2. THE VOICE OF REASON - II

Geralt strolled—for the fourth time—along the poplar alley which led from the gate to the dwellings by the sanctuary and main temple block, which merged into the sheer rock. After brief consideration he decided against returning to shelter, and turned toward the gardens and outbuildings. Umpteen priestesses, clad in gray working garments, were toiling away, weeding the beds and feeding the birds in the henhouses. The majority of them were young or very young, virtually children. Some greeted him with a nod or a smile in passing. He answered their greetings but didn't recognize any of them. Although he often visited the temple—once or even twice a year—he never saw more than three or four faces he knew. The girls came and went—becoming oracles in other temples, midwives and healers specializing in women's and children's diseases, wandering druids, teachers or governesses. But there was never a shortage of priestesses, arriving from all over, even the remotest regions. Melitele's temple in Ellander was well-known and enjoyed well-earned fame.

The cult of Melitele was one of the oldest and, in its day, one of the most widespread cults from time immemorial. Practically every pre-human race and every primordial nomadic human tribe honored a goddess of harvest and fertility, a guardian of farmers and gardeners, a patroness of love and marriage. Many of these religions merged into the cult of Melitele.

Time, which was quite pitiless toward other religions and cults, effectively isolating them in forgotten, rarely visited little temples and oratories buried among urban buildings, had proved merciful to Melitele. She did not lack either followers or sponsors. In explaining the popularity of the goddess, learned men who studied this phenomenon used to hark back to the pre-cults of the Great Mother, Mother Nature, and pointed to the links with nature's cycle, with the rebirth of life and other grandiloquently named phenomena. Geralt's friend, the troubadour Dandilion, who enjoyed a reputation as a specialist in every possible field, looked for simpler explanations. Melitele's cult, he deduced, was a typical woman's cult. Melitele was, after all, the patroness of fertility and birth; she was the guardian of midwives. And a woman in labor has to scream. Apart from the usual cries—usually promising never to give herself to any bloody man ever again in her life—a woman in labor has to call upon some godhead for help, and Melitele was perfect. And since women gave birth, give birth and will continue to give birth, the goddess Melitele, the poet proved, did not have to fear for her popularity.

"Geralt."

"Nenneke. I was looking for you."

"Me?" The priestess looked at him mockingly. "Not Iola?"

"Iola, too," he admitted. "Does that bother you?"

"Right now, yes. I don't want you to get in her way and distract her. She's got to get herself ready and pray if something's to come of this trance."

"I've already told you," he said coldly, "I don't want any trance. I don't think a trance will help me in any way."

"While I"—Nenneke winced—"don't think a trance will harm you in any way."

"I can't be hypnotized. I have immunity. I'm afraid for Iola. It might be too great an effort for a medium."

"Iola isn't a medium or a mentally ill soothsayer. That child enjoys the goddess's favor. Don't pull silly faces, if you please. As I said, your view on religion is known to me, it's never particularly bothered me and, no doubt, it won't bother me in the future. I'm not a fanatic. You've a right to believe that we're governed by Nature and the Force hidden within her. You can think that the gods, including my Melitele, are merely a personification of this power invented for simpletons so they can understand it better, accept its existence. According to you, that power is blind. But for me, Geralt, faith allows you to expect what my goddess personifies from nature: order, law, goodness. And hope."

"I know."

"If you know that, then why your reservations about the trance? What are you afraid of? That I'll make you bow your head to a statue and sing canticles? Geralt, we'll simply sit together for a while—you, me and Iola—and see if the girl's talents will let her see into the vortex of power surrounding you. Maybe we'll discover something worth knowing. And maybe we won't discover anything. Maybe the power and fate surrounding you won't choose to reveal themselves to us, will remain hidden and incomprehensible. I don't know. But why shouldn't we try?"

"Because there's no point. I'm not surrounded by any vortex or fate. And if I were, why the hell would I delve into it?"

"Geralt, you're sick."

"Injured, you mean."

"I know what I mean. There's something not quite right with you. I can sense that. After all, I have known you ever since you were a youngster. When I met you, you came up to my waist. And now I feel that you're spinning around in some damned whirlpool, tangled up in a slowly tightening noose. I want to know what's happening. But I can't do it myself. I have to count on Iola's gifts."

"You want to delve too deeply. Why the metaphysics? I'll confide in you, if you like. I'll fill your evenings with tales of ever more astounding events from the past few years. Get a keg of beer so my throat doesn't dry up and we can start today. But I fear I'll bore you because you won't find any nooses or vortexes there. Just a witcher's ordinary tales."

"I'll willingly listen to them. But a trance, I repeat, would do no harm."

"Don't you think"—he smiled—"that my lack of faith makes such a trance pointless?"

"No, I don't. And do you know why?"

"No." Nenneke leaned over and looked him in the eyes with a strange smile on her pale lips.

"Because it would be the first proof I've ever heard of that a lack of faith has any kind of power at all."