In his dreams he is called Llew Llaw and owes himself to the sea.
The angels gather around him and quiz him. “What are the three trees of resurrection, Llew Llaw?” they ask.
He garbles a bit. “White p-p-p-p-poplar,” he says, “cypress. Al-al-alder.”
They wheel around him. They are great and four-limbed, and have a face in each direction. They are like great Catherine wheels, he thinks, all fire and movement. “And what, Llew Llaw, is the sign of rebirth?”
This he knows. “The spiral; the labyrinth; the fiddlehead fern. The path in, the path out.”
They are constellations beneath the ocean. Bioluminescent. Fire through glass. “Llew Llaw, where is the town of the dead?”
“What is your riddle?” he asks, and they stop moving. “What is your alphabet?” The ground shakes beneath him. “What is your calendar?” Their flames are high and unwaving though the wind rattles the grasses against his shins.
“Llew Llaw,” they cry. “Llew Llaw!”
“In the north I was –“
“Llew Llaw!”
“– and six have returned as I have from the crown in the sky. I have wheeled without movement.”
And they spin, and he owes himself to the ocean, which is Tethys.