“And that’s because you spoke vilely about her in your sermons, Krepp. Even Berrant complained about you. But what’s true is true. Do you hear that, you scoundrels?” The mayor turned to Geralt and Chireadan again. “Nothing justifies what you’ve done! I don’t intend to tolerate such things here! That’s enough, now get on with it, tell me everything, tell me what you have for your defense, because if you don’t, I swear by all the relics that I’ll lead you such a dance as you won’t forget to your dying day! Tell me everything, right now, as you would in a confessional!”

Chireadan sighed deeply and looked meaningfully and pleadingly at the witcher.

Geralt also sighed, then cleared his throat. And he recounted everything. Well, almost everything.

“So that’s it,” said the priest after a moment’s silence. “A fine kettle of fish. A genie released from captivity. And an enchantress who has her sights on the genie. Not a bad arrangement. This could end badly, very badly.”

“What’s a genie?” asked Neville. “And what does this Yennefer want?”

“Enchanters,” explained Krepp, “draw their power from the forces of nature, or to put it more accurately, from the so-called Four Elements or Principles, commonly called the natural forces. Air, Water, Fire and Earth. Each of these elements has its own Dimension which is called a Plane in the jargon used by enchanters. There’s a Water Plane, Fire Plane and so on. These Dimensions, which are beyond our reach, are inhabited by what are called genies—”

“That’s what they’re called in legends,” interrupted the witcher. “Because as far as I know—”

“Don’t interrupt,” Krepp cut him short. “The fact that you don’t know much was evident in your tale, witcher. So be quiet and listen to what those wiser than you have to say. Going back to the genies, there are four sorts, just as there are four Planes. Djinns are air creatures; marides are associated with the principle of water; afreet are Fire genies and d’ao, the genies of Earth—”

“You’ve run away with yourself, Krepp,” Neville butted in. “This isn’t a temple school; don’t lecture us. Briefly, what does Yennefer want with this genie?”

“A genie like this, mayor, is a living reservoir of magical energy. A sorcerer who has a genie at their beck and call can direct that energy in the form of spells. They don’t have to draw the Force from Nature; the genie does it for them. The power of such an enchanter is enormous, close to omnipotence—”

“Somehow I’ve never heard of a wizard who can do everything,” contradicted Neville. “On the contrary, the power of most of them is clearly exaggerated. They can’t do this, they can’t—”

“The enchanter Stammelford,” interrupted the priest, once more taking on the tone and poise of an academic lecturer, “once moved a mountain because it obstructed the view from his tower. Nobody has managed to do the like, before or since. Because Stammelford, so they say, had the services of a d’ao, an Earth genie. There are records of deeds accomplished by other magicians on a similar scale. Enormous waves and catastrophic rains are certainly the work of marides. Fiery columns, fires and explosions the work of afreets—”