We kissed, then, and the ardour of her kiss stole my breath away. I returned her passion with all the fervor I possessed. A lifetime of vows and heart-felt disciplines had prepared me well, for in that kiss I sealed with all my soul the fate before me, embracing a mystery clothed in warm and yielding female flesh. Holding only the moment, with neither thought nor care for the future, I kissed her, and drank deep the strong wine of desire.

Early man recognised these lines of force and marked them out on the landscape with, well, any old thing, really standing stones, ditches, mounds, tumps, sacred wells, and that sort of thing. And, later on, with churches, market crosses, crossroads, and whatnot.

The Emrys! The Emrys is here!' Merlin shook his head in astonishment. 'Has it come to this?' he wondered. 'Even small children know me by sight.

When heaven joins the battle against you, who could stand?

See here, if a simple act of kindness or generosity, such as buying a loaf of bread for some poor working women, can mean that wholesale death and destruction will be avoided - why, a man would be a monster who had it in his power to alleviate all that suffering yet stood by and did nothing.

Call me Silidons, for such I am.

Alea iacta est. The die has been cast.