The last thing to change was the colour of its eyes.

The second Dainty Biberveldt cleared its throat, reached across the table, seized the first Dainty Biberveldt’s beer mug and greedily pressed its mouth to it.

‘It can’t be, it can’t be,’ Dandelion said softly. ‘Just look, he’s been copied exactly. They’re indistinguishable. Down to the last detail. This time even the mosquito bites and stains on its britches… Yes, on its britches! Geralt, not even sorcerers can manage that! Feel it, it’s real wool, that’s no illusion! Extraordinary! How does it do it?’

‘No one knows,’ the Witcher muttered. ‘It doesn’t, either. I said it has the complete ability for the free transformation of material structure, but it is an organic, instinctive ability…’

‘But the britches… What has it made the britches out of? And the waistcoat?’

‘That’s its own adapted skin. I don’t think it’d be happy to give up those trousers. Anyway, they’d immediately lose the properties of wool—’

‘Pity,’ Dainty said, showing cunning, ‘because I was just wondering whether to make it change a bucket of matter into a bucket of gold.’

The doppler, now a faithful copy of the halfling, lounged comfortably and grinned broadly, clearly glad to be the centre of interest. It was sitting in an identical pose to Dainty, swinging its hairy feet the same way.

‘You know plenty about dopplers, Geralt,’ it said, then took a swig from the mug, smacked its lips and belched. ‘Plenty, indeed.’

‘Ye Gods, its voice and mannerisms are also Biberveldt’s,’ Dandelion said. ‘Haven’t any of you got a bit of red silk thread? We ought to mark it, dammit, because there might be trouble.’

‘Come on, Dandelion,’ the first Dainty Biberveldt said indignantly. ‘Surely you won’t mistake it for me? The differences are clear at…’

‘… first glance,’ the second Dainty Biberveldt completed the sentence and belched again gracefully. ‘Indeed, in order to be mistaken you’d have to be more stupid than a mare’s arse.’

‘Didn’t I say?’ Dandelion whispered in amazement. ‘It thinks and talks like Biberveldt. They’re indistinguishable…’

‘An exaggeration,’ the halfling said, pouting. ‘A gross exaggeration.’

‘No,’ Geralt rebutted. ‘It’s not an exaggeration. Believe it or not, but at this moment it is you, Dainty. In some unknown way the doppler also precisely copies its victim’s mentality.’

‘Mental what?’

‘The mind’s properties, the character, feelings, thoughts. The soul. Which would confirm what most sorcerers and all priests would deny. That the soul is also matter.’

‘Blasphemy!’ The innkeeper gasped.

‘And poppycock,’ Dainty Biberveldt said firmly. ‘Don’t tell stories, Witcher. The mind’s properties, I like that. Copying someone’s nose and britches is one thing, but someone’s mind is no bloody mean feat. I’ll prove it to you now. If that lousy doppler had copied my merchant’s mind he wouldn’t have sold the horses in Novigrad, where there’s no market for them; he would have ridden to the horse fair in Devil’s Ford where they’re sold to the highest bidder. You don’t lose money there—’