"What do you mean, there's no boats?" William glared around the lake. Seeley Lake was fairly typical for bodies of water in Montana. Clear, cold water lapped gently against a shore that was mostly dirt. Pine trees grew all around it, reflecting on the crystalline water. Sunset was half an hour away, painting the sky in vivid pinks, reds, and purples. It was the kind of view most of the world could only see in postcards.

"I mean there's no boats." A frustrated Mike dropped his duffel bag, gesturing at the small pier leading into the water. The boat launch was also typical of Montana lakes. It was basically just a cement driveway that angled into the water. Beside the driveway was a small wooden pier, about twenty five feet in length. The boat launch was made for the kind of boats you could haul around with a pickup. It wasn't a place for yachts or bigger boats, and it wasn't a place where boats were left overnight. "Why would there be?"

"Because we need a fucking boat," the Green Knight snapped. "We can't swim to fucking Avalon."

"I don't know what to tell you, man." the Red Knight gestured around. "There ain't no boats, here."

William cursed, stomping around. Patrick scratched the back of his afro and asked, "You cats wouldn't happen to know anyone with a boat, would you? A friend, maybe?"

"Our friends are as broke as we are." I shook my head. "We had some innertubes for floating the river, but..."

"There were in the house," Mike's fist clenched. "And the house burned down."

William grunted. "You think you could buy us a boat?"

"Nah, man." Mike grimaced. "Between the road trip, the hotel, and all the food, I'm pretty much broke. I had to dip into savings to get what supplies we got. Even before that, there's no way I'd have had enough to buy a whole-ass boat. Those things are expensive."

William cursed some more.

"Maybe we could get some life vests or something?" Mike suggested. "Swim floaties?"

William stared at him. "You can't be serious."

Mike shrugged. "I mean, it can't be that far to swim. We're just supposed to go out on the lake so Lady can open up a portal, right?"

"That's not the problem," the Green Knight told him. "Ny-" He caught himself. "The Lady has to open the way. It's a ritual. She can't do that while she's swimming."

The Lady in question let out an annoyed breath, rubbing her forehead. She'd traded her two day old sweatclothes for some of Jasper's old threads. She was now the Lady in Oversized Shirt and Tweed Pants. She looked like shit, slumping with bags under her eyes. She hadn't dared sleep since Vegas, for fear she'd make a sound without knowing.

I frowned. "A ritual? So she's going to have to talk, isn't she?"

William nodded. "Another reason we need a damned boat. We can't be floundering around in the water if the Servant shows up."

"Damn." Mike rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess we'll have to go steal one. I'm not sure Kevin's Taurus could haul the thing. We might have to go back to the apartment, first. Get my truck."

"You really want to steal a boat?" I asked, surprised. Mike was the most Lawful Good person I'd met in real life.

"We'd give it back," Mike huffed. "It's for a good cause. We're saving the world and stuff, right?"

William looked between us, then asked Lady, "Are you sure these are the best we could find?"

Nynyane raised her hands and shrugged, giving the man a helpless look.

"Bollocks."

While the rest of us were talking, Patrick wandered out onto the pier. Blue platemail appeared, encasing his body. He raised his arms.

I caught the motion and turned to look. "What's he doing?"

The Blue Knight raised his hands higher. The waters rose. A two foot thick section separated itself from the lake. Patrick kept his shield hand raised. His other hand whipped the rapier out of its sheath and struck. The needle thin blade pierced the floating water, freezing it in a flash. The Blue Knight lowered is hand, and a twenty foot long rectangle of ice gently lowered itself back into the water.

The Green Knight grunted. "That'll work."

I gave him a look. "You didn't know Patrick could do that?"

William shrugged. "It's never come up before. We've always had a boat."

Mike turned to the Lady. "Are you sure these were the best we could find?"

The Lady in Tweed sighed.

I was nervous clambering on to the big block of ice. I didn't need to be. It was surprisingly stable and didn't move much under our weight. Once we were aboard, Mike asked, "So... could you make us some oars or something?"

"No need," said the Blue Knight. He gestured, and the block of ice moved out onto the lake on it's own.

We cruised for a few minutes. If moving the ice block strained Patrick, he didn't show it. Once the shore receded enough I could barely see the pier, Nynyane clapped her hands to get our attention. She pointed at her mouth, eyes grim.

"Alright, mates." The Green Knight drew his sword. "Armor up and get ready. Lady's starting the ritual."

With a thought, the gleaming armor of the White Knight snapped into being around me. My helm reduced my vision to a series of thin slits, but a quick illusion let me see as if it wasn't there. While I was at it, I cast a second illusion. Another block of ice appeared with us on it, about thirty feet away. I made the real us invisible.

The Lady on the other ice raft kneeled. She closed her eyes, centering herself. She began to chant. Her voice was quiet at first. Four tense Knights stood around her, swords in hand. The Red Knight's sword blazed with fire. Mine blazed with light. We looked... We looked kind of badass.

Nynyane's chant grew in both volume and intensity. I half expected sibilant whispers and strange echos to accompany it, but alas, the ritual was as devoid of special effects as everything else had been. Magic has no sense of drama.

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Or does it? Tendrils of mist drifted out of the lake. They grew slowly, drifting in a circle around the ice raft. Nynyane chanted louder. She started to sway. Her hands danced, and the mists danced with them.

She'd been at it for about five minutes when the keening started. We all heard it, but Mike spoke first. "Oh, shit." His sword blazed brighter as he readied his flames.

"The Servant's coming," William stated the obvious. "Get ready."

Icy dread rippled down my back and turned my legs to lead. I kept my eyes on my illusion, hoping it was enough to fool the ancient horror. With a start I realized it wouldn't The mists were centering around the real us. I hastily cast a new illusion, making the mists look like they were centered on the decoy. I made it sound like Nynyane's voice was coming from the decoy, too.

"Uh, not to be a dick or anything," Mike sounded nervous. "But is there any way we could hurry this along?"

The Lady in Tweed ignored him, continuing the ritual.

The keening closed in, going from annoying to deafening in less than a minute. The illusions of the Knights all fell to their knees, clutching at their heads. Nynyane was more disciplined, maintaining the ritual even as blood flowed from her ears and eyes. My eardrums felt like they were going to explode. My head felt like hot needles were stabbing through it. I desperately wanted the noise to stop. I reached for it, begging for silence.

Silence responded. The keening ceased.

"Holy shit," I muttered, climbing to my feet. "I'm a mute button."

Ten silent seconds later, a mass of maws and tentacles crashed into the lake. It struck our decoy with terrifying speed and force. Water surged in all directions, but the waves stopped just before they reached out raft.

"Drop the illusion!" Patrick shouted. I could barely hear him with my bleeding ears. "I need to see!"

I let our invisibility drop, focusing on keeping the Servant muted. At this range, it could kill us with a single pulse of noise. Patrick dived for the end of the raft, dipping his rapier into the lake. Ice spread in a flash, spreading away from us to trap the monstrosity in the water.

The servant half erupted from the lake just before the ice encased it. I got my first real look at the thing, and immediately shut my eyes. An impression of teeth and tentacles hammered at my sanity in a riot of colors. The colors shifted, emitting light and darkness at random. I'd only seen for a second, and the image still dropped me to my knees and left me gibbering.

My solution was simple. I dropped an illusion on it. Instead of a coiling mass of nightmares, the Servant now looked like a giant purple cartoon octopus. It had a frowny face, and far more tentacles than an octopus should, but I could watch it without throwing up, and that was all I needed.

Patrick's rapier finished it's work, freezing everything around the Servant into a solid block of ice. It opened it's cartoon mouth in what looked like a scream, but my magic mute button was still doing it's job.

The octopus frowned harder, flexing it's tentacles. The ice started to crack.

"It's not going to hold!" The Green Knight shouted the obvious again.

"Hurry the fuck up!" Mike yelled at Nynyane. She was on her feet, dancing and chanting at the top of her lungs. The mists were swirling faster, now.

Mike's flaming sword flared even brighter, and he sent a cone of fire fifty feet around blasting at the octopus. I couldn't hear it scream, but I desperately hoped it hurt enough to make the thing back off. There was a thunderous crash, and shattered ice pelted us. A chunk as big as my torso flew past my head.

Mike doubled down on his fire, making the cone wider and brighter and hotter. The Servant surged forward. Patrick tried to slow it down by controlling and refreezing the water. It wasn't enough. A tentacle wrapped around Mike. His flame went out as his armor creaked. The Red Knight screamed as the Servant crushed him, trying to wring him out like a dish towel.

The Blue Knight's rapier pierced the tentacle, but the tentacle refused to freeze. I was there half a second later. Solais burst into light as I brought it down. The severed stump of the tentacle snapped backwards. Mike dropped. There was frost and frozen blood on his armor where the tentacle was still wrapped around him.

William slapped a hand down on the Red Knight, healing his broken body. Mike didn't bother getting up. He just sent another wave of fire at the Servant. The creature reared backwards. More tentacles lashed out. One barely missed me as it slammed down on our ice raft. The ice shattered, dropping me into the water.

The water should have sent me into shock. Mountain lakes aren't warm to begin with, and all the ice magic the Blue Knight had thrown around made it even colder. Fortunately, the armor made me resistant to cold as well as heat. Unfortunately, it weighed eighty pounds and was not conducive to swimming.

I sputtered in shock, taking in a lungful of water. I coughed, spasming as I frantically swam for the surface. Or tried to. The armor might give me the strength of seven men, but it didn't make me any more buoyant. My desperate flailing did nothing to stop me from sinking, and my lungs were full of water. It hurt. It hurt a lot. It was not how I wanted to die.

A hand clamped on my wrist. I shot upwards, yanked by a force that would have torn a normal person's arm from it's socket. Even with my strength and the armor's protection, it nearly dislocated my shoulder. I flew up out of the lake, landing with a thunk that knocked some of the water out my lungs.

I was on a hastily reformed ice raft. It was uneven and misshapen, with chunks sticking up out of it. The Green Knight slammed a hand onto my damaged shoulder. My coughing fit cut off. The water was gone and I felt fine again. I rolled to my feet, promising I would never complain about bullshit magic again.

"Fuck you you fucking fuck!" Mike screamed. Still spraying fire, he pulled an object out of his duffel bag. White, metal, about two feet around. A propane tank.

Mike is one crazy son of a bitch.

Gripping the tank with his shield hand, he spun in a circle, launching it with all of his might. The propane tank soared through the air. The Servant snatched it before it reached the thing's main body.

"Yeah, take it you dumb fuck!" Mike dropped his sword and pulled out a pistol. Fire still streamed from the blade, coating the giant cartoon octopus and coiling around the tank. Mike pulled the trigger three times in professional, semi-rapid succession. The third shot hit the tank. The explosion nearly knocked me off my feet.

"Where the fuck is Patrick!?" I could barely hear William shout over the ringing in my ears. "The portal's open. We've gotta go!"

The Servant was still thrashing around. What the fuck would it take to kill the thing? At least it was distracted. The cartoon frowny face had tears in it's eyes, and it wasn't coming after us at the moment. I guess the explosion had really hurt it.

Suddenly aware I wasn't holding a weapon, I reached for Solias. An empty scabbard was all I found. "Fuck!" My shield was still strapped to my arm, but I'd dropped the Sword of Light while I was drowning. "I lost my sword!"

Patrick exploded out of the water for a second time. He landed next to me, Solias in hand. "Be careful with that shit," he chided, passing it over. "These things can't be replaced."

I thought about protesting. After all, I'd been drowning when I dropped it. But Patrick had just saved my life, so I settled for a grumpy "Thank you."

"Don't sweat it," said the Blue Knight. "I got you."

"Patrick!" the Green Knight pointed his sword at the mist in front of our raft. It swirled like a cyclone, forming a corridor a little wider than our makeshift ice boat. "The way's open! Get us moving!"

Patrick raised a hand. Our raft lurched, shooting forward. I nearly fell, caught myself, then fell anyway as the chunk of ice picked up speed. Lady's chanting faltered as she slipped, but William was there to keep her from going down. The mists shuddered, but solidified again as her voice steadied. I looked behind us. The Servant was rushing after us. The mist closed behind us before it could reach. The corridor broke apart, receding into the water.

Before us stood an island. At least, I assumed it was an island. It stretched in front of us for farther than I could see, bigger than the lake we'd traversed to reach it. Directly in front of us was a beach full of white sand. Behind the beach, apple trees swayed in the breeze, framed in the light of the setting sun. It was pretty enough, I guess, but it hardly seemed like a magical place of legends.

Lady finally stopped chanting. She slumped over, falling the rest of the way into the Green Knight's arms. Patrick propelled our lopsided raft up to the beach, and we disembarked.

"Alright," said William. He set Nynyane down on the beach. "We made it. We'll let the Lady rest for a bit."

"Fuckin' A," said Mike. He sheathed his sword and flopped down. "Thank God the hard part's over."

"The hard part?" Patrick shook his head. "You got it wrong, brother."

"Getting here was the easy part." William's voice was grave. "The hard part's just beginning."