Then Ambrose came to me in that place. The destruction of the Time Machine had liberated him from the trap where he had bound Merdenne. I knew it was him, the old friend and guide that in other times I had called Merlin, even though I could see nothing in the darkness.
"Well done, Arthur," he said, but why was he whispering?
My own voice sounded far away. "I don't feel very much like Arthur now," I said plaintively. "I feel more like Edwin Hocker again."
"He was a good man," said Ambrose. "A pity he has to die with you. Arthur will return, I and even Merdenne will return countless times, but Hocker's life is over."
"I don't feel bad about that," I said. Somehow the darkness about me was growing even darker. "But I do feel sorry for poor Tafe. I don't quite see why she had to die."
"You've forgotten. She came from a time that is yet in the future. She has yet to be born and has a whole life to live in a world free from the Morlocks."
"Yes. Of course. I'm not thinking too well now." Where were my hands? I couldn't feel Excalibur in them. "She… she'll be the same person, though, won't she?"
"She will," said Ambrose. "But in a brighter time."
"And a holy terror, I wager, to anyone who crosses her. I'm glad Hocker got to know her. He was really quite lonely a lot of the time." Something moved inside me that made me gasp, but the pain soon passed away. "I'm very tired now. Perhaps you'd better go."
"Yes. And I'll take the sword with me."
I could hardly hear him, or myself. "What will you do with it?"
"I will cast it into the underground sea here, so that it might return to you when you have need of it again. Farewell." Then he was gone away from me.
Only a little time had passed when the darkness folded about me like the softest and warmest of shrouds. And then, in that time and place – our Lord's year 1892 in Victoria's England – I saw no more.