The Witcher: Part XLII

The Mountain of Death

Previously, on The Witcher:

Geralt defeated most of ISIS using a clever trick with vines at the New Moria plant store. Unfortunately, Admiral Ackbar, leader of ISIS, somehow escaped captivity. And then he shot Geralt with an ageing ray gun at point-blank range.

How will our hero make it out of this predicament?

The ray was moving straight towards Geralt's head. Geralt ducked as fast as he could, and the ageing ray grazed the very top of his head.

His hair suddenly felt incredibly weird.

Geralt then grabbed Admiral Ackbar's wrist, disarmed him, and punched Admiral Ackbar in the face. Admiral Ackbar fell down, knocked out.

"Oh, Geralt!" said Lady Feudalism, suddenly shocked for some reason.

"What is it?" asked Geralt.

"Uh... well," said Ciri.

"You should look at a mirror," said Christian White. Geralt went into the bathroom in the plant store, and looked into the mirror at himself.

His hair had changed quite significantly.

The ageing ray had made his hair become much longer, and it was white.

"What?" said Geralt. "What? "I liked my hair as it was! What the hell is this?"

Lady Feudalism walked into the bathroom.

"I can't have this hair!" said Geralt. "It's whiter than Ciri's hair! It makes me look like... like I'm an old woman!"

"I think it looks great," said Lady Feudalism.

"It looks utterly ridiculous," said Geralt. "Like... when I'm standing in snowy areas, I look bald!"

"You'll be like... a white wolf," said Lady Feudalism. "You can finally live up to your wrestling title!"

Geralt ran his hands through his long white hair.

"I don't know if I can continue with this hair," said Geralt.

"It's fine," said Lady Feudalism. She walked up to Geralt and put her hands on his shoulders.

"I think you look better," said Lady Feudalism. She kissed him on the cheek. "Come back outside, there's a minor issue we have to deal with."

"Fine," said Geralt. Geralt, with his majestic mane of white hair, exited the bathroom.

Gagged and bound on the ground, was Admiral Ackbar.

"What do we do with him?" asked Ciri.

"Can't we just leave him like we do with everyone else we defeat?" asked Geralt.

"We can't. If we leave him, he'll die," said Christian White. "When you smacked him in the face, you broke a crucial component of his respirator and we have to keep refilling his tank with water to stop him from dying."

"So just leaving him would be akin to killing him..." said Geralt, running his hands through his hair.

"We can't take him with us," pointed out Lady Feudalism. "He'll just be a nuisance and we won't make it to the Palace of Death first if we're lugging him with us."

"So what's your suggestion?" asked Geralt.

"I say..." began Lady Feudalism. "I say we should put him out of his misery. I say we should end him."

Geralt was taken aback by Lady Feudalism's darkening morality.

"Think about it. You either kill him yourself now, or we let him suffer and die, or we lug him with us and then everyone dies."

"I thought I liked you," said Geralt. "But if you're going to insist that I betray my most fundamental belief..."

"Geralt, you're living in a fantasy world," said Lady Feudalism. "Not everyone lives! There will always be casualties of war, and hopefully not all of them will be your friends."

Lady Feudalism pulled out Iorverth's sword and pointed it at Admiral Ackbar.

"There's got to be some alternative solution," said Geralt. "We can't just kill him."

"Christian White... you're a man of god. You know about morality. What do you suggest I do?"

Christian White shrugged.

"Ciri... have you got any ideas?" asked Geralt. Ciri also shrugged.

Geralt ran his hands through his hair again. "Very well. It seems that... the least cruel option... is... to kill him."

Geralt pulled his sword out, and ran his hand across its golden blade.

"You're doing the right thing, Geralt," said Lady Feudalism. Geralt raised his sword above the helpless form of Admiral Ackbar.

"I'm betraying everything I am," said Geralt.

He raised the sword up, and prepared to plunge it into Admiral Ackbar.

And then he looked into Admiral Ackbar's eyes, and in those eyes, he saw the eleven year old witch boy that he had refused to kill, shortly after Geralt became the Witcher.

"No," said Geralt. And then he dropped his sword, and it clattered to the ground.

"I'm sorry," said Lady Feudalism.

And then she plunged Iorverth's sword into Admiral Ackbar's face.

And Admiral Ackbar was no more.

Geralt staggered back, shocked at Lady Feudalism.

"I don't know what to say," said Geralt.

Hitler's orchestra were playing his theme, when Heinrich Himmler entered Hitler's room.

"ISIS have failed," said Hitler. "Alduin and the Nords are useless. It is now your task to eliminate the Witcher."

"But how?" asked Himmler. "Every time we try to take him down he somehow recovers."

"I have a gift for you," said gave Himmler a small pill.

"I have been working on this for a while," said Hitler."This pill will allow you to assimilate genetic data from your surroundings."

Himmler ate the pill. Hitler pulled out an iguana.

"Now, touch this iguana," said Hitler. Himmler walked forward, and placed his hand on the iguana.

"Now, perform asexual reproduction," said Hitler to Himmler.

As Himmler cloned himself, the iguana slowly disappeared and was consumed. The new Himmler clone had scaly skin.

"Goood..." breathed Hitler.

The silence between the members of Team Witcher was uncomfortable. They flew through the cold Sky Rim air, and the Mountain of Death in the distance got larger.

And larger.

And then, finally, Team Witcher reached the base of the Mountain of Death. It seemed to fill the entire sky.

Geralt silently adjusted the magick carpet to fly up the near-vertical incline of the Mountain of Death. The sky was getting dark, and Team Witcher was getting tired.

"We should stop for the night," said Christian White. They landed in a mountain cave, and Lady Feudalism went and sat in a corner by herself.

"Are you okay, Geralt?" asked Ciri.

"I don't know," said Geralt monotonously. "I don't know if I'm supposed to trust Lady Feudalism or not, I don't know why she did what she did, I don't know what the purpose of my life is anymore! I need to go for a walk to clear my head."

And Geralt wandered out of the cave by himself.

Ciri walked up to Lady Feudalism.

"Did I do the right thing?" said Lady Feudalism. And then she started crying and Ciri hugged her.

Suddenly, Christian White tapped Ciri's shoulder.

"Uh... sorry to break up this moment, but there's kind of something at the entrance to the cave..."

Lady Feudalism and Ciri looked to the entrance to the cave. A six-legged abomination of a creature stood before them. It looked just like a spider, except it had a human face.

"Heinrich Himmler!" said Lady Feudalism.

And then the spider-Himmler jumped forward and started to spin a web around Lady Feudalism and Ciri and Christian White.

Geralt walked across the snowy ridge, on the side of a crevasse, deep in thought.

"To kill a person is to end them," said Geralt. "To end everything they were, everything they are, and everything and everyone they could be. Admiral Ackbar could have been a great person, he could have saved the world."

"But Lady Feudalism ended him."

Geralt sat down on a rock and buried his face in his hands.

"I don't want to be a killer," said Geralt. "Lest I become a cold-hearted murderer, soaked in the blood of his victims, standing atop a mountain of death."

Geralt looked up, and then he saw something distinctly unusual. There was what looked like a palm tree standing in the middle of the snow.

"That's weird," said Geralt. "I wonder what that's doing there."

And then the palm tree turned around, and started walking towards Geralt. It was Heinrich Himmler, in palm tree form.

"What the heck?" said Geralt.

Palm tree-Heinrich Himmler smacked Geralt across the torso with one of his branches, and Geralt fell across the edge of the ridge, into the crevasse.

And Geralt fell into the depths below.

TO BE CONTINUED

IN

THE WITCHER: PART XLIII

THE INFINITY HIMMLERS