Chapters (15)
Nimue calmly held out her hands, chanting a spell. The tapestry hanging on the stand suddenly burst into flames, lighting up in an extravaganza of tiny multi-coloured lights. The tiny lights reflected in the oval of the looking glass, danced, teemed in the glass like coloured bees and suddenly flowed out like a rainbow-coloured apparition, a widening streak, making everything as bright as day.
The black mare reared up and neighed wildly. Nimue spread wide her arms violently, and screamed a formula. Condwiramurs, seeing the image forming and growing in the air, focused intently. The image gained in clarity at once. It became a portal. A gate beyond which was visible…
A plateau full of shipwrecks. A castle embedded in the sharp rocks of a cliff, towering over the black looking glass of a mountain lake…
‘This way!’ Nimue screamed piercingly. ‘This is the way you must take! Ciri, daughter of Pavetta! Enter the portal, take the road leading to your encounter with destiny. May the wheel of time close! May the serpent Ouroboros sink its teeth into its own tail!
‘Roam no more! Hurry, hurry to help your friends! This is the right way, O, witcher girl.’
The mare whinnied again, flailed the air with its hooves once more. The girl in the saddle turned her head, looking now at them, now at the image called up by the tapestry and the looking glass. She brushed her hair aside, and Condwiramurs saw the ugly scar on her cheek.
‘Trust me, Ciri!’ cried Nimue. ‘For you know me! You saw me once!’
‘I remember,’ they heard. ‘I trust you. Thank you.’
They saw the mare spurred on and running with a light and dancing step into the brightness of the portal. Before the image became blurred and dispersed, they saw the ashen-haired girl wave a hand, turned towards them in the saddle.
And then everything vanished. The surface of the lake slowly calmed, the streak of moonlight became smooth again.
It was so quiet they felt they could hear the Fisher King’s wheezing breath.
Holding back the tears welling up in her eyes, Condwiramurs hugged Nimue tightly. She felt the little sorceress tremble. They remained in an embrace for some time. Without a word. Then they both turned around towards the place where the Gate of the Worlds had vanished.
‘Good luck, witcher girl!’ they cried in unison. ‘Good luck!’