"Listen well, Merlin
for the evil approaches and you must be armed against it.
"Two duties have you - one to bring the full power back into the Great Beacon ...
"Your second order is to provide such a leader for this land as to bring all its present quarrels to naught, and establish a time of peace in which we can come again, meeting with man and working together.
"There are what you must do, and Nimue will prevent you if she can. Be warned, Merlin, for you are our hope and the time grows short wherein this may be accomplished. Fail and the Dark shall encompass utterly your world and man shall be left to brutish life without the sun of knowledge!"
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Wikipedia in English
Norton's story is told entirely from Merlin's perspective, barring the initial scene that describes his conception. In effect, Merlin and Nimue are not completely human, instead having extraterrestrial blood and representing two conflicting interstellar cultures that long ago battled for men's souls on earth (another postapocalyptic story!). Merlin's apocryphal cave is in fact a secret computer installation.
It is an interesting idea, and in the end she portrays Nimue not so much as evil as just with a fundamentally different philosophy. But first she's evil. In fact, women in the story generally seem to be bad and bent on destroying men or otherwise causing their downfalls. Well, Merlin's mother wasn't evil, just shallow--as were all of the characters, really. No Lancelot in this story.
So if you like Arthurian legends, definitely give this one a try. And if you're an Andre Norton fan, this is definitely from her earlier period, which I generally like. But if I didn't already have an extensive Norton collection, I probably wouldn't keep this one. (