Their eyes widened. “How do you know that phrase?” asked Bennett.
“It’s a very long story... I’ll tell you later. What is it?”
Bennett spelled out the story quickly for Gavin. His eyes widened in shock. “The Holy Grail!” Without bothering to ask permission he ran into the hut with Fox. Maddie ran after him in surprise. “Gavin! What are you doing!”
Gavin took out his satchel, and Maddie sat down, humbled. It was, she knew, the Grail. It was impossible to describe; when Maddie looked at it, she knew immediately that this must be a glimpse of what it was like to be in the presence of God. She felt her eyes well up with tears, and guilt nearly overwhelmed her. How can I have been so selfish, all along?
Gavin remained focused. With great care, even reverence, he lifted the Grail into the air and lowered it towards Fox’s mouth. Maddie’s heart stopped for a moment, worried that Fox couldn’t take it, but after a second he raised his head weakly and managed to drink from the Grail.
It never occurred to Maddie to question how the Grail became full of water, if it was water it was full of.
After several seconds, Fox’s head dropped back down. His breathing became less labored. Gavin turned towards Maddie. “He’s asleep. Look.”
Maddie walked over and looked down at Fox. His torso was still covered in blood, but the wound had disappeared. Maddie turned towards Gavin. “How—”
She stopped. The hut was growing brighter and hotter than before. She turned around slowly.
The Grail had started glowing. Hotter and hotter, brighter and brighter it grew, floating in the air. Maddie stared in awe. As she watched, a dazzling white light filled her vision and nearly blinded her. She turned her head to the side. When she turned back, the Grail was gone.
Slowly she turned towards Gavin, mouth open in shock. Gavin shrugged. “Like I said, it’s a long story.”
Maddie and Gavin joined the others outside the wagon. Maddie smiled at them. “I think Fox is going to be fine. He’s resting now.”
There was a moment of silence, then Lance started to laugh. Soon Gavin joined in, then Bennett, then the rest of the theater troupe, and finally Maddie. It was the best laugh Maddie had ever had—the laughter of relief.
Lance walked over to Gavin, clasped his hand, and gathered him into a bear hug. “I have no idea what’s going on with you, but by God, it’s good to see you alive!”
Bennett clasped Gavin’s hand next, and suddenly they were swarmed by the theater troupe. Everyone was shaking their hands, hugging them, laughing. Maddie was overwhelmed, but Lance seemed to be enjoying the attention. Gavin and Bennett looked uncomfortable.
“Isabella!”
Maddie had forgotten all about Isabella. For the first time, Maddie saw her genuinely lose some of her composure. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes.
“Elwood!”
They hugged so tightly Isabella was almost lifted off the ground. He kissed her, and Maddie was glad that at least someone was going to be reunited with a loved one by the end of all of this. The whole encampment, which had by this point all gathered outside, applauded. Brand looked at Maddie and Lance. “Was there... anybody else?”
Lance shook his head. “No. Just her.”
Brand nodded gravely. “I am saddened, but not surprised.” He turned towards Isabella again and smiled. “Truly, though, this is miracle enough for now. You have given me a debt I do not know how to pay. You have my loyalty for the rest of my life, I give you my word.”
“Thank you, Lord Brand,” Lance answered. “You can start by giving us some food. I’m afraid we’re all famished.”
“Of course,” Brand and some of his men walked to the middle of the circle of trees, were the stone fire pit was set up. In just a few minutes various meats were roasting—Maddie had no idea what they were, but they smelled delicious.
While Brand was busy preparing the fire, Isabella walked over. “Can you stay for one more night?” Isabella asked. “You deserve a night of rest. And,” she smiled and looked over toward Brand, who saw her and beamed back, “we can finally have the wedding we planned three months ago. I’d like for you to be here for it.”
“Regretfully,” Bennett said, “We really need to keep moving—”
“Then we won’t waste any time,” Brand announced. “Tomorrow: a celebration for my wedding and for the Knights, and the one fair damsel, who rescued my wife from the invaders!”
Bennett started to protest that he wasn’t a knight, but stopped himself, content for once not to be proven right. He nodded. “All right. One day should be fine.
Lance laughed when people began scattering, planning on making preparations. “Well, we’re off to a good start,” he remarked. “We haven’t even found Michael yet and people are already throwing us parties.”
Maddie laughed with him, but still found herself thinking of Fox.
Of course, the wedding could not be nearly as extravagant as it would have been, had they not been hiding out in the forest, but it was a beautiful ceremony nonetheless. Brand’s men had done the best they could, gathering food and drink after the vows were exchanged. Isabella, with a crown of flowers in her hair, was practically glowing. The King’s Men, who were musicians as well as actors, entertained as everyone celebrated.
Maddie stayed toward the back, nursing a cup of ale, clapping politely at the end of another song. It was around time for Gavin to be back; they wanted to leave as quietly as they could.
“Enjoying the party, Maddie?” asked Lance.
Maddie looked at him and smiled. “It’s a beautiful wedding. Truly.” She wondered if she’d be able to see Fox before they had to leave.
Lance nodded seriously. “You’re upset. I know why. But don’t be.” Before Maddie could ask what he meant Lance grabbed her by the shoulders and faced her forward. Maddie gasped. Everybody else stopped talking immediately; you could hear a pin drop.
Fox emerged from the theatre caravan and walked slowly into the center of the clearing. He was as thin as ever, and his clothes were still threadbare and ragged, but he looked healthier than at any point since they’d shown up.
When he reached the center, everybody burst into cheers and applause. Fox let it continue for a moment before raising his hand. Maddie wasn’t sure, but she thought she could see tears in his eyes. She felt tears in her own as well.
When the applause died down, Fox began to speak.
“I want to thank everyone her for their concern. I truly did not know if I would survive. If not for the timely intervention of the Lady Isabella—” Here he bowed his head before her. She smiled back. “—And of almighty God”—He looked at Gavin, who also bowed his head—“I wouldn’t be standing before you today
“I am afraid there is not much I can give the Lord and Lady Brand to celebrate the occasion. The only thing I can offer—that I have always been able to offer—are my words. I can tell you a story—a new one. I believe it is appropriate for the occasion, and...” He looked at the four travelers. “I think our guests—our knights—will appreciate it as well. The story is a warning, but it is also a promise. It is called ‘The Garden at the End and Beginning of All Things’, and it, too concerns Avalon.”
And for the last time during her visit, Maddie was transported to another world.
CHAPTER 39
The Garden at the End and the Beginning of All Things
by Joshua M. Young
After Mordred, after Camlann, Arthur stood on Avalon’s shores. The Ocean at the End of All Things stretched before him, the sky grey and sunless, the water grey and smooth. There was no sun in this place, no clouds; no life outside Avalon’s gates.
There was only Arthur with Excalibur hanging uselessly at his side, the Ocean, and glimpses of history in the still waters.
A Gaulish Emperor who threatened to consume all of Europe, and tens of thousands of men killed to stop him.
Gaul itself, barren, blasted, muddy, and poisonous. Good men, British, Gaulish, and others, fight
ing from trenches worked into the ground, living in the mud and fighting for weeks or months on end in a war that meant nothing. Strange weapons crafted from steel that flung lumps of metal as a bow shoots an arrow.
Beautiful stone buildings pummeled and destroyed by an onslaught of weapons stranger still. Enormous self-propelled arrows of metal, trailing flames and exploding upon impact shot at Britannia from across the sea and Europe proper. A Teutonic emperor, a madman, bent on annihilating everyone he could not rule, and many whom he refused to rule.
It seemed to Arthur that a darker hour could not come, but history marched on, and still Merlin did not call him back to fight for Britain.
A millennium of madness, a time when things were called as things they were not, lest they offend the foolish. A glittering, beautiful civilization crumbled under the weight of its own insanity, and civilization fell farther than Rome had ever fallen.
If ever Britannia—and the world—had needed a wise hand and a strong king, it was now; but still, the horn did not sound, and Merlin did not call him back.
Dragons from the stars, strange and feathered, fought a war to extinguish all men.
Untold ages later, the stars grew dim and cold, in ways the sages of the time did not understand; it was not as they foretold. But a sage that Arthur recognized as Merlin told them of a war fought by death itself to claim all life.
Arthur’s fingers itched and Excalibur seemed to stir in her sheath. Merlin’s call did not come. Nor did it come as humanity huddled together in a metal pyramid eight miles tall, a fortress protected from the watching forces of death by energies drawn from the Earth itself. It did not come as those energies finally faded and the Last Redoubt of Men fell to the watchers. It did not come as the last humans were slaughtered.
Merlin’s call never came, and all creation, empty, cold, and silent, spiraled into a vast, central orb of green flame.
Arthur clenched his fists in anger. Merlin had promised that he would return in Britannia’s darkest hours, but Britannia was no more. Earth was no more. Creation had failed, and Merlin’s very promise was no more. There was only Avalon’s gate at his back and the Ocean at the End of All Things at his face.
Excalibur stirred once more. Arthur wrenched it away from his hip, sword, sheath, and belt together, and flung it with a cry into the Ocean. From the water it had come, and to the water it would return, to rest forever in this strange sea. In the instant before the sword struck the Ocean’s smooth surface, a delicate hand reached up from the water to claim the weapon. The Lady in the Lake. Arthur was not surprised that she should reclaim it; why, in this place at the end of all creation, should he be surprised by anything?
“She is a creature bound to no world,” Merlin said, as though he were reading Arthur’s thoughts. And perhaps he was, for who could know the limitations of a sorcerer? Certainly, he had not been standing on the shore in the moments before Arthur had discarded Excalibur. If he was not bound by space or time, why should he be bound to the inside of his own head?
“As you are a creature bound to no oaths? Neither friendship nor truth binds you, it seems, nor the end of all creation.”
Merlin hung his head. Here, on the shores of Avalon, he seemed younger than Arthur had ever seen him. For the first time, his hair was dark, his beard short and neat. “I haven’t betrayed you, Wart.”
“I have seen the end of all things. Britannia is gone. God’s green earth is gone, and the heavens consumed by corpse-fire. I call you false, Merlin Ambrosius. I call you false friend and lying prophet. You lured me here with promises of Britannia’s future and aid in her darkest hour. I have seen those hours come and go and now Britannia is gone. Had I been there—”
“You died slowly and painfully, poisoned by infection,” Merlin said softly. “And the second time was worse.”
Arthur frowned. Merlin’s words were strange, but they had always been strange. “I do not fear death; I have served Christ faithfully. A slow death is naught but a chance to put a kingdom’s affairs in order. History could have been different, Merlin!”
Merlin snapped his fingers, and out in the sea, a speck of light drifted towards the surface, where it popped like a bubble.
Arthur, bleeding and feverish on his death bed. Merlin worked what magic he could; but it was Morgana le Fay, whose power was greater in that place and in that time, who preserved the king in a lingering un-Death. Arthur lived, but his fever never broke and ever did blood seep from his wounds. Not stigmata, the marks of Christ, but a horrible, wretched mockery, blood that smelled of putrescence.
Arthur lingered, and Camelot lingered. Arthur grew thin; Camelot, once shining, cast a shadow that covered England. Men of Europe cowered at its sight. Wars worse than the ones fought in Gaul and the rest of Europe covered God’s Earth. In the Untold Ages of the Future, Morgana le Fay ruled in the Shadow of Camelot, and when at last the stars began to go out, life began its last stand in a Redoubt on another globe.
One of the Things that watched that Redoubt while the forces of hell waited for its defenses to fail was a skeletal king, weeping blood from wounds that would not close in skin that had long since rotted away.
Arthur sank to his knees and wept.
“There is no avoiding that future if you remain in Camelot, Wart. Maybe there was once, but now that Morgana is aware, it plays out the same way every time. Earth becomes a pawn of Death.
“In those other wars, there was little that one man could do to change the course of history. Their hours were dark indeed, but the fate of England and of Men were in the hands of many good men and women. Perhaps,” Merlin said, “perhaps during the Millennium of Insanity, but it was a time of limited existential threat. Your presence did little to change the course of history ultimately, no matter where or when I returned you to England.”
“You speak as if we have already tried!”
“Thirty-four times, Wart. In each time and in each place, your presence has changed nothing. The Millennium of Insanity was little more than a flaw in the fabric of history, and shortening or lengthening did not change the end of all things. Your presence in the World Wars did not shorten them appreciably, and while you led a valiant raid against the warriors of Omicron Persei, the war ended as it was fated to end. In the Last Redoubt of Men, there was no force to conquer; only the slow press of time and entropy.”
“I call you false, Merlin Ambrosius,” Arthur said again, though his heart was not in it.
“The prophecy was true, Wart. It came from a deeper and brighter magic than any I wield. It came from the tree at the heart of Avalon, from whence springs all life.”
“All things have ended. How could the prophecy be true?”
“When the prophesied Messiah came to the Jews, he came in a way that he would never have foreseen: God himself clothed in human flesh, born from a virgin girl. Prophecies can be fulfilled in strange ways. If your presence in history did not change history, then those dire times could not have been England’s darkest hour. It remains to us to discern what that hour is.”
Arthur looked up from the sand, and Merlin stood next to him, offering him his hand. “Come, Wart. Let’s consult the heart of Avalon, together this time.”
Arthur’s memories of Avalon were dim, at best. He remembered soft grass and gentle streams; a cool breeze and warm sunlight streaming through the leaves of trees. He remembered the Sisters of Avalon, beautiful creatures like unfinished statues of marble ten or twelve feet tall, thin and graceful. He did not remember arriving. He did not remember leaving.
Merlin lead him inland, across terrain that seemed less shore than desert. Lifeless sand shifted under his feet; a cold, sharp wind stirred the sand into a blowing haze along the ground. Merlin stumbled and produced a staff that could not possibly have fit inside his cloak; when the sand shifted under Arthur’s feet and he stumbled, he had no help save for the hand offered to him after he fell.
“The sand,” Merlin said, “can be treacherous. Be cautious, Wart.”
With no sun in the sky and no true scenery to speak of, it became difficult to judge the time. Arthur could not tell if they had been trudging inland for hours or minutes or even days. Everywhere, the same drifting sand and hazy views; everywhere, the cloudless grey sky and utter stillness of life. From time to time, in the distance, Arthur thought he saw a ruin, and something half-remembered would tug at his mind.
But despair hazed his thoughts as the sand hazed the horizons. The Ocean at the End of All Things had shown him life’s slow and inevitable demise. Wars that chipped away at the human spirit and decay that chipped away at the universe itself, something Merlin had called “entropy.” Arthur felt that entropy in his bones, in his soul. He was weary in a way that he had never been weary before. It was not simply the physical act of hiking across such unstable, shifting terrain as the sand. It was the press of time. Of all time. Arthur could feel history sitting on his shoulders, a weight that felt heavier than the heaviest knight’s armor.
But armor protected its wearer. This weight simply bore down on Arthur, body and mind. Merlin thought there was hope yet, and perhaps he was planning his next move as they walked; Arthur merely mourned the death of the Summer Kingdom of Camelot, Britannia, and all humanity.
After some time, they passed another ruin, but far nearer than the ruins Arthur had seen before. Ahead of them, Arthur thought that perhaps the ruins might be thicker than what he had glimpsed as they walked, columns and half-crumbled arches erupting from the sand like ancient, worn mountains. “What is this place?” he asked finally. “Where is Avalon?”
“This is Avalon,” Merlin said sadly. “More or less. The end of all life has come, Wart, and though for an eternal moment Avalon was the last bastion of creation, that moment has since passed. We have perhaps one last chance for victory before even this desert is consumed by death and decay.”
“But I have seen the end of creation. It is an orb of green flame which consumed the very stars themselves.”
Tales of the Once and Future King Page 35