The End of Magic (10 page)

Unrolling the scroll, Mab peered at the tiny letters. It was a letter from Merlin to Nimue. Mab found the maudlin human sensibility
nauseating, but the news was interesting. Arthur had given up his quest for the Grail and was returning home.

If Arthur was coming home, then Mordred must be here to meet him. At last, it was time. The day for which she had plotted
and planned for so many years had come. All she had to do was make sure that all parts of her plan would be ready when the
time came.

In her cell, Nimue was at her prayers, telling over the beads of her amber rosary as her lips moved silently. When the Healing
Sisters were not practicing their craft, they were at prayer, marking the canonical hours from matins to compline with chanting
and hymnations. Her second vows were behind her, and Nimue had immersed herself in study and work. When she took her third
and final vows, she would be sealed to Avalon forever.

Was that truly what she wanted? Never to be free again, never to run barefoot along the sand as she had when she was a small
child, never to dance and sing for pure joy?

No,
she thought in wonder.
That isn’t what I want.…

It was as if her spirit were awakening from a long sleep. The thought of spending the rest of her life confined within the
walls and the life of Avalon filled Nimue with an echo of the peculiar horror that Merlin must feel to be trapped in an underground
cell. This life of prayer and service was not the life of the woman Nimue had been meant to be.

What should she do? How could she take back her word to the Father Abbot after so many years? Her friends, everyone she knew,
were here. How could she leave them? And what did she have to leave them for?

Perhaps a walk in the garden will help to order my thoughts,
Nimue thought. She set down her rosary on the windowsill and turned toward the door of her little room, but it was already
opening.

“Great news—great news, Nimue!” the Father Abbot burst out. “Arthur’s coming home!”

Though she was surprised to see him there—for what business did the ruler of the community of Avalon have with a lowly novice?—the
news delighted her.

“Thank God!” Nimue said fervently. “Did he find the Holy Grail?”

“Wrong! But what of it?” the Father Abbot said impatiently. “He’s coming home. Holy Grail or no Holy Grail—he should never
have left.”

The Father Abbot did not sound quite like himself, but Nimue was too excited to notice. “Merlin is free!” she said, sinking
down onto her narrow cot. “He can start living his own life again!”
With me…

The Father Abbot seated himself beside her and took her hand. “Yes… and it
should
be with you, my child,” he said, as if he had heard her unspoken thoughts. He gazed deeply into her eyes, until Nimue thought
she could almost see green fires dancing in his gaze. “God doesn’t want you when you love another.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially.
“I shouldn’t really say this in these hallowed halls: faith is supreme, but love is even better.” He patted her hand, rising
to his feet. “I’m sure you’ll make the right choice when the time comes.”

It was all Mab could do to keep from crowing aloud as she scuttled from Nimue’s cell in her religious disguise. As soon as
she was sure that no one was looking she shook herself violently, and the image of the Father Abbot crackled from her body
like an outgrown chrysalis.

She’d been right. Nimue still remembered the bargain Mab had offered her: beauty and youth in exchange for trapping Merlin
in a magical place of Mab’s creation. While she had thought Merlin necessary to the safety of Britain, the bargain had not
tempted Nimue, but with Arthur coming home, the girl would be willing to follow her greedy human heart at last, and take Merlin
away somewhere safe.

And then, with Arthur dead and Camelot destroyed, he will see that I was right all along!
Mab gloated. She could taste the victory that was nearly hers, and it was sweeter than ambrosia on her tongue. With Merlin
out of harm’s way, there would be no one left to oppose anything that Mordred chose to do.

But there was much for Mordred to learn before he faced Arthur.

The garden was, as always, a refuge for Nimue. She loved the herbs and flowers that were grown here to form the basis for
the stock of medicines belonging to the Healing Sisters. But today it did not work its familiar magic upon her thoughts.

For the first time in many years, Nimue was unsure of her course. In her heart she had always known the truth of the Father
Abbot’s words—that her true vocation was Merlin. But she had never wanted to stand in the way of Merlin’s fight against Queen
Mab, for Nimue believed as ardently as Merlin did that the violence and cruelty of the Old Ways no longer had any place in
Britain. But now Arthur was coming home to reign over the land that Merlin had protected for so long.…

“Sister Nimue.”

“Father Giraldus,” Nimue said in surprise, dropping a deep curtsy as she turned.

Age had not been kind to the scholarly monk. His hair had thinned until it was only a scant half-circle around the back of
his tonsure, and deep lines of dissatisfaction bracketed his mouth. Giraldus was one of those Christians who saw harm in everything
outside his own narrow interpretation of the creed, and he had always condemned Nimue’s friendship with Merlin.

“I did not see you at prayers,” Giraldus went on, studying her closely.

The way he looks at me, you would think I’d been dancing naked in the meadow!
Nimue thought rebelliously. But as always, she presented Giraldus with a serene, unruffled face.

“I was praying privately in my cell,” she said demurely, keeping her eyes cast down.

The other thing Father Giraldus disapproved of was immodesty in women—by which he meant any degree of self-respect. His sermons
were always on the subject of the innate sinfulness of women, of how by Eve’s betrayal of Adam, Original Sin had come into
the world. He was always trying to get the Healing Sisters disbanded, saying that it was dangerous to make so much use of
the old healing knowledge of the Pagans, and that people should look to glory in their next life and not comfort in this one.
Sometimes Nimue thought that Giraldus would be happiest in a world that had no women in it at all, if only he could figure
out how to manage it.

She would have walked on, but he put out a hand to stop her.

“Then you have not heard the news,” he said. “The King is returning home.”

Nimue said nothing, but it was hardly necessary to encourage Giraldus.

“He has not found the Grail, but that is hardly surprising. The Grail will only reveal itself to the humble, the chaste, the
pure of heart—and the King is a great sinner.”

“Arthur?” Nimue asked, startled out of her self-imposed silence. She had only seen the King once, but she’d had many letters
about him from Merlin during Arthur’s boyhood.

“But he’s… that is, I have heard that he is very devout,” Nimue said piously.

“Hah!” Giraldus barked. “If he were truly devout, he would have found the Grail! No, he’s returning empty-handed, which is
clear proof of God’s displeasure at his liberal ways. Perhaps we can hope that this rebuke will make him properly humble,
so that he will take up the true task of the Crown, to purge the land of sinners and heretics.”

Nimue flashed him a startled glance. Giraldus made it sound as if he hoped that Arthur would take up the purges and crusades
that had marked Vortigern’s terrible and bloody reign. “But surely—” she began.

“He has been soft for too long. It is the rot at the root—how can he call himself a good Christian when he has nurtured a
Pagan wizard in his bosom since his tenderest years? No, he will see now that it is strength, not mercy, that is needed to
sweep away the last of the Old Ways and make the land safe for good Christians once more.” He regarded her with a beady gaze
that missed nothing. “And you should look to the state of your own soul as well, Nimue. Toleration is very well in its place,
but carried to extremes it is nothing but a breeding ground for sin.”

That will never be your problem, Giraldus!
Nimue thought irreverently. But years spent in Avalon had taught her humility, so she curtsied again, murmuring vague words
of agreement.

Satisfied, Giraldus swept on. Nimue looked after him with troubled eyes. Giraldus traveled far and wide across Britain to
preach the New Religion. If he also preached the things he had been saying to her just now, his words of hate and exclusionism
would find ready hearers. There would no longer be a peaceful coexistence between the remnants of the Old Ways and the New
Religion.

Merlin would no longer be safe. Though the King himself followed the New Religion, he had never persecuted those who followed
the Old Ways. But with Giraldus and others like him seeing Arthur’s failure to return the Grail to Britain as a sign of Divine
displeasure, public opinion would be against the King for the first time in his reign. Arthur was no Vortigern, to rule by
terror and force a land and a people who hated and feared him. If he believed it was the true will of his people, Arthur would
outlaw the Old Ways.

What would happen to Merlin then? He’d made many enemies through the years among those who were jealous of his influence over
the King. They would be happy to take the opportunity to settle old scores with him… and Queen Mab, too, would take the opportunity
to remove Merlin as an obstacle to her plans.

Merlin would not be safe.

Suddenly the bargain Mab had once offered her became terribly tempting.

“I’ll restore your beauty if you take Merlin away to a place I’ve created for you. You can live with him there to the end
of your days.”

If Nimue took Merlin away to a place Mab had created, Mab would have no more reason to harm him. And those who followed Giraldus’s
preachings would have no chance to hurt him, if Merlin were safely hidden away from the world.

She could save Merlin.

But at what cost?

Standing alone in the Abbey garden, Nimue felt her heart beat fast with fear.

Her Nibs was in much too good a mood to bode well for anyone. For as long as Frik could remember, the Queen of the Old Ways
had only really been happy when she was hurting somebody, and
entré nous,
Frik just couldn’t seem to work up any interest in petty cruelty these days. He couldn’t remember when things like that had
started to bore him—perhaps it was when Merlin had first become his student—but these days he found Her Majesty very tedious.
He’d learned that the mortalfolk feared and loved, hurt and ached just as the Fair Folk did, and Frik had come to share their
joys and pain. They had no magic. It wasn’t fair to torment them when there was no way for them to defend themselves. It wasn’t
chivalrous, and Frik had developed an appreciation for chivalry over the years.

Not that it was going to do him any good. Frik stared broodingly out the window in the Great Hall of Tintagel at the waves
pounding upon the rocks far below. Though he was here alone—Morgan was in her bower trying on all her dresses, a favorite
pastime—he still wore the form of the dashing blond swashbuckler that had so captivated his lady fair. There were times now
when Frik forgot it was not his true self—it was true for Morgan, and that was all that mattered.

“Frik!” Mab’s harsh voice rang out, and he jumped guiltily.

She’d appeared out of nowhere just the way she always had. She was dressed all in violet and rosy grey—bright colors, for
Mab, and another indication of her exalted mood.

“Prepare the horses,” Mab said peremptorily. “We’re leaving. It is time for me to finish Mordred’s training.”

“And Morgan?” Frik asked cautiously. The fact that a boy needed his mother had always been Morgan’s only protection from Mab’s
captiousness.

“Forget her!” Mab said contemptuously. “We don’t need her anymore.”

“Yes, of course,” Frik said.

He’d said the same words to Mab a thousand, a million times down through the years of their long association, but this time
they meant something different than they had all the other times. This time they meant rebellion.

He would do it. He would break with Mab and stay with Morgan. The two of them could be happy together here. Mab wouldn’t care
about Morgan anymore now that she had served Mab’s purpose, and she hadn’t cared about Frik for years. If he were lucky, she’d
just go away and leave them alone together at Tintagel. These last few years with Morgan had been a time of true happiness
for Frik, and he did not want to go back to bowing and scraping to Mab and her mad plans. Let Mab do as she liked with the
rest of Britain so long as she left the two of them to their happiness. Morgan would miss the chance to swagger about as the
Queen Mother, but Frik could make that up to her. He knew it.

All he had to do was get Mab out of Tintagel with Mordred before Morgan noticed he was gone. Frik disappeared quickly before
Mab could say anything further. What did he care about the rest of the world so long as he was able to stay with the woman
he loved?

The woman he loved. Odd words from a gnome, and ones he’d never expected to say or even think, but true. And the most important
thing just now was to protect Morgan. All Frik had to do was get Mab and Mordred away from the castle without Morgan noticing.

Quickly he saddled Mab’s white palfrey and Mordred’s bay gelding, all the while hoping desperately that Morgan would remain
distracted by the contents of her closets a while longer. He led the two horses out to the foot of the steps and waited impatiently.
How long could it take Mab to tell Mordred the day he’d always dreamed of was here? The boy was quick enough to do things
Frik
didn’t
like.…

If Mab asked why Frik wasn’t coming with them, he’d think of something to tell her—that he had to clean up here, perhaps.
But Frik didn’t really think she’d notice. She hadn’t noticed what he did for years—and they’d been good years, too. Frik
wanted more of them.