She seemed not to hear.

He edged a little closer to the bank.

‘Orial,’ He beckoned invitingly, raising the restraint-shroud he had brought. ‘You must be cold. Come. I have a shawl to wrap around your shoulders.’

The whispering sigh of the reeds as they moved to the breath of the breeze was the only reply.

She turned away and began to wade further out into the reed-beds. Water lapped around her legs, staining the trailing robe with green. Beyond, the wide Avenne glistened in a brief sunslick, deceptively placid beneath the cloudy sky.

He had no choice but to go in after her.

But then, he reasoned, as he kicked off his buckle-shoes and peeled off his hose, he would have no choice now but to use his machine on her. And for that it was worth getting his feet wet.

His toes sank down into the river-ooze. It was far colder than he had anticipated and emitted a mephitic gaseous odour that almost made him choke. Decaying river-weed and a green scum of algae clung to his legs.

But in his mind he was already strapping his wayward river-nymph into the treatment chair, he was pressing the metal helmet on to her reed-bedraggled hair. She would be his triumph. The triumph of science over superstition. No more nonsense about Faer Folk or rainbow eyes.

The two constables appeared on the bank.

He waved to them to keep down, to fan out. If he could hold her attention, the other two could creep up on her unnoticed.

He lost his balance, almost falling face first into the noisome waters, grasping at the fragile reeds to steady himself.

Cursing, Tartarus tried to brush the mud-spatter from his clothes. The slender reeds had scratched his palms; the reek of the black mud filled his nostrils.

It would be necessary to administer a strong charge to the right hemisphere of the brain. At the touch of his hand, the power-spark surged into her. Her slender body convulsed, juddered…

Was it his imagination? Or did the noisome air suddenly smell fresh and sweet as a spring dawn?

And then his vision cleared and he was only looking at a poor, mad thing, a chit of a girl who had lost her wits and was half-naked, dirty and bedraggled.

‘Set us free…’

Whenever Orial shut her eyes, she could still see them, the Dead, raising their shrivelled hands to her, their decaying eyes lit with the mephitic fire of marsh gas.

She lifted her hands to her throbbing head, rocking to and fro.

Dead voices filled her mind, spirit voices, soul voices…

‘The Lotos blooms on the dark waters.’

‘The Lotos Princess opens her arms to receive us.’

‘The sacred springs flow again.’

The waters called to her. Beneath the cool, green Avenne lay silence – an end to the incessant clamour.

‘Open the gates and let us pass through into the light.’