Rhodomantades speaks to his court, saying:
After the long years when all had been Llyr and the movement of Llyr, the years when the world was air and Llyr moving through it, defining place as Llyr and not-Llyr, direction as fore-Llyr and aft-Llyr, time as was-Llyr and will-be-Llyr with Llyr herself forever moving, forever unchanging at the center — after all this, when the world was sea and sky and and and the black velvet box of space beyond, Llyr forsook the sky and settled deep in the oceans, becoming heaving and smaller as she took the world’s weight on her back, trading the profound depths of the sky for the swaddling comfort of the sea. The world is a bowl with ever-moving Llyr at the bottom.
Rhodomantades is old without having grown old; older than his oldest courtiers, younger than all but the youngest. He who brought death and age into the world is untouched by either, still canny and fast-moving as ever, whose lightness of motion made him best beloved of Llyr, who others mistakenly call Briny Maw. Sailors have different names for different shapes, but in the sea all is change, all is continuity.
In all the world there was no one else but Llyr, no eyes to see, no breath to shape itself into words. Llyr was, but not alone: Llyr’s voice sang in the sea and the moon sang back, their twinned voices echoing in the resonant earth. Llyr’s voice was motion and Llyr’s body was motion, and the milk of the sea churned to foam above her swimming, grew rich and hungry under the hands of the moon. Thus life began. Llyr is motion and so life is motion. Llyr is atmosphere and ocean and so we are atmosphere and ocean. Listen!