The Truth about the Lady of the Lake     
by Phyllis Ann Karr

     But what am I going to do with it?" Frostflower eyed the sword that the Monarch of Cockaigne had insisted on giving her because, in the Land of Cockaigne, "all women of worship went armed." Thorn and Frostflower had set out to travel light this time, leaving Dathru's cumbersome and no-longer-needed book at home with Dowl, the dog, in Windslope Retreat; and now the sorceress was re-encumbered. "Thorn," she asked, "you are sure that you don't want it?"
     
     "A big, clumsy cowkiller like that?" The swordsman shook her head, "Slicer's more than good enough for me. Of course, all those gems in the hilt and sheath are nice___No, let's find someplace where it'll bring a high price. Shouldn't be too hard, now that you can control Dathru's Circle." The sorceress held the talisman and they reviewed worlds until they found another where warriors dressed up in metal. Anyway, Thorn assumed that the figure lying on a tranquil lakeshore was a warrior taking a nap, with a friend sitting beside to keep watch on their boat. The friend was a whitebeard in a long black robe that looked pretty much like Frost's except for the big silver symbols all over it. Frostflower smiled. "Another warrior and sorcerer team." The two women went through.
     
     No sooner had they stepped out onto the lakeshore than the whitebeard shouted, "Strange powers, avaunt!" and flung up his right arm, pointing his staff at them. A crack of light burst out of it and knocked Frostflower into the middle of the lake. The metal-covered warrior snored on.
     
     "Hey!" said Thorn.
     
     Whitebeard smirked. "I allow no unknown sorcery near my little king. You, it seems, are no sorceress, else would you have been borne into yon water as well."
     
     Thorn aimed a blow at the bogbait, but it bounced off as if the air had hardened around him. So she clanged the flat of Slicer's blade down hard on the sleeping warrior's metal headpiece.
     
     The warrior sat up, still ringing, and opened the mask beneath the cap of the headpiece, revealing a brown-bearded male face. "Zounds?" he cried, fumbling for his sword.
     
     Thorn was sorry she'd wasted time on him. She knew her friend could stay under quite a while by slowing time for her body-if that power worked in this world-but if she tried to hang onto that heavy Cockaigne sword and sheath, too ...
     
     "Keep your eye on your demon-addled sorcerer," she told the metalpants. "I'm borrowing your boat." She turned toward it.
     
     "Accursed miscreant, turn again!" The words were scarcely audible over the clanking of metal, but the flat of a blade against the side of Thorn's leg was plain enough.
     
     She whirled back. Metalpants had heaved himself to his feet and was waving his sword at her.
     
     She really didn't have the time. She brought Slicer across with a double-arm smack that she hoped would knock the other warrior's weapon out of his hand. There was a ringing crack as her blade broke his in half. Badly tempered iron.
     
     "Behold!" cried Whitebeard. For half a heartbeat, Thorn thought he was beholding the broken sword. His finger, however, was pointing beyond them to the lake. Turning again, Thorn stared. Frostflower's arm was holding the Cockaigne sword in its gem-crusted sheath above the surface of the water, the jewels glistening in the sunshine. "A marvel!" cried Metalpants. "A token," declared Whitebeard. "A signal," said Thorn, and strode toward the boat. She heard Whitebeard say, "Nay, sire, let not that one take it first," and then, with clanks and jangles, Metalpants ran past, surprisingly fast on his feet, strong-arming Thorn out of the way and jumping into the boat. "Hey!" she shouted, splashing after him. But the boat was already moving, without oars. It slipped out of her reach and skimmed straight for the arm holding the sword. Thorn glanced back and saw Whitebeard smirking as he wiggled his hands, obviously using sorcery to control the boat. Maybe she'd have to put him out of action first. Dripping water from the knee down, she charged back up the shore and- "Behold!" he repeated triumphantly as she was reaching out to knock him down. She turned to behold. Metalpants was lifting sword and sheath from Frostflower's hand, holding his prize aloft as reverently as if the burden was a baby. Sounds of almost priestly chanting filled the air from nowhere-more sorcery, of course-as the boat swung around and came back to shore. Frost poked her head above the surface and watched, grinning mischievously, as Metalpants clanked back up the beach to Whitebeard and the pair of them began marveling at the Cockaigne treasure. "An arm clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful," the old man was murmuring persuasively, ignoring the blackness of Frostflower's sleeve with as much determination as he ignored her face, now that it had appeared. Thorn shrugged and waded out to her friend, finding the water so shallow that Frost was quietly kneeling on the bottom. "With the sorceries they seem to have here," she remarked, "I'm surprised the sword can hold their interest as it's doing."
     
     "Yes, well, jewels that big always dazzle people. Besides, they're scramblebrains."
     
     "I'm afraid we won't be able to get a very high price for it now," the sorceress apologized.
     
     "That isn't worrying me. I just want to get out of here before they go crazy again."
     
     Frostflower pulled out Dathru's Circle and the friends stepped through into a saner world without even wading ashore.



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About Phyllis Ann Karr and "The Truth About the Lady of the Lake"
     
     Phyllis Ann Karr is another writer known to me and my readers from the early days of Sword and Sorceress, where she starred with the paired characters of a sorceress (Frost-flower), and a swordsman (Thorn), who, like Misty Lackey's characters Tarma and Kethry, meet various adventures in various universes. Here they stray into a world that seems to be that of King Arthur. Of course, I'm deluged with Arthurian stories; I seldom print them, though recently I succumbed to a marvelous story about King Arthur's horse, of all things! But every story I print on a hackneyed theme is definitely different; this definitely is not the usual Arthur story. Why would I have bothered with "just another" Arthurian story?
     
     But I liked this one-and if I get another one this good, I'll probably print it. That's a safe enough offer; stories like this don't come along very often; in fact, not nearly often enough. Although every time I make an exception to what 1 say I want, I get a flood of incompetent stories on the same theme; every week I get ninety dragon stories, and only one in a thousand is any darn good.