“I’ve seen plenty.” The constable’s jaw muscles worked powerfully. “Plenty of battlefields, plenty of corpses. Robberies, pillages, bandits’ raids, savage family revenge and forays, even one wedding that six corpses were carried out of, including the groom. But slitting tendons to then butcher the lame? Scalping? Biting out throats? Tearing apart someone alive, dragging their guts out of their bellies? And finally building pyramids from the heads of the slaughtered? What are we facing here, I ask? Didn’t the wizards tell you that? Didn’t they explain why they need a witcher?”

What do sorcerers from Rissberg need a witcher for? So much so that he needs to be forced by blackmail to co-operate? For the sorcerers could have coped admirably with any demon or any host themselves, without any great difficulty. Fulmen sphaericus or Sagitta aurea—the first two spells of many that spring to mind—could have been used on an energumen at a distance of a hundred paces and it’s doubtful if it would survive the treatment. But no, the sorcerers prefer a witcher. Why? The answer’s simple: a sorcerer, confrater or comrade has become an energumen. One of their colleagues invokes demons and lets them enter him and runs around killing. He’s already done it three times. But the sorcerers can’t exactly shoot ball lightning at a comrade or run him through with a golden arrowhead. They need a witcher to deal with a comrade.

There was something Geralt couldn’t and didn’t want to tell Torquil. He couldn’t and didn’t want to tell him what he’d told the sorcerers in Rissberg. And which they had shrugged off. As you would something inconsequential.

* * *

“You’re still doing it. You’re still playing at this, as you call it, goetia. You invoke these creatures, summon them from their planes, behind closed doors. With the same tired old story: we’ll control them, master them, force them to be obedient, we’ll set them to work. With the same inevitable justification: we’ll learn their secrets, force them to reveal their mysteries and arcana, and thus we’ll redouble the power of our own magic, we’ll heal and cure, we’ll eliminate illness and natural disasters, we’ll make the world a better place and make people happier. And it inevitably turns out that it’s a lie, that all you care about is power and control.”

Tzara, it was obvious, was spoiling to retaliate, but Pinety held him back.