Lancelet went quietly to do my bidding. I know not if he saw me, or who he thought I was. And I cradled Arthur against my breast. His life was fading fast; I knew it, but I was beyond tears.
"Morgaine," he whispered. His eyes were bewildered and full of pain. "Morgaine, was it all for nothing then, what we did, and all that we tried to do? Why did we fail?"
It was my own question, and I had no answer; but from somewhere, the answer came. "You did not fail, my brother, my love, my child. You held this land in peace for many years, so that the Saxons did not destroy it. You held back the darkness for a whole generation, until they were civilized men, with learning and music and faith in God, who will fight to save something of the beauty of the times that are past. If this land had fallen to the Saxons when Uther died, then would all that was beautiful or good have perished forever from Britain. And so you did not fail, my love. None of us knows how she will do her will-only that it will be done."
And I knew not, even then, whether what I spoke was truth, or whether I spoke to comfort him, in love, as with the little child Igraine had put into my arms when I was but a child myself; Morgaine, she had told me, take care of your little brother, and so I had always done, so I would always do, now and beyond life ... or was it the Goddess herself who had put Arthur into my arms?
He pressed his failing fingers over the great cut at his breast. "If I had but -the scabbard you fashioned for me, Morgaine-I should not lie here now with my life slowly bleeding forth from me.... Morgaine, I dreamed-and in my dream I cried out for you, but I could not hold you-"
I held him close. In the first light of the rising sun I saw Lancelet raise Excalibur in his hand, then fling it as hard as he could. It flew through the air end over end, the sun glinting as if on the wing of a white bird; then it fell, twisting, and I saw no more; my eyes were misted with tears and the growing light.
Then I heard Lancelet: "I saw a hand rising from the Lake-a hand that took the sword, and brandished it three times in the air, and then drew it beneath the water ..."
I had seen nothing, only the glimmer of light on a fish that broke the surface of the Lake; but I doubt not that he saw what he said he saw.
"Morgaine," Arthur whispered, "is it really you? I cannot see you, Morgaine, it is so dark here-is the sun setting? Morgaine, take me to Avalon, where you can heal me of this wound-take me home, Morgaine-"
His head was heavy on my breast, heavy as the child in my own childish arms, heavy as the King Stag who had come to me in triumph. Morgaine, my mother had called impatiently, take care of the baby ... and all my life I had borne him with me. I held him close and wiped away his tears with my veil, and he reached up and caught at my hand with his own.
"But it is really you," he murmured, "it is you, Morgaine ... you have come back to me ... and you are so young and fair ... I will always see the Goddess with your face ... Morgaine, you will not leave me again, will you?"
"I will never leave you again, my brother, my baby, my love," I whispered to him, and I kissed his eyes. And he died, just as the mists rose and the sun shone full over the shores of Avalon.
Epilogue
IN THE spring of the year after this, Morgaine had a curious dream.
She dreamed that she was in the ancient Christian chapel upon Avalon, built in the old times by that Joseph of Arimathea who had come here from the Holy Land. And there, before that altar where Galahad had died, Lancelet stood in the robes of a priest, and his face was solemn and shining. In her dream she went, as she had never done in any Christian church, to the altar rail for the sharing of their bread and wine, and Lancelet bent and set the cup to her lips and she drank. And then it seemed to her that he knelt in his turn, and he said to her, "Take this cup, you who have served the Goddess. For all the Gods are one God, and we are all One, who serve the One." And as she took the cup in her hands to set it to his lips in her turn, priestess to priest, he was young and beautiful as he had been years ago. And she saw that the cup in her hands was the Grail.
And then he cried out, as he had done when Galahad knelt before him, "Ah, the light-the light-" and fell forward and lay on the stones without moving; and Morgaine woke in her isolated dwelling on Avalon with that cry of rapture still ringing in her ears; and she was alone.
It was very early, and mist lay thick on Avalon. She rose quietly and robed herself in the dark garb of a priestess, but she tied her veil around her head so that the crescent tattoo there was invisible.
She went quietly out into the stillness of the dawn, taking the downward path beside the Sacred Well. Still as it was, she could sense noiseless footsteps, silent as shadows, behind her. She was never alone; the little dark people always attended her, though she seldom actually saw them-she was their mother and their priestess and they would never leave her. But when she came near the shadow of the ancient Christian chapel, the footsteps gradually ceased; they would not follow her on this ground. Morgaine paused at the door.
Inside the chapel there was a glimmer of light, the light they always kept in their sanctuary. For a moment, so real was the memory of her dream, Morgaine was tempted to step inside ... she could hardly believe she would not see Lancelet there, struck down by the magical brilliance of the Grail ... but no. She had no business there, and she would not intrude on their God; and if indeed the Grail was there, it had gone beyond her reach.
Yet the dream remained with her. Had it been sent as a warning? Lancelet was younger than she herself was ... she knew not how time ran in the outer world. Avalon, now, had gone so far into the mists that it might be with Avalon as it had been with the fairy country when she was young -while a single year passed within Avalon, three or five or even seven years might have run by in the outer world. And so what it had come to her to do should be done now, while she could still come and go between the worlds.
She knelt before the Holy Thorn, whispering a soft prayer to the Goddess, and asking leave of the tree; then she cut a slip for planting. It was not the first time: in these last years, whenever one had come to Avalon and returned to the outside world, wandering Druid or pilgrim priest ... for a few of them could still come to the ancient chapel on Avalon ... she had sent with him a slip of the Holy Thorn, so that it might still blossom in the world outside. But this she must do with her own hands.
Never, except at Arthur's crowning, had she set foot on the other island ... except, perhaps, for that day when the mists had opened, and Gwenhwy-far had somehow fallen or wandered through. But now, deliberately, she called the barge, and when it was out in the Lake, sent it into the mists, so that when it glided forth into the sunlight again, she could see the long shadow of the church lying over the Lake, and hear the soft tolling of a bell. She saw her followers shrink from the sound, and knew that here, too, they would not follow her, nor set foot. So be it, then; the last thing she wished for was to have the priests on that isle staring in fear and dread at the barge from Avalon. Unseen, they glided toward the shore and unseen she stepped onto the land, watching the black-draped barge vanish again into the mists. And then, the basket over her arm-like any old market woman or peddler come here on pilgrimage, she thought-she went silently up the path from the shore.
Only a hundred years or less, certainly less in Avalon, that these worlds have diverged; yet already the world here is different. The trees were different, and the paths, and she stopped, bewildered, at the foot of a little hill-surely there was nothing like this on Avalon? She had somehow thought the land would be the same, only the buildings different, for they were, after all, the same island, separated only by some magical change ... but now she saw that they were very different.