THE WANDERING FIRE by Guy Gavriel Kay

“He will be needed,” he said. “He cannot but be needed. I should have known it was too soon for me to die.”

“You are willing your own grief,” Paul whispered.

Arthur turned to him at that, and his eyes were compassionate. “It was willed long ago.”

Looking on Arthur Pendragon’s face in that moment, Paul saw a purer nobility than he had ever seen in his days. More, even, than in Liranan, or Cernan of the Beasts. Here was the quintessence, and everything in him cried out against the doom that lay behind this monstrous choice.

Diarmuid, he saw, had turned away.

“Lancelot!” said Arthur to the figure on the bed of stone.

His eyes were brown. He was taller than Paul had first thought. His voice was mild and low and unexpectedly gentle. The other surprising thing was the dog. Paul had thought Cavall’s loyalty would make him hostile, but instead he’d come up to the dark-haired man with a quiet sound of joy. Lancelot had knelt to stroke the torn grey fur, and Paul could see him register the presence of the scars. Then he had walked in silence between Paul and Diarmuid back up to the living world.

He had only spoken at the very beginning. After he had first risen to the Warrior’s command. Risen, as if, truly, he had only been asleep and not dead so very, very long.

Arthur had said, “Be welcome. We are at war against the Dark in Fionavar, which is the first world of all. I have been summoned, and so now are you.”

And Lancelot had replied with courtesy and sorrow, “Why have you done this, my lord, to the three of us?”

Arthur had closed his eyes at that. Then opened them and said, “Because there are more at risk than the three of us. I will see if I can have us fight in different companies.”

And Lancelot had answered mildly, “Arthur, you know I will not fight save under you and by your side.”

At which point Arthur had turned on his heel to walk away, and Diarmuid and Paul had named themselves and, with Lancelot, had followed the Warrior back from the place of the dead amid the pounding of the sea.

Loren had risen. His cloak lay covering the body of Matt Sören. The mage, his face numb with weariness and shock, listened as Diarmuid and Arthur made plans for their departure. He hardly acknowledged Lancelot’s presence, though the men of South Keep were whispering among each other with awe.

It was, Paul gathered, still daylight outside. Not long after noon, in fact. It seemed to him as if they had been on the island forever. In a way, he supposed, a part of him would always be on this island. Too much had happened here. They were going to be leaving almost immediately, it appeared. No one was minded to spend a night in this place.

Loren turned. Paul saw him walk over to one of the torches. He stood there with the pages of a book in his hand, feeding them one by one to the flame. Paul went over to him. Loren’s face was streaked with the tracks of tears and sweat, running down through the soot and grime stirred up when the last bolt fell. Matt’s last, Paul thought. And Loren’s too. His source was dead. He wasn’t a mage any more.

“The Book of Nilsom,” said the man who had bade them cross with him so long ago. He gave Paul a number of pages. Together they stood, reaching up in turn to set each page alight.

It took a long time and they did it carefully. Somehow eased by the shared, simple task, Paul watched the last leaf burn; then he and Loren turned back to the others.

Who were staring, all of them, at one place in the Hall.

There were over forty men in that place but Paul couldn’t hear any of them breathe. He walked toward Lancelot through the ring of men, saw the pure, unyielding will in his eyes, watched the color begin to drain from his face, and he began to grasp the magnitude of this man who was trying to surmount, by sheerest resolution, the movement of the wheel of time and the shuttling of the Loom. They stood very close; he saw it all.

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