The Bounds Of Reason 1

THE BOUNDS OF REASON

I

‘He won’t get out of there, I’m telling you,’ the pockmarked man said, shaking his head with conviction. ‘It’s been an hour and a quarter since he went down. That’s the end of ‘im.’ The townspeople, crammed among the ruins, stared in silence at the black hole gaping in the debris, at the rubble-strewn opening. A fat man in a yellow jerkin shifted from one foot to the other, cleared his throat and took off his crumpled biretta.

‘Let’s wait a little longer,’ he said, wiping the sweat from his thinning eyebrows.

‘For what?’ the spotty-faced man snarled. ‘Have you forgotten, Alderman, that a basilisk is lurking in that there dungeon? No one who goes in there comes out. Haven’t enough people perished? Why wait?’ ‘But we struck a deal,’ the fat man muttered hesitantly. ‘This just isn’t right.’

‘We made a deal with a living man, Alderman,’ said the spotty-faced man’s companion, a giant in a leather butcher’s apron. ‘And now he’s dead, sure as eggs is eggs. It was plain from the start he was heading to his doom, just like the others. Why, he even went in without a looking glass, taking only a sword. And you can’t kill a basilisk without a looking glass, everyone knows that.’ ‘You’ve saved yourself a shilling, Alderman,’ the spotty-faced man added. ‘For there’s no one to pay for the basilisk. So get off home nice and easy. And we’ll take the sorcerer’s horse and chattels. Shame to let goods go to waste.’ ‘Aye,’ the butcher said. ‘A sturdy mare, and saddlebags nicely stuffed. Let’s take a peek at what’s inside.’ ‘This isn’t right. What are you doing?’

‘Quiet, Alderman, and stay out of this, or you’re in for a hiding,’ the spotty-faced man warned.

‘Sturdy mare,’ the butcher repeated.

‘Leave that horse alone, comrade.’

The butcher turned slowly towards the newcomer, who had appeared from a recess in the wall, and the people gathered around the entrance to the dungeon.

The stranger had thick, curly, chestnut hair. He was wearing a dark brown tunic over a padded coat and high riding boots. And he was not carrying a weapon.

‘Move away from the horse,’ he repeated, smiling venomously. ‘What is this? Another man’s horse, saddlebags and property, and you can’t take your watery little eyes off them, can’t wait to get your scabby mitts on them? Is that fitting behaviour?’ The spotty-faced man, slowly sliding a hand under his coat, glanced at the butcher. The butcher nodded, and beckoned towards a part of the crowd, from which stepped two stocky men with close-cropped hair. They were holding clubs of the kind used to stun animals in a slaughterhouse.

‘Who are you,’ the spotty-faced man asked, still holding his hand inside his coat, ‘to tell us what is right and what is not?’ ‘That is not your concern, comrade.’

‘You carry no weapon.’

'’Tis true.’ The stranger smiled even more venomously. ‘I do not.’

‘That’s too bad.’ The spotty-faced man removed his hand–and with it a long knife–from inside his coat. ‘It is very unfortunate that you do not.’ The butcher also drew a knife, as long as a cutlass. The other two men stepped forward, raising their clubs.

‘I have no need,’ the stranger said, remaining where he stood. ‘My weapons follow me.’ Two young women came out from behind the ruins, treading with soft, sure steps. The crowd immediately parted, then stepped back and thinned out.

The two women grinned, flashing their teeth and narrowing their eyes, from whose corners broad, tattooed stripes ran towards their ears. The muscles of their powerful thighs were visible beneath lynx skins wrapped around their hips, and on their sinuous arms, naked above their mail gloves. Sabre hilts stuck up behind their shoulders, which were also protected by chainmail.

Slowly, very slowly, the spotty-faced man bent his knees and dropped his knife on the ground.

A rattle of stones and a scraping sound echoed from the hole in the rubble, and then two hands, clinging to the jagged edge of the wall, emerged from the darkness. After the hands then appeared, in turn, a head of white hair streaked with brick dust, a pale face, and a sword hilt projecting above the shoulders. The crowd murmured.

The white-haired man reached down to haul a grotesque shape from the hole; a bizarre bulk smeared in blood-soaked dust. Holding the creature by its long, reptilian tail, he threw it without a word at the fat Alderman’s feet. He sprang back, tripping against a collapsed fragment of wall, and looked at the curved, birdlike beak, webbed wings and the hooked talons on the scaly feet. At the swollen dewlap, once crimson, now a dirty russet. And at the glazed, sunken eyes.

‘There’s your basilisk,’ the white-haired man said, brushing the dust from his trousers, ‘as agreed. Now my two hundred lintars, if you please. Honest lintars, not too clipped. I’ll check them, you can count on it.’ The Alderman drew out a pouch with trembling hands. The white-haired man looked around, and then fixed his gaze for a moment on the spotty-faced man and the knife lying by his foot. He looked at the man in the dark brown tunic and at the young women in the lynx skins.

‘As usual,’ he said, taking the pouch from the Alderman’s trembling hands, ‘I risk my neck for you for a paltry sum, and in the meantime you go after my things. You never change; a pox on the lot of you.’ ‘Haven’t been touched,’ the butcher muttered, moving back. The men with the clubs had melted into the crowd long before. ‘Your things haven’t been touched, sir.’ ‘That pleases me greatly,’ the white-haired man smiled. At the sight of the smile burgeoning on his pale face, like a wound bursting, the small crowd began to quickly disperse. ‘And for that reason, friend, you shall also remain untouched. Go in peace. But make haste.’ The spotty-faced man was also retreating. The spots on his white face were unpleasantly conspicuous.

‘Hey, stop there,’ the man in the dark brown tunic said to him. ‘You’ve forgotten something.’ ‘What is that… sir?’

‘You drew a knife on me.’

The taller of the women suddenly swayed, legs planted widely apart, and twisted her hips. Her sabre, which no one saw her draw, hissed sharply through the air. The spotty-faced man’s head flew upwards in an arc and fell into the gaping opening to the dungeon. His body toppled stiffly and heavily, like a tree being felled, among the crushed bricks. The crowd let out a scream. The second woman, hand on her sword hilt, whirled around nimbly, protecting her partner’s back. Needlessly. The crowd, stumbling and falling over on the rubble, fled towards the town as fast as they could. The Alderman loped at the front with impressive strides, outdistancing the huge butcher by only a few yards.

‘An excellent stroke,’ the white-haired man commented coldly, shielding his eyes from the sun with a black-gloved hand. ‘An excellent stroke from a Zerrikanian sabre. I bow before the skill and beauty of the free warriors. I’m Geralt of Rivia.’ ‘And I,’ the stranger in the dark brown tunic pointed at the faded coat of arms on the front of his garment, depicting three black birds sitting in a row in the centre of a uniformly gold field, ‘am Borch, also known as Three Jackdaws. And these are my girls, Téa and Véa. That’s what I call them, because you’ll twist your tongue on their right names. They are both, as you correctly surmised, Zerrikanian.’ ‘Thanks to them, it appears, I still have my horse and belongings. I thank you, warriors. My thanks to you too, sir.’ ‘Three Jackdaws. And you can drop the “sir”. Does anything detain you in this little town, Geralt of Rivia?’ ‘Quite the opposite.’

‘Excellent. I have a proposal. Not far from here, at the crossroads on the road to the river port, is an inn. It’s called the Pensive Dragon. The vittals there have no equal in these parts. I’m heading there with food and lodging in mind. It would be my honour should you choose to keep me company.’ ‘Borch.’ The white-haired man turned around from his horse and looked into the stranger’s bright eyes. ‘I wouldn’t want anything left unclear between us. I’m a witcher.’ ‘I guessed as much. But you said it as you might have said “I’m a leper”.’

‘There are those,’ Geralt said slowly, ‘who prefer the company of lepers to that of a witcher.’ ‘There are also those,’ Three Jackdaws laughed, ‘who prefer sheep to girls. Ah, well, one can only sympathise with the former and the latter. I repeat my proposal.’ Geralt took off his glove and shook the hand being proffered.

‘I accept, glad to have made your acquaintance.’

‘Then let us go, for I hunger.’