The End of Magic (24 page)

Mordred had asked for a parley, to discuss the terms of surrender. Even though he knew it was a trap, Arthur could not refuse
to meet Mordred. He would lose what little support he still had among the nobles if he rejected this seeming chance for peace.

And there was always the chance that Mordred really meant it.

If all he wants is a kingdom to rule, I will give him the north. I would give him the whole kingdom, except that I know what
he will do to my followers. I owe them my protection, and so I cannot abdicate, but I can divide my kingdom: give him the
north, and leave the south to Gawain. I thought things would never come to this—I thought there could be nothing worse than
Mordred’s rule—but I was wrong. If we do not make peace, we will destroy the whole land between us.

The sun was already high in the sky. Normally battles—or parleys that might end in battles—started at dawn so that the combatants
could have as much daylight as possible in which to fight, but since the red star had appeared in the west, darkness continued
long past sunrise. Mordred had not yet appeared, and it was nearly noon.

In the distance, a horn sounded.

“That’s the signal,” Arthur said. He started to ride forward.

Gawain stopped him with a hand on his horse’s bridle.

“At least wait until we see them, Sire. Mordred doesn’t want peace. He wants you dead.”

“And I want him dead, may God forgive me,” Arthur said.

A few moments later, the white flag appeared through the mist. Arthur and Gawain rode toward it. In his hand, Gawain held
a hunting horn with which he could signal the start of battle if the parley turned out to be an ambush.

Mordred rode a black horse, and his armor was a dull iron grey. He wore a helm with fantastic bat-wings sweeping out from
the sides, and a black surcoat and cloak. Upon his chest his symbol, the eclipse, shone in dull silver. Beside him rode the
knight who was carrying the flag of truce. As far as Arthur and Gawain could see, the two men were alone.

“Mordred,” Arthur said.

“Father,” Mordred said mockingly.

There was a moment of silence.

“Well?” Gawain said. “This
is
a parley. What are your terms?”

“Oh, I never had any terms,” Mordred said lightly. “I just wanted to see if you’d come. You see, I’m ready to kill you now,
and I thought this would be the most convenient place. Shall we fight?”

They were really going to do it. Frik gripped his spear nervously. There were rumors that Mordred wanted to surrender, but
Frik knew the little reptile better than Arthur did. Surrender was the last thing on Mordred’s mind. And when Mordred didn’t
surrender, they would fight. And Frik would be there in the thick of it.

He couldn’t believe he was betraying his principles this way. Frik was a devout coward. But his principles could do nothing
to assuage his anger at Mab. Oh yes, he had helped her do her worst. But now he wanted to make amends, and fighting for Arthur
would be a good start.

Suddenly he heard a horn sound three long blasts—the signal to charge.
Just as I thought.
All around him men began to cheer. The man ahead of Frik began to trot forward. Frik took a tighter grip on his spear and
followed.

All around him, unseen in the mist, the two armies rolled toward each other like tides. Then they met, and the ring of steel
began to echo across the plains of Sarum.

Merlin lay drowsily beside Nimue in a drift of fallen leaves, looking up at the starless sky. The leaves formed a canopy of
gold, their brilliant sparkle making up for the lack of sun and moon. A gentle breeze played over his face, ruffling the feathers
on his cloak. Though he knew he had come here through a cave, Merlin had no sense of being enclosed in any way. Perhaps this
really was Barnstable Forest, somehow magically perfected by Mab.

As always, thinking of Mab disturbed him, as though there were something he had forgotten.

“This is so beautiful, isn’t it?” Nimue said.

“Yes,” Merlin answered, his train of thought vanishing at the sound of her voice. He wondered what he had been thinking in
the moment before she spoke.

Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been very important.

The fighting had been going on for hours. Most of the horses had been killed by archers, and Gawain and Arthur were both fighting
on foot. They had become separated in the fog.

An armored man wearing Mordred’s colors rushed at Gawain. The Iceni prince slashed at him, and he fell, only to be replaced
by another. No matter how many of Mordred’s men Gawain killed, there were always more to replace them. This one Gawain stabbed
through the belly, then braced his boot against the dying man to yank the sword free. All around him, Gawain could hear the
roar of battle and the shouts of the dying. He hoped none of them was Mordred.

He wanted to kill Mordred himself, for Jenny’s sake.

Gawain had seen Mordred a few minutes earlier, before the last wave of attack. In his bat-winged helmet the usurper was easy
to spot, but Mordred could have been easily identified even if he wore the same armor as his men. Mab’s brat fought with unnatural
strength and demonic ferocity. One blow from his ax was enough to cut a man in half. Gawain could not imagine the number of
men Mordred must have slain today.

But numbers did not matter. Despite Mordred’s ferocity, Gawain knew that Arthur’s forces were winning. Whatever spell Mordred
had cast over his troops to get them to fight, it seemed to be failing. They were fleeing the battlefield, and Arthur’s troops
were not. Today, victory would belong to Arthur.

Gawain cut down another man, felt someone behind him, and turned quickly, but there was no attack. Mordred stood a few feet
away, maddeningly calm and composed. There was not a scratch on him, or even a drop of the blood of the men he had slain.

“Gawain. What a pleasant surprise,” he said archly.

“Stop talking, Mordred, and fight,” Gawain snarled. It was Mordred who had dishonored his sister, not Lancelot—Mordred who
was the cause of all the sorrow in Camelot. And if he could spare Arthur the pain of having to execute the monster that was
his own son, Gawain would happily do it.

“I thought you might enjoy some light conversation before you die—but as you wish.”

Gawain swung his sword before Mordred had finished speaking, but Mordred parried it with ease. His strength and speed were
against nature, and in the space of a dozen blows he had battered the sword from Gawain’s hands. Mordred tore off Gawain’s
helmet, holding the blade of his ax against Gawain’s cheekbone, forcing Gawain to his knees as he bled from the wounds—none
yet fatal—that Mordred had given him.

Why doesn’t he finish me?
Gawain wondered.

“Mordred!”

Lord Lot appeared out of the mists, roaring with fury as he ran to rescue his son.

It was what Mordred had been waiting for. He whipped the ax backward. A blade shot out of the back of its head, piercing Lot
through the heart.

“Father!” Gawain screamed. He floundered forward on his knees, falling across Lot’s body. Lot’s eyes stared skyward, sightless
in death.
Father…

“Clever boy,” Gawain heard Mordred say as consciousness left him.

Until Excalibur was carried into the Battle of Sarum against Mordred, the enchanted sword had never been raised in battle.
Merlin had struck down Vortigern with its magic only, and Uther had never truly possessed Excalibur. Arthur had carried the
sword for many years without ever drawing Excalibur in anger. Now everything changed.

The legend said that Excalibur could not be defeated, and today Arthur proved the legend true. The sword seemed to move of
its own will, mowing down the men who faced it as though they were summer wheat.

But Arthur wielded more than a blade of steel. Excalibur was a blade of spirit as well, and the spirit of the sword cut through
the spell that had bound Mordred’s armies to him. Everywhere on that battlefield men came to their senses, the dark glamour
that had seduced them vanishing as night vanishes before the dawn. They ran from the field in increasing numbers—or surrendered
to Arthur’s troops—and slowly, Arthur felt the tide of battle turning.

Slowly, he began to believe in the possibility of victory.

He’d lost Gawain in the mist and the trees. Looking for him, Arthur ran across Sir Boris, leaning against a tree, his sword
resting upon the leaves. There was a footman beside him, leaning on his pike.

Sir Boris had been a warrior since Arthur’s father was a child. Arthur had begged the old knight not to accompany the army
on this campaign, but Sir Boris had refused to heed him, and in his heart Arthur could not blame him. In this war, there were
no noncombatants.

“Are you all right, Sir Boris?”

“Just getting my second wind, Sire,” the old knight said staunchly. “We have them on the run, I think.”

“I do too,” Arthur said, but he knew that wouldn’t matter if their commander managed to escape. “Where the devil is Mordred?”

“I saw him over there,” the footman volunteered in a thin nasal voice. He pointed. Arthur ran in that direction, Excalibur
at the ready.

Mordred was waiting for him. Even in the mist, there was no mistaking that figure in his bat-winged helmet. Mordred stood
in the shadow of an enormous oak, leaning against its trunk nonchalantly. In his right hand was a long-handled black ax.

Arthur slowed to a walk at the sight of his son. The anger that he had expected to feel at this moment ebbed away, to be replaced
by sorrow for all that had been lost. However sinful his birth, Mordred was Arthur’s son, but Arthur had never been given
a chance to love him.

Mordred… Guinevere… even Morgan. I’ve lost them all.
Deep in his heart, Arthur mourned for the loss of what might have been.
I gave you life. Now, it seems, I have to give you death.

“Mordred,” he said.

“Father,” Mordred answered, mocking his tone. He took a few steps forward.

“It’s time to end it all,” Arthur said, raising Excalibur.

“We agree on that, at least,” Mordred said philosophically. “You know, Father—if you’d lived—I don’t think we’d be very happy
as a family.” He raised his ax.

Arthur stepped forward.

In the Enchanted Forest, Merlin suddenly sat up.

“What is it, Merlin?” Nimue asked, sitting up as well.

“I heard a scream,” Merlin said slowly.

He could still hear them—the screams of dying men and horses, the clash of battle. For an instant all the intervening years
dissolved, and he was back on the ice near Winchester on a cold winter’s morning, Excalibur in his hands, as Uther and Vortigern
fought for the crown and men died all around them in the snow.

“No,” Nimue said protestingly. “It’s nothing to do with us,” she said quickly, her hand on Merlin’s shoulder. She kissed him
and stroked his face, urging him to lie back once more, to give himself up to sleep, to dreams.…

“No,” Merlin said, sighing as he lay back once more.
I suppose it isn’t.

There was something he must remember… if he could only concentrate.…

Mordred’s black ax rang out as he parried the first blow, and in that moment, Arthur knew that strength and speed were not
the only fairy gifts that Mab had given her catspaw. The ax met Arthur’s blade unyieldingly, and the forest rang with the
force of the impact. Magic fought magic, steel fought steel, strength fought strength in a battle of equals. Again and again
the weapons clashed without disclosing a clear victor.

But while Mordred had only seven years of experience, Arthur had more than three times that.

They closed and grappled, their weapons useless for a moment. Arthur flung Mordred away with the strength of desperation,
his boots skidding on the autumn leaves. Mordred fell, but sprang to his feet again cat-quickly, shrieking in fury as he ran
at Arthur. Retreating, Arthur parried the ax blow and struck at Mordred with Excalibur, but the blade slid off Mordred’s armor
without wounding him.

He can only be slain by his own weapon!
Arthur realized in a flash of inspiration. It must be true, if even Excalibur could not harm him.

Carefully Arthur laid his trap, circling and feinting until Mordred closed with him once more. This time when he flung Mordred
to the ground, he followed up on his advantage, stamping down hard with his boot on the haft of the ax as it crossed Mordred’s
chest. The impact of the blow drove the spike at the back of the ax-head deep into Mordred’s ribs.

Arthur reeled back, gasping with exertion.

As though it were only a practice bout, Mordred reached down and yanked the ax from his chest. He clutched at the wound, panting,
and then raised his hand to pull off his helmet. There was blood about his mouth, but despite this, he seemed curiously unmoved.
Slowly, painfully, he rolled over and got to his knees. He was gasping in torment, but his mouth was stretched in a murderous
smile and his eyes never left Arthur’s face.

The fight was over. All that remained was the execution. Arthur pulled off his helmet and cast it aside. When Mordred was
dead his power would be broken, the battle ended.

“I’m sorry, Mordred,” Arthur said in a ragged voice. He raised Excalibur to deliver the killing stroke.

“Tut-tut, Father,” Mordred gasped weakly. “Another sin? You’d kill your own son?”

Arthur froze in horror. Only for a moment, but a moment was all that Mordred needed. He pulled the dagger concealed in his
boot-top and thrust it into Arthur’s chest.

The blade slipped through the plates of golden mail as though Arthur wore silk, not steel. He reeled back with the pain, his
life’s blood gushing like a hot waterfall from the wound.

Mordred gazed up at him, gloatingly.

And with his last ounce of strength, Arthur drove Excalibur forward into the wound Mordred’s own blade had made in his black
armor, and drove Excalibur into Mordred’s heart. Mordred fell back against the autumn leaves, dying.

Pain rushed through Arthur’s body like the flames of hell. He dropped to his knees and began to crawl away from Mordred, clutching
Excalibur in his hand. He was dying, but the sword must be saved.