Accolon drew a long breath. "To challenge Arthur? Fitly did you ask, Morgaine, if I am ready to die," he said. "And you speak to me in riddles. I knew not that Arthur had a son."

"His son is son to Avalon and to the spring fires," said Morgaine. She thought she had long outgrown shame for this-I am priestess, I need make no accounting to any man for what I must do-but she could not force herself to meet Accolon's eyes. "Listen, and I will tell you all."

He sat silent as she told him of the kingmaking on Dragon Island, and what had befallen after; but when she told how she had fled from Avalon and of Gwydion's birth, he put out his hand and encircled her small fingers in his own.

"He has passed his own testing," said Morgaine, "but he is young and untried: none thought that Arthur would betray his oath. Arthur was young too, but he came to his kingmaking when Uther was old and dying and men were seeking everywhere for a king of the Avalon line. Now Arthur's star is high and his renown great, and even with all the powers of Avalon at his back, Gwydion could never challenge Arthur for his throne."

"How is it that you think I can challenge Arthur and get the sword Excalibur from him and not be slain at once by his men?" said Accolon. "And there is nowhere in this world that I can challenge him where he goes not so guarded."

"That is true," Morgaine said, "but you need not challenge him in this world. There are other realms which are not within this world at all, and within one of these realms you may get from him the sword Excalibur, to which he has forfeited all shadow of right, and the magical scabbard which protects him from all harm. Once disarmed, he is no more than any other man. I have seen his Companions-Lancelet, Gawaine, Gareth-disarm him in play at their mock battles. Without his sword, Arthur is easy prey. He is not the greatest of warriors, nor, with that sword and scabbard, did he ever need to be. And Arthur once dead-"

She had to stop and steady her voice, knowing she incurred the curse of kin slayer, that same curse she had hesitated to bring on Accolon when Avalloch died.

"Arthur once dead," she repeated firmly at last, "I am nearest his throne, and his sister. I shall rule as Lady of Avalon, and you as my consort and duke of war. True, in your time you too will be challenged and brought down as King Stag ... but before that day comes you shall have your day as King at my side."

Accolon sighed. "I never thought to be King. But if you bid me, lady, I must do her will-and yours. Yet to challenge Arthur for his sword-"

"I did not mean that you shall do so without all the help I can give. For what else have I been schooled all these weary years in magic, and for what have I made you my priest? And there is one greater than I who shall help us both to your testing."

"Speak you of those magical realms?" Accolon asked her, almost in a whisper. "I do not understand you."

That surprises me not; I know not myself what I mean to do, nor what I say, Morgaine thought, but she recognized the strange dimness rising in her mind, clouding thought, as that state in which powerful magic was made. I must trust to the Goddess now, and let her lead me. Not I alone, but he who stands at my side, who will take up the sword from Arthur's hand.

"Trust me, and obey." She rose, moving through the woods on silent feet, looking for... what was she looking for? She asked, and heard her voice distant and strange, "Does hazelwood grow within this forest, Accolon?"

He nodded, and she followed him to the grove of trees, at this season just bursting into leaf and flower. The wild pigs who roamed here had eaten the last of the nuts; fragments of nut hulls lay scattered on the thick leaf mold of the forest floors. Yet new shoots were springing, too, toward the light, where new trees would rise, so that the life of the forest would never die.

Flower and fruits and seed. And all things return and grow and come to light and at the last give up their bodies into the keeping of the Lady again. But she who works, silently and alone, at the heart of nature, cannot work her magic without the strength of Him who runs with the deer and with the summer sun draws forth the richness of her womb. Beneath the hazel tree she looked across at Accolon, and while part of her mind was aware that this man was her lover, her chosen priest, she knew that now he had consented to a testing beyond what she alone could confer.

Before ever the Romans had come to these hills seeking for tin and lead, the hazel grove had been a sacred place. At the edge of the grove there was a pool, standing beneath three of the sacred trees, hazel and willow and alder-a magic older than the magic of the oak. The surface of the pool was somewhat obscured with dry sticks and leaves, but the water was clear and dark, brown with the clear brown of the forest, and she saw her own face reflected as she bent and dipped up the water in her hand, touching it to brow and lips. Before her eyes the reflected face shifted and changed, and she saw the strange deep eyes of the woman from that older world than this. And something in her crawled in terror at what she saw in those eyes.

The world had shifted subtly round them-she had believed this strange ancient land lay at the borders of Avalon, not here in the remote fastnesses of North Wales. Yet a voice said silently in her mind, I am everywhere, and where the hazel reflects in the sacred pool, there am I. She heard Accolon draw in a breath of wonder and awe, and turned to see that the lady of the fairy kingdom was with them, standing straight and silent in her shimmering garment, the crown of bare wicker-wither above her brow.

Was it she who spoke, or the lady?

There is other testing than the running of the deer ... and suddenly it was as if a horn rang out, far and eerie, through the hazel grove ... or was it the hazel grove? And then the leaves lifted and stirred, and there was the rushing of sudden winds, making the branches creak and sway, and a chill of fear rippled through Morgaine's body and blood.

He is coming ...

Slowly, reluctant, she turned and saw that they were not alone in the grove. There at the edge between the worlds, he was standing ...

Never did she ask Accolon what it was that he saw ... she saw only the shadow of the antler crown, the bright leaves of gold and crimson where they stood in a wood gilded with the first buds of spring, the dark eyes ... once she had lain with him on a forest floor like this, but he had not come for her this time, and she knew it. Now she, and even the lady, must step aside. His step, light on the leaves, still somehow raised the wind that kept thrusting floods of air through the grove, so that her hair blew about on her forehead and she felt her cloak flapping with it. He was tall and dark, and he seemed at once to be clothed in the richest garments, and in leaves, and at the same time she would have taken oath that his flesh gleamed smooth and naked before them. He gestured, raising one slender hand, and as if compelled, Accolon moved slowly forward, step by step ... and at the same time it was Accolon that she could see crowned and robed with leaves and antlers, glimmering in the strange motionless light of fairy. Morgaine felt herself buffeted, struck and battered by the wind; in the grove, she knew, were forms and faces she could not clearly see; this testing was not for her, but for the man at her side. It seemed that there were cries and horn-calls; were the riders within the air, or did the beating of their hooves drum on the forest floor with this great noise that drowned out thought? She knew Accolon was no longer at her side. She stood clasping the bark of the hazel tree, her face hidden; she did not know, she would never know, it was not for her to know what form Accolon's kingmaking should take ... that was not in her power to give or to know. She had invoked the powers of the Horned One through the Lady, and he had gone where she could not follow.