Chapter 51 #2
“There was no need to scatter him,” she said. “I didn’t mean he was free. He is confined, yes, but not by the willow. Sir Accolon is bound to the lake.”
I stared at her, astonished I had not considered it myself. At times, when he was weary, his presence often rippled, but the thought had never gained significance.
“I buried his heart at the roots,” I countered. “The tree makes the most sense.”
Ninianne shook her head gently. “Weeping willows require a great deal of water. This one is large and flourishing because of what the soil, its roots, draw from the lake.”
She looked at Accolon’s stardust drifting across the still blue surface.
“This resurrection makes even more sense now. The water feeding the tree helped to remake Sir Accolon because it is your dominant element. The huge task was beyond what the elements alone can achieve, but it gave him as much life as it could. Which, combined with your healing and the Shroud, was a great deal.”
“So he is… ” I began.
“Of the Lake, yes,” she supplied. “Not completely, but very much its entity. That is why I sensed him the moment I touched the water.”
As usual with her, it was baffling and chimed with perfect clarity at the same time. Instinctively, I looked for Accolon, but his essence was a distant glimmer now. It would be a while before he was back, and I felt it as a small wave of loss.
I sighed. “Does it matter what he is bound to? He is stuck, regardless.”
I paced to the lake until my feet touched the waterline, gazing across the darkening pool and up the green mountainside to where the valley’s edge touched the sky. Everything seemed eternal and impermanent both.
“Morgan.” Ninianne’s voice was a low song. “I know what you’ve done here was not the solution you wanted, but it is a revelation. It could be the realm’s saving grace. Even if Mordred succeeds in killing him, King Arthur’s deliverance from death is still possible.”
“How?” I asked. “The Shroud of Tithonus is gone. Say I could perfect a form of resurrection before the magic leaves these lands—if I had an entire body to work with instead of a mere heart—without the Shroud, it cannot be done.”
“You are forgetting one important thing. There is another resurrection object. Perhaps not as powerful, but with your skills and the right environment…this is far from over. Even better, it is in King Arthur’s possession, and bound to him.”
“What object?” I asked uneasily.
“Excalibur’s scabbard,” she said, and my body went cold. “If I go to the King and explain everything, he will give it to me.”
So it was true; Arthur had never told Ninianne about his loss of the scabbard.
After my exile, he had deemed that the way of a king was to present the strongest, most formidable front, even to those who were sent to help him.
It was Merlin’s lesson: retain the appearance of power at all costs. Aghast, I put my head in my hands.
“Morgan?” Ninianne said. “What is it?”
I couldn’t bear to speak the truth directly. “You took the scabbard from Accolon,” I replied. “You saw it was blue-and-white leather. The one Arthur wears is jewelled.”
She was silent for so long that I looked up, in time to see realization cast its shadow over her face. “The King told me he had it restored,” she replied. “That you had changed its appearance and he wanted it back to how it was. Fit for his sword, he said.”
Slowly, unbearably, I shook my head. “I assumed you knew—I never imagined Arthur would keep it from you. The scabbard he carries is not the one you gave him.”
“Then what is it?” she said in a small voice.
“A counterfeit. An excellent copy that I had made when he entrusted me with Excalibur’s care. I suppose, after believing in my betrayal, he had to show the kingdom he had regained his object of great power. He could not very well declare that I had taken it again when I saw him in the abbey.”
“You took it?” she exclaimed, her light returning. “Then there is nothing to worry about. As long as it is in the possession of one of us when the time comes… ”
At my expression, her voice faded, despair dawning in her eyes.
“I don’t have it,” I said. “When I heard Accolon had died and my theft of the scabbard was blamed, I was wild with grief. The object was too powerful; no one deserved it. So I threw it away—for good.”
Ninianne’s hand flew to her mouth. “Where?” she demanded.
“Into a lake near the abbey where Arthur was healing. I spoke to the water, asked it to swallow the scabbard forever, and it responded. It sucked it into a whirlpool and assured me there it would stay.”
I grabbed her arm. “But you are of the Lake—you can go there, find it, ask for it back. Maybe all is not lost.”
Ninianne hung her head. Under my hand, her skin was stone cold. “I know that lake,” she said. “It has no guardian, no fairy to reason with. It is ancient, indifferent, and keeps its secrets, which is why you were drawn there. What it took, it will not return.”
“Don’t say that,” I pleaded. “You can do wonders—that can’t be all there is.”
She sighed, so deeply it seemed to echo around the entire valley. “Even if I could, the scabbard’s hide was imbued with magic, not formed from it. Twenty years in water and mud—the leather would not have survived nature’s decay.”
“Are you saying…?”
“All is lost,” she said. “Any chance we had of saving King Arthur resided in the Shroud of Tithonus or Excalibur’s scabbard.”
“My brother will die because of me?” I exclaimed. “I am the cause of his destruction after all?”
She regarded me with attempted calm, but I could sense her bone-deep chill. “I cannot answer that. Only you know in your heart what your actions have led to.”
The thought struck me like a battering ram, and I fought to keep from falling to my knees. “We can fix this,” I said. “I know we can. There must be another way.”
Ninianne looked at me with an indifference I knew she did not feel, then put her back to the water.
“It’s over, Morgan,” she said, and glided away, leaving me alone beside the lake.