Free Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword of Avalon by Diana L. Paxson

Avalon could fly. “You can hold on to her if you’re afraid she’ll fall in.”
    “I would like to see the marshes,” Tiri said clearly. “Do you paddle, or push your boats with a pole?”
    Woodpecker looked at her with more respect. At least she knew something about boats. “Not tall enough to use pole well,” he admitted, “but I paddle fast. I win boys’ race at Midsummer last year.” Beaver, whom he had beaten in that race, glowered.
    “We don’t need to go fast, Woodpecker, just safe,” said Alder repressively. “Come on!”
    The folk of the Lake Village were too accustomed to the gaggle of chattering children to notice the golden head among them as they scrambled down the ladders and piled into the long low boats that the villagers carved from the trunks of trees. Woodpecker helped Tiri to get into the boat behind him with Grebe and Alder, while Beaver and the twins took the other craft.
    “There was wooden trackways through marshes,” said Alder as they eased away from the pilings. “But they are underwater for long time now. Boats better. You go anywhere!”
    Tiri gripped the sides as they slipped past the new green reeds and sedges that were pushing up through the yellow tangle where last year’s crop had been cut for thatching, but settled back when a long stroke of the paddle sent the craft into the open water beyond. They called it a lake, but it was nowhere very deep, a sheet of water covering the low-lying ground to the west of the Isle of Birds and the Tor. The water glimmered with a nacreous sheen beneath the pale sky.
    “Where are you taking us?” Tiri asked.
    “If lucky, see animals,” he replied. “The birds come north—” He pointed to a flock of mixed waterfowl bobbing on the water. Beyond them a flicker of white emerged from behind some reeds. “Look, a swan!”
    More careful strokes brought them around the northern edge of the Isle of Birds and into what gradually resolved into a sluggish stream that fed into the lake from the rising ground to the north where fen carr and raised bog supported a tangle of trees.
    “Will we see bears?”
    “Do you want to?” He looked at her in surprise. She might seem weak and pale, but he was beginning to suspect that she had more spirit than any of them. He usually had to work pretty hard to persuade the others when he had a really interesting plan.
    “We have a legend that there was once a bear, or maybe a bear spirit, that lived in a cave on Avalon.”
    “I never hear of bear in the marshes,” observed Alder. “I think too wet for them, especially now. On higher ground sometimes deer.”
    “Oh . . .” Tiri said dismissively. “Well, it is very pretty here.”
    Stung, Woodpecker frowned. “You want excitement?” he said slowly. “We go to Wild God’s Isle!”
    “It’s forbidden!” Grebe exclaimed. “We can’t go there!”
    “You can go back in the other boat with Beaver if you’re afraid,” Woodpecker said over his shoulder, digging the paddle into the water and driving the boat forward. A squawking pintail duck flurried up from the reeds as they passed, and Tirilan laughed.
    “It’s too far—” said Alder.
    “No farther than from here back to the Tor,” he answered, though he supposed it would take longer to thread his way through the fen than to cross the open lake. He had only made this journey twice, since he’d been old enough to accompany the Midsummer warding, and winter floods could change the channels, but all the children of the Lake had a good sense of direction. He could feel the invisible link between the sacred islands. If he followed it he would reach his goal.
    “What will we find on this forbidden isle?” Tiri sounded amused.
    “Wild things,” Alder said tartly.
    “Spirits—” added Grebe. “Sometimes they drive people mad.”
    “My mother commands spirits,” Tirilan said dismissively. “You can’t scare me with that tale.”
    Woodpecker was sure that was true, but her mother was not