Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [569]
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.
And then he cried out, as he had done when Galahad knelt before him, “Ah, the light—the light—” and fell forward and lay on the stones without moving; and Morgaine woke in her isolated dwelling on Avalon with that cry of rapture still ringing in her ears; and she was alone.
It was very early, and mist lay thick on Avalon. She rose quietly and robed herself in the dark garb of a priestess, but she tied her veil around her head so that the crescent tattoo there was invisible.
She went quietly out into the stillness of the dawn, taking the downward path beside the Sacred Well. Still as it was, she could sense noiseless footsteps, silent as shadows, behind her. She was never alone; the little dark people always attended her, though she seldom actually saw them—she was their mother and their priestess