Arthur said quietly, "I knew Morgaine hated me, but I did not know she hated me as much as this. Must you do her will even in this, Gwydion?"

"Do you think I do her will, you fool?" Gwydion snarled. "If anything could bid me spare you, it is that-that I do Morgaine's will, that she wishes you overthrown, and I know not whether I hate more her or you ..."

And then, stepping forth into their dream or vision or whatever it might be, I knew that I stood on the shores of the Lake where they challenged each other, stood between them clad in the robes of a priestess.

"Must this be? I call upon you both, in the name of the Goddess, to amend your quarrel. I sinned against you, Arthur, and against you, Gwydion, but your hate is for me, not for each other, and in the name of the Goddess I beg of you-"

"What is the Goddess to me?" Arthur tightened his fist on the hilt of Excalibur. "I saw her always in your face, but you turned away from me, and when the Goddess rejected me, I sought another God. ..."

And Gwydion said, looking on me with contempt, "I needed not the Goddess, but the woman who mothered me, and you put me into the hands of one who had no fear of any Goddess or any God."

I tried to cry out, "I had no choice! I did not choose-" but they came at each other with their swords, rushing through me as if I were made of air, and it seemed that their swords met in my body ... and then I was in Avalon again, staring in horror at the mirror where I could see nothing, nothing but the widening stain of blood in the sacred waters of the Well. My mouth was dry and my heart pounding as if it would beat a hole in the walls of my chest, and the taste of ruin and death was bitter on my lips.

I had failed, failed, failed! I was false to the Goddess, if indeed there was any Goddess except for myself; false to Avalon, false to Arthur, false to brother and son and lover ... and all I had sought was in ruin. In the sky was a pale and reddening flush where, sometime soon, the sun would rise; and beyond the mists of Avalon, cold in the sky, I knew that somewhere Arthur and Gwydion would meet, this day, for the last time.

As I went to the shore to summon the barge, it seemed to me that the little dark people were all around me and that I walked among them as the priestess I had been. I stood in the barge alone, and yet I knew there were others standing there with me, robed and crowned, Morgaine the Maiden, who had summoned Arthur to the running of the deer and the challenge of the King Stag, and Morgaine the Mother who had been torn asunder when Gwydion was born, and the Queen of North Wales, summoning the eclipse to send Accolon raging against Arthur, and the Dark Queen of Fairy... or was it the Death-crone who stood at my side? And as the barge neared the shore, I heard the last of his followers cry, "Look-look, there, the barge with the four fair queens in the sunrise, the fairy barge of Avalon...."

He lay there, his hair matted with blood, my Gwydion, my lover, my son ... and at his feet Gwydion lay dead, my son, the child I had never known. I bent and covered his face with my own veil. And I knew that it was the end of an age. In the days past, the young stag had thrown down the King Stag, and become King Stag in his turn; but the deer had been slaughtered, and the King Stag had killed the young stag and there would be none after him ...

And the King Stag must die in his turn.

I knelt at his side. "The sword, Arthur. Excalibur. Take it in your hand. Take it, and fling it from you, into the waters of the Lake."

The Sacred Regalia were gone out of this world forever, and the last of them, the sword Excalibur, must go with them. But he whispered, protesting, holding it tight, "No-it must be kept for those who come after-to rally their cause, the sword of Arthur-" and looked up into the eyes of Lancelet. "Take it, Galahad -hear you not the trumpets from Camelot, calling to Arthur's legion? Take it --for the Companions-"

"No," I told him quietly. "That day is past. None after you must pretend or claim to bear the sword of Arthur." I loosed his fingers gently from the hilt. "Take it, Lancelet," I said softly, "but fling it from you far into the waters of the Lake. Let the mists of Avalon swallow it forever."

Lancelet went quietly to do my bidding. I know not if he saw me, or who he thought I was. And I cradled Arthur against my breast. His life was fading fast; I knew it, but I was beyond tears.

"Morgaine," he whispered. His eyes were bewildered and full of pain. "Morgaine, was it all for nothing then, what we did, and all that we tried to do? Why did we fail?"

It was my own question, and I had no answer; but from somewhere, the answer came. "You did not fail, my brother, my love, my child. You held this land in peace for many years, so that the Saxons did not destroy it. You held back the darkness for a whole generation, until they were civilized men, with learning and music and faith in God, who will fight to save something of the beauty of the times that are past. If this land had fallen to the Saxons when Uther died, then would all that was beautiful or good have perished forever from Britain. And so you did not fail, my love. None of us knows how she will do her will-only that it will be done."

And I knew not, even then, whether what I spoke was truth, or whether I spoke to comfort him, in love, as with the little child Igraine had put into my arms when I was but a child myself; Morgaine, she had told me, take care of your little brother, and so I had always done, so I would always do, now and beyond life ... or was it the Goddess herself who had put Arthur into my arms?

He pressed his failing fingers over the great cut at his breast. "If I had but -the scabbard you fashioned for me, Morgaine-I should not lie here now with my life slowly bleeding forth from me.... Morgaine, I dreamed-and in my dream I cried out for you, but I could not hold you-"

I held him close. In the first light of the rising sun I saw Lancelet raise Excalibur in his hand, then fling it as hard as he could. It flew through the air end over end, the sun glinting as if on the wing of a white bird; then it fell, twisting, and I saw no more; my eyes were misted with tears and the growing light.

Then I heard Lancelet: "I saw a hand rising from the Lake-a hand that took the sword, and brandished it three times in the air, and then drew it beneath the water ..."

I had seen nothing, only the glimmer of light on a fish that broke the surface of the Lake; but I doubt not that he saw what he said he saw.

"Morgaine," Arthur whispered, "is it really you? I cannot see you, Morgaine, it is so dark here-is the sun setting? Morgaine, take me to Avalon, where you can heal me of this wound-take me home, Morgaine-"

His head was heavy on my breast, heavy as the child in my own childish arms, heavy as the King Stag who had come to me in triumph. Morgaine, my mother had called impatiently, take care of the baby ... and all my life I had borne him with me. I held him close and wiped away his tears with my veil, and he reached up and caught at my hand with his own.

"But it is really you," he murmured, "it is you, Morgaine ... you have come back to me ... and you are so young and fair ... I will always see the Goddess with your face ... Morgaine, you will not leave me again, will you?"

"I will never leave you again, my brother, my baby, my love," I whispered to him, and I kissed his eyes. And he died, just as the mists rose and the sun shone full over the shores of Avalon.

Epilogue

IN THE spring of the year after this, Morgaine had a curious dream.

She dreamed that she was in the ancient Christian chapel upon Avalon, built in the old times by that Joseph of Arimathea who had come here from the Holy Land. And there, before that altar where Galahad had died, Lancelet stood in the robes of a priest, and his face was solemn and shining. In her dream she went, as she had never done in any Christian church, to the altar rail for the sharing of their bread and wine, and Lancelet bent and set the cup to her lips and she drank. And then it seemed to her that he knelt in his turn, and he said to her, "Take this cup, you who have served the Goddess. For all the Gods are one God, and we are all One, who serve the One." And as she took the cup in her hands to set it to his lips in her turn, priestess to priest, he was young and beautiful as he had been years ago. And she saw that the cup in her hands was the Grail.