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“Looks like nobody’s home, Cal.” The sword grumbled at its new nickname while Sonic shielded his eyes and squinted across the placid lake. “You sure the pavilion was this way?”
“The pavilion connected the shore to the mere, the last I knew of it, but yes.”
“Connected the shore to the what?”
“The mere, knave, the mere!”
Sonic’s expression was deadpan. “You mean the lake.”
“Yes! Though it may not appear that way, the pavilion is protected by a glamour that keeps thieves and ne'er-do-wells from stumbling upon it by mistake.”
“Why didn’t you just say so?”
“Because we must have passed it dozens of times, and yet you still refused to listen to me. This is the very mere wherein dwells the Lady Nimue. I insist.”
“You insist, huh?” Sonic looked once more across the open expanse. The mere seemed somewhat bereft, almost gloomy nestled in this dense, dark vegetation. Cattails sprouted where there once bloomed flowers, and they saw a fish flip into the air, catching a dragonfly in its open mouth. “Okay, detective, riddle me this: she must still think we’re gonna rob her. Do you know if there used to be a boat around here?”
“If there was, it’s likely vanished by now.” Caliburn made a noise, as if to spit at bad fortune.
“Well, there’s got to be another way to get across. I can’t put you in my mouth and doggie paddle all the way there. Plus, magic or no magic, it’s awfully silent. Listen.” He needlessly held the sword to hear the wind shivering in the pines.
As much as Caliburn shuddered at the thought of the boy’s unusually sharp teeth denting his newly buffed metal, he couldn’t deny the peculiarity of the situation. “Indeed, this quiet is a bit strange. The Lady should have appeared by now. I wonder what must be causing her such tarry.”
“Maybe she can’t hear us.” Before the sword could reply, Sonic inhaled and shrieked out a high-pitched whistle between his forefingers. The shriek scattered a host of ravens to the sky, their black bodies flurrying the clouds and setting off other disturbed noises into the woods.
“Fool!” Caliburn yelled, shaking in his gauntlet. “You do not whistle for the Lady like you’re beckoning a hound from the hunt! Even if she were inclined to come out, now she’d shut herself away from the embarrassment!”
“Sorry … just an idea.”
“I swear, you’ll be the death of us,” Caliburn sighed. “So?”
“What?”
“What do you mean, what? Shall you dally forever, or are you going to get to it? Strap me onto your back and let us proceed.”
“Yeah … ” Sonic said, “about that.”
Caliburn bristled. “You can’t swim? What kind of knight cannot swim?”
“I don’t know, the kind that sinks in a bathtub?”
“For as much as you boast? Consider me astonished.” As Sonic skipped a rock across the surface to measure its distance: “It’s simple water, not a questing beast.”
“Heck, can’t we look for one of those? Sounds much more fun than just standing around here flapping our gums!”
Flapping our gums? Sounded like the two of them would be greatly behooved from a translator. “Knave, have you ever seen a questing beast?”
Sonic piqued a brow. “Have you?”
There was a pointed silence.
“That doesn’t matter. When presented with a challenge, does a knight turn and duck like a gosling? No! Use your head and think!” He blinked as he was lifted up to meet a sly grin. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You know,” Sonic said, “when you’re right, you’re right.”
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Fifteen minutes later, Caliburn was complaining once more: this time at the indignity of being stuck firmly in the eddy with a thick mossy vine wrapped around his hilt.
“That should do it,” Sonic said, giving the vine one last tug. “Niiiice and snug.”
“—wait until the Lady hears of this indiscretion, she’ll have you hanged! A sword of the stone should not be subject to menial tasks like this, it’s insulting! I am not some blunt instrument that you can bandy about whenever the whim strikes you! Where are you going, you churl?”
Sonic returned carrying brush and kindle, which he dumped on the ground and began sorting with his foot.
“Chill out, Cal, it’s like you said: we gotta use our noodles.” Noodles? Has this boy gone utterly mad? “If she won’t come to us, we’ll go to her. Now,” he scratched behind one ear, “how to make a boat with this stuff.”
Caliburn sighed.
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“Ha! And you said I’d never make it. No problem!”
He had to hand it to the hedgehog: through sheer will (and countless discards that broke the moment he stepped inside them) Sonic had managed to cobble together a crude but workable vessel of thatch, and an oar from an alder branch, and was now drifting farther out to investigate Nimue’s absence while keeping the vine tied to Caliburn as a guide. If I give two tugs, I’ve found her. One, I keep going. Even though they’d sparred over the quite salient fact that Caliburn had no arms with which to haul the vessel back ashore, he couldn’t help but feel uneasy at these prospects.
“Go you lightly, young squire … we know not what calls these treacherous waters home.”
“Treacherous?” Sonic’s raft creaked as he pulled on his crude oar. “Does she keep piranhas for pets?”
“What on earth is a ‘piranha’?”
“Oh, you don’t wanna know,” the blue hedgehog hooked his fingers inside his mouth and stretched it wide. Even from this dwindling distance, he could see those unsettlingly white canine teeth. “They’ve got pretty nasty appetites. Guessin’ they could swallow me whole and use you for a toothpick, Cal!”
His flippant tone made Caliburn sniff. Was the boy always this provocative? “Kind-hearted though she may be, I doubt the Lady would keep company with such aberrant creatures. Though I wouldn’t tempt fate, myself.”
Sonic nodded, hauling his vessel through another sluggish wave. “Gotta hand it to her, though, this is pretty good exercise.” It was between forward strokes he decided to sing: “What do you do with a drunk-en sail-or? What do you do with a rusty swo-ord … ”
Caliburn harrumphed from his place, as gentle foam lapped at the rocks before him. “God’s teeth, knave, it’s bad enough you’ve stuck me in the ground like some common tent pole! Could you not sing while you’re at it?”
“This better?” Sonic whistled.
“No!”
Luckily, the conversation dwindled the more distance he put between them. Perhaps the boy had had a point after all: the mere seemed to stretch for much longer than he’d remembered …
“Could it be … ” Caliburn asked, and wagged violently as he yelled: “Knave! Turn back immediately!”
“What?” came the distant cry. “Why?”
“I just realized: this is the wrong mere!”
“Seriously?” Sonic’s raft took a sharp dip, and he slapped the water scrambling upright. “You’ve gotta be kidding me!”
“Stay calm! Whatever you do, don’t pan—”
Just then the vine snapped. Caliburn recoiled as one end slapped him in his hilt.
“Help!” Sonic thrashed about, flailing wildly in the middle of the mere. “Caliburn!”
“Knave?” he cried, his desperation increasing as the vessel capsized, bringing the hedgehog under it. “Knave!”
He yelled over and again, but aside from a light smattering of bubbles bursting on the surface, he received no response … none at all.
The wind shuddered him before he heard a voice.
“Oh, my.”
She was holding the soggy remains of the vessel’s thatch, which she dropped when she saw him.
“Caliburn! … Merlina sent word that you were coming, but it didn’t reach me until an hour ago. I was hoping to have everything ready for your arrival.”
One light, floating step and the Lady sprang fully emerged from the mere, as if she’d ascended the top of a staircase. She glided across the water’s surface, her soft gait less negligible upon it than bees’ wings.
Caliburn lifted worried blue eyes toward her as she cradled him in her arms, tenderly picking the moss from his hilt. “Forgive me, Lady, but my squire—”
A gentle smile curved her lips. “See for yourself.”
He squeezed his eyes shut as he felt her sink into the chilly water, only to open them renewed. Instead of murky depths and swaying seaweed filling him, he breathed in air of a dewy fragrance, like lavender. There stood an exquisite wooden pavilion strung through with rose trellises, a long bridge spanning toward a grassy meadow beyond.
And who should be peering out over it, admiration etched into his face, but that brash fool.
Sonic smiled as Nimue descended, pumping his gauntleted hand in a vigorous wave. “Hey, Cal! Turns out she’s got a new enchantment on this place. Check it out.” He pursed his lips and blew out a stream of small iridescent bubbles, which fluttered into the liquid air like butterflies. He then winked and offered a solid thumbs-up to Nimue, who giggled silently from behind her free hand. “Not bad at all, Lady.”
“Sonic!” cried Caliburn, jumping from her arms. “Show some respect. She saved your life when it was well within her bounds not to.”
At least he could emulate politesse. Sonic bowed deeply to the Lady, his arms swept out, and she likewise reciprocated with a proper curtsy. Straightening, he touched his nose and grinned. “Aww, Cal. Were you worried?”
“Worried?” Caliburn spluttered. “Of what? That you’d have drowned yourself and left me to sit in that sand for another hundred years until another incompetent fool came along and used me as a back-scratcher? Why should that have worried me at all?”
“Please,” said Nimue kindly. She raised a hand, and a string of delicate lanterns lit their path towards the pavilion. A silver minnow darted high above them, its path streaming behind it in pale ribbons. “It’s getting late, and we’ve much to discuss.”
“Yes.” Caliburn resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he heard the boy’s large feet thumping the wooden planks beside him. “Clearly.”
Sonic chuckled.