What I’m reading

Bran did not answer that. He sighed again and sat down beside Manawyddan. Nissyen sat down near them. Caradoc went back to playing with his ball. There was quiet again upon the Rock of Harlech, and peace settled down like a nesting bird. That too was the quality of Nissyen; he made peace.

Bran looked out to sea again. The mists had lifted, and in that clearness and from that great height, he seemed to be looking out into unearthly space. Sea and sky were before him, and sky and sea, and far away the two seemed to meet, vast blueness clasping vast blueness, in an embrace that looked like the world’s end. In earlier times, when boats were new, and a thought but recently shaped into wood by the hands of men, folk had believed that blue wall solid. The boldest had tried to sail out to it to see what it looked like near at hand. But when always it had recoiled before them, a space farther off for every space that they advanced, they had concluded that it was magical, a druid work set up to veil Other World secrets from the eyes of men.

Bran watched the delicate shining mystery of that wall until the sun came down to cleave it, filling the sky with blood and spilling gold upon the darkening sea.

Then he saw speckles cross that flaming disc. Speckles that grew and swelled into strange shapes, like huge ants crawling across the face of the dying sun. Swiftly they grew –– speeding forward, out of Illusion, into the world of men.

They became birds, great birds with white wings spread, darting toward the land, their prey.

Bran raised his hand. “Ships are coming––and coming fast.”

The Children of Llyr –– Evangeline Walton