‘I’m ashamed to admit it,’ he continued a moment later, rolling up his sleeves, ‘but I’m terribly attracted by power. It’s crude, I know, but I want to be a ruler. A ruler before whom people will bow down, whom people will bless simply because I let them be, and whom they will worship as a god, if, let’s say, I decide to save their world from a cataclysm. Even if I only save it on a whim. Oh, Ciri, my heart is gladdened by the thought of how magnanimously I shall reward the faithful, and how cruelly I shall punish the disobedient and arrogant. The prayers that shall be offered up by whole generations to me and for me; for my love and my mercy will be balm and honey to my soul. Whole generations, Ciri, whole worlds. Listen out. Do you hear? Deliver us from the plague, hunger, war and wrath of Vilgefortz…’

He moved his fingers just in front of her face, then violently seized her by the cheeks. Ciri screamed and struggled, but she was held firmly. Her lips began to tremble. Vilgefortz saw it and sniggered.

‘The Child of Destiny,’ he laughed nervously, and white flecks of foam appeared at the corners of his mouth. ‘Aen Hen Ichaer, the sacred elven Elder Blood… Now all mine.’

He straightened up abruptly. And wiped his mouth.

‘Various fools and mystics,’ he now announced in his usually cold tone, ‘have tried to adapt you to fairy tales, legends and prophecies; have tracked the genes you carry, your inheritance from your ancestors. Mistaking the sky for stars reflected in the surface of a pond, they mystically supposed that a gene determining great potential would continue to evolve, that it would achieve the height of power in your child or the child of your child. And a charming aura grew around you, incense smoke trailed behind you. But the truth is much more banal, much more mundane. Organically mundane, I’d say. Your blood, my splendid one, is important. But in the absolutely literal, quite unpoetic sense of the word.’

He picked up from the table a glass syringe measuring about six inches. The syringe ended in a thin, slightly curved capillary. Ciri felt her mouth go dry. The sorcerer examined the syringe under the light.

‘In a moment,’ he declared coldly, ‘you will be undressed and placed on this chair, precisely this one, which you’re contemplating with such curiosity. You’ll spend some time in the chair, albeit in an uncomfortable position. With the help of this device, which also, as I see, is fascinating you, you will be impregnated. It won’t be so awful, for almost the whole time you’ll be befuddled by elixirs, which I shall give you intravenously, with the aim of implanting the foetal ovum properly and ruling out an ectopic pregnancy. You needn’t be afraid, I’m skilled; I’ve done this hundreds of times. Never, admittedly, to a chosen one of fate and destiny, but I don’t think the uteruses and ovaries of chosen ones differ so much from those of ordinary maids.