'She remembered nothing. And we didn't ask her any questions.'
'Quite so. As to the prophecy… Was it specific? Detailed?'
'No.' Geralt looked her straight in the eyes. 'Confused. Don't ask about it, Triss. We are not worried by the contents of Ciri's prophecies and ravings but about what happens to her. We're not afraid for ourselves but-'
'Careful,' warned Vesemir. 'Don't talk about it in front of her.'
Coen approached the table carrying the girl piggy-back.
'Wish everybody goodnight, Ciri,' he said. 'Say goodnight to those night owls. We're going to sleep. It's nearly midnight. In a minute it'll be the end of Midinvaerne. As of tomorrow, every day brings spring closer!'
'I'm thirsty.' Ciri slipped off his back and reached for Eskel's chalice. Eskel deftly moved the vessel beyond her reach and grabbed a jug of water. Triss stood quickly.
'Here you are.' She gave her half-full chalice to the girl while meaningfully squeezing Geralt's arm and looking Vesemir in the eye. 'Drink.'
'Triss,' whispered Eskel, watching Ciri drink greedily, 'what are you doing? It's-'
'Not a word, please.'
They did not have to wait long for it to take effect. Ciri suddenly grew rigid, cried out, and smiled a broad, happy smile. She squeezed her eyelids shut and stretched out her arms. She laughed, spun a pirouette and danced on tiptoes. Lambert moved the stool away in a flash, leaving Coen standing between the dancing girl and the hearth.
Triss jumped up and tore an amulet from her pouch – a sapphire
set in silver on a thin chain. She squeezed it tightly in her hand.
'Child…' groaned Vesemir. 'What are you doing?'
'I know what I'm doing,' she said sharply. 'Ciri has fallen into a trance and I am going to contact her psychically. I am going to enter her. I told you, she is something like a magical transmitter -I've got to know what she is transmitting, how, and from where she is drawing the aura, how she is transforming it. It's Midinvaerne, a favourable night for such an undertaking…'
'I don't like it.' Geralt frowned. 'I don't like it at all.'
'Should either of us suffer an epileptic fit,' the magician said ignoring his words, 'you know what to do. A stick between our teeth, hold us down, wait for it to pass. Chin up, boys. I've done this before.'
Ciri ceased dancing, sank to her knees, extended her arms and rested her head on her lap. Triss pressed the now warm amulet to her temple and murmured the formula of a spell. She closed her eyes, concentrated her willpower and gave out a burst of magic.
The sea roared, waves thundered against the rocky shore and exploded in high geysers amidst the boulders. She flapped her wings, chasing the salty wind. Indescribably happy, she dived, caught up with a flock of her companions, brushed the crests of the waves with her claws, soared into the sky again, shedding water droplets, and glided, tossed by the gale whistling through her pinfeathers. Force of suggestion, she thought soberly. It is only force of suggestion. Seagull!
Triiiss! Triiss!
Ciri? Where are you?
Triiiss!
The cry of the seagulls ceased. The magician still felt the wet splash of the breakers but the sea was no longer below her. Or it was – but it was a sea of grass, an endless plateau stretching as far as the horizon. Triss, with horror, realised she was looking at the view from the top of Sodden Hill. But it was not the Hill. It could not be the Hill.
The sky suddenly grew dark, shadows swirled around her. She saw a long column of indistinct figures slowly climbing down the
mountainside. She heard murmurs superimposed over each other, mingling into an uncanny, incomprehensible chorus.
Ciri was standing nearby with her back turned to her. The wind was blowing her ashen hair about.
The indistinct, hazy figures continued past in a long, unending column. Passing her, they turned their heads. Triss suppressed a cry, watching the listless, peaceful faces and their dead, unseeing eyes. She did not know all of the faces, did not recognise them. But some of them she did know.
Coral. Vanielle. Yoel. Pox-marked Axel…
'Why have you brought me here?' she whispered. 'Why?'
Ciri turned. She raised her arm and the magician saw a trickle of blood run down her life-line, across her palm and onto her wrist.
'It is the rose,' the girl said calmly. 'The rose of Shaerrawedd. I pricked myself. It is nothing. It is only blood. The blood of elves…'
The sky grew even darker, then, a moment later, flared with the sharp, blinding glare of lightning. Everything froze in the silence and stillness. Triss took a step, wanting to make sure she could. She stopped next to Ciri and saw that both of them stood on the edge of a bottomless chasm where reddish smoke, glowing as though it was lit from behind, was swirling. The flash of another soundless bolt of lightning suddenly revealed a long, marble staircase leading into the depths of the abyss.
'It has to be this way,' Ciri said in a shaky voice. 'There is no other. Only this. Down the stairs. It has to be this way because… Va'esse deireadh aep eigean…'
'Speak,' whispered the magician. 'Speak, child.'
'The Child of Elder Blood… Feainnewedd… Luned aep Hen Ichaer… Deithwen… The White Flame… No, no… No!'
'Ciri!'
'The black knight… with feathers in his helmet… What did he do to me? What happened? I was frightened… I'm still Hightened. It's not ended, it will never end. The lion cub must die… Reasons of state… No… No…'
Ciri!'
'No!' The girl turned rigid and squeezed her eyelids shut. 'No, no, I don't want to! Don't touch me!'
Ciri's face suddenly changed, hardened; her voice became metallic, cold and hostile, resounding with threatening, cruel mockery.
'You have come all this way with her, Triss Merigold? All the way here? You have come too far, Fourteenth One. I warned you.'
'Who are you?' Triss shuddered but she kept her voice under control.
'You will know when the time comes.'
'I will know now!'
The magician raised her arms, extended them abruptly, putting all her strength into a Spell of Identification. The magic curtain burst but behind it was a second… A third… A fourth…
Triss sank to her knees with a groan. But reality continued to burst, more doors opened, a long, endless row leading to nowhere. To emptiness.
'You are wrong, Fourteenth One,' the metallic, inhuman voice sneered. 'You've mistaken the stars reflected on the surface of the lake at night for the heavens.'
'Do not touch- Do not touch that child!'
'She is not a child.'
Ciri's lips moved but Triss saw that the girl's eyes were dead, glazed and vacant.
'She is not a child,' the voice repeated. 'She is the Flame, the White Flame which will set light to the world. She is the Elder Blood, Hen Ichaer. The blood of elves. The seed which will not sprout but burst into flame. The blood which will be defiled… When Tedd Deireadh arrives, the Time of End. Va'esse deireadh aep eigean!'
Are you foretelling death?' shouted Triss. 'Is that all you can do, foretell death? For everyone? Them, her… Me?'
'You? You are already dead, Fourteenth One. Everything in you has already died.'
'By the power of the spheres,' moaned the magician, activating what little remained of her strength and drawing her hand through
the air, 'I throw a spell on you by water, fire, earth and air. I conjure you in thought, in dream and in death, by all that was, by what is and by what will be. I cast my spell on you. Who are you? Speak!'
Ciri turned her head away. The vision of the staircase leading down into the depths of the abyss disappeared,
