“Whaaaat?”

The fair-haired girl moved closer to the woman and whispered something into her ear.

“Read?” The crony revealed her toothless gums in a smile. “Me? No, sweetheart. ‘Tis a skill I’ve ne’er mastered.”

“Explain to me,” said Geralt coldly, turning to Dhun and Nettly, “how do you use the book if you can’t read runes?”

“Always the oldest woman knows what stands written in the booke,” said Dhun gloomily. “And what she knows, she teaches some young one, when ‘tis time for her to turn to earth. Heed ye, yerselves, how ‘tis time for our old woman. So our old woman has taken Lille in and she be teaching her. But for now, ‘tis the old woman knows best.”

“The old witch and the young witch,” muttered Dandilion.

“The old woman knows the whole book by heart?” Geralt asked with disbelief. “Is that right, Grandma?”

“Nae the whole, oh nae,” answered the woman, again through Lille, “only what stands written by the picture.”

“Ah.” Geralt opened the book at random. The picture on the torn page depicted a dappled pig with horns in the shape of a lyre. “Well then—what’s written here?”

The old woman smacked her lips, took a careful look at the etching, then shut her eyes.

“The horned aurochs or Taurus,” she recited, “erroneously called bison by ignoramuses. It hath horns and useth them to ram—”

“Enough. Very good, indeed.” The witcher turned several sticky pages. “And here?”

“Cloud sprites and wind sprites be varied. Some rain pour, some wind roar, and others hurl their thunder. Harvests to protect from them, takest thou a knife of iron, new, of a mouse’s droppings a half ounce, of a gray heron’s fat—”

“Good, well done. Hmm… And here? What’s this?”

The etching showed a disheveled monstrosity with enormous eyes and even larger teeth, riding a horse. In its right hand, the monstrous being wielded a substantial sword, in its left, a bag of money.

“A witchman,” mumbled the woman. “Called by some a witcher. To summon him is most dangerous, albeit one must; for when against the monster and the vermin there be no aid, the witchman can contrive. But careful one must be—”

“Enough,” muttered Geralt. “Enough, Grandma. Thank you.”

“No, no,” protested Dandilion with a malicious smile. “How does it go on? What a greatly interesting book! Go on, Granny, go on.”

“Eeee… But careful one must be to touch not the witchman, for thus the mange can one acquire. And lasses do from him hide away, for lustful the witchman is above all measure—”

“Quite correct, spot on,” laughed the poet, and Lille, so it seemed to Geralt, smiled almost imperceptibly.

“—though the witchman greatly covetous and greedy for gold be,” mumbled the old woman, half-closing her eyes, “giveth ye not such a one more than: for a drowner, one silver penny or three halves; for a werecat, silver pennies two; for a plumard, silver pennies—”

“Those were the days,” muttered the witcher. “Thank you, Grandma. And now show us where it speaks of the devil and what the book says about devils. This time ‘tis grateful I’d be to heareth more, for to learn the ways and meanes ye did use to deal with him most curious am I.”