“Holy Andrei, seafarer, speak to God on behalf of the poor merfolk. Explain how they’ll accept baptism if it doesn’t cost them their memories. They. aren’t being defiant of Him or any-thing. It’s simply their way. When they have souls, they’ll be different. But why take away from them what they were before? Instead, leave them able to tell men of the wonders He’s created in the deeps, that we may worship Him the more. Isn’t that rea-sonable?
“Holy Andrei, grant me a sign.”
The crude wooden image stirred. Lips curved in a smile, hand reached out in the gesture of benediction.
For a moment Tomislav gaped. Then he fell prostrate, weeping.
“Glory be to God, glory be to God!”
When at last he got back on his knees, all was as erstwhile. The candle guttered low, the cold ascended, stars above the roof marched on toward midnight.
“Thank you, Andrei,” Tomislav said humbly. “You’re a true friend.”
After a minute, in sudden shock: “I’ve been vouchsafed a miracle! Me!” He folded his hands. “Lord, I am not worthy.”
He would keep vigil till dawn. “Our Father, Who art in Heaven,
hallowed be Thy name-“
Near morning, when weariness had dazed him, he lifted a timid gaze to the saint’s face. “Andrei,” he mumbled, “they say such terrible things about my little daughter. Could you maybe give me another sign? I know the stories aren’t true. Nada’s where you are. Could be she’s right there at your side looking down on her old dad. If only people would see that. Can’t you show them?”
The carving never stirred. Tomislav lowered his head. Blood trickled into his beard. When daylight glimmered, he rose, bowed before the altar, and departed.
Vanimen and Meiiva walked down the wagon track that went through the forest. Snow had fallen of late, an inch or two that soon melted off bare dirt but abided in purity under the trees. Boughs and twigs reached austere across blueness. The air was quiet and nearly warm.
“His honesty is above challenge,” the merman said. “However, half asleep, he may well have imagined that that happened which he desired so much to happen.”
Meiiva shivered, not from cold. “Or else the dead man he invoked was playing a trick,” she said.
“No, I don’t ween the Most High would allow that. He is just.”
She gave him a startled glance. “Never erenow have you spoken
thus.”
“We’ve none of us been wont to talk, or think, about such matters. They were beyond us, as the fashioning and use of a knife are beyond a dolphin. We knew only blind luck, which might be good or might be bad, save that in the end, soon or late, it was always fatal. God did not care about us . . . we supposed. . . and we had naught to do with Him.
“Today I wonder,” Vanimen said when they had laid several more yards behind them. He grinned as ‘he used to when con-fronting a threat. “I’d better, hadn’t I?”
“Do you really hold that we should forsake Faerie?” Meiiva plucked at the gown, dun and itchy, which closed her off from a living world. “We had the freedom of the swan’s road.”
“I fear Pavle Subitj is right,” Vanimen answered heavily. “For the children if not ourselves, we should yield.”
“Will their lives be worth the cost? Man’s lot is seldom happy.”
“Our people can do well enough. Their swimming skills are
in demand; they are liked; already, you must have noticed, mermen and maidens, mermaids and youths, begin to sigh for each other, and heads of households ponder the advantages of marriage alli-ances with persons of such excellent prospects.”
Meiiva nodded. “Indeed. The offspring of those unions will be more terrestrial than our kind. The next generation after them will be entirely human-drownable. We’ve witnessed this down the centuries, have we not? In one or two hundred years, the blood of Liri will be mingled unto evanishment, the memory of Liri be a myth that no sensible man believes.”
“Save in Heaven,” he reminded her.
A raven croaked.
“I wish-“ he started to say, and stopped.
“What, dear?” Her fingers caressed his arm.