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

173. Chapter 173

(A/N: Per the A/N from the last chapter and the realisation of just how dark this is all getting. I have decided to just write the whole thing out. Therefore what you are reading now will be Part one of two that will be released within a day or two of each other. So you won't be waiting too long for the rest of the climax and the resolution of the cliffhanger. After that, I will return to a normal writing schedule so there will be a pause for the writing to catch up.

Then will come the aftermath of this arc before a Time Jump Epilogue to say what the surviving characters are all up to. Then I'm planning a kind of self-indulgent afterword to say farewell to the characters and this work as a whole.

Also, due to economic circumstances, I am being forced to look for a proper job that will probably curtail my writing time. So if you don't hear from me for a while, don't worry. I'm just really busy. I'm not going to give up this close to the end.

So that is me managing expectations again. Thank you for reading.)

(Warning: Contains character death, lots of character death, lots of brutal character death. Also, a cliffhanger that I've been planning for literal years. As I say, the cliffhanger will be resolved in a day or two)

Transcribed from the eyewitness notes of Frederick von Coulthard.

Transcriber's note: Frederick von Coulthard seems to have been writing what he witnessed in real-time as an attempt to make some kind of permanent record. As such, readers of this transcription should bear that in mind when it comes to considering Frederick's frame of mind. I have transcribed it as close as I could to the original works but there may be words missing and the character of the writer may be obscured.

This is most notable in that the past and past tense of the writing is often confused so I am unable to accurately guess when von Coulthard is describing what he is seeing or what he has seen in the recent past. I am not used to this particular form of shorthand and I understand that von Coulthard had adjusted the language both as a code and as a tool for his use. As such, this is my best attempt at a translation given his past works.

And after all of that, I was told that I would have to wait.

I am sitting at my makeshift desk, still looking at the piles of leather-bound documents. Sir Trystan has been called away by something, his hand all but on the entrance to the cell. The key is still in the lock. If I could move I would go over there and try and reach through the bars of the door to get the key and make some kind of escape. But not only am I tied to the chair, I only have one working limb.

Now I'm stuck.

I'm reminded that one of my earliest-ever articles was one on the subject of waiting. As a subject, it has come back over and over again in the intervening years and here I am again, waiting. A victim of other people's efforts. Just waiting for something, or anything to happen.

No longer the master of my own destiny.

I hope, that by the time all of this is said and done, I get to be in control of my own life again, even if it is just for a moment.

So here I am, a crippled scholar with a pen in his hand and a piece of parchment ready to capture all my thoughts. I wish that I could be less bitter about it.

What I want to do, while I am waiting, is think of all of the things of the past. All of the happy memories and those times when Kerrass and I triumphed over impossible odds to seize victory. I want to relive those moments, the moment that I placed the ring on Ariadne's finger, being wrapped in her arms on a cold winter's day.

The moment when Kerrass first described himself as my friend. The time when he described me as a fighter capable of killing my enemies.

I remember the time that he went around, making sure that I looked my best when I went to meet Ariadne in the gardens of the palace of stone in Angraal. About how he lent me his best shirt and brushed the dust off it. About how he was the one that spotted what was happening between the two of us and the purse that he won from all of our friends and family as to what had transpired between us in the palace gardens of Toussaint.

I miss Kerrass.

But I can't do that. I think that if I could just close my eyes, I could picture those scenes as ghosts of memory. I could make them real, putting all the effort into the feeling. The impact as Kerrass and I trained at one campsite or another, the feeling of the fabric of Ariadne's dress beneath my fingertips.

I can no longer imagine the feel of her skin.

But if I close my eyes to try to go back to any of those memories. The hum of the pending ritual returns, interrupting the concentration that I need to be able to picture those moments and those sensations.

I think I am going to die here.

Of course, I have regrets. There are many. Primarily, I should have trusted the evidence of my own eyes and ears. I should have trusted the opinions of the women in my life that warned me. I should have seen what Sam was doing and I should have prevented it.

I should have seen his distress when we were younger. My brother died at some point early on then. Not when Edmund took him to that much-fabled clearing in the woods. I think it was later but I don't know when. I want to say that he should have died during the war. That was when he was most… happy? I think that was the right word. That was the moment where he was truest to himself in the face of everything that was coming.

But I should have seen it. I should have been there for him and later, I should have stopped him. Maybe I could have helped him. Not in the treason or the murder or the horrible rituals, but maybe…

I don't know.

One of the advantages of knowing scholar hand is that I can just let my pen think for me.

I regret that I did not see what was happening with Sam. If I could have corrected that then all of the rest of it could have fallen into place. Father might not have died, Francesca would not have been taken, and all of those people around Oxenfurt would still be alive. The cult in the North would have been destroyed without having to have had Kerrass' arms broken.

I like to think that I would have still freed sleeping Beauty and lifted the curse of the Skeleton Ship. I like to think that I would have helped the reformation of Knighthood in Toussaint.

I hope that I would have still met Ariadne and fallen in love with her.

But the good I have done seems vastly outweighed by all the horror that has now come to pass and will still happen because I did not see the evil in my brother. The brother that I once said I felt the closest to.

But I do have another major regret.

I should have made love to Ariadne. I should have seen just how much pleasure I could give that woman. Society be damned. I should have shown her just how much I loved her.

Dammit.

Still waiting. I can hear the sounds of footsteps running around in the corridors outside. Whatever is going on, it would seem that the ritual is making people keen.

I am tired. I just want it to be over.

I should work, If I do something then maybe it will make time pass that much easier. There is still a pile of Leather-bound papers that I haven't touched. There is a part of me that thinks that if I reach for them to get back to work then that will summon Sir Trystan back to me and that I will then be able to get on with… whatever is going to happen. But I am losing my ability to concentrate.

Fuck it.

I remember this volume. This was an extended argument about military dispositions and the planning of the campaign against Velen by the Rebellion. They were going to launch in the middle of winter when nobody expects it. Since that plot had worked by King Radovid then there is a strange obsession with the strategy in Redanian nobles. They don't realise that because it has been done once, everyone expects it to happen now.

But because it worked for Redania before, everyone thinks it will work again.

It will not. I know the Baroness of Crow's Perch. One of those young ladies that I was sent to court by my Father but she was in the habit of chasing suitors out at the point of a sword.

I liked her.

She did not like me.

These papers are the record of a discussion they all had about how they were going to control the non-humans in some mythical future Redania. I will say this for Sam's rebellion, they understand that they will need the non-humans in the future. They understand that fact far more than Radovid did.

What they don't realise is that the aggressive tariffs and proposed "non-human" taxes will drive the dwarven banks, smiths and merchants away. The Elves haven't entirely come back yet anyway. The halflings and gnomes are so tied together with the Dwarves that it will make no matter…

Sam told them all to shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down. He told them that they needed to wait until the cake was baked before they started dividing it up.

He was not wrong.

I don't understand how this pathetic excuse for a rebellion has been allowed to get so far and…

One way or another, I would imagine that Ciri and Lord Voorhis will have opinions on the state of Imperial Intelligence in the North. That thought has been encouraging over time.

Odd how the blacker, more vengeful thoughts and fantasies help me get to sleep more than the happy, nostalgic and erotic thoughts do.

This record is the record of a discussion on how to use vampires in battle. They are arguing that Sam, and therefore the control totem cannot be on all battlefields at once, therefore…

This was actually quite an intelligent debate…

Well, fuck me. Some of these asshats do have the sense that they were born with.

I must have been there. This is my scrawl after all. But I have no memory of this.

How much else have I forgotten?

This record is about the proper governance and the awarding of titles and estates to those who fought on behalf of the rebellion and who deserves the mo…

Well….

This is it.

.

.

One of my friends that served in a military of some kind…. It was almost certainly Rickard although it could have been Sam himself, who once told me that the life of a soldier is a life of being told to hurry up because you're late, before being told to wait an indefinite amount of time in a very particular spot before someone else would turn up, loudly wonder what you were doing in so ridiculous a place and demanding that you get a fucking move on to follow them.

It turns out that Sam isn't ready for me yet. Whatever that means.

So I have been propped up at the top of a landing on my writing chair. Apparently, the plan is that they are just going to pick up my writing chair and carry me into the room itself.

That could be fun, the stairs look quite narrow.

I didn't come down here often when I lived in the castle, either as a child or later when I was taking a break from my journeys. I came down here to play games with one sister or the other and then after we were caught once, we were yelled at and told never to do it again.

I did it once again after that, to prove that my Father did not have that much authority over me, but then I was a good little boy and did as I was told.

I have no memory of this place.

I know the room that Sam described as the ritual site and I remember the huge, cavernous basement that was used to house all of the furniture, feasting tables and chairs, the stuffed animal trophies and things as well as the winter tapestries and the like. Anything that would not be too damaged by being placed into any kind of long-term storage was kept in that room. And I thought that this was the room that Sam meant when he said that it would be the site of the final ritual.

If I push myself, I even remember that there was a flight of stairs that led down into the room itself.

But I don't remember this place.

That's not saying a great deal. My memory is not what it was. I can feel my body trying to cannibalise itself. Too much shitty food, poor hygiene and abuse. It's all catching up to me. I can't think straight and keeping hold of my memories is difficult.

I do not want to talk about my dreams. I remember horrific things from those dreams. Horrific images and I must tell myself that I would never do what is there.

I have no memory of this place.

When I was down here before with Emma or Francesca, I remember cold stone with light from the torches that the servants lit so that they could get down here. The linen and laundry rooms were down here as well at one point. As well as…

I can't remember.

But I remember walls of cold stone.

These walls aren't cold. They are warm to the touch as well as slick with some kind of liquid that feels slimy when I rub my fingertips together. I cannot tell the difference between…

It is not water, it is something else. It seems… creamy almost.

I have no idea.

The walls are not cold stone. They are not shades of grey. They are red. I cannot focus on it too much because it makes me feel sicker than I would otherwise.

The hum is everywhere. It comes in waves and it makes my ears and chest throb. Let alone feeding into the headache that is now so present that I no longer remember a time when I didn't have a headache.

Throb.

Throb.

I can see something in the stone opposite me.

No… No there is nothing there. I am going mad.

But…

It's a face. It's someone's face.

Dear Flame preserve me and guide me into the warmth of your embrace.

It is Francesca's face. It is screaming.

There are more faces in the stones around hers.

Flame… What is happening down here?

I can see her hair, I can see her eyes. I look away but it's drawing me in like some whirlpool in the maelstrom. I…

Someone is coming.

Sir Trystan looks tired and a little wild-eyed. He looked at me with sympathy in his eyes and told me that it would all be over soon. I told him what I had seen in the stone. He did not laugh, wince or express any kind of sympathy. He nodded as though it was just another thing on some list of tasks that needed to be performed. Then he walked up to the stone that I gestured to and he slapped it. I blinked, and the stones were just stones again. Still covered in liquid of some kind. But they are just stone.

I want to believe him. I want to believe that it will all be over soon.

Trystan is staying with me. Standing next to me and talking to me. He has the look of a haunted man. Someone who doesn't understand how he got to the position that he is now in.

He's just asked me what I am writing and I've told him that I am talking about my general mood and what I am seeing. These are the records that historians will be reading one day, presuming that Sam and his new regime will allow them to be read of course, which is far from certain in my eyes. I have not exactly been positive about the situation.

Of course, Sam tells me that this will make it even more important that what I have to write will be read and taken in. But that is no consolation to me in the here and now of the situation.

In response to his question, which I have not really answered, I asked him if he is regretting the decisions that he has made to get to the position that he is in now.

He spouted a whole bunch of nonsense about how he has always believed in Redania, about how his parents had him wrapped in a swaddling cloth made from the Redanian flag and as a result, he has always dreamed of the red of the Redanians being carried throughout the four corners of the continent.

It was bullshit. He knew it, I knew it and as I looked up at him, into his hollow, tired, bloodshot eyes. I am left wondering if he is aware of just how much of it is bullshit. Men of his type are far too given to self-delusion when it comes to politics. Men like this read the stories about King Radovid the Cruel and insist that we call him Radovid the Stern. They dismiss the stories about how he burned a significant section of his own population, demanded that the women in his life be seen not heard and gave into casual cruelty to have his way and to warn his courtiers that he was not messing around.

They look at all of that and respond with the statement that "he kept the north safe."

To be clear, he didn't. Temeria was lost, Kaedwen was divided by the conquering Redanians and Nilfgaardians, Aedirn was a wasteland, Lyria and Rivia were mostly made up of roads for the armies of Nilfgaard to pass through and the following spring would see new Nilfgaardian offensives on two fronts.

I look at Trystan and wonder if he knows this.

I am grateful that he cannot read my shorthand. I wonder how many other good men are in Sam's ranks, men who have believed what Sam is selling them and will take whatever they are offered.

The poison of patriotism.

Trystan is still going on about all of the things that they are going to do once Redania is retaken. It is a rose-tinted view. In truth, even if Sam wins, there will be blood, lots of blood. I have just tried to tell Trystan this and he winced.

He knows.

"Why do you do it then?" I wondered. "Why be part of this madness?"

He hung his head and told me that he should check on how things are proceeding. Thus giving me his answer.

He is in too deep now and he can't extract himself uninjured.

Unfortunately, this leaves me alone in the corridor outside the site of the ritual and without the grounding influence of Sir Trystam, the walls are beginning to scream again.

I do my best to ignore them and just hope that they are ready for me.

Turns out that they are.

I feel as though I am on my way towards my execution. I have no idea if this is true and although everyone involved is reassuring me that they intend for me to survive and even better than that, that I will be better than I have ever been. It still feels as though my life is going to end when I go through that door. There is going to be a before-the-moment and an after-moment. Freddie von Coulthard before going into that room and Freddie von Coulthard when I come out.

I hope that I am the same. I hope that this is not the end of me in some way.

There has been a moment of comedy. Even in the darkest moments, there is room for the ridiculous and foolish. I am glad that I no longer need to look at what I am writing to make myself known.

Trystan had come back with two critics. There was a brief discussion when they agreed that they could carry me but it would not be done easily. So another two critics were fetched. There seems to be some issue as my standard mode of transport when moving from room to room is by being tied to a hammock-style arrangement and carried accordingly.

But it seems that the critics are resenting going through all of the foolishness of having to untie me, put me in the hammock, fasten that securely, carry the chair and me down into the place where the ritual is being done, before removing me from the hammock and retying me to the chair.

Trystan wanted to know if they can just pick me up in the chair and carry me.

I wondered if all of my problems will be solved if they just drop me down the stairs and I break my neck. For a moment, I allowed the fantasy to blossom in my head. I imagine Sam's exasperated fury. All of that time that he spent trying to convert me to his way of thinking and get me to do what he wants to do. All of that effort was wasted.

I laughed as I imagine his face and everything the might do if or when that comes to pass.

I could no longer contain my hilarity as the critics start to figure out how to go about picking me up. Shuffling around until they find the balance points.

There is no way that this is going to end well. On the other hand, I can keep writ…

Alas, I survived the effort. My writing fell off the small desk part of the chair and hit the ground. The ink splashed a bit but did little more than splash one of the critics up the arm which caused much swearing. They have put me down so that they can catch their breath and I cannot stop giggling.

Trystan is worried about me. He is wondering about hysteria and wonders if he needs to slap me to get me to calm down and live in the moment. I am not so sure that it would be a terrible idea. And for another moment, I wonder, I pray, that all of this is some kind of hallucination as the result of a poisoning or some blow to the head.

But he doesn't slap me. He looked a little afraid when I suggested that I do it and I wonder exactly about this man. I looked him as square in the eyes as I can manage and I tell him to run. To not do this. To flee, to find a way out of the castle and head South, North, East or West. Cross the great desert or sail through the maelstrom to get away. But this is only going to end in horror if he stays.

He knows I am right but then he does something odd. He doesn't look in the direction of the room that he is about to take me into, instead, he looks up and away. He is looking at something but I don't know what it is.

He is afraid.

"It is too late for that now." He tells me. "Far too late."

"You are a devotee of Radovid the Stern," I said. "He hated magic and monsters. Leaving aside the religious overtones of all of that, why would you go through with something so based on magic and…"

"It is too late for all of that." He hissed at me, quietly. His eyes glance at the critics nervously but they don't seem to care. After all, Sam altered them to make perfect soldiers. So of course they don't give a damn.

"There is no way but forwards," Trystan told me. "For either of us. We just need to get through this and then…" He shook his head. "We just need to get through this."

Interesting. Even a man that is often standing behind Sam in the position of a right-hand man, who is presented as the most loyal of Sam's servants, is not seeing a point beyond what is happening in the ritual chamber.

Interesting.

I smirk as I think of Ariadne.

'Fascinating' as she would say.

Flame but I miss her. The real her, not this spectral smoke that drifts around the castle, followed by a group of soldiers. Or the skeleton clothed in sackcloth that hovers over Sam and assists Ella in whatever…

The doors are being opened. It turns out that they are being pulled by two more critics.

I nearly laugh again as I wonder if someone made the doors deliberately stiff and awkward so that they could make some kind of grand, groaning entrance with two, muscle-bound, mostly naked men pushing the doors open.

I am not laughing now.

I do not recognise this room. I have not been here before. I do not know where I am.

It turns out that there are some practicalities to the semi-naked appearance of the critics. When I am carried in and placed in my appointed spot, I can see strange red sparks leaping around in Trystan's armour. He is greeting his teeth and looking nauseous. He is breathing hard as he leads my party and is gripping his sword tightly.

There are other guards in the room, all of them huge, altered soldiers and they stand impassively. Not many of them. There are other entrances to this room that I do not remember. But I do wonder if, last time I was here, I came into this room through one of those entrances.

It doesn't matter.

But even those guards look a bit on edge. Far from the passive, statue-like men that normally stand on guard, these men are uncomfortable. They are dancing around, shifting their weight from foot to foot.

As well as the men that opened the door, there are six to eight more critic-style men. They are moving around in the shadows so I can't really get an adequate count on them.

The skeleton that was once Ariadne is here, she is standing in a corner watching everything impassively. As I always do whenever I see her, I try to look for some shade, some reminder of the woman that I love. Maybe in the depths of her eyes or in her posture, but there is nothing there. She looks more like a sketch of a female, with emaciated musculature now. Drawn and stretched. Too little skin stretched across her frame making her look papery. Her skin is glistening with some liquid.

It is warm here but I do not have any kind of adequate memory of whether or not Ariadne sweats.

Ella is also here. She is standing next to a table that is stacked high with potions and salves and other things that I do not recognise. She is wearing a dress but she is also painfully thin. She is looking around herself with hollow eyes. I wonder if she is high on some of her own concoctions.

She does not seem to have any metal on her body.

That's it. It's the bits of metal that I can see that are reflecting the sparks.

The middle of the room, cornering on four pillars which must hold up part of the castle itself, is a large circle. It is white although a trick of the firelight suggests that it might be pinker. I would need to get close and check but I am sure it is pink in shade.

Didn't Sam once tell me that part of the formula for the paint was his own blood?

I wonder if that would shift the tinting of the paint.

Surrounding the circle are the weapons that have been salvaged from the castle. The weapons of the captives and the dead.

My heart is beating harder. I look for some landmarks. Maybe I can find some clue that Carys, Padraig and Chireadean might have got away. Maybe I can find…

There is Father Gardan's axe. Distinctive with its shining blades and black haft. The butterfly shape to the blades of the axe-head standing out. The sparks that dance along the surface of the metal… It might be imagination assigning significance to where there is none, but I am sure that I can see the sparks seeming to dance that little bit higher off the metal of the axe. As though there is some kind of dark shield around the weapon that is keeping the sparks away.

I can still see the sparks in the blades though.

Automatically, I am looking around the other piles of metal for any other landmarks that I can recognise. A lot of it is just pointless metal now that I look closely. There is a lot of dinner cutlery, candlesticks and the like. I can see many eating knives.

There are also some things that I cannot see. I cannot see any piles of armour or weapons that will have been salvaged from the castle guard. A dark thought hits me with that observation. How many of the castle guards were in on this entire plan? Therefore, how many of them are still carrying around and using their normal weapons and armour?

There is no way of telling.

Another thought.

I remember while Sam was annihilating Robart, there was a comment that many of those troops that Robart had brought with him had been lacking in even the most basic arms and armaments. So maybe some of that has been put to use for these underequipped soldiers.

There is no way of knowing of course but it makes me feel better.

I find my spear in the pile. It easily stands out because of the length of it, The piles have been thrown around fairly carelessly and the spear's length means that some of the weapons are stacked on top of it making for a strange kind of hump in the piles.

For a moment, I entertain an elaborate fantasy. A fantasy where I can pull myself free of the bonds that are holding me in the chair. I can pull myself free and get to my spear where I can lay about me. I would be confident in my abilities to take some of these critics with me and then I would be able to cut my way to freedom. The guards would not be expecting me to fight back, they would all be unused to fighting someone with those kinds of spear skills and further to that, Sam has been telling them all for some time that I am beaten.

I tell myself that I freed myself from the clutches of Bishop Sansum and was strong enough to murder the man.

But the cold reality of the situation is quick to reassert itself. With Sansum I was strong, properly fed and rested and was supported by a good and skilled friend.

Now, I am exhausted and have a headache from the fatigue and dehydration as well as the results of my injuries that I have not registered and don't want to think about. I haven't eaten properly in God… Flame knows how long and not only that, my feet aren't working and I only have one hand. I can't wield a spear one-handed.

For a moment, despair gripped me. Just for a moment as the reality of my situation settled in my gut and I couldn't do anything. Just when you think that you can't possibly fall any lower, that's when despair is at its most insidious and I found myself falling victim to it again.

I remember Kerrass though and looked for his swords.

Kerrass would not want me to despair. He would tell me to play for time.

If you are about to be hanged, then ask for water. Anything can happen when the water is being fetched.

Idly, I wonder aloud if anyone can bring me some water but it would seem that no one is listening to me.

But just the memory of his words fortified me a bit and I promise myself that I will wait for my opportunity and hope that it will arrive.

I found Kerrass' Steel sword quickly. Longer than the majority of the swords that are surrounding the ritual circle. I know that Kerrass can… could wield it with one hand but I also know that he preferred not to. He would say something like "The right tools for the right job" and declare that the only proper way to wield such a sword and 'make it sing' was if you use two hands.

I cannot answer for that. But I can see it there, lying neglectfully and resting on its point.

The silver takes me a little bit longer to find. But there it is, mostly buried. I recognise it because of the pommel piece. Where the carving of the Wave-Serpent is embedded in the pommel.

For some reason, that makes me angrier.

The strange light dances in the metal of all the weapons that I can see. Including mine and Kerrass' weapons. I hope that there is nothing in the silver blade but there is no way of telling given how buried it is.

I am stopping looking now. It is pointless.

I cannot see my own dagger, nor my boot knife.

I wonder if I will ever be able to have a boot knife again and if I did, would I be able to feel it in the same way that I used to?

I feel sick again.

Dammit. I was going to stop looking at the pile of weapons, but I can't seem to drag my eyes from that sight.

I look around at the cavernous room for the one person that should be here, and yet, is not.

Sam is not here yet.

There are other people though. Ella, Ariadne… I've already written about them. There are the critics as well as a couple of guards. There are also a couple of the men that have been hanging around in Sam's study since this entire thing started.

They look tense. Shifting their weight from one foot to another, many of them are looking towards the entrance to the rooms.

Heh

They are afraid.

So am I though, so I cannot judge them too harshly for that. I can judge them harshly for everything else though.

Sir Trystan is still near me.

"Tell me," I begin. "If we are founding a nation of men for the sake of men. Where the Holy Flame will be ascendant and all monsters will flee from the centre of the faith. Where magic will be outlawed and only honest and decent men will be found a place within the walls of this place."

He looks resigned as I speak.

"Then why are you founding it on an act based on a dark God from another realm, with the aid of a Vampire and an Elf? Where Vampires are your armies and you make monsters of your soldiers? How do you reconcile the two options?" I smiled as sweetly as I could while I spoke.

He shakes his head and goes to stand with his fellows. I wanted to laugh at him. To cast him away with my scorn, but it doesn't seem to have worked. At best I can chuckle at his plight as well as the plight of the others.

Fuck them. They brought themselves here. No-one else.

Ariadne still looks the same as she ever does. Still, emotionless. She might as well be a Golem or one of those rock elementals.

Ella looks tired. I can sympathise.

Even the threat of pending doom and destruction. The thought of everything that you have worked towards for so long comes crashing down around your head. Even prolonged amounts of that can become boring after a while.

I remember that I used to talk about waiting a lot when I was out on my travels with Kerrass. I remember waiting in the woodland near the Nekker's nest, waiting to attack the cultists and waiting for Jack to appear so that we could all just get on with things. I remember Kerrass telling me that if there ever came a moment where I was no longer afraid of the waiting or if I ever found myself at a point where I was not… bothered by it. Then that would be the point that I should turn to home.

Well… That point has finally been achieved. I am not afraid of this. I am bored.

It turns out that they brought me down to this place via the back entrance. The entrance that is being used more often is at the other end of the hallway. I have my back to one of the corners of the room, well outside the circle but in a place where I can see everything that is happening in the room. The entrance that I am facing seems to be the busiest of the entrances. As well as the other men that are here to witness whatever it was that we are all here to… you know… witness. There is a constant stream of guards and aides coming in and reporting to those men. If this were a political courtroom, I would assume that something important was going on.

But I've never been to a sinister ritual in a castle basement before. It turns out that the cliche of there being torches on the wall and people scurrying about with a low level of tension and fear is entirely grounded in reality. After all, there is a reason that cliches exist and why they were formed in the first place.

I suppose it's logical. You don't want to have your sinister ritual out in the open where anyone can walk into it and disrupt it, or have some idea that you are all cads and horrific people before you are ready for them to notice. Keeping it in a basement makes sense. You can keep it from prying eyes and if you are in a basement and it is dark, then you need light. Therefore lots of light so that you can see what you're doing. Torches are cheap. And that added heat means that everyone is sweating and uncomfortable.

I must be kinder. I used to scoff at people when they would describe these sinister cult gatherings where they would gather in robes and hoods, presumably so that they can obscure their identities from the spies and other people that are in the room, before men perform arcane gestures, sweating profusely. I always used to mock people when they would talk about this ritual in the book that they were reading and actually, it turns out to be fairly accurate when all is said and done.

I wonder what ritual it was that people witnessed to write about these things.

Flame, but I do have a tendency to waffle on don't I. Have I always been like this? I wonder…

.

If that is actually the case, I wonder how people have put up with me for so long.

Nothing is happening.

Heh

Kerrass used to interrogate people like this. He would put them in a situation so that it was impossible for people to not think about whatever it was that Kerrass wanted them to talk about. Then he would just produce an enhanced amount of quiet. He would stare at them, often vibrating gently until the discomfort in the room would mean that the interrogatee would just start speaking to fill the quiet.

I am doing the same thing now. I am bored, a bit nervous, wanting it all to be over and I can't stop writing. Often the first thing that pops into my skull.

I wonder what the reader is going to think about all of this. I wonder who they will be and whether they will think of me with sympathy or condemnation.

Both could be true if either side wins.

I have an almost uncontrollable urge to start singing. Some loud and bawdy song about the mating habits of nekkers. There's this filthy song that Ciri once told me about two dirty nekkers who went on a variety of ribald adventures. I wonder what expression the serious lords would wear if I did that. I wonder if any of the critics know the words. I wonder if I could make Ella laugh.

I hope that Ciri, at least, does not think that I rebelled. I hope for that at least. I miss her.

I miss Kerrass too.

Flame but I wish he was out there somewhere. Out there with a sword in his hands and eyes glittering in the firelight.

There are so many things that I miss and so many things that I feel guilty about.

I would give anything right now. Anything to be on the deck of the Wave-Serpent with Helfdan and the crew, Kerrass complaining, Ciri laughing.

I would even want to be watching Sansum's compound with Kerrass, the two of us watching it all and giggling at each other and the foolish…

Oh, here we go. Sam has just walked into the room.

He's the first person I've seen that seems relaxed, even happy.

He looks strong and self-contained. Happy even. His eyes seem alive, blue and clear. I had almost feared what would have happened if he had turned up in his guise of withdrawn madness but that doesn't seem to be the case here. He has walked in and started shaking people by the hand and clapping them on the shoulder.

He is fairly bouncing on his feet with excitement and I wonder if Ella put something in any of the potions that she made him. He looks like a man that has come to the tavern with the sure knowledge that he is getting laid that night.

The mood of the room has lifted. It is as though the sun has come out. Sam is definitely the leader here. The other men here have looked at him and seen that he is confident, relaxed and happy. So therefore they can be the same. Even the critics seem to be standing that little bit easier where they are.

Sam comes over and laughs a bit at something that the others have said.

"Well Freddie," he says, looking down at me… his eyes dancing. "Today's the day."

"The day for what," I respond, unable to keep the sour note from my voice.

"Today's the day that I take on the power of The God and begin the process of freeing Redania from the tyrant. Aren't you happy for me?"

"Ecstatic," I told him. "I don't remember your eyes being blue."

"No," he agrees. "Ella tells me that it's one of the side effects of some of the herbs that have been used. Nothing to worry about though."

"Or so she says," I mutter.

"Still trying to sow seeds of distrust and paranoia amongst us Freddie?" He shook his head and tutted. "It hasn't worked yet and it won't work again today." He laughs again and reaches forward to clap me on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it. I am going to make you whole again. Both arms, both legs. I'll even give you a bigger dick for your troubles. That will make Queen Adda love you."

"First of all." I tried. "I have it on good record, from a succubus that too big a dick can hurt a person and that as a result, I am pleasingly average…"

"Yes yes, I remember the story," Sam said, waving his hand in front of his face as if to dismiss a bad smell. "She was lying. Women always lie in this regard. That regard and every regard."

"What was it that gave you such a poor…" I began but Sam waved me down.

"Freddie, much though I would love to be drawn into another extended debate where I cannot convince you to come to my way of thinking and you can't convince me to do the same, I have things to do." He grinned. "Today, everything changes."

I considered and threw my best barb.

"Why today?" I wondered. "You once told me that the balancing act is to leave it long enough to get as much power as possible but not too long that you would be overwhelmed."

He nodded as he listened.

"Further, there was the suggestion that you would go early if things came to a point." I continued. "Have things come to a point Sam? You want me to record things, context is key and I must get the context of the situation."

He laughed. It felt forced to me.

I joke about my interviewer's instincts occasionally, but they really do exist.

"Don't worry so much Freddie." He said. "It is all coming together nicely."

He's lying, the answer is just a little bit too glib. I would have leant forwards but that wasn't quite possible given my current state.

"To answer the question," he went on. "The balancing act is getting to the tipping point. We are a little early but as you have pointed out, in this case, it is far better to be safe than sorry."

I nodded. "Is that all?" I wonder.

"Of course, it's all." He's hiding behind some outrage as if he is angry at the probing question. "What else can there be?"

He turns and moves off and I feel myself smile. Something has happened.

Not that it will affect me of course. This is happening now.

Sam is speaking to a couple of the other soldiers including Trystan. Sam is taking his sword belt and tunic off and handing them off to Trystan who is leaning them up against the wall leaving Sam in his shirtsleeves. To be fair, Sam looks to be in the bloom of health. His muscles are well-defined and stand out against his shirt. He looks like the flower of the fighting man that all of the serving maids of the castle used to swoon over when we were younger.

I hated him then and I hate him now. There was a moment there in the middle where I thought we had cared for each other as brothers should, but he has proven that that sentiment was entirely one-sided.

I hope that The God eats him.

A couple of the other Knights have left now. They left the hall with a bit of speed and a spring in their step. They look as though they are hurrying somewhere.

Sam is doing some warm-up exercises. He is stretching, twisting at the waist and pulling his arms around his body.

He gestures and Sir Trystan hands him a long knife that he tucks into the belt that is holding his trousers up. I look for a long moment and am relieved that it is not my old dagger or my boot knife. Neither of my knives have metal that is that black. He is performing some more movements to loosen up.

Then he stops and bounces on his feet a couple of times before falling still.

He is standing completely still, just outside the twin circles of metal and paint. It is hard to see with the shadows that are flickering around the room with the torchlight but he almost looks as though he is praying.

I can feel the hair standing up on my right arm and the back of my neck. I would expect to feel things on the other parts of my body too but they are too numb or in too much pain to…

He has stopped.

He is looking at the floor and I think I can see his eyes moving around. He looks as though he is thinking things. I don't know, maybe he is making the decision. Maybe it's just that he's… thinking it through. Maybe this is the last moment before…

He has just stepped inside the painted circle.

The hum. That ever-present hum. The one that echoes in the depths of my chest and makes my teeth and fingernails itch. It has just vanished.

It is not reassuring. Sam is in the circle now and if I didn't know better, I would think he is dancing.

He is moving around in circles, examining the paint but every so often he will stop and give this little jig of a dancing step. It is no quickstep that I recognise but it's as though he is hugging himself in delight.

He is laughing. It started when he got into the circle I think. But that laughter is getting louder and louder until he bends down in the middle of the circle so that his hands are on his knees as he is doubled over laughing. The laughter echoes around the room, real rolling guffaws of laughter that echo off the ceiling and the floor. It reverberates to the same point that the hum did and now it's as though I can't get away from it. It's the laugh of a madman.

It took me a moment to realise that he had stopped and straightened up.

That's not my brother. My brother died a long time ago. My brother could not have laughed like that. No brother of mine could have laughed like that.

He has just signalled to one of the critics who has left the room through yet another side door. I don't remember so many side doors in this room when we came here as children. They must have been obscured by all of the furniture.

Sam is making a proper inspection of the paint now. The chore that he must have wanted to start early as he goes around, inspecting the paint carefully.

Flame Sam, how did it come to this? What could have…

I know how he got here. He told me.

I have a feeling that I know what's going to happen next but I'm not letting myself see it. A lot like the way people ]would always tell me that I knew the solution to the riddle about what had happened to Francesca but I was keeping it from myself. There is a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach and dread that is palpable. But I am not afraid. I know what is coming.

The critic has returned and he has a woman in his hands. She is bound by rope by but the thought of her struggling is useless. She is thin and bedraggled, her hair is filthy and matted and her dress is scuffed and caked in dirt and stains that I do not want to recognise.

It is not until she starts to speak that I recognise her.

Her name is Helene. One of my Mother's old friends and part of that circle of women that sit around and gossip, most often about each other or the ones of the circle that are not currently present. She was among the youngest of the lot and as a result, was the one that was most often called upon to pour the tea and call the servant over. Then the other women would comment on her technique.

I remember having a crush on her for a brief glorious summer after she had smiled at me and I didn't know what that meant. The crush had shattered when I had become clumsy under her gaze and she had laughed at my misfortune. I remember her as being beautiful and blonde when I was nine but a little chained to her bitterness.

She is pleading with Sam as the critic pushes her into the circle where Sam catches her.

She is blubbering and whimpering in fear. I cannot hate her for that. I understand where she is coming from. I would be insensible from terror as well. There is no thought behind her eyes and I wonder at the things that she has been through that have got her to that state.

With dread, I watch as Sam catches her before she falls. The critic that deposited her has already turned and headed for the door. Sam lets go of Aunt Helene and she sinks to the floor, her legs unable to support her.

"This is my Aunty Helene." Sam declares. He draws the long knife that was sheathed at his back. "I once had a crush on her when I was younger."

I had not known that.

Aunt Helene's eyes widen as she sees the blade. Some parts of her brain must still have been functioning as she tried to climb to her feet. Sam moves without hurrying, grabs her by the hair and tilts her head back.

"You shouldn't have laughed when I told you that I loved you," he told her. Then he plunged the dagger into her neck before ripping it out.

He didn't cut her throat which would have sent the blood spilling everywhere. It was more efficient than that. From somewhere, I can hear Kerrass or is it, Jerome, telling me that it takes a lot of work to cut someone's throat.

But Sam has been a soldier, and that knife of his must be razor sharp.

For a moment, Helene cannot believe what is happening. She blinks, and her hand comes to cover the wound as the blood spills out. She opens her mouth, presumably to scream but only blood comes out of the mouth. Then she fell and tries to drag herself to the edge of the circle before her strength gives out and she just collapses.

It does not take her long to die.

To my shame, I do not know the next person. He is thinner and frailer than Aunt Helene although he is younger. He tries to be brave as the critic shoves him into the circle.

Sam is too busy examining the edge of his knife before he nods and decides that it's still fit for purpose.

The man tries to be brave but he can't take his eyes off the corpse of the woman at the edge of the circle. The blood has mostly stopped pooling now.

"I don't know this man," Sam says. "He looks to be a servant to me."

The servant opens his mouth to say something but too late. Sam rams the dagger up into the throat. The man's eyes roll back in his head and he is dead before he hits the ground.

The shock of the entire thing means that my hand is moving of its own accord. I could not stop it even if I want to. Someone needs to record it all so that there is a witness but my mind isn't working.

Another woman that I don't know is brought in. I want to say that I know her. For some reason, the name Anya comes to mind. Sam didn't know her either and she dies similarly to the servant man.

"This is not a ritual," I mutter before I gain the strength to shout it. "THIS IS NOT A RITUAL." I bellow as hard as I can towards where Trystan is watching, sweating profusely. "THIS IS A MASS SACRIFICE." I try and break free of my bonds then. Cripple I might be but maybe…

It is useless. There is not enough strength in me, nor do I have enough working limbs to be able to break free.

"How…" I began, my mouth wordlessly working as I watch another man that I don't know by the name of Nordaz, having his throat ripped out.

"How can you want Redania to be reborn on the back of so awful… so unholy an act?"

I demanded. I was trying to reach Trystan who did not react to my words. Instead, Sam replied.

"I keep telling you, Freddie." He told me. "There is no coin I will not spend. There is no blood that I will not spill and there is no life I will not sacrifice if it means that Redania will be reborn."

The next victim is a soldier, I can still see the musculature standing out on his arms and legs. He is all but naked. He is also, barely alive. He looks as though he has been badly beaten with his face caved in. He is forced to wait for a long moment while Sam cleans and then re-sharpens his blade with a whetstone that he takes from a pouch before killing the soldier.

The soldier's name was Addy.

Flame but I can't keep watching this. I try, I really do. But I am losing track.

The next was a maid in the castle that I vaguely remember as being close to Emma. I even think Kerrass might have slept with her at one point. Her name was Magnie. She came in hissing and spitting like a cat. She fought, and even when she was slapped into a state of insensibility by one of the critics, she came back out hitting, clawing, scratching and biting. She even tried to fight when she was bleeding from the horrific wounds on her neck.

After that came another guard named Tantus and an old woman named Olive.

I try to fight as well but I am too weak. It is an excuse in my own ears and I can hear it, but it is true. I strained and strained until I came close to blacking out from the pain and the effort. All that it earned me was a bucket of water to the face to shock me back into a state of wakefulness. The water smelt faintly of urine. It would be more shocking to me if this hadn't happened to me before.

I have stopped struggling now. I owe these people. I cannot fight, so the least I can do is remember them.

I owe these people a duty to witness their passing.

I missed a couple while blacking out and struggling though and I count the number of bodies that are in the circle, just in time to see Sam push one of them aside with his boot. The circle is quite large though and I wonder how long it will be before the bodies start spilling over the edge.

There are twelve bodies now and Sam is having to pause to hone his knife. He is having to work at it now. I want to make a joke, my mind is retreating from what I am seeing. I don't want to stay here and watch what is happening. I don't want to watch it. I want to make jokes in the face of it but I can't.

I have to watch it.

I will not cheapen this. I won't. I will bear witness.

But I am too weak. Every time, Sam's blade flashes and I realise that I have flinched away from what is happening.

The next man was a noble at the feast. Another one of the local nobles, or the local merchants that Emma was buttoning up. He tries to meet his death with dignity. He was halfway through telling Sam that he always thought that Sam was the weakest of the Coulthard children.

Sam retorted with a comment about Edmund before tearing the man's throat out.

His name was Sir Mortimer. He was a big man once although his skin hung loosely off his frame after the time spent in captivity. He faced his death bravely. I will remember that.

A woman named Rose dies. I didn't know her.

Another woman, a girl really, dies. Her name was Daisy. She worked in the kitchen. I remember Cook realising that she had just gone the wrong side of the line while teasing her and making the girl cry.

Oh no.

It had to happen sooner or later. Someone I know more intimately.

Captain Froggart, formerly the Captain of the Castle guard has just been led into the room. Like the other prisoners, he looks tired and thin and he has aged in the last few months.

He is wearing his drill master's mask. Coldly looking around him. I see a couple of the critics flinch back from him and although Captain Froggart…

I will still give him his rank.

Although Captain Froggart and I were never close, I am proud of the old man. He throws the hands of the guards from his shoulders and demands to be untied. He is staring at Sam as he demands it.

"Do you think I will die easy boy?" He says. "Untie my hands and I will meet my fate standing up."

Sam chuckles and bows to his former weapons master before gesturing to one of the guards who cut Captain Froggart's bonds. The old man is weak. I know him well enough to know that he is weak and is hiding behind his military bravado. He is staggering a little, trembling more and he sways gently.

That old man is extraordinary. He closed his eyes for a moment and the swaying stopped. When his eyes opened, they were the eyes of the old military campaigner that he was. He marched precisely into the circle and looked around.

He sees me.

It took him a moment to recognise me and…

Oh, Flame.

"I should have been kinder to you Lord Frederick." He tells me. "I should have seen you for the man you had inside you and I should have helped you find him the sooner."

I could have withstood hate I think but sympathy…?

Flame curse me… A historian needs objectivity and distance but the tears won't…

He has taken some deep breaths before turning to Sam.

"You, I should have been harder on. I should have seen you for the worst of your family rather than thinking of you as my own son." He told him before spitting at my brother's feet. Then he closed his eyes and turned his back on the thing that used to be my brother.

"Do as you will." He said.

Sam kicked him in the back of his knees so that he fell before dragging his kife across the old knight's throat. I could see that Froggart is outraged at the indignity and that he wanted to die on his feet.

He gets one leg under him before a strange look of confusion crosses his face. It happens to all people that have their throat slit. Shani would know why. Something about blood getting into the brain.

He is still kicking now, some part of him still trying to climb to his feet. His legs still moving.

Sam is watching me. His face is hard. It takes me a lot to look up at his face. It takes me nearly everything that I have.

Then he nods.

"Fuck you." I snarl as best as I can.

"There is worse to come," Sam says quietly.

"You show me this." I swallow. "You show me this and expect me to come over to your side?" I try and make it a defiant snarl but there is too much pain.

"Fuck you," I say again. I suspect that it's more whimper than anything else.

Sam shakes his head. He looks disappointed.

I am glad to disappoint him.

Sir Trystan is still here. He is mopping his brow.

"Is this what you are following Trystan?" I demand. "What kind of knight are you?"

Ella is also still here. Her eyes are hollow.

Ariadne has not moved.

The next person to die is one of the bards that had come to play at my wedding. Someone smashed his hands, the same as they had smashed my hands. He looks resigned and tells Sam to get on with it. His name was Niewen.

Captain Froggart's woman was next. Her name was Margaret. She came in with the same level of defiance as her husband did, but when she Captain Froggart's body she screamed and hurled herself forward. Sam had to trip her and hold her down so that he could cut her throat. She died trying to crawl towards her man.

At least they are together now, wherever they are.

This is killing me. Not the infection in my limbs. Not the sickness that comes from dirty water and bad food. This is killing me.

A guard named Mikael dies. A servant named Fomlin.

I missed one as I have to turn my head to puke.

I have to remind myself to write. I have to remind myself to record this. I want to turn away but many of these people have no one else at the moment of their deaths. They deserve to be witnessed.

I dread the next person that comes through the door.

I am not sure I can make any more jokes.

Other people are coming through. Some messengers are talking to Sam between the murders. He doesn't seem to have any problems stepping in and out of the circles. Others are people that are carrying messages to Sir Trystan who reads the pieces of paper that he is being offered before nodding and saying something to the messenger who promptly leaves. Occasionally, he will write something on…

Fuck

An Elf has entered. He looked at Sam and called him a "Fucking D'Hoine filth."

I called out to him. I tried to tell him that I was sorry. That I should have never invited them and that it was all my fault.

He looked at me for a long moment.

"We believed you." He told me. We didn't have time to exchange any more as Sam cut his throat after that. He died staring his hatred into me.

Damn, you Sam. You made a liar out of me. I told them that they would be safe.

Flame curse me for a fool.

Fucking hell.

They've just brought the Duchess of Angraal in. She was at the castle for the feast and…

She's trying to talk to Ariadne. Ariadne can't move.

.

Another good woman dead.

I tried to tell her. I tried to tell her that this was the same control that Dorme had tried to exert over Ariadne. That Ariadne was a slave and had no control over anything. The Duchess heard me I think. She was trying to be kind to Ariadne and tell her that it wasn't her fault. That she had loved her and they had been good friends.

She didn't even acknowledge me as she died. She just reached towards her friend.

It would seem that the rumour of what is happening here is getting back to the cages now. There is a shift in the people that are coming.

The next man is a soldier. He fights every step of the way but he looks Sam dead in the face and tells him that he would rather die than serve a man like him anyway.

Sam just shrugged and tore a brave man's throat out.

His name was Telwyn.

The next is also a soldier.

I have started to shout to the victims now. I tell them that it's alright. I tell them that I am here and that I am recording their names. That whatever happens, they will be remembered. I tell them that the Flame will guide them home and that they do not need to be afraid.

Some are hearing me, some are not.

The next man's name is Fealas. I suspect something Elven in his blood. He tried to thank me for my words.

The next man was an old man. A retiree of some kind. I don't know why he was at the castle as I do not recognise him. He was old and he tottered into the room. He cackled at Sam and the people around them, telling them that their souls were damned and that their punishments would be swift.

He looked Sam in the eye and told him to cut deep and that he had better kill him with the first strike.

His name was Petrus.

The former Duke of Angraal is brought to join his wife. He must have been kept separate from her because he howled in grief when he saw her body. He hurled himself against the guards with the maddened strength of the grieving. I tried to call him but all that did was call his wrath down upon me. He told me a lot. He told me that he wished that he had never seen me. He told me that he would rather that I had died of the poison. That I should have left that trollop of a Vampire locked up in the tower that they had banished her to. He told me that he would rather I had died there and that she was still in prison or, alternatively, that she was being tormented by men with knives.

I doubt he knew that Ariadne was even in the room.

Sam is having to hold him to kill him. He is not finding it easy and instead of the normal slit throat, Sam is having to kill him by repeatedly driving the blade into the Duke's back.

I am trying not to take his words to heart. I am trying to accept those words as the words of a man who knows that he's about to die. They are words of pain, fear and anger but despite knowing all of that. The words are cutting deep. I tell him I am sorry but he dies, cursing the day that he met me and started to associate with me and my family.

I do not blame him. All I can hope is that his children, who should still be in Angraal, will remain safe moving forward.

I cannot stop the tears. They say that people are at their best at the extreme ending of things. Jack once tried to tell me that the purest of fears is the moment when you realise that you are dying. That moment, where you don't know whether to fight to live or fight to die all the quickest.

I think he was wrong. These people are incredible.

Oh Mother no.

.

My mother died.

My mother is dead.

Flame curse us all to hell.

I mean…

My mother died.

There is no…

My mother died.

She was just brought in and now she's dead.

There have been times when I have not liked my Mother. Even times when I actively hated my Mother. There is an argument to be said that she deserves some of the blame for the horror that has beset our family. But…

My mother died.

She was brought in and she actually apologised. She told Sam that she was sorry. She told him that he deserved a better mother than him and if only she had seen what had been happening then she would have stopped it. She tried to embrace him.

She actually tried to embrace him. She told him that she forgives him for her death. How can she do that? How can she forgive the man that is doing all of this? You can't avoid the blood or the bodies that are on the floor. You can't not see that. But she is forgiving him.

Then she turned to me. She didn't say much. She just looked at me.

"I'm so so sorry Freddie." She said. "You deserved better than this."

She knelt and put her hands together in an attitude of prayer and then Sam killed her.

My mother died.

My mother died and my brother killed her.

I swear Mother, that if I have any say in this matter, I will find someone to give you holy orders in death. I swear it. I swear it by…

Flame dammit. My mother is dead.

It…

It took me a while to come back to myself. The imprinted image of my mother kneeling, her tattered dress around her and her hands clasped together. Her blood had exploded out and run down the front of her dress ruining it. She fought to stay on her knees, her mouth still praying to the Eternal Flame as she died. And when she died, her body just toppled over, one of her legs folding underneath her.

Sam was looking down at me, the blood of our mother still dripping from his knife.

"Are you ready to continue?" He asks.

I didn't answer him. I don't know what I could have said, but he found an answer there anyway.

He nodded and turned away and gestured for the guard to bring in the next victim.

My mother died.

Sam is turning back towards me.

"You are writing a record of what you see and hear yes?" He demands of me. He is frowning at something, he looks annoyed.

It takes me a moment or two to swallow the huge lump in my throat. It is honestly surprising to me that the lump isn't visible to him.

In the end, I just nod.

"DON'T NOD." He yells. There is an odd echo to his voice.

I answer immediately as though something has crawled down my throat… No, some great hand has reached down my throat and pulled the answer from my gut.

"Yes, I am," I tell him.

He nods and nearly turns away from me. His next victim, I have no idea who it is, is waiting in the background now. I am determined to keep Sam talking as long as possible. Playing for time, then maybe something will happen to save that girl's life.

Or maybe that is the real cruelty.

Sam turns back to me.

"I don't understand your displeasure." There are strange harmonics in his voice. I am certain I am not imagining them.

"Our Mother is responsible for all of this." He gestures around himself, the blood dripping from his blade. "If she had just owned up to what was happening in Kalayn lands the moment that she was given a confessor, then none of this would have happened. She is at fault here… Surely you can see that?"

I found that I wanted to agree with him. I fought it for a while but then I couldn't any more.

"It is true," the words spill out of my mouth without me thinking about it. Like water, overflowing from a cup. I clear my throat. "It is true that if she had explained all of this to a confessor then this would have been averted." I felt control reenter me and I was able to control what I was saying again.

"It is true that she bears responsibility while it is also true that if she had told her confessor, then there is a good chance that neither you nor I would have been born," I told him. "But she is not the culprit here. You did this Sam. You. You are trying to deflect blame away from yourself when it is you that is wielding the blade. It is you that started all of this foolishness. At any point, you could have stopped by just deciding to set the blade aside. By just deciding not to do these things."

"Be silent." He hisses. Those strange melodics tickle at the back of my mind again.

This time I find that I can fight it.

"The blame lies with you, Sam. All of it."

Sam glares at me and pain rips through my head. I cannot contain a groan for long.

"Our Mother was weak," Sam tells me. "She could have done something but she chose not to out of fear and weakness. The same weakness runs through your blood as well I see." He considered me for a moment. "Maybe I have misjudged…" He shook his head, looking a little surprised at his own words. "No, you are the best hope for the future of my plans. You will carry the North forwards into glory."

He looked down at his hands and nodded.

"I can feel it, Freddie. I am already stronger. I am already faster and fitter. I can feel my mind starting to work in ways that it hasn't for years, if ever. I can feel that energy coursing through me."

He gestured and the girl was brought forward. Previously, he had carefully ripped their throats out which is, as deaths go, relatively painless if you can use a sharp knife and have the correct technique. This time he just plunged the dagger into her guts with such force that he nearly lifted her off her feet. All of the air exploded out of her mouth and she groaned with it. He pulled the dagger out and her guts came with them, she looked down at the horror that he had made of her midsection and tried to draw her breath to scream.

Then the pain hit her and all she could do was whimper.

"Oh be quiet," Sam said and stamped on her neck.

This time he didn't say her name and as such, I have no idea who she was.

Sam looked disappointed in something.

"Another," he called and another man was pushed forwards. I think he was a guard but Sam killed him with just as little ceremony and his frown deepened.

"No," he said. "Something is wrong. There is power coming from these deaths but it is not enough." He started pacing as he considered. The next victim was weeping with terror.

Trystan was watching this with a certain amount of concern. As we watched my brother pace.

We waited, watching as Sam tapped the bloody dagger at his lips. At some point, he realised that this meant that he was smearing black blood onto his face and instead tucked his hands behind his back.

Trystan is worried about something. He has just exchanged looks with the guards that were holding the next prisoner.

"Lord Samuel," Trsystan prompted, quietly at first but when it was clear that Sam didn't notice or wasn't listening, he raised his voice a little.

"Lord Samuel, time is rather of the essence."

"Be silent," Sam told him.

"It looked as though Sam had forced the words down Trystan's throat. He looked surprised. Astonished even. As though he had swallowed something unpleasant.

Sam looked equally as surprised and his face softened.

"I am well aware of the dangers that are coming upon us and the scarcity of time," Sam told the other man. "That is precisely the problem that I am trying to deal with.

He looked at the next victim. I know his face but not his name. I have the impression that I have not known him for long. He has long, clever-looking fingers and his limbs are equally as long. One of his legs has been broken but I can well imagine…

He was an acrobat being paid to perform at my wedding reception.

Sam killed him quickly and tossed him aside.

"Yes." He said. "There is power there but not as much. Useful, but we need more power more quickly to be sure of the matter. Let's see…."

He made another pantomime of having to consider things.

"Let's see," he muttered again, the odd harmonics and echoes returning to his voice. "The receipt of power was at its greatest after mother died."

"After you killed her," I told him. He either didn't notice or didn't care.

"After you murdered her," I added.

Nothing happened. Trystan was hopping from foot to foot. A messenger came in and passed another piece of paper to Trystan.

"Lord Kalayn," He tried again.

It was like that was the little thing that they needed to do to get Sam's mind working again. He looked up, waving Trystan to silence and spoke to the guards that were waiting for his instructions.

"Bring me, Mark," he said.

I felt as though the air had been punched out of my gut.

"No," I moaned. "No, Sam. You can't do this. Sam, you can't."

"He's dying anyway," Sam said. "It might even be argued that it will be a mercy."

"Sam, stop this." I pleaded. I begged. "Kill me instead. Please, don't do this. Don't take any more of the people that…"

"Mark earns just as much of the blame as Mother," Sam said. I could hear the echo more now. "The reason that there was more power was that my victim was important to me. Mother was important to me. Therefore, if I sacrifice those that hold some kind of sentimental value to me then… then the power will be increased."

He nodded as though he was convincing himself that this was going to work.

"That's it. I have the answer."

"Please Sam," I whimpered. "Please, don't do this. Don't go this far, it's not worth it, whatever else is happening, it's not worth the cost. Don't do this."

"It really is simple math Freddie," he told me cheerily, either oblivious to the pain on my face or he just didn't care. "I received more power from The God when I killed someone that I actually cared about than I did when I killed someone that I couldn't care less about."

He smiled.

"So the faster I get this done, the fewer people will have to die. The more the better and then… Ah, here we are."

"Don't do this Sam,"

Fuck.

.

Mark too. Mark is gone. My big brother. My first confessor my…

Flame burn me.

Mark is gone. Sam is cackling while wiping the blood from the dagger onto the cloth of Mark's Cassock.

Mark is gone. I thought that I would be ready for that one. I thought that I was prepared for Mark to die. I knew it was coming, but not like this. Not like this.

He looked… He looked frail. My once massive brother. Tall, broad-shouldered and powerful. Hugely strong. Born at the wrong time. He should have been born when the priesthood was carving the light out of the darkness in the local area.

But when he came into that blood-soaked room he looked like an old man.

He once made a joke with me when Francesca was born. I was upset that I was no longer the youngest child and I was jealous. One of those childish things…

Oh, Mark.

I'm so sorry.

It… One of those childish things where you know that you are being unreasonable but you can't quite talk it out, or think it out properly.

He made me laugh. He pointed out that babies all look like old men. It took me a moment and then I saw it and I remember laughing to Mark's proud delight. Then later, he leant closer and pointed out that the other thing that happen is that when a person, more often a man, gets older, then they start to look like a baby again.

That's what Mark looked like. He looked like a baby.

Flame but what they must have been doing to him deep in the… wherever the fuck they were keeping the prisoners.

He was thin, pale, even gaunt, but there was still that huge frame that Kerrass had once called a "warrior's frame." His hair was long and greasy and he looked about him with this look of utter confusion.

My brother wasn't inside his own head.

He looked like a baby, his face puffy and flushed, his lower lip trembling. He tottered forwards and I screamed at the guards as they giggled.

Trystan turned away.

But the guards got Mark into the circle. He slipped on something, probably some blood although I can't be sure. He looked at the bodies and the tangle of limbs as though he didn't recognise what was happening.

Sam was at his side.

"This is my brother," he seemed to address the room. "And although my brother Freddie is dear to my heart, it should not lessen the efforts of this brother. I love him a great deal and I am proud to have had him as a brother. I will miss him."

Mark just stared at him, eyes wide body trembling.

"Kneel brother," He whispered in Mark's ear. "Kneel, it is time to pray.

I was screaming at them. Trying to get Mark's attention, trying to distract Sam. Anything.

Mark looked at Sam in gratitude and knelt before putting his hands together.

Then he looked confused again before he looked up at Sam with blank, innocent eyes.

The eyes of a child.

"What should I pray for?" He wondered.

And Sam slit his throat.

I fought the chair and the ropes so hard that I finally got some movement out of them and the chair tipped over. But in landing, I crashed down on one of my smashed feet. The agony was instant and white hot and I passed out.

Another thing to hate me for. I was not there for my brother when he needed me. The least I could have done was be there for him as he died.

At some point, my chair was righted, my bonds were retired and another bucket of water was thrown in my face.

Sam was frowning.

"You have a duty to perform Freddie." He told me. "A God-given duty and I expect you to perform it."

"Fuck you," I told him.

Sam ignored it. I barely spoke anyhow.

From some distance, I was wondering how much more I could take. But Sam was right, I did have a duty. Not to him though, but to his victims.

That next victim has arrived. She is a bit older than Sam and I have no idea who she was. She looks as though she is a local villager. She has long dark hair that hangs straight down her back. She is four or five years older than me and because of the nature of what I can only assume was her life, she has aged a little harder than she possibly should.

She is a big woman in every sense of the word. Kerrass might once have described her as buxom. She does not have any of the privations that the other prisoners have and I wonder if she is a recent addition.

Rather than the other prisoners though, she has a sense of bewilderment about her as though she has no idea of what was coming or what she was going to be up against.

She soon realised when she came through the door. I think she smelt the blood and the other bodily fluids first as her head whipped around as she searched around the room for the awful smell.

I called to her to tell her that it was going to be alright but she seemed to panic anyway.

I hadn't noticed the smell because it had snuck up on me gradually and I am far from fragrant myself. But the dead bodies are starting to release the inner fluids. Not just the blood.

Sam is trying to beckon this woman over. But now she has seen the bodies. She is turning and tries to get out of the door to go back to wherever she was coming from but one of the guards has stopped this by standing in front of the door.

"Bring her to me." Sam orders and that same guard grabs her by the neck and forces her into the circle. She screams and struggles all the way. She is not fat, just pronounced and now that I can see, it is clear that a lot of that is muscle.

The guard is struggling.

Sam gestures and a critic goes over to help and between the two of them, they wrestle her into the ring where Sam is there to catch her.

Sam is changing. Where it took two large, strong… even augmented men to get this woman into the ring, Sam holds her without apparent effort.

She is fighting him, clawing at him, trying to scratch his eyes out. She is obviously terrified, as would anyone be, but she is determined at that.

I find that I like her.

Sam tried to ignore her as he pulls her over towards the edge of the circle where I am watching but I can see him getting frustrated.

He jerks her off balance for a moment and cuffs her around the head, dazing her. I can see that her eyes keep trying to roll back into her head.

It doesn't take much of a blow to the head to seriously injure someone or even kill someone, or so my old professor would say.

Sam continues to drag her over to me and she keeps stumbling, now whimpering, more than shouting and screaming in fear.

"You have no idea who this is do you, Freddie?" Sam asks me.

"No," I admit. I am trying to think of a way to free this woman and find a way to turn all of this to our advantage.

"Not to blame you. She left the castle after I went to war, you were a bit younger then and she has changed a great deal. Still, a couple of pregnancies will do that to you won't they?"

He demanded that of the still dazed-looking woman.

"When I knew her she was much thinner around the waist and her hair was shorter. She was still strong then and the cook had her helping with the heavier duties in the kitchen."

Sam laughs at a memory. The woman is still trying to stay awake. I want to tell her not to bother and to just sleep but those words die in my throat.

"Calling us friends is a bit much. But she was my first woman. Edmund was my first lover and there were other women that I was forced to assault as part of the cult. But Lily here was the first time that a woman chose me and I chose her back."

I swear that he is smiling down at her fondly.

"Oh come on," I shout as I watch him stroke a lock of her hair out of her face.

"She was very kind to me," Sam went on, still speaking in the kind of sad, reminiscing voice that you use when you are talking about old lovers. "We had known of each other for a while but nothing came of it. Then a day came when I was so tired of everything that Edmund was doing and all of the negligence of our family and tutors would get too much. I would retreat to a hiding space. I was good at it too, remember how much better I was at hide and seek when we were younger?"

He waited a moment before looking at me sharply. "Answer me, Freddie."

"I remember," I tell him.

"Well, Lily here found me. She took me to her cubby hole and we talked about a lot of things. She kissed me and I suppose nature took over. She was very pleased that I knew what I was doing. About the physical stuff, I mean. Apparently, it's not as easy as just knowing which bit goes where but how to move around a person's body. It was a new experience, doing that deed for comfort and pleasure rather than for pain and the exertion of power. It was quite pleasant."

He smiles down at her again.

"We loved each other on and off when either of us had a need and then I went to war. She married one of the huntsmen and was long gone by the time I came back. I always thought of her fondly and with a happy memory. I brought her here to reward her for her kindness."

He is sighing and stroking her face again. I feel sick.

"Such a pity," Sam says to me. "She is still beautiful to me. Ah well."

Then he killed her. The blow to her head might even be a mercy as I'm not sure she knew that she was dying before she died.

"I keep telling you, Freddie," Sam said. "There is no blood that I will not spill, no coin that I will not spend and no life that I will not sacrifice to free Redania from the tyrant."

"And I keep telling you," I reply automatically, "that you are the only tyrant here. Didn't you once tell me that you lost your real virginity to a nurse on campaign?"

"No," Sam frowns in confusion. "Why would I say that?"

There is not enough strength in my voice for a proper rebuttal and Sam is already ignoring me.

He is looking at his hands and frowning.

"Strange," he says, "I thought I would get more power for that."

Sir Trystan speaks up. I get the feeling that he has had to swallow a few times before he tries to speak. The first time I saw Trystan he was a handsome, good-looking man. The kind of man that you would want to introduce to your sister. Now he looks as though he wants to run and run far away. He has the look of a man who is trying to decide on ways to kill himself.

"My Lord," he is saying. "Perhaps that might be enough to deal with the…"

"No," Sam snaps. And he really fucking snapped. He practically hissed like a cat as he span on Trystan with a snarl on his face. Sam has always been a handsome man but he looked ugly at that moment.

"No," he says again. "This moment will never come again and I must be strong enough to take on all comers. We must be sure." He turned to the guard. "Bring me, Bronwyn."

The guard left and during the pause, Sam did some work on his knife. It was all but caked in gore now and one of the critics fetched a clean cloth and a fresh whetstone that was tossed into the ring. Sam sat on one of the bodies… I think it was one of the soldiers and started to work, cleaning the blade before carefully sharpening it.

He is doing it properly too. That's a thing that is never done when you see these kinds of things in stage plays and read about them in books. You never see or hear about the cultists taking proper care to maintain their weapons or their sinister accoutrements.

I want to ask Sam about Bronwyn, who she is and why she is important. But I'm not going to, apart from anything else, I am not convinced that I want to know the answer.

The other reason is that I think that Sam will tell me.

It is occurring to me, as we all sit here and wait for the next piece of horror to arrive, that what I need to do is play for time. I have no idea why I think this, but I am beginning to suspect that something is coming. It is small things. Why is the ritual happening now? Why not tomorrow or the day after? If the longer it's left, then the more power is absorbed then why not leave it longer? Sam did provide a potential answer which is that the longer he leaves it, the more dangerous it becomes.

It is already pretty fucking dangerous though.

That and the fact that the guards were running around earlier. The speed with which the messengers are running in and out, delivering the messages before running off. And what Trystan just said.

Yes, I need to play for time. As much time as possible.

Easier said than done though.

And when all I can do is fucking sit here and watch, what can I do? I can shout, scream and talk. I can write, but Sam isn't exactly reading what I say. Hurling my writing and papers and pen on the floor is not going to get the…

A guard has just brought Bronwyn into the room.

Another woman that I don't know. But I have seen her. I imagine that everyone in Oxenfurt knows of Bronwyn. Except in Oxenfurt, she is called Ruby.

She has walked in, she is wearing a better quality dress than the one that she works the streets of Oxenfurt in. She is dressed like the highest lady of the court and even more than that, she knows how to wear it too. She has that indefinable trait which people miss, which I call 'class'. I have seen it in the lowliest villager and I have missed it in the highest, richest courts in the land. You can have class and lose it later in life. Or you can not have any class and gain it. It is a measure of a person's character and when they have class, you can see it in their demeanour and attitude.

Bronwyn has class.

She is one of, if not the, highest Courtesan in Oxenfurt.

She is talking to one of the guards.

There was a rumour in Oxenfurt, that the Passiflora in Novigrad had tried to bring her to their gates but she turned it down. She told them that there, she would be a flower in a bunch of roses. But in Oxenfurt, she was a jewel in the mound of sand.

A bit harsh on the other working women of Oxenfurt, but to be fair, I have no idea if it was true.

I know of people that made themselves destitute for a night with her.

She has walked in. She paled at the smell and the sight of the bodies. I think I recognise the dress as something that Laurelen used to wear occasionally. It is a deep green to compliment Bronwyn's reddish, auburn hair. She has chosen limited jewellery and she looked radiant as she walked in.

She is wary, but puts a smile on to greet Sir Trystan. I watch her eyes flash around the room, noticing who is there and where the exits are. This woman is not a trained soldier but she is a warrior on a different field of battle than mine.

She is beautiful as only a courtesan could be beautiful.

I would tell her to flee, but I can see that she already knows that she is going to die in this room. Her eyes are narrow now and she is plotting some vengeance.

I catch her eyes and for a moment, I see pity in her blue eyes but then she dismisses me. I don't blame her.

I hope she succeeds.

"You know Bronwyn don't you Freddie." Sam walks over to her and extends his hand in the same way that a gentleman might ask a lady to dance. She considers refusing. I see it happen, she considers refusing but then she hardens and smiles her best, most professional smile at Sam before taking his hand and letting him help her over the pile of metal and one or two dead bodies.

"Of course, you know Bronwyn," Sam says, leading her over to me. "Everyone in Oxenfurt knows Bronwyn, except you possibly know her by her professional name."

The injury and inference strike home in Bronwyn, Sam's eyes are looking away so he misses the hate in her expression. For a moment, the fear that he might have seen her hits her and she checks, but Sam is looking at me.

"I never had the pleasure," I say to Sam. "The Lady Bronwyn moved in different circles than I did."

"You never had the money you mean." Sam teases. "And she is far from a lady."

The flash of hate is back in Bronwyn's eyes.

"A lady is a lady until she proves otherwise," I tell him. "And promiscuity is not a measure. Nor is using the skills and attributes that…"

"Yes yes." Sam waved me off. "Your love of the oldest profession is well known and I do not doubt that they find it charming. I would disagree and tend to side with Father, that such things are a sign of weakness. I would say that but for Bronwyn. When I came back from war, I remember we were all angry and bitter at the betrayal. I had plenty of money and saw her passing. And I thought, why not?

"Like Lily, she was very kind and gentle with me. An outlet for my physical needs. She was very gracious and over time, when I had some spare money from the cult, I would visit her again."

She nodded to him.

"And it was always a pleasure." She said.

She has hidden a weapon in her right sleeve. She is working it into her hand.

"Really," I say, trying to draw Sam's eye. "I doubt that."

"Why Freddie." Sam laughed. "Making jokes about my prowess in bed? How… base of you."

"I've hung around with Skelligan sailors and common soldiers Sam, you have no idea how base I can go."

Bronwyn has caught my gambit. It's a blade that she has, now hidden in her skirts.

"Anyway," Sam is still speaking. "I wanted to bring her here to thank her after attaining my power but it would seem that…"

"Wait," Bronwyn says stepping towards me and tilting her body slightly so that she can grip the blade better out of sight of Sam and the critics. "Are you Frederick Coulthard?"

"I am," I reply.

"I'm a huge fan." She tells me before turning and plunging the dagger into Sam's chest. She knew what she was doing too… plunging it through the guts and tilting up to get the lungs and the heart.

Oh, the cruelty of hope.

.

Bronwyn is dead now, and there is now definitive proof that the ritual is working, even while Sam complains about the lack of effectiveness.

As I write these words to bear witness to the final moments of Bronwyn's death, Sam is raging about the lack of success and the lack of new power that should be coursing through his veins.

Bronwyn was a brave woman, the bravest. I have been around many brave women and she is one of those. Not to lessen the efforts of the others, but Bronwyn knew she was going to die when she plunged that blade into Sam's chest. There was no way that she was going to make it out of the room alive and she knew it too. No way at all that that was going to work.

The blade itself was a small, slim blade that she hid in her sleeve. It is an old trick that I have known about for some years. The hidden blade is tied inside the dress. I have been shown the blade and the trick that they use to tie it in. There are some small variations to the effort but the principle is the same.

I think I first saw it back in the Southern city where I recovered after the Beast of Amber's crossing. They told me that it is the mark of some trust for a Courtesan to be with you completely naked. This is because it means that she can't hide the blade anywhere. That's not to say that the blade isn't there, behind the headboard or underneath the bedside table or something.

So Bronwyn turned, stabbed, and twisted. She did try to pull the knife out but it was stuck fast and I think she lacked the leverage. After the blade went in she stood back to admire her handiwork, ignoring the black blood that was running down her hands and onto the floor. She didn't make a sound, just grinned horribly.

It was almost… not quite, but almost a Witcher's smile.

But Sam wasn't falling, instead, he was the one smiling in triumph.

"You see Trystan." He said, turning to the Knight. "We have our proof that the ritual is working."

He turned back to me and gestured at the place where the dagger jutted out of his belly. Then it was as though he suddenly just… remembered Bronwyn and turned back to her and grabbed her by the hair.

"Good effort," he told her before he drew his own blade across her throat. Then he let go.

Her hands, automatically went to her throat, trying in vain to stem the flow of blood. We always do that, desperately fighting for life, even when we know that it's hopeless.

There is no such thing as a good death. But she tried, at least she tried. It was more than I did.

Sam is angry now, the realisation that someone had allowed Bronwyn into his presence with a weapon has hit him and now he is looking for someone to blame. His anger is not inconsiderable but it seems that the guards that brought her here have taken the lesser part of valour and have fled. I do not blame them.

Sam is still seething though.

He keeps looking down at his right hand. He will pass the blade backwards and forwards between his two hands and clench his fists before examining his hands in quite minute detail. I have no idea what he's looking for or what he can feel when he does that. But he is looking for something and he is becoming frustrated that he is not getting it.

"Something is missing." He keeps muttering. "Something is missing."

"Lord Samuel." Trystan tried again. "Given the obvious power that has been given to you already, perhaps now might be the time to…"

"No," Sam snaps back. "I need more. I need everything I can get. I am powerful now but I need more. We must be sure that we can overwhelm them. Take them utterly by surprise."

He is pacing around the circle as he speaks.

"Bring me another prisoner." He says. "Any one will do."

A guard, one of the few remaining, leaves but comes back in straight away.

I can see my mother from where I am. I look for Mark but I cannot see him, obscured by the other bodies. I think that might be his knee that is sticking out from behind Lilly's body. But I can see my Mother. Why she fell by herself I do not know. Something about the way she knelt I suppose. But I can see her. The dress that she's wearing stained crimson with her blood although it is beginning to lose the bright red colour and turn to the darker, crimson bruise of old dried blood.

She is staring into space with a slight smile on her face. She looks peaceful. I would not be peaceful. I would be filled with fear and anger in the face of…

I will never be able to forgive her… I mean, I will but… She will never know that I forgive her. In the face of everything that has happened, her crime seems small to me in this time and this place. I will never be able to look her in the face and explain that I understand why she did the things that she did. I will not be able to…

I don't…

The prisoner has been brought. I wonder at the guards bringing this particular prisoner. She's a good-looking woman, beautiful even. She is known to me as the daughter of one of Mother's friends. At one point, there had been some hope that she would find a husband in one of Mother's sons but she had been too young for Edmund and had shown no interest in either Sam or myself. Something to do with status and requiring a bit more than was offered.

I never found out who was the instigator for that little disappointment in Mother's life although I suspect that it was her Father filling her head with nonsense. When our status started to rise after Father's death, Emma once told me that there was some regret there but she had already married a Knight and the two had been happily married since.

She is brought into the room and the circle.

Her name is Esmerelda although I know that she hates that name, for pretty much the same reason that I don't like being called Freddie.

She is trying hard to be brave but she doesn't have the… I don't know… The training maybe, to deal with that fear. She is trembling as I look at her.

When I saw her at the Equinox, she wished me a good fortune with the coming nuptials and there seemed to be an element of sadness about her. We had never been close but time and distance seemed to mean that we had more in common with each other and I had promised myself that I would try and find an excuse to introduce her to Ariadne. I have no idea who her husband is other than that she is married.

With the poise and grace of a lady, she refuses to be forced into the ring although the guards have learnt from their past mistakes and they are not untying her bonds.

She dies with a kind of sad resentment on her face.

I wonder why the guards chose her as Sam's next victim.

Sam is even less pleased, again, examining his hands.

"No," he said. "No, something is wrong. The most powerful surges in power came when I killed Mother and Mark. But the deaths of Lily and Bronwyn did not…"

He moves on thinking silently. But he is not masking his emotions or his thoughts as well as he possibly should. He is thinking that Mark and Mother gave him power because they were important to him, but so were Bronwyn and Lilly so why did they not have the same…

He is looking at me. His face is brightening. He is full-on smiling now.

"Bring me the priest." He orders a guard. "Whatever the fuck his name was, the old torturer that was going to perform the ceremony. Whatsisname?"

"Father Jerome," Trystan tells him.

"That's the fucker, bearded chap."

The guards are leaving.

"Do you know what the pattern is Freddie?" he asks me.

"No," I lied.

"I thought you were always supposed to be the smart one, Freddie." Sam cackles. "I am getting the most power from those people whose deaths will cause you the most pain."

"Is that right?" I fight to keep myself calm.

I can feel myself thinking of all the names of those people that are possibly being held as prisoners in the castle. People that I might love and care about that Sam can use.

"Luckily." Sam is saying, "there are plenty of candidates to choose from."

Father Jerome enters like a conquering hero. He has fought a bit because there is blood on his face and blood running down his chin. His voice is a new whistling sound that I can only assume comes from having some missing teeth.

'What's all this shit then Freddie?" he asks as he comes in and laughs at the people around him.

Flame but I love this man and Sam knows it. I try to keep my voice level but it's all but impossible.

Jerome looks around at the dead bodies and the dripping blade that is in Sam's hands and he laughs.

"You're going to sacrifice me then are you?" He demands, shrugging off the hands of those guards that are trying to hold him. "My soul will do you no good boy, it belongs to the eternal Flame and there's nothing that you can do to change it."

Another guard and a critic get to Jerome and start to try and restrain him as he starts to fight them. They punch him in the head and the chest, but he just laughs at them.

This is taking a long time and pride is surging in my chest. Jerome is fighting them. He was always a big man, a former soldier and a warrior of the flame. He bites, he claws, he kicks and drives his head into people's faces. A couple of the other critics are joining in now. One of the guards emerges from the scuffle with a broken nose, chased by Jerome's laughter, before snarling and rejoining the fight.

"Do not kill him," Sam warns. "Do not kill him or you will be the next sacrifice."

There is a snapping sound, a horrible wet snapping sound followed by a huge bellow from Jerome. Finally, he is brought out, dragged out, over the wall of metal and all but thrown into the circle. For a moment, I hope that the scuffing of everything had damaged the ritual circle and that this will, in turn, damage the ritual but no such luck, the pain seems well settled.

Jerome's leg is broken, It is bent at almost right angles. I can see blood and bone glinting through the blood.

He sees me and I can see the most dreaded of things in his gaze.

I see pity

"This is not your fault." He says to me, "Not your fault Freddie, stay strong and…"

And Sam hit him. Jerome laughs again, he is paler now from the blood loss. Sam will need to kill him quickly to beat the blood loss.

"I will pray for you, fool," Jerome tells him before turning back to me.

"Not your fau…" He tried again before Sam drove his blade into Jerome's throat, cutting off his words with the bubbling blood.

In an effort of will that would almost be considered superhuman. Jerome pushes himself to his knees, an action that must have been agony. He meets my gaze, winks and then gifts his gaze to the heavens in an attitude of prayer, thus opening his throat wound further.

My chest almost bursts with pride. That was a staggering act of bravery.

"Well, Freddie?" Sam asks. "What do you think?"

I shake my head,

"That was a great man," I tell him. "You cheapen the world by killing him and the Eternal Fire burns that bit brighter for his presence."

Sam cackles, mistaking my tears of pride for tears of pain and fear before turning away.

"Fetch the scribe," Sam tells one of the guards.

I look over at Trystan who looks appalled. I had managed to steal a glance at him during the death of Jerome. He had started to look horrified when Sam threatened their men with death. The thoughtless threat that villains make in stories and Sam gave that speech to someone.

"He's killing priests now Trystan," I call to him. "Priests of the Eternal Flame."

"For Redania." Sam growls.

Trystan looks at me, looks at Sam again and stiffens to an even firmer form of attention.

I think I have just seen part of a man's soul die.

I have a new duty now. I must bear witness to the deaths of these good men and women, but I must also remain strong for them. I might be the last friendly face that they see and I need them to look and see that they have a friend, even at this last moment.

They bring Johann out. My poor clerk. I met him when he was just joining the university at the age of sixteen. I found him when…

Poor Johann. He looks half-dead as it is.

At some point, Johann's mind has just snapped and he wanders into the room, pushed by two of the guards. They barely need to steer him as he moves in the same kind of bewildered daze that Mark was moving in. He blinks at the sight around him, not comprehending or taking it in.

He looks sick, his skin is pale with a green tinge to it and even though it is warm in here, he is sweating profusely. Every so often, as he moves deeper into the room, his legs give way and one of the guards has to catch him. My heart aches as I look at him and I feel…

I feel appalled.

If I had just left him in the gutter where I had found him, then maybe he would have survived this. The Eternal Flame only knows where he would be now, hopefully, he would have been married to some beautiful woman who would appreciate him for his mind rather than the amount of wealth that he didn't have.

But instead, he is going to die in one of the cellars of Coulthard castle.

I would weep but I don't have anything left to weep.

The guard passes Johann over the lines of metal and paint to Sam who brings him around to face me.

Johann behaves like some kind of dog following his master. I am getting the feeling that Sam wants to cause him some pain to torment me that little bit more, my torment providing him with some more power for his sick and twisted…

But every time Sam tries to cause him pain to get Johann to do something, Johann just meekly does what he is told.

Sam is trying to speak to me. Trying to tell me that this is all my fault. Trying to tell me that I did all of this. It is a small measure of vengeance to ignore him now and I don't care if he reads this and becomes enraged.

Fuck you, Sam.

Johann looks immeasurably tired, wide eyes blinking in the torchlight. His hair has thinned since his captivity. There are vomit, blood and sweat stains on the shirt that they gave him when it was first decided that he and I needed looking after. There are other stains as well but I don't want to think about what they are.

Sam realises that there is nothing that he can do to make this worse for either him or me.

"Do you have any last words for your young protege?" He asks me. The mocking overtones in his voice are gone. I look up at him for a moment. Sam seems calm, his eyes and hands seem steady.

I look back down at Johann and I can see nothing of the boy I knew and the man that he was becoming in the figure before me.

"I am proud," I told him. "And I am sorry."

Johann didn't take it in.

Sam slit his throat quickly. I think that even he is realising that there is little point in prolonging this. That Johann is just a shell of a person now.

For a while, my clerk's eyes widen in fear and shock at the sudden pain but there is so little holding him to life now that he soon collapses forwards. I put everything I have into holding his gaze for as long as I can. He must take that with him. He must know that there was someone here for him at the end of things. Eventually, I see that light of life leave Johann's eyes and I finally allow my eyes to look away.

"Children," I said. "You are killing children for this."

I heard, rather than saw, Trystan's weight shifting and Sam's eyes briefly flickered towards the knight.

"For Redania," Sam says again.

"If Redania needs this to survive," I tell him. "Then it doesn't deserve to continue as a nation."

Sam ignores that. He was already turning away from me as I finished speaking.

I met Johann in the street, that first winter back from the path with Kerrass. I had parted ways with Kerrass on the docks from Novigrad and taken a barge up the river to get to Oxenfurt. I had been about a week back into the city when I was wandering the streets of Oxenfurt, trying to regain the old feeling I had of the place. I felt lost and out of touch with it all. Looking back it is easy to admit that I was trying to recapture what I had had when I was younger but I had had some of my naivete burnt off me when I was on the path.

Still recovering from the incident at Amber's crossing, I was still estranged from my family and as such, going to talk it all out with Emma was not possible. So instead, I got back, and secured myself some off-campus lodgings and all but got to work with doing everything that I could. It soon became clear that I was not going to make it as there was simply not enough time for me to get it all done. Not just the leftover chapters of the journal that was growing in popularity at the time, but also the academic texts and essays that my professors wanted to have done.

I remember that I was feeling as though I was drowning under the expectations of everything that was going on and had decided that sitting in my rooms, straining at the paper in front of me was not going to get the work done. So I went for a walk. I intended to get something to eat and something to drink and if I was feeling particularly adventurous, to see if any women might be willing to help me with my frustrations.

Instead, I found a broken-hearted Johann, weeping into the gutter and getting dangerously close to freezing to death.

I exaggerate of course.

We spoke and it was clear that he was suffering from some kind of catastrophe of the romantic variety and didn't know how to deal with it. I remember feeling very smug and superior as I gave him some advice and gently mocked him for his actions. The root of the problem was that he didn't have enough money to keep the girl in the manner to which she expected despite Johann's brilliant mind. And so he had found her in the arms of another man.

I told him I could relate which is possibly the worst thing that I could have said. But in turn, he needed money and it occurred to me, in one of those moments of vodka fuelled insight, that I needed a scribe. I could work much faster if I used shorthand and then he could have a pile of things that he could work on while I headed off back on the path.

He did quite well out of me. He was doing quite well with me and intended to emulate me a bit. He was intending to do for mages what I had done for Witchers in that he was writing to some of them in an attempt to write what mages get up to so that the world could lose some of their fear of that profession.

It was a good idea and I had offered to make some introductions but Johann wanted to do this himself on his own merits.

That and I think he rather found some of the Sorceresses I know to be rather intimidating.

Now he is dead. Fevered, terrified, sick and injured. And at the last, his throat was slit by the man that used to be my brother.

Flame, what a life we lead.

Sam is frowning while he waits for whichever death is going to torment me next. He keeps looking at his hands and flexing them. I think he is pleased by whatever it is that he is seeing.

Periodically, there are still people rushing in to tell Trystan this or that. He has given up trying to get Sam to interact with whatever it is that is going on in the castle itself and is instead, just watching with hollowed eyes. I strain to hear what is being said. Maybe there is some hope there. Maybe there is something else going on.

Maybe.

But in the meantime, nothing is happening and the world becomes that much sadder and bleaker as time goes on.

I feel wretched.

The next victim appears to be…

Well, there it is.

Sir Robart is brought into the hall. I barely recognised him.

I have no idea how long it has been since I last saw him, whimpering on the floor of the room where Sam had brought him to me so that I could slit his throat or otherwise torture him to death. It could be days or it could be months, most likely is the probability that it is weeks. Long enough that I could be infected by the injuries that I incurred that day but also long enough that Laurelen could visit me often enough to keep the infection at bay.

Flame but looks dreadful.

Physically he is still the same except now I can see some of the vanities that he used to take on have fallen away. It is now perfectly clear that he was going bald and that creative comb work had been used to cover it up. His moustache, lacking in wax, hangs limply and pathetically off his face.

It is not funny. I don't feel any kind of triumph or amusement at this state of affairs.

There is some pity there I suppose. Some pity, a certain amount of remorse.

And disgust. I am disgusted by this display.

Does Sam think that I will be tormented by this death? I might be. It is certainly possible that I might be. But the torment will come from the cruelty in Sam's actions. Not in the man himself.

Just as Johann was broken and he wasn't really at home inside his head, something similar has happened to Robart.

I know for a fact that Robart is a trained warrior. I know that Rickard and Kerrass both declared that he was a good duellist and both declared, much to my astonishment, that I would be able to fight him. But I know that he is a trained swordsman. I can say that at least.

But he is not acting like it. He is acting like a frightened animal. Or a frightened child.

He is struggling, thrashing about, flailing around like a crazed beast. Pulling at the implacable arms that hold him and straining against the grips that contain him.

He is weeping, sobbing openly and loudly. My sister would once have described what he was doing as 'ugly crying'. I don't feel any kind of victory at this. I feel pity for him and disgust for those people that are putting him through this.

This is awful.

He could do so much more. His feet are unbound so he could kick out at the knees of his guards to get them to buckle. His hands are unbound so he could twist his hands. He might not completely get rid of the grip but he could weaken it to get something else done. His head is still free. He could use that as a battering ram.

But he is not. He is insensible in fear.

There are words in his sobbing. I can hear them now. I had mistaken them for the wails of a broken man but that is not…

"This can't be happening." He keeps telling himself.

Again, there is no prolonging this death. The guards pass Robart over the lines and again, I get to see Sam's burgeoning strength. Despite Robart's straining and pulling, Sam is barely noticing the effort that is being extended. He just holds Robart easily. His hands and arm are barely moving. The only adjustment that he makes is to twist Robart's arm behind his back. Not out of necessity, but more out of a generalised need to make life easier for himself.

Using the twisted arm, Sam manoeuvres Robart until he is standing in front of me.

"This killing could have been yours, Freddie," Sam tells me.

If he thinks that this is a torment, he is sorely mistaken.

I try and catch Robart's eyes but he is panicking, his eyes everywhere.

This time Sam doesn't cut his throat. Instead, he stabs Robart somewhere in the back. Wherever he stabbed him, it did not lead to a quick death or a painless one.

Robart continued to stand out of reflex, his hands trying to reach behind him to locate the injury. Then the horror of realisation happened. The moment where the shock kind of seems to wear off and the agony hits you like a wave.

He screamed. Then he drew in another breath and screamed again and again.

But he couldn't draw breath for another scream.

At first, he staggered, then he fell, trying to move as though he could escape the agony that he was in. As if the agony was an object that he could flee rather than something that was happening directly to him.

This death is lasting ages. I have no idea where it was that Sam stabbed him, but it is awful.

Robart is lying on his side now, his legs kicking so that he keeps moving in a circle.

"Oh end it for him, Sam," I yell. "For pity's sake, put him out of his misery."

Sam is surprised but leans over, grabbing Robart by the hair.

"That was for trying to kill my brother you piece of filth," he hisses into Robart's face. "And as you die and move into the next world, remember that it was only by his mercy that you die now. I would have watched you die for hours."

Then Sam cut Robart's throat.

And an enemy dies, gasping for breath, still disbelieving what is happening to him.

Sam stands over the body for a handful of moments before bending and wiping his dagger clean on some of Robart's clothing.

"It could have been you that did that Freddie," he told me. "You could have been the one that killed your enemy, our enemy even. You could have been the one to destroy Robart de Radford."

"Some," I begin thickly before clearing my throat, "would suggest that I already did."

Sam grunts before looking down. "There are always going to be people like him," he says. "Men, and women too, who think that they deserve what they have in life. They think that they deserve their power and their status. But when people like you and I work so hard to get to where we are now, they look down on us. That was among the root fears of the cult of the First-Born. They feared those of us that came second, we were against their idea that the firstborn sons were the best so they fear and hate us."

"Careful Sam," I tell him. "Careful that you don't turn into what you hate."

He looks at me with genuine curiosity so I answer his unspoken question.

"We, you and I, were given most of the things that we have. Wealth, status, power, and rank. All of that was given on the back of Father's, and Grandfather's efforts. If we had been born common, would you have been able to join the army at the rank that you had? Would I have been able to have the time to be educated and travel after a Witcher, making friends and falling in love? Just like they did, we stand on the shoulders of our Fathers. And you already feel as though you are entitled to more over those others who feel the same as us. You tell them that they haven't worked as hard as we have. But what have we honestly worked for? We got to do the things that we do because of our wealth and family. Just as they get to do the things that they do because of their wealth and family.

"You are right, there will always be people like them. But we need to guard ourselves to make sure that we do not become them."

Sam nodded as he considered my words.

"It is a good argument," he decides after a while. "And you are not wrong. But should we not enjoy the fruits of Father's labours?"

"Should they not enjoy the fruits of their ancestor's labours?" I counter.

"So how do we…?"

"Lord Samuel," Sir Trystan speaks up. "Although I am also interested in this debate and where it is going, perhaps it would be better served if it took place after the ritual is complete?"

Sam laughs and gestures to Trystan.

"He is afraid," he tells me.

"He is not the only one." I reply.

Sam smirks at that before turning to the guards.

"Tell Kristoff that it is time for his vengeance," he orders.

I see movement out of the corner of my eyes and I can visibly see Trystan beginning to panic. He clears his throat.

"My Lord," he stops and starts again. "My lord Samuel, Sir Kristoff is currently preparing for the coming attack, surely he would be better off being kept in that…"

As he is speaking, Sam gestures at Trystan with a look of fury on his face. Ariadne appears in front of him and backhands the Knight across the face.

I don't think she does it particularly hard given that Trystan's head stays on his shoulders. Nor does he fall down or lose consciousness. Instead, he winces backwards. Three lines appear on his face, black lines that are starting to leak blood.

"I am well aware of the situation." Sam's voice is icy cold. "Just as I know that the true battle is in here, not out there. And it was you that suggested minimising…"

He stops and clamps his jaws shut over whatever he was going to say next.

"If you feel the need to go above ground to take Kristoff's place then you are more than welcome to. I made a promise to Kristoff and that promise will be fulfilled. Just as my promise to every other man under my command."

Trystan nodded. I longed for him to rebel. I almost thirsted for him to do it. Instead, he lifted his hand to the wounds on his face and examined the blood on his hands. Then he took a cloth from a pouch and dabbed at the wound.

I want to curse him and I want to cheer for him at the same time. I want him to rebel so that we can get out of here but also, I was doing well in keeping Sam talking before Trystan interrupted. And it seems even more likely that what I need to do at the moment is play for time.

Coming attack. Sam is content to wait behind walls which mean that the coming attack is large. Yes, there is the ritual to take into account which means that Sam has to protect his home base. But at the same time, military sense would say to meet on a field of your choice in case of defeat so that you have somewhere that you can retreat to. With a siege, if you lose you lose big.

Father always boasted that Coulthard castle could withstand a siege of immense numerical disparity. He had spent a fortune in turning the once dilapidated castle into a vision of modern siege engineering. I have seen experienced ]military commanders blanche and turn white when they saw it. Father used to enjoy that game and would regularly invite his social enemies to come and witness his siege crews train.

Wait… Something is happening…

Oh no.

.

.

And…

And another friend died.

The cruellest of all things is hope. If my torment is the thing that is powering Sam's rituals now then I just gave him a lot of power.

The news that there is an attack coming. For the first time since the night that I sat down to dinner with my friends and family on the night of the Autumnal Equinox, the news that there was some kind of attack coming gave me the hope that this might all be over. There might be someone coming, to rescue, relief or whatever.

But it is not coming. Hope is the deadliest thing. It is the hope that will get you killed.

Sam is literally swelling before my eyes now. His eyes glow with a pale blue light. It's as though there is a light shining behind them so that the blue irises radiate that pale blue.

He used to have nice brown eyes.

His muscles swell and he has grown by a foot. He is powerful in his gestures and he cannot stop laughing. He is giggling as he examines his hands and his arms.

But I can barely think of any of that because of the broken corpse that lies at his feet.

My friend, Rickard Greencloak. Knight and … comrade.

Kristoff had to come through a different door. Sam is now Seven feet tall if he's an inch but Kristoff is a grotesque shape. He is more of a living suit of armour now although I could see the same pale blue light shining from behind the visor. His voice was metallic and grating and even despite the weight of his armour which must weigh…

I could see from his shoulder pieces that the metal is inches thick and he is wearing chain mail underneath that. He has a sword on his waist that would be a great sword in anyone else's hands and his dagger is a long sword.

He came in dragging Rickard behind him.

Rickard was laughing.

My friend was in a state. Like Johann, he was obviously injured and sick. He was sweating with a fever, his skull was stark in his face and his muscles were wasting away. How he had the strength that he did, I will never know.

He was missing an arm outright.

Archer and runner. He would never do either again.

And yet, despite all of that, he was laughing as Kristoff dragged him in. He was a feral beast of a man. Almost the opposite end from what Robart had managed to do. Despite his injuries. Rickard was trying to fight, with words and with his feet. I saw him try and get his feet under him to kick Kristoff in the back of the knee twice but the first time, he was pulled off balance by a determined and frustrated tug from Kristoff, and the second time, he might as well have been trying to kick some kind of metal post.

Kristoff towered over everyone in the room and ignored Rickard's insults.

"So let me get this straight." Rickard was saying. "You have to maim me, make me sick, feed me swill and you still need to get yourself magically augmented before you will fight me?"

He laughed and I have never been more proud of a man than at that moment.

"Well, what's this then?" He demanded as he was pulled into the room and looked around himself. "Is this where you fucks all manically suck each other's cocks, is it. Hello Freddie. You look worse than I do."

"Rickard," I said, not trusting my voice to steady.

"Not to worry Freddie." He tried to kick out at Kristoff again who just ignored him this time. "You introduced me to Shani and for that, I will always be grateful. Tell her I…"

Kristoff cuffed him and he fell, spilling blood and teeth from his face.

"Careful Kristoff." Sam said. "We don't want to hurt him too much."

"Yeah," Rickard said, coming up from the floor laughing maniacally. "Careful Kristoff. Don't hurt me too much. And don't damage my mouth too much either. I would imagine it will be really hard for me to suck your dicks if you break my jaw."

He spat blood and splintered teeth onto Kristoff's armour.

"Tell her I love her Freddie." He told me and then he screamed in agony as Kristoff wrapped his gauntleted hands around Rickard's neck and lifted him to eye level.

I remember that sensation. I remember when the Elder did this to me. I remember straining and tearing my hands to try and lessen the grip and for a moment, I am back in that cavern and clawing at the impossible grip.

Rickard is doing the same as he dangles from Kristoff's gauntleted hand.

"I am going to enjoy watching you die. I will enjoy knowing that your filthy, treacherous soul will fuel our assent. I will enjoy knowing that you die in torment." Kristoff's voice is like metal grating across stone, but I can still recognise the man beneath the hate.

Kristoff tosses Rickard into the circle at Sam's feet. Rickard hit one of the bodies that were already there which softened the landing a bit and rolled onto his back.

He heaved himself up, gasping for breath.

"Although," he gasped. "You should all know, that I always had an interesting reaction to gagging," he tells the room. "I tend to bite hard down and lock my jaw. One of the gang leaders on the streets of Vizima found that out. Sammy the Eunuch we called him after that."

Sam reached over and lifted Rickard up by the hair.

"Oh, hello Sammy." Rickard said before spitting more blood. "Didn't see you there."

Sam reflexively let go and Rickard howled with laughter as he fell back. He looked up and saw Trystan. "Hello to you too Trystan," he said jovially. "I always thought better of you than this."

Trystan turned away and lifted his hand to his eyes. I wondered how they knew each other.

Sam reached forward and grabbed Rickard by the hair, pulling Rickard to his feet before tilting Rickard's face to meet his own.

"Give us a kiss will ya?" Rickard's accent deepened a little at the last.

"No," Sam said, "I'm going to kill you."

Rickard shook his head and grimaced.

"I never liked you." Rickard said.

"That's a shame." Sam replied. "You were amongst the finest soldiers I ever saw. I always hoped that we could be friends."

Then he plunged his dagger into Rickard's belly before ripping it up and letting go.

The awful smell of torn innards was instant and all-consuming. Rickard fell and looked at the pile of innards that fell out of his belly.

"They always say that it looks like sausages," he whimpered. "But I disagree, it looks like torn offal."

He laughed at his own joke before the pain struck him and he groaned.

"Freddie?" He called.

"I'm here Rickard."

"I loved you like a brother Freddie." His voice was getting shrill as he fell and curled around his wound.

"I loved you too Rickard." My voice is not as strong as I wanted it to be.

"Tell Shani I love her and that my last thoughts were of her."

"I will."

"And tell her that I died quick, that there was nothing that even she could have done to save me if she had been here."

"She will know that I am lying." I try and tell him, trying for a joke.

He laughed through the pain.

"She will, but tell her anyway. And don't stop loving your Spider-woman." He screeched. "She's done her best and we all… Oh, Kreve it hurts."

"I know Rickard and it won't…"

But he was dead.

Sam was watching me. I could see it in his face. He wanted rage. He wanted outrage and screaming and dramatic demonstrations of my pain.

I did none of those things. Instead, I spat at his feet and turned my head as far away as I could. But I could not stop the tears from falling.

My tears are still falling at the sound of Sam's laughter.

Kristoff peers closely at the body of his now-dead enemy before his huge head nods. I have no idea what he is thinking or what is going on inside that head of his but I rather fancy that he enjoyed that.

He turns to leave.

"Well Sam," I wonder. "Is that enough do you think? Is that enough to slake the thirst of your stupid God?"

"It's never enough Freddie." Sam tells me. "You know that. It will never be enough until he escapes his prison. But I have to be sure."

"How many more people are you going to kill?" I ask. "How many more… There are not that many more that you can kill that will torment me to your satisfaction. Even now they are beginning to blur together."

"Just any death will do." Sam tells me. "Even if I just kill random servants that will do. You are soft-hearted brother. You must learn to harden your heart against the pull of compassion. It is not good for you. You need to be strong in the face of it, otherwise, you will always be weeping. Everywhere you look there will be injustice and hatred. You cannot avoid it. Therefore, you must harden your heart or you will always be weeping."

"I would rather be always weeping." I told him. "And being without compassion does not make you strong. Compassion can fuel you, it can drive you to far greater lengths than Hatred can. Do you know why?"

"I feel sure that you are going to tell me." Sam replied with a smirk.

"Because compassion is selfless while hatred is selfish." I told him.

"Ah but Freddie, I hate the Nilfgaardians and those that took our victory from us. But I do not do what I am doing out of selfishness, I do it out of love for Redania and its people."

"Do you?" I wondered. "Or do you do it so that you can get the credit for something? Do you do it because you are tired of living in the shadows? Are you tired of having people supersede you? Well, you have the credit now. You are going to have the credit of being the blackest heretic that the North has ever seen. Whichever side wins, you have done that. By the time they are done, the church will have made a saint of Mother and Mark where your name is going to be stripped from the history books."

"No," he told me. "It won't because you are going to write that history book." I had struck a nerve.

"With what, Sam? I am dying. I can feel it, the infection is going to spread. You have already told me that you are going to heal me. You told me that… You told me that you were going to make everything right but you've killed so many people that I love. What could I possibly…?"

I had to take a moment to breathe and recover some equilibrium.

"What could you possibly do, what could you possibly give me to not describe you as the horrific murderer that you are? What could possibly be the alternative?"

"I am going to heal you Freddie." he told me, "but first I need more power."

He gestured and a pair of the guards left and I bent over to write about the last moments of Rickard's life and the small argument that I had with Sam afterwards. The argument that I lost.

I want this all to be over now. But I have no power here. All I can do is watch and note down the things that I see and the things that I can watch Sam doing. I hate it.

I do not have the leverage to get the quill of the pen into anything vital of my own so I can't even remove myself from the situation.

As Sam ordered, a serving girl is brought in. I say girl but she is older than me. Her name is Sevra and I think she works with linen. She is a big woman and I believe that she was married to one of the guards. She has smile lines in the corner of her eyes.

She tries so very hard to be brave but Sam holds her so that I can see her face before he cuts her throat.

The next man is a trading factor of Emma's he will have been present at the feast on the night of the Equinox. He is a thin man that I didn't know before that night and it's doubtful that I would have remembered his name otherwise. He also tries to be brave but he begs Sam to kill him quickly.

His name was Derrick.

A third girl is brought. This one is another kitchen assistant…

Something is happening.

The guards brought the girl in and passed her to Sam over the circles of Metal and paint. Sam took her, holding her by the hair, placing his boot in the back of their knee so that she fell to her knees with a yelp of pain. But something is different.

Another guard came in and there is something different about him. He seems calmer somehow and he walks into the room with a more assured gaze. I notice him first as he reaches Trystan and passes over a piece of paper.

The movement that I noticed was that he saluted before passing the message over. Something that no other messenger has done before.

Trystan acknowledged the salute before carefully opening the paper and reading it.

The guard stepped backwards. Nearby, but out of sight. Like all good guards and servants do. But there is something about it.

Sam looks over at Trystan, the blade poised ready to kill the weeping girl.

Trystan is still reading.

It would seem that the message is much larger than the others.

"What is it?" Sam asks.

Trystan looks at me significantly before returning his gaze to Sam.

"Oh hang it all," Sam swears and cuts the girl's throat. He has been in a habit of telling me who his victims are so that the torment can be that much more exquisite, but this time he did so without telling me her name.

She falls, bleeding onto the stone floor, her dead eyes looking at me accusingly.

They are all doing that, those that I can see anyway. Even those that are beginning to film over.

"Don't mind him." Sam gestures at me with the dagger. "What does the message say?"

Trystan looks back down at the paper.

"Sir Kristoff begs to report," he clears his throat and starts again. "Sir Kristoff begs to report that the army of the enemy has arrived at our gate."

Sam shrugs and turns to gesture to the guards for another victim.

"What we didn't know was how many of them?" Trystan says.

Sam stops and turns back to Trystan.

"There is a full Nilfgaardian army that has invested us," Trystan says. "We are surrounded."

For a moment, Sam looks worried but then the mask settles back over him while Trystan continues to speak.

"Kristoff has seen the banners of the Queen of Skellige, The Empress of Nilfgaard, the Queen Regent of Redania and the Queen of Temeria. There are also banners of the Eternal Flame, Kreve and…"

Sam nodded before tugging at his lip in thought before sniggering.

"Interesting order that he listed those in." He said before shrugging. "It will take them some time to properly invest and prepare a siege. We have time to further empower the ritual. Tell Kristoff to play for time."

"According to this, he is." Trystan waves the paper at his master. He is frightened. "The heralds of the enemy are already riding towards us. Kristoff thinks that the enemy army was hidden by some magic."

Sam sighs, becoming frustrated.

"Of course, that was going to be the case. The Lodge of Sorceresses and the Council of mages would want to ingratiate themselves with their Empress. This is nothing to worry about. I have already erected a shield of The God, our troops are already worth any ten of theirs on the field let alone behind our walls. We can hold off until we are ready. We have time to further empower…"

"My Lord…" Trystan argues. "The men need to see their commander. We need to start this off with a victory. Our men are new to all of this and their fear of magic is making us shaky, very shaky."

"Do you doubt my power?" Sam thunders.

I have regularly stated that cliches exist for a reason and Sam has just given in to another one.

"No," Trystan carefully sets the paper aside. "No, I don't. But I've already seen you withstand a dagger blow that would have killed me. You are stronger and more powerful and I do not doubt your power. But the men under our command do and…"

"Bring me the man that doubts." Sam's rage is suddenly huge.

"You and I both know that soldiers are superstitious." Trystan tries. "And even augmented, they know of the power of the Lodge of Sorceresses. They saw them in battle during the wars just as they saw the power of the South in the wars. But they do not know your power. Show them."

Sam nods in thought and I wonder if this might be it. I cannot help but admit that my heart surged at the idea that there might be an attack soon. Even though I am well aware of how long a siege can take and I know that Father always took pride in…

Emma also kept up that tradition and we were already well provisioned and…

The guard is moving.

Why is he moving? He should be standing next to Trystan waiting for further orders. Slow movements, steady. He is…

He's moving around the circle. Where is he moving to?

And why do I feel as though I recognise him?

I must stay calm, I must stay calm. What's the guard doing? He is at the furthest point away from me that the room allows.

Sam and Trystan are still arguing. Trystan wants Sam to leave the circle and show the troops.

The guard moves. Flame he's fast.

Steel flashes.

Sam looks down at his side as the leather bag tears apart. Bones clatter onto the floor.

Ariadne screams. It's horrible. Rage, horror and pain so soul deep that I cannot fathom it.

The guard spins and the blade flashes again as it…

It lands in the chair at my wrists and glory of glory, I feel the ropes loosen. Not much but some is more than none.

The guard spins and gestures. Sparks shoot from his hand scorching the painted circle and the guard rolls away.

He is coming to his feet, still inside the circle of steel.

He is taking his helm off and letting it fall at his side. The uniform he wears is likewise quickly discarded and I see his face for the first time.

But that… can't be right. I am seeing things. The atmosphere is getting to me. Finally, finally, I am slipping into madness. Finally, I can take refuge in…

The guard, no… the Witcher, laughs as he picks up his own sword of steel and twirls it around the air, making the blade sing.

It's not possible. I saw him die.

Kerrass?

(A/N: So that's part one. That cliffhanger has been years in the making so… sorry not sorry. The spell/grammar check has been done on the next bit so all there is to do is to do the last read-through before posting. Should be tomorrow or maybe over the weekend at the absolute latest. Please be careful about spoilers in comments and reviews, but other than that, enjoy. Thanks for reading)