‹ Prequel: Lady of the Lake
The Foundlings
Epilogue.
Epilogue.
Years and centuries passed, like lifetimes and like mere minutes, in the eyes of the people.
All was one. All that had been, would come again.
A man with no name wandered from the edge of the lake, a man who knew of both life and death, who had both still before him.
He was alike to the man he had been, and different, just as a child is different from his mother and father.
He had moved beyond.
Another man, too, had moved truly beyond, in the season that the king died. It was spring, and he had a sudden understanding that his work on this earth was complete, and he felt the presence of someone…
Someone familiar, someone beyond the familiar. He had not killed, and death had turned to life, for his father’s blood now ran through his veins. By some chance of fate, this nameless one had been unable to move from the sword and the body of his father, the king, and his blood had been forced back into his body, the metal of the sword changing its nature so that what had been split apart was now bound together, and his wounds would heal…
He had moved beyond any prophecy, and he had seen the truth and the workings of the world, though he still had much to learn…
This man was perhaps the only one who knew the true nature of life and death, more closely even than Merlin, who died just as Gwydion lived.
And so Gwydion, remembering, perhaps, that his father had both died and lived through him, became no longer nameless, but took on a new name, a new life.
Merlin.
But only as a title, for he was truly nameless, for he knew that many things were the same, that any one person was truly all things.
And he wandered far.
The beginning.
Years and centuries passed, like lifetimes and like mere minutes, in the eyes of the people.
All was one. All that had been, would come again.
A man with no name wandered from the edge of the lake, a man who knew of both life and death, who had both still before him.
He was alike to the man he had been, and different, just as a child is different from his mother and father.
He had moved beyond.
Another man, too, had moved truly beyond, in the season that the king died. It was spring, and he had a sudden understanding that his work on this earth was complete, and he felt the presence of someone…
Someone familiar, someone beyond the familiar. He had not killed, and death had turned to life, for his father’s blood now ran through his veins. By some chance of fate, this nameless one had been unable to move from the sword and the body of his father, the king, and his blood had been forced back into his body, the metal of the sword changing its nature so that what had been split apart was now bound together, and his wounds would heal…
He had moved beyond any prophecy, and he had seen the truth and the workings of the world, though he still had much to learn…
This man was perhaps the only one who knew the true nature of life and death, more closely even than Merlin, who died just as Gwydion lived.
And so Gwydion, remembering, perhaps, that his father had both died and lived through him, became no longer nameless, but took on a new name, a new life.
Merlin.
But only as a title, for he was truly nameless, for he knew that many things were the same, that any one person was truly all things.
And he wandered far.
The beginning.