Chapter 88: The Chamber

“It turns out that Jack's real name, in this case, was Antoine de Mornir. He was a school teacher.”

“What?” The Empress demanded. She had her head in her hands, resting her elbows on her desk and was massaging her eyes. “What did he teach? Badassery? Fencing? Acrobatics?”

“None of the above.” Phillipa Eilhart said looking as tired, if not worse than the Empress did. “He was actually a maths tutor with some history and handwriting done on the side. He was the kind of man that nobles hire to come and instruct some basic skills to their children. Before the children have begun to decide what they want to do with themselves.”

She sat down heavily in a nearby chair before pouring herself a hot steaming drink. “He did that sort of thing four days out of seven and then spent two days “giving some back to society” where he taught some of the children of the townsfolk and what surrounding villagers could make it to the church schools. Widower, no children devoted to his work and to the children. Is known to the Knights Errant as a couple of years ago he discovered that one of the children in his classroom was being being abused by their father. Whole matter was dealt with in a duel and the child went off to stay with an Aunt out of town.”

“How can a man like that do all of these things?” The Empress stared over her hands at the other occupants of the room. There weren't that many of us and none of us had slept. “He killed two Witchers, eleven Knights Errant and close to forty Imperial Guardsmen in a single night. That's not including those men that are wounded and may never walk, let alone fight again. You're telling me that all of that was done by a school teacher? And quite a nice, moral man at that?”

“I can't speak for any certainty, Majesty.” Lady Eilhart put just the slightest emphasis on the title, I sense an old conflict here but it was glossed over. “But if I was to guess, I would say that he was possessed.”

“If it was a possession then it's not like anything that I've ever seen,” The Empress' chaplain was there, the first time I'd met the man. He was the kind of quiet elderly man who could surprise you with his vigour and the sudden bursts of charm and very sharp intelligence. “Is there any possibility at all that he wasn't just simply mad?”

“Oh, he was quite mad.” Said Lady Eilhart. “But you don't understand. Not only did he not have the skill to do the things that we saw last night, but he physically couldn't have done it. The cartilage in his joints was simply gone. His limbs, especially his legs and feet, were fractured in multiple places and in multiple ways. His muscles were torn and strained. That's leaving aside the fact that his jaw was broken, his tongue torn out at the root and that he was missing an eye. Not that the eye was removed. But because the side of his face was caved in and the eye must have burst.

“It wasn't a madness that made him do all of the things that happened last night. He was physically incapable of standing and holding himself upright. His shattered limbs make that certain. If I hadn't been scrying the events, with my own magic and with other witnesses at the time, I would have sworn that the Witchers and Lord Frederick here, had substituted someone else in place of the killer.”

“My God.” The Chaplain made the sign of the sun over his heart. “But, possession is normally accompanied by more supernatural elements, things floating, strange voices, promises of power and damnation. This was just a killer.”

“Just a killer, Lord Chaplain?” Geralt of rivia was another person in attendance. He showed no signs of the weariness that was affecting most of the rest of us. “Believe me, there was no “just” about what happened last night. That power played us like mandolins. Played all of us. It's my view that nothing happened last night that the attacker didn't want to happen. Up to and, I think, including his capture at our hands. Certainly Lord Frederick here owes that fact his life.”

“Why would he want me alive?” I asked the room. Not for the first time. It was one of many questions that I had spinning round my head at that point. It turns out that I didn't say it loud enough this time and so no one spoke. It wasn't as if anyone had an answer for me anyway.

“Why would someone want to do all of that?” The Chaplain asked again.

“Distraction?” Lord Voorhis was in the room and had poured himself a goblet of liquid from the same jug that Lady Eilhart had drunk from. “While we were chasing him across the rooftops, we weren't looking somewhere else. That brings us back to the probability that this whole thing comes down to a matter of state rather than something specifically designed to target or annoy the Empress or the Coulthard family. Nothing else happened last night in Toussaint that was of any note. No ships moved, no boats docked and nothing went anywhere. We checked.”

The Empress rose to her feet and walked to look out the window. She was very pale that morning and I suspected that, along with not having slept, she also hadn't eaten anything. Her hair was kept back by a simple silver circlet and a hair design that I recognised as being another from Francesca's repertoire of simple but effective things that you can do with long hair. But other than the circlet she wore no other ornamentation and was dressed in a simple, high collared black robe that was belted at the waist. For all the world it looked like a cassock only it was black rather than red. I guessed at the boots underneath.

“So here's the big question I suppose,” The Empress said after a while. “Did he have anything to do with Francesca's disappearance?”

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“Oh yes.” Said Lady Eilhart.

“Beyond any doubt.” Kerrass commented. “As soon as we managed to get his address out of him, or rather, as soon as lady Eilhart and her fellows got his address out of him, we went and searched his residence in the early hours of this morning. Just as the sun was beginning to come up. He had paintings of her all over his little house. That and a cage in his basement where he kept his victims. He had...souvenirs.”

The Empress shuddered. “Was this something that he did or was it something that was done to him?”

“There is still some argument about that, Majesty,” Lady Eilhart said. “I think though, that the man was possessed and manipulated into doing these things. I think he is as much a victim of all of this as Lady Francesca is. He was driven mad with what he had seen and what he was being forced to do. A lot of his injuries, we believe, were self-inflicted.

“Early on he injured himself in an effort so that the people around him would realised that something was wrong, but the possessing personality simply made him wear a mask when he went out and steal anything that he needed. It's almost certain that he clawed at his own face, tore out his own tongue and bashed his head against a wall in an effort to kill himself. But again, the possessing personality simply wouldn't allow it.”

Lady Eilhart is a difficult woman to like but I found that I was grateful to her there for the use of the present tense regarding Francesca.

What she said was an understatement of the horror that we found when we went to the teachers house. It was just a small house, behind a butchers shop, and you got to it by going down a side alley. You would need to be told where it was, you couldn't come across it accidentally. He had a ground floor room in which he seemed to do most of his cooking, a basement room that he hadn't previously been using and an upstairs room where he slept and kept his books. If it wasn't for the location being less than entirely beneficial I would have called it a nice place to live.

But the smell as we walked into the back room was enough to send even a Witcher retching. The reek itself of blood, faeces and offal was overpowering enough but there was another scent here. It was an evil scent of fear, rage and helplessness. It made the hair on the backs of my head stand up.

I will set it out as clinically as I can.

On the top floor he was surrounded by the dresses and small belongings of the women that he had captured. He had dressmaker dummies set out upon which he had set out the women's dresses. He had placed their hair upon the dummies heads and had nailed the poor women's faces to the front of the dummies. Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

Yes, he skinned their faces off.

As well as this, the books that had once lined the shelves in the room were scattered around the place. We found some evidence to say that many of them had been used to start fires and for fuel for the fire. On the wall, over and over again, were different portraits of my sister. Some were professionally done and I would later learn that those pictures had been created by professional artists in the capital, who had been commissioned by “foreign nobility” who were interested in the eligible women at court. But some, just as clearly had been done by the occupant. They were drawn on the wall using whatever artistic material could be found. Blood, excrement, charcoal and anything else that you might not want to imagine. It was also easy how he chose his victims. Not just for the superficial similarities to Francesca but also by the way they dressed.

On the ground floor it was obvious that he had been eating his victims. He must have struggled to go out into town to get what food and things that he had needed due to his obvious disfigurements and so he had turned to the only food source that he had available.

This was also the room where he clearly had done things to himself, both to call attention to his plight at first, but later in an effort to end his own existence. He had castrated himself with a knife. Flame knows how he managed to survive that. He had torn his own tongue out with a pair of pincers as well as taking a knife to himself. He had a large sledgehammer which it turned out he had used to shatter his own feet as he tried to disable himself into not being able to go out.

Finally, when none of those things had worked he had tried ramming his head into a wall.

Why none of these things had worked, I suppose we will never know. We did propose the theory that the teacher personality, the true personality, was driven mad by the things he was forced to do and the things he was forced to see. Then he tried to prevent himself from doing or seeing these things. But all the time he was prevented from doing so by the other personality that we referred to as the “Jack” personality that saved his life at every turn. All the time forcing him to perform increasingly brutal and horrible things.

It was awful, horrifying and heartbreaking.

In the basement we found his torture chamber. Where he confined, ### and tortured those poor women to death. He used objects after he had castrated himself. We found the instruments on the floor. I stood in that room for a long time looking at the cage where Francesca must have been. No matter for how long she had been there.

Then I had gone away to weep and shake and sweat for a while.

“So, lay this out for me then please.” The Empress said. “Was the man interrogated?”

“He was, although it had to be done magically,” Kerrass returned the floor to Madame Eilhart.

“Yes, it took some time but we were able to get through the man's madness to be able to talk to him. That was how we found his address.”

“How did it take so long to find him?”

“Early on, apparently he seemed quite rational to his neighbours, students and clients. He complained about some kind of family crisis and that he would be coming in and out at all kinds of odd hours. He was well known as a good and upstanding member of society so people just let him get on with it.

“So, as I say, lay it out for me. What was the sequence of events?”

Lady Eilhart took another drink from her steaming cup.

“We think that the man was possessed. We don't know why he was targeted and it's one of those things that we will struggle to find out now.”

“Why?”

Lady Eilhart sighed and rubbed at her eyes before pinching at the bridge of his nose.

“You have to understand the depths of the man's madness and despair. He had seen himself doing all of the things that have been described. All the crimes that he had committed. He had seen them, experienced them, known that they were wrong and tried to prevent himself from doing so but his will was completely overcome.

“Towards the end he could no longer distinguish himself from the entity inside him, such was the state of his madness. He had tried to end himself several times in an effort to save future victims but he was kept from that in some way, we assume that the entity just refused to let him die. We can't say any of this for certain because once he told us everything he knew and led us to his residence he finally succeeded in killing himself by dashing his brains out against the floor.”

“I see,” The Empress winced in sympathy. I was too far gone to feel sympathy for him at that stage. I was tired but I couldn't sleep. I still felt so angry that I was beginning to frighten myself. “Go on, he was targeted, what then?”

“We think he was given a gift of some kind. Or something was slipped into his house or whatever. Something was done to draw down Jack's presence into his mind and his body. He was also given his target well in advance. Paintings and descriptions of Francesca were provided although he remembers them just turning up in his house. He remembered becoming obsessed with her and what she looked like. He freely admitted that he fell in love with her but couldn't do anything about it.

“As I say, he was a widower, he loved his wife and had never felt the need to remarry. When he started to feel the need he would go down to the brothel and spend a bit of money. He didn't spend his money on much else but that way he could express his physical desires in a safe way.

“But now that option was taken from him. Not only that but Jack was taking over by this point and his desires and drives were no longer quite so....wholesome. Eventually, when he couldn't take it anymore he went out and found his first victim. She was similar but at the same time, wasn't quite the Francesca that he was looking for. So then there was another victim and another victim.

“All the while he was being built up into a single, Francesca hunting machine. This was before Lady Francesca had even arrived in Toussaint you understand. When she did arrive, he stalked her. Following her about. He was sensible enough not to try and get at her in the palace so he watched and waited. Then one day he saw her come out, descend through the pathways to the bridge and he pounced.”

“What did he do with her?”

“He locked her in his dungeon. He went out for something, possibly another moment where the man overwhelmed the spirit in an effort to prevent harm from befalling the Lady, but when the spirit had reasserted itself. Francesca was gone.

“The spirit went mad with impotent rage and desire. Then the plan was put into place and the “Jack” spirit determined to have a bit of fun at everyone else's expense.”

The entire room shifted it's weight in discomfort.

“So this was something that was done to him?” Lord Voorhis asked.

“I have no doubt. It has to be said that from my perspective, the teacher Antoine was an extraordinarily brave man. He did everything he could to fight the possessing spirit and to prevent harm from coming to those young women. He tried to draw attention to himself, to injure himself so that he would find it harder to perform the physical feats that the spirit demanded of his body. Unfortunately the spirit was strong enough to make sure that he couldn't follow through. It simply ignored his injuries. Indeed, the spirit did more damage to that body than the Witchers did in the effort to capture him.

“Was this part of the same plot to remove Francesca?” The Empress asked “Or was it just coincidence that Jack was active in the local area while Francesca disappeared. It would piss me off if we lost all those people to a fucking distraction.”

Lady Eilhart shared glances with a couple of other people round the room.

“I think we can discount the “coincidence theory” majesty. This man was used as a weapon to capture Lady Francesca. She was lured out by methods or means unknown. Then Jack captured her and the conspirators removed her from him knowing that Jack would make as big a mess as possible while we were all trying to track him down.”

“Fuck.” The Empress swore. “Fuck it all.” She sprang to her feet and stalked up and down for a moment or two. “That means that all of our current precautions are useless too?”

“Majesty?” Voorhis asked.

“We didn't know Francesca was missing until the midday of my coronation. The people looking for her just thought she had run off somewhere. She went missing the night before. Jack had her, then lost her all before we even knew to be looking for her. That means that she could be anywhere right now.”

The Empress stalked up to Voorhis. “Tell me I'm wrong.”

He shook his head. The Empress marched up to Lady Eilhart. “Tell me I'm wrong,” she pleaded. “Please.”

Lady Eilhart wouldn't meet her gaze either.

The Empress went back to her window and stared out at the annoyingly sunny day.

“Fuck,” she said again and put her head in her hands.

If you watch carefully, you can see the precise moment that someone gives up someone else for dead.

“Ok,” she said after a while and turned back around. She had her “Empress” face back on although she wasn't looking anyone in the eye and her eyes were moving around constantly, refusing to alight on anything.

“Here's what I want to happen. Lord Voorhis?”

“Majesty?”

“What else happened in the Empire last night? Find out would you please?”

“Yes your majesty.”

“And mention to the Diplomatic corps I am not in the mood for anyone fucking about.

“Yes Your Majesty.”

“Lords Kalayn and Coulthard?”

Mark stood up from where he had sat on a stool in the back ground. Emma hadn't been able to come. Sam stood up with him. “Majesty?” Mark asked looking pale.

“Your family is to consider itself under my protection. But that goes both ways. You can expect some members of the Imperial guard to arrive and to audit your lands and your merchant endeavours properly. I want to know who your enemies are, in detail. I expect you all to comply with these orders. In the meantime you should assume that you are being stalked. You will all stay here in Toussaint until your new Imperial advisers are ready to depart.”

“Yes Your Majesty.”

“Lady Eilhart.”

“Your Majesty?”

“I will expect a full report on the Jack phenomenon and how it happened here. Work with Lord Geralt if you please and complete the investigation into what happened in Toussaint. I also expect you to assist Duchess Anna Henrietta in her endeavours.”

“Yes Your Majesty.” Lady Eilhart was sensible enough to not want to rock the boat on this one.

“Lady Duchess?”

“Majesty?” Anna Henrietta stepped forward. She had taken to wearing a plain white dress without adornment. No jewellery or make-up adorned her and her hair hung loosely down her back. As I said earlier, for my money, she looked far more beautiful like this than she ever had in her massively ornate gowns.

“I want your Duchy searched from top to bottom. House to house searches. If Francesca is here, alive or dead I want her found. Coordinate with the Lodge and Lord Geralt if you would. If she's....dammit....If she's buried in the back woods somewhere I want to know about it. Martial law and your borders remain sealed without my express permission until the search is concluded. Trade only starts up again when everything has been searched.”

“Yes Your Majesty.”

“That's it everyone. Fuck off for five minutes and then send in my secretary so we can all get back to work. Oh, and can someone mention it in court that I'm in a desperately foul mood and that if anyone crosses me then I am more than a little bit tempted to pull out their spleen with my own hand.”

There was quite a bit of bowing.

“No mother you stay. The rest of you though. Fuck off.”

I saw Lady Yennefer move over to where the Empress sat with her head in her hands but I found that I suddenly couldn't move.

“Wait,” It was a bit of time before I realised that it was me that had spoken suddenly. “Is that it? Are we just giving up?”

The Empress looked up from where she had been resting her head in her hands. “What would you have us do Lord Frederick. We have no leads.”

Kerrass clapped me on the shoulder. “That's it Freddie, just leave it now,” he whispered.

The Empress sighed. “We share your anguish Lord Frederick, we love her too but what else is there. She was taken at a time when we weren't looking for her. She was conned into thinking that her brother was summoning her outside the castle. She was kidnapped by Jack and then taken from him as well by persons or people unknown. The clues are either buried in this man Antoine's house, in his body or elsewhere. If you can see any other leads for us to pursue then point them out to us. I have the resources of an Empire Lord Frederick and I have a burning need to use them on this. Give me something, anything that I can do to find your sister and I will do it.”

For a moment, the passion that the Empress spoke with took me aback.

“Jack,” I said after a long while. “We need to speak with Jack himself.”

“The man died Lord Frederick.” Lady Eilhart was looking at me oddly. “Believe me when I say that he gave us everything that he knew. But even if he didn't. He smashed his brains across the floor. He was only coherent due to some incredible willpower on his part. Even if we performed Necromancy, which we won't by the way, he wouldn't be able to tell us any more.”

“Not him.” I said. “Jack himself. The entity “Jack.” He had his prey stolen from him so he's bound to be pretty pissed. We know that he has a bizarre sense of duty and humour. We also know that he is jealous of his power and imitators. Surely he would know some more things. Who summoned him? Who put him in that body? how did it happen? Why did he allow himself to get manipulated like that?”

“And how do you propose to talk to him?” Lady Eilhart said. “Even if it could be done, which I'm not saying it can. How would you talk to him? That wasn't the being itself that we fought last night, that was just a part of him possessing a man. Can you imagine the amount of chaos that the man himself might be able to cause to the world. I can.”

“It's an avenue.” I insisted. “It's something that we can pursue. Something else that we can ask. Another lead.”

Lady Eilhart shook her head. “It can't be done.”

There was another sigh in the room. “It can,” said lady Yennefer somewhat reluctantly. “It can be done although I agree that it's not a great idea.”

“How do you know this?” Lady Eilhart looked aghast at the other Sorceress.

“There was a time when I was as desperate to find the Empress as Lord Frederick is to find his sister. There is no avenue that I did not look at to find and come to her aid. I looked into it. Found the rituals but there were other things that I pursued first. Avenues which were more successful.”

Lady Eilhart. “This is madness. I want no part of it. This kind of consorting with demons is not something that the Lodge will support.”

“Fuck the Lodge,” The Empress snapped.

“What?” Lady Eilhart yelled astonished but the Empress ignored her.

“Can it be done Mother?”

Lady Yennefer considered for a while before nodding firmly.

“Then do it. I'm sure Lord Frederick will assist where he can.”

“I will also need Witcher Kerrass' assistance.

“You have it ma'am.” Kerrass said.

“Then I shall fetch my notes.”

The Sorceress got up and left. Kerrass took my arm and firmly led me out of the room from where the Empress and Lady Eilhart were glaring at each other.

The yelling started just as we left the room.

Lady Yennefer had disappeared. There was just the ends of a gate, the silvery writing still hovering in the air to tell us that she had teleported off some place.

“This is a really bad idea Freddie,”

“Worse than facing a dead King to ask him who he sired a bastard with?” I asked. I was trying to feel jovial but it wasn't working.

“Worse,”

“Worse than attempting to talk to a dragon?”

“This is not a fucking Dragon we're talking about here Freddie. We're talking about an ancient and unknowable being. I'm not going to call him evil because calling a thing like Jack evil is like calling water evil for drowning you. A Dragon at least is a creature that can be killed. Jack is.....”

“Jack?” I asked him and he subsided. “Kerrass, I'm grateful. I really am for your concern but.... I have to know. I can't just sit here and wait while they search Toussaint, building to building, before failing to find her. They are right. They had an entire morning to move her and secrete her some place. She's not going to be found because big and burly men are going to be knocking on doors.

“This is my sister Kerrass. I can't.... I can't say how important she is to me. She's my little sister. She's more physically capable than me, smarter than Emma, more intelligent than Mark and more charming than Sam but out of everyone I know. She's the only one that I am afraid for.

If you, or Emma or Ariadne or anyone else got taken then I would pray for the kidnappers. But Francesca is too innocent for that. Even though she probably isn't as innocent as I think she is, I fear for her. I've never stopped being afraid for her.

“When I left home I was worried that our father would turn his displeasure onto Francesca. I saw a little girl of fourteen, bright eyes and smiling, despite being sad to see me go and I was so afraid that I was throwing her to the wolves. That she came out of all of that and was still kind and gentle and....

“Flame, she's the best of all of us Freddie. She's the best thing that my family produced and to think of her being kidnapped, let alone dead and despoiled in a ditch somewhere.

“I just can't Kerrass. I just can't. And I just couldn't live with myself if I thought that there was something that I could do and then didn't do it.”

I was astonished at the tears that had sprung into me eyes and I turned away to hide them even though Kerrass must have already seen them.

“It might be selfish Kerrass given all of the families that are mourning the good men that died last night in an effort to find the man that had kidnapped her and it is. It is selfish to worry about one young woman when so many people have died but she's my sister. I need her to be ok, I need her to be ok.”

Kerrass sighed. “I'm sorry Freddie, I didn't understand. Look, you've not slept since yesterday. Get something to eat, get some rest and I will come and find you when Lady Yennefer has something or when she needs you.”

“I don't think I could eat anything, or sleep.”

“Then you will understand that I have absolutely no guilt about harnessing your elder sisters wrath on the subject.”

He grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and hauled me off to our new set of family rooms inside the castle.

After the decision that we were innocent of complicity in Francesca's disappearance the Empress had demanded that the family be moved to rooms inside the palace on the grounds that if it was an attack against the family then we would be better protected there than in some villa in the centre of time. I'm told there was a bit of a furore as a number of people had to be kicked out of those rooms to make space but in the face of the Empress' displeasure, people soon found that they could stay with friends just out of town. I can't say I was entirely comfortable with the new sleeping arrangements and I wondered if we were borrowing more trouble for ourselves at a future juncture. However it did mean that I didn't have to worry about Emma, Laurelen or Mark getting into mischief.

I couldn't do anything about Sam. If Sam wanted to get into mischief then I was fairly certain that he could do so without any kind of input from me.

Kerrass marched me through the corridors and all but threw me into the room to an astonished look from Emma who was writing something on a side desk and Mark who was talking with a couple of other churchmen.

“He needs to eat something.” Kerrass told the room. “Then he needs some sleep. Tie him to the bed if you have to.”

Emma carefully put her quill down. “Is there any news?”

Kerrass shook his head. “But we're going to try something else in a few hours with the help of Lady Yennefer.”

“Is it safe?”

“No,”

“Will it work?”

“Probably not. But it's even less likely to work if he hasn't eaten something and gotten some rest.” Kerrass said that last to me. Emma nodded at a servant. There seemed to be a lot of them in the room now as well. Far more than I was strictly comfortable with but that's what happens when you sleep in the same palace as the Empress.

“Bring Lord Frederick something to eat would you,” she wrinkled her nose, “and run him a bath. Also, kindly enquire of Lady Laurelen or Countess Ariadne if they are free to help put him to sleep.”

“That won't be necessary,” I tried to say but Emma ignored me. She was another one who looked as though she could do with a month's holiday and the tender ministrations of a gentle sleep spell.

I ate something, some kind of roast meat sandwich with some apple sauce and sage stuffing. I suspect it was delicious but I don't remember much of it. I bathed and although I only went to bed to keep Emma quiet, I suspect I was asleep before I hit the pillow.

It wasn't long though before Kerrass was there shaking me awake.

“If you're still set on this utterly absurd plan then you need to come now.”

He watched with amusement while I plunged my head into the basin of cold water for a few seconds and followed him out.

Emma said nothing else to me and Mark had gone to bed. It was late in the evening I think by the amount of light that came in through the windows. Kerrass led me down several flights of stairs.

“Did you know that Toussaint was elven originally?” he asked me.

“Come on Kerrass, give me a little credit. Of course I knew that.”

Kerrass snorted. “Well excuse me for tripping on someone's intellectual superiority.”

“Fuck off.”

Kerrass sniggered at me.

“Well it was elven. We don't know why the elves built a city here. It's certainly a beautiful spot but they could have built it higher up or in a more strategically powerful place. It's the human city that has spread down to the water to make a harbour, that, certainly, wasn't an elven design.”

“I've heard it said that most of the larger human settlements are built on the ruins of older elven settlements. I know that Oxenfurt is definitely built over an elven ruin.”

“As is Wyzima. Nor do we know why those sites were chosen. The sites aren't similar to each other and they certainly wouldn't be easy to build on or to get workers and goods there, but they were built for a reason. Even the elves themselves no longer know the reason for the locations of these places.

“However, one of the many theories is that they were built on sites of magical significance. We know that magic flows through the world, almost like water. We know that it has currents, swirls and eddies. The magic is deeper in some areas and not in others and it is believed that Toussaint was built over one of those deep reservoirs of magic.

“At one point it was claimed that this well of magic was responsible for the particular flavour of Toussaint's wine industry but that has since been proven false.”

“I know all of this Kerrass, why are you telling me this now?”

“Because if there is a room that is at the bottom of this supposed well of magic. Then that's the room that we're going to.”

We came to the bottom of a flight of stairs and Kerrass knocked on a door.

“Come in,” came a woman's voice.

“Or,” Kerrass said as he opened the door. “I might just have been passing the time.”

The room was surprisingly well lit for a cellar, torches hung on brackets at regular intervals that gave of a clean flame that neither guttered nor smoked. In one corner stood a large Lectern on which rested a huge book, so big that it must have taken several people to manhandle it into the place. It was marked by a purple ribbon.

Nearby was a large table, covered in many jars of various liquid and solid herbs. I recognised a mandrake, Sage and Cinnamon as well as some puffball but there were many other things that I didn't recognise. Most of them looked...unpleasant.

Lady Yennefer had changed, She was no longer wearing the black and white dress that she had been wearing earlier. Now she was wearing what looked like a doublet over a tight set of riding trousers and boots. She had a dagger belted at her waist and her hair was tied back out of her way. Obviously the colours that she wore were still black and white and her choker with the pentagram sigil was still there at her neck. She was on her knees drawing complicated patterns on the floor with various pieces of differently coloured chalk.

As I watched, she worked slowly, carefully and patiently. Far from the tempestuous and passionate woman that I had been warned about but I suppose that when you're building a summoning circle for powers that you don't really understand, you want to make sure that you get it right before you do anything else.

She stood up and carried the chalk over to the table where she put them into a small box and turned to me.

“I would be remiss, Lord Frederick, if I didn't take one last opportunity to warn you that this is an amazingly bad idea and that it almost certainly won't work.”

“I know.”

“And yet you still wish to go ahead?”

I nodded.

“Say it please. For my own comfort. I don't want a situation where you change your mind at the last second. Once we start this there is no going back.”

“What do you know of Jack?” she asked.

“He is a primal force. A primal spirit conjured from the human race consciousness if that makes any sense to you. There are many of them if you know where to look but, he is possibly the oldest and amongst the most powerful. I don't know why.”

She smiled at me. It was the same smile I could imagine a cat giving the mouse before it started to play with it's food.

“Do you want to continue?”

“No,” I said honestly. “But I will. I have to.”

She nodded.

“Then look at the design. Note that there are two circles inside the design as a whole. For the earliest part of the summoning you should remain in the smaller of the two circles. Do not be tempted to cross the line as the magic that will be unleashed elsewhere in the greater circle will strip the flesh from your bones and your sanity from your mind. Once the summoning is complete, he will appear in the larger of the two circles but he will be unable to cross. You may then move around freely.

“However,

“The small circle is the method of dismissal. Once you have the information that you need, you must step back into the small circle and he will be dismissed. The circle is then designed to protect you from him as much as it is to protect you from the magical forces that can be unleashed.

“Remember this well. His presence is likely to be overwhelming and powerful. If it gets too much then I encourage you to step back into the circle and dismiss him. Do not hesitate. Do not let him draw you out. If you are beginning to think that you should be dismissing him then you should already have dismissed him. This is not a time and a place for fucking around.

“Do you understand?”

“I think so,”

She blew her breath out through her nose in exasperation and I thought, for a moment, that I could see the woman that I had been warned about.

“You must be certain. If you are not then I will destroy the circle now. The risk of you letting this thing out if you forget my instructions under pressure is more than I can bear. I would rather disappoint the Empress then let him loose. So do you understand the things that I have said?”

“I do.”

“Repeat them for me please.”

I did so.

“Excellent. Then take your place.”

I did so.

“Good luck,” Kerrass said as he left the room.

“Thanks Kerrass.” I said.

“I wasn't talking to you.” He got out as he shut the door.

Yennefer had set up another little circle of protection. I noticed that there was a chair there as well as an apple, cup and jug of liquid as well as a book. She moved to her own circle and began an incantation.

At first I tried to listen and to follow the words. Some of them didn't sound as though they could be spoken by a human throat.

At some point, I don't know when, I blacked out as I felt a massive surge of vertigo and felt as though I was falling a huge distance.

Something for the record now. I have told this story many times now to a variety of people and everyone refuses to believe that it actually took place. What they tell me is that I saw something that my mind could not understand and could not come to grips with and as a result it imposed it's own sense of order on what I saw and heard.

The only person, to date, who has listened to this account and nodded thoughtfully before telling me that it sounded probable was the Empress herself. You can take that however you like.

What I will do now is record exactly what I saw and heard. Whether it's what I saw and heard or whether it's what I think I saw and heard, I will leave up to your interpretation. I cannot say whether you are right or wrong on that regard.

I treat it as literal though. Certainly the things that I was told in that strange and alien place.

I woke up suddenly and a wave of dizziness and nausea swept over me as I felt as though my brain was trying to force the top of my skull open and climb out of my head. I scampered a short distance away and heaved up what little food I had managed to choke down over the course of the day. The effort left me feeling weak and shaky and I only managed to crawl a short distance away before I collapsed again. Which was when the awful, awful smell hit me. An ammonia like smell that seemed to be made up of hot metal, burnt wood, vomit, bile, stale urine and strong alcohol. There were other ingredients to it as well but I couldn't quite identify them, chemical smells as well as the smell of salt water. What was there was enough to make me sneeze and to make my eyes water.

The ground was hard and smooth despite feeling like stone. When I finally opened my eyes to stare at the ground beneath me it looked as though it was a pattern of fitted together squares of stone but they were much larger than the cobbles used in the more well to do cities of the continent.

I looked up and almost fell again as I tried to take a deep breath. The air was thick with mist although of a pale green or yellow colour. Nothing could be seen other than the small pathway beneath my feet. If I waved my hand in front of my face, I could see that but beyond a ten meter radius around me, nothing could be seen. The smell of the air was putrid and it clawed at my throat. I felt short of breath and felt the first scrabblings of panic at my throat.

I looked down at the floor, remembering Madame Yennefer's instructions about the circles that she had drawn into the pattern with great care. That there would be a small one that I could step into that would banish the entity. I looked around and I couldn't see anything. It was just flat stone walkway. I was next to a wall and I leant against it. The wall was of red brick and it towered up and up until it vanished into the fog.

An incredible clattering came to my ears but I thought there was something familiar to it. Away from the wall the pathway fell down a steep kerb into a more normally cobbled road. Globes of light were coming towards me, accompanied by the clattering. Suddenly a large black horse, bigger than anything that I had seen came out of the fog. At first I was reassured that there was at least something familiar about this place and I stepped up to try and get a hold of it. But then there was a sound of a whip cracking and I staggered back.

The horse was pulling a strange, open wagon that seemed to only be balanced on two wheels. There was an open seat in which sat a strange man with no beard but the largest sideburns that I have ever seen. He had a scarf over his mouth so I couldn't recognise him. As the thing thundered past, I saw that the globes of light were generated by two lanterns that were attached to the side. I saw that there was another man, sat precariously on the top of the two wheeled carriage that was holding the reins and a large whip. He yelled something at me that I didn't catch before he, his horse and his carriage disappeared back into the fog. The light from the lanterns faded after him.