“I can’t understand anything.” He grimaced. “In any case, what you have to say doesn’t interest me much. Whereas I, indeed, still have something to announce to you. So, know that clairvoyance is among my numerous talents. I can see quite clearly that when Ortolan restores your freedom to you as a blind man, Bue and Bang will be waiting for you. And you will land up in my laboratory, definitively this time. I shall vivisect you. Mainly for pleasure, although I’m also a little curious as to what’s inside you. When I finish, however, I shall—to use the terminology of the abattoir—portion you up. I shall send your remains piece by piece to Rissberg, as a warning of what befalls my foes. Let them see.”

Geralt gathered all his strength. There wasn’t much of it.

“But where Yennefer is concerned—” the sorcerer leaned over even closer, the Witcher could smell his minty breath “—unlike Ortolan, the thought of causing her suffering pleases me inordinately. Thus, I shall cut off the part she valued most in you; I shall send it to her in Vengerb—”

Geralt placed his fingers in a Sign and touched the sorcerer’s face. Sorel Degerlund choked and drooped on the chair. He snorted. His eyes had sunk deep into his skull, his head lolled on his shoulder. The medallion chain slipped from his limp fingers.

Geralt leaped to his feet—or rather tried to. The only thing he managed to do was to fall from the chair onto the floor, his head right in front of Degerlund’s shoe. The sorcerer’s medallion was in front of his nose. With a blue enamel dolphin naiant on a golden oval. The emblem of Kerack. He didn’t have time either to be surprised or to think about it. Degerlund began to wheeze loudly, it was apparent he was about to awaken. The Somne Sign had been effective, but faint and fleeting—the Witcher was too weakened by the effect of the venom.

He stood up, holding on to the table, knocking the books and scrolls from it.

Pastor burst into the room. Geralt didn’t even try to use a Sign. He grabbed a leather and brass-bound grimoire from the table and struck the hunchback in the throat with it. Pastor sat down heavily on the floor, dropping the arbalest. The Witcher hit him one more time. And would have repeated it, but the incunable slipped from his numb fingers. He seized a carafe standing on the books and shattered it on Pastor’s forehead. The hunchback, although covered in blood and red wine, didn’t yield. He rushed at Geralt, not even brushing the slivers of crystal from his eyelids.

“Bueee!” he yelled, grabbing the Witcher by the knees. “Baaang! Get to me! Get to—”