The Witch
The witch…she is bewitching. That’s the kind of description you don’t want in a novel where enchantment and spells loom large and play such a major role. The preference would lean far more toward something along these lines which seek to match metaphorical form with narrative content:
“She seemed to gather magic round her, like the moonlight growing on the folds of velvet and in the streaming silk of her hair.”
Merlin
Merlin the magician—or sorcerer—is present in the book, but the most memorable metaphor used to describe him is not exactly one typically associated with the bearded wonder. He is still the same old Merlin, true, but put the accent on the old:
“The bed with a man in it, still as death. And he looked like death: a very old man, gaunt as a skeleton, with grey hair straggling on the pillow, and a matted grey beard. She did not recognize him. He opened his eyes, and it was Merlin. The dark, terrifying eyes, set in that grey skull, looked straight across the miles, across the seas, into hers where she knelt by the secret pool.”
Twin Talk
In almost every version of the King Arthur legend, Mordred emerges as the most entertaining character. There just seems to be something inherently comical about the kid that writers seem to easily mine for great dialogue or funny unspoken insight. Consider, for instance, Mordred’s conclusion about having a conversation with siblings sharing the same birthday:
“Conversing with the twins, thought Mordred, drying his feet, was like talking with a boy and his reflection.”
Almost the Final Image
A very simple metaphor is almost the closing line of the story. What follows, actually, comes under the title Epilogue, so narratively speaking, the story ends on this image. What makes it such an effective metaphor is, paradoxically, its very simplicity in its figurative punctuation of the end:
“The clouds broke, and like a waterfall the rain came down.”
Free Will in a Magical Kingdom
The question of free will is hard enough to debate in a world where a creator God is invisible if He even exists at all. But what of free will in a land where magic is routinely demonstrated? Can it possibly be said to exist? Mordred ponders the philosophical dimension of this question:
"This is absurd! The stars! You talk as if men are sheep, and worse than sheep, to be driven by blind fate to do the will of some ill-wishing god! What of my will?”
