I practise my fencing steps on the pendulum. Geralt says I’m already good at the pendulum. He says I’ve got . . . Flair. I’ve got flair.’
And if you run out of flair’ - Triss ground her teeth together -‘I take it the pendulum thumps you?’
‘But of course,’ the girl confirmed, looking at her, clearly surprised at this lack of knowledge. ‘It thumps you, and how.’
And here? On your side? What was that? A smith’s hammer?’
Ciri hissed with pain and blushed.
‘I fell off the comb . . .’
‘. . . and the comb thumped you,’ finished Triss, controlling herself with increasing difficulty. Ciri snorted.
‘How can a comb thump you when it’s buried in the ground? It can’t! I just fell. I was practising a jumping pirouette and it didn’t work. That’s where the bruise came from. Because I hit a post.’
And you lay there for two days? ? In pain? Finding it hard to breathe’
‘Not at all. Coen rubbed it and put me straight back on the comb. You have to, you know? Otherwise you catch fear.’
‘What?’
‘You catch fear,’ Ciri repeated proudly, brushing her ashen fringe from her forehead. ‘Didn’t you know? Even when something bad happens to you, you have to go straight back to that piece of equipment or you get frightened. And if you’re frightened you’ll be hopeless at the exercise. You mustn’t give up. Geralt said so.’
‘I have to remember that maxim,’ the enchantress murmured through her teeth. ‘And that it came from Geralt. Not a bad prescription for life although I’m not sure it applies in every situation. But it is easy to put into practise at someone else’s expense. So you mustn’t give up? Even though you are being thumped and beaten in a thousand ways, you’re to get up and carry on practising?’
‘Of course. A witcher’s not afraid of anything.’
‘Is that so? And you, Ciri? You aren’t afraid of anything? Answer truthfully.’
The girl turned away and bit her lip.
‘You won’t tell anybody?’
1 won t.
‘I’m frightened of two pendulums. Two at the same time. And the windmill, but only when it’s set to go fast. And there’s also a long balance, I still have to go on that . . . with a safety de— A safety device. Lambert says I’m a sissy and a wimp but that’s not true. Geralt told me my weight is distributed a little differently because I’m a girl. I’ve simply got to practise more unless … I wanted to ask you something. May I?’
‘You may.’
‘If you know magic and spells … If you can cast them . . . Can you turn me into a boy?’
‘No,’ Triss replied in an icy tone. ‘I can’t.’
‘Hmm . . .’ The little witcher-girl was clearly troubled. ‘But could you at least . . .’
‘At least what?’
‘Could you do something so I don’t have to . . .’ Ciri blushed. ‘I’ll whisper it in your ear.’
‘Go on.’ Triss leaned over. ‘I’m listening.’
Ciri, growing even redder, brought her head closer to the enchantress’s chestnut hair.
Triss sat up abruptly, her eyes flaming.
‘Today? Now?’
‘Mhm.’
‘Hell and bloody damnation!’ the enchantress yelled, and kicked the stool so hard that it hit the door and brought down the rat skin. ‘Pox, plague, shit and leprosy! I’m going to kill those cursed idiots!’