“It was a little under forty years ago that I met her.” Schrodinger began.

“She was running across the plain, fighting off her enemies as I rested my horse at the treeline. I had just escaped from Brehan and the other troops that were still hunting the woodland for all of the other Cat Witchers that might have been able to escape the destruction of the Feline keep. By this point they had realised that Lexandre had betrayed them and they were out for blood.”

Schrodinger stared into space for a long moment as the memories rippled across his expression.

“I was cold, tired and starving to death. I don't think I had eaten anything in several days, only stopping to slurp down a bit of stream water and that had been non-too clean. It was still summer but at the same time, the summer can seem awful cold after you have seen the things that I had seen. I was in my coat, I had long since run out of potions and the swords on my back were not my own, so the weight that lay across my shoulders didn't feel right. They didn't move right and I hadn't been able to get comfortable with them.

“But try as I might I couldn't get the image of suffocating children out of my mind. The sounds of men dying, men that had been in my care and had been my responsibility. Men who I had fed, cleaned and supported through the changes that they had gone through in the same way that I imagine parents care for their own children and I had sat and heard them die horrible deaths. Deaths fuelled by rage and disdain. The vengeance of Brehan who had his grudges to grind and not finding anyone else to be able to exorcise his hatred, no-one that he recognised, he had begun to take it out on the men in the cages. Men who, even in their madness, had forbade me from dying with them. Brave men who asked for the keys to their cells so that they could cover my retreat.

“The rage of the mages who were looking forward to finally getting their hands on the Witcher secrets. The mutagens and the potions. The formula and the diagrams. As I had hidden behind a turn in the corridors I had been able to hear them cackling to each other about the things that they would be able to do in a place called Rissberg. A place where they intended to use those secrets for “The betterment of mankind” as well as the construction of the perfect sex-slave. When they had found the laboratory empty and the storehouses smashed, they too had fallen into a rage and started laying about the place. Torturing those few madmen, students and others who had the misfortune to be taken alive.

“Lexandre had done his job well though, making sure that there was nothing left of use that would be able to feed those mages and as such they were left unfulfilled. The magical equivalent of blue-balls I suppose. They were already talking about extracting what they wanted to know from Brother Brehan. At the time, my only source of consolation at the destruction of my home and the deaths of so many friends was the fact that Brother Brehan was probably suffering the consequences of his, and Lexandre's, actions.

“There was also the rage of the soldiers to be worked out. They had been promised monsters to slay. I was very interested in your comments about the feelings of soldiers and about how there is joy in a fight. They too must have been stymied. They had been led to believe that there was a castle, or fortress, full of Witchers that they would be able to fight and build up their own legends off the back of. Returning to barracks to tell their fellows and the wenches down in the taverns that they had bested a Witcher. They they had slain the deviants. In truth there was maybe a half-dozen real Witchers there including me and I know that I escaped and Joel also got out to spread the word. We had seen each other making our escapes through the smoke, splitting up to try and divide the followers between us and most of those that remained were cut down with cross-bows.

“I had listened to all of that before creeping through the secret ways. They had guarded the main entrances and the main exits but the strengths of that fortress lie in the fact that it can never be entirely invested by a besieging force. The terrain is too rocky for proper entrenchments and there are any number of holes and chimneys that can carry an experienced climber out to safety. It was one of those that I took, wedging myself between the walls with strange weapons and other essentials trailing behind me in a sack. Emerging into the evening air.

“I killed the three soldiers that were standing guard over the horses. I had so wanted to kill a few of them for all that they had done during the assault, even if it cost me my life, but I had children to protect and later, when that had been rendered moot, there was no way that I could take any of them before being cut down. I will give them this... They were prepared. But the three soldiers who were guarding the horses thought they were safe, one of them was even smoking as I killed him. The sword wasn't mine and the blow was clumsy but it did the job, severing the spinal column just below the base of the skull. The second lost his leg and went into shock before he could realise what was happening and call for help. The last one was the only one that managed to get his sword out.

“I am not ashamed to say that I took my time killing that man, making his screams echo into the night. I almost wanted his cries to summon more soldiers, both for me to kill and so that they could end my life. I didn't have it in me to do the deed myself but the thought of continuing was a little much. I almost wanted more men to come and find me so that I could teach them the mistake that they had committed in coming to my fortress. Of coming to my home.

But no-one came. So I chose the best looking horse although I disposed of the overly ornate saddle that sat on the thing's back and we rode off into the night.”

Schrodinger sat in silence for a long time.

“There is a place beyond rage, just as there is a place beyond sadness and grief. A place that you can only get to with a lot of sweat and blood. I worked with men who had lost their sanity every day at the keep, feeding them and keeping them as clean as could reasonably be expected. But those seven or so days where I was fleeing from the Redanians were as close as I have come to understanding what it really meant to be insane. I have little memory of what happened.

“I remember flashes if I really put my mind to it. I know that I no longer cared for my own survival and the only reason that I drank or ate anything at all was because of a lack of comfort. It would just occur to me as I rode along that I was debillitatingly thirsty and so I would stoop to the nearest muddy pool to scoop some liquid into my mouth, trusting my mutations to save me from any kind of poison, natural or unnatural, that might have been living in the water. I ate a few berries when I remembered and I showed a similar lack of care for which ones that I ate. I still remember the fire in my throat and belly as my body rebelled at them.

“I also attacked any soldier that I saw. I would like to say that I was trying to draw attention to myself so that any other survivors might have a greater chance to make their escapes but that isn't true. The truth is that I was just so angry and so consumed by my rage and my hate that I just needed to feel the blood covering my hands. I wanted to feel the bones splintering underneath my sword and the blows that I could inflict with my fists or my feet. I wanted to see the life, ebbing from the eyes of men while I slowly and implacably pushed my thumbs into their windpipe.

“I was dirty, bloody and sweaty when I heard her scream. At some point I had lost the black that I had originally stolen from the Redanian lines and I was now riding a much more timid chestnut horse that I had stolen from a nearby farmstead along with some food and money. Not because I had any real intention of eating or buying anything but because that's what you do when you're robbing a place. It sounds silly now but I absolutely remember that it made sense at the time.

“But I remember that I heard her scream. To be fair to us both, even though I would hope that you agree that she is far from the same as a horse, the sound she made was almost but not quite like a horse in pain. But there was something different about it. There was.... I don't know.....there was teeth in that sound. A fury and a sadness that seemed to reach into my soul and echoed with my own sullen and unfulfilled rage. It was a sound of combat.

“I hadn't been able to feed my horse in several days by this point and she was dying, just as much as I suppose I was really. The most that she could manage for me was a gentle trot towards the sounds of combat. I managed to get a bit more out of her and we came to the edge of the trees that we were travelling through.

“Why did I go?

“I went to die. I was close enough to that state as it was. I had run out of ways with which I could spend my anger on something or someone and all I wanted then was an ending to it. In the same way that those poor young Witchers in the cages just wanted an end to it. I had finally reached a state where I could understand what we...what I had put those people through and how it had felt to be the people that they were. I just wanted it to be over.

“So I came to the edge of the trees and I looked out across a plane. It was grassland, long grass that blew in a gentle breeze, the kind of place where you turn a villages cattle loose into because you know that if they escape then they won't go far and because there is no-one around to steal it. A lot more common in those days than it is now. Now there are walls and fences to keep cattle confined and contained. I've been back a couple of times. It's pasture land for sheep now. There's a barn where they take the sheep into in the spring so that the wool can be harvested and piled before it gets taken off to be sold and refined into usable wool.

“That was when I saw her for the first time and in doing so, I probably saw her in her most primal, her most basic state. She was fighting. There were maybe a dozen of them all told. Soldiers and mercenaries although there was no organisation amongst them. There was no knight leading them or Sergeant to call them to order. They were just after her because she was a unicorn and the money that that would bring. But like all folk who see her, they underestimated her.

“They saw a creature out of stories and fairy stories. They thought that they could capture her. Skin her for her hide and harvest those parts of her that are most magical. The parts of her that Alchemists would pay any price for. Her Horn which, if ground down, will neutralise any poison, will cure any disease. Her hooves which, again if ground down, will form a poison so deadly that even Witchers would die from it within moments and any other creature would die so quickly that it might as well be instantaneous. The money from those things alone would make a man among the richest people on the continent.

“But they had underestimated her. They weren't hunting down a clever horse or a picture. They weren't chasing after a child's stuffed animal. They were chasing after a warrior and a soldier. She was fighting a running battle with them, picking them off and I dare say that the only reason that she was losing was due to the fact that she was badly outnumbered. Even from where I was, I could see the blood running down her sides from cuts and gashes inflicted by lucky swipes of sword and spear. Her head hanging down in weariness.

“I remember screaming and drawing my sword. One of those moments where I could do nothing else, even if I was thinking clearly.

“I had killed two of her attackers before they even realised that I was there. I suppose that my hoarse bellowing was drowned out by their own screams of pain and shouts of frustration. I have no idea. Between the two of us, we didn't leave enough of them alive to be able to answer any questions. Fuck em anyway.

“It took us a long time though. I was starving, exhausted and driven to the edge of my endurance. She was the same, injured, tired and struggling to keep her head up enough to be able to work. Something to do with the fact that she needed to dip her head in order to properly bring her horn to bear. Not that her horn is her only weapon of course, the edges of her hooves are as sharp as any blade and the main part is as crushing as any mace or morning star. Couple these things with the sheer muscular power of her body, all of which attuned to the necessary skills and talents of killing people.

“She was, and is, awe-inspiring in battle.

“It took us a long time to kill them all, especially when they realised that there were two of us. They tried shooting their crossbows at us but in order to get a proper shot they needed to be able to stop the horses that they were riding on. If they did that in order to shoot at me then she was on them. If they fired at her then they were leaving themselves vulnerable to me and so on. I was too tired to use the signs and far too slow to be able to parry a bolt in flight.

“A trick that's a last resort anyway and far too over rated. What happens if you're facing more than one bowman who are shooting at you from different directions? There are plenty of other ways to deal with bowmen that are far more reliable and more efficient.

“I think that their failure overall was that they overestimated me, a witcher with a steel sword flashing, while also underestimating her. One or two of them were aware of the action that was taking place around the Feline keep, indeed I think one or two of them might even have been part of the attack on the keep before they saw a more beneficial prey in chasing down a unicorn. So they recognised a Witcher when they saw one. But they overestimated me, expecting magic and all the tricks that so trip of the tongues of poets and saga-masters and so they paid more attention to me than I deserved.

“To her though, they assumed that she was basically a trained horse. I've seen this mistake in action many times since then and although I did not see it at the time, I have since recognised the symptoms. She is more intelligent, far more intelligent than even the most intelligent warhorse that you have ever seen although warhorses are not particularly clever. So they didn't expect her to take advantage of their distractions. Or to know how to deal with it when they were trying to trap her in a pincer movement. Over and over she confounded their expectations. I know that you yourself Lord Frederick, have often commented that your successes in combat have come from the fact that your opponents make a habit of underestimating you. Always fun when that kind of thing happens.

“Things nearly got bleak for me when my horse died under me, he had already been exhausted and one of the troops had enough sense to put a spear into the side of the poor thing. He just fell over eventually. Nothing that anyone could have done. Poor thing. I rolled clear and came to my feet to engage the spear man. It was the first time of many that she saved my life, her horn dipping and ripping the spine out of the man as he ran towards me. I wasn't fast enough you see. Not fast enough to be able to get to my feet in order to defend myself from his spear.

“Then it was my turn to return the favour. A man was coming in on her flank, spear levelled on horseback. I didn't have time to think, instead I simply acted as I ran, using the body of my fallen horse as a springboard to catapult myself into the air in order to collide with the horseman. He was so firmly in his saddle that it also carried the horse off it's hooves and the man was pinned under the horse. A quick stamp to his neck dealt with him while his horse worked it's way back up to it's feet, dragging the broken necked corpse behind it like a ragged doll or a broken toy.

“It was a long fight and I was stumbling with weariness by the time that it was done. Grey at the edge of my vision, the whole works. There were still some of them that were wounded, crawling around on hands and knees. She showed them no mercy though. Stamping on skulls and on chests as they died. I'm not sure I could have moved if she decided that I was another human that couldn't be trusted.

“We were both covered in blood. My sword was slimy with gore and the same viscera was dripping from her hooves, her teeth and obviously her horn despite the fact that that horn still managed to find enough sunlight to glint. She lowered her head and looked at me. It's not that unusual for me. I'm a Witcher and I have dealt with many creatures and beings where I saw intelligence behind them where I did not expect to see it.

““Why did you help me?” She asked.

““Because I had no choice.” I told her, too tired to even realise that she was speaking to me telepathically.

““That is not a good reason, nor is it accurate. I saw no-one with a blade at your throat and you could have just rode away” She huffed. She sometimes has a tendency to take things rather literally.

“I managed to find the strength to shrug from somewhere. “It is true though. I saw them attacking you and I had to intervene. If that is not enough for you then so be it. But it is true nonetheless.””

“She stared at me for a long time. “I would like to know the answer to this mystery.” she declared before literally picking me up and placing me on her back. Another experience that was new to me is a mount that decides when she wants to carry you and when she can no longer be bothered.”

He laughed as he brought his extraordinary narrative to an abrupt end. “And that is how we met.” He told me. Summing up a remarkable tale in six words.

Kerrass laughed at him. In the presence of his brother Kerrass had relaxed to a point that I barely recognised him. He laughed often, told jokes, teased, accepted teasing back, made himself act like the buffoon and was actively joking around. After all the horror in the North at the hands of the Cult of the First-born, it was beyond pleasant to see. “Missing a few details out there brother dear,” he told him.

It was the morning after I had met this other Cat Witcher, by far the most unusual Witcher that I have met. And I have met a lot of Witchers by now.

By which I mean that I have met a lot of the surviving Witchers. Don't go thinking that I have met hundreds of Witchers, I haven't. I've just met a lot of the surviving ones. No, I'm not going to tell you how many there are. First of all, I don't really know how many there are and second of all, I have visions of people ticking names off lists. I will not be a party to that.

“Uppity young upstart.” Schrodinger declared throwing a riverside pebble at Kerrass. “How dare you talk to your elder Witcher like that?” He deepened his voice, obviously doing an impression of an elder that I had never met, shaking his head from side to side to make his lips and cheeks wobble. “How very dare you?”

I had no idea who he was impersonating but it sent Kerrass off into another fit of infectious giggles so that before too much time, the two of them were off and there was absolutely no retrieving them.

“Seriously though, what details am I missing?” Schrodinger had accused Kerrass.

“I don't know,” Kerrass informed him with pomposity and righteousness. “Why don't we ask the man to whom you are telling the story. What do you think, Oh Frederick the scholar. What details did my brother miss out?”

I gazed at them both, weighing up my options.

“I don't know what you're talking about Kerrass.” I told him with as much of an air of innocence and ignorance that I could summon.

I regretted it almost instantly as Kerrass pounced on me, wrestling me off my seat and pushing me into the water. As witty retorts go, he's done worse.

“Confess,” he shouted as he held my head under the water. “Confess to what you are really thinking.”

“Alright alright.” I protested, sputtering. “I'll talk, I'll talk.”

“A bit different from how you long you were able to withstand the torture of the good bishop Sansum.” Kerrass teased.

“Yeah, but the thing about bishop Sansum,” I began as I righted the tree round that I was sitting on. “The thing that you really have to remember about Bishop Sansum, the overriding factor that needs to be taken into account when you think about my interactions with Bishop Sansum. Bishop Sansum.....Bishop Sansum was a Twat.”

Schrodinger laughed. Kerrass nodded the acknowledgement of my point ruefully.

“Also, I actually want to know the answer to some of these questions.” I told them both.

“Which are?” Schrodinger wanted to know.

“You called the Unicorn your wife. What's that all about?”

“To be fair,” Schrodinger began again. “I didn't do that. Kerrass did. Loathsome little cretin that my brother can be when he puts his mind to it.”

“So what is it about then?” I asked eagerly.

“Yeah Schrodinger, what is it about?”

As I say, it was the morning after I had met Schrodinger for the first time. After Schrodinger had finished telling me about how Kerrass had been amongst the worst patients that he had had to deal with while administering certain aspects of the Feline Witcher trials, we had eaten, drank far too much of Schrodinger's moonshine before I eventually passed out drunk after telling my new Witcher friend all about my hopes and fears for the future as well as telling him some of my own deepest and darkest secrets.

It seemed only fair considering all the things that he had told me. I had been woken up by a smell that could only be described as being like having an icicle jammed up your nose so far that it entered my brain. As hangovers go, I've had worse. But not many. The morning after Shani had turned me down after I had finally worked up the courage to ask her to dinner counts as one of those. When I finally pulled myself out of my own arse-hole in Toussaint being another. My all time worst hangover though was the morning after my going away party, the one that was thrown for me by the group of people that I loosely describe as “friends”...

… and they know who they are....Oh yes. They do. My vengeance is still coming. Don't think for a moment that I have forgotten or that I mean to give up on giving you your just deserts.

That morning I woke up after the bastards who had still been drinking all through the night, dragged me out of bed, dressed me and thrown me onto the back of my horse so that I could “set out early enough to get anywhere”. I made it a mile out of town and hired a room at the first inn I found in order to recover. A couple of weeks before I finally met Kerrass.

In fact there are many hangovers in my past that are worse than the one I had that morning with Schrodinger and Kerrass. But having said all of those things. It was pretty miserable.

For about five minutes. Then Schrodinger handed me a small glass bottle and told me to drink the contents. Which I did, if only to shut him and Kerrass up as they threatened to sing a Cat Witcher training song until I had drunk it.

I swear, forget everything else, forget the potions and the mutagens. If Witchers sold that stuff, the hangover cure that they gave me that morning? Even if they divided it between their fellows and all the people that they like or are close to, then all of them, plus all of the attached people, could retire to their new private castle and live out their lives in indulgent laziness.

Then I learnt a bit about why Witchers insist on getting in huge breakfasts in the morning. Whatever hangover cure I had been given, which Schrodinger promised was a much safer version of the “White Honey” potion that Kerrass had shown me before that he, Schrodinger, had been perfecting over the decades, I had a bowel movement that would best be described as epic before I was given a roast boar and apple sandwich. The Unicorn had been hunting during the night and had managed to get at a boar while also skewering a number of rabbits. Apparently the precision stabbing was good practice for her.

She had fed before bringing the remaining carcasses back to camp where Kerrass and Schrodinger between them had finished cleaning them up and set them to cooking.

And yes. Turns out, Unicorns are carnivores. I should have seen it really but again, one of those presumptions that people make on the basis of myth and legend that later turn out to be utterly inaccurate. Not unlike the view that the common folk have regarding vampires, even those views are actually an amalgamation of all vampire species until they become some kind of ultra vampire. When the truth is that there are as many different species of vampire as there are species of....well....anything really.

But after my morning ablutions I was absolutely starving and ate easily my own bodyweight in Roast pork. Then, without prompting from me, Schrodinger began to talk and I listened.

“Have you read the chronicles of the White Wolf?” Schrodinger asked me.

“Many, many times.” I told him.

“Did you ever notice how often Cousin Geralt seems to get entangled with Sorceresses?”

I smirked. “It does rather stick out doesn't it. If I'm honest I had assumed that there was a certain amount of poetic licence going into the whole thing. Sorceresses are “well known” by society to be the most beautiful women on the continent, even when that is not necessarily the case, and as such I had thought that the poet claimed that Geralt seemed to sleep with them all as part of his building of his White Wolf character. Geralt of Rivia, the character of song and saga, rather than the figure of Geralt the man.”

“An interesting notion.” Schrodinger mused. “I have never met the man myself.”

“Geralt or Dandelion?”

“Both. I am enough of a product of my school that I generally don't really enjoy hanging out with the Wolven Witchers, despite how much Brother Kerrass has taken to their company, and I don't go close enough to civilisation in order to attract a poet or a sagamaster such as Dandelion himself.”

“Well, the poet insists that the love affairs that he describes are utterly accurate, indeed he seemed most upset when I might have suggested otherwise. I will admit that I had been drinking at the time and I had more than a small suspicion that if I pushed him on the subject then he would start telling me about how “truth” is in the eye of the beholder and “fact” is a matter or perspective.

“I didn't have the patience for it at the time as I was pretty sure that, being a Proffessor of Oxenfurt university, he could come up with any number of arguments and pieces of discourse that could disprove my point and then, without pausing, he could produce similar quotes and arguments that could support my theories. Speaking as a historian I would suggest that his romances with the Sorceresses Yennefer of Vengerburg and Lady Triss Merigold, now of Kovir, certainly happened. But as for the rest? I think we're getting into more suspect areas.

“I had always wondered that myself.”

Kerrass who was peeling potatoes for a later meal into a bucket spoke up. “Geralt himself doesn't comment on it.”

“Not unfairly I suppose.” Shrodinger commented. “I have always wondered if there was something about Geralt that made him more attractive to Sorceresses. But it seems to be entirely unique to him and I wonder if it's something to do with his extra mutations. Whether there was something that was done to him that attracts those of magical talents.”

“It must be something to do with the long white hair,” Kerrass commented. “My hair tends to be dark and greasy. I keep it cut short so that it stays out of my eyes but Cousin Geralt always managed to keep his hair flowing and clean and, dare I say, more than a little bit feminine. It just makes him look so damn pretty. Notice that it's only recently that he's started tying it back and making it less intrusive. He used to wear it loose and flowing with just a leather band to hold it back. The way he wore it just comes across as so...” Kerrass flicked his head as though he was swooshing a considerable length of imagined and heavy hair. The same kind of movement that you see women do when they're washing their hair. “... Gorgeous.” He then batted his eyes suggestively and blew Schrodinger a kiss.

“Maybe,” Schrodinger said. “I know that you don't do too badly with members of the opposite sex though.”

“What can I say,” Kerrass told him. “Presence of death, gratitude, danger, the exotic and the utter lack of consequences can be powerful aphrodisiacs to women of all shapes and sizes.” He considered this for a while. “Some men too. Who am I to send them away when they start getting all hot and bothered?” He made himself sound like a martyr walking stoicly towards his final doom.

“You're not really complaining though are you.” I told him. “It also means that you can hide from your feelings about a certain blonde haired princess by burying your head in the biggest cleavage you can find.”

“Or between their legs.” Schrodinger commented laughing.

Kerrass threw a potato at me which he then made me retrieve so that he could peel it and put it into the pot.

“But I can't claim that the make up of those women is overly Sorcerous in nature.” Kerrass went on, “I once met a very agreeable young Sorceress apprentice that suggested that there was an odd tingling sensation when she touched me. I liked her a great deal and I flatter myself that she liked me. But she ended up being thrown onto the pyres of Novigrad before either of us could work up the wherewithal to do anything about it and see if the “tingling” affected other things as well. She was a nice girl though.” A shadow of sadness crossed his face

“But speaking for myself,” Schrodinger began after recovering from his hilarity and in an effort to divert Kerrass from any kind of deepening mood. “I never....I just never really wanted to. I have certainly had offers as I've walked the path. Kerrass is quite right in saying that those particular things have an effect on people in general but I never... I just never wanted to. Never felt the need.” He leant forward. “You once commented Lord Frederick that you don't become attracted to someone until you get to know them did you not?”

“I did. It is still true although I find that since I became formerly betrothed to Kerrass, that attraction remains at a more aesthetic level rather than any kind of physical desire.”

“Which is how I feel. I can see a woman and notice that she is beautiful. I can see a man and notice that he is handsome. Not to say that women can't be handsome and men can't be beautiful but... beyond that, I've never felt the need for anything else. A doctor once asked me if I'm impotent and I honestly don't know the answer. I've just never felt the need to. As far as I know, everything still works and there's nothing physically wrong with me but physical desire is a mystery to me.

“Returning to the point though, affection? That is something else. I miss company, and being able to talk to people, to share hopes and dreams, to laugh and joke and be sad and angry with another person. But most humans still end up desiring the extra element that I simply cannot provide.

“I once tried spending some time with a girl to see if, provided with the right stimulus I might be able to get something going on. But despite the effort that the poor girl put herself to, nothing came of it. The entire thing began to get tedious after a while if we're being honest with each other.

“I also tried a similar thing with an agreeable man who I noticed was watching me in the same way that a drowning man might look at a floating lump of wood. Again, I worked really hard, so did he and nothing continued to happen. He enjoyed himself but I was rather disappointed if I tell the truth. I can see how there might be a certain art to the pleasuring of a woman but the pleasing of a man seemed rather mechanical.”

“So you don't feel any kind of sexual pleasure or desire at all?” I asked. Caught between horror and sympathy.

“No, don't feel too sorry for me though. You can't miss what you've never had. It has been suggested that the hormones and the mutations that were added into my body had this effect of removing my sexual drive. I can't answer to that as I don't remember what I was like before hand and no-one of my cohort of Witchers now survive for me to ask. I know that some young Witchers do share beds for comfort but I have no idea if I was one of these. Regardless of their eventual sexual preference, sometimes a warm body and someone to hold you can be comforting and I would certainly not condemn them for that.

“But I do still have the need for companionship and affection. And everything that I missed in others, I found in the presence of a certain female unicorn who also has four hooves and a horn.”

He shot a venomous look at Kerrass who's eyes were twinkling and mouth was open

“And before Kerrass here starts making jokes about such things I would remind him that I can still kick his ass with a sword, dagger or with my fists. Especially as he seems as though he was injured recently. So any jokes about my pleasuring her holes or her jamming her horn up my arse will result in you being thrashed, by me, until you will, quite simply, be dead.”

All joking aside, I absolutely believed that he meant it.

“But in all other ways, it is almost exactly like a marriage. We travel together, we share food and drink. She has carried me when I have lay exhausted and starving and I have fed her with my last scraps when she needed sustenance. She is considerably smarter than me and I am far from stupid and under her guidance, I am a better swordsman and woodsman than I ever was beforehand. She would die for me and I would die for her. I have separated myself from society and all that I hold dear in order to maintain her safety, skirting population centres and other ways in which I could make friends.

“I would be heartbroken if she died and she tells me the same. She is dear to me in a way that I cannot express. I love her and she me and there is absolutely nothing funny about that. Do I make myself clear?”

“Quite clear.” I told him, staring him straight in his eyes. “Quite clear indeed.”

“Good. Truth be told, life isn't that hard. She has a magical effect that was cast on her that she can explain better than I can. When we leave an area, people forget about us. Our only reason to go anywhere is when we need money for supplies and I need to to work for that. It's just that sometimes we get ourselves into trouble when she gets seen in the undergrowth. Then, some enterprising soul realises just how much money they can make from her, or me for that matter, and then we get into trouble.”

“Those of us that know Schrodinger can normally find him when we put our time to it.” Kerrass told me when he came back. “The forgetting about it afterwards is sometimes a little annoying though, meaning there are occasionally times when we've gone away for a while and then we realise that we haven't seen or heard from our old friend Schrodinger in a while and then we go back, find him and he tells us that he last saw us but a fortnight ago.”

“Awww,” Schroinger said. “How terrible that must be for you.”

“How did that happen?” I asked. “and why bother? I don't mean to be harsh but I know that Kerrass can hunt. I know that Cat Witchers can use crossbows so why, if you are, justifiably, afraid that any random person will come after you, and your compan....your wife....”

“Thank you,” Said Schrodinger.

“Then hopefully you'll forgive me for asking this. What the hell are you doing here?”

Kerrass had to put down the vegetable he was working on as his shoulders shook with laughter.

“Why don't you just retreat to a nice deserted part of the world. I know that they do exist as Kerrass has dragged me through a couple of them on the way to other places. Largely for his own amusement I might add as well as to disguise where we were going, so why didn't you just settle in one of those areas.”

Schrodinger shook his head sharply.

“First of all, let me disabuse of one notion. There is no such thing as an empty piece of countryside or a deserted part of the world. Even the most inhospitable places in the world like the Northern Tundra and the great desert to the east have people in it if you know where to look. The desert tribes move between watering holes and the Northern Tribes follow wherever their herds lead them. But the other problem is that you are still a young man. Let's see now, you started your journeys when you were nineteen and you've been going for a couple of years now so you're, what twenty one?”

“Yes, nearly twenty two.”

Schrodinger nodded. “So here's the truth. There is no place on the continent that will remain deserted for long. You are only twenty two. I have been on the path for a hundred and twenty years....Fuck, nearly a hundred and thirty, and areas that I thought of as being fairly busy, bustling metropolises when I started my journeys have either increased in size by a factor of ten, or they have completely vanished. The world is unrecognisable from what it was, even twenty or thirty years ago, let alone fifty to a hundred years ago.

“You think of Redania, Temeria and the rest being vast, immovable Kingdoms that have been around for hundreds of years. They haven't though. They have only emerged as being strong complete Kingdoms in the last couple of generations. Did you know, for instance, that Novigrad and Redania were two separate Kingdoms as recently as being ruled over by King Vizimir, Radovid's father. We know this because when King Vizimir was negotiating with King Foltest of Temeria regarding a marriage contract, he did so as King Vizimir of Novigrad. Presumably to show how much money he could offer as a dowry as Novigrad was, and still is I understand, the richest city in the North.

“There are numerous examples. The Kingdom of Attre was made into a Duchy of Cintra before it was conquered. Creyden is now a vassal of the Hengfors league rather than it's own country. Wyzima used to be called Wvzim after the lake it was situated next to. The great Nilfgaardian empire which dominates maps everywhere and was begun when The Empress' Great Grandfather, started to get ambitious for local economic gains. It's not that old. There might have been ambitions before then as shown in some of Kerrass' adventures in the south but calling it the “Great Nilfgaardian Empire is a relatively new thing.

“This coupled with the absurd rate at which Humanity is reproducing....”

“Wait....what?”

“The Elves and druids are right about Humans. As is Kerrass. The rate at which Humanity is reproducing means that sooner or later they are going to expand to fill the continent. There won't be anywhere left that is deserted that will be safe to hide in. The reason for this population explosion is because the other thing that Humanity is good at is getingt rid of all of it's natural predators. They invented Witchers to do the job for them. That's not a worry for you because you're used to the prospect of living your natural span of years which tends to bottom out at around seventy. But for Kerrass and I, or you if your Vampiress extends your life through magical means, suddenly realise that if we live for centuries then sooner or later the food stores are going to run out. The land is going to become overpopulated and anything that isn't human is going to be forced out.”

“I've heard all those arguments before and although I don't feel as though I know enough about the subject to comment properly, I more meant why are they relevant to you?”

“Because where would we go to hide that in another decade or so, won't be examined by a group of settlers as a good place to found his new village or town. Where would we go where a Unicorn isn't going to attract comment?”

“That isn't my point. We are in the channel of relatively deserted land between the sea and the major trade routes between the North and South. If you are travelling South then sooner or later you're going to hit Novigrad and the surrounding area. If you are travelling North then you have come through that area which means that you have recently taken that big risk. Why are you not in the Wilds of Kaedwen or in the mountains of Kovir where people are less likely to see you?”

“Because that's not the mission.”

“You know what I'm going to ask right?”

Kerrass came over and passed us both a cup of steaming tea. He always puts too much honey in it for me but I accepted the distraction for what it was.

“I told you that he was annoyingly good at staying to the point.” He told Schrodinger.

“While we're on the subject of questions that keep to the point.” I said after taking the drink and grimacing at the sweetness of it. “What possible use is a spell or ability that keeps you hidden from the memory of people. Surely the ability to turn yourself invisible would be more useful.”

Schrodinger smiled. “You would have been a good Witcher if you survived the trials.”

“I would normally claim that it's natural talent but in this case I will throw some of the blame at Kerrass' feet.”

“Which means that you are also throwing the blame at my feet as I taught him some of those skills.” Schrodinger sighed and leant back. Kerrass had gone back to preparing food. “I will answer the second question first as the response is a lot shorter. That being that if you want to know why she has that ability specifically, then you would need to ask her. She has never told me and I have never bothered asking. Invisibility is not as useful as you might think and is, I would imagine, a lot harder a thing to produce than mere camouflage. But I think it comes down to being a Unicorn. Believe me when I say that she is faster on her feet than all but the fastest race-horses. Race-horses which would be useless on uneven or rough terrain where she is like the wind. She is the perfect warrior for a fight or flight response. She can fight harder and run faster than anything else alive. Invisibility is therefore pointless. But after she is out of sight, the hunter forgetting about her? That is more useful.”

“Then why haven't the local villagers forgotten about her yet?”

“Again, you're asking the wrong person. I am not a mage. Also, do you not want me to answer the other question?”

“I do, but this one is relevant.”

He sighed, exchanging glances with Kerrass, “As I say, I don't know but my guess based on past experience is that it's something to do with proximity.”

“Fair enough. So why risk it?”

He grimaced unhappily. “She wants to go home.”

Five words that sank into the air as if from a great height, leaving silence in their wake. Even the sounds of Kerrass' knife working on the vegetables seemed amplified in the silence. But it seemed as though those words needed some kind of response.

“Oh,” I said. Not my greatest piece of wisdom ever.

“Unicorns are not from this world.” He said after a long while. “They came here, probably, the same time that the Elves did or with the Conjunction of spheres. Unicorns can also travel between planes of existence, between worlds or realms or whatever you want to call it. I don't know how to describe it but for whatever reason, she can't do it any more if she ever could. I would never say this in front of her but maybe it's a breed thing or maybe it's something that you need to be taught. I know that Unicorns have a tribal structure although she calls it a “herd”. But I struggle to think of Unicorns like that. Something being a herd suggests that there are things that do the herding but maybe it's a language thing as well. She claims that they have their own users of magic that she calls “Shamen” which seems to be a kind of Druid that advises the leaders of the tribe. They are a warrior society as a result of their almost constant warfare and naturally the strongest and most skilled Unicorn leads. But each tribe needs a Shamen in order to properly....do whatever it is that Unicorns do whenever they aren't fighting.”

“So she wants to go home?”

“Yes.”

“What about you? Forgive me but it doesn't sound like much of a marriage if she wants to leave you behind.”

“Then you don't know much about marriage yet. It's also part of marriage to want whatever's best for your spouse despite your own feelings. I don't like it but she misses her own people. She is a stranger in an alien landscape surrounded by people that are not her own. She wants to go home, so I will do everything in my power to see to it that she gets to go there. Fighting, dying and even giving her up if that becomes necessary. It will break my heart to see her go and I dread our success but she deserves to at least have the option. She has even suggested that I might go with her which is something that might not be entirely unpleasant.”

“How long did it take for you to prove to her that you weren't just going along with things so that you could harvest her horn for potions again?” Kerrass asked slyly. “Seriously though. She takes you to her plane of existence, world, realm or whatever you want to call it....”

I smirked. I always enjoy it whenever Kerrass turns someone's phrasing back on them.

“But then you won't be dealing with one sceptical Unicorn, you will be dealing with a Tribe of them.” Kerrass finished.

“Which is a valid concern,” Schrodinger said. “But I have to try for her sake.”

Kerrass didn't look happy at the response. I got the impression, not for the first time watching these two men interact, that this was an old argument and discussion that had been a long time in the making. I had an image of two old women, old friends who were still arguing over which one of them had seduced which boy at the spring solstice dance. Both of them had married, and buried, other men but they were still obsessed with this old argument that neither of them could let go.

“So why go this way?” I asked.

“Because we heard that the Empress is travelling to Skellige.” Schrodinger said. “We were travelling South in the hope that I could get an audience with her in order to see if she could do the transporting. The sagas say that she has travelled those routes before and we were hoping that she might do so again on our behalf.”

“That's a big ask.” I thought. “I would have thought she would sail up from the South and I struggle to see how you would get her aboard a ship. You would be hoping to intercept her before she embarks then by going into Novigrad.”

“That was the plan. It's obviously not possible now though as we have been delayed here too long.”

“Now we come to my question,” Kerrass said, bringing a stool over and sitting down.

“Don't you have some form of cooking to do?” Schrodinger demanded.

“Nah, it's bubbling away nicely. Also, don't change the subject.”

Schrodinger sighed and looked over at me. “I know what's coming next.”

“How the fuck,” Kerrass began, chewing off each word individually. “Did you get yourself into a position where you are trapped by a bunch of villagers?”

“A bunch of villagers who know the ground better than we do.”

“But a bunch of villagers Schrodinger.” Kerrass complained.

“A bunch of villagers who make their living from hunting these woods.”

“But a bunch of villagers Schrodinger.” Kerrass insisted.

Schrdoinger muttered something bitterly. I recognised the words. They were the words of an older sibling who has realised that their younger and less experienced sibling is about to make a point at their expense and that there is no way out of it and that the younger sibling has a valid point. Then he sighed and the humour left his face, giving me another sight of the man beneath the mask.

“It happened for the same reason that it ever happens. The same reason that it happened last time and the time before that and the time before that. The same way that it will happen when it results in our death. That's how it happened.”

Kerrass nodded, seeming satisfied but my confusion must have shown on my face.

“Sooner or later there are some realities to living rough, sleeping in ditches and caves and avoiding all kinds of contact.” Schrodinger told me as Kerrass got up to stir the pot. “You will know about many of them yourself. I avoid some of them. I am used to solitude and not spending any time with people and she is more than enough company to stimulate most of those urges. It's just that....It's just....”

“Sometimes you want to talk to someone else.”

“Yes. Just sometimes. It would be a lot worse if I also had the occasional urge to get laid as I understand that that sort of thing can be quite distracting if left unattended.”

“It can,” Kerrass called from where he was tasting the stew with a wooden spoon. “I'm alright on that score at the moment but I'm beginning to get a bit concerned about Freddie in all truth. He must be getting a bit backed up by now.” Some people can grin and leer at the same time. Fewer people can do this at the same time without using their mouth and can express this sentiment using only their eyes and eyebrows. Kerrass is one such person.

“Fuck off Kerrass,” I told him. “Or do you want me to start making jokes about you projecting blonde hair and insane beauty on other women again.”

Kerrass shrugged and pretended to be absorbed with cooking.

The silence stretched until Shcrodinger decided that we had stopped talking and filled the silence. “Sometimes though there are urges before which I am helpless. The urge to sleep in a real bed is one of the most prominent ones. It's never as good as you imagine it after days, weeks or even months of sleeping on the ground, trying to go back to pillows and mattresses is actually a lot harder than you might imagine.”

“I don't need to imagine,” I told him.

“Stronger is the need for a hot bath. After a day, I can smell myself. After a couple of days I begin to curse my enhanced Witcher senses because I can smell myself in intimate detail as well as everything I've eaten and everywhere I've been. After a week I can barely stand my own company. After another week I find myself honestly considering removing my own nose with a sharp knife. After that... it starts to not be as bad and I begin to relax and unwind and it doesn't seem as bad.”

He stared at a sight that only he could see for a moment before something seemed to startle him and he started rooting around in his pouches for his pipe and some tobacco.

“Then a day comes, just a random day for no other reason, maybe you've been injured, pulled a muscle or you've ended up having to trek through a mire. For whatever reason you find that you have to remove your clothes. The sensation of having to peel your undershirt away from your skin leaves you feeling sick to your very stomach and then suddenly you find yourself heading to the nearest place with a bath-house attached. A bath house with hot water and soap.”

“Is that what happened?” I asked.

“No. But it is one of the reasons that it happens. Another is similar to that desire of luxury. Words cannot express the occasional need for a meal that is cooked for you by someone else. She is a carnivore and cannot understand why we cook food. She sees it as cooking the nutrients out of the meat and it's just outside her experience as to why we do it. She can understand the cultural need for it. The ritual of building a fire, adding ingredients and then gathering around the fire to share something but....” He shook his head in thought. “For her, food is fuel and she does not understand that food, and drink for that matter, can be a luxury. A good beer or a cider. A nice rye vodka. Does Kerrass still have a weakness for fermented apple products?”

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

“I do,” Kerrass called over, showing that he was still listening with interest. “And I will hold my hand up and say that I could never produce the stuff as well as villagers that don't have to dismantle their still and move around as much. Proper alcohol,” He sniffed the pot. “Proper alcohol when it is properly brewed to perfection, proper alcohol needs time and love. Moonshine brewed in the wilderness is not bad, Schrodinger's stuff is better than most, but sooner or later you need a good professionally brewed thing.” He smirked at Schrodinger. “After all, when you need something doing properly....”

“Hire a professional.” They both said in Unison. I knew the saying as well, almost the mantra of the Witchers, and I felt as though I should stay out of it.

“So sometimes,” Schrodinger still smiled. “There is that urge to have something cooked for me by someone else.”

“Was that the reason?” I asked.

He smiled and shook his head. “No. The other reason for me to go into town is to get supplies. We move around a lot. We have to in order to avoid the people that might be hunting us so we don't have time to do things like render animal fat for making blade oils. The aforementioned alcohol for brewing potions. Herbs and other things that are not easily attained by a Witcher and a Unicorn on the run. All of these things are reasons to go into town. There are some things that we just need occasionally for our health. I don't get sick and if she does then it's nothing that I could do anything about, or she doesn't talk about it. But the other thing is that in order to remain properly fit and healthy. We need eggs, dairy, milk, cheese. Occasionally we need meat and dried things for when we have to drop everything and just run. It happens over and over again that we have to drop everything and run so we need to make sure that we are prepared for that kind of eventuality.

“Then to be able to buy these things, we need money. So I need to work, which is another reason to go towards civilisation. Witcher work is found where people can afford to pay for it. I could go to the edge of civilisation in order to find monsters. And there are loads of them out there, there really are. But people who can afford my fees? They are closer to towns.

“You keep asking why we got caught this time? There was no one reason, it's all the reasons. It's always all the reasons. We try to put them all into a box, get it all over and done with. A town where there's some work and an inn as well as a herbalist or a butcher as well as hopefully a tannery and any number of other things that I could make use of so that we could get some supplies together.”

“This is all very interesting when it comes to discussing your way of life which I have no doubt is very interesting to Freddie from a scholarly perspective” Kerrass commented. “But it doesn't tell us what happened here,” he smiled indulgently and I wondered if I was just projecting my own sense of frustration and imagining it in Kerrass' words.

Schrodinger glared at his fellow Witcher. “They had a bog hag. It used to live another half a days march through the woods into the directions of the sea. The ground over there gets more and more muddy and dry land to stand on gets rarer and rarer. For us it was the possibility of being able to pay passage to get us over to Skellige as well as the supplies and things that would keep us going in the meantime. And before you ask, I was going to get some horse armour, knights occasionally put horse helms on them that make their steeds look like Unicorns and I intended to have something made along the same lines.

“The Bog Hag was making the hunting harder work for the village. They were having to go further and further afield in order to get the food that the village needed now that the merchant wagon trains weren't coming through quite as regularly. As a result they started to run up against her territory. She made her living by kidnapping small animals and the children of the more isolated communities. I even think she would have gone unnoticed for quite a bit longer if there were still merchants coming through here. But there you go.

“The village was poor which was fine by me as I intended to take payment in kind. A couple of days rest at the inn with some good food and drink. Have you tasted the food there?”

Kerrass and I nodded and made suitably appreciative noises.

“Exactly. I had ordered the hood from the tannery for her. She didn't like the idea but she hadn't been able to think of a better idea.”

“Why not write to the Empress?”

“I have done. But how likely is it to get through, or where would she reply to even if she did end up reading it. I would ask you to carry word to her, I will if you can get word out in the hope that she might help us.”

“I will try,” I told him.

“Thank you.”

“You're diverting us again Schrodinger.” Kerrass told him quietly

The other Witcher sighed.

“It was the hood that gave me away in the end. The Leatherworker thought it was odd. That and the fact that I had walked into town. I had made some comment about how long it had been since I last had seen a town that didn't quite match up with what they thought and they went looking for my horse. I've since guessed that they had no intention of paying me. They went out into the trees. Much better in the woods than I gave them credit for and they saw her. She was training.”

“Training?” I asked.

“Yes. She's a warrior, same as you are, same as Kerrass and I are. You don't stay good at fighting by just staying still, resting up and eating all the food in front of you. It takes work, constant work and a desire to keep working at it. You know this.”

“I do,” I admitted. “But I am no warrior.”

He snorted at this. “They found her a little way into the trees. We had thought that it was far enough but it turns out that it wasn't. They saw her practising and training and they got word back to their fellows in the village. At first they asked me whether I would help them hunt her in exchange for a cut of the bounty that they expected to get for it. It was when I refused that they realised that the two of us were in it together. Fucking, educated villagers.”

I stiffened. One of those involuntary reactions that you can't do anything about, no matter how hard that you might try. I rolled things round until I got the right combination of words right in my mind.

“That's an interesting position.” I said, my words seeming to echo as if they came from a long distance away. “I have not heard that education might be a bad thing before except in the hands of the nobility when they are trying to suggest that the peasantry should stay in their fields and not have ideas above their stations. Where they try to suggest that education is only for the rich by which they mean, only those people that deserve to be educated.”

My words seemed to echo into a silence punctuated with the sound of Kerrass' spoon rattling against the side of the pot that he was stirring.

“You have to remember, brother mine, that you are talking to a man whose entire reason for life, the reason he is here, is to see to the education and the betterment of the masses.” Kerrass spoke up calmly and reasonably. “And although I, who have known you for many decades, can properly detect when you are joking or making a point as well as being able to detect when you are returning to an old discussion point and argument, others present might not recognise such things.” He stirred the pot a bit further, “Might I suggest that you explain what you mean by that.”

Schrodinger, who had been watching my face since I had stopped speaking, nodded. “Education is all very well. But some knowledge is dangerous. The gentleman might accept that some other people who are sat around the fire have become a victim of certain facts, or pieces of knowledge, being extended into the public arena.”

He took a breath before continuing.

“Would the learned Gentleman accept that there are some pieces of knowledge that are too dangerous for public consumption? Bearing in mind that he is sat with two men who would die to prevent some of the knowledge that they have from being made so public?”

“I would be prepared to admit that any kind of knowledge is dangerous in different hands.” I answered. “The knowledge that you refer to, the Witcher secrets, would be dangerous in the hands of the rulers of the world or of the nobility but the knowledge on how to make some of those potions in the hands of skilled herbalists so that they could dilute them, modify them and therefore use them to be able to help and heal people?

“Knowledge, in and of itself is not a bad thing. Nor is the accruing of that knowledge, the thing that ends up badly is the implementation of that knowledge. A mage can know how Necromancy works, or study the arts of how to summon demons. But he might do that in order to prevent those things from happening or to spot them when they do come up so that the practitioners of such dangerous arts can be properly hunted and captured. Knowledge is never the problem, it is the person using that knowledge and the way that the knowledge is used that becomes the problem.”

Schrodinger scratched his chin.

“Do you know why Witchers were created?” He asked, seemingly out of the blue.

“To hunt and destroy monsters.” I said promptly. “To help make the continent safe for human population.”

“Correct,” Schrodinger declared. “And I agree. But the truth is that that is what we have come to be and what we did for the two or three centuries that we were at our most active. We travel the highways and byways of the continent in order to hunt down monsters so that we can save the villages, towns and cities that we travel between. But is that what we were created for?”

He shrugged. I remembered some of my early observations about Kerrass. About how he could draw an audience in and captivate a crowd as well as any bard or minstrel. I was dimly aware that I was being lectured and distracted from my anger, rather skillfully as well if truth be told. But, I was also being led away from the point. I resolved to hold Schrodinger to task about what he had said by the time that everything was done.

“We're talking about really old stories now,” Schrodinger went on. “Discussions that have been happening since before either of us were Witchers. This is the kind of thing that Witchers have been debating around camp-fires for as long as there have been Witchers. I haven't spoken to many other Witchers from the other schools about this kind of thing but I know that this is a conversation that I had many times. A conspiracy theory about the creation of Witchers.”

“To be fair,” Kerrass piped up. “Remember that the other schools still had their mages present and working hard for many years since we were founded. We were the odd ones out when it came to having a mage in residence. In that we didn't have one.”

“Which would have had an effect on their thinking I suppose.” Schrodinger mused before shaking his head. “But that's not important for this conversation. Lord Frederick, it is common knowledge that the Witchers were created from the experiments of Mages, leaving aside the mages reasons for doing that as well as their intentions for the future of the schools for now, we know that that is true. That mages created us.”

“Yes,” I agreed.

“Have you ever heard the name “Alzur?”

“Let's say that I haven't.”

“Alzur and his master, the mage Cosomo Malaspina, were primarily the mages responsible for the creations of the Witchers. I can't answer for the truth of it but this is backed up by many books I have read on this subject.”

I leant forward.

“Those books have long since been lost when the Feline keep was destroyed.” Schrodinger told me, predicting my questions.

I leant back again, not bothering to hide my disappointment.

“Alzur was not a nice man and is responsible for a lot of the worst kinds of artificial magical creatures that roam the world. It was one of his spells that was used to create the first Koschey and probably the basis for things like Frighteners. There are also many lesser works that still wander the woods and byways of the world. Theoretically the creatures were created in order to provide more efficient beasts of burden and in order to provide more amenable and efficient farming systems. Some others simply claim that all of these creatures were created simply to learn from the process and simply because he could.

“This man created monsters the like of which would chill your blood, you can still find many examples of these creatures roaming around. Look for a brass plaque at the base of the neck which will tell you what the name of the creature was, as well as other such scientific things as their batch numbers. Alzur created a monster called a Vrey that appeared like a giant centipede but was responsible for the destruction of the greater part of Maribor. This man created the means for all of his other creations to be destroyed. The Witchers. Why would he do that?”

I shrugged, my opinion didn't matter here. It was what Schrodinger believed that mattered the most here.

“The way I always saw it was that it came down to two different options. The first option was that Alzur and his master had some kind of change of heart. I think, knowing what I do about mages, especially the males of the species, that Alzur was the one with the basic ideas but in order to get funding for his experiments as well as the proper support for what they were doing, he needed to bring in his master for the prestige of the thing and thus Cosomo became “involved” in the creation of Witcher. So, as I say, the first theory is that Alzur had a change of heart and did his best to fix the problem that he had helped create by using the skills that he already had, the creation of mutants and monsters. Who was it that said “What you learn first ,you do in an emergency. Therefore it is the responsibility of the teacher to make sure that the first lesson is the most important?”

“A Professor Hotchkiss of Oxenfurt University. He was talking about mathematical method and it's application to engineering and architecture at the time though.”

“Well it is also true in a lot of life. The first lesson in learning to use a sword is how to hold it. So that every time you pick up a sword afterwards, you hold it correctly, no matter what the circumstances.

“The second, much less charitable theory is that Alzur was actually continuing his earlier work. He had created monsters before deciding that he was going too far down the wrong path of research and decided to reign himself in a bit. He was still interested in studying monster parts and the magical abilities and skills of the various creatures of the continent. Rather than doing the gathering of the samples himself, he created Witchers in order to do those things for him. Still creating monsters in order to do the things that he was unwilling to do as he was certainly able to do those things. Again, he needed things like dead Dragons, Unicorns, Wyverns, Vampires, Griffins, Archspore, and the rest in order to further his research.

“Obviously history, especially the magical history of the mages, believes the former. That he created monsters because he could without thinking about whether he should. Then, when when he did realise that he should not, he created more monsters to clear up his old mess. Certainly that was the sentiment of some of the mages that followed in Alzur's footsteps in order to be the mages who monitored and maintained the Witcher mutations. Dagobert Zulla who, at one time, monitored the trials at Kaer Morhen had used Alzur's method to create a Frightener, regretted it and sought penance by helping the Witchers do what they do best.

“But what if that wasn't the case. What if Witchers were designed as a slave race. To go out on behalf of the mages and gather the things essential to their craft?”

“There is no answer to that,” I told him after I realised that he wasn't going to answer his own question.

“I know. I was more hoping that you might come up with a solution that we haven't, despite our long years of turning the problems over and over throughout the years.

“If Witchers were created through greed. Then they done fucked up. Because no sooner than we were created to go out there and start hunting down all of these creatures then it became common knowledge that that was what we were doing. Suddenly, everyone and his dog knew that the tail of a Dragon was a delicacy. Everyone knew that there were alchemical ingredients to be found in all of the monsters that we were talking about. Every single one has parts that can be harvested that can then go on to be sold. That information got out and then everybody was trawling through the woods looking for monsters in order to harvest them for their parts.

“Including the intelligent, sentient creatures such as dragons, trolls, vampires and many many more. As well as those creatures that were easily mistaken, by those people going through the woods, for monsters. The Vran, the Werebubbs and The Powers only know how many others that died out before records could even be begun. A little bit of knowledge and then everyone grabs the wrong end of the stick and runs off with it.”

“But that doesn't disprove the point. Proper Education would show that such things were wrong.”

“Would that stop people wanting to be rich? You are right when you write that knowledge destroys fear. But sometimes, fear of the darkness that exists outside of town is a good thing.”

“I don't agree.” I told him, having enough of his flowery descriptions and his roundabout ways of making his point. I was tired of being drawn in by things that I was interested in and spun a yarn designed to gather my sympathies. “Knowledge denies fear. There are always going to be people who abuse the knowledge. Always. You yourself provide the obvious examples. Witchers took what they knew about the mutations that were performed on them and modified them to their own ends thus creating the Feline Witcher school which, despite the men sitting close to me, are regarded as dangerous psychopaths. Not without reason I think you'll agree given your revelations about your brother Brehan. But you are also the best examples of education being done right. Leaving aside the things that were done to you both in order to make you into the Witchers that you are today. You would not exist without the education that you have been provided.

“I don't know if it's been published yet, let alone whether or not you have read it but I recently did a series of essays on the most important parts of being a Witcher. Eventually it was reasoned that a Witchers tools, their swords, signs, alchemy and the rest would be nothing without the education that is provided in order to be able to use those tools. If you gave identical things to a random passerby then they would not be able to do a fraction of what you are able to do. The difference is your education. You were taught to use your swords, your signs and your alchemy. Then you were taught how to identify, track and destroy the monsters as well as the difference between a northern Griffin and a Southern Griffin.

“It was education that figured out that the purity of silver cut through the magical fields that surround the monsters of the world. It was education that managed to turn lumps of rock into the steel needed for your other signs. Someone had to learn in order to be able to make your leather armour and yes, someone had to be educated in order to create more Witchers. If that wasn't the case then Witchers would be confined to those first few....heh... specimens that Alzur created all that time ago.

“Education is vital to the betterment of the world.” I declared. “Vital. It is education and knowledge that means that we know about things like crop rotation and the importance of leaving a field to go fallow once every so often where, at most, you graze herd animals on it which also has the benefits of fertilising the ground. We know that in order to heal an injury we need to remove any outside objects from the wound. I will grant you that we don't know why yet but we are getting there. We know about the proper uses of food, we can understand and read the weather. Even the most basic of things involve being educated even at the most basic level. As children we look at the sky and say, “Why is the horizon grey and hazy dad?” and our fathers say that this is because it's raining and that we should get indoors before we get drenched to our skin. That is our education.”

“Yes but....” Shcrodinger began.

“Shut the fuck up.” I snapped. “You had your speech now you get to listen to mine.”

Schrodinger looked angry for a moment, looking up at Kerrass who simply grinned at him.

“Fear is one of the great evils of the world. Fear of their nobility keeps the common folk in line when the nobility want to abuse that power. Fear of spiritual realities allow priests, otherwise sick fucks, to abuse the trust that people place in them and get them to commit more evil because the uneducated masses fear the consequences. Again, Kerrass has shown me this in even more detail. Fear...is the greatest enemy. We fear Witchers because they are so different from the rest of us and so we shun them and alienate them. We can do this because there are so many more of us than there are of them. We are driving the Elves back into the hills because we fear what they represents and they fear us because of what we represent of themselves. We fear Vampires because we haven't talked to them and we mistake those feral creatures like Fleders from those others that can talk and reason and charm and even love. I would have missed out on the love of my life if I had allowed my fear to govern my actions. How did I overcome this? By educating myself on what she was like and what was meant by the term “Elder Vampire” as opposed to the term “vampire.” As well as the difference between Katakans, Bruxae, Fleders, Ekimma, Nosferat and all the rest.

“Fear is the killer because one of the other traits of human nature as well as fearing what we don't understand is that we hate what we fear. This because it makes us feel vulnerable and challenges us. It makes us feel as though what we have learned so far might be incorrect.

“The thing that you have a problem with,” I pointed at him. “The element of human nature that has caused you all this grief is actually greed. It is greed that chased those earliest mages out to follow Witchers around and get at all of the alchemical creations that the dead monsters provided. You yourself argued that there was a possibility that Alzur created Witchers out of greed as well as laziness, so that they could hunt the creatures that would provide him with the material that he needed.

“It is greed that sends those villagers out here to come and kill your wife for her horn and whatever else that she might be able to provide. Greed and, maybe more than greed, desperation at the fact that their way of life is dying because there is no longer a market for what they are creating.

“I wonder if you, the Cat Witchers who became assassins and bounty hunters in order to weather the reduction in monster populations, might be able to relate to that desperation.”

I saw that bolt strike home as a look of shame crossed Schrodingers face. Kerrass didn't look surprised. He had given up on even pretending to work on the stew and was sat next to the pot watching the two of us.

“But here's the real killer.” I told my opponent during this debate. “The real thing that kills your argument is this. The way to defeat greed is education. You teach people to understand the people that they are with, that much the better. You teach them the consequences of their actions and the difference between short term solutions and long term fixes. You teach people that Unicorns are just as valuable, wise, beautiful and intelligent as humans are and that killing them is just as bad as if one of their own were murdered. You can also ask the question how they would feel if a group of Unicorns turned up and killed them. It won't work on all of them and such lessons are best learned when people are young. But some people might listen, just as I don't believe for a moment that every villager over there wants your death or wants to skin your wife for whatever they might be able to make a profit on.”

I saw him shift uncomfortably.

“Furthermore,” I said. “I would be willing to bet that the people that have helped you are those people that are better educated.”

“You did not bring all of this equipment with you Schrodinger,” Kerrass piped up. “Nor all of this food. Someone has provided it to you. Who was it I wonder?”

Schrodinger bared his teeth a little, he looked as though he was breathing heavily and I was suddenly reminded that I was dealing with a hardened killer.

“I am not used.” He began, “To being interrogated and berated in my own camp. You come here and accuse me...”

“Anger and indignation is the last refuge of those people that don't have an answer.” I told him. “They get angry to deflect away from the fact that they have made a mistake and they fear looking foolish. You made a joke, I found it offensive and now you are realising that I am right because you don't have an answer for it.”

“He's right Schrodinger.” Kerrass told him. “There's no getting away from it I'm afraid. It was the priest's wife that brought you the food wasn't it. As well as the supplies. That's why she keeps coming into the woods. She comes here and leaves you the supplies while the priest covers for her. Maybe he isn't involved and maybe he isn't.

“It bears being reminded that Freddie is that wise man that we keep talking about. He knows how little he knows but the one thing that he keeps seeing over and over again is the benefits of Education. His own apart from anything else and the benefits that it brings into the his own life. I have watched him learn many of these things and it has helped open my eyes to many of these things as well.”

Schrodinger finally lowered his gaze. “I am prepared to admit that I might have been wrong. But you can't deny that, in knowing that Unicorns bodies have things about them that would make a person incredibly wealthy, knowledge makes life difficult for Unicorns. It's for the same reason that Witchers had to learn to deny any demands to hunt down Dragons.”

“Just as you have to admit that the reason that these villagers chase after you is because they are lacking in moral education and are desperate rather than because they are educated.”

“I will admit that desperation is a factor in their behaviour, just as much as it is a factor in mine.” He grinned and laughed suddenly. “I suppose I'm just not used to having my jokes being jumped on and torn apart. I spend all my time with a Unicorn as my only conversation partner and she doesn't care about such things as social reform. I am out of practice at thinking through the things that I say.”

I nodded.

“So you two aren't going to fight it out?” Kerrass joked after a while. “Awww, I was kind of looking forward to Freddie getting Whomped. So, just so I'm clear, you came south on a desperate and fools errand and as a result of carelessness, you got spotted by some group of peasants and now you're stuck here unable to get away.”

“That's about the size of it.”

Kerrass nodded.

“Did you say you were looking for me?” Schrodinger asked.

“I did actually. I had heard rumours that suggested that you might be in the area and I had some questions that you might be able to help with.” Kerrass told him. He reached into a box and produced another bottle that he passed over. Whatever else might be happening, we were certainly doing some damage to Schrodingers supplies of alcohol.

“As Freddie said, it's likely that our exploits off in Northern Redania are probably not well known. But we were given a vague and pointless clue that suggested to me that you might be able to help us with something.”

“What is it? Wait, is this about what happened with your sister Lord Frederick?”

“It is.” I told him. “Although I should also add that I didn't know that you were being looked for. I thought Kerrass was just recovering from his injuries that he had been given by gently breaking himself back in as well as burning some time before the trip to Skellige. Can you help us?”

“I don't know,” Schrodinger said. “I wouldn't have thought so. I was just as mystified when I read the account. Also just as worried about the inclusion of Jack into the mix. It's something to think about though. How would someone take on the guise of Jack and the powers of Jack without actually being Jack himself. I was surprised though, His lordship (Freddie: Presumably Jack) is not typically accepting of people mimicing him and I would have thought he would be left even angrier by someone actively using magic to steal bits of him and put them onto other people.”

“We thought the same. We also got some recent information that suggests that that power might have come from another plane, from elsewhere.”

“Ah, so you want to speak to her then. Kerrass I'm hurt, and I thought you wanted to come and see me.”

“Come on Schrodinger, I would always prefer to spend time with her than I would with you. She's a much better conversationalist than you are for a start.”

“Fuck you Kerrass.”

“She's also better looking.”

Schrodinger threw something at him.

And just like that, the darker atmosphere of the camp dissipated as Schrodinger pounced on Kerrass, swords were drawn and the two men started getting some good hard training in. Kerrass had recovered a lot of the mobility in his arms but it was clear that he was still far from being fully healthy as Schrodinger was obviously the far better swordsman. At first the match seemed fairly even but after a while, Kerrass' strength started to fail him and his blows began to lack the earlier snap that they had exhibited.

Having been left alone I took it upon myself to take over the cooking duties. A factor for which I was fairly grateful as although Kerrass knows good food when he tastes it, for him food is fuel so he tends not to care about such things as flavour and doesn't see the benefit of a spoon full of salt every so often. I had spent a bit of time teaching him in such things but he still had a long way to go.

Fortunately he had recovered my cooking herbs from my gear the previous evening and I was able to salvage the food before turning and watching the two Witchers train, which they noticed and informed me that I should fetch my spear and come and join in the training.

Which was excruciating. As the day wore on I found myself relaxing again. I still liked Schrodinger, he was a hard man to dislike in all honesty but there comes a point where I found myself making excuses for some of his behaviour and the way he thought. I harboured, and still harbour, the suspicion that he had brought the discussion regarding education to a close because he was outnumbered rather than because he had had his mind changed. I understand that he has been through a lot, especially at the hands of ignorant villagers and townsfolk who want to take advantage of the him and his travelling partner but I still couldn't bring myself to entirely let him off the hook for that.

After training, we ate the stew along with a couple of loaves of bread that Schrodinger took from his stores. Schrodinger spent a bunch of time telling me embarrassing stories about Kerrass' early years which I found funny and Kerrass found embarrassing. Not least were the stories of Kerrass' obvious infatuation with Princess Dorn and how that had effected his treatment of women in the north after he had returned home. I was told drinking stories and all kinds of other things although I have been forbidden to recount them in detail on pain of what Kerrass described as “suffering” and as such I have decided not to pursue it.

For now.

But it does mean that I have lots of interesting Blackmail material should he ever decide to get uppity.

The Unicorn returned in the early to midafternoon. A couple of of hours after we had set our bowls aside from the meal. We were well on the way to being a little tipsy, Schrodinger's moonshine really was that good, and were laughing and joking with the best of them. After Schrodinger's stories about Kerrass had been exhausted, Kerrass decided to tell some stories about me which meant that I could tell some stories about him and on and on it would go but she strode into camp.

Schrodinger looked up, just before she came into camp. I don't mean to insult him when I say this but it was just like what happens when a Dog hears their master approaching the house. His head suddenly jerked to one side and he looked at exactly the correct patch of trees that he needed to be looking at in order to see her striding out of the undergrowth.

She had an antlered deer on her back with one huge puncture in the neck that was leaking blood down her sides.

“I brought you dinner,” she told us, her words echoing inside my skull.

“Have you eaten?” Schrodinger asked climbing to his feet to pull the deer off her back, Kerrass moved to help him.

“I have, I will again later.” When the deer was off her back she bent and started splashing around in the pond, using her horn to scrape the drying blood from her hide.

“Are you going to be around?” Schrodinger asked her. “These men have some questions for you.”

“Really?” She answered. One of the most disconcerting things about communicating with someone who speaks with telepathy is that you can't see their lips move. It's not something that I had previously considered. The person I have most contact with telepathically is Ariadne who only uses telepathy when she is some distance away. We have a signal that we use when we are about to initiate a conversation. It can be awfully off putting to have someone just start speaking in your mind. She hears the signal whenever I initiate contact, no I'm still not telling you how I do that, and I hear a chime like the ringing of bridle bells when she is wanting to talk to me. But we only do so when we are some distance away. When she speaks to me face to face then she uses normal methods. With her lips, teeth and tongue as well as the expulsion of breath.

But with the Unicorn, she carried on speaking without appearing to speak. I don't know what I had expected but it was odd talking to someone who didn't look as though she was talking back.

“What do they have questions about?” she asked, using her mouth to shoot a jet of water over her back where the boar had rested.

Schrodinger gestured.

“My sister was taken from me.” I told her, stepping forward. At first I was confused. Do I speak verbally or speak through my mind.

“Whichever is most comfortable for you.” She told me, still not looking at me.

“My sister was taken from me,” I said again. “I'm told by people much more knowledgeable about such things than I am that she was taken using magic that is not possible using the magic of this world. She was teleported away without the use of transport gates as an example. She was also taken by a man who had powers that he could only have had from a power that claimed no knowledge of such. We have been told that the magic to do this kind of thing would need to come from a different plane of existence and that the magic itself is very very old. I was hoping that, as someone who can, or whose people can travel between worlds, that you might be able to provide me with some clues regarding where I should look next. What I should do next.”

She straightened up from the cleansing of her body and looked at me for a long moment.

“You would be better off if I was a Shaman.” She told me. “For the moment I must run.” She looked at Schrodinger before bounding off into the undergrowth.

“She will let me know when she's back.” Schrodinger told me. “For now, I advise that you be patient.”

“Was it me,” I began as I took a couple of steps back. “Or did she seen nervous?”

“She is nervous,” Schrodinger told me. “She doesn't know you and you want to question her. She is more used to killing strangers than she is of answering their questions and she needs some time to prepare herself. Give her a bit of time.”

“I don't see as though I have much choice,” I smiled to take the sting away from my words. I would be lying if I tried to claim that I wasn't a little disappointed at the prospect of a little more delay. “Apart from any other reason, she can run a lot faster than I can.”

“She can at that,” Schrdoinger smiled at me, flashing his absurdly white teeth. I know I've mentioned them before but it really is a factor that tends to stick out in your mind.

“In the meantime,” Kerrass said from where he was skinning and cleaning the deer. “You can come and start the deer off roasting. I know how you feel about my cooking and I'm just left wondering what uses you can put some of Schrodinger's moonshine too now that you have some access to proper alcohol.”

I laughed. Kerrass was doing a good job in keeping the mood light.

While the two Witchers built a proper roasting fire to my specifications I made a marinade out of honey and some of Schrodingers more potent brew. Sending Kerrass off into the bushes to find me some mint, sage and basil I was able to put together a proper basting liquid and instructed Schrodinger on the proper application of the stuff.

“I had never thought of doing this,” he told me, “to be fair, I rarely have time.”

“The trick is to prolong it.” I told him.

“As with so much in life,” He joked with a leer.

“Quite. A little bit and often is the secret. Kerrass would just paint the entire carcass until the stuff was used up. But that just lets it char. It takes time. Little and often. Also tip some of the moonshine into the fire to flavour the steam as well.”

“How did you learn about all of this?” He asked.

“I used to hang around the kitchens at home.” I told him. “It was a good place to hide from parental disapproval and you soon pick up a few things. I figure that you kind of owe it to yourself that if you want to enjoy your food then you need how to cook it properly. Otherwise you are just stuck eating crap, dry or burnt food.”

“A good point.” He took the bowl and brush off me after having examined my technique.

Kerrass came back from her herb hunt and handed the leaves over. “He teaching you too cook?” He asked Schrodinger.

“You should respect the knowledge Kerrass.” He responded. “In the same way that you taught him to fight, you should accept that there is benefit and wisdom here.”

“There is. That wisdom is to let Freddie do all the cooking.”

We all laughed.

Schrodinger nodded. “She's ready for you. Just follow the stream for a little way and you will find her. She's training. Leave your spear here though.”

“Why?”

“She sometimes struggles to differentiate one human shape from another. She knows Kerrass but if you come out of the treeline holding a spear, she won't see you, she will just see a strange man with a spear and react accordingly.”

“Goody.”

“In the meantime,” Kerrass said. “Schrodinger and I will see if we can figure out a way to extract the two of them out of this mess.”

“And us?”

“Nah, we can get out easily. It's them that the villagers are waiting for.”

I nodded agreement with that comment.

“Remember,” I told Schrodinger, “Little and often. Turn it gently.”

“I remember.”

“And don't let Kerrass anywhere near it.”

Kerrass scoffed and I turned to walk into the trees after sticking my tongue out at him.

There was another small waterfall leading from the pool that the camp was next to and I scrambled down some damp rocks to get to the next layer down of the woodland. It was one of those idyllic little places that you become convinced that they only exist in pictures or story books meant for children. Beams of sunlight came through the canopy that artists refer to as “Flame Rays,” or “God rays,” if you're more of a follower of the Sky father. The water bubbled down through a stream bed, tumbling over rocks with a kind of constant music that would have easily sang me to sleep if I had slept nearby.

Only with the added danger that I might wet myself in my sleep. Yes, I have been pranked in dormitories before.

There was also a gentle breeze that sent the leaves in the trees blowing as an added accompaniment to the noise of the moving water and I took a deep breath. As soon as I went below the ground level of the previous plateau, the gentle bickering and laughter of Kerrass and Schrodinger vanished into the background and I suddenly felt alone. Not that I was afraid as there was still a background level of awareness that I could just turn around and return to the camp-fire but there was an added quality that seemed to remind me that I was a long way from home. I was startlingly aware of the vast distance between Coulthard Castle and myself. Between the people that I love and myself. It made me feel alive at the same time as leaving me missing Ariadne, Emma, Sam and Mark a great deal.

Then I hung my head for a moment and felt the old lump rise in my throat and tears prick the back of my eyes. I had not thought of Francesca in the list of people that I loved and the realisation that I was coming to terms with the fact that she was probably dead came on me again. Notice that I didn't say that I was coming to terms with it.

It's not the same for everyone and for me the process of moving on from my grief was a gradual and private thing. Something that happens in the background when I am doing other things. I grieved for my father while helping Kerrass free Sleeping Beauty, yes and Edmund at the same time. Now, I was coming to terms with the disappearance of Francesca just as slowly and in the background of things while I occupied myself with other things.

But rather the thing that gave me pause was the realisation that this process was taking place. It was not the first time that this has happened, nor will it be the last and it's awful every single time that that realisation hits me between the eyes like a hammer. But it is getting easier.

I miss her so much. Even though we didn't spend a lot of physical time together with her being in the South and my being away to study or travel, I always knew that I could write to her and that her letters back would make me laugh. It would gladden my heart to know that she was there, somewhere, enjoying life and making the world a better place by simply being alive and walking around.

But now she is gone and the world seems a little bit darker for her not being in it.

It hits me hard every single time. Every time.

.

Dammit

.

But I straightened as the Unicorn's voice in my head spoke.

“Your grief does you credit.”

Then I heard a thundering in the ground and I was privileged enough to see a sight that I now, sat in a Novigrad tavern as I write this from the notes that I made at the time, can no longer remember. I saw a Unicorn at a gallop.

You may be wondering how a Unicorn trains. She was a warrior, a soldier in whatever army or force or tribe that she belonged to and as I have learned over time, a fighter never stops training. If they do, they die. That is the way of life of a fighter. Even then there is only so much you can do in order to be able to protect yourself and keep yourself alive. All you can do is do your best and hope that your best is going to be good enough, that your foot won't slip in the mud, or that, in dodging you pull a muscle or that the blow that you trusted to your armour to absorb or deflect gets through. Or your sword breaks or....or....or.

So how did a Unicorn train. It took me a while to get to the sight of it. She had targets set up in the woods. Some were just drawings on trees, some were woods posts that had been driven into the ground so that they would stand upright. Some were small round disks that were hanging from trees.

And by small, they were about the same as you palm, maybe a little bigger.

She came galloping round a corner where the stream wound it's way, leapt across the water and flicked her head so that her horn struck one of the targets that was hung from a tree that overhung the stream. She would not have been able to hit the target if she hadn't have jumped for it. So she combined the jump with the strike at the same time. And she made it look easy.

“I will be with you shortly.” She told me, again, sounding as though she was speaking from within my skull so that the words echoed between my ears.

“I will just have a wander then,” I called over,

She didn't answer and I just assumed that she had heard me. I would not be hard to find after all, I was wandering through her woods and I had spotted one of her targets. It was a carved outline of a man, not made with a sword or a dagger, it was more as though you were jamming a...

Oh let's call it what it was. She had carved the shape with her horn.

But in examining the outline, there were a couple of things that became evident. The first was that her aim was extraordinary. But the second was that she knew, exactly how to kill a person. As well as the carefully drawn outline, there were a number of gouges in the wood as well as strike marks. Strokes across the throat, lunges at the heard, other slashes at the groin area and you could no longer see the top of the shapes head as that part of the wood looked as though it had been mashed together. I assumed that this was from her rearing and striking the shape with her hooves.

“Do you like it?” I heard her ask.

“It's certainly striking.” I responded turning around me. Of course she had managed to sneak up on me. Of course she had.

She tilted her head to one side. “I sometimes struggle with human comedy. Were you just making a joke?”

I considered what I had said. “No,” I answered after a while. “Certainly not intentionally. If I really pushed it I suppose that I might have been making some kind of pun but that was certainly not what I was intending to do.”

“That is good. Humour is not something that I am good at and I am far from the correct frame of mind to be able to properly continue my education on the subject. Shall we return to the stream?”

“Is it more comfortable for you?”

“Not particularly, but I have been exercising for a while and could do with a drink.”

“Is the water not contaminated? Earlier you did wash yourself in it after having an animal carcass on your back.”

“If I could be made sick by such factors then I already would have been by eating from the other boar that I killed this morning. Lacking in the proper tools for the job I can just about skin an animal but I cannot afford to be as picky as humans are about the parts of an animal that they choose to eat. I must simply take what I can get. As a result, I do not really get sick though and when I do, a good purge by eating the correct kind of berry is normally enough to deal with the matter. Would you object to perching on that large boulder over there? I would like to be able to look at you properly without bending my neck.”

“Not at all,” I said, scrambling up the side and perching. It was not comfortable as there was no proper way to balance but I felt it important to be able to put this woman at ease.

“You have questions,” she prompted.

“So very many of them.”

“Such as?”

“Why are you here?”

“That is a big question.”

“It is, even if I did mean it in a personal sense, rather than in the philosophical sense.”

“That is better then. I warn you though that I do not have the patience for extended questioning.”

“I will remember that.”

“You have the sense of someone who likes to build up to things. Who likes to put off the important thing until later.”

“You are not incorrect.” I answered.

“I do not understand humans,” she said, she shook herself in a manner so like a horses that I almost smiled. I didn't on the grounds that it might seem as though I was mocking her. “You are so impatient while at the same time you enjoy taking the long way round of so many different subjects that it is truly baffling. Your lives are so short and yet you are content to simply stroll around.”

“Including letting a Unicorn waffle at me?”

“Yes, including that. What is it you really wish to know? Not the small questions that you were going to use to lead up to the big question. The real questions, the ones that burn at the heart of your soul.”

I took a deep breath.

“As simply as possible please.” She interrupted. I wondered if she was doing it deliberately. “Do not waffle or talk around the subject.”

“I want to know what happened to my sister.” I told her as simply as possible. “She was taken using magic that we have been told is alien and ancient in origin. I need to know more so that I can be led to who took her.”

“I see. You would be better off talking to a shaman of my tribe.”

“But I don't have a shaman.”

“That is true. What magic was it that was used?”

“We have no idea. It was magic that could teleport someone without the use of a transport gate.”

She hissed. It had seemed obvious to me but then you realise that a Unicorn doesn't have the flat teeth of the herbivore horse that she so closely resembles. She had fangs for the tearing of flesh. It was the first audible noise that I had heard her make.

“What else?” She asked after a moment.

“They were able to take on aspects and powers from another being. A being of considerable power and give those powers and aspects to another person.”

“What kind of being was this “being of considerable power”?”

“Kerrass calls him Jack,”

“The one that waits in the darkness.” She hissed.

“I had not heard him called that before,” I told her. “Can you help me?”

She looked at me for a long time. “Maybe,” she told me.

“Anything that you can tell me will be useful.”

“You misunderstand. The problem is not what I might tell you, it's whether or not I will.”

“Are these....things secrets?”

“No. But, why should I give you this information freely?”

I felt my mouth hang open. “I...”

“I am not a friend to humanity.” She went on. “I have not had a good experience with them on the whole. They tend to hunt and to try and kill me. So why should I help you? What's in it for me?”

A strange feeling began in my stomach. Given her reactions to the terms of “Jack” as well as her reaction to the thing about teleporting without gates. I was certain that she knew something. This had awoken a hunger in the pit of my stomach, a need for the knowledge and the answers that she might be able to provide.

And then she hadn't provided that information. I was angry certainly, confused as well. Crushingly disappointed and a, not small, sense of betrayal.

“I don't understand,” I said somewhat stupidly. I'm kind of left thinking that I said it as a way to fill the air more than because I didn't actually understand. It was kind of obvious as to what was going to happen next. After all, I had seen it happening at Kerrass more ways than I could count.

“You will do something for me,” she told me. “Then I will tell you what I know. That is our bargain.”

“What is it you want me to do?” I asked. There was a lump in my throat that I did not entirely understand. I shouldn't have been surprised. Given Schrodinger's accounts of the matter and the relatively recent past, she was not wrong and had every right to resent me and to hate anyone around her. Why would she give me the information that I wanted out of the goodness of her heart. Indeed I was coming to realise that I had been naïve to expect even that much.

“I want you, and Kerrass, to get Schrodinger and I out of here. I will accept that this is largely a situation of our own doing and I appreciate that you are rather desperate and the ability to transport me across planes of existence is beyond your abilities. Instead, I simply wish you to help us escape the villagers local to this area that seek to make money off my corpse as such a situation is intolerable. If I fall in battle and Schrodinger takes my horn as a keep sake or even to ensure that he can eat and take care of himself in the future, then that I can accept, but some strangers who simply wish to do this out of a sense of greed. That I cannot abide. Do this and, as I say, I will tell you what I know. If not, then you and Kerrass can be gone from my camp and you can tell Kerrass that if he shows his face again then I will remove his head.”

She stamped her foot, pawing at the ground.

Dear Reader, you have no idea how much I wanted to tell her to shove her information down her throat or up her own arse.

Instead, I climbed down off my rock.

“I take it that you agree to my terms?” she said as I was walking away, my shoulders slumped and my feet dragging along the ground.

I nodded in response.

I made it a couple more steps before the disappointment and the anger overwhelmed my knowledge that if she wanted to skewer me through the heart then there was little that I could do to stop her.

I spun around.

“You know....You said that you don't understand human nature.” I told her. I probably had my hands on my hips and had thrust my chin out indignantly. I don't know that, but I can guess. I often get teased about my body language from Kerrass, Emma and others. “So allow me to give you a short lesson in two parts.

“First of all, there is nothing more certain to drive a human being to dig their heels in and be stubborn than if you give them an ultimatum. You have no idea how close I am to telling you to go fuck yourself, despite the possibility that you might give me some information and what might happen to Kerrass' friend and brother Schrodinger. You should know that the only reason I am not acting on this urge is because Kerrass cares deeply about his brother and would not be parted from him. But of course you know this. As for the loss of any information that you may or may not give me, I notice that you haven't given any indication as to the quality of the information or where it may lead in the meantime by the way, so I might be risking my life, and Kerrass might be risking his, for the sake of sweet fuck all.

“The second point is this. I was already going to help you. Regardless of whether you had anything to give me or not. Regardless of whether we even exchanged words or not. The reason for this is that I don't like what the villagers are trying to do. The second reason is that it would clearly break Kerrass' heart if something happened to either you, or Schrodinger.

“That you threaten his life if we do not help you is not lost on me and it cheapens you. It lessens you in my eyes.”

“You dislike what the villagers are trying to do to me? To kill me for my body parts?” She hissed, pawing at the ground again. “You do the same though, you and all the Witchers. I love Schrodinger and he is truer to me than any member of my tribe and my herd. But Kerrass, Gaetan and any of the others that I meet, you and they are no better. You take what other creatures give you and make money for yourselves, or medicine or otherwise. I am different from humanity, therefore I am a monster, therefore I am fair game”

“No madam,” I felt the word was relevant. “No they do not. Witchers harvest parts from monsters that is true. But they define monsters as being those creatures that are dangerous to humans. Who go out of their way to kill and torture because they like it or because it is in their nature or if they cannot be reasoned with. If the creature can talk, or can listen to reason then the creature is not a monster. Dragons, Trolls, spirits, vampires, victims of curses. All of these people are people that I have seen Kerrass talk to before deciding what needs to be done. So that he can try and help them. All of these things and now Unicorns. I have also seen him kill humans, dwarves and Elves that have showed monstrous traits.

“Of all people, of all things. I would hope that you would know the difference between a creature and a monster. You are a creature, a being different from ourselves which we do not know enough about to realise that hunting you is wrong. Did you ever think to try and talk to the villagers, did you think to see how desperate they are as well as being greedy and I will admit that for a good percentage of people, their greed dictates their actions but there are some good people out there too.

“But the thing that damns you in my eyes is your attitude towards Kerrass. He would die for you, I think. And you threaten his life if we do not dance to your tune. That makes you monstrous.”

I spat at her feet. I don't know why. It seemed important that I make some kind of final gesture. She didn't try to stop me as I walked away, my anger and my disappointment fading, leaving behind the sadness, self-recrimination, confusion and sense of betrayal.

I suppose that it was a combination of my general naivete and belief that most folk are good people who just need a nudge to head down the path towards good or evil. I had asked for help and I had been refused. This hurt because in saying that if she had just asked for help, I would have helped her without pausing to think about it. What I said to her was true, that I had already intended to help Shcrodinger and her to escape before she had made this demand of me.

The other thing that hurt was that I had this mental image of Unicorns. Just as I had a mental image of Vampires, the same image that I still have to fight against whenever Ariadne and I are close to each other, I also had a picture of Unicorns in my mind like that but the utter opposite. I imagined them to be good and noble creatures who epitomised all that was good and noble in the world. Then she had just turned out to be...well....not.

With the cold light of distance, I can see her point and understand her reluctance to trust me. That is fine. It's her behaviour towards Kerrass that I still can't get round though.

I walked up to camp, the disappointment warring through my head.

Then I laughed suddenly, no that's not right, it was more like a small wry chuckle.

I felt exactly like I had that time back at university when a girl had disappointed me.

This is a long story so bear with me.

This was still early in my stay in Oxenfurt, I had left home and had had a lot of firsts. I had gotten drunk for the first time which turns out to not be the same thing as what I had thought getting drunk was like. You know the kind I mean, when you are so drunk that you can't crawl, let alone walk home. Where you have to hang on to the world tightly in case you fall off.

I had always thought that that was a joke until the first time it happened to me.

I had had my first significant crush turn me down. Yes, that was Dr Shani and I remain forever grateful to her that she did so as gently as she did. She could have been much harsher than she was.

I had lost at cards for the first time.

I had run out of money for the first time

I had lost my virginity. I've said before that I rushed into this action with undue haste and so I didn't savour the experience as much as I wish I had. It was not unpleasant but at the same time it was somewhat disappointing. I mention this because it led into the situation that I now describe.

I was not great with girls at Oxenfurt during my first year there. I had not yet settled on my calling and I was drifting around. I am not handsome even now although I notice that I seem to be more attractive to women now that I am both engaged and more well known, but then I was gawky, ungainly and far from attractive.

My voice was not resonant, I had no skill at poetry, singing or music. I know about art but I have no enthusiasm for it and I cannot act. This coupled with an aversion to lying to women's faces meant that I didn't do well when it came to women. Some of the previous statements may seem unfair and they probably are, it's just that that's what it seemed like to me. That it was the men and boys who were good at all of these things that seemed to get lucky time after time.

Then I met a girl. Before my University friends start to get excited, this was neither Shani nor was it my eventual first girlfriend, this happened between those two things.

I met a girl. I had been aware of her for a while due to the fact that we were roughly the same age and we both liked the same kinds of music and drank in the same tavern. We hadn't exchanged words, danced or anything else, she was pretty enough certainly but that isn't saying much about that time in my life. We were all bright young things with, as Kerrass would put it, access to proper healthcare, herbal treatments, diet and all of the other things that meant that we were not yet broken down by life. So everyone was pretty to me back then, just as everyone seemed so out of reach.

Mostly, I didn't think of her because she was often arm in arm with someone else, often the kind of man that I didn't like because they were arrogant about the fact that they could get any woman (to my eyes at least) that they wanted without trying. I didn't mind men being good with girls but when they rubbed my nose in it, or picked a fight with me to make themselves feel big or to impress the girl that I was crushing on, then I got cross and she was often on the arms of these men.

That should have been a clue really.

So I kind of put her from my mind.

Then one day I realised that she was leaning against the same patch of wall that I was leaning against while we listened to the minstrel play. He wasn't very good but I was listening anyway because it meant that I didn't have to make conversation with all the loved up couples that my friends seemed to consist of.

I should mention that none of those couples are still together. Most of them moved on after breaking each others hearts. I miss all of them dearly and correspond with all of them whenever I get the chance. I don't talk about them much because I don't want to get them into trouble but if they are reading then they should know that I love and miss them all. Despite that I will still get my vengeance for my leaving party. Oh yes. I really will.

Just in case anyone is thinking that I was neglected.

But anyway, I became aware of her when she greeted me.

“Hello,” she said.

“Errr. Hello.” I commented, being startled as she was stood behind me.

Memory may be betraying me but she looked particularly attractive that night.

“Are you really listening to that?” She gestured at the minstrel.

“Not really.”

“Good. I stayed behind to listen so my friends have all left. Fancy a drink and we can talk about how crap he is.”

“Errr, sure.” I was a real charmer back then.

We chatted that night away, I managed to make her laugh and she did the same in return and at the end of the night, I walked her home. Nothing happened although I would have had no idea what to do if I had been invited in.

My friends were full of advice but the long and short of it was to offer to buy her a drink when I finished mine but not whenever she finished hers in case I was being too pushy and wait for a gesture of intimacy from her. Hand on arm, shoulder or something.

That gesture came the following night. There was much rejoicing from my friends who were running a book on my probability of success. I still wasn't invited in to her house. Instead she hugged me. Not the gentle pressure of upper body that friends do. This was full body contact and my friends, when told, cheered with chants of “Freddie's gonna get some” going round the dormitory.

Then I was advised to lean forward for the kiss the next time I walked her home. Not in the tavern but when I was walking her home. Because if she was letting me walk her home then that meant something was going on. Not to push it too far but to make eye contact and … see what happened. That was how to know if I was getting anywhere.

Apparently.

I'll never forget it. I was very lonely at the time and my friends coupling up was emphasising that. Being a teenager around plentiful alcohol was not a small factor either. We walked home, her hands were swaying and I longer to take hold of one. We got to her gate and she turned to face me.

“Well this is me,” she said. Her face was flushed and she seemed nervous.

“Ok,” I said. I know that it was a stupid thing to say given that I had walked her home several times before but, as I say, I was not exactly charming then. To be fair to me, I was highly aware that it was summer and that she was wearing a light, thin tunic, no leggings and some simple shoes. I was also aware that I was standing really close to her. So close that I thought I could feel the heat from her body.

That might have been my imagination.

I was looking at her, I remember thinking how large her eyes seemed to be.

Then she crushed me.

“I've been meaning to ask you something. It was why I came over to you the other night. You know that guy you were drinking with earlier?” She said.

“Which one?” I asked, confused.

“The tall buff one. Long blonde hair.”

“Oh yeah.”

She giggled. “Holy Flame but he's sooooo pretty. Could you introduce me?”

My brain shut down. He was one of the guys who had been encouraging me to make a play for this girl.

“Err, sure.” I said.

“Oh thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,” then she kissed me on the cheek and darted indoors leaving me in a stew of arousal, alcohol and disappointment.

I had been reminded of that moment and I giggled at myself. I was a long way away from the young, naïve and anxious student I had been at the time. But the way I was feeling was almost exactly the same. The only difference was the lack of eroticism. I had seen it so often with Kerrass. He needed something, some information or some kind of item or herb to finish a hunt, the person who had it would refuse unless a favour was done in return and so a simple hunt would be elongated and made infinitely more complicated than it first appeared. I climbed up the side of the waterfall to see the two Witchers sat with their heads together.

For those who want to know about what happened with the girl and my blonde friend. He already had a regular girlfriend and both of them were absolutely furious on my behalf. They had seen me talking with the girl in question and determined, (while they were all over each other, it must be added) that she had been leading me on. I remember that they were more angry on my behalf than I was. I am still friends with them both (not the girl who had been using me to get to my friend, I mean the couple that looked after me in my hearbreak) and I hope that they will come to Ariadne and my wedding.

But anyway.

I went over to the two men and sat down heavily.

“Didn't go well then?” Kerrass asked.

I shook my head, not daring to look at Schrodinger.

“She won't tell me what she knows until we've got her and Schrodinger away from this place.”

Kerrass nodded leaning back. I deliberately did not tell him about her threat as I thought he would be upset and angry and I thought he deserved better than that. I've since told him and he just shrugged although I could tell that he was disappointed.

Schrodinger had the good grace to look sheepish.

After a moment's thought. Kerrass shrugged. “It's the Witcher's curse. We never get anything for free and everyone always wants a favour. She doesn't know you Freddie and she isn't human. Don't take it to heart.”

I nodded. Again reminded of that long ago time at University, “Don't take it to heart,” one of the most difficult pieces of advice to follow ever given.

“So what are going to do then Freddie? Got any ideas?” He looked back at Schrodinger. “We've been talking the problem round and we can't think of a way round it that doesn't involve killing an awful lot of villagers which will just get the law on his, and our, trail.”

I sighed as I considered. Schrodinger passed me a bottle and I took a long drink.

“I do have one thought,” I said as my head spun a little from the alcohol.

“Oh?”

“How many people do you think actually know about the presence of your wife? How many do you think are in on it?”

“I have no idea. Not the entire village certainly. That would render the money they stand to make as useless. It's a lot of money, but not that much, certainly not enough to help people live in comfort. Maybe half a dozen to a dozen people?”

“As Freddie said,” Kerrass put in. “Greed is the drive and the greefy will want to keep as much monet for themselves as possible. They're not going to want to divide it up.

“Then the rest are believing the lie or lies they are being told.” I went on. “Or are believing some untruth about costs. They either believe in the yellow eyed demon story or that something else lives in the woods. Because otherwise there would be a lot more people out here hunting you down right? Hoping they might get lucky and that a lucky arrow might take you and the unicorn down. That they find you asleep. It's risky but the rewards are considerable. That right?”

Schrodinger nodded.

“They might be hunting Kerrass thinking, not incorrectly, that the village can't afford to pay him and so they are to kill him when he's done. They might think that you, their previous Witcher is dead due to not making it or something...Whatever. The village know that there is something out here.”

“So?”

“So, some, if not all, think that it might be a yellow eyed demon right?”

Kerrass started to chuckle as he saw my point.

“So?” Schrodinger asked again, not used to the way I think.

“So, I say,” I took another drink from the bottle. “Let's give them a yellow eyed demon.”