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

147. Chapter 147

(A/N: This should be considered as a kind of Part 2 of 2.

WARNING: Contains descriptions of people's gruesome death)

I was still ill when the summons came, still struggling with things. I was desperately trying to work, to find something to do that didn't involve thinking about what was going to happen when the passes opened and everything was finished. I knew that Ariadne still wanted me to go and see the unseen Elder who, apparently, lives in or near Toussaint. The oldest of the Elder Vampires, who was among the few remaining who could remember what the world was like before the Conjunction of the Spheres. But what was going to happen after that?

I had no idea and that was beginning to really frighten me.

So I tried to work. When I wasn't being ill or being looked after, which is how I describe those times when one person or other amongst my carers was not sitting me down and forcing me to rest, eat something or take care of some personal hygiene, I was trying to work. But work on what? What was there to work on?

I had already written about my recovery from meeting Kerrass' Goddess. The investigation into the conspiracy was all but over and there was no real need for either Kerrass or myself to be involved in anything. There were bits of interviews and the like that were still taking place. Lots of legal wrangling and official business to carry out. But most of it was over.

There were things still to come. Sir Guillaume, Sir Gregoire and Lord Palmerin had all told me that they wanted me to call upon them and guest with them for a while before I left Toussaint for the second time. There were others as well that insisted that I needed to call on them, people who had decided that the political wind was shifting and as a result, gaining my friendship was something that would set them on a good course.

I had a standing invitation to Lord D'Alambourd's regular parties. Kerrass went to one in this period. He came back with the expression of a man that has been clubbed about the head and the smile of a Skelligan who has been told that his death was going to be that he would be drowned in a vat of ale. I asked him what the party was like. He tried to describe it several times before eventually giving up and admitting that he had no idea what to say. That I should just go there and see it for myself.

Ariadne was keen to do precisely that.

Kerrass had also reminded both Ariadne and myself that the Goddess was keen to speak to both of us when we were ready. I was conflicted about this. On the one hand, Ariadne would be there but on the other, the last time we had met, the Goddess and I, the results had been catastrophic.

Ariadne and I had discussed it and agreed that we would perform the ritual, but only after I was suitably recovered. What was meant by me being "suitably recovered"? I have no idea, despite asking many times, but it was a decision that only Ariadne seemed to be permitted to make.

Another thing that was waiting for Ariadne, Emma, Sir Walther and Anne to decide that I was suitably recovered was the feast of gratitude that was going to be thrown for Kerrass and I.

Or rather, there were going to be two of these feasts, parties and ceremonies. One was going to be held at the palace, a formal affair before the full court of Toussaint with speeches, fanfares, formal dancing and the works. Another was going to be held at the headquarters of the Knights of Saint Francesca which, I had been promised, was going to contain more debauchery than the one at the palace. Again though, there needed to be a decision made that I was well enough to attend those things. A decision that was still some ways off, and the nature of my illness in particular, apparently, was that there was no way of telling when this was going to be. Some days I would be better, and some days I would be catastrophically worse.

But what was going to happen after that? What was I going to do? The general feel of everything was that I was going to travel back to the north with Emma and Laurelen to help prepare for my coming nuptials. I was under no illusions though. I wasn't really needed for that kind of thing. My wedding was becoming an all consuming political event.

Emma had let slip that one of the Imperial masters of ceremony had moved into Castle Coulthard in order to help organise the entire thing and his entourage alone was intimidating. I was looking forward to marrying Ariadne. I really was and as I write this, I still am, but the entire process seemed to have stopped involving me in some way. After the decision had been made, I had little to do with what was to come.

Kerrass spent the time watching me, he seemed to be waiting for something. I have no idea what. I do know that he wrote to Princess Dorne in this period. He showed me the letter that was carried off by the Imperial courier using the transport gates.

No, I'm not going to tell you what he said.

It was very sweet though, and touching enough for me to comment that I didn't think Kerrass had it in him.

Despite this, Kerrass had the feeling of someone who was waiting for something. I challenged him on this and he admitted that he agreed, but that he didn't know what it was that he was waiting for.

So I was trying to work. Trying to write and trying to study. I tried to write up the experience of investigating the conspiracy but I found that I couldn't do that beyond making extensive notes about what I had seen and heard. Actually writing these articles that you hold in your hands, was beyond me because I didn't yet know what the ending was going to be. The legal process was going to go on for a while and I was legitimately concerned that some of those conspirators were going to get away with things.

I was also worried because… well…

These articles are here for two main reasons. The first is to inform. To tell people about what the world is really like, admittedly through my eyes which means that it is hardly an unvarnished view of the world. I had to make peace with the fact that I was far from an unbiased witness and recorder of events very early on in my travels.

The other reason that I do this is to entertain. My old professors called this kind of writing "a gateway". Meaning that people might read a story, watch a play or read something like my writings and be intrigued enough to want to know more about the specific subjects that are covered in this chapter or that tale. But that doesn't work if people are not entertained. People need to be interested in the thing that they work on.

So I needed to know, even roughly, how things were going to turn out.

That desire for an ending might have been some kind of jinx or a curse given what really did happen. But that would be jumping ahead in the story.

Heh, story.

It must have been clear that something was going wrong with me again as Kerrass came to see me, literally taking the quill out of my hand, snapping the book in front of me closed and dragging me out of the palace to go drinking.

I protested that the ink was still drying and he glared at me.

"Freddie," he said. "I've been watching you and you've been staring at that same page for half the day."

I looked at him.

"Well," he shrugged, "a good half an hour at least. Long enough for the ink to dry anyway. Come on,"

It seemed as though there had been a conspiracy of some kind to get me moving. Ariadne had prepared a pair of boots and some outdoor clothing. Emma gave me some money and off we went. The guards that followed us were discreet and hung back. There was a nice tavern out in the market square. We bought our ale and went and sat outside as we watched people come and go.

"So tell me Freddie," Kerrass began. "What's on your mind?"

I honestly hadn't thought about the problem up to that point. But when Kerrass asked me that question, it all seemed to materialise in front of me.

"I don't know what to do." I told him. "At this time of year, the last couple of years, it has been the beginning of our setting out on the path together. Three years, I've been doing this. The first two years for academic purposes and the third year to try and find Francesca. But what do I do now? Before too much longer, you are going to want to go off on your way and who can blame you. You must be looking forward to some nice simple monster hunting by now, without all the politics and nonsense going on."

"And without a certain Scholar messing up my time." He grinned at me.

"Yeah, fuck you." I snapped back without too much force.

"Seriously though Freddie, I'm going to miss you on the Path. You have made it bearable for me these last few years and you've taught me a thing or two about myself as well."

"You sound like youre saying goodbye already." I could not help the fluttering of fear in my voice.

"Not yet." He said. "But I would be lying if I tried to pretend that I wasn't getting itchy feet. I am further South now which means that I can start being on the road that little bit longer. And if I am taking time off to attend and organise your stag do and be part of your wedding, I need to start early to set some money aside. The winter is not going to be cheap."

"You know that you can winter with us right?"

"I know." He said. "But the truth is that I don't want to. Your first winter together as a married couple? You're going to want to be snuggling each other in blankets and gazing into each other's eyes in front of an open fire."

"Yes but…"

"Not to mention all the noisy sex you're going to be having."

"Kerrass," I protested, laughing.

"I've been married before Freddie, I know what it's like."

He laughed at me for a bit.

"So when are you thinking of going?" I wondered.

"I don't know. I know that there's this visit to your future in laws coming up." He said. "And I should be there for that. I understand that I'm even invited."

"You are."

"And it would be rude not to. Seriously though, I want to make sure that you're alright. You're over your exhaustion since the murders now. But what's going on?"

"I don't know what to do." I told him. "I know that the plan is for me to go North with Emma to help arrange the wedding, but I can't see how much that would occupy my time."

"Believe me," Kerrass said. "It will occupy your time."

"Ok, but will it occupy my mind?"

Kerrass didn't answer that.

"I'm scared, Kerrass. I know that I promised everyone, including you, Ariadne and myself, that I would not charge off back towards hunting for Francesca. But now the moment of truth is here and I don't know…"

He didn't say anything. He signalled a passing server for some more ale and topped both of our cups up.

"I don't think that there's much more I can write about Witchers." I said, "Your history is mostly unknown as the people that know are either dead or are not telling. And as for your day to day lives? What more can I write on that subject? That has been my life for three years and I don't know if I can stop. But it is so tied into the hunt for Francesca that I don't… I think that doing that some more would be dangerous on a whole new level."

"I agree." Kerrass said carefully.

"So what do I do now?" I wondered.

"Syanna has made no secret of the fact that she wants you to teach her Knights about courtly thinking and critical investigation theory."

I snorted. "You and I both know that you would be better at that, or the subject would be as well taught out of a book."

"Yes, but who will the Knights listen to. The brother of their saint or a vagabond Witcher, or some dried up old writer who 'doesn't know what it's really like out here',"

Kerrass' impression of a stuck up Knight was rather good.

"You could go with Ariadne," He said. "Learn about your new lands and start to become a Lord there."

"I could." I said, "But that is not a driving force. I will do that, I look forward to that, but I'm not excited about that. It's a chore and Ariadne has already got more than a grip on how all of that works. I will spend even more time thinking about other things if I go there. Including trying to find out what Phineas was doing there and how it was all connected, even if it isn't actually connected. Also there's the matter of proximity to a very beautiful woman of my acquaintance. Her reputation still needs protecting and having me actively living with her might provoke all kinds of scandal."

Kerrass let me have that.

"Or," he went on. "I have no doubt that Oxenfurt wants you to give some lectures."

"Possibly." I said, "Almost certainly. But suddenly, the thought is not appealing. I've wanted that all my life, but suddenly, now that I could just sit back, give lectures and watch the money roll in, I do not find it as appealing. The attraction was always to be able to study what I liked, when I liked and being a professor gave me that luxury."

"So find something else to study." Kerrass said.

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"I have no idea where to begin."

"You will find something." Kerrass told me.

He was right too. I did find something, or rather, and I'm sorry for the cliche, something found me. But again, there is other stuff to come first.

I remember that it was quite late at night when the summons came. I was just on the verge of getting ready for bed. Ariadne insisted that I keep to a routine, eating until such and such a time, bathing, spending some time with family before a slow and gentle slide towards going to bed. It was at this time that the summons came.

Emma and Laurelen were out, dining with a friend and Mark has taken to retiring early at the insistence of his Doctors. I was the same way. I was sitting up in bed, trying and failing to read a book. The main problem being that I was finding it next to impossible to keep my focus on what was going on. I couldn't take the information in and I found that the words were just sliding off me.

Ariadne was in the room with me. She was trying her hand at embroidery. Someone had told her that Embroidery was a "proper skill for a lady" and so she was trying her hand at the skill. She didn't really like it but it gave her something to do while she sat with me. She would have done some work of her own but admitted that her method of working meant that I could be having a screaming fit, throwing things about the place and sobbing my heart out, but if she was nose deep in her studies, then she possibly wouldn't notice what was happening.

I've had days like that so I wasn't upset.

There was a knock on the door and the leader of our guard unit murmured something to Ariadne when she answered the door. She nodded and said something back. There was a tone to her voice. Anyone who has spent a long time in the presence of a woman that you love will know what I mean when I say "a tone". It's a tone that essentially says "Really? Are you sure? Because if you are not, I advise you to go away and rethink your decisions."

Why yes, I am deflecting from unpleasant circumstances with attempts at humour.

She turned from the door and looked at me for a long moment.

"We are summoned," She said.

"Oh." Excitement rushed through me, a chill of fear and a readiness for combat. I leapt from bed onto the ground, far too quickly and a wave of dizziness struck me.

Ariadne caught me. "Go gently Freddie. I will get you some clothes."

It had not been a good day so far.

I was already shivering and I put on some warm clothes and we left the room to find light coming from Mark's door. As we passed, one of Mark's personal servants called Ariadne over while Kerrass was already dressed and waiting.

"Any idea what this is about?" I asked him.

"No." He said. "But Syanna isn't here and they came looking for Emma and Laurelen as well so… I don't think it's anything to do with the conspiracy."

There was some thumping coming from Mark's rooms and Ariadne emerged.

"Are you sure you're going to need that?" She wondered, pointing to the spear that I was carrying.

I looked down at it. I didn't remember picking it up. I looked back up at her and she gazed at me for a long moment before nodding as I slung the bag over my shoulder.

"How is Mark doing?" Kerrass asked.

"He's a dying man being hauled from his sick bed." Ariadne replied without any kind of inflection in her voice.

"Not good then." Kerrass sighed and rubbed his head.

Mark emerged eventually. He was pale and sweating. When he emerged he and I looked at each other for a long moment before we both started laughing.

"Are you going to let the rest of us in on the joke?" Emma had just arrived.

"I'm sweating," Mark said.

"And I'm shivering." I giggled.

"The Brothers Coulthard." Mark was sniggering. "What a pair we make."

"Any idea what's going on?" I wondered aloud.

"The Duchess wants us." Emma said. "And at this time of night, that doesn't mean anything good."

"It's not exactly that late." Mark commented.

"It is given there's no other parties on." Emma replied, just as quickly.

There was an escort waiting for us just outside our rooms that fell into step around us. I exchanged glances with Kerrass. It was not a "We're taking you to the cells" escort. This was a "Make sure they all get here," kind of escort. I was beginning to get nervous.

My nervousness increased when we saw that there was an increased guard and Knight presence on all the checkpoints. They were not particularly threatening or preventing the passage of anyone. It was not a generalised lockdown.

Have you ever read a book or seen a play or something where someone in authority turns to a guard captain or some other kind of secondary figure and says something like "Double the Guard." And other such things. It's a literary device designed to increase tension and to tell the audience that people are taking this particular threat seriously. It's often wasted as the thing almost never works as it's often a measure being used against the protagonists, our heroes.

But this is what it looked like. Someone, somewhere had ordered that the guard be doubled.

I started to realise what was happening when we entered the corridor that leads to the Duchess' quarters where we found, outside the Duchess' quarters, two members of the Imperial Guard along with the Knights that are normally stationed there. And by members of the Imperial Guard, I mean those serious men and women who wear fully segmented black plate mail with Helmets that obscure all visible features. Those same Imperial Guards that are chosen for their lack of a sense of humour, imagination and utter loyalty to the Imperial throne.

It was Ciri that told me that there are women in those suits of armour too. She said that there is a certain kind of person that when they decide that they want to serve, then the best thing that you can do is to just get out of their way and let them serve. There are other guards, other people that are devoted to the safety of the Imperial person. All of the Empress' maids are trained very carefully to defend the life of the Empress and the Emperor before her. As are the servants and the spies and the secret police commanded by Lord Voorhis.

But these men and women, Members of the Imperial Guard, the ones who stand on the guard posts are capable of going from standing perfectly still to committing untold, unspeakable violence at a moments notice. Without even really thinking about it.

And they would be silent while they were doing it.

Their presence could only mean one thing and I felt a trickle of ice water run down my spine.

Suddenly, everything seemed very far away.

We were shown straight in by the Knights of Francesca that were on the door. The Guardsmen didn't move. They would not be the ones to open a door. They were too busy guarding it. There is always an unsettling feeling when you deal with the Imperial Guard. That they have assessed you as potential threats and then dismissed you out of hand. It generally leaves you feeling really small.

We were shown into the Duchess' chambers.

There she was.

I have seen the Empress now in several different forms. I have seen her in her full on, Empress guise. The cold, slightly remote, frightening, beautiful, austere personage. The one that sits for portraits and issues decrees. I have also seen the more dynamic, workaday version of the Empress. The one that wears simple riding coats with little to no ornamentation on the grounds that anyone who needed to know who she was already knew.

I have seen the private Empress. The one that has been trained by the finest political minds on the continent including names such as Emperor Emhyr, Queen Calanthe and several members of the Lodge of Sorceresses. The one that has been taught to think in the halls of Kaer Morhen, at the Abbey in Ellander. The one that has been trained to fight by Skelligan, Witcher and life on the road.

I have seen the warrior that walked the path in much the same way that a Witcher does. The fighter, the survivor…

The Killer.

And I have seen flashes of the horrifying killer that she had been, according to rumour. From the time when she took the name Falka and terrorised the roads of the Southern Empire.

I have seen all of those things, but this was the first time that I thought I might have seen what she was like when she was a really young person. The girl that had seen everything that she believed in, torn down when she fled Cintra. The girl who had lost her mother, her father (that she had known of) and her Grandmother. Every friend, servant and person that she had trusted had gone and she had fled into the woods, weeping with that pain and loss.

That was what I saw now.

She was dressed simply. As though she had come at the end of her day. She was wearing a set of riding trousers and boots, a light shirt and a dark tunic with the Golden Sunburst on it. She was also wrapped in a large, voluminous dark cloak that I guessed had been chosen for it's anonymity in keeping the visit incognito.

She wasn't armed. That was the thing that stood out in my head most of all.

She looked like someone who had had to leave suddenly when they were just finishing off the last business of the night and had been wearing what she had on at the time.

Her hair was frizzy and a little unkempt and as she turned towards us from where she was being hugged by Lady Yennefer, it was plain that she had been weeping.

I felt as though I was falling down a dark hole.

Lady Yennefer was there as I say. When we came into the room she was holding the Empress in her arms. Yennefer was dressed, as she ever is, in her black and silver attire. It was a simple dress over a pair of trousers and riding boots. Again, she was wearing a warm cloak against the chill.

I automatically looked and found Lord Geralt, silver hair glistening slightly in the candlelight. He was standing out of the way, speaking in a hushed voice with Lord Voorhis.

Lord Voorhis was also there. He was the only person that didn't look as though he hadn't been called away when he was getting ready for bed. As he always is he was wearing his surcoat and weapons. He still had the slightly pale and clammy look with swept back hair that I always, and slightly unfairly, associate with dead fish. He looked over when we all entered and finished off his conversation with Lord Geralt

The Duchess was there along with Syanna, Lady Vivienne and a couple of other ladies that I didn't recognise. All in various states of dress down other than Syanna who was wearing what she calls her "business" armour.

Lady Vivienne was pouring drinks. Never a good sign.

Ciri, because I saw that she was being Ciri at the moment rather than the Empress, pulled herself from her mother's arms and came over, pulling Emma and I into a hug, reaching for Mark at the same time. Emma was already weeping.

I could only wish that I could join them. It felt like an occasion for tears.

There was an inevitability about what was happening. We all knew what was happening, but at the same time, there was a need for the words to come out before we could actually know what was happening. I know that that doesn't make sense but that was what it felt like. We knew, but we didn't know. It was, again, like watching a play that you remember seeing years ago.

No, that's not right.

It was like…

Imagine a book that you love. You've read it countless times. You know it so well and love it so much that you can recite entire passages word for word, and often do, to people whether they want you to or not. You are so passionate about this book that you buy copies for people for birthdays and festivals and then check with those same people every day as to whether or not they've read it. Only for them to turn around and admit that they haven't read it yet on the grounds that they have needed to do other things like eating and sleeping. Even then, there is a small part of you that resents that they didn't read the book while they ate.

Everyone has a book like that.

Now imagine that you hear that someone is making a play adaptation of the book and you run through the gamut of emotions that always goes with this. The anger about how they dare adapt a book that is, to you, an almost sacred text. The hope, that you might be able to see those characters that are almost as close to you as your own family, being portrayed in the flesh. You have vacillated as to whether you are going to go and see it or not.

Then you go, you're there on opening night. You've worn a costume that you've made of your favourite character and much to your joy and happiness, it becomes clear that the adaption is both respectful to the book, and also really good.

You find yourself swept up in the story. A story that you know so well. There are changes because of course there are changes. They've cut certain bits out and you can see why. After all, there is a big difference between a book and a play. Some characters don't look quite right and some scenes that you always found quite funny are played for tragedy and some things that you found tragic are played for laughs. But all in all, you are swept up in things and having a great time.

You are having such a great time that you almost forget that you're in a theatre, you are just taking it all in. Then the play comes to one of the climactic moments in the story. I can only use my example here. You come to one of the climactic moments where one of the heroes, a main protagonist, is facing a great evil so that the others can get away. You know that the evil is cast down and you know that it drags the hero with it to the hero's death. You know that. It's written in words of fire on your very soul.

You even know that it's one of the most vital plot points and that there is no way that it could be changed. But then, you think that there have been other changes. Other adjustments have been made.

And just for a moment. Just for a fraction of a heartbeat. You hope that the hero, the character that you love. That has been part of your life since you were young. You hope that this time, the character will not be dragged to their death with the evil that they destroy.

But then it happens, as you knew that it would. Happening as it had to and that grief that has sat in your chest since the first time you read the story, tumbles out of your chest in a sob that is muffled along with the sobs of the rest of the audience.

That was what it was like. I didn't know what was coming. But I knew what it was.

"I wanted you to hear it from me." The Empress said, wiping her eyes.

Mark took a deep breath. "Francesca?"

Ciri didn't answer. But we all knew it.

Ciri took Emma and I by the hand and led us to some chairs where we sat down automatically. Kerrass brought Mark who needed a bit more support.

Funny how confirmation makes it all the worse.

"I would have had Samuel brought here as well." Ciri said. "But according to the people at his castle, he's out in his lands at the moment and there isn't a mage with him. Messengers have been sent but who knows when they will find him."

"He will be trying to be hands on." Emma said faintly. "He will be trying to be a Lord to his people."

We fell into silence for a while after that. As though we were all trying to stave off the inevitable.

"I brought Lord Voorhis with me." Ciri said eventually, "as he can go into more detail and tell you the things that I cannot. But the long and short of it is that…" She took a deep breath and cleared her throat. "Using the information that Kerrass gave us about the mage, Phineas Tordril and his presence during the coup attempt in Angral…"

(Freddie's note: The man who had been magical advisor to Lord Cavill in the North. The one who had caught me and was responsible for my being cut off from Ariadne. That son of a bitch)

"... we were able to track his movements from Angral up to the North and eventually we caught him in Novigrad of all places, trying to charter a ship that would carry him across the gulf to Ophir where he intended to continue his efforts to… well... " She took another deep breath and when she spoke again, she did so in a trembling rush.

"It was he who had Francesca kidnapped. He was doing it to gain some revenge on you, Freddie for derailing his attempted Coup in Angraal and intended to use Francesca as a hostage to force the Coulthard family to bankroll his future experiments. When he…" She cleared her throat again before taking a juddering breath. "When he realised the amount of trouble he was in… It would seem that he wasn't aware of how fond the Imperial Court had become of Francesca, he killed her and magically dumped her far out to sea somewhere in order to save himself from our retribution."

I remember thinking how strange lips were and about how much I don't think about how to move them to form words.

"He retreated to Lord Cavill who he saw as a kind of home base and well…" She gestured for Lord Voorhis who stepped forward.

Why Salt water from the eyes? What purpose does it solve? Dr Shani once told me about why tear ducts are for but why do they shed salt water when we weep.

"We actually know a lot more about him now." Voorhis said, pulling a piece of paper from inside his tunic. "His real name was Kelros Torfannan although he left that name behind at the first possible instance. He was spotted for his magical talent but was held back by the fact that he could only channel a relatively mediocre amount of the power without injuring himself."

I could see Yennefer nodding along. As it turns out, Yennefer and Tordril had a history of mutual loathing which she didn't really want to get into. Her violet eyes flashed as Voorhis spoke.

"According to those records that we have been able to recover from Ban Ard, his technical knowledge and grasp of technique was exceptional. The only thing that was holding him back was the fact that he couldn't really channel enough power to perform any of the experiments that he wanted to carry out. And when he tried to teach others what he wanted them to do, their grasp of the technique was so flawed that they would be lucky to survive.

"We have found one of his teachers hiding up a mountain and that teacher told us that Tordril had a theory that Magic was a finite resource and that if we continued to use it, then it would run out. So he was obsessed with finding a way to top up the reserves as it were. In the same way that we store water or wine in a barrel.

"Eventually, he fled Ban Ard after it was discovered that he had been practising Goetia (Freddie: The summoning of extra planar entities, or demons if you prefer) in order to gain the power to do what he wanted. He was discovered and in a fit of jealousy, he killed some of his classmates as he got away.

"After that, our information becomes a bit more sketchy. He would pop up now and again and cause some kind of horror. The assessments of the Lodge, the Mages Council and the surviving Chapter scholars would suggest that he was trying to find new ways to cast magic and draw more power than he could naturally.

"From the ravings of the man himself, it would seem that he found it. Somewhere in the ruins of the former civilisations, he was able to make contact with something from another realm. More than the 'petty things', his words, like Djinn and ifrits that can be summoned. He found an entity that was too powerful to be brought through, too alien, too different and far more powerful than this world, this… realm could support."

"And such is the way of those things, it offered him power." Yennefer hissed.

"Indeed." Voorhis said. "However, a man needs to eat and he found sponsorship in the North. Lord Cavill and other people of that nature. He promised power and strength and in return they gave him safety and security. We know that, eventually, he found a permanent base in the Cult of the First-Born and that they were close to the thing that he was half worshipping himself in return for power.

"He was clever enough to not shit where he was eating so he continued his practise of travelling the continent to find Lords that would pay any price for the services that he could offer. With them, and through them, he would continue his experiments. Lord Dorme was one of these people."

"Which is how he knew about the bag. The totem meant to control Ariadne." Kerrass said.

Ariadne leaned forward.

Flame but she was pretty. But what was it about her that made her pretty? I knew she was but for the right there and then, I could not have told you what it was. Was it the tilt of her head, the slight tightening of her eyes that showed she was concentrating. The smoothness of her skin or the little lines in the flesh that were around her neck. The lines that I longed to run my fingers over.

"Yes. He was concerned that Cavill was overreaching and wanted to establish a secondary base further south in a more central location. Angraal isn't far from Loc Muinne and he had not been powerful enough to be able to stage a proper expedition there before. His habit was not to go with the efforts that he instigated and as a result, he fell back and watched from a distance. He watched as Lord Frederick and Witcher Kerrass destroyed his plan and turned Ariadne against Dorme, or at least, that's what he thought."

"Did he know that his recipe for the Totem was flawed?" Ariadne asked, enunciating her words carefully and slowly.

"He seemed sure of his success so we think he didn't know."

Ariadne nodded and subsided.

"He was not involved in what happened to your Father." Voorhis told the rest of us. "He was aware that your cousin was becoming too over confident and that he would not last much longer. Instead, he focused on the taking of your sister. He intended to use her as a magical focus in order to curse your bloodline. There were going to be horrific experiments and the like… But then he realised the amount of horror that was going to come down. He knew that Teleporting more than one person at a time would involve a gate and that the use of gates are monitored. So he killed her, retreating to his place of power."

The family shifted in their seats. The Empress glared at Voorhis, I had no idea why. I watched in fascination as Mark's face reddened in anger. I watched as Emma paled with the same emotion. Why does one person get red faced while the colour fades from another's cheeks? Interesting stuff.

I managed to avoid sniggering. Some distant part of me that was still in control of my own body realised that that wouldn't be the best idea.

Lord Voorhis was oblivious to the nature of how much his lack of tact had affected people.

"He was honestly astonished when Lord Frederick and Witcher Kerrass wandered into his power. He took some steps to destroy you but soon realised that the cult of the First-Born was not going to succeed. One way or another, there was no way that the death of Lord Frederick would go unnoticed by the powers on the continent.

"He tried to get Lord Cavill to just slit your throats. But Cavill was angry with the fact that you had killed one of his sons and therefore insisted on performing the rite. Phineas consoled himself with the pain that your death would cause others and the fact that you were highly unlikely to survive during the rite. He was astonished when he heard about your survival and how you survived.

"He retreated again during the months following the destruction of the cult as he knew that people would be searching for him. However, the number of resources that were devoted to hunting him were nothing compared to the resources that were devoted when Witcher Kerrass carried news to us that this wasn't the first time your paths had crossed and he decided to flee beyond the Empire. That meant either Zerrikania or Ophir. He chose Ophir because it would be easier to hire a berth on a ship and be incognito than it would be to hire a guide to get across the desert. And life aboard a ship seemed less worrisome than crossing a desert.

"We caught him in Novigrad. He chose Novigrad as it was the biggest local port that supported ships that would sail to that kind of distance. And he figured that the city had swallowed the greater mage population of the North and he figured that he could use some of the good will that those mages had gathered in order to hide.

"We caught him, it took us a little time to cut through his disguise and when we finally did so with the aid of Lady Eilhart."

Yennefer shuddered at that. I frowned as I wondered why.

"... We were able to discover who he was. It was a battle of wills between the two mages, Phineas and Lady Eilhart while we questioned him. According to Lady Eilhart, he was far more strong willed and far more powerful than he should have been given the records of his assessments that we have access to from Ban Ard. That is how we got most of the information out of him that we have. Eventually though, he was able to throw off Lady Eilhart's mental compulsion and from there she said that he was "aware of her tricks' '. What that meant seemed to indicate that once he had thrown her out, she would not be able to use the same technique again."

"More likely that she didn't want to give him another opportunity to humiliate her." Yennefer spoke sourly.

"Mother." Ciri snapped. "Now is not the time."

For a while, Lady Yennefer's eyes blazed. Then she blinked and calmed. "You are right of course. Apologies, Lords and Lady Coulthard."

I was astonished. I had not imagined that anyone could talk to Lady Yennefer like that. It seems obvious now, but at the time?

I had to fight off another chuckle while Mark and Emma made forgiving noises.

"There is a lot unanswered here." Ariadne said, she sounded calm but something about the way she spoke caught my imagination. I found myself watching her closely. "I would dearly like to know how he got the ingredients for the totem. I would also like to know what he made contact with and how he came about his theories."

Yennefer was nodding. "The theory about Magic being a finite resource has been floated before and is almost certainly untrue, along with other such basic myths as Magic having its own consciousness and intelligence. If anything, the opposite is true and one of the things that we can thank our forebears for is the network of Menhirs and monoliths that made some efforts towards controlling the flow of the Chaos so that it doesn't explode and overwhelm us all. I am more interested in how he was able to throw off Phillipa's technique. She's been working on that mind reading technique since she joined the Redanian secret service."

"And how he was able to increase his power levels." Laurelen piped up. "From day one at Aretuza, and Ban Ard as well I understand, We are told that every mage has an upper limit to how much power that he or she can take in, hold in and channel. That going beyond this point is a recipe for doom and disaster."

"That's always been true." Ariadne agreed.

"The results of such things are often explosive." Yennefer said. "Technique can be improved, understanding can be achieved. Knowledge and things but that is one of the first laws of magic."

The discussions started to go over my head and I drifted off into a kind of numb state. I was watching Ciri, there was more to come yet.

The Mages in the room were talking about magic being artistic, scientific and chaotic all at the same time. There are many scholarly works on the matter and it is impossible to read just one.

"You are right." Ciri jumped in when there was a gap. "There are a lot of unanswered questions. I would like to know who set him on this path. Who was the person that told him where to go to make contact with these other entities? I want to know how he chose those areas where he could perform his experiments. I share Comtesse Angral's concern about how the recipe for the Vampire totem was found, even if it was wrong. Ever since that was first discovered, I have nightmares about armies of Vampires rising up, led by Elder Vampire Generals like the Comtesse, Dettlaff and… the various others that I have heard of. All controlled by a single madman who seeks to…"

She shook her head.

"Unfortunately, there is an obstacle in the way of finding out these things. Lord Voorhis?"

The pale faced man stepped forward.

"He had thrown off Lady Eilhart's control over him and he looked around the room, seeming to realise what was going on. Lady Eilhart told us that she needed to regroup and come up with some alternative strategies before she attempted those techniques again and when she said that, Phineas bit his own tongue off and died. Cause of death is still being argued over between bleeding to death or choking on his own blood. With the Empress' authorisation, an autopsy is being conducted even now."

"Clever of him." Yennefer snorted. "I knew of him when he was being hunted for Necromancy rather than Goetia. He would know that the body still needs to be able to speak for Necromancy to work. Even if the use of Necromancy was authorised, the corpse would not be able to tell us what we need to know."

"I thought that Necromancy was even more dangerous with a mage being involved anyway?" Laurelen asked.

"It is." Ariadne said calmly, she seemed to have subsided a little. "Coupled with the theory that his power comes from another source, worship of dark entities, who knows where his soul would need to be brought back from and what it would bring with it."

There was another discussion that started to go over my head. I seemed to be standing in a corner of the room, watching over everyone and everything. I could see myself, slumped in a chair, hands clenched to fists in my lap. I looked like a corpse.

"That's enough." Ciri turned into the Empress again for a moment, just a moment but it slapped us all back to a new awareness. "Yes there are questions that still need answering." She said. "And the investigation is ongoing. His movements are still being tracked and some of that might bear fruit. We are also investigating the house that he stayed in while he was waiting for his metaphorical and literal ship to come in. We haven't found any of his journals or his writing yet and I have yet to meet a magic user of any kind that didn't keep some kind of magical journal or something to keep track of their discoveries. If we do find anything else then we will let you know."

"Barring Imperial security of course." Voorhis put in.

Ciri came back. "Yes, of course." She sighed and rubbed her head.

"Speaking of…" Voorhis cleared his throat.

"Yes." Ciri nodded and turned back to the rest of us. "Believe me when I tell you that I want to stay. I want to be with you all as we all share our grief. I want to talk about her and remember her. I want to get drunk and I want to get laid and I want to weep long tears of grief..." She brought a trembling hand up to her mouth for a moment as her voice trembled. But then she mastered herself.

"I would like to do all of these things. But I do not have time. I must get back. I would ask that you let me know when the family memorial will be. I would like to be there for that so that we may all grieve together."

Tears were falling down Mark's face freely. "It will be in the spring." He said. "I remember her dancing in the Spring rains."

Emma nodded. "A lot of people want to attend that. Not as many as want to attend Freddie's wedding of course." She tried for a joke. It was a valiant attempt.

"I would like to be there. It won't be a full state thing. I want to be there as Ciri, your sister, if I may."

"I think we would all prefer that." Mark said.

Ciri nodded. I seemed to watch from very far away as Ciri put her hand on my shoulder as an effort of comfort before moving past and leading Lord Voorhis out of the door.

I didn't react.

As a family, We stayed there in the Duchess' rooms for quite a long time. We had a few drinks, and there were some small conversations. Francesca is really important to the people of Toussaint as well so The Duchess wanted to have a feast and a memorial to the woman that is not quite just called "The Saint." The saint, as if there is only one.

At least not yet.

I wasn't there. Not really. I watched the entire thing. I don't think I said anything when others tried to get me involved in some kind of conversation. You would have to check with them though, I have no idea at all.

In the end though, it became clear that we needed to go off and grieve on our own. The family as a whole, including Ariadne, Kerrass and Laurelen although I think of them as family now as well, made their retreat and returned to our rooms. I know that we were escorted. I know that we must have travelled the intervening space. I know that, but I have no memory of that.

I just remember finding myself standing in the middle of the family gathering room, people were talking around me and Kerrass was talking directly to me.

"Freddie?" He prompted. "Freddie, are you ok?"

I looked at him for a long time before I grinned. He staggered backwards in horror as though I had attacked him.

"Well." I told him. "At least now I know that I'm not going to be looking for whatever happened to Francesca."

I laughed. I laughed for a long time into the silence that descended onto the room. I even knew that it was horrible and that I should not be doing it. I knew it was horrifying but I laughed and laughed and laughed as the tears streamed down my face.

Then it was though I came back to myself in a rush, as though I slammed back into my body with all the force of a galloping Knight and I realised why I was laughing.

I was relieved.

Everything went dark. Apparently I screamed and fainted. Ariadne and Kerrass caught me and carried me off to my rooms. Walther was sent for and they forced some herbs down my throat so that I slept.

The next few days were not good for any of us.

Mark was hit the worst of us I think. I was barely able to move, but one of the few times that I was pulled from my bed was when Mark got sick enough that we were worried that he would leave us early. A long moment there when he stopped caring I think. He started to take his medicine again after a couple of days and his strength started to come back. Ariadne and Laurelen conferred and did some tests so we knew that the brief break from taking the medicine would not have done him any favours, but it would not have abnormally shortened his life expectancy any.

Emma would later say that she felt numbed by the entire thing. Like me, she felt a certain sense of relief but her reaction to it was not as powerful or as frightening as mine. She said that it was like the road forward was clear for her now. She could make plans and make adjustments. We had all known that Francesca was dead, but now that it was actually confirmed, the uncertainty had been removed. She could make plans. She could fully fund a memorial scheme for her to pay for some charities that Francesca would have liked.

It was the small things. She felt so stupid when she admitted that one of the things that she didn't have to do any more was that she didn't have to hold back Francesca's dowry. She could make plans for a memorial service for Francesca, a wake would be held. Apparently, people have never stopped asking for a date for when Francesca would be interred (yes, for those readers in the South and the East, we do still have an interment when there is no body. It's been especially important to do that kind of thing in wartime when there is often no body to recover.) and now she could make plans for that wake and move things around accordingly.

There was some concern as to how Sam was going to take the news and we each wrote to him in an effort to try and bring him back to the fold. The arguments that we had made against each other in the times since then seemed small and petty. There was an urge on those of us that were in Toussaint to try and bring everybody back together.

In the meantime though, the letters that we sent to Sam crossed with a letter that he sent to me specifically. He had heard about the arrest of Velles and the seizure of all of Velles belongings. I flattered my brother that he didn't have my side of the story, nor did he know what Velles had actually done. All he knew about the affair was what Velles' factors and business partners would have told him which would have been that the first merchant that Sam had been able to treat with on an equal footing had been arrested by his brother.

The letter was clearly written in anger and just as clearly based on lies and rumours that he will have been told in the North. He added me to the list of people that had wronged him in some way and expressed his hurt and his anger in terms that I would charitably call "unbrotherly".

At the time, it was an extra nail in my soul. I was insulted and aggravated beyond ease of thought. The thing that got me more than anything was that I would have thought that Sam knew me better than that, and even if he didn't, I had hoped that he would, at least, do me the courtesy of coming to listen to my side of the story before he condemned me so utterly.

But he didn't. He declared himself not my brother and expressed his fury that I would cut him off from an avenue by which he could be free of the "shackles of the family". He told me that when Mark died and he ascended to be the head of the Coulthard family, that I would be bought out of my share of the Coulthard trading company and that I would be dispossessed of the Coulthard name. That he never wanted to see or hear from me ever again.

I was already reeling with grief at the confirmed loss of Francesca and this sent me over the edge. Before departing on my journeys with Kerrass, Sam had been the male sibling that I had been closest to and now it seemed that he was doing his best to make himself my enemy. I was angry for a while, I thought it was cowardly that he wouldn't come and talk to me about this in person, but then… after that…. I just wanted my brother.

Ariadne rescued the papers from where I threw them on the fire. Moving fast enough and using her innate resistance to fire to pluck the letter out of the fire and as such she took it to Emma and Mark to read. Emma was furious and had a screaming row with Mark about it where she promised to put all matters of the Coulthard trading company out of Sam's hands. She would leave that night and speak to lawyers to ensure that it was so. She swore that she would give the entire enterprise to the Empress and call it the Imperial trading company before Sam would access a shaved copper of the amount.

Mark told her to remain calm and went to his own writing desk. Mark was upset about the whole thing and he decided that he was not going to leave his family in such a desperate state. He wrote several letters to his own lawyers, the lawyers of the church and to Sam as well, which he gave to church soldiers to place in the hands of Lord Samuel Kalayn and no other. And off they went through the transport gate to do just that. He refused to tell either Emma or myself what was in those letters.

It has to be said that I feel much better now. I have written to Sam myself again, even though his letter threatened that any missive that was sent to him from me would end up straight on the nearest fire. I have not heard from him in the meantime and I only hope that he has read them so if my readers will indulge me a moment.

If you're reading this Sam? Or anyone close to him is reading this, please get in touch. I love you Brother. Velles was as close to evil as I can state a man to be and I do not believe anything other than that he would have used you to further his own goals. And even if he didn't plan that, then you would be better off working with any other kind of person than a man like that.

I love you Sammy.

So I was in a bad spot. Bad enough that I had had to ask Kerrass and Ariadne to remove all knives and sharp objects from my sight and easy reach. I would occasionally try to work and I had to ask Ariadne to sharpen my quills for me. People stayed with me at all times and it really was as bad again as it had been at its worst in Angral.

For me, the problem was that I felt as though I had wasted the last year.

I would like to stress that I know all the logical arguments. I even had a fight with Ariadne about it when she finally got me to admit what I was upset about. I don't want to go over it. It was not a pleasant thing and I bitterly hate the thought of what happened.

She took the logical line that I have no doubt that you are all thinking of at the moment. You are saying that what happened over that year was not a waste of time. That Kerrass and I brought down the Knights of the Flaming Sword. That we were instrumental in the saving of Schrodinger and the Unicorn. That we helped end the curse of the Skeleton Ship and brought the cult of the First-Born to their destruction. These things are just the things that I have recorded as well. We have fought bandits and destroyed numerous monsters and the like.

But right then and there, all I could think of was the lost time. How I could have married Ariadne all that much sooner and about how I could have been living my life in the meantime. The problem was that Ariadne was right and I knew that Ariadne was right. Above all other things, Ariadne is a rational being. She believes that the world has an order and that we need to think of things in that way.

Have you ever considered the size of the continent, then have you considered the size of the world that the continent rests on. Then, have you ever looked up into the night sky and seen all the stars of the heavens above you. The mages would have us believe that all of those stars are like our own Sun and that many will have planets around them. From there, we also know that the Conjunction of the spheres means that there are many other universes as well, the same size and shape as our own. When you have done all of those things, have you ever considered how little you are and how small your life is when you compare it to the movements of nations, the lives of everyone involved and that even that is smaller than a speck of dust when it comes to the entirety of existence.

I have done this, it is a terrifying thought.

Ariadne is the kind of person that would tell you that existence is relative to the observer and that to the universe of me and the universe of her, then I have incredible significance.

She is just like that.

She was arguing because she thought I could not see the rational, logical side of what I was going through, or what my brain was telling me. I could. I could see all of those points. I could see that she was right as well. I could think of all the people that we saved and that we might still have saved. All the unborn men and women that will not have to suffer under the yoke of the curse, Knights or Cult. I could even avoid the pitfalls of thinking of those people that have died in these adventures. People that might have survived had they never known me.

But I was not thinking rationally and my self-loathing was terrifying. It certainly terrified me, let alone other people.

So my friends and loved ones took it in turns to watch over me. I was locked in my rooms for most of the day other than in the walk around the palace gardens that Sir Walther and Ariadne both insisted that I take on a regular basis. Ariadne took the night shift. She claims to only really need an hour or two of sleep a day unless injured, malnourished or having exerted a considerable amount of energy. She can also save it up so that she can work without interruption for several days and nights at a time before retiring to a bed chamber and sleeping for six to eight hours straight without really noticing. Then she can take up conversations directly as though she never went to sleep.

So whenever I slept, I did so with the door ajar…

Propriety still needs to be observed, no matter what, and an unmarried man or woman of noble birth is not allowed to be alone in a bed chamber with another man or woman of noble birth without a chaperone present. There were guards outside our door and I was an invalid which gave us some leeway, but Ariadne does have to be whiter than white in these matters.

So she had an armchair in the corner of my room where she would read, write letters, work on some scholarly work or her embroidery and she would just sit there from the moment I went to sleep until the moment I woke up when she would hand me my medicine and stand over me while I drank it.

And when I had nightmares, she would hold me until the nightmare passed and I stopped shaking.

So when did it turn around? And who was it that finally set me on the road to recovery?

Well, it came from the unlikeliest of sources.

I was in that state for a number of days. I wanna say that it was about four days but that can not be certain. I was doing my best to ride it out and wait for me to come back to myself. Ariadne Kerrass, Sir Walther and Lady Yennefer of all people, all took the time to tell me that I was doing really well considering and that I just needed to be patient.

Yes, they knew that frustration was making it worse. Yes, they knew why it was frustrating and yes, they also knew that I didn't feel as though I was doing ok.

"Hold to the fact that you have been ill before and that you recovered from that state." Sir Walther told me. "Hold to that fact and hold to the fact that you will get there again. It is a man's will to recover that actually helps him recover."

Ariadne was more helpful.

"In the same way that a limb can heal wrong, it is sometimes helpful for a mind to be broken again before it can heal properly."

Kerrass didn't come out with any of that stuff. He spent the time talking to me, in detail, about what he had planned for the stag party. It was obvious that most of those details were made up. He also made no secret of the fact that he was working to ground me as best he could.

Emma tried to make plans with me. Mark and I prayed together and for each other. Yennefer berated me into getting better.

Four days that I was like that and it was a long four days.

Something woke me on the night of the fourth day. I have no idea what it was although, given the later context, it was almost certainly someone clearing their throat or licking their finger in order to turn the page of a large book.

It was dark, the room was lit by a couple of oil lanterns that had had their wicks shortened in order to cast a dimmer light. The oil was perfumed and the air smelt pleasant but not in a sickly way.

Something was wrong.

Kerrass worked hard to train these instincts in me. Long hours of lectures and later, days where Kerrass would get up silently, sneak up to me and hold a dagger to my throat. At the time I thought he was teasing me at best, bullying me at worst. What he was doing was teaching me an instinct, that you don't get otherwise, which is that instinct for when something is wrong.

It's the same instinct that tells you that someone is following you. Or when soldiers suddenly realise that they are walking through the perfect valley for an ambush. Kerrass was teaching me to be a light sleeper and it is one of the things that I both regret the necessity of, and am grateful that I learned it.

It is the reason that I can no longer sleep, under normal circumstances, without a dagger under my pillow and my spear close to hand.

What was the wrongness that night? I don't know. Several possibilities occur. The first was a sense of stillness and quiet. It is almost impossible for there to be absolute silence in a castle or a palace at night. Especially in Winter. There is always the sounds of flames crackling in the hearth in order to keep you from freezing to death. Or the tromp of guards patrolling the corridors, or the creaking of wooden boards. Or the sounds of Wildlife outside and within the walls. Horses neighing, cockerels crowing. Cats fighting and dogs barking.

But that night, there was a stillness in the air that suggested nothing good.

The hairs stood up on the back of my neck and I tried to reach for my Dagger. Which, of course, wasn't there because all blades had been taken from me at my own insistence. I had insisted because I had found myself wondering how deep I would have to cut into my inner thigh before I would reach my femoral artery. I had already decided that my boot knife was the best tool for the job as the belt dagger would be too unwieldy for the task and all that I had left to do was to decide what was going to be in my suicide note.

When I realised that this was where my brain was going I squashed the thought as quickly as possible and called Kerrass to come and take my weapons away.

That had not been a good night.

But now, I desperately wanted my dagger and I scrabbled around under my pillows for it.

At some point, I realised that I wasn't alone in the room. I looked both for the door where the guards were, and the chair where Ariadne was supposed to be watching over me. It had occurred that I might just be having a nightmare and what was going on was a recovery from that.

"It's quite alright my dear fellow," said a male voice. "I'm not here to hurt you, or anyone that you really care about."

It all happened so quickly that it all blurs together.

"Besides, sleeping without weapons? Careless my friend, very careless." He tutted. "You did tell me I could call you Freddie didn't you? I think that happened in the past for you."

I took in two things. The first was that the door was still open. It should be, so that if there were signs of distress then the people around me, family, friends and guards, could come to my aid immediately. That was reassuring.

The second thing that I realised was that Ariadne was asleep.

I cannot tell you how rare that is. It might also surprise you to learn that I have never actually seen Ariadne sleeping. She always takes herself off somewhere private in order to rest. She was the most… human that I had ever seen her. She likes to control herself, everything in its proper place. It's one of the things that I am most looking forward to seeing when we are married which is to see what a dishevelled Ariadne looks like. What does she look like with bed hair and bleary eyes.

She's the kind of person that considers how informally to go when someone says that the dress for a particular occasion is "informal".

But she looked as though she had slumped, one hand held her embroidery hoop against her chest while her other hand was folded in her lap. Her head was laying back and off to one side as though she had just dropped off.

There was the sound of paper being scraped against paper. The careful, slow rippling of the page as it gets moved aside.

"I will be right with you old boy." the voice said.

I blinked furiously as I tried to find the speaker. The absence of the knife under my pillow had made sleeping difficult. But I was being given a sedative and it was taking everything I had to try and focus.

"Take your time," said the voice. "It has been brought to my attention that you are unwell and I would not wish to disturb your recovery unnecessarily." The voice was warm, velvety, educated in pronunciation.

I finally managed to blink my eyes into focus.

There was a… a figure crouched on my chair. And when I say crouched, I mean it. He was perched on the top of the backrest of the chair, knees bent so that he was sitting on his heels, perfectly balanced. He was holding my huge reference book on Jack. The large, weighty tome that I had ordered brought to me from Oxenfurt where it is waiting for the printers.

The idea behind this version of the book was that it would be a large reference tome that would be housed in libraries and other places of learning where scholars and investigators might get a more precise view of the Jack entity. Then there would be the much smaller books that were meant for private libraries and book shops.

This thing was huge. It was certainly not the sort of thing that you curl up with in a nice arm chair in front of a fire. You have it propped on a lectern or book rest. When I had used it in Toussaint earlier, I had laid it down on the table.

This figure had it resting on his knees, the weight of which made his feat of balance all the more impossible. He was licking his thumb with large, exaggerated movements and using it to turn the page which he did with the care and reverence that warmed the heart of this writer.

If it wasn't for the fact that he was perched, impossibly, on the back of a chair. He didn't wobble, he didn't move, he just stayed stock still as he read.

He was wearing a long cloak that obscured his body and hung down around his legs, giving the unfortunate impression of a pair of wings. He was wearing a shirt and doublet, the same as any noble of Toussaint would wear, with a cravat carefully pinned down with a diamond pin. His trousers were the riding trousers of a gentleman, made from a pale cloth or leather. And his boots were expensive.

His hat, because of course he had a hat, was placed on my desk with a pair of gloves that were placed on top of the crown. A cane and a sword were propped nearby with the swordbelt carefully wrapped around the scabbard.

As he always was when I met him, his hair was dark and immaculately groomed in a style that I could well imagine turning heads in the salons of Beauclair or the courts in any nation on the continent. His facial hair changes though. This time he was lacking in sideburns but wore a neatly trimmed goatee and soul patch. His eyes shone in what little lamp light there was and they seemed to glow as his eyes flitted over the pages of the book.

"Hullo Jack." I whispered on my third attempt. It took me a long time to clear my throat.

"Lord Frederick." He bowed, still perched and balanced perfectly on his perch, his eyes glowing at me with what I took for amusement. "I do most humbly apologise if I got it wrong." He went on in his clipped, aristocratic tones. "You have told me that I can call you Freddie have you not?"

"I think so." I replied carefully. I looked around to see if I could get to the guards. "Besides, could I stop you if you wanted to?"

"Naturally." He seemed offended. "All you would have to do is ask. I'm not a barbarian."

He laughed at me.

"Go and check if you like?" He said. "The guards are still there. I have not done anything to them."

I got out of bed carefully and cautiously. It was actually comfortably warm in the room which would be another clue that all was not as it entirely should be.

The guards were in the corridor, one was leaning against the wall as though placed there, his head tilted back and he was snoring.

The other had fallen against the wall and slid down it. He too was snoring.

"Shut the door, there's a good fellow." Jack called. "No-one is coming and a conversation such as ours should be a private one."

"Then what is the point in shutting the door?" I asked before I could stop myself.

"Everything is appearance my friend." Jack replied, "You know that as well as anyone. Otherwise, you would have taken your bitch out for a damn good shagging."

He waved a hand over at Ariadne.

I stiffened at the insult. He sighed.

"Forgive me." He said, turning another page. "Her people and mine have been enemies since before this world cooled enough to be lived upon."

I felt my legs go weak.

"Oh here." He leapt down from his perch and caught me before I fell. Every inch the solicitous gentleman. "You have been ill haven't you."

"Is it that obvious?" I wondered.

"More than a little my friend, more than a little." He smiled at me. He pulled over the chair and sat in it normally. "This is good work." He said, waving the book at me before he opened it to where he had left off. "Some of it is even correct. More than I would have thought it would be."

"I had a good colleague."

"Nonsense." He retorted. "Her work is the more accurate to be sure but you have the gift of making the knowledge accessible. Truly, this is a fine piece of work. The two of you balance each other out wonderfully and I can see where you have influenced her and improved her own work."

"I think you exagger…"

"Listen." He told me with a raised finger as he turned to a specific page. "From the chapter on what Jack is. 'Every culture has a version of him.' You write. 'In the oldest stories before the birth of towns and cities, before magic was harnessed, science stepped out of the shadows and before Witchers were born to shine the required light into the darkness. Jack was there then. He was the unknown thing, the glowing eyes that were there next to the path. He was the creature that hid, just out of sight inside the shadow of the tree. He watched travellers from the hollow formed by the fallen branches and he waited in the flickering darkness of the camp fire.' You see this is really good."

"I…"

"'We now know more about what hides off the beaten path. Knights, mages and Witchers have shown us what lives there and how we would set about taking the light into these dark places. So we do not fear them. But in the same way that other monsters have adapted to the increased urbanisation of the world'. That's a good word. I like that. 'Urbanisation'."

It was clear that I wasn't going to get a word in edgeways and I just let him speak. It was Lady Yennefer that had invented that word. Based on some of her own theories about how cities had conquered the wild.

"' In the same way that Bog hags have become sewer hags.' Not sure how much I enjoy being compared to a hag old boy. '... and in the same way that the Vampires and the Neccrophages have found that the cities are merely a new hunting ground for the food that they need, Jack has adapted.'

"Ah you see, that's one of the areas where you are not quite right. I didn't adapt. I was already there." He took a breath. "'Jack is no longer the eyes in the shadows by the side of the woodland trail. He no longer hides in the lee of the stone walls, peeking through the gaps in the stone. Now he hides in the darkened pits of the alleyways. He is the strange figure in the distance that you do not recognise. A voluminous cloak, a strange bag with breath billowing steam in the night in the same way that fire billows from the snout of a dragon. He is behind the mysterious doors, jammed into their open positions by splinters of wood and chips of stone. He is hiding behind archways, crouched behind flights of steps and laughing in the dancing shadows cast by the lanterns of the watch.

"'When you hear a footfall echoing along the walls. When you hear a scream in the darkness. When you can feel something, or someone breathing down the back of your neck as you scurry home at night. That is when you know that he is there. As civilised people, we know that there is nothing hiding from us by the side of the path. But we know that there are murderers, thieves and rapists that stalk us, all of us home. Things that would cause a Witcher to put his silver sword away and reach for the steel, after all, do the Witchers not famously claim that both swords are for monsters?

"'When your skin crawls and you can feel your mortality drawing in. When you see the door to your salvation ahead of you and you reach for your keys. When you hear the sound of metal scraping on stone. When you feel your feet slipping on the smooth stone beneath your feet. And when you hear the laughter of a madman in the darkness. That is where Jack is now.

"'The reason that they used to tell you to stay on the path is now the reason that they tell you to get home in plenty of time. The reason that they tell you to stay out of the alleyways and to walk with friends as you head to your door. To stay on well lit routes that are regularly patrolled. That reason is Jack

"'You will not know his name, you will not know his face. You cannot appeal to his sense of pity. He will show no remorse. History will not remember you or remember who you were. History will not remember who you loved or what you did. All it will remember of you is the label that he gave you. Be that priest or lover, poet or beggar, hero or villain, saint or whore. All that anyone will ever know of you is that you died at the hands of an entity.

"'And the entities name was Jack.'"

He slammed the book shut and shuddered theatrically.

"Chilling stuff." He said with a big toothy smile.

"I'm glad that you approve." I tried for dryness, unable to keep myself from glancing between the door and the sleeping guards, and the slumbering form of Ariadne.

That passage had not been written by either Lady Yennefer, or myself. Lady Yennefer had taken the text off on a visit that she and Lord Geralt had made to the Rosemary and Thyme. Despite her best efforts to keep him from it, Professor Dandelion had read the text and gone off somewhere for a while before returning and depositing the above excerpt on Lady Yennefer's desk. She had immediately taken it, added it to the text and offered him a credit.

Which he refused. Apparently, his days of academic study are far behind him and he has no wish to be associated with that world again.

"It's a good book." He said, flicking back and forth through the text. "I think that you and Lady Yennefer work best together although I do think you would be better served in working together in closer proximity rather than the way you do things at the moment. As it stands, there is a distinct divide on those chapters that you have written and those chapters that she has written."

"Oh?" I was wondering if there was anything nearby that I could use as a weapon. One or two of the candlesticks might have sufficient heft.

"Oh yes." He went on, he took out a small, silvery box, reached inside and took out a pinch of something, arranged it on the back of his hand and sniffed the substance up and into his nose. "I mean it's obvious that… excuse me one moment." He reached inside his doublet and pulled out a large red cloth which he sneezed into violently. "I do beg your pardon."

I waved him off. Maybe if I smashed one of the oil lamps over him then I could set him on fire.

"Where was I?" He blinked at me through bleary eyes.

I thought back. "Something about Lady Yennefer and I. Something that was obvious."

"Ah yes. It's obvious that you have done a pass through each other's chapters, but the real difference between the two is that you have clearly struggled to keep yourself separate from your subject. You are a little too close to the matter and as a result, you have struggled to make the work an academic one. Therefore, people will find it easier to dismiss this book as the account of a tainted witness rather than an academic source."

I bridled at that. "Well how else was I supposed to…"

He sniffed again, still struggling with the aftermath of the sneeze. "Next time? Send someone rather than going by yourself

."

"Would you have suffered anyone else to study you."

"Ah." He nodded.

"Ah what?"

"That rare thing. The valid point."

There was a new thought that was occurring to me. Not only was I looking for a way to defend myself against a being that has been able to fight off dozens more fighters that were far more skilled than I was, even if I was fully healthy.

There was a new thought that was occurring that was overtaking the first, powerful, fear response.

"Hold on." I said, "That is not a small book that you have there. Even the more abridged version would take a person a couple of days to read if they went at it steadily."

He rolled his eyes. "Because I am, of course, a normal person like yourself who is still a prisoner of linear time."

He stared at me for a long time. He had a calculating look on his face as though he was considering whether or not to eat my face.

"I came to say Goodbye." He said eventually. "This will be our final meeting. We will not see each other again."

I felt an odd sense of bereavement. "Why?"

"I am done with this place." He said. "I will go now to another world and another realm where they need to be reminded that, sometimes, there are things lurking in the darkness that they need to be afraid of."

He gestured at the book that he had placed back on the desk at some point in our conversation.

"You have, more than, carried out what I needed from you. This continent, and indeed, this world are aware of my presence. Your book will travel further and further. The stories of my passing and my presence will go even further than that, aided by your work. This world will fear the presence of Jack for centuries to come. So I will not need to come back here to serve my purpose for centuries to come. Long after you will have moved on from this fragile mortal realm."

He smiled. "I will miss you Frederick."

"I… I don't know what to say." And I really didn't. Fear had been replaced by a sense of loss. I had been thinking of Jack, on and off, for a good long time now and as a result, I almost felt a sense of bereavement. Jack. The story of his coming from Kerrass when he first talked to me around the campfire. All the way through the chase regarding Laughing Jack and his association with the loss of Francesca, followed by the study of the being and the work that was done.

It was that bit that led to my downfall. The association of losing Jack, going hand in hand with the final loss of my sister seemed to meld together into one ball of loss and pain. A sob escaped my throat.

"My dear fellow, whatever can be the matter?" Jack appeared horrified. "I rather thought that you would be pleased to not have to worry about me for a while."

"What do I do now?" I wailed. "I can't hunt for my sister, I can't work on the book and there is nothing new to add to it. What do I do now? I've written everything that there is to say about Witchers. I've talked about life on the road until I have started to repeat myself. I've written about the most terrifying thing that there is on the continent. What do I write about now? What do I talk about now? It's months before I get married and after that… What do I do in the meantime."

He stared at me for a long time.

"Why Freddie." He teased. "I never knew you cared."

I sobbed. I literally sobbed as the tears streamed down my face.

"Oh now hear Freddie, I came here to be nice to you. I didn't mean to upset you. Here."

I felt a cloth being pushed into my hands.

"Blow your nose." He told me sternly and I did as I was told.

He waited a little as I calmed down and I looked up at him.

"I should say," He told me. "THat I gave you my kerchief as a gift, freely given and with nothing expected in return."

"Umm, thankyou?" I said,

"The answer to your quandary is simple." He told me. "I feel sure that if you weren't as exhausted and worn out, that you would have found out the answer for yourself. You want something else to think about. Something else to write about. That is all there is to it. I rather think that marrying the Leech over there will occupy a good percentage of your time. But other than that, there are plenty of other things that you could write about."

"Like what?"

He laughed. "Ah Freddie, I'm not going to do all the work for you. But there are plenty of things on the continent to write about that no-one else has written about. Loads of things. Plenty of things. So many things that you yourself have met and interacted with many of them. You have even started your great work in many ways."

"What?" I was genuinely confused.

"The Conjunction of Spheres brought many things to your world." He told me. "Including you. Things that have not been written about in any other book or work. Things that have not even been considered. And in doing so, the Conjunction also weakened the boundaries between worlds. Not a great deal, but enough so that beings like myself can flit between worlds at a whim. You have met my ungrateful wretch of a lazy son. Write about him if you must. He will never stop hating you and I can't think of a better way for you to gain your vengeance against him than if you were to write the fear of him away."

"Have I not written the fear of you away?"

He laughed. "No, your writing will actually make more people afraid. It is why your entrails are not currently decorating the room."

"I trust that you are joking."

His eyes shone for a moment. "Not in the least."

I swallowed.

"But still," he went on. "You have spoken about the Crooked man and the Horsewoman of war. There are plenty of other, unique, entities in the world, similar to me, if not as handsome, charming and powerful, that you could write about. Pick one. And then, when you are done with one subject, pick another."

I felt that strike home.

"The Headless Horseman." I said,

"Yes." Jack replied. "I, for one, would dearly like to know why he is so closely associated with pumpkins."

"The Rumplsteldt." I said,

"And why he is so gullible in allowing people to fool him." Jack rubbed his hands with glee. "Oh, the little goblin is going to be so cross."

"The Hooded Archer."

"Son of the Horned Hunter who robs from the rich and so on. Now you get it. If you wanted to, you could even write the definitive work on the Master of Mirrors although you would be retreading old ground that others have travelled before you there. My understanding is that, like my son, he has recently been banished from this sphere after being defeated and as such, he will struggle to punish you for the effort."

I felt my mind racing off and excitement singing in my fingers. I wanted to pace. I wanted to take out a piece of paper and write down ideas.

"Thank you." I said, and it has been a while since I have meant that amount of gratitude.

"As I say," he said. "I actually find that I owe you a great deal." He hissed that last as though he was angry and his eyes glowed for a moment. "Besides, I don't think you're quite done with me yet."

He straightened and again, he seemed a little more human. "I am glad that I helped, it makes me feel as though we must part with somewhat less of a debt on my part. Just remember that, in your enthusiasm to start another project, you are still ill. You should avoid over-reaching. Calmly Freddie. You are still sick."

I needed that and he saw the realisation strike me like a splash of cold water. He nodded.

"Now." He said. "I was hoping that you could help me with a couple of things."

"Oh?"

"Yes, just as friends. First of all, I have some gifts to hand out if you would help me."

"If I have learned one thing." I said. "Your gifts are curses as often as they are blessings."

"Oh, they are always blessings." He told me with a grin. "But some people do not want to be blessed. A blessing is, after all, a dedication to a God, or a Goddess. In your case, that blessing would be a hope that you find your way home in safety and security with the light of the flame to guide you. Whereas there is a religion in another world where when a priestess is told to bless a man, they nail his hands to a tree above his head before torturing the man to death. His screams of anguish and agony carry the devotions of the congregation to the God so that he may know that he is worshipped and bless the people with good health. It is considered an honour to be so sacrificed and many volunteer for the privilege."

I shuddered.

"So first of all," he rose and lifted four bottles of wine onto the desk. "These four bottles contain wine from my wife's Vineyard. This bottle." He pushed one across, "is for you. Share it with your wife on the day of your happiness."

"You mean my wedding?" I wondered.

He smiled and said nothing

"The second is for the Duchess of this land. There is a message that goes with it." He handed me a piece of paper.

"Can I read it?"

"Of course, it is meant to be known."

I read aloud. "THis bottle contains the most beautiful wine that has ever been created. When you drink, you will know the greatest joy of tasting something so perfect. And then you will know despair, in knowing that you will never taste it again."

I looked up at the grinning Jack. "That is truly evil." I told him.

He laughed and I shivered.

"I like you Freddie. But never forget who I am. She will want to taste it, but then she will fear what it does. She will fear knowing that she will never know something so perfect again."

"Why would you do that?" I wondered. "What has she done to you?"

"She forgot who I am." He told her. "And she ignored your warning."

"And what does that mean?"

"You will see in the morning." He told me. "The third bottle is for the Empress. She is to drink it on her last day."

"Will she know what that means?"

"She will when it comes time to drink it."

"You really like being cryptic don't you."

"I really do. Something that goes with the racial thing, I'm afraid. You are a prisoner of linear time. I am not. We have rules that we must live by to not break your fragile mortal..."

"That's enough. And the last bottle?"

"To go to your partner in writing this, really rather remarkable work. She will thank you for it but her response will not be as overwhelming as you might think. After all, she has drunk it before."

There it was with being cryptic again. I didn't say anything though. He had the attitude of someone for whom what was happening was quite a solemn, important moment.

"I thank you for the gifts," I said instead.

"Oh, do not thank me. Some of the other people that you are giving these things to might not thank me nearly as much as you think. The Duchess herself is unlikely to take this well. But such is my trap. She has offended me, not as much as others to be sure, but it is not the kind of thing that I should let lie."

"How has she offended you?"

"That is between her and…" he smirked. "Your imagination. She will ask you what she did, I think. Tell her that thing that you think is closest to the top of your mind."

"More cryptic sayings." I said.

"No," He replied, "A firm instruction. You will know what this means when the time comes."

"Alright." I tried. "Then I thank you for them none the less."

"Then there is only the cup of parting and my final gift to you." He said formally. "You have done me a great service." He told me. "A great service, one that I am not sure can be equalled. You have pushed my purpose and made it clear for readers of your book, all over the continent and eventually all over the world. People will read what you have written and they will shiver. You have informed them but you have not taken away their fear in doing so. If anything, you have increased their fear. You have done right by me. So…"

He turned and he gestured to my desk, upon which was standing a silver bottle and a pair of cups.

"Stirrup cups?" I said. "Really?"

"We are many things, you and I." He said, pouring an amber liquid into both cups. The sides of the cups seemed to gain a sheen of frost. "But one of the things that we both are, we are hunters. I hunt for victims, you hunt for knowledge. Therefore, it seems fitting that we share a stirrup cup as we both embark on our next hunts."

"Ok," I reached for one of the cups and he slapped my hand with all the mannerisms of a father, slapping the back of the hand of an errant child.

"Not yet." He said. "First of all there are things that I should say."

The irises of his eyes glowed again, this time a dull red rather than the white light that they had before. It was the red of nightmares and I fell back in fear, but he caught me by the wrist and there was no way that I could have moved.

They were the red eyes of the thing that lurked in your childhood closet. The monster under the bed and the creature that lurks in the darkest corner of your room where the shadows are the deepest.

His voice echoed.

"I name you friend." he said. "The things that I give you now, the words that I say to you are the returns of gifts that you have given me. Neither I, nor any of my people, will use them to manipulate you or any of the people close to you. DO not fear them for they are truly meant."

The shadows seemed to recede and Jack seemed to be himself again, his eyes returning to their normal pale blue. Or at least, normal for this iteration of the being.

"Still afraid of me, my dear fellow?" He wondered.

"Says the immortal personification of primal fear and terror." I couldn't help it. It just came out like that.

He laughed. "A touch, a veritable touch."

He gazed at me for a long time with a contemplative look on his face. "I have been wondering what to give you as a gift that would be of similar worth to what you have given me."

"You have already given me plenty. You have given me the necessary… I know what to do now." I said,

"Ah yes. But that was helping a friend. That was not a gift." He looked around the room before his gaze settled onto the sleeping form of Ariadne.

"If I really wanted to give you something of value, then I would crush her skull, remove her heart and shred her spine." He said. "It is hard enough to kill an elder Vampire. They would claim that an Elder can only be killed by another but that is just… My dear Fellow, what are you doing?"

In the middle of that little speech I had had a distinct moment where I thought "Fuck it." And I had picked up the heaviest candlestick I could find and brandished it at him. The stick was heavy and I was not as strong as I should have been. I have no doubt that I looked rather comical.

"If you touch her." I said, "If you harm a single…"

"Ah Freddie." He sighed. "It is so easy to forget that you are still mortal."

The Candlestick broke in two. Jack had his sword in his hand. The most that I had heard was a metallic kind of tinking noise. The same thing that happens when you drop a coin on another coin.

He raised an eyebrow and I realised that I was still holding half a candlestick.

There was another tink and another length of heavy brass, candlestick fell to the ground, and then another.

I dropped what was left on the floor.

He stamped the small flame out that had started from where the burning end of the candle had fallen.

"Do you feel better about that?" He asked, a touch of steel in his voice.

"I would find a way." I said. "I would find a way even if it took me more than a lifetime."

"It would." He growled. "Even if you had the means, which this world does not, you would not get close to me unless I permitted it."

"I would find a way." I told him again.

He smiled. "You see, now that I think about it. If I were to really set you to a new path, if I really wanted to reignite the passion within you, I would have killed her and your passion for your new life would have been all consuming. But Vengeance is not worth living for. I will not touch her, you have my word on the matter."

And for some reason, that was actually really reassuring.

"I should, you know. You could do far better than her."

"Many of my correspondence disagree." I told him. "They tend to say that I am a lucky man before berating me for not following through on the…"

"Yes, I'm sure." He said. "But they are not listening. And they do not know the man that you have become. They, and you I think, would prefer to remember the boy that you were. Unless I miss my guess, if you were now single, the Empress might fancy her chances, not least."

"I don't think her tastes entirely…"

"Svein's wife has a sister." He went on. "There are others. I could even introduce you to my daughters as both of them would positively love to know a man like you. Think about it, you could be married to Spring herself. She would love you in a way that no mortal has been loved."

"Sounds terrifying." I told him. "I love Ariadne though."

I looked down at Ariadne, she looked peaceful asleep. I had never seen it before. She looked oddly childlike, innocent and fragile without the immense force of personality. THe sheer control that she carried with her every day.

"I love this one." I said,

"Very well." He said. "Well, given that I cannot attend your wedding and I will not be offended at the lack of invite, I shall give you another gift instead."

I turned away from Ariadne and looked at him. He was grinning.

"I understand that soon you will go to see The Elder of her people."

I did not wonder how he knew that. It was not a secret anyway. "That is the plan."

Jack smiled.

"The Elder is the oldest, wisest, but also the angriest of his species. He does not suffer fools and the definition of foolishness is one that he keeps entirely in his head."

"You and he know each other?" This was real news and I caught myself looking for a piece of paper in order to note it down.

"We were on opposite sides in a war once. He can tell you more, he will tell you more."

"And how will I persuade him to do that. The other thing that I have heard about him is that he does not enjoy being questioned."

Jack laughed. "For an ancient being who will, essentially, live forever. He is rather lacking in patience. Go with note paper and charcoal will be more reliable than ink. When he gets uppity, and he will, look him in the eye and tell him that you have a message for him. He will want to know from whom. "Tell him that "Old Red Eyes says hello. Tell him that you are my friend and that if he harms you or any that come with you, I will remember that the war between his people and mine is not yet over. Can you remember that?"

"I can. Although I am beyond curious."

"Do not give the game away too early." He laughed. "She loves you," he gestured at Ariadne, "but if he orders, she must obey. She does not have a choice. So do not blame her for it."

"I will not."

"And if she is your choice. Love her, old boy. Just love her and I promise that everything will be alright in the end."

"I will."

"Then you have my best wishes. A toast."

He handed me a cup and took the other for himself.

"To you, my dear fellow." He said with an oddly touching sincerity. "Remember the wine and try not to get them mixed up. You have reminded me as to why I love mortals. It is a gift that I shall not forget. Now drink."

I did, it tasted of Joy.

"Farewell." He said.

I wish it was something less cliche. I wish I could say that he spelled me or that he put me to bed or that anything else happened. But the truth is, alas, far more boring than that.

I woke up, tucked in my bed to the sound of someone hammering on the doors coming from further into the rooms. People were shouting and Ariadne went to see what was going on. She wasn't gone long before she came back into the room and pulled a chair over to the side of the bed.

"What's happening?" I wondered. I felt foggy, I had been deeply asleep when I had been woken up and I was struggling to come back to myself.

"Something has happened." She said. "Kerrass is going, Lady Yennefer and Lord Geralt are involved. They were inquiring as to whether or not you could go and I told them that you were ill but I would see."

I nodded. I really wanted to go, but I was so very tired and I wanted to sleep.

There is a kind of sleep that happens when you are ill which, although you are definitely sleeping, it somehow doesn't feel quite as restful as proper slumber should be. You wake up in a sweat with the sheets wrapped around yourself, interfering with the movements of your limbs so that you have to pull yourself free. Your throat feels hoarse and all that you want to do is to go back to sleep, except that you are breathing hard and your limbs feel jumpy.

Then comes a magical day, or at least it is for me, when you sleep properly. Where the only times you wake up in the middle of the night are to relieve yourself and you can climb back into bed and fall back asleep almost immediately. That's how I felt then. I knew that if I put my head down, I would just fall back to sleep.

I said so and Ariadne would come back for me if I was needed, but Lady Yennefer and Lord Geralt were on the scene.

Ariadne was pleased, even as she checked that I was sure. I said that I was sure and she went to return to her arm chair.

"Freddie." She said as I was beginning to feel my eyelids becoming heavy. "What's this?"

There were four bottles of wine on the table as well as the collected bits of a large, very heavy candlestick.

Why was there someone knocking on my door that morning, especially given how ill I was and how ill the powers that ran Toussaint knew me to be?

Well, it's possible that this is the most famous part of the entire affair and it's just as possible that the entire purpose of you sitting through all my preaching and anecdotes is to see what my perspective on this matter was.

Kerrass woke me a few hours later and informed me that if I was well enough, Lady Yennefer was awaiting my presence down at the Prison of Beauclair. Ariadne and the rest of my family were told that whatever danger there was had clearly passed and that there was no danger.

He told me that Lady Yennefer had pretty much decided what had happened and all that was being looked for was a confirmation.

First I was taken to a completely different guest room of the palace. There is so much of the palace of Beauclair and as I have written before, a good chunk of it is actually below ground. This particular room was there to house those servants of august personages that might have more than a little bit of noble blood in their veins. It's the kind of place that the Empress' heraldic master might have stayed during the coronation. Or the Emperor's consort's seamstress. Someone who is invaluable to the guest's household. Not important enough to have their own guest rooms, but too important to be housed with the servants.

Believe me when I say that the men and women in charge of the societal hierarchy of servants in a castle or a palace have to deal with intricacies every bit as complex as the hierarchies of the nobility.

If that doesn't sound complex, then consider who has precedence if you have to house half a dozen Counts at your house. Something that Emma, and Father before her, has had to do on several occasions. Now have you got that image? Now imagine what happens when each of those Counts have their own spouses, consorts, mistresses and children. Now take into account that all of these people are going to bring some of their own servants as well on the grounds that my Father's valet cannot possibly know how to dress Count tumtetum, let alone how to dress Count wutsisname.

All of those Lords want their servants close enough to answer at all times of the day and night. In a castle that is built, first and foremost, for military defence.

But I'm digressing again. It was one of those rooms that I was taken to. It was the room where Syanna had housed Sir Alain de Moineau in order to keep him separate from the other prisoners.

It should come as no surprise to learn that Sir Alain was dead. According to the Captain of the Palace Guard who, at the time, was under arrest for negligence, there were guards at either end of the corridor leading to Sir Alain's rooms. There were guards on his door and one of the nearby guest rooms had been converted into a temporary guard house for the shift changes.

The room itself was as secure as a room could be. Again, these circumstances are occasionally predictable. A noble prisoner that cannot be housed in anything like the prison on the lake. So they stay in a room like this before being taken for trial or execution.

As such, the windows that were high up in the walls were rather small and had grates covering them. There was also a hearth but the chimney was blocked by a relatively fine iron grate that was built into the walls of the chimney. The room was well ventilated by one of those tricks of Elven Architecture that we still can't quite figure out. The door was locked and there were two keys. One was kept in the guardroom around the neck of the commander of the guard unit. The other was in the possession of the head housekeeper who was in charge of seeing to the other needs of the prisoner.

By which I mean linen, food, fuel for the hearth, clothing and to have his chamber pot changed.

Sir Alain himself, although a Knight, had been forbidden a weapon of any kind as he was well known to be a master swordsman and it was rather thought that if he had any weapon at all, he could make a significant attempt at fighting his way free.

However, by all accounts, Sir Alain was a broken man, unable to accept that he had been beaten in a duel and had spent a large amount of time sitting in a chair, staring at the wall. His imprisonment was not harsh and he had been provided with books, paper, quills and ink although he had been forbidden to have a knife for sharpening those quills.

The room was locked when I got there and I had to be escorted in with Kerrass beside me.

Inside the room was the thing that had once been Sir Alain. Recognisable only by facial structure. He had a sword in one hand.

He had been cut to death. Torturer's tell tales of the dreaded "Death by a thousand cuts". However my now, long past, conversation with Father Jerome, the former torturer to the Church of the Eternal Flame, told me that such a thing is all but impossible except by the most experienced torturer. The problem being that sooner or later you cut something important and a person will either bleed to death or die of the pain when the nervous system is damaged and overloaded.

The thing that lay before us had been cut apart, but the nervous system, and the blood structure was mostly still intact except for the very extremes of it. Those slightly shallow cuts would, on an untortured human, be considered shallow and without risk.

You could see his nervous system exposed in such a way that it would make a passable diagram for a medical school. I didn't need to get close to the body. Kerrass told me that the injuries had been performed with a blade like a razor. It would have been so sharp that it was even possible that Alain had not felt more than a couple of the injuries.

There were signs of a duel, score marks on the walls, tears in Alain's clothing that went with the signs of sword damage. The carpet, drapes and tapestries were torn. At one point, someone, probably Alain, had fallen into what remained of the hearth and he had trodden soot and ash everywhere. The evidence of a duel was also taken from these marks.

"Someone," Kerrass began before clearing his throat. "Someone duelled him and cut him apart piece by piece. And when he couldn't lift his sword any more, they kept cutting and cutting and cutting. Lady Yennefer thinks he was still alive all the way through it until he was finally killed when the duellist cut his genitals off and forced them into his mouth. Which, by then, was missing his teeth and tongue. His jaw was broken so that the attacker could fit everything in."

Kerrass grinned savagely.

"It must have been agony." I said.

"Yes," said Kerrass happily. "It must have been."

The guards claimed to have not heard anything. The keys hadn't been used and they had been awake and on guard all night.

From there Kerrass took me to the Nilfgaardian embassy. Neither the Ambassador, nor his deputy were in attendance. They had been gated back to the Imperial capital in case they themselves were under attack. We were pretty sure that they weren't but in this kind of case, you don't take such things for granted.

The Embassy was also awaiting a change of guard regiment on the grounds that the guards in question were clearly incompetant.

The Embassy had been declared a neutral ground and it was here that Velles and Colonel Duberton were imprisoned. One as a Temerian national and the other as an Imperial Soldier. Velles was waiting for the Diplomatic wrangling to sort itself out before he was tried in Toussaint or whether or not he was going to be deported. If so, where was he going to be deported to.

Colonel Duberton was awaiting the same. Although in his case, it was far more likely that he was going to be deported to the Imperial Capital where he would be court martialed and executed. Despite all other circumstances, he had killed several men. Although it might have been a mitigating factor in Toussaint that he had done so in order to try and save his wife, the Imperial military had no such sentimental streak.

We got there and we were shown straight in. Kerrass led the way to Sir Velles' room first.

He was kept in another guest room. It was still uncertain what his status was and in such matters it is always better to house someone in the higher of the two possible ranks. Having said that, his door was barred, his window was grated and the hearth in his room was too small for a man to climb up, or down. Admittedly, the room was there and secured against people trying to get in originally, but with a couple of modifications, it had soon become an adequate place to keep a prisoner.

It was, if anything, much harder to recognise Sir Velles. His body was huge, round and bloated. His eyes had bugged out to the point where they had nearly fallen out of their sockets. He was naked and he was lying in his own filth and excrement. The smell was grotesque but that was not what had killed him. It was as though the filth had been forcefully expelled from his body.

By what?

It took me a moment to see it.

There were small golden threads hanging from his nose, his ears and his penis. Much larger masses of golden stuff hanging from his anus and his mouth that looked, for all the world, like the dribblings of golden candle wax.

I found myself fascinated and leant closer.

"It's gold." Kerrass said. "We summoned whatsisname, the dwarf from the bank. And after he got angry at us for our racist assumptions."

"Racist assumptions?"

"Yeah, that being a dwarf, he automatically knows more about Gold than the rest of us,"

I had nothing to say to that. In my experience it's as much about commerce and metal rather than just gold.

"He soon realised what we were asking and started to make noises about how we went to the right person. He took a bit from the mouth and tested it using some kind of dwarven alchemical substance. It's gold."

"What happened?" I breathed.

"There are no signs of restraints." Kerrass said. "Gold was poured into him. We have not examined too closely but there is an argument to say whether or not his other holes were plugged in some way. Gold was poured into him until it forced the other digestive fluids out of his body."

He walked over and kicked the grotesque thing in the stomach. There was a distinct, metallic thudding noise.

"He suffocated, drowned, ruptured and Goddess only knows what else."

"Flame." I whispered, leaning closer. "There are no scorch marks." I commented, peering at his mouth. "For the gold to stay liquid, it would have had to be molten."

"That's right." Kerrass agreed with the glee of a hunter who is chasing a particularly clever bit of game. "And now it is solid."

"Which would be fine if it cooled, but there are no scorch marks. Having molten gold poured into… any hole, would leave a person… cooked. More than a little."

"And there is no signs of burning." Kerrass agreed. "Come on, there is more."

Colonel Duberton was down in the cells. He was being kept relatively comfortably. There was a certain sense that he was being treated a certain way because they didn't really have a choice in the matter. There was no doubt that he was a murderer. But the people around him understood what he had had done and were wondering what they would have done in his place. So he was in a cell. He had been allowed to keep his sword and was wearing a guardsman's uniform, admittedly without any kind of rank or insignia.

We were told that he was well looked after. His prisoner's bunk had been removed and replaced with a soldier's cot. The difference looked a little bit cosmetic to my eyes as I doubted there would be much change in comfort. Such things can make all the difference to a man's pride though. Again, there was a desk and some papers.

"The papers have a full and signed confession on them." Kerrass said. "We know it all anyway but it reads as though he was just making sure that nothing could be left out. There is also a paper that simply reads 'I am sorry' in big letters."

The bed and other furniture of the room had been moved aside.

The Colonel was lying on the floor, stretched out in the repose of a man waiting for his funeral. Beneath his head was his uniform jacket. His sword was placed on his chest along with a red rose from which the thorns had been plucked.

There was a single sword thrust to his chest that had pierced his heart. It could not have been a more precise thrust if it had been performed by a surgeon.

He was lying on a bed of white rose petals that had soaked up the blood from the wound which had, presumably, come out of the Colonel's back.

He was smiling while it was also clear that he had been weeping.

There was an empty bottle and a pair of cups on the desk as well. It smelled of the foulest soldier's hooch that you can imagine.

"Again," Kerrass said. "Under guard, no attempt at escape had been made. There is no way that he could have done this to himself and there is no way that anyone got in or out."

I nodded.

"I'm pretty sure I know what happened here." I told him.

"So am I." He said with a certain underlying glee. "You just wait until you see how it is down at the prison."

The prison that houses the criminals of Toussaint rests in the broken down ruins of an old castle in the middle of what locals describe as the great lake ot Toussaint. It's not a lake, it is merely that part of the river that has widened into a lake due to the vagaries of nature and quite possibly, the decisions of ancient Elven mages. What the castle might have been originally is uncertain, or at least, I have been unable to find any kind of record of it. Various thoughts occur, including that it was one of the truly defensible places in Toussaint, so that if the Ducal family ever needed to retreat to a place of strength, then that place could be it.

Another thought was that it could be due to the fact that the ancient people of Toussaint were made up of individual baronies that warred against each other as little more than bandits. That this was one of those places that was built as part of that. This probably holds the most water. There are a number of similarly ruined fortresses around Toussaint that lack modern aesthetic concerns of the typical Toussaint home.

Sometimes though, just sometimes, it is more fun to imagine the various things that might have happened here. Those stories and legends of darkness that owned the lands after the Elves left and before the humans came. Or if the ruins are truly ancient and built as part of the Elven defences of Toussaint, then what were they fortifying themselves against? It's a similar game to what Kerrass and I played when we discussed the origins of Kaer Morhen.

In comparison to Kaer Morhen though, the prison of Toussaint is quite a dreary place. Dramatic certainly, but dreary.

As Kerrass led me and my escort down the road towards the castle, it had begun to rain and that drizzle led to a strange feeling of poetry. It is in rains like this that you find your mind edging towards the epic. Where you picture great heroes and warriors contemplating great deeds in the rain.

To get to the prison you have to ride a, not small, distance around the lake. The shortest route leads you through some of the Vine fields that were being left to absorb the rain water at this stage. The vines seem to magically regenerate in the Spring and for now, the industry of Toussaint is about preparation for the coming harvests. We could hear the sounds of hammering, wood saws and people shouting. The never ending music of rural industry.

We came round the headland and rode down the approach to the prison, riding over the guarded bridges that led to the castle itself, which exists on a promontory that might as well be an island. There was a sense of extra alertness about the guards. As though they were on edge and had been chastised in some way. They were aware of Kerrass and moved aside quickly and easily upon his approach.

Kerrass told me about the things that he had already dismissed from his brief investigation into what was happening.

Apparently, there is an escape tunnel from inside the castle itself. It was a tunnel that had been dug some time ago and it was known that the people who had dug it, had indeed found a way out. But that the way out would need better swimmers than the prisoners in question. Lord Geralt had found it when he had been hired to discover why some of the prisoners had gone missing. Non-violent men who were guilty of little more than owing a debt. As it turned out, a particularly nasty version of some drowned dead had swum through the tunnel and had plucked the men to their doom through the tunnel. Lord Geralt killed the local batch of drowned dead and the prison warden ordered a grate installed over the entrance to the tunnel at both ends.

There were still drowners in the water but the locals encouraged the drowners to stay there on the grounds that it discouraged fishermen from sailing too close to the prison and was an extra deterrent to keep the prisoners from trying to escape.

The approach to the prison was carefully guarded and during the night it was well lit so that any man that did manage to get over the wall and try to swim to that place where the shore was closest, would be easily seen and shot in the water. The guards regularly held night time crossbow drills for precisely this purpose.

There were two parts to the prison. There was one part, the part that was in much better repair, where the rooms were solid and securable which was easily patrolled and guarded. This was where the more dangerous, or more highly ranked prisoners were kept and it was here where the remains of the conspiracy were housed.

The other part of the prison was where people were that would be in and out relatively quickly. Thieves, pick pockets, smugglers, that kind of thing. Men and some women who were just awaiting a short trip to the gallows or the block that was kept inside the courtyard of the more secure part of the prison. The bodies of the dead prisoners would then be thrown into the lake to feed the Necrophages.

As prisons go, I've seen much worse. There are strict rules about the treatment of prisoners, both of the high and low variety. The executions and punishments were quick and lacked the relish and brutality of other places on the continent. The prisoners, according to Kerrass, had a view of things that if they had been caught, then it was the risk that they ran. It was the price of doing business. At least here, they were not kept waiting for their punishment for extended periods of time, rather than in some places where a man can be left with the impression that he has been forgotten while waiting for his turn with the headsman.

Apparently, there had been a problem with the keeping of male and female prisoners together until the warden had decided that any man that assaulted a woman inside the prison would be summarily punished with the death penalty, to be administered by the woman who had been abused. If the woman in question had been killed, then the offending man would first be locked in a room with the other women of the keep. If he survived that then he would be taken to the block.

That soon cleared up the problem. Indeed, according to local legend, there were even stories of male and female prisoners that had met in prison, fallen in love and forged a new life upon gaining freedom. Some of these stories even ended with the prisoners going straight.

What this told me was that the prison was as secure as it could reasonably be expected to be. Prisoners will always try to escape, some will inevitably succeed.

The guards on the gates and on the bridges had allowed no-one past. The guards on top of the wall had neither seen, nor heard anything. And the guards that were patrolling the corridors claimed that there had been nothing out of the ordinary before they had tried to go in and feed the prisoners.

We were shown into the prison. Kerrass told me that normally, visitors would be searched thoroughly for any weapons or anything that they might be taking into the prison in order to help out any of the people interred there. When I asked why that wasn't happening now, I was told that I would see.

When it was found to not be raining inside the castle's central keep we were met by Lord Geralt who shook my hand and greeted Kerrass with a guarded kind of affection that is, apparently, typical of the man. He told me that Lady Yennefer was waiting for me in one of the guard rooms, where it was dry, as she wanted me to see everything before we exchanged notes.

By now, you will have some kind of idea as to what I found. Just about every member of the conspiracy was dead. Including those men that had argued that they hadn't actually been involved, or had done anything. All of the deaths had some kind of joke associated with them. Some kind of poetic… point that was being made. One man was hung by a rope that appeared to be made out of human hair. Another man was burned to death despite there being no obvious signs of any fire or ignition point. We only know who it was because of his height and the fact that he was in the room that he was supposed to be in.

Some of the points that were being made were so obscure that Guillaume had to explain them to me at a later date.

The hair thing was about a man who refused to allow women on his estate to grow their hair beyond an inch in length. Why? Because if it was longer, then men would find them more attractive. And if men found them more attractive then they would be taken off somewhere to fornicate. And if they were fornicating (apparently, Guillaume was quoting) then they weren't doing the work that was required of them. The man honestly believed that long hair on a woman was a seduction towards uncontrollable lust in men.

There were other injuries that were horrific. Not because of what had happened to them, but because of what it implied about the man that had died. Including the man that had died of internal bleeding due to things being… well… inserted up him. Another man, whose death was by far the most magical in nature, had died because something had crawled out of his stomach. What it was was a mystery because the tracks of the thing vanished and neither Kerrass nor Lord Geralt could find the thing later.

My favourite, and one that I didn't need a translation for, was the young Lord of Matamara who had had his sister murdered in order to save on her dowry. He had been pressed.

Pressing is a, now, out of date form of execution and torture. It has fallen into disuse because there are far more graphic and technologically advanced forms of both torture and execution to satisfy the most bloodthirsty of rulers. What it does have going for it is that it's cheap, the materials can be reused and if properly implemented, can be used to torture a group of people who may be complicit in the crimes of the person being executed.

What happens is that the person is tied down. Then a board is placed on top of them, often a door of some kind. Then rocks are placed on top of the board until the person under the board is crushed to death. The execution can be prolonged by using smaller rocks towards the feet of the person, or sped up by using larger weights towards the body's top half.

This wretch was not tied down so how he had been forced to lay down is a mystery. But the board was placed on top of him and then coins had been placed on top of the board. From the way they were stacked, we supposed that the coins had been placed there one at a time. It must have taken hours for him to feel the first pain, let alone to die from it.

But the true poetry there, to me, was that all of the money in the room was classed as his belongings. And the belongings of noble prisoners go half to the family and half to the state. Therefore, this method of execution meant that his younger brother became richer to the tune of, roughly, twice what their sister's dowry was going to be.

I enjoyed the poetry in that. That might make you feel disappointed in me but I find that I really don't care.

There was one survivor and you probably know it was. He didn't survive long.

Sir Raoul had been driven mad. He was terrified beyond the capacity to think. What he saw is anyone's guess and I am not going to try. He was shivering, sweating and weeping when we came into the room and apparently he had been like that for a while so that they had been forced to tie him to a chair for his own safety. When he had first been found, it was his screams that had first alerted people to his predicament. Now he was merely whimpering after screaming himself hoarse.

Then I walked in.

I will never forget it. His eyes widened and his mouth opened in shock. And he screamed. I have never heard, or seen, a terror like it in another human being. Even under the influence of the poison gas of the Cult of the First-Born, people didn't sound like that.

He screamed and screamed in horror at the sight of me. He threw himself into his bonds in an effort to get away from me. The violence of his spasms was such that we literally heard bones breaking.

He just stared at me and screamed.

The bones breaking and coming free with wet popping noises meant that the ropes weren't as secure as they should have been. He heaved himself to his feet and before anyone could stop him, he limped over to the wall and rammed his head against it as hard as he could. Screaming as he went.

He managed it three times before someone got to him and even then, he managed a fourth strike. He was weakening already, still screaming as they retied him to a bed. We left after that but he didn't survive his self inflicted injuries.

We found Lady Yennefer in one of the guard rooms. She had banished the guards from the place and when we walked in she was putting away a small hand held mirror and a hairbrush into the bag at her side. She had a kind of annoyed look of disgust on her face when we walked in but she seemed to brighten when she saw me.

"I think we have another chapter to write." She said. "And no-one in Toussaint can say that you didn't warn them that this might happen."

I nodded in reply. "Jack is cementing himself in the minds of people. He was frustrated with the slow movement of justice. He was concerned that some of them might get away with impersonating him."

Lady Yennefer nodded.

"Any or all of those reasons might be true. It's going to be a while until people forget this." She said, losing the sense of glee and enjoyment in her voice. It was a similar kind of splash of cold water over my mood as well.

She was, after all, not wrong.

We left after that. There didn't seem like that much left to do. The brief flurry of activity as well as the intellectual stimulation of what had happened had given me a boost but I was still tired both physically and emotionally from the past… It was then that I realised that all of this had been going on for a good month. I had spent less time in Skellige and that time had seemed to last for years.

We rode up to the palace. Word was sent to the Duchess that we had a report for her. We were told to wait for a while so I took that opportunity to send for one of the bottles of wine that were still lined up on my writing desk back in the room.

I did not forget which one was meant for the Duchess.

When we were summoned, I was not the only person that was astonished to find that we were brought to the main throne room. It seemed smaller than it had been, quieter somehow. There were certainly fewer people and what people that there were clustered in small groups. They literally drew back from us as we walked in.

The Duchess was already there. After a brief detour back into her older form of dress, she was back to wearing the simple, more ascetic dresses that put people in mind of a nun's habit, her hair falling down her back in loose waves. She was sitting on her throne with an air of distracted impatience.

She was literally examining her fingernails.

"She's looked happier." Kerrass commented quietly

"She is a ruler." Lady Yennefer answered, a little curtly. "And her will has been thwarted."

We were announced and we moved forward.

Syanna and Damien were standing next to the throne. Damien looked displeased and a little resentful. As the commander of the guard, the prison was technically in his purview and I could guess at his displeasure. Syanna was dressed as the commander of the knights and she looked solemn, but then she caught my eye and winked at me. I felt myself sigh. This was not going to be a fun end to this afternoon.

Looking around as we made our walk towards the dais, I could see Lord and Lady Tonlaire standing amongst the traditionalists. Sir Gregoire was there among the guarding knights. He looked good, as though he had lost ten years off his age, lost weight and had had several good night's sleep. It was as though the permanent storm cloud that followed him around had been banished.

I looked for and found Lady Vivienne. She was standing towards the side of the hall near one of the smaller doors along with the duchess' private secretary. Her face was an emotionless mask which made me think that she had disagreed with the duchess on something.

There was also the Nilfgaardian Ambassador there who had been returned to Toussaint for this audience. He looked annoyed but I didn't know the man well enough to be able to tell if this was a courtly pretence.

We strode to the front of the dais and bowed. Lady Yennefer, Kerrass, Lord Geralt and myself. You could have heard a pin drop in the court.

"Well?" The Duchess demanded.

"You will have to be more precise in your questioning." Lady Yennefer told her.

It was either the worst thing that she could have said. Or the best thing that she could have said. I am unsure.

"You will watch your tone." The Duchess snarled. More than one man moved forward and put their hands on their sword hilts.

Lady Yennefer examined the dais. "I would remind the Duchess that I speak in tones far worse to the Empress herself who is not above being suitably chastised when she is being foolish. Indeed, she says many times that she requires those people that surround her to inform her properly when she is in danger of putting her foot in her mouth."

"I would remind you that you are a…" Someone shouted. It reminded me of Sir Morgan Tonlaire and for all I know it might have been him. Yennefer spun on whoever it was and the hall went silent.

Kerrass looked around himself with interest. Lord Geralt clearly couldn't give a damn.

I found a strange kind of calm settle over me. I could hear Jack laughing and almost feel him shaking his head and muttering something that sounded a lot like "Mortals."

"I take it," Lady Yennefer began. "That you have invited the two foremost experts on the subject of the Jack entity to your courtroom for a purpose, Your Grace." Yennefer said. Astonishing how respectful titles can be made to sound like insults.

Duchess Ann Henrietta was clearly livid and I am not sure I can blame her.

"If," Lady Yennefer went on. "you have brought us here to ask us about the occurrences here in the palace, the Nilfgaardian embassy and the Prison. Then we can tell you that Lord Frederick and I, while conferring with Lord Geralt and Master Witcher Kerrass who is possibly the third expert on Jack after the pair of us, have examined all sites."

Syanna stepped forward, Emma, who was also in the courtroom, claimed that Syanna had given her sister a signal of some kind, something along the lines of "Cool your shit and let me handle it." There had been an answering signal as well.

"What did you find?" Syanna asked formally.

"It is our belief, based on what we have seen, based on the humour involved, the obviously magical nature of the deaths and the fact that the guards and protectors of the dead men saw and heard nothing. That last night, Toussaint was visited by the Jack entity and he expressed his displeasure at having had his name and image used for the purposes of others."

Yennefer spoke a little calmer and a little more formally.

"We are further convinced that this is the case due to the fact that Lord Frederick was visited by the entity during the night and they exchanged words with each other."

The court felt that. There was a buzzing noise as people shifted.

"I see," Syanna said, a little put off herself. "What did you talk about Lord Frederick?"

I swear, on whatever holy text you deem appropriate, that I didn't consciously think about what I was going to say. I would even be prepared to suggest that it wasn't me speaking.

"Some of it was a private matter between the two of us." I said, "He expressed his fondness for me and expressed his gratitude on a couple of points. Regarding his night's business he told me that he had some errands to run in the area and decided to drop in on me as he was passing."

"In this case there is no such thing as a private matter." The Duchess snapped.

"Jack might disagree." I heard myself say with some interest.

"You serve the Empire first… and in that case."

"I agree." I said. "But with all due respect, the worst that the Empire can do is torture me to death."

The court didn't like that.

Syanna cleared her throat.

"Perhaps," She began carefully, glancing between her sister and me. "You might enlighten us all as to what you mean by that."

"When I encountered a being of much less power, which Jack referred to as his lazy son, my soul and being was removed from my body and placed in a jar to be taken out and tortured at the being's leisure for some time. It was only by dint of extraordinary luck that I survived and even more luck that I recovered my sanity."

"You are talking about the Beast of Amber's crossing." Lady Yennefer said. She was not asking a question.

"I am. Jack came to say hello. He expressed his gratitude to us all for capturing those men that were using his name and appearance in a manner that he disapproved of. He also expressed his displeasure that, once captured, we were dragging our feet in bringing justice to them. His words, not mine."

I swear that it wasn't me that said that. Careful readers will also have noticed that Jack actually said nothing of the kind.

"What you say sounds like Jack was criticising the ducal throne." Syanna said carefully. If looks could kill, I would be ashes at the feet of the duchess by now.

"Take it how you will. He did, however, ask me to deliver a gift to Your Grace."

The Court shifted again as I presented the bottle of wine. The Duchess gestured and Damien came forward and held his hand out and I gave him the bottle.

"What is it?" The Duchess asked guardedly.

"It is the wine from his wife's garden." I said,

"Is it dangerous?"

"All gifts from such a being are dangerous." Lady Yennefer said.

"I agree." I added. "They also, all of them, have some kind of point. When I last discussed Jack's wife with him, he declared that his wife was his opposite in their realm and race. Meaning that she will be the opposite of fear. Our working theory is that where Jack is Primal Fear, she will be Joy."

Lady Yennefer nodded with me, it was a theory that we had talked about on and off.

"To that end," I said, overruling the rising noise. Again, the words were not my own. "The bottle comes with a message. From Jack, to you Your Grace."

"What is that message?"

"He says to be careful. This wine is the most perfect wine that you will ever taste. The finest vintage that can ever be produced. To drink it is to know Joy, and then to know despair."

"What does that mean?"

"The matter is clear to me." Damien said. "Jack is setting us a riddle."

I couldn't help but pull a face.

"Lord Frederick?" Syanna asked.

"I don't think it's a riddle." I said, "I think it's a trap."

"Explain."

"Jack is cruel. He also has a perverse sense of humour. I think that the wine is a genuine gift of gratitude for facilitating the destruction of this conspiracy that subverted the name of Jack. But he was unable to resist putting a twist in it's tail. I think that he means the bottle to play on Her Grace's mind. Even if someone takes it and throws it from the tower to smash, the thought of drinking the most perfect wine in existence will always be there. If I might offer my advice?"

The Duchess had lost the more angry set to her features and nodded.

"Keep the bottle in a safe place. Guard it even. Put it in a box with a lock, the key to which only you will have access to. However, that will not protect you. It will play on your mind. So my advice is to plan for that and accept it. There will come a time when you simply have to know what the most perfect wine tastes like. Put it off for as long as you can. Wait until your Death bed if possible. But on that day you have two choices, gather your nearest and dearest, including those experts in the wine trade that you might have, and share the wine amongst your friends. That, or ration yourself."

There was some murmuring at that.

"However I warn you that Jack, undoubtedly told the truth. After drinking this wine, all other wines and food will be bland afterwards. You will long for another taste of that wine and everything after will fall short. There is a real danger that this will drive you mad as you long for a taste that even comes close to it.

"Your best wine… scientists will kill themselves trying to emulate it, or come close to what it tastes like at your command. They will fail and that failure will deepen your madness. If you, and the people around you, are not careful, you risk becoming a Tyrant in pursuit of that perfection. A perfection that you will never achieve. At all costs, you must keep your heir from drinking any of it."

"Lord Frederick speaks wisely."Lady Yennefer agreed.

"I agree." Syanna said, turning to her sister. "Although I am a little more convinced that we would all be better off if we threw it off a cliff somewhere."

The Duchess looked sideways in the direction of Lady Vivienne. I didn't see what passed between the two.

Then the Duchess got up and left. Damien and Syanna went with her.

We all stood around for a while as we waited to see what was happening.

"Let's get you back to bed Freddie." Kerrass said. "Before you fall down."

"I will call on you tomorrow Lord Frederick." Lady Yennefer said formally. "To discuss adding an afterword to our treatise."

I nodded and fled.

To be honest, Lady Yennefer still frightened me and I was left with the permanent feeling that I was always on the verge of mortally offending her to the point that she would rip my face off. Even though I have been working with her on a fairly constant basis since Francesca had disappeared. A lot of that has been done by correspondence. A package being sent here or there. Letters and things were delivered to Imperial couriers in order to send them to her in Toussaint or to the Imperial Capital or wherever she was at the time.

The first time that I got the sense that she even tolerated me was in Skellige after I had finished yelling at the Empress. A thing for which I still think I am lucky that I survived.

Since then I have got to know her better but I still don't think that anyone knows her. Not really. I think that, even if you asked her closest friends, Lady Merigold and Lady Metz, or the closest thing she has to a family, Lord Geralt and the Empress, they would still tell you that they don't know her very well.

Some people have claimed that "Lady Yennefer" is a persona that she has constructed about herself in order to prevent the ignorant from coming anywhere near her. That she deliberately cultivates this… frosty but stormy attitude about herself. So that when she does have to figuratively tear someone a new asshole, people can turn and look at them and say "Well, you did try and take on Lady Yennefer didn't you."

Those self same people claim to have seen the real Yennefer underneath which is the caring, frightened and scared woman that was taken from her home at a young age, to be taken to the terrifying edifice that is Aretuza in order to be trained as a Sorceress. Still others claim that the real Yennefer is this lost and broken woman that always wants the thing that she cannot have. They say that she goes out of her way to sabotage herself, to alienate her friends and loved ones. They point to the well publicised incident where she played one lover off against another before breaking the hearts of both. Or the fact she has regularly offended and upset entire cultures because of her attitude of "The Ends justifies the Means."

I wasn't aware of it at the time for a variety of reasons, but she is deeply unpopular in Skellige. The only reason she was there at all during the last passage of the Skeleton Ship was because she had been specifically invited to be there. Even then, she would never have gone down into the town of Kaer Trolde without escort for fear that she would have been lynched. Both the druids and the following of the Goddess have declared that she is a dangerous being who… and I'm paraphrasing here… will be given no food nor drink, no shelter or warmth. The laws of hospitality do not apply to her and any that breaks these oaths will be cast out alongside her.

So if she went wandering in Skellige, there is a better than evens chance that she would be lynched. Or that someone would try to lynch her. They would need to catch her off guard in order to do that and that is the sort of thing that is easier said than done.

I know a little bit more about her now that I have worked with her for a while and I will admit that I don't think it's an act. I think it might have started off that way and that she was trained into that attitude when she was an apprentice. You need a certain force of personality in order to face down monarchs after all.

If any of you are feeling particularly brave and need a project, then you could do worse than compile a definitive biography of Lady Yennefer. I, for one, would buy it and read it. I know that she has served as royal advisor in several different courts. Including Aedirn, Temeria, Cintra and Skellige. I know that before the dissolution of that body, she was a member of both the Council and the Chapter of Mages. I couldn't tell you the difference between the two organisations though, so don't ask.

I also know that she spent some time as part of the task force of mages who spent some time hunting down illegal Necromancers and users of Goetia.

Such history does not suggest that it would be conductive for anyone if you had a bright, trusting and sunny disposition. I know that she became disillusioned with Mage society for a while, but seemed to rejoin it before, during and after the battle at Sodden Hill. After that, things get a little murky before she turns up in the court of the Empire that she had spent so much time trying to fight. In a court that traditionally tells women to be seen and not heard. That tells mages that their only purpose is to serve the Empire and lay down their lives at the whim of the people there. She, a Northern mage and a woman to boot, managed to gain the ear of the Emperor. She commanded influence enough to be assigned a division of troops as her escort and to arrange for the Lodge of Sorceresses to be pardoned and reinstated to their former glory.

I, among others, would dearly love to know how she did that.

The problem with trying for such a project would be that you would need to interview Lady Yennefer to get a lot of that information. You could get a good amount of info from friends and family members, but sooner or later, you would need to speak to the woman herself.

I can well imagine the withering glare that you would receive.

What is it like to meet, know and work with Lady Yennefer? It's like…

Was there ever someone that you worked with or studied with who you found desperately attractive. So attractive that you found them intimidating. You ask around about them in an effort to get to know what you are getting yourself in for before you commit to having a full blown crush on the person. Then you meet them and not only do you find that they are as attractive up close as they seemed to be from far away, but they are more intelligent than you, wiser than you, funnier than you, more competent than you and that they expect you to keep up.

It's like that. Saying that she doesn't suffer fools gladly is not quite true. She ignores fools and if it becomes apparent that she cannot ignore the fool then she tears them apart before they have the chance to be foolish in her presence. This is also true if the person is just being foolish temporarily. For example, she had every sympathy for my illness when she was working with me in Angral. When it got too much for me or when I was getting emotional because… Oh I don't know… One of the field cats that had given me some affection a couple of days ago decided to ignore me on this particular afternoon.

When that happened, she would be understanding. She admitted that she was useless in such situations and would send for Ariadne, Emma or whoever was needed in the circumstances. But if I started to feel sorry for myself, or got angry with myself for the fact that I was ill. She would not hesitate to call me out for my bullshit.

Everyone should have someone like Lady Yennefer in their lives for that reason.

She is the truest version of herself that she can be and yes, I admire her for that.

Of course she's attractive. Intimidatingly so.

She had been away when we came to Toussaint. She and Lord Geralt had been spending the winter in Cintra with the former emperor and Ciri. There was apparently something going on there that people wanted to be a part of. My impression was that Lady Yennefer hadn't wanted to go, but because the empress had asked, she couldn't really get out of the matter.

Lord Geralt is not unique amongst Witchers in that he despises the use of portals and as such, they had travelled by river and then by sea to get to Cintra. They had spent a few days in Cintra to attend the ceremonies of whatever was going on before they turned for home. The fact that, in the meantime, the river had frozen meant that there was a significant delta in the pair of them getting home. Why?

Lady Yennefer will make no excuse about the fact that she enjoys her creature comforts. She can do without, but if the opportunity presents itself, then she would like a regular bath and a soft, warm bed in which to spend the night. This may, or may not, be part of the reason why she didn't want to travel during the winter months.

She returned to Toussaint while we were still searching for the identity of Just Some Girl. I will have been ill at the time but I do remember her coming into the guest quarters, chatting with everyone as part of the effort to find out what was going on. She sat with me for a while and we talked about what I was afraid of and what we had done to try and bring the investigation to a close with all speed and then she had headed out to join the search along with Lord Geralt.

The pair of them enjoy playing Lord and Lady of the Manor and their duty to Toussaint is one of those things that they take very seriously indeed.

After the final death of the conspirators, the pair of them attended the relevant memorials and attested to the various characters of the people involved. In the immediate aftermath of Jack's visit, Lady Yennefer came to visit me on a daily basis in order to formulate our afterword on the subject of the Jack conspiracy of Toussaint. It was agreed that I would do most of the writing while Lady Yennefer went off to speak to the publishers.

I have always felt a certain debt to our publishers on the grounds that they could always have declined to publish whatever it was that I sent them and have left me feeling a much poorer and more pathetic person than I am and as such, they sometimes run roughshod over me. Lady Yennefer has no such qualms and would happily tell them how it was going to be. Then, when she returned, she would take the "waffle" that I had produced and do "academic things" to it with the cross-referencing and annotations. Harking back to past examples and that kind of thing.

She also answered to some, kind of fair, criticisms that people had about us in those early days after the conspirator's deaths. Criticisms about both Lady Yennefer and I having a certain amount of enjoyment as to what happened. She told those people, being critical, that of course we were being gleeful and enjoying what was happening. When do two scholars get to take part in the phenomena that they have been studying for so long and then actually survive it? She painted our enjoyment of the circumstances as being the legitimate joy of the scholar.

I think I was enjoying the brutal, deserved and uncompromising deaths of people that had it coming myself.

The afterword was finished. Lady Yennefer made her adjustments and gave me some feedback, same as she ever would. I took it harder than I should have, same as I always do. Then it was all sent off to the publisher for the second edition. She carried a message back to me that said that there was already a collector's market for first editions and that this work about Jack, part parable, part horror story, part scientific and historical examination of a legitimate phenomenon was going to be more popular than all the rest of my writing put together.

Including the work on the Witchers that you are currently holding. A fact that rather put Kerrass in his place.

So it was all over bar the shouting, when I suddenly realised that I had never given Lady Yennefer her bottle of Jack's wine.

It took me a while to get myself ready for the trip down to Corvo Bianco. I was feeling… ummm… I suppose that describing myself as fragile would be the right term to use. I was, again, at the stage where I had run out of work. I was desperately trying not to think about all the unanswered questions that the confirmation of Francescca's death had left us with.

Which was a lot. But I knew that there was no answer to them.

I could feel it tugging at me. It was like a physical need to delve into those questions. To look for those answers and to try and track the man. To interview people that knew him and to try and get to the bottom of whatever it was that he was doing. I wanted to know what his ultimate goal was. I could feel it tugging at my sanity and I knew that there was nothing good for me there.

But I wanted it, so badly.

I had been thinking about what Jack had told me to do. About how I could hunt for and investigate the various other unique beings in the world. Interview them, catalogue them, educate people on them. After all, with the exception of Jack, knowledge denies fear. Fear was, however, very prevalent in my mind. For instance, I was fairly sure that one of the subjects that would need to be studied was going to turn out to be Kerrass' Goddess. And if it was true that Kerrass' Goddess was simply a being from another realm or another world, then might it also be true that the same is true for all of the other Gods and Goddesses that inhabit the world.

What does that say about the Eternal Flame? I did not feel qualified to answer that, or address the existential horror that that would invoke.

I had spoken about the new project with a couple of people, Kerrass was one and he was enthusiastic. He told me that if I wanted to mount expeditions to find and talk to these beings then he was available to be hired. Ariadne too had a certain interest in the project although she admitted that she was a bit concerned with the truth that if you go looking for ancient, unique and powerful entities then there is a very real danger that you will find some.

Emma was less enthused. She applauded the possibility that there was a new, scholastic enterprise that could consume my interest and keep me from chasing after the ghost of Francesca's killer. But at the same time, not unfairly, she pointed out that I was sick, injured and about to get married. After I was married, I would have duties of a feudal and spousal nature and that I wouldn't have time to go off hunting for… whatever.

So research? That she was on board with. Tromping around the countryside? She was more keen with helping me to finance that kind of expedition and for me to interview the people that came back, she didn't say survivors, than going myself.

There was something missing though. I was interested in the project but I felt like a man climbing a mountain without a guide. The first problem was where to start.

Which being was I going to research first. Where was I going to send people? What was I going to do?

So I remembered the wine. I had arranged that the bottle for the Empress had been sent to her by way of the returned Nilfgaardian ambassador along with the message that she should drink it on her last day. I had given my bottle into Emma's keeping in order that she could arrange to have it taken to Ariadne's and my marital suite when the time came and so all that was left was for me to deliver the wine to Lady Yennefer.

It was warming up in Toussaint now. To my Northern eyes it was unseasonably warm. There were the first buds of leaves on the trees and the first blooming of flowers in the beds. Guillaume had spent some time trying to persuade me to stay a bit longer so that I could see Toussaint in the spring. An offer to which I was not entirely averse. It was the kind of weather where when you are standing in the direct sunlight, it can be really warm. But the instant the wind picks up or you find yourself in the shade, then it could be bitterly cold.

It also rained. A lot. Especially at night in the cold hours before dawn before the torrential rain clouds would just vanish under the onslaught of the morning sun.

So it was a nice day when we set out, but I was feeling fragile. I still felt the cold more than I should and I wrapped myself up warm. I was beginning to feel the first stirrings of impatience in my soul. I was physically anxious. I wanted to pick up my spear and get back to training. I was also just as aware that going too far, too fast was potentially dangerous and I disciplined myself to remain calm on that kind of thing.

We rode under escort. It had been reduced in recent times to a couple of Knights. Kerrass and Ariadne came with me as well. Kerrass and Lord Geralt had never been particularly close in the past, but there were few enough Witchers in the world that those who remain feel the need to maintain the ties that they had in common rather than the things that might drive them apart. Also, as Kerrass had resolved to be less complacent, he had persuaded Lord Geralt, commonly thought of as the best Swordsman that the Wolf School ever produced, to give him some pointers.

Ariadne was there to keep me company and discuss some Lodge business with Yennefer if there was time. So really, she was there to babysit me and make sure I didn't do anything foolish or get too emotional.

Corvo Bianco is everything that you imagine when someone tells you about a Toussaint chateau. They are close to Beauclaire itself and as such, it's actually one of the older and therefore smaller of the great Vineyards. There is a lot of sordid history connected with the place and as I wrote previously, if you want to know more about the place before it was handed over to Lord Geralt and Lady Yennefer, there are books on the matter and I referred you to earlier chapters.

I had visited before and I was struck by the picture frame nature of the place. I know the Lord and the Lady of the Manor a bit better now and I find that it amuses me. If you look at the pair of them, they eschew all of the fashions of Toussaint life. Lord Geralt is a Witcher, not a Knight and unless he is dressing for formal occasions, he still wears his old Witcher armour rather than the plate mail that is often required. And in a land of bright colours and fancy hair dos, Lady Yennefer insists on wearing her Black, Silver and White colour scheme despite the heat at the height of the summer, which she complains about to whoever she can force to listen. Her hair is still allowed to fall around her shoulders and down in her back with the kind of lack of artistry that speaks of hours spent with the hair brush.

So they don't look like nobles and landowners of Toussaint. But in every other way, they are often more Toussaint than the people of Toussaint themselves.

So as you ride up to the gates of Corvo Bianco you ride under wooden arches that have been climbed by creeping rose vines. High hedges around the estate protect the Vines from thieves but I'm told that those hedges are chosen for the beauty of their flowers and the perfume that those flowers give off.

On either side of the road there are also plant pots that contain sumptuous floral arrangements during the summer and in the winter, they are filled with water upon which are floating paper lanterns to light the way for visitors.

The chateau itself is definitely a working chateau. As you ride into the courtyard, the most expensive and luxurious building after the chateau itself is reserved for the stables which houses a black mare for Lady Yennefer, of course it's black, and a Piebald named Roach for Lord Geralt. Another way in which he differs from the Lords of Toussaint. He cares more about the quality and character of the mount rather than the appearance. Something that Kerrass claims is left over from spending weeks and months on the road with no-one to talk to but your horse. He claims that it helps stem off loneliness if the horse has a sense of intelligence and character about it.

I have seen more impressive stables, certainly larger. This one, however, was better equipped than the stables of some royal palaces that I have seen. It would have made my Father smile. I felt a sense of melancholy at the thought that brought a lump to my throat and I had to force myself to swallow it. Next to the stable is a miniature forge and leather working workshop. Like the stable, it is much higher quality than you would expect to find in a chateau of this kind.

There always is one. Enterprises such as this one are always in need of some kind of metal work being done, some wood needing to be shaped and some leather needing to be worked. But the quality and number of the tools on display outstripped, by far, what would normally be used for such a place.

There was also a small cluster of buildings that housed the permanent staff of Corvo Bianco. The older Major Domo of the place that had been hired to help Lord Geralt settle in was one. The two had found a liking for each other, primarily due to the fact that Lord Geralt told the Major Domo to run the Vineyard the way he saw fit and simply supplied him with the money required to make it happen.

Such is the way to the hearts of all Butlers, serving staff and common soldiery. I have yet to meet someone who falls into this class that didn't think that the world would be a better place if the upper classes just let them get on with it.

They are often correct in this opinion.

The major domo is joined by the chateau chef. She is an older lady that cooks for the love of it. She is renowned in Toussaint for being one of the best cooks available. Not best because of the quality of the food. But best because she understands that her masters are Northern folk and occasionally desire some simple, plain cooked food among all the rich delicacies that Toussaint has to offer.

They also have a Sommelier who is responsible for breeding the Grape vines to the best quality and there is enough room for a household servant and a couple of permanent field workers. The others are hired on an annual basis from the available workers of Toussaint. Apparently, most work of this kind is seasonal in Toussaint. Corvo Bianco is almost unique in that it's workers are hired and paid for the year. On the one hand, that is more expensive. But on the other, it means that Corvo Bianco can pick and choose which workers they use.

As a result though, the workers often try to seem busy in order to justify their wages. Therefore they spend their time making up work about the place. It is for this reason that there are flowers everywhere and that there is now a small, semi-permanent Gazebo out in a place that overlooks the fields that Lord Geralt and Lady Yennefer like to spend time in. There is a constant noise of "work" and you can see the workers scurrying around Corvo Bianco with the looks of people trying to figure out what it is they could possibly do to eke out a little bit extra work. Lady Yennefer finds this attitude amusing.

The only parts of the grounds that suggest that the place is used by a Sorceress and a Witcher is due to the lab in the cellars that the pair use for their works. That and the greenhouse and extensive herb garden. And if part of those herb gardens are used to come up with new ways to flavour the wine, then all the better.

There is also a beehive. Lord Geralt has declared that he wants to see if Mead can be introduced to Toussaint as an extra wine-based industry. Toussaint society is scandalised at the thought. But apparently it is very popular with the lower classes. On one later visit, the major domo confided in me that he actually had a large number of Noble clients who pretended to be disgusted with this "peasant drink" while at the same time buying the apple mead at an exorbitant rate.

Lady Yennefer came to meet us. She has this trick of emerging from wherever it is in the chateau and timing it perfectly to be coming down the steps to meet you in the courtyard at the perfect moment for when you have just finished dismounting from your horse. I think she does it on purpose to put people off, although I have yet to figure out how she does it.

I mean yes… Magic… But Ariadne and Laurelen both claim that although there are wards that protect the approaches to Corvo Bianco, that is more the kind of, loud noise, lots of pain for the intruder, kind of ward.

She was dressed in a thick doublet and a long black skirt along with an artfully fur lined black cloak that shimmered in the light. Pretty much the same way that she had been dressed in Skellige. As ever, the star that hung on the choker around her neck glittered and her hair fell around her shoulders in a term that she informed me is to be described as "lustrous".

"Greetings and Welcome." She said with what passes for a welcoming smile on Lady Yennefer's face, as a couple of workers came to take away the horses. "Geralt is in his workshop Kerrass. He told me that he was working on improving the formulae for one of those infernal bombs that you boys insist on using."

"It is useful against…"

"Yes yes." Yennefer waved a hand dismissively. "I've no doubt that it's very important. However…" Her eyes glinted. "I can't help but think that it's all an excuse for the pair of you to go and startle the locals with the flashes of lights and loud explosions."

"An entirely coincidental side effect." Kerrass said with a straight face. I have yet to get a read on the relationship between Kerrass and Lady Yennefer. I have caught them behaving like firm friends but they have a tendency to speak rather dismissively of each other. They enjoy sniping at each other in a way that I find disconcerting.

"Yes well." Lady Yennefer sniffed. "If you are staying for dinner then I expect you both to have bathed properly before coming in to dinner. You can tell him that I said that as well, am I clear?"

"Yes Ma'am." Kerrass bowed extravagantly.

"Off you go then." She made shooing gestures.

Kerrass fled.

Yennefer turned to Ariadne and myself.

"You are staying for dinner I trust?" She asked with a slightly mocking overtone. "I love Geralt, but he does take the strong, silent archetype to extremes sometimes and I could do with some decent conversation."

"We would be honoured." Ariadne replied for us both. The two women clasped hands and did the air kissing thing that seems to be part of some higher female greeting ritual that males are not supposed to understand. "The food in Toussaint is lovely but Freddie's digestive system is beginning to look forward to something involving gravy."

"Which he will insist in mopping up with a large chunk of crusty bread slathered in butter no doubt." Yennefer complained. "Geralt is exactly the same. No matter how much I try to instill some culture in this house, it just doesn't seem to stick."

"I don't know, I occasionally enjoy a good hunk of roast beef." Ariadne answered. "An onion and red wine gravy with some sage, some pepper and some properly cooked green vegetables."

Lady Yennefer took on a thoughtful look. "Oh very well." She said. "I am persuaded, and to be fair, it does sound delicious."

Yennefer glanced at me before returning her gaze to Ariadne. "The beakers are where you left them in the lab, they haven't been touched."

"Excellent." Ariadne smiled as she headed off towards the basement, leaving me with the terrifying personage of Lady Yennefer.

"You look better." She told me. "Not completely, but I would suggest that you are on the mend."

"Thank you." I told her. "That means a lot, especially as I feel wretched."

"Such things take time." She told me. It was not a new phrase that I had heard and I grimaced.

"Well, come on in then." She said. "Do we need to put that bottle on to cool or something?"

"I don't know." I said honestly. "It's not a gift from me."

She glanced at me sharply before leading me into the chateau itself.

"Have a seat." She told me. "I must go and let people know that we have guests for dinner."

The interior of Corvo Bianco is, like the rest of the estate, exactly what you imagine for a large home from Toussaint. Apparently the place was in a state of rather severe disrepair when Lord Geralt came to Toussaint and he invested a small fortune in doing the place up.

There is a large downstairs room with a table down the middle that is used for all the purposes that you might use a table for. Lady Yennefer works at it and reads at it when the weather does not permit her to be outside. Lord Geralt meets people there when his feudal duties insist on the matter and the pair of them eat at the table as well. There is also a large hearth which has two comfortable chairs next to it.

The villa is decorated in two styles, the first is Lord Geralt's stylings which he has taken to displaying some of the weapons and armour that he has collected over the course of his travels. For reasons beyond my understanding, it seems that people insist on giving these things to a travelling Witcher in the opinion that the Witcher would be grateful for them despite the fact that Witcher armour is designed around movement and their weapons are built to a specific pattern that they are uncomfortable with deviating from.

So Geralt displays them as the works of art that they often are. There are several armour stands and weapon racks that display these weapons and I have to admit that, despite such things not being to my taste, some of those weapons are truly beautiful. There is one that I like that Lord Geralt claims was given to him in Skellige. I am familiar with the patterns of folded metal and the rainbow sheen that folding can give metal when it is done properly. But the rippling in this metal looks as though something has breathed fire and that the fire has been captured in the metal. It's a truly beautiful artifact.

A lot of these weapons are beautiful because of the ornamentation on the hilts, the craftsmanship involved in the placement of the quillions and the like. The blade is often almost an afterthought and the artistry seems to be involved in reducing the visible ripples that are seen from the folding techniques. This blade had emphasised the effect.

There are some suits of armour that are rather distressing to look at, including the black suit. Not the shiny, lacquered black of the Nilfgaardian Armed forces. This suit was just Black, as in a complete lack of colour. Ariadne saw the suit and shuddered when she saw it.

She would not speak of it later but I have noticed that that particular armour is not there whenever we visit in the future.

I also know that he moves and changes the armour depending on his visitors so if you should find yourself invited to Corvo Bianco for a visit or a party of some kind, then watch the armour. It might give you an insight into how the Lord of the manor is feeling.

Lady Yennefer on the other hand is a person who holds to the aesthetic that Books are ornaments. There are shelves of the things everywhere and it's almost as though, whenever there is a free patch of wall, then there is a new shelf erected and it is promptly filled with books. There appears to be no order to them or organisation except that which exists in Lady Yennefer's head.

I've seen her, unerringly, produce a stepladder from somewhere and climb up to extract a particular volume which she has then used to illustrate her point in order to win the latest argument.

She also likes smells. Obviously, the famous Lilac and Gooseberries that Professor Dandelion immortalised in the famous poem of the same name. But she also likes to hang other blooms and blossoms according to the way they smell. So if you see an ugly, dry looking plant that has no physical beauty at all, then I would advise you to take a good deep sniff and see what happens then.

Where the couple combine though, is in their taste in art and I will admit to finding the entire thing really funny. They have a portrait of the Empress there. It depicts a young girl, clearly miserable and grumpy, wearing a pink frilly dress with lots of lace and ribbons. The girl is clearly on the verge of angry tears. Lady Yennefer claims that it depicts the Empress as a child. The matter cannot be proved however as the girl in the picture is rather young and Ciri herself has no memory of the incident. It has been alleged that the picture depicts one of the many doubles and fakes that masqueraded as the Empress when she went missing in her youth.

But the matter can't be proven.

There are cartoons of the Lodge of Sorceresses there, including Lady Yennefer herself. Small things which depict the most famous women in the land after the Empress herself in a series of comical poses and situations. There are exceptions however. There is a portrait of a woman that was identified as a Lady Tissaia de Vries that Lady Yennefer seems to hold in high regard as well as portraits of the well known Lady Sabrina Glevessig, Lady Assire Var Anahid and Lady Sheala de Tancarville.

There is a statement there that I have not been able to decipher.

There are a couple of landscapes there as well. One of which I recognise as the valley containing Kaer Morhen but the others I will admit to not being familiar with.

There are also various individual things dotted around the place. There is a hand carved dice poker set as well as a dedicated Gwent table that has been carved into the relevant positions. Beside the Gwent table is a rich looking box that contains Lord Geralt's Gwent Decks. He claimed that the collecting of the cards was as much fun as becoming a world class player of Gwent. There are also a couple of trophies from won tournaments of various kinds as well as some other nicknacks that are recognisable from the various travels of the two inhabitants.

It is a pleasant home. As well as the smells from Lady Yennefer's various herbal concoctions, there is also a constant smell of cooking. There is a pleasing clutter about the place that speaks of too much stuff crammed into too small a place. It is a lived-in building, warm, friendly and inviting.

I like it there.

Lady Yennefer emerged from the Kitchen area with a grimace and sat down next to me on the corner.

"So," She said. "How have you been?"

"That's a big question." I replied.

"Not really, it is a big answer though. Is that for me?" She pointed at the wine bottle.

"It is as a matter of fact."

"A gift?"

"Yes."

"Not from you."

"No."

"I see. Might I trouble you to place it on the table?"

I did as I was told, her eyes glowed for a moment and she laughed. She has the same kind of habit that Witchers do in that in order to properly articulate what happens, you overstate exactly what takes place. She doesn't laugh uproariously. There are no guffaws or spontaneous bursts of hilarity. She chuckles a bit. She smirks.

"Look at me." She said, still chuckling, "As paranoid as an apprentice. Jack gave you this wine didn't he?"

"He did."

"Well, after all the testing that I can manage, I can say with utter confidence that the bottle contains wine."

This time, I laughed with her.

"No poisons, no enchantments, it is just wine. How many other bottles do you have."

"Two more." I said. "One for Ciri and the other for Ariadne and I to be drunk on our wedding night."

She stared at me closely. "Make sure you hydrate properly before your wedding night." She said. "And ensure that there is some good, clean water nearby."

"Why?"

"Because a gift from something like Jack to be consumed on a wedding night? I suspect that you will not be getting much sleep rest."

I blushed. I can still do that from time to time if I put my mind to it.

We gossiped for a while in the way of people who work together but don't really know each other outside of that context. We talked about work, the book, the reception for the book and we wondered how people were going to take the new afterword.

Such a thing is not a small concern. There is always the possibility that people who have bought a book that is later changed, will be resentful of the fact that they no longer have the complete edition. Our publishers will love it because the ideal solution for some collectors is that they will buy both volumes. In my line of work, that is certainly what will happen. Future scholars, presuming there is enough context to care about such matters, will dissect the changes at length. They will wonder why things are in one volume and not in another. Theories and conspiracies are concocted out of such things to be discussed and dissected over the alcoholic drink of choice in the pub that night.

I have partaken of these kinds of conversations myself at a length that is embarrassing. Despite this though, I will admit to the fact that I miss those times dearly. Sometimes, I dearly wish that I could return to that time and place of being a student, where I could sit with my friends and talk until the early hours about fuck all.

Normally, I will then remember the, relative, lack of money, the deadlines and the pending exams. The heartache of unrequited love, the early morning lectures and the seminars that could either be so very stimulating or dull enough that even the Professor giving the seminar is struggling to stay awake.

Such is the slow shift from memory into nostalgia.

So we talked about those kinds of things, listening to the clash of metal outside as Kerrass and Lord Geralt trained for a bit, later that sound changed into deep, low thumping noises which Yennefer called "the boys are playing".

It took quite a while for the two of us to run out of things to say to each other.

Then she looked at me for a long time over the top of her wine cup.

"So then Frederick." She said. "What brings you to my door?"

"Excuse me?" I began, rather foolishly. "I had a gift to deliver."

"Which could have been delivered by any passing horseman." Lady Yennefer said. "If there is only one thing that has been improved about Toussaint since the advent of the Knights Francesca and their ilk, it means that the postal service is far more efficient."

"I…"

"And before you give me any more excuses, I would point out that the book on Jack is done. It's finished. And from what you tell me, Jack is not likely to be around to be studied again for hundreds of years. If not longer. So what are you here for?"

"I… ummmm."

"Which is it? The 'I' or the 'umm'."

I stared at her and I felt a familiar lump starting to grow at the back of my throat.

"Oh damn it all." She told me in frustration. "I was teasing you Lord Frederick. It's how I express fondness."

I stared at her in shock.

"Why so surprised?" She graced me with one of her rare smiles. "Is it so shocking to believe that I like you and think of you as a friend?"

"A little." I admitted.

She nodded and looked at the wall behind me, slightly vacantly.

"I am a famous woman." She said eventually. "I could not help it and if there is something that I remain angry about with the white haired fool outside, it is that he insists on being friendly with a saga poet. And although I have warmed to Julian over the years…"

(Freddie's note: She calls Professor Dandilion 'Julian'. I don't know why but I suspect it's just to piss him off)

"... He insists on making me famous. And now, because of Julian, everyone knows where I live. Fortunately, he obscured some of the details about where in Toussaint, Corvo Bianco is but at the same time, it's not that hard to find.h, i am forced to spend a certain amount of time, discouraging people who try to be my friend. It is, more than somewhat, annoying. Did you know that I got my first piece of fan mail a couple of weeks ago?"

I shook my head. I was dimly aware that she was speaking with enough volume to give me time to collect my emotions together.

"Well I did. I have had hatemail before, again, Julian to blame, but I have never had to deal with people being nice to me." She pulled a face. "I'm not sure I care for it.

"I also know that Phillipa, who I love and despise in equal measure, but mostly despise, has told you about the occasional necessity of properly using a public persona."

I nodded. "She has."

"Good." She looked at me closely. "I have enjoyed working with you Frederick." She said carefully. "I will admit that when this whole thing was first discussed, I was more than a little mortified and offended. I assumed that I was being punished. I thought that it was going to be the world's most awful chore and that I would have to force myself to carry out even the most basic of tasks with you.

"But the more information that you sent me, the more I researched the thing, the magic involved and the more you taught me about the history of the beast, the… entity that you have described, the more fascinated I became."

Her eyes flashed.

"A separate entity, self aware, self governing, self summoning. Not native to this sphere of existence. Capable of crossing Spheres, probably at will. I have studied Goetia and Necromancy so that I can recognise it when I come across it. One of those little chores that made me fear for the world that these things are out there, but this… this being. This thing that feels like we called it forth from the deepest part of our subconsciousness. The basis of the tale of the thing off the path. Even when there were plenty of genuine beasts and monsters that were off the path. Even then, those things served this being. And there is so much more that we simply don't know."

She had a moment where she realised just how excited she had become and shook herself.

"I would not have found out about this if it wasn't for you. It has been among the most enjoyably stimulating years of my life, at least since my retirement from active service. There have been more exciting times, but normally, as you are aware, such times have a certain amount of risk attached to them."

I laughed at her joke. "Thank you Lady Yennefer."

She winced, and hid a slight smile. Yes, I noticed.

"You no longer need to call me that." She told me. "Call me Yennefer, or Yenna if you prefer. It is how colleagues refer to me when we are on a relatively friendly basis. Never 'Yen' however, that name is reserved."

I did not ask what it was reserved for.

"You will forgive me if it takes me some time to get used to that, Lady Yennefer."

She laughed. "Yes, I do like you. I like you enough that, if we had met several years ago, I would have considered using you to make Geralt jealous. Not that he ever was after the first time."

I had nothing to say to that. I suspect that she was putting me back on my toes. She comes from the school of thought that it is never wise to allow people to become too comfortable in your presence.

"So." She said after watching those thoughts cross my face. "What are we going to study next? Or rather, who are we going to study next?"

"Wait, what?"

She laughed at me.

"I have enjoyed our working relationship." She told me. "I maintain that your style is still too conversational, prone to waffling with asides that lend absolutely nothing to the subject that you are talking about."

I felt my eyes narrow.

"Just as your style is too cold," I retorted, "too methodical and wrapped up in jargon so that only those people that know about such things can even begin to approach the material. Meaning that you are limiting your reading base to those people that share your elitist views on education."

For a moment, her eyes flashed and I wondered if I had gone too far.

"You see," she grinned nastily. I wondered if Lord Geralt had taught her how to do that. "We compliment each other and protect each other from our own weaknesses."

Her face relaxed.

"At the moment," She went on. "There are no world ending calamities that are calling for my attention. Aretuza and Ban Ard are reestablished. The work on making the creation of New Witchers progresses at a pace that I am comfortable with and the Empress, my daughter, is surrounded by enough soldiers and advisors to prevent her from doing anything too rash and if she seems hellbent on doing something foolish, then I am just a telecommunicator call away. A line of work that you are also in I understand."

We laughed together for a bit.

"So, I see no reason why I could not start another project. As it stands, we know about Jack. We also know that there is a figure that reflects the darkness of our souls that used to live in Amber's Crossing that you and your companion managed to banish. We know about the historical figure of Crom Cruarch. I would dearly like to speak to this Goddess of Battle that you have spoken about although Kerrass refuses to summon her for me."

A mental image of that meeting crossed my mind and I shuddered.

"Geralt tells me about the run-in he had with the Mirror Merchant," Yennefer continued, "or the Master of Reflections who has also been banished from the continent. Where there are that many entities, there are bound to be more. So… who do you want to study first?"

I gaped at her for a long time. "I had…" I cleared my throat. "I had this whole Sales Pitch. This whole Song and Dance about how to keep us working together. What we could do and who we could study. We could write this whole series of books on the various…"

"Hold that thought." She said, rising. "I should fetch some notepaper."

We spoke for a long time, making plans about this new academic project that we would start and slowly, I could feel the future start to coalesce about myself.

Ariadne came in shortly afterwards. She watched and listened for a while before vanishing off into the kitchens to "help". Geralt and Kerrass came in as well and the list of potential beings and creatures that we could hunt down, interview, research and write about started to grow.

There were many things that I was surprised about in this. One of the things was how enthusiastic Lord Geralt and Kerrass were for the project. It took me a while to notice but Yennefer started talking about expeditions that Lord Geralt could lead where he would go to get some first hand accounts about this, or that, or the other thing. Kerrass was nodding and saying that he could see himself doing that as well, either joining Lord Geralt or leading his own expedition. It would be a good way of keeping in touch with me in the years to come where he would return over the winter to give us his findings before departing on the path again afterwards.

We spoke about finance and I told everyone that Emma would finance the expeditions. Lady Yennefer said to talk to the University of Oxenfurt for funding as well as our publishers for future commission work.

It felt good. It felt really good to plan for the future and to see what it was going to hold. That there would be intellectual stimulation and a worthwhile cause. That such things would not involve me leaping back into danger would please Ariadne and Emma both. That I could stay home, write, research and see to my familial, academic, marital and feudal duties at the same time.

I cannot tell you how good it felt to realise that I had a future again. A future that I could get excited about.

Where were we going to start?

"Well," Kerrass said. "First of all, Freddie and I have a meeting with the Unseen Elder that Ariadne has made an introduction for. It was originally to see if he could shed any light on the kind of magic that was used to take Francesca, but we could use it for this instead. To find out who is nearby and start to catalogue some of the beings that we know about. Maybe we can use that to narrow things down?"

Geralt nodded. "Eskel once said that he had had dealings with the Goblin, Rumplesteldt. I will write to him and see if he can add anything."

"You, write something?" Lady Yennefer teased…. Yes, I still call her that. It's harder work than you might think to change that habit.

Geralt ignored her. "It also might be worth making contact with those Yukki Onna in Skellige again." He told me. Maybe they can give us some insight?"

"I will try and see if I can talk Sam into letting us onto his lands to research Crom Cruarch a bit more." I said, "It's worth a shot."

"I will admit to always wanting a crack at the Black Forest and the Schattenman." Kerrass said. "It was another one of those places I meant to try in the new year, to see about… you know. They say that he is the oldest being in existence… think of the stories he could tell."

"If you survive." Geralt warned. "Vesemir once told me that he visited the Black Forest. He would not talk of what he saw there."

"I think we have the beginning of a plan then." Yennefer said, reaching for the bottle that Jack gave her. The Major Domo and the estate Sommelier were summoned, but the first toast was for the five of us. Yennefer, Geralt, Kerrass, Ariadne and myself. Small cups were brought and filled and we stood to toast our future.

The wine was exquisite.

(A/N: I can understand anyone that is concerned that I am copping out when it comes to what happened to Francesca and people being disappointed to what happened there. In that regard, all I can ask is that you remain patient and trust me that that story isn't finished yet. We are closer to the ending that I have long planned and I have promised some of you, as well as myself, that I will not rush this ending.

Thanks for your patience and thanks for reading.)