Sword of Darkness

Seren is a journeyman weaver who wants to become a master. But when her fabric is turned down simply because the Guild has too many masters, she is incensed. When she emerges from the guild building, she is approached by two knights, Gareth and Agrivain, who tell her that she is fated to be the mother of the next Merlin, and that she should come with them.

Fearing them mad, she flees and is rescued by a handsome knight, who offers to help her. But he is not what he seems. As soon as he takes her beyond the limits of the town, he pulls her into Camelot, which has been taken over by Morgen LeFay and is now a place of Darkness. The Handsome Knight is actually Morgen's Chief Warrior and General, known as the Kerrigan. He was once human, but is now less so due to six hundred years of serving the twisted Morgen and being among the inhuman creatures that make up her court.

Morgen wants Seren for the same reason that the Knights of the Round Table do, she truly is fated to birth the next PenMerlin, ruler of all Merlins. The Current Merlin is a woman, living in Avalon with the rest of the Knights. The PenMerlin cannot be allowed to fall to Morgen, or she will extend her rulership over the entire world, not just portions of Britain.

The Kerrigan serves Morgen because she allows him to kill things for her. After 600 years of life, he is deathly bored. Others in her court would try to supplant him, but he holds the sword Caliburn, the spiritual opposite of Excalibur, dedicated to evil and destruction. Just as with Excalibur, Caliburn's scabbard makes Kerrigan both immortal and indestructible, so he always wins fights for his place. Everyone, save, perhaps Morgen, is scared of him and his wrath.

All except for Seren. She stands up to him, but instead of her resistance making him enraged, it amuses him. He guards her for Morgen, slowly growing in awe of her spirit and determination to be free, even if he thinks she is a fool. On the night she tries to escape, he is forced to save her from a Gargoyle that attempts to kill her. Knowing that Morgen will hurt her, he flees from the castle to the human world, bringing her to Joyouse Guard, Lancelot Du Lak's castle. But he doesn't have long before Morgen's forces track him down, and his only ally is his Draken servant, Blaise. Blaise, like Kerrigan, is the product of an abusive mother, only he is a human who can take on dragon form, and an albino to boot. Thrown out by his people, he serves Kerrigan because Kerrigan never treated him unjustly, and now he stays by Kerrigan's side rather than inform on him to Morgen.

Only a few days later, Morgen's forces gather, and Kerrigan throws up a mystic shield around the castle. But doing so cuts him off from the one thing that he needs to live, the life force of other humans. He puts Seren in the chapel where Lancelot is buried, and Lancelot's spirit appears to her and tells her that Kerrigan lives on the blood of little children, but tells her Kerrigan won't admit it because he is afraid of driving her away, even though he is completely evil. Seren rejects Lancelot's words, and that night, she and Kerrigan finally make love. She becomes pregnant immediately, and Morgen's forces begin their attack. Kerrigan castigates himself, for now that he has a child, it bears his blood and can be used by Morgen to replace him. He has just become dispensable. But at the same time, he cannot be sad knowing that Seren will be his child's mother, and if she is allowed to raise the child, raise it with love and affection, unlike his own childhood.

Desperate to save Seren, who he and Blaise have discovered is also a Merlin, descendant of the WarMerlin who holds the Loom of Caswellan, a magic loom that can create cloth unable to be pierced by any weapon of war, he takes her to the future with the help of two cursed gargoyles who distract Morgen's forces long enough to let them flee. He places Seren under the protection of the God Brea, and gives up Caliburn while gaining a powerless copy of the sword. He tells Brea to take Seren to Avalon, assuring her that he will follow her there. He goes with Blaise to retrieve the Loom and after sending the loom to Avalon, is captured by Morgen and her forces. She is enraged, but when she realizes that he no longer has Caliburn, she makes him the lowest slave in her castle, and sets the other warriors up in a contest to replace him.

Meanwhile, Seren is happy in Avalon, until she realizes that Kerrigan isn't going to follow her. Then, she tells the PenMerlin that she will be going back to Camelot to retrieve him, with or without her help. The Penmerlin acquiesces, sending Blaise, a female warrior named Elaine and the Cursed Gargoyle Garafyn back to the Camelot with Seren. They are able to sneak into the castle, but before they rescue Kerrigan, the contest to replace him starts, and he is killed as they stand there. Seren, unwilling to lose him, brings him back with dark and powerful magics... bringing him back human and mortal once more. There is a standoff between Morgen and the team from Avalon, which she seems destined to win, before Garafyn intervenes with the rest of the non-cursed Gargoyles, allowing them to flee before Morgen can kill them.

Kerrigan and Seren settle down to raise their children, and Morgen replaces her Kerrigan with Avador, a knight born of the Bloodline that holds another piece of the relics, the Stone of Taranis, and is the son of a demon lord besides.

This was a good book. I enjoy Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark-Hunter series, and this mixed up the theme of Camelot in a good way, much like Tin Man on the Sci-Fi Channel mixed up "The Wizard of Oz". I could readily believe that a man who was 600 years old would be bored of a life doing the same old, same old, over and over again and yet retain some measure of human decency beneath the skin of evil he wore. The heroine is also interesting, if a bit modern in her attitudes at times. I was rather surprised that the spirit of Lancelot lied to Seren, although the book doesn't make it clear that it really *is* Lancelot who is speaking to her, and not the God Brea instead.

I will definitely read more in this series. In fact, I have already started the second book, "Knight of Darkness" about a half-human, half-Adoni who serves the PenMerlin as her chief spy and assassin, and Merewyn, a human who long ago called up an Adoni to take her beauty from her so that she wouldn't be forced to marry, and now slave to that very same Adoni... who just happens to be Varian, the hero's, mother.