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[bannion_sight]

As the crimson blaze fades, Kim Ford finds herself standing in the place of her dreaming.

There is no lake of glass here now, nor island rising from still waters, but the soft music of gentle waves yet whispers with the wind through green, green grass here on Glastonbury Tor, which in an earlier time had been called Avalon and whose shores had sheltered a fallen warrior and dying king.

Before the Warstone's light dies utterly she turns, raising her hand toward Stonehenge, so far away. Kim reaches out with the power as she has done before, gathering the other four in and sending them through the crossing, borne on the last wild red light back to Fionavar without her.

And then the ring goes dark on her finger, and the only light on this windy height is that of the thin crescent moon and bright sparks of stars in the night above.

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[bannion_sight]

Kim's shivering now, and not just from the chill and the breeze. She's been waiting so long for this moment, all of them have, waiting for her to know the time and the place and to finally come to do what must be done, but this, this--

--oh, this.

She's under no illusions, not here and not now, and with the Warstone dark on her hand and her Seer's sight gone from her, Kim Ford feels not a little overwhelmed at the horrible weight of the ancient curse that she's about to invoke, as so many have before, in time of darkest need.

But there is that need, for once there had been a mountain, and now there is not, and with the Unraveller freed and everything at risk, there's no room to turn away. Not now. She thinks, briefly, of Jennifer in Starkhadh. Of Bran Davies, and his anger, and his fear, and his love for his father.

And then Kim Ford draws herself up and cries aloud into the night the single awful word, the summoning name of the Warrior:

"Childslayer!"

[most-generous.livejournal.com]

With that word, the whole of Somerset Plain begins to tremble. A bell clangs, low and heavy, from the old monastery: a death-knell, for the children and for love, and for the endless cycle that wakes Arthur Pendragon from his rest to suffer the same penalties for the same murders, over and over.

The low bell is not the only sound, now; Kim Ford, with her summoning name and her Warstone, has awakened more than she knew. A higher music lilts, chimes, ripples in the wind. The scent of ocean, faint before, grows stronger, and the stars brighten, outshining the thin moonlight.

The man who is, all at once, beside Kim on Glastonbury Tor, is leaning on his long sword as if it is the only thing he knows. He cannot remember why he has been called here, and then he does remember, and he cannot make any sense of it. She has the right. I killed the children, Arthur Pendragon thinks, but another voice, just as much true, just as much his own, is thinking, Never. I never did.

[bannion_sight]

Kim stands with her eyes closed, waiting, while the ground shivers under her feet and the wind rises, carrying the scent of an ancient sea.

She will have to face it soon enough, but for now she has closed her eyes, forcing back the tears that threaten-- but how could one not weep? He had been young, then, young and afraid of what prophecy bore, and so he had given the order and the children had been slain.

All the children had died, save the one he sought to have killed, save for Mordred-- innocent they had been, entrusted to him and betrayed.

Childslayer.

Kim opens her eyes, looking up at the bright stars above-- and then realizes that she is not alone.

[most-generous.livejournal.com]

In the world where Kim Ford stands, Merlin raised the warning and Arthur gave the order. In that world, all the infants born on May Day were murdered -- all but the one, Mordred, who escaped to trouble Camelot another day.

In another world, Merlion looked down his beaky nose in dry disapproval, but said nothing else. Although tempted to erase the memory of his indiscretion, Arthur gave no order, and a generation lived.

Two sets of memories, two sets of lives, are tangling with each other in the Warrior's mind. He looks at the woman before him with dazed brown eyes (But my eyes are blue!).

The man on Glastonbury Tor gathers all that he can remember and rises to his feet. He says, quietly, but with the dignity of a king, "I was Arthur here, my lady, was I not?"

[bannion_sight]

His beard, although dark, is gray-flecked, and she thinks she can see stars reflected in his eyes.

He isn't young. How could he be, after so long, after so many wars, in so many worlds?

There's a tightness in her throat that threatens to stifle speech. She swallows hard against it, and whispers,

"Yes."

[most-generous.livejournal.com]

"I have other names, also." And some of them are not mine, says the one voice; they are all mine, says the other.

[bannion_sight]

"I know." Kim swallows again, fighting to keep her voice level, her words clear.

"This is your first name, though. Your true one."

[most-generous.livejournal.com]

"Not the other?" He is beginning to doubt his perceptions, now. It is not a usual sensation for Arthur Pendragon.

[bannion_sight]

The dead from their rest, and the undead to their doom.

Kim shakes her head, promising,

"Not that. No. And I won't tell it to anyone, or say it again. I swear it to you, I won't."

[most-generous.livejournal.com]

"A secret like that cannot be kept for long," Arthur says. "Even if you keep it."

[bannion_sight]

"I can't help that."

She makes herself meet his star-filled eyes.

"I wouldn't have-- I only summoned because of our need."

[most-generous.livejournal.com]

Arthur remembers something of the sort, now. He remembers two things, actually, in his strangely doubled memory: one, that he has been cursed, over and over, to rise up and fight at the universe's need, and two, that he would be, has been, called away from his long duties for one last war.

"Is this the site of war, then?"

[bannion_sight]

"Not here," Kim tells him. "In Fionavar."

[most-generous.livejournal.com]

Arthur knows the name Fionavar. It is almost a relief to him that he only knows it the once, in the set of memories associated with the summoning name Childslayer.

Arthur Pendragon, the Warrior, warleader of Britain, draws himself to his full height. Majesty surrounds him like a cloak; he lifts his head into the rising wind as if hearing a distant horn.

"This is the last battle, then?" Not a question. He knows.

[bannion_sight]

And here, here is the reason for it all, the reason she's called him once more to his long doom and punishment.

Their need. Theirs, and Fionavar's, and all the worlds that are, as well.

Kim nods.

"If we lose, it will be."

[most-generous.livejournal.com]

Whatever Arthur remembers, whatever he has done to deserve to be called here, it hardly matters. In all the worlds and times he has been dux bellorum, the Warrior, and he cannot refuse a battle in the name of the Light. Arthur smiles at the woman before him. (Young, with white hair. Someone else had white hair.) "Very well," he says.

[bannion_sight]

After all this, after everything, it is his gentle smile and mild, accepting tone that shatters her desperately-held stillness.

Kim sinks to her knees on the cold ground, bowing her head and covering her face with her hands as she begins to weep.

[most-generous.livejournal.com]

The woman who called him is young, and mortal, and capable of crying for what she must do in the Light's name. She may learn, someday, to close her heart against emotion in the service of the cold white flame. In the meantime...

In the meantime, Arthur (most generous lord of the Island of Britain) gathers the girl up into his arms and lets her cry on his shoulder.

[bannion_sight]

She weeps, held in his strong embrace, and in her grief is yet able to find comfort in the Warrior's compassion.

Eventually, as her tears slow, he steps back. Kim wipes her eyes, and as she does she notes wearily that the ring on her finger has blazed to life once more.

She ignores it for the moment, and looks steadily at him.

"Do you forgive me?"

She has no right to ask, none whatsoever. She knows it, and it doesn't matter.

[most-generous.livejournal.com]

"I have nothing to forgive you for," says Arthur.

I killed the children, Arthur thinks, and then, Never. I never did. But Kim summoned him by the name Childslayer. Arthur remembers giving the order, hearing the messengers come back from Orkney and Cornwall and Rheged to report the job done. Arthur remembers wanting to give the order, imagining what would happen if he had. He cannot evade his guilt or his responsibility, and he certainly cannot blame the woman facing him.

With one part of his memory, Arthur remembers the strictures of his curse. "Are they there yet, the two of them?"

[bannion_sight]

Kim stares at him, thinking, I should have known. I should have realized -- I knew it, I should have, it was there to be seen.

There are two parts to the curse, after all, two things for which expiation is always, always to be made.

For the children and for love.

She swallows, hard.

"... I don't know."

[most-generous.livejournal.com]

"They always are," Arthur answers, and for a moment, before he covers it over, the ache in his voice is audible. Because I had the children killed.

Is it so? He remembers one proud and golden Guinevere, and he remembers another, quieter, darker. He remembers a Lancelot he loved, and another he hardly spoke to.

He also remembers a riddle, a triad, recited by the fireside in all his lives: Three great queens of Arthur: Gwenhwyfar, and Gwenhwyfar, and Gwenhwyfar.

They were both my wife. I loved them both. They both betrayed me.

One will be there, with the third, because I had the children killed.

[bannion_sight]

Her throat has tightened around a hard aching knot, stopping her speech. It doesn't matter, Kim thinks. There's no answer she could give anyway, not to a statement such as that.

Silently, she reaches out with her left hand, taking hold of his-- and then with her last ounce of strength at the end of this all-too-long night, she raises her right hand once more, lifting the ring with its blood-red stone high into the air.

And as she does, the Baelrath blazes alight around them, painting the world in wild crimson fire as Kim Ford crosses between the worlds with Arthur Pendragon, the Warrior Condemned, returning at last to Fionavar--

--and to war.