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Lambert knew he should tell the others, he was a witcher and knew better than to let things like these carry on. It was a wound, a wound he was letting fester and soon it would be too late for any treatment. But every time he opened his mouth, the words got stuck in his throat.
Kaer Morhen was a graveyard anyway, what difference could one ghost make among old bones and blood-stained stones?
And Voltehre wasn’t hurting anyone, he was simply there, not interacting with the living or anything really. It was almost like he was a fragment of the past. A hallucination of a man in the desert, hoping for water.
No, Lambert decided, there was no need to tell the others. There was no harm in letting things stay as they were.
It was nice to see his friend.
_______
Come on, we are almost done!
Voltehre had been fast on his feet, the fastest of their cohort, his steps always sure and agile making Lambert feel like a troll by comparison. Everyone had high hopes for Voltehre, from their instructors to the mages, and above all Rennes, their grandmaster never came close to smiling but he seemed to show some favor to those he deemed worthy. And Voltehre had been worthy.
The trail of the medallion was all that stood between them and the Path, for Lambert that meant freedom to get out of Kaer Morhen to seek revenge on his father, for Volthere it meant following a duty he had been bound to the moment Olach of Ban Gleán had found him alone after his parents were killed by bandits.
Old Speartip is one deep sleeper
They were at the end, tired, and hungry but they had their medallions. They had done it. All that was left was to reach the Circle of Elements and they would be Witchers. To do so they had to pass the cyclops' cave, carefully, silently. But they were tired, Lambert’s legs were shaking and he kept tripping, rocks sliding under his feet.
Behind them came a yell, another trainee calling for his companion. Yes, they were almost done, Lambert thought, soon he and Volthere would be passing the gates and stepping foot into the outside world. Freedom.
And then, Speartip was awake and Volthere was dead.
wake him up and you'll sleep deeper".
_______
They had been so young. Too young for what had been asked of them. Too young for such cruelty and loss.
Lambert could see it now, clearer than ever. He saw it in the boyish grin that Eskel hadn’t managed to lose despite the scars that marked his face, he saw it in Geralt’s awkwardness, a boy left by the side of the road that never learned how to fully trust again and was scared to drive others away.
And when the anger wasn’t threatening to choke him, when it wasn’t consuming him, crawling at his throat like a scream he kept trapped inside, he could see that Vesemir had been young too.
They all had been young unloved children, cast away like broken dolls. Puppets on strings for mages and kings. If the pogrom hadn’t happened he probably would have been just another cog on the wheel, continuing the cycle. Or maybe Rennes would have gotten rid of him, a nice public execution.“See what happens to wild dogs.”
_______
Old Speartip was gone, he had killed the ugly fucker last winter. Vesemir hadn’t agreed with his methods but he also hadn’t complained too much. They all had dreams about the cave, about friends lost in its cold damp embrace.
An igni had solved the problem of what to do with the body and now a year later the area surrounding the cave was turning green as winter gave way to spring. It was a beautiful place, a quiet hideaway from the mess that was the rest of the Continent.
And Volthere was there too. As young as he had been the day he died, dancing from stone to stone, leaping down the path, and then vanishing just to appear again later.
There were times, where for a brief moment Lambert could see the torn flesh, the crushed skull. A scream would fill the air, like the wind howling during a storm. And then it all would stop. The world would be silent as he lay there staring blankly across the space.
Today was no such day. Volthere stopped in front of the cave and he did not vanish, he did not scream. Instead, he turned to where Lambert was, young golden eyes meeting tired ones, and he smiled.
The last remnants of winter wind seem to carry a whisper. Lambert.
Afterward, he isn’t sure how he returns to Kaer Morhen. Vesemir was there, almost as if he was waiting, his eyes holding deep understanding. It was then that Lambert realized he was crying, tears falling down his face as his body struggled to breathe.
Was it real? Was Volthere a wraith? Or was it all in his head?
He wanted to ask, wanted to plead, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
_______
Perhaps they were all hunted. Either by their own regrets or by a foolish longing to see old friends again. Perhaps it was a last curse cast upon them by the mages or even by Kaer Morhen itself, payment for all that had been done on its halls.
He wondered what Vesemir saw in the early morning, in the quiet time before dawn as he got up and watched the sun rise. Did he see old students running around, falling from the pendulum? Did he look towards the gates in the hopes of catching a glimpse of a friend, whose fate was forever unknown, finally returning home?
What of Eskel and Geralt, did they see Gweld in every corner they took? Did they hear the laughter of their cohort at night as they lay in bed with their slow hearts aching like an open wound that never heals?
They all sit at the table every day, they break their meals together, they play gwent during the worst storms and the cold winter nights. But they never speak of it. The words are on the tip of his tongue and yet he does not say them.
Maybe this is why they keep coming back, year after year. Four wounded souls seeking the living if only to keep themselves from following the dead.