Chapter 33
XXXIII
From the green depths she emerged slowly, her sleek head rising from the surface without even a ripple. The water of the pond slipped away from her skin like a sleeve, as the laws of the Mundane world found no purchase on her eldritch flesh.
Antoine and I could only watch in rapture as she ascended, rising until she stood on the surface of the pool. The air filled with the green smell of crushed grass and petrichor.
She was white, so very white, like a young woman molded from living ivory. Her hair was as black as the granite of her shrine and flashed green like the depths of the pond when it caught the light. It hung long down her back, twined thickly with strands of water chestnut.
Sarmodel, she’s a naiad. My God, I had believed them all gone.
He said nothing; I think even my Guest was a little stunned.
“My lady, I have come,” I said. I can’t say how, but I knew without doubt that she had been waiting for me.
We had not impelled her into physical form—she had always been here and simply chosen to reveal herself.
I could not help but return her smile as she stepped across the surface of the pool toward us.
Even now I can barely explain. There was something at once compelling and unnerving about her.
The water nymph was one of Pan’s cohort and she bore his likeness.
Tiny, bud-like horns protruded from her forehead, covered in velvet.
Her ears were long and furred with soft black down, like a doe’s.
Her abdomen had no navel, and her long white hands were without fingernails.
She wore no clothing, but she was not naked, just as a fish or a deer is not naked.
Nor was it the sight of her bare flesh that so ensnared me.
She had a primeval, unsettling beauty, far removed from the swooning sensibilities of the time.
She was dragonflies where I expected butterflies; eelgrass where I was accustomed to lilies.
“You found me,” she said. The eyes that regarded me were pellucid brown and fringed with long black lashes.
Her smile was innocence itself. “I have watched you, many times, Magician. The chase! The trout in the stream—one-two—ah! You would have my favor as victors of this hunt, certainly.” She clapped her hands and laughed, and the surface of the pool shivered with the sound.
“My handmaiden told me you would come, and I have so wanted you to find me. And now you have come!”
“I was not certain you would answer. It has been many years since I made such a call,” I said. “We have come seeking your aid, my lady.”
She shook her head playfully. “But there will be time for everything! Come, let us first spend a moment in company. Would you like to hear me sing? We can weave rainbows from the water together. Or perhaps a race?” she offered, her eyes sparkling.
“No, my lady. I regret to say our need is great.” I indicated Antoine, who seemed nigh delirious.
“So it is, always.” The naiad seemed disappointed, but she acquiesced. “And who is this young petitioner you bring to me, whose seed you have offered in my sanctuary?” she asked, her long ears flicking with curiosity.
“He is Antoine Avenel, the son of the Baron d’Ocerne.”
“Ah. Then you know me already, son of Ocerne!” she said with delight. “My waters have nurtured the great houses of Gévaudan for generations.”
“But who are you? Where did you come from?” murmured Antoine.
“I have always been here, my young lord,” she said.
“I am Dayane, the Water from the Mountain. I have tended these woods since the first men arrived with their stones and furs. I nourish root and river, the shepherd and the wolf. All who call are answered.” She looked up at Sarmodel and bowed low, her hair dipping below the surface of the pool.
“Even you, old one. Your challenge would not have gone unmet. It has been a long time since I was so honored.”
Sarmodel gave a low growl, a sound of naked hunger. The honor is mine. You are pure nectar, Dayane, and I would drink you to the lees.
“Ha! There were those who called themselves gods who claimed as much. They chased me through these mountains for three days and nights, until the final sun rose on the Lupercalia. None could outpace the stream.” Her smile as she straightened was full of wild pride.
Small yellow flowers opened in her hair, forming a victor’s crown. “Would you hear the story?”
“It pains me, but I must decline, my lady. It is one such god who has caused our current troubles, in fact,” I said. “Please, Dayane. We have little time, and the young lord’s illness grows worse by the hour.”
She grew suddenly very sad, and the pond seemed to lose its glowing depth. “Is there truly nothing else you would speak of? Do you not wish to hear a poem, or a song? You must! Kings once came to hear me sing—kings and queens and great sorcerers.”
“I am afraid we cannot, Dayane,” I answered gently.
She nodded, her eyes downcast. For a moment she was silent, her doe’s ears flattened in consternation. Fingers of frost began to creep over the surface of the pool.
“I know him, the one you speak of,” she said softly. “We all know him, the wild Spirits and I. He is the Warfather. Ares. Mars. Avstamet.”
“Yes, Dayane,” I answered. “Avstamet. Your priestess1 Cecile would not speak of him.” I glanced at Antoine. He was watching us with confusion written plainly on his face.
Your gift is wasted on her, my lovely, said Sarmodel. The favor of a demigoddess for a village witch? A hagstone for a midwife?
The naiad’s voice held a trace of defiance. “She is strong and worthy, and with my boon, she will grow to greatness in my image. It was I who forbade her to speak of the Warfather. I do not wish for her to draw his eye.”
“Can you help us, then? Do you know where he is?”
Dayane looked at me askance. “No. I know only that he wears the flesh of a mortal and moves among you, as you have no doubt discovered.”
“But why take the form of this Beast? What does he hope to achieve with this massacre of the people?”
Dayane shook her head. “You do not understand. You remember only the golden greaves of the general, the Olympian, Mars the Father of Rome. You forget that the Spirit of War was already old when Greece and Rome sent their armies across the sea. Avstamet was born when the first man decided to kill his neighbor to take what was his, rather than share the world with him. He is the hunger for conquest within every man, that you have tamed with comfort and law and the promise of a warm hearth. He has always been the Beast, just as you have.”
“And you will not help us against him?”
She shook her head and the surface of the pond seized violently, becoming a jagged flower of ice beneath her feet. “He is diminished, but he remains the Warfather. He violated and devoured untold numbers of my sisters in the groves of Arcadia. I do not wish to join them now that he has returned.”
Cowardice, said Sarmodel. I am disappointed, Dayane.
“Patience, rather,” she countered. “With patience, the stream will cleave even the mountain.”
“Then what of Antoine?” I asked, motioning to my ailing lover. He held out his wounded hand. “Will you not help him?”
Dayane’s limpid eyes were full of compassion. “Yes . . . yes, perhaps this I can do.” The ice slowly dissolved into the pool, leaving it once again still and shimmering within. “You are very unwell, young one. This is Avstamet’s doing, is it not?”
“The Beast. His teeth. His blood,” replied Antoine. Clearly he was more aware of what was happening than I realized.
“I fear a curse,” I added. “The wound will not heal, and Antoine is changing.”
The naiad inclined her head. “A curse, perhaps. An invasion, certainly. A poison of the soul. Avstamet has left a part of himself in your anima, my young one. It strives to conquer you; I can see it.”
“A part of himself? What do you mean?” I asked.
“His very essence is in the wound—the plasma of his disintegrating form, thanks to the fearsome blow you dealt him. It was an act of desperation but also a lesson. He wishes to make an example of your young lover.”
“An example? Of what?”
“You still do not understand. The Warfather has become a fountainhead of discord, a hunger that seeps into every living thing. You have already seen its first fruits.”
“The hounds,” I murmured.
“Just so. The beasts you have tamed over generations are forgetting themselves and returning to savagery. So it will be with the young lord’s people, in time.
As he feeds, Avstamet’s influence flourishes, spreading into the world like a contagion.
He will stoke and encourage the lowest instincts in man, and strip away the mask of civilization.
” She pointed to Antoine. “And now this. You ask why? He has done this to spite you, Magician. He has kept his word and spared the young man’s life, but now he will show you the beast you have risked your life to save.
His very flesh will be a mirror to his darkest appetites. ”
“Can he be cured?” I insisted.
“Yes,” said the nymph, her eyes clear. “What is Mundane flesh but earth and water? I do not know if it can be destroyed, but I can take the thorn from him. But you know there will be a price, Magician.”
“I do. But I cannot answer for him.”
She turned to Antoine, stroking his face. “Poor young one. Your throat burns, and you hunger so. The one you call the Beast has left a terrible barb in your flesh. I can take it from you, if you will it.”
Antoine trembled under her touch. “Please,” he whispered.
“Of course.” Dayane smiled. “There was a time when your people honored me with gifts and service and songs. I would have answered you with charity, and asked nothing more than a kiss from a handsome young man. But you and your people have forgotten me, young Lord Ocerne. Your love of the Almighty has eclipsed all others, and so my favor will come at great cost. Do you understand?”
He only nodded.
Dayane did not take her eyes from Antoine, but she spoke to me. “This is not for your ears, Magician—or yours, old one.” She bent low, speaking close to Antoine’s ear. He gave no reaction to her words other than a slight widening of his eyes.
I knew it was unfair. Antoine was so weak, so ill and so deeply adrift in the Fey realm he would have agreed to anything.
“That is my price and my requirement,” said Dayane, straightening. “Be warned; though the bargain is a costly one, the price for breaking it will be far worse. Do you accept?”
“Is there no other way?” he asked mildly, as though he were simply curious.
“None, my young one,” she said sadly. “Avstamet has planted a hunger in you that will never be satisfied. If I do not remove it, you will devour your rivals to the last—such is the nature of war.”
There was never any question. Antoine accepted the naiad’s bargain, with a shrug and a nod.
“Done.”
I let out a great sigh of relief; I did not realize I had been holding my breath. Dayane laughed in delight and danced away from us, standing once again in the center of the pool.
“You are so easily pleased! Come, then,” she said. The words were more than an invitation; they were a compulsion. I let her Fey magic settle over me like strands of spider silk. “Your love is a spark of the Divine in the Mundane world. Let us share it.”
“Are we to sing, after all?” I asked, as the pond filled with mossy green radiance.
A fine spray leaped from the surface of the water as she laughed again.
“No, Magician,” she said. I looked down and saw my own hands unbuttoning my waistcoat and then my breeches. “This is a rite of the flesh, and in flesh it will be performed.”
Antoine rose to his feet. He was already naked, his manhood hard and ready. His wide eyes were shining with lust. Without a thought, he walked out onto the surface of the water, into Dayane’s waiting embrace.
She wrapped her arms and her legs around him, guiding him inside her. As their lips met, Dayane’s pool began to ripple again—a steady double beat. The rhythm of Antoine’s heart.
She would accept nothing less than complete surrender, and I gave it willingly.
I shed my clothes and joined them there in Dayane’s sacred pool.
Antoine and I were lost in a joyous, wordless world where she was all at once there with us, twined around us like the ropes of mare’s tail, and flowing through us like bright liquor in our veins.
When we woke the next morning, clean, clothed and refreshed by our horses at the foot of the mountain, I heard the distant sound of Dayane’s laughter. The wounds on Antoine’s hand were healed completely, leaving only faint scars under the skin, like twisted cords.
1. The word I used was Ancient Greek: “hiereia,” which translates as “priestess” or “diviner.” There is a lot more to the role than either of these words really communicates, but you might say that Cecile was a sort of living “outpost” for Dayane in the Mundane world.