Marion Bradley - The Mists of Avalon

She slid down her horse's side, the scabbard in her hand. "Scatter," she whispered to the men, and one by one it was as if they melted into the trees and mists... they could move like shadows if they must, and no man alive could find them if they did not want to be found. Morgaine grasped the scabbard in her hand and began to run along the shores of the Lake. In her mind she could hear Arthur's voice, feel his rage ... .

He had Excalibur; she could feel it, like a great shining in her mind, the holy thing of Avalon ... but the scabbard he should never bear again. She took it in both hands, whirled it over her head, and flung it, with all her strength, far out into the Lake, where she saw it sink into the deep and fathomless waters. No human hand could ever reclaim it-there it would lie till leather and velvet rotted and the silver and gold thread tarnished and twisted and at last the spells woven into them vanished utterly from the world.

Arthur was riding in pursuit, Excalibur naked in his hand ... but she and her escort were gone. Morgaine drew herself into silence, a part of shadow and tree as if some essential part of herself had gone into Fairy; while she stayed there motionless, covered in the silence of a priestess, no one from the mortal world could see so much as her shadow ... .

Arthur shouted her name.

"Morgaine! Morgaine!" A third time he called, loud and angry; but the very shadows were still, and at last, confused from riding in circles- once he came so close that Morgaine could feel the breath of his horse- he wearied, and called to his escort, and they came to find him swaying in his saddle, the bandages slowly soaking through with blood, and they led him away the way they had come.

Then Morgaine raised her hand, and once again the normal sound of bird and wind and tree came back into the world.

MORGAINE SPEAKS ...

In later years I heard the tale told of how I took the scabbard by sorcery, and how Arthur rode after me with a hundred knights, and I too had a hundred fairy knights all round me; and when Arthur's pursuit grew near, I turned myself and my men into ring stones ... . Someday, no doubt, they will add that when I had done, I called for my chariot with the winged dragons, and flew away into Fairy.

But it was not so. It was no more than this, that the little people can hide in the forests and become one with tree and shadow, and that day I was one of them, as I had been taught in Avalon; and when Arthur had been taken away by his escort, near to fainting with the long pursuit and the cold in his wound, I said farewell to the men of Avalon, and rode away to Tintagel. But when I came to Tintagel it mattered little to me what they did in Camelot, for I was sick even to death for a long time.

I know not, even now, what ailed me; I know only that summer faded and the leaves began to fall while I lay in my bed, tended by the servants I had found there, neither knowing nor caring whether I would ever rise. I know I had a low fever, a weariness so great that I could not force myself to sit upright or to eat, a heaviness of mind so great that I cared not whether I would live or die. My servants-one or two of them I recalled from the days when I lived there as a little child, with Igraine-thought me enchanted; and it may even have been true.

Marcus of Cornwall sent to me in homage, and I thought, Arthur's star rides high, no doubt he believes that I have come here at Arthur's will, and he will not -now-challenge Arthur even for these lands he believes his own. A year ago, I might have laughed at this, or even made common cause with Marcus, promising him lands here in return for leading a party of the disaffected against Arthur. And even now it crossed my mind; but with Accolon dead, it seemed to matter nothing. Arthur had Excalibur ... if the Goddess wished that it should be taken from him, she would have to come and take it herself, for I had failed, I was her priestess no more ... .

... I think it was that which hurt me worst, that I had failed, failed Avalon, that she had not put forth her hand to help me do her will. The strength of Arthur and the priests and of the traitor Kevin had been stronger than the magic of Avalon, and there was no one left.

No one left. No one. I mourned without ceasing for Accolon, and for the child whose life had barely begun before it was ended, cast aside like offal. I mourned too for Arthur, lost to me now, and my enemy, and, unbelievably, even for Uriens, and for the wreck of my life in Wales, the only peace I had ever known. I had killed or thrust from me or lost to death everyone in this world I had ever loved. Igraine was gone, and Viviane lost to death, murdered and lying among the priests of their God of death and doom. Accolon was gone, the priest I had consecrated to do that last battle against the Christian priests. Arthur was my enemy; Lancelet had learned to hate and fear me, and I was not guiltless for that hate. Gwenhwyfar feared and loathed me, even Elaine was gone now ... and Uwaine, who had been as my own son, hated me too. There was none to care whether I should live or die, and so I did not care either ... .

The last of the leaves had gone and the fearful storms of winter had begun to beat over Tintagel when one day one of my women came to me and said that a man had come to seek me.

"At this season?" I looked out beyond the window, where unceasing rain beat down from skies as grey and bleak as the inside of my own mind. What traveller would come through this bitter weather, struggling through storms and darkness? No; whoever he might be, I cared not. "Say to him that the Duchess of Cornwall sees no man, and send him away."

"Into the rain on a night such as this will be, lady?" I was startled that the woman should protest; most of them feared me for a sorceress, and I was content to have it so. But the woman was right; Tintagel had never failed in hospitality when it was in the hands of my long-dead father, or of Igraine ... so be it. I said, "Give the traveller hospitality fitting his rank, and food, and bed; but tell him that I am ill, and cannot receive him."

She went away and I lay watching the fierce rain and darkness, feeling its cold breath through the slit of the window and trying to find my way back into the peaceful blankness where now I felt most like myself. But after a very little, the door opened again and the woman returned, and I started upright, shaking with anger, the first emotion I had let myself feel in many weeks.

"I have not summoned you, and I did not bid you return! How dare you?"

"I am charged with a message for you, lady," she said, "a message I didn't dare say no to, not when one of the high ones speaks ... . He said, 'I speak not to the Duchess of Cornwall but to the Lady of Avalon, and she cannot refuse the Messenger of the Gods when the Merlin seeks audience and counsel.' " The woman paused and said, "I hope I've got it right ... he made me say it over twice to be sure I had it all."

Now, against my will, I felt the stirrings of curiosity. The Merlin? But Kevin was Arthur's man, surely he would not have come like this to me. Had he not aligned himself firmly with Arthur and with the Christians, traitor to Avalon? But perhaps some other man now held that office, Messenger of the Gods, Merlin of Britain ... and now I thought of my son Gwydion, or Mordred as I supposed I must now think of him; perhaps this was his office, for he alone would now think of me as Lady of Avalon ... . After a long silence, I said, "Tell him I will see him, then." After a moment I added, "But not like this. Send someone to dress me." For I knew that I was too weak to put on my own clothes. But I would not receive any man this way, weak and ill and in my bedchamber; I, who was priestess of Avalon, would manage to stand on my feet before the Merlin, even if what he brought was sentence of death for all my failure ... I am still Morgaine!