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By Root 1595 0

the place which should have been hers, but simple pity for her. “I have begun a task in the West country which must be completed—if I leave it half done, it were better it had never been begun. You cannot take my place there, and so, may the Goddess help us both, you must keep my place here.” She bent and embraced the girl, holding her tight. “My poor little cousin, there is a fate on us both, and we cannot escape it . . . if I had stayed here, the Goddess would have worked with me one way, but even when I tried to flee my sworn duty, she brought it upon me elsewhere . . . none of us can escape. We are both in her hands, and it is too late to say it would have been better the other way . . . she will do with us as she will.”

Niniane held rigidly aloof for a moment, then her resentment melted and she clung to Morgaine, almost as Nimue had done. Blinking back tears, she said, “I wanted to hate you—”

“And I, you, perhaps . . .” Morgaine said. “But she has willed otherwise, and before her we are sisters. . . .” Hesitantly, her lips reluctant to speak the words which had been withheld for so long, she added something else, and Niniane bent her head and murmured the proper response. Then she said, “Tell me of your work in the West, Morgaine. No, sit here beside me, there is no rank between us, you know that. . . .”

When Morgaine had told her what she could, Niniane nodded. “Something of this I heard from the Merlin,” she said. “In that country, then, men turn again to the old worship . . . but Uriens has two sons, and the elder is his father’s heir. Your task then is to make certain that Wales has a king from Avalon—which means that Accolon must succeed his father, Morgaine.”

Morgaine closed her eyes and sat with bent head. At last she said, “I will not kill, Niniane. I have seen too much of war and bloodshed. Avalloch’s death would solve nothing—they follow Roman ways there now, since the priests have come, and Avalloch has a son.”

Niniane dismissed that. “A son who could be reared to the old worship—how old is he, four years old?”

“He was so when I came to Wales,” said Morgaine, thinking of the child who had sat in her lap and clung to her with his sticky fingers and called her Granny. “Enough, Niniane. I have done all else, but even for Avalon, I will not kill.”

Niniane’s eyes flamed blue sparks at her. She raised her head and said, warning, “Never name that well from which you will not drink!”

And suddenly Morgaine realized that the woman before her was priestess, too, not merely the pliant child she had seemed; she could not be where she was, she could never have passed the tests and ordeals which went into the making of a Lady of Avalon, if she had not been acceptable to the Goddess. With unexpected humility, she realized why she had been sent here. Niniane said, almost in warning, “You will do what the Goddess wills when her hand is laid upon you, and that I know by the token you bear . . .” and her eyes rested upon Morgaine’s bosom as if she could see through the folds of the gown to the seed which lay there, or to the silver crescent on its leather thong. Morgaine bent her head and whispered, “We are all in her hands.”

“Be it so,” said Niniane, and for a moment it was so silent in the room that Morgaine could hear the splash of a fish in the Lake beyond the borders of the little house. Then she said, “What of Arthur, Morgaine? He bears still the sword of the Druid Regalia. Will he honor his oath at last? Can you make him honor it?”

“I do not know Arthur’s heart,” Morgaine said, and it was a bitter confession. I had power over him, and I was too squeamish to use it. I flung it away.

“He must swear again to honor his oath to Avalon, or you must get the sword from him again,” said Niniane, “and you are the only person living to whom this task might be entrusted. Excalibur, the sword of the Holy Regalia, must not remain in the hands of one who follows Christ. You know Arthur has no son by his queen, and he has named the son of Lancelet, Galahad by name, to be his heir, since now the Queen grows old.”

Morgaine