We begin in a swamp, with an old hermit, thus continuing the tradition of starting with the least relevant character possible (or so it seems, since Milva in the last book turned out to be a main character). The same trick gets pulled again when the hermit finds Ciri, wounded, and then takes her back to his house to treat her wounds. Ciri has a new horse and a new Witcher sword in addition to her nasty face wound. The reader (at this point) has no idea where she got any of the three.
The hermit nurses Ciri back to health and, once she's up, invites her to stay. After a time, she begins to trust him and - finally, after he gives her the clothes and ice skates of his dead daughter - she chooses to tell him her story.
We pick up with Mistle and Ciri getting matching tattoos of roses on their inner thighs. Mistle and Ciri have had a somewhat bumpy relationship previously, but they seem to have settled down into a very loving couple. That probably doesn't bode well. In addition to tattoos, they're also getting high on Coke. I mean Fisstech. But, yeah, it's pretty much cocaine.
Anyway, guy from the Thieves Guild shows up and tells them about the upcoming Amnesty due to the Emperor's upcoming marriage to Princess Cirilla. Ciri, as you might imagine, is rather surprised to hear about this. So much so that she decides that this is bullshit and that she is going to... ride to Cintria and retake her kingdom? Clearly Ciri is still pretty high when she comes up with this plan.
So, Ciri kisses Mistle goodbye (promising to come back for her) and then joins up with Thieves Guild guy to go recapture her kingdom. This goes well for about five miles - at which point "bandits" (actually bounty hunters looking for her) turn up and kill the Thieves Guild guy. Ciri, who had previously admired his horse, steals said horse. Also, she realizes that her friends are about to walk into a trap set by another bounty hunter, turns around and rides back to warn them.
Meanwhile, the Rats bang on an inn door and demand that the Bounty Hunter inside - named Bonhart - come outside and fight them. He does so - and with an almost witcher-like efficiency, he kills them all. Well, almost all. Mistle is disemboweled, but alive. And it is at this moment that Ciri arrives. She rages out on Bonhart and almost kills him. He blocks, barely, and then disarms her and throws her into a wall, stunning her (and leaving her lying next to Mistle, who is dying slowly, just for extra trauma).
Although we don't know it at the time, Bonhart has identified Ciri as a Witcher. And... this means something to him. So he takes her alive, against his orders. He attempts to fuel her rage by making her watch as he decapitates the corpses of her friends (Mistle having finally died by this point) with her eyes held open, Clockwork Orange style.
We break from narrative, as we have at several other points, to return to the cabin where Ciri is talking. This time, she breaks down crying and the hermit has to comfort her.
Meanwhile, back in the flashback, Bonhart then sends off some letters. Not long thereafter, he takes Ciri with him to another town where a weapon merchant is waiting for him. He gets Ciri a new Witcher sword (instead of the crap sword she was using before). He has her attack him with a blade and, when it proves too heavy, he asks for another, better sword. Finally she has the best witcher sword he can get her.
Bonhart then takes her to an arena. Some bounty hunters (working for the guy he failed to deliver her to) show up, pissed at him, but he says "if you want her, take her" - pointing to Ciri, with her sword, in the arena. Ciri doesn't want to fight, but she has a Witcher's training and will defend herself. She does so - and everyone that goes up against her ends up dead.
Bonhart seem to want to hone Ciri. I'm not sure why... but he seems to want to make her a better killer. I'm very curious to know what his motivation is. Sadly, in this book, we do not learn that information.
MEANWHILE... we return to Geralt for the middle of the book. Geralt has been pressed into Lyria's army under Queen Maeve. Geralt promptly deserts with his party - causing Dandelion to lament that there are hardly any kingdoms left where they aren't wanted for execution. Geralt doesn't much care - he still has to find Ciri.
Geralt et al meet up with some Bee keepers who say that the Druids have moved south. Also, they happen to be heading south themselves and could really use an escort. Geralt long-sufferingly sighs and agrees.
They head south and arrive in North Case. They get a new location for the Druids - just a bit West - only for Geralt to get "not arrested" by the local Alderman. There, Geralt meets... I'm gonna call her "Not Ciri" - yet another Ciri look alike with a name that begins with an A that I can't even begin to figure out. Anyway, she's a bandit who has turned states evidence with the following info - there are assassins waiting for Geralt to the south. Geralt says "well, I'm going West, so who cares?" only to learn that the Druids are actually to the south after all. Well shit.
Geralt also learns that turning states evidence gets Not Ciri reduced from death by horrific torture to death by hanging. This pisses Geralt off and he agrees to go kill the assassin if they give him Not Ciri. Thus is an agreement reached.
Not Ciri reminds me a little of Chiana from Farscape. Not sure why.
Anyway, on their way South, there's some bad weather and a brief appearance by the Wild Hunt. This storm thing was mentioned when Ciri turned up at the hermit's house, so we can assume that this moment with Geralt coincides with that. Anyway, Geralt takes this to mean that Ciri is dead, and announces as much to everyone. Now, he says, they're in this for vengeance instead of rescue. Geralt has also come to another conclusion - they've been betrayed. Geralt initially blames Cahir, getting into a fist fight over it, but later admits that he just didn't want to admit the real truth... that the only traitor could be Yennifer, spying on them magically. Cahir accepts Geralt's apology and points out that he keeps having Ciri dreams, so she can't be dead. Geralt lets that lighten his spirits a bit.
So, the plan is this - Regis, Milva, and Dandelion will head to a Free City to hide while Geralt, Cahir, and Not Ciri go find this assassin and beat the shit out of him until he tells them who hired him. Good times. They do so - find the assassin, that is. Unfortunately, the assassin has massive back-up and captures them in turn. Only for... some one? Miners? To start shooting the back-up with arrows. Geralt takes advantage of this to kill a bunch of dudes (but not the assassin) and run for it. He, Cahir, and Not-Ciri flee to that Free City, but they are followed.
Near the free city, a lot happens. Dandelion turns out to be a noble OF this Free City. So wait... Dandelion is from Nilfgaard?! Didn't see that one coming.
Two - the Druids are PISSED OFF. They use Treants - or Ents, if you prefer the Lord of the Rings spelling - to take out the assassin and his thug friends and then burn the survivors alive. Geralt protests that he wants to question the assassin, but the Druids... yeah, this part is a little weird. The Druids won't "pardon" the criminal. Geralt makes it pretty clear that he wants to TORTURE THE GUY FOR INFO, so he's clearly not asking for a pardon. Ah well... Druids. Geralt's only evidence about who hired the assassin dies in a fire.
And now... Yennifer! And Triss. But not at the same time.
We're once again treated to some out-of-sequence events. Triss heads to the Skellige Islands to investigate reports that Yennifer popped up there. She learns that Yen did indeed... and then learns a bit about what Yen was up to.
It turns out that Yen made contact with the King there. Ciri spent much of her childhood on the Islands due to the King's relationship with her grandmother (or the previous King?). Ciri, in fact, learned to ice skate here, showing up the local prince. Remember those Ice Skates she got from the Hermit earlier? Here's a connection to that. Thank you Chekhov.
Yennefer convinces them that she's not a traitor and that she's looking for Ciri. To do this she needs several things:
1) A butt-ton of cash.
2) A giant diamond.
3) Time.
4) A ship.
The King can provide three out of four - he has no diamond large enough. But it turns out that the temple to Freya does. For some reason, the Skellige Islands have their own religion - one ripped directly off of Norse mythology, including Heimdal and Ragnarok. So this is THAT Freya. The priestess likes Yennefer because she helped a pregnant woman upon her arrival, but not enough to give up their sacred diamond. However, the priestess does suggest that Yen try praying.
Yen has a vision of the goddess who chats with her, asks what she's willing to sacrifice, and then gives loans her the diamond. Yen wakes up (the diamond has detached itself from the goddess's statue) and makes a Megascope with said diamond. And she begins making her calls...
Which leads to the Philippa/Triss scene. Yennefer calls up Triss and Philippa is there too since Yen just interrupted them having sex. This scene is hilarious because Triss is clearly embarrassed, but Yen and Philippa are all business. One gets the impression that Philippa could carry on bare-ass naked in full court if she had do - and she'd look fabulous doing it. Triss, meanwhile, is so cutely flustered. It helps show how being 100 years old has jaded both Yen and Philippa to the point where who's fucking whom just isn't important anymore.
Anyway, after the call, Yen needs that last thing - a ship. She's going to the Bermuda Triangle to investigate something. See, it turns out that whenever a member of Ciri's bloodline dies, there's a huge storm right afterwards "like the sea is mourning". Except Ciri's mom was supposedly killed BY the storm that was summoned by her death - a paradox. Some people say this is superstition, but remember, Yen was part of the "Lara Eugenics Project" that made Ciri in the first place, so she knows better. That means Ciri's mom couldn't have died IN the storm... she had to have died first.
So Yen sails her boat to the stop where Ciri's mom vanished - and, with her escort ship standing witness, Yen's ship is pulled UP INTO THE AIR by some sort of portal vortex thingy. Woah!
Technically we're supposed to head back to Ciri at that point, but I'll stick with this plotline a bit since this takes place LONG before most of the Ciri stuff. See, it turns out that the Bermuda Triangle is where Vilgefortz is hiding. Or at least the portal leads there, I wasn't entirely clear on that point. Either way, Yen has found Vilgefortz... and has gotten herself captured by him. Good job Yen.
He takes her off for some torture. It turns out that, by hooking her into this machine, he can magically track the people she loves (while incidentally torturing her). He can't lock on to Ciri, but he does manage to find Geralt... and arranges for those assassins to go after him, thus explaining that part of the story. Also, he reveals that what he wants is Ciri's placenta.
... that's right, Ciri's placenta. Remember, the placenta is an organ that grows during pregnancy - a woman doesn't have that organ most of the time.
Remember too, that Vilgefortz's other fortress, the one found by Dijskara in the last book, was filled up with dead girls who'd been cut open.
Vilgefortz has been practicing how to remove a placenta from a living woman and keep the woman alive while doing so.
And to have a placenta, a woman must be pregnant. Which means he's either been kidnapping pregnant women, or he's been kidnapping any women and then raping them until they're pregnant.
....
WHAT THE HOLY FUCKING FUCK, VILGEFORTZ?!?!?!
Yeah, that officially wins the "No, seriously, what the FUCK?!" award.
Because... seriously... da fuck?!
Ahem.
Okay, now that that bit of insanity is out of the way... we pick up with Ciri.
Apparently Bonhart has figured out who she is. Not sure when that happened - sometime after the Arena apparently. And he's pulled her out of the arena. I feel like I missed a chapter, but whatever. I guess Gladiator Ciri wasn't interesting enough to write more than one scene of.
... now THAT is a mode we need in the games. ^^
So anyway, Bonhart is meeting with Rience, "The Owl" whose other name is too complex to remember, so I'm sticking with the Owl, and that half-elven assassin who we saw get burnt alive earlier. Because time is fucked in this novel.
One of the POV characters this book as been a Psi-mage - a telepath like the ones in Babylon 5. I kept picturing Lita from B5 whenever I read this character. Probably because of the frequent nose-bleeds. She mostly exists to follow the bounty hunters and assassin guy around and then "report on what she saw" in a trial that's taking place a year later where she's the key witness.
I bring her up because, while Bonhart, Rience, the Owl, the assassin, and Vilgefortz (via magic radio) discuss Ciri and how exactly they plan to divide her up (Bonhart wants to watch Vilgefortz remove her placenta), Psionic girl is guarding Ciri. And Psi girl is just curious enough to try to take a peek....
Which trips Ciri's "anti-mind-reading" defenses. Her magic has been repressed ever since her incident in the desert using Fire Mana, but Psi girl accidentally reawakens her powers. And Ciri uses her powers responsibility, as we all would - to cause severe brain hemorrhages in all those nearby. Psi-girl and several others go down with nosebleeds and Ciri makes her escape. She grabs her black horse - the one she got back at the beginning of the book, who she calls Kelpie - and makes a break for it. The Owl uses one of those ninja-stars from the previous book and - injures her face! She rides off. They go after her, but her trail just... stops at one point. Like she started flying.
And that is how Ciri ended up in the swamp where the Hermit found her.
I didn't mention it earlier, because I wanted to now - when Ciri first woke up with the Hermit, she remembers what day she was wounded on - three days earlier - but the hermit said that her wound was only a few hours old.
So, Ciri has memory issues, lost time, and a flying horse.
And all this occurred on the same day as a massive storm - and the Wild Hunt - was seen across Nilfgaard and the Northern Kingdoms. At the same time as this, Geralt had a premonition that Ciri was dead, even though she wasn't.
It isn't said straight out, but it certainly sounds like Ciri joined the Wild Hunt for 3 days, and then ended up in the swamp, where she collapsed. I might be wrong, but that sure seems to be what happened.
Anyway... Ciri has finished her story and is leaving the Hermit. He found out that there are men here, looking for her. Moreover, there is another ruined tower with a ruined portal, and not far off. It is called... the Tower of the Swallow. And the portal there is supposed to take her back to Thanned Island.
Then again, the portal there was supposed to take her to the Tower of the Swallow, so that might be bullshit.
Ciri's pursuers are sniffing around, though, so she figures that anywhere else is better than here. So she's going to the Tower. She paints her face black, commando style, and then heads off... to the nearest town, where four thugs are supposed to be looking for her. She sends a message to her pursuers by murdering them. She is no longer calling herself Falka - she's now "the Witcher".
So she heads off. We pick up at the lake where the tower is supposed to be. She's found it, but Rience, the Owl, and his minions are hot on her tail. Rience's magical radio isn't working, to his frustration. Rience, in all irony, is upset that he got the "hard job" while the half-elven assassin got the "easy job". I suppose being burned alive by Druids is easy.
The chase leads the entire group out onto the Ice. Bonhart spells a rat and retreats to go around on more solid ground, leaving Rience and the Owl to continue. They do so - only for Ciri to start murdering them all. Remember those ice skates she got? Yes, Ciri is the Witcher: On Ice! Turns out all that skating she did in the Skellge islands has paid off - it, combined with her Witcher training, lets her kill 9 men and Rience (she cuts off his fingers and lets him drown in the icy water). The Owl, she lets live, because he (and his last man) threw down their weapons. This mercy she gives him because she doesn't want to be a monster anymore.
Ciri heads to the Tower - which is nothing but ruins - but Bonhart is on her tail. He tries to follow - and falls through the ice. He climbs out, but not before Ciri enters the portal at the tower.
Which leads... inside the Tardis. Yes, the tower is bigger on the inside than on the outside, and apparently lets her travel through time. No, that's not a joke. She meets an elf inside... who I assume is the Doctor.
... and that's where the book ends.
No, really. That's it.
So... Gearlt is sitting around a Druid Grove, poking the ashes of the only guy who could give him any answers or point him in the right direction. Yennefer is in Vilgefortz's dungeon when she isn't hooked up to his Torture Machine. Triss is running around the Skelleg Islands, trying to figure out where Yen went. And Ciri is in the Tardis with the Doctor.
....
So yeah, that was The Tower of the Swallow. I leave you with this image:
Emperior Emyres: "Do you think you can defeat the Nilfgaard Empire with only four Daleks?!"
Dalek Leader: "No. We can defeat the Nilfgaard Empire with ONE Dalek. Exterminate!"
Goodnight folks!
