Epilogue

Gaius went gently one foggy afternoon. Merlin was by his side when he passed. When he begged Gaius not to leave him, the old man only said that he'd had more than his fair share of time on the earth, and no man need be greedy.

George grew into a fine boy of thirteen. He was still playful and bright-eyed, but he had a twinge of young wisdom that made him seem, at times, very beyond his years.

He often said to Gwen, "One day I might be a great king, but for now I will be a good son," and the queen smiled and patted his head, both proud and missing the days when her son was small enough to carry.

Leon's beard went completely gray. Merlin went back to wearing a beard, too – not a long, unkempt one, but a tidy facial covering which disguised his undying youth.

On a day that might have been any other summer day, the trumpeting of horns announced a visitor riding into Camelot. Merlin joined George and Guinevere on the courtyard stairs as a muscled man in old chainmail approached with a young girl in tow. He dismounted his horse and said, "My Queen, I did not mean to be gone so long."

Guinevere said, "We have missed you, Percival."

There was a commotion as they all went to greet him. Leon practically flew down the stairs to embrace his old friend.

"What has kept you away?" Guinevere asked.

"I discovered I had a daughter," Percival said, and he presented the girl to the others.

Annora was a few years older than George; Percival had not known about her birth until he reunited with her mother some years after Arthur's death. Her mother became sick, and eventually died, and so Percival raised her.

"I had been gone so long without word, I was not sure if I could return," Percival said the following night during a feast celebrating his arrival. "But, when I heard that Merlin was back after all these years, I figured I could do no harm."

After the celebration, Percival confessed there was more to it than that – he had come because Merlin was in Camelot. He knew no one else with his talents.

"You see," Percival whispered, "Annora has magic. She needs a teacher – someone who will show her what good can be done with it."

Merlin was oddly delighted to have an apprentice. Percival took up residence in the castle, giving Annora leave to wander the grounds with Merlin. In the morning, while George trained with the knights, Merlin taught Annora magic. She was a natural, breezing through beginner spells. Her one fault was that she was adventurous, and dangerously so. In her first year of study, she blew up a poultice, a window, and one of the cook's pies – though Merlin said that really made the pie much better.

In the afternoons, George joined Annora in learning histories, songs and the medicinal uses of herbs. George was often distracted, and Annora easily distractable, so Merlin fought to keep the pair on task.

"And what is the antidote for hemlock?" he asked.

"Hemkey, of course," George said, winking to Annora.

"You're a hemfool," Annora said.

"You're both dollopheads," Merlin said, "now, tell me —"

As they grew, their lessons became more polarized. As a boy of seventeen, George was expected to help his mother with matters of state. He fought in tournaments and went on patrols. The more George grew, the more he reminded Merlin of Arthur – a more sensible Arthur, really.

"You get your level head from your mother," Merlin told him.

"It's true," Gwen affirmed.

Annora had her hands full as a medicine woman. She handled illnesses and injuries all through the citadel and the lower town. She was very skilled with herbs, but didn't mind giving her tinctures a little magical boost.

"My father wants me to get married," Annora told Merlin one day. "He doesn't want me to end up alone, the way my mother was alone for years before he realized I was alive. I don't worry much about being alone, though. I can perfectly take care of myself."

That much was true. Annora was as capable of a fighter as she was a healer. Sometimes she talked about leaving Camelot and striking out on her own, but she always stayed. She said she couldn't leave her father, but Merlin had the sense that it was something else.

Despite their very different lives, George and Annora found reasons to spend time together. Whenever George had to undertake a particularly dangerous mission, he insisted Annora come along.

"What if we need a healer?" he said.

"You'll have Merlin," Gwen said.

"What if Merlin gets hurt? You know Merlin will end up getting hurt."

In this way, Annora often accompanied them tracking down fugitives and hunting errant magical creatures. Percival also came, as any good father would, until Annora's insistence that she be left to live her own life finally drove him to stay home.

"Should I be worried?" Gwen asked when George and Annora slipped off in the night on a quest she had explicitly forbidden.

"Annora will make sure George doesn't get hurt," Merlin said.

"That's not what I mean," Gwen said.

It happened not long after that – George left a letter saying that while his love for Camelot would never fade, he could not be the king he was expected to be. The people deserved someone whose heart was always in Camelot, and his very often was not. He wanted to travel the kingdoms, not as a prince but as a man. He wanted to cross the water, discover new places and learn everything he could. Of course, Annora went with him.

"You taught him too well, Merlin," Gwen said. "Now he wants to know everything."

Guinevere had weathered her share of broken hearts, and she weathered this one too. She had no doubt that George would be safe in Annora's protection, and that he would live the life he wanted. Still, a mother can be happy for her child and sad for herself, and that was what Gwen was for many years thereafter.

Merlin stayed in Camelot. He protected what he could.

At least once a year and sometimes twice, at the fall and spring equinoxes, Merlin went to the great stone circle to visit his old friend. Merlin did not need the horn of Cathbadh to summon Arthur from the veil. The door was always left open to Merlin, if only just a crack.

Merlin told Arthur of the things that came to pass in Camelot. Eventually, Leon crossed over, and then Percival and finally Gwen. Merlin never saw them in the stone circle, though, only Arthur.

When stories were told of Camelot's Prince George, and it was said he abandoned his kingdom, Merlin struck them from the record. Little by little, Merlin revised history, until George was erased entirely.

A century after George had been forgotten, Merlin bumped into a middle-aged woman in a tavern. She smiled at him and said, "You look younger than me now. That's not at all fair."

Annora and Merlin sipped at ale, and she told him about all the wonderful places she went with George when they were young and the family they'd raised.

"George got old," Annora said. "I didn't. Then our children got old. Our children's children got old. Now their children's children are old, too. I'm not sure how much more I can take."

"Eternity is a burden," Merlin admitted.

He saw Annora again a few times after that. The last time was in London, in the twelfth century, just after the legends of Arthur began to be told in earnest. Annora had finally grown old. She said, "What are you waiting for then, Merlin?"

Aithusa lived for 500 years. One day she wearily flew off and never returned.

The printing press was invented. Two centuries later, clocks came into being. A new world was discovered in the west, and it was called America.

During their reunions, Merlin told Arthur all of these things.

"You wouldn't recognize this world," Merlin said. "I live in it and I half can't believe it."

"Don't be silly, Merlin. It's the same world it's always been, there's just more in it."

One equinox, nearly fifteen hundred years from the day Merlin was born in Ealdor, he stepped into the stone circle and Arthur was not there. The brave king was inexplicably gone from the world of the dead, and Merlin had the sense that if he had the ability to look, he might find a few others missing as well.

Merlin trundled down the hill like an old man – because he was, finally, quite old – and slipped into the drivers seat of his Volkswagen. As the engine thundered to life, Merlin smiled, because he realized he had been waiting all of this time, and now he knew exactly why.

After all, every once in a very rare while, someone comes back.