Nimue completes Merlin's transport spell using a blood sacrifice, opening a magical archway to Bryneich. Constantine announces he is leaving the quest, convinced Lancelot must be king and intending to ride to Amesbury to enlist Guinevere to convince him. Bedivere reluctantly accepts the parting, and the rest pass through the arch into the cold north, riding through a Britain visibly disintegrating amid rumors, refugees, and warring Arthur cults.

One night the Wild Hunt overruns their camp: a chaotic procession of fairy hounds, beasts, and creatures led by Morgan le Fay in half-deer form, triumphantly returning to Britain. Morgan mocks God's absence, defends her vision of an old, wilder Britain, and admits she has hidden Arthur, hinting he may not return. The Hunt's law demands a soul; Palomides volunteers, revealing his true identity as Uthman, a prince of Baghdad, not from the fictional Sarras. He rides off on the Questing Beast Glatisant. A trailing rider, a nun on a white tiger, is revealed by Dinadan to be Queen Guinevere herself.

The party reaches the northern coast, and Collum recognizes his childhood home, Dubh Hall on Mull, impossibly relocated. Lord Alasdair welcomes them, behaving uncharacteristically gracious. Nimue privately encourages Collum, kissing him and telling him she recognizes the abuse he suffered because Merlin did the same to her. Over dinner, Alasdair asks Collum's forgiveness; Collum refuses and stabs Alasdair's hand, declaring this isn't really him.

Alasdair transforms into a horned, multi-faced fiend with a belly-mouth that devours Scipio's sword. The hall becomes a sealed prison. The group flees to the roof, where a gleaming metal ladder leads up into the clouds, presumably toward the Lance. Bedivere stays to hold the fiend off; Scipio reappears and insists on taking Bedivere's place, declaring himself a Roman Prefect ready to die and convinced Collum is Arthur's heir. Scipio topples the ladder after Bedivere ascends, sacrificing himself shouting Roman war cries as Collum, Nimue, Bedivere, Dinadan, and Dagonet escape onto the strange steel road in the sky.