Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [495]
I struggled to turn away. “It is not the God who can command me, but the Goddess. . . .”
“But,” said the familiar voice in the silence of that eternity, “you are the Goddess and it is I who call you . . .” and for a moment, as if in the calm waters of the mirror of Avalon, I saw myself robed and crowned with the high crown of the Lady of Life. . . .
“But I am old, old, I belong now to death, not to life . . .” I whispered, and in the silence, words heard again and again in ritual suddenly came to life on the lips of the God.
“. . . she will be old and young as it shall please her . . .” and before my eyes my own mirrored face was again young and fair as the maiden who had sent forth the young stag to challenge the running deer . . . yes, and I had been old when Accolon came to me, yet I had sent him forth to the challenge heavy with his child . . . and even old and barren, yet life pulsed within me as within the eternal life of the earth and the Lady . . . and the God stood before me, the eternal One who summoned me forth to life . . . and I took one step and then another, and then I was climbing, climbing from the darkness, following the distant notes of the harp that sang to me of the green hills of Avalon, and the waters of life . . . and then I found I was on my feet, reaching for Kevin . . . and he put the harp gently aside and caught me, half-fainting, in his arms. And for a moment the shining hands of the God burned me . . . and then it was only Kevin’s sweet, musical, half-mocking voice that said, “I cannot hold you, Morgaine, as well you know,” and he placed me gently into my chair. “When did you eat last, Morgaine?”
“I cannot remember,” I confessed, and suddenly I was aware of my deathly weakness; he called the serving-woman and said, speaking in the gently authoritative voice of a Druid and a healer, “Bring your mistress some bread and some warmed milk with honey.”
I raised a hand to protest, and the woman looked indignant, and now I remembered that twice she had tried to coax me to eat with these very things. But she went to do his bidding, and when she returned, Kevin took the bread and soaked it in the milk and fed it to me, gently, a few mouthfuls at a time.
“No more,” he said. “You have been fasting too long. But before you sleep, you must drink a little more milk with an egg beaten into it . . . I will show them what to do. The day after tomorrow, perhaps, you will be strong enough to ride.”
And suddenly I began to cry. I wept, at last, for Accolon lying dead on his pall, and for Arthur who hated me now, and for Elaine who had been my friend . . . and for Viviane, lying dead beneath a Christian tomb, and for Igraine, and for myself, for myself who had lived through all these things . . . and he said again, “Poor Morgaine, poor girl,” and held me against his bony breast, and I cried and cried until at last I was quiet, and he called my women to carry me to my bed.
And for the first time in many days, I slept. And two days later, I rode to Avalon.
I remember little of that northward journey, sick in body and mind. I did not even wonder that Kevin left me before I came to the Lake. I came to those shores at sunset, when the waters of the Lake seemed to run crimson and the sky was all afire; and out of the flame-colored water and sky appeared the barge, painted and draped all in black, oars muffled to the silence of a dream. And for a moment it seemed to me that it was the Sacred Boat on that shoreless sea of which I may not speak, and that the dark figure at the prow was She, and that somehow I bridged the gap between earth and sky . . . but I do not know whether that was real or a dream. And then the mists fell over us, and I felt within my very soul that shifting which told me I was once again within