The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Goddess! Let not the innocent suffer . . . the huntsmen are nothing to you. . . . She could do nothing, she watched in dread, trembling, shuddering with the smell of blood, the smell of her mate’s blood . . . blood spilled from the great boar, but this was nothing to her, like the King Stag he must die . . . when his time was come, then must his blood be shed on the earth . . . behind her she heard the squeals of frenzied piglings and suddenly the life of the Great Goddess rushed through her, not knowing whether she was Morgaine or the Great Sow, heard her own high frenzied grunting—as when, in Avalon, she had raised her hands and brought down on her the mists of the Goddess, so she flung her head back, shivering, grunting, hearing the terror of her piglings, making short little rushes, flinging up her head, rushing in circles . . . green and brown under her eyes, an irrelevant shuttle in automatic fingers, unnoticed . . . then, maddened by the alien smells, blood, iron, strangeness, the enemy rising on two legs, steel and blood and death, she felt herself charge, heard cries, felt the hot stab of metal and red blurring her eyes through the brown and green of the forest, felt her tusks tearing, felt hot blood burst forth and gush as the life went out of her in searing pain and she fell and knew no more . . . and the shuttle went on, leaden, weaving brown and green and brown over the agony in her belly and the red bursting through her eyes and her pounding heart, the screams still in her ears in the silent room where there was no sound but the whisper of shuttle and warp and spindle and distaff . . . she swung silent, in her trance, exhausted . . . slumped forward at the loom and lay there, motionless. After a time she heard Maline speak, but she neither moved nor answered.

  “Ah! Gwyneth, Morag—Mother, are you ill? Ah, heavens, she will weave, and always it brings these fits upon her—Uwaine! Accolon! Come, Mother has fallen at her loom—”

  She felt the woman restlessly chafing her hands, calling her name, heard Accolon’s voice, felt him lift and carry her. She did not, could not, move or speak—she let them lay her on her bed, bring wine to revive her, felt it trickle down her neck, and wanted to say, I am all right, let be, but she heard herself make a frightened little grunting sound and was still, agony ripping her, knowing that in death the Great Sow would release her, but first she must suffer the death throes . . . and even as she lay there, blind, tranced, agonized, she heard the hunting horn sound and knew that they were bringing Avalloch home, dead on his horse, slain by the sow which had attacked him within moments after he had killed the boar . . . and he in turn had slain the sow . . . death and blood and rebirth and the flow of life in and out of the forest, like the winding in and out of the shuttle. . . .

  it was hours later. She still could not move a muscle without griping, terrifying pain; almost she welcomed it. I should not go wholly free of this death, but Accolon’s hands are clean. . . . She looked up into his eyes. He was bending over her with concern and dread, and they were alone for a moment.

  “Are you able to speak now, my love?” he whispered. “What happened?”

  She shook her head and could not speak. But his hands on her were tender, welcome. Do you know what I have done for you, dear love?

  He bent and kissed her. He would never know how close they had come to being exposed and defeated.

  “I must go back to Father,” he said gently, troubled. “He weeps and says, if I had gone, my brother would not have died—he will blame me always.” His dark eyes rested on her, a shadow of disquiet in them. “It was you who commanded me not to go,” he said. “Did you know this with your magic, beloved?”

  She found a shred of voice through the soreness in her throat. “It was the will of the Goddess,” she said, “that Avalloch should not destroy what we have done here.” She managed, with great pain, to move her finger, tracing out the line of the tattooed serpent on the hand that touched her face.

  His expression changed, grew suddenly fearful. “Morgaine! Had you any part in this?”

  Ah, I should have known how he would look at me if he knew . . .

  “Can you ask?” she whispered. “I was weaving in the hall all this day in clear sight of Maline and the servants and the children . . . it was her will and her doing, not mine.”

  “But you knew, you knew?”

  Slowly, her eyes filling with tears, she nodded, and he bent and kissed her lips.

  “Be it so. It was the will of the Goddess,” he said, and he went away.

  3

  There was a place in the woods where a rushing stream broadened out between rocks into a deep pool; Morgaine sat there on a flat rock overlooking the water and made Accolon sit beside her. They would be unseen here, except by the little ancient folk, and they would never betray their queen.

  “My dear, all these years we have worked together—tell me, Accolon, what is it you think we are doing?”

  “Lady, I have been content to know you had a purpose,” he said, “and not to ask questions of you. If you had sought only for a lover"—he raised his eyes to her and reached for her hand—"there would have been others than I for that, better suited to such games. . . . I love you well, Morgaine, and I have been—glad and honored—that you turned to me, even for companionship and the touch of tenderness, but it was not that which called me to you, priest to priestess.” He hesitated, and sat stirring the sand at his feet with a booted foot. Finally he said, “It has come to me, too, that there was more of purpose in this than the wish of a priestess to restore the rites in this country, or your need to draw down upon us the moon tides—glad I have been to aid you in this and share the worship with you, lady. Lady of this land you have been indeed, especially to the ancient folk who see in you the face of the Goddess. For a time I thought it was only that we had been called to restore the old worship here. But now it comes to me, I know not why"—he touched the serpents which twined about his wrists—"that by these, I am bound to this land, to suffer and perhaps to die if need be.”

  I have used him, Morgaine thought, as ruthlessly as ever Viviane did me. . . .

  He said, “I know it well—not once in a hundred years, now, is that old sacrifice exacted. Yet when these“—again he touched, with a brown fingertip, the serpents encircling his wrist—"were set here, it came to me that perhaps I should indeed be the one called by the Lady for that ancient sacrifice. In the years between, I had come to think of this as no more than a green boy’s fancy. But if I am to die . . .” and his voice faded, like the ripples in the dying pool. It was very still; they could hear some insect making a small dry noise in the grass. Morgaine spoke no word, though she could feel his fear. He must pass the barriers of fear unaided, even as had she . . . or Arthur, or the Merlin, or any other facing that last testing. And if he was to face the final test he must go to it consenting.

  At last he asked, “Is it exacted of me, then, lady, that I must die? I had thought—if blood sacrifice is demanded—then, when Avalloch fell prey to her . . .” and she saw the muscles in his face move; he tightened his jaw and swallowed hard. Still she said nothing, though her heart ached in pity. For some reason she heard Viviane’s voice in her mind, a time will come when you will hate me as much as you love me now . . . and felt again the surge of love and pain. Still she hardened her heart; Accolon was older than Arthur had been when he faced his kingmaking. And while Avalloch had indeed been blood sacrifice, spilled to the Goddess, still another’s blood could not redeem any other, nor could Avalloch’s death free his brother of the obligation to face his own.

  At last his breath went out in a harsh sigh. “So be it—I have faced death in battle often enough. I swore unto her, even to death, and I shall not be forsworn. Tell me her will, lady.”

  Then at last she stretched out her hand and clasped his. “I do not think it is death that will be demanded of you, and certainly not the altar of sacrifice. Still, testing is needed; and death lies always near to the doors of such testing. Would it reassure you to know that I too have faced death this way? Yet I am here at your side. Tell me: are you sworn, man to man, to Arthur?”

&
nbsp; “I am not one of his Companions,” Accolon said. “Uwaine you have seen sworn to him, but not I, though I have fought willingly enough among his men.”

  Morgaine was glad, though she knew that she would even have used the oath of a Companion against Arthur now. “Listen to me, my dear,” she said. “Arthur has twice betrayed Avalon; and only from Avalon can a king reign over all this land. I have sought, again and again, to call to Arthur’s mind that oath he gave. But he will not hear me, and he holds still, in his pride, the holy sword of Excalibur, the sword of the Sacred Regalia, and with it the magical scabbard I fashioned for him.”

  She saw his face turn pale. “You mean it truly—that you will bring Arthur down?”

  “Not so, not unless he refuses still to bring his oath to completion,” Morgaine said. “I shall give him, still, every opportunity to become what he has sworn to be. And Arthur’s son is not yet ripe to the challenge. You are no boy, Accolon, and you are trained to kingcraft, not Druid-craft, in spite of these—” and she laid a slender fingertip on the serpents encircling his wrist. “Say then, Accolon of Wales, if all other shifts fail, will you be champion of Avalon, and challenge the betrayer for that sword he holds by betrayal?”

  Accolon drew a long breath. “To challenge Arthur? Fitly did you ask, Morgaine, if I am ready to die,” he said. “And you speak to me in riddles. I knew not that Arthur had a son.”

  “His son is son to Avalon and to the spring fires,” said Morgaine. She thought she had long outgrown shame for this—I am priestess, I need make no accounting to any man for what I must do—but she could not force herself to meet Accolon’s eyes. “Listen, and I will tell you all.”

  He sat silent as she told him of the kingmaking on Dragon Island, and what had befallen after; but when she told how she had fled from Avalon and of Gwydion’s birth, he put out his hand and encircled her small fingers in his own.

  “He has passed his own testing,” said Morgaine, “but he is young and untried: none thought that Arthur would betray his oath. Arthur was young too, but he came to his kingmaking when Uther was old and dying and men were seeking everywhere for a king of the Avalon line. Now Arthur’s star is high and his renown great, and even with all the powers of Avalon at his back, Gwydion could never challenge Arthur for his throne.”

  “How is it that you think I can challenge Arthur and get the sword Excalibur from him and not be slain at once by his men?” said Accolon. “And there is nowhere in this world that I can challenge him where he goes not so guarded.”

  “That is true,” Morgaine said, “but you need not challenge him in this world. There are other realms which are not within this world at all, and within one of these realms you may get from him the sword Excalibur, to which he has forfeited all shadow of right, and the magical scabbard which protects him from all harm. Once disarmed, he is no more than any other man. I have seen his Companions—Lancelet, Gawaine, Gareth—disarm him in play at their mock battles. Without his sword, Arthur is easy prey. He is not the greatest of warriors, nor, with that sword and scabbard, did he ever need to be. And Arthur once dead—”

  She had to stop and steady her voice, knowing she incurred the curse of kin slayer, that same curse she had hesitated to bring on Accolon when Avalloch died.

  “Arthur once dead,” she repeated firmly at last, “I am nearest his throne, and his sister. I shall rule as Lady of Avalon, and you as my consort and duke of war. True, in your time you too will be challenged and brought down as King Stag . . . but before that day comes you shall have your day as King at my side.”

  Accolon sighed. “I never thought to be King. But if you bid me, lady, I must do her will—and yours. Yet to challenge Arthur for his sword—”

  “I did not mean that you shall do so without all the help I can give. For what else have I been schooled all these weary years in magic, and for what have I made you my priest? And there is one greater than I who shall help us both to your testing.”

  “Speak you of those magical realms?” Accolon asked her, almost in a whisper. “I do not understand you.”

  That surprises me not; I know not myself what I mean to do, nor what I say, Morgaine thought, but she recognized the strange dimness rising in her mind, clouding thought, as that state in which powerful magic was made. I must trust to the Goddess now, and let her lead me. Not I alone, but he who stands at my side, who will take up the sword from Arthur’s hand.

  “Trust me, and obey.” She rose, moving through the woods on silent feet, looking for . . . what was she looking for? She asked, and heard her voice distant and strange, “Does hazelwood grow within this forest, Accolon?”

  He nodded, and she followed him to the grove of trees, at this season just bursting into leaf and flower. The wild pigs who roamed here had eaten the last of the nuts; fragments of nut hulls lay scattered on the thick leaf mold of the forest floors. Yet new shoots were springing, too, toward the light, where new trees would rise, so that the life of the forest would never die.

  Flower and fruits and seed. And all things return and grow and come to light and at the last give up their bodies into the keeping of the Lady again. But she who works, silently and alone, at the heart of nature, cannot work her magic without the strength of Him who runs with the deer and with the summer sun draws forth the richness of her womb. Beneath the hazel tree she looked across at Accolon, and while part of her mind was aware that this man was her lover, her chosen priest, she knew that now he had consented to a testing beyond what she alone could confer.

  Before ever the Romans had come to these hills seeking for tin and lead, the hazel grove had been a sacred place. At the edge of the grove there was a pool, standing beneath three of the sacred trees, hazel and willow and alder—a magic older than the magic of the oak. The surface of the pool was somewhat obscured with dry sticks and leaves, but the water was clear and dark, brown with the clear brown of the forest, and she saw her own face reflected as she bent and dipped up the water in her hand, touching it to brow and lips. Before her eyes the reflected face shifted and changed, and she saw the strange deep eyes of the woman from that older world than this. And something in her crawled in terror at what she saw in those eyes.

  The world had shifted subtly round them—she had believed this strange ancient land lay at the borders of Avalon, not here in the remote fastnesses of North Wales. Yet a voice said silently in her mind, I am everywhere, and where the hazel reflects in the sacred pool, there am I. She heard Accolon draw in a breath of wonder and awe, and turned to see that the lady of the fairy kingdom was with them, standing straight and silent in her shimmering garment, the crown of bare wicker-withes above her brow.

  Was it she who spoke, or the lady?

  There is other testing than the running of the deer . . . and suddenly it was as if a horn rang out, far and eerie, through the hazel grove . . . or was it the hazel grove? And then the leaves lifted and stirred, and there was the rushing of sudden winds, making the branches creak and sway, and a chill of fear rippled through Morgaine’s body and blood.

  He is coming . . .

  Slowly, reluctant, she turned and saw that they were not alone in the grove. There at the edge between the worlds, he was standing . . .

  Never did she ask Accolon what it was that he saw . . . she saw only the shadow of the antler crown, the bright leaves of gold and crimson where they stood in a wood gilded with the first buds of spring, the dark eyes . . . once she had lain with him on a forest floor like this, but he had not come for her this time, and she knew it. Now she, and even the lady, must step aside. His step, light on the leaves, still somehow raised the wind that kept thrusting floods of air through the grove, so that her hair blew about on her forehead and she felt her cloak flapping with it. He was tall and dark, and he seemed at once to be clothed in the richest garments, and in leaves, and at the same time she would have taken oath that his flesh gleamed smooth and naked before them. He gestured, raising one slender hand, and as if compelled, Accolon moved slowly forward, st
ep by step . . . and at the same time it was Accolon that she could see crowned and robed with leaves and antlers, glimmering in the strange motionless light of fairy. Morgaine felt herself buffeted, struck and battered by the wind; in the grove, she knew, were forms and faces she could not clearly see; this testing was not for her, but for the man at her side. It seemed that there were cries and horn-calls; were the riders within the air, or did the beating of their hooves drum on the forest floor with this great noise that drowned out thought? She knew Accolon was no longer at her side. She stood clasping the bark of the hazel tree, her face hidden; she did not know, she would never know, it was not for her to know what form Accolon’s kingmaking should take . . . that was not in her power to give or to know. She had invoked the powers of the Horned One through the Lady, and he had gone where she could not follow.

  She never knew how long she stood there, clutching at the hazel bark, her brow pressed painfully against the bole of the tree . . . and then the wind died and Accolon was with her. They stood together, alone in the hazel grove, hearing only the beat of thunder from a dark and cloudless sky where the sun’s rim glared like hot metal behind the moon’s dark eclipse disk, and the stars burned against the unfallen night. Accolon’s arm was around her. He whispered, “What is it, what is it?”