Stregobor took He Shenyan's words as a joke. To change the subject, he turned to Geralt. "Let's talk about you, old friend. Geralt, what are you doing here? Still slaughtering endangered species for money as usual? How much did you get for that Kikimore? I'm guessing you got nothing, or you wouldn't have come to try your luck with me."
"There really are people who won't give up until they see the coffin, huh?" He looked at Geralt with a teasing smile. The Witcher did not get angry. He was still watching the red-haired woman picking apples as he casually replied, "No, I never expected to run into you here. If I remember correctly, you used to live in some tower in Kovir."
"Ah, that was a long time ago." Stregobor waved a hand. He offered a cup of tea to the smiling He Shenyan and said, "A lot has happened since then."
"Yes, such as your name. You're Master Ibeon now."
"That was the name of this tower's creator. He probably died two hundred years ago. I thought that since I'd occupied his home, I ought to show some respect to its owner in some way, even if he was dead. You see, most of the locals make their living from the sea. And as you know, aside from these useless illusions, weather magic is what I'm best at. Sometimes I calm storms. Sometimes I use the wind to drive schools of cod farther away from the coast. I make my living through such things. That is—" he said mournfully, "—all I can do."
"What do you mean by that? And why did you change your name?" The Witcher finally deigned to turn back, frowning as he asked.
"Fate has many faces. Mine is beautiful on the outside, but hides a terrifying nature. Oh! Her bloody claws have long since reached for me—"
Stregobor spoke in an operatic tone, lifting his head toward the sky and putting on the air of a sage.
"Heh, you haven't changed at all, Stregobor. Still the same as ever." Geralt sneered. Grinning, he said, "Do you know that whenever you put on that wise, meaningful expression, everything you say turns out to be nonsense?"
"Can't you just speak normally?"
"Why be so cutting?" the old Mage said unhappily. He sighed and relented. "Fine, fine, if that will satisfy you."
"I came here with great difficulty, concealing my identity. I hid and fled all the way in order to escape that terrifying creature which had been hunting me. But this escape was in vain. That creature has found me. It will likely come to kill me tomorrow, though it may be the day after tomorrow instead."
Geralt turned to He Shenyan. "I agree now that you're not much like them. At least you say what you mean."
"Stregobor, look, this is how the world is." Geralt said. "Travelers see all sorts of things. Two peasant families might fight each other to the death over a patch of land, even asking a passing Witcher to kill the other side for them. I refused. But the next day, the land was razed by the retainers of two counts. Those people kept slaughtering one another. I crossed mountains and rivers and saw people hanged from roadside trees, bandits feasting in wealthy merchants' homes while their wives might have to tremble as they poured wine for those bastards with their backs to their dead husbands' bodies."
"And that's not all, Stregobor. In the slums of towns. Places you Mages never visit. Every step might trip you over a corpse. Not murdered ones—people who starved, froze, or died of disease. Once, I took a small job. Twenty girls died in a brothel in one night simply because they got sick. The owner killed them all under cover of darkness, then shut down to straighten things out. On the third day, he opened again."
The Witcher spread his hands. "And that's without mentioning palaces. People turn their blades against one another there, and at every banquet someone might collapse blue-faced and overturn the table. I've long grown used to death, so why should I be surprised by yours?"
"Especially yours."
"Especially mine?!" Stregobor repeated sarcastically. "I thought we were friends. I was counting on your help."
"Ha." The Witcher gave a cold, humorless snort and said to He Shenyan, "The last time we met was in King Ethain's palace in Kovir. I had killed that Two-headed Cockatrice that had already killed thirteen people and was about to collect my reward. Then this bastard showed up. He and one of his companions argued over whether they should call me a charlatan, a mindless Slayer, or a carrion-eating destroyer. In the end, King Ethain didn't pay me a single coin. He threw me out and ordered me to leave the palace within twelve hours."
He Shenyan calmly took a sip of tea. "Truly a good friend."
"Yeah. If their hourglass hadn't been broken, I would have run out of time. Then the king's guards would have come after me with swords." The Witcher smiled, but there was no mirth in it.
He continued mocking Stregobor. "And now you say you're counting on me. You say a monster is hunting you. What are you afraid of, Stregobor? Why not just tell it outright that you're a monster protector? That you've always protected them, that you like them, that you make sure no Witcher disturbs their peace? Seriously, if you said all that and the monster still gutted you and ate your black heart, it would be terribly ungrateful."
Stregobor fell silent and turned away. Geralt laughed loudly. "Don't pout like some ridiculous frog. Tell me what's threatening you, and I'll see what I can do."
"Have you heard of the 'Curse of the Black Sun'?"
He Shenyan perked up and leaned in as though listening closely.
"Of course. But it used to be called Mad Eltibald's Disease." Geralt turned to explain to He Shenyan. Then he continued, "It was named after the Mage who caused the uproar. More than a dozen girls from good families—even noble ones—were murdered or imprisoned in towers because of it. This bastard thought they were possessed by Demons, cursed, or tainted by the so-called Black Sun."
He Shenyan said, "It was merely an eclipse."
The Witcher slammed a fist heavily on the table. "Exactly! Yet this honorable Mage sitting across from us still swears that it was a curse!"
"No!" Stregobor became agitated as well. He stood, paced two circles, and loudly refuted him. "Eltibald was not mad at all. He deciphered the inscriptions on Dauk stone tablets, the tombstones in Vozgory burial chambers, and investigated the customs and legends of the Cat-people. All of them mentioned this eclipse beyond any doubt. The Black Sun means Lilith—whom Easterners still worship under the name Nia—is about to return, and humanity will face annihilation. To welcome Lilith's return, one must 'prepare sixty women wearing golden crowns, and they shall fill the river valley with blood.'"
"Utter nonsense," the Witcher said. "It doesn't even rhyme. Real prophecies rhyme. Everyone knows what Eltibald and the Chapter of Wizards were thinking at the time."
He rarely showed anger, and he no longer cared that a Mage was sitting beside him as he launched into an indiscriminate attack on all Mages. "You used a madman's ravings to strengthen your authority, to break alliances, ruin marriage arrangements, and overthrow dynasties. In short, to make the strings controlling those crowned puppets even more tangled. And now you actually dare bring up a prophecy that every old storyteller in the marketplace would be ashamed of?"
"You may keep your opinion of Eltibald and question his interpretation of the prophecy, but you cannot refute this fact: many girls born after the eclipse developed terrifying physical mutations."
"Who says I can't refute it? What I heard was exactly the opposite."
"I once witnessed an autopsy," the Mage said worriedly. "Geralt, what we found in the skull and marrow was indescribable. There was a red sponge, with all the internal organs mixed together and some having vanished completely. Every organ was covered in moving pale-blue cilia. The heart had six atria, two of which had atrophied. How do you explain that?"
"I've seen people with eagle claws and people with wolf fangs. I've seen people with more joints in their hands and feet than normal, more organs than normal, and stronger senses than normal. That is all the result of your abuse of magic." Geralt laughed mockingly.
"You've seen all kinds of mutants." The Mage lifted his head and straightened his body. "And how many of them have you slaughtered for money, to sustain your career as a Witcher? Hmm? Some may have wolf fangs, yet do no more than bare them at prostitutes in inns. But others are born with the hearts of jackals and can kill even children."
He insinuated, "The girls born after the eclipse were like that. Their tendencies toward madness were plain for all to see. Their cruelty, aggression, fickleness, and promiscuity had long been widely known."
"I bet you wouldn't dare say that to a priestess of Goddess Melitele." Geralt sneered. "What nonsense are you spouting to me? You want to question how many mutants I've killed. Why don't you ask how many people I've freed from magic and curses? Me, a Witcher you despise. I've traveled across the world just to kill terrifying beasts and lift curses from pitiful people unfortunate enough to touch magical objects."
He stared hard at Stregobor. "And what have you done, great Mage?"
Stregobor raised his head, his gaze fixed somewhere other than the Witcher. "We used powerful spells in this matter. We cast them alongside priests in different Temples. But every attempt ended with those girls dying."
"That only proves you were wrong. Oh, you obtained corpses. I suppose that autopsy just happened to be the only one?"
"Enough. Don't look at me like that. You know very well there was more than one corpse. At first, we intended to eliminate them all. We dealt with several... then autopsied all of them. One was even dissected alive."
"Ha." The Witcher forced out a contemptuous laugh from his throat. He could barely suppress the anger—almost hatred—on his face.
"You sons of bitches slandered innocent girls, drove them from their homes, forced them to sell their bodies, perhaps even die in the wilderness. Then you hunted them, dissected them, experimented on them. And now you dare condemn people for slandering Witchers?"
"Oh, Stregobor, one day you'll suffer enough to learn your lesson." After saying that, he sat down and spoke no more, merely staring coldly at Stregobor.
"I don't think that day will come anytime soon," Stregobor said sarcastically. "Don't forget, what we did was to protect the people. These mutated girls would drown the entire world in a sea of blood."
"So you Mages are still holding your heads high, believing yourselves flawless. But surely you cannot claim you never made mistakes while hunting these so-called 'mutants'?"
"All right." After a long silence, Stregobor said, "I'll tell you the truth, though it does me no good. We did make mistakes—and more than once. It was too difficult to tell them apart. That was why we stopped... 'removing' them and began isolating them instead."
"In your famous towers." The Witcher snorted.
"Our towers. But that was another mistake. We underestimated them. Many mutants escaped. Then a mad fashion began among princes—especially younger princes with nothing to do and nothing to lose—'rescuing imprisoned beauties.' Many prisoners snapped their necks—"
"As far as I know, the prisoners in those towers all died soon afterward, and you helped them along."
"That is a lie. But they did indeed quickly lose interest in everything and refuse food... Most interestingly, when they were near death, they displayed talents in extrasensory perception. That further proved their mutation."
"Your evidence grows more absurd by the moment. Anything else?"
"Yes. Lady Silvanna of Narok is one example. We were never able to get close to her because her power grew too quickly. But terrifying things are happening in Narok now. In addition, Filga, daughter of Aifmir, escaped her tower with a homemade rope and is now ravaging North Verhad. Beniga of Targo was released by a foolish prince. He is now blind and locked in a dungeon, while gallows have long become the most common sight across Targo. Oh, and there are other examples."
"There certainly are examples," the Witcher said. "For instance, Yamlak under old King Abrad. He had tuberculosis, all his teeth had fallen out, and he was probably born hundreds of years before the eclipse. But unless someone was tortured to death before him, he simply could not sleep. He killed every blood relative he had and, in a fit of rage, executed half the people in his country—you know that, right? In his youth, he had a nickname: 'Abrad the Brutal.' Oh, Stregobor, wouldn't it be wonderful if every ruler's cruelty could be excused as mutation or a curse?"
"Listen, Geralt—"
"No. You can't convince me, nor can you make me believe Eltibald wasn't a slaughter-crazed madman. So let's return to the monster threatening you. You'd better understand that based on the first impression you gave me, I don't like your story. But I'll hear you out."
"Hold on, you two." He Shenyan interrupted their quarrel, his smile long gone.
"Though I have no wish to interfere in your local Mages' brutal research and disregard for human life, it is obvious, Mr. Stregobor, that you and your colleagues spent half your lives persecuting innocent girls in conduct that was both cruel and foolish."
"And utterly meaningless." He delivered his conclusion.
His words made the old Mage's face turn pale for the first time. Being questioned by someone of immense magical power was harder for him to bear than being cursed to his face by a hundred Witchers. His lips trembled as he said, "But—but, sir, you are a Mage too!"
"Yes. But do you know something?" A cold smile slowly curved across He Shenyan's lips, and unconcealed disgust filled his eyes. "I can tolerate ignorance. I can tolerate cruelty. I can tolerate those stupid peasants who fill their cellars with swords they picked up, then turn into bandits whenever war comes, because that is how they were born and no one ever taught them that they should change."
He spoke slowly. "But you, Mages, are different. Mages are different." He repeated it, anger entering his voice for the first time and making even Geralt glance at him. "We possess knowledge, and we should use it to make this world better, to make mortals' lives easier. Not fucking play with schemes, manipulate kings, and control the world—though I understand that may be the full extent of what you can achieve in an entire lifetime. But ordinary people should not, and do not deserve to, become your toys."
He rose to his feet, and Geralt realized once again that something might be about to happen.
This time, it might be quite bad.
He slowly floated off the ground. In an instant, the manor filled with birdsong and flowers vanished, and they hovered amid a boundless sea of stars. Geralt stared at the surrounding sight in shock and fascination until He Shenyan spoke. "Do you see it? This is the world above our heads. This is what Mages should be doing. But sadly, you are nothing more than lowly, wretched insects who cannot even tell a stupid lie from the truth. Stregobor, I believe your heart is not bad, but you are too stupid."
He Shenyan extended a hand. Geralt had to admit it was long and pale, yet it now held a mass of black Magic Power that made his heart tremble. "Do you understand what stupidity means for a Mage?"
Stregobor could not speak.
He Shenyan told him coldly, as though he were not a person but a wooden toy or some other thing. "For a Mage, stupidity means death."
"And as a person, what you have done undoubtedly means you deserve to die."
After one change, that mass of Magic Power became a flash that struck toward Stregobor.
They stood beneath the tower. Geralt smacked his lips. "What a pity."
"What?"
"His illusion." The Witcher gestured at the blonde woman's curving figure and smiled.
He Shenyan rolled his eyes. With the donkey in tow, they slowly left Blaviken.
That's the end of the extra updates. This chapter was 5,200 words, so it counts as two updates, right? Keep voting, brothers. If you think the author's writing is decent, please move those fingers and cast a precious vote~
If the results are good, there'll be another five updates tomorrow~
Before you continue