(A/N: This should be considered as a kind of Part 2 of 2.

WARNING: Contains descriptions of people’s gruesome death)

I was still ill when the summons came, still struggling with things. I was desperately trying to work, to find something to do that didn’t involve thinking about what was going to happen when the passes opened and everything was finished. I knew that Ariadne still wanted me to go and see the unseen Elder who, apparently, lives in or near Toussaint. The oldest of the Elder Vampires, who was among the few remaining who could remember what the world was like before the Conjunction of the Spheres. But what was going to happen after that?

I had no idea and that was beginning to really frighten me.

So I tried to work. When I wasn’t being ill or being looked after, which is how I describe those times when one person or other amongst my carers was not sitting me down and forcing me to rest, eat something or take care of some personal hygiene, I was trying to work. But work on what? What was there to work on?

I had already written about my recovery from meeting Kerrass’ Goddess. The investigation into the conspiracy was all but over and there was no real need for either Kerrass or myself to be involved in anything. There were bits of interviews and the like that were still taking place. Lots of legal wrangling and official business to carry out. But most of it was over.

There were things still to come. Sir Guillaume, Sir Gregoire and Lord Palmerin had all told me that they wanted me to call upon them and guest with them for a while before I left Toussaint for the second time. There were others as well that insisted that I needed to call on them, people who had decided that the political wind was shifting and as a result, gaining my friendship was something that would set them on a good course.

I had a standing invitation to Lord D’Alambourd’s regular parties. Kerrass went to one in this period. He came back with the expression of a man that has been clubbed about the head and the smile of a Skelligan who has been told that his death was going to be that he would be drowned in a vat of ale. I asked him what the party was like. He tried to describe it several times before eventually giving up and admitting that he had no idea what to say. That I should just go there and see it for myself.

Ariadne was keen to do precisely that.

Kerrass had also reminded both Ariadne and myself that the Goddess was keen to speak to both of us when we were ready. I was conflicted about this. On the one hand, Ariadne would be there but on the other, the last time we had met, the Goddess and I, the results had been catastrophic.

Ariadne and I had discussed it and agreed that we would perform the ritual, but only after I was suitably recovered. What was meant by me being “suitably recovered”? I have no idea, despite asking many times, but it was a decision that only Ariadne seemed to be permitted to make.

Another thing that was waiting for Ariadne, Emma, Sir Walther and Anne to decide that I was suitably recovered was the feast of gratitude that was going to be thrown for Kerrass and I.

Or rather, there were going to be two of these feasts, parties and ceremonies. One was going to be held at the palace, a formal affair before the full court of Toussaint with speeches, fanfares, formal dancing and the works. Another was going to be held at the headquarters of the Knights of Saint Francesca which, I had been promised, was going to contain more debauchery than the one at the palace. Again though, there needed to be a decision made that I was well enough to attend those things. A decision that was still some ways off, and the nature of my illness in particular, apparently, was that there was no way of telling when this was going to be. Some days I would be better, and some days I would be catastrophically worse.

But what was going to happen after that? What was I going to do? The general feel of everything was that I was going to travel back to the north with Emma and Laurelen to help prepare for my coming nuptials. I was under no illusions though. I wasn’t really needed for that kind of thing. My wedding was becoming an all consuming political event.

Emma had let slip that one of the Imperial masters of ceremony had moved into Castle Coulthard in order to help organise the entire thing and his entourage alone was intimidating. I was looking forward to marrying Ariadne. I really was and as I write this, I still am, but the entire process seemed to have stopped involving me in some way. After the decision had been made, I had little to do with what was to come.

Kerrass spent the time watching me, he seemed to be waiting for something. I have no idea what. I do know that he wrote to Princess Dorne in this period. He showed me the letter that was carried off by the Imperial courier using the transport gates.

No, I’m not going to tell you what he said.

It was very sweet though, and touching enough for me to comment that I didn’t think Kerrass had it in him.

Despite this, Kerrass had the feeling of someone who was waiting for something. I challenged him on this and he admitted that he agreed, but that he didn’t know what it was that he was waiting for.

So I was trying to work. Trying to write and trying to study. I tried to write up the experience of investigating the conspiracy but I found that I couldn’t do that beyond making extensive notes about what I had seen and heard. Actually writing these articles that you hold in your hands, was beyond me because I didn’t yet know what the ending was going to be. The legal process was going to go on for a while and I was legitimately concerned that some of those conspirators were going to get away with things.

I was also worried because… well…

These articles are here for two main reasons. The first is to inform. To tell people about what the world is really like, admittedly through my eyes which means that it is hardly an unvarnished view of the world. I had to make peace with the fact that I was far from an unbiased witness and recorder of events very early on in my travels.

The other reason that I do this is to entertain. My old professors called this kind of writing “a gateway”. Meaning that people might read a story, watch a play or read something like my writings and be intrigued enough to want to know more about the specific subjects that are covered in this chapter or that tale. But that doesn’t work if people are not entertained. People need to be interested in the thing that they work on.

So I needed to know, even roughly, how things were going to turn out.

That desire for an ending might have been some kind of jinx or a curse given what really did happen. But that would be jumping ahead in the story.

Heh, story.

It must have been clear that something was going wrong with me again as Kerrass came to see me, literally taking the quill out of my hand, snapping the book in front of me closed and dragging me out of the palace to go drinking.

I protested that the ink was still drying and he glared at me.

“Freddie,” he said. “I’ve been watching you and you’ve been staring at that same page for half the day.”

I looked at him.

“Well,” he shrugged, “a good half an hour at least. Long enough for the ink to dry anyway. Come on,”

It seemed as though there had been a conspiracy of some kind to get me moving. Ariadne had prepared a pair of boots and some outdoor clothing. Emma gave me some money and off we went. The guards that followed us were discreet and hung back. There was a nice tavern out in the market square. We bought our ale and went and sat outside as we watched people come and go.

“So tell me Freddie,” Kerrass began. “What’s on your mind?”

I honestly hadn’t thought about the problem up to that point. But when Kerrass asked me that question, it all seemed to materialise in front of me.

“I don’t know what to do.” I told him. “At this time of year, the last couple of years, it has been the beginning of our setting out on the path together. Three years, I’ve been doing this. The first two years for academic purposes and the third year to try and find Francesca. But what do I do now? Before too much longer, you are going to want to go off on your way and who can blame you. You must be looking forward to some nice simple monster hunting by now, without all the politics and nonsense going on.”

“And without a certain Scholar messing up my time.” He grinned at me.

“Yeah, fuck you.” I snapped back without too much force.

“Seriously though Freddie, I’m going to miss you on the Path. You have made it bearable for me these last few years and you’ve taught me a thing or two about myself as well.”

“You sound like youre saying goodbye already.” I could not help the fluttering of fear in my voice.

“Not yet.” He said. “But I would be lying if I tried to pretend that I wasn’t getting itchy feet. I am further South now which means that I can start being on the road that little bit longer. And if I am taking time off to attend and organise your stag do and be part of your wedding, I need to start early to set some money aside. The winter is not going to be cheap.”

“You know that you can winter with us right?”

“I know.” He said. “But the truth is that I don’t want to. Your first winter together as a married couple? You’re going to want to be snuggling each other in blankets and gazing into each other’s eyes in front of an open fire.”

“Yes but…”

“Not to mention all the noisy sex you’re going to be having.”

“Kerrass,” I protested, laughing.

“I’ve been married before Freddie, I know what it’s like.”

He laughed at me for a bit.

“So when are you thinking of going?” I wondered.

“I don’t know. I know that there’s this visit to your future in laws coming up.” He said. “And I should be there for that. I understand that I’m even invited.”

“You are.”

“And it would be rude not to. Seriously though, I want to make sure that you’re alright. You’re over your exhaustion since the murders now. But what’s going on?”

“I don’t know what to do.” I told him. “I know that the plan is for me to go North with Emma to help arrange the wedding, but I can’t see how much that would occupy my time.”

“Believe me,” Kerrass said. “It will occupy your time.”

“Ok, but will it occupy my mind?”

Kerrass didn’t answer that.

“I’m scared, Kerrass. I know that I promised everyone, including you, Ariadne and myself, that I would not charge off back towards hunting for Francesca. But now the moment of truth is here and I don’t know…”

He didn’t say anything. He signalled a passing server for some more ale and topped both of our cups up.

“I don’t think that there’s much more I can write about Witchers.” I said, “Your history is mostly unknown as the people that know are either dead or are not telling. And as for your day to day lives? What more can I write on that subject? That has been my life for three years and I don’t know if I can stop. But it is so tied into the hunt for Francesca that I don’t… I think that doing that some more would be dangerous on a whole new level.”

“I agree.” Kerrass said carefully.

“So what do I do now?” I wondered.

“Syanna has made no secret of the fact that she wants you to teach her Knights about courtly thinking and critical investigation theory.”

I snorted. “You and I both know that you would be better at that, or the subject would be as well taught out of a book.”

“Yes, but who will the Knights listen to. The brother of their saint or a vagabond Witcher, or some dried up old writer who ‘doesn’t know what it’s really like out here’,”

Kerrass’ impression of a stuck up Knight was rather good.

“You could go with Ariadne,” He said. “Learn about your new lands and start to become a Lord there.”

“I could.” I said, “But that is not a driving force. I will do that, I look forward to that, but I’m not excited about that. It’s a chore and Ariadne has already got more than a grip on how all of that works. I will spend even more time thinking about other things if I go there. Including trying to find out what Phineas was doing there and how it was all connected, even if it isn’t actually connected. Also there’s the matter of proximity to a very beautiful woman of my acquaintance. Her reputation still needs protecting and having me actively living with her might provoke all kinds of scandal.”

Kerrass let me have that.

“Or,” he went on. “I have no doubt that Oxenfurt wants you to give some lectures.”

“Possibly.” I said, “Almost certainly. But suddenly, the thought is not appealing. I’ve wanted that all my life, but suddenly, now that I could just sit back, give lectures and watch the money roll in, I do not find it as appealing. The attraction was always to be able to study what I liked, when I liked and being a professor gave me that luxury.”

“So find something else to study.” Kerrass said.

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“I have no idea where to begin.”

“You will find something.” Kerrass told me.

He was right too. I did find something, or rather, and I’m sorry for the cliche, something found me. But again, there is other stuff to come first.

I remember that it was quite late at night when the summons came. I was just on the verge of getting ready for bed. Ariadne insisted that I keep to a routine, eating until such and such a time, bathing, spending some time with family before a slow and gentle slide towards going to bed. It was at this time that the summons came.

Emma and Laurelen were out, dining with a friend and Mark has taken to retiring early at the insistence of his Doctors. I was the same way. I was sitting up in bed, trying and failing to read a book. The main problem being that I was finding it next to impossible to keep my focus on what was going on. I couldn’t take the information in and I found that the words were just sliding off me.

Ariadne was in the room with me. She was trying her hand at embroidery. Someone had told her that Embroidery was a “proper skill for a lady” and so she was trying her hand at the skill. She didn’t really like it but it gave her something to do while she sat with me. She would have done some work of her own but admitted that her method of working meant that I could be having a screaming fit, throwing things about the place and sobbing my heart out, but if she was nose deep in her studies, then she possibly wouldn’t notice what was happening.

I’ve had days like that so I wasn’t upset.

There was a knock on the door and the leader of our guard unit murmured something to Ariadne when she answered the door. She nodded and said something back. There was a tone to her voice. Anyone who has spent a long time in the presence of a woman that you love will know what I mean when I say “a tone”. It’s a tone that essentially says “Really? Are you sure? Because if you are not, I advise you to go away and rethink your decisions.”

Why yes, I am deflecting from unpleasant circumstances with attempts at humour.

She turned from the door and looked at me for a long moment.

“We are summoned,” She said.

“Oh.” Excitement rushed through me, a chill of fear and a readiness for combat. I leapt from bed onto the ground, far too quickly and a wave of dizziness struck me.

Ariadne caught me. “Go gently Freddie. I will get you some clothes.”

It had not been a good day so far.

I was already shivering and I put on some warm clothes and we left the room to find light coming from Mark’s door. As we passed, one of Mark’s personal servants called Ariadne over while Kerrass was already dressed and waiting.

“Any idea what this is about?” I asked him.

“No.” He said. “But Syanna isn’t here and they came looking for Emma and Laurelen as well so… I don’t think it’s anything to do with the conspiracy.”

There was some thumping coming from Mark’s rooms and Ariadne emerged.

“Are you sure you’re going to need that?” She wondered, pointing to the spear that I was carrying.

I looked down at it. I didn’t remember picking it up. I looked back up at her and she gazed at me for a long moment before nodding as I slung the bag over my shoulder.

“How is Mark doing?” Kerrass asked.

“He’s a dying man being hauled from his sick bed.” Ariadne replied without any kind of inflection in her voice.

“Not good then.” Kerrass sighed and rubbed his head.

Mark emerged eventually. He was pale and sweating. When he emerged he and I looked at each other for a long moment before we both started laughing.

“Are you going to let the rest of us in on the joke?” Emma had just arrived.

“I’m sweating,” Mark said.

“And I’m shivering.” I giggled.

“The Brothers Coulthard.” Mark was sniggering. “What a pair we make.”

“Any idea what’s going on?” I wondered aloud.

“The Duchess wants us.” Emma said. “And at this time of night, that doesn’t mean anything good.”

“It’s not exactly that late.” Mark commented.

“It is given there’s no other parties on.” Emma replied, just as quickly.

There was an escort waiting for us just outside our rooms that fell into step around us. I exchanged glances with Kerrass. It was not a “We’re taking you to the cells” escort. This was a “Make sure they all get here,” kind of escort. I was beginning to get nervous.

My nervousness increased when we saw that there was an increased guard and Knight presence on all the checkpoints. They were not particularly threatening or preventing the passage of anyone. It was not a generalised lockdown.

Have you ever read a book or seen a play or something where someone in authority turns to a guard captain or some other kind of secondary figure and says something like “Double the Guard.” And other such things. It’s a literary device designed to increase tension and to tell the audience that people are taking this particular threat seriously. It’s often wasted as the thing almost never works as it’s often a measure being used against the protagonists, our heroes.

But this is what it looked like. Someone, somewhere had ordered that the guard be doubled.

I started to realise what was happening when we entered the corridor that leads to the Duchess’ quarters where we found, outside the Duchess’ quarters, two members of the Imperial Guard along with the Knights that are normally stationed there. And by members of the Imperial Guard, I mean those serious men and women who wear fully segmented black plate mail with Helmets that obscure all visible features. Those same Imperial Guards that are chosen for their lack of a sense of humour, imagination and utter loyalty to the Imperial throne.

It was Ciri that told me that there are women in those suits of armour too. She said that there is a certain kind of person that when they decide that they want to serve, then the best thing that you can do is to just get out of their way and let them serve. There are other guards, other people that are devoted to the safety of the Imperial person. All of the Empress’ maids are trained very carefully to defend the life of the Empress and the Emperor before her. As are the servants and the spies and the secret police commanded by Lord Voorhis.

But these men and women, Members of the Imperial Guard, the ones who stand on the guard posts are capable of going from standing perfectly still to committing untold, unspeakable violence at a moments notice. Without even really thinking about it.

And they would be silent while they were doing it.

Their presence could only mean one thing and I felt a trickle of ice water run down my spine.

Suddenly, everything seemed very far away.

We were shown straight in by the Knights of Francesca that were on the door. The Guardsmen didn’t move. They would not be the ones to open a door. They were too busy guarding it. There is always an unsettling feeling when you deal with the Imperial Guard. That they have assessed you as potential threats and then dismissed you out of hand. It generally leaves you feeling really small.

We were shown into the Duchess’ chambers.

There she was.

I have seen the Empress now in several different forms. I have seen her in her full on, Empress guise. The cold, slightly remote, frightening, beautiful, austere personage. The one that sits for portraits and issues decrees. I have also seen the more dynamic, workaday version of the Empress. The one that wears simple riding coats with little to no ornamentation on the grounds that anyone who needed to know who she was already knew.

I have seen the private Empress. The one that has been trained by the finest political minds on the continent including names such as Emperor Emhyr, Queen Calanthe and several members of the Lodge of Sorceresses. The one that has been taught to think in the halls of Kaer Morhen, at the Abbey in Ellander. The one that has been trained to fight by Skelligan, Witcher and life on the road.

I have seen the warrior that walked the path in much the same way that a Witcher does. The fighter, the survivor…

The Killer.

And I have seen flashes of the horrifying killer that she had been, according to rumour. From the time when she took the name Falka and terrorised the roads of the Southern Empire.

I have seen all of those things, but this was the first time that I thought I might have seen what she was like when she was a really young person. The girl that had seen everything that she believed in, torn down when she fled Cintra. The girl who had lost her mother, her father (that she had known of) and her Grandmother. Every friend, servant and person that she had trusted had gone and she had fled into the woods, weeping with that pain and loss.

That was what I saw now.

She was dressed simply. As though she had come at the end of her day. She was wearing a set of riding trousers and boots, a light shirt and a dark tunic with the Golden Sunburst on it. She was also wrapped in a large, voluminous dark cloak that I guessed had been chosen for it’s anonymity in keeping the visit incognito.

She wasn’t armed. That was the thing that stood out in my head most of all.

She looked like someone who had had to leave suddenly when they were just finishing off the last business of the night and had been wearing what she had on at the time.

Her hair was frizzy and a little unkempt and as she turned towards us from where she was being hugged by Lady Yennefer, it was plain that she had been weeping.

I felt as though I was falling down a dark hole.

Lady Yennefer was there as I say. When we came into the room she was holding the Empress in her arms. Yennefer was dressed, as she ever is, in her black and silver attire. It was a simple dress over a pair of trousers and riding boots. Again, she was wearing a warm cloak against the chill.

I automatically looked and found Lord Geralt, silver hair glistening slightly in the candlelight. He was standing out of the way, speaking in a hushed voice with Lord Voorhis.

Lord Voorhis was also there. He was the only person that didn’t look as though he hadn’t been called away when he was getting ready for bed. As he always is he was wearing his surcoat and weapons. He still had the slightly pale and clammy look with swept back hair that I always, and slightly unfairly, associate with dead fish. He looked over when we all entered and finished off his conversation with Lord Geralt

The Duchess was there along with Syanna, Lady Vivienne and a couple of other ladies that I didn’t recognise. All in various states of dress down other than Syanna who was wearing what she calls her “business” armour.

Lady Vivienne was pouring drinks. Never a good sign.

Ciri, because I saw that she was being Ciri at the moment rather than the Empress, pulled herself from her mother’s arms and came over, pulling Emma and I into a hug, reaching for Mark at the same time. Emma was already weeping.

I could only wish that I could join them. It felt like an occasion for tears.

There was an inevitability about what was happening. We all knew what was happening, but at the same time, there was a need for the words to come out before we could actually know what was happening. I know that that doesn’t make sense but that was what it felt like. We knew, but we didn’t know. It was, again, like watching a play that you remember seeing years ago.

No, that’s not right.

It was like…

Imagine a book that you love. You’ve read it countless times. You know it so well and love it so much that you can recite entire passages word for word, and often do, to people whether they want you to or not. You are so passionate about this book that you buy copies for people for birthdays and festivals and then check with those same people every day as to whether or not they’ve read it. Only for them to turn around and admit that they haven’t read it yet on the grounds that they have needed to do other things like eating and sleeping. Even then, there is a small part of you that resents that they didn’t read the book while they ate.

Everyone has a book like that.

Now imagine that you hear that someone is making a play adaptation of the book and you run through the gamut of emotions that always goes with this. The anger about how they dare adapt a book that is, to you, an almost sacred text. The hope, that you might be able to see those characters that are almost as close to you as your own family, being portrayed in the flesh. You have vacillated as to whether you are going to go and see it or not.

Then you go, you’re there on opening night. You’ve worn a costume that you’ve made of your favourite character and much to your joy and happiness, it becomes clear that the adaption is both respectful to the book, and also really good.

You find yourself swept up in the story. A story that you know so well. There are changes because of course there are changes. They’ve cut certain bits out and you can see why. After all, there is a big difference between a book and a play. Some characters don’t look quite right and some scenes that you always found quite funny are played for tragedy and some things that you found tragic are played for laughs. But all in all, you are swept up in things and having a great time.

You are having such a great time that you almost forget that you’re in a theatre, you are just taking it all in. Then the play comes to one of the climactic moments in the story. I can only use my example here. You come to one of the climactic moments where one of the heroes, a main protagonist, is facing a great evil so that the others can get away. You know that the evil is cast down and you know that it drags the hero with it to the hero’s death. You know that. It’s written in words of fire on your very soul.

You even know that it’s one of the most vital plot points and that there is no way that it could be changed. But then, you think that there have been other changes. Other adjustments have been made.

And just for a moment. Just for a fraction of a heartbeat. You hope that the hero, the character that you love. That has been part of your life since you were young. You hope that this time, the character will not be dragged to their death with the evil that they destroy.

But then it happens, as you knew that it would. Happening as it had to and that grief that has sat in your chest since the first time you read the story, tumbles out of your chest in a sob that is muffled along with the sobs of the rest of the audience.

That was what it was like. I didn’t know what was coming. But I knew what it was.

“I wanted you to hear it from me.” The Empress said, wiping her eyes.

Mark took a deep breath. “Francesca?”

Ciri didn’t answer. But we all knew it.

Ciri took Emma and I by the hand and led us to some chairs where we sat down automatically. Kerrass brought Mark who needed a bit more support.

Funny how confirmation makes it all the worse.

“I would have had Samuel brought here as well.” Ciri said. “But according to the people at his castle, he’s out in his lands at the moment and there isn’t a mage with him. Messengers have been sent but who knows when they will find him.”

“He will be trying to be hands on.” Emma said faintly. “He will be trying to be a Lord to his people.”

We fell into silence for a while after that. As though we were all trying to stave off the inevitable.

“I brought Lord Voorhis with me.” Ciri said eventually, “as he can go into more detail and tell you the things that I cannot. But the long and short of it is that…” She took a deep breath and cleared her throat. “Using the information that Kerrass gave us about the mage, Phineas Tordril and his presence during the coup attempt in Angral…”

(Freddie’s note: The man who had been magical advisor to Lord Cavill in the North. The one who had caught me and was responsible for my being cut off from Ariadne. That son of a bitch)

“... we were able to track his movements from Angral up to the North and eventually we caught him in Novigrad of all places, trying to charter a ship that would carry him across the gulf to Ophir where he intended to continue his efforts to… well... “ She took another deep breath and when she spoke again, she did so in a trembling rush.

“It was he who had Francesca kidnapped. He was doing it to gain some revenge on you, Freddie for derailing his attempted Coup in Angraal and intended to use Francesca as a hostage to force the Coulthard family to bankroll his future experiments. When he…” She cleared her throat again before taking a juddering breath. “When he realised the amount of trouble he was in… It would seem that he wasn’t aware of how fond the Imperial Court had become of Francesca, he killed her and magically dumped her far out to sea somewhere in order to save himself from our retribution.”

I remember thinking how strange lips were and about how much I don’t think about how to move them to form words.

“He retreated to Lord Cavill who he saw as a kind of home base and well…” She gestured for Lord Voorhis who stepped forward.

Why Salt water from the eyes? What purpose does it solve? Dr Shani once told me about why tear ducts are for but why do they shed salt water when we weep.

“We actually know a lot more about him now.” Voorhis said, pulling a piece of paper from inside his tunic. “His real name was Kelros Torfannan although he left that name behind at the first possible instance. He was spotted for his magical talent but was held back by the fact that he could only channel a relatively mediocre amount of the power without injuring himself.”

I could see Yennefer nodding along. As it turns out, Yennefer and Tordril had a history of mutual loathing which she didn’t really want to get into. Her violet eyes flashed as Voorhis spoke.

“According to those records that we have been able to recover from Ban Ard, his technical knowledge and grasp of technique was exceptional. The only thing that was holding him back was the fact that he couldn’t really channel enough power to perform any of the experiments that he wanted to carry out. And when he tried to teach others what he wanted them to do, their grasp of the technique was so flawed that they would be lucky to survive.

“We have found one of his teachers hiding up a mountain and that teacher told us that Tordril had a theory that Magic was a finite resource and that if we continued to use it, then it would run out. So he was obsessed with finding a way to top up the reserves as it were. In the same way that we store water or wine in a barrel.

“Eventually, he fled Ban Ard after it was discovered that he had been practising Goetia (Freddie: The summoning of extra planar entities, or demons if you prefer) in order to gain the power to do what he wanted. He was discovered and in a fit of jealousy, he killed some of his classmates as he got away.

“After that, our information becomes a bit more sketchy. He would pop up now and again and cause some kind of horror. The assessments of the Lodge, the Mages Council and the surviving Chapter scholars would suggest that he was trying to find new ways to cast magic and draw more power than he could naturally.

“From the ravings of the man himself, it would seem that he found it. Somewhere in the ruins of the former civilisations, he was able to make contact with something from another realm. More than the ‘petty things’, his words, like Djinn and ifrits that can be summoned. He found an entity that was too powerful to be brought through, too alien, too different and far more powerful than this world, this… realm could support.”

“And such is the way of those things, it offered him power.” Yennefer hissed.

“Indeed.” Voorhis said. “However, a man needs to eat and he found sponsorship in the North. Lord Cavill and other people of that nature. He promised power and strength and in return they gave him safety and security. We know that, eventually, he found a permanent base in the Cult of the First-Born and that they were close to the thing that he was half worshipping himself in return for power.

“He was clever enough to not shit where he was eating so he continued his practise of travelling the continent to find Lords that would pay any price for the services that he could offer. With them, and through them, he would continue his experiments. Lord Dorme was one of these people.”

“Which is how he knew about the bag. The totem meant to control Ariadne.” Kerrass said.

Ariadne leaned forward.

Flame but she was pretty. But what was it about her that made her pretty? I knew she was but for the right there and then, I could not have told you what it was. Was it the tilt of her head, the slight tightening of her eyes that showed she was concentrating. The smoothness of her skin or the little lines in the flesh that were around her neck. The lines that I longed to run my fingers over.

“Yes. He was concerned that Cavill was overreaching and wanted to establish a secondary base further south in a more central location. Angraal isn’t far from Loc Muinne and he had not been powerful enough to be able to stage a proper expedition there before. His habit was not to go with the efforts that he instigated and as a result, he fell back and watched from a distance. He watched as Lord Frederick and Witcher Kerrass destroyed his plan and turned Ariadne against Dorme, or at least, that’s what he thought.”

“Did he know that his recipe for the Totem was flawed?” Ariadne asked, enunciating her words carefully and slowly.

“He seemed sure of his success so we think he didn’t know.”

Ariadne nodded and subsided.

“He was not involved in what happened to your Father.” Voorhis told the rest of us. “He was aware that your cousin was becoming too over confident and that he would not last much longer. Instead, he focused on the taking of your sister. He intended to use her as a magical focus in order to curse your bloodline. There were going to be horrific experiments and the like… But then he realised the amount of horror that was going to come down. He knew that Teleporting more than one person at a time would involve a gate and that the use of gates are monitored. So he killed her, retreating to his place of power.”

The family shifted in their seats. The Empress glared at Voorhis, I had no idea why. I watched in fascination as Mark’s face reddened in anger. I watched as Emma paled with the same emotion. Why does one person get red faced while the colour fades from another’s cheeks? Interesting stuff.

I managed to avoid sniggering. Some distant part of me that was still in control of my own body realised that that wouldn’t be the best idea.

Lord Voorhis was oblivious to the nature of how much his lack of tact had affected people.

“He was honestly astonished when Lord Frederick and Witcher Kerrass wandered into his power. He took some steps to destroy you but soon realised that the cult of the First-Born was not going to succeed. One way or another, there was no way that the death of Lord Frederick would go unnoticed by the powers on the continent.

“He tried to get Lord Cavill to just slit your throats. But Cavill was angry with the fact that you had killed one of his sons and therefore insisted on performing the rite. Phineas consoled himself with the pain that your death would cause others and the fact that you were highly unlikely to survive during the rite. He was astonished when he heard about your survival and how you survived.

“He retreated again during the months following the destruction of the cult as he knew that people would be searching for him. However, the number of resources that were devoted to hunting him were nothing compared to the resources that were devoted when Witcher Kerrass carried news to us that this wasn’t the first time your paths had crossed and he decided to flee beyond the Empire. That meant either Zerrikania or Ophir. He chose Ophir because it would be easier to hire a berth on a ship and be incognito than it would be to hire a guide to get across the desert. And life aboard a ship seemed less worrisome than crossing a desert.

“We caught him in Novigrad. He chose Novigrad as it was the biggest local port that supported ships that would sail to that kind of distance. And he figured that the city had swallowed the greater mage population of the North and he figured that he could use some of the good will that those mages had gathered in order to hide.

“We caught him, it took us a little time to cut through his disguise and when we finally did so with the aid of Lady Eilhart.”

Yennefer shuddered at that. I frowned as I wondered why.

“... We were able to discover who he was. It was a battle of wills between the two mages, Phineas and Lady Eilhart while we questioned him. According to Lady Eilhart, he was far more strong willed and far more powerful than he should have been given the records of his assessments that we have access to from Ban Ard. That is how we got most of the information out of him that we have. Eventually though, he was able to throw off Lady Eilhart’s mental compulsion and from there she said that he was “aware of her tricks' '. What that meant seemed to indicate that once he had thrown her out, she would not be able to use the same technique again.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“More likely that she didn’t want to give him another opportunity to humiliate her.” Yennefer spoke sourly.

“Mother.” Ciri snapped. “Now is not the time.”

For a while, Lady Yennefer’s eyes blazed. Then she blinked and calmed. “You are right of course. Apologies, Lords and Lady Coulthard.”

I was astonished. I had not imagined that anyone could talk to Lady Yennefer like that. It seems obvious now, but at the time?

I had to fight off another chuckle while Mark and Emma made forgiving noises.

“There is a lot unanswered here.” Ariadne said, she sounded calm but something about the way she spoke caught my imagination. I found myself watching her closely. “I would dearly like to know how he got the ingredients for the totem. I would also like to know what he made contact with and how he came about his theories.”

Yennefer was nodding. “The theory about Magic being a finite resource has been floated before and is almost certainly untrue, along with other such basic myths as Magic having its own consciousness and intelligence. If anything, the opposite is true and one of the things that we can thank our forebears for is the network of Menhirs and monoliths that made some efforts towards controlling the flow of the Chaos so that it doesn’t explode and overwhelm us all. I am more interested in how he was able to throw off Phillipa's technique. She’s been working on that mind reading technique since she joined the Redanian secret service.”

“And how he was able to increase his power levels.” Laurelen piped up. “From day one at Aretuza, and Ban Ard as well I understand, We are told that every mage has an upper limit to how much power that he or she can take in, hold in and channel. That going beyond this point is a recipe for doom and disaster.”

“That’s always been true.” Ariadne agreed.

“The results of such things are often explosive.” Yennefer said. “Technique can be improved, understanding can be achieved. Knowledge and things but that is one of the first laws of magic.”

The discussions started to go over my head and I drifted off into a kind of numb state. I was watching Ciri, there was more to come yet.

The Mages in the room were talking about magic being artistic, scientific and chaotic all at the same time. There are many scholarly works on the matter and it is impossible to read just one.

“You are right.” Ciri jumped in when there was a gap. “There are a lot of unanswered questions. I would like to know who set him on this path. Who was the person that told him where to go to make contact with these other entities? I want to know how he chose those areas where he could perform his experiments. I share Comtesse Angral’s concern about how the recipe for the Vampire totem was found, even if it was wrong. Ever since that was first discovered, I have nightmares about armies of Vampires rising up, led by Elder Vampire Generals like the Comtesse, Dettlaff and… the various others that I have heard of. All controlled by a single madman who seeks to…”

She shook her head.

“Unfortunately, there is an obstacle in the way of finding out these things. Lord Voorhis?”

The pale faced man stepped forward.

“He had thrown off Lady Eilhart’s control over him and he looked around the room, seeming to realise what was going on. Lady Eilhart told us that she needed to regroup and come up with some alternative strategies before she attempted those techniques again and when she said that, Phineas bit his own tongue off and died. Cause of death is still being argued over between bleeding to death or choking on his own blood. With the Empress’ authorisation, an autopsy is being conducted even now.”

“Clever of him.” Yennefer snorted. “I knew of him when he was being hunted for Necromancy rather than Goetia. He would know that the body still needs to be able to speak for Necromancy to work. Even if the use of Necromancy was authorised, the corpse would not be able to tell us what we need to know.”

“I thought that Necromancy was even more dangerous with a mage being involved anyway?” Laurelen asked.

“It is.” Ariadne said calmly, she seemed to have subsided a little. “Coupled with the theory that his power comes from another source, worship of dark entities, who knows where his soul would need to be brought back from and what it would bring with it.”

There was another discussion that started to go over my head. I seemed to be standing in a corner of the room, watching over everyone and everything. I could see myself, slumped in a chair, hands clenched to fists in my lap. I looked like a corpse.

“That’s enough.” Ciri turned into the Empress again for a moment, just a moment but it slapped us all back to a new awareness. “Yes there are questions that still need answering.” She said. “And the investigation is ongoing. His movements are still being tracked and some of that might bear fruit. We are also investigating the house that he stayed in while he was waiting for his metaphorical and literal ship to come in. We haven’t found any of his journals or his writing yet and I have yet to meet a magic user of any kind that didn’t keep some kind of magical journal or something to keep track of their discoveries. If we do find anything else then we will let you know.”

“Barring Imperial security of course.” Voorhis put in.

Ciri came back. “Yes, of course.” She sighed and rubbed her head.

“Speaking of…” Voorhis cleared his throat.

“Yes.” Ciri nodded and turned back to the rest of us. “Believe me when I tell you that I want to stay. I want to be with you all as we all share our grief. I want to talk about her and remember her. I want to get drunk and I want to get laid and I want to weep long tears of grief...” She brought a trembling hand up to her mouth for a moment as her voice trembled. But then she mastered herself.

“I would like to do all of these things. But I do not have time. I must get back. I would ask that you let me know when the family memorial will be. I would like to be there for that so that we may all grieve together.”

Tears were falling down Mark’s face freely. “It will be in the spring.” He said. “I remember her dancing in the Spring rains.”

Emma nodded. “A lot of people want to attend that. Not as many as want to attend Freddie’s wedding of course.” She tried for a joke. It was a valiant attempt.

“I would like to be there. It won’t be a full state thing. I want to be there as Ciri, your sister, if I may.”

“I think we would all prefer that.” Mark said.

Ciri nodded. I seemed to watch from very far away as Ciri put her hand on my shoulder as an effort of comfort before moving past and leading Lord Voorhis out of the door.

I didn’t react.

As a family, We stayed there in the Duchess’ rooms for quite a long time. We had a few drinks, and there were some small conversations. Francesca is really important to the people of Toussaint as well so The Duchess wanted to have a feast and a memorial to the woman that is not quite just called “The Saint.” The saint, as if there is only one.

At least not yet.

I wasn’t there. Not really. I watched the entire thing. I don’t think I said anything when others tried to get me involved in some kind of conversation. You would have to check with them though, I have no idea at all.

In the end though, it became clear that we needed to go off and grieve on our own. The family as a whole, including Ariadne, Kerrass and Laurelen although I think of them as family now as well, made their retreat and returned to our rooms. I know that we were escorted. I know that we must have travelled the intervening space. I know that, but I have no memory of that.

I just remember finding myself standing in the middle of the family gathering room, people were talking around me and Kerrass was talking directly to me.

“Freddie?” He prompted. “Freddie, are you ok?”

I looked at him for a long time before I grinned. He staggered backwards in horror as though I had attacked him.

“Well.” I told him. “At least now I know that I’m not going to be looking for whatever happened to Francesca.”

I laughed. I laughed for a long time into the silence that descended onto the room. I even knew that it was horrible and that I should not be doing it. I knew it was horrifying but I laughed and laughed and laughed as the tears streamed down my face.

Then it was though I came back to myself in a rush, as though I slammed back into my body with all the force of a galloping Knight and I realised why I was laughing.

I was relieved.

Everything went dark. Apparently I screamed and fainted. Ariadne and Kerrass caught me and carried me off to my rooms. Walther was sent for and they forced some herbs down my throat so that I slept.

The next few days were not good for any of us.

Mark was hit the worst of us I think. I was barely able to move, but one of the few times that I was pulled from my bed was when Mark got sick enough that we were worried that he would leave us early. A long moment there when he stopped caring I think. He started to take his medicine again after a couple of days and his strength started to come back. Ariadne and Laurelen conferred and did some tests so we knew that the brief break from taking the medicine would not have done him any favours, but it would not have abnormally shortened his life expectancy any.

Emma would later say that she felt numbed by the entire thing. Like me, she felt a certain sense of relief but her reaction to it was not as powerful or as frightening as mine. She said that it was like the road forward was clear for her now. She could make plans and make adjustments. We had all known that Francesca was dead, but now that it was actually confirmed, the uncertainty had been removed. She could make plans. She could fully fund a memorial scheme for her to pay for some charities that Francesca would have liked.

It was the small things. She felt so stupid when she admitted that one of the things that she didn’t have to do any more was that she didn’t have to hold back Francesca’s dowry. She could make plans for a memorial service for Francesca, a wake would be held. Apparently, people have never stopped asking for a date for when Francesca would be interred (yes, for those readers in the South and the East, we do still have an interment when there is no body. It’s been especially important to do that kind of thing in wartime when there is often no body to recover.) and now she could make plans for that wake and move things around accordingly.

There was some concern as to how Sam was going to take the news and we each wrote to him in an effort to try and bring him back to the fold. The arguments that we had made against each other in the times since then seemed small and petty. There was an urge on those of us that were in Toussaint to try and bring everybody back together.

In the meantime though, the letters that we sent to Sam crossed with a letter that he sent to me specifically. He had heard about the arrest of Velles and the seizure of all of Velles belongings. I flattered my brother that he didn’t have my side of the story, nor did he know what Velles had actually done. All he knew about the affair was what Velles' factors and business partners would have told him which would have been that the first merchant that Sam had been able to treat with on an equal footing had been arrested by his brother.

The letter was clearly written in anger and just as clearly based on lies and rumours that he will have been told in the North. He added me to the list of people that had wronged him in some way and expressed his hurt and his anger in terms that I would charitably call “unbrotherly”.

At the time, it was an extra nail in my soul. I was insulted and aggravated beyond ease of thought. The thing that got me more than anything was that I would have thought that Sam knew me better than that, and even if he didn’t, I had hoped that he would, at least, do me the courtesy of coming to listen to my side of the story before he condemned me so utterly.

But he didn’t. He declared himself not my brother and expressed his fury that I would cut him off from an avenue by which he could be free of the “shackles of the family”. He told me that when Mark died and he ascended to be the head of the Coulthard family, that I would be bought out of my share of the Coulthard trading company and that I would be dispossessed of the Coulthard name. That he never wanted to see or hear from me ever again.

I was already reeling with grief at the confirmed loss of Francesca and this sent me over the edge. Before departing on my journeys with Kerrass, Sam had been the male sibling that I had been closest to and now it seemed that he was doing his best to make himself my enemy. I was angry for a while, I thought it was cowardly that he wouldn’t come and talk to me about this in person, but then… after that…. I just wanted my brother.

Ariadne rescued the papers from where I threw them on the fire. Moving fast enough and using her innate resistance to fire to pluck the letter out of the fire and as such she took it to Emma and Mark to read. Emma was furious and had a screaming row with Mark about it where she promised to put all matters of the Coulthard trading company out of Sam’s hands. She would leave that night and speak to lawyers to ensure that it was so. She swore that she would give the entire enterprise to the Empress and call it the Imperial trading company before Sam would access a shaved copper of the amount.

Mark told her to remain calm and went to his own writing desk. Mark was upset about the whole thing and he decided that he was not going to leave his family in such a desperate state. He wrote several letters to his own lawyers, the lawyers of the church and to Sam as well, which he gave to church soldiers to place in the hands of Lord Samuel Kalayn and no other. And off they went through the transport gate to do just that. He refused to tell either Emma or myself what was in those letters.

It has to be said that I feel much better now. I have written to Sam myself again, even though his letter threatened that any missive that was sent to him from me would end up straight on the nearest fire. I have not heard from him in the meantime and I only hope that he has read them so if my readers will indulge me a moment.

If you’re reading this Sam? Or anyone close to him is reading this, please get in touch. I love you Brother. Velles was as close to evil as I can state a man to be and I do not believe anything other than that he would have used you to further his own goals. And even if he didn’t plan that, then you would be better off working with any other kind of person than a man like that.

I love you Sammy.

So I was in a bad spot. Bad enough that I had had to ask Kerrass and Ariadne to remove all knives and sharp objects from my sight and easy reach. I would occasionally try to work and I had to ask Ariadne to sharpen my quills for me. People stayed with me at all times and it really was as bad again as it had been at its worst in Angral.

For me, the problem was that I felt as though I had wasted the last year.

I would like to stress that I know all the logical arguments. I even had a fight with Ariadne about it when she finally got me to admit what I was upset about. I don’t want to go over it. It was not a pleasant thing and I bitterly hate the thought of what happened.

She took the logical line that I have no doubt that you are all thinking of at the moment. You are saying that what happened over that year was not a waste of time. That Kerrass and I brought down the Knights of the Flaming Sword. That we were instrumental in the saving of Schrodinger and the Unicorn. That we helped end the curse of the Skeleton Ship and brought the cult of the First-Born to their destruction. These things are just the things that I have recorded as well. We have fought bandits and destroyed numerous monsters and the like.

But right then and there, all I could think of was the lost time. How I could have married Ariadne all that much sooner and about how I could have been living my life in the meantime. The problem was that Ariadne was right and I knew that Ariadne was right. Above all other things, Ariadne is a rational being. She believes that the world has an order and that we need to think of things in that way.

Have you ever considered the size of the continent, then have you considered the size of the world that the continent rests on. Then, have you ever looked up into the night sky and seen all the stars of the heavens above you. The mages would have us believe that all of those stars are like our own Sun and that many will have planets around them. From there, we also know that the Conjunction of the spheres means that there are many other universes as well, the same size and shape as our own. When you have done all of those things, have you ever considered how little you are and how small your life is when you compare it to the movements of nations, the lives of everyone involved and that even that is smaller than a speck of dust when it comes to the entirety of existence.

I have done this, it is a terrifying thought.

Ariadne is the kind of person that would tell you that existence is relative to the observer and that to the universe of me and the universe of her, then I have incredible significance.

She is just like that.

She was arguing because she thought I could not see the rational, logical side of what I was going through, or what my brain was telling me. I could. I could see all of those points. I could see that she was right as well. I could think of all the people that we saved and that we might still have saved. All the unborn men and women that will not have to suffer under the yoke of the curse, Knights or Cult. I could even avoid the pitfalls of thinking of those people that have died in these adventures. People that might have survived had they never known me.

But I was not thinking rationally and my self-loathing was terrifying. It certainly terrified me, let alone other people.

So my friends and loved ones took it in turns to watch over me. I was locked in my rooms for most of the day other than in the walk around the palace gardens that Sir Walther and Ariadne both insisted that I take on a regular basis. Ariadne took the night shift. She claims to only really need an hour or two of sleep a day unless injured, malnourished or having exerted a considerable amount of energy. She can also save it up so that she can work without interruption for several days and nights at a time before retiring to a bed chamber and sleeping for six to eight hours straight without really noticing. Then she can take up conversations directly as though she never went to sleep.

So whenever I slept, I did so with the door ajar…

Propriety still needs to be observed, no matter what, and an unmarried man or woman of noble birth is not allowed to be alone in a bed chamber with another man or woman of noble birth without a chaperone present. There were guards outside our door and I was an invalid which gave us some leeway, but Ariadne does have to be whiter than white in these matters.

So she had an armchair in the corner of my room where she would read, write letters, work on some scholarly work or her embroidery and she would just sit there from the moment I went to sleep until the moment I woke up when she would hand me my medicine and stand over me while I drank it.

And when I had nightmares, she would hold me until the nightmare passed and I stopped shaking.

So when did it turn around? And who was it that finally set me on the road to recovery?

Well, it came from the unlikeliest of sources.

I was in that state for a number of days. I wanna say that it was about four days but that can not be certain. I was doing my best to ride it out and wait for me to come back to myself. Ariadne Kerrass, Sir Walther and Lady Yennefer of all people, all took the time to tell me that I was doing really well considering and that I just needed to be patient.

Yes, they knew that frustration was making it worse. Yes, they knew why it was frustrating and yes, they also knew that I didn’t feel as though I was doing ok.

“Hold to the fact that you have been ill before and that you recovered from that state.” Sir Walther told me. “Hold to that fact and hold to the fact that you will get there again. It is a man’s will to recover that actually helps him recover.”

Ariadne was more helpful.

“In the same way that a limb can heal wrong, it is sometimes helpful for a mind to be broken again before it can heal properly.”

Kerrass didn’t come out with any of that stuff. He spent the time talking to me, in detail, about what he had planned for the stag party. It was obvious that most of those details were made up. He also made no secret of the fact that he was working to ground me as best he could.

Emma tried to make plans with me. Mark and I prayed together and for each other. Yennefer berated me into getting better.

Four days that I was like that and it was a long four days.

Something woke me on the night of the fourth day. I have no idea what it was although, given the later context, it was almost certainly someone clearing their throat or licking their finger in order to turn the page of a large book.

It was dark, the room was lit by a couple of oil lanterns that had had their wicks shortened in order to cast a dimmer light. The oil was perfumed and the air smelt pleasant but not in a sickly way.

Something was wrong.

Kerrass worked hard to train these instincts in me. Long hours of lectures and later, days where Kerrass would get up silently, sneak up to me and hold a dagger to my throat. At the time I thought he was teasing me at best, bullying me at worst. What he was doing was teaching me an instinct, that you don’t get otherwise, which is that instinct for when something is wrong.

It’s the same instinct that tells you that someone is following you. Or when soldiers suddenly realise that they are walking through the perfect valley for an ambush. Kerrass was teaching me to be a light sleeper and it is one of the things that I both regret the necessity of, and am grateful that I learned it.

It is the reason that I can no longer sleep, under normal circumstances, without a dagger under my pillow and my spear close to hand.

What was the wrongness that night? I don’t know. Several possibilities occur. The first was a sense of stillness and quiet. It is almost impossible for there to be absolute silence in a castle or a palace at night. Especially in Winter. There is always the sounds of flames crackling in the hearth in order to keep you from freezing to death. Or the tromp of guards patrolling the corridors, or the creaking of wooden boards. Or the sounds of Wildlife outside and within the walls. Horses neighing, cockerels crowing. Cats fighting and dogs barking.

But that night, there was a stillness in the air that suggested nothing good.

The hairs stood up on the back of my neck and I tried to reach for my Dagger. Which, of course, wasn’t there because all blades had been taken from me at my own insistence. I had insisted because I had found myself wondering how deep I would have to cut into my inner thigh before I would reach my femoral artery. I had already decided that my boot knife was the best tool for the job as the belt dagger would be too unwieldy for the task and all that I had left to do was to decide what was going to be in my suicide note.

When I realised that this was where my brain was going I squashed the thought as quickly as possible and called Kerrass to come and take my weapons away.

That had not been a good night.

But now, I desperately wanted my dagger and I scrabbled around under my pillows for it.

At some point, I realised that I wasn’t alone in the room. I looked both for the door where the guards were, and the chair where Ariadne was supposed to be watching over me. It had occurred that I might just be having a nightmare and what was going on was a recovery from that.

“It’s quite alright my dear fellow,” said a male voice. “I’m not here to hurt you, or anyone that you really care about.”

It all happened so quickly that it all blurs together.

“Besides, sleeping without weapons? Careless my friend, very careless.” He tutted. “You did tell me I could call you Freddie didn’t you? I think that happened in the past for you.”

I took in two things. The first was that the door was still open. It should be, so that if there were signs of distress then the people around me, family, friends and guards, could come to my aid immediately. That was reassuring.

The second thing that I realised was that Ariadne was asleep.

I cannot tell you how rare that is. It might also surprise you to learn that I have never actually seen Ariadne sleeping. She always takes herself off somewhere private in order to rest. She was the most… human that I had ever seen her. She likes to control herself, everything in its proper place. It’s one of the things that I am most looking forward to seeing when we are married which is to see what a dishevelled Ariadne looks like. What does she look like with bed hair and bleary eyes.

She’s the kind of person that considers how informally to go when someone says that the dress for a particular occasion is “informal”.

But she looked as though she had slumped, one hand held her embroidery hoop against her chest while her other hand was folded in her lap. Her head was laying back and off to one side as though she had just dropped off.

There was the sound of paper being scraped against paper. The careful, slow rippling of the page as it gets moved aside.

“I will be right with you old boy.” the voice said.

I blinked furiously as I tried to find the speaker. The absence of the knife under my pillow had made sleeping difficult. But I was being given a sedative and it was taking everything I had to try and focus.

“Take your time,” said the voice. “It has been brought to my attention that you are unwell and I would not wish to disturb your recovery unnecessarily.” The voice was warm, velvety, educated in pronunciation.

I finally managed to blink my eyes into focus.

There was a… a figure crouched on my chair. And when I say crouched, I mean it. He was perched on the top of the backrest of the chair, knees bent so that he was sitting on his heels, perfectly balanced. He was holding my huge reference book on Jack. The large, weighty tome that I had ordered brought to me from Oxenfurt where it is waiting for the printers.

The idea behind this version of the book was that it would be a large reference tome that would be housed in libraries and other places of learning where scholars and investigators might get a more precise view of the Jack entity. Then there would be the much smaller books that were meant for private libraries and book shops.

This thing was huge. It was certainly not the sort of thing that you curl up with in a nice arm chair in front of a fire. You have it propped on a lectern or book rest. When I had used it in Toussaint earlier, I had laid it down on the table.

This figure had it resting on his knees, the weight of which made his feat of balance all the more impossible. He was licking his thumb with large, exaggerated movements and using it to turn the page which he did with the care and reverence that warmed the heart of this writer.

If it wasn’t for the fact that he was perched, impossibly, on the back of a chair. He didn’t wobble, he didn’t move, he just stayed stock still as he read.

He was wearing a long cloak that obscured his body and hung down around his legs, giving the unfortunate impression of a pair of wings. He was wearing a shirt and doublet, the same as any noble of Toussaint would wear, with a cravat carefully pinned down with a diamond pin. His trousers were the riding trousers of a gentleman, made from a pale cloth or leather. And his boots were expensive.

His hat, because of course he had a hat, was placed on my desk with a pair of gloves that were placed on top of the crown. A cane and a sword were propped nearby with the swordbelt carefully wrapped around the scabbard.

As he always was when I met him, his hair was dark and immaculately groomed in a style that I could well imagine turning heads in the salons of Beauclair or the courts in any nation on the continent. His facial hair changes though. This time he was lacking in sideburns but wore a neatly trimmed goatee and soul patch. His eyes shone in what little lamp light there was and they seemed to glow as his eyes flitted over the pages of the book.

“Hullo Jack.” I whispered on my third attempt. It took me a long time to clear my throat.

“Lord Frederick.” He bowed, still perched and balanced perfectly on his perch, his eyes glowing at me with what I took for amusement. “I do most humbly apologise if I got it wrong.” He went on in his clipped, aristocratic tones. “You have told me that I can call you Freddie have you not?”

“I think so.” I replied carefully. I looked around to see if I could get to the guards. “Besides, could I stop you if you wanted to?”

“Naturally.” He seemed offended. “All you would have to do is ask. I’m not a barbarian.”

He laughed at me.

“Go and check if you like?” He said. “The guards are still there. I have not done anything to them.”

I got out of bed carefully and cautiously. It was actually comfortably warm in the room which would be another clue that all was not as it entirely should be.

The guards were in the corridor, one was leaning against the wall as though placed there, his head tilted back and he was snoring.

The other had fallen against the wall and slid down it. He too was snoring.

“Shut the door, there’s a good fellow.” Jack called. “No-one is coming and a conversation such as ours should be a private one.”

“Then what is the point in shutting the door?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“Everything is appearance my friend.” Jack replied, “You know that as well as anyone. Otherwise, you would have taken your bitch out for a damn good shagging.”

He waved a hand over at Ariadne.

I stiffened at the insult. He sighed.

“Forgive me.” He said, turning another page. “Her people and mine have been enemies since before this world cooled enough to be lived upon.”

I felt my legs go weak.

“Oh here.” He leapt down from his perch and caught me before I fell. Every inch the solicitous gentleman. “You have been ill haven’t you.”

“Is it that obvious?” I wondered.

“More than a little my friend, more than a little.” He smiled at me. He pulled over the chair and sat in it normally. “This is good work.” He said, waving the book at me before he opened it to where he had left off. “Some of it is even correct. More than I would have thought it would be.”

“I had a good colleague.”

“Nonsense.” He retorted. “Her work is the more accurate to be sure but you have the gift of making the knowledge accessible. Truly, this is a fine piece of work. The two of you balance each other out wonderfully and I can see where you have influenced her and improved her own work.”

“I think you exagger…”

“Listen.” He told me with a raised finger as he turned to a specific page. “From the chapter on what Jack is. ‘Every culture has a version of him.’ You write. ‘In the oldest stories before the birth of towns and cities, before magic was harnessed, science stepped out of the shadows and before Witchers were born to shine the required light into the darkness. Jack was there then. He was the unknown thing, the glowing eyes that were there next to the path. He was the creature that hid, just out of sight inside the shadow of the tree. He watched travellers from the hollow formed by the fallen branches and he waited in the flickering darkness of the camp fire.’ You see this is really good.”

“I…”

“‘We now know more about what hides off the beaten path. Knights, mages and Witchers have shown us what lives there and how we would set about taking the light into these dark places. So we do not fear them. But in the same way that other monsters have adapted to the increased urbanisation of the world’. That’s a good word. I like that. ‘Urbanisation’.”

It was clear that I wasn’t going to get a word in edgeways and I just let him speak. It was Lady Yennefer that had invented that word. Based on some of her own theories about how cities had conquered the wild.

“‘ In the same way that Bog hags have become sewer hags.’ Not sure how much I enjoy being compared to a hag old boy. ‘... and in the same way that the Vampires and the Neccrophages have found that the cities are merely a new hunting ground for the food that they need, Jack has adapted.’

“Ah you see, that’s one of the areas where you are not quite right. I didn’t adapt. I was already there.” He took a breath. “‘Jack is no longer the eyes in the shadows by the side of the woodland trail. He no longer hides in the lee of the stone walls, peeking through the gaps in the stone. Now he hides in the darkened pits of the alleyways. He is the strange figure in the distance that you do not recognise. A voluminous cloak, a strange bag with breath billowing steam in the night in the same way that fire billows from the snout of a dragon. He is behind the mysterious doors, jammed into their open positions by splinters of wood and chips of stone. He is hiding behind archways, crouched behind flights of steps and laughing in the dancing shadows cast by the lanterns of the watch.

“‘When you hear a footfall echoing along the walls. When you hear a scream in the darkness. When you can feel something, or someone breathing down the back of your neck as you scurry home at night. That is when you know that he is there. As civilised people, we know that there is nothing hiding from us by the side of the path. But we know that there are murderers, thieves and rapists that stalk us, all of us home. Things that would cause a Witcher to put his silver sword away and reach for the steel, after all, do the Witchers not famously claim that both swords are for monsters?

“‘When your skin crawls and you can feel your mortality drawing in. When you see the door to your salvation ahead of you and you reach for your keys. When you hear the sound of metal scraping on stone. When you feel your feet slipping on the smooth stone beneath your feet. And when you hear the laughter of a madman in the darkness. That is where Jack is now.

“‘The reason that they used to tell you to stay on the path is now the reason that they tell you to get home in plenty of time. The reason that they tell you to stay out of the alleyways and to walk with friends as you head to your door. To stay on well lit routes that are regularly patrolled. That reason is Jack

“‘You will not know his name, you will not know his face. You cannot appeal to his sense of pity. He will show no remorse. History will not remember you or remember who you were. History will not remember who you loved or what you did. All it will remember of you is the label that he gave you. Be that priest or lover, poet or beggar, hero or villain, saint or whore. All that anyone will ever know of you is that you died at the hands of an entity.

“‘And the entities name was Jack.’”

He slammed the book shut and shuddered theatrically.

“Chilling stuff.” He said with a big toothy smile.

“I’m glad that you approve.” I tried for dryness, unable to keep myself from glancing between the door and the sleeping guards, and the slumbering form of Ariadne.

That passage had not been written by either Lady Yennefer, or myself. Lady Yennefer had taken the text off on a visit that she and Lord Geralt had made to the Rosemary and Thyme. Despite her best efforts to keep him from it, Professor Dandelion had read the text and gone off somewhere for a while before returning and depositing the above excerpt on Lady Yennefer’s desk. She had immediately taken it, added it to the text and offered him a credit.

Which he refused. Apparently, his days of academic study are far behind him and he has no wish to be associated with that world again.

“It’s a good book.” He said, flicking back and forth through the text. “I think that you and Lady Yennefer work best together although I do think you would be better served in working together in closer proximity rather than the way you do things at the moment. As it stands, there is a distinct divide on those chapters that you have written and those chapters that she has written.”

“Oh?” I was wondering if there was anything nearby that I could use as a weapon. One or two of the candlesticks might have sufficient heft.

“Oh yes.” He went on, he took out a small, silvery box, reached inside and took out a pinch of something, arranged it on the back of his hand and sniffed the substance up and into his nose. “I mean it’s obvious that… excuse me one moment.” He reached inside his doublet and pulled out a large red cloth which he sneezed into violently. “I do beg your pardon.”

I waved him off. Maybe if I smashed one of the oil lamps over him then I could set him on fire.

“Where was I?” He blinked at me through bleary eyes.

I thought back. “Something about Lady Yennefer and I. Something that was obvious.”

“Ah yes. It’s obvious that you have done a pass through each other’s chapters, but the real difference between the two is that you have clearly struggled to keep yourself separate from your subject. You are a little too close to the matter and as a result, you have struggled to make the work an academic one. Therefore, people will find it easier to dismiss this book as the account of a tainted witness rather than an academic source.”

I bridled at that. “Well how else was I supposed to…”

He sniffed again, still struggling with the aftermath of the sneeze. “Next time? Send someone rather than going by yourself

.”

“Would you have suffered anyone else to study you.”

“Ah.” He nodded.

“Ah what?”

“That rare thing. The valid point.”

There was a new thought that was occurring to me. Not only was I looking for a way to defend myself against a being that has been able to fight off dozens more fighters that were far more skilled than I was, even if I was fully healthy.

There was a new thought that was occurring that was overtaking the first, powerful, fear response.

“Hold on.” I said, “That is not a small book that you have there. Even the more abridged version would take a person a couple of days to read if they went at it steadily.”

He rolled his eyes. “Because I am, of course, a normal person like yourself who is still a prisoner of linear time.”

He stared at me for a long time. He had a calculating look on his face as though he was considering whether or not to eat my face.

“I came to say Goodbye.” He said eventually. “This will be our final meeting. We will not see each other again.”

I felt an odd sense of bereavement. “Why?”

“I am done with this place.” He said. “I will go now to another world and another realm where they need to be reminded that, sometimes, there are things lurking in the darkness that they need to be afraid of.”

He gestured at the book that he had placed back on the desk at some point in our conversation.

“You have, more than, carried out what I needed from you. This continent, and indeed, this world are aware of my presence. Your book will travel further and further. The stories of my passing and my presence will go even further than that, aided by your work. This world will fear the presence of Jack for centuries to come. So I will not need to come back here to serve my purpose for centuries to come. Long after you will have moved on from this fragile mortal realm.”

He smiled. “I will miss you Frederick.”

“I… I don’t know what to say.” And I really didn’t. Fear had been replaced by a sense of loss. I had been thinking of Jack, on and off, for a good long time now and as a result, I almost felt a sense of bereavement. Jack. The story of his coming from Kerrass when he first talked to me around the campfire. All the way through the chase regarding Laughing Jack and his association with the loss of Francesca, followed by the study of the being and the work that was done.

It was that bit that led to my downfall. The association of losing Jack, going hand in hand with the final loss of my sister seemed to meld together into one ball of loss and pain. A sob escaped my throat.

“My dear fellow, whatever can be the matter?” Jack appeared horrified. “I rather thought that you would be pleased to not have to worry about me for a while.”

“What do I do now?” I wailed. “I can’t hunt for my sister, I can’t work on the book and there is nothing new to add to it. What do I do now? I’ve written everything that there is to say about Witchers. I’ve talked about life on the road until I have started to repeat myself. I’ve written about the most terrifying thing that there is on the continent. What do I write about now? What do I talk about now? It's months before I get married and after that… What do I do in the meantime.”

He stared at me for a long time.

“Why Freddie.” He teased. “I never knew you cared.”

I sobbed. I literally sobbed as the tears streamed down my face.

“Oh now hear Freddie, I came here to be nice to you. I didn’t mean to upset you. Here.”

I felt a cloth being pushed into my hands.

“Blow your nose.” He told me sternly and I did as I was told.

He waited a little as I calmed down and I looked up at him.

“I should say,” He told me. “THat I gave you my kerchief as a gift, freely given and with nothing expected in return.”

“Umm, thankyou?” I said,

“The answer to your quandary is simple.” He told me. “I feel sure that if you weren’t as exhausted and worn out, that you would have found out the answer for yourself. You want something else to think about. Something else to write about. That is all there is to it. I rather think that marrying the Leech over there will occupy a good percentage of your time. But other than that, there are plenty of other things that you could write about.”

“Like what?”

He laughed. “Ah Freddie, I’m not going to do all the work for you. But there are plenty of things on the continent to write about that no-one else has written about. Loads of things. Plenty of things. So many things that you yourself have met and interacted with many of them. You have even started your great work in many ways.”

“What?” I was genuinely confused.

“The Conjunction of Spheres brought many things to your world.” He told me. “Including you. Things that have not been written about in any other book or work. Things that have not even been considered. And in doing so, the Conjunction also weakened the boundaries between worlds. Not a great deal, but enough so that beings like myself can flit between worlds at a whim. You have met my ungrateful wretch of a lazy son. Write about him if you must. He will never stop hating you and I can’t think of a better way for you to gain your vengeance against him than if you were to write the fear of him away.”

“Have I not written the fear of you away?”

He laughed. “No, your writing will actually make more people afraid. It is why your entrails are not currently decorating the room.”

“I trust that you are joking.”

His eyes shone for a moment. “Not in the least.”

I swallowed.

“But still,” he went on. “You have spoken about the Crooked man and the Horsewoman of war. There are plenty of other, unique, entities in the world, similar to me, if not as handsome, charming and powerful, that you could write about. Pick one. And then, when you are done with one subject, pick another.”

I felt that strike home.

“The Headless Horseman.” I said,

“Yes.” Jack replied. “I, for one, would dearly like to know why he is so closely associated with pumpkins.”

“The Rumplsteldt.” I said,

“And why he is so gullible in allowing people to fool him.” Jack rubbed his hands with glee. “Oh, the little goblin is going to be so cross.”

“The Hooded Archer.”

“Son of the Horned Hunter who robs from the rich and so on. Now you get it. If you wanted to, you could even write the definitive work on the Master of Mirrors although you would be retreading old ground that others have travelled before you there. My understanding is that, like my son, he has recently been banished from this sphere after being defeated and as such, he will struggle to punish you for the effort.”

I felt my mind racing off and excitement singing in my fingers. I wanted to pace. I wanted to take out a piece of paper and write down ideas.

“Thank you.” I said, and it has been a while since I have meant that amount of gratitude.

“As I say,” he said. “I actually find that I owe you a great deal.” He hissed that last as though he was angry and his eyes glowed for a moment. “Besides, I don’t think you’re quite done with me yet.”

He straightened and again, he seemed a little more human. “I am glad that I helped, it makes me feel as though we must part with somewhat less of a debt on my part. Just remember that, in your enthusiasm to start another project, you are still ill. You should avoid over-reaching. Calmly Freddie. You are still sick.”

I needed that and he saw the realisation strike me like a splash of cold water. He nodded.

“Now.” He said. “I was hoping that you could help me with a couple of things.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, just as friends. First of all, I have some gifts to hand out if you would help me.”

“If I have learned one thing.” I said. “Your gifts are curses as often as they are blessings.”

“Oh, they are always blessings.” He told me with a grin. “But some people do not want to be blessed. A blessing is, after all, a dedication to a God, or a Goddess. In your case, that blessing would be a hope that you find your way home in safety and security with the light of the flame to guide you. Whereas there is a religion in another world where when a priestess is told to bless a man, they nail his hands to a tree above his head before torturing the man to death. His screams of anguish and agony carry the devotions of the congregation to the God so that he may know that he is worshipped and bless the people with good health. It is considered an honour to be so sacrificed and many volunteer for the privilege.”

I shuddered.

“So first of all,” he rose and lifted four bottles of wine onto the desk. “These four bottles contain wine from my wife’s Vineyard. This bottle.” He pushed one across, “is for you. Share it with your wife on the day of your happiness.”

“You mean my wedding?” I wondered.

He smiled and said nothing

“The second is for the Duchess of this land. There is a message that goes with it.” He handed me a piece of paper.

“Can I read it?”

“Of course, it is meant to be known.”

I read aloud. “THis bottle contains the most beautiful wine that has ever been created. When you drink, you will know the greatest joy of tasting something so perfect. And then you will know despair, in knowing that you will never taste it again.”

I looked up at the grinning Jack. “That is truly evil.” I told him.

He laughed and I shivered.

“I like you Freddie. But never forget who I am. She will want to taste it, but then she will fear what it does. She will fear knowing that she will never know something so perfect again.”

“Why would you do that?” I wondered. “What has she done to you?”

“She forgot who I am.” He told her. “And she ignored your warning.”

“And what does that mean?”

“You will see in the morning.” He told me. “The third bottle is for the Empress. She is to drink it on her last day.”

“Will she know what that means?”

“She will when it comes time to drink it.”

“You really like being cryptic don’t you.”

“I really do. Something that goes with the racial thing, I'm afraid. You are a prisoner of linear time. I am not. We have rules that we must live by to not break your fragile mortal...”

“That’s enough. And the last bottle?”

“To go to your partner in writing this, really rather remarkable work. She will thank you for it but her response will not be as overwhelming as you might think. After all, she has drunk it before.”

There it was with being cryptic again. I didn’t say anything though. He had the attitude of someone for whom what was happening was quite a solemn, important moment.

“I thank you for the gifts,” I said instead.

“Oh, do not thank me. Some of the other people that you are giving these things to might not thank me nearly as much as you think. The Duchess herself is unlikely to take this well. But such is my trap. She has offended me, not as much as others to be sure, but it is not the kind of thing that I should let lie.”

“How has she offended you?”

“That is between her and…” he smirked. “Your imagination. She will ask you what she did, I think. Tell her that thing that you think is closest to the top of your mind.”

“More cryptic sayings.” I said.

“No,” He replied, “A firm instruction. You will know what this means when the time comes.”

“Alright.” I tried. “Then I thank you for them none the less.”

“Then there is only the cup of parting and my final gift to you.” He said formally. “You have done me a great service.” He told me. “A great service, one that I am not sure can be equalled. You have pushed my purpose and made it clear for readers of your book, all over the continent and eventually all over the world. People will read what you have written and they will shiver. You have informed them but you have not taken away their fear in doing so. If anything, you have increased their fear. You have done right by me. So…”

He turned and he gestured to my desk, upon which was standing a silver bottle and a pair of cups.

“Stirrup cups?” I said. “Really?”

“We are many things, you and I.” He said, pouring an amber liquid into both cups. The sides of the cups seemed to gain a sheen of frost. “But one of the things that we both are, we are hunters. I hunt for victims, you hunt for knowledge. Therefore, it seems fitting that we share a stirrup cup as we both embark on our next hunts.”

“Ok,” I reached for one of the cups and he slapped my hand with all the mannerisms of a father, slapping the back of the hand of an errant child.

“Not yet.” He said. “First of all there are things that I should say.”

The irises of his eyes glowed again, this time a dull red rather than the white light that they had before. It was the red of nightmares and I fell back in fear, but he caught me by the wrist and there was no way that I could have moved.

They were the red eyes of the thing that lurked in your childhood closet. The monster under the bed and the creature that lurks in the darkest corner of your room where the shadows are the deepest.

His voice echoed.

“I name you friend.” he said. “The things that I give you now, the words that I say to you are the returns of gifts that you have given me. Neither I, nor any of my people, will use them to manipulate you or any of the people close to you. DO not fear them for they are truly meant.”

The shadows seemed to recede and Jack seemed to be himself again, his eyes returning to their normal pale blue. Or at least, normal for this iteration of the being.

“Still afraid of me, my dear fellow?” He wondered.

“Says the immortal personification of primal fear and terror.” I couldn’t help it. It just came out like that.

He laughed. “A touch, a veritable touch.”

He gazed at me for a long time with a contemplative look on his face. “I have been wondering what to give you as a gift that would be of similar worth to what you have given me.”

“You have already given me plenty. You have given me the necessary… I know what to do now.” I said,

“Ah yes. But that was helping a friend. That was not a gift.” He looked around the room before his gaze settled onto the sleeping form of Ariadne.

“If I really wanted to give you something of value, then I would crush her skull, remove her heart and shred her spine.” He said. “It is hard enough to kill an elder Vampire. They would claim that an Elder can only be killed by another but that is just… My dear Fellow, what are you doing?”

In the middle of that little speech I had had a distinct moment where I thought “Fuck it.” And I had picked up the heaviest candlestick I could find and brandished it at him. The stick was heavy and I was not as strong as I should have been. I have no doubt that I looked rather comical.

“If you touch her.” I said, “If you harm a single…”

“Ah Freddie.” He sighed. “It is so easy to forget that you are still mortal.”