I managed to rise, to have my dress put on and my shoes, and my hair braided down my back and covered with the veil of a priestess; I even painted, after the woman's clumsy hands had twice botched it, the symbol of the moon on my forehead. My hands-I noted it incuriously, as if they belonged to someone else-were shaking, and I was weak enough that I let the woman give me her arm as I crawled down the steep stairs. But the Merlin should not see my weakness.

A fire had been built in the hall; the fire was smoking a little, as always here when it rained, and through the smoke I could see only a man's figure seated by the fire, turned away from me, draped in a grey cloak-but at his side stood a tall harp I could not mistake; from My Lady I knew the man. Kevin's hair was all grey now, but he dragged his stooped body upright as I came in.

"So," I said, "you call yourself still Merlin of Britain, when you serve only Arthur's will and defy that of Avalon?"

"I know not what to call myself now," said Kevin quietly, "save perhaps servant of those who serve the Gods, who are all One."

"Why have you come here, then?"

"Again, I know not," said the musical voice I had loved so well, "save perhaps in repayment of some debt laid down before these hills were raised, my dear." Then he raised his voice to the serving-woman.

"Your lady is ill! Get her to a seat!"

My head was swimming and a grey mist seemed to waver around me; the next thing I knew I was seated by the fire across from Kevin, and the woman was gone.

He said, "Poor Morgaine, poor girl," and for the first time since Accolon's death had turned me to stone, I felt that I could weep; and clenched my teeth against the weeping, for if I shed one tear, I knew that everything within me would melt, and I would cry and cry and cry and never cease crying until I melted into a very lake of tears ... .

I said tightly, clenched, "I am no girl, Kevin Harper, and you have won your way to my presence falsely. Now say what you will say, and go your way."

"Lady of Avalon-"

"I am not," I said, and remembered that the last time I saw this man, I had driven him from my presence, shrieked at him, called him traitor. It seemed not to matter; perhaps it was fate that two traitors to Avalon should sit here before this fire, for I too had betrayed my oath to Avalon ... how dared I judge Kevin?

"What then are you?" he asked quietly. "Raven is old, and silent now for years. Niniane will never have the power to rule. You are needed there-"

"When last we spoke," I interrupted him, "you said Avalon's day was done. Why then should there be any to sit in Viviane's place except a child half-fated for that high office, waiting for the day when Avalon fades forever into the mists?" I felt a scalding bitterness in my throat. "Since you have forsaken Avalon for the banner of Arthur, will it not make your task easier if none reigns in Avalon save an ancient prophetess and a powerless priestess ... ?"

"Niniane is Gwydion's love and his creature," said Kevin. "And it comes to me that your voice and your hands are needed there. Even if Avalon is fated to pass away into the mists, will you refuse to pass with it? I never thought you a coward, Morgaine." And then he raised his eyes to mine and said, "You will die here, Morgaine, die of grief and exile ..."

I turned my face away and said, "For that I came here ..." and for the first time I knew indeed that I had come here to die. "All I have tried to do is in ruin, I have failed, failed ... it should be your triumph, Merlin, that Arthur has won."

He shook his head. "Ah, no, my dear, no triumph," he said. "I do what the Gods have given me to do, no more, and you do the same. And indeed if your doom shall be to see the end of the world we have known, why then, my dearest love, let that doom find us each in our appointed place, serving what our God has given us to serve ... . It is laid on me to recall you to Avalon, Morgaine, I know not why. My task would be simpler with only Niniane there, but, Morgaine, your place is in Avalon, and mine where the Gods shall decree. And in Avalon you can be healed."

"Healed." I said it in contempt. I did not care.

Kevin looked at me sadly. "My dearest love," he had called me. It seemed to me now that he was the one person alive who knew me as I was; before every other person alive, even Arthur, I had worn a different face, seeking always to appear other and better than I was; even to Viviane, that she might find me more worthy to be a priestess ... . For Kevin I was Morgaine, thus and no other. It came to me that even if I stretched forth my hand to him as the Death-crone he would see nothing but my own face, Morgaine. ... I had always felt that love was other than this, was that burning I had felt for Lancelet,for Accolon. For Kevin I had felt little save for that detached compassion, friendship, kindness; what I had given him had meant but little to me, and yet... and yet he alone had taken thought to come to me, to care whether or no I died here of grief.

But how dared he break in upon my peace, when I had almost won through to that utter quiet which was beyond life? I turned away from him and said, "No." I could not come back to life again, could not struggle and suffer, and live with the hatred of those who had once loved me ... . If I lived, if I returned to Avalon, I must enter again into a death struggle with Arthur whom I loved, I must see Lancelet still in Gwenhwyfar's prison of love. I had ceased to care, I could endure no further the pain that was in my heart ... .

No. I was here, in silence and peace, and before long, I knew it now, I would pass even further into peace ... the dizziness that was near to death was drawing closer and ever closer, and this Kevin, this traitor, would bring me back? I said, "No," again and turned away, my hands covering my face. "Leave me in peace, Kevin Harper. Hither I came to die. Leave me now."

He did not move, nor did he speak, and I sat very still, my veil over my face. After a little time, surely, now he would arise and leave me, for I had not the strength to go forth from him. And I... I would sit here until I was carried back to my bed by the women, and then I would never rise again.

And then, into the silence, I heard the soft sound of the harp. Kevin played, and after a moment he sang.

I had heard a part of this ballad, for he had sung it often at Arthur's court, of that bard in ancient times, sir Orfeo, who made the trees to dance and the stones on the plain to stand in a ring and dance, and all the beasts of the wood to come and lay themselves at his feet when they should have rent him with their claws. But beyond that, today, he sang the other part of the song, which was a Mystery, and which I had never heard before. He sang of how the initiate, Orfeo, had lost her that he loved, and had descended into the Afterworld and spoken there before the Lords of Death, and pleaded for her, and was given permission to go into the dark lands, and bring her forth, and then he had found her there on the Undying Plains ... .

And then his voice spoke from the soul ... and I heard what seemed my own voice pleading.

"Seek not to bring me forth, when I am resigned to stay here in death. Here within these undying lands all is at rest, with neither pain nor struggle; here can I forget both love and grief."

The room faded away around me; no longer could I smell the smoke from the fireplace, the chill breath of rain beyond the window, I was no longer conscious of my own body, ill and dizzy where I sat. It seemed to me that I stood in a garden filed with scentless flowers and eternal peace, with only the distant voice of the harp breaking unwillingly through the silence. And that harp sang to me, undesired.

It sang of the wind from Avalon, with the breath of apple blossom and the smell of ripened apples in their season; it brought to me the cool freshness of the mist over the Lake, and the sounds of the running deer deep in the forest where the little folk live still, and it brought me the sun-soaked summer where I lay in the sun beneath the ring stones, with Lancelet's arms round me and the blood of life rising like sap within my veins for the first time. Then I felt again in my arms the heavy softness of my little son, his soft hair against my face, his milky breath sweet and soft ... or was it Arthur himself in my lap, clinging to me, his little hands patting my cheek ... again Viviane's hands touched my brow in blessing, and I felt myself a bridge between earth and sky as I stretched my own hands forth in invocation ... high winds swirled through the grove where I lay with the young stag in the darkness of the eclipse, and Accolon's voice spoke my name ... .