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

112. Chapter 112

(Warning: Contains a scene of remembered animal cruelty and neglect seen through the lens of memory. Many discussions on the nature of grief. Also contains some spoilers for game and book)

I took a deep breath and reached for Lennox's arm, tugging him up from the floor by the wrist. The idea was that I would be helping him to his feet but he tugged his arm out of my grip, rather petulantly really. At first, I thought that what he was doing was showing some form of defiance, telling me that he was going to climb up to his feet under his own steam thank you so very much. But no, he just wanted to stay there in a heap, snivelling to himself.

I don't know what he was trying to do with that. If he was thinking logically then I guess that he might have been playing for time. Some form of attempt to just burn the seconds away until the ship had sailed through the port and then he would be able to escape. There would be some wisdom in that. After all, it is a saying of the Witchers that if you are about to be hung, ask for water as anything could happen while someone fetches it for you.

But I don't think that that was what he was trying to do. I think he was just refusing to have anything to do with the entire process. I think he was retreating, almost as though he was refusing to believe that this could be happening to him. I think he was in denial. But he was lying to himself.

One of the guards had little patience with this kind of behaviour. Skelligans believe that if you are walking to your death or your execution then you should walk there, willingly, with your head held high and a smile on your face so that you can show bravery and courage. Indeed, so that the last act that you make with your life should be an act of bravery.

When my time comes, I hope that I am able to do the same.

But the guard was scornful at Lennox's refusal to stand in the face of the Queen's sentence. If they ever had any respect for him at all, I suspect that it vanished then. The guard leant over, took a firm grip of Lennox's arm and hauled him to his feet. Lennox reacted, again, by trying to tug his arm out of the guard's grip. When he failed, his movements became more violent and, whether by luck or by design, his fist struck the guard on the face.

Not hard. He was in the wrong position to make a proper punch land with any kind of power and the guard did little more than blink and drop his prisoner.

"Oh, not the smartest move you ever made Tiny-Dick." He leant forward and hauled Lennox up by the hair, this time being more cautious about Lennox's flailing limbs. Kerrass stepped forward and caught one of the arms and twisted it until the arm was up and behind the former Druid's back. Kerrass kept twisting until Lennox moaned in pain and was forced, by the action, to stand on his tip-toes.

The prisoner was then aimed at the steps leading up before Kerrass nodded at the guard who relinquished his own hold before we started to file upwards. Ciri led us, holding a torch aloft with her own guard leading the way and bringing up the rear as well so that we were protected front and back. I walked on one side of the prisoner while Helfdan walked on the other side. In theory we were there to make sure that Lennox didn't bolt for freedom or try anything stupid. But I rather think that Kerrass had a firm grip on the man and if Lennox had anything in him to try for freedom, all Kerrass had to do was to twist his grip and agony would be ripping through the hapless Druid and Mariner.

And, I don't think Lennox had the balls to try anything quite so stupid.

We walked up through the still strangely deserted castle. As we moved through into the larger castle, small groups of guards would break off and form up around us, in front, behind or to either side so that by the time we were moving out of the great hall and into the courtyard we had quite a procession going. I saw Svein in his new and shiny full battledress joining the group, along with the other survivors of the Wave-Serpent.

I also saw a small group of Druids join us along with representatives of the Clan An Craite household guard. Including Captain Rymer and some of his crew I saw. At first I was concerned that this might be some kind of rescue attempt but they fell in at the front of the column rather than at either side where they would be able to get to the prisoner the easier.

We walked down the tunnel, the strange procession utterly silent other than the echoing footfalls and jangling of armour. We emerged onto the bridge over the entrance into Kaer Trolde harbour and walked across before the column formed up again and we walked down into the harbour.

I'm trying to think about how I can explain the differences about the weather, between how it was when we walked down into the harbour, and how it was earlier. The saga-masters described how the weather changes between when the ship finishes it's circuit of the Skelligan Isles and when it sails through the harbour as

"The cold loses it's anger, it loses it's edge" they say and I have been struggling to think of ways in which I could say, essentially, the same thing but without just repeating those words. It was like the difference between being outside in the snow when the wind is howling and you aren't wearing proper clothes and no matter how you arrange things, you just can't keep the snow from getting into you while also keeping the frozen, ice melt from running down the back of your neck. That was what it was like before. There was a knife edge quality to that cold that could cut you to the bone.

But now. It was still snowing but the snow fell gently from the clouds above us. It was dark and there was an almost festive feeling in the air. It was like the idyllic snow that you get in Yule celebration paintings with fur decked families running from house to house, greeting family and friends with gifts and happiness. Where every house has a warm hearth and hot food waiting and instead of hiding from the elements in bundled blankets and fur cloaks, people stand there with their heads thrown back, eyes and mouths open as they try to catch snowflakes in their mouths and dance around with the joy of it.

It was story book winter.

It was the cold that you can see outside when you are lying in your bed, blankets pulled around you as you watch the snow falling outside your window. It was the cold that causes lovers to take shelter and burrow inside each others warmer clothing. It was the cold of cupped hands around bowls of mulled wine and thick soup. It was the cold of snowball fights and constructed men with carrots for noses and coal for smiles.

But although the pain and the... the rage had left the weather. There was a blanket of sadness over the crowd.

And it was a crowd that had gathered. Indeed, it seemed as though everyone in Skellige had assembled in the relatively small area of Kaer Trolde's main harbour. All of them dressed in relative finery and wrapped in scarves and gloves and their warmest clothes. There was a feeling... It was like being at a funeral. That moment before the wake begins where everyone is filled with grief, both private and public. The part of funerals where you are still mourning before you move past that and head into the celebration of life that always, or should always, come afterwards.

People gathered in small groups, largely made up of families and workers I guessed. Men that worked together on the fishing fleets or merchant vessels. Raiding crews and transport boats. Not all of them were Skelligan either. I saw the military uniforms of the Imperial Navy in the crowd, standing to attention in the Imperial Parade rest. I also saw Redanian soldiers. Not many and I wondered how they had come to be on the islands but they were fully armed and stood, weapons drawn with the point grounded as they stood what I recognised to be the funeral watch from when Sam had done so for our Father.

The air was ripe with un-shed tears and it was utterly silent.

There wasn't even that occasional moment of lightness when an innocent child wonders why everyone is so sad of a grieving mother. There were children present. That was certainly still a thing but despite whether they were the ones holding the offerings for missing parents that had been lost at sea, or whether they were gathered in parent's arms, they all looked towards the opening of the harbour where soon, the Skeleton Ship would arrive.

The offerings were many and varied. Each one made to represent and commemorate a person that had been lost at sea since the last time the Skeleton Ship had passed through the harbour. The men of the Wave-Serpent were each carrying several offerings for those men that had died. including Helfdan who carried a wreath of some thorny vines without flowers that had been woven, twisted into a circle and that he intended to cast it into the wake of the Skeleton Ship as it departed. I knew, because I had asked, that each one of the vines represented one of his fallen sailors and warriors. Svein had handed it to him at some point during the procession.

But that was not the only thing that I saw. I saw many weapons being carried ready to be cast into the icy water. I saw bundles of flowers. Children's toys, carved representation. Women carried jewellery and men carried tools. I saw one particularly heart-breaking scene where a man led a family, his wife all but holding him up and three other children clustered around him as the tears ran freely down his face. The man was carrying a painted wooden soldier that he cradled in his arms the way a parent cradles a child.

I saw another family supporting an old woman who was carrying a fishing pole. She seemed bright and relatively cheerful although every so often, a flash of memory would cross her face and she would kind of crease in grief before she would straighten and put her mask of cheerfulness back on.

And one by one, as we entered the harbour with our prisoner. Every single pair of eyes turned from the entrance to the harbour and looked at us.

No, not at us. But at the man we all but carried down into the harbour.

And still, not a word was shouted. Not a mumble, not a sound. The only sound was our footsteps and the sounds of the flames guttering on the torches and in the fire pits that had been built around the place.

And the whimpering of the man who Kerrass continued to push ahead of him.

"No," Lennox whimpered. "Please no. No." It was barely audible. Just a small noise under his breath as he shook his head in denial at what was happening to him. He would occasionally try and fight, or resist but Kerrass would simply shift his grip on the Druid's arm and Lennox would groan slightly and would move forward again. I don't think he did it deliberately. Just the reflexive flailing of a terrified man who does not want to move further.

We came down and the crowd, all of them looking at us now with their dark, shadowed and sunken eyes looking at us. Watching us. All of them parted to make way for our little procession and just as men had left what they were doing to help escort us down into the harbour. So too did that same escort peel off in small moments to go and stand with loved ones, or to stand with their fellows or lord. Many going to stand guard around Queen Cerys (who had taken the short cut down from the keep) and around Hjalmar who stood next to his sister as we moved down to where the inn was.

The inn itself is a large complex made out of several rooms all connected together. It seems to have started off as a relatively small building but then as the needs of the fortress and the harbour have expanded, so to has the stature and size of the inn. There are certainly, now, rooms attached and there are many stuffed animals and trophies that adorn the walls. The hearth is always warm, there is always something roasting over a spit and the atmosphere is generally friendly and free.

The innkeeper is well aware that he runs one of the central gathering places of the Skelligan Isles and he is said to rule the inn with an iron fist. Any man that starts trouble in the inn of Kaer Trolde is thrown out, unceremoniously, by which ever door is nearer and given that one of the doors opens up into the harbour, that can be an extremely dangerous prospect. Especially in the depths of winter. But more than that, any man or woman that breaks the peace of the Inn of Kaer Trolde is automatically barred for life.

This is a significant penalty as the inn is also a centre for trade, gossip and all the other things that go with that. Traders, merchants, craftsmen and, yes, warriors meet here in order to discuss business. On the continent, such establishments are made out of booths where men can try to hide their business behind concealing hands, smoky atmosphere and deep hoods that hide the face. Such things in Skellige are seen as automatically suspicious so the business has to be conducted in the open.

There is also a fighting circle out in front of the inn which is where any person who is expecting a quarrel to break out, is expected to take any fight that he might be about to take part in. That way, as well as resolving the conflict, the combat can also provide entertainment for the rest of the inn's patrons. There is also a regular and prolific fist-fighting tournament that takes place here and many are the broken faces that are consoled in the depths of a mug of the innkeepers ale.

As I say, the Innkeeper has a fearsome reputation but I have to say that the few times I had opportunity to go and visit his establishment, I found him a more than congenial host. Friendly, open and honest.

On this night, though, he was subdued. His kitchen was working furiously, producing some of the food and hot soup that was being handed out to the attendees. As well as that, he was overseeing the goods being stacked on his small jetty. Crates of stuff, barrels of salted fish and fresh water all stacked carefully under his watchful eye. Someone had warned him of our approach and he was there to meet us.

He greeted Ciri with that same kind of half smile of half remembered recognition that I see on the faces of islanders everywhere when they see Ciri for the first time in years. As though she tickles the back of their brains in some way that makes them feel slightly uncomfortable. Then he remembered himself and bowed to her before presenting his wife who curtsied and the other members of their family who bowed and curtsied accordingly. One of the teenaged sons had to be prodded by an elder sister into making the proper gestures of respect as the poor young man was clearly besotted with the Empress, but Ciri took it with good grace and smiled at him gently without giving him any sign that there was anything else there.

It all happened without words being spoken. That was the thing that struck me at the time. People were being quiet and every noise, every scrape of wood against wood as the barrels and crates were being stacked, brought a wince from the innkeeper.

The Innkeeper recognised Helfdan next and the two shook hands. A look of sorrow and sympathy on the Innkeepers face as they clasped hands. Helfdan nodded his receipt of the sympathy before shrugging. The Innkeeper's wife was less subtle as she threw her arms around Helfdan with a tear in her eye and an audible snuffle. Helfdan accepted the embrace with relative grace and his comfort with the pair spoke eloquently of their character.

Helfdan clapped his hand on my shoulder and I had my hand gripped and arms thrown around me in turn, as did Kerrass. Much to Kerrass' astonishment.

And then we waited.

It was eerie. Really really eerie.

You could hear everything, as though a state of hyper awareness had settled over us all. Someone was crying. I turned to look around and more images struck me. The innkeeper and his family were straightening themselves up. Work aprons cast aside to reveal relative finery underneath as the Innkeeper's wife inspected her children and the other workers in the same way that I have seen the Captain of Father's guards inspect the troops.

I saw Queen Cerys standing alone in a crowd. Surrounded by guards and with her brother standing next to her along with the other Jarls, but she was a little separate. She was also wrapped tightly with a heavy cloak and hood while her gloved hands rested on her sword pommel. She looked proud, but also remote, cold and more than a little bit lonely.

I saw Ingimund, still not giving up, being shushed by Donar and Udalryk. The others having clearly given up on him as they looked towards the entrance of the harbour.

Every so often, someone would cough, sneeze or move slightly in an effort to circulate some warmth about themselves. The cold was no longer as unpleasant as it had been, but it was still cold. But every time this happened, it was as though the entire spell had broken. As though we were all, momentarily, woken up from our trances and in the same way that I resent those interruptions during church services, I found that I resented the interruptions here.

But everything, sooner or later, everything that we were waiting for was focused on the entrance to the harbour. I could just about see it from where I was standing. Lennox had sunk to his knees and was whimpering, I don't know if he felt that that made him more sympathetic or what but he was just huddled there, clearly having given up any hope of talking us into letting him go.

But we watched and we waited.

The darkness beyond those cliffs was a deep, dark hole that sucked at the eyes and the mind, made worse by the red-orange glow of the firelight that we were surrounded by from the torches and the baskets. It was as though it was a hole that we were pouring all of our grief and our emotion into into it. It seemed to suck everything away as we were waiting for the first sign of that spectral ship to show itself. I mean, I knew that we would hear a horn before we would see the ship itself. But that was part of the impossibility of the thing. I wanted to see the ship first. I longed to actually witness it.

My only sight of the ship so far had been of this huge, black mass of almost solidified hate and terror. I think I said at the time that it reminded me of this slathering beast that chases children away from farmer's private lands. Beasts like the fabled Black Dogs or the Barghests that Kerrass is always slightly scornful of. That is what it had felt like to look at that giant ship with it's black hull and billowing sails. I could almost hear it snarl as it tugged at itself in an effort to try and catch up with us that little bit faster.

But this was different now. There was a magic in the air. I would have known that even if I hadn't been able to see Kerrass' pendant dancing gently at the end of it's chain.

Despite the waiting, despite the desperation to see the thing and the knowledge that we would hear the horn call first, despite all of those things. I jumped when the first sound of the horn came, echoing through the chasm. When I had first come to the Skelligan Isles to witness this, before I had met Helfdan, heard the name Lennox and even considered what things might happen here. I had wanted to talk to the horn blower. Maybe even meet them and stand the watch with them as the time came. But I had clear forgotten that desire in the wake of everything that had happened in the meantime.

The horn sounded, the noise rippling around us like an almost solid thing. Like a flag or a banner flapping in the wind. I found myself imagining the sound as trails of smoke that were being blown about the chasm by unseen winds.

When I discussed the matter of the Unicorn, I spoke about the craft that goes into making bells and about how different bells are created with different purposes. About how alarm bells are crafted to be discordant and jarring whereas church bells are crafted in order to be warm and welcoming. I now know that horns must be crafted the same way. A war horn must be different from a hunting horn which, in turn must be different from a signalling horn...

(Freddie: I've just been called out on this. A war horn is designed for volume but the sacrifices in the construction of this kind of thing mean that it can only really play a couple of notes. Which means that it can only really give simple signals and orders. A signal horn is not as loud. It is somewhat more piercing in pitch but is capable of much greater range and can communicate so many other ideas and... well... signals.)

…. which is different from a musical horn.

Whichever craftsman created the horn of the Skeleton Ship must have wept when he was done. Because he knew that he would never again make a horn more suitable for the thing for which it was designed. They call it, the horn of mourning in Skellige. Other than at the time of the Skeleton Ship, it is also blown to signify the death of the King and will now be used to notify everyone that the Queen is dead. It is a huge thing and the story that the Skald's tell of a man who volunteers for the duty and the service is clearly lying. You need to be trained to the use of the horn of mourning. It is not something that even the most skilled horn player could just start to use off hand.

It was almost exactly like the wail of a grieving human. There was music to it to be sure as well as separate notes to it. I would even suggest that there might have been a tune there somewhere, but from the first moment I heard it, It denied my ability to be able to classify. It was too emotional a sound. Too raw and awful.

It echoed around us in a way that made it sound as though the horn player had not paused in his blowing. It was a long sound and it dragged on and on, the echoes prolonging it and harmonising with that first effort. It was a breathtaking feat of skill, engineering and musicianship in general. Still it went on, just when I thought it had stopped, the sound would come again until I could feel it reaching down past the nape of my neck and darting down my spine in shivers that set me to shaking.

It was a sad sound. As I say, it sounded like a wailing cry of grief. At first, as though it had come from one throat but as the echoes built around me, that first voice was joined by another and another until it was an entire chorus of distress, grief and pain.

It died away eventually with awful slowness and I felt as though it had hollowed me out from the inside. All my reserves of calm and self-control had been torn away from me and the tears ran down my face as I remembered everyone and everything that I have lost.

But this was not a thing of longing, nor was it a thing where regrets flashed across my mind. This was different in some way. I was left with flashes, small memories on the edge of consciousness that flitted across my vision. I suddenly had the burning desire to hear Francesca laugh. One of those strange laughs that she gave where the initial outburst seemed to come out of her gut somewhere and she would try to hide the laughter with a hand up to her face while the spasm of laughter left her helpless. But even that was not enough and eventually, the helplessness would spread and then she would just be lying backwards, limbs flailing around as she was left helpless with her fit of hilarity.

I thought of my mother. I don't think of her often as, depending on my mood, I find that I am still a little angry with her. But I remembered the smile that she gave Emma, Sam and I as she walked away from the family castle to join the order of nuns near Ellander. I remember that flash as she turned back to look at us, travelling pack slung over her shoulder, walking staff in her hand with the other women leading her off. Just as she was going, she turned to look at us, over her shoulder and despite the relatively quick pace that was being set, she took the time to wave backwards and smile at us. I don't... honestly, I don't think I have ever seen her looking happier.

That was what it was like. There was no negativity to the grief. None of the regrets that come when I think of these people normally, or at the other funerals that I have attended.

I thought of my Father as we all bullied him into wearing one of the ridiculous Yule hats at the feasting table and his attempts to maintain a stern look of disapproval while wearing the bright pink hat before he allowed the slow and creeping smile to cross his face.

I remembered Ivar laughing at one of my jokes. I remember Haakon, grim and silent in his armour suddenly turning towards me and pulling a face. I remembered Sir Thomas of Nilfgaard sheepishly and shyly asking if I would be willing to sign his copy of my book.

I didn't think of Edmund or any of the other enemies that I have buried. Instead, I only had those bitter-sweet flashes of memory and I realised that I was looking at my feet.

I remembered Sally's delight at Kerrass' gift. Pula's gentle amusement at my dismay over his living arrangements with his wife the Succubus and I remember the lady herself grinning at me and telling me that she was called Saffron because she was spicy.

All of the other people that I don't think of often enough. Friends from the University that are sadly no longer with us due to one thing or another, the women that died in childbirth or the men that fell to illness or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time and I thought how lucky I was that I have managed to avoid such catastrophe...

So far.

Nor was there any anger for those people that had been taken from me. I was not angry about the betrayals that the Wave-Serpent had suffered. I was not angry at the men that had taken Francesca from us. Instead I remembered the feeling of setting sail on the Wave-Serpent. I remembered what it was like when we were pushing her off the beaches that we had taken shelter at. Where we were forced to row her for a little while, and then that moment occurred where the wind swelled, the sail billowed and the Wave-Serpent leapt forwards.

Every time that happened. Every single time, Svein would comment "She's feisty today" and the rest of the men would laugh with one or other of them teasing him and saying. "You always say that" and every single time, Svein would respond "That's because she's always feisty."

I had expected to be stern and withdrawn while all of this was going on. I had expected to be able to guard my emotions for what was going to come next when we threw Lennox to the Skeleton Ship. I had not expected to feel this up swell of feeling within my heart.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to face Kerrass.

Let this be the end to the debate. Witchers have had a lot happen to them over their years of life and as such, they are often rendered numb. But they are not emotionless. I saw tears in a Witchers eyes and saw the awful grief that he lives with every day. His brother Witchers, those Witchers that trained him and those Witchers that raised him. I was reminded that he had been married twice, both women lost to illness and death. I realised the number of friends that he had lost over the years and he was trying to comfort me. All the while, the tears ran freely down his face and his breath shuddered in his throat.

"I..." He tried before shaking his head. He took an unsteady breath before he tried again. "I'm so..."

Then his face began to crease up and I found myself wondering while I was still standing there as I threw my arms round him.

"Dammit." He whispered as he hugged me back.

It wasn't long after that that smaller arms joined us both and a much more openly weeping Ciri was accepted into our hug "I miss Vesemir." She wailed softly. "Vesemir and Thistle and... Oh Freddie, I miss Francesca."

The three of us stood there for a while before we pulled apart. Helfdan was stood nearby, rigid straight with his eyes hollow, staring out into the night. Carefully, Ciri approached him.

"I am so very sorry Helfdan." She said carefully. Helfdan nodded and hung his head. Just as carefully as she had spoken, Ciri opened her arms and embraced the taller man, keeping the hold loose and giving him every opportunity to pull away. At first he was rigid before he seemed to relax and hugged Ciri back. But only briefly before the two of them pulled apart.

If you are thinking that this would have been a perfect opportunity for Lennox to make his attempt at freedom, I agree. But he just knelt there, staring and whimpering. I have no idea what he was thinking.

Frankly, I don't much care.

All around us I could see the same kinds of scenes being replayed. It hit those of us that had never been here before the hardest. Some of the Nilfgaardian soldiers couldn't hold it in, nor the Redanian guards and no-one, no-one at all thought any the less of them for it. Instead, comrades, sergeants and knights went down the line and consoled the openly weeping men with a hand on the shoulder or a little word. I saw a Redanian Sergeant stand in front of a weeping man so that no-one could see the inconsolable soldier that he was hiding from view.

It was utterly, utterly moving. There was certainly magic in the air so I have no idea how much of that was artificial rather than entirely natural but I would like to think that there was some genuine love in the air that night as we all shared our grief together.

I did not see the ship emerge from the darkness. I was looking at the other people in the crowds and making sure that Kerrass was alright. I had seen him extremely emotional before but that had been under less than completely ideal circumstances and I worried that it might be a lot for him to cope with. But I knew when it happened. It started at the end of the harbour closest to the sea because that was only natural.

And this is going to be tricky to describe so I ask that you bear with me and forgive me if it's confusing.

As I had seen when the Skeleton Ship was coming towards us. When we were fleeing from it in an effort to get away, I had commented that it was certainly a ship, larger, blacker and grander than anything than I had ever seen before, but it had also been like some kind of living breathing thing. It seemed to snarl and growl and spit. It reminded me of a guard dog or a hunting hound built large and oh so much more terrifying.

All the while, it was still a ship.

Now it was different and oh so much more heart breaking. It was also why it was called the Skeleton Ship.

It was still a ship. Definitely still a ship but instead of full sails, deep colours and properly built it was this broken, husk of a ship. It's hull was covered in lichen, moss and barnacles. You could see the shells of the broken sea creatures as well. As I watched, small crabs came out of one of the holes and scuttled along the boards in the same way that spiders move up the side of a wall.

When I had seen it before, it had been covered with black paint. Now that paint had faded until it was clear that the paint was actually a deep, dark green but it had been bleached clean until it was this faded, sickly colour. The paint itself was peeling away off the boards.

Many of those boards were missing too. Not in some kind of massive collision, not like a ship that has been breached by a ram or run up against the rock. This was much more...

You know how you get old and ruined castles. Where they become ruined because they have been abandoned and the local villagers see this and realise that there is perfectly good, well dressed stone just sitting there unattended. So they go and steal a bit to be a hearthstone. Then someone else sees that there is no retribution for this and so another stone gets stolen and another stone and another stone.

It was like that. It was as though the boards of wood that had made up the hull had been stolen away. You could see the water running into the hull and sloshing about in the depths of the ship.

It was awful, and I had seen this ship trying to hunt me down in order to kill me.

The sails were ragged and torn, the ropes of the rigging were broken and ragged making it impossible for a man to try and climb it. And that was if the ropes themselves would not sag or just rot away in the hands of the climber.

So that was why it was called the Skeleton Ship. It was literally a Skeleton of a Ship.

One of the things that I have learned about the Skelligans, made so poignant and horrible after the death of the Wave-Serpent, was just how much these people love their ships. They love them. Those ships are family, comrades, friends and lovers. Even when they take and sink other ships, it breaks their heart to see ships be destroyed. Sinking an enemy ship is like a warrior killing another warrior. You had to do it, just to survive if for no other reason, that ship had to die. But in the same way as you do after the battle is over and you think of the man who's throat you have ripped out with your dagger. Or who's skull you have crushed with a mace. You begin to think of... You think of who that man was. What was his name? Where did he come from? what drove him to be here and facing you on opposite sides of a battlefield? Have I just made some poor children orphans or some woman a widow?

That is what it's like for Skelligans. They will cheer and celebrate the destruction of an enemy ship. But they will mourn it too.

So for Skelligans, whose entire culture is governed by the sea and the ships that sail upon them. For Skelligans to see such a ship in such a state of disrepair. It was awful.

Huge, grand, impressive. It was all of these things and more with it's three masts, huge sails and multiple decks that could be seen through the holes in the hull. Larger than any ship that I have ever seen. Larger than the Royal ships of King Radovid even. Larger than those ships that had escorted the Empress to Skellige. But it was a broken down husk of a ship.

I thought of the Wave-Serpent and I wept.

I'm sorry if I keep repeating myself here. Because the other thing was that the Skeleton Ship is not just a ship. Helfdan and/or his crew would want me to say something like "No ship is just a ship" and they would be right. A ship is also the people that serve aboard that ship. The Ship is also the cargo that she carries, the ports that she has visited and the enemies that she has fought. A ship is her purpose, her figurehead, her name and all other parts of her that make the difference. The colour of her sails, the sounds that people make as she appears on the horizon, the song that her ropes and her sails and her boards make as they sail the ocean under the power of the wind and the waves. A ship has a personality and I don't want to take away from that.

But the Skeleton Ship itself was like a living breathing thing.

When we had first seen sign of her, when we had first seen the Albatross circling overhead we had felt the awful, cold, terrible rage that had swept from the ship like a wave. As we had gotten closer to her, we had seen the drooling primal fury of the thing. We had seen the beast, the hunting dog, the feral wolf and the angry bear that lived in the boards and the ropes of the thing. We had seen the beast, the monster really, that had strained in order to wreak it's bloody vengeance on the people that had had the temerity to cross it's path. The temerity to deny the passage of the ship and to not be cowed by the nature of the thing.

We had seen that, we had fled from that and we had been terrified of that. Rightly so too.

But now it was different. There was still an animalistic nature to the ship but it changed. It was no longer what it had been before.

What did it remind me of?

Everyone has this experience in the past. Everyone has seen something like this and felt their heart break.

For me, my example is a dog. This was back before we had moved into what is now called Castle Coulthard. So my family was still living in a manor house that my Grandfather had bought. There were a few of them around the place at the time. We had a few tenant farmers at the time as well. Nothing too large. One guy grew wheat, another was a wool farmer and the other was a cattle farmer. As far as I know, the Wheat farmer and the Wool Farmer are still with the family. We found them bigger farms on our newer, larger estate and they both regularly attend functions at the castle and the Wheat farmer is now planning on passing the farm down to his son.

But the cattle farmer was an ass-hat. And an incompetent one at that.

My over-riding memory of him was two fold. The first was the number of times that Father had to go and ask him for his rents so that Father could pay the relevant taxes up towards our feudal Lord at the time. But my other memory was when I was young, riding past his farm on our way somewhere. Probably to a religious thing at Novigrad given the time and the place. I was young enough to not be able to remember anything about the circumstances surrounding it.

But this farmer had a guard dog. I know a bit more about dog breeds now and I am now aware that he had completely the wrong type of dog for a guard dog. But the farmer was always complaining about local kids sneaking onto his lands to steal apples. Someone had told him that the way to make a dog more ferocious was to stop feeding him, therefore making the dog hungry.

Now, in some circumstances this is true but it only works with the right breed as that is one of the ways you can train a hunting dog as well. But you also have to maintain the dog's diet properly so that it remains healthy.

Also, not for nothing, but training a dog by rewarding the behaviour you want the dog to exhibit is much more effective than punishing the dog for behaviour that you don't approve of or don't want.

But I'm getting off topic.

The dog in question became neglected, filthy, skeletally thin, sick and utterly utterly dejected. Why didn't it guard the farm? Because, as well as stealing the farmer's apples, the local kids also took food for the dog.

But that particular day, the farmer had seen some kids climbing the apple trees to get at the more out of reach fruit before they had exposed their buttocks to him before running away laughing.

The farmer was furious and chased after them, waving his stick in the air before coming back and beating the dog with that stick.

But that was not the thing that broke my childhood heart. The thing that did that was when the dog looked up at it's master with huge eyes and clearly asked him "Why are you doing this to me when I love you so much?"

I remember bawling my eyes out and making a horrible mess of my clothes to my father's annoyance and my mother's distress. It was one of those childhood things where I knew that what I was seeing was wrong in some deep and fundamental part of my soul. But I did not have the language, or the communication skills to be able to communicate the problem to my parents. So instead, I burst into tears.

But I will never forget that dog.

You can still, unfortunately see things like it all over the continent as you travel around. Mistreated and neglected animals. Horses that are obviously blown and struggling to keep their head held high but still being whipped by the person riding it. Skeletal cows, shaking dogs, terrified of their masters but so desperate to help.

And that is what the Skeleton Ship reminded me of now. A broken down and mistreated animal. Neglected, starved, abused and so desperate to just keep going despite everything that had happened. It wanted to keep going. It wanted to survive and to have a purpose. But it was in pain. I could almost hear it wailing at the torment of just continuing to exist for the next few moments. Just the next few moments.

I thought of the Wave-Serpent again. At the love, care and respect that her crew and Captain showed that ship. How they treated her with reverence and about how she became more than just a ship. How she became a comrade to them in battle.

I thought of those things again as the Skeleton Ship gently came round the bend of Kaer Trolde harbour and I found myself with another feeling.

The Skeleton Ship was old and as it came round the bend. Far too large, really, for the harbour itself...

I should point that out. The Skeleton Ship is huge. I mean, really really large. It's cross beams barely cleared the harbour and although I could see that it would probably make it out of the harbour into the open sea. I struggled to see how that was going to happen. How it was going to work. But the upper deck towered above me and where we stood. It was mind-bendingly large. So large that it kind of destroyed my preconceptions of how a ship can, how a ship could be built. I suppose it would be the equivalent of an ancient warrior who has just learnt how to craft a spear head, being shown a modern sword blade. Or the engineer that first designed the old wooden mott and bailey castles being shown a citadel with multiple courtyards and curtain walls and all the death traps that modern siege engineering can muster. It was like that.

But the Skeleton Ship navigated the harbour with grace and simplicity. Clearing the rock and the obstructions with an ease that made it look easy. But it was old. Really really old and you could sense that age.

In the same way that a man can be made to appear aged by many things that aren't just years. Injury, sickness, life circumstances can all make a person seem older than they actually are.

But the really old, it's not in their stature but it's in their eyes and we find ourselves stepping aside for them. The old bard who sits down at the stage to take his turn, tuning an ancient instrument that buzzes at first before the note becomes pure. The old soldier, still upright, spear straight and utterly uncompromising in his attitudes. You look at these people and you wonder what they can possible have seen. How they can possibly live in the wake of all that has happened and you have nothing but respect for their accomplishments.

I found myself admiring the old ship. Respecting it in a way. A still proud old lady going into whatever comes next.

It was all really confusing. The grief and the fear and the sorrow. The pity and the respect. It was all... The overwhelming sense of it.

And I'm still not done. I've tried really hard to describe what it was like, what it felt like to watch as this ruined, husk of a ship came into the harbour. I've really really tried but there is one thing that is missing from my account. A thing that I can't properly communicate to you which is this.

From the moment the ship was sighted and the horn sounded to the moment when it pulled up at the jetty. That was a fraction of an hour glass. I have no idea how long it was really but it was not a slow process. It all happened relatively quickly. From the time where we entered the harbour with our prisoner in tow to when the ship came to rest, I don't think it was more than half a glass. That was how long it took. So I have no idea how quickly you, dear reader, take to read any of the essays that I lay before you. But what you have to imagine is that all of the things that I have described to you happening in a fraction of the time it takes to read these words.

I don't know who it was behind the tiller of that ship but whoever it was sailed like a master. The innkeeper's sons ran down to the jetty in what was clearly an often-practised manoeuvre and caught lines thrown from the skeleton Ship.

And just like that. I was back to being a scholar. Observing the entire thing again.

The sons tied the ropes expertly, the ropes, bigger and thicker than the ropes that we use in our day to day sailing. I also later asked the Innkeeper how he knew that he and his sons were responsible for catching hold of the ship like that when it came to rest. He told me that his Grandfather had taught his father who had taught him that this was one of the responsibilities of the innkeeper at Kaer Trolde. That his Grandfather had that off the man that had given him the inn.

Yes. Given. He did not buy it, take it over or marry into the business. He was given it.

And that was the way it had always been done, since he was old enough to first start working in his father's inn. He had every expectation that his sons would be working in this harbour and catching the ropes of the Sheleton Ship long after he himself had died.

The Innkeeper's sons backed away from the ship as men swarmed down the ropes and down a rope ladder that was quickly lowered over the side. Other ropes were lowered and these foreign sailors, both on deck and on the ground set about assembling some kind of craning contraption as well as a sling, the better to be able to lift the goods onto the deck of the ship. The way they moved spoke of long years of practice where every man had a job and every job had a purpose. They didn't interfere with each other or get in each other's way. They had a job to do and were keen to get about it.

They were also... dead.

I have seen spectres and wights and wraiths. They were not these, there was a solidarity to them that made me think that if I touched them then my hand would not move through them. I have also seen animated corpses on several occasions where a curse has been triggered, or a magical defence has been activated. Such things are often sad, kind of pathetic and not even remotely frightening.

These men were neither of these. They looked...

Poverty is rife everywhere in the continent at the moment. The north has mostly recovered from the most recent war now, the disease and famine have mostly passed apart from a few small pockets where both things are holding onto the countryside with a fierceness that refuses to allow itself to be shifted. What is still happening is that the continent is still reconfiguring itself. Villages that were burnt out or slaughtered or both have still not been rebuilt or resettled. Populations have moved, Nilfgaardian settlers have come north, especially in places like Aedirn and Northern Settlers have gone South to find richer land to settle.

So things are still settling down and likely, they will be fore a while. But one of the problems that this creates is the kind of bone-numbing poverty that can still be found between the Rivers Yaruga and Pontar. In other words, that area of the North that was where the fighting was at the fiercest. Temeria, for example, is a horror play.

This is because, those villages that have been destroyed were on the supply line, or the trade route. Now that the trade isn't flowing through there, then those villages and communities that remain untouched are dying out.

As I wrote that last, I realised that I already illustrated this point far better in the story with the Village and the Unicorn. That village is exactly the kind of place that I am talking about.

Most of the people in these isolated villages can see the writing on the wall and move on from where they were seeking new lives in more prosperous areas. And why wouldn't they. But there are always some people that will stay behind. Sooner or later, those people begin to starve.

The continent is getting better, but you can still see that kind of place. Especially if you travel with a Witcher who likes to take the back routes in an effort to find work. Men and women that are slowly starving to death due to steadfastly refusing to be moved from the place where the parents lived and their Grandparents lived and so on and so on. It's the reason that most of the major cities have Refugee camps outside their walls now. You can also find many people who are this skeletally thin in those camps.

But that was what these men were like. They were all short ish and moved with the rolling gait that Lennox had shown that he used. They were all clean shaven but they were painfully thin. Skeletally thin. So thin that the skin was literally hanging off their bones. The clothing that they wore was rotting from their frames and as I watched, one of them straightened his shirt and tied to scraps of the garment back together so as to keep wearing it. They each wore a shirt, a pair of trousers which seemed to be held up by a length of rope and they all wore these kind of patchwork cloaks or blankets that they had wrapped round themselves. They looked as though they were sewn together from anything they could find. Blankets, left over sail cloth. Flame knows what else. They also all went barefoot.

Black patches and blemishes covered their skin, those that had teeth were rotting and many of them had no teeth at all.

They also didn't have eyes. Just black holes that were leaking a dark goop. The sight was macabre in the extreme. But where most people who have suffered through such deprivation struggle to move or have any kind of energy, these men moves with strength, speed and purpose. So much so that they were half way through their task and the first barrels and crates were moving up to the deck of the ship before I realised that I was frozen in place.

"What do we do?" I asked Kerrass.

"I don't..."

"Do we just say hello?" Ciri wondered.

"Excuse me." I shouted before wincing at the inane opening to my trying to address beings from, probably, a different world, time and state of existence.

The effect on the crowd watching was remarkable. There was an audible groan torn from the mouths of hundreds of people. As though I had hurled a rock through a beautiful stained glass window instead of simply disturbing their thought processes.

"Excuse me." I shouted again taking a step forward. Kerrass joined me, shouting a "Hullo" and waving his arms.

One of the dead sailors looked up at us from where he had bent to pick up one of the crates and move it onto the sling.

Kerrass waved and shouted Hello. I was too busy trying to tear my gaze away from the dead eyes that were staring back at me. The Sailor smiled and waved back at us before returning to his work.

"We really should have thought about this in advance." Kerrass muttered to me. He turned back and hauled Lennox forward by the scruff of the neck.

"Hello." I shouted again. "Erm... Hello." The sailor who had waved back to us looked over to where Kerrass was hauling the wailing Lennox into place and the sailor's mouth dropped open in amazement as he crouched there, ready to lift. He was there long enough that his fellow, working next to him turned to him, wondering what the delay was.

The first sailor simply pointed and now the second man gaped at us, gaped at Lennox open mouthed.

Kerrass sighed in relief. It is one thing to be as confident as you can be. To know down to the bottom of your soul that you are right. But there is always that element of doubt in your mind that you might be wrong and we had finally received confirmation that Kerrass had been right all the time.

The first of the two sailors stepped forward and shouted something that we didn't understand.

Lennox tried to escape again, hands bound and surrounded by literally hundreds of people, he still tried to get to his feet and flee. He might even have made it if Helfdan hadn't been able to keep his eye on him. We were all so fascinated by what was going on with the Skeleton Ship.

The sailor shouted the same thing again. The other sailors were turning and looking at us before a man wearing a strange, three-pointed hat came to the rail of the Skeleton Ship and shouted something down at the sailors who were all stood gaping at us.

It's funny but it doesn't matter whether you come from a different world and a different time, but you can always tell what is happening when a superior is shouting to find out why the work isn't being done.

One of the loading crew turned and shouted something back to the superior who looked over at us and then his own mouth fell open.

The entire thing suddenly struck me as being kind of funny. Here we all were, unsure what we were doing, yelling at dead men in a language that they don't understand.

The superior disappeared from view for a moment.

"So what do we do?" I wondered as Helfdan hauled Lennox back to a kneeling position in front of us as though he was leaving him out as a kind of gift for the crew of the Skeleton Ship to see.

"I'm not sure." Kerrass admitted.

"We wait." Helfdan decided. Ciri had moved up as well. "That man with the hat was, I think, to them what Svein is to me."

"How do you know that?" I wondered.

"The hat." Helfdan replied.

"Do we go closer?" Ciri wondered.

"I think we'll risk it." Kerrass decided. "The magic is not too strong here and we can probably risk going a bit further forward. Making sure that they can see the goods we offer, so to speak."

We shuffled forward, Helfdan prodding Lennox forward with the toe of his boots while still holding firmly onto the druid by the scruff of his neck.

We shuffled forward and I was really struggling to maintain my composure as the utter ridiculousness of the situation seemed to get to me. It was not helped by the fact that I was already imagining the way that history would record this moment. About how Skalds from all over the islands were watching, even now, and composing verses so that they could record the story of how we tried to banish the Skeleton Ship from the shores of the islands.

I giggled and looking sideways, as we kind of shuffled down the jetty with Kerrass and his medallion held out in front of him, I caught Ciri's eyes which were also shining with amusement.

You know that moment that happens at funerals, or in otherwise solemn occasions when your brain can't take it any more and you look sideways at your friend or sibling that you know shares your sense of humour. Then just when the priest is saying something particularly portentious, you both explode with laughter before chastising the other with whispered shouts of "Stop it stopitstopit. Don't look at me."

That happened. Only it was made worse when I realised I was having a giggling fit with the Empress of Nilfgaard. Not the kind of thing you think might happen when being told that you will never amount to anything at your father's dinner table.

We edged forward until we were just standing on the peir above where the stone of the harbour met the water. Kerrass held his hand up to stop us there.

"What's happening?" I wondered.

"Well, if you two have stopped giggling," Kerrass growled back at us. "Then we have taken a step forward. Now it's time to see if they will come and meet us halfway. Put him down where they can see him."

Helfdan did so, kicking Lennox in the back of the knee so that he fell forwards into a kneeling position.

Then we waited as the dead sailors all but stopped even pretending to work and all just stood there staring at us open mouthed.

"Well I think we caught their attention." Ciri muttered.

The crowd was growing restive. It was already clear that everything had changed. This was new territory for everything and everyone.

Us not least. If only I could fight down the giggles.

The man in the strange three cornered hat reappeared at the rail. He took hold of one of the ropes that was dangling from the side that the other sailors had climbed down earlier and, just as expertly as they had, swarmed down the side of the skeleton Ship before striding towards us. One or two of the other crew began to follow him but he turned and snapped something at them.

I didn't need to know what he was saying to recognise a "Get back to work" when I see one.

He approached us. His clothing was a little richer looking than the others in that it seemed to be in better repair and a bit neater. There was sewing involved in the making of his shirt as well as visible buttons and a wide leather belt rather than the rope belt that the other sailors seemed to be wearing. He had boots with brass buckles on the top. He also seemed to be wearing a large and heavy coat rather than the patchwork blankets that were being used by the other men to keep themselves warm.

He walked forwards, unable to tear his eyes away from where Lennox knelt at the front of our little group. He stopped, looked from Lennox to see the four of us before his eyes were pulled back down to where Lennox knelt.

He spoke to us but I didn't recognise the words.

"What did he say?" I asked, rather stupidly I thought.

"I have no idea." Kerrass responded. "Ciri?"

"Errr. Errrr. I think..." She stood forward and said something.

The man looking at her shook his head and said something else. It was a different language, I have no idea how I knew that but there... There was a different music to the words.

Ciri brightened and said something back with the same kind of rhythm. The man nodded and seemed to ask a question. Ciri frowned and launched into an extended speech, at the end of which she was sweating. There were a lot of "uhhh"s and "err" as well as "Fuck how do you say...". Sorry for those people who want my to preserve the dignity of the Empress but I'm afraid this is true.

I also caught the name "Lennox" in the conversation. Several times in fact.

The man nodded, seemed to be understanding of Ciri's lack of a grasp of his language. Then he held his hand up as if asking us to wait where we were. Which was what he was doing, before he turned and jogged back to the ship and swarmed back up the rope. That there was a perfectly good rope ladder next to the rope that he climbed up was telling. I'm not sure what it was telling but if he was anyone, or anything else. I would have thought he was showing off, or making a point.

Like an army general that makes a point about caring for his own horse, or taking part in digging the latrines.

He vanished from view for a matter of a minute or two. Just long enough for us to start shifting our weight and more of the crowd to start murmuring uncomfortably.

The crew of the Skeleton Ship, as soon as their leader was out of sight, gave up even pretending to work and all just stood there, looking at us. Obviously ready to spring back into work if the occasion demanded it. But still, they just looked at us, looking at Lennox really. He didn't raise his eyes. He had given up weeping now and just knelt there.

The man in the triangular hat came back to the rail of the Skeleton Ship, made a trumpet out of his hands and bellowed something at us. Ciri's lips moved as she tried to work it out but then she nodded and shouted something back. Hat man turned back to ask something of someone that was out of sight before turning back and yelling again.

"He wants us to bring Lennox forward." Ciri told us. "All four of us plus Lennox."

Lennox whimpered again.

"All four of us?" I asked.

"Yes. I checked specifically."

"And are we safe from their magic?" Kerrass wondered.

Ciri stepped a little forward and shouted something. The hat man turned back before shouting something back at us.

"We are provided that this is not a trick or someone just pretending to be who we think he is."

"It's not a trick." Kerrass told her. "But we might be wrong."

"Yes," Lennox spoke up in a pleading voice. "You are wrong, this is not... This is not the way. I can..."

Helfdan cuffed him round the back of the head.

There was another exchange of shouts.

"That's the risk and will be taken on judgement." Ciri translated. "What do we think?"

Kerrass sucked his teeth in thought. "There is a lot of magic here. We don't know the mind, or even if there is a mind, that controls it all. They might not be able to come ashore apart from anything else."

"We should go." Helfdan decided. "We are invited and it would be ruder to say no. If they attack us afterwards then... That's on them."

"Your Skelligan nature is showing itself there Helfdan." Ciri teased him.

He frowned a little. "I had no idea that that was a fault."

"Teasing you Helfdan. Teasing you."

"We are at an imp ass." I said. "If this was a negotiation, the next step is ours."

Ciri looked at me with a slight frown. "He's right. If we're going to do it then we should do so now."

Kerrass nodded and led us further out onto the gantry.

I shivered. It was actively colder over the ice and we had to be careful as we moved as the wood was slippery. There were a couple of times where Ciri had to catch me to save from falling on my ass, or worse. The hilarity of the situation did not leave me as the thought occurred that it would be an ironic end. To be killed, not by the Skeleton Ship, or the battles or the giants. But instead, to fall and break my neck, or fall through the ice and drown or freeze in the water.

We shuffled along. Kerrass in front, sure footed, still with his medallion held out in front of him like a holy symbol trying to ward off evil with Ciri and I following next to each other, Helfdan bringing up the rear pushing Lennox in front of him.

I did not expect what happened next.

The jetty spread out on either side and the sailors of the Skeleton Ship were circling us. Then I heard one of the men bursting into tears. Stunned, I looked over and he was hugging his friend next to him as the two men wept uncontrollably. Another man laughed in delight. Another wobbled as he saw Lennox properly and had to be caught by one of his friends and lowered onto one of the crates for a sit down.

Suddenly, we were surrounded by these dead sailors from another time and another world, clustering around us laughing and shouting and weeping with joy that was infectious. One man pounced on Kerrass, throwing his arms round the Witcher, another seized my hand and shook it fiercely and tightly while someone else clapped me on the back.

It was infectious as well as I felt a grin slowly trying to cross my face.

I did have to step in though when one of the men tried to kiss Ciri and pushed him away but he held his hands up in apology. Helfdan seemed rather bemused by the entire situation but Ciri was laughing and joking with it all. Grinning and laughing with the sailors, shaking hands and accepting hugs. The benefit of being able to understand the language I suppose.

A big, burly man bellowed for silence, pushing the other sailors aside and stood in front of us, eye to eye and nose to nose in front of Kerrass. Kerrass and he spent a bit of time staring each other down as the noise level of the other soldiers fell until we were surrounded by silence. Then the sailor, with a flare for the dramatic, gestured for Kerrass to step aside. Kerrass did so with a theatrical flourish as the man pushed past Ciri and I to stare down at Lennox.

Then he roared in happiness and hoisted the hapless druid into a bear hug.

"I think we got the right man." Kerrass told me with a smile.

Hat man shouted down at the celebrating men. I got the feeling that he had been watching for a bit of time before he had chosen to interrupt the celebrations. The burlier man turned and shouted something back before Hat man gestured and shouted. Hands took Lennox away which was when the first sense that the crew were not entirely glad to see Lennox.

No that's not right. They were very glad to see Lennox. But they also despised him. They were angry with him and absolutely refused to let him forget it.

They did not release him from his bonds and he was thrown, rather roughly, into the sling to be hoisted back onto deck. The other sailors, still laughing and joking and clapping each other on the back returned to their chores as they wiped their non-existent tears from their dead eyes.

Then there was another one of those moments. Like the times while we were stood on the bank of the harbour where the four of us, Kerrass, Ciri, Helfdan and I, were just looking at each other wondering what we were supposed to do next.

Then Hat man appeared at the railing above us and shouted something down at us. At first we were confused, not knowing who he was shouting at. Some instruction to the rest of the crew who were still working around? But when he repeated the call with a touch of exasperation, Ciri looked up and put her hand to her chest.

Hat man made a circling gesture to encompass all four of us before yelling a small sentence down towards us..

Ciri paled. "Well, it looks like I'm going to climb aboard the Skeleton Ship after all." She told us.

"What?" I asked.

"Apparently, The Owners, want to see us."

"I will meet you back on shore." Helfdan said stepping back.

"That means you as well Helfdan," Ciri caught him by the wrist. "You are part of this as much as we are. They want you too."

Helfdan looked appalled. "But I'm just a ship's Captain and minor Lord. Only heroes climb aboard the..."

"And today," Ciri interrupted him gently. "You are a hero."

Hat man shouted at us again.

"And the owners are waiting." Ciri prompted us all before moving purposefully to the rope ladder.

"Well Freddie," Kerrass clapped me on the shoulder. "This is going to make one hell of a chapter for your book."

"Are you kidding?" I asked as he took hold of a rope. "There is almost enough here for a book of it's own."

Kerrass smirked at me before taking hold of a rope and climbing up.

I turned to look at Helfdan who had not moved.

"Captain." I began. "You with us?"

He seemed startled, shaken free of whatever it was he was thinking about.

"But..."

I grinned at him. "I am well aware that I should say something wise." I told him. "Something about heroes being normal people in extraordinary circumstances. About Heroes not having a choice. Or Heroes being heroes not for their entire lives but in the small moments...blah blah blah. But look at this way. You are going to be able to lord this over everyone who said that you would never amount to anything for the rest of your life. You've been invited to climb aboard the Skeleton Ship. You gonna say no?"

I turned and began my own climb.

I had chosen the ladder. Not that I couldn't climb the rope but now was not a time for showing off on the spectral boat of the dead that looked as though it might fall apart at any time. The ladder looked solid enough, even if the rope that was holding it together looked a little frayed and rotten. It was more nerve wracking to look through holes in the side of the ship itself and being able to see into the bulk of the ship. I could literally see through to the harbour wall on the other side of where the ship rested.

I was about halfway up when I tried my experiment. Climbing up, I made sure that I had a good grip of the ladder with both hands and that my weight was firmly planted on my left leg which is my strongest leg. Then I tried to put my right foot into one of the holes to see if there really was a hole there.

My working theory was that this wasn't the same ship. That it was actually different ships or that there was some kind of repair involved. I had no way of knowing until I tried it but I cautiously went and tried to put my foot through the hole.

I did not feel solid wood there. But nor did I feel nothing. It was like trying to push my foot through water. Ice cold water that caused my foot to tingle.

I didn't keep it up for long. I had quick visions of tingling turning into something more painful so I resumed my climb.

I got to the top to find Kerrass pulling me over the side. Helfdan had climbed up the rope easily and the four of us stood together in a group milling around.

The ship was large, as I keep saying. I have sailed on many ships over the years but this was among the larger. It also... looked more manufactured as well.

You can tell a Skelligan Longship is made with Love. You can just tell, it's the way that it has been sanded down and hand carved. You can see it in the basic forms of the vessel, not just from the ornamentation of the figurehead but also from the way the wood feels beneath your feet. There is a feeling, that is also accurate, that a craftsman spent time over this, that he worked at it, that he saw the ship in his mind's eye and worked at it steadily until the ship was complete. He examined the lines of the ship and saw it at rest, the way that it would cut the water and the way that it would move.

In the same way that an artist would spend hours staring at the block of stone that he is going to carve for hours, I can imagine a Skelligan Ship builder getting a delivery of timber and going through it, piece by piece, carefully, before discarding the wood and declaring that it was not good enough. I can imagine them sighting the ship's cradle and getting it all set up before even the first timber is laid.

I can imagine a Skelligan craftsman weeping as he watches the ship sailing forth for the first time in the hands of the warriors, sailors and Captains for whom the ship was built. I can imagine his tears as he thinks to himself that he might never make any ship quite as well as that again, how he loved it like one of his children and now it sails off to trade.

Sails off to war.

That didn't happen with whoever made the Skeleton Ship. This ship was manufactured. This ship was not crafted. I can imagine an assembly line kind of situation where the wood is thrown together. Where the different parts of the ship are built, well away from the sea before it all comes together at the end and then the ship is sent out to sea with only a perfunctory send off before the next shell of a ship is put into place in order to be finished.

There was craft here but no art. There was no love.

Every Skelligan Longship is unique, you will never find two ships the same no matter how often you sail around the islands. But I could easily imagine dozens of these kinds of ships sailing the seas. Where the only way that you could tell them apart is by the crew that sails them and by the name printed on the side. It seemed incredibly sad to me.

But we looked around. At the back of the ship, near a wheel which seemed to take the place of a tiller, stood a tall figure, impossibly tall, shrouded in a thick, black cloak so that we couldn't see it's face or even ascertain it's gender. In the depths of the hood, I thought that I could make out a glint of a blue light but I could not really see. I shivered as I looked at the figure. The figure did have a sword though, a long sword, easily as long as Kerrass' steel blade but worn at the hip. The hilt looked plain and unadorned although I thought that there might have been shapes carved into it. I did not get close enough to see.

It also leant on a scythe. The hand holding the scythe was white and terribly thin. There was an hourglass hanging from the belt that wrapped around the figures midriff.

You had to take steps to get up to this back deck, so large was the main ship itself. There was a door to the back of the ship which I assumed contained some kind of cabin structure. There was also a large grate in the middle of the deck which, I'm falling into the trap of doing a lot of assuming again, would be a way for cargo to go down into the hold.

I found myself making notes should Emma decide that we needed to have some new ships built.

As I watched, the Crane was used to lift the goods onto the deck where other men helped it back down and unloaded the crane. One of those loads contained Lennox where there was a replay of the scene from below on the deck where men took him from the deck, hugged his desperately unhappy form, before taking him over and tying him to the mast. They were not gentle, but nor were they brutal. I cannot explain the paradox better than that.

But I was most struck by the woman that came to greet us.

I say Woman but at first I thought of her as a girl as she seemed very young to me on first sight. But I now, cannot think of her like that. She was shortish. Maybe Five foot four inches. Her skin was pale to the point of being paper white and she was skinny. Not painfully, skeletally thin like so many of the other people that I had seen to do with the Skeleton Ship. She was just skinny. The way some people are just thin because they are one of those people that forget to eat or are fuelled by something other than what us mere mortals survive off.

Her eyes were black, her lips were also black although I rather thought that they had been painted that way and her eyes had strange black designs and shapes that drew off from the corners of her eyes in strange shapes. It looked like some kind of symbol but I couldn't recognise it. Her hair was long, also black and very wild, coming off her head in all kinds of different angles.

She seemed to be wearing a thin black vest, a long black coat that tapered off into two tails that hung down the back of her legs. Ragged looking black trousers with holes and rips in them through which I could see equally ragged black stockings. On her feet she wore heavy black boots that seemed too big for her. The look was completed by an out-sized hat on her head and a large silver ankh that she wore on a simple black cord around her neck.

She was grinning at us.

She was pretty, really pretty in fact but there was absolutely no attraction there. The closest I can describe it was that she was pretty, even beautiful, to my tastes but in the same way that Emma and Francesca are beautiful to me. Objectively and aesthetically, they are beautiful women but they are also my sisters. This woman reminded me of that.

She also reminded me of someone although I couldn't tell you of whom. It was a strange effect, as though I had known this woman all my life but I could not remember her name. She squealed with delight when we all climbed aboard.

"Oh it's so good to see you all." She exclaimed, her eyes shining. "You have no idea how long I've waited to see you all gathered here together."

She literally did a little dance on the deck of that strange ship, with her oversized boots and coat flapping. We just stared at her. I suddenly realised that my tongue was getting cold so I shut my mouth that had mysteriously fallen open when I wasn't paying attention.

"Oh put your pout away Kerrass." She punched Kerrass on the arm. "Not everything in the world has to make sense."

I felt an idea occur in my brain before she turned to me.

"And no Freddie, I am not his Goddess."

"I have so many questions." I moaned.

"And Ciri." The woman shrieked before leaping into the Empress' arms and giving her a sound kiss on the cheek. "You look so serious. You should learn to lighten up a little more. Enjoy yourself a bit."

"If you say so." Ciri's mouth was trying to smile. The woman's joy and glee were infectious.

"And I do say so." She turned on Helfdan who seemed a little bemused. "Helfdan?"

She planted her feet before the confused looking Skelligan.

"Helfdan?" The woman made her voice teasingly serious. "If I promise to keep the physical contact down to a minimum, can I have a hug?"

"But..." Helfdan protested a little.

"I know you don't want a hug," The woman smiled with mischief in her eyes. "But I do. And are you really going to let a woman down?" She flung her arms wide extravagantly.

At first, I saw the fear in Helfdan's eyes before it was replaced by something else. Then he grinned and I had a sudden impression of what he must have looked like as a really young boy. Before the care and hardship overtook him.

The woman saw it and embraced him. Quick and hard before she broke away.

"Oh it's so good to see you all." The woman said, taking Ciri and Kerrass' hands.

"Who are you?" Kerrass asked for all of us. "And do I know you? I feel like I should know you."

"You wound me Kerrass." She told him, letting go of his hand for a moment to brush an imaginary tear from her eye. "No matter how often you tell yourself that you are going to get used to it when old friends say that they don't know you, it always hurts."

She sniffed and sobbed in theatrical sadness before grinning to show everyone that she was joking. Then her face, and voice turned serious. Which was when I first started increasing my estimate as to how old she was.

"But those answers are not for you Kerrass" She told him. "Not yet anyway. You all must accept that you have questions here that cannot be answered. That will not be answered and you must be happy with that. Still, it is good to see you." She smiled again.

"But I have monopolised you all for too long when you all have other things to do here and my colleague," she gestured at the tall figure with the scythe, "is growing restive. So Kerrass, Ciri, it is good to see you but he has words for the pair of you and you both belong to him. Not to me. So off you go."

"But..." Ciri protested.

"There is not a lot of time." I increased my estimate of the woman's age again. "Off you go." She made shooing gestures towards the pair of them.

Kerrass took a deep breath and strode towards the back of the ship and the waiting figure. Ciri looked as though she was about to protest again before the woman fixed her with a look and Ciri turned to follow Kerrass.

"Witchers." The Woman said fondly, if with a touch of exasperation, "Always thinking that the world will bend to their will and that everything revolves around them." She turned to me and wagged her finger under my nose. "It's contagious mind, that arrogance. Be careful that you don't fall into that trap.

"Now where were we? Ah yes." Her mood seemed to be able to turn on a sword edge. Endlessly cheerful and friendly but there was occasionally an edge that crept into her eyes that was more than a little chilling.

"Now, for the two of you. I want to thank you for your service." She told Helfdan and I.

"I need no thanks." Helfdan said. "I was just doing my duty."

"Does that affect my gratitude in any way?" The woman asked. "You speak as if Gratitude is some kind of payment. As though it replaces money or trade in some way. That is not the way it works." She smiled kindly as she said it, and with understanding I think. "You did something. A great thing that no-one else has done. If you had not, then these men," she gestured at the other sailors, "would have been trapped in this form for ever. As it is, now, their torment is nearly at an end. You did a great thing and although you did it for other reasons. I am still grateful."

Then she treated us to her mischievous grin.

"So stand there and accept our thanks with grace would you."

Helfdan considered. He is a stronger man than me. If that smile or those eyes had been turned on me then I would have fallen to my knees before begging for her forgiveness for all of my transgressions, past present and future.

Helfdan nodded.

"Fantastic." The woman jumped and clapped her hands in glee. "Then I have two gifts for you." She told him. "The second is this. After receiving your first gift you will be taken around the ship by this man." She gestured and one of the crew arrived and stood nearby. "He is this ships carpenter. You will not be able to speak to each other but he knows this ship better than anyone else. This ship has several hundred years on the knowledge, skill and design of ships than your people have at their disposal. So he is going to give you a tour and show you some of the innovations so that you can get some ideas for your next ship."

Helfdan's eyes glittered. "And that is the second gift?"

"Yes."

"I do not understand."

"The first gift is this." She beckoned him closer so that he had to lean down towards her when she whispered something in his ear.

Helfdan's eyes went wide as he stared back at the woman who nodded encouragingly. Helfdan lifted one hand to his head, the hand was visibly trembling.

"I do not deserve this." He told her. "Other men died for this. They deserve these things more."

"You have already given those men everything." She told him. "And every single one of them would, and will, bask in your glory."

Helfdan absorbed this for a long moment. Then he nodded before turning. The Carpenter gestured for Helfdan to follow him and the two men, one real and solid, the other man half a ghost, walked away.

"What did you tell him?" I wondered.

She laughed. "I think you will see the results soon enough. Come, walk with me. We have much to talk about and although we have time, we do not have a great deal of it."

We walked out towards the front of the boat. I was kind of curious to get to the back to see what was going on with Kerrass and Ciri back there but she led me to the front, away from the waiting crowds and more into the darkness.

We came to the prow of the ship and stood next to each other in relatively comfortable silence. I remember realising this and marvelling at the fact that I was as comfortable with this strange, supernatural woman as I was with Kerrass or some of my closer friends from Oxenfurt University days. I got the feeling that I could enjoy a nice pint of ale with this woman and we could talk about nothing for hours or sit while we read or work on papers. I stress that this was not in a romantic way, but in a restful, friendship kind of way.

And for the record, I do enjoy sitting with Ariadne but there is still a kind of awkwardness that exists between us. It's not that that awkwardness is uncomfortable or unpleasant, it's more that it's kind of adorable.

We catch each other's eyes and giggle at the tension. Especially when her chaperones are around.

I laughed suddenly.

"What's so funny?" She asked, her own amusement twinkling in her eyes.

"I'm a scholar." I told her. "I have so many questions but I have no idea where to begin."

"Ah," she chuckled knowingly. "The curse of the learned man is to know how little he knows."

"I thought that that saying was something about wise men."

"You mean that A wise man is wise because he is aware of how little he knows."

"Something like that." I responded.

She thought about it. "That always struck me as being a little bit unfair." She decided. "I think there is paralysis there. If there is so much to learn then where do you start. As you have so recently discovered. Would you like some advice?"

"Yes please."

"Start small. Ask a small question first." She linked her arm through mine and we stared out into the tunnel that would eventually lead out into the sea.

"Very well." I answered. "Who are you?"

She laughed in delight. In the same way that Kerrass has a way of smiling that is almost as communicative as words, this woman seemed to be able to do the same with her laughter. Except there was no warning or fear in what she was telling me. Only warmth, amusement and affection.

She was a hard woman not to like.

"I thought I told you to start small. One of the most basic of questions." She answered. "Followed neatly by "What do you want?" as the two questions that can tell you just about everything that you would need to know about a person."

"I'm sorry to interrupt," I told her, "But you told me that we do not have a lot of time."

"And I was right, but time is relative. Who am I? I will tell you but you will not like the answer. I am Life-in-Death." She said it as one word.

"I do not understand."

"Nor would I expect you to. Do not worry yourself about that."

"Why do I feel as though I know you?" I followed up.

"Because you do know me. We have met before but no-one ever remembers the first time that we meet. We are old friends you and I."

"Then why don't I remember you?"

She smiled up at me. "Because no-one ever remembers being born. The next time we meet will be more memorable I assure you."

I stared at her for a long time "Who are you?" I asked again.

She laughed at my face. "I told you you wouldn't like the answer. I am Life-in-Death. Or that is what they will call me when all of this is written down. The truth is more complicated than that but at the same time, the name is accurate. I don't have many names, unlike my brother who seems to pick them up from everywhere."

"Is that your brother back there?" I asked gesturing towards the back of the ship. The tall figure in the black cloak was talking to Ciri, the conversation appeared rather animated. Kerrass was a little distance away, leaning on the rail with his head bowed.

"No. That is not my brother. If it helps, think of him as a colleague."

"You don't sound as though you like him very much."

"He doesn't get it. He is one side of a two-sided coin but cannot see the other."

"Who is he?"

"He is Death."

"I don't understand."

"It is easier to explain his function than it is to explain mine. He is another world's version of your Lion-headed Spider. When the end of a life comes through sickness, happen-stance or any of the other things that might be going on. He is the one who come to change a person from being a living person, to being a dead person."

"He kills them?"

She smiled, a little sadly. "No. The killing is already done. He is about shifting one state and into another."

"So where do you come in?" I felt as though I was drowning.

"I transport the souls from life to death and back again."

"But that would mean... My head hurts."

"Don't fight it Freddie." She said kindly.

"But does that not make the two of you the same thing?"

"Yes."

"Then why is he over there and you are over here?"

"Because we both need to be seen in this instance. It is important that he is seen and that I am seen."

As I watched, Kerrass lifted his head before he spun and stalked back to the cloaked figure and started speaking animatedly.

"Kerrass doesn't seem to like him very much."

"That is because the gift of truth is very rarely received with gratitude. Truth is painful. You know this which is why you are skirting around the things that you really want to know about. "

Kerrass was definitely unhappy. His movements becoming more violent.

"So you are going to tell me the truth?" I asked.

"I am."

"Then why?"

She laughed again. If it had been anyone else I would have become angry at the mockery. But here and now, I grinned with her. "So now we get the most basic of questions. I do so love humans. What do you mean why? Why am I going to tell you the truth? You can answer that truth is subjective. This is true, but is there also an absolute truth? Yes there is. What is the difference? How can both be true?"

She took me by the arm and turned me so that I was no longer watching the argument between Kerrass and the cloaked figure.

"The first answer is that I will tell you the truth because you deserve it. Because it is the last of your desires at this moment."

"But..."

"You are going to marry the woman you love. She is not quite the woman of your dreams but no-one marries the person that they dream about. That would be a terrible idea. You are already so rich that it makes no difference. But you are rich enough to know that you never have to worry about money again. Which is a privilege that few have.

"You have your health. There are a few wobbles but you are marrying a Sorceress of vast, if not limitless, power who is also a doctor of considerable skill, and you can expect to live a long life. You have friends who love you and who you love. You are literally living your best life. We both know that you are not quite ready to give up being on the road yet so what else could you want? What else do you want?"

"Peace." I told her. "Certainty."

"And as you recently told one of those friends that you care about a great deal. Certainty is an impossible thing. There is no such thing except in the minds of madmen. Doubt is good, doubt is healthy until you let it cripple you. So what do you want?"

I sighed and chuckled a little at myself.

"I feel like I'm back at University, being particularly stupid."

"We all have that feeling from time to time."

"Even you."

"Well, no. Not me. But I have made mistakes." She squeezed my arm in a hug. "What do you want Freddie?"

"You are right of course. I want, I need the truth."

"What would you like to know?"

"Does Ariadne love me?"

"You know the answer to that."

"Is she alright?"

"She will be. She is worried for you."

"Who are you again?"

"I am Death. I am Life. I am Life-in-Death."

"So you know when I will die?"

"I do. As well as all of your friends and all of their friends and on until the end of time. When the Ice has claimed your world and the fire has consumed theirs." She gestured at the sailors of the Skeleton Ship. "I will be there and when the Universe finally ends then it will be me that closes the place down ready for the new one to begin."

That took a moment to process.

"Wow." I said, hating the inanity of the word.

She just laughed. My mind could not wrap itself around the fact that the young and pretty woman that was stood next to me might be someone of such awesome power.

"So?" I prompted.

"So what?"

"So when will I die?"

"Oh no." She told me with a giggle, waving her hands in front of her as if to ward off something comically unspeakable. "I have fallen for that trap before and it never ends well." Her mirth subsided as she stared into the distance. I thought that she looked at a memory. "All mortals want that answer. But I am not so cruel as to give it."

I nodded my acceptance of that declaration. "And who is he again?"

"He is the Death of another world. How that world thinks of death. Think me only without the charm, grace and good looks."

"And would he answer that question?"

"He would for he is far more terrible than I am."

"So he is more powerful than you."

"Yes. But without me, he is nothing. And he knows that too."

"Sorry, I'm lost. Which of you is more powerful again?"

She laughed.

"Does he fear you?" I asked.

"No. What is to fear? We are the same."

"But..."

"Think of us more as colleagues. Clerks that work at the next desk from each other. You really should ask the question that you really want to know the answer to."

"Another person chastised me for dodging those questions." I told her after a long moment.

"I know." She told me.

"His name was Jack."

"I know that too."

"I check because you are wearing the same stuff."

"Oh you mean my top hat and tails? Do they not suit me?"

She did a twirl.

"No they do, but can you understand why I might be worried about all of the similarities between you and he?"

"Pffft." She waved those worries off. "He would be flattered that you would think of the two of us as being in the same kind of environment. He is a being of power, yes, but he is also... well... Jack. He serves his purpose. But he and I are nothing alike. For a start, I am much prettier than him."

"I am not going to dispute that." I told her

"You say the sweetest things." She grinned. "But just because two people are saying the same thing, does not mean that I am the same as him, or that he is the same as me. But rather, the two of us had conversations with the same person. That person being you. So it is not surprising that we would have the same observations. Not really."

I accepted that point before taking a deep breath.

"Do you know what happened to my sister?"

I felt a small, cool hand reach up and cup my face so that she could turn my face to hers. "Yes." She told me.

"What happened?"

"I cannot tell you."

I took a deep shuddering breath in an effort to control my rage. "Cannot, or will not?"

"Both." She told me gently. "Would you like to know why?"

I bit back a sob. "Yes."

"Because you already know the answer." She said gently. "You already know everything that you need to know. You already have all the information, but you will not see it. Which is why I cannot tell you it. You know where she is and you know who took her. But you will not allow yourself to see the truth of the matter."

"Why would I do such a thing?"

"Because humans are really good at protecting themselves from horror." She told me. "But that was a good question."

"Thank you." I said automatically. "It wasn't as though I planned it or anything."

She pulled me into a gentle hug as I sobbed for a bit as the disappointment struck me in the soul.

She pulled away first. "You have more questions though." She told me.

"I do." I admitted. "Why are you talking to me instead of him," I gestured over my shoulder again. "You know, the other you?"

"Now you're getting it." She responded. Giving me a teasing punch on the arm.

"Not really." I told her. "But why am I talking to you while Ciri and Kerrass are talking to him."

"Because they are Witchers." She responded. "And they belong to him. While Helfdan and yourself, belong to me. The two of you, Helfdan and yourself will be remembered long after Ciri and Kerrass are dead and gone."

"So Kerrass will die before me?"

"He will. It will break your heart but you will recover. You should remember that when the time comes. It will be the last lesson he has to teach you."

"I am not looking forward to that." I said as I contemplated this truth.

"Nor should you. But you will predecease Ariadne. That will break her heart instead for that is the lesson that you must teach her. You would do well to prepare her for that end."

"Nor do I like that thought." I admitted.

"You would not be who you are if you did."

"So you cannot tell me where my sister is?"

"No."

"Nor can you tell me too much about the future I'm guessing."

"No. As I say, I am not that cruel."

"Then can you at least tell me what is going on here? With Lennox, the ship and everything."

She grinned. "That I can do. Or at least, I can tell you some of it."

I stared out into the yawning darkness for a while. "Sorry." I heard myself say. "I was honestly expecting there to be more refusals there."

"Why?"

"Because I am sick of people being cryptic at me. If you know everything... Do you know everything?"

She shrugged.

"Ok," I went on. "Then I will assume that you know everything. Or everything that is useful and worth talking about anyway. So you will know that I went off to speak to the Berserkers."

"I remember that yes."

"So do you know what they told me?"

"I do, but I sense that you need to get this out of your system so I'm just gonna stand here and let you speak."

"They told me fuck and all."

"Living embodiment of Life and Death over here and I'm just standing here letting you..." She muttered with a slight smile

"And they weren't the first ones to do that either. The Druids sent me on a wild goose chase. I know, I should blame that piece of human waste that is now being tied to the mast. But he wasn't the only one. The Unicorn spun me a tale of armies fighting across time and space in a war over things that I do not understand and cannot possibly comprehend. What fucking use is that?"

"Just standing here." She was no longer even pretending to hide her smile.

"I search. I look. And when I find anything at all, or I'm actually in the position to ask someone that might actually know something." I gestured at her. "I get cryptic nonsense. Even my greatest enemies..."

"That you know of." She put in.

"That's a comforting thought."

"I aim to please."

"But even my greatest enemies," I stopped and looked at her, "that I know of..."

"Thank you."

"Think it's funny and point out that they had nothing to do with it. I mean, Flame Dammit." I stopped talking as I realised that I was getting frustrated with a being that could kill me with a thought.

"I could." She said, answering my unspoken thought. "But why would I want to?"

"I dunno." I sighed. "A fit of pique."

"That's not. I am not capricious. I do not play games, unlike him over there." Her mouth twisted in distaste. "Speaking personally, I've never been a fan of chess but it seems to be all he talks about. Also poker. Word to the wise. Offer to play him at strip poker. All he has on are his sword belt and his robe but be prepared for what happens when you win. But I do not get angry. I do not get frustrated or seek to take people earlier. It is not a game, or a dance or a... a competition. I am not your enemy but neither am I on your side. I simply am."

"Then why won't you tell me what I need to know about Francesca? Or if I already know, as you claim, then why won't you give me the key to figuring it out. Why won't you help me?"

She turned around and pushed herself up onto the rail so that she sat, her legs dangling as she kicked the air absently.

"There are two answers to that." She told me. "Neither of them will please you."

"Because I've enjoyed so much of this conversation so far." They say that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. But it can be the most satisfying.

"I am hurt. Not even my sparkling wit and repartee?"

"Ok, first of all. I don't know what repartee means."

"It's a French word." She told me. "It means "conversation in which clever statements and replies are made quickly"."

"Then secondly, Where's French?"

"Never mind. It couldn't possibly matter less."

"And therefore thirdly. Of course, your presence has made this entire situation bearable," I bowed. Being mean to her felt a little like kicking a puppy accidentally when the puppy just wants to play with you.

"You say the sweetest things."

"But that doesn't change the point. This conversation has just been confusing really."

"It will make more sense the more you look back at it."

"That is not reassuring. For instance. "Oh, she was telling me that this person was going to stab me repeatedly in the face." That realisation is not going to do me much good later when the person is about to, or has already stabbed me."

"Temper." She chided.

"What are the two answers?"

"Two answers?"

"You know. The two answers as to why you won't help me."

"Ah yes, those two answers."

"I also notice that you've made me smile and therefore less angry so that I won't get too upset when you tell me these things." I informed her.

"You noticed that did you?" she made a sly expression.

"The occasional benefits of a noble education. It does happen occasionally where something that my tutors gave me comes through."

"Now who's diverting the conversation."

I glared at her, to which, the self-proclaimed personification of life and death responded by sticking her tongue out at me.

"The first answer is that you don't want me to give you a proper answer." She told me. "You want to figure it out yourself."

"I do." I admitted. "I really do. But I also want to get to the bottom of this. I need to get off the road now. I need to be getting ready to be married and this is all getting too much."

She stared at me for a long time.

"Liar." She decided.

"What?"

"You no more want to stop travelling with Kerrass than you want to set Ariadne aside and you will do neither until and unless someone or something forces you to that end. It's in your blood now, in your mind and in your body. If you stopped, you would yearn for it. In the same way that you sometimes yearn for a soft bed and a home-cooked meal, you would yearn for hard ground, the smell of damp leaves on the air and the taste of clay-baked rabbit.

"You should stop. You know that and I agree with that. But you don't want to, not really. You want to keep going. You want to keep travelling until there is nothing left to see and do and then you will want to do it all again to see if the experience is different the second time round or to see if the time and circumstances have changed the way you see it all.

"And just suppose. Just suppose that someone else found your sister. Just suppose that some Imperial Guardsman found her in a ditch somewhere as her hostage takers realised who they had, slit her throat and dumped her in the ditch."

"We know..."

"Yes yes, I know." She waved her hand dismissively. "Ancient and Alien magic. Words that you received from an ancient and alien God who came to this world to die but instead found an old enemy."

"Wait... What...?"

"Or how would you feel if it turned out to be a political thing. And it was careful negotiation and the exchange of hostages that brought an answer?"

"We would have heard something by now and..."

"You're not listening." She snapped "How would you feel if it was something else? How would you feel if it turned out to be something simple? Something mundane that could be solved by someone else?"

"I would be disappointed. Of course I would."

"So you don't want me to solve it for you. You don't want me to give you the answer."

"Yes I do." It was my turn to snap. "Yes I do. Because my feelings are immaterial in this. I want to be the one to rescue her. I won't deny that. I won't deny that I want her to be found at the bottom of some cave as the victim of some monster or cult or whatever the fuck. I want to untie her and hold her safe while Kerrass covers us. Or at the least, I want to be there while the Imperial forces hack there way in. Of course I want that. And if she's dead, of course I want to be the person that finds out who did it so that she can have justice. And yes, I will even admit that I want that to happen so that I can have vengeance.

"But I also want closure. For my family, for Ciri and all the other people that loved her. I want to prevent this from happening again but most of all. I want this to be done because she deserves it to be done. My feelings on the matter are unimportant. This hasn't just wronged me. It has and I am angry for that. But I hate that it happened to her. She deserves better so I would learn to live with my disappointment in order for that to happen."

She smiled.

"You are a good man Freddie." She told me. "But I'm still not going to give you the answers that you seek."

"Why the fuck not?"

She laughed at the asperity that had crept into my voice. "You are... so very human."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"It's not. Generally speaking. I love humans, they live their lives so... But I sense that you are growing impatient with tangents."

"A little." I admitted.

"So Here it is. I am not going to tell you because it would be too easy. Destiny can be a bastard sometimes and Destiny requires some things to happen in order for other things to happen.

"You describe Destiny as though it is a living being."

"Isn't it? Do you believe in Destiny?"

"Of course not. I make my own fate."

She laughed. "I shall tell him you said that the next time I see him. He will be... Actually, he won't really care. You are correct in the main. There are many paths that a person can walk. Many many paths and, made up of all the choices that a person can make. But sometimes, just sometimes. Destiny needs to take a hand. Something needs to be done in order to make this person go this way or that way or make this choice or that choice. It is cruel sometimes but it is necessary."

"If Destiny is a person, then the son of a bitch has a lot to answer for."

"He might. But he also... He also sometimes permits reality to be steered for the better. Would you like an example?"

"I sense that you are going to make it anyway." I was being sour. My mood not improved by the fact that I knew this.

"I am. As you are beginning to learn, I truly enjoy the sound of my own voice. And I don't get to use it too often. People, by their nature, don't really want to talk to me and when they do, they tend not to be able to do so for a particularly long time. And playing dice with a part of yourself can get very boring sometimes."

"You were going to give me an example of things that have to happen."

"Yes. Things sometimes need to happen in order for other things to happen. Everyone experiences this at one point in their life or another. Sometimes it might be a grand, life changing experience where they were talked into going to a party by a friend. They were tired, still hungover from the last party, ill, poor and all the other reasons why a person might not want to go to a party. But then they are persuaded and they meet the love of their lives there. That's an extreme example of course. But that is a thing that leads you from one place to another.

"Your brother spoke about this. About the powers of your world pulling the lives of people in one direction or the other."

"Yes he did. But he described them as being general pulls and that that pulling could be dangerous."

"And he is right. There is no denying that but his model is also a very simplistic one. Your world has magic in it. Which means that powers such as the Gods, the Spirits, even some ancestors are able to influence the lives of the people that walk upon the Earth. So here, in this particular plane of existence, this kind of interaction is more common. Much more common than you would like to think. Sometimes, these actions are just setting something up for further down the road. A man meets a woman in order to produce a child. That child meets another child of another couple that were put together for that same purpose and the child is made furious by the thing that takes place. That fury drives them into the army where they are tasked to fight bandits. They kill a set of bandits so that a man is saved which means that the child of that man is raised with love rather than anger and a sense of obligation and that man writes the next great work of fiction. Or creates the art that changes the world. Or becomes an important politician. Or becomes an evil so black and terrible that he unites the world against himself.

"And on and on it goes.

"You have to go through all the jumps, all the hoops and all the tasks. And then you must record the story of what happens to you so that others can learn from your experiences. Incidentally, that is what will keep you alive, long after your body has died and your soul has moved on. And that is why you belong to me and not to him."

She gestured at stern of the ship.

"But another example. Which brings us to this ship and the man that you found."

"Yes, why him? What did he do?"

"He killed the Albatross."

"You say that as though it's the beginning and end of the entire situation."

"That's because it is."

"But that makes no sense. He was cursed long before that."

"That is also true."

"But how can he be cursed before he killed the Albatross. He hadn't killed the Albatross yet. He was driven into the state where he would kill the Albatross."

"Correct."

"So was that a separate curse?"

"No. He was cursed because he killed the Albatross."

I just stared at her.

"You are struggling with your limited understanding of how time works." She told me with a smile. "That's alright and you shouldn't beat yourself up about any of that."

She sighed and her vacant expression came back.

"His world needs a warning. It will be a warning that they will ignore, but it needs a warning nonetheless. No-one else would kill the Albatross. No-one else would do that. Only him. He was a lesson made manifest. He was cursed because he killed the Albatross. He was taken to that place because he killed the Albatross and when he leaves here, it will be because he killed the Albatross."

"But why is that such a big deal? He was hungry, he could have needed something to eat. People kill animals all the time for food, clothing and all of the other things that come with that."

"That is true. But they do not do so with such hatred in their heart. The vast majority of people understand that if you attack a bear then the bear is going to fight back. If you stumble across a Wolf den, then the Wolf will protect her cubs. To the death if necessary. It is the nature of the animal. If you get bit by the snake after you stand on it. Are you angry at the snake?"

"Of course not."

"Because that is the snake's nature. You don't hate the animal for obeying it's nature. Even if it was just a normal creature..."

"Which it wasn't."

"... I will leave that alone for now. But even if it was just a normal creature. It was just flying. It was certainly not in any kind of competition with the ship for food and water. So why kill it? There was no reason other than what he felt and therefore what he decided to do. That is murder. That is not killing for food or for any of the other reasons that a person might kill an animal. That is just murder and even worse. He did it with hatred in his heart. Even your world's relatively rudimentary understanding of how curses work would say that that Hatred would reflect back on the murderer."

"That is true, but the punishment doesn't really fit the crime."

"Since when is that a factor in these kinds of things. It was a curse. It's not to do with punishment. It's about the depth of the feeling itself."

I took a deep breath. I felt pity in my heart again. For all his snivelling, cowardice and other factors that were keeping me angry with Lennox, it all seemed a bit harsh.

"Your pity does you credit." She commented.

"Will you stop reading my mind." I snapped, a little harsher than I had intended.

"I'm not." She seemed unperturbed by my anger. "It's written all over your face."

"That's not reassuring."

"It should be. Pity is good. It shows Empathy and it is the lack of Empathy that is a danger to people in general. Especially for him. He hated that bird with a completeness that terrifies even me and I'm the living embodiment of transporting souls from the state of life to the state of death and back again."

"But that didn't just curse him, or it didn't just damn him. It damned every single person on this boat."

"Yes it did. But he did that. Not me. He did that with his Hatred."

"I'm getting confused." I was as well. I had that feeling that I used to get when arguing with Philosophy students when I was at University. That moment where you get that feeling that the person that you are talking to just simply knows more than you do.

I always hated that feeling.

"But he wouldn't have been there." I tried again. "He wouldn't have been there if he hadn't been driven there in the first place. By the storm. By the ice and by all of the other things. I take it that he wasn't lying about all of that."

"He wasn't. As I say, you're falling over the fact that, as a species, you still view time as being a linear thing."

"It's not?"

"No. Ciri might be able to explain it better but if you think that your brains are dribbling out of your ears now. Wait until you talk about that with her."

"She will enjoy that conversation." I mused.

"She will." The woman agreed.

"So he was cursed?" I tried again to find a way into this mess of confusion.

"He was."

"But you said that all of this is necessary. Pre-ordained by Fate."

"It is."

"Why?"

"Because it wasn't just an Albatross."

"What was it?"

"It was the Sea. The Oceans. As Ciri told you, That other world call Albatrosses the Gods of the sea. Because they are. One beat of their wings can propel them for miles. The situation was set up. It was known what kind of man he was and we offered him a chance. He was driven by the storm and the ice to the point where he was about to die. Then a creature of the Sea. An element of nature was offered out so that he could find a way to safety. Find a way home. And he killed that lifeline."

"But you knew that he was going to do that?"

"Yes, it was expected. Not by me. I didn't care."

"Then by whom."

"By the Gods of that world. They had shaped him into their tool and they knew what he would do and how he would do it. He was their... instrument."

"For what purpose?"

"To warn his fellow man."

She turned to look at where Lennox was stood, despondent, tied to the mast. He was no longer shaking with the sobbing, but I thought I could detect those tremors.

"When the ship leaves here he will continue his journey. At the request of the Gods of that world I shall keep him alive long after he should have died. And then, at the last, as his body is consuming itself with hunger and thirst, he will let go of his hatred. He will let go of the poison that has infected his heart and soul for his entire existence and he will learn to love the sea and every creature that lives beneath the water and flies above it. And when he does, those creatures will accept him and love him for it. They will bring him food and water and his ship mates will rise from the dead and take him home."

"They look as though they have already risen to me."

"There's that comment about time again. But he shall be taken home and he shall be charged with telling all that he comes across about his tale. He will be a warning to those that come after him. He will speak well and concisely, holding nothing of his tale back including those parts that paint him in a bad light. Men shall call him "The Ancient Mariner." He will sail many times more until perceived old age overtake him and then he will walk the sea ports of his land and continue to tell the tale until the Gods of the Sea give him respite and I am asked to take him."

"I still think that this is cruel." I told her. "Give him punishment for falling for a curse that they set him up for. It's like the thing... A friend of mine was walking out with a young woman. They were both pretty young people and at a party. The boy had an exam the following morning so left early, encouraging the girl to stay. There was lots of alcohol and high emotion and the girl got drunk and ended up sleeping with a good friend. She woke up the following morning, realised what happened and ran back to my friend with tears streaming down her face to confess what had happened. She told him that she was sorry, that she was drunk, her sleeping partner was drunk and she just lost control of her actions."

The woman said nothing.

"My friend was upset, how could he not be but he forgave his girlfriend on the grounds that they were young, hormones, alcohol and a party atmosphere were things that happened. She said that she was sorry and that she would never do it again. She didn't either and now they're married with children on the way and she has never given him cause to regret his decision. I was proud of my friend that day."

"And so you should be. But let me ask you the follow up question. That is what she, and he did. Would you ever be in that position?"

"In what direction?"

"Leaving aside what you would do if Ariadne was ever unfaithful to you and what you would do..."

"It would depend on the circumstances I think." I answered automatically. "I would be angry and upset but she's an elder Vampire who's been alive for hundreds of years and..."

"Now who's responsible for the tangents. But would you ever be in that position. Would you ever allow yourself to fall into bed with an attractive woman. You are still young, pretty attractive to the right kind of woman, and you are correct. Pheremones and alcohol are a powerful cocktail."

"I would never be in that position." I said. "If I was at a party with any women that I found attractive, I would control my drinking. I would never permit myself to be in that position."

She looked at me levelly for a minute. "You're a good man Freddie but you assume that you would have a choice in the matter. But he is the same. He could have chosen not to shoot the Albatross."

"But you knew he was going to do that."

"We did."

"So... Arrrrrrrgggghhhhhhh."

"It can take people that way sometimes. But it is necessary."

A thought occurred to me.

"Then can I ask a personal question?"

"What's the question?"

"Why are you here? You're Death. Life... Whatever. Surely this is beneath you."

"It is a little bit. But I am needed to be seen."

"Why."

"When he tells his story. There need to be moments that people recognise. Things that stay in the mind. My personal interaction is necessary to ensure that he stays alive long enough to fulfil his purpose. But I also need to be seen."

"Why?"

"So that it can be emphasised just how important this whole situation is. Their world is going to die. Yours will freeze but theirs will burn. It will burn when people, like him." She gestured at Lennox, "who don't care about things. Who actively hate the world or, even worse, only care enough to see what comfort they can wring from it when they think that that comfort is more important than the world that they live on. It's part of the symbology of the tale. They need to see that Death is part of that story. A vital part of that story. It will help it stick in the mind."

"Not being funny. But one roving madman is not going to make much of a difference enough to change the world. Or are you doing this on several different areas."

"Well there are two points. He doesn't need to be heard by everyone. He just needs to be heard by the right person. Maybe a century or so after making landfall at his home he will tell a wedding guest about his story. The Wedding Guest will be so taken by the story that he will be made late for the wedding itself. Another guest, a friend, will ask why he was late. This man will be a famous poet of his homeland and he will adapt the story into epic verse against the advice of his friends and his publishers. The story will be changed significantly of course, leaving out the most fantastical elements such as the world populated by Elves, Dwarves and Giants, but the essential message will be the same."

"But epic poetry will only go so far. There are still some people that dismiss the works of the bard regarding the White Wolf, as being nothing more than more than mage propaganda. They insist that the White Wolf never existed despite the fact that he's a matter of record in many areas and is living quite happily down in Toussaint."

"This is true. But you are thinking too small. You have to think in the terms of centuries and population in terms of the Billions. The poet will suffer the ultimate indignity for a poet."

"Oh?"

"His work will be studied in school. But those school children that study the poem are the very same children that will be able to make a difference when the time comes. Presuming they can remember the lesson of the Ancient Mariner."

I gazed at her levelly. "So all of that death. All of that pain, his not least." I gestured at Lennox. "For a warning. To enact a curse in order to tell a story and to teach a lesson."

"Yes. Lennox was required. He is still required. He was, is and will be the play thing of God, Gods and powers because they need someone or something like him. Such people cannot always be as kind and benevolent as whoever you are thinking about."

"I thought you said that you were not that cruel?" I heard myself say. I maintain that I had no conscious thought in saying that because even as the words were coming out of my mouth I was screaming at myself. This person claims to be the living embodiment of life and death. Pissing her off is not the wisest thing I have ever done.

She smiled. "I'm not. But then again, I'm not a God. Gods are cruel, I simply am. The Gods of that world believe that this is necessary. They believe that this action will save Billions versus the Fifty or so men that die on the ship."

"A lot more have died in our world."

"Yes. But those Gods don't care about this world. Why would they. They gain no worship from here. They have no power here and they are never going to come here. So why care?"

"Our Gods might have something to say about it."

"They might. They do even. But what are they going to do about it?"

"I don't know. But the way you speak is terrifying to me."

She grinned. "Are you having existential questions? Nature of life, existence of Gods, What does it all mean kind of stuff?"

"I am. I hate these questions. I envy Kerrass and his, "so long as you can look yourself in a mirror" kind of outlook. I wish I could do that but one of the down sides of being educated is that I can see the questions. You speak as if the Gods are real and that you know them."

"I do. We don't hang out or anything."

I was confused. "What?"

"We don't have drinks or go to parties or..."

"Ok. I get it. But that is proof and proof denies faith."

She smiled. "Would it help you if I told you that there is no such thing as God or Gods?"

"No."

"Because both answers are true. It's a little easier here. As I say, Magic exists here so the question of faith is "Are they Gods or are they manifestations of Magic?" That is the question that your church scholars ask themselves rather than "Do Gods even exist at all." Interestingly, I notice that none of those church scholars, or even the Elven scholars, have asked the Gnomes, Dwarves or any of the other races that made their homes here what they believe."

"No, I can understand that." I told her. "It's because they are afraid that they will be told the truth, thus denying the question. The Question is vital. The Question and the uncertainty is what makes life worth living. If we knew that the Gods existed and that we will be judged on our actions then we are no longer performing good deeds because we should be performing Good deeds. But if there are no Gods and no afterlife then what's the point in being good at all."

"You're smarter than you look aren't you."

"I'm not entirely sure how to take that."

"You should take it as a compliment. You look pretty intelligent."

"But you've distracted me again. You can't fool me." I wagged my finger at her.

She snapped her fingers. "Darn."

"So what are my Gods going to do about all of this death?"

"I don't know." She said. "I suspect that there might be some harsh words exchanged when the next conjunction happens but that isn't going to be for a while yet so... They might have forgotten. Or they might have died."

I groaned.

"Sorry," She said. "I said one of those things that shakes the nature of your existence again haven't I?"

"You're not sorry," I accused. "You did that on purpose."

"Guilty." She admitted. "My point is, Gods are both creatures of the moment, and creatures of the Long term. The Gods in the world that Lennox is living in are much older. Therefore they can think Longer term. Your Gods are much younger. After all, You have only been here for the last four to five hundred years." She paused and peered at me. "Freddie? Are you still with me?"

"Sorry, I was still thinking of the whole Gods dying thing."

"What do you think happens when a God stops being worshipped. You ever think about all of those carved stones and wooden posts that you pass when you're riding down the road? Anyhoo. We're going to cut this short soon."

"Why?"

"Because your brains are beginning to dribble out of your ears."

I literally checked to make sure.

"It was a figure of speech." She laughed. "Moron."

"But this is cruel." I told her. "Why is this happening? Are there not better ways to send a message. To warn people that bad things are coming. More definite, more finite, more certain."

"And what messages will people listen to hmm?" Your Druids have been warning rulers about the dangers of over deforestation and over fishing for years now and they always get ignored. Your rulers say "When will the fish disappear? and the Druids say "At current rate, the country will run out of fish in six hundred years." And the ruler replied. "Then come back in five hundred and ninety nine years and we'll do something about it." Before having the Druids thrown out of the throne-room. Thus drowning out the Druid's cries of "It doesn't work like that."

"There is not a warning that cannot be easily ignored by the people that rule. Not a single one. A prophet? Your own world has evidence of what can happen to prophets with Lebioda, Etibald, Ithline and the rest. They are either ignored, their message perverted and corrupted beyond all recognition, or made a figure of ridicule. Do they send a sign? Signs also can be ignored, explained away or brushed aside in the name of profit and convenience. Does a God write the warning in letter of fire across the sky for all to see? All it takes is for those people inside, who can't see it, to say that it was Gas, magic, an error of vision, natural phenomenon or any other excuse that can easily be summoned to mind. Scientists can be ridiculed and ignored the same way that Mages and Druids are being ignored. Scholars and historians can point out facts leading up to the situation and those facts will be twisted.

"So look me in the eye Freddie. You look me in the face and tell me what message any God, of this world or that, could send to humans, Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, Gnomes, Vran, Fae, Were-bubs, Dragons, Vampires, and everything else on all the other worlds that wouldn't be ignored and dismissed out of hand.

"The only way that the world changes at the hands of a God is if that God can get the right warning into the right ear at the right time. Because the only thing that can change the world, whether it's this world or that, is a small group of committed people.

"You are a historian and I get the sense that you occasionally miss getting told what to go and study by your professors so I'm going to give you some homework. You go through your history books. It doesn't have to be now, maybe when you get home and are waiting to get married. You go through your history books and you pluck out every time that the world has changed. You find all those times and if you track those events back far enough, you will find that a small group of committed people is the only thing that has ever changed the world."

I stared at her for a bit. There was an intensity about her as though she had come into sharp focus during that little speech.

"Oh, I get it." I told her. "I'm one of your messengers. I record this, I write it down and then hopefully, the correct person reads it and takes action at some point down the line. Is that it?"

She smirked.

"Don't let your head get too big that you can't fit through doors though."

"I will endeavour to remember that."

"Also, Not my messenger. And I don't talk to the Gods here too much so I have no idea what they're planning. I just wanted to talk to you."

"Was it a good conversation?"

"It was better than most of the conversations I get. Most are just upset and need a shoulder to cry on."

"I can see that. You still haven't really told me why you won't tell me what happened to Francesca." I told her.

"Noticed that did you?"

"You've spouted a lot of things. A lot of things and most of it strikes me as being a rather complicated way to distract and confuse me. But you actually haven't really told me anything."

"Yes I have." She told me quietly. "I have, in fact, told you everything you need to hear. Even I am sometimes the tool of destiny after all."

I had nothing to say to that.

We stood together for what felt like quite a long time.

"So what happens now?" I asked.

"Now? In a short while, the Albatross will fall. Shortly after that, this ship will set sail and return to the time and place where it was supposed to be. After that, I don't know really, I suppose you and your friends will go up to the keep and get drunk. I suspect that you will spend a day or two feeling miserable and self-pitying at the fact that you didn't entirely get everything out of this that you wanted."

"Other than Helfdan." I put in, pointing. He had come up from where he had been below and was rushing past where the cloaked figure was talking with Kerrass and Ciri where he vaulted over the back of the ship with a sure confidence. I later found out that he was inspecting the tiller, or trying to anyway. Then he vaulted back over and was speaking with as much animation as I have ever seen him use while talking to the Ship's Carpenter of the Skeleton Ship. He had his book with him and was writing in it furiously with a piece of charcoal. "He looks... He looks Happy."

"Yes, well, of all of you, he is the purest soul. Also, of all of you, he deserves his coming happiness and you will see him happier."

"Good. You are right. He deserves the acclaim and the... Love. He deserves to be loved."

The woman smiled at me. "But after a couple of days of feeling sorry for yourself, the four of you will start to lighten up. You will enjoy the rest of the festivities until the sea is passable again and then you will go your separate ways. You and Kerrass will continue on your journey and your quest. Helfdan will set about rebuilding his life and Ciri will go off to enjoy being Empress for as long as the crown continues to be hers."

"What about you?"

"My part in this story is not yet done and my younger brother really gets cross when I mess up the old stories."

"But this story isn't old."

"That depends on where you stand. Remember, you see time as being strictly linear. But it isn't. I told you, ask Ciri about it some time. It will make your brain ache."

"She does enjoy doing that. But what happens to you? What happens to him?" I jerked my finger back at Lennox.

"We will sail out of the harbour. I will continue on my duties, continue to fulfil my purpose. Him? He will go from here. His torment will deepen as he moves from cold into heat. He will be surrounded by water and be dying of thirst. He will be revolted by everything he sees but need them for survival and he will be borne home by a crew of dead men on a rotting ship."

"Sounds delightful."

"It will be."

"But you're lying to me." I accused her. "You know exactly what's going to happen, and to whom."

"Well, yes. But it's also true that I don't. There must always be a choice Freddie and I must not influence that choice."

"But if you know what choice I'm going to make... Arrrrrggggghhhhhhh. You're going to say something about time now aren't you."

"Now you're getting it. You still view time as linear. So I must treat you accordingly."

We stood together for a while. It suddenly occurred to me that she was actually quite short. It was her hat that made her look tall.

She looked up at the sky.

"If you have anything else to say or ask. Say or ask them now." She told me.

"So many things." I replied. "So very many things. So I will say none of them. Except to say that I was really glad to meet you. I have never been more infuriated by a person in my life, nor as stimulated in so short a space of time. I even think, were my heart not already given elsewhere, that I would have loved you if I could have known you for a bit longer."

Her smile was sad. "I love you too Freddie." Then she hugged me. "Treat her well for me and I expect a full account of your life when I see you next."

"I shall look forward to it."

"Don't." She told me.

Then the Albatross screamed.

"Ooopss." She said, "That's our cue. Just quickly then..."

She took my arm and started steering me to where Lennox was tied against the mast. "Whatever happens next, you must learn that there are things that are beyond your control. Learn to forgive yourself for them. Learn from them."

"Ok." She was speaking quickly and fiercely. I got the impression from the furtive way that she was speaking that she was not allowed to do this, or say this. That she was breaking some rule in some way.

"And whatever happens." She told me. "Whatever happens. Love her. See the beauty shining through and love her for it. It will be enough, I promise."

"You shouldn't have told me that." I guessed. "I mean I'm grateful and all but I don't think you should have told me that."

"Hush now." She winked conspiratorially. "Gods like to throw their weight around when they're at the height of their power, but they do that because they know, deep down they know that life moves on and then I am waiting."

We arrived at the mast. The ship's company had also arrived and stood in a half circle around the mast where Lennox was leaning. He looked up and into our faces, looking from one face to the next. "Please," he begged over and over again. "Please don't do this."

Kerrass and Ciri arrived. Ushered by the tall figure in the cloak. Kerrass was frowning while the tears were running freely down Ciri's face which was a mask of misery. Helfdan was the last to arrive, ushered y his escort and guide, still scribbling in his notebook.

"Please don't do this."

The Albatross screamed again but there was an extra element to the scream. A rattling unpleasantness. I couldn't see it although I looked up. The fires in the harbour meant that I couldn't see the keep of Kaer Trolde let alone high enough to see the Albatross.

I heard a rush of wind before the bird landed with a crash and a crunch of broken wood.

Calling it huge seems reductive in some way. With wings outstretched it was longer than I was tall. Longer than Kerrass even or the Sergeant that goes everywhere with Sir Rickard. And he is the tallest man I know.

When I had first seen the Albatross, it was a distant figure, just a line, a dot in the sky. It was the same little shape that children draw when they want to represent birds in their paintings. A bent little V shape. It was a figure of terror and awesome power. I remember shaking in fear.

But now, here it was and I found the entire thing. A little pitiable.

It was dead. Very dead. I don't think you could get much deader than how dead that Albatross was. It lay there, basically rotting. Feathers were falling from it already and where as feathers, when they fall from birds, are often fluffy and light in tone. These feathers were lank, limp and greasy. Patches of black-green rot could be seen on the surface of the Albatrosses coat and skin that were leaking fluid already over the deck. And it smelled. Maggots were writhing in the things eyes and out of the backside of it. But far from being revolting, which it was, it was sorrowful. Here was the prideful, beautiful beast reduced to this and here we were all standing around looking at it.

A crossbow bolt stood out of it's chest. Glittering with metal. Harshness against the dead grace and vanished beauty of the bird.

Someone said something and three sailors rushed forward to drag the corpse of the Dead Albatross over to where Lennox stood, shaking. Three sailors were not enough though and another went over to help. They dragged it over before trussing it up with rope and hanging it off Lennox's neck.

He could no longer lift his head in order to look us in the eye any more. Even despite the fact that the sheer bulk of the corpse rested on the deck. Despite this, he was weeping again.

"DO ANY OF YOU WISH TO SAY ANYTHING TO THIS MAN?" The cloaked figure asked the four of us. The voice had a tinny, echoey quality to it. But there was also a resonance that echoed deep in my chest. It was a very male voice which I found surprising given that the woman had claimed that the figure was part of her. "THERE IS NOT A LOT OF TIME."

"I am sorry." I said. Then I blinked in astonishment that I had said anything at all. Then I blinked again as I realised that I meant it. "I am sorry that you were brought to this. I am sorry that you were driven to this extreme. And I am sorry that I was the instrument of returning you to your punishment." I thought about it for a bit longer and decided that I had nothing more to say.

Helfdan stepped forward. "Ivar." He began. "Tryggvi, Unnulf, Erlend, Haakon, Saxi, Gorm, Guldur, Ulaf, Rolof, Perrin, Asgaut, Askel, Kunnr, Svartlinggr, Vitkun, Kjarten, Gulti, Thoraldr, Bjalfi, Ursa, Diri, Brodir..." Tears fell from his face as he spoke although his voice never wavered. My own eyes misted as well and I saw Kerrass' face go stony. The way he does when he is maintaining his "Witcher's mask."

"I would tell you more names but I do not think we have time." Helfdan told the sobbing Lennox. "I would have you remember those though. But somehow, I do not think you will." He stood up and stepped back.

Ciri stepped forward. "I actually want to thank you. I needed this I think. But I hate you for what you've done and all the pain that you've caused."

Kerrass was shorter. "I really would have helped you if you had simply told me the truth." Then he turned and looked at me. "Write that down and make sure you put it in your account of all of this. Make sure that people know that I said it."

I nodded.

The tall cloaked figure walked to Helfdan first and held out his hand. It was white and so thin I almost thought it was just the bones of a hand.

"LORD HELFDAN." The figure said. "A PLEASURE."

Helfdan face frowned in confusion.

Moving down the line the figure came to Ciri and shook her hand.

"EMPRESS." It said to which Ciri said nothing.

"WITCHER." Kerrass did not shake the hand.

"Oh don't be daft Witcher." The woman in the hat called over. "The gesture is politely meant so take it for what it's worth."

Kerrass sighed a little before nodding and took the offered hand.

Then it was my turn.

"FREDERICK." The figure said and held out it's hand. I took it and shook, all the while trying to see into the depths of the hood. The search was fruitless though. All I could see was shadow in the torchlight.

"IT IS NOT ALWAYS WISE TO LOOK TOO CLOSELY." The Figure told me while shaking my hand. "SOMETIMES YOU MIGHT SEE WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR. ENJOY THE MYSTERY LORD FREDERICK."

"I hate mysteries." I told the figure, doing my best to smile and not think about how cold and dry the figure's grip was. Now that I have some distance from these events, I could have looked down to see what I was shaking but at the time, I just didn't think of it.

"YOU MIGHT HATE THEM." It told me. "BUT YOU WOULD BE BEREFT IF THEY WERE GONE. SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT PERHAPS."

"Perhaps." I answered.

Then he moved off.

I turned to see that the woman was hugging Helfdan fondly.

"Goodbye." She told him before she moved on and hugged Ciri who seemed rather astonished.

"Take care of yourself." The woman told Ciri before moving on, leaving Ciri to look after her with her mouth hanging open.

"Come here big man." She told Kerrass who frowned in confusion before he cautiously opened his arms and the woman leapt into them before kissing Kerrass soundly on the cheek with a huge mwah sound to the laughter of everyone involved. "Do not die before your time." She told him "and remember that she loves you too."

Kerrass hung his head.

"Do I get a kiss?" I wondered as I saw that it was my turn.

"I'm not sure you deserve one." She told me.

"Can I have a hug instead then?"

"You can always have a hug Freddie." She told me before suiting action to words.

"Take care," she whispered in my ear.

"Good Bye." I told her.

Then she moved to stand by the other figure.

"TIME FOR YOU TO GO." The tall figure said before turning to the man with the three pointed hat. "CAPTAIN, IT IS MY GREAT PLEASURE TO TELL YOU THAT THE SHIP IS YOURS AGAIN."

Then he and the woman vanished. No flash, no gate. They were just not there any more.

"Time to head back to shore I think." Ciri said. "I, for one, have a lot to think about.

We climbed over the side as the ship was untied. We saw sails lift with wind and then the Skeleton Ship was moving. The people on the side of the dock threw their offerings into the wake and the sound of a crowd of people weeping saw the ship off.

Helfdan left. I don't know where or when, but Ciri, Kerrass and I stood on the jetty and watched the Ship sail off. I've seen some expert steering in my time but that was something to see. The ship seemed to fade from view and as it did so, I thought that I heard a single sound echoing around the harbour, drowning out the tears and the gentle support of family members as the Skeleton Ship left.

It was the sound of a man wailing in fear and pain.

(A/N: So. Although there is a certain amount of aftermath to come and I debated talking about these things after that Aftermath is dealt with, it seems a little more relevant to talk about these things here. When I first began the arc of the Skeleton Ship, I told you all that I was writing this with apologies to two people. The first was my high/secondary school English teach whose efforts to try and teach me that Epic poetry was interesting and compelling, largely fell on deaf ears as I was far more interested in exploring other fantasy worlds. That remains the case.

The second apology goes to another writer and his name was Samuel Coleridge and the poem that I am talking about was "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

Unfortunately, there isn't really a category on FFN for Coleridge Fanfic so I can't really cross-post.

Some people might also say that I took inspiration from the works of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman and this is true, I did. The figures and Characterisations of Death and Life-in-Death are taken from their works respectively and I hope that I did them both justice. But they appeared first in that original epic poem.

Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)

How fast she nears and nears!

Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,

Like restless gossameres?

Are those her ribs through which the Sun

Did peer, as through a grate?

And is that Woman all her crew?

Is that a DEATH? and are there two?

Is DEATH that woman's mate?

Her lips were red, her looks were free,

Her locks were yellow as gold:

Her skin was as white as leprosy,

The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,

Who thicks man's blood with cold.

Yes. I changed her description but I knew that Freddie would have a conversation with her and I did not know how to write her voice except in the way of Mr Gaiman's Death. So I changed her description. In my world, I can argue that the poet didn't like the description of Life in Death so changed it to a description of classic beauty for the time, blond hair and red lips. So I can argue the point. So there. But I found that her character matched Mr Gaiman's Death quite well.

The naked hulk alongside came,

And the twain were casting dice;

'The game is done! I've won! I've won!'

Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

So that's that. Thank you for reading and after a chapter spent tying up some loose threads I am ready, if not eager to move on. Thanks for sticking with it and I will see you all soon.)