“Thus,” the bishop said, straightening up, “I categorically forbid you from any action that might thwart my plan. Or even complicate it. Jan is holding Reinmar of Bielawa in a dungeon in Ziębice Castle. I forbid you from taking a single step towards that dungeon, I forbid you from talking to Reinmar, I forbid you from laying a single finger on him. I forbid you categorically and absolutely. I know you’re a sorcerer, a polymorph and a necromancer; I know you passed through walls to get to the prisoners in Wrocław. I know of what you’re capable and what can be expected from you. But I warn you: if you don’t comply you will bring down my wrath upon you. And then you’ll learn what I am capable of. Do you understand, Birkart, my son? Will you obey?”

“Do I have a choice? Father?”

The bishop puffed angrily. Then snapped the Bible shut and placed a goblet on the cover. And poured spiced Burgundy into it.

“Just between us,” he asked a moment later, quite calmly, “why did you need Bielawa? It can’t just be for the pleasure of revenge and murder? What did you want to get out of him, what did you need from him? What was it? Ha, you probably don’t want to say… Or reveal the details. But perhaps just in general…?”

The Wallcreeper smiled and it was a particularly hideous smile.

“If you want to know in general,” he drawled through his smiling mouth, “why not? I wanted to drag out of Reinmar of Bielawa information that would lead me to one of his companions. And I would have wrung further information out of him, acquiring in the process a little knowledge. General knowledge. Among other things, whether the book you were just reading, Father Bishop, is really what it is usually considered to be, or whether it isn’t worth any more than the fables of Ezop Fryg.”

“Fascinating,” Konrad said after pondering the Wallcreeper’s words. “Fascinating, indeed. All the same, my orders remain in force. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam. And we’ll return to the fables in better times.”

The Wallcreeper flew down from the battlements of Nysa Castle and tumbled over, blown by the strong wind coming from Rychleby. He levelled out, croaked and glided off into the night, flying towards the Ślęża massif. But not to Ślęża itself. Ślęża was for amateurs, for dabblers, a somewhat trivial and rather overrated stage for witchcraft. The Wallcreeper was flying to Radunia, to its elongated peak. To a broad stone bank and a magical rock resembling a catafalque lying in the centre. A monolith that was there when mammoths were striding over the Sudeckie Hills and huge turtles laying eggs on the present-day island of Piasek.