Postscript: The Changing of the Guard

I didn't mean to write this, especially so long after the story. But Jane Mays asked for it – about a hundred years ago, with several gentle nudges since. I really struggled with it, still not sure it's any good, but felt it was an interesting experiment writing something because someone else had come up with the idea rather than always writing whatever I felt like. So I enjoyed the challenge even if I didn't execute it very well. Jane – I hope you don't completely hate it. Sorry if you do.

xxxxxxx

They said Arthur would come again. That he was living at the end of the sea, with his sister, and in their hour of need, he would come again.

But he had not come. There had been many hours of need in these long years, and still King Arthur did not come. He was no longer looked for. Poets still talked of him, and children squabbled over who got to play him in their games, but for most people King Arthur became no more important to their lives that any other poet's fantasy or child's game. No one even really remembered the man, anymore. His queen, the notorious Guinevere, had died many years ago, in the forests Broceliande on the distant borders of Albion. Arthur's heir, Cador, had died fighting against the Saxons generations ago. And now King Ceredig, who didn't remember Cador much less Arthur, held court in Camelot's decaying walls.

The Kings stayed in the old fortress because of its illustrious past, but the city of Camelot had long outgrown the old city walls, and the kingdom of Albion had long outgrown the old fortress of Camelot. The city of Camelot didn't need the city walls anymore, and the kingdom of Albion didn't need the citadel of Camelot anymore. The real seat of power now was down in Logres at the centre of the sprawling kingdom – a brand new city, large enough for all the members of the court, with a room especially for the Round Table. Camelot looked what it was – an old, provincial castle that once, in the bad old times, had belonged to an old, provincial king. But it was still the official seat of the Kings of Albion. Because of Arthur. 'In case he ever comes back,' older courtiers would joke, drily. 'So he'll know where to find us.'

So, because of Arthur and in case he ever came for them again, King Ceredig held court in Camelot, at least occasionally. And also in Camelot, Merlin slept, soundly. Merlin rarely went to Logres. Ceredig came to him, instead. Ceredig would expect most people to go to him, but was willing to make an exception for the ancient sorcerer – he was, after all, usually worth the trip.

No one knew how old the old magician was. They said he had known King Arthur as a young man, which made him older than the hills, as old as the stars. He had been there at Arthur's last battle – he may as well have been there at the start of the world. He had defended Albion against more attackers than anyone alive, he alone was unfazed by waves of evil – he had seen it, and defeated it, all before. He remembered an ancient history that seemed today like stories of a world gone mad: Queen Guinevere as a servant, Sir Lancelot as a mercenary, magic banned throughout the realm of Camelot, a time before Albion. He rarely told the stories, but everyone knew them anyway, because if you heard them once, you told everyone you knew.

He was the greatest counsellor in Albion – kind, certainly, and famously wise.

And in his wisdom, he had never looked for Arthur to come again.

But Arthur came, anyway. For him.

XXXXX

Time did not signify in Avalon, where the apples were always ripe, the wildflowers always in bloom, the breeze warm and the sun shining. Arthur turned around at the touch on his shoulders. It was Morgana. "You woke me," he said, because he knew she had, even though he didn't remember it. He looked at the beauty, and felt the warmth of the air, and the scent of the flowers, and did not resent being woken.

"I did. It is time, and he hasn't come," Morgana replied. She did not sleep, and did not need to.

"I'll go for him," he said.

"I knew you would," she said.

XXXX

Merlin slept soundly, and he dreamt of Arthur. He dreamt of Arthur reasonably often, dreaming of the old days. No person alive remembered those now, so instead he dreamt about his dead friends who were there.

Then he felt a touch on his hand and opened his eyes.

"Brother," said Arthur.

Little had surprised Merlin in years. Decades. But this surprised him. He had not looked for it.

Merlin thought it was still a dream. He'd been dreaming about the day Arthur had ridden into the courtyard after Uther's death. There was a statue there now, of Arthur, except it didn't look anything like Arthur. It could have been practically anyone apart from Arthur. But of course only he knew what Arthur had really looked like.

And that's what convinced him he wasn't dreaming. Because looking at Arthur in front of him, although he was similar to how Merlin's long memory had kept him, he wasn't identical. There were things he had forgotten. This wasn't a vision conjured from his subconscious.

"It's time?"

"It's over time," Arthur told him.

"But there's still so much left to be done."

Arthur looked around him, at the quiet castle where people slept soundly because they were in a wide, unified kingdom and they could sleep because there were others awake.

"No," he said, "there isn't."

Merlin sat in the darkness of what was once, aeons ago now, Gaius' room, and wanted to argue. There were still squabbles, still border attacks. Although people were sleeping now. It was silent. There were no more running up and down corridors in the dark, no whispers in dungeons of loyalty and treachery, and there were not three young people huddled in dark rooms trying to work out how to save a kingdom. And there never would be, in Camelot, ever again.

Merlin looked at Arthur – the real Arthur, not the warrior king or the supernatural saviour of mankind, but his friend – and knew he was right.

His statue honestly didn't look anything like him. But then, no one had bothered to ask Merlin what Arthur had looked like. Because what Arthur had really looked like was totally irrelevant to the exercise. Arthur wasn't a person anymore, he was an idea.

And that was why there wasn't anything left to do. The idea of Arthur, the idea of Albion, the idea that by working together everyone got a chance to get some sleep, that had become a reality. Which was all the Dragon had predicted, all that Blaise had promised and all that Arthur had died for.

"We've done everything we were meant to," said Merlin, out loud, because it was such an extraordinary idea. The smile that crept over his old face was completely unconscious and unstoppable.

"We've done more," said Arthur. "And now it's time. Come with me on one more journey?"

Merlin, still beaming, rose and went with Arthur.