Twist of the Blade (30 page)

He tried to kill me
, she thought.
He tried to
kill
me...and he tried to use Wally to do it.

She didn’t believe Wally would have done it knowing the truth. He couldn’t be that far gone.

But it didn’t matter. He had done it. He had not only betrayed her and stolen the shard, he had almost gotten her killed in the process.

I’ll never forgive him for that
, she thought, the shard’s anger coursing through her.
Never
.

She gulped down the rest of her coffee, stuffed the last of the pastry into her mouth, and strode purposefully onto the deck. “Miss!” she heard the same young officer yell at her. “You shouldn’t –”

But what she shouldn’t do she never heard. She reached up into the falling rain and a moment later was once more racing through the clouds.

~~~

High over the Atlantic, Rex Major sat in the tiny office inside his private jet, while Wally slept soundly in one of the two small bedrooms just aft. Major held the second shard of Excalibur in both hands, concentrating with all his might. But finally he frowned, dropped the shard onto his desk and rubbed his temples.

Just as he’d feared, the shard was useless to him. The two pieces, once freed from hiding, could not act together while they were broken apart. In fact, they could not act at all: Excalibur, as he knew well, could only serve one master, and when two pieces of it were held by two different people, it would not serve either.

Stupid boy
, he thought.
Surely he could have found
some
way to get Ariane to give him both of them.

Still, the fact that he now held even this one shard meant that Ariane couldn’t make use of hers. They were back to square one: she had only her own strength with which to wield the Lady’s abilities, and he had only his own minute measure of magic...he rubbed the ruby stud in his ear, caught himself, and snatched his hand away.

Well
, he thought, looking around the office, which even then was twelve kilometres above the cold North Atlantic,
my own minute measure of magic...and all the resources money can buy.

There was
one
thing the second shard could give him. With two fragments found, the third would soon be making its presence felt, and now that he had a shard of his own, he didn’t need to rely on a chance encounter between the third shard and some piece of computer equipment containing his ensorcelled software. With a shard of his own, he would be able to sense it directly...and this time, he wouldn’t delay. He would find it and seize it before Ariane could even
think
about acting.

If she thinks about acting at all
, he thought. The boy’s defection was satisfying on so many levels. It was satisfying because it had brought him the shard; because it showed that his dream of uniting the earth and using its strength to liberate Faerie from the Queen and Council of Clades still resonated with some; because of who and what he thought Wally was; and in some ways it was
most
satisfying because of the devastating impact it would have on Ariane’s self-confidence and morale.
She won’t recover from this easily.

And then he smiled a smile that those who, long ago, had tried to thwart his will would have recognized: a smile that usually preceded a very unpleasant and permanent end to the problem those enemies posed.
If she even survives the trip back to Canada. Because if she needed the sword’s power to cross the ocean, and she runs out before she gets to land and she can’t access that power....

Rex Major – Merlin – was not cruel for the sake of being cruel. Under ordinary circumstances he would never have hurt a child. But if that child stood in the way of the goal he had been working toward for centuries...

Then he wouldn’t hesitate.

This
child, Ariane Forsythe of Regina, stood in his way more than anyone else save the Lady ever had in his long sojourn on Earth. Indeed, in many ways she
was
the Lady, his sister/nemesis. He could not kill her without rendering the shards useless – but if she were to die on her own, he would be able to draw on the power of the shard he already held to retrieve the other, even from the bottom of the ocean.

I’ll know soon enough
, he thought, touching the cold metal once more.
Even if she survives...with Wally now on my side, the second shard in my grasp and all the resources I have to call on...she will soon have no choice but to surrender the shard she now holds to me.
He rubbed the ruby stud.
And then I will forge the sword anew...and with a new Arthur to draw forth its power in full, I will seize control of this world in short order, and then move into mine.

Things
, Rex Major thought,
are going very well indeed
.

~~~

Ariane sensed Wascana Lake passing beneath her, but for once that wasn’t her destination. There would be no one in the house she normally shared with Aunt Phyllis. Instead, she headed farther north, helped by a general overcast that seemed to cover most of Western Canada.

She finally let herself materialize in the cold water of a dark lake surrounded by pine trees, and waded ashore over the rocky bottom. To her right was a boathouse, the single bulb hung in a green metal shade over its door enough to show that it had not been painted for many years, and that
the pier that ran beside it was missing several planks.

Ahead of her, beyond a weed-choked yard lit by a sodium-vapour light on a tall pole, rose a log cabin. The big wooden porch was empty except for two old-fashioned
aluminum deck chairs. The glass doors were closed and the blinds drawn. But a tendril of smoke rose from the chimney above the unpainted roof.

Ariane turned and looked behind her at Emma Lake’s black water reflecting the yard light back in diamond sparks. It was here, in this very spot, that her mother and Aunt Phyllis had glimpsed the Lady of the Lake thirty years ago. Ariane would have known that even if she hadn’t read her mother’s account of the vision in the letters Aunt Phyllis had kept hidden for so long. The knowledge came from somewhere outside her, from the same place the dreams and premonitions that had once troubled her had arisen.
Faerie
, she thought.
The Lady of the Lake. She’s been forced out of the world, but her magic is still trickling through, trickling into me.

I wish some advice could trickle in along with it.

She looked up at the cabin. She’d have to go up there soon, and face Aunt Phyllis: try to explain everything that had happened, try to figure out what to do next.

But she wasn’t ready for that yet.

Instead, she went over to the pier, walked out along it, stepping over the gaps left by the missing planks, and sat down at its far end, listening to the gentle sighing of the wind in the spruce along the shore.
Lady
, she thought...or maybe prayed...
I need your help
.

There was no answer. She hadn’t really expected one.

She stared at the water, and her next thoughts were not of the mystical Lady but of another lady, around whom her world had once revolved.

Mom
, she thought.
Where are you? I need you.

Like the Lady, Ariane’s mother didn’t answer.

Ariane’s eyes stung, but she blotted the sorrow away by letting her anger rise to replace it.
Mom. Wally. Everyone I’ve ever let myself care about has run off and left me, lied to me, betrayed me. Well, screw them. Screw them all. From now on, I look after myself. Nobody helps me...and nobody hurts me. I’m going to get every last shard of this damn sword. And when I do....
Ariane raised her eyes and looked up at the sky.
Then, Mom, Wally, Merlin, Lady...
then
I’ll get some answers.

And revenge
, a voice added, and whether it was hers or the shard’s, she no longer cared.

She turned toward the cabin where she knew Aunt Phyllis waited, anxious to hear from her. She stared at it for a long moment. Aunt Phyllis hadn’t betrayed her, lied to her, or left her. She loved her for that. But Aunt Phyllis couldn’t help her anymore. And sooner or later, Major would turn his attention to her...and if anything happened to her aunt, Ariane really would be completely alone in the world.

I’ll call her. When I can. But I can’t stay with her. Not anymore.

She turned her back on the cabin, stepped into the lake, and vanished.

~~~

High atop a condo tower on the shore of Lake Ontario, Wally sat in a chair on the spacious balcony, looking down at the water in the early morning light.

He’d been wide awake for hours, having slept soundly on the flight over, and though he’d tossed and turned for a while in the king-sized bed in Major’s guest room, he’d soon given up. Wrapping the incredibly warm and soft bathrobe he’d found in the closet around his bare skin and slipping his feet into a pair of fuzzy slippers, he’d come out here to watch the sunrise and reflect on everything that had happened.

He wondered what his parents would think when they found out that Rex Major –
Rex Major!
– had taken him under his wing. Not that he expected them to raise much objection, especially not when Major could, with a word of Command, eradicate all their doubts.

He wondered what the kids at school would think when
they
found out.

He wondered what Mrs. Carson would think.

He wondered what Flish would think.

He wondered what his secret abilities would prove to be that Major kept hinting about.

But most of all...most of all, he wondered where Ariane was.

He was looking east. Was she even then flying across the ocean through the clouds? Would she try to steal back the shard? Would she try to contact him, phone him, materialize in the building’s pool and sneak up to the penthouse?

Was she all right?

He closed his eyes.
Of course she’s not all right
, he thought.
She must be hurt and furious. She may even hate me.
He opened his eyes again.
But I don’t care
, he thought defiantly.
If the Lady gets the sword, she’ll just take it away and magic will be gone forever. Merlin is the one who needs the sword, who should have the sword, who will do something
useful
with the sword.

That was one reason he had done what he had. But the other was simpler, truer and yet the one he most doubted he could ever make Ariane understand.

He had stolen the shard to
help
her – to try and save her from Excalibur and the Lady, keep her from
becoming
the Lady, as cold and slippery and inhuman as the woman made of water they had seen in that mystical chamber in Wascana Lake.

He just wanted Ariane to stay Ariane. But if she continued to pursue the Lady’s quest...he would lose her.

She’ll never believe that,
he thought.
She’ll never even let me explain. She’ll never speak to me again.

That hurt, much more than the blow to his head when he’d slipped on the ice, even more than the slashing pain the flying shard of Excalibur had inflicted on him when it struck him in the cheek.

But that was okay. Much to his own surprise, Wally found that he didn’t care how much
he
was hurt, as long as his being hurt helped save Ariane.

That’s a pretty good working definition of love, Wally Knight,
he told himself.
Have you fallen in love with Ariane Forsythe?

He smiled. It was a crooked smile, and if there had been anyone there to see it, he knew they wouldn’t have seen much amusement in it.
If I have, I suspect the feeling is not, and never will be, mutual.

His smile actually widened after that thought, though, and this time it contained...not amusement, exactly, but a touch of pleasant surprise.

Because Wally Knight the Third, erstwhile companion to the Lady of the Lake, new follower of the Order of Merlin, discovered he was all right with that too.

And that
, he thought,
really does sound like love.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Matthew Hughes for his insightful editing, everyone at Coteau Books for their enthusiasm, talent and hard work, and especially thanks to my wife, Margaret Anne, and daughter, Alice, for putting up with a husband and father with, as Aunt Phyllis says of Ariane, “too much imagination.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR