"Ah the undying little boy! Hello again, perhaps you might lend me a little more blood?" The sorcerer spoke with a cat like grin.
He was young. Handsome. His shrill voice didn't match his features. Something about him seemed off. Unnatural. There were many spells and procedures that could alter a sorcerer's appearance. His robes were long and flowing. Every finger was decorated with a beautiful ring. The gemstones were large and dazzling. He was vain.
Vessemir stepped out from the shadows. His face revealed no emotion. He spoke calmly, "You may start Alkin."
The sorcerer Alkin glanced back at Vessemir and murmured something under his breath. The teasing look in his eyes was replaced by a cold apathy.
"Yes. I may." He said icily.
The tension between the sorcerer and the witchers had been mounting steadily. The last group of adepts had numbered 12. Only two of them suvrived. A pathetic result. Alkin's middling alchemy was undoubtedly at fault.
He picked up a needle from his workbench. The smell of alcohol was faint, but discernible. A golden liquid shimmered inside the needle. In the darkness of the laboratory it shone with an unnatural glow.
"Good luck boy." The sorcerer said. His insincerity was apparent.
The needle punctured my flesh. Alkin pushed the plunger and the liquid surged into my bloodstream. Immediately it began to burn.
Fire. Everywhere. The shackles on my wrists and ankles shook wildly. Scorching magma coursed through my veins. I struggled like a wild beast, desperately trying to free myself from my bindings. I didn't care that the process was ultimately beneficial, I didn't care if Vessemir would be dissapointed, all I wanted was for the torture to end.
The highly mutagenic elixir was changing me. The healing factor in my blood didn't fight against the elixir. I wished that it would, I wished that the pain would end. My vision alternated between blinding golden spots and perfect clarity. I could hear the clang of swords and the beating of feet on the ground. Several meters of earth seperated us from the training grounds, but I heard it all nonethless. The pain rocked my soul. I was neither here nor there. At times I thought that I had cast away my body, soaring through the clouds and looking onto the forests below. Other times I was a wolf running through the trees, my claws digging into the frozen earth.
They were visions. I was not an eagle or a wolf. I was a boy. A child of earth, an adept. I was me. The pain distorted my thinking. I held on desperatelty to my sense of identity. I could not surrender to the pain. The visions were a way out. The magic of this world was offering me a chance to put an end to the suffering, to float away into a dreamland and be safe.
I heard the screams. They were my own. So hoarse that I barely recognized them as human. Memories of earth crashed into me. It felt as if I were back. Back home, sitting on the sofa watching TV. My mother called out to me from the other room. Dinner was ready. I was hungry, I got up and walked to the table.
She smiled at me, "It's your favourite honey."
I picked up my knife and fork. My stomach rumbled noisily. Suddenly I was hungry. Starving. I looked down at the meal on my plate.
I recognised those eyes. The face smiled at me from the plate. The knife and fork were suspended just a millimeter from its skin. It was my face. The face of a young boy. In those hazel pupils I saw my reflection. A young man with brown skin and those same hazel eyes.
Reality began to warp. It hit me suddenly. I wasn't on earth. This wasn't the dinner table I had sat at so many times before. This was a vision, an illusion. My mind's desperate attempt to seperate itself from the agony.
"No!" I screamed. Blood and spit sprayed from my lips.
Time didn't flow as it did in the real world. The pain warped it entirely. The present, past and future blended into one.
Finally, the pain began to ease. My awareness returned to my body and I gasped for air. The room gradually began to stop swimming. The smirking sorcerer and silent Vessemir stood at my side. The table was sticky from my sweat.
"What a perfect specimen!" The sorcerer said gleefully. His hands ran up and down my body. They were as smooth as silk.
"What should've taken days took merely an hour! Seven injections given in sequence! Unprecedented, simply unprecedented!" His eyes were wide and manic. His hand reached to the scalpel at his side. He didn't seem to care that Vessemir was still in the room. He would cut me open, I knew it. He would slice and chop until he satisfied his perverted curiosity.
Metal plunged into flesh. But it wasn't mine.
Vessemir's sword pierced through the sorcerer's skull and emerged from between his eyebrows. His blood dripped down onto my face. It tasted like iron. The sorcerer's expression was still as it was before he died. His eyes, though they were gradually becoming dull, still gleamed with excitement.
"I couldn't let him go. His kind will do anything if the reward is right. He would kill you tomorrow, my threats wouldn't stop him. I have wronged you. I have wronged all you adepts. Such a worm should never have been allowed into Kaer Morhen." He said bitterly.
He reached out and grabbed the mage's shoulder. The blade squelched as it was pulled out of his skull. The mage's corpse fell backwards. His head caught against the edge of his workbench. I heard his skull break. Vessemir didn't spare him a second glance.
The restraints on my hands and legs were undone. Vessemir helped me to stand. His help was unecessary.
"How do you feel?" He asked. Upon seeing that I was steady on my feet he stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest.
"I feel incredible." I answered honestly.
He nodded, "I thought that such a result might happen. Follow me."
He turned and walked out of the room. His boots left bloody footprints on the ground. I followed after him. The mage's skull provided some resistance underneath my foot. A few firm stomps solved the issue.
Vessemir lead me into a room overlooking Kaer Morhen. I had never been in before. Entry was barred to the adepts. He opened the door and gestured for me to enter.
The other witchers were all gathered in the room. The ever icy Geralt raised an eyebrow on seeing me. My feet and calves were covered in blood and the veins all over my body were still bulging from the effect of the elixirs. Perhaps a peasant would cry out monster and call for a witcher to slay me if he saw me.
"Alkin is dead." Vessemir announced.
The witchers didn't seem shocked. Eskel had a chesire cat grin on his face, "Finally! Been wanting to do that for a while!"
He stood up and drew his sword. His bloodlust was obvious, "Guess I'd better go kill a couple more rats."
The other witchers exchanged thoughtful looks. Then a few stood up and followed after Eskel. Their swords were in hand.
Vessemir had a pleased look on his face. He addressed the remaining witchers, "The knowledge of the trials shall be sent to the archives of Aretuza. Those children. They have suffered as we once did. I will not allow any more to suffer."
He paused and looked towards me, "These adepts shall be the last. The school of the wolf will not send any more boys to their deaths. If you wish otherwise then draw your sword and face me now. When my head no longer sits on my neck you may do as you wish."
The witchers were silent.
"Vessemir are you sure this is the right course?" Geralt was the one to break the silence.
Vessemir said nothing. He lowered his gaze to the floor and fell into thought.
After a minute he looked up again. His eyes were filled with resolve. , "No, I am not sure.Perhaps history shall record me as the demise of the school of the wolf. But I don't care.
I have lived longer than any man. History is fickle.
With Alkin and his apprentices dead there is no one to continue the trials. We cannot recruit another mage. It would only be a matter of time until they found out of his death. Kingdoms already call us monsters. We must let Alkin's name fade into obscurity. The school of the wolf shall end here.
This does not come as a sudden decision. My mind has wavered over these trials for nearly a century. The world no longer needs us at it once did. There are still monsters to slay, many more than those deceitful kings would have you believe. But fewer and fewer are willing to pay us for our work. We do not do what we do for charity."
His eyes narrowed. He spoke cruelly, "Since this world no longer has a place for us then let the monsters come. Without our blades to cull them they shall be able to breed and fester freely. They are an infection on this land. Let this infection spread until those shit-brained kings have no one to till their fields and fill their coffers. Maybe then they shall turn to us once more.
Until that time comes I shall not stand by and let another child die for the dream of becoming one of us! Let us not bring anymore of them into a world that despises their very existence!"
His voice fell away slightly, "I do not wish for this to be the end of our school. I shall speak to the mages I know. Good ones, kind ones. Perhaps they can devise some elixir to reduce the mortality rates of these trials."
The course of the future was changing. I stood on the cold floor listening to Vessemir's words. The blood was gradually drying on my feet. My existence had thrown events out of sequence. Alkin, the sorcerer wasn't supposed to have died today. He wasn't supposed to have encountered an adept so tantilising that his greed overcame his rationality. He had let down his guard and Vessemir had struck in an instant.
An unprepared sorcerer was no different to a mortal. For all their spells and charms, they still bled the same colour as a peasant did. Alkin's death meant so much more than his life ever could have.
I looked to Geralt. The white wolf who's destiny awaited him in Cintra. Destiny was just as fickle as history.