The Last Wish, Introducing The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski

them?”
    “Yes.”
    “The last was here three days ago. With his daughter, not one of the prettiest, by the way. I commanded the house to close all its doors and shutters and give no sign of life. They wandered around the courtyard and left. The girl picked a rose from my aunt's rosebush and pinned it to her dress. Look for them somewhere else. But be careful; this is a horrible area. I told you that the forest isn't the safest of places at night. Ugly things are heard and seen.”
    “Thanks, Nivellen. I’ll remember about you. Who knows, maybe I’ll find someone who—”
    “Maybe yes. And maybe no. It's my problem, Geralt, my life and my punishment. I’ve learned to put up with it. I’ve got used to it. If it gets worse, I’ll get used to that too. And if it gets far worse, don't look for anybody. Come here yourself and put an end to it. As a witcher. Take care, Geralt.”
    Nivellen turned and marched briskly toward the manor. He didn't look round again.
    III
    The area was deserted, wild and ominously inhospitable. Geralt didn't return to the highway before dusk; he didn't want to take a roundabout route, so he took a shortcut through the forest. He spent the night on the bare summit of a high hill, his sword on his knees, beside a tiny campfire into which, every now and then, he threw wisps of monkshood. In the middle of the night he noticed the glow of a fire far away in the valley; he heard mad howling and singing and a sound which could only have been the screaming of a tortured woman. When dawn had barely broken, he made his way there to find nothing but a trampled glade and charred bones in still-warm ashes. Something sitting in the crown of an enormous oak shrieked and hissed. It could have been a harpy, or an ordinary wildcat. The witcher didn't stop to check.
    IV
    About midday, while Roach was drinking at a spring, the mare neighed piercingly and backed away, baring her yellow teeth and chewing her bit. Geralt calmed her with the Sign. Then he noticed a regular ring formed by the caps of reddish mushrooms peering from the moss.
    “You're becoming a real hysteric, Roach,” he said. “This is just an ordinary devil's ring. What's the fuss?”
    The mare snorted, turning her head toward him. The witcher rubbed his forehead, frowned and grew thoughtful. Then he leapt into the saddle, turned the horse around and started back, following his own tracks.
    “Animals like me,” he muttered. “Sorry, Roach. It turns out you've got more brains than me!”
    V
    The mare flattened her ears against her skull and snorted, throwing up earth with her hooves; she didn't want to go. Geralt didn't calm her with the Sign; he jumped from the saddle and threw the reins over the horse's head. He no longer had his old sword in its lizard-skin sheath on his back; its place was filled with a shining, beautiful weapon with a cruciform and slender, well-weighted hilt, ending in a spherical pommel made of white metal.
    This time the gate didn't open for him. It was already open, just as he had left it.
    He heard singing. He didn't understand the words; he couldn't even identify the language. He didn't need to—the witcher felt and understood the very nature, the essence, of this quiet, piercing song which flowed through the veins in a wave of nauseous, overpowering menace.
    The singing broke off abruptly, and then he saw her.
    She was clinging to the back of the dolphin in the dried-up fountain, embracing the moss-overgrown stone with her tiny hands, so pale they seemed transparent. Beneath her storm of tangled black hair shone huge, wide-open eyes the color of anthracite.
    Geralt slowly drew closer, his step soft and springy, tracing a semi-circle from the wall and blue rosebush. The creature glued to the dolphin's back followed him with her eyes, turning her petite face with an expression of longing, and full of charm. He could still hear her song, even though her thin, pale lips were held tight and not the slightest sound