Marion Bradley - The Mists of Avalon

"Let him be heard."

"It is even so," said Kevin. "Lady, I said it once to you before this- the day of Avalon is ended. The Nazarene has conquered, and we must go into the mists further and further until we are no more than a legend and a dream. Would you then take the Holy Regalia with you into that darkness, preserving it carefully against the dawning of a new day that now shall never be? Even if Avalon must perish, I felt it right that the holy things should be sent forth into the world in the service of the Divine, by whatever name God or the Gods may be called. And because of what I have done, the Goddess has manifested herself at least once in the world yonder, in a way that shall never be forgotten. The passing of the Grail shall be remembered, my Morgaine, when you and I are only legends for the fireside and tales for children. I do not think that wasted, nor should you, who bore that chalice as her priestess. Now do with me what you will."

Morgaine bent her head. The memory of that moment of ecstasy and revelation, when she had borne the Grail in the form of the Goddess, would remain with her until her death; and of those who had experienced the vision, whatever they might have seen, none of their lives would ever be the same. But now she must face Kevin in the person of the avenging Goddess, the Death-crone, the ravening sow who will devour her own young, the Great Raven, the Destroyer ... .

Yet he had given the Goddess this much. She reached out her hand to him ... and stopped, for under her hand again she saw what once before she had seen, a skull beneath her fingers ... .

... now he is fey, he sees his own death, and I see it too ... . Yet he shall not suffer nor be tortured. He spoke truth; he has done what the Goddess has given him to do, and now must I do the same ... . She waited until her voice was steady before she spoke. In the distance she heard a soft thundering.

At last she said, "The Goddess is merciful. Take him to the oak grove, as is ordained, but there slay him swiftly with a single stroke. Bury him beneath the great oak, and let it henceforth be shunned now and forever by all men. Kevin, last of the Messengers of the Goddess, I curse you to forget all, to be reborn without priesthood and without enlightenment, that all you have done in your former lives be wiped away and your soul returned to the once-born. A hundred lifetimes shall you return, Kevin Harper, always seeking the Goddess and never finding her. Yet in the end, Kevin, once Merlin, I say to you-if she wants you, be very sure she will find you again."

Kevin looked straight at her. He smiled, that curious, sweet smile, and said, almost in a whisper, "Farewell, then, Lady of the Lake. Tell Nimue I loved her ... or it may be that I will tell her myself. For I think it will be a long, long time before you and I shall meet again, Morgaine." And again soft thunder punctuated his words.

Morgaine shivered as he limped away without looking back, supported on the arms of his captors.

Why do I feel so shamed? I showed mercy; I could have had him tortured. They will call me, too, traitor and weakling, that he was not taken to the oak grove and there made to scream and pray for death till the very trees shrank from the sound ... . Am I only a weakling, that I would not torture a man I once loved? Is his death to be so easy that the Goddess will then seek vengeance on me? So be it, even if I must meet the death I could not give him.

She flinched, looking into the grey storm clouds in the sky. Kevin has suffered all his life long. I will add nothing more than death to his fate. Lightning flared in the sky, and she thought, with a shiver-or was it only the cold wind that came with the sudden rush of the storm outside?-So passes the last of the great Merlins, into the storm that breaks now over Avalon.

She gestured to Niniane. "Go. See my sentence done to the letter, that they slay him with a single stroke, and leave not his body above ground for a single hour." She saw the younger woman's gaze rest on her face; was it known, then, to everyone, that once they had been lovers? But Niniane only asked, "And you?"

"I go now to Nimue. She will need me."

But Nimue was not in her room in the House of Maidens, nor anywhere in the house, nor, when Morgaine hurried across the rain-swept courts, was she in the secluded house where she had dwelt with Raven. She was not anywhere in the temple, and one of the attendant priestesses told Morgaine that Nimue had refused food or wine or even a bath. Morgaine, terrible apprehension growing in her with every flash of lightning as the storm grew and raged, called for all the servants of the temple to search for her; but before they could Niniane came, her face white, attended by the men she had sent to see Kevin's death done as Morgaine had decreed.

"What is it?" Morgaine demanded, her voice cold. "Why was my sentence not done?"

"He was slain with a single stroke, Lady of the Lake," Niniane whispered, "but with the very stroke came lightning from the sky and struck the great oak-cleft it in twain. There is a great rift in the sacred oak, from the sky to the ground ... ."

Morgaine felt steel clamp around her throat. Nothing so strange, that with the storm should come the lightning flash, and ever the lightning strikes at the highest point. But that it should come in the same hour wherein Kevin prophesied the end of Avalon ...

She shivered again, wrapping her arms about herself under her cloak so that those who looked on her should not see her trembling. How could she turn this omen, for omen it surely was, aside from the impending destruction of Avalon?

"The God has prepared a place for the traitor. Bury him, then, within the cleft in the oak ... ."

They bowed acquiescence and went away, through thunder and the sudden rattle of rain, and Morgaine, distraught, realized that she had forgotten Nimue. But a voice within her said, Now it is too late.

They found her at high noon, just as the sun came out after the storm, floating among the reeds of the Lake. Her long hair was spread out on the surface like water weeds, and Morgaine, stunned with grief, could not find it in her heart to regret that Kevin had not gone alone into the shadowed land beyond death.

12

Morgaine thought often, in the bleak days which followed upon Kevin's death, now indeed the Goddess had taken it upon herself to destroy the Companions of the Round Table. But why had it been her will to destroy Avalon too?

I am growing old. Raven is dead and Nimue is dead, who should have been Lady after me. And the Goddess has laid her hand upon no other to be her prophetess. Kevin lies entombed within the oak. What of Avalon now?

It seemed that the world was shifting, that beyond the mists the world moved at an ever-accelerating pace. No one save herself and one or two of the oldest priestesses could open the gateway through the mists, and there was now little reason to try. And there were times when she walked abroad and could see neither sun nor moon, and she knew that she had strayed over the borders of the fairy country; but she saw only the rarest glimpses of the fairy folk among the trees, nor did she ever again have sight of the queen.

She wondered if indeed the Goddess had deserted them, for some of the maidens from the House of Maidens had gone again into the world, and others strayed into the fairy country and did not return again.

The Goddess came forth for the last time into the world when she bore the Grail through Arthur's hall at Camelot, Morgaine thought, and then, confused, she asked herself whether the Goddess had truly borne the Grail, or had it only been herself and Raven working illusion?

I have called on the Goddess and found her within myself.

And Morgaine knew that never again would she have the ability to seek beyond herself for comfort or counsel; she could look only within. No priestess, no prophetess, no Druid or councillor, no Goddess now to turn to; none but her unguided self. Now and again, when, as the habit of a lifetime bade her, she sought to call up the image of the Goddess to guide her, she saw nothing, or sometimes the face of Igraine-not the elderly, priest-ridden wife and widow of Uther, but the young and beautiful mother who had first laid these burdens on her, who had bidden her care for Arthur and given her into the hands of Viviane. And now and again she would see the face of Viviane, who had sent her to the bed of the Horned One, or Raven, who had stood at her side during that great moment of invocation.