A Scholar's travels with a Witcher

(NB: Some VERY mild spoilers for my ending to Witcher 3. This is just a brief mention of who I imagine controls Oxenfurt at the end of my playthrough but doesn't affect the main plot at all.)

Since returning to Oxenfurt for the winter I have been struck by two things. 1: Beds are really comfortable, and 2: This means that I can answer my own mail.

This is a mixed blessing.

On the one hand this means that I now have fan mail. I am unused to this experience. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has taken the time to write in. Every single letter is read I assure you although the sheer weight of them means that I cannot possibly answer them all AND still produce the required word count for both my tutors and these small publications in the Oxenfurt magazine.

The other problem is that it means that my tutors can get hold of me. Believe me when I say that “answering fan-mail” is not considered an acceptable excuse for missing deadlines.

I was shocked at this.

Even now, as I sit at my writing desk and look out the glass window at the locals putting up Yule decorations under the careful watch of the local guards. Things are settling down here now with guardsmen just wearing unmarked armour with a Golden sun patched in at the shoulder. The university has moved back above ground and is taking classes again and I find that I am seen as an authority.

Much to my disgust.

I have separate lodgings now which means that I can't depend on some well meaning porter making sure that I have eaten or making sure that I have clean clothes. The trick now is that I have to remember to take the laundry out and go and eat in the halls.

But this means that my tutors have more time to pester me and seem to think that I have more time to do the things that they want rather than the things that I want. This has mostly been writing up detailed and clinical descriptions of the various monsters that I have seen so far. Then when they were still not satisfied they hired an artist to come and work with me. Apparently one of the professors is particularly excited by having “modern eye-witness accounts” to talk about the various monsters and hopes to publish a book on the subject using the paintings from my colleague and my written memories.

I naively asked whether the Witcher and I would get any credit in the final work. I was told that it would count towards my Doctorate.

A doctorate that I can only see as a speck off in the distance. I am left thinking that if I had gone off, found a Witcher, interviewed him, got a physical description of him and then returned home to write it all up and hand it in is my dissertation then my Doctorate would be arriving much sooner. But instead I am now one of those “Go-getting” students that every Professor in the place wishes that they had but actively discourage anyone from turning into, preferring to keep the prestige and the knowledge for themselves.

If you can sense a bit of bitterness creeping in here and there then you would be correct.

But, as I keep reminding myself, beds are amazing.

So is regularly cooked food that has been cooked by someone else.

So are girls.

Which is another injustice. Apparently I've put on some muscle mass in “all the right places” thanks to my training with the Witcher. Training which he will be most annoyed to hear has become more and more neglected due to the other demands on my time. But the biggest disappointment is that now, I catch girls looking at me, not with amusement after I've made a joke or anything, but with a curious kind of thoughtfulness and a kind of gleam in their eye. The same gleam that the Witcher got when he used to spot his prey.

I am now confident that to enjoy the benefits of this I should go out and have a few beers.

But am I given the chance?

Of course not.

I am fairly convinced that I am only writing these words to you on sufferance. That sufferance being that the Magazine has told my professors that if my stories are not delivered on time then the money that they're being paid for my stories would soon dry up.

Yes, I know, don't even get me started.

So thank you dear readers. Due to your kindness I am able to write about some of the things that I want to write about rather than some of the things that I keep being told I should write about.

But then I was struck with that problem of...

What should I write about?

My mind is so full of the minor injustices of being back “in the real world” as my Professors would say that I don't have a real thing to talk about.

So I turn to my stack of mail and the list of questions that I have been asked.

The first and most common question is:

What was the biggest monster you've ever faced and what was it like?

This is a common question and I'm unsure about how to answer it. The largest in terms of tonnage was an earth elemental. It was so old and weathered that it moved painfully slowly so that all we had to do was dance around, chipping at it until the magic that bound it together shattered. It was just a slog and wasn't particularly scary. It was like an old servant who had been left behind at the old manor house to “look after the place” who has then been forgotten about until old age and senility took their tolls. We took it in turns. The Witcher would do most of the damage before I would spot him for a breather. The hardest part of it was that it was trying to get to a village so we had to keep it occupied. When we did eventually cause the poor thing to shatter we staggered to the village, took our payment and a bath and slept for two days.

The biggest in terms of size was probably an ArcheGriffin. There were a couple of monsters along these lines. Large flying beasts that have been driven out of their normal mountainous habitat for some reason and had noticed that humanity helpfully fenced up potential meals all in one place. They could then dine from whichever field they fancied before moving off.

What were they like?

I fought none of these. Invariably in those cases. My job was to drive away people or animals that might distract the Witcher from his work. I will say this though. You can read accounts of heroes battling Dragons, Griffins, Cockatrices and others. You can read the books, listen to the ballads and look at the paintings. The one thing that none of these things can prepare you for is the stench of the beasts in question. Kerrass used to say that a lot of these beasts seem to think that meat needs to be aged to add proper flavour and that they don't bother brushing their teeth. So what they have in their fangs is essentially rotting meet and offal. He went on to joke that if a man survived a Griffin attack then they ran the risk of dying due to the Cadaverine poison that would be in the things bite as a result.

The truth is though that these things aren't particularly scary. There is a truth that I came to understand while I was journeying with a Witcher on his path and that truth is “Knowledge defeats fear”. We fear that which is different to ourselves and we also fear those things that we cannot explain. Monsters by their very nature cannot be explained as they behave in ways that they shouldn't according to our worlds natural laws. We know that this is because they are strangers to this world due to the previous Conjunction of Spheres. The one that brought magic into the world. So they are literally from another world that has different rules to us.

However that doesn't mean that they don't have rules of their own. The Witcher's represent the last great bastion of this knowledge. One of the first things I did when I returned to the university was to make an appointment with the foremost expert of Flora and Fauna that the University has. I told him some of the things that the Witcher said and the Professor was ridiculing these stupid opinions. I responded that these observations came from a Witcher who had quoted the bestiary of someone called John of Brugge.

It was as though someone had jammed a red hot poker up the old man's backside.

“What did he say? Who was this? Where was this? Can I get a copy?”

Since then I have been admonished, daily, to explain to the Witcher, next time I see him, that the University would pay any amount to get their hands on a copy of the “Studies into Anthropology by John of Brugge,”

I can already hear the sound of the Witcher's scornful chuckle.

My point is, that all of these monsters become much less terrifying once you can predict them. There is still danger, but it is a danger that can be assessed, measured and protected against. So that when the Witcher goes into combat, all potioned up with his swords dripping in oils poisonous to the monster in question, the odds are steeply in his favour. Unfortunately, their potions are toxic to us and I suspect that's part of the point.

So onto our next question.

What was the scariest monster that you've ever been involved with?

The scariest monster is always the next one. The one over the hill, the one that's terrorising the next village or town. The one where you don't know what it is. You find a sign by the side of the road that says, “The creature of Breckster forest,” or some such where it describes things like “strange goings on,” and “people going missing.” That could mean anything, or anyone. It could just be that there is a cliff near the local village, villagers get drunk and fall off a cliff. Villagers can't accept that some of their number are terminally stupid and try and hire a Witcher or other monster slayer to prove themselves intelligent. The problem being that we have to investigate because at the end of the day, a Witcher needs to eat and a reward has been offered. But that moment, where you turn up, unpack your gear and you don't know what to prepare for, what oils to use or what potions to drink, how the potential monsters might move or fight back. It's all very well knowing that the monster in question is a Forktail, but what kind of a Forktail is it? Does that mean you use the Yellow herb in the mix or the orange herb? Are we facing a monster completely unprepared and therefore in serious danger or do we know what we're up against?

We don't know.

Then we see the thing, we fight the thing, we kill the thing, we nearly always get swindled on the reward money and then we move on to starting to worry about the next monster. Which is a terrifying prospect.

Kerrass used to tell me that “The moment it starts to become routine and you stop paying attention is the moment that you lose your life,”

There's a truth there for normal life if I look for it long enough.

So that's the answer to that question and I am well aware that it's not really a satisfying answer.

Instead I shall ask and answer the question that I suspect is at the root of the question.

What was the moment that you were most terrified?

It was the monster we couldn't prepare for.

It's also the time I saw Kerrass being terrified.

In fact, calling it a monster is possibly even a bit of an insult to it. Or to the other monsters of the world, which, at least, are honest in their pursuit of whatever it is that they need.

There were two points that I want to address here and there were two kinds of fear. The first one was the fear that was involved in the waiting, when the imagination starts to catch hold of us and we imagine all of the horrible things that are about to happen. I will talk about that in more detail in a bit. But the other point was...

Ok this is difficult to describe so I'm just going to...

I'm afraid of drowning. Although that isn't entirely accurate, what I'm afraid of is the moment that comes just before you drown. My fear is of the moment where I'm awake, I'm holding my breath and I know I've got about a minute to go. But I'm trapped, there's no way out and that knowledge hits me that I'm about to die and there's nothing I can do. All the while the pressure is building up on my lungs and I know I can't hold it for ever so what do I do?

Another instance might be the man who is about to be hanged. The noose goes around his neck, there's nothing else to do but to be hanged.

Or again, in wartime. I'm told that a regular punishment is impaling. Where they perch you on top of a spike and wait for you to slide down the spike. What do you do in that situation? Do You struggle to prevent the slide or do you stay still? You're going to die sooner or later but which is better for which outcome? Do you fight? At what point does doing one or the other become suicide?

That decision is what I'm afraid of. Not the dying, but the method.

In this case it was the same as any kind of other mission.

It was autumn by now and We had travelled a not inconsiderable distance down south. The plan was that we were edging our way towards the coast where We would catch a ship to take us back north. Kerrass wanted to spend the Winter in Novigrad for reasons that I will hope to get to at some other point so we would drop him off there while I continued further down the river towards Oxenfurt. The Winter would be spent and we had arranged that we would meet up again in the Spring as by this point I had received confirmation that I had been granted permission to continue travelling with Kerrass and collecting material.

It was the time of year that I would normally love, where the air was just becoming crisp, there was a crunch underfoot, you wrap up to keep warm and the prospect of a cup of mulled wine or mead with, hopefully, the company of a nice warm woman is something to be looked forward to.

Out on the road it was something else though. Instead of travelling from job to job we had started having to travel from inn to inn. Sleeping rough was possible but was a constant balancing act between being close enough to the fire to stay warm versues being too close to the fire and burning your clothes.

But we had the news of some Witcher's work from an innkeeper at the previous village. Apparently people were disappearing in the middle of the night at a place called Amber's crossing along the way. Apparently it was a local joke that no-one knew who Amber was or what he or she might have been crossing as there was no river or stream and the road ended there. He was able to give us a good bit of local knowledge as well. Apparently the place had started off as a hunting and tanning place being next to a huge clump of old woodland, not the Brokilon which was far to the north by this point, but it had a similar reputation of “Decent folk don't go in there,” type of thing.

But the village grew from their hunting and tanning industry and they were joined by woodcutters, carpenters and Lumberjacks. The place was not large, but nor was it small, they would trade meat, skins and wood for their own necessities and were generally seen as decent hard-working types who lacked in imagination.

He couldn't tell us much more about the problem other than that folk were disappearing and that a reward had been offered.

What's a Witcher to do when there's a reward for missing people?

We left early, making fairly good time as the roads were beginning to harden again after the Autumn rains and there were fewer and fewer people on the roads. Mostly merchants hurrying back home for the winter or trying to squeeze out that one last sale, fleeing before the approaching tempest. Odd families running to and fro and squads of soldiers trying to catch the last few brigands before the winter months made already starving and terrified men into desperate, starving and terrified men. Most of the peasant villages and farms that we passed were either deserted as families had moved in together to share warmth and food or they were busy preparing their homes for winter. Repairing damaged shutters, stocking up on firewood, getting all the animals either in barns or slaughtering them ready for the winter.

I was struck again by my own assumptions as I always assumed that people kind of wound down in the winter after the harvest had been taken in. But no, it would seem that the work continued right up until the line where the decision was between freezing to death or leaving the job unfinished and possibly starving to death in the new year.

We arrived in mid afternoon just when the light was beginning to lessen. There was a small working man's tavern there where people went to spend their wages on beer before they got home to hand over what was left of their pay-packets to disapproving wives who always seemed to be surprised that their husbands had drunk all the money away despite the fact that it happened every week. I remember that I was surprised at how small the village was relatively speaking. I would later find out that the lumber yards hired crews from all over the place, wherever they could find the labour the cheapest and the people who actually lived there were the skilled labourers, the men who could dress planks and knew about which kind of trees to cut down and where to plant new trees and which trees to leave alone. The tavern seemed to be doing fairly well for itself despite the fact that the majority of the working crews had gone home for the winter. There was still some work happening and many of the men there were enjoying a tankard or two and we were able to secure some sleeping space next to the fire for our use.

As it turned out the village elder/leader figure was also the chief foreman of the lumber yard who had already retired for the night but the barman was reasonably chatty and despite the sword on his back which earned him a few funny looks we managed to settle in quite nicely. The assembly was friendly enough as it became clear that we weren't there to take any work away or do anything to sabotage the next seasons wood stocks.

If anything, the one thing that no-one wanted to tell us about was the reason for our arrival. Kerrass would inform people that he was a Witcher after which the person that they were talking to would nod and then swiftly change the subject. This was unusual as normally upon admitting that he was a Witcher Kerrass would be inundated with the problems facing the village, about goblins in the woods and spriggans in the ground and strange bat-like creatures that distract a man when he's on his way home from work. On rarer occasions he would be told about the problem that he was facing, a ghost inhabiting the nearby mine/woods/fields or whatever. A huge Black Dog that prowled the byways with glowing eyes or a far-off flying beast the breathes fire that was roasting and stealing sheep as it passed over.

This time there was nothing. Although they were undeniably pleased to see us and we soon found that we didn't have to pay for many of our drinks.

About half-way through the evening I managed to ask Kerrass quietly what he thought was going on.

“They're ashamed,” he said, “They don't want to talk about it and are drinking away their fears.” He got plucked aside by some young lady who took him off to a dance-floor where some people were banging the table to accompany a surprisingly good band of older men who had made instruments out of household items, including a washboard, some spoons, a gigantic wood saw and a couple of home-made looking flutes.

In the light of Kerrass' observation I began to see that there was an almost frantic level of enjoyment here. That they were deliberately having a good time. I thought of students in the days before exams really start kicking in where they know that they should be working but the enjoyment of a drink and a dance with friends is too much temptation to be avoided.

The company caroused long into the night before people started to wander home. Kerrass had been commandeered by one of the girls that he had been dancing with and had been taken out the door with a giggle and a swirl of skirts. I wasn't offended that I hadn't received as much notice. Over the past summer I had seen the effect that Kerrass' “otherness” sometimes had an on women, and men as well for that matter, and had realised early in our association that gratitude was sometimes an aphrodisiac to those people who had nothing else to give. I didn't judge. I tried to avoid such encounters wherever possible, but I will also freely admit that surviving a monster encounter was sometimes a powerful stimulant of it's own and I would always make sure that the lady in question was willing rather than feeling obligated.

I slept the night away on a bench in the corner of the room that was pleasantly padded by a cushion and some extra blankets that the farmers wife had found in cupboard that didn't smell too bad and as a result I slept remarkably well.

Although I did dream. I don't often remember my dreams but I remember this one particularly well and I still don't know whether or not it's entirely relevant to the rest of the story, or indeed to my story overall.

I woke, deep in the night and the first thing that struck me was the utter quiet. Now that I was used to living outdoors a lot more I was more attuned to the little sounds that happen outside of the bigger cities, the branches rustling, leaves blowing in drifts and such things as well as small animals doing the best that they can to pick up the last morsels of food before winter descended properly over the surroundings.

But it was deathly quiet. I got up and wandered about a bit. The furniture was still there but other than that, the entire place was empty. No food, no embers in the fire, not even tankards behind the bar or barrels of ale on the shelves.

There was no-one there. I was utterly convinced about this although I couldn't tell you why I was so sure.

In the end I went outside. The night was perfectly still and clear. I could see the stars above me, the Warrior and the Spear constellations stood out beautifully and I realised that I should be absolutely freezing but I had a blanket about me. I wandered aimlessly around the village until I found myself on the edge of the buildings and I sat there on a bench that looked out over the fields and small clumps of trees too stunted to be chopped down. The massive bulk of the forest behind me.

I sat and marvelled at the stillness of the night looking up into the night sky and counting stars, pulling the blanket tightly about myself creating a small hollow of warmth within myself.

It was so peaceful.

But then I realised that I was being watched.

Slowly, I turned my head in an effort to get a good look at whatever it was. It seemed to be an extra shadow next to someone's chimney. But then it stood up and seemed to stretch itself. It stood up then and grew and grew until it stood at over eight feet tall before I realised that it wasn't growing, it was stretching. I couldn't really see how big it was when it sank back down to what I assumed was it's resting height but I could see that it's legs were those of a goat and enormously muscled at that. Above the legs it wore a shirt and doublet over the top, the shirt was a pale, creamy white while the doublet was dark in colour although I thought I could see red highlights around the edges. It's belt was wide with silver edgings and several pouches stood out, over all of this it seemed to wear some kind of cape and on it's head was a hat with a peacock feather that had been the height of fashion back in Oxenfurt.

When it was good and sure that it had my attention it removed it's hat and flourished it's cape in the most fanciful bow that I had ever seen before tapping the hat back on his head and clicking it's heels before catching up a cane that had been resting against the chimney and running along the top of the house.

Without thinking I gave chase, incidentally disobeying one of the Witcher's first laws which is to never chase after a strange being if you don't know what it is.

I saw it land easily in the road and run off down the road at a speed which seemed impossible. I chased after blind to the consequences, legs pounding as I went. It reached the end of the row of houses before it's legs folded underneath it and it launched itself up to the roof of the next house where it landed lightly on the rooftop before turning to watch my progress.

I still had not seen it's face but I could almost feel it's mocking eyes and I redoubled my efforts to catch it.

It bounced from roof-top to roof-top and drifting down to me came the sounds of laughter like a child enjoying a fun game as I ran and ran and ran. It didn't occur to me that I should be tired I just ran.

It was leading me back towards the woods and it bounded back down to ground level and then he started to accelerate. The thought occurred that he had been toying with me and I started to become angry, the anger fuelled me and I set to sprinting for all I was worth.

He skidded to a stop and turned to watch me close on him. As I hurtled towards him, far too fast to stop myself in this frosty weather, he gave a jaunty little salute before giving himself a short run up followed by planting two feet in the snow and leaping high into the air and into the forest.

I stopped to watch him hurtle across the sky before looking down at the ground where he had stood just moments before. Hoof prints stood there in the ground. They were smouldering with the heat. I looked up and was about to run on into the forest in pursuit when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Stop,” said a voice. It was a woman's voice and I still don't recognise it despite thinking about it almost every day. “He wants you to follow him. Wake up for your souls sake.”

I woke then to the smell of the innkeepers cooking bacon and realised that I was in a cold sweat.

A freezing cold bath in ice cold water drawn from a well where they have to lower someone on a rope to break the ice is never fun and yes, looking back on it from the perspective of my nice warm digs here at the university it sounds pretty horrific but at the time I just wanted to be clean when I put some new clothes on. Nothing like a cold sweat dream to make you think about personal hygiene.

I got changed quickly and asked the innkeepers wife if the Witcher had emerged from whatever hole he'd dug himself into. She nodded and said that there was a small hill that you could look out over the village nearby and that he was on the top of that. She gave me 2 large bacon sandwiches and two cups filled with the hot honeyed herbal drink that they seemed to like in those parts. I wrapped myself in the huge fur-lined cloak that I'd treated myself to a couple of villages back and ambled out to find him.

He was brooding. It seemed to be a skill that he practised in those more civilised areas where there were more people to watch him. Supposedly he was thinking about deep and serious things but I thought it was just another way to make himself seem more like an outsider, more iconic and mysterious in his role. We were comfortable enough with each other now that I knew when to tease him about that kind of thing and although he was clearly brooding, this didn't feel like one of those times.

He was wearing his silver sword. Something that he didn't do unless he was going on a hunt. It was one of the surer signs that I could see that he was nervous or concerned about something.

He acknowledged me with a nod and took the sandwich with out comment although the way he bit into it suggested a ravenous appetite. I didn't mind. Fresh bacon is a luxury that is to be enjoyed whenever possible.

The drink was enjoyed at a more sedate pace.

I just stood there and enjoyed my drink while I waited for the Witcher to finish his thinking. The trees around the village didn't seem as thick in the wintry morning light. Certainly not compared to the thick forest that the village backed onto. There was a kind of thick mist that offered amongst those trees, thick and smoky looking. From this angle it looked as though the forest existed at the bottom of a kind of bowl formed by small surrounding hills. There was a solid kind of centre to the woodland and it seemed to radiate outwards. Because of the mist it was difficult to guess how big it was. Not as big as the Brokilon of the Northern Kingdoms but I guessed that it would still take a skilled forester several days to cross it.

The village itself looked small and insignificant next to it. I found myself thinking that the villagers were awfully forward thinking but a little naïve for planting new trees for the ones that were cut down as in my amateurish brain... It looked like it would take, even a town twice the size of this one, with an imported work force...it would take generations to cut this forest down.

Good for them for being forward thinking.

But....

There was something off here.

I shivered.

“You feel it too?” Kerrass asked, butting in on my thought process.

“What?”

“There is something not quite right here. The whole place feels faintly... Off balance,”

“I don't understand,”

“Nor do I?” The Witcher stared into space. “I haven't seen... or really felt anything like it before. Yet still, my medallion doesn't even twitch.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. An insight struck me.

“Did you manage to get much sleep last night?”

He smiled slightly. “A little,”

“The girl tire you out then,”

“No, but not for lack of trying,” he frowned.

“I'm just going to speak aloud,” he said. It was the same tone that you use in college when you're about to ask a question that you know is a stupid question but that you also know that it needs asking. I've used that tone many times.

“Did you feel anything last night​?”

“What do you mean?” I searched my memory.

“People are disappearing, but in any other village, that get together last night would have been considered a party. Also, I've been propositioned after the hunt many times and with other villagers blessings in the hope that I might reduce the fee in return for some girls favours which is why I rarely partake. But last night?”

He shook his head.

“I will be honest Francis,” I was startled, he rarely used my name. “I will be honest, I have rarely felt that level of...desire from a woman. Lust? Yes, Curiosity? Regularly. But desire? She clung to me afterwards and wouldn't let go. At the time it was intoxicating to be wanted so much but in the cold light of morning she seemed so....resigned. So drained.”

“You sound like you're moaning about having been stood up.”

Another smile.

“I know I sound like a newly dumped child or teen but... Normally when women, especially peasant women, have given in to their lust or curiosity or misplaced sense of obligation with me, we do the deed, pleasure is hopefully had by both parties and then they want to leave. Nothing wrong with that, I need the sleep and they want to scurry off to get their own rest before morning chores and before local gossip mongerers realise what happens. This morning she stayed with me and was reluctant to leave until she was called for.”

He shook his head.

“Outside of my experience. And you can't tell me you didn't notice that. I saw you turning down a couple of propositions as well.”

I nodded. “I was flattered of course and they were pretty enough but I was tired and looking forward to a bed of some kind.”

“I know, I know you're a romantic and you like to have your feelings,” he teased. “That party though. It was a party wasn't it. It's not just my imagination.”

I thought about it for a long while, sipping my drink occasionally. “No,” I decided. “I don't know enough about their lifestyle at this time of the year to comment, but...” I said to forestall him, “I will say that it seemed strange to be having that much fun when people are going missing. I've travelled with you for what 6 months now give or take and I've watched you take on a number of contracts. People are grateful to see you but they're never that....happy.”

He nodded, seemingly relieved.

“I'm glad you agree.”

He sighed.

“There was a child taken last night,”

“What?”

“They came for me this morning to let me know,”

“Why didn't you come and get me?” I was hurt and overreacting. Made worse by the fact that I knew it.

He held his hands out placatingly

“They came for me, told me and I've been waiting, both for you and until the sun is properly up so that I can see what I'm doing. I also told the parents that I would talk tot hem later I just...” he frowned. “They seemed so calm so resigned to their fate. They hadn't known that we had arrived so they had gone to the Headman who brought them to me. The man was saddened but resigned. The woman was a bit weepy but not the kind of hysterics that I would expect from a women with a missing child.”

I stared at him.

“You're troubled aren't you.” I had never seen him like this before. He seemed on edge. Like a startled cat watching something it doesn't trust to stay still.

“There is something strange here. Something that I do not recognise and do not understand.” He took out his cat's head medallion and held it out in front of him, peering at it closely.

The thing always gave me the creeps. A permanently hissing house cat kept close to his chest. Seemed a little unnatural to me.

The medallion failed to move other than with a gentle swaying motion signalling an utter lack of magic or monsters in the area.

He shook his head and tucked the pendant back in.

“I dreamt last night.” I said. I don't know why I said it. I was aware that I was risking ridicule but somehow I felt that it needed saying. “It's probably nothing but...”

He shrugged. “It might be nothing or it might be something.”

I told him about the jumping man and my chase through the village while he stared off towards the woods sipping his drink.

“Interesting,” he said as I came to the end.

“If you say so,”

“No, it is,” he finished his cup. “You met Jack.”

“Jack?”

He stopped and stared at me. “You're joking with me.” He said accusingly.

“I'm really not, who's Jack?”

“What are they teaching in that university of yours. Jack is Jack.”

I shook my head in bemusement. He seemed to be enjoying my ignorance.

“Jack Flash?” he prompted. “Jumping Jack? Spring heeled Jack. Jack be nimble Jack be quick?

“No?”

I shook my head.

“Who is he?” I asked. “What is he?”

“An omen.” The Witcher said. “In this case I suspect he might be a clue. Interestingly, I think he tried to kill you. Just be glad that you didn't meet him in person.”

“What? Why? I was dreaming. How could he kill me while I'm asleep?”

The Witcher shrugged as if the answer was beyond his reach. “He's Jack. But his presence, even in a dream, is important.” He stared off into space for a moment before shaking his head as if to clear it “As my teacher used to say, it's useless to theorise without information. So far, all we've got is missing people and the presence of Jack. Couple that with some off-putting local practices and a sense that people are partying against the end of the world. Lets find something more definite.”

I was looking out over the woods as he said this. The winter fog had crept across it like a wave that shone in the in the morning sunshine. It seemed so still and peaceful but at the same time there were shadows that stood out against the glowing white that seemed to suck at the eye. For a moment, it seemed to me that I stood on the edge of the world where common sense and decency still ruled over everything and that I was staring over the edge to where the darkness dwelt. To where we had driven it with our cities and our so-called reason.

It felt angry.

It took me a moment to realise that the Witcher had strode off like a man with a purpose.

“Who is Jack?” I shouted after him.

He didn't answer.