The Last Wish (27 page)

'So don't waste time discussing it with such an unpleasant insect, elf,' said the witcher, barely able to control his voice. 'I'm surprised you want to arouse a feeling of guilt and repentance in such a louse as me. You're pitiful, Filavandrel. You're embittered, hungry for revenge and conscious of your own powerlessness. Go on, thrust the sword into me. Revenge yourself on the whole human race. You'll see what relief that'll bring you. First kick me in the balls or the teeth, like Toruviel.'

Filavandrel turned his head.

'Toruviel is sick,' he said.

'I know that disease and its symptoms.' Geralt spat over his shoulder. 'The treatment I gave her ought to help.'

'This conversation is senseless,' Filavandrel stepped away. 'I'm sorry we've got to kill you.

Revenge has nothing to do with it, it's purely practiced. Torque has to carry on with his task and no one can suspect who he's doing it for. We can't afford to go to war with you, and we won't be taken in by trade and exchange. We're not so naive that we don't know your merchants are just outposts of your way of life. We know what follows them. And what sort of cohabitation they bring.'

'Elf,' Dandilion, who had remained silent until now, said quietly, 'I've got friends. People who'll pay ransom for us. In the form of provisions, if you like, or any form. Think about it.

After all, those stolen seeds aren't going to save you—'

'Nothing will save them anymore,' Geralt interrupted him. 'Don't grovel, Dandilion, don't beg him. It's pointless and pitiful.'

'For someone who has lived such a short time,' Filavandrel forced a smile, 'you show an astounding disdain for death, human.'

'Your mother gives birth to you only once and only once do you die,' the witcher said calmly.

'An appropriate philosophy for a louse, don't you agree? And your longevity? I pity you, Filavandrel.'

The elf raised his eyebrows.

'Why?'

'You're pathetic, with your little stolen sacks of seeds on pack horses, with your handful of grain, that tiny crumb thanks to which you plan to survive. And with that mission of yours which is supposed to turn your thoughts from imminent annihilation. Because you know this is the end. Nothing will sprout or yield crops on the plateaux, nothing will save you now. But you live long, and you will live very long in arrogant isolation, fewer and fewer of you, growing weaker and weaker, more and more bitter. And you know what'U happen then, Filavandrel. You know that desperate young men with the eyes of hundred-year-old men and withered, barren and sick girls like Toruviel will lead those who can still hold a sword and bow in their hands, down into the valleys. You'll come down into the blossoming valleys to meet death, wanting to die honourably, in battle, and not in sick beds of misery, where anaemia, tuberculosis and scurvy will send you. Then, long-living Aen Seidhe, you'll remember me. You'll remember that I pitied you. And you'll understand that I was right.'

'Time will tell who was right,' said the elf quietly. 'And herein lies the advantage of longevity.

I've got a chance of finding out, if only because of that stolen handful of grain. You won't have a chance like that. You'll die shortly.'

'Spare him, at least,' Geralt indicated Dandilion with his head. 'No, not out of lofty mercy. Out of common sense. Nobody's going to ask after me, but they are going to take revenge for him.'

'You judge my common sense poorly,' the elf said after soine hesitation. 'If he survives thanks to you he'll undoubtedly feel obliged to avenge you.'

'You can be sure of that!' Dandilion burst out, pale as death. 'You can be sure, you son-of-a-bitch. Kill me too, because I promise otherwise I'll set the world against you. You'll see what lice from a fur coat can do! We'll finish you off even if we have to level those mountains of yours to the ground! You can be sure of that!'

'How stupid you are, Dandilion,' sighed the witcher.

'Your mother gives birth to you only once and only once do you die,' said the poet haughtily, the effect somewhat spoilt by his teeth rattling like castanets.

'That settles it.' Filavandrel took his gloves from his belt and pulled them on. 'It's time to end this.'

At his command the elves positioned themselves opposite Geralt and Dandilion with bows.

They did it quickly; they'd obviously been waiting for this a long time. One of them, the witcher noticed, was still chewing a turnip. Toruviel, her mouth and nose bandaged with cloth and birch bark, stood next to the archers. Without a bow.

'Shall I bind your eyes?' asked Filavandrel.

'Go away.' The witcher turned his head. 'Go—'

'A d'yeable aep arse,' Dandilion finished for him, his teeth chattering.

'Oh, no!' the sylvan suddenly bleated, running up and sheltering the condemned men with his body. 'Have you lost your mind? Filavandrel! This is not what we agreed! Not this! You were supposed to take them up to the mountains, hold them somewhere in some cave, until we'd finished—'

'Torque,' said the elf, 'I can't. I can't risk it. Did you see what he did to Toruviel while tied up?

I can't risk it.'

'I don't care what you can or can't! What do you imagine? You think I'll let you murder them?

Here, on my land? Right next to my hamlet? You accursed idiots! Get out of here with your bows or I'll ram you down. Uk! Uk!'

'Torque.' Filavandrel rested his hands on his belt. 'This is necessary.'

'Duwelsheyss, not necessary!'

'Move aside, Torque.'

The sylvan shook his ears, bleated even louder, stared and bent his elbow in an abusive gesture popular among dwarves.

'You're not going to murder anybody here! Get on your horses and out into the mountains, beyond the passes! Otherwise you'll have to kill me too!'

'Be reasonable,' said the white-haired elf slowly. 'If we let them live, people are going to learn what you're doing. They'll catch you and torture you. You know what they're like, after all.'

'I do,' bleated the sylvan still sheltering Geralt and Dandilion. 'It turns out I know them better than I know you! And, verily, I don't know who to side with. I regret allying myself with you, Filavandrel!'

'You wanted to,' said the elf coldly, giving a signal to the archers. 'You wanted to, Torque.

L'sparellean! Evellienn!'

The elves drew arrows from their quivers. 'Go away, Torque,' said Geralt, gritting his teeth.

'It's senseless. Get aside.' The sylvan, without budging from the spot, showed him the dwarves' gesture.

'I can hear . . . music . . .' Dandilion suddenly sobbed.

'It happens,' said the witcher, looking at the arrowheads. 'Don't worry. There's no shame in fear.'

Filavandrel's face changed, screwed up in a strange grimace. The white-haired Seidhe suddenly turned round and gave a shout to the archers. They lowered their weapons.

Lille entered the glade.

She was no longer a skinny peasant girl in a sackcloth dress. Through the grasses covering the glade walked — no, not walked — floated a queen, radiant, golden-haired, fiery-eyed, ravishing. The Queen of the Fields, decorated with garlands of flowers, ears of corn, bunches of herbs. At her left-hand side a young stag pattered on stiff legs, at her right rustled an enormous hedgehog.

'Dana Meadbh,' said Filavandrel with veneration. And then bowed and knelt.

The remaining elves also knelt; slowly, reluctantly, they fell to their knees one after the other and bowed their heads low in veneration. Toruviel was the last to kneel.

'Hael, Dana Meadbh,' repeated Filavandrel.

Lille didn't answer. She stopped several paces short of the elf and swept her blue eyes over Dandilion and Geralt. Torque, while bowing, started cutting through the knots. None of the Seidhe moved.

Lille stood in front of Filavandrel. She didn't say anything, didn't make the slightest sound, but the witcher saw the changes on the elf's face, sensed the aura surrounding them and was in no doubt they were communicating. The devil suddenly pulled at his sleeve.

'Your friend,' he bleated quietly, 'has decided to faint. Right on time. What shall we do?'

'Slap him across the face a couple of times.'

'With pleasure.'

Filavandrel got up from his knees. At his command the elves fell to saddling the horses as quick as lightening.

'Come with us, Dana Meadbh,' said the white-haired elf. 'We need you. Don't abandon us, Eternal One. Don't deprive us of your love. We'll die without it.'

Lille slowly shook her head and indicated east, the direction of the mountains. The elf bowed, crumpling the ornate reins of his white-maned mount in his hands.

Dandilion walked up, pale and dumbfounded, supported by the sylvan. Lille looked at him and smiled. She looked into the witcher's eyes. She looked long. She didn't say a word. Words weren't necessary.

Most of the elves were already in their saddles when Filavandrel and Toruviel approached.

Geralt looked into the elf s black eyes, visible above the bandages.

'Toruviel . . .'he said. And didn't finish.

The elf nodded. From her saddle-bow, she took a lute, a marvellous instrument of light, tastefully inlaid wood with a slender, engraved neck. Without a word, she handed the lute to Dandilion. The poet accepted the instrument and smiled. Also without a word, but his eyes said a great deal.

'Farewell, strange human,' Filavandrel said quietly to Geralt. 'You're right. Words aren't necessary. They won't change anything.'

Geralt remained silent.

'After some consideration,' added the Seidhe, 'I've come to the conclusion that you were right.

When you pitied us. So goodbye. Goodbye until we meet again, on the day when we descend into the valleys to die honourably. We'll look out for you then, Toruviel and I. Don't let us down.'

For a long time, they looked at each other in silence. And then the witcher answered briefly and simply:

'I'll try.'

'By the gods, Geralt.' Dandilion stopped playing, hugged the lute and touched it with his cheek. 'This wood sings on its own! These strings are alive! What wonderful tonality! Bloody hell, a couple of kicks and a bit of fear is a pretty low price to pay for such a superb lute. I'd have let myself be kicked from dawn to dusk if I'd known what I was going to get. Geralt?

Are you listening to me at all?'

'It's difficult not to hear you two.' Geralt raised his head from the book and glanced at the sylvan, who was still stubbornly squeaking on a peculiar set of pipes made from reeds of various lengths. 'I hear you, the whole neighbourhood hears you.'

'Duvvelsheyss, not neighbourhood,' Torque put his pipes aside. A desert, that's what it is. A wilderness. A shit-hole. Eh, I miss my hemp!'

'He misses his hemp,' laughed Dandilion, carefully turning the delicately engraved lute pegs. 'You should have sat in the thicket quiet as a dormouse instead of scaring girls, destroying dykes and sullying the well. I think you're going to be more careful now and give up your tricks, eh, Torque?'

'I like tricks,' declared the sylvan, baring his teeth. 'And I can't imagine life without them. But have it your way, I promise to be more careful on new territory. I'll be more restrained.'

The night was cloudy and windy. The gale beat down the reeds and rustled in the branches of the bushes surrounding their camp. Dandilion threw some dry twigs into the fire. Torque wriggled around on his makeshift bed, swiping mosquitoes away with his tail. A fish leapt in the lake with a splash.

Til describe our whole expedition to the edge of the world in a ballad,' declared Dandilion.

'And I'll describe you in it, too, Torque.'

'Don't think you'll get away with it,' growled the sylvan. 'I'll write a ballad too then and describe you, but in such a way as you won't be able to show your face in decent company for twelve years. So watch out! Geralt?'

'What?'

'Have you read anything interesting in that book which you so disgracefully wheedled out of those freemen?'

'I have.'

'So read it to us, before the fire burns out.'

'Yes, yes,' Dandilion strummed the melodious strings of Toru-viel's lute, 'read us something, Geralt.'

The witcher leant on his elbow, edging the volume closer to the fire.

' “Glimpsed she may be,”' he began, ' "during the time of sumor, from the days of Mai and Juyn to the days of October, but most oft this haps on the Feste of the Scythe, which ancients would call Lammas. She revealeth herself as the Fairhaired Ladie, in flowers all, and all that liveth followeth her path and clingeth to her, as one, plant or beast. Hence her name is Lyfia.

Ancients call her Danamebi and venerate her greatly. Even the Bearded, albeit in mountains not on fields they dwell, respect and call her Blo-emenmagde."'

'Danamebi,' muttered Dandilion. 'Dana Meadbh, the Lady of the Fields.'

'“Whence Lyfia treads the earth blossometh and bringeth forth, and abundantly doth each creature breed, such is her might. All nations to her offer sacrifice of harvest in vain hope their field not another's will by Lyfia visited be. Because it is also said that there cometh a day at end when Lyfia will come to settle among that tribe which above all others will rise, but these be mere womenfolk tales. Because, forsooth, the wise do say that Lyfia loveth but one land and that which groweth on it and liveth alike, with no difference, be it the smallest of common apple trees or the most wretched of insects, and all nations are no more to her than that thinnest of trees because, forsooth, they too will be gone and new, different tribes will follow. But Lyfia eternal is, was and ever shall be until the end of time.'”

'Until the end of time!' sang the troubadour and strummed his lute. Torque joined in with a high trill on his reed pipes. 'Hail, Lady of the Fields! For the harvest, for the flowers in Dol Blathanna, but also for the hide of the undersigned, which you saved from being riddled with arrows. Do you know what? - I'm going to tell you something.' He stopped playing, hugged the lute like a child and grew sad. 'I don't think I'll mention the elves and the difficulties they've got to struggle with, in the ballad. There'd be no shortage of scum wanting to go into the mountains . . . Why hasten the—' The troubadour grew silent.