“No wonder he’s familiar,” snorted the dwarf. “The Sorcerers’ Chapter is the major shareholder of the companies of the industrial complex at Gors Velen and it owns several foundries and metalworks outright. The sorcerers derive substantial profits from smelting. From other branches as well. Deservedly too; after all, they largely created the technology. They might, however, give up their hypocrisy and admit that magic isn’t charity, isn’t altruistic philanthropy, but an industry calculated to make a profit. But why am I telling you this? You know yourself. Come with me, there’s a small tavern over there, let’s rest. And we can doubtless get a bed there, for look, it’s growing dark.”

* * *

The small tavern was in no way worthy of the name, but neither could one be surprised. It served woodcutters and rafters from the dam, who didn’t mind where they drank as long as there was something to drink. A shack with a leaky thatched roof, an awning resting on poles, a few tables and benches made of rough planks, a stone fireplace—the local community didn’t require or expect greater luxuries; what counted was what was behind the partition: the barrels from which the innkeeper poured beer, and from where he occasionally served sausage, which the innkeeper’s wife—if she felt like it and was in the right mood—was willing to grill over the embers for a fee.

Neither were Geralt and Addario’s expectations excessive, particularly since the beer was fresh, from a newly unbunged barrel, and not many compliments were needed for the innkeeper’s wife to agree to fry and serve them a skillet of blood pudding and onion. After a whole day’s wandering through forests Geralt could compare the blood pudding to veal shank in vegetables, shoulder of boar, turbot in ink and the other masterpieces offered by the chef of the Natura Rerum osteria. Although to tell the truth, he did miss the osteria a little.

“Do you by any chance know the fate of that prophet?” said Addario, gesturing the innkeeper’s wife over and ordering another beer.

Before they sat down to eat they had examined a moss-grown boulder standing beside a mighty oak. Carved into its surface were letters informing that in that precise place, on the day of the holiday of Birke in 1133 post Resurrectionem, the Prophet Lebioda gave a sermon to his acolytes, and the obelisk honouring the event was financed and erected in 1200 by Spyridon Apps, a master braid-maker from Rinde, based in the Minor Market Place, goods of excellent quality, affordable prices, please visit.

“Do you know the story of that Lebioda, whom some called a prophet?” asked Addario, scraping the rest of the blood pudding from the skillet. “I mean the real story.”

“I don’t know any stories,” replied the Witcher, running a piece of bread around the pan. “Neither real nor invented. I was never interested.”