'It's a pleasure. A bit closer if you please, Ciri.'
'It's nothing.'
'I want to see what 'nothing' looks like. Ah, that's what I thought. 'Nothing' looks remarkably like torn trousers and skin grazed down to raw flesh. Stand still and don't be scared.'
'I'm not scared… Awww!'
The magician laughed and rubbed her palm, itching from casting the spell, against her hip. The girl bent over and gazed at her knee.
'Oooh,' she said. 'It doesn't hurt any more! And there's no hole… Was that magic?'
'You've guessed it.'
'Are you a witch?'
'Guessed again. Although I prefer to be called an enchantress. To avoid getting it wrong you can call me by my name, Triss. Just Triss. Come on, Ciri. My horse is waiting at the bottom. We'll go to Kaer Morhen together.'
'I ought to run.' Ciri shook her head. 'It's not good to stop running because you get milk in your muscles. Geralt says-'
'Geralt is at the keep?'
Ciri frowned, pinched her lips together and shot a glance at the enchantress from beneath her ashen fringe. Triss chuckled again.
'All right,' she said. 'I won't ask. A secret's a secret, and you're right not to disclose it to someone you hardly know. Come on. When we get there we'll see who's at the castle and who isn't. And
don't worry about your muscles – I know what to do about lactic acid. Ah, here's my mount. I'll help you…'
She stretched out her hand, but Ciri didn't need any help. She jumped agilely into the saddle, lightly, almost without taking off. The gelding started, surprised, and stamped, but the girl quickly took up the reins and reassured it.
'You know how to handle a horse, I see.'
'I can handle anything.'
'Move up towards the pommel.' Triss slipped her foot into the stirrup and caught hold of the mane. 'Make a bit of room for me. And don't poke my eye out with that sword.'
The gelding, spurred on by her heels, moved off along the stream bed at a walking pace. They rode across another gully and climbed the rounded mountainside. From there they could see the ruins of Kaer Morhen huddled against the stone precipices – the partially demolished trapezium of the defensive wall, the remains of the barbican and gate, the thick, blunt column of the donjon.
The gelding snorted and jerked its head, crossing what remained of the bridge over the moat. Triss tugged at the reins. The decaying skulls and skeletons strewn across the river bed made no impression on her. She had seen them before.
'I don't like this,' the girl suddenly remarked. 'It's not as it should be. The dead should to be buried in the ground. Under a barrow. Shouldn't they?'
'They should,' the magician agreed calmly. 'I think so, too. But the witchers treat this graveyard as a… reminder.'
'Reminder of what?'
'Kaer Morhen,' Triss said as she guided the horse towards the shattered arcades, 'was assaulted. There was a bloody battle here in which almost all the witchers died. Only those who weren't in the keep at the time survived.'
'Who attacked them? And why?'
'I don't know,' she lied. 'It was a terribly long time ago, Ciri. Ask the witchers about it.'
'I have,' grunted the girl. 'But they didn't want to tell me.'
I can understand that, thought the magician. A child trained to be a witcher, a girl, at that, who has not undergone the mutations, should not be told such things. A child like that should not hear about the massacre. A child like that should not be terrified by the prospect that they too may one day hear words describing it like those which were screamed by the fanatics who marched on Kaer Morhen long ago. Mutant. Monster. Freak. Damned by the gods, a creature contrary to nature. No, I do not blame the witchers for not telling you about it, little Ciri. And I shan't tell you either. I have even more reason to be silent. Because I am a wizard, and without the aid of wizards those fanatics would never have conquered the castle. And that hideous lampoon, that widely distributed Monstrum which stirred the fanatics up and drove them to such wickedness was also, apparently, some wizard's anonymous work. But I, little Ciri, do not recognise collective responsibility, I do not feel the need to expiate the events which took place half a century before my birth. And the skeletons which are meant to serve as an eternal reminder will ultimately rot away completely, disintegrate into dust and be forgotten, will disappear with the wind which constantly whips the mountainside…
'They don't want to lie like that,' said Ciri suddenly. 'They don't want to be a symbol, a bad conscience or a warning. But neither do they want their dust to be swept away by the wind.'
Triss raised her head, hearing a change in the girl's voice. Immediately she sensed a magical aura, a pulsating and a rush of blood in her temples. She grew tense but did not utter a word, afraid of breaking into or disrupting what was happening.
'An ordinary barrow.' Ciri's voice was becoming more and more unnatural, metallic, cold and menacing. 'A mound of earth which will be overgrown with nettles. Death has cold blue eyes, and the height of the obelisk does not matter, nor does the writing engraved on it matter. Who can know that better than you, Triss Merigold, the Fourteenth One of the Hill?'
The enchantress froze. She saw the girl's hands clench the horse's mane.
'You died on the Hill, Triss Merigold.' The strange, evil voice spoke again. 'Why have you come here? Go back, go back at once and take this child, the Child of Elder Blood, with you. Return her to those to whom she belongs. Do this, Fourteenth One. Because if you do not you will die once more. The day will come when the Hill will claim you. The mass grave, and the obelisk on which your name is engraved, will claim you.'
The gelding neighed loudly, tossing its head. Ciri jerked suddenly, shuddered.
'What happened?' asked Triss, trying to control her voice.
Ciri coughed, passed both hands through her hair and rubbed her face.
'Nn… nothing…' she muttered hesitantly. 'I'm tired, that's why… That's why I fell asleep. I ought to run…'
The magical aura disappeared. Triss experienced a sudden cold wave sweep through her entire body. She tried to convince herself it was the effect of the defensive spell dying away, but she knew that wasn't true. She glanced up at the stone blocks of the castle, the black, empty eye-sockets of its ruined loop-holes gaping at her. A shudder ran through her.
The horse's shoes rang against the slabs in the courtyard. The magician quickly leaped from the saddle and held out her hand to Ciri. Taking advantage of the touch of their hands she carefully emitted a magical impulse. And was astounded. Because she didn't feel anything. No reaction, no reply. And no resistance. In the girl who had, just a moment ago, manifested an exceptionally strong aura there was not a trace of magic. She was now an ordinary, badly dressed child whose hair had been incompetently cut.
But a moment ago, this child had been no ordinary child.
Triss did not have time to ponder the strange event. The grate of an iron-clad door reached her, coming from the dark void of the corridor which gaped behind the battered portal. She slipped the fur cape from her shoulders, removed her fox-fur hat and, with a swift movement of the head, tousled her hair – long, full locks the colour of fresh chestnuts, with a sheen of gold, her pride and identifying characteristic.
Ciri sighed with admiration. Triss smiled, pleased by the effect she'd had. Beautiful, long, loose hair was a rarity, an indication of a woman's position, her status, the sign of a free woman, a woman
who belonged to herself. The sign of an unusual woman – because 'normal' maidens wore their hair in plaits, 'normal' married women hid theirs beneath a caul or a coif. Women of high birth, including queens, curled their hair and styled it. Warriors cut it short. Only druids and magicians – and whores – wore their hair naturally so as to emphasise their independence and freedom.
The witchers appeared unexpectedly and silently, as usual, and, also as usual, from nowhere. They stood before her, tall, slim, their arms crossed, the weight of their bodies on their left legs – a position from which, she
