The End of Magic (3 page)

She glanced around the Great Hall at Tintagel, and even the sight of Frik in his ridiculous swashbuckler’s disguise billing
and cooing with the enchantingly beautiful Morgan le Fay could not irritate her today. She was on the verge of her ultimate
victory. She could feel it.

“Show Auntie what you’ve learned, Mordred,” Mab cooed coaxingly.

Mordred stepped from the shadows at the far end of the hall into a beam of light.

Arthur’s son had grown into a compellingly beautiful young man. He wore his hair down past his shoulders; through the years
it had darkened to a shade of red that was almost black. His eyes were a pale grey, brilliant as mirrors. He dressed all in
black, saying it was the only color left unused after Morgan’s brilliant extravagances, and today he wore a tunic of black
suede trimmed in matching doeskin, with a double row of silver buttons running down the placket. At his hip he wore a box-quiver
filled with silver-tipped arrows cut from black hawthorn, and he carried a large double-curved horn bow that Mab had brought
him all the way from Khitai.

Across the breadth of the hall, the servants in their dun-colored tunics each quiveringly set an apple atop their heads. They
stood along the wall behind Morgan’s chair, almost too terrified to breathe.

“If you five gentlemen don’t stop trembling, I might miss and kill you all,” Mordred called out to them mockingly.

Their terror increased, but Mordred gave no hint that he noticed it. With inhuman speed he drew and fired, drew and fired,
over Morgan’s head, sending the next arrow on its way before the previous one had found its target. Their impact was one long
thrum
of sound, as the five apples fell to the ground.

But only four of them had been pierced. The fifth servant reeled back with a cry of pain, Mordred’s arrow protruding from
his right shoulder.

“Ah, less than perfect,” Mab said. It was important that Mordred always be aware of his shortcomings, she felt.

Mordred’s eyes flared at the rebuke, and his anger, never far below the surface, exploded into rage. He nocked another arrow
and loosed it at Mab—who caught it unruffledly and dropped it to the floor—and then one at Frik, who was lounging in the corner
conversing with Morgan. Frik yelped in surprise and seized it only a bare inch from his throat. But Mordred wasn’t done. He
had nocked a third arrow, and was aiming at his mother… and that arrow would find its target.

“That’s enough, Mordred,” Morgan said sharply, without the faintest trace of fear. Mordred hesitated, his face still white
and furious. After a long moment he lowered his bow and smiled without any trace of surrender.

The years since his birth—few though they’d been as the World of Men reckoned time—had been more than kind to Morgan le Fay.
Though it was a gnomish illusion, she still possessed the dazzling beauty that had allowed her to bespell a king, and through
Frik’s magic, Morgan lived a life filled with every form of luxury. Today she wore a jade-green gown in the Roman style that
Frik preferred, with a massive gold necklace with three long pendant plaques around her neck.

She watched Mab with her son with a faint flame of jealousy burning in the back of her glorious hazel eyes, for avarice had
always been the defining principle of Morgan’s nature, and though he was her own son, Morgan resented the gifts that Mab lavished
on Mordred.

“You mustn’t get carried away, my sweet,” Mab said. If the murder attempt had fazed her at all, the Queen of the Old Ways
didn’t show it. “It shows a lack of control.”

Mordred tossed his bow aside and walked toward the foot of the table, ignoring the further rebuke.

“And why fire at Auntie Mab and Uncle Frik?” Morgan added, anxious to seize control of the conversation.

“I do hope the boy was just having fun and it wasn’t personal,” Frik said, coming toward Morgan’s side. He was holding the
arrow very much as if he expected it to turn into a poisonous snake at any moment—which was not completely unlikely—and he
still sounded breathless and flustered.

“Of course it wasn’t personal. He likes you,” Morgan reassured him. She took his hand and turned her head to the side to kiss
it.

“I often wonder what he’d do if he
didn’t
like me,” Frik muttered under his breath, staring directly at Mordred.

Mordred gazed back expressionlessly. As always, Frik irritated him, but Mordred knew better than to challenge the gnome openly.
There would be time enough for that, when Auntie Mab stopped stalling and granted him the power he needed to take the crown.
Until then, he had to restrain himself and be nice to the people who mattered.

“Oh, stop fussing, Mother,” he snapped. “Auntie Mab understands. Don’t you, Auntie Mab?” he appealed, looking toward her.

“Of course I do,” Mab cooed in her graveyard voice. “You were testing yourself. Now come sit by me.”

The avidity in her voice was plain to hear, and it soothed Mordred’s wounded feelings. He swaggered over to her, seating himself
at the head of the table. Mab, seated in a chair behind him, reached out to stroke his cherry-black hair.

“You know you’re my favorite, Mordred,” she said wheedlingly. “But you must learn to channel your aggression.”

“Against Arthur,” Mordred said promptly. That had been the first and most constant lesson of his life: Arthur was the enemy,
Arthur must be destroyed.

“Yes, always Arthur—and Merlin,” Mab added, smoothing Mordred’s hair as though she could not get enough of touching him. Mordred
was her future—a future in which the Old Ways would be restored and all those who had dared to challenge her would be punished.
“You’re looking pale, Mordred. You’re not eating enough.”

There was a flash of lightning, and suddenly the whole length of the table was covered with trays of savory delicacies in
dishes of gold and silver, plucked from other lands and other feasts through the power of the Old Ways. Morgan sat forward
with an expression of greedy interest, inspecting the treats closest to her as if she actually intended to eat something.

Mordred picked up a morsel of sweet-and-sour chicken and glared at it as if it were a personal enemy. “I already have the
strength of ten men,” he said pettishly. He regarded the banquet that lay before him without favor.

“Listen to your aunt,” Morgan said from the foot of the table. “And please do something about your hair.”

Mordred glanced over his shoulder at his patron. She nodded, indicating he was to agree. Mordred knew that his Auntie Mab
liked his hair just the way it was. But Mother was jealous and spiteful—Mordred could recognize his own best qualities in
another without regret—and yet did not dare to go against the power of the Old Ways. So she sniped at him, and he criticized
her, and round and round they went on the Wheel of Years, waiting for the day when each of them might come into their power.

But Morgan’s day was past, Mordred knew. And his was yet to come.

“Very well, Mother,” Mordred said reluctantly. He popped the chicken into his mouth and bit down on it savagely, wishing it
were her finger. At the other end of the table, Frik was using Mordred’s silver-tipped arrow to offer Morgan a choice dainty,
and Morgan had always been easily distracted by her gnomish cavalier.

She’d never loved him. Only Mab loved him. And then only if he did what she wanted.

“There’s a good boy,” Morgan said obliviously, the matter already forgotten.

Mordred sneered once he was sure she wasn’t looking. He wasn’t good, and he was fast leaving his boyhood behind. As soon as
he proved himself ready, Auntie Mab would take him to the Land of Magic, and give him the fairy gifts that would make him
unstoppable.

And then…

Mordred was not entirely sure what came next, but he had his dreams. Smash Camelot, smash Avalon, kill Arthur and every one
of his knights who followed the New Religion. Drench the land in blood until all that was left was a void and the howling
of old night and chaos come again. He would smash and destroy until there was no one anywhere who had anything that he didn’t
have: not love, not light, not family, not hope.

When Mordred was finished, there would be nothing left.

He smiled and sat back, humming a tuneless little song under his breath.

The future was bright.

It has been seven years since they came here.
Nimue gazed at the empty altar before her.
Where have they gone?

She knew she should be keeping vigil, clearing her mind of earthly distractions in preparation for the great blessing she
was about to receive. After so many years, she was about to enter her novitiate, taking one more step away from the world
and one step closer to God. Nimue had longed for this day down through all the years when she had wondered if she was worthy
of it.

Seven, and seven, and seven again. My life runs on sevens.

The beads of her amber rosary were cool against her fingers. Instead of praying, Nimue used them to count the years.

Seven years from the day she first met Merlin to the day she saw him being carried unconscious into Vortigern’s dungeons.
Seven weeks of joy to spend with him under the shadow of the old tyrant, until Mab’s plotting sent them both to the maw of
the Great Dragon. Then Merlin had brought her back here to Avalon, the place where she had grown up sheltered from Vortigern’s
evil, and she had never been able to bring herself to leave again.

Seven days passed from the day she entered these gates until Vortigern faced Uther upon the field of battle and died so that
Uther could regain his throne. Seven days more, and Uther was crowned.

And seven months after that, all Britain knew their King for a mad and venal man. By autumn of that year Cornwall was dead,
and Igraine disgraced. Nine months later Arthur was born—spoiling her count a little—then seven, and seven, and seven again
while Merlin raised him in secret on Sir Hector’s estate in the Forest Sauvage.

Those had been the best years of all, Nimue reflected, for in them she and Merlin had often written back and forth to share
their joys and cares, hoping for the day when Arthur would take the throne and the two of them could be together once more,
because Mab’s ambitions would be defeated and Britain would no longer have any need of a wizard.

Then Uther died, and Merlin made Arthur King. And in the aftermath of Arthur’s great battle with Lord Lot, Merlin had come
at last to Avalon to take her away with him, and Nimue had wept for joy that the two of them could finally be together.

Only it was not to be. Mab’s treachery had intervened once more, and Merlin had left in the night. After that there were no
more letters, only silence. Weeks later, Nimue had learned the news through the gossip of nuns and messengers, of Arthur’s
wedding, his vow.… If Arthur was going away, then Merlin was not free. He would have to stay at Camelot to protect Britain
while Arthur was gone.

And then one day she had seen Arthur himself.

He had come riding into Avalon at the head of a band of knights, and asked for the Father Abbot. Gossip ran swiftly through
the little community, and soon everyone in Avalon knew that Arthur had come to Avalon to pray for a blessing on his quest
to seek the Grail. He had knelt in the Grail Chapel just where she was kneeling now, surrounded by his knights. The chapel
had been filled with candles and incense, and Arthur had seemed as if he were formed of gold to Nimue’s dazzled eyes.

But only her eyes were dazzled. Her heart told her that the young king’s quest meant disaster for Britain, no matter how much
joy the religious at Avalon greeted it with. Nimue had spent enough years at Vortigern’s court to know that a King must be
on his throne, ruling his land, not gallivanting where he pleased in search of a dream, no matter how holy.

But in those days she had been only a lowly postulant, and she knew from bleak experience that no one would listen to her
anyway. She was doomed to know the truth but never dare to speak it, a marred Cassandra, unable either to warn or to guide.

She knew that for as long as Arthur wandered, Merlin would remain at Camelot, helping to guide Arthur’s young Queen to rule
the land. And so every morning and evening for the last seven years Nimue had added her own special prayers to those of the
Abbey, praying for Arthur’s speedy and safe return.

But if God had heard her prayers, He had not granted them. Perhaps her faith was too weak to compel His attention, and she
must strengthen it through further vows.

Nimue hung her head, listening to the holy silence all around her. Was that the reason behind her decision to join the novitiate?
To make a vassal of God?

Or did she do this in the hopes of erecting a further barrier between herself and Queen Mab? On the night after Merlin had
left her, she had gone walking in the herb garden to calm her soul—and there Queen Mab had found her.

Though Nimue had heard tales of the wicked Queen Mab all her life, it had been the first time she had ever seen the Queen
of the Old Ways. She had been wary, and rightfully so, for the Queen of Magic had come to offer her a devil’s bargain:
“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.”

Nimue had refused, but Mab had not withdrawn her offer.
“If you change your mind, just call my name. Out loud.”

And so the matter had lain between them for the last seven years. Was it any wonder that Nimue, weary with the unequal battle
between her mind and her heart, sought to put the temptation as far away from her as she could?

To be whole—to be with Merlin—there was nothing more Nimue could imagine wanting. But all Mab’s promises led to selfish and
wicked ends. Britain needed Merlin more than she did, so long as Arthur was away. And so Nimue turned to God to protect her
from her own heart.

Come back to us, King Arthur!
Nimue prayed angrily, clutching her fists against her chest.
Come back to us! Your people need you!