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Yennefer of Vengerberg, the famed sorceress
Geralt of Rivia, the famed witcher
Young Yennefer, hunch-backed, wounded, already iron-willed
Young Geralt, red or brown-haired, wide-eyed, sensitive
Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, formerly heir to the throne of Cintra, since turned refugee, witcher adept, and sorceress’ apprentice
SCENE
The curtain rises on a dark stage.
A young woman's voice sings in the darkness, haunting:
YOUNG YENNEFER
“Tirlich-tirlich, call my love to me.”
Lights up, but it is the light of memory: otherworldly, ever-shifting, full of dim shadows. We are in the territory of the mind. If we squint, we can make out the faint silhouettes of CIRI, YENNEFER, and GERALT. Thick darkness down left.
The dreamlight intensifies down right on YOUNG YENNEFER. She's sitting or kneeling, focusing all of her attention on the purple flower in her hand.
YOUNG YENNEFER
That's what all the village girls sang. I sang it, too. In my village, we knew about magic. On Midsummer's Eve, we went to the hills with our sickles and searched for the sacred herbs. Celandine for warts. Globeflowers for the Kupala Day crown. And tirlich to wear under your shirt-- here--
She holds the flower to her chest, between her breasts.
...to summon true love.
She giggles girlishly.
No one saw me. Only my back. I knew the tirlich would help. So I went, but not with the other girls. I searched on my own-- on the wild hills where nobody else looked, and no one pushed me aside. That is where I found the tirlich patch growing thick and wild.
On Midsummer's Eve, I went to those hills. I plucked the flower. I wore it under my shirt, and I willed my dream true: a love would come. With whose face? I didn’t care. I only imagined those eyes: someone who would look at me, and not look away, and smile.
"Tirlich-tirlich, call my love to me."
Her smile fades.
When I came home, my father was waiting. “Come home so late? Why? You out whoring yourself to the lads? Waiting ‘til dark so they don’t have to look at you? Stupid slut!”
That was the night of my first spell and my first beating. I was seven when I learned: there is no magic without pain.
My father taught me again and again. When he left us, I thought we were safe. But my mother must have missed him. All of her missing bruises, she gave to me. I was ten when I learned: never forget the strength of a woman's rage.
I didn’t forget. I listened, and I began to hear secret things. The older women in the village spoke of tirlich, too. Of its other powers. Shapeshifters rub it in their armpits to change their form. Witches use it to fly.
On Midsummer’s Eve, I boiled the tirlich and drank its tea. I went to bed with fistfuls of tirlich-grass under my arms, and when I slept, I grew wings. My feathers were the color of night, a cradling darkness that rocked me into the air. My beak grew sharp and strong, and I plucked the moon from the sky. I shone so bright that all the stars saw me. All the stars were silver eyes, and I knew each one by name.
I woke up covered in pig shit. No one was looking at me.
A half-hearted echo of the tune
Tirlich-tirlich, what did you promise me?
Now I understand. I offered nothing, so you gave me nothing. Magic has a cost. Always. The god who dies every year to ensure the harvest. The god who hangs for nine days to return one-eyed and wise. All true magic is sacrifice.
Lights center, revealing the spare room of Bernie Hofmeier’s house in the twilight before dawn. The Hofmeier family takes pride in their hospitality, as evident in the humble but well-made decorative touches that fill the room: a rug in warm colors, a lovingly embroidered bedspread, a bedframe of simple but solid construction and two chairs the same.
CIRI is pretending to be asleep in the bed. She is a skilled actress. YENNEFER and GERALT sit at opposing ends of the bed, their chairs tilted as to face CIRI while remaining visible to the audience.
YENNEFER
And I wanted true magic.
So I went to Aretuza, and I learned well. I would shapeshift, like the grandmothers said, but I would need no tirlich flower. It was my own body I harvested. From my flesh I carved a golem of myself, cold and beautiful, and I summoned it to life with a sacrifice of my self: my womb, my bent bones, my bloodied heart.
It worked. I became a creature of lightning and clay. When I entered that ballroom in Aretuza, all eyes turned toward me-- and fell upon the splendid golem I had made.
That would do.
Magic has a cost, and survival is the truest magic of all. That invisible girl with her purple flowers, who sang on Midsummer's Eve? Sometimes, the best thing a flower can do for us…
The light on YOUNG YENNEFER fades to black.
YENNEFER
...is to die.
YENNEFER shifts her attention to the scene at center, straightening. CIRI does not stir and GERALT does not notice. We understand that we are hearing her thoughts, not her voice.
YENNEFER
But you, my darling ugly one. You will not be made a sacrifice.
They called you a Source. Nenneke called you a hellion. You were a princess, an heir, a fugitive. Even, for a while, a witcher adept. How proud you are of your swordplay. Like all of them. How they boast, those witchers with their swords and Signs.
Wait until you see what a sorceress of Aretuza can do. The first time you open a portal to Zerrikania, you know you will never again be trapped. Capture lightning in a bottle, and you will never again fear the storm. It is yours. Feast on lightning, Ciri. Gorge yourself until you swell so full, they can never use you as a vessel. Your belly will be stormclouds. Your eyes will spark.
And then, my darling, you will be your own.
Foolish girl. Did you have to prove Nenneke right in this instance? We were already in Aretuza. You were so close. Then you heard a rumor of Geralt, and you had to run to him.
Don’t.
Ah. You would love to see him like this, wouldn’t you? See how he looks at you: as if he would stop time to make this moment last. This moment in which you are at peace… and he and I sit together. You might think we’ve done this before: sitting in peace, in silence. Convincing, aren’t we? If we’ve managed to sit this still before, I can’t recall it.
Ah. How he looks at you.
Is that how I looked at him? Before Aedd Gynvael?
Did he look at me…?
GERALT
Ciri.
YENNEFER
Hm. He still thinks so loudly.
GERALT
Show us you’re alright. Please.
YENNEFER
Oh, really, Geralt. Of course she’s fine! So much for those vaunted Witcher senses. Like any man, he can’t tell when a girl pretends to faint.
Amused but considering
As one does.
GERALT
I don’t understand why you’ve come. You were supposed to stay with Yen. Why didn’t you stay?
YENNEFER
Please. Has he met this girl? When has Ciri done a single thing she’s told?
GERALT
You were supposed to stay.
YENNEFER
So were you.
First in Rinde. But you didn’t.
Then in Vengerberg. But you didn’t.
And in Aedd Gynvael…
In Aedd Gynvael, I left first. When you gave me nothing to abandon.
No. Enough sentimentality. We had our Belleteyne. Let that be enough.
Belleteyne, three years ago. A night by the fires. I should not have known you then. You should not have known me, even with those gaudy feline eyes. But there in the dark, by the pyres of Belleteyne, I saw the fire glinting in your white hair. You were a shape in the night, one of many-- but I knew you, Geralt. And you knew me.
We had not meant to find each other. We did, and our bodies remembered everything. So we remembered, too.
Do you still remember that night, I wonder? Three years ago? Of course you do. Look at the way you look at her. I remember it now. That is how you looked at me in the dim waking light, before the sunrise.
Sunrise. It has always opposed us, hasn’t it? We cannot endure each other in daylight. Not since Aedd Gynvael, that cold, miserable village in the north, where I saw you bared. When I knew that what I gave you, you could not offer in return. Even on Belleteyne, you gave me almost everything I wanted. But not that.
The light brightens left.
Ah. Your back is turned to the window, Geralt. It faces east. The dawn is coming. I wonder what we shall arrange this time: which of us shall leave first?
GERALT
Everything’s alright now. I won’t leave you.
YENNEFER is taken back.
GERALT
I’ll be here when you wake up, Ciri. No matter how long it takes.
YENNEFER
Ah.
GERALT
Yennefer’s right. Don’t know what I was thinking, keeping you in Kaer Morhen. That’s no place for you. The Path is no place for you. I’m going to keep you far from monsters-- from the Trials and the mutations, too.
YENNEFER
Yes. Those famous Witcher mutations. Those mutagens and alchemical mixtures that reduced you to an inhuman husk with only an atavistic echo of emotions. Or so you’ve told me, over and over.
As if I cannot feel your mind lapping against mine, Geralt. As if I didn’t hear your third wish.
You doomed wretch.
GERALT
No more of the mushrooms. The herbs. Even if…
YENNEFER senses a different tone in his thoughts. She watches him carefully.
GERALT
...even if Triss was right. The herbs, the mutations-- even the Trials of the Grasses-- they never changed us that much. Not on the inside.
I did that. It was me.
Lights down left on YOUNG GERALT. He sits with his arms around his knees. YENNEFER stares. GERALT lowers his head into his hands.
YOUNG GERALT
I think my mother loved my eyes best of all. She never said that, but I could tell. Especially when we played. My favorite was knights and forktails. I called it knights and dragons, but she said that dragons are noble creatures and we should never ever hurt them. So she played a forktail instead, because they’re not noble at all, and I played a knight. When she was in a good mood, she’d use her magic. She wouldn't just go RAWR and make her hands like this.
He curls his fingers like dragon claws.
She'd give herself wings, and claws, and long horns, and she'd growl, "Give up, sir knight, you have no chance of defeating me!" and I would declare, "Stand down, foul beast! Unhand that fair maiden you hold captive!" I picked up my sword. Not a real sword-- it was just pretend-- and we'd fight! And I slew the wicked forktail and rescued the maiden! And sometimes she'd laugh and we'd play another game. But other times she got this look in her eye. Like she was sad. I asked her what was wrong. Usually she said “Nothing,” but sometimes she said, “You look so much like your father.” I didn’t, really. Mostly I looked like her. I think she meant my eyes. That’s the only part that was his.
I knew how to make her feel better. I’d look at her, and her being sad made me feel sad, too, so I cried. Not really for my dad. I couldn’t remember him anyway. But she missed him. So when she saw me cry, it was like she was allowed to cry, too. We cried together, and then she felt better.
I thought about that after they took me to Kaer Morhen. She didn’t look at me when Vesemir came. I wonder if anyone sat with her later. I wonder if anyone helped her cry.
In Kaer Morhen, they beat us. We beat each other. The nights were cold. They showed us the veins, which ones can kill if you split ‘em. There were so many empty beds. Three in ten live through the Trials, they said. I think they said that to make us feel hopeful.
They told us not to cry. Sometimes, especially after the Trials, I would think of my mother and I’d try. But I couldn’t remember how.
GERALT
They burned me dry. My mother’s red hair-- they bleached it to bone. My father’s eyes-- they seared them yellow. I looked for my mother and father in the mirror...
The light on YOUNG GERALT fades to black.
...but all I saw was a corpse.
YENNEFER
A sacrifice of your self. Your own bloodied heart.
GERALT
They said every mutation was necessary. Each one, a tool for survival.
YENNEFER
Survival is the truest magic. And the cruelest.
GERALT
The most important changes, though-- they’re not done in the Trial room. There are so many other mutations. Ones that let you look at yourself in the mirror without screaming. Let you wade up to your knees in the putrescence of weeks-old corpses for a fistful of coin. Let you forget the nightmares, the monsters, the victims you couldn’t save. Let you decide to kill again and again. Those mutations, you have to give yourself.
YENNEFER
You become a creature of lightning and clay.
GERALT
The Path harrows you. Over the years, you mutate. You must. You’re left a shell… a homunculus.
YENNEFER
A golem.
A pause. Light brightens left.
I see you, Geralt. By the ice of Aedd Gynvael and the fires of Belleteyne, I know you now.
But it’s too late for us. Before we met, it was already too late. Look, the dawn comes. There is light on the tops of the trees. Go on, choose quickly, dear witcher. Decide who must leave. We must not see each other in the light. I could not bear it.
GERALT
There’s light on Yen’s face. Must be near sunrise. Look at her. She’s ravishing.
YENNEFER
Don’t think this now, Geralt. You came too late.
GERALT
Ravishing. Always. Even on that day in Aedd Gynvael, when…
YENNEFER
Don’t.
GERALT
...when I was a coward and too great a fool to know it. I should have known. Look at her, in the growing light. I should have told her on Belleteyne...
YENNEFER
What should you have told me?
GERALT
She is everything. She is all I see.
YENNEFER
But would you say it, Geralt? If I give this to you again-- no-- I never stopped giving it. If I give this to you now, in the light-- would you return my gift in kind?
GERALT
She wanted one word. A word that mutants can’t give. Even if that’s true, she’s right. There is no truth. Only this is true: this room, this wooden floor, this bed where our child sleeps.
YENNEFER
Our child…
GERALT
And her. Ravishing. In this room with me.
YENNEFER
Her tone changes. Now her words are for Geralt, telepathically spoken
Then say it.
GERALT
Startled, looks at her
Yen?
YENNEFER
Hello, Geralt. Go on, I’m listening. Telepathically speaking.
GERALT
Are you-- how long have you been reading my mind?
YENNEFER
Quite a while now. Tsk, witcher. You ought to practice more vigilance.
GERALT
Damn it, Yen. You can’t just read my mind without telling me!
YENNEFER
You never complained before. But enough of that. Don’t change the subject. You were remembering Aedd Gynvael. You were thinking of what I asked you then. Have you a different answer now?
GERALT
What-- Aedd Gynvael Istredd kestrels mind reading Yen. The word, the word that mutants can’t give. Yes. I remember.
YENNEFER
The sun will rise soon, Geralt. If you have a different answer, tell me.
GERALT
Our child…
YENNEFER
Tell me now. Or one of us must leave.
GERALT
Visibly struggling
I…
YENNEFER rises with terrible dignity. She turns her back on Geralt and walks right.
YOUNG GERALT
Yen, wait!
YENNEFER stands still, facing right. Lights down left on YOUNG GERALT. He’s risen to his feet and stands facing her.
GERALT
I don’t know...
YOUNG GERALT
I don’t know how to do this. No one taught me how. I don’t know if I can.
GERALT
I want…
YOUNG GERALT
But I want to learn. I want to try. Let me fail a thousand times. I would try a thousand more for you, if you let me.
YENNEFER
Once, all I wanted was for someone to see me. Now I am lightning and clay and a cold obsidian heart. Is that enough for you, Witcher? Can you bear to look at it?
GERALT
Yen… you’re all I want to look at.
YENNEFER
Then say it, Geralt. Say the word.
A long pause.
YENNEFER begins to walk right again.
GERALT
Yen.
YOUNG GERALT
I love you. I love you. I love you. No one but you. No one before, no one again. Only you. Only ever you.
GERALT
Yen.
Light brightens left. The sun is nearly up.
YENNEFER
She tilts her head up. These are her thoughts; Geralt does not hear them.
The illusion won't hold, Geralt. You'll see past the spell. The golem of my flesh is hollow. There is nothing inside.
Would you bring stone to life? Can you teach obsidian to beat?
GERALT
Yennefer. Yen.
YENNEFER
You want magic. And what will be the cost?
GERALT
A great effort
Yen, please.
Lights down right on YOUNG YENNEFER. She and YOUNG GERALT stand facing one another on opposite ends of the stage.
YOUNG YENNEFER
All my life, I wanted someone to see me. I sang to my tirlich, but no one ever looked at me.
YOUNG GERALT
I saw you. I didn’t mean to. In Rinde, after the djinn. Something in your eyes-- I looked at you and I knew your back was bent, once.
YOUNG YENNEFER
How could you see that?
YOUNG GERALT
I don’t know. Magic, I guess.
YOUNG YENNEFER
Yet you’re still here. You stayed.
YOUNG GERALT
Yes.
YOUNG YENNEFER and YOUNG GERALT walk toward each other. They stop down center, within arm’s reach. YENNEFER turns to watch them.
YOUNG YENNEFER
I love the green of your eyes.
YOUNG GERALT
I love the blackness of your wings.
YENNEFER
Is it possible? Could it be?
Perhaps clay can become flesh. Obsidian might be taught to beat-- with magic and a little sacrifice.
Pride... fear… the simplicity of clay. There are worse sacrifices we could make.
YENNEFER meets GERALT’S gaze. She indicates for him to follow her. He stands up. They exit right, walking softly so as not to wake CIRI.
Barely a moment passes before CIRI sits up in bed. It’s clear that she’s been feigning sleep the entire time.
CIRI
Finally.
She leaps out of bed and follows “stealthily” after YENNEFER and GERALT.
YOUNG YENNEFER and YOUNG GERALT stand alone onstage. Hesitantly, they reach for one another. Their hands touch.
Warm golden light erupts from stage left. The sun has risen.
YOUNG YENNEFER and YOUNG GERALT smile.
CURTAIN