Originally published in Poland in 1995, The Time of Contempt is a dark-fantasy novel by Andrzej Sapkowski. It is the second novel in the main, five-book Witcher saga and the fourth book in the overall series. The story is set on a continent teetering on the brink of a devastating war between the expansionist Nilfgaardian Empire and the fractious Northern Kingdoms. The witcher Geralt of Rivia seeks to protect his ward, Ciri, a young princess of a fallen kingdom whose prophesied destiny makes her a target for the most powerful factions in the world. As political tensions reach their breaking point, Geralt, Ciri, and the sorceress Yennefer travel to a conclave of mages on the Isle of Thanedd, where a violent coup shatters old alliances and plunges the world into open conflict. The novel explores themes of The Collapse of Institutions in a Time of Contempt, The Devastating Cost of Political Conflict for Ordinary Lives, and The Struggle for Agency Against Overwhelming Destiny.

Sapkowski, a winner of the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, authored the novel in the years following the end of Soviet influence in his native Poland. The book’s gritty tone and political cynicism reflect the atmosphere of 1990s Eastern Europe, a period marked by both newfound freedom and resurgent ethnic nationalism. The Time of Contempt reached a massive international audience decades after its initial release due to the global success of adaptations such as the CD Projekt Red video-game series and the Netflix television show The Witcher. The show’s third season primarily adapts the events of this novel.

This guide refers to the 2022 Orbit Books revised trade paperback edition, translated by David French.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature descriptions of graphic violence, death, death by suicide, sexual violence and harassment, physical abuse, racism, sexual content, substance use, and cursing.

Plot Summary

Aplegatt, a royal messenger, travels through lands preparing for war. Kings have stopped using sorcerers for communication, creating a renewed need for messengers to carry secret tidings. On a mission from King Demavend of Aedirn to King Foltest of Temeria, Aplegatt stops at an inn, where he encounters the sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg and her ward, Cirilla “Ciri” Fiona Elen Riannon, the former princess of Cintra. In a trance, Ciri prophesizes impending danger. Later, he delivers his message regarding military preparations and political instability, including false reports of Ciri’s death meant to protect her. The head of Redanian intelligence, Sigismund Dijkstra, sends Aplegatt off with a new message, warning of betrayal. A group of elven guerrilla fighters, the Scoia’tael, ambush and kill the messenger, fulfilling Ciri’s prophecy.

The witcher Geralt of Rivia investigates the people hunting Ciri. He seeks out the investigators Codringher and Fenn for information on Rience, a mage hunting Ciri, and learns that he has a powerful, unknown employer. Codrigher explains that he fabricated evidence of Ciri’s death to protect her from King Foltest’s agents, who sought to eliminate her as a political threat. Geralt meets Codringher’s partner, the legless scholar Jacob Fenn, and they discuss spreading rumors of Ciri’s illegitimacy to diminish her political value. When Geralt asks about the term “Child of the Elder Blood” (33), Codringher demands more money to investigate its connection to an elven prophecy. Codringher then informs him that Yennefer and Ciri are heading to Thanedd, pursued by three assassins. Geralt intercepts and kills the men, leaving a message that the “White Wolf” was responsible.

Yennefer and Ciri arrive in the city of Gors Velen, near the Isle of Thanedd. They visit the bank of Molnar Giancardi, a dwarf friend of Yennefer. Yennefer arranges payment for Ciri’s tuition at the Aretuza school for sorceresses. While Yennefer talks with the banker, Ciri explores Gors Velen with a young clerk and finds the road to Hirundum. In the market, she exposes a showman passing off a common wyvern as a basilisk. She uses a magical amulet from Yennefer to escape the city guard but draws the attention of the sorceresses Tissaia de Vries and Margarita Laux-Antille, who mistake her for a truant Aretuza novice.

Yennefer clears the misunderstanding, and Ciri joins Yennefer and the other sorceresses in a bathhouse. Inspired by their conversation about seizing life without regret, and desperate to see Geralt before Yennefer sends her to Aretuza, Ciri escapes. She rides for Hirundum but becomes lost. Visions of a black knight and the spectral Wild Hunt, whose king calls her the “Child of the Elder Blood” (94), torment her. She finally reaches Hirundum, where Yennefer appears via magic to drive the phantoms away. Ciri reunites with Geralt and Yennefer, and Geralt and Yennefer reconcile.

Geralt accompanies Yennefer to the formal banquet at Aretuza preceding the mages’ conclave. He has tense encounters with various figures, including Dijkstra and the sorceress Philippa Eilhart, who promises to deliver Rience to him. Geralt meets Vilgefortz of Roggeveen, the powerful leader of the Chapter of Sorcerers (the Chapter), a group that heads the larger Brotherhood of Sorcerers. Vilgefortz gives Geralt a private tour. Vilgefortz reveals his knowledge of Ciri’s destiny and tries to recruit Geralt to his side in an upcoming power struggle, an offer that Geralt refuses, declaring his neutrality. Afterward, Geralt and Yennefer spend a passionate night together.

During the night, Ciri has a prophetic dream and witnesses Rience’s agents murdering Codringher and Fenn and burning their archives. In the early morning, Geralt stumbles upon a coup led by Philippa and Dijkstra, who arrest sorcerers suspected of conspiring with Nilfgaard. Chaos erupts as factions within the Brotherhood of Sorcerers turn against one another. They capture Geralt, and Triss Merigold, Geralt’s ex-lover, temporarily blinds him with a spell, whispering an apology. 

When Dijkstra attempts to force Geralt into helping him take Ciri into Redanian custody, Geralt refuses, fights, and incapacitates Dijkstra and his men. He learns from the poet Dandelion that Ciri has disappeared. Geralt rushes toward the palace of Garstang. There, he discovers that the sorceress Tissaia, outraged by the coup, has lifted the anti-magic field. This allows the arrested mages to fight back but also unwittingly enables another sorceress named Francesca Findabair to unleash a hidden commando of Scoia’tael.

Inside the ensuing battle, Yennefer sends Ciri to escape through a secret passage while she stays to fight. Artaud Terranova, another high-ranking member of the Chapter, corners Ciri. Geralt arrives and kills Terranova, aided by Philippa, who intervenes in the form of an owl. Ciri flees, but the black knight, whose name is Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach, intercepts her. Overcoming her terror, she fights and wounds him but spares his life after seeing that he’s just a young man. Pursued by Scoia’tael, she escapes into the unstable portal in Tor Lara, the Tower of Gulls. Geralt then confronts Vilgefortz, who reveals his allegiance with Emperor Emhyr var Emreis of Nilfgaard and again tries to recruit him. They fight, and Vilgefortz brutally defeats Geralt, breaking his sword, arm, leg, and several ribs. Triss finds the gravely wounded witcher, and a remorseful Tissaia helps them teleport to safety in Brokilon forest.

Dandelion, Geralt’s good friend and a poet, travels to Brokilon to find Geralt, who is slowly healing under the care of the dryads. The poet recounts the aftermath of the coup: Nilfgaard invaded Aedirn and Lyria, and the Northern alliance collapsed as Temeria declared neutrality and Kaedwen made a secret pact with the invaders. Francesca Findabair has become queen of an elven puppet state, Vilgefortz has vanished, and Tissaia de Vries has died by suicide. Geralt learns from Scoia’tael refugees that Ciri is rumored to be in Nilfgaard. He resolves to find her, and Dandelion joins him. Meanwhile, in Nilfgaard, Emperor Emhyr recognizes the “Ciri” presented to him as an imposter and secretly orders a search for the real one, as well as for Vilgefortz, whom he holds responsible for the deception.

The portal transports Ciri to the desolate Korath desert. She nearly dies from thirst, but a young unicorn aids her. When a sand monster attacks them, it poisons the unicorn. To save him, Ciri taps into forbidden fire magic, which triggers a terrifying vision of the bloody rebel Falka urging her to embrace destruction. Horrified, Ciri renounces her magical abilities completely. Nilfgaardian bounty hunters capture her, as she’s left powerless and apathetic.

At an inn, the bounty hunters encounter a militia holding Kayleigh, a member of the outlaw gang known as the Rats. Ciri helps Kayleigh escape just as the rest of the Rats attack and slaughter everyone inside. During their escape from the village, Ciri kills a man for the first time. The Rats, a band of traumatized war orphans, initiate her into their gang. Feeling abandoned, Ciri accepts a new identity, taking the name “Falka.” That night, another Rat, Mistle, protects Ciri from Kayleigh’s advances before initiating her own sexual encounter with the unresisting girl. Elsewhere, the emperor’s agent, Stefan Skellen, learns of a new fair-haired girl in the Rats and, suspecting that she’s Ciri, orders that the entire gang be hunted down and killed.