New chapter is live.
Settle in, take your time, and let’s see what waits in the dark 🖤
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Long ago, Cosimo Malaspina and his student Alzur helped develop the mutagenic methods that produced the first witchers.
Later generations of mages refined those methods at witcher strongholds, guiding the mutations with magic.
At some point, the Wolf School lost both the knowledge and the mages needed to continue that work.
The herbs, laboratories, formulas, and Trial remained; the ability to guide the mutations did not.
From then on, the Trial of the Grasses retained its terrible mortality rate.
Until now.
In the laboratory, the dust-covered bottles, alembics, retorts, and kilns had found new life in the hands of their new owner, Marek.
Fifteen days after the first snow, on a snowy night, he worked beneath the laboratory lamps.
“Look.
This bowl is the ghost-needle mushroom we ground yesterday.
After fermenting overnight in bear fat and formic acid, it looks like this.
Now mash the endrega embryo into a paste, add the mushroom mixture, and stir until smooth.
Then pour in the boiling dwarven spirit while it’s still hot.
Filter the liquid and chill it for one minute.”
Marek lifted the bright, clear green Thunderbolt and handed it to Lambert, who had been waiting at his side.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
He deliberately lowered his voice.
“Drink, witcher.
This is your fate.”
No one understood the joke, but that did not keep him from enjoying it.
Lambert ignored the odd tone.
Over the past few days, he had developed a certain immunity to Marek’s strange humor from somewhere beyond Zerrikania.
He downed the so-called improved Thunderbolt in one swallow.
His face went pale.
His pupils dilated, and red veins spread across the whites of his eyes.
His breathing shallowed, his heartbeat quickened, and adrenaline flooded his body, filling every limb with strength.
After feeling the potion work through him, Lambert grinned and pumped a fist.
“Damn it.
I know I said this yesterday, but I’m saying it again.
Gods below, brat, you’re a damned genius.
No wonder the old man gave you the whole laboratory.”
Marek only smiled.
Once he got used to Lambert’s profanity, it had a certain rhythm.
The man had a bad temper, a foul mouth, too much confidence, and a love of arguing, but he was not hard to get along with.
At least Marek did not find him difficult.
“The toxicity dropped by about a quarter, and the effect didn’t drop at all,” Lambert said.
“Marek, this stuff is incredible.
Maybe you could make a few more bottles for me?”
“Of course.
But between this and yesterday’s Blizzard, I’ll need a small favor.
Fresh materials.” Marek gave him an innocent look.
“You understand.”
“Ah, Master Marek,” Lambert said, bending into an exaggerated steward’s bow.
“Though the world outside is frozen solid, I’m always at your service, Master Marek.”
Like a young noble, he held out a strip of paper between two fingers.
“Here is the list of materials.
I entrust the matter to you, Steward Lambert.”
Some people had a strange affinity from the moment they met.
Others could know each other for years and remain strangers.
The past two weeks had proved that Marek and the returning witchers belonged to the first group.
Marek yawned and stood.
“All right.
Time for me to go upstairs and sleep.”
“What?
It’s still early.
Not going to show me anything else?”
The potion had clearly left Lambert with too much energy.
Marek doused the fire and rinsed the residue from the filter.
“No.
I need at least six hours of sleep every day.
At my age, I ought to be getting eight.
Go bother Eskel.”
Being refused irritated Lambert enough to sharpen his tongue.
“Fine, fine.
Go sleep, you milk-drinking brat.”
It did not work.
“I drink milk with pride,” Marek said.
“Warm milk helps me sleep better, grow taller, and keep a fuller head of hair.”
The final words hit Lambert a moment late.
By the time he realized he had been mocked, Marek was already walking away.
“Dogshit.
Does milk really help?” Lambert called after him.
“Hey, herb master, any other useful advice besides milk?”
“Half an hour of stretching before bed.”
***
Two extra people had made Kaer Morhen feel far more alive.
While Marek and Lambert traded insults in the alchemy laboratory, Eskel sat with Vesemir by the fire in the great hall.
“Marek of Bell Town, somewhere beyond Zerrikania,” Eskel said.
“He’s a remarkable boy.
I can see why you let him hunt alone.
Apart from the fact that he isn’t fully grown, he handles himself like an adult.”
He adjusted the logs with the fire tongs, settled back into the reclining chair, and drank from his mug of cream ale with a comfortable sigh.
“And his furniture-making alone is something.”
Vesemir did not answer.
He had no way to explain that the reclining chair had been boiled out of broken wood, rotten boards, and weeds in the great cauldron out back.
He had watched Marek stir refuse into a mountain beech chair as if decay had simply decided to become useful.
Live long enough, and apparently anything could happen.
After that, Marek had clearly set out to replace the keep’s furniture.
In only a few days, the ancient fortress had gone from beggar’s quarters to something almost respectable.
Life became more comfortable.
The problem was explaining why furniture suited to a respectable manor had appeared in Kaer Morhen.
His birthplace had also been recast as Bell Town, somewhere beyond Zerrikania.
Ciri had brought him here while he was supposed to be traveling for several years, as was the custom among young men of his homeland.
That explained why he was in no hurry to return.
People from Zerrikania itself were rare enough in these parts.
Anything farther east was nearly impossible to verify.
From somewhere above, Eskel heard Marek and Lambert arguing, then a door closing upstairs.
He smiled.
“He’s easy to like.
Talent, skill, temperament.
All first-rate.
Still, I have trouble imagining why you trusted him so quickly.”
Vesemir took out a pipe, packed it with tobacco, lit it, and smoked at a leisurely pace.
“For two reasons, really.
You already know the first.
Ciri.”
He smiled faintly.
“If Geralt had seen her face when she entrusted Marek to me, he might have wanted to draw his sword on the boy.
Lambert would have laughed at Ciri for months.
They had only lived together for half a year, but the way she looked at him…
I’d wager Ciri would have been willing to stay with Marek until the end of the world.”
Eskel raised an eyebrow.
“That close?
He’s still a child.”
“When she brought him here, she saw him as a younger brother.
Separation has a way of showing people what a bond means.
Whatever it becomes, I know it was real.”
Outside, the snow was thickening.
The wind howled faintly, but the newly fitted window frames and sealed cracks held back the wind.
The great hall, once open to drafts from every direction, was warm as spring.
“And the second reason?”
Eskel’s hand paused around his mug.
Vesemir exhaled a ring of smoke.
“He refused to become a formal apprentice.
But when he said he respected us, I could feel he meant it.”
The fire popped.
Eskel drank and wiped his mouth.
The fire popped again.
Vesemir narrowed his eyes through the smoke.
“Winter will pass quickly,” Eskel said.
“What happens next spring?
Will you stay here and keep training him?”
“No.
He hasn’t said it yet, but I have a feeling he will leave in spring.”
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Want to keep going?
I hope this chapter gave you another reason to stay with the story.
There’s still plenty ahead, and things are only starting to unfold.