Return of the Grail Bearer 3: What Is Remembered Lives

(You may wish to read the first episode, in which Sir Percival and his companion set out on the River of Story to bring the Grail to a Fisher King in need of healing, and the second episode, in which our wanderers brave rough waters. You may also wish to read Percival's first appearance in 2006.)

The knight and his author made their way down the Delaware River, across two centuries, and catty-corner from winter to summer. "Is it this one?" Percival asked when the next creek poured in from the west.

The author squinted upstream, tasted the wind. "No." They paddled on. "Look, I've got no quarrel with your king. He was probably the best game in town at the time."

"I just don't see how you can disbelieve in kings after seeing your General Washington for yourself. If any man after Arthur was kingly enough to have pulled the sword from the stone, it would be..."

"This one," said the author. She leaned west to listen for something. "Yes, this is definitely our tributary."

The creek poured from a concrete pipe whose diameter beat Percival's height by two handspans. "Do we go in?"

"Let's try portaging first."

So they stepped out into a gulping mud that swallowed the author's right shoe and left both travelers mud-spattered to the waist. Hefting the boat shoulder-high, they followed the outside of the concrete pipe to its start, where the tributary sparkled over its bed of smooth stones.

"Upstream," sighed the author.

"Of course," Percival said brightly. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."
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