Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [497]
And then, one spring when the land lay beautiful before us and the first apple trees of Avalon were white with blossom, Raven broke silence with a cry, and perforce my mind returned to the things of that world I had hoped to leave forever behind.
9
The sword, the sword of the Mysteries is gone . . . now look to the cup, now look to all of the Holy Regalia . . . it is gone, it is gone, taken from us. . . .”
Morgaine heard the cry out of sleep, and yet, when she tiptoed to the door of the room where Raven slept, alone and in silence as ever, the women who attended her slept; they had not heard that cry.
“But there is nothing but silence, Lady,” they told her. “Are you certain it was not an evil dream?”
“If it was an evil dream, then it came to the priestess Raven as well,” Morgaine said, staring at the untroubled faces of the girls. It seemed to her that with every passing year, the priestesses in the House of Maidens grew younger and more like children . . . how could little girls like this be entrusted with the holy things? Maidens whose breasts had scarcely formed . . . what could they know of the life of the Goddess which was the life of the world?
Again, it seemed, that shattering cry rang through Avalon, rousing alarm everywhere, but when Morgaine asked, “There—did you hear?” they looked at her again in dismay and said, “Do you dream now, Lady, with your eyes wide open?” and Morgaine realized that in the bitter cry of terror and grief there had been no actual sound.
She said, “I will go to her—”
“But you may not do that—” one of them began, then stepped back, her mouth open, as she realized the full meaning of who Morgaine was, and she bent her head as Morgaine stepped past her.
Raven was sitting up in bed, her long hair flung about her in mad disarray, and her eyes wild with terror; for a moment Morgaine thought that indeed her mind had overheard some evil dream, that Raven walked in the worlds of dream. . . .
But she shook her head and then she was wide awake and sober. She drew a long breath, and Morgaine knew that she was struggling to speak, to overcome the years of silence; now it was as if her voice would not obey her.
At last, trembling all over, she said, “I saw—I saw it . . . treachery, Morgaine, within the very holy places of Avalon. . . . I could not see his face, but I saw the great sword Excalibur in his hand . . .”
Morgaine put out a hand, quieting her. She said, “We will look within the mirror when the sun rises. Do not trouble yourself to speak, my dearest.” Raven was still trembling; Morgaine put her hand firmly over Raven’s, and by the flickering light of the torch, she saw that her own hand was lined and spotted with the dark spots of age, that Raven’s fingers were like twisted ropes around the narrow, fine bones. We are old, she thought, both of us, who came here maidens in attendance on Viviane . . . ah Goddess, the years that pass. . . .
“But I must speak now,” Raven whispered. “I have been silent too long . . . I kept silence even when I feared this would come . . . listen to the thunder, and the rain—a storm is coming, a storm to break over Avalon and sweep it away in the flood . . . and darkness over the land . . .”
“Hush, my dear! Be still,” Morgaine whispered, and put her arms around the shaking woman, wondering if her mind had snapped, if this was all an illusion, a fever dream . . . there was no thunder, no rain, outside the moon was shining brilliantly over Avalon and the orchards white with blossom in the moonlight. “Don’t be frightened. I will stay here with you, and in the morning we shall look into the mirror and see if any of this is real.”
Raven smiled, a sad smile. She took Morgaine’s torch and put it out;