The End of Magic (6 page)

Soon the time would come when Mordred would be ready to receive this gift.

Then Camelot would fall.

In fact, Camelot was falling
now.

Merlin lay in his narrow bed in his cottage at the edge of the village and writhed in uneasy sleep. He dreamed of dragons.
Not the symbolic dragons, red and white, that had once held Britain’s future between them, nor the fearsome beast of flesh
and magic that had nearly ended Nimue’s life before he had slain it so many years ago.

No, the dragon that he dreamed of now was a creature of shadows, a dragon born out of the darkness of the eclipse. Its eyes
were the color of mirrors, and where it breathed its deadly exhalations, the grass crumbled to dust and the trees to ash,
leaving nothing behind but a wasteland.

Beware, Merlin of Britain! Beware… beware…

He heard a boy’s mocking laughter, and saw again the figure he had glimpsed in previous visions: a bat-winged knight who bore
upon his chest the sign of the eclipse.

I’m coming for you, Merlin,
it seemed to say.
I will destroy all that you have given your life to create. Tonight is your last chance to stop me—if you only knew what to
do. But you don’t. Once again you have failed your trust. It’s happening right now. Here. In Camelot. And you don’t know what
to do.…

The Knight of the Eclipse raised his sword in salute. It was black and pitted, as if with centuries of corrosion, and as he
lifted it the blade began to shimmer, to flow and to change, and the bat-winged knight’s form flowed and changed as well,
becoming a dragon of shadows in a lake of fire.

Merlin sat up with a gasp, looking wildly into the darkness. His heart beat wildly, and it seemed almost as if he could taste
the evil of the figure in his vision. Never had one of his visions carried with it such a weight of fear.

Merlin ran his hands through his hair. He reached for his staff and got stiffly to his feet, gazing out his window in the
direction of Camelot. All was hushed, silent, and dark, yet Merlin still feared. He was wizard and prophet, and his dreams
never lied. There was danger abroad in the peaceful night, danger to Arthur and to Britain both.

Merlin peered into the darkness until his eyes ached, yet he saw nothing. He did not need more proof that sometimes a wizard
was as powerless as an ordinary mortal.

Merlin rubbed his eyes tiredly. Whatever danger Britain faced tonight, Merlin was powerless to avert it. He could only hope
to recognize its aftermath, and do what he could to set things right.

But sometimes it seemed that he could do so very little.

It was late on a warm spring night, and the castle and town of Camelot were silent. The Queen lay abed but not asleep.

Guinevere was waiting, just as she had waited all the days of her life, for the moment that would transform her, give her
a purpose and a place in the world, make her
real
. Once she had looked to her marriage to provide that, but she knew now that this had been a foolish hope. Arthur did not
care for her. All he cared about was the Grail. He had forsaken her.

Restless, she threw back the covers and got to her feet. A small vigil light burned before a statue of the Blessed Virgin
in the corner of her bedchamber. Guinevere turned toward the icon and tried to pray, but in her thoughts the words of the
Litany were brushed aside by older, darker prayers.

To Epona, mother of mares, guardian of the Iceni. To Melusine All-Mother, who watched over the women of Britain. Goddesses
of fruitfulness, of love, of children.

Help me…

Since the first day she had seen him at the tourney, Lancelot’s presence had brought Guinevere a peace and joy she had never
believed could exist. How could it be right for them to be forced apart when she longed for him as much as he desired her?
Arthur’s love was a pale and distant thing in comparison. Arthur was the perfect golden savior of Britain. What need could
such a man have for a wife?

But Lancelot was human, and flawed, and because of that, she loved him. Guinevere cherished each of his faults—his impatience,
his pride—for they made him all the more human, and dearer to her for his simple humanity.

But she could not have him. She was the King’s wife, her chastity an offering to the New Religion. To love outside her marriage
bonds was a great sin, an offense against God.

I do not care! Where was God when I was betrothed to Arthur, when Arthur left me for the Grail? If Arthur prefers God to me,
then he has broken his oaths first, and I am free.…

There was a sound behind her, from the doorway. Guinevere turned, and saw what she had somehow expected to see. Lancelot was
standing there in the doorway.

He wore a white linen tunic embroidered in dark blue and the plain leather belt of his knighthood.

“You look… beautiful,” he said.

Guinevere turned away. No one had ever loved her as Lancelot did, she knew that in her soul. She knew what would happen if
she did not send him away at once. She longed for it to happen, even as she knew it was wrong, that it would cause nothing
but suffering and disaster. She was the Queen. She was held to a higher standard than ordinary mortals. What could be excused
in them could not be excused in her.

“I should jump,” she said in a trembling voice. “Throw myself from the battlements.”

“Then I’ll jump, too,” Lancelot said, close behind her. He put his arms around her and buried his face in her hair. She could
feel the tremors in his body as they passed from his flesh to hers. “I can’t live without you,” he whispered.

She had no choice. As a drowning swimmer reaches for air, Guinevere turned and took Lancelot in her arms.

In her Sanctum Sanctorum in the Land of Magic, deep in the heart of the earth, Mab sat upon her dark throne gazing into the
magic mirror she held in her hand. Its border and handle were a braid of intertwined serpents, and its silver back was a Gorgon’s
head with diamond eyes.

Even though it meant that she had to be without Mordred, sometimes she could not resist retreating to her subterranean palace
to be among her own kind, for Mab was not as fond of the human world as Frik was. Frik was a fool, always playing his gnomish
games and parading his ridiculous disguises! One might almost think he’d grown fond of Morgan le Fay, he spent so much time
fawning upon her.

Mab did not waste her time with such childishness. Everything she did was for a purpose. Only Mordred was important… Mordred,
and the destruction of Camelot.

And she was here to take another step toward that destruction tonight.

Mab gazed into the mirror that she held. It was a potent tool of illusion, and sometimes of more than that, for tonight the
truth would be crueler than Mab’s most subtle illusion.

She made a small gesture, and the image in the mirror flickered. It no longer showed Mab’s reflection, but the Queen’s bed
in the Royal Bedchamber in Camelot. On the bed, Guinevere and Lancelot lay as entwined as the serpents of Mab’s mirror.

“Now to be sure that the one this will hurt most will see it…”
Mab crooned to herself.

In Joyous Gard, a place both miles and years away from Britain and Camelot, Elaine of Astolat sat before her mirror, brushing
out her hair before going to bed. Her bedroom mirror was one such as Morgan or Guinevere could only dream of, a large square
sheet of silvered glass that cast a reflection both sharp and true.

Elaine was lonely, though her pride in her husband never faltered. It had been many years since Lancelot had sailed away with
the wizard Merlin. Little Galahad had grown so much that his father would not recognize him. Soon he would be ready to assume
the mantle of knighthood.

Elaine dreaded the day when Galahad, too, would leave her to seek out a life of danger and adventure. Why couldn’t he be content
at Joyous Gard? Why couldn’t Lancelot have been content to stay here, with her?

Elaine shook her head sadly, sighing with downcast eyes as she unhooked her heavy necklace. She knew it was Lancelot’s nature
to seek adventure, and Joyous Gard was a peaceful place, unworthy of his great warrior skills. She could not deny what he
was, or deny him the right to do what he did best.

Looking down at her jewels, Elaine did not see Mab’s image fill her mirror. Mab’s black-painted eyes inspected Lancelot’s
lovely wife with birdlike malice, but when Elaine looked up again, Mab was gone, retreating with inhuman speed.

Another image filled Elaine’s mirror now. She stared in horror.

“I don’t believe it,” she whispered brokenly. She glanced quickly around to make sure that Galahad had not come into the room
in the last few seconds, then looked back at the mirror, tears of outrage welling up in her eyes. Her own grief gagged her,
making a hard lump in her throat.

“Lancelot would never…, ” she protested, as if her words could be a shield.

But she did believe it. Elaine’s own father had been a great sorcerer, and she had some small magics of her own. Instinctively
she reached out with them, and to her desolation they told her what her heart already knew: that this was a true vision. What
she saw in the mirror was truly happening, just as she saw it.

Suddenly unable to bear the sight a moment longer, Elaine flung her shawl up over the mirror to blot out the spectacle of
the radiant lovers. She did not know who the woman was. It did not matter. She knew the sight of her own husband. Lancelot
had betrayed her. He had forgotten her as she waited patiently here in her lonely tower, and found someone new to love. As
if she, Elaine, had never existed, had never loved him, had never borne him a son.

It isn’t true! It isn’t!
How could Lancelot, so careful always to do only what was right, betray her so?

As if compelled, Elaine pulled the scarf away from the mirror again, shuddering with tears, hoping the scene would be gone.

But it wasn’t. She could see them both so clearly, could almost imagine that it was she in Lancelot’s arms and not this wanton
stranger. She could almost hear the tender words of love they exchanged, Lancelot and his unknown love.

She could not bear it.

Elaine of Astolat put her face in her hands and sobbed.

It was a quiet evening at home in Tintagel Keep. Frik and Morgan le Fay were playing at cards—he always made sure that he
lost, just to please her—and Mordred was lounging in a chair with his back to them, catching insects and slowly pulling them
to pieces. He’d switched to insects after Morgan had complained about the mess he made with the mice, and Frik was just as
glad. The squealing had been quite unnerving.

But then, everything about Mordred was unnerving. The way he stared at you and didn’t blink, for example. Morgan assured him
that Mordred was fond of him, but personally, Frik doubted it. He didn’t think Mordred was fond of anybody, except perhaps
Mab. He was quite a little horror, that lad was. Queen Mab ought to be perfectly delighted with him.

Thoughts of Mab always made Frik’s stomach hurt these days. She was the Queen of Air and Darkness, but there had used to be
something more to her than petty spite—a dark majesty, the tragic queenliness of a monarch in exile.

No more. That majesty had dwindled away during the years of her battle and her many defeats. Now Mab thought of nothing but
small-minded revenge, catering shamelessly to Mordred as the instrument of it.

Frik was just as glad she’d decided to be elsewhere this evening. When Mab was absent, he didn’t have to worry that some chance
remark of Morgan’s would draw Mab’s wrath down upon her. Under the guise of studying his cards—all bad—Frik gazed at Morgan.

She was as beautiful as the day he’d transformed her from her bucktoothed, squint-eyed, hopelessly plain self into a creature
of loveliness; still as sweetly self-centered and oblivious as she had been when she demanded that he get her the crown of
Britain. Mordred’s monstrousness couldn’t touch her, because Morgan simply didn’t see it. She paid little attention to anything
outside of Frik and her own comfort, and since Frik was the source of that comfort, she adored him with uncomplicated single-mindedness.
And Frik found that he adored her in return, his crabby old gnome’s heart growing and softening until sometimes Frik felt,
well, quite human as a matter of fact.

In fact, if not for Morgan, the last several years would have been quite unbearable, Frik thought. Unbearable, and lonely.
He
liked
being a dashing golden swashbuckler. He liked being appreciated, for that matter. Appreciation wasn’t something you could
expect from Mab, and certainly not from Mordred.

“Gin!” Morgan crowed triumphantly, flinging down her cards. Frik smiled at her, shutting out Mordred’s tuneless humming as
he vivisected his latest prey.

“As always, my lady, you are more than a match for me,” Frik answered gallantly.

At the moment he spoke, he felt a shiver in the air, the sharp electrical tang that indicated that Mab had just arrived from
the Land of Magic.

Frik froze, like a rabbit beneath the hungry gaze of a hawk. He could see Mab out of the corner of his eye, poised behind
one of the great standing braziers that warmed the hall. The flames turned her skin to copper and her hair to blood. She gazed
silently down into the fire as though she could see wonders there—or horrors.

Frik made a mental note to ignore Mab as long as possible, but others were less circumspect. Mordred had tired of his games.
Brushing the last of the flies from his hands, he got to his feet and went toward her.

“Auntie, you look extraordinarily pleased with yourself. What have you done? Is it terrible?” Mordred asked hopefully. “Do
tell. I’m sure it’s
perfect.…
”

Mab smiled proudly. “I’ve made sure that Elaine knows Lancelot and Guinevere are lovers,” she whispered smugly, confident
of his praise.

Mordred did not disappoint her. “How absolutely delicious,” he cooed.

It was more than Frik could bear, to see her seeking approval from the monster she’d created.
Bearing tales like a child out of school, she who once commanded the winds and the storms!
“Isn’t that… rather unworthy of us?” he asked unthinkingly.