Twist of the Blade (26 page)

The shards’ combined rage almost overwhelmed her...but just enough of
her
remained to enable her to resist. With
enormous effort, Ariane dropped the ice-sword into the pool and let the water suck her down and spirit her away.

Her last sight of the cavern was of Wally kneeling in the pool, staring at her, blood streaming down his face.

~~~

Spitting, sputtering, Wally hauled himself upright after
Ariane’s first surge of water shoved him into the pool...just in time to be hit by the tentacle hurling itself back toward her, the second shard of Excalibur caught in its tip like a twig in a rip-tide. The piece of ancient metal laid his cheek open. Blood sprayed from the wound as he was flung into the pool once more, and he pressed his hand against the cut. The pain was sharp, but not as sharp as Wally’s hurt as he looked up and saw Ariane – now holding the second shard of Excalibur – let the tentacle of water fall apart into the pool, take one look at him and the onrushing Major and vanish, sucked down into the water and away.

“No!” Major shouted, splashing through the spot where Ariane had stood an instant before. “Not again!” He spun and stared down at the place where the girl had vanished, fists clenched at his side. The ruby stud in his ear caught the light of Wally’s helmet lamp and glowed like a fleck of fire. Wally kept his hand pressed to his bleeding cheek. The cavern spun around him, and he bowed his head for a moment, eyes closed, afraid he might be sick. The nausea faded as footsteps splashed toward him. He blinked his eyes open again and looked up to see Major standing over him.

“I told you,” the sorcerer said, his voice grim. “She is not your friend anymore. She is the Lady of the Lake, and you have become expendable.” He reached out his hand. Wally let Major pull him to his feet, but his head roared and his vision greyed. His knees buckled. He fell against Major, who steadied him with an arm around his shoulders. “Careful, son.”

Wally pulled his hand away from his cheek and stared at the blood smearing his fingers.
At least I’ve got something in common with my sister now. We’ve both been hurt by Ariane.
He clenched his fist so tightly that the blood on his palm oozed between his fingers. More blood dripped into the water, making a pink swirl at his feet. He raised his head and met Major’s eyes. When Ariane had vanished, leaving him with Major, she’d taken his indecision with her.
I guess I know who to trust now.

Wally straightened as his dizziness retreated. “She’s got the second shard,” he said. “What do
we
have to do to get it back?”

~~~

Ariane whirled away through the underground waterways, into the river, through lakes and ponds and pipes and pools all the way to the lake near Lyon where she had rested once before. The two shards of Excalibur blazed in her senses like twin suns. With both of them to draw on, what power she would have!

Standing whole and dry on the shore of the lake beneath a gloriously bright blue sky, she stared at the piece of metal clutched in her hand. It was a little longer than the first shard, perhaps twenty centimetres, and a little wider. Unlike the first, whose one end was the sword’s sharp point, this was broken at both ends. With trembling fingers she pulled up her shirt and undid the tensor bandage holding the first fragment, the lakeside air chill against her exposed skin. She let the bandage fall to the ground. A shard in each hand, she closed her eyes, listening to their songs, equal now in joy and strength...but....

She frowned. They were not singing in the same key. Perhaps if....

Her hands trembling a little, she touched them together.

The top of the first shard and bottom of the second fitted so neatly that only the faintest hairline marked the point of contact. But she could hold them there only for an instant; the clashing harmonies rose to such a cacophony that she jerked the shards apart again, gasping, unable to bear the discord.

And yet at the same time the two shards
longed
to be together,
yearned
for it. To her astonishment, she found herself crying, heartsick that she couldn’t grant them the reunion they so fiercely desired.

She blinked away the tears and stared at the two pieces. Both had power. She could draw on either one separately, but she couldn’t draw on both at the same time: not, she guessed, until the entire sword was forged anew. Using the shards one after the other, her powers might last longer, but she’d be no stronger than she was before.

She remembered how close she had come to killing Major...how close she had come to killing Flish!...with the powers she already had, and wondered if that might not be a good thing.

Just having an extra source of energy was nothing to be sneezed at, though, she thought, remembering how exhausted she had been when she’d crossed the ocean through the clouds. And she would certainly have to go home the same way, since she obviously could no more board a plane with two pieces of sharp metal strapped to her body than she could with one...and she suspected if she attempted such a thing in France, the consequences would be far more serious than they would have been in Regina.

Wally, though, would still have to fly.

And then, as if she’d breached a dam holding back the memory, everything she had thought about Wally and done to him in the cavern flooded back. She remembered the contempt she’d felt for his uselessness as he’d sat there in the pool, and her face flushed with shame.
Useless?
she thought, horrified in retrospect.
If he hadn’t found me lying in the cavern, woken me up...Major would have come and gone with the shard and I would never have known he was there at all.

But she’d shoved him out of the way, pushing him aside as though he were nothing more than a...a chair, or a table, some inanimate object blocking her access to the shard. Worse, she’d
hurt
him...she remembered his cry of pain, the blood on his face. And then – then –

Then she’d just abandoned him, in Merlin’s clutches, no less!

I had no choice!
she cried to herself.
The shards wanted me to kill Major. If I’d stayed another second, I would have cut him in half. I had no choice!

You
did
have a choice
, her conscience chided her.
Major was after the shard. All you had to do was throw it across the pool. He would have gone after it. Then you could have grabbed Wally and gotten both of you out of there.

She remembered another day, another confrontation with Major, a day when Major had threatened Wally’s life and she had simply handed him the first shard.

This time, she hadn’t even considered it.

This time, she’d left Wally behind.

This time, faced with the choice between her friend and her quest, she’d chosen the quest, chosen her own power.

Her lower lip trembled again, but crying wouldn’t do Wally any good. She had to rescue him from Major, get him back home.

Most of all, she had to apologize.

But first, she had to find him.

She bent over, picked up the tensor bandage, wrapped it snugly around her belly again, then stuck a shard under each side of it. The lengths of steel felt cold against her skin, but they quickly warmed. Both shards sang in her mind. Though they could not sing in unison, not yet, they seemed...contented, in a way the single shard never had, as though in some strange fashion they were happy to be together again.

They’re just pieces of metal
, she thought, but of course she knew perfectly well they were much more than that.

She tucked her T-shirt back into her jeans, covering the bandage, and then limped into the water. Every step on the ankle she had turned in the cavern felt as if someone were jabbing her with a fork, and so she let herself feel the cold of the water flowing around it; for once, the chill felt good. At least it wasn’t swelling much, so she didn’t think it was sprained too badly.

Now what?
she thought.

Rescue Wally, of course.

But that was easier said than done. She couldn’t return to the cave: she couldn’t materialize in the pool where the shard had been and there was
no way
she would materialize again in that deeper pool farther underground. Nor was there any water to draw on outside the cave except for the river, and Major would hardly linger there waiting for her to use it.

She could think of only one possibility: the hotel in Lyon where she and Wally were supposed to be staying. Major might be as anxious to find her as she was to find him, if he intended to hold Wally hostage again in exchange for the shards. She would go there, lie low and wait.

She paused, suddenly realizing that without her passport or any other form of identification, without any money, without even a change of clothes – all lost with her backpack in the depths of the cavern – her options were limited. She looked down at herself. Her jeans were torn at the knees, filthy with dirt, and stained with blood. Her palms and elbows were scratched and bruised and there was blood there, too. There was a cut on her ear, and she walked with a limp. They’d never let her check into the hotel, and they’d probably chase her out of the lobby if she tried to wait there.

And of course there was no guarantee Major and Wally would show up at all. In fact, the odds were against it. Even if Major came looking for her, why would he come with Wally? He could bargain for Wally’s life without making him handily available for rescue. For that matter, he could just fly Wally to Canada, wait for her to get back, and
then
try to strike a bargain.

Or....

A snake of doubt slithered into her mind. Maybe Major didn’t have to take Wally hostage. Maybe Wally
wanted
to be with Major.

She tried to push that venomous thought away, but it wouldn’t leave, sliding around her objections. Wally had accompanied Major to the cavern of his own free will. He’d wondered out loud to her, in their brief conversation before he’d rejoined Major, if they were sure the Lady was the one they should be helping. And then he’d done nothing to try to stop Major. He’d just sat there in the water, motionless, useless, while Major pounded on the rock holding the shard, seconds from claiming it as his own...

No!
she thought.
This is
Wally
we’re talking about. Funny, kind, brave, trustworthy Wally. My friend, my companion, my ally. If he’s with Major, he’s a prisoner. And if Major is holding him hostage, I’ll rescue him. If he shows up at the hotel with Major
– her lip curled –
Major won’t know what hit him.

And then everything will be just like it was before.

With that thought, she let the water swallow her whole.

CHAPTER TWELVE

CALM BEFORE THE STORM

Rex Major led Wally back to the path and to the frozen figure of Dr. Beaudry, still standing like a wax statue, mouth half-open. Major smoothed his short grey hair, took a deep breath, then said, “I believe I’ve seen enough, Dr. Beaudry.”

The scientist jerked back to life, then blinked, bewildered. “I’m...I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten what I was saying.”

“I’ve seen enough,” Major repeated. “Very intriguing, and I will be most happy to support your work. Now, if you could show us back to the outside world?”

Dr. Beaudry glanced at Wally, who was holding his hand against the cut on his cheek, and his eyes widened. “You’re bleeding!” he said. “How...?”

“He fell,” Major said smoothly. “Tripped and cut his cheek on a stalagmite. Very careless.”

Dr. Beaudry was already pulling a small first-aid kit from one of the pockets of his orange jumpsuit. “Move your hand,” he ordered Wally, and a moment later had taped a gauze pad to the wound. “You must see a doctor in Lyon,” he said severely. “The wound will require stitches.” His eyes flicked up to the stitches Wally already had on his forehead.
“And you do not want it to become infected.”

Wally said nothing, but as Dr. Beaudry dressed his cheek he marvelled at how Rex Major had frozen the scientist in place.
It’s the same power he used on me in Yellowknife
, he thought.
He can simply command people to do things...and command them to forget they’ve done them.
He frowned.
But when he tried to command all of us to forget what I’d said about the first shard, up in Yellowknife...it didn’t work. I didn’t forget. It didn’t work on the phone when I was in the hospital either. And he hasn’t tried it since.