‘How much are you capable of sacrificing, Yennefer?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Are you prepared to sacrifice yourself? Your priceless magic?’

‘Sigrdrifa,’ she said with anger, ‘don’t try your sublime tricks on me. I’m ninety-four years old. But treat that, please, as a confessional secret. I’m only confiding in you so you’ll understand I can’t be treated like a child.’

‘You didn’t answer my question.’

‘And I don’t mean to. For it’s the mysticism I don’t accept. I fell asleep during your worship. It wearied and bored me. Because I don’t believe in your goddess.’

Sigrdrifa turned away and Yennefer took a very deep breath in spite of herself.

‘Your disbelief is not very flattering to me,’ said a woman with eyes filled with molten gold. ‘But does your disbelief change anything?’

All Yennefer could do was to breathe out.

‘The time will come,’ said the golden-eyed woman, ‘when absolutely no one, including children, will believe in sorceresses. I tell you that with deliberate spite. By way of revenge. Let us leave.’

‘No…’ Yennefer finally managed. ‘No! I won’t go anywhere. Enough of this! It’s an enthrallment or hypnosis. An illusion! A trance! I have developed defence mechanisms… I can dispel all this with one charm, just like that! Dammit…’

The golden-eyed woman came closer. The diamond in her necklace burned like the morning star.

‘Your speech is slowly ceasing to serve as communication,’ she said. ‘It is becoming art for art’s sake. The more incomprehensible it is, the more profound and wise it is considered. In sooth, I preferred you when you could only say “Ugh” and “Ooh”. Come.’

‘This is an illusion, a trance… I won’t go anywhere!’

‘I don’t want to force you. It would be a disgrace. For you’re an intelligent and proud girl, you have character.’

A plain. A sea of grass. A moor. A boulder, jutting from the heather like the back of a crouching predator.

‘You desired my jewel, Yennefer. I cannot give it to you without first making sure of a few things. I want to check what is deep inside you. Therefore I have brought you here, to this place of Power and Might from time immemorial. Your priceless magic is apparently everywhere. Apparently it’s sufficient to merely hold out one’s hand. Are you afraid to hold it out?’

Yennefer couldn’t utter a sound from her tight throat.

‘Are, then, Chaos, art and learning,’ said the woman, whose name could not be uttered, ‘according to you, the Powers capable of changing the world? A curse, a blessing and progress? And aren’t they by any chance Faith? Love? Sacrifice?

‘Do you hear? The cock Kambi is crowing. The waves are breaking against the shore, waves pushed by Naglfar’s prow. The horn of Hemdall sounds as he stands facing his enemies on the rainbow-coloured arch of Bifrost. The White Frost is nigh, a gale and a blizzard are nigh… The earth trembles from the writhing movements of the Serpent…