Sword of Destiny Read Free

opportunity for a brawl. Three Jackdaws must also have noticed, because he suddenly shook a crayfish he was holding by the tail at them. The women giggled and Téa pouted her lips for a kiss and winked. Combined with her tattooed face, this made for a gruesome sight.
    ‘They are as savage as wildcats,’ Three Jackdaws murmured to Geralt. ‘They need watching. With them, comrade, suddenly–before you know it–the floor’s covered in guts. But they’re worth every penny. If you knew what they’re capable of…’
    ‘I know,’ Geralt nodded. ‘You couldn’t find a better escort. Zerrikanians are born warriors, trained to fight from childhood.’
    ‘I didn’t mean that.’ Borch spat a crayfish claw onto the table. ‘I meant what they’re like in bed.’
    Geralt glanced anxiously at the women. They both smiled. Véa reached for the dish with a swift, almost imperceptible movement. Looking at the Witcher through narrowed eyes, she bit open a shell with a crack. Her lips glistened with the salt water. Three Jackdaws belched loudly.
    ‘And so, Geralt,’ he said. ‘You don’t hunt dragons; neither green nor any other colour. I’ve made a note of it. And why, may I ask, only those three colours?’
    ‘Four, to be precise.’
    ‘You mentioned three.’
    ‘Dragons interest you, Borch. For any particular reason?’
    ‘No. Pure curiosity.’
    ‘Aha. Well, about those colours: it’s customary to define true dragons like that, although they are not precise terms. Green dragons, the most common, are actually greyish, like ordinary dracolizards. Red dragons are in fact reddish or brick-red. It’s customary to call the large dark brown ones “black”. White dragons are the rarest. I’ve never seen one. They occur in the distant North. Reputedly.’
    ‘Interesting. And do you know what other dragons I’ve also heard about?’
    ‘I do,’ Geralt sipped his beer. ‘The same ones I’ve heard about. Golden dragons. There are no such creatures.’
    ‘On what grounds do you claim that? Because you’ve never seen one? Apparently, you haven’t seen a white one either.’
    ‘That’s not the point. Beyond the seas, in Ofir and Zangvebar, there are white horses with black stripes. I haven’t seen them, but I know they exist. But golden dragons are mythical creatures. Fabled. Like the phoenix, let’s say. There are no phoenixes or golden dragons.’
    Véa, leaning on her elbows, looked at him curiously.
    ‘You must know what you’re talking about, you’re a witcher,’ Borch ladled beer from the keg, ‘but I think that every myth, every fable, must have some roots. Something lies among those roots.’
    ‘It does,’ Geralt confirmed. ‘Most often a dream, a wish, a desire, a yearning. Faith that there are no limits to possibility. And occasionally chance.’
    ‘Precisely, chance. Perhaps there once was a golden dragon, an accidental, unique mutation?’
    ‘If there were, it met the fate of all mutants.’ The Witcher turned his head away. ‘It differed too much to endure.’
    ‘Ha,’ Three Jackdaws said, ‘now you are denying the laws of nature, Geralt. My sorcerer acquaintance was wont to say that every being has its own continuation in nature and survives in some way or another. The end of one is the beginning of another, there are no limits to possibility; or at least nature doesn’t know any.’
    ‘Your sorcerer acquaintance was a great optimist. But he failed to take one thing into consideration: a mistake committed by nature. Or by those who trifle with it. Golden dragons and other similar mutants, were they to exist, couldn’t survive. For a very natural limit of possibilities prevents it.’
    ‘What limit is that?’
    ‘Mutants,’ the muscles in Geralt’s jaw twitched violently, ‘mutants are sterile, Borch. Only in fables survives what cannot survive in nature. Only myths and fables do not know the limits of possibility.’
    Three Jackdaws said nothing. Geralt looked at the