King of the Scepter'd Isle (Song of Earth) (37 page)

“But you may, Merlin. I have scanned the ifalong briefly and observed that on a measurable percentage of happen-tracks you will fall asleep. By threatening you I have reduced that percentage of happentracks to a more acceptable level. Keep standing, keep watching the Moon Rock, and if a facet starts to glow, you know what to do. Don’t you?”

“Place my hand against the facet, accept the essence of the traveler, and send him on his way through the great-away,” recited the old Paragon sulkily. “And to my certain knowledge,” he added with weak defiance, “travelers use this Rock once every 3,265 years on average. So you’re making a big production out of nothing at all, Avalona.”

“You hear the Paragonic attitude toward our Duty, Nyneve?” commented Avalona. “Now take my hand and stand close to me.”

Avalona’s hand had a reptilian dryness, but that was not why Nyneve was shuddering. She’d been on this route before, many years ago when Avalona had taken her to meet Starquin the Five-in-One. It had been a disorienting, terrifying experience for a practical girl who liked to keep her feet on the ground. She watched while Avalona placed her free hand on that strange, warm part of the Pentor outcropping the locals called the Moon Rock, and she shuddered violently and wished she’d had the forethought to relieve herself before undertaking this outlandish journey.

Then she was in the greataway.

There was weightlessness, and there were stars beneath her feet and all around her. She and Avalona were encased in an invisible capsule, the wall of which felt like soft flesh. If she pushed herself away from this wall, she would soon reach the wall opposite. There was nothing to be afraid of, nothing. She was
not
going to fall into the stars that Avalona said were really
suns, she was
not
going to throw up, she was
not
going to wet herself. Everything was under control. She’d done it before and she could do it again.

Taking a deep breath, she scanned the greataway around her.

There were stars, but there was Time, too, and there were Alternatives. She could sense them all, and they filled her with so much wonder that she forgot her physical entity and its limitations. She was a part of the greataway, and it was a part of her. Certain of Avalona’s words floated into her mind. When she’d first heard them, she’d confused them with religion, because she’d been young and inexperienced. Now she knew them as truth: “In the beginning there was only one happentrack. Multiple happentracks began when the first animal was wise enough to make the first decision.”

It was a comforting thought. She was not at the mercy of the greataway. Instead, the greataway was at her mercy, and at the mercy of all creatures like her.

Simple words came to her.

She looked at the immensity and said, “I love you.”

“I know what you mean,” said Avalona, her voice echoing oddly.

“You really do, don’t you?”

“We have little in common, you and I. But we do have this.”

“I’m not frightened anymore.”

“There is a stage of awareness when fear has no meaning. You have reached that stage, Nyneve.”

“How long did it take me?”

“1,295,498 Earth years. That’s fast by human standards. You have adapted well, and you are very suitable.”

“Are you pleased?” And for once it was not a stupid question to ask a Dedo.

“I am pleased,” said Avalona.

“Have you found Starquin?”

“We are traveling on his psetic line now.”

“How long has it taken us?”

“Two million
years.”

“But what about Earth?”

“Earth is still as we left it. It will be the same when you get back.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Soon you will understand everything. Open your mind the way I taught you, Nyneve.”

“Is he here?”

“He is here.”

It was like an old memory revived, as Starquin touched Nyneve for the second time.

Then Starquin spoke. And as he spoke, Nyneve grew stronger, as though his words fed her body. Avalona was forgotten. Merlin and Arthur were forgotten. The ifalong was everything, and the ifalong was hers to shape.

Aeons later, when she knew everything there was to know, Starquin said,
“We are our consciousness. I have given you my consciousness. You are me, and one day you will save my life.”

Nyneve turned and rode the invisible ship back, and a few million years earlier she arrived beside the Moon Rock.

“Where’s Avalona?” asked Merlin, still awake.

“In Starquin.”

He thought about it. “Thank God for that,” he said at last. “So it’s just you and I, Nyneve?”

As he moved closer she said, “Avalona is in me too.”

F
IFTEEN YEARS PASSED
.

One misty autumn
evening there was a knock at the cottage door. Nyneve was engrossed in the far-off ifalong and didn’t hear, but Merlin opened an eye. “Come in,” he croaked. They never bolted the door these days. Nyneve was well able to defend both herself and Merlin against intruders.

“Arthur!” exclaimed Merlin as the tall figure entered.

The years had treated the king well. He’d filled out physically and gained an indefinable dignity. He possessed, Merlin had to admit, a kingly bearing despite his obvious tiredness.

Nyneve stirred and stretched, yawning. Her breasts rose beneath the cream fabric of her shift. Arthur watched her in sad appreciation.

“By God, you don’t get any less pretty, Nyneve. You don’t look a day older than when I first met you.”

Her eyes snapped open. “Arthur, it’s you!”

He smiled. “Didn’t you expect me? I thought you could foretell the ifalong.”

She flushed. “I don’t spy on people, Arthur. Nothing is so important that I have to keep an eye on everybody’s movements.”

“Avalona thought it was,” said Merlin. “She spent days anticipating everything. She said you never know when a happentrack might branch. She was a clever Dedo, Avalona was.”

“It so happens
I don’t see things the same way,” said Nyneve. “I believe a lot of happentracks tend to average out. So I didn’t know you were coming, Arthur. It’s a pleasure to see you. What brings you here?”

He sat down, glanced at her, then away. “Tomorrow I ride for Camlann. The Saxons are massing there. We’ve suffered a lot of defeats lately, Nyneve. The old days seem a long time ago. Everything is falling apart, and we lost half the country last year. Most of the original Round Table knights are dead: Torre, Pellinore, Gawaine. …”

“I’d heard. I’m sorry.”

“What was it all for?” His eyes looked tired. She hadn’t seen him for two years, and she noticed new lines on his face; the vertical lines that come from tension and defeat. “I thought we were going to change the world with the Round Table and our principles of chivalry. Everything was so new and so right, and so
good
when we started out. And yet the more victories we won, the more we seemed to lose. People simply wouldn’t see sense.” The frustration was twisting in him like a rage. “Why not? We were
right.
Everybody knew that. Your stories proved that; we heard them wherever we went. People loved them. But they didn’t love us. They fought us every inch of the way, and once we were out of sight they would return to their old ways: up with the gentry, down with the peasants, bring out the instruments of torture. Why?”

“The stories were an ideal, Arthur. Reality is another thing. Reality is hungry soldiers who haven’t seen a woman for days. Reality is sweat and dirty pants.”

“And reality is that people would rather make up their own minds. That was where we made our mistake. We tried to shove chivalry down their throats like religion. They threw it up into our faces. In the end I began to think we were no better than them. Most of the time we were the aggressors, Nyneve. We kicked those Saxons all over England. Did they really want to fight? Did they really want to learn our
ways? Even our allies didn’t want to be our allies—I realize that now. They joined us because we were powerful. Reality is that people are stupid and selfish and cowardly without exception, and that includes the Knights of the Round Table.”

“So why did you come here, Arthur?”

“Tomorrow I ride to Camlann,” he said again. “Will that be the end?”

“The stories said it was the end.”

“So what was it all
for
?”

Nyneve wanted to cry. “It was for Starquin. Perhaps it was for humans as well. People will always remember you, Arthur.”

He sat silent for a moment, his jaw clamped tight and the lines very apparent. Eventually he said, “I don’t think I know anything anymore.”

“You know why you came here tonight.”

“So do you.”

“No, I don’t. I told you I don’t spy.”

He was silent.

There was always a temptation to peep into the ifalong. Merlin had probably already done it; he sat there grinning like a pleased dog. Nyneve resisted the temptation and allowed her human side to guess. “ ‘Camlann, where the last dim, weird battle of the west is fought,’ “ she said, quoting from the story. “I can tell you how to win, Arthur. I can predict every move of the Saxon forces. Is that why you came?”

He said, “It would be wrong to win. I’ve learned that.”

“Then what?”

“The story says that there will be an inscription on my tomb. It will say ‘Here lies Arthur: once and future king.’ Is that right?”

“That’s what the story says.”

“I have to ask you this, Nyneve. Why
future?
”

“It was a story, nothing more.”

He regarded her closely, then said, “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to
die at Camlann. I came here to tell you something, not to ask you anything.”

“Please tell me, then.”

“It’s my last chance, Nyneve. I have to tell you that I love you. I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you in the boat at Avalon. I’ve loved you every time I saw you in the forest, and I’ve loved you when I didn’t see you. I’ve loved you through every battle I’ve fought, and I’ll love you when I die at Camlann. I’ve loved you every single moment of my life. Forgive me. I had to tell you.”

She was crying openly now, and suddenly she stood and pulled the shift over her head and threw it aside. She stood naked in the firelight, black hair tousled. As she looked at Arthur, wondering if she was possessed by human or godlike impulses, the tears turned to laughter. Nothing had any importance at all when set beside love. She turned to Merlin, sitting pop-eyed in his chair, and said, “In the words of Avalona, you are superfluous, Merlin. Get out of here before I disincorporate you, and don’t come back until morning.”

Then she reached for Arthur.

The woman was tall and beautiful. She didn’t look old enough for the young man at her side to be her son.

The young man at her side … Gwen studied him covertly as they sipped herb tea. He was broad-shouldered and handsome, with wiry auburn hair that reminded her of Arthur. His face was square, with a broad, smiling mouth and bright blue eyes. Lady Jane had said he was twenty-one, but he seemed older and more experienced. He had a way of looking at her that made a pulse in her neck throb. And she was getting toward forty. … Shakily she put her cup down.

“It’s good to have company,” she said. “I wish you could stay longer than one night. With Arthur away so much, Camelot is a lonely place.”

“I’m sure it is.” Lady Jane wasn’t listening, Gwen realized. Since she and Harry had arrived that afternoon, there had been several occasions when she’d gone off into a kind of trance. “Don’t you have anything
stronger than this stuff?” asked Lady Jane abruptly, putting down her cup with a grimace.

She was certainly outspoken, thought Gwen. That was to be admired. “Wine, perhaps?”

“Yes.” Lady Jane was gazing with open curiosity around the room.

Gwen was quite proud of her furniture. “Most of it’s from France,” she found herself saying, “but the tapestries are from the East.”

“Doesn’t King Arthur bring back stuff from his wars?”

“He doesn’t believe in looting.” Gwen couldn’t keep the regret out of her voice.

“What a pity. What’s the point in fighting if you don’t loot? King Arthur must learn to please his troops. It’s rape and pillage that knits a rabble into a fighting unit,” said Lady Jane with relish. “Rape and pillage. The men must have something to look forward to, or they’ll have no stomach for the battle.”

“Things haven’t been going too well lately,” admitted Gwen.

“They say the Saxons are gathering at Camlann.”

“So Arthur tells me. He’s riding there tomorrow.”

“I may take a look myself,” said Lady Jane. “I enjoy a good battle.”

“Oh.” Nonplussed, Gwen turned to Harry. “Are you fighting at Camlann?”

“I see myself more as a tactician. I’ve made a study of all the famous battles. It’s a fascinating subject, military strategy.”

“Harry’s officer material,” said Lady Jane proudly. “You don’t waste a man like Harry on the battlefield.”

“That was a wonderful victory of King Arthur’s at Badon fifteen years ago,” said Harry. “The flanking movement under cover of the ridge; it was classic. I wish I’d been there to see it. Of course, I was only a child at the time, but King Arthur’s always been my hero. Somehow I can identify with him.” He’d moved closer in his enthusiasm; their knees almost touched.

“It was
a famous victory,” she said weakly.

Lady Jane stood. “I’ll go to bed if you don’t mind, Gwen. I’ll have a long journey tomorrow if I want to get to Camlann. I’ll take a goblet of wine to bed. Sometimes I don’t sleep very well in a strange castle.” Smiling, she left.

“Tell me about Badon,” said Harry, his brilliant eyes fixed on Gwen’s.

“Well, I don’t really know very much. …”

“Of course you do. Arthur must have told you all about it.”

“I can’t think what’s happened to Arthur. I expected him home before this.”

“He’s probably spending the night in Mara Zion. I expect he’s met some of his old cronies and they’re discussing tactics for Camlann.”

“Tactics? I doubt it. His knights were all here yesterday, discussing Camlann until—” She was about to say “until I wanted to scream” but stopped herself. This young man and his mother were clearly very knowledgeable about military matters. “It was very interesting,” she finished lamely.