Some time after, when it was already very dark, he went out and hung the lantern on a post. He stood by the fence and listened out for the clatter of hooves or the splash of water. But the wind and the rustling of the reeds muffled all sound. The lantern on the post swayed crazily until it finally went out.

And then he heard it. From far away. No, not from the direction Ciri had ridden towards. But on the other side. From the bogs. A savage, inhuman, long-drawn-out, plaintive cry. A howl.

A moment of silence.

And again. A beann’shie.

An elven phantom. The harbinger of death.

Vysogota trembled, from cold and from fear. He quickly headed back towards the cottage, muttering and humming under his breath, so as not to hear it, not to hear it at all, because he must not hear it.

Kelpie emerged from the darkness before he managed to relight the lantern.

‘Go into the cottage,’ Ciri said, gently and softly. ‘And don’t leave. It’s a foul night.’

They bickered again over supper.

‘You seem to know a great deal about the problems of good and evil!’

‘Because I do! And not from scholarly books, either!’

‘No, of course. You know it all from experience. From practice. For you’ve acquired plenty of experience in your long sixteen years of life.’

‘I’ve gained enough. Quite enough!’

‘Congratulations. My learned friend.’

‘You can sneer,’ she clenched her teeth, ‘without having any idea how much evil you’ve done to the world, you aged scholars, you theoreticians with your books, with your centuries-old experience of reading moral treatises so diligently you didn’t even have time to look out of the window to see what the world was really like. You philosophers, artificially shoring up artificial philosophies in order to earn salaries at universities. And since not a soul would pay you for the ugly truth about the world, you invented ethics and morality; nice, optimistic sciences. Except they’re fallacious and deceitful!’

‘There’s nothing more deceitful than a half-baked judgement, miss! Than a hasty and incautious conclusion!’

‘You didn’t find a remedy for evil! But I, a callow witcher, have! An infallible remedy!’

He didn’t respond, but his face must have betrayed him, because Ciri leaped up from the table.

‘Do you think I’m talking nonsense? Making wild claims?’

‘I think,’ he calmly replied, ‘you’re speaking in anger. I think you’re planning your revenge in anger. And I strongly urge you to calm down.’

‘I am calm. And revenge? Answer me: why not? Why should I eschew revenge? In the name of what? Higher reasons? And what’s higher than an order of things where evil deeds are punished? To you, O philosopher and ethicist, revenge is an improper deed, reprehensible, unethical and ultimately unlawful. And I ask: where is the punishment for evil? Who should attest it, adjudge it and inflict it? The gods you don’t believe in? The great demiurge-creator you’ve decided to replace the Gods with? Or perhaps the law? Perhaps Nilfgaardian justice, imperial judgements, prefects? You naive old man!’