Alas! The garden on the west side of the house was being flooded with water. In its midst a babbling spring had appeared with the rising of the sun. Standing at its edge was a naked young woman, and it was she who sang softly to the rising waters.
Throwing open his window, Anest cried, "Stop! What do you think you're doing?"
The sylph made a startled sound and looked about her, panic stricken. Torn between the uncanny eldritch glimmering of the spring whose subterranean magic was the source of her life, and the need to escape, she vanished from the visible world in such a manner as would a faint, untenable voice carried upon the wind from some far, unknown place.
Anest ran outside clutching the talisman that hung around his neck, and began speaking low words to it. As if in response, there was a great rumble from deep within the earth. The ground beneath his feet convulsed, kicking his feet out from under him. Somewhere in the back of his mind he realised that his talisman did not possess such power, and for a moment the sky darkened as though some deadly thing passed over on darkling wings. But these things were quickly forgotten as more immediate events carried his attention elsewhere.