Sword of Destiny (The Witcher #2) by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Format: epub

II

‘What a pity,’ sighed Dandelion. ‘I would have liked to come with you to the sea, but what can I do? I have such terrible seasickness! You know I've never spoken with a mermaid in my life? Damn it, it's too bad.’

‘I know you,’ said Geralt as he buckled his straps. ‘That won't stop you from writing your ballad.’

‘Of course. I already have the first verse. In my ballad, the mermaid sacrifices herself for the duke: she transforms her fish tail into magnificent little legs, but pays for her dedication with the loss of her voice. The duke betrays her and rejects her. She dies of grief and transforms into sea-foam when the rays of the sun…’

‘Who's going to believe that nonsense?’

‘It doesn't matter,’ Dandelion grumbled. ‘I don't write my ballads to be believable, I write them to be moving. Why am I talking to you about this? You don't know anything. Tell me instead, how much did Agloval pay you?’

‘He didn't give me anything. He argued that I hadn't fulfilled my part of the mission, that he expected something else from me… That he rewards effects, not good intentions.’

Dandelion nodded and took off his hat, looking at the witcher. He pursed his lips in disappointment.

‘Does that mean we still don't have any money?’

‘It looks like it.’

Dandelion's grimace grew even more pathetic.

‘It's all my fault,’ he moaned. ‘Everything is my fault. Geralt, are you angry with me?’

No, the witcher was not angry with Dandelion. Far from it.

Still, there was no doubt that they owed their misadventures to Dandelion. It was the bard who had insisted on going to the party at Four Maples. Attending parties, he explained, satisfied a deep and natural human need. From time to time, claimed the musician, a man must meet his fellow man in a place where one can laugh and sing, eat kebabs and dumplings, drink beer, listen to music, dance and fondle girls whose curves glisten with sweat. If each individual decided to satisfy those needs any old way, he argued, without concerted organization, boundless chaos would ensue. That's why festivals and parties were invented. And when festivals and parties were organized, it was only appropriate to attend.

Geralt wasn't stubborn enough to refuse, even if, on the list of his own deep and natural needs, attending parties was somewhere near the bottom. He agreed to accompany Dandelion, as he was relying on the contacts from such meetings to obtain information on available work: for a long time, no-one had called on him and his purse was beginning to grow dangerously light.

Nor did the witcher blame Dandelion for provoking the guards. Geralt, in this case, was not himself blameless: he could have intervened and stopped the combative impulses of the troubadour, but he did not, preferring not to stand with the primitive forest guards known as the Foresters. That organization of volunteers had a nasty reputation for their mission of hunting ‘non-humans.’ Geralt yawned while listening to their boasting on the subject of elves, dryads or evil fairies pierced with arrows, slaughtered or hanged from trees.

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