But he could pray; he could still pray.
Carmina, Agenoria, help me find my skills again! Fortuna, guard me! Nortia, give me back my memories! Fana and Fanus, Tana and Tanus, Jana and Janus, restore what I once had, and oh Aradia, help me protect this place again!
He hugged his knees to his chest and rocked back and forth in an agony of fear and longing—the longing to be himself again, and the fear of what must surely follow if he ever regained what he had lost. He didn’t notice the Silvani until she brushed against his hair and blew into his face to attract his attention.
Then he looked up. If he had not had such an affinity with water-creatures, the Silvani surely would have been his favorites; they appeared as lovely girls, not more than two feet tall, dressed all in red and winged. This one hovered just barely above the water, wings blurring to keep her there, and regarded him with wide eyes.
“What would you, old man?” she whispered. “I think I know you.”
“I wish that I remembered,” he replied sadly. “Just—of your courtesy, what do you know of the evil our friend tells me is abroad in the city?”
“More than I wish to,” she replied in a breath. “Something terrible has come, bound in a strong box of iron and guarded by men in steel, hedged about with spell and sword. We dare draw no nearer to it than the island on which it dwells.”
For once, he felt a stirring of hope. There were enough Christian mages in the city, surely there was no need for one broken old man! “If it is hedged about—” he began.
“The hedges are . . . peculiar,” the Silvani said, frowning severely. “And among the guardians at least one is unclean. Perhaps more.” The Silvani looked so human it was easy to read their expressions, and this one assumed an air of pleading. “Let me speak for those of the air, the Silvani, the Laura, the Folletti and Folletto—you must come again into your powers! The path of the future is shrouded, and the one who veils it from us is—” She shivered, and clearly was not willing to say more.
Well, he could hardly blame her. He suspected he knew the name she would not speak, even though he could not remember it himself. Did not, indeed, want to remember it. But he had a momentary image of something huge and monstrous, squatting in a dark forest littered with rotting tree stumps and shattered bones, devouring . . .
The image fled. Or, perhaps, he fled from it.
“Thank you,” he said, his spirits sinking. There was no choice then; it would be more of the rue and the fennel and the fly agaric; more of the visions to sort through looking for what was memory and what was hallucination . . .
The Silvani took his thanks as a farewell, and vanished, leaving him once more alone.
* * *
Chiano remained on the hummock for some time thereafter, thinking through his course of action. By sunset, he had come to one definite conclusion.
He would have to take steps to protect Marco. He could sense that the boy would not remain in the Jesolo for much longer. In the marshes, Chiano had been able to shield the boy as well as shelter him. The marsh locos were afraid of Chiano—Chiano, and his undine friends. The undines would not voluntarily leave the water, true. And so what? No dweller in the Jesolo could avoid approaching the water, within easy reach of a lurking undine. Not even crazed and vicious Big Gianni was willing to risk their anger.
But if Marco returned to the city, the undines would be of no use. The elemental creatures rarely even entered the canals, for they found the city’s waters very unpleasant. And they would not be able to protect the boy, anyway, from the perils he would encounter there.
Not now, for a certainty. Venice would have been dangerous for Marco under any circumstances. But now, with a new assassination attempt having been launched against him, the city was ten times more dangerous than ever. Chiano’s memory was still too fragmented to understand the exact nature of that danger. But, in truth, that hardly mattered. Chiano had long ago understood Marco’s true identity. For that boy, with that lineage, deadly threats could come from any direction.