'I called to her: "Come back, Morgian! Let us finish what you have begun." But they did not turn back. Anger surged up within me. And, God help me, I went after her. I did not want her to escape.

'At the edge of the grove they stopped and half-turned towards me. I thought that Morgian would face me. But she had one charm left. She threw her hands over her head and screamed the spell. Hideous, it was a last cry of defiance and despair.

'I halted. Lot wheeled the horse away. In the same instant lightning fell from the sky and gouged a crevice in the earth between us. They fled together. And I lay on the ground for a long time, dazed, shaken, my skull ringing like a sounding bell. I opened my eyes and I could not see. The lightning burned and blinded me.'

He raised his finger-tips to his eyes. 'My sight is gone – my foresight also. I can no longer see the scattered pathways before me; my feet will no more tread those Otherworld places. All is dim, the future is featureless and void. I am twice blind.' He paused and shook his head sadly. 'Well, I am to blame. I abandoned the protection of my Lord to seek her death. And now I bear the scar of my folly. Oh, but I was loath to let her go.'

Gwalcmai, his face ashen – even in the firelight – turned stricken, tear-filled eyes to me. 'I will avenge this wrong,' he vowed softly, little knowing what he said.

'How can you accuse yourself?' I asked Myrddin. 'Surely, Morgian is responsible; she did this to you. She is to blame.'

A mocking smile touched Myrddin's lips. 'Do you not see it yet? This was never my battle! It was between the Prince of Darkness and the Lord of Light, between the Enemy and Jesu. I had no part in it.'

'No part in it? If not for you she would have triumphed long ago!'

'No,' Myrddin shook his head slowly. 'That is what I believed, too. For a long time I have carried that burden in my heart and soul, but it was a lie! Yes, that too was a He.'.

'I do not understand,' I said firmly.

'It was never my battle,' the Emrys explained gently. 'My own pride, my vanity, my puffed-up importance kept me from seeing that.' Myrddin gave a bitter laugh and raised a hand to his eyes. 'I was blind before, but now I see quite clearly: my Lord is All-Sufficient to his own defence. He did not need my help. It is he who saves and protects, not me, never Myrddin.'

He paused, as if reflecting, then added, 'I tell you, it is the Enemy's delight to make us think otherwise. But it was only when I knew my own weakness, when I came alone and unprotected to this place, with no other plan or purpose but to stand against Morgian – only then was my Lord free to act.'

'But you did it. You faced her.'

'I did nothing?

Silence. The crackling of the fire and the quiet rippling of the nearby stream grew to fill the night.

'I did nothing, Pelleas,' he said again softly.

'Lord,' I said, putting my hand on his arm, 'Pelleas is not here. It is me, Bedwyr – and Gwalcmai.'

Myrddin Emrys reached a hand to his head. 'Oh,' he said, 'of course. But where is Pelleas?'

'I do not know, Emrys. He set out to find you – before Lugnasadh it was.'

Myrddin rose and stumbled a few paces forward. Telleas!' he cried, lifting his face to the night. With a mighty groan he crashed to his knees. 'Oh, Pelleas, fair friend, what has she done!'

I rushed to his side. 'Myrddin?'

The pain in his voice was a knife to carve the heart from the breast. ‘Pelleas is dead… '

My spirit shrank within me, and I heard the sinister echo of Morgian's words to Myrddin: This time your precious Pelleas will not interfere.

Blessed Jesu, I prayed, let that be a lie, too.

NINE

Charis was thankful to have her son returned to her alive. She mourned his blindness, but set to work at once to heal him. The normal serenity of life at the Tor yielded somewhat to the urgency of Myrddin's injury as the Lady of the Lake searched her wide knowledge of medicine and consulted with the good brothers of the Shrine.

Yet, in the end, they were forced to the conclusion that if Myrddin's sight were to be returned, it would be at the pleasure of the Gifting God. The efforts of men would avail little, so he must wait and let God work his will. Until then, Myrddin would wear a blind man's bandage.

Morgian was not destroyed, but her power was broken. She had fled and would trouble us no more. Myrddin did not think she could ever recover her powers. Once exhausted, he explained, they rarely return. In this, he may have been optimistic. But he knows these things better than anyone.

And then there was the problem of Lot. It was possible that Lot could have come to Llyonesse: he might have sailed the moment we left Caer Edyn. Considering the time we took on the way, it would not have been difficult for him to go ahead of us.

Still, I thought it unlikely. Gwalcmai was too deeply ashamed to say one way or another what he thought. He felt that his noble name had been dishonoured and his clan disgraced. Wretched and humiliated, it was all he could do to hold his head up. He dragged himself around the Tor – fairest of abodes in this worlds-realm! – the very image of despair. I tried my best to cheer him, but my words were little comfort. The wound to his northern pride cut deep.

I talked with Myrddin about this. 'Of course it is not Gwalcmai's fault. I do not condemn him. But I saw what I saw, Bedwyr. I cannot change that,' he insisted.

'But might you have been mistaken? Might it have been someone else?'

'Of course, it is possible,' he admitted. 'But this someone else wore Lot's face and spoke with Lot's voice – someone else so very like Lot that he must be Lot's twin.'

While Myrddin conceded that he might be mistaken, it did not get us very far. For Lot, as far as I knew, did not have a brother.

Nor was Gwalcmai any help. 'My father has no brother,' he confirmed sadly, 'Loth had but one son, and I have never heard of another.'

This was a problem without an immediate solution. So, I left it to God's care, and went about my own affairs. Myrddin would be well enough to travel in a few days' time, and I was anxious to return to Caer Melyn as swiftly as possible. The weather had turned windy and wet. The days were growing colder. As pleasant as it is, I did not wish to winter on the Glass Isle. We must leave soon if we were to leave at all before spring.

Charis, fearing for her son, was reluctant to let us go. Yet she understood our need and showed me how to change the cloth over Myrddin's eyes, and how to prepare the mud mixture that would soothe her son's burned flesh. From the thick-wooded west side of Shrine Hill, I cut a long staff of rowan for him, so that he would not stumble; it gave him the look of a druid of old, and many who saw him took him as such.

Avallach gave us the pick of his stables; and we took a horse for Myrddin and left the first clear day. The ship waited where we had left it. I paid the fisherman who kept it for us; and we settled the horses on board and then pushed off.

The day was bright and the wind fresh. Yet, when I saw the land receding behind us, a pang of grief pierced me like an arrow. For we were leaving Pelleas behind, and I knew in my bones that we would never see him again.

If my grief throbbed like a wound in my flesh, how much greater was Myrddin's?

'He is gone,' he lamented in a voice so soft it broke my heart to hear it. 'A bright star has fallen from heaven and we will see it no more.'

'How can you be certain?'

'Peace, Bedwyr,' he soothed. 'If he were still alive do you think I would spare myself, even a moment? When in my madness I cowered in the forest, it was Pelleas who found me. He searched for years and never gave up. How could I do less?'