‘Draw huge, erect phalluses on the primitive hunters.’

‘That’s a thought.’ The elf dipped his brush in the paint. ‘The phallic cult was typical for primitive civilisations. It could also serve as the birth of a theory that the human race is yielding to physical degeneration. Its forebears had phalluses like clubs, but their descendants were left with ridiculous, vestigial little pricks… Thank you, Witcher.’

‘Don’t mention it. It was somehow in my heart. The paint looks very fresh for something prehistoric.’

‘In three or four days the colours will fade due to the salt exuded by the wall and the painting will look so prehistoric you won’t believe it. Your scholars will wet themselves with joy when they see it. Not one of them, I swear, will see through my deceit.’

‘They will.’

‘How is that?’

‘You won’t be able to resist signing your masterpiece, will you?’

The elf laughed dryly.

‘Quite right! You’ve seen through me. Oh, fire of vanity, how difficult it is for an artist to quell you. I’ve already signed the cave painting. Right here.’

‘That isn’t a dragonfly?’

‘No. It’s an ideogram denoting my name. I am Crevan Espane aep Caomhan Macha. For convenience I use the alias Avallac’h, and you may also address me as such.’

‘I shall be sure to.’

‘You, though, are called Geralt of Rivia. You’re a witcher. Presently you are not, however, destroying monsters or beasts, but are busy hunting for missing girls.’

‘News spreads astonishingly quickly. Astonishingly far. And astonishingly deep. You allegedly foresaw that I’d show up here. You can foretell the future, I gather?’

‘Anyone,’ Ayallac’h wiped his hands on a rag, ‘can foretell the future. And everyone does it, for it is simple. It is no great art to foretell it. The art is in foretelling it accurately.’

‘An elegant deduction, worthy of an epigram. You, naturally, can prophecy accurately.’

‘And often. I, my dear Geralt, know much and am capable of much. Actually, my academic title–as you, humans, would say–indicates that. It reads in full “Aen Saevherne”.’

‘A Sage–a Knowing One.’

‘Precisely.’

‘And willing, I hope, to share that knowledge?’

Ayallac’h said nothing for a moment.

‘Share?’ he finally drawled. ‘With you? Knowledge, my dear, is a privilege, and privileges are only shared with one’s equals. And why would I, an elf, a Sage, a member of the elite, share anything with a descendant of a creature that appeared in the universe barely five million years ago, having evolved from an ape, a rat, a jackal or some other such mammal? A creature that took around a million years to discover that one can execute some sort of operation with a gnawed bone using its two hairy hands? After which it shoved the bone up its rectum and shrieked for joy?’

The elf fell silent, turning and fixing his gaze on his painting.

‘Why indeed,’ he repeated, ‘do you dare to think I would share any knowledge at all with you, human? Tell me!’