At first, the inside of the tower reminded her of Kaer Morhen–the same long, black corridor behind a colonnade, the same unending abyss in the perspective of columns or statues. It was beyond comprehension how that abyss could fit into the slender obelisk of the tower. But she knew, of course, that there was no point analysing it–not in the case of a tower that had risen up from nothingness, appearing where it had not been before. There could be anything in such a tower and one ought not to be surprised by anything.

She looked back. She didn’t believe Bonhart had dared–or managed–to enter after her. But she wanted to make certain. The colonnade she had ridden into blazed with an unnatural brilliance.

Kelpie’s hooves rang on the floor; something crunched under them. Bones. Skulls, shinbones, ribcages, thighbones, hipbones. She was riding through a gigantic ossuarium. Kaer Morhen, she thought, recalling. The dead should be buried in the ground… How long ago that was… I still believed in something like that then… In the majesty of death, in respect for the dead… But death is simply death. And a dead person is just a cold corpse. It’s not important where it’s lying, where its bones decay.

She rode into the gloom, under the colonnade, among the columns and statues. The darkness undulated like smoke. Her ears were filled with intrusive whispers, sighs, and soft incantations. Suddenly brightness flamed before her, as a gigantic door opened. One door opened after another. Doors. An infinite number of heavy doors opened before her without a murmur.

Kelpie went on, horseshoes resounding on the floor.

The geometry of the walls, arcades and columns surrounding her was suddenly disrupted; so confusingly that Ciri felt dizzy. She felt as though she were inside an impossible, multifaceted solid, some gigantic polyhedron.

The doors kept opening. But now they weren’t delineating a single direction. They were pointing to infinite directions and possibilities.

And Ciri began to see.

A black-haired woman leading an ashen-haired girl by the hand. The girl is afraid, afraid of the dark, fears the whispers growing in the gloom, is terrified by the ringing of horseshoes. The black-haired woman with a star sparkling with diamonds around her neck is also afraid. But does not let it show. She leads the girl on. Towards her destiny.

Kelpie walks on. More doors.

Iola the Second and Eurneid, in sheepskin coats, with their bundles, marching along a frozen, snowy road. The sky is deep blue.

More doors.

Iola the First kneeling before an altar. Beside her is Mother Nenneke. They are both looking at something, their faces contorted in a grimace of dread. What do they see? The past or the future? Truth or untruth?