“You’re wrong.” Dandilion bared his teeth. “When you fell asleep, you see, I took the grubs off the hook and attached a dead crow, which I’d found in the bushes. I wanted to see your face in the morning when you pulled the crow out. And the catfish took the crow. Your grubs would have caught shit-all.”

“They would have, they would have.” The witcher spat into the water, winding the line on to a little wooden rake. “But it snapped because you tugged like an idiot. Wind up the rest of the lines instead of gabbling. The sun’s already up; it’s time to go. I’m going to pack up.”

“Geralt!”

“What?”

“There’s something on the other line, too… No, dammit, it only got caught. Hell, it’s holding like a stone. I can’t do it! Ah, that’s it… Ha, ha, look what I’m bringing in. It must be the wreck of a barge from King Dezmod’s time! What great stuff! Look, Geralt!”

Dandilion was clearly exaggerating; the clump of rotted ropes, net and algae pulled out of the water was impressive but it was far from being the size of a barge dating from the days of the legendary king. The bard scattered the jumble over the bank and began to dig around in it with the tip of his shoe. The algae was alive with leeches, scuds and little crabs.

“Ha! Look what I’ve found!”

Geralt approached, curious. The find was a chipped stoneware jar, something like a two-handled amphora, tangled up in netting, black with rotten algae, colonies of caddis-larvae and snails, dripping with stinking slime.

“Ha!” Dandilion exclaimed again, proudly. “Do you know what this is?”

“It’s an old pot.”

“You’re wrong,” declared the troubadour, scraping away shells and hardened, shiny clay. “This is a charmed jar. There’s a djinn inside who’ll fulfill my three wishes.”

The witcher snorted.

“You can laugh.” Dandilion finished his scraping, bent over and rinsed the amphora. “But there’s a seal on the spigot and a wizard’s mark on the seal.”

“What mark? Let’s see.”

“Oh, sure.” The poet hid the jar behind his back. “And what more do you want? I’m the one who found it and I need all the wishes.”

“Don’t touch that seal! Leave it alone!”

“Let go, I tell you! It’s mine!”

“Dandilion, be careful!”

“Sure!”

“Don’t touch it! Oh, bloody hell!”

The jar fell to the sand during their scuffle, and luminous red smoke burst forth.

The witcher jumped back and rushed toward the camp for his sword. Dandilion, folding his arms across his chest, didn’t move.

The smoke pulsated and collected in an irregular sphere level with Dandilion’s eyes. The sphere formed a six-foot-wide distorted head with no nose, enormous eyes and a sort of beak.

“Djinn!” said Dandilion, stamping his foot. “I freed thee and as of this day, I am thy lord. My wishes—”

The head snapped its beak, which wasn’t really a beak but something in the shape of drooping, deformed and ever-changing lips.