A Promise Once Given

The purse bulged like a fat man’s stomach. It was more gold than Alayna had ever seen in her young life. The alderman opened the pouch and laid fourteen ducats on the table.

“That, little lady, will be your pay, should you complete the job.” He scoffed and spat into his cup. “Which I doubt.” She frowned, not at his disdain, but at the paltry sum he offered.

“Fourteen ducats isn’t enough.” He frowned in return. “For four necrophages I’ll need twenty four.”

“I won’t give you more than eighteen.”

“I can’t go below twenty two.”

“Twenty,” he said with exasperation. “And you’ll have a room upstairs when you’re done.” She hesitated, and he grinned. “A deal, then. Twenty ducats for four drowners by the river.” He proffered his hand in a sign of goodwill, expecting her to shake on the deal.

A promise once given was a test of virtue. The virtue of such a promise is twofold: the virtue of wisdom that comes from making good promises, and the virtue of honesty that comes from keeping bad promises. A deal, once struck, was one such test. Twenty ducats was cheating her, but it was more than she might have gotten in Kalkar or Vattweir. And she could certainly never return to Vengerberg. Not after… no, never again. Alayna took the hand he offered and shook it firmly.

“It’s a deal.”

She left the house and gently led her horse, Calliope, away from her tether. Together they walked down the road that left the village. Guleta did not seem a bad place, but the onset of winter made the Path wearisome; she longed for home, where she would settle down for the winter and prepare for new contracts in the spring. Home was nestled in the mountains north of Dol Blathanna, hidden from the eyes of King Demavend and the Scoia’tael. In those mountains there stood a proud tower which was once home to the Griffin School of Witchers, and now home to just one young witcheress. Though the walls were now crumbling, and she alone called it home, Kaerhen du Loc was still cozy in the winter and the griffin emblazoned above the main gate still boasted of their proud history.

The river was within sight. She exchanged her steel blade for one of silver and slid two corked vials into her waistband: one auburn, one a misty green. Her griffin medallion bounced on her breast as she walked alone to the water’s edge. Calliope would buck and run away if she brought her any closer. The grass mingled with sand, and there Alayna stopped. Then she knelt on the ground and waited for night to fall.

The slim girl was not an imposing sight. No girl at seventeen summers had fully grown into her body, but a body mutated by magic and mutagens was, for all its fine tuning and superior abilities, an aberration from the natural. Her hair, when brushed and braided, had a beautiful brown sheen. But she had not worn braids since she had ridden away with the witcher so many years ago – now it blew loose in the wind. There was still an innocence in her eyes that belied the sharp sword on her back and the forest-green aketon she wore. Witchers ought to be fierce and unyielding, but she still seemed delicate at the tender young age, to those who had not yet dealt with her. Despite all, the alderman had misjudged her. She was every bit a witcher.

The slimy black heads emerged from the still water without creating a single ripple. Five heads, ten webbed feet paddling silently through the dank river. Alayna uncorked the misty green vial and imbibed it – the potion of Cat coursed through her veins, and the pitch of night melted away as her vision attuned alchemically to the dark. The movement drew their attention. Five fanged grins, ten sharp claws led the drowners towards what they doubtless thought was an easy meal.

But they had not reckoned on finding a witcher.

In one swift movement, she stood to her feet and twisted her fingers in the sign of Aard. The blue force of magic struck them, and the leading three stumbled back into the river and fell. She leaped forward and twirled between the remaining two, slicing the stomach of the first and bisecting the second from shoulder to hip. That one fell dead. She glanced at the three still climbing out of the muck of the river and faced the first drowner again. It hissed, baring its long teeth as green blood dripped from the shallow cut across its belly. Alayna watched its hips. When she saw the slight bend in its knees and the slight forward lean in its hips, she hurled herself to the side and let her sword trail behind her with a strong two-handed grip. The monster leaped through the space she had occupied just moments before. Instead of a young girl, the monster hit a cold silver blade. The razor sharp edge bit through flesh and bone, and the second drowner fell dead.

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Three of the five corpse-eaters remained. The alderman had said there were four. He had been mistaken. Already she felt the initial surge of adrenaline wearing off. The Aard sign had required more strength than she had anticipated, and she was beginning to feel fatigued. If she survived, Alayna swore that she would get extra coin from the alderman, even if it meant sleeping on the road again.

These moved cautiously. The creatures were not sentient, but years of surviving the long defeat honed the efficiency of their murders. The three fanned out, and Alayna was forced to retreat and swivel between them in order to keep them all in focus. The drowner on her left made a sudden leap out of her peripheral vision so that it was behind her. All three hissed in glee.

Recklessly, Alayna threw herself forward. With a horizontal stroke she lopped the head of the first, and with a quick thrust buried her sword up to the hilt in the chest of the second. The fire faded from its eyes, and she felt blood dripping down her stomach where its claws had scraped through her aketon. Four drowners lay dead on the banks of the river.

Then she remembered the fifth drowner.

She spun and crossed her arms in the protective sign of Heliotrop, barely holding back the drowner with the orange glow of the magic shield. Instinctively, she drew her knife and thrust it beneath its chin and into its brain. A soft hiss was the only thing that had alerted her to the attack, so soft that it was probably instinct. But a witcher hears the sounds of ripples on the water, and a witcher well knows the sound of a murderous thought. It is as familiar as their own breath. The knife dripped green in the moonlight.

She sat heavily on the sand. Five bent corpses bled green on the sandy shores of the river. The river had been infected but was now cleansed. Like a surgeon, her work required a strange contradiction: by excision is the patient made whole. The surgeon cuts out the tumor so that the healthy flesh might heal again; the witcher cuts out Evil and Chaos so that the natural order might be restored. But neither the surgeon nor the witcher had the luxury of time to entertain such lofty ideals.

She washed her silver blade in the river and quickly bound her wound, grimacing as she did so. She uncorked the second potion and quaffed the auburn drink. She had not hoped to need the Swallow, but she felt quick relief as she felt her strength return. It was necessary to begin the long and ugly process that would follow. She drew her knife and sized up the five bodies lying around her. In this way the surgeon and the witcher differed.

The surgeon did not collect trophies from his patients.

**********

“Twenty five ducats.”

The alderman smiled nervously. “Little lady, we shook on twenty. A promise, once given, cannot be so lightly broken.”

“Twenty ducats were for four drowners.” She hoisted the string of five heads to the counter. “Count.” He counted, then recounted, examining each head closely. She continued, “Twenty ducats for four necrophages means each drowner is worth five ducats to you. There were five at the river’s edge, so you owe me twenty five.” He nearly objected, but she slowly drew her knife and laid it on the table; her meaning was perfectly obvious: the honor of a promise could be broken though the promise itself remained intact.

His face took the expression of curdled milk. But he paid her twenty five, his hands clenched as he counted out the extra five coins.

She turned and walked away, grabbing her knife from the table. There would be no hospitality in Guleta tonight: she would sleep on the road.

An instinct, a thought, a suspicion. Something in his eyes had unconsciously alerted her to the imminent trespass. She spun and crossed her arms in the sign of Heliotrop, barely catching the knife that the alderman had thrust at her back. Without thinking, she thrust her own knife under his chin and into his brain. A low growl was the only thing that had alerted her, so soft that he probably wasn’t even aware he had made it. But a witcher hears the whispering of the wind, and a witcher well knows the sound of a murderous thought. Betrayal is as familiar as an old friend. The knife dripped red in the candlelight.

She reached down for the tempting purse, then thought better of it and left only with the twenty five ducats he had given her. A promise, once given, cannot be so lightly broken. Yet her action did not preclude the screams and shouts of “murderer!” as she left the village with a bloodied knife. They would count the heads, they would find the full purse which remained. But it would change nothing: the alderman, whitewashed through the lens of nostalgia, would be absolved, while the stranger, who by the very nature of her strangeness could never be one of them, would be maligned. It was the way of the Path.

Order and Chaos, Justice and Defeat: whichever side the witcher fought for, that same side would soon snap at her heels. It was the way of the Path.

A promise is a test of virtue, and the virtue of such a promise is twofold: there is the virtue of wisdom that comes from making good promises, and there is the virtue of honesty that comes from keeping bad promises. Where humans were not wise, they were at least honest. For civilization made a promise long ago to the witchers: we will ever need you and we will despise the necessity. We will invite you into our homes at the beginning and kick you to the road at the end. We will grow fat from the fruit of your labor and we will pay a pittance for the privilege of our lives and our livelihoods. Thus the inheritance of a witcher was a knife in the back. Such were the promises of humankind.

And a promise, once made, cannot be so easily broken.