Grail

I allowed that this might be so, but it did seem that Morgaws had no trouble getting whatever she wanted.

'Did she not?' demanded Myrddin. 'See here: Morgaws wanted the Grail and she wanted Arthur's sword. For all her vaunted powers, she could not get these simple things for herself. No, she required someone else – and even then, she could not keep them. Despite her skills and schemes, she could not meet us face-to-face, but required one of our own who could be turned to her purposes.' Myrddin sighed. 'Alas, it was Llenlleawg who succumbed.'

'I still do not understand why he did it,' Gereint put in. 'Betraying the king…' He subsided, shaking his head as if it were a thing that would remain forever beyond his comprehension.

'Evil ever chooses the weak and willing,' Myrddin replied. 'But I think it was really Gwalchavad she wanted.'

'Me!' He startled me with this unexpected announcement.

'You were the first to find Morgaws,' he stated simply. 'You are Lot's son, after all, and Morgian knows you. It would have served her purposes well to bend you to her will.'

The thought made me uneasy. 'Then Morgian was behind it after all?' I asked.

Myrddin pondered this before he answered. 'I believe Morgaws was Morgian's creature from the beginning, and acted on Morgian's command,' he said, then, in a voice heavy with regret, added, 'Would that discernment had come to me sooner – how much suffering might have been saved… the waste… the sad, sad, waste.'

'What will she do now?'

'We have removed yet another weapon from the fight,' he answered. 'I have no idea what she will do now. But I think it prudent to assume we have not seen the last of Dread Morgian.'

The threat implicit in this statement hung over me for a long time. I fell silent, thinking about the things Myrddin had said, and was roused some while later when Gereint suddenly cried out, 'Riders approaching!'

The shout startled me like a slap in the face. Deeply immersed in my reverie, I had not been attending to what was happening around me. I looked up to see that the forest had completely disappeared: every tree – root, branch, and twig -had vanished with the mist. There was nothing of the forest to be seen anywhere, and we were once more in the low-hilled barrens of the blighted land.

I had no time to marvel at this, for Myrddin and Gereint stood a few paces ahead of me, and beyond them, some small distance away, a mounted warhost was advancing swiftly.

Arthur, with Gwenhwyvar beside him, joined us quickly, and Bors and Rhys pushed in as well. We stood there in a tight knot as nearer and nearer they came. Soon I heard the dull rumble of the horses' hooves on the ground, and I scanned the onrushing ranks quickly and determined that there must be close to fifty riders – too many to fight, if it came to that.

'Maybe they are some of Cador's kinsmen,' speculated Rhys, shading his eyes with his hand.

Before anyone could reply to this, Arthur loosed a wild whoop and started running to meet the riders.

'Arthur!' shouted Gwenhwyvar; she darted forward a few paces, halted, and called back to us over her shoulder. 'They are not Cador's men. It is Cador himself.'

'And Cai, and Bedwyr, and all the rest,' proclaimed Myrddin, a great, exuberant grin spreading across his face. 'They are alive!'

It was true.

By some miracle known only to God himself, they lived. Within moments we were surrounded by the very kinsmen and swordbrothers we had committed to a fiery grave in the forest. Alive again! They were all alive! Words alone cannot tell how startling and rapturous was that miraculous reunion. My heart soared like an eagle as I ran to greet them.

'Cai! Bedwyr!' I cried, rushing to embrace them as they slid from their saddles. 'Cador! You are alive, praise God. You are…' That was all I managed to get out before the tears came. I am not ashamed to say that I stood before my friends and wept; I cried the happy tears of one who has had his fondest wish answered before he could even articulate the longing.

For their part, the lost Cymbrogi regarded us with bewildered amusement. They stood shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other while we tried to express our immense relief at their unanticipated resurrection. We all talked at once, and tangled over one another, and succeeded only in making the thing more obscure for all our explanation.

'What do you imagine happened to us?' asked Bedwyr, eyeing us with bemused curiosity.

'Brother,' announced Bors, 'we thought you dead!'

'Why should you think that?' wondered Cai, squinting in amazement.

'We saw your bodies!' Rhys exclaimed, exasperation making him blunt. 'Back there in the forest.' He gestured vaguely behind him to the low, barren hills.

'Truly,' said Arthur, his handsome face alight with the all-surpassing pleasure of seeing his friends once more, 'we saw your corpses hung up in a tree like the carcasses of deer after a hunt. Indeed, we burned the tree so that you should not be dishonoured in death.'

Bedwyr shook his head and looked to his companions, who merely shrugged and allowed that some dark mystery had clouded events – which was only to be expected, after all.

'After you entered the forest,' Bedwyr told us, 'we lost sight of you. The fog came down and -'

The fog,' echoed Arthur softly. 'I had forgotten about the fog.'

'When we could no longer find the path, we made camp and waited until the daylight to resume the search.'

'You have been searching all this time?' asked Rhys.

'Aye,' affirmed Cai, 'since first light this morning.'

'How can that be?' Bors blurted. 'It is at least seven days since we last saw you.'

'Seven if one,' agreed Gereint, then added uncertainly, 'Though we had no sun to go by. Still, it seemed a long time.'

'You make it more than it is,' replied Arthur confidently. 'Indeed, it could be no more than three days by my reckoning. Though it is true the sun did not show itself the while.'

'Three days and nights together at least,' Gwenhwyvar confirmed.

Cador, shaking his head solemnly, said, 'However that may be, I assure you all, only one night has passed, and that quickly. We rode out to find you as soon as we had light enough to see the trail.'

'It is but one night since we left you,' Cai maintained doggedly. 'But can you imagine our surprise when we could not find the wood we left just the night before?'

Well, it could not be denied that the wood had disappeared. Cai suggested that perhaps the same enchantment which had shown us the corpses of our friends had somehow stretched one night to seven for those who had entered that bewitched domain. We then speculated on how this could be accomplished. Myrddin, growing impatient with our ignorant babble, put a stop to it.

Drawing himself up, he said, 'You speak where you should be silent. Heaven is not the only eternity; Hell is eternal, too. If more explanation is required, let us simply say all that passed in the forest was, like the forest itself, wrought of sorcery. Yet, by the Great Light's grace, we have endured the worst the Enemy could devise and we have prevailed: the Summer Realm is saved, and the Most Holy Grail is restored.'

He straightened himself, and turned his face once more towards the trail, saying, 'Look your last on the Wasteland, my friends; Llyonesse is no more.' He paused and, as if gazing beyond the veil of years, added, 'Ah, but what was once will be again. Hear me: when the Thamesis reverses its flow and the sea gives up that which has been given to its keeping, the world will marvel at the glory that is Llyonesse.'

So saying, he put his feet once more to the path and, without a backward glance, began striding towards Ynys Avallach. Arthur and Gwenhwyvar walked beside him, refusing the mounts offered them by Bedwyr and the others. However, I did as I was bade and stood for a moment to look upon the Wasteland one last time,