The Book of Avalon Eternal

After two hours, the final condemned dies. The smell is sickening, all the more so for its sweet and aromatic quality like the roasting of large game over a fire pit. Gawain walked far away from the stakes and sits now on a rock some hundred yards from the site. In the distance, he sees Nimue conferring with several guards and a few of the lesser knights. He assumes she is instructing them how to clean up the execution ground.

When she finishes speaking, the guards and knights turn towards the grisly row of stakes, gray smoke still curling into the air. From the gates of Camlann emerge around fifty servants, come to assist in clearing the site. Nimue turns towards where Gawain sits and gives a small wave as she walks towards him.

'Where have the eleven been taken, and what will become of them?' Gawain asks.

'They have returned to the fortress grounds where they will be held until I assign them to the estate on which they shall be enslaved.'

This part of Nimue's plan was unknown to Gawain, although over the last week or so he had let go of striving to anticipate her actions.

He continues: 'There was a monk among the eleven.'

Nimue nods, brow furrowed. 'There was,' she replies flatly.

'He looked at me...strangely.'

'In what way was it strange?'

'I cannot describe it. It was a strange feeling. His gazed blankly at me, but the more he looked at me, the greater the sense of dread I felt.'

Nimue frowned. 'I do not like the way this sounds.'

'I did not like the way it felt,' says Gawain.

'I will investigate this further. He will not leave the fortress until I have seen him and examined whatever it is that you felt. He will not be able to hide behind a blank gaze before me.'

The morning lightens as the sun rises further in the sky. It is three hours past sunrise, and as Nimue helps Gawain up the gently sloping path to the gates, Nimue says: 'We are going to the Estate of the Druids today.'

'We are?'

'I must speak with Caradoc at the Oaken Fortress.'

Gawain frowns, considering the purpose of this errand. 'I did not know Caradoc was receiving visitors these days.'

'He is receiving me, and he is receiving you because you are with me.'

Gawain nods at this and continues limping up the path to the gate. He requires her assistance less now, as he becomes accustomed to the crutch, but he enjoys the feel of her arm wrapped around his waist and her head nestled beneath his shoulder.

'So, we are speaking with Caradoc, who receives no visitors, but receives you.'

'Yes,' replies Nimue, slightly raising her intonation at the end of the word.

'What will be the topic of conversation?'

'You. That is why you are coming with me.'

'I don't think I want to be the topic of a conversation between you and Caradoc.'

'And alas, today you will be. When I was in the Oaken library, I read about the laws that govern the appointing of a regent, which has not been done in Camlann for over two centuries. You will humbly inform Caradoc, as the chief of the druids, about your choice of regent and your wish that he confirm it. He in turn will have the scribes produce an official notice that informs the people of your choice, which is then marked with the waxen seal of the High Druid, and the many copies of this announcement are run to all the towns and villages in Camlann by young acolytes. They will announce the choice throughout the land, and they will post the notice in the village squares. And so within the week, all Camlann will know that I am regent.'

'And then what?'

'We shall take this one step at a time.'

Nimue raises her hand in greeting as they pass through the gates. Gawain looks off in the direction of the stables to see the robed figure of Meurig waving at Nimue in return.

'We will ride with Meurig. He is returning to the Estate today. It is safer on the road, and in the forest, if we go as a trio. A large enough group that any creature with ill intent will avoid us, but small enough that we will not attract unwanted attention.'

Meurig holds the reins of three horses: a black gelding, a chestnut brown mare, and a white mare with silver mane.

'Shouldn't we eat before we depart? The ride is long, and we will grow weak.' But as Gawain says this, they arrive at the stables and see that the druid has prepared a sack of food: bread, cured meat, cheese, and stew in clay jugs wrapped in cloth. There are also flasks of water, but water will be plentiful from the river and the streams that are along their way.

Nimue takes a mounting stool from the yard of the stable, helps Gawain climb onto it, and then he swings his right leg over the mare, carefully settling into the saddle while keeping his left leg straight. Nevertheless, he winces as he arranges himself in the saddle. Meurig, standing next to Gawain's horse, jumps spryly onto the back of the black gelding. He turns behind him to ensure the food is secured in his saddle bag.

And last, Nimue approaches the white mare. Gawain was preoccupied with concern about mounting his horse and did not notice until now that her mare is unsaddled. Barefoot as usual, she hitches up her shift at the hem and leaps into the air, and to Gawain's eye she is straddling the border between jumping and flying.

The three set off through the gates of Camlann, horses trotting at a comfortable pace, and as they ride along the path that leads to the west, it gradually turns more into a dirt track with grass growing in between and on either side. Gawain recalls once that Arthur told him a Roman road used to lead to the gate of Camlann, but in the distant past it had been ripped from its foundations and its stone used to reinforce the walls of the fortress. Thus was one example of the attitude of the people of Camlann towards the Romans' hegemony.

They follow the dirt track as it gradually curves to the northwest, and Gawain sees the forest rising before them. He feels a sense of relief knowing that traveling to the Estate of the Druids does not require them to pass through the forest, for it was here at the forest line that Merlin once expelled the Unholy One from Camlann and the lands around it. And to the northwest, Gawain knows the Unholy One will never go, for the magic that surrounds and protects the Oaken Fortress is strong enough that anything of demonic origin would surely feel it from miles away and withdraw.

As the three ride in companionable silence, Gawain begins to see shapes in the forest. Figures and shadows that move furtively between the trees. He tries but is unable to dismiss them rays of sunlight prisming through the canopy of trees. The longer he looks, the more he feels that the figures that he sees are unnatural.

That is the word that comes to his mind to describe these figures, and it is the second time today that he has felt this strange feeling of something unnatural - the first being the unsettling encounter with the monk this morning.

Suddenly, a flash. It is the same flash that he saw Nimue make on the battlefield outside the fortress. It again leaves an impression in front of his eyes that fades only after several moments. Nimue has seen the flash too, and immediately reins her mare west towards the forest. Meurig too brings his horse next to hers. Gawain moves into position behind them, forming a loose triangle. He places his hand on the hilt of his sword, but somehow, he knows that whatever is in the forest will not be harmed by a sword.

Nimue and Meurig confer in low voices, and Gawain remains back several steps. He continues to focus his eyes on the forest. He sees the same flash again, but now he realizes these flashes are not the same as the flash Nimue made. Hers was a glimmering silver color, while these are more like a black hole framed in the color of dull gray clouds that drift ominously overhead. Several more of these flashes occur, and he realizes that the ring of dull gray flashing light seems to be coming from inside the hole. Nimue's flashes came once as a silver glimmer, crisp and clean, and then were gone. The ones in the forest look somehow sickly, like they are rotting.

Gawain approaches Nimue and Meurig. The two look back at him as he comes.

'Do not come closer,' says Nimue, and Gawain stops. Meurig's face is lined with, not fear, but a sense of weariness and deep concern.

'What are these flashes?' Gawain asks.

'It is better not to say their name when they are near,' explains Meurig. 'But they can be considered both a source of evil and an evil in themselves.'

'I do not understand,' says Gawain.

Nimue looks at Meurig, who nods slightly, and then she turns her horse back towards Gawain.

'They are like gates, that open a passageway into a source of magic that is different from what I use.'

'What do you use?' asks Gawain, but Nimue waves away the question.

'But they are not only like gates. They are alive, they have thoughts, and they can sometimes form themselves into something with a body. Accursed, but nevertheless present in this world.

'This source of magic is dangerous, because it is not ordered. It comes from a place of disorder, where nothing can come together into forms - no worlds, no people, no animals, no flowers, no sun, moon, or stars. So to wield this magic requires immense natural power, and it grants immense power itself. But it can destroy the wielder.'

'Why?'

'Because with pure and natural magic, the witch is channeling the power for magic from a place of order, or at least the possibility of order. Where things exist, or things at least have the possibility of coming together to exist. With these corrupted gates, a witch, or less commonly a mage, must bend the power that comes through into some semblance of order. But this is not always possible even for the most powerful witches.'

'What happens if it is not possible?'

'Then the witch is destroyed, and if the power that was pulled through does not have a witch to channel it, then it will catch like a flame to kindling onto the actual substance of everything that we know as reality. It will burn through it and consume it alive.'

Gawain shakes his head to clear that thought. 'And only witches can channel this, or try to?'

'Some mages can, too. In fact, the only reason these are here now is because they are...tracking me. They caught my scent, so to speak, when I cast the spell on the hillside, when you were injured. And now they follow me, at the command of a dark mage.'

Suddenly Gawain's face fills with realization: 'The man in the black and gold robe in Eormenric's party!'

'That was he,' Nimue nods.

'Who is he?'

'He is named Irun Gwilt. But who he is...is more complicated. He is one of three mages who are said to have been instructed in all forms of magic, which are nearly countless in their iterations and combinations: light, earth, sea, sky, darkness, chaos. There are many more.'

'Wait...' says Gawain, a realization slowly dawning. 'Irun Gwilt. He is the mage who caused Arthur to commit the sin that conceived Mordred.'

Nimue purses her lips. 'Arthur did not need to be caused to commit that sin. Irun Gwilt only removed the barriers within him that kept him from acting in that way.'

Gawain begins to protest, to defend his uncle, but Nimue reaches out and puts a finger to his lips. 'No need. Even the brightest of us have darkness in our hearts, if we search deep enough.'

Gawain is silent for a time, again questioning if there is irony in her remark, and then asks: 'You said Irun Gwilt is one of three mages. Who are the other two?'

'One was destroyed by attempting to channel the disordered power.' Then she pauses, as if weighing whether to continue, but then seems to make up her mind, and says: 'And the other mage is Merlin.'