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-wither 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, step 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?"
"It is the eclipse." Her voice was steadier than she could have believed. She felt her heartbeat quieting to normal at the touch of his arms, warm and alive, holding her. The ground was quite steady under her feet again, the solid earth of the hazel grove, and when she looked down into the pool she saw fragments of broken boughs from the uncanny wind that had ravaged the grove. Somewhere a bird complained at the sudden dark, and at their feet a small pink piglet rooted in the dead leaf mold. Then the light began to steal so brightly that she saw the shadow passing away from the sun. She saw Accolon staring at the brightness and said sharply, "Turn away your eyes-you can be blinded now the darkness is gone!"
He swallowed and lowered his face to hers. His hair was awry with a wind that was not of this world, and clinging to his hair was a crimson leaf which made Morgaine shiver as they stood beneath the just unfolding buds of the hazel.
He said in a whisper, "He is gone ... and she ... or was it you? Morgaine, did it happen, was any of it real?"
Morgaine, looking into his dazzled face, saw something in his eyes, something that had never been there before-the touch of the nonhuman. She reached out and plucked the crimson leaf from his hair, holding it out to him. "You who bear the serpents ... need you question?"