The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur

Camelot was great and glorious, and it seemed like it would go on forever, but that was only because it couldn’t change. Britain was changing, though, a new age was beginning, and one day the ground would shift under Camelot, and when it did Camelot would not shift with it. It would not stand. When that day came it would break and fall to ruin. And

They were in dream time now, the timeless time of adventures, which had a different texture from ordinary time.

Time was always stealing away bits of your future and replacing them with memories, and then the memories faded.

It was a good story. It made him feel better. Stories were useful that way, they smoothed over the gaps and sharp edges of the world.

“One day you will see that it is a mistake to love an empire, or a throne, or a crown, because those things cannot love. They can only die.”

The past was a cursed wound. No perfect knight would ever come to heal it as if it never happened. The best you could hope for was forgiveness. And even that was cold comfort. It was the future that required attention.

Britain was a wounded land, cloven in two, British and Roman, pagan and Christian, Stone and Grail, north and south, old and new. It was born in blood and grief and greed, divided eternally against itself, its different natures so mixed it could never extricate itself from itself. No miracle would erase that wound either. But Britain didn’t need a

Maybe terrible things would happen in the future, maybe it was empty, a waste land. But there could be seeds buried there, too, deep down below the dry dust, where hidden springs still flowed. It was deep winter, but there was still hope for renewal.

“I am tired of symbols.” Suddenly Palomides did sound very tired. Weary unto death. “I am tired of putting my faith in things that break. I have had enough of it.” “So have we all.”