The old river bed branched again. The left branch, the one the current was carrying them into, was swirling and churned up in a raging whirlpool. The swirling maelstrom was surging with froth like soup in a cauldron. Logs and branches, and even an entire tree with a forked crown, were revolving in the whirlpool. The leadsman fled from the bow and the others began to yell. Pudlorak stood calmly. He turned the wheel, steering the cutter towards the calmer offshoot to the right.

“Uff!” He wiped his forehead. “Just in time! Would have been ill if that whirlpool had sucked us in. Aye, would have given us a right old spinning…”

“Whirlpools!” shouted Cobbin. “Lopustres! Alligators! Leeches! We don’t need no illusions, these swamps are teeming with monstrosities, with reptiles, with every kind of venomous filth. It’s too bad, too bad that we strayed here. Many ships—”

“—have vanished here.” Addario Bach finished the sentence, pointing. “And that’s probably real.”

There was a wreck lying stuck in the mud on the right bank. It was rotten and smashed, buried up to the bulwarks, covered in water weed, coiled around with vines and moss. They observed it as the Prophet glided past, borne by the faint current.

Pudlorak prodded Geralt with his elbow.

“Master Witcher,” he said softly. “The compass has gone doolally again. According to the needle we’ve moved from an eastwards course to a southern. If it’s not a vulpine trick, it’s not good. No one has ever charted these swamps, but it’s known they extend southwards from the shipping channel. So, we’re being carried into the very heart of them.”

“But we’re drifting,” observed Addario Bach. “There’s no wind, we’re being borne by the current. And the current means we’re joining the river, the river current of the Pontar—”

“Not necessarily,” said Geralt, shaking his head. “I’ve heard about these old river courses. The direction of the flow can change. Depending on whether the tide’s coming in or going out. And don’t forget about the aguara. This might also be an illusion.”

The banks were still densely covered in cypresses, and large, pot-bellied tupelos, bulbous at the base, were also growing more common. Many of the trees were dead and dry. Dense festoons of bromeliads hung from the decayed trunks and branches, their leaves shining silver in the sun. Egrets lay in wait on the branches, surveying the passing Prophet with unmoving eyes.

The leadsman shouted.

This time everybody saw it. Once again, she was standing on a bough hanging over the water, erect and motionless. Pudlorak unhurriedly leaned on a handle, steering the cutter towards the left bank. And the vixen suddenly barked, loudly and piercingly. She barked again as the Prophet sailed past.

A large fox flashed across the bough and hid in the undergrowth.

* * *