The End of Magic (25 page)

In the Land of Magic, Mab saw Mordred crumple to the ground, and for a moment she could not believe what she saw. Surely this
was some trick, some feint?

But in her heart she knew it was not, and screamed a soundless wild scream of despair. Her world was crumbling away with his
death, ebbing as his heart slowed. Mordred, the child of her black heart, her last love, was dying.

Excalibur!

Merlin fought his way painfully up out of sleep. It was Excalibur that drew him. In his dreams, he had seen Arthur fall. If
Arthur died, who would wield Excalibur?

Then he was fully awake at last, the cries of the dying ringing in his ears, though Nimue still lay dreaming upon the leaves.
Now Merlin could see the battle as well as hear it, see the two combatants—one as bright as the golden sun, the other as dark
as death—battle until both of them fell.

Dying.

Arthur was dying.

Merlin struggled to rise. His senses were confused, but his course was clear at last.

Since the moment I reclaimed it for the world, Excalibur has brought about only suffering and pain. If magic’s time is past,
then Excalibur’s time is over as well.

“Sir Rupert!” he called, staggering to his feet. His voice emerged as a weak croak.

*Are we leaving?*
the horse asked, trotting up. The animal was saddled and bridled as always.

“Yes.” Merlin said no more. He moved to mount, but it took him several tries to get into the saddle. His limbs were curiously
weak. When he finally managed to mount, he looked back to see Nimue had wakened. She had gotten to her feet and was gazing
toward him beseechingly. Her eyes were bright with tears at the sight of Sir Rupert.

“What is it, Merlin?”

“Arthur is dying.” Admitting that was almost like admitting defeat. There was a heavy ache in Merlin’s chest. “I must go to
him.”

She smiled, a smile of painful resignation.

“I’ll be back very soon,” Merlin said.
Just this one last task, Nimue. Then we will be together for always.

“I’ll be waiting for you. Always,” she answered.

Merlin turned Sir Rupert’s head toward the cave entrance. “Very soon,” he repeated, as if reassuring himself. “I swear it.”
He rode toward the entrance of the cave.

Behind him, Nimue dissolved in tears.

The passage out of the cave was more oppressive than the journey in, and Sir Rupert, catching his rider’s unease, was cantering
by the time they reached the open air.

Merlin blinked at the brightness of true daylight after so much time spent in the Enchanted Forest. He had just reined Sir
Rupert to a stop when suddenly there was a rumble behind him, and a tingle of magic over his skin. He turned, and stared in
horrified disbelief as the rocks slid shut to seal the mouth of the cave.

He gestured, willing them to open again, but his magic had no effect. Though Sir Rupert tried to stop him, Merlin vaulted
from the horse’s back and ran toward the closing stones, as if mortal brawn could accomplish what wizardly magic could not.

But he strove in vain. The rocks came together, closing the Enchanted Forest away from the World of Men, and Nimue away from
Merlin.

“Nimue! Nimue!” he shouted over and over, hammering his fists against the unyielding stone.

She had known that this would happen. All magic had rules and conditions that must be met. Mab would have explained them to
Nimue before she brought her here. Merlin had sensed no trap when he had entered the cave, because there
was
no trap. It was Nimue herself who had been the trap. She had been supposed to bind him to stay within the cave through her
love.

But she had not played the part that Mab had assigned to her. She had sacrificed herself so that Merlin could go free.

I will never see her again,
Merlin realized with a pang of cold finality. The grief of his double bereavement—Arthur and Nimue, both lost to him in the
same moment—was breathtakingly sharp. But he vowed that Nimue would not have sacrificed herself in vain.

“Sir Rupert!” Merlin shouted, turning back to his horse.

There was still time to reach Arthur and Excalibur.

Her robes—like her power—had faded to the soft grey of ancient dust, and streaks of bone-white swirled through her midnight
hair. In the dirt and leaves of the forest floor, Mab knelt over the dying Mordred. Desperately she pressed her hands over
the gaping wound in his chest, willing him to live.

It was useless. Once, long before the New Religion came to Britain, Mab had been Maiden and Mother as well as Warrior Queen.
She had been able to grieve, and to love. But the power of life and death had never been Mab’s to wield.

“I cannot save you,” she complained, gathering Mordred into her arms.

Now all she had left was anger, and her voice was filled with a wild anger now as she commanded him. “Don’t die, Mordred!”

Mordred gazed up into her face, and because he loved her, Mordred forced himself to smile. “Don’t worry, Auntie Mab,” he whispered,
with a ghost of his old mockery. “That’s the last thing I shall do.”

And so it was. Mordred had never bothered to learn to lie, and he told the truth now. As he finished speaking, he gave a great
sigh, and his body went limp.

He was dead. Mab’s last, best, brightest hope. Her champion, her child, her love. Dead.

She looked up and saw Lord Idath, waiting to receive Mordred’s soul.

“Save him!” she cried. “You are the Lord of Death—give him back to me!” Her fingers curved like claws. If Idath had been a
mortal enemy, she would have fought him, but he was Death Itself, and her equal.

“Did I not tell you when you came for the Black Sword that Caliban was the last boon I would grant?” Lord Idath said inexorably.
“You chose vengeance over love, Queen of the Old Ways. Be content with your choice.”

Then he was gone, and Mordred’s spirit with him.

Mordred had left her.

Mab was alone in a world that hated her.

But she no longer cared. Now Mab lived only to destroy.

She threw back her head and howled her vengeance.

There was a long trail of blood behind him in the leaves. Every inch was agony, but Arthur crawled doggedly onward. Excalibur
must not fall into the hands of his enemies. He must reach water, so he could return Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake.

He could smell the lake ahead. At the edge of a steep slope leading down to the water he stopped to rest for a moment. He
could feel his strength ebbing with every heartbeat, and knew he was going to fail. One last failure, to set beside a lifetime
of unmet expectations. Then a shadow fell across his face, and Arthur knew that he had been delivered from that final shame.

“Old friend,” he whispered painfully, looking up at Merlin. “I knew you’d come.”

Merlin smiled down at him, and if the old wizard’s heart ached at the sight of Arthur’s battered body, his face gave no sign
of it.

“How goes the day, Arthur?” he asked quietly.

“I’ve seen better,” Arthur whispered, and managed to smile.

Merlin knelt beside Arthur and put his arm around the dying man’s shoulders, lending him the warmth and comfort of another
human presence. He could do no more. The Old Ways dealt in illusion and trickery. Merlin had never learned any magic that
could bring a man back from the gates of death.

“Take the sword to the lake. No one must have it…” Arthur said. He struggled to hand Excalibur to Merlin. Merlin stopped
him, closing his hand over Arthur’s. The King’s flesh was as cold as rain beneath his palm.

“Go, Merlin,” Arthur demanded in a whisper, his voice shaking with pain. “Now.”

I can’t let you die alone!
a voice in Merlin’s heart cried. But he knew he owed Arthur the peace of knowing Excalibur was safe.

“Rest easy, son. You were the right man to hold Excalibur,” Merlin said as he took the sword.

Arthur smiled in triumph. His face was white with agony.

As gently as he could, Merlin laid Arthur back against the tree to rest. With Excalibur naked in his hand, he strode down
the hillside to the lake.

Behind him, Arthur pulled himself up to watch Merlin go. The last effort was too much for him. With a soft sigh he toppled
forward, his body rolling slightly along the slope in death.

Now that Arthur was not there to see them, the tears welled up in Merlin’s eyes. He had held Arthur in his hands when the
boy had been only a few hours old. Arthur had been the only son he would ever have, the crucible of all Merlin’s hopes and
dreams. No parent should ever have to watch the light of life fade from his child’s eyes.

Merlin reached the water’s edge.

“Take it back, Lady!” he shouted in grief. He flung the sword out over the water with all his strength, not certain of what
would happen. The blade flashed as the sword spun, end over end, and finally began to fall toward the water.

An arm clad all in white samite thrust up out of the water to clasp the hilt of the blade and point it toward the sky. So
Excalibur had flashed the first time he had seen it, and the ghost of the joy he had felt then was like a dagger in Merlin’s
heart.

The hand slowly sank below the surface of the lake, and Merlin heard Excalibur’s magic song for the last time then as the
Lady of the Lake drew the sword into her keeping once more.

But not forever. Excalibur was the sword of heroes. It would not rest forever. Someday, a new hero would wield it.

But not today. Camelot was broken and doomed. Lancelot—Guinevere—Arthur—Nimue—all were lost, all gone. Here on this very shore
the Lady of the Lake had once promised Merlin a champion to protect Camelot.…

“You lied to me!” Merlin cried, sinking to his knees in an agony of grief.

“I didn’t lie to you, Merlin.”

He could see her out of the corner of his eye, swimming in the lake of air. She looked very much as she always had, silver
as the lake itself and shining like the moon. She hovered in the air above the lake like a fish hovering in water and regarded
him with distant kindliness.

“I told you the answer was at Joyous Gard,” she said slowly.

“That’s where I found Lancelot,” Merlin said accusingly.
Lancelot who doomed us all.
But there had been no other warrior at Joyous Gard. Who else could Merlin have chosen as Guinevere’s champion?

Suddenly Merlin realized the answer. He gazed up at the Lady of the Lake.

“It wasn’t Lancelot, was it?” he said in a ragged voice.

“It was the boy,” the Lady of the Lake said gently.

Galahad… who knows what would have changed if I had brought him to Camelot instead of Lancelot?

Merlin’s face twisted with the bitterness of the realization. He had been wrong to blame Guinevere, Lancelot, anyone but himself.
The fault was his, and his alone. He had been so blind.…

“It’s human to make mistakes, Merlin,” the Lady of the Lake said in her slow, tidal voice. “And part of you is human… the
best part. Good-bye, Merlin. My sister Mab was right about one thing.… When we are forgotten, we cease to exist.”

Her last words were spoken with slow deliberation, as though she meant him to understand something beyond what she had said.
But the day had been too long, too full of loss. Merlin stared numbly as the Lady of the Lake leaped high into the air and
dove beneath the surface of the water once more, never to return. Then he turned his back upon the Enchanted Lake and trudged
wearily away.

Frik crouched wearily at the base of a tree among a small group of the King’s soldiers, staring at nothing as the baneful
mist curled around them all. If the mist had been Mordred’s spell, it had not vanished with him like all the others. If Frik
looked up, he could still see the baleful red eye of the comet shining through the mist.

At least he was still alive, and Mordred wasn’t. Frik supposed his being here meant that they must have won. That was something.

But Mab would want her vengeance for Mordred’s death. Even without his magic, Frik had felt her screams of rage as they had
reverberated through the forest. The Queen of the Old Ways no longer had anything left to lose.

Now you know what it’s like to lose someone you love, don’t you, Mab? But I don’t suppose it will make any difference. Compassion
was never your strong suit.

Love had changed Frik, and this day had changed him even more. He was sickened by what he had done, caught up just as all
of them had been in the wild joy of war. His armor was battered, his muscles ached, and his face was spattered with the blood
of the slain.

Who would have thought mortals had so much blood in them?
the gnome thought, shuddering. His mind was filled with the ghostly howls of the wounded, the phantom screams of the dying.
He had seen pain and cruelty, malice and suffering, greater than anything he had ever imagined, and with his newly-human heart
he had felt it all. After what he had seen today, Frik knew that he would never be able to go to war again, no matter how
righteous the cause.

He felt as if he had bathed in the blood of men. Innocent men, for the most part, beguiled by Mordred. Now that the Black
Prince was dead, the survivors of his army had fled, or surrendered, or gone mad and killed themselves. There was a rumor
that Arthur was dead as well, but no one knew for certain.

The losses they knew about were bad enough: a few feet away Gawain stood leaning against a tree, weeping unashamedly for his
father. Lord Lot had been killed by Mordred, along with so many others. Arthur’s foster-father Sir Hector, his brother Kay
… today the finest flower of Britain’s chivalry had been ground down into the dust.

Frik heard the sound of a horse approaching. He looked up. Slowly the figure became visible through the mist. His eyes widened
as he saw who it was. He got to his feet and faced Merlin.

So Mab didn’t finish you after all,
the gnome thought.
Well, I always said you were an apt pupil. A survivor, like me.

“What are you doing here, Frik?” Merlin asked, dismounting from Sir Rupert’s back. There was concern and caring in his voice.