This, then, was to be good-bye. Vesemir looked at his young charge, standing cheerfully before him in the overgrown garden and almost hopping from foot to foot.
"Show me your Aard," he said finally, gesturing at the nearby table. A few cups stood in the middle, leftovers from a hurried breakfast.
Thyssen furrowed his brow. He gazed at the table, bearing a look of the utmost concentration. Eventually he flailed his arms with great dramatic effect.
Had you, dear reader, been there to witness this scene, you would be forgiven for wondering if anything at all had occurred. But then one of the cups did begin to teeter, almost as if it were making up its mind whether to fall or not. Finally, it toppled onto its side.
Vesemir sighed. "How about your Igni?"
Again, the same furrowing of the brow, the same look of total concentration. Nothing happened for a few moments but, eventually, fire did shoot out of Thyssen's hands.
It was barely stronger than a burning match.
"What do you think that'll be good for?"
"Tea for one thing," Thyssen answered instantly. "It is quite a pain to make it out on patrol, you know. I cannot count the number of times my not inconsiderable talents allowed me to enjoy a proper brew."
Vesemir's wrinkled face showed no sign of amusement. "Boy," he said quietly, "do you think all this a joke?"
They looked at each other uneasily before Thyssen gave way.
"I do not," he answered seriously. "But we both know this examination is without purpose. My signs are atrocious."
At times like this Vesemir was given to wonder if destiny had a sense of humor. It was the only explanation, at any rate, for how Thyssen ended up a witcher.
In many ways, the boy's story was perfectly ordinary. One day his father had the poor fortune to lose himself in the woods; wandering haphazardly, he found himself in the middle of a bog, beset by rotfiends that appeared out of nowhere. A passing witcher saved his life. The law of surprise was invoked: Thyssen's father had promised to give up the very first thing that would come to greet him once he returned home.
Vesemir remembered seeing the boy as he arrived at Kaer Morhen, spectacled and awkward looking, with a head seemingly too large for his body; he had taken after his father who made ends meet as a record-keeper and a scribe. The older witchers looked the boy over and wondered if it was possible to send him back.
But everyone knows one does not quibble with destiny. To the witchers he was promised; a witcher, then, he would become.
At the time Vesemir did not think the boy would live very long. Fewer than three out of every ten boys survived the Trial of the Grasses, the act of consuming the decoctions that would reshape their bodies and give them the powers the witchers were known for. Inexplicably Thyssen did not perish, though he spent weeks in a coma and was bedridden for months. When he had finally recovered, the abilities he gained were slight compared to the other boys. His physique and stamina were above average thanks to the mutations, but he was no match for a professional soldier in battle. And now, after years of training, he had managed to hone his magical powers to such a degree that he could warm a kettle and knock over a cup.
Only his eyes, which had that unnaturally yellow feline glow, had mutated properly.
"I suppose you are right," Vesemir said with resignation. "We might as well move on."
He hesitated, wanting to to deliver a heavy warning before he sent the boy out into the world. But it was a fine spring day with everything in bloom, especially here, in the garden of the crumbling castle where the trees seemed to jostle for space. Birds were chirping loudly. The world itself seemed to contradict his solemnity.
"As every graduate from the School of the Wolf, you may take a steed from our stables," he began again. "You will also find there a bag with all you need to begin a new life. Provisions for a week of travel, a few coins. A chest of books: Ritual Plants, Physiologus, Ghouls and Alghouls…"
"Ah, Ghouls and Alghouls," Thyssen smiled. "If I may say so, master Vesemir, I've always thought of that work as primarily metaphorical. The ghoul clearly represents the savage nature of man, lurking beneath the veneer of civilization. Now as for the alghoul…"
"Enough!"
Vesemir glared at the boy before sighing once more and continuing in a milder tone. "You are the most incompetent witcher I have ever laid eyes on. Please, I beg you, do not seek out any witcher's work."
"Oh, master Vesemir." Thyssen's voice radiated equal parts of incredulity and emotion. "I assure you, that is the very last thing I would do."
They embraced warmly. Shortly thereafter, Thyssen unharnessed a black mare from the stables and set off on the overgrown path leading out of the castle gates.
He had spent a happy childhood at Kaer Morhan and was not eager to leave. The older witchers had always been kind to him and the younger trainees never taunted him or subjected him to cruel pranks. Likely they viewed him as something akin to a cripple. But his warm feelings for the witchers notwithstanding, he could hardly spend the remainder of his life enjoying their hospitality. Besides over the past few months all his classmates had grown of age, leaving one-by-one to hunt monsters for coin, and the place had begun to feel distressingly empty.
Riding out of the gates, he cast one final look at the half-ruined castle and promised to himself that, once he had made his way in the world, he would return. Most witchers wintered here during the snowy months when monsters hid in their lairs. Would it be too much to hope he would be back that very same winter?
Reader, you may be somewhat surprised to learn that as he rode out of the gates of Kaer Morhen, Thyssen had little notion of where he would go or what he would do. Surely, you will exclaim in disbelief, he had known for years he would be forced to leave once he became of age; how could he have given the matter so little thought?
If you are indeed puzzled, dear reader, I can only conclude that you have been blessed – blessed, that is, with the privilege of having very little to do with today's youth. The thought of being thrust out into the world was distressing to Thyssen and so he had simply kept it out of his mind. The older witchers had sometimes hinted this was a matter to consider at great length but I'm afraid it all went in one ear and out the other.
In this Thyssen was no different than youths anywhere: careless, insolent, disrespectful of their betters. Reader, I could regale you with choice stories of my own nieces and nephews, who dismiss me and my opinions with a sneery contempt until their wasteful ill-planning drives them to my door, entreating for my generosity. Invariably they leave with nary an oren from me!
But I digress.
For my part, I suspect Thyssen was the unwitting victim of a happy childhood. He had spent his formative years with his nose stuck dusty old books, of which there were more at Kaer Morhan than you'd expect. The basement of the castle housed a bestiary collecting much of what was known about the monsters that had been prowling the known world since the Conjunction, material which Thyssen eagerly devoured. The traders which passed through on the way to Aedirn often carried books with them and could be persuaded to part with those they had a hard time selling for a fraction of an oren. Thyssen had many fond memories of curling up with a book by one of the windows in the upper reaches of the castle, all the while the boys below him sparred and practiced their signs.
Unfortunately a happy childhood can ingrain the belief the world is a fundamentally good place where nothing really goes wrong in the end. If confronted with this notion directly, Thyssen would have denied believing anything of the sort; all the same, this belief was such an integral part of his psyche that he was almost completely unaware of its influence on his actions. Perhaps it would have been better if the witchers had mistreated Thyssen, if they subjected him to mockery and abuse. At least then he would have been better prepared for what awaited him when he rode out of the castle gates.
Whatever criticism Thyssen might deserve for his lack of sensible planning, I will say this in his defense: decision-making came naturally to him. No sooner had his mare reached the first crossroads than he had already resolved upon a plan.
He first thoughts were of a career as a knight. But while he had understood from his reading that knights enjoyed a particular popularity with the opposite sex, he also discerned that they ran a high risk of decapitation, dismemberment, and indeed many other gruesome causes of death. Besides, to become a knight one first had to become knighted which already seemed to present a near-insurmountable obstacle.
There were always the trades. He could apprentice himself to a weaver or a blacksmith. He knew how to read and write; he could become a scribe, as he knew his father had been. But all these sounded mind-numbingly dull and he rejected them without a further thought.
A travelling merchant, perhaps? The thought of seeing the cities of the Northern Kingdoms after a childhood spent at Kaer Morhan appealed to him. But when he thought of the men who stopped by to sell trinkets to the witchers every spring - when he remembered their rotund faces, greedy eyes, and a nearly endless propensity to haggle - he knew that his path was elsewhere.
For a few moments the situation seemed grim indeed but he soon settled on a perfectly acceptable plan: he would become a troubadour.
For one thing, there was little risk of death. He pictured a group of maidens, stately and beautiful, sitting at his feet with tears in their eyes as he sung his verses. He pictured them so moved by his words that they would reward him in the most meaningful way they knew…
In short, it was a brilliant idea and he mentally congratulated himself for thinking of it.
The only problem was that he had neither a lute (nor any other musical instrument) nor the skill to play it. Also he had never composed poetry before.
At the time, these seemed like minor obstacles at best. The books Vesemir had given him were of no use; he would sell them and perhaps there would be enough orens then to a buy a lute. He would find someone who could teach him to play it. As for his poetic abilities, he would start honing them at the soonest. That very afternoon, in fact!
Pleased with this course of action, he was startled out of his reverie when his mare suddenly came to a halt. The road forked. With some hesitation, he chose the path that would ultimately lead him to Oxenfurt, reasoning that it was at that renowned city that he would find the troubadours and performers that would eventually become his bosom companions.
And it is no accident, dear reader, that, consciously or not, Thyssen set off towards Redania. For is it not widely acknowledged that, in all respects, Redania is the pre-eminent among nations? That its wines are sweeter, its foods more savory, its poetry more tender of feeling? As the peasants say, even the cows in Redania are prettier than the women in Temeria, and they know whereof they speak.
Thyssen's afternoon on horseback was a productive one. The first task he set for himself was to come up with the right name for his horse. After all, did not every luminary or otherwise important personage have a steed whose name was somehow reflective of a noble nature and distinguished pedigree? Troubadours and knights favored flowery names, whereas witchers used short, matter-of-factly ones. Unfortunately, after an hour or two of closely observing his stallion, Thyssen felt no closer to finding a name which successfully encapsulated the horse's psyche.
Undaunted, he put the task aside and turned to what was arguably his most pressing concern: the composition of his very first epic poem. Before he could begin composing, he would need to decide what this work should be about. This proved surprisingly difficult, in part because he was not unaware of the gravity of the decision; centuries hence, scholars might debate the precise chain of literary influence which led to him to settle on whatever subject he would ultimately choose.
The nature around him was quite lovely, golden fields of wheat brimming in the sun, but it was the thirteenth century and panegyrics to the beauty of the natural world felt quite stale at this point. War was out of the question as well. Thyssen was well-aware that every troubadour in the Northern Kingdoms had recently composed a ballad on the miraculous victory at Brenna, coming at the cost of a great many lives, each and every one of them apparently a heroic one.
As he rode, his eyes were drawn to the peasants hard at work in the adjoining fields. It was the end of spring, the time of the wheat harvest, and the peasants were cutting the long stalks and shaping them into rolls. There was a rhythm and beauty to their movements, almost as if they were an inseparable part of nature itself. He imagined what his life would be like as a peasant: working with his hands all day, sitting around the flickering fire trading stories in the evenings, sneaking out for an occasional roll in hay. There was a charming simplicity to it all. Maybe he should consider becoming a peasant?
After a moment's thought, he rejected the idea as ludicrous. No – though he must remember to work in some observations on the advantage of the peasant lifestyle into his poetry, the purity and naturalness of it – but actually spending his life as a peasant was a preposterous idea, out of the question.
Returning to the subject of his poem, he soon settled on the story of a young witcher, perhaps one not so good at the witchery arts but nevertheless stout of heart; a witcher who, despite the cruel obstacles put in his way by nature, nevertheless hunted the most dangerous monsters and was beloved by a great many beautiful women, sorceresses and princesses among them.
He found the topic endlessly exciting and, without much in the way of difficulty, easily composed a few stanzas by lunchtime. They did not rhyme but presumably that could be fixed later.
Writing poetry turned out to be thirsty work and soon enough it was time to stop for a meal. Wishing to spend the time undisturbed, either working on his verse or finally determining the nomenclature of his steed, he turned off the road into a field of unkempt wheat and trotted some way inside it.
The stalks were tall, reaching higher than either him or his horse, and they seemed to rustle reassuringly in the wind. Oddly enough, though his future seemed to hang in the air, he felt a sense of joy at the freedom before him for the first time, a simple happiness at being alive. Settling down on the ground, he began to pull out the fruits and loaves of bread that were packed into his bag.
He was only half-way through unpacking his food when he was startled by sounds that seemed to be coming from not too far away.
"Get off me, you dirty bastard." It was a woman's voice, faint, but with notes of panic mixed with resignation. There was the sound of tussling and the ripping of clothes. "Help! Someone help!"
The cry was so weak that, had Thyssen stopped only a minute's walk from where he had paused to have his lunch, he would have heard nothing at all. Acting on instinct, he jumped onto his horse and set off in the direction of the noise. The sounds were coming from just over the edge of the field of wheat, behind a copse of trees. He had leaned forward and his horsebroke into a gallop.
There was a woman, he saw at once, bent over a fallen trunk. A man was positioned right behind her, a soldier still in his armor with his breeches pulled down to his ankles.
Thyssen slid off his horse smoothly not ten paces away. The man was in the process of turning around, startled by the sound.
"Draw your sword, fiend," Thyssen said menacingly. He stretched out his hands and made them glow with fire. "We shall see whether your plate can withstand a burst of the witcher's flame."
The man yelped in panic and, pulling on his pants, started to run in the direction of the wheat field. Unfortunately, he had not pulled them up quite fast enough and a few moments later he was sprawled on the ground. With a fearful glance back at Thyssen, he pulled the breeches high enough to cover his naked derriere and resumed fleeing.
"You done scared him off!" said the woman, sounding somewhat upset. She seemed to be of peasant stock, dressed in a collection of rags piled on top of each other.
"Fair maiden," Thyssen said grandly, "that villain sullied your honor through no fault of your own. None shall know of it, I swear upon my life! Your secret I shall take with me to my grave!"
Reader, here I must pause. As I have already related, in his childhood Thyssen had read a great many books. Perhaps I should add that Vesemir had been willing to spend a few orens on these for they gave the boy something to do; otherwise Thyssen would sit at the corner, making wisecracks and distracting the other recruits. There were some serious books among these, but there were also many stories about knights-errant and princesses and villainous mages. In short, somehow or other, Thyssen had come to believe this was how people talked.
"Oy! Didn't even pay all. Half after, he said, the little prick." The woman eyed Thyssen. "You wanna have a go? I'm a good actor, I am. You want me to pretend or scream a little, it be extra."
It was only then that it dawned upon Thyssen that there were, perhaps, a few things he might have misunderstood about the situation.
Later that day, as he was slowly sipping ale at a half-empty tavern, Thyssen reflected that it might be good to be mistaken for a real witcher. The trick with the flaming hands might be worth repeating. After all, it would take him the better part of a week to reach Oxenfurt and the journey would take him through some rough territory. He was still in the outer provinces of Kaedwen, not too far from Kaer Morhan, a long way from the court of King Henselt at Arg Carraigh; the villages that speckled the landscape here tended to be ruled dictatorially by headmen who obtained their positions through bribery or nepotism. It was not unusual to hear of travelers stripped of their belongings or even beaten for sport by village guardsmen.
Reader: as it was then, I regret to say, so it remains to this day; for the Kaedweni are known for their valor, not their expertise at administration and governance; and one is justified in wondering whether their courage would not serve a worthier purpose were it conscripted in the service of a different power.
But I digress.
"Hey two-swords," someone giggled drunkenly behind Thyssen, "what you think you need two swords for?"
"You must have two pricks too," said another voice, deep set and dripping with rancor.
Thyssen dismounted from his stool and turned around. Two soldiers stood in front of him dressed in the Kaedweni motley of yellow and grey, one wagging a finger in his direction.
Clearly drunk and spoiling for a fight.
He opened his eyes wide so that his mutated yellow irises glinted brightly. "I'm a witcher," he said, affecting a friendly manner. "The silver sword is for ghosts impervious to steel." He took it off his back and pulled it slightly out of its sheath, letting the metal sparkle in the dim light of the tavern.
As expected, that scared them off. One spat sideways and the other muttered "freak" but both moved to the far side of the tavern. Once again, the witchers' reputation saved him. Thyssen sat back, satisfied with the way things had gone.
"A witcher, I hear that right?" The innkeep, a short, thick-set man with a bushy head of hair, appeared before him.
Thyssen gave him the briefest of nods and averted his eyes. He had no desire for conversation now, especially given that he would need to keep up the pretense of being a real witcher. Perhaps the man would grasp the hint and move on.
"Maybe I have a job for someone like you."
This was a problem. No witcher would turn away an offer of honest work.
"My services are not cheap," he said as haughtily as he could.
"Good," the innkeep said and motioned him to a nearby table.
He could not think of a way to decline, and so, picking us his ale, Thyssen sat next to the innkeep. There was another man in their table, a tall fellow with a narrow face and an expansive mustache dressed in Kaedwani armor.
"My name is Krzysztof. I own this tavern." The innkeep looked proudly at the decrepit walls, the rusty chandelier, the drunks at the corner yelping as they played dice. When Thyssen arrived here to rent a bed for the night, he was a little afraid the inn might collapse at any moment, so shaky did it look from the outside. But he had little choice, for a sudden deluge of rain began to pour hard and the roads had grown impassable.
"This is my brother Gregor," the inkeep continued. "He is a lieutenant with the village guard." The mustached man nodded in greeting.
"My name is Thyssen. Witcher, newly minted, School of the Wolf." He thought that sounded fairly impressive. "What job have you for me?"
"It's our grandmother," Krzysztof said, sharing a nervous glance with his brother. "We don't know what to do about her."
Thyssen looked at him incomprendingly.
"What my brother means to say is that she is dead. Three years in the grave."
"She is a ghost then?"
Gregor nodded. "White as a sheet."
"When did she appear for the first time?"
"A month ago," Krzysztof said. "One day, I went to the cellar to fetch some wine. It was then that I saw her. Hovering in the air, screaming at me." He shuddered lightly.
"I was at Brenna, you know," Gregor said coldly. "I've seen many things. Fields full of dead. I'd never flinch before an adversary." He took a swig from the glass in front of him. "But this…this is different. That….thing…should not be here."
"Ploughing ghosts," he concluded, taking another gulp of his ale.
Thyssen turned back to the innkeep. "And what was she screaming when you saw her?"
"The word `no.' It was very long and drawn out. Didn't even sound like any human speech I ever heard."
"I take it she been haunting you ever since?"
Krzysztof furrowed his brow. "In a way. I put a nice big lock on the cellar door. Still I hear her sometimes when I walk past."
"Damn shame," his brother added. "Some good wine down there."
"How did she die?"
"Old age," Gregor said quickly.
"Died in her sleep, she did," Krzysztof said almost simultaneously.
Reader, it is true that Thyssen was arguably the most incompetent of witchers; and yet he had spent his whole childhood among them. He had drunk ale with them late into the nights, sat at the table and listened to their stories. Perhaps he could not send an enemy flying with the wave of a hand or cause a ball of fire to erupt out of his arms; but he knew all the lore there was.
"You lie," he said simply.
Gregor stared at him maliciously.
"I cannot help you," Thyssen said as he rose from the table. Their story had given him a perfectly acceptable reason to turn down the job. "The dead do not haunt the living out of a sense of whimsy, you know. Spirits are born of suffering. If you refuse to tell me the whole story, I can do nothing for you."
He he already risen when Krzysztof caught his arm.
"Wait," Krzysztof said, pulling him back towards his seat and sharing a meaningful glance with his brother. A moment passed in silence before Gregor nodded. "Sit, master witcher," Krzysztof continued. "And please keep your voice low. Loose tongues abound. You must swear not to repeat anything said here."
"Witcher-client confidentiality," Thyssen said as he rejoined the table, sounding offended that the possibility had even been raised.
"The hag died of old age," Gregor declared. "But," he added in a half-whisper, "she may have been helped along a little."
"Ninety years old she was," Krzysztof added," and showing her time too. Kept forgetting who I was. Had to remind her all the time. At the end, she was constantly going on coughing fits. I knew she didn't have much time left."
After a moment's silence, his brother picked up the story. "Krzysztof ran the tavern for years but according to the ploughing paperwork, the old hag owned it." Gregor spat beside the table. "What a ploughing mess. Did you know that in Ofier, women don't own property? Just as it should be."
Thyssen made no response and Gregor continued. "One day, the old hag declared she would leave the tavern to her niece."
"Sixteen years," Krzysztof interjected loudly. His brother shot him an angry gaze and Krzysztof looked around fearfully. Fortunately, there was no one within earshot; besides some soldiers at the far end and dice players in the corners, the tavern was empty. "For sixteen years," Krzysztof continued more quietly, "I put my blood and sweat into this place."
"One day, she called for a scribe," Gregor continued, "and dictated a letter to her niece. Our cousin. Then she sent a boy to fetch the notary from a nearby village."
"The whore," Krzysztof added in disgust.
"He means the niece," Gregor explained. "Years ago she ran off with one of the servants here. A ploughing elf. We all disowned her."
A silence fell over the brothers and Thyssen felt he had to move the story along. "What happened then?"
Krzysztof began to answer but a sluggishness had entered his speech and he had to start over. "Be-before the notary came – we figured – so what? so what if she lives one more month, or not?"
There was an uncomfortable silence.
"So how did you do it?" Thyssen asked.
Krzysztof seemed to shrink from the question but Gregor looked him calmly in the eyes as he answered. "This isn't ploughing Oxenfurt. We're not scholars. We had an hour at the most before the notary came. We did the easiest way we could. Forced the hag to drink a glass of lantern oil."
"Krzysztof held her nose and I forced it down her throat. All there was to it. Croaked within minutes."
Thyssen nodded. He had heard of such stories often among the witchers, spectres given life by suffering and betrayal, human wickedness made into ghostly flesh. Some of the books he had read even cited their existence as proof that the maker of the world, whoever he may be, was not without a sense of justice, for did he not he ensure that man's sins would be visited upon him?
Only a detail or two remained unclear.
"That scream of 'no.' There must be some context here."
Even Gregor looked a little sheepish before answering. "She kept on trying to say `no' when we poured the oil down her throat."
"Last question. What happened a month ago?"
Both brothers looked at him incomprehendingly.
"Something must have triggered the ghost. What happened a month ago?"
"Nothing happened," Krzysztof said searchingly. "The niece to whom she would have left the tavern – our cousin – showed up a week before I first saw the ghost. Just got our grandmother's letter, she did. Came all together with her half-elven brood. We sent her on her way, of course. Didn't even let her stay here for the night. Could that be it?"
"Maybe," Thyssen said. It was still a puzzle. According to lore, something should have happened right before the ghost appeared.
In any case, it was a minor issue of no importance. He had asked all the right questions; the two men sitting before him clearly believed him to be a real witcher. Now came the real problem, the task of turning down the job. He had been mulling it over in his head as the conversation went on and thought he had hit on a simple and efficient solution.
"It will cost you three hundred orens," he said.
The number sounded astronomical to him. The pouch Vesemir gave him contained a measly five orens. His dinner and room for the night at this tavern cost a quarter-oren. He was certain they would refuse.
"And what will you do for that money?" Krzysztof asked cautiously.
"Get rid of the ghost, of course." The fewer specifics he offered, the better.
"Yes but how?"
Thyssen sighed. "The first step would be to descend to the cellar myself. It may be that a swipe of my sword is all that is necessary. But usually some sort of ritual is required. I shall know when I see the ghost for myself."
"Agreed," Gregor said quickly. "Three hundred orens it is."
"Brother…" Krzysztof looked astonished and began to say something, only to be cut off.
"I will find the funds," Gregor said.
Thyssen had to stop himself from gasping with shock. What had he gotten himself into?
"I want half up-front," he said, hoping it would prove too much.
"You will have it," Gregor said sharply. He turned to one of the soldiers at the far end of the tavern and snapped his fingers.
An hour later they were standing beside of the cellar door, Thyssen one-hundred and fifty orens wealthier, staring grimly at Krzysztof who was undoing the bolts hanging upon it.
He considered running away over the past hour. The tavern door was right there, and he could bolt through it and run into the fields of wheat surrounding the village. But what of afterwards?
He would be homeless, without any of his possessions. No doubt, the brothers would be astonished at first, but soon enough they would understand he was no battle-tested witcher. They would not be happy at having told him their dark secret. Gregor clearly had some soldiers from the village guard under his command and would likely marshall them to conduct a search. It was still pouring outside and he would not get very far on foot.
He would take his chances with the ghost, he decided.
Krzysztof finally removed the last bolt and the door opened with a creak. A dark flight of moldy stairs presented itself. Feeling his heart skip a beat Thyssen began to descend.
He was halfway down the stairs when he heard the screaming, the long prolonged sound of "no." He pulled out his sword and held it steadily before him, pausing a few times to steady his hands. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he saw the ghost itself, white and fluttering in the air, and the moment his feet left the last step it began moving ominously in his direction.