Introducing the Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski

Author:Andrzej Sapkowski [Sapkowski, Andrzej]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473232426
Publisher: ORION
Published: 2020-05-13T16:00:00+00:00

V

‘You rise early, Essi.’

The poet smiled, holding down her hair, which was being blown around by the wind. She stepped gingerly onto the jetty, avoiding the holes and rotten planks.

‘I couldn’t miss the chance of watching the Witcher at work. Will you think me nosey again, Geralt? Why, I don’t deny it, I really am nosey. How goes it?’

‘How goes what?’

‘Oh, Geralt,’ she said. ‘You underestimate my curiosity, and my talent for gathering and interpreting information. I know everything about the case of the pearl divers, I know the details of your agreement with Agloval. I know you’re looking for a sailor willing to sail there, towards the Dragons Fangs. Did you find one?’

He looked at her searchingly for a moment, and then suddenly decided.

‘No,’ he replied, ‘I didn’t. Not one.’

‘Are they afraid?’

‘Yes, they are.’

‘How, then, do you intend to carry out an exploration if you can’t go to sea? How, without sailing, do you plan to get at the monster that killed the pearl divers?’

He took her by the hand and led her from the jetty. They walked slowly along the edge of the sea, across the pebbly beach, beside the launches pulled up on the shore, among the rows of nets hung up on stilts, among the curtains of split, drying fish being blown by the wind. Geralt unexpectedly found that the poet’s company did not bother him at all, that it was not wearisome or intrusive. Apart from that, he hoped that a calm and matter-of-fact conversation would erase the results of that stupid kiss on the terrace. The fact that Essi had come to the jetty filled him with the hope that she did not bear him a grudge. He was content.

‘“Get at the monster”,’ he muttered, repeating her words. ‘If only I knew how. I know very little about sea monsters.’

‘Interesting. From what I know, there are many more monsters in the sea than there are on land, both in terms of number and variety of species. It would seem, thus, that the sea ought to be a great opportunity for witchers to show what they can do.’

‘Well, it isn’t.’

‘Why?’

‘The expansion of people onto the sea,’ he said, clearing his throat and turning his face away, ‘hasn’t lasted very long. Witchers were needed long ago, on the land, during the first phase of colonisation. We aren’t cut out to fight sea-dwelling creatures, although you are right, the sea is full of all sorts of aggressive filth. But our witcher abilities are insufficient against sea monsters. Those creatures are either too big for us, or are too well armoured, or are too sure in their element. Or all three.’

‘And the monster that killed the pearl divers? You have no idea what it was?’

‘A kraken, perhaps?’

‘No. A kraken would have wrecked the boat, but it was intact. And, as they said, totally full of blood,’ Little Eye swallowed and visibly paled. ‘Don’t think I’m being a know-all. I grew up by the sea, and I’ve seen a few things.

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