Chapter 56: The rule of no tongue

In the end, it was five days before we started our expedition down into the valley. This is because, on the second day after Kerrass had finished explaining his history with the place the Princess must have had one of those dreams. One of those dreams that are the entire reason for the assigning of a companion to people in the village.

It was eye opening to say the least.

I'm not going to talk about it too much. All I can say is that when it began to happen, Marion looked at me as though I was a piece of meat. As though she was hungry.

Kerrass was right. I'm glad I experienced it. I'm glad I felt that...that level of emotion but next time, if there is a next time. I would like to rest up for a week before hand just to make sure that I'm not going to expire from the circumstances.

As it was I needed a day to get my breath back.

Not unpleasant but, whooo boy.

Anyhow.

I spent the couple of days I had free exploring a couple of things, reading from the several diaries that Marion was good enough to make available to me and making some notes of my own. I managed to get a sample of the thorn vines and tried to identify the particular species and type of plant family that it belonged to. And then another day saying goodbye to Marion.

I'm not going to talk about that day.

In the end it was a cool morning as we set off down into the valley. The villagers had promised to keep our horses for us, along with the rest of our belongings that Kerrass had declared that we wouldn't need. We had a pony for the carrying of our gear, food for a week, several water skins, camping equipment and what Kerrass referred to as his “professional equipment”. There was also another smaller leather bag that Kerrass attached to the harness without referring to. He didn't offer any information about it and I didn't ask. He had a strange, sad, wistful expression as he tied it on.

Some thoughts are so private that you just don't try to impose on them.

The two of us went without any packs or anything as Kerrass informed me that we would need to keep our hands free. As well as having both his steel and silver swords on his back which he had prepared carefully with oils for beasts and spirits respectively, he had a long, broad bladed knife at his waist. I had my spear, although I hadn't attached the pole end as Kerrass had warned me that I wouldn't have room to use it properly, and my long dagger in my belt. Kerrass would be taking the lead while I led the pony behind us.

Pony instead of horses because apparently there wouldn't be enough room for us to ride without having to duck our heads all the time.

Only a few people watched us go.

When I looked back, just before we entered the forest of thorns by shifting sideways through one of the openings, there were only two figures watching. I could recognise Marion by her red hair and green dress so I thought that the other woman must be Sarah the innkeeper who had her hand round Marion's shoulders.

Neither woman waved.

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We had been warned. If we weren't back in two weeks then they would assume that we were lost and erect a head stone for me in their sad graveyard.

They said nothing about a stone for Kerrass.

Ten minutes later we could no longer hear the sound of the village men singing out the cutting rhythm as their axes bit into the thorn vines. Twenty minutes after that, we could no longer hear the sounds of the axes themselves. I had stopped counting when I realised that I could no longer see sunlight and that I was surrounded by darkness.

But it wasn't completely dark though, that was the thing. You could only call it dark when Kerrass had lit the torches, passing one to me and holding one high aloft. That made the darkness seem more pressing as though the entirety of the forest seemed to want to push down on the flames. To snuff them out and prevent our scurrying progress in the same way that I might stand on an insect that was encroaching into my bedroll.

What there was instead was a kind of luminescent glow about the place. I had examined some of the vine chunks that had been chopped and cut away from where it continued to try and take over the land that Marino's people had claimed for their own. It was largely made out of a sticky, water like substance, I imagine that you could drink it if you were desperate although my own experiments in that area revealed the stuff to be rather bitter. But what I guessed was happening was that the sun was filtering through the trunks of the vines and through that water and down through the hollows and onto us.

It was enough to see by.

But it wasn't enough to move safely by.

The thorns on the vines were huge, much easier to measure in feet rather than in any other way. They were also tough and amazingly sharp. It was this extra hazard that meant that we had to light the torches. It would have been all too easy to just trip over something and plunge head-first onto one of those spikes. They were so sharp that it was doubtful that you would even realise that you were dying.

It was slow going and I managed to see, first hand, the incredible regenerative effects that the vines possessed. At one point we had to cut our way through one of the thicker vines to make room for us to pass between them. Both Kerrass and I could have made it but we still needed the donkey for the carrying of supplies. We got through but when we had Kerrass tapped me on the shoulder and held his torch close so that I could see what happened. With a kind of liquid groan the old vine that we had chopped clear fell to the ground and then a new vine grew out to replace it, two minutes later and it was back in place. Five minutes after that and you wouldn't have been able to tell that there had ever been a gap there in the first place.

At one point I had a theory that if we could harness that regenerative quality then it would mean that medical science could be revolutionised as it seemed that the rapid self-repairing of the vines was biological in nature. But Kerrass had been holding his medallion next to the vine as it grew. The small Cat-head danced in place all the time. Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

Magic then. Not the kind of thing that a medic could carry around in their satchel.

We moved on.

There was sound. It wasn't like in the woods near ambers crossing. Or any of those situations where the entirety of the trees seem to go quiet in the presence of anything supernatural. There was noise. You could hear birds singing in the trees and flapping about. There was rustling in the undergrowth, later in the journey we could hear the sounds of cattle braying and at one point Kerrass managed to produce a wile boar for us to eat. What it was, was muffled. Like that feeling you get when you have water in your ear and everything seems subdued and withdrawn. Echoey was the best word that I could think of to describe it.

Kerrass took it all in his stride, because of course he did. In many ways, it seemed as though he was coming home to this place. He didn't talk much other than to give the odd piece of advice or to suggest this or that. He was thoughtful, lost in a world all of his own and it felt wrong somehow to try and interfere with that.

There was one other thing that was odd about journeying through that place. The surface that we were walking on was a road. There was cobbling in some areas as well despite the fact that it was now showing signs of wear and neglect. We would occasionally have to detour away from the road but otherwise we could travel in a rough line. There were even signposts, written in old-elven but they were still there. They had been annotated and added to by other travellers and guides from the village telling us where the various places were and how we could get from this building to another.

According to one of the signs we passed what the old inhabitants of the Kingdom thought of as an outlying sheep-farm. The couple who ran the place had been looking for a shepherd to take care of the new and larger spring flock. Room and board supplied as well as potential apprenticeship opportunities for the future. Some joker had written underneath saying “I'll take that offer,” in modern script.

It was slow going. Painfully slow. It wasn't like marching up and down a highway with toll-booths and regular patrols where you can expect potholes to be filled in. This was slow and careful picking our way around dangers. Careful manoeuvring of bodies and donkey around the trunks and over tendrils. Kerrass had told me that the plants moved when you weren't looking. I could well believe it. The other thing that happened was that Kerrass insisted upon our resting to eat something in the middle of the day. In the times of a normal journey we would barely stop. Often eating in the saddle while making sure that we had a large breakfast and main evening meal to keep us going. But he insisted and to be fair to him, I could see the reasons for it. We needed that food to keep us fresh and keep us....alert. It was all too easy to trip.

I don't know how far we got on that first day but I would guess that it was somewhere around seven miles. Not a good amount, even if we were injured.

So imagine my surprise when Kerrass seemed absolutely fine with the utter lack of any progress.

“Five days out,” he said. “A couple of days to do whatever it is that you think you might be able to do. If we fail, which is what I expect to happen, then I pay my respects and then we leave. Five days back.”

“I hate to say this,” I pointed out. “But we only have enough food for a week.”

Kerrass nodded. “We won't struggle,” he said while drawing a strange symbol on the floor with a stick of chalk. “There are supply dumps on the route to and from the castle and the forest is teeming with game.”

“That's good.” I commented. “Because these trail rations that they gave us taste like feet.”

I threw a hunk of what had once been described as “salted pork” into the undergrowth.

Kerrass grinned at me. “I thought that they would go easy on us given the fact that they don't know you as well as they know me.”

“They must really hate you.”

“Not really. I think they just like to tell me that they're in charge.”

I nodded and carefully tended the fire. We had stopped in one of the roadside cottages. It had once been some kind of inn. Near the border, a nice big place where people could stop when they had just got into the Kingdom. It was easy to imagine merchants, nobles and ambassadors stopping here to meet and arrange things before putting them before the royal court. A large trunk of the vines had pushed one of the walls down and opened it up to the elements.

I so desperately wanted to go and explore but Kerrass forbade it.

“Why?” I asked.

“Wait until nightfall. Then you'll see.”

And see I did.

At first it was just their outlines but gradually, as the night went on and things got darker and darker, their features began to fill themselves in. At first, just the outline of clothes and features until I could pick out a nose, or a mouth. But then, piece by piece, the rest of them came into view, glowing with a strange blue light which was ethereal in the dark green jungle. You could watch them as they went about their business absolutely, deathly silent. Like watching a mime show as the inn went about it's business, pouring ale into invisible tankards, eating invisible food from invisible plates. Talking and laughing together with absolutely no sound at all.

Eerie is not the word for it.

It turned out that Kerrass had chosen a small storage cubbyhole for our resting place. As I watched, an inn-worker came to the door of the cupboard and tried the patch of air that seemed to be of roughly the same height that a latch might have once been. He struggled with the air, tugging at it and shoving, seeming to get annoyed before eventually calling a friend over so that they could try and force the door. They bounced off air for a few moments before giving up and moving on.

I looked over at Kerrass who was sat in front of the fire, legs crossed and looking at me. The blue glow of the spirits reflecting in his eyes.

He looked frightening and demonic.

“Don't disturb them.” He said. “They don't know they're dead. They wander around the ruins of the Kingdom, living their daily lives, only visible in the depths of the night where the moon shows us their forms and they reflect and refract the moons light so that we can see them. Hidden from us during the day they go about their business. Working, always working and laughing. Living their lives oblivious to the passage of time.”

He tossed a small piece of firewood onto the blaze sending a shower of sparks twisting up into the pitch blackness above us.

“Never get in their way. During the day it doesn't matter. The most that we might feel is a shiver or a sudden sense of danger where none exists. Maybe they feel the same sort of thing but who can tell. You can't communicate with them and it seems impolite to me to try. The only time that we can interfere with each other is during the night. When, in the darkness it seems that their world and ours seem closer together. It is another effect of this place and no-one knows why. But never get in their way. If you see one walking towards you, move. If you see one reaching for you, duck. If you see one looking at you and you think you can see it focusing on you, or recognising you? Run. Run for your life because the next thing you hear will be the shriek of the spirits on the wind. The night terrors that have no name and they will come for you.

“They will chase you down until you slump exhausted by the wayside and then you join them. I've seen it happen. Because what you will have done is confront them with the fact of their death and they hate you for it.

“If you hear them scream, or if you see the green glow of the awakened dead. Coat your blade in the oil, stand inside the circles that I draw and avoid them. Parry their strikes for they have speed but not strength and hope...Hope and pray that they will be solid enough to accept your strikes. If they are not. If they... are as insubstantial as air, then make your peace with whatever powers you hold dear and hope that your end comes quickly.”

“You make it sound so hopeless.” I managed. I hadn't heard him speak like this before. His voice was almost chanting as though reciting words and rimes from half remembered books and tales long past. He had warned me of the dangers of ghosts and wights and wraiths before now and told me about the oils and the circles but here.... He seemed distant.

“It is hopeless. This place is like.... You have a respect for the holy places. I have seen your reverence for shrines and churches. Whether it be a shrine to Melitele, the holy fire, the sacred sun, St Lebioda, the Prophet or any of the others, you always leave an offering. I can understand that. But this place has a similar effect on me. It's like, coming home in a horrible kind of way. I know every building that stands in ruin. I recognise many of the ghosts and know their habits and how they will behave. In this place I feel...It's as though every part of my being. Every skill or piece of knowledge that I have been given, leads me towards this place. Was given to me so that I would know how to work in this environment. It pulls at me time and time again. More than any other place on the continent, this place is home to me. More than the Wolves keep of Kaer Morhen, more than the Feline keep in Northern Redania, more than any other place. This place is home. A place so inimical to human or sentient life and I like it here.”

He smiled a little ironically.

“That probably says something about me that I won't like very much.”

“What will you do?” I asked. I moved to sit to one side of him, poking at the food that was cooking over the fire. “What will you do if we lift the enchantment?”

“Honestly? I don't know. It's an odd feeling bringing you here. I will admit that you're not the first person that I've brought here in an effort to cure the Princess and lift the curse. I've failed every time and I'm self aware enough to know that we probably won't succeed this time either. It's the strangest thing though.

“I know the Princess better than anyone else alive. I've been coming here on and off for a little under eighty years. I've watched her, and waited for her for years, waiting for her to open her eyes. I've lived inside this forest of thorns for months at a time, living off the land until I couldn't bear it any longer. I return north and spend a year, two or more walking the path and earning my money. I try and set down roots or make my way in another craft but sooner or later I will think of her face and my mind will shy away.

“I do not have the luxury of being a romantic. I've seen it fall apart far too often for belief in that. I've loved many women but sooner or later, I compare them to her.

“If I'm lucky I manage to leave before the girl in question sees that in me. That...disappointment as I realise that I'm substituting one person for another. I owe each and every woman in my life more than that.”

“But what if she does wake up Kerrass? What then?”

“I can't think about that. I daren't hope.”

“I know. But...”

“I know what you're getting at. I've idealised her now. She's the ideal person to my eyes and how will she, how could she live up to that.”

“It's not just that Kerrass but she's sixteen. My little sister was sixteen when you and I met and I can well remember how she could be sometimes. Even despite being gifted with “Wit and Goodness” she's still sixteen. I can remember being sixteen myself. I was an absolute ass-hole when I was sixteen.”

“Some might say...”

“Yeah I know. Some might say that I'm an ass-hole now. Yeah, thanks for that. They say that the old ones are the best but I should have seen that one coming. What I'm saying is...What if she wakes up and simply doesn't like you?”

“Then that would be her right.”

“And what will you do then? Follow her around like a faithful dog, sleeping outside her door with naked sword across your knees and protecting her from all comers.”

“Oh it could be a lot worse than that?” said Kerrass smiling. He seemed a little more like his old self with that smile and I found that I was no longer as worried. “What if she wakes up and likes me? What if she wakes up, takes one look at me and throws her arms around me in a huge embrace and kisses me soundly. What if she wakes up, takes one look at me and it's the rumoured, often sung about but oh so rarely happening love at first sight? She's sixteen and the Queen of a fallen Kingdom. A lost Kingdom. The same problems await her as awaited Ariadne when she first woke up. She's going to be living a life that's a long way from the life she used to have. She's going to be lucky if she isn't married and whisked off to some far-flung corner of the Empire within days of waking up. What do I do then?”

He laughed and I laughed with him.

“Oh I've had plenty of time to think about these things Freddie. Plenty of time. There's also the whole thing of what do I do with myself after she wakes up. Will I be satisfied with just being a Witcher then? Just a Witcher with no long term goal to aim for, travelling the roads and wintering with whoever will take me in?”

“I think we both know that you are not just a Witcher Kerrass. You are a man and you will find something to live for. Apart from anything else, I imagine that Emma will always be happy to give you somewhere to live over the winter. You can always stay with me in Oxenfurt, or....” I blew out a breath. “Or in Angral when Ariadne and I get married.”

“You're going to do that then? Blatantly changing the subject. Marry the vampire Queen?”

“I don't know.” I said. “Honestly? She terrifies me and I can't tell what my own feelings are, underneath the terror I mean. I like her, she's beautiful, makes me laugh at the strangest times and we can talk about all kinds of things. But I sometimes feel as though she's playing me. Like I'm a puppet on a string that dances according to her whim. I feel so swept up in things when I'm around her that I'm always trying to breathe or struggle against the current as it were. And she always seems so calm and collected so I can never tell what she's thinking or feeling. I feel like.... I feel as though she treats me like some kind of pet or lab experiment to her. “Ooh, look what I can make the human do if I just look pretty and smile at him,””

I subsided.

Kerrass was just looking at me.

“In the end.” I said after a moment. “I want to make sure that it's my decisions. That what I'm feeling about her are my feelings and not the work of a beautiful vampire woman playing with my emotions for her own amusement.”

Silence fell for a moment.

“You don't know what she's feeling about you?” Kerrass asked. His face seemed stony and unreadable.

“No. That's the point. I suppose the way round that is for us to spend more time...courting I suppose is the right word for it but....”

Kerrass nodded and started laying down to get some sleep.

“For my money, you should marry her. It might be terrifying but she will show you things you can't even imagine.”

“I find that so reassuring.”

“You should. Wake me when it's midnight.”

I don't remember sleeping that night. I must have done because I certainly don't remember the entirety of the night. I remember getting up to relieve myself a couple of times in a pot that Kerrass set aside for that purpose and each time Kerrass was sat, cross-legged with his silver sword across his lap. He appeared to have slept like a baby when it was my turn to watch. As it was I was sleeping on a strangely cold chunk of the floor. There wasn't any surprise there, most of the time the ground is warmed by the contact with the sun but in this case the sun was behind the canopy of trees and thorns that covered the sky. Instead, the heat was provided by the fire and I woke up shivering with my breath steaming the air in front of me.

We ate a breakfast of porridge and bacon which warmed me up nicely before marching into the dense undergrowth.

It was not easy going but Kerrass ensured regular rest stops along the way. He told me that on one of his first visits back after the business with Duke Bertrand had long been done away with, had been to help map the place. The villagers had set up little supply dumps and depots where firewood and fresh stores were stacked neatly in piles next to areas that were clearly signposted as being safe from spectral interference. There were also notes that Kerrass showed me about the various hunting parties that had gone this way and that way hunting for the treasure that everyone seemed certain to be hidden here and there about the place. Kerrass seemed to find the whole thing amusing.

We did come across one man who was dressed in full plate armour. The armour itself was rusting and it was plainly obvious that animals had been trying to get at the meat inside it. They must have found it difficult as the man looked as though he had been impaled on a couple of vine spikes. He was a tall man, but even despite his bulk and his armour, he was suspended off the ground on a couple of the thorns. I guessed that he had fallen off his horse and onto the spikes before hanging there to either bleed to death or die of pain and exhaustion. He carried a kite shield with a lion emblazoned on the front and a jewelled sword rested at his feet. Kerrass recovered the sword and left it with some supplies.

“We'll pick it up on our way back.” He said without comment.

“Who was he?”

“A knight errant of some kind. A fool with too many romantic notions about True Love. Ran into the forest without listening to the warnings.” He sighed and shook his head. “I'm being unfair. He got quite far in considering.”

We rode on. Slowly, my eyes seemed to adjust to the gloom and I needed the torches less and less. On the third day's journey, Kerrass didn't bother to light them and I didn't realise for several hours that we were walking easily, leading the donkey carefully. The odd and very brief shaft's of light were blades down from the heavens that stabbed into the eyes. We avoided them.

“So, do you have a plan?” Kerrass asked on the second night that we spent in that place.

“Plan, no but I do have a couple of questions now that my mind has had time to settle in around the problem.”

“Oh?”

“You're so sure that “True Love's kiss” doesn't work?”

“I am sure.”

“Why?”

“Because I've tried it.”

Kerrass was staring into the fire as he said this. He appeared carved from stone and I found that I didn't want to disturb his thoughts further that night but I tried again the following night.

“So true love's kiss doesn't work.” I said as I turned the spit that had two rabbits roasting over the fire. We were camping in what looked like an outer farm building. It was clearly labelled as being a safe place to camp and the spirits left us alone that night although we could still see them in the distance.

“It's not that it doesn't work. It always works, no matter what the curse is, “True Love's kiss” is the guaranteed cure of it. It always works although no-one knows why. I once knew a wizard who claimed that it was something to do with the inherently magical nature of love that, because that magic could always break through anything then the curse would fall apart under it's light. The problems with it being that it has to be true love. Not for one's own gains or surface desire, simple affection or lust. My working theory has always been that in my case, as well as in the case of any of the other pilgrims that come to try and wake her, they fall for the Princess as a symbol or as an object rather than as a person. As a woman or as a girl.”

“Possible.” I pulled one of the books that I had brought with me from the village library. “According to Strengen the Wizard: True Love's kiss is the ultimate charm. Anyone can cast a curse if they have a sufficient depth of feeling towards their intended target but that raw, un-tempered hatred can have considerably damaging effects on the caster as well as the target of the curse. Hatred is power, especially as it so regularly goes hand in hand with unchecked rage which is so often the case when it is used in the manner of cursing. The poets tell us that the line between love and hate is thin indeed so perhaps that is the reason why “True Love” works to counter the curse. That Hate and Love cancel each other out.”

“I have read that book several times. Unfortunately it seemed that Strengen then went on to try and and distil Love and Hate into their purest liquid forms and his failure to do so drove him mad.”

“That would strike as true as both things are so abstract in their nature. There are also many different forms of Love and Hate that they defy codification. What was it the poet said about Love?”

“That it is like a pear. Sweet to the taste but defies any kind of description other than the fact that it is pear-shaped. Thank you by the way.”

“What for?”

“For not saying that the reason my kiss didn't wake her is because I am a Witcher and as such cannot feel any emotion.”

“I will take your thanks although I feel sure that that old slander can be dismissed as the falsehood that it is.”

Kerrass smiled and turned the rabbits again so that their fat spilled free and sizzled in the fire. I had been surprised as to how fat and well fed the rabbits looked given that there was little sunlight here. One of the things that is known about what causes plants and creatures to grow and thrive is sunlight so the rabbits and other animals that I had seen should have been dying, if not dead. But these things seemed healthy. Indeed we were flavouring the rabbits with wild garlic that we had found at the side of the road.

“Reading further,” I went on, “Strengen claims that proper curses as cast by magic users...”

“Doesn't he define magic users as hedge wizards, witches, witchers and other uncouth things?” Kerrass asked with a slight smile.

“He does but I decided not to bother with such blatantly ridiculous things.”

“Fair enough,”

“But he says that proper curses that are worked out in advance, targeted against a specific individual and codified into a spell, are relatively easy to perform. The real craft comes when the caster tries to work out a way to get round the old loophole of “True Love's kiss”. He claims that if only people knew how useful “True Love's kiss” was, then there would be no such thing as curses given all of the different forms of love that there are.”

“Parental, familial.”

“Friendship.”

“If you're going to kiss me Freddie then I have a rule of no tongue.”

“Thank you for that. I'll bear that in mind.”

I checked to see how the meat was coming on and stirred the vegetable mix that was going to accompany the rabbit for our evening meal. Beans carrot and onion.

“But anyway, what we have to do here is figure out the loophole.”

“People have been working on that problem for years Freddie. Do you have anything new?”

“I might. I need you to tell me about Dragons.”

“Dragons? Why dragons?”

“Because it's the dragon that's out of place here. It doesn't fit anywhere. According to the accounts of the villagers. The Dragon was first sighted by those people who returned to the Kingdom after the curse had been enacted. They saw it in the sky, swooping and dancing in the air. At the time they couldn't get any closer because the curse itself prevented them from doing so. Have I got that right?”

“You have.”

“So the next thing of note is that the dragon doesn't really attack visitors to the Princess. I've looked and there's no real statistical basis for the theory that it hunts the people that visit the castle specifically over random people that are searching the rest of the Kingdom. It just, occasionally, likes the taste of human over cow or sheep.”

“I sense a “but” coming.”

“But,” I grinned at him. “The only time the Dragon gets agitated or angry is whenever you get close to the Princess. Or whenever another magic user gets close to the Princess. It also gets angry whenever the Princess is...assaulted.”

“You mean ****.”

“I do.”I cleared my throat in discomfort. “Think about it. From your account, Duke Bertrand told you that the dragon got upset when the wizard that he had been speaking to went to the castle. It gets angry when your party was....assaulting the Princess. There are also records that say that the Princess has been ***d multiple times. Every time the Dragon goes nuts and sets fire to vast swathes of the countryside. It also doesn't enjoy the presence of magic users. Which includes Witchers. Did you know that another Witcher had visited the Princess?”

“I didn't.”

“About twenty years ago a Witcher called Merten of Haakland came here in an effort to lift the curse. Apparently a border lord had wanted the curse lifted so that he could expand into the Kingdom and get at all the juicy lumber to be found. Merten came, the Dragon got cross and he left. He told the villagers that he assumed that he had really been hired to hunt the dragon for the Lord and given that Witchers don't hunt dragons...”

“Interesting. The Rabbit's done.”