"A Little Sacrifice" (Polish: "Trochę poświęcenia") is a short story in the Sword of Destiny collection by Andrzej Sapkowski. It tells the tale of star-crossed trans-species lovers: a siren called Sh'eenaz and a human prince called Agloval.
Agloval is the proud and arrogant prince of the seaside region of Bremervoord who is hopelessly in love with the siren, Sh'eenaz. There is one rather obvious obstacle to this love story and the prince hires Geralt to overcome it assuming that since the witcher can speak the Elder Language, he can overcome any negotiating issues. When, despite his command of the language, the witcher fails to convince the mermaid to give up her life in the ocean and join Agloval on land, the prince decides that the contract was not fulfilled. However, just to ensure that the money not go to waste, he decides that it should pay instead for witcher investigating the mysterious deaths of a number of local pearl divers.
This leads to the discovery of a mysterious race of underwater dwellers. A war is narrowly averted between the people of the sea and their land-based counterparts when Sh'eenaz mysteriously intervenes and stops the conflict. Ultimately, she decides to give up her tail and literally walks to join her lover in marriage.
Characters[ | ]
- Geralt of Rivia
- Dandelion
- Essi Daven
- Agloval
- Sh'eenaz
- Mestvin
- Zelest
- Teleri Drouhard
- Gaspard Drouhard
- Dalia
- Veverka
- Akeretta
- Drunken ferryman
In The Witcher computer game[ | ]
It is this short story to which the Lady of the Lake refers in Act IV of the game when she mentions to Geralt that she has heard of him "on good authority".