The Lady of the Lake

I am made of water. I am not the Lady of the Lake. There is no separation there, no division of type. I am the Lake. I am water. I can take human form but only because I choose to. Then, my presence is discernible for the creature who stands before me to know me on their own terms of reference.

I am fluid, I am fierce. I am life-giver, I can drown.

I am.

I am present in this Lake like no other water on this land. I am sentient and I stay. I do not evaporate, I do not mist unless bidden. I am liquid steel, cold and slippery. You may enter me but you may not return. I decide. Not many dare to come in, to come close.

There have been two.

The first.

Arthur.

Mythology has taken me and made me as one with another; it has melded me, my being with an element, with a metal formed into a weapon, also named.

Excalibur.

The Lady of the Lake. Arthur. Excalibur.

We are entwined. Together, we form a triumvirate, romanticised in legend, emerging as I did from the Lake, sword resplendent in my hand, to deliver it to its rightful ruler. This is all true. It is as it happened.

Arthur. I knew that Arthur was a just and noble lord, who would administer to the needs of his people. He would listen to them all and govern with fairness.

I did not see him again but I remember him clearly from that day.

Handsome. A young man, cloak rippling behind him, deep blue, its weave contrasting with the mountain backdrop. He stands, straddling the land, a giant of a man, his future history building him up, buttressing as he grips the ground resolutely, towering over the green and grey. I peer at him through my glassy eyes and know that Excalibur will be wielded by one of restraint and pensiveness.

This memory is the more keen today. There were two silhouettes in the water that day. A king and a mage. Young and old. Wise and wily. You could say I owe something of myself to the mage but that is a story for another time.

Today, in the deepest part of the valley where I dwell, he is here again, that mage. He stands still, waiting for me to emerge as he knows I will as I am his servant for a while yet. It will break though, this power he has over me, as a torrent does over a dammed river: in a rush, a thundering rampaging rush, that will knock down and carry the detritus of its ruining until its purpose is done. I will settle with him then.

"I have a mission for you," he states at water's edge, and I send out ripples to wet his feet. He steps back, his reflection fracturing in my created motion. What does he want with me?

I try to pull back but water is ever curious, ever reaching and soaking, pouring itself into hairlines and creases, keen to touch the intimacies and secrets of all it could and would sustain. I cannot resist the approach and raise myself from my gritty bed to face him.

I shimmer in the light and I see something in his expression: Awe? Fear? Desire? Envy? Domination? It is all of these things. He knows that I must do his bidding but he cannot control how I perform it. It is this, this not knowing, that he does not like. He will have to hope that our motives for the outcome of his mission are the same.

"A mission, you say?" Droplets fall with the sibilance of my speech, creating small coronas on my surface. He senses my animosity towards him. I want to envelope him and invade him, weep tears into his lungs and watch as they weigh him down into the deep. He knows I am unable. He is in two minds, I can see today. He is scared of me but he needs me. I am curious and lap water up to his feet but not over them. He does not move though he stiffens.

"I need you somewhere else," and he levels his eyes at mine, his hazel boring into my pale, pale blue, conveying what? Seriousness? Granite will?

"You are difficult to read today, Merlin," I venture. Will he tell me?

"It is important. It is essential," he offers but I can tell this is not all. I watch a frown make its way to his face as his eyes move away from mine and lower. When he raises them again, the frown leaves as his control swipes it away again.

I will help. It is dire. If the mage Merlin is emotionally affected, then there is more at stake than feuds between entities.

"Where?" Ocean? River? Pond?

"A loch."

Celtic north. A timeless land. Wild with monsters and myths of its own. I am excited. I do not show it in my human semblance but the waves build around me and white crests froth the grey. A fish leaps with sudden energy, its pale underbelly displayed proof of its flash of exuberance.

Merlin moves, removing a flask from the sleeve of his robe. He would gather me in that? I will not have it! I flick and a surge motors towards his outstretched hand and the flask is caught in my current. I calm again and it bobs away from his reach. A crackle heralds the release of a Recovery spell and I send the flask dashing to stones and relish the crack as it shatters.

"No!" I shout, spraying him with my vehemence.

He is angry and would subdue me but how can you contain something without a container?

"Warm me. I will travel there myself."

He pauses, assessing. Once I am airbourne, his doubt of my purpose will increase and his ability to control will lessen. He does not like this. Once I am vapour, he will not see me in his scrying stone. I will be another cloud.

"You will have to trust me, Merlin." I can see him pondering. I have never seen him unsettled until now. "We are not all treacherous. Some of us keep our word."

I take pleasure from the jibe, hoping it will cause a wince. He merely pauses, then nods. His hand emerges once more from his robe and I feel the heat of it. I throw my head back and give in to the warmth he creates and molecule by magical molecule, I dissipate into the wind.

*

It is cold and I am north. Deep, dark blue below me. Deepest, darkest Ness. It is here at the loch that I must be. I rain down and am absorbed into the ancient presence of water enclosed for millennia. It is a shock and a comfort. The monster is here with me, swells from its colossal movement slapping against me playfully. She wants to help, I sense it: this is not a job for her.

I must kill today. I am the sword, the instrument of Death. I am Earth's saviour, Gaia's champion. I will not fail. I cannot.

"There is one who must be vanquished." These were Merlin's words as I gathered in the air. His plan? He does not have one but he knows of the loch's age and depth in more than just its placement. Loch Ness is a place of magic, of myth, of monsters.

What better place to kill one than the home of one?

"He will be in a boat, afloat on the loch."

Merlin shows me the beast in his scrying stone. He would be legend, like Arthur but he is no king. He is one who preens, a man of empty words and a vindictive nature. He does not love the land and the land is disgusted by him. He holds the people though in his captive stare; like a cobra, he weaves and darts, his venom resistant to any good defences placed in his way. He throws out suffering like sweet treats and promotes cruelty as a means to prosper. His selfishness causes the world to itch and its wish is to shrug him off like an irritating louse.

I can help with that.

The boat is small. He believes he belongs here. He is wrong. Today, he is small, a dot. I swell my chest and the boat bobs more vigorously. He has seen threats to his life before but he has been protected before. Bullets will not harm me.

Rise and fall. Rise and fall. Higher and higher, the breakers rise. I sense the panic. It thrills me. The shouts grow louder and I see the whites of knuckles, the whites of eyes, the whites of waves. Frothing and churning, the loch moves. I move. I ache with the power of my conjuring, the rightness of my pursuit. The sky knits its brows and its shared fury descends, drumming its solidarity down on me, its tears hitting me like encouraging pats but landing on the face of our enemy like bee stings.

These cannot be swatted away or felled with an ill-conceived word.

He is flustered. People rally to cover him from the sky's squall but beware the subversive! Beware the unseen! Beware what comes from underneath! Because what may seem the darkest is where the light lies, waiting for its moment to quench what would quash it.

It is time for the death blow. I swirl and I whirl, a watery vortex created. Noises diminish with water's enclosing blanket and the power that has been so coveted and lauded is removed in an instant, as fibreglass is torn, bodies are thrown and despots are drowned.

I sink. I seek. I find him and face him. Glassy eyes face glassy eyes. It is done and the world can relax. It has been eased of its louse and the magic can return.

I am the Lady of the Lake.

Kings can be made and "kings" can be unmade.

I am fluid, I am fierce. I am life-giver, I can drown.