Raefindan
Raefindan dreamed again.
He stood again at the edge of the vale of Nimrodel and Mithrellas. The dark haired one's head came up; she seemed sorrowful. She recognized him.
"Imrazor!"
"Why do you call me that?"
"That is your name."
He shook his head, but let the matter stand. "What saddens you, Lady?"
"Death has claimed a lovely child."
Gwyllion. The loss of the lively, joyful, moonstruck girl, struck him full in the heart. Raefindan squinted his eyes shut. Tears leaked through the corners of his eyes. Something soft struck his body. He opened his eyes to see that he had fallen to the turf. A shadow was cast over him; he looked up. It was Mithrellas, her face full of care. She was fair beyond words, and looked nothing like his Angela, his love, who was lost to him. Too many deaths. He turned from her, shaking his head, and looked to the blades of grass beneath him.
"I have a message for you," he said to the grass.
"Speak it, my love."
Raefindan shook his head again, and looked up to her, drying his streaming cheeks. "There is one who loves Nimrodel. I speak not of he who was lost to the sea. His name is Maegeleb."
"Sharp spirit?"
"His love is centuries old. He desires to end the grief of Nimrodel, to bring her joy to make her forget her years of sorrow."
The vale blurred and faded and vanished.
Tharonwe
Maegeleb took Roy Edwards from the vale before Nimrodel's servant maid said too much. He opened memories of warfare. They were not Roy Edwards' own memories, but things he had read of. There were trenches and blasted earth, mud discolored to green and yellow mire. The air bled yellow like the stench decay in the merlocks' marshes. Soldiers ran from the yellow air, their faces hidden behind strange masks; and those who wore no masks, choked and fell in yellow spew and mud. The air was poisoned. The words that came with these memories were The Somme and poisoned gas and world war one. This might be useful. How was the poison made? Curse it. Roy Edwards did not know. Maegeleb would have to search the longer.
The others had come from the swamp, Tharonwe knew, and had found a place to stay the night, some home whose owner he could not see, nor hear, nor probe. Maybe it was an old shack where no one lived. Some of them seemed to be ready to stay there for the rest of their lives. Well and good. In the morning he and the young red head from the future would put some more leagues between them.
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