Nereid (nereida) is a water creature of Antiterra’s earliest times: a beautiful woman who rises through rivers from deep underground waters. Her kiss can drown, and her life is bound to her shawl.
| Type | Creature (lineage) |
| Spanish entry | Nereida |
Nature
She is “one of those languid women whom even the gods pursue”, a lineage rather than an individual. She emerges soaked, her skin of a watery quality called gardosa (meaning unclear). Her aura “is total”: all who see her may be fascinated. Her tongue is “a jet of water”, and her “wet kisses can get water into your lungs”.
The shawl
Her shawl “is key”. It carries a “sweet, soft” poison, even a drug, and holds part of her life energy: destroying or attacking it kills her unless she recovers or rebuilds it. Whoever possesses it “could perhaps have manipulated and dominated her”.
Service
- Conjuration. She is paid in “sweet gems”. Conjuring her to assist in tasks costs 5,200 gold coins, by Khalim’s reckoning in portions of five hundred, though his figures and the total do not quite agree. Once paid she bows her head: “Lord, I am here to serve you. What do you wish me to do?”
- Opera. Nereids may “perform at the opera for the emperors, who always have a box somewhere even if they never visit it”.
Open questions
- How many exist and which waters hold them.
- The rite, requirements and officiant of conjuration.
- Whether each has her own shawl, how it is rebuilt, and how lasting the fascination is.
- Whether the opera is servitude, contract or custom, for which emperors, and whether it is linked to conjuration.
- Whether any individual named nereid exists.