Chapter 3
“You are afraid, old man.”
The undine called Etheria stared at Chiano with her flat golden eyes, and challenged him to deny his fear. He couldn’t. He could only hang his head and nod.
“I am afraid,” he admitted. It was always better to admit the truth to the elemental creatures, at least the ones that he had regular congress with. Some of them were damnably good at ferreting out lies. He stared at his dirty, bare feet, at the grasses and reeds of the hummock on which he perched, and heard the undine sigh.
“You should be afraid,” she said, grudgingly, and he looked up. She settled her arms and upper back against the hummock across from him, looking like some odd and exotic courtesan relaxing upon the divan in her salon. Her hair was just beginning to dry along her hairline, and it frizzed out in little filamentous green kinked strands.
“Tell me, please?” he asked, humbly. Humility; it was a new emotion to him, or rather, new to the person he had begun to reassemble from the bits and pieces of his past. He remembered the confidence, bordering on arrogance. What do the Christians say? Pride goeth before a fall.
Etheria didn’t show emotions in the way that a human would, for the undine’s face was less mobile, more fishlike—but she was clearly as afraid as he was. “First—there are things, evil things that can change their shape, in the lagoon, snooping about the Jesolo, and in the canals. There have always been such things, but more often now; and much, much more evil. At first, we think, they looked for you, but you worked little magic, very little, and they may believe you are no more. Now they prowl more freely—when we do not find them first.” She bared her sharklike teeth. “They are no match for us. But we think that one day, perhaps soon, something stronger will come.”
Chiano shuddered. “Why?”
The undine studied him. “There is more blood in the water, of late. More bodies. There is more fear on the water; we can taste it, hear it in the voices of the fishermen, the boatmen. The world of you humans is fragmenting, and we do not know why.” She licked her lips, but not in anticipation. “When you mortals are at war, we suffer too, for your world affects ours. As below, so above.”
“As above, so below,” Chiano sighed. He knew. Whatever happened in the spirit world was reflected in the material world, and vice versa. If there was trouble here below, there would be trouble in their world as well. If something evil came to prey upon humans, evil that preyed upon those who were not human would be attracted. Unnatural death brought unnatural destruction.
“The Silvani—can they tell me anything more?” he asked at last, when it was clear that Etheria had nothing more to give him.
“Perhaps. I know of one who will come if I do call her. And you might be wise not to call one yourself.” At last the undine’s expression softened. “It is little enough for all that you have done for me and mine.”
He reached for the taloned hand she offered. “There will be no talk of debts between us, sister-of-the-waters. Perhaps—”
“When you have found yourself again,” the undine said firmly. “You must find yourself again.”
She took her cool hand from his, patted him on the head as if he was a child, and slipped beneath the water. Left to await the Silvani, Chiano shook like a reed in the wind. Again. Again that call to “find myself.” His memories were still clouded; there were still key fragments missing, things that might protect him so that he could work magics safely again. He had known so much—and now it was all in pieces, shattered, and somehow he had to put the pieces together again. Someone had feared him enough to want him dead, and the self-confident and—yes, arrogant—person he remembered being was the sort who could attract such enemies. He who was Grimas of stregheria, the master of the three magics of stars, moon and earth—yes, evil would come looking for him, and he was bound to combat it. But he was a warrior whose sword lay shattered, his shield broken in two, and his courage beaten to the ground.