1979 Arthurian fantasy, last of its series. Arthur is King, but Merlin
is still needed to advise him.
At least up to a point. To me this felt like a book of two
distinct halves: first, Merlin is going about on Arthur's business,
and meeting people who will turn out to be important to the Legend.
But later he feels his job is done, he passes on his power, and he's
content just to live out his life without the constant pressure of the
God pushing him to do things.
In both parts there's a strong feeling of the game that some authors
play: here is the actual event, and one can see how in the retelling
it might have been distorted to become the legend. (Stewart appends a
very condensed version of some of the specific legends that she sees
as descending from these events.)
Some of it can get contorted, as Stewart works in Nimuë with a
significant change from the way she's usually presented—one that's
more consistent with the character of Merlin both here and in the
legends, but it's a fair old wrench to make it fit together.
And some of it is just dropped; after all the foreshadowing of
Mordred's existence being the Doom of Arthur, when last seen here he's
still a boy training for knighthood. Morgause and Morgan, the major
magical enemies, are packed off to a nunnery (the same one, which
seems unlikely to end well). The battle of Camlann may be known to
Merlin, but is never mentioned. (Stewart would eventually write The
Wicked Day dealing with the life of Mordred, but here all this is a
reminder that the story being told is the story of Merlin, not of
Arthur.)
It's not fun exactly; it's more elegiac, as Merlin sees the fatal
cracks in spite of his best efforts and all he can hope to do is shore
things up for a little longer. But a golden age that will come to an
end is still better than no golden age at all, and the writing is
still beautiful.