She was ready to interrupt the chant and concentrate the rest of her strength on some other spell, capable either of teleporting them both away, or treating the charging rabble–for a split second at least–to something unpleasant. But it turned out there was no need.

The sky suddenly darkened and clouds teemed above the town. It became devilishly sombre. And there was a cold wind.

‘Oh my,’ Yennefer groaned. ‘I think we’ve stirred something up.’

‘Merigold’s Destructive Hailstorm,’ repeated Nimue. ‘Actually that name is used illegally. The spell was never registered, because no one ever managed to repeat it after Triss Merigold. For mundane reasons. Triss’s mouth was cut and she was speaking indistinctly. Malicious people claim, furthermore, that her tongue was faltering from fear.’

‘It’s hard to believe that.’ Condwiramurs pouted her lips. ‘There’s no shortage of examples of the Venerable Triss’s valour and courage; some chronicles even call her “the Fearless”. But I want to ask about something else. One of the legend’s versions says that Triss wasn’t alone on the Rivian Hill. That Yennefer was there with her.’

Nimue looked at the watercolour portraying the steep, black, razor-sharp hill against a background of deep blue clouds lit from below. The slender figure of a woman with arms outstretched and hair streaming around was visible on the hill’s summit.

The rhythmic rattle of the Fisher King’s oars reached them from the fog covering the surface of the water.

‘If anyone was there with Triss, they didn’t endure in the artist’s vision,’ said the Lady of the Lake.

‘Oh, what a mess,’ Yennefer repeated. ‘Look out, Triss!’

In a moment, hailstones, angular balls of ice the size of hen’s eggs, plummeted onto the town from the black cloud billowing above Rivia. They fell so heavily that the entire square was immediately covered in a thick layer. There was a sudden surge in the throng, people fell, covering their heads, they crawled one under the other, ran away, falling over, crowding into doorways and under arcades, and cowering by walls. Not all of them were successful. Some remained, lying like fish on the ice, which was copiously stained with blood.

The hailstones pelted down so hard that the magical shield Yennefer had managed to conjure up over their heads almost at the last moment trembled and threatened to break. She didn’t even try any other spells. She knew that what they had triggered could not be halted, that they had unleashed by accident an element that had to run riot, that they had freed a force that had to reach a climax. And would soon reach that climax.

At least so she hoped.

Lightning flashed. There was a sudden peal of thunder, which rumbled on, and then gave a crack. Making the ground tremble. The hail lashed the roofs and cobblestones; fragments of shattering hailstones flew all around.

The sky brightened up a little. The sun shone. A ray breaking through the clouds lashed the town like a horsewhip. Something escaped Triss’s lips; neither a groan nor a sob.