[Undómë]

Still dark it was. But a cleaner darkness than what had passed, she thought. A natural darkness that gives way easily to light and passes away without a struggle into the dawning day.

Old Goody had roused herself from her chair by the fire and pulling a heavy cloak about her had gone out to stand under the black dome of sky. There were no stars; the clouds were too heavy. And even the bright moon’s light struggled wanly round their edges. The tall men were gone. East, they had told her in parting . . . to the workings of their own tasks.

A light snow had fallen; their footsteps were obscured . . . nay, vanished altogether. And for all she knew they had but stepped outside The Green Man and casting off their forms, taken wing. She laughed, chiding herself as she did so that she need keep rein on her imaginings, lest those in the village think she had gone quite daft.

Soon, ‘twill not matter what anyone thinks. You’ll not be here to be bothered by it. Goody laughed again, a louder, wilder sound.

In the distance, on the steep slops of the peaks above the foothills, a hollow booming sound echoed down softly from the backdrop of the mountains. Some great mass of snow loosed itself from its tenuous pinnings and came rolling and tumbling down the slope until it hit hard against the trees which marked the high edges of the forest. Great spumes of snow shot up into the air as the trees gave way at first and then held fast.

The sun rose up to the edges of the world; to that place where the tall men said they were going. Here in the winterlocked north even its bright light struggled against the layers of clouds and snow . . .