THE KNIGHT OF PALE COUNTENANCE

DARRELL SCHWEITZER

When the Saxons came to burn the church and school, I had only a moment’s warning. I awoke in darkness. The other boys were already shoving one another and shouting in panic, but I kept my head and ran to the scriptorium to save the most precious thing in the world: my book. I shoved it into a bag with a handful of pens and a stoppered jug of ink. It seemed a crazy thing to do, even at the time, considering that this “book” was only a few pages of used parchment onto which I had painstakingly transcribed a passage of Seneca I didn’t understand, but Father Bernard had complimented me on my letters and said I would be a fine scribe some day; and the book was mine, something I had created, the only beautiful thing I had ever owned and I wasn’t going to let it perish.

So I saved it and ran outside into the night. The church was already aflame. I almost tripped, and jumped clumsily over something which I only half recognized as a corpse in a priest’s robe. It might even have been Father Bernard. I never knew.

The darkness was filled with screaming, racing figures, Saxons on horseback and on foot, already beginning to round people up; like devils behind the gleaming face-masks of their helmets, laughing as they forced the priests to kneel in a row and chopped off their heads with great war-axes.

Someone had an arm around me, but I wriggled, bit hard, kicked, and was free. I ran across the muddy, half-frozen fields, rattling against old stalks. Only then did I realize how desperately ridiculous was my predicament. I’d saved my book, yes, but it was winter and I might have to run and hide for days and I had no provisions or cloak or even shoes.

The monastery’s thatched roof went up with a whoosh. I turned to watch, shivering, gasping for cold, hard breath, clutching my bag as sparks spread across the sky like stars.

Someone bumped into me. I screamed and flailed. Then I saw it was a priest. He had blood on his face, but I knew him, Father Caius, our stern teacher of rhetoric. He didn’t seem to know me, though. He staggered around in circles.

I caught him by the arm. “Father! It’s me, Perry!”

He shook his head. “Peregrinus, we are judged. It is the end of the world!”

“No! We have to get away!”

“We are weighed in the balance and found wanting—”

“Come away! Please!”

I dragged him and he allowed himself to be led. I think we ran for hours, across the empty fields, into the forest which in the terror of that night became as trackless and impenetrable as some forest at the world’s edge. We splashed through a frigid stream, then emerged briefly into the open to cross a road. I glanced fearfully one way, then the other, and hauled Father Caius across into the woods on the other side, and the darkness closed around us for what seemed like forever.

“It is the end of the world!” said Father Caius, raving like someone in a deep fever. I supposed it was his wound.

An ancient, crescent moon was rising as we came to the shore of a lake. The water rippled, silver, then dark, then silver again. I pulled Father Caius down to sit on a rock while I tried to tell where he was hurt. I set my book-bag down carefully, then dipped the corner of my sleeve into the water and washed the Father’s face.

He brushed me away. “I’m all right.”

I dropped to my knees then, trembling violently, resting my face in his lap as if I were a small child, clinging to him. It was a kind of release. Only then could I allow myself to acknowledge how cold and tired I was, how scared. My feet were burning, almost numb. I gasped hoarsely for breath, trying to hold back sobs.

Father Caius held onto my shoulders and rocked gently back and forth, saying nothing.

Then I chanced to look up and gaze along the lake shore. For just an instant, I thought it was a huge, gleaming fish beached there, but, no, it was a man.

“Father, look!”

“God’s mercy, we have work to do yet.”

We both got up and hurried over to where an armored man lay on his back in the moonlight, only halfway out of the water. His helmet had fallen off and I could see that his face was very pale.

“Is he dead?” I asked.

Father Caius knelt and examined him. “No, but he will be soon.”

“Can’t we do anything for him?”

“Only convey his soul into the next world.”

Suddenly the man’s eyes snapped open and he grabbed me by the ankle with surprising strength, so hard it hurt.

“You, boy! You! I have seen you in the magic glass! You are the one who is to hear my tale!”

I struggled but couldn’t get loose. I looked to Father Caius. “What’s he talking about?”

The priest shook his head. “I don’t know. He must be delirious.”

“You must hear my tale!“

I broke free. The man seemed to have fainted.

“Help me drag him out of the water,” said Father Caius, and we two dragged the stranger into the shelter of the trees to hide him in case any Saxons came this way. I ran back into the open once, to recover my bag.

We prayed over the wounded man that night, then slept a little, clinging to him and to one another for warmth. I dreamt of the world going up in flames, and of red and white dragons writhing in those flames, the red devouring the white.

In the morning twilight, the air was a little warmer, but I could still see my breath.

“Father Caius?”

Suddenly the wounded man was awake. He caught me by the arm.

“You, boy. I know you are the one I saw. How old are you?”

“Thirteen . . . I think.” In truth I did not know, because I did not remember my birth any more than I remembered my parents, and so was guessing.

“Good enough. You are almost a man, but will live for a long time yet. And you are a learned clerk. You must write my tale in a book so that all men may know it. This is very important.”

I gulped and looked down at my bag, which contained, indeed, sufficient materials to write the man’s tale. I was terrified then, for I knew some great force was at work, but I didn’t know if this was God’s doing or the Devil’s.

Father Caius stirred beside us. He examined the man’s wound again in the light. The warrior’s mail-shirt was torn and broken. The whole of the garment underneath was soaked in blood.

“I think you had better confess your sins and be absolved,” Father Caius told him, “and forget about telling stories.”

But the man rolled away from him, dragging me.

“No! It can’t wait!’’ he said. Father Caius crossed himself, shocked. The man strained to grab my bag with his free hand, as if he knew what was in it. When I reached for it, he let go of me, and I got it. I opened my precious book in my lap and got out my pens and the jug of ink. I would have to scribble in the margins and between the lines of Seneca, ruining the effect of my calligraphy. So be it.

“Make it true,” the man said. “Make it real and . . .” His head fell back and he uttered a long sigh “. . . and make it beautiful. Please do this for me.”

“I’ll try.”

Father Caius looked on disapprovingly.

The wounded man began to speak rapidly, sometimes incomprehensibly, his tale filled with strange names and turns of language, and I could only approximate, almost guess, sometimes make up what I thought he meant; but he didn’t seem to care. If I tried to read something back to him he just went on, his torrent of words like water rushing over rocks. Somehow it felt, and he knew, that the act of writing made it all true:

What was his name and what was his quest?

Merlin knew.

And how got he his terrible wound?

Merlin knew that too, but wasn’t telling.

Call him the Knight of Pale Countenance. I never knew his name, but pale he was indeed during those long months, or perhaps years, as the poison seeped slowly through his body and he knew that he was dying; yet he could not die, not yet, for Merlin had a task remaining for him to perform.

In dream or delirium or both, he beheld Merlin, greatest of all magicians, seated on the stone lip of a pool in some ruined garden, reaching into the stagnant water to touch the reflection, not of Merlin, but of the Knight of Pale Countenance.

And the knight cried out at the touch as if he had been branded with an iron. Merlin, in the dream, jerked back, startled. He raised his hand, and a huge black bird swooped down to alight on his wrist. You’d expect a merlin, the kind of falcon after which he is named, but no, it was a raven, battlefield feaster, harbinger of death. The magician whispered into the bird’s ear, then heaved the creature aloft.

And the Knight of Pale Countenance awoke in his pain, finding himself on horseback, the raven circling overhead, around and around, slowly, slowly. Later, it rested on his shoulder and whispered to him in a human voice of death and the terrors of the grave, but also of the worldly glory of chivalry, which burned like brilliant fire in the heart.

He could remember that. The fire had not quite gone out, for all his weariness and pain.

Through hollow lands and bone lands, through thigh-deep, frigid dust, through forests haunted by crouching, half-remembered, faceless pagan gods—

“This is all rubbish,” said Father Caius suddenly. “It may even be the Devil’s rubbish.”

“Father please . . .” Somehow I knew it wasn’t rubbish at all, but more true than anything. As the knight’s fire burned within his heart, I had this, as if a fit had come upon me: a story fit, a kind of prophecy. Yet even then I was still afraid, for this prophecy might not be from God. The fellow had refused to be shriven, after all. The Devil’s rubbish, gleaming like gold.

“Sometimes my strength comes back to me,” the knight said. “The poison goes to sleep, and I have hope. That is one more torment I must endure. I seem to awaken as if from a terrible dream. I rise, like a swimmer far underwater, nearing the surface, not quite able to reach the light. I flare up, the way a candle does, just before it goes out. Write that down, boy. Quickly.”

I scribbled in the margin: As a candle’s flame . . .

The knight laughed softly, as if he’d told a joke. I didn’t understand. He continued “. . . and in my flaming moments, I have killed giants by the score, heaping them up like logs, and, oh yes, more than my share of Saxons. But sometimes I hear another’s hoofbeats and turn to see death riding by my side on a horse the color of white smoke, and he leans over and whispers to me through lipless teeth, in the friendliest terms, as if we were comrades on a long campaign together. And that damned bird, shrieking—”

Just then a bird did shriek somewhere in the branches above us, and I let out a little yelp of abject terror.

Father Caius put his hand on my shoulder and heaved himself to his feet. “This is all lunacy, but if it comforts him, let him have his lunacy. There is no harm or power in words. Now I have things I must do. I’ll be back shortly.”

The Father departed, leaving the world turned upside down. Nothing made sense. I didn’t understand how he could have said such a thing. Sometimes words are all we have. Prayers. Story. The story is the world and the world is the story, more powerful than anything. Ask a bard if you don’t believe me. In the beginning was the Word—

But I didn’t have to understand. That wasn’t my task. I was there merely to transcribe, to relate the tale with flourish. Let the meaning rise to the surface as it would, like bubbles in a murky pond.

“I was tempted three times,” the knight said. “Get that down. Three times.”

“Three,” I said, scribbling.

“I went mad once, howling in my pain like an animal, cursing God and cursed by him, who caused me to dwell naked among cattle on a hillside, grazing on grass. But the voice of Merlin’s raven awakened me—”

I glanced up into the branches once more, in dread. But the breeze merely stirred them, rattling dry leaves.

“What was I saying?” the knight asked.

“You were tempted three times.”

“Write this down. Shape it. Make it, for that’s what you are, the maker, if you tell my tale after I am gone—”

In the evening, the Knight of Pale Countenance came to the curving shore of the lake. There he paused to drink, but as he stooped down the blood of his wound poured out, polluting the water until it was dark and smooth like a mirror. He gazed down into the water at his reflection, and at first, saw only his paindrawn face, but then beheld a monstrous serpent lurking in the mud.

The creature stirred. It broke the surface and reared up, as tall as a tower, its flickering tongue like a sword of living fire.

“Will you fight with me, Sir Knight?” The monster’s voice cracked like thunder in the gathering darkness.

“Most surely,” replied the Knight of Pale Countenance, drawing his sword and taking up his shield, “for I know that you are my enemy, sent by the Devil.”

“Is not the serpent one of God’s creatures? Doesn’t it say in the holy books that the Devil lacks the power to create anything?”

The two of them joined battle for an hour, two hours, three, beneath the brilliant stars, wading in the shallows of the mirrored lake. Sometimes the serpent was a huge warrior clad in scaly armor, wielding a sword of fire, or many burning spears and swords all at once, as if he had a hundred arms.

At the third hour of the night, they paused, the knight leaning on his shield, gasping in pain and exhaustion, the serpent coiling over itself in the mud.

“You still have your courage,” said the monster.

“Aye, that,” said the knight, “but nothing else.”

“And your pride. You have fought impressively. But it is useless. Yield to me. I will make you whole.”

“No,” said the knight. “Though I am the most wretched of men, I shall not yield.”

Merlin’s raven circled overhead, the stars winking as it passed in front of them.

The monster reared up once more. The knight raised his sword and shield, and the contest continued until the ancient, crescent moon drifted above the treetops and the serpent-thing paused to look at it. The knight thought he saw an opening and made to strike, but hesitated when the serpent spoke.

“That is false hope. No man may touch the moon, nor slow her journey across the sky. Some things you cannot conquer. Therefore yield to me. I will allow you to know love. I’ll give you happiness. Yield.”

But the knight would not yield, and still the two of them fought, the serpent-creature assuming many forms, each more terrible than the last, screaming with all the voices of Hell. But the knight’s courage did not fail him, though he recognized it as the courage of desperation, not virtue.

When dawn came, the serpent spoke for a third time.

“Merely yield, and be free of pain. Give it up. Rest.”

The knight hesitated then, weeping, and, quick as a whiplash, the serpent wound its coils around his legs, until it rested its huge head at his feet like a faithful dog. He would have yielded then, and fallen asleep, but Merlin’s raven cried out, and he snapped awake, and struck off the monster’s head.

Father Caius returned. Somewhere he’d found a ragged blanket – it smelled like a horsecloth and probably was – for me to wrap around myself, and more rags, some of them bloody, for me to tie around my feet. Better still, so convenient and unexpected it seemed almost a miracle, he’d found a small, two-wheeled cart, to which a donkey had undoubtedly once been harnessed. Now he could pull it if he had to.

I helped him load the wounded knight into the cart.

Father Caius took the knight’s hand in his own and said, “Now, my friend, let me hear your confession before it’s too late.”

The knight stirred and moaned.

“Will you pray with me?” Father Caius asked. To me he whispered, “Now we shall know. A damned man cannot pray.”

The knight folded his hands.

Father Caius began to intone in Latin, but then a huge black bird did shriek from a nearby branch and the Knight of Pale Countenance heaved himself up, cursing and raving and weeping. Father Caius and I both drew back in momentary fright. The black bird swirled over our heads.

The knight pointed into empty space. “Can’t you see him? There! It is Death on his pale horse . . .”

The bird cried out.

But Father Caius invoked the name of Jesu, the conqueror of death, and after a while the bird was gone and the knight rested peacefully.

“His hurt is more than a physical injury, I am sure,” the Father said. “His very soul is wounded, by sin.”

“Yes. He said he was tempted three times.”

“What?”

“In the story—”

Father Caius struck me across the face in sudden, astonishing wrath. “Forget about your stupid story! This is no time for idleness. By rights we ought to abandon this fellow and save ourselves, for he will not pray and that means the Devil owns him.”

I began to weep. “Please, Father . . .”

His voice and manner softened. He brushed his hand through my hair. “You are right, Perry. Forgive me. We must not abandon him while he yet lives, for there is still a chance he might be saved, whether he tells preposterous tales or not. That is my duty. I have forgotten it and therefore sinned. Forgive me.”

I said nothing.

“Besides,” said Father Caius, rapping his knuckles against the side of the cart, “God has provided. Nothing God does is without meaning, if only we can discover it.”

I was glad then, less, I will admit, for the prospect of saving the knight’s soul than the prospect of hearing the rest of his story.

Overhead, Merlin’s raven had returned.

Father Caius insisted that I should get into the cart and he would pull both of us. “Because I am a beast and you are my burden,” he said, which was crazy; so I refused, stowed only my bag in the cart, and the two of us dragged the Knight of Pale Countenance along the shore of the lake until we found a path. We followed the path until about midday, when the forest ended and we came to a burned-out farmhouse. We rested there and drank from a well, but went hungry, for we had no provisions. The water tasted of soot. Still the black bird circled overhead. Either Father Caius did not see it or he pretended not to notice it.

Later that afternoon we joined a column of refugees streaming westward along one of the paved, Roman roads. Most were ragged, silent people, a lot of them old women, but there was also a mother who had gone mad. She cradled the black-faced corpse of her baby in her arms, singing to it softly through her tears, as if it were still alive and might wake up.

Father Caius turned away from her. I stared, then looked at the ground as I struggled with the cart.

We marched past a battlefield, strewn with corpses and thick with crows.

“It’s all rubbish,” Father Caius said. “The Devil’s offal. The end of the world.”

I looked at him in hopeless terror then, for if he despaired, it had to be the end of the world after all. There was no help anywhere.

The woman kept on singing as we passed more ruined farmhouses and came to a burning town. No one was alive there. The fires were nearly out.

“The Devil’s offal,” said Father Caius.

I tried to tell myself it was his wound. He was still dazed. I wept for him, and prayed. That cold march seemed to go on forever. The afternoon would not end. Time had stopped.

Then the Knight of Pale Countenance suddenly sat up in the back of the cart, shouting that he knew the answer, that Britain would not only be saved but made glorious. It was all in his tale.

Father Caius pushed him back down into the cart and commanded him to be still. About then, twenty or so British horsemen galloped by, armorless men with painted shields and round, military caps, the bucellarii of some rich lord. They paid no attention to us and we ignored them.

The Saxons attacked again just after sundown, horsemen in their demon-masked helmets streaming out of the woods, cleaving their way through the refugees like reapers among wheat. I saw the mad woman’s baby hurled through the air. Everyone was screaming and running; and the Saxons circled around and around, laughing, as I climbed into the cart and tried to get out the Pale Knight’s sword.

But Father Caius caught hold of me and hauled me to the ground. He looked strange. It took me a moment to realize that the top of his head had been sheared off. He was trying to say something, but blood and brains streamed down over his face, splattering me. He collapsed, dragging me down on top of him in a heap.

Everything has meaning, if only we can find it. In that instant, I could only guess. I called out, not to God, but to Merlin, shouting that the story was in danger, that it should not end like this; and then a miracle happened, a prodigy, maybe the delirium of a dream, and behold, the Knight of Pale Countenance leapt down from the back of the cart and drew sword. His strength had returned to him, and he struck left and right as the laughing Saxons circled him, as their laughter turned to howls, then thudding silence, as he slew them all, his sword flickering like Jove’s terrible lightning.

When it was over, we two stood alone on the road, but for the corpses, and the Saxons lay in a pile all around him, stacked like logs.

And Merlin’s raven dropped down onto the Pale Knight’s shoulder, and spoke with the voice of a man.

This is the rest of the tale, how the Knight of Pale Countenance was tempted three times but did not yield. Then the serpent-thing told how it had once been a man, called Sir Vorcilak, a mighty champion until pride had transformed him into a monster.

“Only a genuinely holy man can kill me,” he said.

“I am a poor sinner,” said the Knight of Pale Countenance.

“That is why I am still alive, though you have cut off my head.”

The knight took up the monster’s head, which had become human in shape, strong-jawed, with black, curly hair, a thick beard, and dark eyes. He stood on the back of the floating serpent body and drifted far out into the lake. A mist rose. Sir Vorcilak’s eyes glowed like lanterns, lighting the way.

In the middle of the lake was an island of glass, revealed as the mist parted, whereon stood a glass castle which gleamed a brilliant white by day, darkened to red in the sunset, and mirrored the stars at night. A lady dwelt in that castle; and she came out to greet the Pale Knight and also Sir Vorcilak, who had been her lover once, but had proven as unworthy as her many other lovers, unable to break the enchantment of this place. Her father, a mighty king, had placed her there long before, that no unworthy man should defile her; and there she dwelt for endless centuries, for the years did not touch her in that castle and time did not pass, and the lives of generations swirled past her like water around a rock.

She greeted Sir Vorcilak and kissed him, then placed his still-living head atop a pillar to guard the isle and warn all who came near that only a true hero could set foot there and come away unwounded.

And she tempted the Knight of Pale Countenance for a fourth time, leading him into her bedchamber, where she showed him two mirrors the size of large books, one hidden beneath a folding cover of horn, the other beneath ivory.

She opened one – but no one who was not there can say which one – and said, “This is the Glass of Seeing, in which the deeds of famous men are revealed, past and to come.”

Together they sat before the glass and beheld Troy town newly built, and again Troy when it was burnt; and they saw Brutus the Trojan first reach the shores of Britain and win the isle, hurling giants into the sea one by one. Julius Caesar likewise appeared, and Alexander, and other heroes of great worship.

The knight beheld them with delight, and the lady said to him, “But what are the deeds of men, but strivings to fill the time before they all go down to death, king and poor man alike, lord and slave? All these things are just shadows in my glass. But I have seen you in my glass and brought you into my chamber, because I would have you lie with me and take me for your wife. Then shall you dwell here at my side, always at your ease in my glass castle and crystal garden, where nothing ages or changes or dies and there is no pain. Here you merely watch the world. You are not a part of it. Even your sins do not matter anymore, for where past and future are as one and there is no passage of time, then the time of your sinning has never occurred. You are as free from guilt as you are from fear and sorrow. Tarry with me then, forever.”

The Knight of Pale Countenance was greatly tempted. He spoke of his duty, but the lady said merely, “Nay,” and laughed as if he had said something ridiculous. He tried to speak again, but she put a finger to his lips and hushed him, as a nursemaid does a small child.

She searched out his wound and touched it with her hands, healing him.

And then, in his weariness, he did lie with her.

Afterwards, he looked into the uncovered glass once more, and saw himself, all his life, and his sins, from beginning to end.

She laughed and snapped the cover shut.

“They’re only pictures in a glass,” she said. “They don’t mean anything, now that we are here.”

But he wept, even as Judas wept when he held the silver pieces in his hand, understanding the magnitude of his wrong.

Later, she sang a gentle song to soothe him, to bewitch him; but he sat up angrily in her bed, furious with rage and despair, saying that he had sinned again, unforgivably, even as he had once before. And he rose from the bed, naked. His wound opened, blood pouring over him. Gasping, at the end of his strength, he took up his sword and smashed the Glass of Seeing, then turned to strike off the lady’s head.

But she took hold of the blade and turned it gently aside, saying, “Would you murder a damsel who loves you?”

Of course he would not. He struggled to put on his clothing and armor, laboring for a long time in terrible pain. He made to leave.

“But if you will not love me,” said she, “I must take another.” And she opened the covering of the second glass, just a little way, for it was the Glass of Knowing, wherein the beginning and ending of time itself were contained. To look into it fully would be to see the Earth on the first day of creation, before the waters were parted, and the last day of the world, Judgment; and in both one would inevitably behold the face of God and die at the sight.

But she uncovered the glass only a little way, and one of those demons who would carry off the damned at the Judgment stepped forth into the room and took her in its arms, a giant of living, half-molten iron with a face too brilliant to look upon.

And the knight fled from them, knowing that he had failed in his quest.

The wounded knight and I were alone on the road, surrounded by corpses. He lay back in the cart. It was dawn. Black birds had begun to gather.

I knew that he was truly dying now. He would not rise from the cart again. His blood seeped down over his legs, staining his brazen greaves.

“Please,” I said. “You must tell me the rest.”

“Write down what you have. Make up the rest. Sometimes not even a story is enough.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Explicate the text, then. You’ve got an education.”

“No, I don’t. Not really.”

“Then there’s nothing for it. Sorry. There’s nothing.”

I wept again, for a long time, leaning my head against the cart. The day brightened. Once I saw horsemen at the crest of a hill, and I remained very still, clinging to the cart as if draped over it. Whether they were Saxons or not, they must have seen only corpses and didn’t come any closer.

Merlin’s raven landed on the rim of the cart and said to me, “Ask him about his sin.”

I asked, and the knight cursed the bird, swatting at it weakly with one hand, saying that it only wanted to torment him, like twisting a knife in an already fatal wound.

Yet he told me, how the Knight of Pale Countenance had been brave and true, and loved a lady and was sworn to her. Yet when he was far from her in the midst of the wars, and weary, he rested with another and got a child by her. But the Devil tempted his own lady into cunning despair, and she, through witchcraft, learned of his treason. When he returned home, she greeted him with smiles and prepared a great feast. When he was drowsy with food and drink, she took him into her bed and there stabbed him with a poisoned dagger; but when she saw him bleeding she hurled herself from her window and died, not all at once, but slowly, cursing God, broken on the pavement below.

In the cart, the Pale Knight seemed to be passing into another delirium, scarcely aware that I was still there. It was well into the afternoon of the second day on the road. I was weak from hunger and from fear, and clung to the edge of the cart, barely able to stand.

“She died,” he said. “Went straight to Hell, I suppose. No help for it. Being a knight gets confusing at times.”

But I begged him, in the earnest folly of my youth, in all my innocence, to tell me the true and proper ending of the tale, how some good might come of all this suffering and Britain might be redeemed.

“Your soul can still be saved. It’s never too late.” I was beginning to sound like Father Caius, I thought. I wept yet again, at the memory of him. His body lay almost at my feet, with his brains spilled out, gathering flies.

“That too, in the bargain?”

“Yes, that too.”

“Then take up your book and write the rest.”

Eventually I wrote it all, how the Boy With the Cart found the strength to transport the dying knight back the way he had come, back along the road, past the burning town, the empty farmhouses, and the battlefields; into the dark forest where pagan gods crouched in the shadows beneath the trees, leering and tittering as he went by. But the boy did not tarry. He did not fail in his purpose. He came to the shore of the lake once again. It was midnight. The dark water mirrored the sky. The old moon had just risen.

There, a white mist rose up, and out of the mist came a golden barge with sails of purest silver; and in the barge were maidens clad in gowns the color of the blue morning sky, but their heads were the heads of birds, and they sang sweetly among themselves. They carried the wounded knight into the barge, staining their hands with his blood. They permitted the boy to follow.

Slowly, the barge crossed the lake as the mist parted and the Isle of Glass loomed before them, the castle gleaming like a swarm of brilliant stars. The head of Sir Vorcilak called out from atop its pillar, warning away all who were sinful and unworthy.

I knelt down in the barge and prayed that I would be worthy and that the Knight of Pale Countenance could be redeemed. The bird-women fluttered and chirped like startled sparrows, but they took the knight up in a litter and bore him into the castle.

I followed. We came at last, after many turnings, into the bedchamber of the lady, who was horribly burned from the demon’s touch and swollen with the demon’s child. Her knight lay down beside her and caressed her and kissed her, hideous as she now was, begging her forgiveness and the forgiveness of all women. While they lay there, she was delivered of her child in a great outpouring of steaming blood.

Merlin the magician stood up at the foot of her bed, his black raven fluttering into his hands, his newly born body man-sized and gnarled, ancient and young at the same time, flames flickering from his fingertips and smoke rising from his mouth and nose as he breathed. Born outside of time, where the years did not pass, it would be his fate to live backward knowing the future as if it were the past, forgetting the past as if it were the unknown future, awesomely powerful at first, youthening, weakening, until he finally ended up under a rock, bound there by a lady who had betrayed him.

He would do much in the meantime. But for good or ill, I wondered. He was a devil’s child, after all, born of a woman’s despair and a knight’s sin.

He stood there glaring at me, his eyes filled with devilish hatred.

But, newly born, ancient and an infant at once, he could not even stand. His limbs spread out in all directions like those of a newborn calf. He fell down into the puddle of his mother’s blood. Before he could make any move, I took water from a cup and baptized him, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and I prayed for his soul, and for the souls of the knight, of both his ladies, and for the whole land of Britain, that the tale might end well at last.

Merlin stood up and wrapped a sheet about himself to cover his nakedness.

Then the weariness of all I had been through overwhelmed me, and I fell down senseless at Merlin’s feet. I awoke at dawn by the edge of the lake, lying on my back, clutching my book-bag to my chest. I sat up weakly, feeling light-headed, and saw only trees on the far side of the lake. There was no mist and no Isle of Glass.

“Your tale is preposterous,” someone said. “No one will believe a word of it.”

I turned, startled and afraid, but also a little indignant.

“It is true.”

Merlin laughed and helped me to my feet. It was truly the Magician now, clad in a black gown, boots, and a tall cap, leaning on an intricately carven staff which looked like it might come alive at any moment. Its top was shaped like a serpent’s head.

“Yes, it is true. But getting people to believe it is something else again.”

I didn’t understand. He said that didn’t matter, yet. He led me a little way along the lake shore and showed me two fresh graves at the forest’s edge. I knelt there and prayed for the Knight of Pale Countenance and for the Lady of the Isle of Glass, and resolved to write in my book that those two would whisper their names to one another just before they entered paradise. I, of course, would never know them.

Merlin called a fish out of the water into his hands, and made a fire by snapping his fingers. We two ate, and later he walked with me for a time, speaking many prophecies which he commanded me to write down in a book to be called The Prophecies of Merlin; for he knew the beginnings and endings of all stories, even his own. I think he had somehow looked into the Glass of Knowing and survived.

If he knew everything ahead of time, I asked him, couldn’t he avoid his doom?

He merely shrugged. “Sorry. There’s nothing for it.”

He explained that his doom was as necessary as his birth, part of the same pattern. He had seen it all, and, reaching back through time, sending his raven to do his bidding, weaving so many strands together: the knight’s sin, his own birth, and my life too, that I might be there to baptize him when he needed it. He had placed the covered two mirrors in the lady’s chamber and the cup of water by her bedside. His end grew out of his beginning, as a tree grows out of a seed.

“It’s all quite preposterous,” he said, “this tale.”

But he commanded me to write it down, and many other things also, and I wrote them, naming the names of the heroes to come, and especially of the great king who would make Britain glorious once again. These were my labors as I grew into manhood and journeyed ever eastward, to a place where I would be believed, called Camelot.