The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski Read Free Book Online

along the poplar alley which led from the gate to the dwellings by the sanctuary and main temple block, which merged into the sheer rock.
    After brief
    consideration he decided against returning to shelter, and turned towards the gardens and outbuildings. Umpteen priestesses, clad in grey working garments, were toiling away, weeding the beds and feeding the birds in the henhouses. The majority of them were young or very young, virtually children. Some greeted him with a nod or a smile in passing. He answered their greetings but didn't recognise any of them. Although he often visited the temple — once or even twice a year — he never saw more than three or four faces he knew.
    The girls came and went — becoming oracles in other temples, midwives and healers specialising in women's and children's diseases, wandering druids, teachers or governesses.
    But there was never a shortage of priestesses, arriving from all over, even the remotest regions. Melitele's temple in Ellander was well-known and enjoyed well-earned fame.
    The cult of Melitele was one of the oldest and, in its day, one of the most widespread cults from time immemorial. Practically every pre-human race and every primordial nomadic human tribe honoured a goddess of harvest and fertility, a guardian of farmers and gardeners, a patroness of love and marriage. Many of these religions merged into the cult of Melitele.
    Time, which was quite pitiless towards other religions and cults, effectively isolating them in forgotten, rarely visited little temples and oratories buried amongst urban buildings, had proved merciful to Melitele. She did not lack either followers or sponsors. In explaining the popularity of the goddess, learned men who studied this phenomenon used to hark back to the pre-cults of the Great Mother, Mother Nature, and pointed to the links with nature's cycle, with the rebirth of life and other grandiloquently named phenomena. Geralt's friend, the troubadour Dandilion, who enjoyed a reputation as a specialist in every possible field, looked for simpler explanations. Melitele's cult, he deduced, was a typical woman's cult. Melitele was, after all, the patroness of fertility and birth; she was the guardian of midwives. And a woman in labour has to scream. Apart from the usual cries — usually promising never to give herself to any bloody man ever again in her life - a woman in labour has to call upon some godhead for help, and
    Melitele was perfect. And since women gave birth, give birth and will continue to give birth, the goddess Melitele, the poet proved, did not have to fear for her popularity.
    'Geralt.'
    'Nenneke. I was looking for you.'
    'Me?' The priestess looked at him mockingly. 'Not Iola?'
    'Iola, too,' he admitted. 'Does that bother you?'
    'Right now, yes. I don't want you to get in her way and distract her. She's got to get herself ready and pray if something's to come of this trance.'
    'I've already told you,' he said coldly, 'I don't want any trance. [ don't think a trance will help me in any way.'
    'While I,' Nenneke winced, 'don't think a trance will harm you in any way.'
    'I can't be hypnotised, I have immunity. I'm afraid for Iola. It might be too great an effort for a medium.'
    'Iola isn't a medium or a mentally ill soothsayer. That child enjoys the goddess's favour. Don't pull silly faces, if you please. As I said, your view on religion is known to me, it's never particularly bothered me and, no doubt, it won't bother me in the future. I'm not a fanatic.
    You've a right to believe that we're governed by Nature and the Force hidden within her. You can think that the gods, including my Melitele, are merely a personification of this power invented for simpletons so they can understand it better, accept its existence. According to you, that power is blind. But for me, Geralt, faith allows you to expect what my goddess personifies from nature: order, law, goodness. And hope.'
    'I know.'
    'If you know that then why your reservations