The black spear from his dream had found him not once, but three times. It had flown through the air, thrown from the forked towers of Spar-Longius, and killed his hope of revenge. He was dying, his task undone. The Dolorous Stroke had betrayed him. He could smell death belching from his belly; death that smelled like metal.

He had lost a lot of blood, he knew that. But he remembered only snatches. The face of a guard. A fall to soft earth that had hurt like hell. Red bubbling over his fingers as he staggered into the darkness. Another fall, a harder one; a long tumble with stone landings. He remembered how everything had gone quiet, and then the ringing in his ears. Now he heard the gentle lapping of water, but whether it was the waters of the daytime world or the next one he could not be sure. 

‘Columbine,’ he croaked. ‘Columbine it’s yours to do now. Come and take the sword.’

He panicked. Did he still have the sword? As he sat the sharp metal points still embedded in him shredded the remaining muscles in his belly. Blood welled out of his three wounds in gleaming beads that caught the light like the darkest wine. The sword was by his side, the scabbard still attached to his belt. He loosened it, returned the blade to its home, and clutched the whole thing to him, like a statue of warrior on top of his own tomb.

‘Columbine, I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. Stop apologising. This isn’t your fault.’

 He saw her, in a scarlet dress like the angel of death, stern and beautiful. Her wide lips the colour of blood. She knelt by his side, lifted his bloody shirt to see his wounds. Columbine’s long fingers pressed the flesh around the stabbing points; he flinched with sickness and pain.

‘Are you here?’ he said.

She nodded.

‘Really here, or is this a dream?’

‘I’m real, Balin. You’re going to be well again.’ She tugged at one of the trident points, releasing a fresh gout of blood.

‘No, no. I’m done for lass. It’s down to you now. Take the sword. Leave me.’

Her bloody hand touched his cheek. She stared straight down at him. He could see the appeal of her stupid wide mouth now, but it was too late for any of that. He had failed.

‘You’re going to be alright, Balin the Savage. You’re stronger than this.’ She hooked one hand around his shoulder; the other cradled the back of his neck like a child. She pulled him up, which sent wave after wave of shivering pain through him. The world went blank for a moment, and when he became aware of it again he was back down on the floor. Columbine was still kneeling by his side.

The sword had become a terrible burden. With all the power he could muster he held it up for her.

‘Finish it,’ he said. ‘Revenge them.’ 

But she didn’t take the sword. She bent down and put her lips to his. The kiss was urgent, despairing. It was a kiss of goodbye. As she kissed him he felt that he had only one more thing to do before he departed the world. He knew that she would do the rest. She was stronger than him, cleverer than him; she would not leave their revenge undone.

She took the Dolorous Stroke from his hands. ‘I’ll get help. I’ll come back for you.’

‘No need, lass,’ he laughed. ‘I’m done for. Columbine –’

‘What, Balin?’

‘What you said… in the forest.’

‘Don’t.’

‘I need… to say… it once. I would have said it forever, over and over again… but just this once will have to do. You’re bloody lovely too, lass, big mouth and all.’

She opened that big mouth as if to speak.

‘Don’t, don’t. Once each.... we’re even. Now go.’

‘I’ll get help –’

‘Go.’

He watched her disappear into the darkness; the darkness that soon washed over him like the tide.

* * *

When he woke there were snakes in his belly. He felt them writhing in his guts like a bad meal. Was that the afterlife’s punishment for his failure? An eternity of poisoned food?

‘He’s awake now,’ said a voice, a woman’s. He recognised it from somewhere.

‘He does look like his brother, doesn’t he?’

So Balan was here as well? Praise the Lord Jesus! He hoped his brother would not be too angry with him regarding the matter of his incomplete revenge.

‘Oh, but… oh.’

The snakes shattered; their purposeful movement within him ceased. Water sloshed over his skin.

‘What is it, sister?’

‘He wants to kill me. I felt it. Why would he want to do that?’

‘You’ll never know if you let him die, Nemone.’

If you let him die? Wasn’t he already dead? Was there another death after death? He hadn’t agreed to that when he was baptised. Eternal life, sure. Punishment appropriate to the amount of sin he took with him out of the first world, of course. But a death upon death? That was an uncalled for bit of trickery on the part of Lord Jesus.

‘I don’t want to know, sister. I just want himto die.’

‘Out of the way then,’ sighed the second voice. ‘I’ll find out for you.’

Balin opened his eyes, just in time to see the first girl, a chubby-faced blonde, pushed out of the way by a very beautiful young woman with long raven hair. She looked like she had been crying, and as if those tears had been accumulating for hundreds of years. The strangest thing was that these handmaidens of the afterlife looked just like the daughters of the Lady of the Lake: Neave the cold-hearted snob, and Nemone, who had loved, and then killed, Balin’s twin. This must surely be Hell, he thought. What had he ever done to deserve Hell?

The woman who looked like Lady Neave held her hand over him, and snakes of water flowed from the tips of her fingers. These snakes probed at the wounds in his belly, and soon he felt them writhing beneath his flesh. The longer the strange sensation went on, the less pain he felt.

The woman who looked like Lady Neave turned to the one that looked like her sister. ‘He thinks you killed his brother, Nemone. You didn’t, did you?’

‘Of course not,’ said the Nemone-woman. ‘Sir Garlon killed Balan; that’s why the Knight of the Ice is going to kill the Knight Invisible in the tournament. I could never have raised my hand to Balin. I loved him soooooooo much. I was always at his house and everything.’

Balin’s sight returned with his strength. As his eyes focussed he saw he was in a large, empty bathhouse, somewhere underground. There were no obvious torches; the light seemed to emanate from the water itself, giving off a soft white glow.

‘You can hear us, Sir Balin of the Isles.’

Balin didn’t think the Neave-woman was asking a question.

‘I am not a Neave-woman,’ she said. ‘And you are correct, it was not a question.’

It was as if she could hear his thoughts.

‘I can hear your thoughts when we are connected like this. You know of some of the powers of the Lake.’

He did.

‘I know you do. I am Lady Neave of the Lake, and this is my sister Lady Nemone. You are not dead, as you told your beloved Columbine you would be. We have saved your life.’ She closed her hand into a fist and the watersnakes once again turned to simple water. ‘In fact, you are now quite well. Sit up.’

Balin reached out to touch his belly. Instead of the trident-wounds he felt only his smooth, slightly hairy skin under the wet of the water. He sat up as she told him to. There was no pain at all in his stomach.

‘Thank you, my lady; my ladies,’ he said. ‘But you might do better to kill me now. I still believe that you ordered the death of my brother, Lady Nemone. And if I find out your Knight of the Ice did it, rest assure that once I’ve killed him, I’ll kill you.’

Nemone snorted in amusement.

‘What’s funny?’ snapped Balin.

‘The Knight of the Ice is funny,’ said Nemone. ‘The Knight of the Ice saw Sir Garlon kill Balan with her own eyes.’

‘Her own eyes?’ said Balin.

Nemone lost herself in a silly giggling fit.

‘My sister means that she is the Knight of the Ice,’ said Lady Neave. ‘That is why she has been hiding down here since we arrived. The Knight of the Ice is her idea of a joke. She intends to slay the Knight Invisible in King Pellam’s tournament for his murder of your brother. That was what she intended to do, rather.’

Lady Nemone’s giggles shuddered to a halt. She sniffed back up the thread of clear wet snot that was hanging from her nose. ‘What do you mean, intended, sister? I’m still going to kill Garlon.’

Lady Neave stood, rising to her full height. The weird glow of the water rippled on her white dress. ‘The brother has a greater claim to revenge than you, sister. I fear the boy Balan loved another –’

Nemone spat on the ground. ‘Nasty, ugly Lily of Vellion. I would have won him eventually, I’m much prettier than –’

‘Sister, be quiet,’ said Neave firmly. The middle daughter of the Lake turned back to Balin. ‘I have a proposal for you, Sir Balin of the Isles.’

Balin stood to face the woman, whose eyes spoke of centuries, her face of two decades. ‘Go on, madam.’

‘If you agree to try the guilt of the Knight Invisible in the tournament, then we will make you the Knight of the Ice. If you defeat him you will know the justice of what we have told you regarding the foul murder of your brother. If not, and you survive the encounter, I will heal your wounds, and you may try my sister’s life.’

‘Hey,’ said Nemone.

‘Nemone, we both know what you say is true, don’t we?’

‘I do, but you never bathe with me anymore. How would you know for certain?’

‘Sister, this is not the time for family squabbles. You tell the truth, I know it.’

‘I’m not lying,’ said the sillier of the two ancient young women.

‘Now, Sir Balin,’ said the Lady Neave, ‘do you agree to our terms?’

‘Aye, my lady.’ Even if the accusation against Sir Garlon was unjust, and the Knight Invisible managed to best him in the joust, then Balin knew that Columbine was still out there with the Dolorous Stroke, ready to complete the task and kill Lady Nemone.

‘Good,’ nodded the beautiful middle daughter of the Lake. ‘Prepare yourself, sir knight. This may be a little cold at first.’

And with that the two Ladies of the Lake raised their hands. Balin felt a chill as four blasts of frozen water shot towards his face.