A Scholar's travels with a Witcher

by Spike368

Sent out to gather the knowledge of the real world. A young scholar from the University of Oxenfurt finds a wounded Witcher on the steps to the inn where he was staying. So he starts gathering the material for his journals. Rated T for language I will be publishing this story on Royal Road /profile/349358

100. Chapter 100

(A/N: No, the term "Warp Spasm" is not a reference to any of the worlds of Games Workshop. It's actually from a completely different place.

A/N the second: 100 chapters. whoop whoop)

I think it was on the first night of our journey that we met Sigurd, the Wave-Serpent's berserker.

Not the night that we spent in Helfdan's village. This was that camp-site where we had stopped for the night on a tiny little island which was little more than rocks, cliffs and caves. In a straight line across the island, you could probably walk the distance in a matter of minutes. But of course, the mountainous and craggy terrain would make that all but impossible.

There were sheer rock faces on either side of us with the remaining side being the sea. The wind whistled past the entrance to the beaching point but we were also well sheltered by the bulk of the Wave-Serpent itself. In the same way that there are camps and supply dumps all around the world, where wilderness living people leave caves where fellow travellers regularly shelter. So they leave stacks of dried wood, dry hay or blankets and occasionally, some left over dried food. This seemed to be a similar kind of place. A place where travelling or patrolling ships crews could spend the night and know that they are protected from prying eyes and passing ships. Where they were sheltered from the weather and could spend a quiet evening enjoying each other's company and telling tall tales around the fire.

There had indeed been dry wood kept under an oilskin in one of the nearby caves as well as some oil and kindling and before long we had a merry fire going. We only needed a single lookout who was on the end of the Wave-Serpent and I think it was Kar at that point in the evening. He was fine, he claimed to have heard all the stories before and it would mean that he could get a full nights rest later.

According to Svein no enemy ship would be able to beach and attack us here and no-one is going to be able to land elsewhere on the little island without us hearing them, so it was all but impossible that people would be attacking us over the rocks. That any ship or boat would smash itself to pieces trying to land on the shore.

So instead we sat in a circle around the fire, over which a large pot of stew was being cooked. Better quality than the usual kind of trail stew but it was still stew and I wasn't really looking forward to it.

That was alright though because it meant that I could just listen to the men and their stories. There were many of these and they seemed to compete in making their stories more blood-curdling and terrifying than their fellows.

Helfdan accepted all of this with good grace and sat quietly, still reading his book and writing in his journal. His reactions to the stories were somewhat subdued from what we would consider to be normal. When the men cheered at the destruction of an enemy he would nod. Often at the man that received the credit for that victory. When people were telling stories about his virtues as a lord he looked slightly shy and embarrassed. When people laughed he would smirk slightly. He was part of the group but he wasn't part of the group if you see what I mean.

But it was that night that I met Sigurd. I have described him elsewhere so I won't go into too much detail other than to say that he is a giant bear of a man. The term "gentle giant" was invented to describe him and I liked him a great deal. I suspect that he had a little bit of a crush on Ciri while also being self-aware and clever enough to realise that nothing was ever going to happen. Ever. So he manifested this into ensuring that she was fed and happy with the amount of food. He brought her water and drink and kind of appointed himself as her champion. He would frown at people that made Anti-Nilfgaardian jokes, despite the obvious fact that Ciri found those jokes hilarious, and would leap to her defence if anyone said anything remotely critical of her. Or at least he did until Ciri told him that she could fight her own damn battles thank you so very much.

She was more long winded and courteous than that but you get my point.

After that he still took care about his behaviour around Ciri, found her food and blankets and things. Ciri told me that she thought he was "Sweet" and that she liked that he had taken her comment about being able to fight her own battles well. Apparently it's a case in the various courts around the land, that men try and exert their authority over Ciri by being "overly gallant" (her words) and trying to protect her.

It's the same kind of thing as twisting your hand when you're shaking someone's hand so that your hand is on top. Or squeezing too hard. It's the, normally very male, method of marking your territory and exerting your authority. I'm told that Ciri handles it fairly well. She has no problem with letting people think what they like but that when she gives an order, she expects it to be upheld and disobedience is met with harsh punishments. Her father used to have anyone that treated his daughter like this put to death by being torn apart by horses and Ciri's responses are less deadly but more... vindictive is the word that I want to use.

But in this case, Sigurd took the hint, apologised and backed off. But it was still a little clear that he occasionally caught himself looking over at the Empress. Then he would realise what he was doing and look away.

As I say, Ciri said that he was "sweet" and she mostly worked hard not to break his heart or prey on his emotions.

"He's a romantic, isn't he." Svein said about Sigurd. "Falls in love with anything in a skirt or with a pretty face. And let's be fair here, The Swallow is a nice looking lady. Not as beautiful as my wife though," he grinned smugly. "But it's understandable really. If we do end up fighting and The Swallow defends Helfdan and the ship, then the entire crew will be devoted to her."

"So Sigurd isn't married then?" I asked in an effort to divert the subject.

"No." Svein shook his head for emphasis.

"Why not? He's not a bad looking guy and he seems nice enough."

"And he is. But he's a berserker isn't he." He said that as thought that explained everything. "Not many women will marry a berserker."

"Why not?"

"Berserkers die young don't they. So marrying a berserker is hard on the heart. It's not all one-sided though. Sigurd likes to be the martyr. He likes the drama of turning the girl down because of his perceived failings and sending her away in case she gets hurt. Not that he knows that of course but I think he likes the drama of it. There are just some people that like being a miserable bugger."

This made me a little sad for Sigurd. As I say, he seemed like a perfectly nice person and I wondered if the love of a good woman might help him.

But then it came to his turn to tell everyone how he came to be following Helfdan The Bastard and swearing his oaths to the Black Boar.

He stood up and walked forward into the light so that we could all see him. He was playing with his fingers and looked endearingly like a child that has just been told to sing for an audience of family members.

"I was part of a rival crew." He told us before holding his hands up to forestall the good natured booing that this statement was greeted with. "Yes Yes, I got better." There were some cheers to this. "But I was part of a rival crew who, knowing Helfdan's luck on the raids, we had followed him in and meant to steal his plunder."

"You're jumping ahead in the story." Someone yelled at him. Now that I know them all a bit better, I wonder if it was Ivar that called out the instructions but at the time I had no idea who it was that had called out.

"I know, I know, sorry." What parts of Sigurd's face that we could see beneath the beard turned bright pink as he looked over at Ciri. I didn't ask her about it but I guessed that she had seen the look coming and was taking a deep drink from a water skin so that Sigurd wouldn't have to see her judgement on his performance.

Not that she was judging, but he might have seen something unpleasant. We all tend to become delusional when we see someone that we are attracted to.

He took a deep breath, before accepting a long drink from a passing mead horn, and then he started again.

I was born on Spikeroog. My father was a hunter and my mother would work the skins and pelts that he brought home in order for us to sell them at market. I have a few siblings but Spikeroog is a remote place at the best of times and they left home in order to pursue their fortunes elsewhere aboard raiding ships and in other venues.

I don't have any contact with my family as they are loyalists to clan Brokvar and they see my fighting for Helfdan and through him to Clan An Craite as a treachery. But Jarl Udalryk can kiss my raging purple cock as far as I'm concerned.

Yes yes, I am aware that he was sinking into madness at the time and that he might be more agreeable now but regardless of that, that's still to come in the story. And after his betrayal of me, I feel it is on him to apologise to me rather than me going to him to try and explain matters. Also, my family turned their backs on me so even if Udalryk forgave me and told me that his judgement was harsh in the throes of madness, then my family could still go fuck themselves.

The Wave-Serpent is my home, and her crew is my family now.

The Statement was met by a cheer and rightly so. For those that haven't been kept up to date on the doings of Skelligan politics. Jarl Udalryk, the head of clan Brokvar was cursed by the presence of a monster called a Hym. It's one of those monsters that you don't normally see as it technically falls under the classification of "demon". For all intents and purposes though it is a nasty piece of work that drives a man to despair, paranoia and anxiety. This curse was lifted by the actions of the then candidate for the throne, Cerys and Witcher Geralt. If you want to know more then I refer you to Dandelion's account of the matter. But to all intents and purposes, Cerys' actions that day saved Jarl Udalryk from madness and death and very possibly saved Clan Brokvar from destruction. After Clan An Craite it is possibly Clan Brokvar that are the Queens fiercest supporters as a result of these actions.

But I was in the process of learning my father's trade when the first Warp Spasm came upon me.

(One of the interesting things about travelling is learning about other cultures. So you learn that they all have different words and terms for things that you thought you knew about. The term "Warp Spasm" is the Skelligan term for what is happening when a berserker goes into a rage. The theory goes that when a berserker is in touch with their fury then that extreme emotion punches through onto another plane of energy which allows the berserker to do the crazy things that they do. I think it's a little far fetched myself but hey... I suppose it's possible that they know something that I don't. In fact, it's possible that they know quite a few things that I don't but that's a conversation for another time.)

I remember very little of the occasion. I know that I was struggling with stalking one of the deer that we were trying to get close to. I remember that I just couldn't stay quiet enough to get close enough to shoot it properly and every time I edged forward, or stood still and held my breath. It would look up and notice me before running away. I had done everything according to my father's instructions and all things being equal I should have been able to get the thing. He wasn't helping by the fact that he was laughing at my efforts.

I remember struggling to breathe despite the fact that I was breathing in and out really quickly and then...

Then I woke up.

Well I say I woke up. It was, and is when the spasm takes me by surprise, the strangest thing in the world. If I do it deliberately then I can control re-entry into my body and I can wake up having just been dazed for a little while.

It took a long time for me to come back to my body. It started slowly with returning sensation first and the realisation of a pounding headache. It felt as though I was returning to my body from a long way away. As though I was travelling through a tunnel, inexorably like I was being pushed and the end result is only pain.

Cold light stabbed through my eyes and into my skull. I felt sluggish as though my arms were tied down with heavy weights and when I opened my eyes, it was the most heroic action that I had taken in my young life up until that point.

Father had taken me to the local priest of Freya. A woman who did little more than help with any local births and medical problems. She was consecrated of course but at the same time, she was well aware of what had happened and calmly informed my father that I had just had my first warp spasm. She was very calm about the entire thing as I recall. Really calm and collected as she gave us the news.

But this was the first time for me and it took everyone by surprise. Including my father and the rest of my family. It turns out that there is a line of berserkers in my family but it was my maternal Grandfather's brother who had been the last true berserker that we knew about. So it really did take everyone by surprise.

My parents were upset though. That curious balance of being partially upset but also being secretly pleased. Like all the clans, there are laws protecting the berserker and their families. I would go off to be trained in my new craft and my parents would be looked after by the clan on the grounds that the work that would normally be done by me was now having to be done by someone else.

The life of a berserker is still one of service after all despite the fact that things have improved since my Grandfather's time. Now we are treated more like the men that we are, rather than the animals that we occasionally become in the throes of Warp Spasm. Among berserkers, on those rare occasions where we get together to share notes, there are always old stories about berserkers being kept in a cage. Being beaten with sticks and only allowed out when it was time for the killing. About times when hunting dogs were treated with more honour than berserkers were.

Fortunately that time was past. I was a big lad then in the same way that I am a big man now and I was sent to the home of the Vildkaarls to become a member of the cult of Svalbold.

(The term "Vildkaarl" used to be the term for anyone who doesn't belong to a clan in Skellige. It literally means "Wild man". But over time, as the clan culture has become more pervasive, travel to the mainland is easier and outside threats to the islands have become more obvious, the Skelligans can no longer afford the luxury of having wild warriors who are capable of living off the land unemployed. At first they were often drafted into battles with the enticement of pay or places in the clans. But eventually it just became more and more common that anyone who was formally cast out of one of the clans in disgrace, would either be adopted by another, (Svein is a good example of this) or would travel to the mainland. Helfdan's situation about having been a ship's captain for one clan before joining the An Craite clan is the more common model.

Lords are capricious it seems and if a man doesn't like serving one clan then he can ask to be released from his oaths of service in order to pursue things elsewhere. Or if a Lord is getting rid of a rival in his own lands then he can release his competitor pre-emptively.

But I'm getting off topic.

So the term "Vildkaarl" took on a new meaning. Instead of meaning a man who is without clan and therefore wild, it became about a man who goes wild. Berserkers in other words. It is an old word and seems to only be used in formal or ceremonial situations. Sigurd called himself a berserker and most other berserkers that I met called themselves the same.)

There are a lot of stories about the depraved rites of the cult of Svalbold and I'm here to tell you that nearly all of it is false. Yes there is violence but if you put a group of people who warp spasm occasionally and need to learn how to control their temper into a confined space then you are going to get violent outbursts.

There is also drinking and the taking of narcotics. The process of forcing yourself to rage is a dangerous one and it often needs to be helped along with strong drink and the ingestion of certain mushrooms.

It is also not an "all or nothing" kind of a cult. There are stages to membership of the cult and if you want to resist the changes that they can help you achieve, then that is alright too.

I won't go into too many details on the grounds that a lot of those rites are meant to be secret. Correctly so in my opinion as they could be considered quite dangerous.

Kerrass smirked at that.

But suffice it to say that I went to their compound. I learnt how to control my rage and how to bring it on in times of combat or in times of war. I did not go all the way so I do not turn into a bear like the fully annointed warriors of Svalbold do. But I was an enthusiastic student and I left to my life of service, looking forward to being a hero of the clan.

Needless to say, it didn't go entirely according to plan.

He took a deep breath and stared at the floor for a long moment before looking back up at us all. I found pity then in a way that I had not expected. He was haunted by this and still found it upsetting. He spun in a circle and pointed at us all.

Every man amongst you. Every single one. Knows that there may come a time when you might have to die in order for your fellows to live. We all know that. We all know that and everyone would be proud to lay down our lives for our fellows. I would die for each and every one of you and I would do so with a smile on my face and a song in my heart. I know this. Just as I also know that you would die for me if the same situation was reversed.

That respect, that love that we have for each other. That honour that we pay towards each other. That love that we share is a privilege. It is not a right among warriors. I can see that many of you are shaking your heads in disbelief that there might be some other warriors that might disagree. Another boat crew that does not care for each other to the way that we do. But it is true.

I know this. I know this because it happened to me.

I should have seen it coming as well. I should have seen it when I was given the smallest share of the booty when we were dividing up the spoils of our war. When the excuse of "Well you're the youngest" began to be provably false. I should have seen it in the sidelong glances and at all the times that I was turned away from camp and cook fires. The way that men refused to look me in the eye or pour me a drink.

But I was a man of honour and I served clan Brokvar with all my heart. I took the problem to my parents and they were no help. My father was proud that he had a seat at a higher table, having given his son over to the clan as a berserker. My mother felt it a little keener as some people had thought it a negative that she had raised a berserker and she had taken to drink. Both of them told me that it was just a phase and that the men would get over it and accept me eventually.

But I should have seen the truth. They didn't make friends with me because I was expected to die. My deeds weren't allowed to make me wealthy because the money was wasted. As was decent armour and weapons. I can see all of this now but at the time it was just a source of pain. I was told, over and over again, that I was a berserker. I didn't need armour or decent weapons to destroy the enemy.

And destroy the enemy I did. But even when I was drenched in the blood of my enemies. Even when I had taken wounds that needed healing I was treated last.

I was a berserker. And to these men it made me disposable.

There was a long pause as Sigurd stared at his feet for a while. There was a feeling of rawness to what was happening. These were wounds that still hurt.

I should have seen it coming really. I should have known what was going to happen but I was so tied into the honour and service of the thing, that I just didn't see it. I was a raider and a reaver of clan Brokvar and I was proud of that.

I was sailing with a captain that I will not name. I prefer not to, it is a greater insult to him that I do not remember his name and that it not be recorded. We had heard of Helfdan the bastard. The black boar of Clan An Craite. We had seen the Wave-Serpent in dock and laughed at the age of the vessel. We had scoffed at how she would barely be able to hold herself up. How she would be unable to withstand our might. She looked shabby and beaten up. We reasoned that the men who sailed in such a vessel would be weak and spineless, that Helfdan's successes could be put down to luck rather than skill. That they were sailing for a rival clan was a factor to be sure but we wanted to prove ourselves the better crew. Helfdan's legend was growing and ours was being pushed into the shade.

So we decided to destroy it.

We listened carefully to when Helfdan was given his raiding territories. Our Captain didn't tell us everything but he had access to certain information that we did not which meant that we could follow the Wave-Serpent fairly easily. I don't know how he did it but he did and we were able to see where they landed. Our intention was that we were going to wait until the crew had gone ashore before we could land ourselves and set up an ambush for Helfdan and his men for when they returned.

Everything went according to plan. We were able to bring our ship close to the Wave-Serpent and we disembarked. Wore our armour and took our positions.

Only to discover that it had all been a ruse. Because Helfdan had seen us coming. Whether it was in the halls of Kaer Trolde where the raiding territories were assigned. Or whether it was on the sea, or whether there was some link in the Captain's information that had let us down in some way. I don't know and I find that I would rather not know. It is somehow better this way if I don't know.

But he did.

We outnumbered him. Clan Tuirseach still held the throne and although Clan An Craite was still powerful, Helfdan was not yet as rich or powerful within the captains of the An Craite as he is now. So there were more of us. We were better armed. Better equipped and we should have had every advantage.

We never stood a chance.

We were so over-confident. That's the thing that I remember the most. We still outnumbered Helfdan and his men by 2 to 1 and they were on their way back from the raid so they would already be bloodied and bruised.

We had our line. We were two deep and we were still longer than the longest line that Helfdan could form. It was a one-sided affair.

They just rolled us up. In the same way that you might roll up a rug or a carpet. I know the tactic now of course. We had put our physical strength in the middle of the line and then the strength of our troops and their armour lessoned on either side in the hope that we could split the enemy shield wall in the middle. Svein ordered his hardest hitters on the flank and then spread out down the line. So when his strongest troops hit our weakest we just folded up like so much linen. Then Helfdan's strongest troops joined forces with his next strongest and just worked their way down the line.

It was not a good fight for a berserker. I was un-armoured and wielding a glorified club with a lump of metal on the end. Calling it a hammer would be charitable. I called it my axe and took great pride in it but now I know the difference between a good axe and a poor one. This was a poor one and I was wearing a padded jacket that was too small for me.

So I was on the end of the line. I wasn't happy there. I thought that I would be able to win more glory in the middle or in that end of the line where the fighting was fiercest where I could take on some of the more named members of Helfdan's crew. Men like Haakon Dead-Eyes and Svein the Hardhand. But instead I was at the end of the line where our opposition were openly grinning and laughing at us as they just held their shields in the way of our blows and refused to fight us.

The truth is that we were beaten before the first sword was drawn and the first axe was hefted. Before shields were strapped into place and the battle cries were called. I don't know why and no-one ever told me. I would like to think that the crew of the Wave-Serpent were just better than we were. Or that our commander and captain was so over-confident. That our Lord's illness meant that he couldn't control his ship captains as well as he might have liked to. As well as he should have done.

But we were beaten and we were falling back and even worse than that, we were being pushed back from where our ship was so that we would not be able to escape.

I was already frustrated and angry. Already wanting to unleash my fury but it was stymied by the steadfast refusal of my enemies to fight me. I was stuck in a very static situation. It wasn't a fight, more like a glorified jugger ball match only with more pushing and shoving.

(I have no idea what "Jugger Ball" is. From the sounds of it it's some kind of team sport that the Skelligans play. I would imagine, knowing the Skelligans, that it is extremely violent and that broken bones are not uncommon.)

I was even kept back from the front ranks. I know now that they were concerned that I might rage and disrupt the formation. Not an incorrect worry but I was getting frustrated and angry. Not an entirely ideal place to be but it was better than some of the alternatives. But even I could feel that the fight was getting away from us and that we were heading for a defeat.

Then a moment came. A moment that I had not expected but I was glad for it to arrive. I heard my name being called by my captain.

Our friend and companion Lord Frederick the Scribbler...

"I thought I left behind that nickname" I commented to Kerrass.

"Not if I have anything to do with it." He whispered back so that Ciri had to cover her mouth to keep from giggling.

… has spoken about a warrior's pride. About how we long for opportunities to prove our enemies foolish and incorrect. But also, I was longing for an opportunity to prove myself to my Lord. To prove that I had earned my place on the rowing benches of our ship and that I was deserving of honour.

The Fighting around my Captain and Master was fierce. Now the Wave-Serpent was facing our best men but we were on the defensive and we were being overwhelmed. The Captain was there, kept back from the front line of the wal,l but he was there and he saw me coming.

"It is time." He told me, grabbing me by the shoulder and pointing to where Helfdan stood. Relaxed and easy in his light chain shirt with his sword at his side. He hadn't even needed to draw his weapon "It is time for blood, time for fury, time for death."

I remember that I laughed. I laughed as all the fury and the rage and the frustration that I had felt over my seasons on the ship had finally found an outlet and a focus. I had something that I could take out my fury on. Some way that I could show the world how it should not mess with me. How it should fall back from me and quake before my might and my fury.

I took a mushroom from my pouch and ate it in two swallows.

It's hard to describe what it's like to take the mushroom and bring on the rage in yourself. When I first took one I was in a safe place, surrounded by friends and it was impossible for me to hurt myself or anyone else but to take one in combat is to know how the world fits together.

I am not a poet or a Skald or any kind of story-teller. Not really, so that's the best thing I can say on the subject. Taking that mushroom is like having my eyes opened. It's like getting drunk with your best friend. Or the rush when the girl says yes or the charge with comrades in a righteous cause.

I laughed. I laughed and I howled my fury to the open skies and pushed through my comrades who parted before me.

I was a big man then just as I am a big man now. I pulled the padded jacket from my frame and tossed it aside so that I could feel the cool salt air against my skin. I had a longing to feel the wetness of my enemies blood as it sprayed over me. Our side were pulling back now, giving me room to swing and the Wave-Serpent crew were pulling back as well. They knew what was coming, just as much as my comrades knew.

There was a space between the two crews now which was just what my captain had intended of course.

I screamed, I howled, my mouth frothed and I whirled my axe above my head. I begged the enemy to come on, to come and feel the bite of my axe and the strength of my fury.

Not that they would have known that at the time. I am all but incoherent when the mushroom is flowing through my.

I saw Helfdan. There were men and shields in the way but I could see him. I laughed at his cowardice and his fear. He was hiding behind better men than he and I begged him to face me like a man.

Of course he declined. I suspect now that had he wanted to. Svein would have tied him up and dumped him somewhere well out of the way so that the rest of the crew could kill me at their leisure.

(This got a hearty laugh as Svein nodded his agreement easily)

So I determined that I would get to him and wipe the smile from his face. That small and ever so slightly mocking smirk.

I know that that smirk wasn't meant for me now. I am aware of that. It was directed at my Captain. But at the time, it cut me worse than any knife, sword or axe. That is the way of the mushroom and if my anger had been a red hot blaze, now it was a white hot furnace. The kind of heat that can melt iron.

I charged into the enemy ranks. Axe whistling as it cut through the air.

But we had been out-thought and out manoeuvred again. I am now aware that the crew of the Wave-Serpent were well aware of the presence of a berserker in our midst and they were also well aware of how that berserker would be used. So they knew that I was coming.

The air screamed as it parted before the onrush of my axe as I whirled and laughed and bellowed at the insolent nothings that were in my way. And although I leapt at my opponents with everything I had. I rushed, I shouted, I jeered and I spat. But my axe met nothing but the wood of shields.

Over and over again I struck. Over and Over again there was a thunk as metal hit wood. The frustration that I felt was growing the anger and the rage were becoming all consuming.

My axe broke, showing the quality of the weapon that I had been presented with, the metal head spinning off so that it glinted in the sun so that I was left with little more than a club. I don't know how it happened. I can imagine though. That someone trapped the head of the axe and attacked the haft rather than me. But I had lost my weapon and still I struck out at my enemies.

I was surrounded now and my rage was reaching a peak. Sooner or later, the body can only withstand so much before it begins to rebel at the onslaught of feelings and chemical reactions that it is being assaulted by. Sooner or later it just gives up and I felt that moment upon me. The small part of me that remains separate and detached when I am in the throes of my rage was aware that it was coming. They train you to look for it and be prepared for it. To make yourself safe before that moment happens. It is hard. Desperately difficult to get it right.

But I was surrounded by a wall of shields and I threw myself at them desperately and as I did so the circle contracted around me until I was confined. Just a rabid, wild thing inside a cage of wood.

Eventually I stopped. No-one ever talks about that bit. The part where the berserker just runs out of... whatever it is that keeps the berserker going. Normally berserkers are found under mountains of corpses or in bits in front of the shield wall. I can say that we are normally unconscious. But in this case I just found myself standing. The weight of what remained of my axe had pulled my arms down to my sides and I just stood there. Drenched in sweat and shaking. I was struggling to breathe and my eyesight was going grey.

This is the most dangerous part of being a berserker. You go from being the strongest most frightening person on the battlefield who takes down men by the dozens to a man who would get savaged to death by a rabbit.

A young rabbit at that.

The circle of shields faced me. Men peered out at me through the gaps in the shield wall. There was a rattle of wood and I turned. Helfdan pushed his way though the wall of shields until he stood before me. His sword was still in his scabbard and his own axe hung from it's hoop next to his blade. He gazed at me for a long time, saying nothing, staring at a point a little above my heart. The significance of that didn't really register with me at the time.

Then he lifted his hand and pointed. I turned and I saw that my "Friends and comrades" had left me to die on the beach. They had used me as a distraction in order to make it to their ship and get themselves back into the water to flee.

"They left me." I heard myself say as the remains of my axe slipped from my fingers. "They left me."

"Yes." Helfdan said calmly. "They left you. Left you to die and left me to kill you."

I found, as my vision turned red, that I still had some fury left in me after all.

I dimly remember the impact of wooden boards as the men of the Wave-Serpent leapt on me.

I awoke some time later. It was night time and I was tied up. Same as it had the first time I had a spasm, it seemed to take a long time for me to return to my body.

That's what happens when the spasm is involuntary.

The same as it was the first time. Returning to consciousness was like travelling through a long dark tunnel. But where the return to light should be a comfort when the light is warm, this is like it's the other way round. I once heard it said that it was like being reborn. That the light is cold and bright and it hurts our eyes which have forgotten how to focus on things.

It took a long time. There were some differences though. Most notably, the fatigue was made worse by the fact that I was clearly tied up. Not uncomfortably. This was the kind of tied up that leaves you properly restrained.

I was also gagged.

Out of reflex, I tried to free myself but it was clear that I had been tied up by a professional. In the distance I could see firelight and the sounds of men celebrating. It was dark. A fact for which I was grateful.

There were footsteps. I couldn't turn my head too far around due to the restraints but I needn't have worried as Helfdan walked into view. He was rolling a small log of wood which he set on it's end in front of me. Then he left again before returning with a second which he sat on. He folded his legs under himself and knitted his fingers together in his lap as he stared at me for a long time.

I felt like weeping. It is a huge dishonour for a warrior to be taken alive. Let alone a berserker but it had happened and now I was this man's captive.

I wanted to weep so badly. My eyes burned, my throat was saw and I could hear the sobs in the back of my throat.

"We bound and gagged you because we were concerned that you might hurt yourself." He said clearly. Speaking a little slower than his normal voice. Another kindness that I had not expected. When coming back from a Warp Spasm it can take a bit of time for my mind to be able to keep up with normal conversation.

"We took you alive." He went on. His eyes were staring at, I think it was my neck. "I hold you as my thrall. Do you understand?"

I nodded.

"Your life is mine and my first order to you is that you not harm yourself or cause another to harm you instead. Do you understand?"

I nodded dejectedly.

"I am going to untie you now and take your gag out so that you can eat something."

And he did untie me. Not the normal cutting of bonds that I was expecting. He actually untied me before putting my arm over his shoulder and helping me to sit on one of the two logs. Then he left.

Not far, he came back with a water skin a hunk of bread with a steaming cut of meat on it along with a wooden bowl full of vegetables.

"Eat," he told me. "Drink."

I did as I was told and I was, indeed, famished. He just sat opposite me, still as a statue as he watched me consume the food.

"Do you need more food?" He asked politely and I shook my head.

The silence grew between us.

"They left me." I said. I don't know where it came from but I was suddenly aware of the words and how that betrayal seemed to cut me to the soul. The tears that I had restrained at the prospect of being captured were suddenly overwhelming. "They left me," I said again. I tried to swallow the grief and the hurt but it was too much. It was a lot like the feeling when I am in the beginning of a warp spasm. But this was not that. This was different and it hurt me more than any wound or injury.

"I know." Helfdan told me. His face didn't change. He just sat there and watched me before, abruptly he stood. "I can see that you are in no condition to talk properly so we will talk more in the morning or when you have recovered from your spasm. In the meantime, your thrall-dom can start tomorrow when you are more able and in possession of your own mind. So for now you should consider yourself my guest. Come and join us at the fire."

I blinked up at him through tear stained eyes. "I... I couldn't."

"Why not?" His expression changed for the first time. "I know little about the effects of a Warp Spasm on the berserker but it is clear that you are in some form of distress. Come, be among friends for a while."

"But..." I gestured at my face helplessly. I was trying to tell him that my tears were shaming me. I saw the light of comprehension dawn in his face.

"Oh I see..." Then he shook his head again. "Your tears are tears of betrayal and grief. There is no shame."

I was stiff as an oar though and in the end Svein and his brother had to come and help me to the fire where I was welcomed with a warmth and affection that was astonishing. People ignored my upset and treated me like a long lost friend. I remember being astonished at the laughter and the sense of brotherhood in the crew.

There were two moments of astonishment. The first was when someone teased Helfdan to his face about the fact that he was writing in his journal. And Helfdan ignored it. On my old ship, if someone had mocked the Captain so openly, even in jest and affection then they could expect the harshest of punishments.

The other was the utter lack of formality or manners among the crew. There was discipline to be sure. I noticed that there was only enough mead flowing in order to purify the drinking water but other than that, there was a lack of rules that was astonishing to me.

My ship had had a rigid structure of hierarchy. Where everyone knew their place. Where people knew who they deferred to and who to answer to. I was near the bottom of that and would regularly have to fetch other men their drinks and food before my own. Here, I was served my drink by Svein himself. The dreaded Hard-hand that had inspired so much fear in us before had poured me a drink and bid me sit next to him round the fire as Ivar told a funny story about a nymph that he had once known.

I was welcomed like a brother and it was... It was actually rather frightening.

In the end though, I could take no more of this and got up to leave. Svein pointed me in the direction of a bedroll and the events of the day caught up with me quickly.

I woke early to find that we were on an island near the coast that we had raided and as I rose, I took the time to realise that I was a thrall. It was a blow and a weight that pushed down on me. I had been trained as a warrior and now I would be waiting on a lord that I had been trained to despise. I found that lord next to the fire where he looked as though he had barely moved. The only difference that I could see was that he was now reading rather than writing in his book.

He looked up at me. I remember that he looked startled. As though he had forgotten that I was there.

"Please sit down." He said as he returned to his book for a moment. Then he picked up a strip of thin leather that was draped across his knee and transferred it to the book before setting it aside.

Then he stared at me for a moment before taking a breath.

"Your name is Sigurd." He told me.

"Yes master." I answered in the manner of how I assumed a thrall answered their master.

He winced and shook his head. "Don't... Don't call me that." He seemed genuinely uncomfortable at the suggestion.

"Call me Lord if you prefer," he went on. "Or Helfdan. You know who I am?"

"You are Helfdan Fatherless." I told him.

"You mean Helfdan the Bastard." He answered.

I nodded after a moment, wincing at the insult. He saw it though.

"You have not insulted me. It is no insult to state the truth. I do not know who my father was and I have no memory of my mother."

He stared at me for a long time. "Have you fully recovered from your physical exertions of yesterday? My understanding is that a Warp Spasm can be taxing to the body and mind."

"How do you know that?" I asked before stopping myself. I thought that the question might be seen as a criticism. "Sorry Master...I mean, Lord... I mean..."

"I read a book on the subject." He told me without any signs of anger or disappointment. "So have you recovered?"

"I think so," I answered.

"Excellent, then we can discuss your duties. I captured you in a time of combat, despite the fact that the fault behind your capture was not yours... Therefore I propose a period of servitude for the standard period of a year and a day. At which time we will return you to your master and to your clan. We will, of course, send word to your home to let them know that you have survived and when they can expect to see you again."

"Yes master... I mean, my lord."

"As to your duties?" He scratched his chin. I was aware that he habitually kept his chin free of facial hair but it looked as though some was growing back. I remembered thinking that it was odd. Most Skelligans, including me, working at making their beards long and luxurious. But Helfdan declined that vanity. "I will admit that I have not got that much use for a thrall. I do not take people for that purpose generally as it seems wasteful. But it seems foolish to me to throw away a man such as yourself in such a way."

He stared at me for a while longer. Then he nodded.

"I shall find work for you suitable to your skills and your talents. We saved your arming jacket, do you have any other arms or armour?"

I shook my head.

Helfdan nodded. "Wake Svein and sent him to me." He pointed out to where Svein was snoring. "Then find some way to help out somewhere." He reached for his book.

"With what?" I had to ask.

His look of confusion deepened.

"I don't understand." He told me.

"What do you want me to do?"

Helfdan frowned. "You're a warrior aren't you. What would you do on your last ship?"

I fled his disapproval. Svein was summoned and laughed as I put the question to him. Instead he pointed me in the direction of Snorri who put me to work helping with the breakfast while he spoke with Helfdan at length.

We sailed back to Kaer Trolde, I saw Helfdan hand Svein a large pouch and Svein took me shopping where I was bought mail, a shield, a helmet and a proper axe and I stared at Svein with open astonishment.

"But I am a thrall." I protested. "I am meant to serve."

"So?" He said. "Believe me, you will be serving. The same master I serve at that and we will do our best to turn all of his enemies into a paste."

"But... I am..."

"A warrior yes?"

"Well... Yes."

"So what use would you be without a proper axe at least? I saw what happened to that stick you had last time. Did they even want you to survive?"

Svein shook his head in disbelief and had walked on from where I stood rooted to the spot. The question had effected me in the same way that a kick to the balls would.

Svein turned and looked me in the eye.

"You're a good lad," he told me, "and a good fighter. I saw you on the beach that day. Same as Helfdan did and same as the lads did. Your lord is a cowardly fuck who sent you to die so that he could get away. But you did it anyway."

"Why didn't you kill me?" I asked him. It seems odd that that was the first time I had thought to ask that question.

"Because you're a warrior lad. A hero. You don't kill a hero just because his lord is a fool. He deserves better than that. You tell tales and give them gifts and throw beautiful women at them which they receive gratefully. Hero's are rare, you don't destroy them."

I wept again. That's another thing that they don't tell you about berserkers. We're an emotional folk and we tend to laugh, rage, love and weep with equal abandon.

I served aboard the Wave-Serpent for the entire period of my thralldom. But in all truth, calling it a period of thralldom is a little bit harsh. I was as much a warrior and a sailor aboard as anyone. I fought side by side with men that my masters and former captain had taught me to ridicule and hate. I laughed, joked, fought and lived alongside those men until I thought of all of them as friends. In truth, they treated me far better as their thrall than I had been treated on the decks of a clan Brokvar ship.

Now I know, I know, that Jarl Udalryk is much better now but at the time, even while there were some men that wanted to help their Jarl to recover from whatever problems that he was having, there were plenty of others who were taking advantage of his paranoia and sickness in order to further their own schemes.

It would seem that I had become a victim of one of those men.

The only difference between being a warrior on the deck of the Wave-Serpent and being it's thrall was that I took no share of the loot. I did not begrudge them this. The simple friendship, trust and respect that I had been given was more than enough treasure for me.

During the winter, I guarded the village and went out on the patrols in order to keep Helfdan's lands safe. It was a strange time for me. I genuinely freaked out when someone asked me my opinion on something. Or when I wondered whether I should invoke a rage on a group of bandits and Svein responded with asking me my opinion on the subject. The experience was alien to me. It was wonderful but it was so strange as to be frightening.

But then came the day that my thralldom was due to come to an end and it was with no small amount of sadness that I was saying farewell to my fellows. Helfdan was sailing the Wave-Serpent with flags of parley, to Spikeroog to drop me off. I had been given a feast to say farewell and I felt a great sadness as we sailed into my home port.

I remember that Svein was calling out to the harbour master as to our business. That we were there to return a captured thrall to his proper place after his debt of honour had properly been paid. There was some argument as people did not like Helfdan and the Wave-Serpent and with good reason. Much wealth and honour had been taken from Clan Brokvar captains by Helfdan and his men.

And me too as it happens.

But Svein was yelling and the harbour master was yelling and there were men running around. Helfdan called out to me. We hadn't exchanged more than a few words during my year. You know the kind of thing, to pass the salt or for him to ask if I needed a top up of ale, that kind of thing. So I was surprised when he called me over.

He looked me up and down. The first time that he made eye contact with me actually. He gazed at me for a long time. A really long time while Svein's voice echoed out over the water.

"You have served well and with honour." He told me. "You should be proud."

"I am," I told him, astonished to find that I meant it.

He handed me a large sack. "Here." He told me. "It is your share. Time for you to go."

The sack was surprisingly heavy and when I opened it I discovered many coins, a cup and even more jewels than I could count.

"Surely this is...I was a thrall." I protested but Helfdan had turned away.

Svein approached me. "Time for you to leave lad." He told me.

"This is too much." I told him. "I was a thrall and..."

"But you are not a thrall any longer." Svein told me. "You leave a warrior and with honour. Go well."

He turned and I realised that the men of the Wave-Serpent were standing."

"Sigurd," They shouted and clashed their weapons together and against the rims of shields. "Sigurd, Sigurd the Fury."

I do not believe I have ever stood taller.

I departed the wave-serpent with a heavy heart and heavier boots.

I don't think I was on land for ten heartbeats. I was met by a group of Clan Brokvar warriors as led by my Lord.

"Lord," I called, genuinely glad to see him.

"Do not call me that. Filth." He snarled at me.

"Lord?" I asked.

"I gave you an order and you failed." He yelled. "I told you to kill Helfdan Fatherless. I told you to destroy him so that his dirt and his excuse for a crew would not stain the seas again. You failed and indeed you have served him."

"It was a matter of honour. I was taken...and..."

"DON'T TALK TO ME OF HONOUR." He raged. "YOU HAVE NONE. IF YOU HAD YOU WOULD HAVE KILLED THAT FILTHY COWARD AND TRADED YOUR LIFE FOR HIS. YOU WOULD HAVE DONE SO GLADLY."

He stepped closer, followed by his men. There were not a small number of them. "You are honourless." He told me. "You are scum, the lowest of the low and you will pay for your treachery."

He turned to his men. "Take him. Take his wealth and his weapons. They are mine for his disobedience."

I saw my father on the shore and I called to him but he spat and turned away.

"You may pay for your disobedience with service." My Lord said. "You will arm yourself with what I give you. You will wear what I give you and you will fight and kill what I tell you to fight and kill."

Hands reached for my belongings. Pulling my sack from numb hands, snatching the helm from my head and axe from my shoulder.

I felt the rage building within me. The shock from being treated better from my enemies than I was being treated by my Lord was profound. He must have seen my anger.

"You dare?" He demanded. "Your belongings were already forfeit for your failure in the combat. But now I see my error in treating you like a man.

"I was kind to you." My lord continued. "I gave you a home. I gave you a purpose and I treated you like a man rather than the savage that you are. You clearly do not deserve such matters. I will treat you like a berserker of old. I will keep you on a cage and on a leash. I shall feed you the scraps that my dogs leave and you shall be beaten with sticks until you learn to behave and learn your place."

There was more but then there was a sharp pain on the back of my head and I knew only blackness. The following few days were a blur of pain and horror. My lord made good on his threat. I was tied, beaten, spat on and treated like an animal. My mother wept but even she did as she was told and spat in my face, calling me oathbreaker and traitor. I was held in my master's hall in his village as he passed sentence on me. It was not lost on me that his son was wearing my helm and that my lord cradled my axe.

I saw the jewels that Helfdan had given me as part of my share on my lord's mistress and the cups and plates being used by his family. I protested my innocence. I told them that I was taken alive, that there was nothing that I could do. That my weapon broke and my armour did not protect me from my enemies.

He accused me of criticising him by saying that he provided his warriors with substandard equipment.

I said that I was outnumbered 30 to one and that I would have needed help to break through.

He interpreted that as my failure or that I was calling him a coward.

In the end, I realised that I was being made an example of. That my lord hated me.

It was my last moment of weakness when I told myself that I deserved it. All of my former friends, family and comrades told me that I was a traitor and an oathbreaker. All of my old authority figures who I had followed and listened to for years were telling me a thing and I believed them.

My Lord's threat of keeping me in a cage was not an idle one. I slept there for three days in my own filth and starved. I was given water and rotten meat. Chewing on old bones which made me vomit. Three days.

But then the Wave-Serpent came for me. Unlooked for, un-hoped for, undreamed of. But my cage was opened and wonder of wonders, Svein stood there with his brother Haakon. Kar was there with his dagger at the throat of the kennel master.

"Come on lad." Svein said gently. "You're being rescued."

"But..."

"None of that. Out you come... Goddess' tits but you stink. Hold still while I tip this bucket of water over you."

"It is no more than..." My words petered out as I choked on the icy water.

"I swear that if one more person tells me that you deserve it. Including you, then I'm going to kill someone. Come on, there's a horse trough out here for you to scrape the worst off. That barrel barely made a dent in the stench. We'll throw you in the sea for a proper bath later."

"But... What's happening?"

"You're being rescued. We are taking our vengeance for your treatment and have received permission from the King to avenge the insult done to us through you." I remember that he scratched his chin, a copy of the same gesture that Helfdan used. "To be honest lad, I'm sorry we couldn't be here sooner but it all needed to be done properly so that you could be protected."

I gaped at him for a long time. I cleaned myself up. They had brought me clean clothes and as we walked up to the hall I could see the Wave-Serpent beached in our village. The Longship that my Lord and I had sailed on for so long was already aflame in the bay.

Svein pushed me into the hall. "You need to see this lad." He told me.

They were all there. Every warrior that my lord commanded including the Lord's family. All were still armed with their personal arms but next to the fully armoured men of the Wave-Serpent, they were laughable. All of them were sat at benches with their backs to the walls. The warriors of the Wave-Serpent prowled in the middle of the room, fully armoured and angry. Helfdan was standing with two older man, one was my Lord's Skald and the other was a man that I did not recognise. Svein helped me to stand before Helfdan, who gazed at me levelly. There was an emotion in his face that I did not recognise. Then he nodded.

"The man standing with your former Lord's Skald is the royal Skald of King Bran." He told me.

Then he moved to stand on the dais and pushed my Lord's throne aside until it toppled over. He stood easily. Unlike his men he was still dressed simply and he rested one hand on his sword pommel and the other was resting on his belt. Then he seemed to consider for a moment.

"When I swore my oaths for the first time," he began, addressing the hall. "I remember noting what my Lord's duties were as part of the oath. I swore fealty, valour, honour and obedience. In return I was promised that he would reward Fealty with love, valour with honour and oathbreaking with vengeance. Later, when I got to know him better, he told me that a Lord has just as much of a duty to his people as his people have a duty to their Lord. He told me that not all Lords are leaders but that real leaders eat last. There was other advice that he gave me. But I took that mean that as their Lord, I must put the well-being of my men before my own. That if I did not do this, then I was breaking my own oath to them."

He moved down off the dais and went to stand before my Lord who was red with fury in the face.

"I name you oathbreaker." Helfdan told him. "You broke your part of the oath of fealty to Sigurd the Fury, when he broke none to you."

"He failed." My lord snarled. "And you have no right to do this."

"I have every right." Helfdan answered calmly. "The King has given me permission to raid your village in order to rescue my shipmate, to whom I owe my life, and to punish you for your insults against myself and a member of my crew for whom I have a responsibility. You have stolen from him. You called him coward. You demanded the impossible to save your own skin and when he failed, as any man would, you turn your back on him.

"He obeyed the ancient laws. He served as thrall for a year and a day in return for being taken alive in combat. During that time we did not fight against any properly declared man of Clan Brokvar and he served his penance with honour and valour. I gave him a gift as gratitude for his service. Then, when he returned as he was sworn to do. You insult him and me."

"He is mine. What is his, is mine."

Helfdan shook his head. "No. You miss the point about how loyalty and fealty works. You do not deserve a man of this kind. Fortunately that is no longer your problem. I believe you to have broken your oaths as his Lord which means that he is free from his oath to you."

"You can't do that." My Lord protested.

"The Skalds disagree." Helfdan told him calmly. "Sigurd the Fury can go where he will from this day forward. I would be proud and honoured if he would sail with me."

I nearly collapsed with the emotion when the other men of the Wave-Serpent stamped their feet in unison. Their Fury was terrifying.

"But I have one more lesson to teach you." Helfdan told my former Lord. "If a man is taken in battle then he is considered a thrall for the period of a year and a day. Is that not the law, honoured Skalds."

Both men nodded, the one unhappily but the other's glare against my former Lord was like ice.

"If a man is taken with out a blow being exchanged then he serves for the period of seven years and seven days. Is that not correct?"

"It is." The royal Skald agreed. "Barring the mercy of the victor. But a minimum of a year and a day is required." My Lord's Skald nodded again.

"If I touch my enemy." Helfdan was still locked with eyes against my Lord. "And he does not, or cannot defend himself. What then?"

"Servitude for life." The royal Skald responded. "And the losers children must also serve for a year and a day. All wealth and rights should be surrendered to the victor as well. It happens so rarely though and is very rarely claimed. Again, the victor can choose to be magnanimous in victory."

Helfdan acknowledged this with a nod.

"What is the penalty for failing to follow these laws."

"Death." The Skalds said together. "And the worst kind of dishonour."

Helfdan nodded before addressing the hall again. "I was given raiding rights against this village and against that ship that burns in the harbour." He told the hall. At news of this, my former comrades groaned. "Before I decide what to do next, did any one of you protest your Lord's treatment of a former comrade? A man who did his duty and obeyed the most ancient of laws that we hold dear?"

There was no answer. Of course there wasn't.

"Lord Helfdan." I found my voice. He spun on me and I quailed before the rage that I saw in him. Then he calmed instantly.

"Yes?"

"I beg for mercy." I told him. "They are my people."

"Not any more they are not." The royal Skald said. "I am convinced of Helfdan's accusations and will tell King Bran as such when I see him next. The behaviour I have seen here is shocking."

"Nevertheless my Lords..." I pleaded.

Helfdan nodded. "You deserved a better Lord." He told me before addressing the room again.

"I was given raiding rights but I am inclined to be merciful. We will not treat your women and children the way that a conqueror and raider might."

I saw one or two people sag in relief.

"Nor will we torch the buildings and strip the place of wealth."

A number more people showed signs of relief.

"My reasons are that where one man deserves a better Lord then maybe there are more out there. The men and women that man your walls and watchtowers, the warriors that actually fought, will be allowed to stay and the honoured skald may tell them that I hold honour satisfied and do not require their service. I am told that those men are the least favoured and that it is considered a punishment to stand on the towers and the walls. That only the Lord's favourites feast in the halls. So they all deserve better. I also want my reasons known and I require that word be carried to them of my words."

"I will do so." The local Skald responded.

"No. You cannot do this, I forbid it." My Lord screamed at his Skald.

"Be silent." Helfdan's rage was sudden and frightening. He hurtled across the room only for Svein to intercept catch him before he reached my former Lord. He was wild eyed and staring. For a moment, I wondered if Helfdan himself was a little bit of a berserker. He got control of himself again. "Be silent before I have you, your wife, your mistress and all of your children crucified while you watch us burn all of your favourite warriors inside the hall paid for with the blood and sweat of better men."

There was no doubt in anyone's mind that he meant it. His voice turned cold and imperious

"I will take Sigurd with me. Along with what we can salvage of the wealth in this room. Have no fear Sigurd, I will re-equip you so that you can be properly prepared for whatever you decide to do next. I would not insult you by suggesting that you should salvage what you can."

I nodded. Still reeling a little from his subsiding fury.

"As for the rest of you. Each of my men are allowed to take one piece of loot from the hall." Like it was arranged, each man stepped forward and took the weapons from the assembly. Swords and axes mostly. One jewelled dagger. I noticed that they did so with hard stares and unwavering looks.

Helfdan took some more objects as well for those men still on the Wave-Serpent or on other Errands which he gave to the Royal Skald's keeping. He also took the Golden torque from around my former Lord's neck and gave this to the royal Skald as well, telling him that it was his gift to King Bran.

"But I have one more penalty." Helfdan told the room. "Honoured Skald. Would you point out each man who served on the Longship with Sigurd a little over a year ago when he sacrificed himself for everyone to escape."

"As was his duty." The lord tried, to the protestations of his mistress. This time though, Helfdan ignored him.

The Skald went round and pointed the twenty or so men that were present.

Helfdan followed him and reached out to touch each man on the nose. Some tried to resist when approached but the presence of angry men of the Wave-Serpent prevented much resistance. Helfdan finished with the Lord and his son.

"Here is my lesson on honour." He told them. "According to law. Every man that I have just touched owes me a lifetime of service and the service of their children to do with as I please. However I do not have room for you all on the Wave-Serpent. Therefore, if you are men of honour, you will present yourselves at the gate of my village, unarmed and in the grey of a thrall in order to begin your service. Failure to do so will result in my evoking the law and this time I will not be merciful."

He turned back to the Skalds

"Do you witness my actions, honoured Skalds?"

Again, the local Skald limited himself to a nod. The royal Skald nodded. "And it is generous, Lord Helfdan."

Helfdan nodded. "Svein," he said before leaving the hall behind him.

"You are defeated." The royal Skald told the hall. "Attack the Wave-Serpent and the King will know of it and Lord Udalryk will be instructed to kill every man woman and child here before sewing the ground with salt in order to clean away the dishonour to his clan. If Lord Udalryk disobeys then the entire clan will be destroyed in turn."

Svein helped me from the hall.

True to his promise, I was bathed in the sea as we sailed away. Two days later I asked to speak to lord Helfdan. "Why did you do that?" I asked. "That was..."

He shook his head. "You are a shipmate." He told me. "You sailed with me. You were my man. The treatment you were shown was shocking. We wanted to do something on the dock but such actions would have been illegal, risking my people as well as the crew from royal reprisal. I had to do it right. I'm truly sorry for not rescuing there."

"You're sorry?" I was aghast.

"Yes. But allow me to say. That any ship should be proud to have a man like you on the crew and I would be honoured if you would come with me. The Wave-Serpent could do with a man of your skills."

I fell to my knees and swore my oaths on the spot. I have never had cause to regret it.

The story drew to a close. I had to press Svein for the proper endings. Apparently Sigurd's former Lord managed to convince a still sick Lord Udalryk to declare Sigurd an outcast from before he had returned. The recovered Udalryk had no memory of the incident, but there are many things from that time that he cannot remember. As a result there was a lot of legal wrangling as Clan Brokvar were angry with King Bran over allowing Helfdan to go raiding on their coastline. The King ignored them, as was so often the case. But Helfdan's victory and shaming of the Lord and his former crew could not be ignored.

Clan Brokvar could not be persuaded to outlaw the Lord and so Helfdan claimed the right of vengeance which King Bran agreed to. This meant that Helfdan could punish that village, the Lord of that village and everyone involved with that village to his heart's content.

The place is now a ruin. Helfdan has raided it on and off over the five or six years since those events and makes it a point that, no sooner has the Lord in question had a new Longship built, than Helfdan hunts it down and burns it to the water line.

In the end, after his being cured, Lord Udalryk declared that the Lord was out of order and had him executed. The village was passed to a more loyal cousin of Udalryk's and that was the end of the matter. Unfortunately though, it turned out that there was a point of law that meant that Clan Brokvar could not take someone that had been cast out before. Not that Sigurd would have wanted to go back but even so

That's not to say that no-one turned up at Helfdan's gates. Many did arrive. Mostly those warriors from the walls that Helfdan had spared.

And the Lord's mistress as it transpired. She had been bewitched by the Lord's wealth and splendour but her fairy tale and epic inspired ideals of honour and things had been destroyed by the results of Helfdan's actions. Her image of the dashing older lord of Clan Brokvar was destroyed and she instead transferred her affections towards Helfdan.

She had tried to seduce Helfdan, who was not entirely immune to her efforts, but she found the village a little too provincial for her tastes as well as Lord Helfdan a little too...Well... Helfdan for her to follow through on her earlier crush. So she went to court at Kaer Trolde to see if her undeniable beauty and charm could snare anyone else. Svein's opinions on the lady was that she would probably succeed. That she wasn't malicious, but had been brought up to believe that this was how people make their way in the world.

The last Sigurd heard from his family was that his mother had died and he did not care to talk about his father.

The five of us, Kerrass, Ciri, Sigurd and myself went with the new man Ragnvald, down through the trapdoor and down a set of stairs before we came out into a large and well appointed room. There was another door on the other side as well as several other doors off to one side of the room. The room was comfortable and well ventilated. In the Skelligan fashion there was a fire bowl in the middle and the smoke rose to the ceiling where it seemed to be pulled away by means that I could not see. There were plush looking chairs and cushions around the room as well as several tapestries and rugs that kept the room warm. There was also a table off to one side with bowls of fruit and jugs of liquid.

The room was warm but the air was clean. I was still feeling a little dizzy from whatever I was that had transpired between Ragnvald and myself although he seemed none the worse for wear. He turned to face us.

"You remember the way don't you Sigurd?"

"I do."

"Your brothers are keen to see you again."

Sigurd nodded to Kerrass, Ciri and myself before bouncing off through the other door in the same way that children bounce through the doors to meet their grandparents. It was quite sweet.

"Who are you?" Kerrass asked.

"I am Ragnvald. That means nothing to you though. Please sit, eat, drink and rest as your hearts desire."

He spoke the same way that a priest does. Slowly and carefully. Emphasising every word so that you could be sure that you heard him. It was a voice of command and age.

"Yes Brother." He told me. "I am indeed older than I appear."

"Ok." I took a deep breath. Trying to calm myself down. "First of all could you please not call me that until I understand more."

"As you wish."

"You still didn't answer my question." Kerrass pointed out. He had wandered over to the table and was sniffing a jug before pouring himself a cup.

"I am Ragnvald. I am the high Priest of the cult of the bear. That is a simplification though as I hope you will appreciate. A lot of our ways are secret and I cannot tell you too much as you are an outsider."

Ciri laughed. "You understand that the man you're calling a brother is a scholar and likes to tell everyone what has happened to him. In writing and in considerable detail?"

Ragnvald answered with a slight smile. "I am aware. I have read the works of Lord Frederick with some interest. I found them most informative. Especially when it comes to the character of the woman that rules over all of the known world." Not for the first time, I was surprised. His voice and accent were still slightly Skelligan, but there was a clipped note to the voice, as though educated in Oxenfurt or Ban Ard, or any of the other places of learning that are popping up about the place.

"Not even close to all of the known world." Ciri answered with a sniff. "Just the bit between the sea and the desert though."

"Yes, I had heard that you were wise as well. And the presence of a Witcher all but confirms the identity of the people here assembled. But I think we're getting away from ourselves."

"More than a little." Kerrass agreed as he bit into a piece of fruit.

"Hang on. I still want to know what happened up there and where the fuck we are." I demanded. Still more than a little bit unsettled.

"And I shall tell you. You, I can tell everything. But the Witcher and the Empress pose some problems."

"Oh?"

"Yes. The bear does not approve of them."

"That sounds like mystical bullshit to me." Ciri responded with another sniff, pulling a clother from her sleeve and blowing her nose with gusto.

"In my experience there is a lot of truth in mystical bullshit." Kerrass warned her. "A lot of wisdom too."

"That doesn't stop it being bullshit." Ciri retorted with a slight smile. "But I am willing to let myself be persuaded."

"So grateful." Ragnvald told her with an answering, slightly mocking smile.

"Ok." I told the room. "I think I'm being really calm at the moment. Really. Fucking. Calm."

Kerrass and Ciri looked at me and giggled like school children.

"Helpful." I commented with as much withering scorn as I could.

"I promise, Lord Frederick, that I will explain everything that you might want to know." Ragnvald explained to me. "After that you can tell your friends, or your public anything you like. A loophole in our rules that has not been closed, to date, by those that we answer to. Therefore I'm going to take every advantage in order to spread the word and demystify what happens here. That's the deal Lord Frederick. In return for answering your questions, you have to speak about what you see, hear and experience here."

"He was going to do that anyway." Kerrass commented.

"Nevertheless. Lord Frederick? May I have your promise."

"Of course."

"Excellent. In which case, if you will permit me a few more words with your companions."

"So courteous." Ciri answered in her best courtier voice. "Words and manners that would not be out of place in the Imperial court. Startling coming out of a man wrapped in a bear skin."

"Of all people, Imperial majesty, you should know that you must never judge a book by it's cover." Ragnvald looked like a man who was enjoying himself. "yes, I read and write. And I have educated myself on many of those texts. Also... Yes, I am older than I look and have seen many things.

"Now..."

He looked at Ciri and Kerrass. "I would not be surprised to learn that time is of the essence, so I think it best that I take Lord Frederick below and start explaining things and give him whatever help that we are able to offer. In the mean time you can feel free to remain here. Food and drink will be brought. As well as bath water should you desire it. There are beds through those doors and you can feel free to take one each. At this time of the coming of the Skeleton Ship, we have very few visitors so it is unlikely that you should be disturbed."

"What about the Watchers above?"

"We change the watch in the morning and the evening. Have no fear though, they will knock before coming through here. Your privacy is assured. If you wish to train you can either do so in here or go above. Either will be fine, we would just ask that you refrain from breaking the furniture."

Ciri and Kerrass exchanged glances.

"What did you think we were going to do?" Ciri wanted to know.

"I generally refrain from guessing." Ragnvald answered her. I doubt that Lord Frederick's questions will take me too long to answer however."

"You haven't come across how many answers that man can ask yet." Kerrass told him.

"I have some small idea." Ragnvald answered with a smile. "Anyway. Shall we Lord Frederick?"

He gestured through the door that Sigurd had left through.

"I do believe we shall. Do I need my spear?"

"Do you think you will need it?" There was a challenge in the question and I stared at him for a long time. I forced myself to look him in the eye which I hadn't done since our first meeting and I saw that challenge there. This was a test. I had no idea what I was being tested on or what the point of it was. I also thought that if I consulted Kerrass then I would be failing that test in some small way.

I thought about it for quite a while before turning and tossing my spear to Kerrass who caught it easily. He Showed no reaction to my decision and was tucking into his second piece of fruit.

Then I followed Ragnvald through the door.

"Interesting choice." He said as the door closed behind us.

I felt a certain amount of amusement bubble up from somewhere. "Correct me if I'm wrong. But you would have said that if I had kept the spear, given it to Ciri, or asked for their advice wouldn't you?"

"Of course I would. Because any result to that question was interesting. I notice that you kept your dagger though."

I considered this. "And my boot knife." I told him. "But the truth is that I would feel naked without them now. I can no longer conceive a time where I wouldn't keep a very sharp dagger in my boot and in my belt."

"Even after you are married?"

"Even when I'm married. Even if I am walking alongside the Empress, surrounded by the very best that the Imperial Guard has to offer then I will still wear my knives. I miss the weight on my belt when I take it off. My boots are uncomfortable without them. Even when I'm at home, I sleep with a knife under my pillow and I cannot conceive a time when I wouldn't do that. Even if I share a bed with a woman, that I love, that could eviscerate any intruder to our rooms with the ease of breathing, I will still want that feeling of weight on my belt."

"Interesting." He said. "You once stated that that makes you feel a little sad. Is that still the case?"

"Of course."

He nodded. Then he turned and walked down another flight of stairs. It was a little strange. It was an underground passage with torches on the walls. The kind of place that always begs the question as to who's job it is to go round and make sure that all the torches stay lit all the time. So it should have been a close, warm atmosphere. Instead it felt fresh. It felt freeing.

"So you have read my work?" I asked.

"I have."

"Then let's start there. I thought that Skelligans were an aural society."

"And they are."

"But if you can read..."

He laughed. "It is not my task, nor the task of the people that live here, to preserve tradition. Instead, it is our job to help those people, like yourself, that have a little bit of the bear in their soul."

"I thought it was your task to watch out for the Skeleton Ship."

"We do that as well. But that is a matter of coincidence rather than by design. Or if it wasn't a coincidence then there is more going on here than I could possibly conceive of. But that is a vortex of paranoia and conspiracy that sucks at the mind if you let it."

"I can imagine."

"It's like this. We have three purposes here. As I say, there are three reasons why we are here. If you ask different people then it will depend as to which is most important. The first is the reason that you are here, which is that we watch out for the Skeleton Ship."

"How does that rate on your own assessment of the importance of your tasks."

"Actually, the least important. It is a traditional role and I can understand the comfort that it lends, having us watch out and send our signals into the sky. To let the world know that there is definitely a ship coming and that the current drop in temperature and exodus of marine life is not a result of a different phenomenon. Like a Vodyanoi invasion for instance."

"A what?... Never mind. What is your next task and the same question about importance?"

"Our next task is that we care for, train and look after those people that have something of the bear in their soul."

"You mean berserkers."

"Yes and no."

"That most annoying of answers."

He grinned at me. "The term berserker is accurate although it is not unique to us. The curse of lycanthropy is the same kind of thing. There is a history about how the keepers of the Wolf, as we are the keepers of the Bear, let their secrets out or annoyed the Wolf in some way so that he cursed them and poisoned his gifts. You would have to ask them for the truth though. But for me, that is our first duty."

"So there's another school of berserkers?"

"As I say, it's a little like a cult. But not a religion. We teach, support and often educate people that have that aspect to their character. And you wanted to know how important we view that task as being?"

"I do."

"I think it's very important. Probably the most important task. But it is not what pays our rent, if you take my meaning."

"I don't."

"We live in an ancient fortress. We have had to prove our worth to the people of Skellige on multiple occasions or some lord is going to come and evict us at the point of a sword. One of those ways is that we watch the horizon for the Skeleton ship. The other is our last purpose for being here."

"Which is?"

"We keep the records."

While we had been speaking we had come to the foot of the stairs and walked along a corridor that seemed to curve round to the right. I was trying to be charitable and think that the corridor might have skirted the edge of the island but that thought escaped me when we came to a door which Ragnvald opened, gesturing for me to precede him. Just a small door really. The kind of side door that leads you into a bedroom. I walked through the door and stopped to just stare.

I had that moment again. That moment where my mouth just keeps speaking without my really giving it that much input.

"Ok." I said. "Admit it. You timed that conversation so that you could answer my questions with a suitably dramatic flair to it didn't you. You deliberately wanted to wow me with that last reveal."

"It was a consideration." Ragnvald was smiling. I could tell from the voice but I couldn't take my eyes off the vista that was presented before me.

We were on a long stone balcony with carved pillars that looked out over a vast, impossible emptiness. I walked to the rail to look out over what was happening and saw... well...

It was a hall with many pillars and it was insanely huge. Large enough that my mind wanted to rebel at the idea a little bit. There were many curved pillars that held up the ceiling but no matter where I looked I struggled to see a straight line. Each of the pillars was individually carved. The way that it would work if you gave a whole bunch of artists a pillar each and told them that the best pillar would win some kind of prize, while the worst pillar's carver would be put to death.

The ceiling was a similar work of art. Painted with many patterns that reminded me of the sea. There were wave-forms in them and although I could not see any kind of pattern, they were truly beautiful to look at. They were mesmerising and I could have spent hours trying to find the design beneath them even though I would be sure that there wasn't one.

It was warm as well, clean dry air without even a hint of mustiness that I would have expected from an obviously undersea cavern. Nor was there any kind of scent of the sea, not the briny ocean or the freshness of salt air.

There were many, carefully maintained fire bowls around the place that provided light as well as shuttered lanterns and candles behind glass which meant that the other reason for my astonishment were protected from the elements and the things around them.

The room was full of books. As far as the eye could see there were books and scrolls stacked on shelves. I was too far away to see much detail but what I could see was that there were men who were working away at copying the many volumes. Individual books would be taken down and carried over to a work bench before people would start copying the words along. There were other, more practical and hands on work being done as well. I could see in a corner where people were carefully scraping old ink off paper and hides. Others were working with glue to rebind old books that were falling apart. The place was full of industry so that I felt my heart gladden at the sight of it.

It reminded me of a monastary. The similarity was startling. There were two significant differences though. The first was that this was not a silent place. In monasteries the general rule is that people should be silent so that they can feel the spirituality of the place and work towards the peace and enlightenment that this would provide. But here the workers were laughing and joking as they worked. As I watched I saw a pair of younger men trying to hassle an older one who was hard at work copying a text. He finished what he was doing with, what I thought was, impressive grace before turning to tell the two younger men to go fuck themselves. The two youngsters clearly laughed and ran off.

The other difference was that where monks in the monasteries wear habits according to their religion. A dark red for the church of the eternal fire, black for the sun, dark blue for Kreve, these people were all warriors and wore the skins of bears and went armed for war. They wrapped themselves in the skins and otherwise seemed to go barefoot across stone flooring. It wasn't cold so I supposed that they could do so with relative comfort.

"So..." I began taking a deep breath. "The place is Elven right?"

"Correct." Ragnvald agreed, gesturing me down a walkway. "If you scratch the underside of human civilisation then sooner or later you will find Elven civilisation underneath it. I strongly suspect, although it would almost be blasphemy to say it now, that Kaer Trolde is Elven originally although that can no longer be proven one way or another. But there are many Elven ruins dotted around the Islands if you know where to look. Corrosion from the salt air is a factor that effects everything so sometimes you have to go quite deep. Take a left turn down some barrows or to squeeze through a tight gap to get to it but eventually you will find Elven halls.

"Apparently there is a laboratory of a great Elven scientist Mage somewhere although I have never found it."

He laughed again. Another man that seemed to laugh often.

"But the Elves certainly colonised the Islands for their own reasons. There is some evidence that they had already left by the time the forefathers of the Skelligans arrived though."

"All of that is in your records."

"The stuff that we can still read. There is a whole collection of things that is just sticks with notches on them but we can no longer read that. We think it was something to do with the spacing of the notches."

"But once again, Skellige is an aural tradition. Why are there books? So... many... books?"

"Because people make mistakes. And there are things that need to be recorded that cannot be taught in the normal teaching songs that the Skalds use."

"Such as."

"Such as how berserking actually works for example."

"I see."

"As well as certain dark rituals that the Lords of Skellige want to preserve. Not to use them, but so that if someone else starts using them then they can be recognised as such."

I felt my interest getting piqued. "Really? Then maybe you can help me in more ways than one."

"Maybe. We have considered the matter on several occasions. Back when you released the Spider Queen of Angraal..."

"Hey, I didn't release her. Some other fuck made me release her but I am very glad that he did."

Ragnvald smiled. "Not if you have read some of the history that we have on her you wouldn't. She was a terror of the Northlands in her day. She ruled a Kingdom of darkness that stretched a good length along the Pontar and up into what is now Kaedwen and down into Aedirn. There are tales within the vaults that would curdle your blood and make your scrotum shrivel up and try to retreat inside your body the next time she kisses you. I, and many of my fellows think the world might be better off if she had never been found."

As I say, he smiled as he said that.

"There are records of armies that rose up against her in order to free the world from her tyranny and oppression. About the horrible things that she did in order to keep her rule over the people as absolute. I can even provide examples if you wish."

I shook my head.

"I know all of these things. She has admitted many of them, as well as my own knowledge that history is written by the winners and so you can't believe in everything that you read. But do you believe in redemption?"

"Whether I do or not is unimportant in this case. The question is whether or not you believe in redemption. Specifically hers."

I shrugged. "What can I say? I love her."

"Then I can tell you that I hope you are correct. Otherwise you are in love with an ancient evil that is quite capable of overwhelming the world in a new darkness. The spiders that infest every corner, crack and crag of every castle and fortress could tear them down in moments. Soldiers will be tied up in webs stronger than spun steel and then used for the food of her pets. And the world will once again scream in terror at the thought of the Queen of the spiders.

"But maybe we have been lucky. Maybe you and your Witcher companion have shown her that she didn't need to be the person that she was. Her recent deeds have certainly suggested that she is a changed woman. But a few years of positive actions versus a few centuries of the blackest evil that anyone can imagine.."

We came to a spiral staircase that we walked down so that we were on the floor of the cavern, moving through the massive stacks of books.

"But when we read about your adventures there, we did some research on the matter of the ritual regarding the enslavement of a Vampire."

"Oh yes?"

"Yes. We spent quite a bit of time looking for it on the grounds that such a ritual might be useful. You know, if your betrothed really did begin to turn back to her old ways. Or that one of her fellows decided to follow through on such matters." He sighed in what I took for disappointment. We couldn't find it, although we did find some mention that it had existed at one point. There was even an attempt to reconstruct the ritual in order to defeat the Spider-Queen as well as some of the other Higher Vampires that were terrorising humanity at around that time. The only record that we have on the matter is that "The price was to high and that the should of any who attempted such a ritual would be forever damned"."

"Cryptic. And Terrifying at the same time." Something was tickling my brain.

"We thought so." He said offhandedly. "We had rather more luck on the subject of what happened to your sister."

I felt my pulse start to race a little.

"Not a great deal of luck," he continued, seemingly oblivious to my excitement. "But some luck as to ways that it could be explored. I have a list of people that you will be able to speak to that might be able to talk to you about the type of magic that was used to take your sister away from you, as well as those people that might have been able to do it. I hope you understand that we could not send word due to our vows of secrecy but we were confident that you would come here eventually anyway. I have compiled what we know into a volume for you so that you can take it away and study it at your leisure. "

"Thank you." I said, breathing a little harder.

"I also have some details on the subject of what you called the Cult of the First-Born and the cults of Crom Cruarch which you may find interesting. We have known about them for some time in all truth. We were aware that there was a problem but, again, we were unable to send word to anyone that might have the power to do anything about that. Really, it is quite lucky that you got out of all of that alive all things considering. But still, I will give you those as well in the hopes that you will pass the details on to whomever can make the best use out of them."

"I will try. I was feeling a little dizzy. A sense of... anti-fulfillment was upon me. If I had known of this place then I could have come straight here and got the information. I could have used the information to save lives and to take steps that might have...

What?

Ragnvald had walked past me a little way before realising that I was no longer keeping up with him and he turned to look back at me with a raised eyebrow.

"Who?..." I began before having to swallow the acid feeling at the back of my throat. "Who do I..." I looked up at him and saw pity in his eyes. I didn't want pity. I wanted rage, I wanted...

"So I understand that you had oaths that you have to fulfil about secrecy." I told him trying to come at it from a different angle.

His eyes seemed to glow and sparkle. I noticed that his eyes were golden.

There it was. There was the rage that I was looking for. In the centre of my chest. There it was. I found my lips pulling back from my teeth in a snarl.

"Who is it that I need to fucking murder for keeping this from me." I growled. "Who is it that could have made the decision? Who could have sent a message to you to pass that information on? Who could have come here and told you to make that known. Do you have any idea how long I've been hunting up and down... Flame burn me for a fool but who do I have to throttle..."

I felt dizzy and I staggered. I felt bile in my throat and I had to spit. I could hear something roaring and I looked up into the face of Ragnvald.

"You're goading me." I told him, snarling the words. "You've just told me all of that stuff to make me angry. You know nothing about my betrothed. You know nothing about any ritual that might be used to enslave her and most of all you know nothing about what happened to my sister." My voice had risen almost to a bellow.

"There it is." He crowed. "There is the bear, roaring in your eyes. I can see it now and you should not be afraid of it. You should embrace it.."

I snapped. My dagger was out and I was roaring at him. Other hands seized me and I was restrained. It all happened so fast as I strained at the people holding me back, screaming that they should let me go so that I could claw out his remaining fucking eyeball. I wanted it so badly, to get hold of him and feel the soft burst of warm, wet jelly as I pushed my thumbs through his eyesocket and into his brain. I wanted it so much that I could feel it in my soul.

"Is this me embracing it enough for you motherfucker?" I screamed.

But then Ragnvald pushed forward and touched his hand to my forehead.

I slept.

I don't know how long I was asleep. I remembered dreaming though. I remember being in the middle of some kind of debate. As though I was listening to a conversation about who it was that had the largest claim to my soul. Which one out of all of them could best help me.

There was a viper, that was coiled with it's head coming up, swinging from side to side as it inspected the other things that it was talking to, it's forked tongue flickering between it's teeth. It seemed to be glowing with a soft, purple light that seemed strange to me. Out of all of the colours, I would have expected the snake to be glowing with a green light.

There was a cat as well. A battered old cat that had half an ear missing and many scars criss-crossing it's body. I don't know why but I thought that she was a female cat. While she did speak, she was also sat and spent her time grooming herself thoroughly. She was possibly the second largest of the animals there. She glowed with a soft green light.

There was a Spider with a large, bulbous body and long spindly legs. Ariadne teases me about my still lingering arachnophobia. Even despite having had my life saved by giant spiders as well as having walked into nests of Arachnomorphs and being in love with a woman called the Spider-Queen. Hell, I've even had Fluffy sat on my lap and scritched him on the top of his body which, I swear to the flame, made him purr. But sometimes, Spiders creep me out. Specifically the ones where the legs seem disproportionately large compared to the body. But this one didn't seem that frightening to me. Again, I got the feeling that she was a female of the species and she seemed to glow with a green light. She crouched, calm and quiet.

But by far the biggest was the bear and he towered over the others. He also was an animal of many scars but he was mighty and shaggy with age. His light was red.

There were other animals as well. An Owl was perched on top of the Bears head and I thought I could see a mouse running around, picking things out of the cat's fur and helping with the grooming. There was also a wolf, off prowling in the distance but he seemed very dark and subdued. But the Bear, the Cat, the Spider and the Snake were the largest of the animals.

Gradually, in ones and twos, starting with the Cat, they seemed to become aware of me and they turned to look at me.

The Snake slithered towards me and reared up, using it's lower body like a spring in order to be able to look me in the eye.

"Welcome," He said although his lips didn't move. He reminded me of my old tutor on the subject of politics although I couldn't have told you why at that point. "But all things being equal, you shouldn't really be here. I would encourage you to go back to sleep if you can at all manage it."

I looked at the other animals and they seemed to agree with the snake.

I felt, rather than smelt, a stinging sensation in my nose that I instinctively recoiled from. But my head was held fast in a grip that was stronger than iron. The smell continued and I woke up.

I was on a pile of cushions wrapped in a bear skin. I looked up and into the face of Ragnvald who was sat next to me, cross-legged. He had an open book next to himself, along with an ink-well and a quill.

I found that I was still angry.

"I'm not going to apologise for trying to kill you." I told him. "I'm still sorely tempted towards that action."

Ragnvald did not smile. "Nor am I going to apologise for goading you into a rage. We do not have a lot of time to, how you put it occasionally, fuck about."

"But you know nothing about my sister do you?"

"No." He shook his head to answer the question. "And the help that I could give you in that direction would not satisfy you. They would be hints and warnings only."

"We will speak of that later if we have time. But you also knew nothing about the Cult of the First-Born."

"No we do not, and we did not. Nor do we have any real information on the subject of your intended, although we do know that researchers have come to the islands looking for the ritual that would allow them to enslave a vampire. They were in love with a Bruxae I think. Something female and sensual but they found something that made them... and I quote... vomit uncontrollably before weeping for a week in horror. According to our research, he then went away, gave all of his money to charity and become a monk after hiring a Witcher to slay the Vampire in question. Which the Witcher did."

"Wow."

"Now before we get into any more details. I have some questions of my own." He picked up the book, dipped his quill and sat there poised. "I already know most of the important details but, while you were unconscious, did you dream?"

"I did."

He made some kind of note.

"What did you see?"

"Some kind of council or committee of animals arguing over me."

"Were they arguing with any kind of force? Were they fighting with each other?"

"No."

"What were the animals?"

"Hold on, after everything, why should I?..."

"What were the animals Frederick?" It was his turn to snarl and my turn to back down and cower. The sheer force of the fury behind those words seemed to hammer at me like a gale. So that even if I wanted to I would have been unable to move.

"I ummm, there was a snake, a cat, a spider and a bear. They were the main ones."

"Were there any others?"

"Yes quite a few but they were much smaller."

"Describe the colours of the animals."

"The colours?"

"ANSWER ME,"

"Ok ok, flame's mercy." I told him about the different colours that the animals showed me.

He calmed down instantly after that, it really was like the lighting or the snuffing out of a candle. He set aside the book and the quill.

"You are an interesting man Lord Frederick."

"I have been called worse before."

"And better I suspect."

I stared at him for a long time. "Now can I start asking some questions. All of this was a test wasn't it?"

"Less a test, more a kind of ceremony." He admitted. "Can you stand?"

I tried and found that my arms and legs were following my commands to a tolerable degree. There was a certain flush of adrenaline come down. So I stood and brushed myself off.

"A ceremony?" It seemed like the most pertinent question at the time.

"Yes. A much quicker and more condensed one than I would use normally." He gestured for me to follow him. "But there is an element of testing to it as well. You have to understand that under normal circumstances you would be much younger the first time you came here. Here or the Halls of the Wolf to the North."

"I take it that you are not referring to Kaer Morhen."

"No I am not, although I will answer no more questions on what I am talking about."

"What was the test. What is this place?"

"That is a long question and a long answer."

"I think you owe me an answer by now."

"I am not disputing that. I am more asking you to be patient while I set about the telling of the story."

"Very well."

"What you have to understand is that Skellige is a magical place. More so than the rest of the world where the tides and forms of magic are constantly shifting in order for the mages to tap into those flows. But here, that magic seems to have pooled in certain areas. It is also entirely possible that this is a result of the conjunction of spheres happening in the local area. Even though we don't have a school of magic, or any accredited magic users living here. We do have a larger than average number of people born here with that talent. It's often not much but a higher background level. Most such children join the priesthood of Freya or Hemdall or any of the other Gods and Goddesses."

"I haven't seem that many churches." I commented.

"Nor will you. You can find them about the place if you know where to look. The priests and priestesses, rather than the churches. Unlike the Gods of the continent, our Gods tend to believe that worship is exhibited through actions rather than prayer. So you find priests of Hemdall in Ship's crews and Priestesses of Heulyn working in taverns. But that's a different argument for another day. You have the need of information about the Skeleton Ship and I must provide you with the context."

"I don't mean to insult other Skelligans, but where were you educated?"

"Here. You saw our many books did you not?"

"Fair enough."

"But the other thing that happens here that, as far as I know happens nowhere else, is that we give our emotions animal forms."

"Emotions as animals?"

"It's a simplification. It would be easier to say that we ourselves give aspects of our characters, animal forms. These animals then fight with each other over which characteristic is more common and will make up the dominant aspect of their personality. It's made even more complicated by the fact that everyone has different animals as their different aspects of their character. For instance, I have no idea why one of your main aspects would be represented by a snake."

"I have," I thought of Letho.

"I mean, the Cat and the Spider I can recognise but the snake?"

"I notice that you do not mention the bear."

"No I do not. For reasons known only to themselves, Bears and Wolves always seem to represent a different form of anger. Or Rage. We don't know why and our philosophers and thinkers have been working on the problem for centuries. We think that the bear is a kind of protective anger. That people who find the bear ascendant in themselves are the kinds of people that need to be pushed to get angry and that they just snap suddenly. Gentle giants, that kind of thing. Wolves are quicker to anger but also quicker to calm."

"Not being funny, but this sounds like nonsense to me."

"And maybe it is. All that we're doing is looking at the lightening and trying to explain it. The same way that you follow the teachings of a group of children who saw a strange figure in a robe, guarding a flame that had no fuel, and couldn't explain it."

"But I've seen those same priests wield awesome powers."

"No doubt. But just now, I was able to draw your rage out of you when you are calm, well fed, warm and not in any danger. I made you go from a calm and collected man of learning to a frothing lunatic who desperately wanted to kill me. Then I sent you to sleep. Later, when I wanted to, I pinned you to the ground in fear using only my voice. Those abilities have to come from somewhere don't they? What do I know that those priests and mages and Sorcerers and Sorceresses don't?"

It turned out that we were moving through some kind of living quarters. There were plenty of alcoves, some large and some small. All of it seemed to be carved out of the rock. Some of the alcoves you had to climb up stone stairs or wooden ladders to get to and some were in hollowed out pits. There seemed to be all kinds of people here. Young children ran by chasing a barrel hoop with a stick. An old woman was helped down into a bed by a young woman who bore such a resemblance to her that I thought that they must be mother and daughter.

We passed one alcove which had a thin sheet or piece of sack cloth across the entrance. The covering did nothing to preserve the modesty of a young couple that were giving in to their passions and I looked away but no-one else seemed to think that it was wrong.

Clothing here was much less...well... bear oriented. People wore the more common woollen clothing of the Skelligan isles. There was still the odd hide set of trousers and boots. Like the library, it was warm and dry. Utterly lacking of any kind of stuffiness and although there was a lingering scent of humanity it was far from overpowering. There was a hint of incense in the air that added to the strange surreality.

During our conversation we had moved through this area and come to another door which led through into another room.

The next room, although I suppose that calling it an area was a better descriptor, seemed to be some kind of training area. The first thing I heard was:

"No no no no no no no. Control. It's always about control. Don't deviate from the movements. Control and focus that is the key."

This was yelled by an older man. White haired and still heavily muscled. I know this because he was stripped to the waist. He had lost an eye, similar to Ragnvald and had a deep scar across his chest. He was in the middle of a square marked out by a kneeling group of teenagers. Like their teacher they were all stripped to the waist and were watching what was happening in the middle of the square with a focus and concentration that I found rather intimidating. The object of the older man's scolding was a trio of these teenagers that were waving large, wooden clubs. One of them had clearly lost his temper and was leaning on his club, breathing heavily while the other two seemed to be waiting.

Along one side of the room there was a large trough of constantly running water with a stack of bowls nearby.

Further down the hall there was another group. One of the students detached themselves from this group and went to the trough. He took a bowl, filled it full of water from the trough before carefully pouring it over his head and shaking himself in exactly the same way that a dog might, or a bear I suppose. Then he refilled his bowl and drank deeply before returning the bowl to the stack.

The hall was similar to the library hall in that the ceiling was held up by huge pillars similarly carved.

Further along there was another group of much younger students who were running through combat movements under the watchful eyes of another teacher who glared at them all despite his lack of nose and ear. He had also lost a leg somewhere and moved with the aid of a wooden leg and a cane.

As we moved through the hall There was still another group of children of various ages sat, in a relaxed attitude, in a circle listening to a much older man talk. One of the children was in tears and being comforted by two of his fellows.

"What is this place? How many of you are there down here?"

Ragnvald grinned at me. "Do not worry. Not all of these people are berserkers. Not completely anyway. Some boys are sent here because there is some prestige in being trained by the Vidkaarls. Others are sent here because they cannot control their tempers and people mistake that for being berserkers when, more commonly, it just turns out that the parents of the child are just bad at raising children."

He sniffed to show what he thought of such people.

"Still others might have that element of a berserker in them but not have the... quality, the characteristics it takes to become a warrior berserker. They might have it and turn out to be soft hearted, which is the most common example. They might completely lose their temper because they caught some of the village bullies torturing a cat and then, when they have calmed down, been inconsolably upset at the pain and damage that they have caused. But that loss of control frightens them and they become paralysed by the fear that they might just go into a Warp Spasm and hurt someone. So their parents send them here so that we can teach them to control things."

"I think I see. So if a man really doesn't have the taste for violence, but still has that element in his character, you help him to overcome."

"Precisely. It can also happen if the person in question has absolutely no physical skill whatsoever and is therefore unable to become skilled enough to survive with a weapon in their hands. Also women. The islands are not advanced enough to be entirely comfortable with the idea of a female berserker. So we can either train them to control it or train them so that they can go and work for a more... progressive Lord like your Lord Helfdan or Queen Cerys herself."

"I can think of very many people who could do with your help. Myself not least."

Ragnvald laughed. "You would have made a terrible berserker Lord Frederick."

"How do you know?"

"Your dream under my influence."

"Alright. That's going to need some explaining."

He grinned. "Shall I add it to the list of things that you want explaining?"

I sighed. "Look, I get that you're trying to be charming and everything but we are here to do a job. To find out what you know about the Skeleton Ship."

"Yes, but you are also a scholar who is seeking to educate people. And I want you to tell people what you have seen here so..."

"Fair and valid point."

"Your bear was in ascendant. That is not surprising to me as I had just provoked you into a rage using certain skills and talents that are at my disposal to help with this sort of thing. But he was met by an equally large and powerful cat, spider and snake. I don't know what these things represent to you in your psyche but that would suggest that you are a man being tugged in different directions. I stress that this is not unusual for someone who is fully grown rather than being in the early parts of their life."

"What might they represent?"

"The most common ones might be your rage which will be represented by the bear. This is most commonly a bear or a Wolf. We find that people with the Bear being largest are generally quite nurturing and protective in their characters. They are slower to anger but, when they do get angry, then their rage is terrifying. Wolves are generally quicker to anger but they also calm down quickly. I don't know why as generally, unless starving, wolves are quite peaceful and will avoid humanity wherever possible but still...

"In children the characteristics tend to be quite simple. Hunger, hurt, sadness, affection, fear. They are instinctual things as they have not yet yearned to form complex thought processes. They rage against things that they do not understand. But they know that they don't like it."

"I take it that adults are more complicated."

"Actually, those creatures that are the most complicated are teenagers. When all those lovely bodily changes are coursing through their bodies, that is when their drives, emotions and characteristics are most confused. Sometimes we find that they grow out of their tendencies towards berserking. Other times people who have otherwise been calm all their childhoods suddenly develop these vast and overwhelming tempers which, in turn, often turn out to be an overreaction to whatever is going on in their everyday lives."

I was chuckling. Remembering some of the tantrums that I had thrown during my teenage years. Then I laughed again as I remembered that those years were still not that far behind me.

We were moving through the training area now and approaching another door.

"But there are many characteristics that we, in turn, assign our own interpretations on. So your version of lust or love might be that spider that you mentioned. Whereas mine is represented by an otter."

"But I'm afraid of Spiders."

"Which possibly tells you more about your relationship with your intended than you possibly wanted to know." He told me a little smugly. "But you are a grown man now and it might change. At this time of recording your dreams you were under some extreme emotional stress. At a future time you might be much calmer which means that other animals come out of the mix and start making themselves known. They might be Ambition, a Love of Family. Curiosity. Friendship. Even the influences of other people. That part of you that might be your drive to survive, the unknown thing that carries some people through the worst of injuries where other men and women die from much lesser problems."

We came to the door and again, it was opened and I walked through into a kind of dining area and Kitchen. I had the general sense that we were moving in a circular pattern.

"This place must be huge." I commented as Ragnvald gestured me towards a table.

"And it is. There are halls and passages that have collapsed under the combined pressures of time and the elements. Even Elven Architecture has it's limits. Air is brought down from holes in all the little islands that you must have sailed round in order to get here and we think that we are under a good chunk of those islands off the coast of Undvik. It's even possible that this entire place was once part of Undvik and that it fell off at some point, or sank. I am less happy with that explanation though as I believe that there would be more signs of stress on the floor, walls and ceilings. If it sank, then surely not all of it would end up on a level surface. Again, even Elven Architecture has it's limits."

"I can see your point. But what were we talking about?"

"The animals and what they represent."

"Ah yes."

Ragnvald signalled and we were brought a platter of meat, breads and mushrooms which was when I discovered that I was absolutely famished.

"The visions and the emotions that are connected with it can really take it out of you." Ragnvald told me. I saw that he was picking at his food rather than eating properly but I found this oddly reassuring as it meant that there was more for me.

"So, you were saying." I said through a mouth full of food.

"Yes. You would have made a terrible berserker. There's just too much going on inside your head for the rage to become all consuming and controlling. You would be constantly looking at the potential results and trying to think of ways to change things. Or to shift things around. Or how it will affect different people or what's going to come next. If we had got hold of you when you were younger then we might have made a decent berserker out of you. But now?"

He shrugged. "You have learned to live with it on your own. You have found a use for it and it has helped you in many different situations which you already know about as well as some others that you do not. I was very pleased to read that you have taken some steps to adjust yourself since your problems with the cult of the First-Born and my assessment would be that you are relatively alright with everything."

"Huh."

"You're oddly disappointed aren't you."

"A little." I admitted.

"One of the important things that people always forget is that dealing with people's characteristics and problems with their emotion is not something that can be fixed easily. It's not like setting a bone or binding a wound. All we can do is suggest ways that people can use it and deal with it."

"It's just that one of the ways that you help people deal with the matter is by teaching them to smash people in the face with axes."

"And it is very useful for that. The anger can take away pain, fatigue and can drive you onto feats of athletic and physical ability that you would not have been able to perform otherwise. A good and healthy anger can be a wonderful focus for a mind. After all, I would suggest that it was your rage that took your mind off the fact that you were dying of spider venom in Angraal. It was also the rage that got you so far during your flight from Lord Cavill. But since then, you have also learned to talk your rage through with other people. Your lady love, your friends and you also, it has to be said, exorcise a lot of your rage in your written word."

"This all sounds very cerebral for a school which teaches berserkers how to be berserkers."

"Alas, but we still live in a world that values the ability to deal in violence. So violent tendencies are elevated into virtues. And, to be fair, the application of violence and martial skill is a very good way of focusing the mind and finding an outlet for all that pent-up emotion. Wouldn't you agree?"

I thought of the death of Bishop Sansum when I had used my rage to force my damaged body out of it's chair and to kill the man. "Agreement would be a strong word. I have certainly used it to do so in the past. As well as using it to force myself to do things that I was scared of doing. Anger to overwhelm fear. But others have suggested that my occasional attacks of verbal diarrhoea are also berserker fits?"

"Correct. When your mind is shutting down due to an overwhelming sense of emotion. Whether fear or other things. Then you do resort to anger. The attack on the Jack figure, the death of Sansum and the rest. But this is what I meant about your different characteristics pulling you in different directions. When you addressed the lady Ariadne regarding the state of the world. You were exhausted, scared and sick. Your brain shut down and you operated on instinct. That is not the same as being a berserker. Your rage was part of it and I would suggest that rage might have given you the energy to do and say everything that you did. But you were also using other muscles. Your political acumen, your charm and eloquence. If I had performed my little experiment with the dream then rather than just now I would suspect that the bear would have been there. But that the other animals might have been larger and more assertive."

"So you help people deal with their emotions and instincts when those things overwhelm rational thought?"

"Yes but it is not all that we do here. But it is a major part of what we do. The major part of what we do if you prefer."

"What else do you do?"

"Two things. But I haven't finished talking about helping people to deal with their rage yet."

"Fair enough. So what else do you do to help people deal with their rage."

"Well we..."

"And before we get going too far. Let me just say this. I came here to ask questions about the Skeleton ship. I get that you want to make your price that I have to tell everyone about what you do here. That's fine. But time is a factor here so..."

"Fair enough. That's what's in the records. Every time we make notes about how a person is reacting to different stimulus then we record how it works. It all goes into the library. At some point, we hope that we can properly map how the mind works. At the moment, we can only use notes in order to spot if there are any patterns between people struggling with over abundances of rage.

"Everyone is different. Everyone's rage comes from different sources but there do tend to be a lot of similarities that can be exploited. A young person's rage against a parent figure is a common one. Or a sense of injustice against their station in life. Both of these factors are common ones and we do spend a great deal of time working against that."

"How would you deal with such a thing?"

"There are many different ways that you can help someone with these problems."

"Yes. But name one. How would I deal with my problems with my father say?"

"Are you asking hypothetically or literally?"

"I'm not sure." I answered as honestly as I could. "Possibly more the one than the other although which way round it is I couldn't tell you."

"Fair enough. In your case, you are an educated man and can write. So one of the things that we would suggest would be to write your father a letter detailing everything that you feel. Then set yourself up..." He stopped to consider. "In Skellige we would advise people to scream what they want to say off the side of a cliff or a boat into the water. You could certainly do it that way and throw your letter over the side. But you follow the church of the Eternal Flame so you could throw your letter into a fire and be sure that your father would read it and take it on board."

"But that's just one way of dealing with it."

"Oh yes. A simplistic one at that. It might be that one letter is not enough. That you later think of other things that you want to say or... it might not work. It is one method amongst many."

"I will admit to some scepticism."

"That's because you're trained as a historian and a scientist. You are not used to the abstract or the spiritual. You have to remember that I have read your works. You believe in things that you can see and affect. You understand monsters and spirits and curses because they are legitimate physical or magical phenomenon. Whereas contacting the dead?... I suspect that that might be a little too close to necromancy for your comfort."

"But I am a religious man too."

"Yes you are. But correct me if I'm wrong... When you were younger, you liked religion because of the peace of the places and the temples rather than the actual belief in things. Nowadays you are religious as a kind of... you are worried. You have done things and seen things that make you feel uncomfortable. So you find a peace in the practices of the Eternal Fire. It is like a salve on a wound. You do it because you fear what comes next. You fear what will happen and how you will be judged when you move onto whatever comes next and the Cult of the Eternal Flame gives you comfort in that.

"But even saying all of that, you question the Church. You constantly challenge it. As I say, I have read your diaries and I find it remarkable that you still follow the church of the Eternal Flame."

"Why?"

"Because your works are replete with examples of priests of the church that you clearly dislike at best, or despise at worst. You have seen the very worst that the church has to offer and those priests that you do admire are those priests that actively work against the standard status quo of the church. Father Jerome and Cardinal Coulthard for example. But after that... the number of priests of your own church that criticise you for your actions... Many men would have converted to another religion by now. I'm sure that the Church of Kreve would accept you in a heart beat. As would the Nilfgaardian cult of the sun. But you persist in your worship of the eternal Fire."

"I think we've gotten off topic here. I will admit to not enjoying your analysis of my character."

"No-one enjoys it. No one likes it when someone sits down and works out all of your benefits and flaws and lays them out for you to see."

"Yes well... You were going to tell me what else you do here."

"Yes. I was wasn't I."

He took a drink from the flagon.

"All of that stuff I told you earlier about the different animals. That was all true. This is the problem with doing what we do. We know that part of it is abstract. We know that part of it is our simply putting animal faces as interpretations, shaping our own perceptions around the animal spirits. So we know that those animals don't really exist inside us."

"I sense a "but" coming."

"And you would be right. The bear himself is very real. We don't know why, although some people, myself included, think that you yourself have pointed us in the right direction for how this has worked. As you said in your work with the Cult of the first Born, the Conjunction of spheres let many things move between planes of existence. But what if, in this happening, other things came through as well."

"You're talking about where we think Crom Cruarch came from."

"Yes. We are beginning to think that the spirit that we think of as "The Bear" was one such. Of course this is all just a theory and we can't communicate with him directly. But he has touched many of us. And the concentration of his influence is centred around this place.

"So the other thing that we do is to try and separate the true children of the bear, from those who just have uncontrolled temper problems."

"How would you go about testing such a thing."

"It is not easy but there are ways. It is one of our hopes that all of our research into the subject will help us find a more reliable way of doing such a thing.

"A true man who is touched by the bear can channel their rage into something useful. Which is how I know that...although you would make a poor berserker, I can also say with absolute certainty that you are a true child of the bear."

"You make it sound so special."

"Do not be flippant." He snapped at me. "This is not a matter for jokes. When a man loses his temper then he is wild and uncontrolled. He yells, he flails about, he hurts people, often without meaning to. But a true child of the bear can take that anger and focus it. Attune to it and become one with it. They can take a power from it that can focus the mind, can make them stronger and more skillful. These are the men and women that we can train into become proper berserkers."

"You say that word. "proper". Is that entirely fitting?"

"It is. A proper berserker becomes in tune with his rage. He can ride the emotion and use it to his own advantage. Although it is not easy."

"How do you set about doing this?"

"When it has been decided, both by us and the person that we are training that they are meant to be a berserker, it becomes a target to train them into being able to release that rage at will. Rather than it becoming uncontrolled, they can reach through and contact the bear so that the bear can pass on the power of the Warp."

"Yes. I have heard that word before. What does it mean?"

"Warp?"

"Yes."

"To be honest, it is the word that my predecessor used. It is that thing that flows through you when you are channelling the bear through yourself. It is the stuff that gives you the strength and takes away the pain. If I wanted to get scientific then I could say that the warp is the way that we do it. In the same way that Mages channel magic, we channel the warp to do all of the things that we do ourselves."

"It sounds dangerous."

"And it can be. But that's what the training is for. We teach people to contact the bear safely. We teach them to deal with the warp properly and how to purge it from the system without harming themselves or harming others."

"How does one go about doing such a thing?"

"It starts with the same kind of work that we do with other people. Letting them strip away all of the other targets for their rage so that it can become a shapeless, raging things. Then it's a case of being able to tap into that feeling properly. It's a matter of meditation. Both from the sitting still and processing things, but also from the physical activity side of things."

"I have heard stories of men that can transform themselves into bears or bear like creatures as part of their berserking rage."

"Yes, they can become very similar to the Lycanthropes of the continent, except, instead of being Wolves..."

"They are bears." I finished for him.

"As you say. Those men that we have taught to be the proper berserkers, those men that can take on the power of the Warp that the bear gives them have an opportunity to take on the full aspect of the bear. The full power of him. There is a ritual that can be done in the depths of this place, and no I'm not going to tell you what it involves, where a man can take on that power of transformation as part of his Warp Spasm."

"Tales tell of the Red Feast where men transformed into bears and slaughtered the attending men and women."

"Yes." Ragnvald shifted uncomfortably. Then he sighed. "The process is actually fairly easy. You take the potion and wear the talisman and anyone can transform into a bear when they get angry. But then they would thrash around in their rage and pain. It takes the focus of a true berserker in order to control that rage and keep their conscious thought while they are raging. It also takes that focus to resist the pain and the madness that comes with such a transformation. We caught the traitor who sold the poison and gave the method away. Our vengeance was..."

"Extreme?"

"I was going to say "justified"."

"So meditation and the right emotional context can bring on a berserker fit, or a Warp Spasm if you prefer?"

"There are also drug, herb and mushrooms that we can feed people so that they can get there that bit quicker and easier. These are the methods that some... calling them "lesser" berserkers is a little unfair to them but those people who find it more difficult to contact the bear take some of the mushrooms with them when they go off to serve the Lords that need their services."

"Is that a necessity. Serving ambitious Lords."

"Yes. Sometimes this is because the Lords pay for our upkeep and so we have to send them warriors in order to make sure that they don't turn against us. But also because having a channel for that rage, especially in a young man, is healthy. In using that rage to serve the lords and Skellige as a whole is a way that we can serve the world as a whole. It was certainly the path that I chose. Then, when we are injured enough to be unable to fight then we come back and continue our service. In doing so we continue to serve Skellige and the Bear himself.

"Or herself. We haven't yet decided on the gender of the bear."

"From the sounds of things, it could go either way."

"That's what my wife says. But that's what makes the difference. Those people that feed of their anger and can turn it into something useful, those are the people that we can help and turn into berserkers. Those people that are just angry without form or structure, those are people that need help in order to get past it. But both sets of people need to be taught that anger is not bad. Rage is not bad, it does not make you evil."

He seemed to be looking at me very closely.

"Anger is not bad Lord Frederick. It's what we do with it that's important. Turning it inwards towards yourself is not good, or healthy for anyone. Nor is raging at any kind of external targets that just happen to be passing by. That is also not healthy.

"But turning it into energy to keep yourself going. To turn it into a passion for betterment...

"A good example is the man that rages against local crime and social injustice. But instead of killing criminals and the like, he becomes a watchman or a legal person in order to help fight that crime. Or become a civil servant in order to work against the injustice. That is a healthy use of anger."

I nodded.

"I take your point." I told him. "So what is the last thing you do."

"Well, we record and watch for the Skeleton Ship don't we."

He grinned at me.

"So, where would you like to begin?"

"There's a line here about starting at the beginning here isn't there." I commented.

"There is."

"But that's not where I want to start. Instead I want to do something else. I can assume that, at some stage, you were given your task and that you have recorded everything but before all that I want to know this. Has anyone ever actually turned up trying to remove the Skeleton Ship. In short has anyone done this before?"

"Why do you start with that question?"

"Oh come on," I pushed back a little indignantly. "I have paid your price and listened to you talk about the Bear spirit and the use of rage and anger. Surely it is now time for you to answer some of my questions."

"Indulge my curiosity."

I glared at him but I began to get the sense that he wouldn't be moved on this.

"One of the besetting problems with this entire situation." I began. "Is why hasn't this been done before? Why has no-one actually taken steps to get rid of or dismiss the Skeleton Ship. Surely there's even a compassion thing to be said. That those souls on the ship are trapped and need to be released from whatever it is that they are trapped aboard."

He was nodding as he was listening.

"The Skeleton Ship damages the islands." I continued. "The cold and the ice all but brings your economy to a halt. It damages the flora and fauna, it beaches your ships and halts any industry that there might be around the place. And yes, I am aware of the spiritual nature of what the Skeleton Ship has come to represent to the people of the islands, but I am also just as aware that you could build another ship, sail it through the harbour in the middle of winter or at any other point and it would represent a similar passing. It would fulfil the same purpose. So why do the Skelligan people permit this to continue?"

He smiled at me. "You have already got several answers for that question haven't you."

"We have. The easiest answer is that the task is impossible. We reject this option utterly. Nothing is impossible, it is merely difficult and maybe impossible right now. But in the long term, any problem is solvable. Any curse can be lifted, any monster destroyed and any spirit dismissed. As it is, we are pretty sure we know what the solution is..."

He opened his mouth to ask the question.

"No." I told him to forestall him. "No more questions from you. You asked the question and now I am answering it. You can wait."

He smiled. "Fair enough."

"So the other answer to the question is that the method of lifting the curse is known but not possible. This is unlikely, but what is far more likely is that the solution to the problem is well known, more than possible, and easy to carry out. But that the people that have the keeping of this problem are unwilling to follow through on that solution, for whatever reason, which leads us into a follow up answer."

He was nodding.

"That answer being that the problem is a cultural one." I told him. "That certain people know how to remove the curse of the Skeleton Ship but that those people gain some advantage from the passing of the ship. Off the top of our heads there are a lot of merchants, that make a lot of money by making up the shortfall in food and drink that is lost to the privations suffered by the islands after the Skeleton Ship passes. Hell, my sister alone probably stands to lose... Flame knows how much."

"Reconsidering your life choices Lord Frederick?" He grinned at me.

"Nah, the thing you have to remember about my sister is that she's much cleverer than me. She knows we're heading to Skellige and she knows my pattern for getting into trouble. By now she's probably taking steps to mitigate the loss as well as coming up with ways to turn it to her advantage."

He laughed with me. "You were saying."

"There is also the matter that the ship passes through the harbour of Kaer Trolde, so the Clan An Craite makes a lot of money off the people that go there to witness the passing. A lot of money and a lot of prestige flows to that clan due to that passing.

"It's also tradition now. The thought has occurred that no-one has looked for a solution because the ship is so old. Because it has always come, it has passed through the islands since the dawn of recorded history and very possible from before hand. Therefore, it has simply not occurred to anyone to think that the Skeleton Ship can be dismissed because it is so immovable and so invioble. The same way that people resist the cutting down of a huge tree in the middle of the village. It's root system is tearing up the houses, the leaves, chestnuts and whatever damage roofs and people's heads when they pass through. It is also getting dangerous, old branches fall off in the middle of storms and again, damage buildings and people. But everyone resists the idea of cutting it down because the tree has always been there. People get married under that tree, village meetings are held under that tree and so on and on and on."

"Which do you think is most likely."

"I think, that the solution is known by someone. We figured it out fairly quickly we just lack the specifics. But that someone refuses to perform the act."

"So what is the solution?" He called someone over who brought him another one of the leather bound books, a quill and an ink-well. I met his gaze and again I had the feeling that he wasn't going to be moved by anything that I had to say on the subject.

"We think that the Skeleton Ship is looking for something. What we don't know is what that something is. So if we can find out what "it" is and return it to the ship, then it will leave and never come back."

"Interesting," he said as he copied down my words. "Very very interesting."

"So has anyone else come looking for answers regarding the ship?" I prompted him.

He laughed before he thought for a while. "There is one man that comes."

He took on a kind of distant look. He stared into space for a moment as he remembered something that stood to be forgotten. After a while you get to recognise the look if you hang around with Skelligans for too long. It is the look of a man who is about to start telling you a story.

"There is one man that comes. According to records he comes on average once every 10-12 years. He looks the same, you know, same height and same build although his clothes, hair and beard are often different. He claims it to be some kind of family mission, to find a way to dismiss the Skeleton Ship and to free it from whatever torment it is going through but it is clear to those of us with eyes that it is actually the same man, the same being. He has come wearing many different costumes. Most often though he seems to be a Skelligan fisherman or farmer.

"Once he was a mighty warrior and another time he came as a beggar, his clothing tattered and torn and he walked barefoot despite the freezing temperatures and the skeletal nature of his frame. Sometimes his hair is long, sometimes it is shaved close to his scalp. Sometimes it is thick and heavy and some times it is thin and wispy.

"Once, he came to us bald.

"He has been rich and poor, fat and thin, charming, aggressive and terrified.

"But he handles the small ship that he comes here on like a man that is born to the water. He sails up to the dock with expert precision, gliding up to the cliff with never a wasted motion. Then he swarms up the rope with ease before helping to haul his small craft to the top of the dock so that it doesn't get smashed against the rocks.

"He asks his questions. He takes bearings and reads the entries that we show him. He asks questions and examines the history and markings. The paintings and the sketches. Then he gets angry. He becomes frustrated at the lack of answers, raging, throwing things around before he leaves, just as quickly as he came."

When it seemed that his brief story had come to an end I found myself wondering.

"When was he last here?" I asked.

"Six years ago, give or take."

"How long had it been since the last passing of the Skeleton Ship?"

"It was the spring after it had last passed."

I nodded at that.

"Was he dressed as a druid?" I wondered.

"He was not? As I say, he looked like a fisherman but he was uncomfortable in the clothes so that means nothing."

"Short man?" I asked. "He was clean shaven when I knew him, little dimple chin with long side whiskers. Walked with a kind of rolling, bow-legged kind of walk?"

Ragnvald shook his head. "It might be him. I can't be sure though. Certainly he is always described as short. And the walk would seem about right. It is a sailors walk I'm told."

"Mm. But our man is terrified of sailing on the water."

"And my man is an expert sailor."

I nodded. Feeling a little deflated.

"So what can you tell me?" I asked.

He smiled. A kind of wry chuckle. "I can tell you a whole lot." He informed me. "But I suspect that I would be telling you absolutely nothing at all."

"Anything can be useful in this kind of thing. At the moment we're just looking for clues that might lead us to somewhere. Even if you can't give us much, what you can give us might lead us to other places that we could go."

I was suddenly struck by something. I had no idea what it was at the time but there was something in my voice that reminded me of something that I had to unpack later.

I was thinking about my looking for news regarding my sister. All I wanted was a clue, something that could lead me onto the next place where I could ask some questions. That was all I wanted and the same thing was happening here. All we were looking for was the next clue. The next step to take. The realisation hit me like a galloping horse later that evening.

"Can you be more specific as to the kinds of things that you are looking for?" He asked.

"Ummm." I thought, finally pushing the food aside. "When did the Skeleton Ship first start coming to the islands. Where does it come from? I suppose that patterns are useful. We've been told that it comes from the West but where from the west? We also know that it changes a lot. Changes it's appearance. Can you tell me anything else about that?"

"So you're after patterns." He wanted to confirm. "Anything that stays the same?"

"Yes."

He nodded and thought.

"It always comes at dusk." He told me. There was no aspect of the tale-telling about this. It always comes at dusk and seems to come with a green flash."

"A green flash?"

"Yes. It's a phenomenon that sometimes happens at sea. There are a lot of theories about why it happens. One of the theories is... You know that the world is a globe right?"

"I do. Ever since the mage Wifaris was able to elevate his view well above ground level and was therefore able to prove the curvature of the horizon. Also showing us just how small the continent really is and, I'm told, also confirming the truth that sailors have known for centuries."

"As you say. The most common theory is that it is the sun shining through the water as it sinks below the horizon. But I don't know the real answer. The ship is also always preceded by the Albatross."

"The Albatross?"

"Yes. The ship is accompanied by an Albatross. You know what one of those is?"

"I've heard of it but I don't think I've seen one."

"You wouldn't if you live inland. Huge bird, equally huge wingspan. Brown or white in colour and it can glide for miles. It can go days at a time with one beat of it's wings. Amazing animal. But the Skeleton Ship is accompanied by one. And heralded by one. It flies above the ship when it arrives and does so until it leaves. It is also dead."

"Dead?"

"Definitely. Got a crossbow bolt punched clear through it. On good days you can see the glint of bone and metal while seeing the blood dripping from the injury."

"Has anyone ever caught the blood?"

"No?"

"Does it dissipate in the air or?..."

"No. It's more that it either disappears in the wind or lands in the ocean."

"Fair enough." I said. "So what else always remains the same?"

"It's never quite the same. There are always small differences."

"Oh?"

"Yes. It's a big ship. And I mean a big ship. Picture the biggest ship that you've ever seen and then increase it by at least half as much again. I mean big. Not just long or wide either. The highest mast is taller than most. It's festooned with ropes, pulleys and all kinds of things as well that it's all but impossible to keep track of. It's a black ship..."

"Is it painted black or is the wood...?"

"That's one of the details that varies if we're being honest with each other. Also, it varies from witness to witness as to what's going on. Whether it's black or whether it's wood that is painted. I also know that there is a white trim that is almost certainly painted on the side. Around the rail and at several points down the ship."

"Any idea what they might mean?"

"I have no idea but then again I'm not a nautical person. The most reliable theory that I've ever heard is that it's about cargo. About how far down the ship can be loaded before it gets too deep."

"Surely a Captain should know how much cargo he's carrying and there for how heavily laden it is and how much more it can be weighed down."

"Which is what the Captains that we have consulted agree. There was one suggestion that was made which was that the ship actually belongs, or belonged, to some kind of merchantile concern and that the merchants were the people that sailed on it regularly. Hiring Captains whenever they could find the time and Captains willing to do the deed."

"Huh. Still sounds foolish to me. One of the few things I know about sailing is that every ship reacts differently in the water and so an experienced Captain has to know his ship."

"Which is why there is another suggestion which is that the builders of this ship know more about building ships than we do."

"Huh." I commented. "So that suggests a theory." I leant forward. "We know that Humanity came to these shores on the back of ships and that those ships made safe landing by magical means through the storms that they were coming through."

"Yes."

"We also know," I went on. "That we have never discovered where those ships came from as no record survived. There is even some suggestion that they were fleeing something."

"Also True."

"So could this ship come from a similar place. Where we have had to recover our technology and relearn how to do things, could the Skeleton Ship have been built by people that knew, or know, or remembered more."

"Oh, but that's not nearly sinister a suggestion enough." Ragnvald countered with a smile. "The Elves claim that they came to these shores on White ships and that they were refugees from some kind of unknown calamity. This ship is black. Is it the representative of the calamity that they were fleeing. Is it a herald of whatever it was that the Elves were fleeing."

I shook my head. "I doubt that I'm afraid. If it's a herald then it's been heralding things for a long time. When is the thing that it's heralding going to turn up."

Ragnvald laughed, "I was joking Lord Frederick.

"I was not." I sighed. "Truth can often be found in jests and we need to remember that."

I tried to think if there was anything else that could be told to me from the appearance.

"What else can you tell me about what the ship looks like?"

"There is something that looks like writing on the side."

"Ok. I'm going to ask a question that I know that you don't have an answer to but I'm going to ask it anyway. Do you recognise the language?"

"No."

"Because that would be too easy wouldn't it. Painted on the side where a ship's name would traditionally be."

"In exactly the same place yes."

"Right. But there are differences. It sometimes changes?"

"Yes. Mostly on the layout of the deck. Sometimes it seems to have cranes set up over the side. The kind that merchant ships use to lift and move cargo. There's also, relatively often, whaling harpoons visible on the deck. But after that it comes down to things moving around. Being in places that they weren't before. Barrels and crates in different places, that kind of thing."

"Which in turn suggests that it goes somewhere and does things elsewhere. Ok, so here's a big question while we're still talking about the ship. Is it definitely solid. It's not a "Ghost" or a Spectre of a ship of some kind. If I threw a rock at it would the rock bounce off the side?"

"Yes it would. Some people have claimed, at various stages, to be able to see light shining through it but I've always thought that that was some kind of optical thing to do with the fact that there are ice crystals forming whenever the ship is around. But on those times that we can definitely be sure... Which is when it sails through Kaer Trolde harbour, it is definitely solid. It takes on cargo at the docks outside the inn there and the barrels of fish and fresh water don't sink through the deck so..."

"Right." I nodded, losing myself to a thought process of some kind that I can no longer remember. "So what else is always the same? What other similarities are there between it's different appearances?"

Someone arrived with a jug of mead and I poured for Ragnvald and he poured me a small amount after I waved him off. I wanted my wits about me so that I could think properly.

"It always arrives in roughly the same place."

"What place is that?"

"How much naval navigation jargon do you know?"

"Not a great deal."

"Neither do I. It appears a little bit south of Straight due east."

"Is that significant."

Ragnvald sighed. "Here's where things get a little bit interesting." His eyes lidded.

I like the Skelligans as a people. I do, but their tendency to descend into story-telling when I just want some cold hard facts is sometimes rather aggravating.

If you sail in that direction far enough you come to a place that is like no other on this world. It is marked by stones, jagged pillars of rock jutting out from the sea like some outstretched hand of a giant long dead. As though it reaches up out of the depths in order to grasp whatever it is that sails upon the surface of the sea.

Strange things happen there. Sparks fly from swords, paper catches fire and food rots. Some men grow old before their time and still others seem to recover years before their comrades eyes. Scars vanish, missing limbs regrow and the world seems to change before the eyes of sailors.

It is said that in this place, the sky becomes orange, not the scarlet tinted hue of the sunrise or the sunset but an orange born out of the surface of the fruit that shares it's name. The water boils and seethes and the very air seems to stink of rot. Choking fumes rise from the surface of the water and strange algae stand forth on green tinted froth that caps the lapping water.

It is said that from these waters come apparitions that are summoned from the deepest nightmares of man. Men see things in that water. Monsters swimming in the depths. Strange creatures of many hued scales. Warriors riding strange beasts and lost souls begging to be released. People who go there come back different. They go there expecting to find the answer but there is nothing there. Nothing, but poison and death.

I waited for when he had finished to see if there was anything else forthcoming.

"Ok." I said when his eyes opened properly. "So you're telling me that it's a weird place."

He laughed. I still couldn't quite decide whether I liked him or not. He had an odd sense of humour and I sometimes found it grating. He still had the Skelligan habit of never doing anything by half so when he laughed he leant back and roared the hilarity to the ceiling. But I found that I was still angry with him for his manipulations of earlier.

"Weird doesn't do it justice my friend."

"All cultures have that though. All of them have that area of the map where they draw strange creatures beyond it. Sometimes that's correct and there really are strange creatures and things beyond the edge of the map but this sounds a bit extreme to me."

"Even so it's true. Traders between the continent and the Ofieri take the route to the North in order to avoid the place. Ships that go there don't come back but occasionally odd sailors do, clinging to the wreckage of their ships. Loose barrels and empty crates. Their skin blistered and scalded from hot water."

"Ok ok." I held my hands up. He was threatening to descend into more stories about the strangeness of this place. "So what do you think goes on there?"

"I think it's one of those places that you described or theorised about back when you were talking about the cult of the first born. Those places where things have come through before and so the boundaries between worlds are weaker there than they are here. There's no way of proving that though but I think that there is a hole there and I think that that's how it gets through and comes here, to this world."

I nodded. It was as good a place as any and I made a mental note to talk to Kerrass and Helfdan about whether or not it was worth taking a trip out there to see what could be seen.

Speaking of which.

"Is it worth going out there and seeing what could be there?"

"You are sailing with Lord Helfdan and if anyone could bring a ship's crew back from so awful a place then it would be him. They say that that man could sail through a hurricane and merely shake the rain from his cloak."

"I sense there is a "but" coming."

"But." He grinned. "But the Skeleton ship is coming. The cold is already building and we haven't even caught sight of the Albatross yet. And when it comes even the Wave-Serpent with Helfdan at the helm will not be able to outrun the ice floes. To sail west is suicide unless you know something that I don't."

I nodded. It wasn't an unexpected answer.

"So is there anything else that is similar between visits of the ship?" I asked.

"I don't think so. We always see it in the same place. It always looks roughly the same with a few minor alterations. There is always a dead albatross accompanying it and we always see sign of it as the sun sets and there is a flash of green on the horizon."

"Ok. Now let's head in the opposite direction. What is always different? What is never the same? From one visit of the ship to another?"

"An interesting question. Why do you ask?"

"We are seeking clues to find out what it is looking for. There must be a pattern. If it isn't in "what is the same" then it must be in what is different."

He took a drink and scratched his chin. "The route it takes is always different." He said after a while. "We've seen it on the horizon and then the following morning it has turned almost straight north, or South. Sometimes the routes are similar, there are only so many paths through the islands after all. All I can say is that it gets really fucking cold in the caverns whenever it sails through the islands.

"What do you make of the routes?" I asked.

"What is there to make of them?" Ragnvald answered. A little too quickly if you ask me. It rather gave me the impression that he had expected the question and answer response and had the answer ready and waiting. "I have records of every voyage that it's possible to record. When the ship has passed then we get messages from every Skald in Skellige in an effort to try and plot the course of the thing. Where it went, how long it took to get there and what it did when it actually arrived. The only thing that I know for certain, or rather the only two things that I know for certain are that it ends up with a circuit round Ard Skellig island before sailing through Kaer Trolde harbour. After which it vanishes."

"And the other thing?"

"The other thing is that it behaves like a ship. This is not a spectre. It has weight and depth to it. It is affected by the winds and the tides and the currents. It is a ship. It is solid. I don't know why it does what it does, nor can I answer for the effect that it has on the hearts and minds of the Skelligan people. But whatever else it does. It scares the shit out of me."

I nodded. It was pretty much what I had expected to be told.

"So what do you think the Skeleton Ship is?" I asked. All told, it was the first time that Ragnvald looked unhappy at the question. Not that he refused to answer it. But more that he didn't want to, or was unsure of the answer.

I've known men like Ragnvald before. Authority figures. Men that have an answer for every eventuality. Teachers, preachers and lecturers. Kerrass is a man like this if we're being honest with each other. He has an answer for every situation, every question and every... circumstance. Providing that situation is something that is within his wheelhouse. When you start to try and take them outside of that comfort zone then they start to show signs of literal discomfort. They want to do anything but actually answer the questions, they shift their weight, move around or try to distract you.

Kerrass' redeeming factor in this kind of situation is that he is well aware of his strengths and weaknesses. He knows what he's good at and what he's poor at and is ready with an alternative. He avoids situations where he's out of his depth and when he is out of his depth then he relies on those people that know more about the situation than he does. For instance, he trusts me when we get into court like situations.

Another example of this kind of thing, if anything a more extreme example is Hersir Helfdan. Helfdan is possibly the greatest Seaman that currently sails the oceans. He would argue that there are members of the Nilfgaardian messenger fleet that could give him a run for his money but he couldn't name them. But every Sea-Captain that I've spoken to on the subject knows that if the Black Boar is seen on the horizon and Helfdan decides that he wants your cargo, then the best thing to do is to simply heave to and let him take what he likes.

But the instant that you take Helfdan off the deck of the Wave-Serpent then he is a fraction of that man. His redeeming quality is that he has surrounded himself with men who can take up the slack. Svein for commanding men on land, Svein's wife Yngvild for leading a defence of his home territory. Ursa in combat... the list goes on and on. He finds the best people that he can to perform the jobs that he doesn't know how to do and leaves them to get on with it. Then, more importantly, he trusts them to do so.

If I'm being charitable, Ragnvald did not have this luxury. I am still unsure as to how the hierarchy or ruling of the berserkers of Skellige works but if there is a senior member then he is it. So who else do you turn to when someone is asking you to make educated guesses about things that you know nothing about.

I felt that Ragnvald, for all his spirituality, was quite a down to earth man. He believed in the things that he could see, hear and prove. He had seen the spirits of the bear and he had seen the effects and the skills that he had, and the effects that he could generate in others. He had received what Ariadne would describe as "empirical evidence" as to what was going on with the berserkers and was comfortable with what he knew and what he didn't know.

So now I was asking him for some answers outside of his current purview and he didn't like it.

"I think..." He began slowly. "I think that, if there is an answer as to what it is, because I'm not convinced that there is an answer. But if there is an answer, it's going to turn out to be really boring. Something so simple that we could not possibly have seen it coming. Something so elegant that we will all look at each other and snap our fingers saying "Of course."

"Or that the answer is so complex and beyond our understanding that we will never know. Even if you and your companions find the thing that you are looking for and are able to remove the thing from troubling us ever again... Even if you manage that, then we will still not understand what we have been witness to.

"The last option returns to what I said first of all. It is something so simple and boring that when and if you do find out what has happened and why, it will be so simple and boring that everyone will be disappointed when they see what has happened. That we will all be deflated and kind of sink in our chairs, like air let out of a pig's bladder. "Oh," we will say. "Well if we had known that all we had to do was that then we would have done it years ago."

I nodded as I accepted his answer. "Flowery words." I told him. "Very pretty but that doesn't tell me what you actually think the thing is."

He laughed. Again, I was left struggling to decide whether or not I liked him. I certainly edged further and further towards disliking him every time he laughed at a serious question.

"I do not know." He said after a while. "I do not think we have enough information to make a guess or to think what has happened. I do not agree with those people that say that is the ship that carries the souls of the dead onto the next world. I think it is too angry for that. You have not felt the rage of the thing, or the terror that leeches at your soul when you see it on the horizon. Nor do I think it is the visitation of our sins upon us as some of the priests and priestesses would have us believe. If they knew what I knew then they would see that the ship has occurred at both times of the greatest blood letting that the world and Skellige have ever known, while also turning up at times when the world has been as close to being peaceful as this world is able to be."

He nodded to himself as he thought a bit more.

"I do think that it's a Ghost Ship of some kind. If you held a dagger to my throat then I would suggest that the ship itself is nothing to do with it. I think that it will turn out to be the people on board that are the real ghosts. If you really want me to stretch my muscles of credibility and throw out something that you might not have heard before then I also have this theory.

"I think that the ship was a real ship once. I do not know where it came from or where it goes when it departs Kaer Trolde but I think that it was a real ship. I think that the people that crew it were real sailors and that they are those sailors that have never made peace with the fact that their lives might be lost at sea. I think those men died at sea. If they died on land then they would have become wights or wraiths or any of the other interesting forms of undead.

"But they didn't. Instead they died at sea and they don't have anywhere to haunt. Anywhere to to store their bodies. Bodies that were long since destroyed by being in the sea, or have been eaten by sea life or whatever else that might have happened.

"So then I think that those spirits claimed a ship. As I say, I don't know where it comes from or where it's going to. I think that the spirits claimed a ship to haunt so that they would simply have somewhere to manifest themselves. Over time, their... whatever it is that makes them into ghosts, has spread to the ship itself and now, when men die at sea and are un-mourned or are lost under mysterious circumstances, those spirits are called to the Skeleton Ship and those spirits crew the Skeleton Ship until their bodies are recovered and properly dealt with. Or until the spirit itself finds peace in some way.

"So that's it. I think that it's the ghost ship. The ship of Ghosts."

"That isn't very encouraging." I commented. That would mean that in order to track down what the unfinished business of those aboard is then I would have to find out about all of the missing sailors and track down legends of all of the ghost ships that have ever been on the waves."

He laughed at me. This time, I really didn't like him.

"Hey, it's your problem." He told me. "I just record things, I don't have to have to generate any results."

"Fair enough. So, last question then. You folks have been taking records on the Skeleton Ship since the first time it came through the islands, right?"

"Not exactly."

"What do you mean not exactly?"

"We started recording the passage of the Skeleton Ship when we were told to start taking records of the Skeleton Ship. It has actually been coming through the islands for much longer than that."

"How long?"

He smiled at me again. "Follow me."

We climbed up from the table and he led me out through the door back into the training areas. This time though we moved through a different door and ended up back in the library.

"In this area are the records of the Skeleton Ship itself." He told me as we walked. "Every sighting of it, every time that it's been seen. Records of casualties, records of things lost that kind of thing. There are also charts of the passage of the ship so that we can mark for you on maps exactly where it went. We know what date that it arrived, when it left and everything about it's journey. I even have estimates on how many people that would be needed to crew a ship of that size as well as just how big the ship might be."

"So as you said, nothing that would actually be useful." I tried to put a bit of a bite into my words to see if I could get a rise out of him. Fat chance, he just grinned at me. He led me through the library.

"So like a monastery we also spend a lot of time copying records across so that when papers, scrolls and skins that were used to record the information start to degrade, we can keep things going."

"Fair enough,"

"But the other thing that we collect is artwork on the subject of the Skeleton Ship. We have several paintings on the subject."

I felt my pulse quicken. "Really?"

"Oh yes. Some of them are quite beautiful."

He led me to another door, produced a key and unlocked it. I got the feeling that I was being let into some kind of vault. Like a bank vault or the kind of place where families keep their wealth.

"So this is your art gallery?"

"Pretty much. Although it would be closer to say that it was more of an art vault."

"Why keep it secret then? Why not have some of those paintings out in the world where people can get access to them and see these works for themselves."

"Because some of the art can't be moved."

"That sounds..."

"Trust me Lord Frederick. You will see what I mean when you see it."

He was lighting lamps as he spoke. Moving from place to place. There was something like a burning taper on a small bowl just inside the entrance. Using that, he went from place to place setting fire to bowls of what I took to be flammable oils. They certainly smelt like that with the flames leaping up and sending sweet smelling smoke up into the air.

"We don't keep the lights lit when there's no-one in here. Some of these pieces of art are so old that they certainly predate human settlement in the Skelligan isles."

"That's a big claim." I told him.

"It is, and when you see it, you will see why I feel so secure in the claim. Let's start here."

He took me to where there was a table in the middle of the floor where there was a carving of a ship. More a model really. A large thing built out of small scraps of wood.

"This was built by one of us who returned here after being injured. Not unlike myself but he was substantially older. His way of calming himself when he was feeling overwhelmed was to make toy ships for the children in his village. It had the pleasant side effect that they were never afraid of him which is rare when it comes to villagers interacting with berserkers. Parents tend to want their offspring to have nothing to do with us but there you go."

"Can't think why." I said before I could stop myself.

"Quite. But when he came here it turned out that he had been present during the passing of the Skeleton Ship through Kaer Trolde harbour one time. He knew that we were interested in such things and so he offered to build us a model of what he had seen. He was the sun of a shipwright so he has one of those clinical and detached eyes which meant that he carved exactly what he saw rather than what his mind thought that should be there. It's as close as an actual scale model as we have."

I looked at the thing before me. "I don't suppose you have any other models for scale?"

"We do as a matter of fact. This..." He placed a ship next to it. "Is the carving of a ship, not all that much larger than the Wave-Serpent that you've been travelling on."

I compared the two.

"Flame but she's a big ship then."

The model of the Skeleton Ship was indeed much larger than I had been expecting. Twice as long as the longship model and twice as wide."

"Where's the sea level on it?" I asked and he pointed at a notch around the edge of the model which meant that there was easily room for a couple of decks beneath the main deck itself. Many of the modern ships of the Royal Redanian fleet have a deck below the main deck but those ships are brand new. Using the most recent technologies that Oxenfurt engineering academy could produce.

But this thing had been around for centuries.

Other than that, it looked like any number of other ships. Taller masts and slightly rounder top decks. A lot of the modern ships, again, are wanting to portray themselves as being floating castles so you see square backed craft with crenelations. This ship seemed simpler somehow, more rounded.

"It doesn't look particularly terrifying." I said.

"As I say, this is just a model of the technical aspects of the ship. Until you see the Skeleton Ship itself, there is no way to properly convey just how...Oppressive the real thing is. How all consuming the very presence of it is.

"Anyway." He gave me a binding of various sketches. "Again, one of the things that we try and teach our people to do is to have a hobby. Something to absorb themselves when they need to calm their heads down or otherwise take them out of whatever situation that they might need to extract them from. Whittling, music or sketching can be very calming to the soul. Have you considered getting yourself a hobby?"

"I write." I told him. "Clinical pieces for the Oxenfurt academy, more descriptive pieces for the university magazine as well as my own personal diary." I was flicking through the loose leaves of the sketchbook. They were obviously drawn by a number of different artists as some of the artwork was so obviously a different quality than others. Some were pencil sketches. Others were Charcoal. Some were just outlines with the ship being nothing but a small outline on the horizon with another smaller speck flying above it. Others were larger and more detailed. Ragnvald was still moving through the small room lighting torches and firebowls as he went.

Then I turned one page and I stopped.

"Fuck me." I muttered. He must have heard me as he looked over.

"Yes, that one's my favourite."

"Favourite is a strong word." I told him. "It's certainly the best quality. That's terrifying."

The picture was a forced perspective. It showed a shape out of a nightmare, a huge looming...thing that stood stark on the paper. There were things and creatures leaning over the side down at the perspective of the drawer but mostly there was just the great, black shape looking out of the paper. It was strangely hypnotic. The black of whatever the shape had been painted out of seemed to suck at the eye so that it seemed hard to look away. I had to tear myself away from it and the image seemed burned into my eyes.

"Intense isn't it." Ragnvald was standing next to me, an odd expression on his face. I was blinking and rubbing my eyes in an effort to get the image out of my eyes.

"Intense?" I said. "Who drew that?"

"A noble who was aware of what we do here found it and bought it, sending it to us. According to what he told us. That drawing is one of many that was drawn by an old woman on the continent. She was rescued from trying to cross the Blue Mountains where she was caught, freezing to death in a cave. It took them some time to figure out that she was Skelligan but even despite that she was clearly stark raving mad and they locked her up in an asylum where she drew that picture over and over again."

"Flame."

"Not quite but close."

I handed him back the binder of sketches.

"This is the best work of art though." He led me through the other paintings. In each of them I could see the outline of ships against waves. One or two depicted the fabled albatross of which I had heard so much but most were of a black ship under full sail over a storm tossed sea.

"We think it's Elven." He told me leading me to an alcove. "If only because the painting is fixed to the wall. There is a frame and we have checked, it's definitely painted with oils and painted on canvas but try as we might, we can't get it off the wall without chisels which we're obviously unwilling to use. It's also a little bit more abstract than some of the other paintings which suggests Elven work. But rather than just being a work from memory, which most of these paintings and sketches are. It shows the ice that comes with it."

The painting was of a shape. At first, I could see little to it other than that it was geometric but as I looked I felt myself shiver and then I could see the ship for what it was. I was aware that the shape was just painted on canvas with wavy white and blue lines coming off it in waves but I could feel those waves of cold. I could smell the salt air and the cold creeping down my throat and into my lungs, making them ache. Again, I had the feeling that my vision was being sucked at. As though my eyes were being drawn into the shape and that if I didn't hold on then I would fall into the frame.

I shook my head again in an effort to clear it.

"That's..." I swallowed. "A little frightening."

"Wait until you see the real thing. Then there's this one." He took me a bit further down. To another alcove. Now that there were more torches lit it was plain that we were in some kind of small cave rather than in one of the other Elven halls. The walls were more uniform but the ceiling was craggy and uneven. There was a lack of damp though and I wondered if that was an effect of the Elven architecture or whether it was because of the flames.

This picture was a much more real looking picture. It showed the ship itself at the point of breaking through the ice. You could see splinters and shards of ice flying away from the prow of the ship. The ship itself was black but there was less of an oppressive feeling about this particular shade of black. It was as though the artist was just saying that it was a black hull. The skies that were depicted were grey although I didn't think that the sky was being painted as overcast. The ice was cunningly depicted with lots of whites and blues, as was the spray. On the deck of the ship itself I could see green outlines of men who seemed to be working the ship itself as well as two figures that were stood on the poop deck at the back of the ship. One tall and wrapped in a dark cloak and another smaller one next to the cloaked figure.

There were strange symbols on the front of the ship.

"Do you mind if I copy them down?" I asked, pointing.

"No need." He said, handing me a scrap of paper. "I did them earlier when I thought that you might ask."

"No-one likes a smug bastard." I told him but he laughed it off.

"So you asked me how long the Skeleton Ship has been coming to the islands." He began and I couldn't help but sigh as I felt another story coming on.

"I did." I answered. "It would be helpful to establish some sort of timeline to events so that we can base our investigation off that."

"First, a small history lesson if I may. The Skelligan islands are a fascinating place did you know that?"

"As a matter of fact I did know that." I was getting close to the painting to see if I could pick out some more details of the occupants of the ship.

"The islands have been settled by multiple different races over the years. If you dig deep enough, as I say, you can find Elven ruins. There's a large load of them on Hindarsfjall."

"Yes. I know that. You mentioned it before, also an Elven Laboratory and..."

"Look," he was smiling. "Do you want me to tell you this stuff or not?"

"I apologise. What was it you wanted to tell me?"

"But if you scratch underneath the Elven settlements you will actually begin to find that there are other settlements underneath the Elven layer of settlements."

"Dwarven? Gnomish?"

He laughed. "If we were on the mainlands then that would undeniably be true. But out here on the islands we have things happen differently. People came to the continent through the conjunction of spheres. As the Empress herself told us and as you recorded her saying in your works. There was another one relatively recently. As a result the population of ice trolls and ice elementals in the islands has increased but there is someone else, another people that lived here even before then. Who knows when they arrived on the islands? We certainly don't think that those who remain know how they got here or how long they have been here but there is some evidence that they had a rudimentary language and written word. They were certainly advanced enough to have formed artwork."

"What are you saying?"

"Come with me."

He led me right to the back of the cave, the ceiling began to get lower and lower until it began to feel as though it was pushing down on me. The ground became uneven and I got the impression that if anyone ever had bothered, the formation of the cave meant that it was no longer as practical to put down flagstones or carve pillars.

"We think, although we cannot prove it of course, that even the Elves were motivated to preserve the things that we found."

The cave opened out again into an area that seemed to form a bubble in the rock. In the distance, I could hear the rumble of thunder, as though the waves were crashing against the rock.

Ragnvald held his torch aloft.

At first I didn't see what he was looking at. But then I did. I was looking for something small, a painting or a picture but then I realised that I was looking at a vast pattern. It was like the simplest, crudest outlines of figures drawn in a pale blue-white chalk. They were shown in pictures of worship, kneeling and bowing towards a central figure. A central shape.

"The ice giants made Skellige their home, long before the Elves or humanity came here and settled and built. The Ice Giants moved through these caves and crafted tools and artwork. They gathered and ate and hunted and, as it turns out, they painted." Ragnvald told me. There was a reverence to his voice now.

The figures which I took to be crude drawings of ice giants, or to represent the ice giants were bowing in worship to a black outline, a black shape. If I had to guess, I would suggest that the painter had no idea what he was looking at, or what it was that he was drawing. But he was clearly drawing something that was on the sea.

A bird flew above it, a black shape of a bird which had a small silver speck on the bird shape by some art that I didn't recognise. But the shape, the thing that the ice giants were bowing down and worshipping was the Skeleton Ship.

"The Skeleton Ship has been coming here for a long time." Ragnvald told me, utterly without irony or his occasional trace of smugness.

(Further A/N: Thank you for your patience on this one. Not only was it a long one but it was a real slog to get through. Finding it hard work at the moment. Anyhoo, just warning folks that the occasional delays might also creep in a bit more in the near future. Am flying back to the UK for a family occasion which means that I certainly won;'t be able to hit my normal target regularly for a while. Just to reassure folks that I'm not giving up but it might be a while between updates. Longer than usual anyway.

As always. Thanks for reading)