I stood there for what felt like an age waiting for the world to start making sense.

“See,” Laurelen is surprisingly good at sneaking up on people. “I told you she would change her mind.”

“Is it a genuine change or is it something else?”

“I think it's genuine. Time will tell though and I can promise you that I will be there to keep her on the straight and narrow.”

I turned to the Sorceress and hugged her. “Thank you.” I whispered.

“Thank you as well.” She whispered back. “You gave her the kick and showed us both a problem that neither of us really knew existed. Now go inside and get back to bed before you catch your death.”

“I'm pretty sure that I've already caught a little cold, what could more hurt?”

“Just off the top of my head? Your lungs, your heart....”

“Ok, I get the picture,” I told her as I turned to re-enter my pavilion.

“Also your brain, your nose....”

I left her there, listing off the things that could be damaged by colds.

I didn't have to wait long before Emma swept the entrance flap to the tent aside.

“What did you think of my speech?” She demanded with a little bit of a wicked smile about her eyes.

“Not bad.” I told her. “How long did it take you to practice it in front of a mirror?”

“Cheeky sod.” She told me, pulling over a stool. “And after all I've done for you.”

“What have you done exactly?” I realised that I was grinning.

“I all but raised you with my own two hands,” her voice quavered in an impression of a much older woman. “I protected you from the darkness on the outside of things that you have not seen and could not comprehend. Did I not protect you from harm, protect you from parents and the scolding of tutors?”

I had start chuckling which, in turn, made me cough.

“Flame but I've missed you Emma.”

“I've missed you too. You seem different since I last saw you. Not including the time when you scolded me about my attitudes, but from back when you and Kerrass last stayed with us. You seem a little more....I don't know.....calm. Less angry I mean, despite having plenty of things to be angry about. You seem more at peace somehow.”

“Well, about that...”

I began to tell her my own account of what happened since I had last left Coulthard castle. Including telling her about my realisations under the rock. Of my conversations on the subjects of anger and my deepening distress at the state of things with Kerrass, Rickard and Ariadne. Despite everything, Emma is my closest friend as well as being my sister and my mother. Towards the end of my story, I remembered laughing.

“What's so funny?”

“It's an odd feeling, but I almost feel as though I've missed you somehow. I only saw you last a couple of months ago and yet I feel as though I haven't seen you in years. Which is ironic because before that we've spent longer apart and yet we've been able to take up almost directly from where we left off.”

“A lot has happened in the last six months.” She told me with a haunted look in her eyes. “A lot has happened.”

I finished my story and then Emma had some questions. I still hadn't told her about Ella as I was still determined that I would deal with that problem myself. I had questions that I wanted to ask that Elven alchemist.

Emma sat in silence.

“So what has happened in the last six months?” I asked her. “Last time we talked you were in the process of expanding the Oxenfurt docks, fighting the Novigrad customs keepers and pursuing a personal vendetta with half the administrators in Redania.”

Emma smiled at the thought and I was amazed to see her eyes fill up with tears.

“Oh that's only the half of it,” she told me with a very shaky smile. “Along with all of that I've had a wedding to plan for my favourite little brother. A wedding, by the way, that the Empress of Nilfgaard and the entire continent wants to attend and have more than a little say in how it's run. I've also had to deal with the fact that my big brother is dying, my other little brother is growing more and more distant from me by the day and Mother isn't returning my letters. I know that she was going into isolation to a healing order so that for all I know she's off somewhere giving healing out to people infinitely less fortunate than ourselves and is simply not receiving the letters.

“The family has been audited by Imperial investigators, not to see if we've done anything wrong but because they want to know just how many people that we've pissed off and upset.”

She fastened her eyes to mine. “Freddie, it's a lot. A lot of people hate us and I find that I don't like it. I know that Father, and Grandfather had to work damn hard and step on a lot of people to get our family to where we are now but at the same time, I had not realised it was so many, nor had I realised just how many people that hate us. Or how many people I have hurt in continuing our father's legacy.

“And I know, I know that some of those people are worse than we are. I know that some of those people are scum and devious and cruel and have committed those same cruelties on other people. Worse cruelties even but when they put it all down on a piece of paper and you are forced to look at it.....?”

She shook her head, eyes brimming with tears.

“The Empress came to see me.” She went on, just the hint of a tremor in the back of her voice somewhere. “She came when she had received the same report that I had and commented that most of those people deserved what they got but that doesn't help. I don't like being feared Freddie. I don't like it.”

She laughed suddenly. “And then the Empress asked me to come and do my own inspection of the Imperial treasury. She wants to put me in charge of the Imperial budget with a remit of making that money work harder for the Empire rather than going on to provide public works that the people don't want or need or going on to line the pockets of bureaucrats all over the Empire.”

“Did you say yes?”

“I still don't know. You are not the only one who is examining themselves. I know that Mark has decided that life is too short, for obvious reasons, and is taking the chance to say what he wants to say before he runs out of opportunities. You tell me that you've been examining your own tendency towards anger. We used to make jokes about your temper tantrums when you were little, remember?”

“I remember. I remember being beaten for them and learning to swallow them so I didn't upset people. I remember that this seemed to make them even more explosive though, if fewer.”

“And I look at these things. I want the job that Ciri, the Empress I should say....”

“She did ask me to call her by her name as well.”

“Yes but I find I don't really want to. I want to call her the Empress but when it's just the two of us or she has taken steps to make the surroundings less formal then I have to work really hard not to call her Ciri. She doesn't make it easy.”

“She likes to put the crown on and off.”

“Yes, but she can't. She really can't. She's the Empress and she needs to remember that she's still the Empress when she's drunk and taking a dump in a flower pot as well as being in a frock and wearing a crown.”

Silence reigned for a moment after that.

“That's a true story by the way.” Emma told me with a sly smile. “Apparently, the roses in Mother's garden are turning out really well this year.”

I couldn't help but laugh at that.

“But I want that job Freddie. I want it so bad. I can make it work, I can change the face of politics and the world and I can help this awesome, amazing woman make a difference in everything and I can do that. I have been offered that chance, but I'm not sure I can cope with being hated by even more people. Just from a quick glance at the records I can tell that several powerful people are stealing money from the Empire to line their own pockets. As a percentage of the Empires overall budget, it's nothing. Less than point zero one percent. But it adds up over the years. I pointed this out and the Empress had them exiled and one of them killed.

“I'm not sure I want that on my conscience Freddie. I don't know if I want to work for a woman who can speak so passionately when it comes to the protection of the common folk and installing justice for all as well as improving race relations and the treatment of magic users but can go from that to a cold and calculating mindset. Utterly ruthless in it's obsession to make the world a better place. I'm not sure I want to do that.”

“And I miss Francesca so much. Oh Freddie it hurts so very badly.”

She shuffled over towards me and hugged me for a long time as she wept.

“Even when I knew that she was half a continent away, I didn't miss her this much.” She said into my shoulder.

“I'm the same,” I told her. “I keep seeing things that she would like, or think of a joke that would make her giggle while being horrified at the filthy nature of the joke. I tell myself that she would like that and remind myself to make a note of it and add it to my next letter. Then I remember and....”

It took us both a long time to recover from that little bout of tears.

“And then,” She began again, “you go missing and I fly into a raging storm of terror that I might lose you as well and then, mercifully, when you turn up to not be dead, you challenge me and tell me off for being far more unpleasant that I had ever thought of myself.” She pulled back and wiped her eyes. “I felt like I was having my heart ripped out.”

“I won't apologise for it though.”

“Nor would I expect you to. You wouldn't be you otherwise.”

“As I've said to others,” I went on. “I would have shared your sentiment a month ago, not even that. But now... I saw an Elf die to save my life. Others died to make sure that Cavill and his cultists, the same cult that corrupted Edmund and killed Father, would never hurt anyone ever again, including humans. How do I thank them for that?”

I shook my head.

“There is no way I can thank them for that. No way that I can do that, it would seem condescending. I owe those.... those people more than I can possibly express and I don't know what to do about it. I should make them nobles, I should elevate them to the level of us, you and me, higher even. They should be kings and Queens and teach us all what it means to be truly noble. Offer them jobs? I feel like we're spitting in their faces but I can't think of anything else to do about it and it kills me that they're probably going to be grateful for it.”

Emma said nothing, just squeezed her lips together.

I took a deep breath. “So what's this that Mark tells me that you tried to get him to name me heir over Sam. Leaving aside the fact that Father said what he wanted to happen in his will about the title and land passing down Father's male line.....”

“Yes, I've looked at that. According to the lawyers that I've spoken to, Dad named Mark his heir of title and grants of nobility. It was some legal wrangling on his part apparently. The very fact that churchmen are not really allowed to inherit wealth and land was what made it necessary. But they were ok with Mark inheriting the title so long as he didn't inherit the land or the wealth, which is always the thing that people really care about here anyway,”

“That's immaterial Emma.”

“I know but there's the thing. If the will had merely said that his, father's, eldest son was to inherit everything, then Mark would have been passed over and Sam would have inherited the lot.”

“So?”

“So the title passes to Mark which means that Mark gets to decide what happens to it. Father's wishes on that regard are literally just that. Father's wishes which can be ignored. I sometimes wonder if Father did that on purpose?”

“Did he?”

“There's no way to tell. Mother isn't talking about those decisions and you remember Father's solicitor who was bound to be the one to orchestrate any kind of scheme?”

“Yeah, uh....Bernie?”

“Yes. He died in the Spring.”

“Oh bless him. I liked him.”

“Heart attack apparently. So there's actually no way of knowing what Father was thinking at the time and knowing Father he probably kept that to himself.”

“All of this is unimportant though Emma. Why don't you want Sam to inherit? Father was clever enough to know that Mark would either give all the money to the church, which is a much more plausible explanation for why Father protected the money than some conspiracy theory. A theory which, by the way, turned out to be correct as Mark has all but admitted to intending to do himself.”

“Yes. But that's not the issue....” She turned away, thoughtful expression.

“Emma, you seem to forget that I was good at the politics side of things as well, just not as driven. This is nothing to do with Father being worried about Sam and playing legal tricks to make sure that he wouldn't inherit. This is about you. So what's the problem?”

“I love Sam. I really do but there's something....” She shook her head. “There's a reason why he's still unmarried. Mark's illness is getting out. Turns out that there have been rumours about it for ages so everyone knows that Mark is going to pass on. People know that the money and the land and the power and influence is going to pass down the line according to whatever it is Mark decides. Mark, being Mark and something of a traditionalist is going to name Sam heir. So why aren't there eligible women queueing up to marry him?”

“I have no idea.”

“Neither do I. There has been some interest from Nilfgaard and from the more far flung areas of the empire such as northern Kaedwen, Lyria and Rivia and people the other side of the Yaruga. But they turn up, spend some time with him and then I never hear anything else about it. I should at least hear something. But there's nothing there. They just, never ask for a separate meeting.”

“Sam is a soldier,” I told her. “He knows next to nothing about courting a woman. He's still, I understand, going to be only a Baron in places where titles mean more than the amount of money and land that comes with it. He barely reads and writes although his math is better than his writing. His knowledge of poetry, history....the arts in general is not going to help his ability to hold a conversation with any kind of eligible noble woman. He's a boor and a soldier. We both know this. He is not traditionally charming. We both know that as well.”

“Yes but....”

“What he is, is cleverer than a lot of people give him credit for. He is faster than most people give him credit for and he's also absurdly pretty. Leaving aside my recent problems with him regarding the Elves and the way he treated them and therefore me, he's not a bad guy. So why are you afraid of him inheriting? Why are you afraid?”

Emma thought about this for a moment.

“Men like to talk about their gut feeling occasionally.” She said after a while. “This is my gut feeling. I don't think that he's going to be able to handle the responsibilities of running the family. I don't think he's going to be able to expand our influence which, despite my earlier moaning, absolutely has to happen because if we're not fighting other people off with cold ruthlessness, then people are going to see our good treatment of people like the Elves and the peasants, yes I use the word but I'm thinking like them in order to figure out ways to defeat them, they will see that as a weakness to exploit.

“But the truth is simpler than that. It boils down to this. There are two males left in the Coulthard family line after Mark. You and Sam. Of the two of you, you are the one that is provably better at expanding the families influence. You are an academic, you have made us famous throughout the continent when all Father, and I to be fair, were able to do was to make us rich. You have made us popular in ways that I would never have been able to do. You have skills that will be needed in the world that is currently being formed. A world that needs eloquence and learning and charm and humour. Much more than it will need the swordsmanship and the tactics that fill Sam's mind.

“You will make a better Lord Coulthard than Sam will. You will be better for it, better for us.”

“Has he threatened you in any way. Has he made your life difficult with Laurelen?”

“No. But....”

“Has he said he wants to do anything with the family businesses and money that don't fall in line with what's needed for the best interests of it all?”

“I...”

“I remind you that he took the money that he inherited and put it back into the family business. Same as I did.”

“You're right.”

“So has something else happened?”

“No it's just....”

“He wants to do his own thing?”

She just looked at me.

“He wants his own little corner of the world. He wants to take Castle Kalayn and turn it into a reflection of himself in the same way that Father, and you to a certain extent, have taken Castle Coulthard and turned it into a reflection of himself and yourself. You want my advice?”

She sighed expressively before nodding.

“Give him this thing.” I told her. “Let him have this land to do with as he pleases. Let him make something of it and when he asks for help, instead of just throwing money at him then teach him. Show him where he went wrong, ask him what he wants to do and help him. Include him....”

“You're going to be a wonderful professor at the university. You're going to be a good teacher.”

“Now that's something that a man wants to hear when he's only in his early twenties.”

“Freddie, you remember that I've met your fiancee.”

“So?”

“And you remember that I'm gay right?”

“I say again, so?”

“So she's really hot. I mean frighteningly hot. So hot that I considered stealing her from you.”

“But Laurelen would have objected surely.”

“Laurelen was actually quite open to the idea.”

“Aaarrrggghhh.” I screamed before an idea for some kind of revenge crossed my mind. “Hang on, is there the possibility of some kind of trade here?”

“What do you mean?”

“You get to try to steal Ariadne from me, whereas I get to steal Laurelen from you?”

“Do you fancy your chances?”

“Do you?”

We laughed at the same time.

“What are we saying?” I laughed.

“I know,”

“Besides, the truth is that they would probably run off with each other leaving us both.”

“Alone and unloved.”

We laughed a bit more.

“Sam has his faults Emma and Flame knows that I am fucking pissed at him at the moment but he doesn't deserve to be passed over because you have a bad feeling about things.”

“You're right. But you're not going to be the one that has to live with him if it all goes wrong. You're going to be off having amazing sex with your insanely beautiful wife.”

“Thank you yes. I shall remember that this is my end goal.”

She grinned. “I've missed you Freddie.”

“I've missed you too Emma.”

We gossiped for a while after that. We talked about what was going on with the Empress' knitting circle, gossiped about other things and then she left in the evening in order to head home. Sam was still a long way away but she promised that she would talk to Sam when he was more easy to find.

So that was that.

All told it took me a good three weeks to recover, both my strength and my stamina. As always, recovery was intensely dull and boring. I had my work to concentrate on but the person that really kept me sane through all of that was, of course, as he always is, Kerrass.

It was a good three weeks and a bit. By which I mean that I look back on those three and a bit weeks with fondness and humour. Kerrass was, by no means, my nursemaid but we sat and talked a lot. It was a reaffirmation of our friendship and it felt good.

I felt guilty about the way that I had treated Kerrass over the last few weeks and I felt as though I needed to reconnect. It was also about this time that we had the conversation that I had been looking forward to for a while.

“So Kerrass.”

“Yes Freddie.” He still had a slightly exasperated air about him whenever he was talking to me. One of the first things that had happened when we got back to the castle was that some Mage or Sorceress, probably Laurelen or Ariadne, had taken the time to properly repair his forearms. I understand it's something to do with the acceleration of the bones being reformed and strengthened at a rate far in advance of what they would be normally. He had also found a small cave somewhere nearby where he had set up a small alchemy lab in order to properly restock his potion box.

He had developed a habit of stretching his arms and rotating his wrists, staring at them in marvel before allowing them to hang at his side. He did things like swinging his arms in an exaggerated way as he walked.

The other half of his time he spent training. For some reason he wasn't entirely satisfied though. He was training obsessively squeezing a small rubber ball as well as sword and strength work. Even though, as far as I could tell, there was no lessening of muscle strength, he complained that “they didn't move right” and wanted to “retrain his arms” into doing what he needed and being as quick, skilled and strong as he needed them to be.

“Next time Kerrass, Next time we have some kind of adventure. Can you be the one that gets sick and has to spend a whole bunch of time recovering?”

“I would, but I don't get sick, and it doesn't take me ages to recover unlike someone like you. I have a decent constitution.”

“So what you're saying is....?”

“That I'm just better than you and you should learn to live with that.”

“That makes me feel so much better, thank you.

“In fact, it's actually a charity for me to be travelling with you. I'm doing you a service is what I'm saying.”

“Kerrass, what did you say to the Ghost? And why?”

“I thought you let me off easily when it came to that thing.” He sighed. “This is the part where you want me to tell you what happened and why isn't it?”

“It is a little. How did you know what to say? How did you know what to do? Who was that that talked to me about my way forward and answered my questions?”

Kerrass climbed to his feet and left the tent. When he came back he was carrying a large pot of tea and built one of his “hot rock” cooking fires where he heated a rock with his “Igni” sign so that it could provide heat without actual flames that could cause dangerous fires or give away our position with flaring light. Another little trick that would have been useful when we were fleeing from Cavill and his cultists, before setting up a pot and brewed some tea.

“This is a long story,” he told me, “and I figure that we're going to need some liquid refreshment.” He passed me a writing desk, ink, parchment and a sheaf of quills.

“To be honest the entire thing started when we were approaching Kalayn lands. The long and short of what happened here was that you, your brother, Rickard and the rest haven't really been able to see the woods for the trees. You spent your entire time in this part of the world fighting off individual situations and working to overcome individual trials without taking a big step back and looking at the entire painting. Don't feel too badly about this, it is a common flaw amongst people as a whole and I am just as guilty about it all as anyone else.

“Why?

“Because it all comes down to how we are trained. I wouldn't have the first idea of how to fight a battle. I just wouldn't know how to do it so my method of fighting in a mass battle would be to concentrate on the person in front of me, fight him and kill him before moving onto the next person and so on and on. That is fine, I don't need to know how any of that works. That is what we have people like Rickard and your brother for. Nor do I know how to move a significant number of people through relative wilderness while fighting off hostile forces. That is Chireadean and Rickard again that do things like that.

“You? You can navigate a courtroom, you can talk to people and make them love you. If I dropped you in the middle of a strange city surrounded by strangers and asked you to find out about what's going on there. You would know how to do it. You're even formulating a list of what you would do and in what order as we sit here and talk about it aren't you?”

“I might be.” I admitted.

“So what am I good at? What do I do? The obvious answer is that I kill monsters but the slightly less well known factor is that I combat curses. It is a less well accepted truth that Witchers often prefer to lift curses rather than trying to destroy the various victims of the curses. It is only when the victim is actively dangerous that we need to actively destroy the victim, for example, most cases of lycanthropy need to be introduced to the sharpened edge of a silver sword. Some do not, I grant you. Story and history books are filled with examples of the noble Lycanthrope who fought against their more savage nature and managed to become worthwhile members of society. But in the vast majority of cases, the anger and hate that started the curse is enough to drive the victim insane and the poor beast needs to be ended.

“So we all approached the area differently. Sam, when he first got here was concerned about the state of his castle and his countryside. You were concerned about looking for the cult and looking for any sign that they might have had anything to do with the disappearance of your sister. Rickard was concerned about you. The only person that actually came here with the outlook of having a job to do, was me.

“As I say, that's not a criticism. Just a statement of fact from my perspective.

“It was clear from the moment that we approached the border of Kalayn lands that something was going on. You may remember my commenting that there was a considerable magical presence in the area. A field of magical energy that surrounded us and pushed at us. It seemed to flow over us and wrap around us. Much more so than it would normally. Magical force normally flows through the land like streams and, in some cases, rivers. But here, it was like a sea. Ebbing and flowing around the land, manipulated by rocks and dips on the shore.

“There had to be a reason for this and the first thing that I decided I had to do was to look for signs that this magical effect was having on the surrounding area.”

He poured us both some tea, sweetening his own with a large spoonful of honey. I like mine a bit more bitter than he does, a change that he considers as utter lunacy.

“That was the basis of my thinking from the very beginning.” He went on after taking a long drink. “At first my working theory was that the land itself was scarred and that that was having an effect on the people that lived here. That the awful things that were done up at the castle had, in some way, reverberated throughout the countryside and, in some way, influenced the way that the world worked. This view was emphasised by the hostile nature of our reception when we finally got to the castle. The sense of disquiet that we all felt, yes, even you. It was easy to dismiss these feelings as a result of the ghosts and the evidence of all the horrors that had been committed in the castle as well as the personal connection that you had with what had happened there.

“But then you took me to the village and I noticed something else.

“This is a truly beautiful part of the world. It really is. Even the mists, which to most people living here were a justifiably terrifying occurrence, gave the area an otherworldly beauty that calls to the soul. That and the relatively idyllic lifestyle of the local villagers. That simple arable life where they are provided for, have plenty to eat, lack of monsters....

“Yes there are some insectoids and Arachnomorphs around but not in particularly large numbers and certainly not in a way that would adversely affect the villagers. They had learned to live with these creatures and do so to a better level than most would. They have what they need. My theory changed when I was told about their “Crooked man of the mound.” Their Crom Cruarch. A story of which was so vastly different from the entity that your cousin described to us back in Oxenfurt. This was a relatively simple, spirit of the harvest kind of affair. It would not have surprised me at all to find that there was some kind of satyr here that was returning the locals sacrifices with bounty but that simply wasn't the case. It also wouldn't track with the presence of these hounds. A terrorising program of the size that the Hounds had put in place would certainly turn out and discover anything of the size of a satyr.

“But there was a problem. Two problems actually. The first problem was that the villagers version of Crom Cruarch was so different to the one that we knew about...”

“But Mark said that that was not unusual.” I interrupted That cultists who get off on the power and the....depravity of certain things often like to take more than they need and to change details of what they had been told in order to better suit what they felt was right....”

“Yes, but that, in and of itself was a clue. The other problem was with the villagers form of worship. They operate a, not unique, viewpoint of how a small scale harvest God needs to be worshipped. They make offerings to the God in return for having more in return. Think about it. They offered the first fruits of the harvest in return for a bountiful harvest that year. They offered the first foals, the first crops of apples the first sheafs of corn. This was true in all things. The Bastards were offered the suggestion of giving up an arrow so that the rest of their arrows would fly true. You gave up knowledge in return for knowledge but there was one thing that was wrong with the situation which was the old story that they used to sacrifice their first-born children in return for everything else. Do you remember?”

“Yes. They gave up their first born in return for increased fertility, for better harvests, clement weather and the strength to carry on.”

“That was the biggest clue if I'm honest.”

“Why?”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Because it was wrong. It didn't fit with the rest of the pattern of worship. These primal, old Gods are creatures of habit. They ask for one thing over and over again and then they give back one thing in return. In this case, the villagers gave up one thing in return for many many more of that one thing and the return was quite literal in many cases. You give up Apples, you get more apples. You give up corn, you get more corn. But there was something about the killing of the first born that didn't sit right with me.”

“I can see why.”

“No, I think you misunderstand. I could almost see the logic that you would give up children in return for increased fertility so, you give up one child in return for more children. But remember that in the rest of the forms of worship, the sacrifice and reward was much more logical and literal in it's chain of thought. So if you were killing a child as part of a sacrifice then the God was just as likely to kill more children, rather than provide you with more. If you also remember, the Priestess, or maybe it was the headman, told us that there were fertility rites where people had sex in the holy place and then they were regularly rewarded with children, despite the proven lack of fertility in either the male or the female. That was the method of achieving more children. So what was it about the killing of the First-born? That was the question that started to oppress me. It was a riddle that I couldn't seem to answer.”

He paused for thought for a long while, staring into space before seeming to shake himself loose of whatever he was thinking about and poured himself some more tea. He raised his eyebrows at me in question as he pointed at my own cup to see if I wanted some more. I nodded on the grounds that I was still under orders to drink as much liquid as I could manage.

“And it was that that made me shift my thinking as to what was going on here. It was that question that shifted me away from the land and the spiritual nature of that land having been scarred by the horrible things that your mother's family and the rest of the cult had done. More towards the possibility that there was some kind of curse going on here. This was an idyllic place, populated by good people who were just trying to scratch out a living.

“But then along comes an evil cult that subjugates them and punishes them for perceived sins. Because we're in a modern world, the trappings are slightly different. The Hounds were called “The Hounds of Kreve” and so on but everything about it reminded me of a curse. I thought that the basis of things was that the villagers were performing the rites wrong in some way and that as a result, they were being punished by the spirit of the God, or power if you prefer, as personified by whatever or whoever these Hounds were.”

He sat in silence for a while before he smirked. “Turns out that they were indeed performing some of the rites incorrectly. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.

“There was even a point where I thought that what was going on with the hounds was separate from the Cult, but eventually I decided that there was no such thing as coincidences and that the two must be connected in some way. But I still thought that the cult was acting out the punishment of whatever this Crom Cruarch wanted them to do.”

“But they were people. The hounds were people.”

“So? That doesn't stop them being slaves to the will of a more powerful being. It's just that instead of the curse being enacted as an outgrowth of Sword-vines and a magical effect of lethargy, instead it produced an effect of increasing the baser natures of people as well as an unreasoning hatred of the villagers in these parts.”

“So that was where the difference was. As I say, you, Sam, Rickard and the rest saw the problem as a human one. As a military problem that can be planned for, strategised for and defeated with tactics and superior skills. But for me? I saw a curse that needed to be lifted. I would go so far as to say that even had we killed everyone in the cult, then the cult would just grow up again in a different form in order to terrorise the countryside.

“At first, I assumed that the curse would follow a similar pattern to other curses that I have lifted in the past. That we would find some kind of shrine in a desecrated temple somewhere up in the mountains. That there would be some kind of old stone carving or a statue that was painted in what could only be dried blood. But then the scope of the problem seemed to become much larger. Much larger indeed, and as we left your brother's lands and went northwards and back into more settled lands. As we get towards the borders of Kovir, Poviss and the Hengfors league and over to the border with Kaedwen, I absolutely assumed that we would find that the cult phenomenon, the Hounds and whatnot, would turn out to be a relatively localised phenomenon.”

He had a little chuckle to himself.

“Boy was I wrong.”

We both had a little smirk to ourselves, as Kerrass sat in thought. “One of the interesting things about being a Witcher is that we very rarely get to see what happens after we've hunted. We kill the beast, lift the curse or dismiss the ghost. But very rarely do we get to see what happens as, more often than not, we are firmly, if politely, asked to leave the local area. So we climb on our horses and ride away. The side-effect of this is that we don't really analyse what we did. We don't really look back and think about the actions that lead us to this point. Having spent a bit of time with you and reading your accounts of past hunts, both the popular versions for that magazine as well as the clinical and scholarly versions for the books and the lectures, I sometimes wonder if this is a mistake.

“I still can't quite decide what was happening in these lands and I suppose that only time will provide us with the answers that I would like to be privy to. But I think that there are two options. The first is that we are dealing with a “Two sides of the same coin,” effect. There is the evil side that the cultists follow and then there is the more benign side of things, the harvest God that the villagers worship. Again, I more than suspect that this is going to be one of those things where I will never know the answer.

“The alternative is far more terrifying. Which is that the cultists are right. That something came through with the Conjunction of spheres. Another being, vast and terrifying that simply doesn't agree with the laws of existence here.”

“The laws of existence?”

“Yes, the basic stuff. That up is up and down is down. That we breath air, drink water and that, generally speaking, what goes up must go down. Fire is hot, ice is cold that kind of thing. Even magic obeys these rules on a basic level. It is a separate force to be sure, but at the same time, it does follow rules. It is classifiable.”

I tried to imagine a world where these things could not be the case.

“Hard isn't it.” Kerrass said with a smile.

“It is,” sure enough, I was struggling to think in a way that didn't involve the most basic concept that occurred to me, that one plus one equals two. I was trying to think of making it a fact that one plus one equals a dozen, but then I realised that the concept of something called “a dozen,” was, in itself, partially defined by the number one. So a world where one does not exist. Not because we have not defined it, but because there is no such thing as quantity that can be measured. It made my brain ache.

“You see?” Kerrass was smiling as he watched me try to contort my brain over into the strange and foreign shapes that I wanted it to.

“No,” I decided after a moment. “No, I don't. But I suppose that that's the point.”

“Exactly.” Kerrass' eyes lit up. “You can't imagine it. But just suppose that the conjunction of spheres opened a portal to some place like that. Now imagine that a being that lived there looked through the portal and saw our world. What would it do. It can't come through because it's concept of space is different to ours. But it is jealous and decides that it wants to come through and so it sets out to change what it's looking at in order to better be able to acclimatise itself. It does that by creating a cult. Giving that cult the power and the abilities in order to.....to pervert, yes that's the right word, to pervert the world that it has seen into it's own image.”

Kerrass sighed again. “Unfortunately, now that I say this aloud, I think that this is by far the more likely scenario. We are going to need to put things in place to guard against this kind of thing happening again.”

“I have no doubt that if you talk to the church representatives then they will be all too keen to help out with that problem.”

“Yes, but would their people be susceptible to the rot, to the taint. Or would the churchmen use that power and that remit to become corrupt and harmful in other ways as they have done in the past.” He shrugged. “I don't have a better idea unfortunately. But still, I'm trying to explain my reasoning as to why I did what I did and why, I think, it worked.

“So, I've talked about the villagers harvest ritual and why I thought that was important?”

“Yes.”

“So we went looking for signs of the cult, and as I say, I absolutely expected to find that it was relatively localised, but it quickly became clear that it was much more widespread than we thought it was. Which to me meant that the curse was having a much greater effect. It had infected a significant part of the population, both in the fear and the downtrodden nature of the peasantry....Yes, I know that you don't like the word but in this case it is fairly accurate, but also in the attitudes of the noble classes. Even those men and, to be fair, the women who were involved as well, thought that the practices of the cult were utterly repellent, they were still turned in one way or the other. Either to the fear, or to the overt and over the top belittlement and subjugation of the women.

“To me? I saw signs of the cult everywhere. But we still knew relatively little about the cult, or what we were dealing with. Then we had the good fortune to get captured.”

“The good fortune?”

“Yes. I'm not sure I would have been able to put all the pieces together to solve the problem unless we were told about the opposing point of view. It killed a friend, it shattered my arms, made you ill and it has the potential to cause problems between you and Ariadne, I suspect, with the loss of your medallion.

“But on the whole, I would not have figured things out if it hadn't been for the fact that we had been captured. If we hadn't been captured then I would have let Sam, Rickard and the rest mount an armed incursion into Cavill's territory. We wouldn't have known about some of the other people that surrounded Cavill and his son and even now, some of those noblemen that we had thought of as friends as we travelled through those lands, would be riding off somewhere in an effort to go to ground and take the influence of the cult.... the influence of the curse with them.

“I suspect that Cavill and his son would have escaped and, no longer tied down to having to keep up the pretence of his noble name, the cult would have prospered. As it is, the mage Phineas has vanished and I would go so far as to say that if evil truly does exist in this world, then that man is one such. I don't know why. Maybe the being from another plane finds it easier to taint minds like his and he genuinely believes what is happening and worships that....thing whatever it was.”

“Even so. I can't think that we were better off captured. Poor Taylor.”

“Yes, and let's be fair here. Poor us. Not gonna lie here Freddie. That was a dark couple of weeks there. A dark couple of weeks.”

“It really was.”

Kerrass stared at me for a long while, his golden eyes shining in the reflected lamp light. I realised that it had gotten dark outside. “You saved my life again Freddie. I know we're not supposed to be keeping score any more but I will remember that you did that.”

“You are quite welcome.” I told him. It seemed right that I hold out my hand to be shaken and he took it.

We sat in silence for a while after that. It was a pattern that we had come to accept, a mirror of our time on the road where Kerrass would explain something and I would note it down. Our surroundings were better than they had been during that time but I was beginning to long for a return to that time. A bit more time out on the road with my friend. It was during the quiet moments like this one that those kinds of sentiments, those kinds of feelings came back to me. I wondered if Kerrass felt them himself.

“So anyway,” he said, seeming to shake himself. “Those were the last pieces of the puzzle. I was convinced of it. That our time spent with Cavill and his son, the things that he told us and our time down in the caves. The discovery that it wasn't just some cult that someone had invented to justify their own sick perversions. That there was something here. Some kind of power. That seems certain.”

“Why?”

“North Eastern Redania is not the only home of depravity but it is more widespread here and more uniform. The kinks are the same and they all have a common theme. The degradation of women, more so than a willing subservience but this was an outright hatred of them and then the degrading of them to this extent.

“Most men treat women badly if we're honest with ourselves but the attacks on their perso are particularly harsh here. It does happen elsewhere, I am not so naïve to believe otherwise, but what it is... is rarer and the cases where that does happen are more isolated. Sooner or later, there comes a point where a witness, or someone who hears about it will imagine the victim to be their daughter, sister or mother and will take steps. So people that do that have to be more secretive but here? Here it seems to happen out in the open and it's widespread.

“I remember thinking that I had all the threads then. I thought that I could see the solution before my eyes and that if I could just reach out and grasp them all, then I would be able to tie them up into a pretty bow and come up with an answer.”

“But then they shattered your arms.”

“And stole all of my Elixirs. The combination of the pain and the lack of proper alchemy took away my reason and I could no longer think beyond surviving past the next moment.”

“That's not a bad thing. We needed to survive after all.”

“True, but this is one of those times. If our positions were reversed then I would agree that that was true. Survival is the most basic form of instinct so if you were the one telling me that you didn't come up with the solution that would have saved lives because you were too busy just trying to survive and worry about where you were going, to find food and shelter then I would say that that was acceptable. But in my case it is far from acceptable. I am a Witcher.”

“Kerrass you shouldn't be harsh on yourself about that.”

“Yes I should. I am a Witcher. It was my job to solve this.”

“You did.”

“But only after many others, including Taylor, Dan and the rest, had died. I should have been faster.”

“Next time you will be.”

“I know that. I do, sometimes, such a goad is a good thing. It drives us to be better.”

“Just so long as it doesn't push us into guilt and self-loathing.”

“True.

He sat staring at the flame of the lamp for a long time. Slowly, he reached forward and extended the wick so that the flame lengthened and sent the shadows dancing against the tent walls. For a while he looked around himself at the patterns and the movement. He seemed....happy in some way. As though he had found something that was missing. I have no idea why because after letting his eyes dart this way and that, he settled back down to staring at the flame that echoed the dances of the shadows in it's own peculiar rhythm. Moving with the occasional gusts of air.

“I think I lost my mind in those first few days as we left the caverns Freddie. I do believe I went insane.” He said it softly, I wondered if that was what my voice sounds like when I give confession.

“What's it like?” I asked gently. I did consider whether I would be better off leaving him to it and not asking the question. But there was something about him that suggest that he wanted to talk about things and it seemed rude not to. Almost as though it might be an insult to his efforts.

“You must know.” He told me. “You've come close to it yourself. After Amber's crossing, I saw your eyes then and there was no-one behind them. When you tried to take my knife away from me in order to cut open your own veins. You were mad then.”

I shook my head.

“No, sorry Kerrass, but I truly think that I've never been saner than I was in that moment. I was wrong, but there was an absolutely rational and logical progression going on in my head. I was in so much pain then, physically and mentally and I could not see a way out of it. I could not conceive of a life where I wasn't in some kind of pain, or that I wasn't suffering. I just wanted it to end as soon as possible and the quickest way to do that would be to end my own life. It made complete sense to me at the time.”

“And that's precisely what it's like. That is madness in many ways, or at least it is for me. When you are sick or afraid, panicky, depressed or any of the other kinds of mental problems.” He gestured at me. “When you are struggling to contain your temper. More often than not you know that you are going overboard. You know that you're being paranoid or that the fear is freezing you to the spot when you know that you should be getting up and doing something. That you should be acting rather than reacting. Or you should be calming down and thinking rationally and calmly about the situation. You know what's happening to you and you try to fight it. To put it behind you and to move on.

“Madness? There isn't even the question there, not even the merest hesitation that you might be wrong. For example. I have told you before that I hear voices.”

“Yes, you told me that they tell you to kill me on a regular basis. You made jokes about it as I recall.”

“Yes. Jokes and humour as a whole are a defence mechanism and I'm just as guilty of employing that defence as anyone. But yes, I do hear voices. They whisper on the edge of consciousness, just about every day. Sometimes, believe it or not, it is even comforting to know that I am never truly alone. But other times, the things that those voices say to me are truly terrifying. But I know that they are just voices and I also know that the majority of the things that they tell me in order to motivate me into doing one thing or another are lies. I can take comfort in that, because it means that I can work my way through to being able to work through the noise and get the task done, or if you prefer, to make sure that I don't simply murder you in your sleep.”

“Not as reassuring as you might think there Kerrass.”

He just smiled. I wondered if I could see a tinge of sadness in that smile.

“No, I suppose not. But the truly terrifying time comes when the voices make sense. When I find that I have, not only listened to the voices but that I believe them, that I agree with them and that I am absolutely convinced that the only way for me to survive is to do everything that those voices tell me. That's what it's like for me to lose my mind. In the same way that it seemed like the most logical thing in the world for you to attempt to end your life to make the pain go away? That's what it's like for me.”

I nodded to show that I had heard him and joined him in his contemplation of the oil lamp flame.

“But then we found the Elves,” he told me after a long time. “Or rather you did and I do believe that those Pointy eared bastards saved our lives.”

I snorted. “I don't think there's any doubt of that Kerrass.”

“No, I suppose not. So they took us aside, give us some food, give us some water and then, miracle of miracles, I could take some Elixir's and start to reclaim my mind from the problems that gripped it.

“And the Elves gave us another gift. They told us the story of the Damaged Elven King.”

“Did you believe that story?”

“Not a word of it.” Kerrass grinned. “I absolutely believed that Chireadean meant it. And having talked to his fellow Elves, they believe those same stories too. But I didn't think that Crom Cruarch, the peasant God, was some kind of damaged Elven King. I don't believe that for a moment.”

“So what did you take from that, because it did rather seem that you found the first step on your path to dealing with the problem while we were in their company, eating their food and drinking their water.”

“And you are correct. What they told me was that something had come in order to oppose whatever it was that the cult was worshipping.

“I wonder what it was. One of the things that you have to remember when you're dealing with Elves, is that Elves are just as arrogant in their own way as humans are. Something turned up with the power, the drive and the capability in order to fight the Cult's entity. To modern Elves, looking back at heroes that were born before the advent of modern humans, it is ludicrous to them that the saviour of the local area should be anything but an Elf. In their heads it just makes sense. What else could it have been that would have had the power to see off so massive and terrifying a being.”

“What was it then?”

“I have no idea. Although I suspect that if anyone would know then it would be more likely to be someone like Ariadne, although her area of influence was somewhat further south and vampires would not have taken much interest in anything that was going on outside their own spheres of influence so I doubt that there's any point in asking. As it is, we could sit here and discuss it for hours as there's no possible way that we can discern the answer with any accuracy.”

“You must have a theory though.”

“Theories? Oh yes. A power of some kind, not unlike Kreve or the eternal Flame. Remember that it still has enough power to grant the wishes of the common folk even all these years removed. I also like the idea that it might be something that was opposed to the Cultists' thing. Maybe a being from it's own dimension, realising that it's enemy had snuck through, came through as well in order to help us fight it off. Maybe such things have natural enemies, who knows?

“But what the Elves did tell me was that we were dealing with two separate powers. It was, due to the Elven stories, unlikely to be some kind of situation where we were seeing the two faces of the same God like being. Instead, it was about two separate....things. Also from the Elves, it could be deduced that the thing, the Elven King if you like or the Villagers God, let's call the “good” entity “Crom Cruarch” for now so that we can get the two separate in our heads.”

“Ok, what should we call the Cultist's God then? It seems only fair that it should have a name as well.”

“I dunno.....Fuck face?”

“Haven't we given that name to someone else?”

“Probably. Probably several somones by now. But anyway. The point was that there was two things at work here. One was the evil, destructive, torturing thing. The other was Crom Cruarch. It seemed logical to believe that Crom Cruarch knew a lot more about how to fight off the other guy as he seemed to be diametrically opposed to him. So why didn't he leave behind knowledge on how to fight off his opposite number should the whole thing start off again?

“The reasons are many and varied. We know that the majority of the local humans died off. If not all of them. We also know that what Elves that were here eventually disappeared and it wasn't until the area was repopulated or started to recover in the wake of various things that the two powers started to reassert themselves.

“So I theorised that Crom Cruarch had indeed left instruction behind as to what to do. He would have had to otherwise, what would be the point. Which led me to the things that all of the villages had in common. They had their holy places and they had their....”

He left it hanging as if he was expecting me to pick up the slack in some way.

“They had their rituals.” I answered. Always a sucker for being a teachers pet in any way that I can.

“Precisely. Holy places and their rituals. So, as we journeyed, not being able to take part in the physical aspect of things because of my injuries, I just sunk into thinking about the ritual and how, in the name of all that is holy, would that help in fighting off the bad guy?”

He had a little laugh at himself.

“The answer, as it so often is, is obvious now that we sit here in the safety of camp and look back on it but the question was what I was using to fight back the pain and the frustration of my injuries. It was how I ignored the voices as we marched and I had nothing else to do but be carried around and treated like baggage.”

“I suffered with the same problem.”

“Yes, and I'm not trying to belittle your contribution towards anything here, but you are not me. You are, and I'm trying to be inoffensive here, used to being carried. By me as well as others.”

“Thanks Kerrass I always love it when you belittle me.” I said drily.

He waved his hands at me to ward off my anger despite the mocking nature of it.

“I don't mean it like that.”

“I know, but I'm having far too much fun to not mock you about being offensive. It's how you get better at dealing with people Kerrass.”

“Why do I keep you around again?”

“I have no idea.”

“My point though, is that you are used to being an observer. It's the nature of your job. You're used to being part of events but you are very rarely a participant in them. I notice that many of the times where you have been an active participant make up those episodes that make it into magazine publication.”

“Well....It doesn't make for very interesting stories, either to write or to read if all I end up saying is “And then I hid in a ditch while Kerrass killed the Griffin. Or, I huddled in a cottage along with the other villagers while you dealt with the nightwraith that was terrorising the apple orchard. Doesn't make for interesting reading.”

“I suppose not, but anyway... I was once again drawn into the question of why the villagers would sacrifice their first born. Back when humanity was just beginning to settle in the area, every child was needed, every child. It was the only way that we could survive so the thought of sacrificing the children would have been foreign and terrifying to the people that live here. That's just how people work. So if there was some being that was telling them to sacrifice their children in return for good harvests, there would be some people who would be for it because there are always some people who will take the darker and easier route. Look at how they summoned that entity in Amber's crossing. Another man who wanted an easy way out rather than confronting the truth that the village was doomed and needed to be completely relocated. But remember what happened to him when the village found out what was done.”

“They hanged him from the nearest tree.”

“Yes. And that would have happened here as well. When starvation and disease and monsters mean that every child's survival is precious, people don't stand for it. Even the people down in Velen who sacrificed their children to the crones only did so if they had a spare.

“So that was the puzzle. That was the thing that was wrong. I wondered where they had got the rules from. Despite the eventual loss of the Dauk in this part of the world, were there still ancient enclaves that were able to pass those rules on? Did the early settlers in this area get the rules of the sacrifice given to them in the form of dreams. It just seemed so out of place. It's worth saying again that Crom Cruarch seemed a very literal God. He would give you back that which you gave him. If you gave him a lamb then he would give you more. A bucket of apples would increase the harvest. Killing a first-born makes no sense. Because you can't have more first-born there is only one first-born of any family.”

“But it was the sacrifice of children.”

“But that wasn't what was specified. The thing that was specified was the sacrifice of the first-born. So why was that a rule? How did that help the harvest or help the fertility of the people there, either male or female given that we know that there is another rite that provides people with that?

“I remember the problem going round and round in my head until it seemed to echo off the walls of my skull and set my brain vibrating with the questions. Over and over, the same question. Over and over again until every path was so well tread that I knew them all by heart as well as where they went and what was at the end of them. If it was any other situation, any other hunt I would have either walked away or done something physical in order to distract myself. But I no longer had that luxury. I was focused on the solution to the problem to the exclusion of all other things. The only time I lifted my head from the problem was when we were attacked and we had to choose where we were going to make our stand.

“The truth is that we didn't have enough information. We were getting close to where we needed to be. We chose to stand on that hill in the valley that was surrounded by mist when the fog rolled in. I remember thinking that that place was the place that people were drawing or thinking about when they made those little symbols that denote them being a holy place. The hill surrounded by mist and trees. It left me feeling as though I was getting closer to an answer even though it was still just out of reach.”

He stopped talking suddenly.

“I wonder...”

“You wonder what Kerrass?” I asked after he had sat in silence for what felt like an age.

“Oh, I was just wondering....” he shook his head. “Whether this is not the first time that this fight has happened. Crom Cruarch and or his followers have fought against the cultists before and I wonder if we were acting out according to our own whims or according tot he desires of Crom Cruarch and that it was he that kept the answer from me for all this time.”

“We're heading into deep philosophical waters there Kerrass. Thinkers have been wondering that for years as to whether our wills and our actions are our own or whether we are all at the calling of fate, destiny or something else. It's another one of those questions that serves little or no purpose other than to give you a headache.”

“True....” He shook himself free of that train of thought. “The reason that I thought that was that it suddenly all seemed so simple. As though someone, or something had plucked the covering from my eyes and it all made sense in my mind. The answer to the riddle and it hit me in the face as though it was a sword blow.”

He leant forward in his chair, the flickering flame highlighting his face.

“I think....I think that Crom Cruarch is the kind of spirit that doesn't want to give you something for nothing. He will help you but he's not going to just save you and keep you safe from all comers. He expects you to do your part. He requires you to pay attention and help yourself rather than just sitting back and letting the God that you worship do everything for you.

“So what I think happened was this. I think that Crom Cruarch was aware that the followers of his enemy that were most powerful, the ones that felt the enemy's power most keenly were the first-born children. Specifically the First-born sons. And what Crom wanted to do was to teach people what to look out for in order to protect themselves from this all consuming bad guy. He was teaching the people to “watch the first-born” because they were the bastards that would come and kidnap your daughters before raping them to death.

“He was well aware that the people that he was protecting were not strong enough to do this off their own initiative....yet....but at the same time, he was wanting to teach them what was going on so that they would be able to take that initiative in the future. That they would be able to step up and protect themselves when he, Crom Cruarch, was less powerful. A factor that he anticipated.”

“DO you think he was a genuine person then?” I asked. “If not Elf, Human or whatever, do you think he was a being?”

“If he was, he was unlike anything that I've ever heard of. But it's possible. He was here to fight something else that came through the rifts after the conjunction of spheres so I suppose that it's entirely possible that he came through another rift at the same time. We hear about other races and things coming through. We know that Humans and Vampires as well as magic and the vast majority of those beings and creatures that are badly described as “monsters” also came through. It is not too much of a leap to think that there were also individual beings that came through at the same time and that have since died out.

“It's also possible that he could have been, or could still be for that matter, something else. A kinder, gentler version of Jack, or the beast from Amber's crossing. There are other beings that travel the paths and byways of this world that are neither human nor Elf but have power that you would find astonishing and otherworldly. Maybe he was one such.”

“Do you have any examples of these beings?”

“Of course. You have met several. Maleficent not least.”

“Fair point.”

“So maybe Crom Cruarch was one of these. My impression of him is that he has moved on though. Either to other places or he's died but it's impossible to say. But as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted.”

“Sorry.”

“No you're not.”

“You're right I'm not.”

“But as I was saying. I think that Crom was teaching people to protect themselves from the cult or people that would follow the teachings of the cult. So he told them to kill the first-born as a way to show them a route forwards to be able to protect themselves and stand on their own two feet. I think that this instruction has been corrupted and confused over the years so that people who looked back on it think that they were supposed to kill their own first-born in return for... whatever. But the truth was that Crom wanted them to kill the first-born cultists in the same way as they would sacrifice a barrel of apples. To show that they were willing to do their part and not just trust in him. So if they killed the odd first-born cultist....That's what we'll call it by the way. We'll call them the cult of the First-born.”

“Suitably sinister sounding. I like it.”

“So if the villagers killed the odd cultist then Crom would help them out. That's what he was telling them. In the same way that he would give them more apples in return for a small contribution, he would kill more first-born cultists in return for the villagers just killing one or two.”

“So you told us to kill a first-born cultist.”

“Correct. Cavill was the one person among the cultists that we knew, for certain, was a first-born cultist. The rest of you offered a sacrifice of blood and I changed the tone of the ritual by offering the death of a First-born.”

“And so Crom came to help us.”

“Or whatever was left of Crom that is still in this area did.”

“Holy Flame.”

There didn't seem to be that much that I could say after that. A massive thing encompassed into a few short words.

“He seemed angry to me.” I said. “He seemed, disappointed.”

“I would be too if I had given people everything they needed to save themselves and then they hadn't listened or forgotten.”

“From a few hundred years ago to be fair.”

“Would you feel as though that was an excuse?”

“Probably not.”

“And you are not some kind of supernatural creature. What did he tell you Freddie?”

“What?”

“At the end, when he looked at us all. What did he say to you?”

“Couldn't you all hear it?”

“No. He said things to each of us. He told me that there was still a lot of work to do. He admonished Chireadean for his people's feelings. What did he say to you?”

“He told me that he remembered me. He told me that the magic that I was looking for was old, very old and that it came from elsewhere.”

“Ominous.”

“Very.”

“But it's a way forward.”

“If you like.”

“So you saved us.”

“Yes. I figured it out. And at the end of the day, I can't help but feel that I should have done it sooner.”

“Proving that, despite all evidence to the contrary, you are a good man.”

“I'm not convinced.”

For a while, I was writing a series of small articles at the beginning of these entries talking about what it was that was indispensable to Witchers. It was an interesting series of things to write on the grounds that it has been some time since I have written anything deeply analytical about the nature of Witchers or what makes them a unique phenomenon. Why they have never been used before other than in that very specific format and why they, may, never be used again.

Yes I know that the Empress is intending to found her own Witcher school but the chances of that school being even remotely similar to what has gone before is, to my mind, remote. I think that the new Witchers, if they can be created at all, will become so tied up within Imperial power that they will bear almost no relation to the old Witchers, other than the tools of their trade and maybe some superficial similarities.

When I was writing those small chunks of work on the subject of Witchers, I was writing towards this point. My final analysis of what it is that makes a Witcher a Witcher. I'm talking there about the building blocks of a Witcher rather than the personality, methods or history of a Witcher. I'm talking about the basic things that are similar, if not the same, between them all.

I talked about their weapons, their mutations, their magic, their alchemy and their knowledge. I said that if it hadn't been for Kerrass' input on that small series of sub-articles, I would have told you that it was the knowledge that was indispensable to a Witcher. That you cannot be a Witcher without having been given the knowledge necessary in order to hunt the monsters that were before you.

I argued that without the knowledge that you could use to identify the monster then you couldn't slay the beast. Therefore the most important thing, the thing that you can't be a Witcher without, is the knowledge and the training involved in being a Witcher. How to fight it and what tools to use. But Kerrass argued differently and this is the best example of his point that I can think of.

In order to be a Witcher, you need to know how to think and it is this skill, this ability that is vital to a Witcher.

That may seem like a small thing and until Kerrass actually said it out loud I would have laughed at anyone that told me that. To me, thinking is like breathing in and out and Kerrass, quite rightly, scolded me for that attitude.

I have been taught to think from an early age. I was taught to be charming, witty and learned. Later I was trained to be able to analyse things. To look at things from a different perspective in order to hone in the truth of whatever it was that I was looking at. I would have admitted that I had to learn how to do that but in all honesty, I thought that that was something that anyone can do.

Kerrass argues that “thinking” is a habit that needs to be ingrained into a person at an early age. Learning, in and of itself, is a separate talent whereas “thinking” is a skill, almost a craft or an art in that you need to practice it over and over in order to get better until it becomes separate nature.

Then, he argued, some people never get into the spirit of that. Some people don't have the opportunity and some people just never see the need. When I asked him for examples of this he gave me one of each.

The first is the person that never had the opportunity to learn how to think. This would be the kind of person who grew up as part of the poorer classes. The people that live in the villages and can't afford tutors, where there isn't a priest or learned person who can teach the children their letters. These are the people that never get to learn that there is a wider world out there so they see no reason to find out or learn about it. All they have to do in order to be able to see to their needs of security, a home, food, drink and family is to learn the skills that their parents have to teach them. The rest of the things will fall into place after that.

Most of these villagers only need one miller for example. He will get married because he's the miller and he will teach his son how to be the next miller. That son will have no need to learn how to think. All he has to do is to learn how to work the mill which he will start to do as soon as he has attained the necessary physical conditioning.

Why would he learn to think? He will never really use the skill of thinking and so he will gain no enjoyment out of it. So he never bothers.

The other kind of person who would never need to learn how to think is, socially, almost the other end of the scale. These are the wealthy nobleman's children. Men and women who are utterly secure in their future. The men know that they are wealthy and that they will inherit everything. Therefore why do they need to learn anything at all other than the stuff that they need to learn in order to preserve their wealth and to preserve their position in society. The women know that if they are the children of wealthy parents, then they will attract suitors who are hungry for the money and influence that their parents bring to any future potential spouses.

It's worth mentioning that I would agree with anyone that says that the women get the shorter end of the stick there. Knowing that they will attract suitors is not the same as knowing that they will be happy. That bears mentioning.

But those people never need to learn to think for themselves because then they might question what led them to this place and they need to sit down and do as they are told, just as much as the common-folk who work the fields do.

Those are the two different kinds of people that are the best examples of people that might be quite clever, quite intelligent and even quite well educated, but they will never learn how to think.

Which is different.

It is.

I know some people are reading this with a strange face on them at the moment but it's true. What's the difference?

This is the oldest example on the subject that I've ever heard of and it goes like this.

“The intelligent and learned man will know that the tomato is a fruit. But the man who knows how to think will prevent the tomato from being put in the fruit salad.”

Many of you will be scoffing now, thinking that you would never do the one thing over the other. And you are correct. It is an extreme example. But that is because you have been taught about the flavour of the tomato from the age of being able to distinguish between flavours. Not because you had to figure out where it goes in the first place.

It is also true that many people possess the skill of thinking to a certain degree. You use it whenever you have to think about things. Or answer a question. But, thinking is hard and it can often lead you to conclusions that you might not necessarily like. I can talk about this from my own experience.

When I set out on my journey with Kerrass I was the very image of the privileged noble. Even though I was all but disowned by my parents at the time I had still been raised into a life of privilege and nobility. I was educated and I had kidded myself into thinking that I was educated because I was intelligent but the truth was much closer to the fact that I was educated and got into university because I was intelligent but also because my father was one of the richest people in the country.

I had the inbuilt arrogance of nobility believing that people can drag themselves up and make something of themselves. I believed that the definition of “monster” was anything that wasn't human. I believed that commoners were common and the nobility were noble.

Now, I couldn't tell you why I believed those things.

I also believed that my family were good and that anyone who came after us were the bad guys. I had not yet learned to see things from the other perspective. Kerrass had to teach me how to do that.

I did things like wondering how to talk to farmers and craftsmen when the truth was that you talk to them in the same way that you talk to anyone else. Why?

Because they are people.

I had to learn to think differently. I had to examine things from every perspective so that I could see the entirety of the situation or situations that I found myself in.

I am still learning how to do this. I am still learning how to think differently and in every way I am learning that each situation is unique and different and needs to be thought about differently.

So why don't many people know how to think?

I don't know but I have a theory and it's not a nice theory.

I think it's because, to the vast majority of society, thinking is dangerous. If the farmer starts thinking then he might ask himself why he spends all of his days in backbreaking work in order to put food onto the table of some distant noble who cares little about them. He might start to think that he is not alone in this situation and realise that there are a lot more people like him than there are people like them. He cannot be allowed to think like this because if he does start thinking like this then the status quo might change.

If the nobleman's son starts thinking about things then he might realise that what he is being trained to do to the people that live and work in his fields is morally wrong. He might set out to use his families money in order to change things and that cannot be allowed because then the status quo might change.

The nobleman's daughter might start thinking about why she is automatically subservient to her younger brother. She might start thinking about the fact that she is more intelligent, better educated, more charming and better looking than her younger brother so she might start wondering about why he is inheriting over her. She might start to think that this is wrong and she might start taking steps to correct this injustice. She cannot be allowed to think like this because if she does then the status quo might change.

Education is increasingly becoming a virtue and, to be fair, that is an entirely good thing and we should push that agenda with everything that we have. But we frown at thinkers, we don't like them. Why? Because they start to tell us things that we don't like. Things that, if we're honest with ourselves, we suspect to be true.

But it is a skill that is vital to a Witcher. Without that skill, without the ability to think then all of the other things that they have been trained to use, the swords, the magic, the alchemy, the mutations, the knowledge and training, all of them.

They are all useless.

So speaks the Witcher.