The Book of Avalon Eternal

The knight Gawain of the Round Table, commander of the armies of Camlann, stands amid the chaos on the battlefield beneath the magnificent palace of Camlann, which is built into the crumbling ruins of a Roman villa, high stone walls towering above the hillside. Gawain seeks any flash of red and white, any glimpse of the black bear sigil. Any sign of his beloved uncle, who raised him from childhood, even more than his own father. Any sign at all - of Arthur.

Now Gawain sees Arthur, and the great knight of the Round Table named Owain is kneeling over him. He runs as fast as he can towards them, until he feels his lungs will burst. Arthur is wounded, leaning back on his elbow, and looking down to the grievous wound on his right side.

Mordred, Arthur's son and Gawain's half-brother, is sprawled on the ground a few feet away, blood pouring from a stab wound in his chest. Owain moves from Arthur to stand over Mordred. Owain is a huge man wearing a bear pelt, and a helmet adorned with ursine teeth studded along the front rim. Owain shakes his head at Gawain, grimaces, and proceeds to place his boot on Mordred's throat. Gawain hears a sound like a large ash branch in the forest being cracked off by a strong wind in a storm, and he looks away.

Mordred, the son who rebelled against his father, who tried and failed to gain his father's throne, and who with his final act gave his father a mortal wound, has now been sent by Owain to be judged by the gods for his crimes and sins.

Gawain converges with Owain now where Arthur lies. Arthur's face is pallid, his brown and silver hair frames his head like a diadem cleansed with blood. Gawain raises his gaze and searches again, frantically, seeking any face in the tumult to signal succor and relief. He sees none: only the misery of battle surrounds him, now pressing in as an enclosing ring. The cacophony of clanging metal, the sharp biting scent of blood, the shrieks of dying men like pigs in terror at the final abattoir.

In the far distance on the ridge opposite the bridge, at least two hundred paces from where he stands, he sees Mordred's three mages. They dance obscenely, stripped to undergarments. Their narrow hips grind against the air as they spit and throw their faeces, howling in the mages' tongue to the god Belatucadros, the Great Bear of War, who heeds them not.

'My lord, where are you hurt?' Owain says to Arthur. The huge man is surprisingly soft of voice and touch. Arthur does not reply, but his eyes flutter and he makes a sound like attempted speech that is soon abandoned.

Owain places his hand under Arthur's head, and cradles him like a father to his child after a nightmare. Owain nods to Gawain and then flicks his eyes towards Arthur's wound. Gawain bends to inspect the wound, first pulling back the armored plate and gently raising the undergarment. His hope is crushed as the wound is revealed: deep, jagged, bleeding still.

'The wound is very deep,' Gawain says. 'We need a healer now. Right now.'

Owain shakes his head. 'I cannot find any healers. The ones I have seen have been killed or have fled.'

Gawain has not seen a healer either, or any druid for that matter, since before the battle started. Guided again by color, he searches for the bright yellow and green that marks the healer's battle attire. Because without a healer, he knows that Arthur will not leave this battlefield alive.

Suddenly, Lionel, another knight of the Round Table, breaks through the crowd of fighting soldiers. Lionel's mane of blond hair is soaked with the blood of those who have challenged him today. And then drawing Lionel's attention, a sharp, deep, wracking cough from Arthur, and Owain holds him up so that he can spit out a mouthful of blood.

'Speak, Lionel,' Owain says sternly.

'The enemy is trapped,' Lionel says, pointing over his shoulder. 'The river is behind them, and we are spread in front to block their escape. If they wish, they can flee and drown in the river. Galahad and his men now hold the bridge, and Sagramor holds the line before them.' Lionel yells against the tumult around them.

Gawain squints towards the direction of the bridge. Through the haze of foggy midday, he thinks he can see a flicker of white: Galahad, brave and true. There are at least twenty men behind Galahad on the bridge, blocking the enemy's path. And before them, Sagramor and his formidable band are the hammer to the anvil.

'Where are the healers?' Lionel says. Owain shakes his head and spits. Arthur stirs, chokes, and spits blood before lying still again.

'Gods, he is dying,' Gawain says despairingly.

'You must find the Lady Morgan,' says Owain, looking at both Gawain and Lionel. 'She can save the king, but she must be found right away.'

Lionel looks at Gawain, his eyes filling with something like panic, and they both set off in the direction of the witches' encampment. It is set close to the fortress of Camlann, at the bottom of the hill that leads up the path the Camlann's huge gates. At dawn this morning, Gawain saw Lady Morgan wielding a spell and filling the air with incantations. Around her and around the entire camp were rings of decapitated heads, some of which still had flesh, eyes, and hair: the newly dead culled from the dungeons of Camlann.

Suddenly two Saxons emerge from the crowd with swords in hand. He and Lionel are both caught off guard, and it is only by luck that Gawain fends off the first blow from the soldier that attacks him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the other Saxon land a blow on Lionel's ribcage, but it does not appear to harm Lionel through his scale armor.

Gawain refocuses his attention on the Saxon before him, who has now regained his balance and is girding for another attack. The Saxon rushes forward, faster and stronger this time. Gawain parries the first swing and follows the parry with a push that sends the Saxon backwards, slipping in the mud. The Saxon looks up at Gawain fearfully, realizing that he cannot regain his balance: his knee has twisted in the mud, and his leg is broken.

Gawain raises his sword high above his head and brings the blade down into the left side of the Saxon's neck, nearly decapitating him. The blow is partially blocked by the Saxon's armor, but clearly fatal. The wound opens wide at the base of the Saxon's neck. The blood leaks slowly at first, and then comes forth in great spurts aligned with the beating of the Saxon's dying heart. His eyes widen as he collapses forward into the mud, face buried and body motionless.

Gawain looks to his right at Lionel who is still engaged in close combat with the other Saxon some thirty yards away now. He looks closer and sees that the other attacker is not a Saxon after all: he is of a British tribe, but which one he cannot say. The man's helm bears a crest of yellow which now lies flattened and smeared with blood.

Gawain sees Lionel's poise broken by a sharp blow from the Briton's mailed fist in the center of his chest. Lionel staggers backwards and appears to struggle for breath. Gawain sees his comrade regain his balance by planting the point of his sword in the mud, stopping his slide. But then he sees that Lionel cannot wrench the sword from the mud. The Briton sees this too, and rushes towards Lionel to deliver a fatal blow.

The Briton raises his sword to swing a mighty blow, but he too slips in the mud. His blow falls off course, and Lionel blocks it with his forearm greaves. Lionel recoils from the weight of the blow, while the Briton's wrapped leather boots struggle for purchase on the slick ground. Regaining his balance, the Briton approaches Lionel once more and kicks him squarely in the center of the chest, sending him sprawling backwards onto the ground.

Gawain runs towards Lionel who lays breathless as the Briton moves to strike a final time. But Gawain knows he will not reach Lionel before the killing blow. He curses himself for being frozen with fear over the previous several moments while this scene unfolded before him.

The Briton is suddenly wrapped in a faint silver thread, ethereal and translucent, lacing from his torso to his waist. And from his feet to his groin, a scarlet thread pulls so tightly that his legs are severed above the knees. The Briton falls, stumps first, onto the ground. His stumps are an indignant bright red centered by starkly white thigh bones; then blood pours from them in two great streams. After several seconds, he falls limply into the mud and does not move again.

And behind the Briton, Gawain sees two figures approaching, moving unharmed through the bitter combat between the soldiers of Arthur's army and the forces of Mordred.

The first figure is draped in crimson with leather boots and gold belt, her silver hair untied upon her head. Lady Morgan, she of ruthless vigor and a mind of cold iron, and elder sister to Arthur. Crimson threads circle her fingers like rings, and Gawain knows it was the power of those rings that leapt forth to take the legs of the Briton. Lady Morgan, given the title of Fay, who changed her name and her fate simultaneously when she wedded her future to the power of the Fay, they who beat their shining opal wings through the realms of Chaos between worlds and outside of the Silver Thread.

The second figure is Nimue, she who is called the Great Witch, in her white shift, sheer, featureless, and somehow unstained. She is barefooted and does not notice the mud and blood that coat her feet and squeeze between her toes. Her hair hangs lank and damp with sweat, onyx black, and framing a gently triangular face paler than the cliffs on the southern sea. Her brown eyes glow with a soft light that is incongruous with the terrible force she has used today in this battle. And at her fingertips hang the remnant of the silver threads that wrapped the Briton's chest so tightly. Approaching Gawain now through the chaos, Nimue looks different. Fierce as always, but for the first time to him, she appears beautiful.

When Nimue came into her power, she was captured by an ancient magic that held her relentlessly until she bent to its will, and the magic filled her, and she knew then that it would be her destiny. The acceptance of the magic's power allowed it to flow into her such that she captured it in turn and commanded it utterly, and she was changed in her mind and spirit into something else that cannot be described in words.

Nimue, who emerged from the Lake, and is the Lady of all lakes in dark groves shimmering with the light of Fay and small gods, where the veil between worlds grows weak and thin. She who tore the Sword from the grasp of the demon that had wielded it across unspeakable worlds through past ages ancient and unknowable, until the demon met the Great Witch against whom it would never pass or prevail.

Traversing Darkness and Chaos, Nimue reached Avalon, through which all things pass and from which all things are made. Avalon, from which the Silver Thread weaves together, forming all things through all ages, and extending forever and in every direction of eternity.

By the force of her bright magic that is given by the gods, and by the blessing of the Horned One who is always both ancient and newly born, Nimue came again into this world through the gate that opens into the bottom of the Lake. She rose from the depths soaked in holy water, and both she and the Sword were cleansed of the filth of the world from which she brought it.

The tip of the Sword broke the Lake's surface first and was held up by Nimue's white arm that shone like alabaster as the moonlight gleamed on the pristine edge of the blade. She emerged from the Lake and stood on its shore unclothed and born anew with the holy water streaming down her body to wet the soft grass under her feet. And crossed against her breast was the Sword that has many names but in this world is called Caledfwlch and was named again by Merlin as Excalibur.

And so it is Morgan, beloved of the Fay, and Nimue, known and feared throughout many worlds as the Great Witch, who move through the chaos untouched. Their full magic is unleashed and it weaves together around them in crimson and silver; and they stride inexorably toward Arthur to save him. For Arthur now feels the strangely gentle fingers of Death pulling at the hem of his garment.