The Witcher: Serpent School Witcher's Otherworldly Journey

Chapter 26 Spider Web in the Tent

Geralt opened his mouth, licking his dry, chapped lips, but ultimately swallowed back the powerful defense that was on the tip of his tongue, turning it into a dry, even weak, perfunctory reply:

"Listen, Triss. I believe him. He's not the kind of person who would cause trouble in the camp. Witchers don't kill the king; that's against our rules."

"Rules? Survival?" Triss let out a sharp, cold laugh. She walked around the heavy mahogany table and strode up to Geralt. Her beautiful eyes were now like two burning flames, staring intently into the white wolf's eyes.

"Geralt, you're too kind. No, you're too stubborn! You always use your Kaer Morhen standards—harsh, old-fashioned, but with a ridiculously low moral compass—to judge all your fellow humans! Vesemir teaches you to remain absolutely neutral in human political conflicts; your main job is hunting ghouls, slaying griffins in the mire, and protecting those poor civilians who can't even afford a copper coin from being devoured by ghouls. That's your wolf school's romance!"

Triss took a deep breath, her chest heaving as she rapidly combed through the intricate and terrifying intelligence network in her mind, a network that would kill any ordinary person who touched it. As the former chief advisor to King Foltest and a core member of the sorcerer's council that sought to manipulate the world's royal power from behind the scenes, the dark secrets she had access to far exceeded the imagination of a witcher who merely followed monster footprints in the forest.

“But the Serpent School is different! Geralt, you know them better than I do, you just won’t admit it! They’re in the south, in the heart of Nilfgaard! Do you know what that means?” Triss’s voice trembled slightly with excitement, her words growing faster and faster. “Their stronghold, Gorsvid, was reduced to ashes by the wrath of a mob and the iron heel of the Imperial army decades ago! After losing their homeland, they lost their restraints and their behavior became increasingly extreme.”

"Are you confusing them with those lunatics from the Cat School? I don't understand, if that's the case, they should have a blood feud with the Empire." Geralt frowned, tilting his head back to down the murky ale in his glass. The burning sensation of the alcohol flowed down his throat and into his stomach, but it did nothing to dispel the growing gloom in his heart. He tried to defuse the tense atmosphere with dry humor, "Besides, even if he has a bad temper, that doesn't prove he poses any real threat to King Foltest. Don't forget, he's helping us now."

"That's because you haven't seen the whole game, Geralt! You're only focused on the move at hand!" Triss lowered her voice, a chilling undertone in it. She leaned close to Geralt, close enough for him to clearly smell the faint scent of roses in her breath. She spoke almost word by word: "Do you know what the Nilfgaardian Empire has been up to in the south lately? Emhyr Emreis, that tyrannical emperor known as 'the white flame dancing on the enemy's grave,' that cold-blooded tyrant! He never does anything without political motive. Never! For the sake of profit, even enemies can become friends."

Triss paused, as if her next words carried some kind of curse.

"The Assembly Hall's intelligence network detected some highly clandestine and extremely dangerous financial and personnel movements two weeks ago—the Empire's intelligence agencies, especially that old fox Vatil di Lidocks's group of black-clad spies, like the Black Death, are secretly and frequently contacting exiled Witchers. And their primary targets are those remnants of the Serpent School, wandering like lost ghosts along the southern border!"

Geralt's hand, which had been holding the wine glass, suddenly froze in mid-air.

How did you know?

The air inside the tent seemed to solidify and thicken instantly at those words, as if filled with molten lead. The firewood in the magical brazier crackled crisply, sparks flying, but it couldn't dispel the biting chill that now hung between the two. Geralt's golden pupils contracted sharply in the firelight.

Triss noticed the change in his eyes, bit her lip, and threw out her last and most lethal card.

"No one knows for sure what shady promises Emperor Emhyr made. But we can all guess." Triss's voice was as soft as a sigh, yet it boomed like thunder in Geralt's ears. "What is the most deadly poison for a group of homeless vagrants? It's reconstruction. It's giving them land, giving them money, giving them hope of rebuilding Fort Geralt and continuing the school. You have to admit it, Geralt, it's easy for the Emperor of the Empire."

Geralt fell into a deathly silence.

He knew that longing all too well. It was a curse etched into the very bones of the Witcher. When Kaer Morhen was reduced to ruins in the mad siege of the mob years ago, when those young apprentices fell in pools of blood; when old Vesemir stood alone day after day in that empty, drafty castle, lamenting the Witcher's doom by the fire on cold winter nights... in the heart of every member of the School of the Wolf, there was a scar that would never heal, a wound that would bleed black blood at the slightest touch.

If, right now, at this very moment, an emperor with supreme power, ruling over half the world, were to stand before him and tell him: "As long as you kill a few people, whether they are kings or beggars, as long as you complete the task, you can restore Kaer Morhen to its former vibrant glory and ensure that the lineage of witchers will not be severed..."

Geralt closed his eyes in anguish. Even he himself, the Witcher known by bards as "the Butcher of Rivia" and who prided himself on seeing through worldly power, dared not assure the gods that there wouldn't be a moment of wavering or madness deep within his heart.

But he shook his head violently, like a wild beast trying to shake off a lingering affliction, forcibly expelling this extremely dangerous empathy from his mind.

“Gilliam…I’ve observed him.” Geralt spoke again, his voice now carrying an almost obstinate insistence. “He’s ruthless, indifferent to worldly affairs, yet possesses a rare kindness. But he has his principles. He’s not the kind of person who would willingly become an Imperial political assassin, a dog of the Emperor, for a mere empty promise from Emhyr. He doesn’t trust the Nilfgaardians.”

"I didn't say he was definitely that damned assassin!" Triss's voice quickened, tinged with barely concealed despair. She abruptly reached out and gripped Geralt's chainmail arm tightly. Her long fingers turned slightly white from the force, her nails even digging into the leather.

"But I can't help but consider the worst-case scenario, Geralt! This is politics, this is a war that concerns the lives of tens of thousands! Use your keen eyes to look at the situation now! Baron La Valedi's rebellion has thrown all of Temeria into turmoil. The young nobles are watching, and the monarchs of neighboring countries are circling like vultures. Foltest is eager to quell the internal strife as quickly and bloodily as possible to deter those restless lords. So he has led the main force of Temeria out in full force."

Triss loosened her grip and began pacing restlessly back and forth in the tent. Her shadow, cast on the canvas by the interplay of the pale blue light of the barrier and the crimson flames of the brazier, appeared distorted and scorched, like a wild beast trapped in a cage.

Geralt looked at her in silence.

He knew Triss too well; he knew that when this woman's pace slowed from hurried to deliberate, that was when she truly began to get down to business. All the previous intensity, all the anger, all the near-uncontrolled outbursts of emotion were merely a prelude. A sorceress who had survived the quagmire of intrigue on Thaned Island would never make decisions based on a tantrum.

Losing one's temper is just a symptom.

Triss's true trump card is always hidden after she has vented her anger.

Sure enough, she slowed down.

Triss stood before the brazier, her hands clasped in front of her, the sleeves of her dark green robe casting soft shadows in the firelight. She didn't turn to face Geralt, but gazed at the flickering flames. Her voice, which had been sharp and high-pitched, finally softened, becoming low and slow, like a chess player who, having assessed all the possibilities of their opponent, was beginning to lay out their true strategy.

Geralt, let me finish.

Her tone was no longer agitated. No longer hurried. No longer trying to overwhelm Geralt's stubbornness with a flood of emotions. That was all in the past. Now she stood by the brazier, her back to him, her voice carrying only a calm, chilling clarity.

"You think I'm telling you all this tonight so you can get rid of Kiriam?"

Geralt was slightly taken aback.

"Isn't that what you meant?"

"If I wanted to get rid of him, I would have done so the instant he stepped into this tent. Don't forget I'm now the King's sorcerer advisor." Triss slowly turned around, the previous fire gone from her azure eyes, replaced by something deeper, more ancient—the complex understanding of human nature that only a woman who had lived for nearly a hundred years possessed. "Even without calling soldiers, a teleportation spell would suffice. Throw him into the port of Tretogo and let him find his own merchant ship, though it will drain most of my magic. Or, more simply, a sleeping spell, and then accuse him of 'suspicious identity and unclear whereabouts' before Foltest. The royal advisor has the authority to do all this; I don't need your consent, or even your knowledge."

She paused, watching Geralt's expression change. His eyes did darken for a moment; she knew what he was thinking. He was thinking: You dare.

"But I didn't do that."

These words landed softly, yet undeniably, inside the tent.

"Why?" Geralt asked. His voice remained steady, but his fingers unconsciously left the glass and rested on his knee.

Triss finally walked back to Geralt. She didn't sit down, but bent slightly so that her gaze was level with the white wolf sitting on the low stool. Her hair slipped down her shoulders, forming a fiery curtain between them.

"Because you trust him."

Triss's expression was very calm when she said those four words.

"Geralt of Rivia, his name has echoed throughout the northern kingdoms for over half a century. Do you know how many people have tried to bribe you, use you, manipulate you all these years? Kings, barons, sorcerers, spies—every single one has failed. Not because you are so clever, Geralt, the gods know you are heartbreakingly politically inept. It's because you have a…"

She shook her head, as if searching for a precise word.

"A kind of judgment about people. An extremely stubborn, unreasonable intuition that has almost never made a fatal mistake in all these years. The people you trust—Dandelion, Zoltan, Lambert, Escal—none of them have ever betrayed you. Not because you're lucky. It's because your eyes, those eyes witnessed by the gods, can see something in people that even our sorcerers' clairvoyance spells cannot penetrate."

Geralt remained silent. He didn't know how to respond. It didn't sound like Triss was trying to please him, nor did it sound like she was showing weakness. It was more like... a negotiator admitting that his opponent held a strong hand before revealing all his cards.

“So I won’t ignore your judgment.” Triss straightened up, crossed her arms, and spoke with the composure of someone making a final decision. “You say Gillian has principles, you say he won’t betray his own kind. Fine. I choose to do so on this point, Geralt—note that I said ‘on this point’—give your intuition a temporary boost.”

She walked to the table, her fingertips unconsciously fiddling with the dark purple alchemical crystals, the blue light of the barrier flowing across her slender fingers.

"But a good royal advisor would never stake all of Temeria on a witcher's intuition—even if that witcher is you."

She raised her head again, her gaze like a silver sword honed to its sharpest point.

"So I let him stay. Not because I was convinced by you, Geralt. It's because letting him stay was the best option for us."

Geralt narrowed his eyes slightly. "You mean—"

"What I mean is, rather than letting a snake-faction witcher disappear into the darkness of the camp, with his belly full of snake venom and swordsmanship, to somewhere I can't see him, it's better to have him by your side. Right under my nose."

Triss walked back to the brazier, stretched out her hands to the leaping flames, and spoke in a lower voice, but every word was enunciated very clearly.