The Sword Of Destiny

The second book in the Witcher series is another collection of short stories. Where The Last Wish was, broadly, an examination of witchers and their purpose, their Path, The Sword Of Destiny begins to introduce the broad themes and characters that will become so familiar in the saga of novels. Because of that, this book is less about Geralt himself, and more about his relationship with those around him, the world, and Destiny itself.

The Bounds Of Reason

Three Jackdaws attempts to draw Geralt into a conversation about Order and Chaos, and the witcher’s place in that battle. Geralt flatly rejects the idea that he stands on any clearly defined side, citing the fact that he doesn’t kill dragons, who “without a doubt, represent Chaos.” Yet again, he refuses to be drawn into any kind of binary conflict, whether it’s a simple sorcerer vs killer (The Lesser Evil, from The Last Wish) or an abstract concept like the one presented by Three Jackdaws.



When discussing the fate of mutants - sterilization - Geralt seems to be frustrated, and a little upset. Whether this is because he resents this aspect of himself, or because he simply doesn’t enjoy talking about it, is unclear. I am inclined towards frustration. He says that mutants “differed too much to endure.” As he has referred to himself as a mutant many times, it’s clear that he is equally talking about himself as much as golden dragons.



Interesting note - Geralt shows what could be considered an above-average knowledge of the boundaries of kingdoms and rulers, knowing where Barefield’s territory ends and Caingorn’s begins.



The White Wolf continues to expresses exasperation and frustration with flowery, unnecessary speech. When Dandelion protests, insisting that he isn’t lying, merely embellishing, and there’s a difference between the two, Geralt responds with “not much of one."



Geralt does not go to the dragon-hunting party to hunt the dragon. He goes solely to see Yennefer. He approaches her, hoping for a reconciliation, but is denied by Yennefer’s (arguably righteous) anger at him for leaving her, insisting that she will never forgive him. Later, when asked why he remains with the party despite his lack of involvement or willingness to hunt the dragon, Geralt says traveling with a party is all the same to him. At least there’s company, and he has nowhere else to be - "I don’t have a destination at the end of the road.” That’s the real explanation he gives, anyway - he also sarcastically replies that he follows as a “servile golem”, upset at having been called that by Yennefer earlier.



When the bridge collapses, Geralt risks his life to save Yennefer, despite her anger at him, and the slightly petty insults she had thrown his way only minutes earlier. When it looks like the two of them may die, he asks for her forgiveness. She refuses. However, he refuses to kill the dragon when she asks, and she offers her forgiveness, he declines, saying it no longer matters to him. She seems genuinely upset by that, and he regrets his words. This sums up their relationship. They both care deeply for one another, but rarely at the same time.



Geralt joins Dorregaray in trying to prevent the rest of the assembled crews from killing the golden dragon. During this fight, he attempts to use a Sign before being incapacitated by a spell.



After Yennefer is tied up by the Reavers and Yarpen’s gang, Boholt threatens to rape her. Geralt threatens to kill him - “I’ll follow you to the ends of the world.”



After Three Jackdaws has revealed himself to be Villentretenmerth, the golden dragon, and Geralt has freed Yennefer with the Igni sign to allow her to aid the dragon, the witcher and sorceress reconcile, only to be told by Villentretenmerth that “you two were made for each other… but nothing will come of it.”



A Shard Of Ice

Purely a Geralt/Yennefer story, with little of substance in Geralt’s character development, beyond further development of the tempestuous relationship between the two, full of jealousy, lust, passion, anger, and love. He refuses to concede her to Istredd, despite the fact she has been sleeping with him. She refuses to give him a straight answer. Neither will tell the other that they love each other, she because she doesn’t know, and he because he thinks the word means nothing coming from an emotionless witcher, however much we all know that isn’t true. The two men decide to fight each other for her. Geralt won’t be bribed out of doing so. Finally, the witcher won’t fight Istredd, telling him to kill himself on his own if he really wants to. The decision is Yennefer’s.



Geralt took several potions before the zeugl fight that opens the story, as referred to by Yennefer retroactively.



The first mention of The Wild Hunt. Geralt claims to have been offered money to deal with them before, but insists that there is no dealing with them.



Cats don’t like witchers.



Geralt defends himself when attacked by Cicada, but doesn’t kill him. He just wanted to know who would win in a fight, and was no threat to anyone else, so Geralt gives him his answer.



Eternal Flame

Introduction of Dudu the doppler. When the question of Geralt killing said doppler comes up, he refuses. Dopplers, he says, are an “intelligent race”, and therefore different from the monsters he kills. The witcher consistently protects Dudu from the… Fervor of the Eternal Fire followers and priests, who would undoubtedly kill him if discovered. However, when Chappelle implies that finding and killing the doppler may be the only way Geralt and his friends leave Novigrad alive, he begrudgingly admits that he would be prepared to go through with it - despite the fact that, as revealed by Dudu later when he briefly takes over the witcher’s thoughts while assuming his form, “the thought of killing [him] in cold blood fills [him] with disgust.” As we’ve seen before - Geralt will go to great lengths to protect those that he cares for.



A Little Sacrifice

When Geralt and Dandelion find themselves short on money, the witcher takes on a job that involves no fighting or protection of anyone, simply acting as a translator to try and clear up a spat between a human and a mermaid couple.

Later on, he takes a more conventional job involving a mysteriously bloodied ship out beyond a certain part of the coast, during which he does his best to protect Dandelion and himself from the masses of creatures coming from what Dandelion calls the sunken city of Ys (most likely Vodyanoi, although they are not named in the story). Surprised, he uses Signs during the fight, having been unable to prepare and take potions, and escapes rather than wins. Agloval, the head of the village and the human part of the aforementioned couple, asks him to stay, to continue protecting his village’s fishing vessels and pearl divers from the creatures, but Geralt refuses, stating that he considers “waging war against other races idiocy.”



Geralt’s fling with Essi Daven is interesting. Danelion believes that, having been warped by Yennefer and unable to understand a normal woman, Geralt simply tries to take advantage of her morbid interest in him, but Essi is too intelligent to fall for it. Geralt, for his part, seems genuinely taken by the bard, but his attentions are diverted during his fight on the beach, when his thoughts turn to Yennefer. He feels that the sorceress must feel the way he does towards Essi now, guilty with the knowledge that he is unable to give her what she wants - just like Yennefer. Geralt cannot find it within himself to love Essi, even for a night, because “Essi is not Yennefer.”



Having said that, the line “and then, by the Gods, they did it, she and he,” seems to imply that they do later have sex, as a way of resolving the tension between them.



The witcher tries to play up the emotionless killer angle with Essi, when talking about the job, but she rightly sees through it, pointing out that “if you were the heartless professional you pretend to be, you would have tried to push up the price. But you didn’t say a word about your fee.” This comes after Agloval talks about the women and children being affected by the deaths of their husbands and fathers at the hands of the monsters. Essi is right. Geralt does, on occasion, act with compassion to protect those less able to protect themselves (The Lesser Evil from The Last Wish).



Nonetheless, the witcher’s code is explored in more detail in this story. When it is suggested that Agloval’s jilted mermaid may be responsible, Essi tries to talk Geralt out of killing her. The witcher responds that he wouldn’t kill her anyway, regardless of any justification or lack thereof, “because the code forbids him.” As seen in The Bounds Of Reason and Eternal Flame in this book, a witcher won’t kill a member of an intelligent race. It’s simply not their job. He will, however, investigate the case as per his employer’s instructions.



The Sword Of Destiny

This is a simple story, albeit an important one, concerning the first time Geralt and Ciri meet, after she flees an arranged marriage to Brokilon, the forest of the dryads. Geralt has history with the dryads, and knows their ways, as they know him. He had been sent on a ‘diplomatic mission’ by the ruler of a neighboring human region, and finds a scene of massacre - humans cut down by dryad arrows as they entered the forest.



Geralt knows one of the survivors, a man called Frexinet, and convinces the dryads to save his life. More because he knows their leader, Lady Eithne, than any persuasion skills of Geralt’s. Frexinet used to be a baron, and Geralt lifted a curse from him that had turned him into a bird. Later on, he quizzes him about any recurances. Ever the professional.



Interesting note - while Braenn guides Geralt to the dyrad’s captial, Duen Canell, he quizzes the young dryad about her past. He realizes that she has no dryad blood in her, and instead was a human child, taken to Brokilon to be turned into a dryad. This, of course, is essentially the life of a witcher. This doesn’t escape Geralt.



Geralt and Braenn save the young Ciri’s life, at which point the princess is rude, stubborn, and arrogant. Geralt gives as good as he gets - their relationship doesn’t get off to a friendly start. But Geralt, being the good-hearted mutant that he is, knows that he needs to get Ciri back to her home - not least because she’s the reason Frexinet was nearly killed. So he uses a little reverse-psychology to convince the girl to accompany him. The two spar - Geralt threatens her when she complains, she tells him a little about her, he at least tries to tell her a little about the real world. How she came so close to death. The witcher even begins to joke with her.



Some geopolitics with Lady Eithne, as Geralt’s employer is appealing to her to concede parts of Brokilon to him - parts of Brokilon that were deforested and made useless to the dryads a hundreds years ago. Much like the elves that we learned about in The Edge Of The World from The Last Wish, the dryads are too proud to admit that the world has changed beyond them. Geralt again preaches that “only those who assimilate with humans will survive,” but his words fall on deaf ears.



Of course, it now emerges that Ciri is the daughter of Duny and Pavetta - the couple that appeared in the story A Question Of Price from The Last Wish. There, Geralt invoked the Law of Surprise after saving Duny’s life. Pavetta’s child was to become a Witcher. However, not only did the child turn out to be a female, she is also a Child of the Elder Blood, as realized by Lady Eithne. Because of the Law of Surprise, she is forever tied to Geralt by destiny, however much the witcher tries to deny that. That is why Lady Eithne allows her to leave with him, rather than turning the young girl into a dryad.



Geralt leaves Ciri behind. Throughout this story, he is referred to as the first edge on the sword of destiny - he believes the second edge to be death, and does not want to expose Ciri to that.



Something More

The coda to The Sword Of Destiny opens with Geralt finding a crashed cart on a bridge in Temeria, with a single merchant hiding underneath it. The ravine underneath the bridge is filled with bones, the remains of those who attempted to cross this bridge before. The area has been infested by monsters since the war arrived in this area of the world, and it is those monsters that have accounted for the bones underneath the bridge, and will account for the merchant once darkness falls.



Yurga, the merchant, implores Geralt to help him. The witcher invokes the Law of Surprise yet again, and prepares for the oncoming fight, readying his silver blade and drinking a potion. The attack comes - an army of small monsters (perhaps Nekkers, although they are not named in the book), and Geralt is able to fight them off, sustaining serious wounds in the process.



While unconscious, Geralt dreams. No prizes for guessing who he dreams of. In the dream, he and Yennefer come together again, acknowledging that they have hurt each other, and will continue to do so - because their love will continue, and that’s just the way the two of them are.



Upon waking, Geralt finds himself in Sodden, still wounded, but being cared for. He dreams again, this time remembering his visit to Cintra, six years after the events of A Question Of Price from The Last Wish, hoping to retrieve that which was promised to him - Duny and Pavetta’s son. Queen Calanthe refuses to hand the child over, saying that it matters not which child Geralt takes. They will all be stuffed with herbs, mutagens, and magic to become a witcher. Geralt refuses, saying that witchers specifically seek out children of destiny, those born through the Law of Surprise, because those children will not require the intense training of the Trials. Nonetheless, Geralt refuses to take a child, renouncing destiny because he does not believe in it. Or so he insists - we know, from the events of The Sword Of Destiny, that he does.



Interesting note - Geralt reveals that he is not a Child of Destiny, instead a common foundling, the unwanted bastard of a woman he doesn’t remember. But he knows who she is. A sorceress. That alone makes Geralt an oddity - sorceresses, as Yennefer well knows, are barren. It also raises an interesting point about Geralt’s… Fondness for sorcerers. They say women date their fathers, and clearly our hero is looking for his mother.



When Geralt wakes, he is being healed by a sorceress. A sorceress whose name he knows, because Vesemir told him. Destiny? Or chance? Either way, Geralt’s mother disappears come morning.



Soon, Geralt arrives with Yurga in Upper Sodden, specifically Riverdell. Here, he learns about the second Battle of Sodden, and the deaths of the Fourteen sorcerers and sorceresses that died to beat back the Nilfgaardian advance. Geralt attempts to climb to the stone that commemorates them, having known several of the Fourteen - including Triss Merigold. Weak, Geralt collapses and dreams again. This time he meets the force that dogs his footsteps, the second edge of destiny’s sword - Death. Geralt insists that he is no longer afraid of death. The woman counters that he looks afraid, and challenges him to speak the fourteenth name - Yennefer. She believes he is afraid to hear that name, afraid that Yennefer is dead. He asks her to take him now, but she refuses, and Geralt wakes up. Yurga tells him the fourteenth name, and it is not Yennefer’s.



Soon, Geralt and Yurga arrive at the banks of the Yaruga river, where Geralt slips into yet another dream. In this one, Dandelion is attempting to cross with a horde of others, all fleeing from the Nilfgaarian army. Dandelion is afraid, asking Geralt not to leave him. The witcher, of course, insists that he would never leave the bard. Dandelion then tells Geralt of Nilfgaard’s new warfare, of scorched earth, of death and total destruction - including Cintra, Geralt’s destination. Believing Ciri to be dead, Geralt muses that destiny is not enough, and 'something more’ is needed. Without Ciri, he will never know what that 'something more’ is.



Finally, Geralt and Yurga reach the merchant’s home. Yurga insists in respecting Geralt’s request on the bridge - to give Geralt that which he finds at home, but does not expect. What he finds is Ciri. Ciri, alive after fleeing the sack of Cintra, taken in by this merchant’s family. She is what Yurga did not expect. She is what was promised to Geralt. Ciri, yet again, is comes to Geralt through the Law of Surprise. Through Destiny.



“It’s like they said! Geralt! It’s like they said! Am I your destiny? Say it! Am I Your destiny?”



“You’re more than that, Ciri. Much more.”

