"I have called you to ask you questions of the river .
Has the River changed recently?
Have people done anything to the River ?
Do you know why the faerie has changed?
"
I will try to charm/bragain the answers out of the spirit as I prefer not to antagonise the local spirits. However if It won't cooperate I will try to Command it to
"Answer my questions about the river truthfully " and then ask the questions
"I cannot tell you: he has told me not to tell, and I cannot directly counter him, debased as he is. I am glad you know about the crows. Such interesting birds. I have not always found them interesting."
OK, choose a strategy. Are you going to charm or bargain? Which ability are you going to use. Are you offering anything, if you bargain?
"I prefer seagulls myself." Iohannes pauses. "I honor your loyalty to your master. I myself am a leader of men, and have learned to value loyalty above all other virtues. If my friends and I were to choose to counter your master as he has become, rather than flee and hide, what advice can you give me, that would honor your ongoing loyalty to who he once had been?"
An aside to Roto, later:
"Is there a nearby village or farm? I'd like to know more about the bridge, when it was destroyed and how. And also about the ford, and maybe even about the knight. Take a grog or two. I'd go myself, but I think someone un-Gifted will fare better with the locals."
And also:
"Is that the tree where the crows perched?"
Iohannes, on a hunch, decides to search for an Infernal aura in the area. This might be hiding beneath a stronger, Faerie aura, influencing the overall aura but not yet sufficient to overcome it, and thus requires a much subtler spell.
An Ear for Baleful Influences InVi 20
Base 1: Detect presence of a mystical aura
Doing something very, very tricky: +3 magnitudes
Diam +1
Hearing +3
Stress die 6, casting score 20 + Aura. Casting Total 10 + Aura/2. Iohannes loses one FL if the Aura is magic, faerie or neutral, otherwise 2 FL, and the spell is cast.
Iohannes now has two minutes to follow the sound he hears, to the source. If any.
I will use charm and try to convince it that I am a freind who wants to help the river and that by talking to me she can help herslef and all the other spirits of the river
The little fish man sighs: "It is true, part of him remembers what he was, when he was himself. Part of him remembers when the first bridge was built. It was wood, not like the stone bridge you see here. His flesh remembers it, even oif he has forgotten himself. More he would forbid me to say, and yet, in the olden times if he had thought to, he would have asked me to give you more. But I cannot. He did not. He will not."
[Rolls 7]
"Your questions show you know our ways: that we are where we dwell. And yet, you do not know the knight. The knight is not the river, child. The knight is the bridge.
When men came and broke the bridge, they broke him too. Injured beasts call carrion eaters to them, and so they came, and poisoned him."
You hear a sound like waves on rocks, coming from the shadow under the far side of the bridge. To go there, you'd need to pass the little fish man, and past his master, whose tent lies between the shadow and your party, then cross the river.
Iohannes takes that in, considers and then rejects the use of a Mentem spell.
"Something that you can tell me, perhaps." He gestures toward Roto. "You might remember that your master--I don't believe I caught his name--struck this man recently and inflicted a disease upon him. Has he been treating other people thusly, or just the one?"
The infernal aura can wait. Iohannes rests and waits for the other magi to return. Roto and the grog might take longer.
When the magi return, Iohannes talks about the conversation with the squire (which hasn't finished yet, but time is fluid 
) and about the infernal aura.
After some short time, Vispillius returns, the invisibility ending as he flies on his branch, low and through the treeline that borders the river. He is moving quickly, and settles down to earth, swinging one leg over and using the floating stick as a bench, and reports his findings.
"The river seems as it should be, salt below the bridge, fresh above. It may be that there is something else amiss, magical, or a different defiling of the waters. I could not test for every possibility, but I could soar upriver a ways and see if anything obvious is affecting these waters lower down..."
He listens to what little has been discovered, scratching his jaw and shifting on the floating stick as he absorbs the information.
"So, 'humans' have changed him. I would guess that he is a sprite of the bridge, in the same way that I've heard there are sprites of certain houses or fields. When the bridge was broken, so was this sprite - or some part of it.
"The crows... odd that the river spirit would not find them interesting before, but does so now. If the crows found such a sprite, and fed on the body, perhaps something twisted, and combined the two?..."
He shakes his head in frustration and confusion.
"I wish I knew more about these matters. We should assess this infernal aura as well. 'Carrion eaters' - if those are not mundane crows, but something from the other side, feeding on a wounded spirit, not a corporeal body, then the black fluid that Roto expelled may be closer to evil than poison, that the color of the knight reflects his new soul, as well as a past sadness."
He gestures to the branch he has enspelled, patting the back half of it.
"I can fly one more over the waters, to hover over the area in question. We could do it now, or wait until dark, when an infernal influence may be easier to discern and analyze. I don't discount the possibility that the dark knight could travel over the water, but hopefully he is unable to fly... tho' with those feathers... If we are threatened, we will retreat here, where we all might combine to resist and counter him."
He looks over at the ruin that was the bridge, the foundations rising to emptiness on either bank.
"First of wood, then of stone, which would have hardened a spirit that reflects the object... then broken. We must also consider how best to rebuild that which has been ruined. I wonder what men destroyed it, and why..."
Vispillius, I think it is a good idea that you search the other side. But as you know any infernal power will hide the truth. There is no hope in trying to get information by using magic. Titius stretches out his body as he speak.
As it seems it is that the knight is broken in spirit by the broken bridge but with our combined effort it shouldn’t be to hard to restore the bridge, at least not so that it is made out of wood. Once we have constructed a temporary bridge then skilled masons are allowed to construct a proper bridge without the fear of attack. Titius looks at the other magi as he speak.
Titius looks at Vispillius. I think that it is unwise for you to expose us to the risk of getting hurt without preparing defences. Before you go we should prepare for an attack. Spontaneous magic’s should be used to construct defences or at least aids for defence. Soldaes what are your areas of expertise and how can we use it to defend ourselves and our guards? Titius looks once again at the other magi.
Vispillius' face is creased by a sly grin.
"The powers of other Domains are only obstacles, not limits. I welcome the challenge, even if I may not prove to be up to it. But your precautions demonstrate a wisdom born of mistakes that need not be repeated - Roto, what details can you give us of this knight's previous attacks, and how we may be best able to counter them? Remembering, of course, that he may well have additional tricks up his sleeve..."
Before discssing with the other magi Theodora returns the spirit to its rest thanking it for its help and complimenting it on its intelligence and perception.
Theodora looks concerned,
"Before we risk a confronation with the faerie it would be wise to gain an idea of the faeries magnitude before we risk conflict so we can judge the effectiveness of our magics. I have no spells which are effective against faeries so I would have to relay on spontaneous magics which are not reliable agaisnt powerful creatures.
I think that repairing the bridge would be a good step but it would also seem probably that an infernal aura could indicate something that is tainting the bridge and corrupting the faerie. Removing the source of that corruption would be wise as well as otherwise we risk the faerie remaining dangerous to us.
However to repair the bridge or investigate the infernal aura we would need to avoid or distract the black knight "
Even low magnitude spells are of use against most opponents Theodora. If the Knight can’t fly then he be trapped in a pit and covered in dirt if needed. Not high magnitude spells but still potent. But yes, we must know more about our foe or at least investigate the bridge. Vispillius volunteered to examine the bridge and if that can be done stealthy we can avoid confrontation. I say that we retreat away a fair distance so that we still can survey the scene. Prepare our guards for combat and think of spells that can harm our foe if needed. Magic that circumvents his defences. Poisonous vapours if armour is the problem and indirect attacks if he can resist our magic’s. Even a mighty dragon can be slain by dropping a tree upon it’s head. Shall we execute my plan or…?
Iohannes boards. "Let's see what happens when we make landfall on the other side."
Iohannes says, "Building a new bridge will probably not be enough. Bridges are--were--mystical. And building bridges, also. The pope, the pontifex is named.... well, your Latin is as good as mine, maybe better. There was probably a ritual that went with building the bridge, that granted it strength beyond the mundane and bound a Faerie guardian to it, and it to the Faerie realm.
"I don't think it's as much about the bridge being destroyed as much as how it was destroyed. Something happened here."
Iohannes points toward the Infernal aura he heard, the shadowed place. "Something happened there."
"That's what I think too. Roto has gone to find out from the locals what has happened here--I prefer to try that before wading in with Mentem spells.
"And if the knight emerges from his pavilion, so much the better.
"If necessary, can you prevail upon the local spirit to assist us against the knight?"
Vispilius nods as Iohannes approaches, and swings his leg back over to straddle the stout branch. There are several crooks and such, so that finding a balance point is not overly hard, tho' as the odd mount rises, it's clear that one could fall without trying too hard. Vispilius floats upwards only slowly, not ending the discussion quite yet.
"Perhaps if we do not approach to cross the bridge, but come up the river and stick to it, the knight will not see his self-imposed duty as invoked. But taking the fish-herald's advice and withdrawing may prove prudent, and should the knight pursue and become a threat, we will find you off toward those trees if we cannot elude him - make what preparations you may."
Once the discussion is over, the two fly off, tho' not as fast as the lone mage had before, moving downriver, then out over it, and then back up again. to where the bridge had been. Following Iohannes' directions, Vispilius hovers over the area in question, and keeps an eye out while the other does pursues his investigations.