Cantre'r Gwaelod

      At the deepest hour of the night, as a full moon filtered through the layers of fine mist that shrouded the realm, a gray moth was flitting about anxiously behind the window panes of an inn. The room was dark and rank with debauchery; drunk and snoring bodies - all lying in the most absurd positions - littered the floor and tables. The meager moonlight had been calling to the moth for hours - as a siren calls to sailors - ever since the last lingering glow left the embers of the fireplace. Suddenly a yellow apparition appeared on the far side of the room; a candle. In an instant the insect lustfully flew for the closer light.

      The bearer of the candlestick was in equal haste, making for the door with as much speed as his condition allowed. As he hobbled, fine jewelry flashed all over his person and chains that hung round his bulky neck flopped back and forth across his soiled sable robe. All the watered down wine he had poured down his greedy throat had run its course; the man was painfully in need of relief. Many body parts were crushed under his wide feet in his rush to the door, but none were sober enough to awake.

      Yanking down the latch, he floundered through the door and barreled right over a man who had the terrible misfortune to be running by just at that moment. The men fell in a heap, the candle was drowned in mire, and the moth - now free - made for the moon. The drunken man, no longer needing to relieve himself, passed out where he lay. The man that he had collided with, however, barely hit the ground before he was up and running again, the sound of bells ringing incessantly through his head.

      The dense fog that lay over the realm of Cantre'r Gwaelod was like the hand of death, occluding the heavens and confusing the sweet songs of nightingales. Gnarled skeletons of ancient trees mingled furtively in the weald, their hoary hides scarcely discernable from the caliginous haze. The hour of dawn arrived, yet no dawn penetrated the shadow; as was ever the case in that cursed realm, rather than relieving it only intensified the miasma.

      As the man fled, the sound of his own feet wearily pounding over the uneven ground caused many halts in fear of a malevolent pursuer. Every time he resumed his flight it was at a much slower pace, and before the sun reached its zenith he had sunk into a stagger. His body was trembling uncontrollably. The cold sweat and freezing mist soaking his threadbare rags seeped down to his very marrow in a piercing embrace; every fiber of his being was painfully aware of all that came in contact with it long after it had disappeared.

      Lurching forward in a final desperate wind, the man caught his foot on an exposed rock, and went down. Instinctively his hands flew out to break the fall yet were met with only the deafening roar of misty air whipping past him, and then he knew no more.

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      Seven sylphs rushed with the force of a hurricane toward the unconscious man as he fell from the cliff top toward the raging Sea, catching him just before he would have struck the churching Deep. "What have you done?" a voice questioned them from the shoals. Whipping around, the sylphs espied the siren scowling up at them. She snapped again, "Who are you to save a human life, going directly against the Voice of the Deep?"

      "You speak as if you were the Voice. Has all that water gone to your head?"

      "And this coming from those whose heads are always in the clouds! Your kind has never been very wise. Without complete annihilation there is no freedom!"

      "Who would you sing your sordid songs to if all the men were dead?"

      "I need no creature to satisfy me."

      "This is your kind's problem: you're never satisfied. And you do not speak for the Deep! We answer only to her word."

      "She has given it."

      The spirits of the air did not heed the siren's warning; wrapping the man in warm lambency, they carried him high above the occlusion to the healing embrace of the sun. The siren, however, smiled with a joy only conceivable in Hades. Lithe as a fish, she slipped back from the shoals and swiftly descended to the Deep.

      ""When no good man dwells in the realm, then I shall drown the human treachery." Those were her words - the great Thalassa, Voice and embodiment of the Deep! Well at long last this has come to be, and you, my dear, innocent and ignorant sylphs, have helped me to achieve this! I shall keep you to your words, Thalassa! Soon the entire realm of Gwaelod will be overwhelmed. Then, my simple sprites, I shall be satisfied! At least for a while…"

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      The man awoke lying on his back in the midst of a dank forest. A cool night wind sent shivers up his spine which shot through his body and caused all of his hairs to stand alert. Long soft grass tickled his exposed skin, and he thought to himself, "I should get up." Yet even as he thought this, inertia was draining him of any such will. In the near distance he could hear the muffled thunder of a waterfall, and the blended sonace of it and the wandering wind lulled him back into the realm of unconsciousness.

      Suddenly the man leapt to his feet. He had heard foot steps. Farther up the bank the man noticed movement, and spun round to see what appeared to be a small girl walking solemnly toward him...