A Shard Of Ice 2

II

‘You reek, Geralt,’ Yennefer grimaced, not turning from the mirror, where she was cleaning off the colouring from her eyelids and eyelashes. ‘Take a bath.’ ‘There’s no water,’ he said, looking into the tub.

‘We shall remedy that,’ the sorceress stood up and threw the window open. ‘Do you prefer sea water or fresh water?’ ‘Sea water, for a change.’

Yennefer spread her arms vigorously and shouted a spell, making a brief, intricate movement with her hands. Suddenly a sharp, wet coldness blew in through the open window, the shutters juddered, and a green cloud gushed into the room with a hiss, billowing in an irregular sphere. The tub foamed with water, rippling turbulently, banging against the edges and splashing onto the floor. The sorceress sat down and resumed her previously interrupted activity.

‘How did it go?’ she asked. ‘What was it, on the midden?’ ‘A zeugl, as I suspected,’ Geralt said, pulling off his boots, discarding his clothes and lowering a foot into the tub. ‘Bloody hell, Yen, that’s cold. Can’t you heat the water?’ ‘No,’ the sorceress, moving her face towards the looking glass and instilling something into her eye using a thin glass rod. ‘That spell is bloody wearying and makes me feel sick. And the cold will do you good after the elixirs.’ Geralt did not argue. There was absolutely no point arguing with Yennefer.

‘Did the zeugl cause you any problems?’ The sorceress dipped the rod into a vial and dropped something into her other eye, twisting her lips comically.

‘Not particularly.’

From outside the open window there was a thud, the sharp crack of wood breaking and an inarticulate voice, tunelessly and incoherently repeating the chorus of a popular, obscene song.

‘A zeugl,’ said the sorceress as she reached for another vial from the impressive collection on the table, and removed the cork from it. The fragrance of lilac and gooseberries filled the room. ‘Well, well. Even in a town it’s easy for a witcher to find work, you don’t have to roam through the wilds at all. You know, Istredd maintains it’s becoming a general rule. The place of every creature from the forests and swamps that becomes extinct is occupied by something else, some new mutation, adapted to the artificial environment created by people.’ As usual, Geralt winced at the mention of Istredd. He was beginning to be sick of Yennefer’s admiration for Istredd’s brilliance. Even if Istredd was right.

‘Istredd is right,’ Yennefer continued, applying the lilac-and-gooseberry perfumed something to her cheeks and eyelids. ‘Look for yourself; pseudorats in sewers and cellars, zeugls in rubbish dumps, neocorises in polluted moats and sewers, taggirs in millponds. It’s virtually symbiosis, don’t you think?’ And ghouls in cemeteries, devouring corpses the day after the funeral, he thought, rinsing off the soap. Total symbiosis.

‘Yes,’ the sorceress put aside the vials and jars, ‘witchers can be kept busy in towns, too. I think one day you’ll settle in a city for good, Geralt.’ I’d rather drop dead, he thought. But he did not say it aloud. Contradicting Yennefer, as he knew, inevitably led to a fight, and a fight with Yennefer was not the safest thing.

‘Have you finished, Geralt?’

‘Yes.’

‘Get out of the tub.’

Without getting up, Yennefer carelessly waved a hand and uttered a spell. The water from the tub–including everything which had spilled onto the floor or was dripping from Geralt–gathered itself with a swoosh into a translucent sphere and whistled through the window. He heard a loud splash.

‘A pox on you, whoresons!’ an infuriated yell rang out from below. ‘Have you nowhere to pour away your piss? I bloody hope you’re eaten alive by lice, catch the ruddy pox and croak!’ The sorceress closed the window.

‘Dammit, Yen,’ the Witcher chuckled. ‘You could have chucked the water somewhere else.’ ‘I could have,’ she purred, ‘but I didn’t feel like it.’ She took the oil lamp from the table and walked over to him. The white nightdress clinging to her body as she moved made her tremendously appealing. More so than if she were naked, he thought.

‘I want to look you over,’ she said, ‘the zeugl might have injured you.’ ‘It didn’t. I would have felt it.’

‘After the elixirs? Don’t be ridiculous. After the elixirs you wouldn’t even have felt an open fracture, until the protruding bones started snagging on hedges. And there might have been anything on the zeugl, including tetanus and cadaveric poison. If anything happens there’s still time for counter-measures. Turn around.’ He felt the soft warmth of the lamp’s flame on his body and the occasional brushing of her hair.

‘Everything seems to be in order,’ she said. ‘Lie down before the elixirs knock you off your feet. Those mixtures are devilishly dangerous. They’ll destroy you in the end.’ ‘I have to take them before I fight.’

Yennefer did not answer. She sat down at the looking glass once more and slowly combed her black, curly, shimmering locks. She always combed her hair before going to bed. Geralt found it peculiar, but he adored watching her doing it. He suspected Yennefer was aware of it.

He suddenly felt very cold, and the elixirs indeed jolted him, numbed the nape of his neck and swirled around the bottom of his stomach in vortices of nausea. He cursed under his breath and fell heavily onto the bed, without taking his eyes off Yennefer.

A movement in the corner of the chamber caught his attention. A smallish, pitch-black bird sat on a set of antlers nailed crookedly to the wall and festooned in cobwebs.

Glancing sideways, it looked at the Witcher with a yellow, fixed eye.

‘What’s that, Yen? How did it get here?’

‘What?’ Yennefer turned her head. ‘Oh, that. It’s a kestrel.’ ‘A kestrel? Kestrels are rufous and speckled, and that one’s black.’ ‘It’s an enchanted kestrel. I made it.’

‘What for?’

‘I need it,’ she cut him off. Geralt did not ask any more questions, knowing that Yennefer would not answer.

‘Are you seeing Istredd tomorrow?’

The sorceress moved the vials to the edge of the table, put her comb into a small box and closed the side panels of the looking glass.

‘Yes. First thing. Why?’

‘Nothing.’

She lay down beside him, without snuffing out the lamp. She never doused lights; she could not bear to fall asleep in the dark. Whether an oil lamp, a lantern, or a candle, it had to burn right down. Always. One more foible. Yennefer had a remarkable number of foibles.

‘Yen?’

‘Uh-huh?’

‘When are we leaving?’

‘Don’t be tedious,’ she tugged the eiderdown sharply. ‘We’ve only been here three days, and you’ve asked that question at least thirty times. I’ve told you, I have things to deal with.’ ‘With Istredd?’

‘Yes,’

He sighed and embraced her, not concealing his intentions.

‘Hey,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve taken elixirs…’

‘What of it?’

‘Nothing,’ she giggled like a schoolgirl, cuddling up to him, arching her body and lifting herself to allow her nightdress to slip off. As usual, the delight in her nakedness coursed in a shudder down his back and tingled in his fingers as they touched her skin. His lips touched her breasts, rounded and delicate, with nipples so pale they were visible only by their contours. He entwined his fingers in her hair, her lilac-and-gooseberry perfumed hair.

She succumbed to his caresses, purring like a cat, rubbing her bent knee against his hip.

It rapidly turned out–as usual–that he had overestimated his stamina regarding the witcher elixirs, had forgotten about their disagreeable effects on his body. But perhaps it’s not the elixirs, he thought, perhaps it’s exhaustion brought on by fighting, risks, danger and death? Exhaustion, which has simply become routine? But my body, even though artificially enhanced, doesn’t succumb to routine. It reacts naturally. Just not when it’s supposed to. Dammit.

But Yennefer, as usual, was not discouraged by a mere trifle. He felt her touch him, heard her purr right by his ear. As usual, he involuntarily pondered over the colossal number of occasions she must have used that most practical of spells. And then he stopped pondering.

As usual it was anything but ordinary.

He looked at her mouth, at its corners, twitching in an unwitting smile. He knew that smile well, it always seemed to him more one of triumph than of happiness. He had never asked her about it. He knew she would not answer.

The black kestrel sitting on the antlers beat its wings and snapped its curved beak. Yennefer turned her head away and sighed. Very sadly.

‘Yen?’

‘It’s nothing, Geralt,’ she said, kissing him. ‘It’s nothing.’ The oil lamp glimmered and flickered. A mouse was scratching in the wall, and a deathwatch beetle in the dresser clicked softly, rhythmically and monotonously.

‘Yen?’

‘Mhm?’

‘Let’s get away. I feel bad here. This town has an awful effect on me.’ She turned over on her side, ran a hand across his cheek, brushing some strands of hair away. Her fingers travelled downwards, touching the coarse scars marking the side of his neck.

‘Do you know what the name of this town means? Aedd Gynvael?’ ‘No. Is it in the elven speech?’

‘Yes. It means a shard of ice.’

‘Somehow, it doesn’t suit this lousy dump.’

‘Among the elves,’ the sorceress whispered pensively, ‘there is a legend about a Winter Queen who travels the land during snow-storms in a sleigh drawn by white horses. As she rides, she casts hard, sharp, tiny shards of ice around her, and woe betide anyone whose eye or heart is pierced by one of them. That person is then lost. No longer will anything gladden them; they find anything that doesn’t have the whiteness of snow ugly, obnoxious, repugnant. They will not find peace, will abandon everything, and will set off after the Queen, in pursuit of their dream and love. Naturally, they will never find it and will die of longing. Apparently here, in this town, something like that happened in times long gone. It’s a beautiful legend, isn’t it?’ ‘Elves can couch everything in pretty words,’ he muttered drowsily, running his lips over her shoulder. ‘It’s not a legend at all, Yen. It’s a pretty description of the hideous phenomenon that is the Wild Hunt, the curse of several regions. An inexplicable, collective madness, compelling people to join a spectral cavalcade rushing across the sky. I’ve seen it. Indeed, it often occurs during the winter. I was offered rather good money to put an end to that blight, but I didn’t take it. There’s no way of dealing with the Wild Hunt…’ ‘Witcher,’ she whispered, kissing his cheek, ‘there’s no romance in you. And I… I like elven legends, they are so captivating. What a pity humans don’t have any legends like that. Perhaps one day they will? Perhaps they’ll create some? But what would human legends deal with? All around, wherever one looks, there’s greyness and dullness. Even things which begin beautifully lead swiftly to boredom and dreariness, to that human ritual, that wearisome rhythm called life. Oh, Geralt, it’s not easy being a sorceress, but comparing it to mundane, human existence… Geralt?’ She laid her head on his chest, which was rising and falling with slow breathing.

‘Sleep,’ she whispered. ‘Sleep, Witcher.’